Grace Church

For a couple of years in the late 80's I lived in the house you can barely see to the left of the church. Not as a homeless person, mind you but I was gainfully employed as the Church's Sexton. A term almost as misleading as Priest. For those who don't know I was the maintenance man for the church. In exchange for daily maintenance of buildings and grounds and a special sweep though on Saturday night I was paid $100 and was given room and board above the Rector's office.

Looking over the shoulder of the saxophonist there are three windows. The one to the left was my bedroom, the middle my bathroom and the last was one of three windows that wrapped around the turret in my one room, all-purpose studio/kitchen.

It was an AMAZING experience. There are a few more than slightly incriminating things that happened there (I was lucky it was Episcopalian, very forgiving and good solid "word" followers), however, I cannot this night write about some of my adventures there. I will throw out some keywords, however: Burglary, deception, drunkenness, whores, drugs, art. muggings, free jazz, bistros, waiter, three-way, friendship, horizon's theater, actors and actresses, food, blues alley, the bayou, the biograph, the key theater. There are more... Perhaps, one day, I will elaborate on some of these truths and half-truths.

 

One part of the job I wish I could have done was the bell-ringer. Totally get into the Quasimodo stuff. That would have rocked. Given the number of Sunday mornings I slept through, overtaken with the Irish flu it's definitely good it really didn't happen.