To the young actor between roles

who was my supervisor at my temporary

data entry job at Goldman Sachs,

and who tried to make me get his coffee

when a group of us was standing in the break room

during our after-midnight break on the overnight shift,

and to whom I said, “the coffee machine’s right there”

totally deadpan, a performance better

than any struggling actor could ever dream of,

I saw you in a dreadful commercial one night

years later when I was living back home again,

broke, denied a job down on M St. in DC

that I was a perfect fit for because

the woman who would have been my supervisor there

didn’t feel comfortable working with people like me

who looked like what she called “foreigners.”

Or did I actually get your coffee?

Resisting the urge to spill it on you accidentally with intent,

because I needed the work,

because I liked that beautiful ride

they gave me in a luxury car at five in the morning,

from Broad St. near Beaver, back to Avenue B,

which back then wasn’t the upscale neighborhood it is now,

and I did like those lights,

going home in the last dark hour

of the morning up FDR Drive, to Houston,

to be let out without the need to pay

in front of the brown door with the broken lock

that I pushed open to walk to my fourth floor apartment,

where I turned on the light

and put a tape in my cassette player.

And I listened to a song

about fear and whiskey

that made me feel like I was standing

in the middle of Broadway at 42nd Street,

drinking the best cocktail in town

while the traffic swirled

around me and came close,

but never hit me.

And I honestly don’t remember now what I did,

because the only thing that stayed with me

were the lights, and the song, and the night

I walked home from the job

at five in the morning,

away from the land of bankers

and other goons,

to meet the sun,

as it rose slowly,

over Avenue B,

over me,

and all that lovely dirt and noise,

when I was young

and the world was still

real.

–Jose Padua

Photo: Jose Padua