Was the best of Times Square. Charles Dicken’s Nicholas Nickleby play came from England to New York. Margaret loved Dickens. Her sister Annie lived outside the ‘City’ in New Jersey. We lived in Chapel Hill. “Let’s go!”
Was the worst of times. A ticket cost $100. First time, 1981, Broadway had charged that much. You bought a theater seat to sit for eight and a half hours. Plus intermission dinner at Toots Shore for three would cost more than a MacDonald’s cheeseburger. And these sisters weren’t teetotalers.
Even worse, after I bought the tickets Margaret broke out in shingles across her midriff. But Dickens’ readers thrive on misery, and she wasn’t going to miss eight-and-a-half hours of suffering—even if I could find a buyer to pay $300 for our purchased tickets.
And there was a buyer. As we stood in line to enter the afternoon performance I saw the lady with the sign. “Will pay $200 for a single ticket.”
I did the math. $200 would pay for the sisters’ tickets. I would still be out $100, and more when I met the ladies at Toots. But for $3 I could go for a movie up the street–back when you could walk New York streets safely at night–with a catchy name, something like Best Little Bungalow in Texas.
The sisters saw the lady’s $200 sign also. They must have seen my eyes turning over like a hand-held Texas Instruments calculator. Gist of their look was “you won’t be sleeping in New Jersey tonight, IF…”
Dickens’ Nicholas is a poor boy–like nearly all characters in his books who haven’t lost their heads–who makes rich. Would Nickelby have sold my ticket for $200?
Photo by Stuart Monk at Shutterstock
