We'll Meet Again?

Gosh, I sure hope that place hasn’t closed down.

There’s a Chinese restaurant on Lexington Avenue that may or may not have shut down due to the coronavirus nightmare.

My auntie was passing the place on the bus last week and she said it looked like it had gone out of business.

I checked their website and they say they’ll be closed until January, which I hope is legit and not a delayed death knell.

I’m not going to mention the name of this place until I nail down the facts, but let us pray they reopen in the New Year.

This restaurant holds a special place in my heart beyond the bill of fare because this is where I had my third—and so, far, last—sighting of David McCallum.

A child of the Sixties, I first came to know this actor when he portrayed Ilya Kuryakin in the spy show The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

He’s starred in such classics as The Great Escape, A Night to Remember, Billy Budd, and The Greatest Story Ever Told, where he played Judas Iscariot. He also played Dr. Mallard in the TV show NCIS, and in 1957—the year I was born—he appeared in five movies.

But I’ve also seen David McCallum in the flesh on three separate occassions over a roughly 30-year period.

It may sound like slow motion stalking, but, I swear each time it was just a coincidence.

The first time was in 1975 when I was a freshman at Hunter College. I was walking down Lexington Avenue with a fellow student from my theater class when we saw McCallum pushing a baby carriage out of a store.

“And it’s David McCallum!” my shameless companion shouted like a game show host.

The actor gave us a polite nod and went about his business, we continued our walk, and I eventually stopped hanging out with that classmate.

Okay, that was nice, but not terribly surprising in a city like New York, given all the actors and celebrities who live here. I mentioned the sighting to a few friends and then forgot about it.

This time I was attending a performance of Alan Ayckbourn’s Communicating Doors, in which McCallum played a house detective in a rather freaky hotel where people travel through time as they walk through the doors connecting two rooms.

'Open Channel D'

I had arrived at the theater in early and while I was walking around the neighborhood I saw a familiar face coming my way.

Yes, it was David McCallum. He apparently didn’t remember me from our earlier encounter—or maybe he did.

In any case, our eyes met for a moment, he quickly looked away and I honestly can’t blame him. You don't know what kind of loon might be eyeballing you.

I took my seat in the theater, enjoyed the play, told a few people about my second McCallum encounter and, once again, forgot about it.

And then there was the night at the Chinese restaurant.

This was sometime in the early 2000s. I believe my family and I had gone to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and we were looking for a place to eat.

While we were sitting at our table, we noticed a man at the cash register picking up a takeout order.

“That guy looks familiar,” one of us said.

“Is that…?”

Yes, indeed, it was. We all sat and watched Mr. McCallum pay for his order and leave.

It’s been about 15 years since that last run-in and I’m starting to feel the itch, especially now with this godawful lockdown.

How am I going to accidentally run into this guy again if the restaurants and theaters are closed?

I don’t feel right about actively looking for him because it’s creepy and because it would be planned, which means it wouldn't have the magic of fate behind it.

The world has changed so much since 1975 and the time has flown by so quickly that I feel like those characters in Connecting Doors. Walk through a door and its 20 years later.

Between the Covid-19 and the demented political situation, we don’t know what’s going to happen next.

But if I ever do see David McCallum again, maybe I’ll finally say something to him.

Hell, after all this time, we’re practically old friends.