NOT MY TYPE OF TYPE

I was in my twenties when I banged out my first novel on my mother’s portable Olivetti typewriter, and I mean “banged.”

We were like boxers from different weight divisions, that typewriter and me - my heavyweight hands coming down hard on its flyweight keyboard, the typebars jamming in clusters that had to be pulled apart whenever I worked too fast.

That poor Olivetti grew creakier by the day. I hit those keys as if they owed me money, to make sure the carbon copy was legible.

Inky fingers, carbon paper, Wite-Out... a pretty messy process. Crossed-out words, coffee rings on the pages, and (worst of all) circled paragraphs with arrows indicating their new locations, to be moved around in the next draft.

All those drafts! The endless rolling of pages through the carriage! By the end of it, I figured I’d defoliated a corner of Brazil to complete “Shepherd Avenue” in time for publication in the spring of 1986.

Then, suddenly, the process changed. Technology didn’t walk into my life. It galloped.

I gave up the Olivetti in favor of an electric typewriter with a rotating golf ball studded with letters, numbers and punctuation marks. No jamming with that golf ball! You barely touched the keys, and the letters appeared on the page. It worked like a dream.

But not for long, because I soon abandoned that machine in favor of my first word processor - a big, boxy IBM.

Whatever I wrote appeared in green light on its screen, and when a manuscript was complete I simply hit “print” and waited as the pages emerged from the printer, pristine and flawless, ready to be mailed to my agent.

“Pages.” That’s the key word here.

Because I just completed a novel on my laptop computer, and not until I typed the words “The End” did something really freaky occur to me:

This story exists only in the form of light! It’s a blackout away from oblivion!

Well, not really. I’d “backed it up” on a few systems, and now all I had to do was e-mail the link to anyone I wanted. Five seconds later they’d have the novel, and they could read it on their computer screens.

Which is exactly what was bugging me. Sure, they can read it on their screens, but they can’t really touch it. That’s what thirty years of progress amounts to - look, but don’t touch.

Can you be touched by a story you cannot touch? And can you truly call it a book if it’s never existed in the form of paper pages?

I don’t know, but here’s one thing I do know - I’m going to print out a copy of my new manuscript, just for the hell of it.

I’ll dog-ear a few of those pages, smear some ink on a few more. Maybe even set a cup of coffee on the title page, just to give it a little ring.

The ring of truth, I hope.

STOP, THIEF!!!

This old British man is standing behind me on line at the local Post Office today, a growly guy who looks like he might have thrown a few grenades during WWII. At last it's his turn and he tells the clerk: "Aw need a passport renewal form!" The clerk's face lights up with that delighted look civil servants get when they know they're about to disappoint you. "You have to go to the main Post Office," he tells the old man, who snarls: "You wasted my bloody time!" - and walks out with a copy of the Daily Mail under his arm. "Sir!" the clerk calls out, "aren't you going to pay for that newspaper? Sir!!" The old guy ignores him and waddles out the door. Probably history's slowest getaway, and nobody stopped him. You go, old man!

IT'S SNOW USE TRYING TO GET HIM OFF THE ROOF!

Last week I phoned my mother to see how things were going and she reported that my father was up on a ladder, shoveling snow off the roof.

Which is a dicey thing for anybody to do, but at the time my father was a few days shy of his 90th birthday, and I was here in England, 3600 miles away.  No way for me to stop him.

It was a trifecta of broken rules for the so-called elderly: Don't climb ladders, don't shovel snow, avoid slippery surfaces.

The only way to make the task more dangerous would have been to blindfold him.

"Mom," I gasped, "you've got to get him down from there!"

She sighed. "Have you met your father?...Ooh, wait, it's okay, I see his feet coming down the ladder!!"

Mission accomplished. Tony Carillo cleared the roof and reached the milestone birthday.

It would be an understatement to say he did it his way.

A man who hits 90 is like an athlete who lasts a long time. You can't help but rack up some impressive stats.

My father worked for the same company for 48 years. He's lived in the same house for 59 years, and he's been married to the same woman for 62 years.

Numbers like those might indicate a guy who's been roped and tied by innumerable responsibilities, but that's the funny thing.

Because no matter what my father is doing - including roof-shoveling - he's glad to be doing it. As if nobody ever told him what to do or where to go.

That's what I marvel at. His whole life has been his idea.

It's a pretty neat trick. I've never known anybody quite so free. No wonder he looks good.

Happy 90th, Dad. Got a feeling this might not be your last birthday that ends in a zero.

But please, stay off the damn roof.

HE WASN'T NOTHIN' BUT A HOUND DOG, WITH A FANCY NAME

This morning in the park a frisky black dog got a little too affectionate with my dog, and growling ensued. The owner of the black dog - a chubby bearded guy, smoking a pipe - strolled casually up to his hyper-humping pooch shouting: "Elliott! That's enough, Elliott!"
And while pulling Bailey away from the amorous Elliott, I couldn't help wondering:
1) Who the hell smokes a pipe these days?
2) Who the hell smokes a pipe in the morning?
3) Who the hell names his dog ELLIOTT?
Then I remembered - this is England! It all makes sense! The more ridiculous the name, the more regal the hound!

