100% done

“I told Kelly and Fran that we were going to see him tonight,” Sue said about her co-workers, “but they were more interested in what roads we were taking to get there.”

“Why do people care more about how you’re getting somewhere than what you’re doing there?”

“Just like my dad. I dunno why, but I went down a rabbit hole last night looking up Purchase. Did you know it’s a village in a town called Harris? Or maybe it’s Harrisburg.”

“I think It’s Harrison. You know, like half my last name.”

Sue used DuckDuckGo in an incognito browser on her phone—go fly a kite, Big Search Engine!—to confirm my nominal accuracy and to clarify that Purchase is a hamlet, not a village.

“Yeah, you’re right. What I was saying though was that it’s one of the six richest zip codes in America and home to the international headquarters of PepsiCo and Mastercard!”

“Seriously?! If we have any extra time let’s check the place out before the show.”

Ninety or so minutes later, we dotingly savored ice cream beside a fountain in downtown White Plains, admiring how a former bank and municipal building now housed a Brazilian steakhouse and Buffalo Wild Wings. A well-dressed, mute Jamaican couple stood a few feet away with a tower of navy blue brochures beside them.

“What do you think their deal is?” Sue asked in between spoonfuls of chocolate with peanut butter sauce.

“They’re definitely Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

“Can Jehovah’s be,” she whispered, “black?”

“Sure, why not?”

“And what about that Asian couple over there who keep staring at them?”

“Also Jehovah’s,” I replied. “They have pamphlets too. Who do you think are the Sharks and who are the Jets? I wanna see a religious race riot before we leave town. Oh yeah, did you get that text I sent you this morning?”

I’d sent Sue a photo of David Sedaris’s book inscription from when we’d seen him read in 2019. We stayed until midnight so he could sign our hardcovers—I opted not to tell Sue in the moment, but I sharted my pants while waiting, and too proud to tie it around my waste, it led to repeatedly pulling my sweatshirt over my purposely wedgied ass to mask the (thankfully odorless) evidence—and upon finally arriving at the author’s table, I produced a hard drive from my unsoiled pocket containing eighteen essays ensconced within it.

“I’m writing a book,” I divulged. “It’s ninety percent done. I wanted to give it to you.” I placed a folded white envelope near his colorful marker collection.

“Good for you,” he said while thanking me and signing my copy of his latest book. We engaged in mostly forgettable small talk.

The inscription read “90% done” with turquoise Sharpie poorly scribbled in between his block letters.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Hours later, Sue and I concluded dinner inside a tiny strip mall in Tarrytown, excited that we had unplanned extra time to investigate the well-to-do hamlet hosting the reading. Directly opposite the entrance to SUNY Purchase, the university home to the theater where we were seeing Sid Harris, sat the PepsiCo building. The crepuscular embers in the sky gave us hope that we could view a sculpture on the property, but a nearly invisible security guard instantly flattened our effervescence, kindly detailing that visiting hours concluded at 3:20.

After an abandoned trip to Mastercard’s home base, I made a wrong turn and blamed Jancy, the “evil” nickname I’ve given my GPS (Nancy) when her directions are unclear.

“Let’s go meet him before the show,” Sue wisely suggested.

“I usually don’t care about meeting celebrities, but I’m so fucking nervous,” I said. “He’s one of a few people who make me tense up just at the thought of meeting them. Like you are with any moderately famous person in the world.”

Moore, my best bud, had sketched a drawing of Sid that I intended to give him along with a copy of my now published book. As we entered the nondescript Performing Arts Center, Sue facetiously commented on her desire to consume the entire complimentary champagne tower decorating an eggshell-hued tablecloth inside the lobby. Desiring souvenir stubs when placing the order, we approached Will Call and I displayed my license only for the lady to wave off my ticket industry know-how as I cracked a joke about committing identity fraud while putting the pair in my breast pocket.

Standing in line for a few minutes made me fascinated with the enormous crimson wall behind the author’s table advertising a semi-blurry projection of white letters: PURCHASE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER. As a venue employee requested that we write in advance what we wanted Sid to inscribe—Sue immediately proposed “I want you to put your cock in my mouth”—I was unable to resist commenting on the wasted space, prompting a twenty-something sporting a black mask standing in front of us to detail the school’s artsiness.

“There’s a sculpture on campus depicting a car crash that plays whale sounds, if that gives you an idea of where you are,” she said.

“Ah, postmodernism,” I said. “Have you met him before?”

“Yeah, I was here last time he read here. Amy [his sister] was at the show too!”

“No way?!” Sue and I said in unison.

“I don’t wanna tell him what to write in my book,” I said, loosening up a bit. “I’ve never done that before.”

“I think I’m going to give him my book and say nothing,” the girl said, mentioning how he won’t take photos.

“She got her picture taken with him once,” I offered about Sue. “With her stuffed rabbit.”

“Maybe he did it because Amy has a rabbit.”

“Didn’t you get another picture taken with him and Hildegard?” I asked.

“No, he signed the original photo of us the next time,” Sue said.

