Naked City Meets The Twilight Zone

There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them... is the definitive line intoned at the

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As a character actor, I was rarely on stage the whole time in any play I appeared in. That night was no exception. So that at each exit from a scene, I’d rush to the radio in the dressing room to catch the latest on that game in progress.  Which right there, might be an inkling as to why my so-called acting career never got more than a couple of feet off the ground.

I’d be joined by Kenny, a cast member whom I’d only met through this production. He too was a big Yankee fan, and he too, was spending a lot of time off stage listening to the game. A fellow pisan who always wore a bandana on his head, he called me Fonzie.  Said I reminded him of the character on Happy Days. Which I took to be an expression of endearment, rather than the left-handed compliment it might have been. And Kenny, being gay, frequently enjoyed teasing me—I of hetero persuasion—with puckered lips: “Fonzie, give me a kiss. Come on Fonz, just a small one.”  Seems I was always playing straight man to his shenanigans. He was always on. And it could get old after a while.

When the play ended that night, he and I headed over to the aforementioned Peter McManus bar, to catch the last few innings of the game. By the end of the first beer, the Yankees were leading 6-3. And then victory was closer at hand as the game oozed into the eighth inning. And a second beer. Then suddenly it took a shocking turn. The Royals tied it up at 6-6 on a three-run home run.  Yet something even more unbelievable was just up ahead. This time, real and in color, verses vicarious and in black & white. 

In the top of the ninth inning, a man seemed to appear out of nowhere. Though I was closest to him, I was unaware of his entrance. Standing but a few feet from the stool I was occupying,  he extended a stiff right arm upward, at the end of which was a gun. Aimed at the screen overhead. It caught our attention. The bar grew silent. The gunman too, said not a word. 

What was going on? Was he actually going to shoot a TV set? If so, why? Upset because of that untimely home run?  Couldn’t be. You yell at the screen when something unfavorable occurs. You don’t shoot it.  But this is New York, with all its eccentricities, where someone might actually seek to murder a piece of electronics. What if he does pull the trigger? There goes watching the rest of the game. All this, in afterthought of course. In real time... holy shit what do I do? I’m the nearest one to a crazy man with a gun.

Maybe... as he’s aiming at the TV and hasn’t fired a shot yet, I could unobtrusively make my way to the restroom? As one does under such circumstances. I dismiss this out of hand, and remain frozen hoping to go unnoticed. At any moment could come the sound of an explosion about five feet from my ears and shattered glass.  At best.  At worst, he turns and begins firing at the patrons. Me first.

Then in the midst of this tableau, comes another surprise. The middle-aged bartender, of average stature, casually walks out from the around the bar up to the potentially “alleged perpetrator,” with the nonchalance of a man taking his dog out for a walk. And escorts the man, still holding a gun, out the door. All done without any tussle. At which point, one of the patrons leaves his stool immediately and he too heads out the door. He would turn out to be a plainclothes cop, as we were informed by the bartender who reentered just as casually as he had left. Why the cop didn’t take the initial action our hero did, is just one of many questions without an answer. In any case, the cop didn’t return. Presumably he was making the necessary arrest. 

The bartender is now back to the business of beer. Kenny and I, along with the rest, are now back to the business of watching a nailbiter of a game. Which apparently, we all find far more stressful than what had just taken place. As no one seems to be even mentioning it. All is abuzz about the game once more. We order a third beer.

On the first pitch thrown in the bottom of the ninth, Chris Chambless hits home run. Game over. Yankees win the pennant! And as this was the late 70’s, when things were even more off the rails socially and culturally in this naked city than now, Chambliss, as if a bull at Pamplona, is knocking down and running over countless fans who had swarmed the field and were blocking his path around the bases en route to home plate. Fans in a frenzy, they look as if they are trying to mug him, rather than hug him. Still one more scene that night, melding  fantasy with reality. 

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