"It's My First Monday Off in Seven Months"

A by-now predictable Monday tragedy plotline unfolded this morning. The three unities and fate reared their heads surprisingly intact; 24 hours of the sleep cycle were contained neatly in a Fort Greene location, and the single action of hardhats breaking cement with jackhammers ensured an appropriate point of no return.

The Gods were doing their usual building and breaking, casting me and Sulky around on their winds. All was going according to Their plan. There was only one wrinkle.

"Hey!" a voice from a nearby apartment.

The jackhammer continued.

"Hey!" Louder this time.

The construction dudes stopped hammering a second to let this guy yell at them.

"It's Columbus day!"

I imagined at first the voice belonged to a ruffled guy in a wifebeater and boxers with male-pattern baldness and a Number Five haircut on what he has left, probably wearing boxer-briefs. The image conjures up working class and is therefore probably too generous. If he was upset about being woken up at around 8:30 a.m., it's unlikely he was a factory stiff or a dock worker. Plus, his tone, again, was commanding and far from fatalistic.

"You guys need to cut it out!" The jackhammer had restarted, to no avail. The picture is now clearer: a guy in a light 400-fibre linen bathrobe his fiancée gave him on Valentine's day and what is on Friday nights (and maybe even Monday through Thursday) a faux-hawk atop his head. Dark hair and a decent face. He doesn't work in publishing, but he does live in Fort Greene. He owns a public address system left over from his days as a singer in a band that covered, among other things, Eagle Eye Cherry and Buckcherry. The P. A. is how he was beating the jackhammers.

"This is my first monday off in seven months! It's Columbus day! You guys took two days off for that Jewish holiday. This is a national holiday. No one works today! Everyone is trying to sleep. THIS IS MY FIRST MONDAY OFF IN SEVEN MONTHS!"

I was laying in bed trying to sort through the taste of Jameson and last night's Packers loss stuck in my mouth, so I couldn't tell by looking what was going on between Eagle Eye Cherry and the jackhammers. I do, however, know that the Eye paused long enough to hear some kind of response. I have no idea what kind of dialog could've been going on, or what the construction guys would've said to this maniac with a microphone raining misplaced rage on them from a fifth-floor two bedroom. But it probably eventually got to the f-word.

After a couple minutes, the apartment guy gave up and turned off his Peavey system. I looked at my watch and saw I could still catch a couple hours of sleep before I would have to go to work.

I hope the guy with the P.A. caught a nap sometime later, and that his fiancée wasn't too embarrassed by his yelling to tell him about the blue line on her EPT kit. Kids really deserve as much advance planning as is possible.