“Wait, what’s your rabbit’s name?”

“Hildegard. She has her own voice and personality.”

“And wears a pink boa,” I added.

In typical fashion, this fellow Sedaris nut didn’t blink at our disclosures.

“What’s your name?” I asked the girl to learn it was Sam, prompting further tag team inquiries from Sue and me. She said she was from Sharon (a barely populated Connecticut town) and after revealing we’d seen Sid in eight different locales, including Torrington and Stamford, Connecticut, Sam acknowledged recently working as a production assistant for a Netflix movie that was shot in Torrington.

“The egos of people are unbelievable,” she said. “One costume designer complained that we didn’t have her favorite salad dressing.”

“Oh, geez,” Sue said. “What movie did you work on? Was it at least fun?!”

“I was doing bitch work, stuff like trying to find somewhere in Torrington to get dinner at two a.m., as if that’s happening. I had no time to do anything for myself. When that job ended, I applied at WWE in Stamford.”

“Surely not a misogynistic workplace,” I said in support of irony.

“They wanted me to learn about four hundred different wrestlers if I got the job. Like I was gonna make flashcards about Hulk Hogan. We actually have a signed photo of Goldberg in my house. My brother was mistakenly put on some list of kids with cancer, and we got a signed photo from Goldberg wishing him well. My brother didn’t have cancer!”

“Did you end up working there?”

“No. The people who worked there said during the interview that they hated the place! But I was so ready to let Goldberg know that his inspiration helped my brother beat cancer and he was doing well!”

“Do you write?” I asked upon (enviously) learning that Sam had gotten an MFA in Creative Writing at the very university where we were chatting.

“I was writing about my life, and a professor told me I hadn’t lived enough yet,” Sam said only for Sue to interject.

“Oh, fuck that! Just keep being you.”

“Maybe pick a topic, set a goal of one thousand words tops, and see what you come up with,” I said. “Do you at least journal?”

“Yeah, because of him,” she said, nodding toward Sid.

“Me too. I wrote a book and am going to give it to him tonight,” I said while presenting her one of my business cards as casually as sweatpants at a funeral.

“I wish I had one of my own to give you,” Sam said.

“You’re gonna get there, kid,” Sue replied in uncharacteristic elder stateswoman fashion.

“I’ve thought about writing him a letter but don’t know what to write,” Sam said.

“Just smoke a joint, write whatever comes to mind, and send it off before you can re-read it or remember what the hell you wrote,” I recommended.

Moments later, a curly-haired brunette surfaced to greet Sam.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“I’m talking to my friends Sue and Adam.”

Finally in full view of Sid, a creamy cup of tea sitting in a saucer beside him, it was Sam’s time alone with Hildegard’s old photogenic friend.

“You ready to make him enjoy the silence like Depeche Mode?” I asked.

“I’m gonna hand him this book and stare.”

When Sam departed her failed mime routine, Sue and I approached our mutual literary hero. She confessed in the car en route to the venue that she informed Kelly and Fran how I used to bring in books to read on my lunch breaks at Music Outlet, which ignited our, as she termed it, courtship. “This boy reads and he’s not trying to hide it,” Sue explained was the aphrodisiac that had carried us to this moment.

“What’s that?” Sid asked in his high-pitched voice about a manila envelope I was unsealing.

“It’s a drawing of you made by a prisoner,” I publicized to him while removing Moore’s detailed rendering.

“I get a lot of drawings from people,” he said, implying many were in prison [later confirming during the Q&A following his reading that the bulk of his reader mail is sent by inmates]. “Their talent amazes me. Yet I don’t think you should ask why someone’s in prison. We’ve all done bad things. It’s just that they got caught for the worst thing they ever did.”

“That’s so true,” Sue said, admiring his refreshing perspective.

“Last time we saw you, I gave you a hard drive with the book I was writing on it. I finished that book and wanted to give you a copy tonight.”

I presented him the LBS, the equivalent of insisting PepsiCo’s CEO try a sip or two of my home-brewed carbonated sugar water. Sid graciously accepted the gift, the proudest moment of my literary career to date, prior to Sue and I racing to the bathrooms.

“Look at you making more new friends,” Sue said upon greeting me on the stairwell after an elderly lady chuckled and pinched my shoulder for helping direct her to her seats with a “But what do I know? I don’t work here!” kicker.

“I’m so glad we met Sam in line,” I said. “That made everything better. I wasn’t as nervous. Plus, she was so funny and likable.”

“Dude, I know! I just hope she didn’t think we were bragging about seeing him so many times.”

“Oh god, I didn’t mean to come off that way. It was meant to show how much we love him.”

“I know. You wanna go in?”

“Sam’s in line right there. Let’s wait a few.”

“Yeah, don’t wanna make it awkward.”

Even though we could’ve wowed Sam with a certifiably fascinating icebreaker about our plans to take 15 to 91 when traveling home, sometimes silence is the best approach, a life lesson you’d think almost shitting my pants in public would’ve instilled in me, but ultimately required the wordless wisdom of dueling zealots.