EYES WIDE SHUT

I'm in the fourth kilometer of a 5-K race last Saturday, pushing myself as hard as I can, when suddenly a runner gives me a hard elbow as he passes me.

This is very unusual in these polite British races, and before I can summon enough breath and New York City attitude to say something like "Hey, what are you, blind?" I see that he's got a rope around his wrist, attached to the wrist of a guide runner.

And on the back of his shirt are the words VISUALLY IMPAIRED.

Yeah, he's blind. And he apologized for bumping me. And suddenly I was glad I'd been too winded to say something stupid.

THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND YOU

Every picture tells a story, but sometimes the story waits a long time to be told.

Thirty years, in the case of this long-lost photograph.

That's me back in 1986, preparing to take part in a race from the Statue of Liberty to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. A hundred miles of running and biking, on one of the hottest days of that year.

It was one of those "Our Man In The Race" assignments for the New York Post. I finished -- barely -- but that's not the story.

The story is that while I was trotting to the starting line at Liberty State Park, photographer David Rentas snapped this shot just as the sun was rising behind the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

What a shot. Look at the shadows, reaching all the way across the river.

Never dreamed I'd be standing longer than those towers.

The photo wasn't published with my story, but I kept a copy for myself. A copy I'd forgotten about, until I was digging through a drawer the other day in search of something else.

That's when I stumbled upon this fading black and white relic. Quite a jolt.

Ever notice how often you see those towers when you least expect it?

I was recently watching "When Harry Met Sally" and there they were, visible in the distance when Sally drops Harry off at Washington Square Park.

And the towers stand tall during the opening credits of "The Sopranos," as a cigar-smoking Tony makes his way from the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey.

Movies, TV shows, photographs....you see the twin towers, and the reaction is always the same. A sharp intake of breath. A tingle across the shoulders. A sense of disbelief that never fades.

It happened. It'll never un-happen. At a certain point, there's really nothing more to say.

Well, maybe just one thing.

David Rentas, you captured quite a moment.

IT'S A FUNNY OLD WORLD, THIS

I'm walking the pooch around the block this evening past little attached brick houses with tiny Christmas trees lit up in the front windows, and people all warm and cozy inside with their tea and their mince pies - a classically British suburban scenario - when suddenly I see an old Englishman in a flat cap walking toward us, whistling a familiar tune. What the hell is that song, I ask myself, and suddenly the words come to me: "We'll take Manhattan....The Bronx and Staten Island too..."

SANTA NEVER ASKED FOR MY OPINION, BUT....

Childhood ends the first time you sit on Santa's lap and see those wire earpieces connecting his beard to his head.

You can't help running across two infuriating breeds of people at this time of year: wine experts and cheese experts. I'd get a haircut from Donald Trump's barber before I'd give either of them the time of day.

My all-time favorite Nativity scene was the one on Houston Street in Greenwich Village, outside St. Anthony's Church. Neighborhood rascals kept swiping the infant Jesus, so eventually the little guy was bolted into the manger, right through his navel.

My grandmother never asked, "Did you get a nice Christmas tree?" Her only question was, "Did you bargain with the guy?" If you didn't bargain, her Christmas was ruined.

Bosses who stay at the office Christmas party longer than fifteen minutes deserve whatever happens to them.

If you don't attend the office Christmas party, you cannot file expenses for the food and drink you didn't consume. I tried that once and got a remarkably sarcastic response from payroll, along with a big red REJECTED stamp.

Romances that start at the Christmas party burn out faster than a Fourth of July sparkler.

A Christmas story almost got me fired from the New York Post. I was handed a photo of a cute little girl ice skating at the Rockefeller Center rink and told to knock out a caption. "Look what this lucky girl found under her Christmas tree - brand new skates!" I wrote. Turns out the girl was Jewish, and her enraged father called the paper, vowing to sue. I charmed my way out of it, but it wasn't easy.

George Bailey was a wonderful guy in the Christmas classic film "It's A Wonderful Life,"  but if he'd never been born Main Street in Bedford Falls - excuse me, Potterville - would have been a lot more fun on Saturday nights.

And speaking of "It's A Wonderful Life": Even with rimless glasses on her nose, her hair shoved up under a man's hat and a dowdy outfit, Donna Reed does NOT look like the homely old maid she was supposed to be if George had never been born. What a face!

Nothing ever made my nose happier than that electrical smell generated by my Lionel trains as they chugged around the tracks.

People who wait until Christmas Eve to do their shopping also did their term papers the night before and lie to the dentist about how often they floss. I applaud them, one and all.

My wife is right. The best thing about Christmas is the lights, and she ought to know. Check it out - people who visit us at night might run the risk of retina damage, but believe me, it's worth it:

IT'S GOOD TO BE KING

Now, this is what you call a fireplace.

The guy in the green shirt is stoking the blaze in the kitchen at Hampton Court Palace, once home to King Henry the Eighth.

That's easily a forty-log fire, and back in the day it was kept burning 'round the clock,  because you never knew when the king might crave a roasted pig or two in the middle of the night. 

From what I hear, old Hank wasn't an "I'll be fine with a sandwich" kind of guy.  And nobody on his staff wanted to mess with a man who thought beheading was little more than an extreme haircut.

