I was caught up short by the entries in my “week at a glance” calendars from 2019 and 2020. Yes, as usual I made a post-Christmas Staples run and got my new paper calendars, and no judgement — please — on the fact that I still use analog scheduling tools.

This morning I started making the switch, inserting the new calendar leaves into my ancient leather-bound (no vegan vinyl for me!). I peaked through the entries from 2019 and 2020.

My heart sank. There were entries for birthday parties, business meetings. Piano lessons at Juilliard. Wine and cheese karaoke gatherings. Religious services. A Florida winter vacation. Paris vacation planning (and cancellation). Opera performances. Restaurant reservations. In-person readings of my work.

There were reminders of the Kahlo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Dinner party plans. Visits to Yankee Stadium. Library book return reminders. Dinner at Yonkers Raceway (don’t ask!). Pick up dry cleaning!!! CAR INSPECTION DUE!!!

Nothing super big. Nothing super fancy. Just the social and cultural glue of a New Yorker, middle-class life. I kept turning pages, memories of a recent past. But then came December of 2019.

Life got worse. Travel plans to Pikesville (the funeral for my BIL’s mother, who was an integral part of the clan). Trips to the Atria for my MIL. Doctor appointments for MIL. She fell, again. A trip to the hospital, in the midst of a pandemic. A positive test.

Hospice reminders for my MIL. FaceTime goodbyes. Funeral arrangements for my MIL.

May to November: where was I? What did we do? I can’t remember, even reading reminders from a long-term sleepwalk. Cancellations for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. When was the last time I saw my son? Really? I don’t remember.

Today, the suspended animation of a once-vibrant life. It’s Sunday? It’s December?

In ancient times, mankind hovered in the dark of their caves, built fires, and prayed that they’d survive to the light of day.

What, if anything, has changed?

All we can do is wait it out, and hold each other tight.

—

You’re gonna love it. It’s “A Shoebox Full of Money” — my second collection of short stories that take place in, and around, New York City. (OK, one story takes place in Heathrow Airport. So, sue me.)

You’ll meet gamblers, weird little kids, handball champions, old ladies and their burned-out, adult children, Vietnam vets, IT experts, a Miss America winner, Jaco Pastorius, The Beatles, Tolentine parishioners, a flight attendant for Emirates, a Carlyle club singer, schoolyard b-ballers, even a Brooklyn-based, Beaufort-born, sorceress.

Twenty stories, some set back then — and some set right now. If you like The Real New Yorkers, you’ll be right at home with “A Shoebox Full of Money”.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to these folks, and then click on the link below:

“Martin Kleinman weaves powerful stories in distinctly diverse New York accents and ring true to this New Yorker. I enjoyed, and will treasure, every one of them.”

–Fernando Ferrer, former Borough President of The Bronx, and two-time New York City mayoral candidate

“Kleinman’s latest collection gently rocks between essay and fiction, and will show you how a New York Tuesday is different than any other Tuesday. With tales full of wit and nostalgia, Kleinman opens up the doors to his home, his museums, his bodegas, his street corners. If there ever was a time when one could use a “Shoebox Full of Money”, it is now.”

–Kate Hill Cantrill, Author of Walk Back From Monkey School

“Martin Kleinman’s short story collection is a treasure trove of riches. It’s all perfect – not a false note anywhere. By the time you’ve finished the book, you will have gone through a sea-change yourself, into a fuller consciousness. Not to be missed!”

–Ron Kolm, editor of Sensitive Skin and author of Swimming in the Shallow End

“Reading Martin Kleinman’s A Shoebox Full of Money is like slow-dancing to a love song by La Lupe. His poignant stories are remembrances of life, love, and loss.”

–Angel Franco, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist

“A Shoebox Full of Money is real city life itself, with all its sights, sounds, complexities, pain, and glory. You will recognize your friends, your relatives, your nabe, and most of all, yourself.”

–Gary Axelbank, host of BronxTalk and the Bronx Buzz on BronxNet, and publisher of thisistheBronX

The sky is grey, the temperature is below freezing, the dirty snow streets are dotted with dog pee.

Welcome to another New York City winter!

But this one is unlike any other in my memory. We hunker down, captured by Covid, and tune into our information silos, run by content masters intent on retaining viewers via non-stop infuriation. The pressure builds until we explode/implode. We write a venomous social media post, down another pour of booze, eat another batch of cookies.

Death stalks us, walks amongst us, hides in the shadows, flicks our earlobes for attention.

Four decades ago, Christmas Eve meant a frantic call from Long Island. My father in law was taken to the hospital, where he died of a heart attack at 70. Three packs a day will do that. Well, to be fair, three packs plus a sedentary lifestyle, plus the impact of his young son’s tragic death two years earlier.

I remember racing to the hospital from Jackson Heights. I remember the crying. I remember seeing his lifeless body on a gurney with a white sheet over him. I remember being asked to call my sister in law to tell her the news.

The relationship between this man and my wife, his older daughter, was complicated. On the plus side: they shared intellectual curiosity and an accrued wealth of knowledge. On the negative side: he delivered decades of mental and physical abuse.

Forty years is a long time. So long that my wife forgot to light a memorial candle for her long-dead dad this year. Another 2020 “first”.

The yahrzeit candle for her dad would flicker on our apartment walls at holiday time, in cruel mimicry of a Channel 11 Yule Log. But not this year. This year, we mourn other, more recent, deaths. My MIL, taken in April by Covid. My BIL’s mom, taken a year ago. My son’s bestie, taken at 33 last March by Covid. On deck: my mother, with late-stage cancer and a positive test.

I’m told it might rain this Christmas, which I suppose would be only fitting for this shit-show of a year. What else could possibly go wrong? A bungled vaccine distribution? Holiday-fueled super-spreader events that hasten our demise? Imposition of martial law? A Russian hack of our electrical grid? Sure, bring it on. Why not?

Top of the world, ma!