myo-cardial infarction? But I checked myself
with a smile, marveling at how fast we react to the slightest element of strangeness: at how the tiniest dislocation in the
fabric of our everyday reality can throw us into the arms of fantasy. All it takes is an all but imperceptible change in the
rhythm of things. A coincidence or two.
When I reached my destination and emerged into daylight, I still had a five-minute walk to the restaurant. I was already ten
minutes late, but that wasn’t a disaster; my agent would be contentedly sipping his first martini and leafing through a copy
of the
Times
. Nonetheless, I hurried on as fast as I could.
I was vaguely aware that I was walking in the direction of an old movie theater, beautifully kept in its near-pristine thirties
design. I knew it well because it had recently presented an Orson Welles season. Sara was more of a film fan than me, but
I’d gone along with her to see
Kane, Amber-sons,
and
Touch of Evil
, all in what the publicity boasted as “sparkling new prints.”
The marquee reached out over the sidewalk, all red-and-white glass with silver-and-black trimmings. I glanced up at it, not
really interested in what was showing, but what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
Facing me on the side of the marquee were two words, arranged as follows:
LARRY
HART
People pushed past me in both directions as I stood there. Patterns kept racing through my brain but refused to make sense.
All morning I had been seeing images of “heart” as well as the printed word itself. Now here it was once again spelled as
a surname, the name of my parents’ mysterious friends, Jeffrey and “Larry” Hart. And “Larry” was who the man on the phone
had wanted to talk to. Now this.
As I stared up at the name, I became aware of a man on a ladder that brought him level with it. I continued to watch in fascination
as he reached for the “T” of “HART,” then the “R,” and handed them down to a colleague on the ground. In a moment all the
letters had been removed and that side of the marquee was blank; obviously there was a change of program that day.
I walked on underneath the canopy and out the far side. There I stopped to look back to see if the name “Larry Hart” was repeated
on that side.
What I saw was this:
LARRY PARKS
GINGER ROGERS in “THE JOLSON STORY”
in “ROXIE HART”
As I watched, the two men dragged their ladder over from the far side and began dismantling these words too, starting on the
outside and working in.
I was, frankly, beginning to feel just a little bit odd. I went on my way quickly, anxious suddenly—and irrationally—to reach
the comforting familiarity of the restaurant that I knew so well and the reassuring company of my agent and old friend.
But my mind was buzzing with questions and possible answers. The first one was whether somebody could be playing a joke on
me. But I didn’t see how that was possible.
So what was going on?
Was
something going on?
I remembered reading somewhere a theory that just by thinking about synchronicity you can make strange coincidences start
happening around you. I suppose I could believe it up to a point, but only in the sense that you might be more aware than
usual of things that could be interpreted as coincidences.
But even if the theory was true in a literal sense, it didn’t explain anything. Attracting coincidences just by thinking about
them was perhaps even more extraordinary than simply having them come at you out of the blue.
Anyway, there was no escaping the fact that since I had started thinking even half-seriously about coincidence and the theory
of synchronicity odd little coincidences had started happening to me.
At the very least I could enjoy the comfortable thought that my next book was taking shape with gratifying ease and speed.
Maybe (the eternally optimistic dream of every writer) this one would write itself.
Chapter 6
M y agent, Lou
with a smile, marveling at how fast we react to the slightest element of strangeness: at how the tiniest dislocation in the
fabric of our everyday reality can throw us into the arms of fantasy. All it takes is an all but imperceptible change in the
rhythm of things. A coincidence or two.
When I reached my destination and emerged into daylight, I still had a five-minute walk to the restaurant. I was already ten
minutes late, but that wasn’t a disaster; my agent would be contentedly sipping his first martini and leafing through a copy
of the
Times
. Nonetheless, I hurried on as fast as I could.
I was vaguely aware that I was walking in the direction of an old movie theater, beautifully kept in its near-pristine thirties
design. I knew it well because it had recently presented an Orson Welles season. Sara was more of a film fan than me, but
I’d gone along with her to see
Kane, Amber-sons,
and
Touch of Evil
, all in what the publicity boasted as “sparkling new prints.”
The marquee reached out over the sidewalk, all red-and-white glass with silver-and-black trimmings. I glanced up at it, not
really interested in what was showing, but what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
Facing me on the side of the marquee were two words, arranged as follows:
LARRY
HART
People pushed past me in both directions as I stood there. Patterns kept racing through my brain but refused to make sense.
All morning I had been seeing images of “heart” as well as the printed word itself. Now here it was once again spelled as
a surname, the name of my parents’ mysterious friends, Jeffrey and “Larry” Hart. And “Larry” was who the man on the phone
had wanted to talk to. Now this.
As I stared up at the name, I became aware of a man on a ladder that brought him level with it. I continued to watch in fascination
as he reached for the “T” of “HART,” then the “R,” and handed them down to a colleague on the ground. In a moment all the
letters had been removed and that side of the marquee was blank; obviously there was a change of program that day.
I walked on underneath the canopy and out the far side. There I stopped to look back to see if the name “Larry Hart” was repeated
on that side.
What I saw was this:
LARRY PARKS
GINGER ROGERS in “THE JOLSON STORY”
in “ROXIE HART”
As I watched, the two men dragged their ladder over from the far side and began dismantling these words too, starting on the
outside and working in.
I was, frankly, beginning to feel just a little bit odd. I went on my way quickly, anxious suddenly—and irrationally—to reach
the comforting familiarity of the restaurant that I knew so well and the reassuring company of my agent and old friend.
But my mind was buzzing with questions and possible answers. The first one was whether somebody could be playing a joke on
me. But I didn’t see how that was possible.
So what was going on?
Was
something going on?
I remembered reading somewhere a theory that just by thinking about synchronicity you can make strange coincidences start
happening around you. I suppose I could believe it up to a point, but only in the sense that you might be more aware than
usual of things that could be interpreted as coincidences.
But even if the theory was true in a literal sense, it didn’t explain anything. Attracting coincidences just by thinking about
them was perhaps even more extraordinary than simply having them come at you out of the blue.
Anyway, there was no escaping the fact that since I had started thinking even half-seriously about coincidence and the theory
of synchronicity odd little coincidences had started happening to me.
At the very least I could enjoy the comfortable thought that my next book was taking shape with gratifying ease and speed.
Maybe (the eternally optimistic dream of every writer) this one would write itself.
Chapter 6
M y agent, Lou
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