This 500-year-old palace is breathtaking, beautiful and overwhelming. Jaw-dropping brick work. Manicured gardens. Rooms with ceilings as high as the clouds.

Believe it or not, there's actually a dining room where select guests were permitted to sit around and watch King Henry gobble down his meals, so they could see how healthy his appetite was.

Lucky guests, eh?

Like any true-blue New Yorker, I start out being awed by the grandeur of a place like this, and then the awe morphs into resentment toward people born into royalty and its ridiculous excesses.

Why them?  Why anyone?

But this time, a funny thing happened.  As the heat from Henry's hearth warmed my hands and face, my mind took me to another place, 3500 miles from here.  A two-family brick house on Shepherd Avenue in Brooklyn, the place my grandparents called home.

It wasn't a palace.  They didn't even have a fireplace, and their garden was a small dirt patch with a ragged privet hedge.

My grandfather, Charlie Carillo, was a plumber.  Probably never made more than nine or ten grand a year, and managed to raise five strong kids on that money.

A lot of the credit for that went to his wife, Millie, who could stretch a buck from Atlantic Avenue to Highland Park. (Trust me, that's a long way.)

Every night at ten o'clock, they observed a ritual.  Charlie had a lifelong sweet tooth, so Millie would bring him a piece of cake and a cup of coffee. 

He didn't demand it.  He didn't even ask for it.  The goodies would simply appear in front of him, just as the closing credits of "Bonanza" were rolling.

His wife served him because she wanted to.  She didn't fear him.  She was grateful for what they had, and she loved the guy.

Know what that made my grandfather? A king.  A real king.

Take that, Henry.

THERE'S A REASON THEY CALL IT A PAPER

I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm going to let you in on a secret about the newspaper game:

Reporters are childish people. And God bless them for that trait, because it's what sustains that sense of wonder the best ones never lose.

I was as childish as anybody in the tabloid playground when I wrote for the New York Post. Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I couldn't sleep when I knew I had a good story appearing in tomorrow's paper.

So instead of waiting for tomorrow, I'd go out just before midnight and wait at Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village for the New York Post delivery truck to arrive.

It was just like they do it in the movies - maybe the only part of the newspaper game that's accurately portrayed in the movies. The truck pulls up, a bundle of papers hits the sidewalk and the vendor cuts the cord with a blade.

You stand ready with the right change, pay the vendor, grab a paper and start ripping through it to find your story. You hope for an odd-numbered page, because even-numbered pages are often missed by the reader. (Didn't know that, did you?)

And there it is, your story, with your name above it in bold-faced print. Something that didn't exist yesterday exists today, and you've got it right there in your hands.

In your hands. Three important words.

Newspaper reporters are getting fired left and right these days in an effort to save money, as publications hurtle toward an all-online destiny. In other words, paperless papers.

Funny idea, firing reporters to save a newspaper. Kind of like getting run over by an ambulance.

The point is, you can do a lot of things with a story in an online publication, but you can't hold it in your hands.

I'm thinking of Mike Pearl's hands. When it came to big trials in Manhattan there was never a better reporter than Pearl, who was a veteran when I was a rookie.

But boy oh boy, he had a rookie's enthusiasm right until the day he retired. Many chilly nights Pearl shivered with me at Sheridan Square, waiting for that first edition to hit the sidewalk.

Pearl was meticulously dressed, dapper and stylish, but there was a funny thing about his hands - they were always ink-smudged from his daily journeys through the Post, the Daily News and the New York Times.

He also got them dirty establishing his legendary "Wall of Shame," featuring his favorite front-page stories. To me, Pearl's wall was as essential a New York landmark as the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

Could an online reporter create a wall this glorious?

I know, I know - I sound like a typical ink-stained wretch, longing for the good old days. My earliest published stories have turned brown with the years - the old newsprint is literally crumbling at the edges, something online reporters won't have to worry about.

And don't I have a hell of a nerve, complaining about online publications in an online publication?

Hey, nobody has to tell me that things will never again be as they were.

But see, I'm still a newspaperman at heart, even though I left The Post more than twenty years ago. Childish as ever, and proud of it.

WASH AND SWEAR

This is a photo of my soaking wet laundry on the clothesline, where it's been hanging for three days and three nights.

Every time it's almost dry, it starts raining. So I leave it on the line, thinking the rain has to stop some time.

Silly me.  This is England!

Oh, the sun comes out, all right, but it's just a tease, a little peek, and when I go outside to gather my clothes the sky darkens and opens up again, and I'm back to square one.

Three days, going on four.  I'm running out of patience, socks and underwear.

See that shirt hanging in the middle of the line, with orange lettering? That's a Pepperdine University t-shirt.  Got it from my sister, whose son is a freshman at that beautiful college in sunny Malibu, California. I'm hoping that shirt will be dry by the time he graduates.

Pardon my dramatics, but it's inspired by this British autumnal weather.  It's often beautiful, but you sometimes reach the point where you wonder if you'll ever see the sun again.

Now at last I fully understand that classic George Harrison song, "Here Comes The Sun."  It could only have been written by a rain-soaked Brit in squishy shoes.

On top of everything else, it's a tricky rain. Sometimes it seems to have stopped, but then you step outside and there it is, a drizzle that's invisible to the naked eye, settling upon your hair and your eyebrows like a zillion tiny insects.

