I spent the entire afternoon cleaning out the aquarium after the fatal event. Gone were my precious guppies. The aquarium was in the fireplace of my W. 24th Street apartment. I was not going to go through the fish route again, so I figured Christmas is around the bend, so I put a weighted plastic Nativity set in the place of fish.

It was Halloween. My roomie, Bobby, came home from his day job and saw me putzing with the baby Jesus. I had to put pennies in the base to give it more weight. Bobby says, "god! That's a scream!" "Shut up, you killed the fish, you murderer you", says I.

Bobby was a bit flaky, and my friends referred to him as Holly Go Lightly. A carefree 21 year old, also obsessed with the theatre.

"Is the bar open?" he inquired.

"Around here the bar is never closed, make me a drink too."

After a drink, and the baby Jesus is secure, Holly Go Lightly goes in the kitchen and comes out with a rolling pin.

"Can I borrow this?" "Sure", and he disappeared into the bedroom. I thought, hmmm, that's new!

I put a record on, the one everyone was listening to at the time and sang along.

Nice to see you, dearie...
How have you been keeping? -
Helps to keep it cheery...
Toby!
God! That's good.

And then the baby Jesus starts to rise and is now floating on top. Not since Lourdes, thought I. This time, I stuff it with quarters. As I am doing this, out comes Holly Go Lightly in full drag. I nearly spit out my drink. I dropped the baby Jesus. There she was in the middle of my living room. Mrs. Lovett in full Sweeney Todd attire! He did such a magnificent job with the wig, make-up and dress. I keeled over on the floor.

"Are you going out like that?" "Yeah, I'm working tonight."

He worked part-time at a great piano bar called Marie's Crises down in the Village. It's a place where people gather around a piano and sing Broadway tunes. Mrs. Lovett was going to sling drinks that night in full drag with my rolling pin.

I watched from my window as he walked down the block in this crazy attire as everyone stared and laughed.

The last I saw of him was on the corner of 9th Avenue and 24th Street. Crazy Mrs. Lovett waving a rolling pin in the air to hail a cab!