This afternoon I arrived at 387 in Clinton Hill and discovered my iPad was missing from my bag. I had had it at the Cafe Mogador in the East Village. Raoul and I had shared a coucous merguez. I hadn’t that Arab dish in ages. It was delicious as was the rest of our meal, but I wasn’t thinking about the good food, but that I once more had lost something. Vaguely recollecting putting it on the floor, I called the restaurant and the hostess said that they hadn’t found the device, although I got the feeling she hadn’t bothered to look.
Drat.
I searched the apartment thoroughly three more times, hoping for the iPad to magically appear.
Not a chance.
After modeling clothing for WAIF magazine, I descended to Myrtle Avenue and crossed the street to my phone server.
“What now?” asked the manager with lifted eyes, since I had to replace two phones the past month. I explained my dilemma. Rashen explained that my iPad was uninsured, however the replacement cost was $250 and said I had to think about it, because my funds were very low.
“You do that.”
Walking back to 387 I cursed myself for being so absentminded about my material possessions, hearing my Irish Nana saying, “If you lose something, it wasn’t yours to begin with.”
The famed anarchist Proudhon said something equally dismissive.
“All possession is theft.”
I’ve lost countless things throughout my life, although nothing as important as my water-logged wooden toy boat and one-eyed teddy bear in Maine. Hundreds of eye glasses, sets of keys, leather jackets and on a 2021 trip to see the Rolling Stones in Detroit a Russian fur hat and THE MC5’s Live LP. Losing my iPad was just another thing, then I rerecalled the bag at my feet and once more phoned Mogador. I had left the St. Mark’s cafe only an hour earlier.
Back in the 1980s I had lived with young Candida at the Paris artist commume La Ruche. Across Impasse Dantzig was the city’s Bureau des Objets Trouves et Perdues. I lost plenty of objects and reported the losses the next day at the office of objects lost and found. Once a month I would cross the street to ask about them. A functionaire checked the shelves lined with the wallets, jackets, and glasses. He returned and say, “Rien, Mssr.”
I didn’t bother to report my losing the love of Candida, although we still see each other in Paris.
Back in my fourth floor apartment I again called Mogador. A man answered and said he would take a look. Within a minute he said, “Yes, it’s here.”
“Thank you for looking.” I thought retrieving tomorrow, but it was early in the evening and the East Village was only a few train stops away. “I’ll come for it shortly.”
Thirty minutes later my iPad was back in my hands.
A miracle, but Lazurus II is used to miracles.
ps I lost and found the next day.