It's the kind of weather that makes mentally unstable people want to shoot themselves.  Luckily, the gunpowder is too damp to let that happen.

So, what can I do about my eternally rain-soaked clothes?

Well, one option is to bring them inside and hang them on radiators, over the backs of chairs and off the edges of tables.  A lot of Brits do this, which is why so many English homes resemble a Salvation Army "Everything Must Go" sale on rainy days.

But I'm not going to do that.  I've waited this long. The rain has to stop some time. It has to. It has to!!!

Doesn't it?

TWO-ONE-TWO, I'LL ALWAYS BE TRUE

Manhattan is a lover that never calls the next day. This golden island always gives more than it gets, and if you don't want it, well, look behind you, pal - the line of suitors stretches from river to river.
 
Sorry to get so emotional, but I moved to London three months ago and when you leave Manhattan, it's not just a change of address - it's a break-up.

Forget Tony Bennett singing about San Francisco. New York is the city where you leave your heart.

This torrid love affair started when I moved to Greenwich Village in 1981. Back then you could afford to live in town without being a Wall Street honcho.

I had a basement apartment on Morton Street for $350 a month. My windows were level with the sidewalk, and I became an expert on footwear.

I was so excited to be in the Village, I could barely sleep. I was always out, afraid I might miss something if I went to bed.

Whenever my energy flagged, I drank coffee at Joe Junior's diner and took a walk. Didn't even talk to anybody. Just took a walk, and came home fully charged.

That became my pattern for the decades to follow. Feeling low, or defeated? Can't think of anything to write? Take a walk. Catch a bit of a crazy conversation between two strangers. Absorb the life force from the streets. It always worked.

So I'm excited to return for a quick visit to see my family and walk the city streets. I'm looking for a Moment - something to tell me that Manhattan and I will always be friends, even if we're never together again.

And it's my rotten luck to arrive in the middle of a heat wave.

This is Manhattan at its worst. Soft wads of gum on the sidewalks, garbage simmering in the sun, odors from the corner drains rising straight from the pits of hell.

And everybody seems pissed off.

Was I kidding myself all along about this twelve-by-two mile enchanted island, or am I just getting too old to appreciate it?

I'm walking down Broadway, tired and depressed. It's steamy and sticky, and all I want to do is dive into any store and hug an air conditioner.

Then it happens. The Moment.

A crowd is gathering for Stephen Colbert's Late Show debut. A male-female cop team stands outside the studio, arms folded across their chests. The guy is big and muscular, not a man to be taken lightly.

I look at the name tag of this enforcer of the law and suddenly, my spirits soar.

CROOKS. I swear to God, the cop's name is Crooks. Imagine the abuse he put up with, going through the Police Academy.

I go up to him and point at the name tag. "You get sick of hearing this, I'm sure," I say, "but your name makes my day."

He laughs. We laugh.

And just like that, Manhattan and I are back on track. It's going to be a long-distance relationship, but I think we can make it work.

GODFATHER KNOWS BEST

You can have a lot of fun with the Brits if you’re a New York City Italian who looks a little dangerous.

Which is what I am.

It’s been a sunny summer and I’ve been doing a lot of outdoor work in the garden. I’m good and swarthy, I make a rich red pasta sauce and my expression at rest is a slight scowl.

To the English, these traits make me a Mafioso on the run.

You can’t blame them.  They get their ideas about these things from the movies, as do most Americans.
    
Name ends in a vowel? He can cook? Gotta be connected!

To clear the air: the closest I ever came to a mob connection was in the late 80s, when I was covering John Gotti’s trial in downtown Brooklyn for the New York Post.  

At one point I looked up from my notebook to see the Dapper Don staring at me from across the courtroom. The deadest pair of eyes I’d ever seen, peering right into mine.

My palms went damp, the pen slipped from my hand and I realized I never would have made it as a criminal, despite the tax advantages.  

Anyway, the Brits are fascinated by guys like Gotti and “The Sopranos,” and one English guy in particular kept asking me what mobsters are really like.

“I don’t know any,” I told him.

“They must have lived near you.”

“No, I lived in Manhattan. Mob guys don’t live there. They have big cars, and they hate parallel parking."

“Well where do they live, then?”

What the hell. It was time to have a little fun.

“Okay,” I lied, “I had an uncle in the mob.  He’s dead now, so I can tell you this - he always insisted upon a house in the suburbs. Not too fancy a suburb, either. Didn’t want to attract attention, you know?”

The Brit was transfixed at this point.  All he could do was nod.

“And wherever he lived, one thing was absolutely essential.”

The Brit hesitated before daring to ask,  “What was that?”

I put my arm across his shoulders and looked left and right before giving him my best deadpan look.

“The basement had to have a dirt floor.”

At first he seemed puzzled. Then it hit him.  He swallowed hard and went pale.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured.

I gave his shoulders a squeeze and winked at him. “Don’t tell nobody.”

Since then he never asks me about the Mafia anymore, and whenever I pass him on the street I smile and make digging motions.  

He doesn’t smile back.  Ayyyy,  some people have no sense of humor.

