The Portfolios

Last month a great crime was finally paid for by yours truly. Over the summer, way back in June, a group of friends were having a late-Friday-afternoon get together in Central Park. My friend Charlie S was soon to embark back to Beijing for an open-ended assignment, and this was a small gathering for goodbye. Four of us sat on top of the big rocks up by 62nd and Fifth drinking canned beer. Soon we were approached by four men in t-shirts and gym shorts, who looked like they were about to go on a run. Something about them looked bad to me, and a second later I knew what it was: they pulled badges out from under their shirts on necklaces and identified themselves as the police.

Our crime was drinking in public; or rather, more specifically, “holding open alcohol containers in public.” Apparently, the drinking itself is not the problem – it’s the open containers. My three friends, who were used to coming to this spot before their weekly softball games (not a very demanding sport, I suppose, if they’re used to having a few beers before the first pitch), were slack-jawed as the cops explained that we would be written up and, if we so chose, could appear in the NYC criminal court to defend ourselves – though they also said this would be a bad idea, and could cause us further trouble. The easiest thing to do would be to just pay the fine.

“And what is the fine, officer?” one of us asked.

“Twenty-five dollars.”

At this, a wave of relief and surprise, and even a scoff from Crum, who paired it with one of his trademark “this is not a problem” eyebrow-cocks. Twenty-five bucks was not such a big hit.

The cops kept explaining that we had the right to challenge our accusers, that we could have our day in court if we wished, but that the courts were very busy and that they didn’t usually look kindly on those trying to get out of paying drinking-in-public fines. Having already been through the court system once in 2008, I was not about to take a day off work to fight a $25 civil complaint, especially since there would be no public announcement of my crime.

So it wasn’t a big deal, except that they were taking forever to write out the tickets, and these three had to get to their game in a bit. Strangely, although there were four of them, only one – who seemed to be the leader – was writing tickets. And they took a good ten minutes each. Luckily, we caught a small break.

“You know, you guys can go ahead and finish your beers if you want.”

What?

“Yeah,” the officer in charge repeated. “We figure, you’ve been caught, you gotta pay the fine anyway, you might as well enjoy yourselves the rest of the day. Go ahead.”

We all hesitated, thinking this surely must be some kind of entrapment. Again, we pressed him: Really?

“Seriously,” he said. “It’s a beatuful day in the park. There’s nothing I’d like to be doing more than cracking a few brews in the sun right now. I gotta work, but you guys don’t. You’re already paying for it, you might as well enjoy it.”

So we each opened another can and shot the breeze with these undercover NYPD, most of which were not that much older than us, and when they were done, so were we, and it was time to go.

Six months later, NYC Criminal Court finally cashed my check.

The Olympics are on, and Xianyi and I are engaged in a little friendly national rivalry – we’ve got a $20 bet on who wins more gold medals, the US or China. Guess who I took?

Right now it looks like China’s multi-billion-yuan effort to rack up medals is paying off. I checked in with the NYT medal tracker this morning at work and they were leading all countries with nine gold medals already! And the lowly US with only three. Then I saw that some of those Chinese golds came from the air gun events, and I thought: some golds ought to count more than others.

Last night we watched the Americans win the men’s 400m relay, and it was easily the most exciting swimming race I’ve ever seen. Which I know isn’t saying much, but it was still a thrill. Probably because the backstory was that the French team was talking smack, saying they were going to “smash” the USA… and then that dude – the one who isn’t Michael Phelps – caught up to and just barely surpassed the French guy in the last 25 meters or so. Watching him speed up like that made my eyes widen. That was really something. Even Xianyi was excited.

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UPDATE 8-12-08: Interrupted last night. Was making dinner and Jarrett called and Xianyi came home and then I was watching Team USA sweep gold medals up from the bottom of the pool. Phelps easily won the 200m freestyle – by about a length. Aaron Peirsol and Natalie Coughlin took the 100m backstrokes. And now the US has seven golds – but China has eleven. This is going to be closer than I thought.

Saturday night Piers performed in his last high school production, playing the god of death in the musical “Once on This Island.” It was a very ambitious show for these kids to put on, full of large-scale dance scenes that clearly required many hours of careful choreography. And I call them kids because they are, after all, children – but watching the New Players perform is always an amazement at how professional these adolescents are. They are so good, so serious – and yet so young – that it’s actually intimidating. And I find myself laughing to ward off the fear.

Family Shot After the Show

Piers was wonderful, but in typical style, he didn’t think so. He said his voice was off, that he wasn’t focused, etc. And I have to agree that I liked “Into the Woods” much more, which I saw him perform this winter. But that was really because I liked the story more. “Into the Woods” was more developed in my opinion, and the music was better. I couldn’t point to any songs in “Once on This Island” that I really liked. But that was ok, because I was really just there for Piers.

It’s really cool to see all these kids after a show: they are all so high on adrenalin, and they’re always on their way to the cast party. Many audience members form a sort of gauntlet outside the dressing rooms and wait for their family members to come out, and then the place turns into a madhouse while everyone hugs, cries, laughs and snaps photos. Some choose to wait outside because it really is just too much:

Now Piers is headed to Carnegie Mellon University, where he has been admitted into the prestigious voice program. My sources tell me that they only accept eight students into the program each year. This is high vindication for Piers, who took a lot of shit off Mom and Dad for his bad grades throughout his career. While he struggled to keep up his French scores, he was busy attending rehearsals till 11pm every night and performing 3 or 4 shows a year, plus directing others, taking voice lessons, and even mentoring younger singers. All that and he held down a job in town (well, most of the time… hahaha for those in the know).

All the while he told the ‘rents: don’t worry, I’ll graduate, I’ll get into college. And now he’s in one of the best damn schools in the country. Way to go, Bory!

Mom and I are actually driving him out there in another week, which I’m sort of looking forward to, except for the 14 horus of driving and the 2 nights away from Xianyi. But it will be cool to see where he’s going to be. The drive back promises to be tragic as Mom tries and fails to hold it together after seeing her last child off into the world. God bless her.

Congratulations, Piers, for being AWESOME!