On Mondays We Play Bridge (eBook)

Joshua Desjardins (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
196 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-6920-7 (ISBN)

Infos

'On Mondays We Play Bridge' is about life lessons Joshua has learned playing Bridge with friends twice and thrice his age, including his best friend at 99-years-young. Lessons include listening to your partner, losing a hand, being dealt a lousy hand and more. There are thirteen tricks in a Bridge game, so there are thirteen chapters in Desjardins' debut novel. Each trick is just as important as the last.

Joshua Desjardins is a newer author, but he's not new to writing. Having fallen in love with writing stories in elementary school where he grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, Joshua rediscovered the art of writing later in life as a therapeutic passion. This led Joshua to publish his first children's book called, 'The Tale of Two Princes.' Joshua currently lives in New York City where he dabbles in technology by day and writes at night. Although 'On Mondays We Play Bridge' is Joshua's first novel, he only hopes his words will inspire future generations to befriend people of all ages, and even reread when life gets in our way. As an avid gamer, Joshua encourages his readers to never stop playing games in life, even at ninety-nine-years-young.

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Moving to any city can feel overwhelming, but when Joshua moves to New York City to pursue his dreams, he feels nothing but loneliness and solitude. That is until he starts playing Bridge with friends twice and thrice his age, including his new best friend, Natalie Rosenberg, at 99-years-young. "e;On Mondays We Play Bridge"e; is about life lessons learned amongst this unique group of people, lessons like listening to your partner, losing a hand, being dealt a lousy hand and more. Mondays are now the most important day of the week for Joshua, and he hopes his Monday Morals can help you wherever your own journey takes you.

Textauszug

 

The 1st Trick:

How We Met

 

 

It’s not the best of times; in fact, I’m pretty sure this is the worst of times. But when your best friend is ninety-nine-going-on-one-century-years-young, life sure as hell doesn’t suck.

Though I always dreamed about living in The City That Never Sleeps—the same city where my aforementioned nearest and dearest was born and raised—I still sometimes see myself as that nerdy New Englander about to turn twenty-something with a major in Musical Theatre who finally made the move to the most exhilarating city on Earth. Ambition was all I needed to make it or break it in The City of Dreams, and back in the early 2000s, my ambition was determined to set New York City on fire.

That’s certainly how bright-eyed and optimistic I felt about The Big Apple as my father and I packed up my entire life into used boxes, threw everything I could fit in a U-Haul and drove almost four hundred miles from Pittsburgh to Queens in the summer of 2000-something. As a recent college graduate who moved to New York City like any young actor tries to accomplish at some point in their career, yours truly had just earned his way into the Actor’s Equity Association almost immediately after having his heart shattered by the first guy he ever trusted with it. What more could a boy need in such a vulnerable time in his life than a new city full of both possibility and opportunity? And lights—lots and lots of lights!

When my Dad and I pulled up to my new apartment in Sunnyside, college friends already living in the city greeted us with hugs and queer-cheers before helping us unload my boxed life into my brand new, bright yellow bedroom that could barely fit a twin bed, let alone my desk and a dresser. Seeing as my room was in the basement, my first city sanctuary had no windows, of course. I’m sure any actor can relate.

My father—the generous man that he was—treated my friends and I to New York style pizza that evening (the best pizza in the world, I’ll have you know!), and before the sun had set, my friends had left. My father drove home in the van, and then I remember that for the first time in my life, I felt…alone.

I was officially on my own in both the scariest, most exciting city in the world, and it was my job alone to make something of myself. I just had no idea what (or who) that something was going to be.

For the next year, I cashed in all my chips I saved from waiting tables trying to audition for anything and everything I could with barely a nibble. In “The Pitts”—my own catchphrase for Pittsburgh—I was becoming a big fish in a small pond. In New York City, however, I wasn’t just a small fish in a big pond again, but rather a guppy in the entire Hudson River. I had no idea where I fit in, nor did those I auditioned for.

Between babysitting and the occasional acting gig here and there, I leveled up my nerdiness by helping fellow thespians with all their technical needs. Everyone will tell you that New York is expensive, but those same people forget to mention that you need five jobs just to survive, especially as a struggling actor. From editing demo reels to building websites, most of my spare time went toward helping others reach their career goals while slowly pushing my own aside.