IT'S NIL-NIL, AND NOBODY'S WINNING

My days as a sports fan are long over, but over on this side of the pond a funny thing has happened:

I still don’t care about sports, but I’ve become a fan of British sports fans.  I absolutely marvel at them.

They are without a doubt the most patient people on the planet, rooting their hearts out for a game in which scoring happens about as often as a total eclipse of the sun.

There’s plenty of almost-scoring in soccer (which is called “football” over here), but to my impatient New York eye it’s just a lot of frantic guys in short pants, endlessly chasing a ball that goes out of bounds every eleven seconds.

I was walking past a pub near our house the other day when suddenly, the place erupted with hysterical screams and cheers.  Heavily tattooed Brits were hugging and high-fiving.  I ducked inside to see what had happened.

Peace in the Middle East?  An end to world hunger?  Oh, no. Something much rarer than that.

On the TV over the bar, somebody had just scored a goal late in a soccer game, bringing the score to one-nothing. (I beg your pardon - make that “one - nil.”)

The guy who’d scored was so excited he ran down the field, ripped off his shirt and slid on his belly into a pile of his equally delirious team mates.  

Their excitement reached near-pornographic proportions.  I doubt their wives got much attention that night.

Admittedly I come to this issue with a strong American bias.  Back when I did care about sports I enjoyed basketball, with its endless scoring.

Rack up those points! Run up the score! Three-pointers and slam dunks galore!

I don’t think basketball could ever catch on big-time here in England.  The Brits would find all that scoring....somewhat crude.

Which I guess is why Brits love cricket.  It’s extremely civilized, and about as exciting as a license renewal at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

If you think watching baseball is like watching paint dry, watching cricket is like coming back the next day to stare at the wall and make sure the paint is still dry.

One guy, the bowler, does all the work.  He’s a combination sprinter-pitcher, running toward the batsman before hurling the ball.

Situated all around the bowler are his team mates, guys in long white pants who stand there for hours like figures on a human sundial.

They’re waiting for the ball to be hit to them.  Basically they’re statues with a pulse, conserving their energy in case the bowler drops dead from exhaustion and has to be replaced.

Once again, I tip my hat to those fans who appreciate the intricacies of these games.

But what are the chances of me getting excited about soccer or cricket?  Pretty much zero.

I beg your pardon.  I meant to say “nil.”
   
Next time:

GODFATHER KNOWS BEST

 www.charliecarillo.co

TO BE HONEST WITH YOU....

I almost always assume people are exaggerating, or just making it up. It’s inevitable when you’ve worked in the media for more than 30 years.  Everybody puts a little spin on the ball.

That’s why I get a kick out of one British-ism in particular:

“To be honest with you.”

Brits say this all the time. I don’t think they even know they’re saying it. It’s a mindless, reflexive phrase, like an atheist saying “God bless you” when you sneeze.

The first time I heard it I burst out laughing in the face of the guy who said it to me. He’d been going on with some long, involved story before suddenly trotting out “To be honest with you,” and I just lost it.

“Hang on,” I said, “does this mean that everything you’ve said up until now is a lie?”

He was baffled by the question - or, as the Brits would say, literally baffled by it.

“Literally” is another important word in the British vocabulary.  (Actually, most Brits say lit’rally, without the middle vowel.)

Mostly it’s women who use this word to dramatize minor matters. It’ll go something like this:

“I lit’rally just got home and when I went to the fridge, there was lit'rally nothing to eat, so I’m lit’rally having cheese and crackers for my dinner!”

Then they stand back, to give you room to gasp in disbelief.

There’s a drinking game in New York our friends play whenever they’re with my wife. Every time Kim says “lit’rally,” they toast her. They all stagger home on those nights. Lit’rally.

The most maddening British-ism of all is “I don’t mind.” It’s sort of a cousin to America’s “I don’t care,” without the directness.

People who say it are just looking for a little peace and quiet, however they can get it.

Husbands, usually.

Wife: “Shall we have rice or potatoes with the beef?”
Husband: “I don’t mind.”
Wife: “Which would you prefer?”
Husband: “I don’t mind.”
Wife: “Bloody hell, you are driving me crazy!”

So what does it all amount to? To be honest with you, I lit’rally don’t know.
 
But at the same time, I don’t mind.

Next time: IT’S NIL-NIL, AND NOBODY’S WINNING

 www.charliecarillo.co

LIVE ON THE SCENE WITH FOX NEWS!

It’s past two in the morning and Bailey is barking his head off downstairs.

So I’m told by Kim, who shoves my shoulder to wake me. Otherwise I never would have heard the dog, having learned to sleep through anything during all those years at the intersection of Drunken Shouting Way and Car Alarm Alley in Greenwich Village.

I shake my head to clear it. Sure enough, the mutt is making a frantic racket, a solitary suburban sound that’s truly chilling.

“Someone’s in the house!” Kim says.

“Aww, I doubt that.”

“Charlie, you have to go down and check it out!”

I grab my stepson’s cricket bat, which we keep by the bed for emergencies like this.

A baseball bat would feel much more appropriate, and it occurs to me that if I go downstairs and get killed by an intruder, I’ll be greeted at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter with the words:

“Hey, what’s a New York guy like you doing with a friggin’ cricket bat?”

Kim is getting impatient.

