II. The Umpire
There’s a middle-aged woman who hangs out in the Chelsea lobby and apparently can’t control her gestures. (Maybe she has Tourette’s too; unfortunately, I’m not a psychiatrist.) When you walk through the lobby she’ll let you know what she thinks of you through a series of hand signals: thumbs-down, up-yours, the finger, holding her nose: P-U. Though she’s really more like a third base coach, giving the batter a series of signals, somebody once called her The Umpire, and the name stuck. Though she usually expresses a rather negative opinion of people, sometimes The Umpire will actually give the safe sign, or the thumbs up, or even the OK sign.
One day three tourists came into the lobby, three young women in pastels: two blonds, slightly heavy, and one brunette, thinner. They were staying at the hotel, and had gone out for the day, but one of the women had lost her sunglasses, and now they had come back looking for them. They looked around briefly near the chairs where they had been sitting earlier in the day. But it wasn’t long before they noticed that The Umpire was sitting across the room wearing a pair of sunglasses that looked suspiciously like the ones that had been lost. (They may very well have belonged to The Umpire, I can’t say for sure, but the tourist women thought otherwise.) The women huddled and stood exchanging nervous glances, whispering amongst themselves. They were intimidated by The Umpire, and were afraid to ask her about the sunglasses, because whenever they would look in her direction, she would give them the finger or make some other obscene gesture. Finally, they decided to tell the manager.
The Umpire had stood up and come over near the desk to wait for the elevator, so the manager didn’t have to go far. He came out from behind the desk and asked her, “Are those your glasses?”
The Umpire nodded up in down in reply.
“You didn’t find those glasses sitting here in the lobby?”
She nodded her head back and forth.
The manager threw up his hands. “Well, if she says they’re hers, there’s not much I can do.”
As often happens, the elevator was taking a long time to arrive. The three women, slightly dazed, stood there waiting for it with The Umpire.
Finally, one of the women, the brunette, the one whose glasses had been stolen, couldn’t take it anymore. “Why are we going back up to the room to look for the sun glasses?!” she said. “We know where they are! She’s wearing them!”
The other women tried to shush her and calm her down I think by now they had begun to realize that The Umpire was rather off.
The brunette refused to be mollified. “What?! I’m just supposed to do nothing while she steals my glasses and then gives me the finger. I’m just supposed to just lay down and take it? I don’t think so!” And she launched into her own series of gestures, imitating The Umpire: “Same to you! Up yours too! How you like them apples?”
The Umpire shrugged her shoulders, unfazed. She gave them a final flurry of signs, and then, as the elevator had by now arrived, stepped on and left the women standing there in the lobby. (Next Week -- A Threat)
Ed Hamilton
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