I tried networking as best I could. Before my big move, I worked for a cabaret company back in Pittsburgh where I was thrilled to work with celebrities such as Elaine Stritch who brought her Tony Award winning show, At Liberty, to The University of Pittsburgh. The first time I met Elaine she had been given flowers from the theatre company where she was to perform. and after being introduced to her as her assistant for the weekend, she looked at me with a sinister smile and said, “Do me a favor, will you? Take these flowers and give them to your girlfriend”—she paused while she quite visibly looked at me from head to toe—“or boyfriend, but get them out of my dressing room because I’m allergic!” I knew right then and there that Elaine and I would get along.

And we did! Elaine and I kept in touch as I would drop off gifts for her at the famous Carlyle Hotel where she resided. She would always call me back and leave hilarious voicemails of which I’m grateful to still have. For now, may that Diva rest in peace with a non-alcoholic can of O’Doul’s by her side.

Upon invite via Elaine, I found myself networking more at a Fourth of July party on a stunningly sunny afternoon when I stepped foot into one of the most glamorous New York City apartments I had ever seen at the time. This apartment had two floors—a rarity in a city full of skyscrapers—and a large outdoor terrace with its own personal stairway that led to a private roof deck. We had the best seats in the house when the fireworks exploded over the East River after the sun had finally said goodnight.

And what a good night that was! Stephen Sondheim—the Godfather of contemporary musical theatre—was in attendance that evening, and after chatting together for what felt like the better half of an hour, my palms were practically shaking when he asked me for my business card. Being the nerd that I was, I had plenty in my front polo pocket, but I never heard from Stephen again after that night. Though I don’t blame him; I wouldn’t have called me either in those early days as a city boy.

I was a wreck and it showed. I wore my heart on my sleeve, and so networking led me nowhere. In fact, networking just made me lonelier.

Before long, I stopped finding myself at parties or gigs with fancy people, but rather Marie’s Crisis and Splash. Marie’s Crisis is a young theatre bunny’s oasis where to this day performers will belt out their favorite showtunes around a piano in the city’s tiniest bar that somehow feels smaller than my first New York City bedroom. As other patrons stood shoulder to shoulder, knocking clear liquid out of my dixie cup onto a floor that was already sticky, I could care less about my loneliness in a place like Marie’s Crisis. One never knew what Broadway star might sit and sing on that out-of-tune piano on a Monday night, but their songs let you know that everything would be okay.

Splash, on the other hand, also hosted a magical Monday night to remember, or maybe it was a night to forget rather. Splash was an 18-or-older gay club where my LGBTQ-munity (as I like to call our community) went to dance until we death-dropped. Mondays at Splash was referred to as “Musical Mondays” by the club itself, and between its two floors I would bounce back and forth from singing musical numbers along with the crowd on the top floor, or letting loose on the bottom floor with strangers I never met, nor did I care to know. Edibles helped me forget about my worries in a different way at Splash, and I only wish it were still around for the newer generations to enjoy.

As my first year in the city came and went, the magic of Marie’s Crisis and Splash wore off, and yet loneliness never left my side. I continue to visit Marie’s from time to time to this day, mostly only to remember a time that has since come and gone.

Eventually I found myself in a different bar on the one year anniversary of my moving to New York. Ninth Ave Saloon—located in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen—was more of a “daddy bar” than a sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs lounge. Although I wasn’t looking for a “Zaddy” back then, a change in pace was exactly what I needed.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked even before I had a chance to pick a stool from the plenty that were empty. Cher played in the background, but at a volume where I could actually hear the barkeep ask me for my drink order.

“I’ll take a Tanqueray Tonic, please,” I said nervously approaching the bar, still deciding what stool to sit at. None of them looked comfortable, as if they had never been replaced.

“We don’t have Tanqueray. Is Bombay okay?” the bartender replied, wiping down a glass to prepare my drink with what looked like a used rag.

What had I gotten myself into?

“I’m sorry,” I said embarrassingly, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Why did I even come to a bar like this? Should I make a run for it? I should run…

“You’re ordering a gin and tonic!” a man laughed from across the bar.

“Tanqueray and Bombay are types of gin,” said his friend, more warmly than the other. This man smiled at me in hopes to make me feel better, but it didn’t. I still felt foolish.

“Bombay sounds refreshing,” I told the bartender. All I heard back was a grunt before he started to mix my drink.

I decided to approach the men who helped me and strike up a conversation. “You know, the first drink a friend ever ordered for me on my twenty-first birthday was a Tanqueray Tonic—“

“—and until today no one never told you they were out of Tanqueray?” the first man guessed.

I snickered. “More like: Until today I never knew I was...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.9.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-6920-7 / 9798350969207