“Charlie, hurry up!”

“I’m putting my pants on. That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

She knows what I mean. A few years ago we were asleep in our New York apartment when suddenly a lunatic began bashing on the door at two a.m. - a drunken, drugged-out neighbor who’d miscounted the floors as he climbed the stairs, and thought we were in his place!

I jumped from bed stark naked and braced my hands against the door to keep him out. Kim called 911, then ran to my side - not to help me, but to dress me.

“Come on, get your knickers on!” she urged, holding my underwear open for me to step into.

If the worst happened she wanted the New York Post headline to read WRITER SLAIN, not NAKED WRITER SLAIN.  That’s class.  

And after the cops arrived and cuffed the guy Kim offered them tea and biscuits - certainly the first time New York’s Finest had ever been served by a blonde Brit wearing little more than rings, an over-sized t-shirt and toenail polish.

But this is a whole other scenario. I don’t even know if London has a “Make My Day” policy. For all I know I could get in trouble for wounding an intruder, on the grounds of First-degree Impoliteness.

I creep down the stairs and flick on the light in the kitchen, where Bailey is not only barking but running in circles. He charges past me to the front door, slamming his substantial weight against it.

Gripping the cricket bat, I look through the door’s little window and see something that makes my stomach drop - a pair of glowing yellow eyes, peering right at me.

Jesus. This is a creature straight from the pages of Stephen King. He bares his needle-like teeth, and then my eyes adjust to the moonlight and I can make out what he is.

A fox. They’re all over this neighborhood, and they’re nocturnal. This one was probably eating out of our garbage can.

I tap the cricket bat against the door, and the fox takes off. Then I turn to Bailey, who’s switched from barking to gasping.

“Good boy,” I tell him, stroking his head. “Don’t have a heart attack, the after-midnight veterinarian rates are a killer.”  

I calm him down and put him to bed. Then I go back upstairs.

“What was it?” Kim asks.

“A burglar.” I slap the bat.  “Got him right in the head, two good shots.”

“Charlie!”

“It was a fox. He ran away. Are you going to make me a cup of tea? Isn’t that standard procedure in these situations?”

“Come to bed, Charlie.”

As soon as I settle in, Bailey starts barking again. Kim wants me to go and calm him down. Instead, I start humming a song and point at the digital clock, which reads 2:45 a.m.

“What song is that?” Kim wants to know.

I was hoping she’d ask. Just the excuse I need to start singing.

“It’s quarter to three....there’s no one in the place, except you and me...”

Next time: TO BE HONEST WITH YOU...

  www.charliecarillo.co

BAMBI MEETS GOODFELLAS (OR, THE BUCK STOPS HERE)

The Britishness is starting to seep in. I’m saying “loo” instead of “bathroom,” “chips” instead of “fries,” “flat” instead of “apartment."

I’m worried about losing my New York edge.
Can that happen? I don’t know. But I don’t want it to happen, mate.

(Jesus, did I just say “mate”?!)

So I grab the leash and take Bailey for a walk in Bushy Park to think things through.

This park is unbelievable - acres and acres of fields where you can let the dog run free and swim in clean streams.

Everybody in the neighborhood walks their dogs here, and you cannot believe the names Brits hang on their pooches.

Spencer.  Arthur.  Heathcliff.

Anyway, Bushy Park is the best place you could imagine for a dog to romp, but you’ve got to keep an eye out for the deer.

They appear out of nowhere. You never know how they’re going to react to the sight of your dog, so you always want to give them a wide berth.

Suddenly I see that Bailey, fresh from his swim, is happily trotting toward a young male deer.  

This buck is all by himself. That’s usually a bad sign, and sure enough, it happens:

The freakin’ deer rears up on his hind legs, rushes Bailey and tries to stomp him with his front hooves.

Bailey leaps out of harm’s way, but the deer keeps coming at him. There’s nothing in the world friendlier than a tail-wagging chocolate lab, but try telling that to an enraged deer.

He tries to trample Bailey again - and again, the dog dances out of the way. But the deer is getting closer.

This is a hell of a mess, because Queen Elizabeth - that’s right, the one whose face is on the money - owns all the animals in the British parks.  If the deer hurts Bailey, nobody’s to blame. But if Bailey hurts the deer, I’m in trouble with Her Royal Highness. Last thing I need now is the wrath of a queen.

So I rush up to Bailey, grab him by the collar and yank him behind me before going nose-to-nose with the buck - bellowing a stream of curses and threats you’d expect to hear from a New York City cab driver in a Times Square fender-bender.

No kidding - my rant brings new meaning to the words Joe Pesci.  It's "Bambi "meets "Goodfellas," and if that buck could understand what I’m shouting about his mother, he’d stomp me to death.

Guess my New York edge is intact, after all.

The deer stares at me wide-eyed, totally transfixed.  At last I run out of foul language, and the buck backs up a few steps before turning and prancing away.

I’m out of breath. I check Bailey to make sure he’s not wounded. Then I look up and see a pointy-nosed British guy in a plaid cap, standing there with a basset hound on a leash. 

If you’ve ever seen the comic strip “Fred Basset”, this guy and his dog look like that strip come to life. He’s witnessed the whole thing and appears to be in a state of shock.

