Mister Almost
Mister Almost worked as a doorman at one of the few respectable hotels in midtown Manhattan. The hotel having a doorman at all serving as sufficient evidence said respectability. He did not know that his co-workers called him Mister Almost and no one could remember when it started. Mister Almost had come to New York City long ago like so many others, in search of success in show business. In this case he was an actor, and like most of the rest, he had failed. Not spectacularly or all at once, for it does not happen that way in such cases. You fail to realize a dream like that by attrition, a little bit every year until one day there is no way you could become that which you once thought you might be.
But that did not keep Mister Almost down, at least not on the surface, who was at least fifty by anyone’s estimation and had been working at the hotel for twenty years. He always managed to ingratiate himself with the newest managers who were increasingly younger than him and his good standing and position had also remained unchanged when the hotel was sold to the Saudi’s a few years back. Mister Almost effortlessly greeted guests, slung bags around, petted the dogs, played with the kids and was a wealth of restaurant recommendations.
But Mister Almost never forgot who he really was and more importantly who he was supposed to be. In the breakroom, he rarely missed a chance to talk about the Off-Broadway plays he had been in, his two Law and Order appearances and his one line on The Sopranos. The Almosts, however – the stories that gave him his nick-name were more frequent and painful to listen to. For Mister Almost was the second choice for several independent films that made the careers of more than one person who’s name you would recognize if I said it here. Mister Almost had produced a play with a starring role for himself and it had run Off-Broadway and was a huge success by all accounts, but there was an writer’s strike going on at the time and press and media chose not to review it out of solidarity with the other union, but had those reviews been published, surely the rave notices would have gotten Mister Almost noticed as well. He had understudied this person on Broadway and went on once as the understudy opposite Denzel in that other play. But today no one really remembers that.
Directly across the street from the hotel, is a Broadway theatre. We are all beholden to the circadian rhythms of the theatre and it’s show times; the sidewalk is crowded at the same time every night and on matinee days, and when the show ends we watch the people crowd the stage door for autographs – a tradition that has been largely replaced by selfies. The cars line up, and those awful, noisy pedi-cabs, each with their speakers and battery powered neon signs meant to lure weary tourists with a quick lift back to their hotel room. “I did that once for a few weeks,” Mister Almost told me once as we watched one guy on a pedi-cab drive in circles in the middle of the street. “It drives like a tricycle, not a bike, and people are a lot heavier than you think. I thought ‘who knows?’ but that was not for me. I’ve had dumber ideas,” he added.
The play across the way at that time was a drama that was a big hit. And Mister Almost’s little tid bit about this one was that he was friends with one of the women in it. The day the signs went up, I had watched him stop in front of the theatre, and stare at one of the posters for a long time, then take a picture. The sign had several photos of the cast. When he finally came over to the front door, he was wiping his eyes.
“I know her,” he told me. “She’s an old friend, I can’t believe it, I’m so happy for her.”
I took it with a grain of salt. Poor Mister Almost had a story for everything. Then he started texting. “I’m texting her. I haven’t even talked to her forever.”
I didn’t say anything and we went to work for about an hour, getting people checked in and hailing cabs. I caught him smiling at his phone, then watched as he beamed and wrote back.
“Emily just wrote back, I have to go see her in the show.”
Several weeks passed and more than once, we watched as she came out the stage door and greeted some of the fans most of whom were there to meet the big movie star who was in the lead, but always a few people would recognize Emily from her small but memorable part on a sitcom a few years ago, but she never so much as looked in our direction. I wondered how well he really knew Emily based on the fact that she knows her friend might be standing right across the street and never even glanced in our direction.
He told me that she had seen him just the night before and had come over and they had talked and pledged to catch up when the show was over. He did indeed get a ticket to go to a matinee. Just one ticket, all by himself which seemed a little odd, but this was Mister Almost we are talking about. That day, I was on the afternoon shift outside and If I’m being completely honest here, I was a little nervous for him and I wasn’t sure why. Just as people were lining up for the show, I saw him come out of the bar next door and stroll over to me smiling. He shook my hand and made a joke about always having a martini before a show. I could not tell if he was nervous or excited, but there was something different about him, I thought to myself. He told me Emily had somewhere to be right after the show and wouldn’t have any time or he would introduce us. I just hoped he wasn’t over there feeling disappointed with the way his life had turned out. The block is always silent when the shows are running, the ushers and security guys loiter and poke at their phones or eat street meat and rice out of precariously full aluminum containers. Intermission, and a few people leaked out onto the sidewalk only to be sucked back in again a few minutes later. When the show let out, I saw her first. I always noticed her when she came out. She had a kind of classic beauty that didn’t insist upon itself, and she was quick to laugh with whoever she was talking to. This time she was in a big rush, and she quickly signed a few playbills, hardly looking up. And along came Mister Almost. He leaned around the crowd and the barricade to wave at her.
Emily politely slid through the crowd and rushed over to Mister Almost and they threw their arms around each other. I heard her say something about an appointment downtown even from where I was standing, and I could tell from his body language that he offered to share the ride with her. I watched as they grabbed each other’s hands and ran laughing up the block to catch a cab together.