“Sorry I got a little rude, there,” I say.

He waves it off. “Oh, never mind. That was...quite effective, actually.”

He touches the brim of his cap, says, “Come along, Winston,” and walks off with his hound.

Winston. I mean, please.

I take Bailey in the opposite direction, cutting our usual walk short.

Hate to cheat my faithful hound out of his usual exercise quota, but after what we’ve just lived through my stomach is fluttering, and there’s no delicate way to put it:

I’m desperate for the loo.

(Next Time: LIVE ON THE SCENE WITH FOX NEWS!)

 www.charliecarillo.co

A DENTAL DISASTER

  
We’re eating in a Mexican restaurant on the River Thames in Central London and I’m munching on corn chips when suddenly, I feel it - a sharpness in one of my molars.

I’ve broken a tooth.  God damn!

Before leaving New York I made sure I had a clean dental bill of health while I was covered by insurance from my job.

So what happens? Soon after kissing the insurance goodbye, my molar loses a one-on-one battle to a corn chip in London.

Go ahead and insert the British dentistry joke of your choice here.  But the way this thing shakes out is going to surprise you....

“I should sue this restaurant!” I say to Kim, only half-kiddingly. She just laughs.

“This isn’t America,” she reminds me. “We don’t walk around suing each other.”

True that.  When it comes to teeth, the Brits are especially tough. There's an old lady in our neighborhood who considers dentists a luxury.  When she has a bad tooth, she gets out the pliers and pulls it herself.  (Needless to say, she doesn't spend on cosmetics, either.)

So I quickly give up on the notion of suing the restaurant. Even if the case got to court I’m not sure I could keep a straight face before a judge wearing one of those ridiculous wigs.

Besides, I’ve swallowed the evidence.

I jam my tongue into the broken tooth, feeling the tingle of the raw nerve and the size of the gap. I figure this is going to cost me big-time.

Believe it or not, this isn’t a new scenario for me. A few years earlier, same deal - I was enjoying a meal during a visit to London when suddenly, I felt a tooth break.

It was actually a crown over a molar that had undergone an unbelievably costly and time-consuming root canal procedure in New York.

Lousy thing split right down the middle. So I went to the local London dentist, fearful of the whopping bill to come.

The diagnosis was amazingly simple. The dentist examined the expensive wreckage, shrugged and said:

“Well, that’s the last tooth in the row. You really don’t need it.”

She grabbed a pair of pliers, braced her foot against my jaw, yanked out the broken crown and tossed it on the sawdust floor.

I’m kidding about the foot against my jaw and the sawdust floor, but the rest of the story is true. She pulled the tooth, charged me a few bucks, and that was that. I’m down to 31 choppers, and it’s no big deal.

Now, as I approach that same dental clinic with my latest problem, I figure my luck has run out, and I’m braced to drop a fortune on a crown.

They can’t just pull this tooth. It’s not the last one in the row.

This time, the British receptionist sends me to a room with a Polish dentist and a Latvian hygienist - both women, both as intense as Olympic bobsledders.

“Let’s have a look!” the dentist declares.

Two injections numb up half my head, and then the drilling starts. And I mean drilling.

“Lift your hand it it’s too much for you!” the dentist says.

I don’t lift my hand, because she’s good at what she does.  Also, I'm afraid of her.  She’s going to get me through this with a huge filling, but no crown.

They work for the better part of an hour to patch up that tooth.  Drooling down my shirt, I thank them both and go to the receptionist to pay, braced for the worst.

“That’s fifty-one pounds, please,” she says in a chirpy voice.

I almost laugh out loud. That’s less than $80, for all that work. Eighty bucks! I once went to a doctor in New York who glanced at a growth on my eyelid, said I needed to see a specialist and charged me $150.

I gleefully pay the fifty-one pounds and head home. For the first time since my tooth broke, I can eat without pain. As soon as the numbness passes I’ll be ready to dig into a Shepherd’s pie.

Nothing crunchy in a Shepherd’s pie. Don’t want to press my luck.

Next time:  BAMBI MEETS GOODFELLAS (OR, THE BUCK STOPS HERE)  

 www.charliecarillo.co

LOOKING FOR A PIZZA THE ACTION

You miss your family and friends when you leave New York City, and the streets and the buzz and even the grime, but when a certain yearning hits there’s one thing a true New Yorker misses above all else:

John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street.

I’ve brought out-of-towners to John's and they've fallen to their knees upon that first bite - ecstatic over the taste, and mournful over what they'd been missing all their lives.

Maybe it’s the coal oven, or the cheese, or the sauce...I can promise you it isn’t the decor. Dusty framed pictures of celebrities cover the walls, which haven’t tasted paint since the earth cooled.

Nobody cares. Anyone can paint a wall. Pizza like this is a gift from the gods.

A few weeks ago I could stick my head out the kitchen window of my Greenwich Village apartment, look to the left and shout my order for a half-plain, half-meatball pie - that’s how close John’s was. My security blanket.

Now I’m living in a British suburb. It’s a rainy night, and I’m in full mozzarella withdrawl, but John’s doesn’t bother delivering around the block, much less across an ocean.   What I need is a Sicilian sponsor to call and talk me through this crisis, or maybe an A.A. meeting (Anchovies Anonymous.)

What can I do?

Well, not far from where we live is a grocery store that stays open late, and a desperate thought crosses my mind:

Buy a frozen pizza, and hope for the best.

My British wife, a longtime fan of John’s Pizza, isn’t crazy about the idea.

“It’ll be dodgy,” Kim predicts. "Dodgy" is one of those great British words with a variety of negative meanings.  In short, if something "dodgy" is coming your way, dodge it. Especially a frostbitten pizza.  But I'm refusing to give up.

“I think it’s worth a shot, Kim."

“I’ll be having a salad tonight, then.”

Off I go to the shop, full of hope and doubt. There’s a variety of pizzas in the deep freeze, and I use the time-honored “eenie-meenie-miney-moe” method to choose one.

I bring it home and take it out of the cardboard box. Oh boy.  It looks like a forgotten Frisbee that’s blown off the roof after a long, relentless winter.

I turn it in my hands, rap it with my knuckles. The crust is thicker than the soles of my running shoes. Cheese flakes resembling bits of asbestos fall to the floor.

“What do you think?” I ask Kim as she recoils from the Non-John’s pizza.
 
“Don’t let Bailey get it,” she replies.

Translation: Dispose of it in the outdoor garbage pail, where our chocolate labrador retriever can’t dig it out.

Which I do on my way to the nearby Quality Fish and Chips shop, where they serve up the best cod and chips around.

Two orders of that to go, with salt and vinegar on the chips, and our evening is saved.

The lesson is obvious: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

And when in London, stay away from frozen pizza, and just let the fish and chips fall where they may.

(Next time: A DENTAL DISASTER)

 www.charliecarillo.co

BORN TO RUN

One of the best things about this London suburb is the 5 kilometer race that happens every Saturday morning in Bushy Park.
 
First of all, it’s free of charge. I gave up on Central Park races when they started charging twenty-five bucks to enter a five miler. (Hell, that’s more than a cab would cost for that distance!)

Second, it’s the most polite crowd of runners you’ll ever know. I got bumped by accident during one race and instead of grunting “sorry,” the runner actually said “I beg your pardon,” which uses up a lot more energy.

And third?  The one and only Robin Dickson, a gray-haired running guru in tinted eyeglasses that everybody seemed to know.

I first saw him about seven years ago. He was trotting through the park with half a dozen beautiful young women, a crooked grin on his face as he led the way.

“Come on, girls, let’s keep moving!” he said in his high-pitched voice as the giggly gaggle breezed past.

And I said to myself: I have got to meet this man!

Turns out Robin was retired from whatever job he’d had and spent his days in the park, coaching young runners. Mostly attractive female runners, it seemed to me.

“I train them gratis!” he told me. “Free of charge! That way, I don’t have to listen to their parents. Can’t stand the parents! They think they know all about running, and they don’t!”

He didn’t suffer complainers, either.

“Aches and pains are part of it!” he’d tell runners who bellyached. “Wait ‘til you’re my age, you’ll see!”

Sometimes months would pass between my visits to London, and I figured Robin might have forgotten me.

Wrong. He’d spot me and come trotting over to shake my hand before the start of the race.

“How you doin,’ Charlie?”

I’d grab my flabby midsection. “Trying to get rid of this New York City pizza, Robin.”

“Yes, yes, you don’t want that...”

I couldn’t beat him. He had about fifteen years on me, but he was as light as a coyote and had logged enough miles to circle the equator. Invariably, he’d pass me around the halfway mark.

“Well done, Charlie!” he’d puff as he went by, and I’d think: Some day, I’ll outrun that guy....

So I make the move to London and one of the first things on my checklist is the Bushy Park race.

I look for Robin at the starting line, where more than a thousand Brits stand ready to run. No sign of him. Then the bearded guy in charge of the race lifts his bullhorn.

I’m expecting the usual entertaining warning about herds of deer grazing near the two kilometer mark, but not this time.

“We are deeply saddened,” he says, “by the loss of our good friend, Robin Dickson, who passed away last Saturday...”

What the hell???

He goes on to say that Robin was 73, then speaks of his innumerable accomplishments as a runner and a coach, but I’m too numb to really listen.

I would have expected Robin to outlive us all. I also would have expected a little time to grieve, but that British “stiff upper lip” deal is not a myth.

You simply get on with it, as the English say. It’s either run or get trampled.

So the race starts on time as always and I run, thinking about Robin with every stride. We weren’t close friends, and I’d never so much as gone out for coffee with him, so why does this hit me so hard?

Because he was always delightful, and the list of people who are always delightful is mighty short , and now it's even shorter.

When I cross the finish line Kim is waiting for me with Bailey.

“Well done!” Kim says. “Did you find Robin?”

I shake my head. “Robin’s dead.”

“What?!”

I realize I sound like a character from a Quentin Tarantino movie. I should have broken the news more gently, but I’m still stunned, not to mention out of breath.

“Robin died last Saturday,” I explain. “They made an announcement at the starting line.”
 
“Oh, my God....”

Robin, you truly were born to run. Saturday mornings will never be the same without you.

That I can tell you gratis - free of charge.

(Next time: LOOKING FOR A PIZZA THE ACTION)

 www.charliecarillo.co