October 11, 2002
New York City Dinner Party
When I get there, there's a long hallway like a cattle chute in a slaughterhouse, and I find myself being compelled down it -- nodding at introductions -- down to the end of the hall where there is this guy blocking the door to the living room. "Good to meet you," he says, and it is disarming because he means it, deeply. He is one of those people who couldn't be disingenuous if he tried; one of those guys who would get his hand stuck in the drawer of a roll-top desk while everyone hung around in the kitchen, and you'd have to get the Vaseline out and try and pry him free and even then it would be unlikely that he would have a bad thing to say about anything. He is impossible not to like.
I'm not there for two-minutes before I'm back outside in the rain with the guy-who's-too-nice and Dave because we need to go buy crackers and cheese and more beer. I'm trying to get the names straight in my head because this dinner party appears to be attended by mostly beautiful women, and really want to get the names right. Just for future reference.
"They all have boyfriends," Dave says, and I say "Yes, but I'm here," which is silly, but self-delusion goes a long way in these wet times.
Back in the apartment the beautiful women work in the kitchen and I sit talking to the nice guy. Christ he is nice. Is he being serious? I can't tell.
"I used to live here," he says, "for a few weeks before Dave moved in."
"Why did you leave?"
"Ha... I know... it's crazy... I'm the fifth Beatle." I can't imagine why anyone would leave this place. It is a beautiful apartment right off the park, inhabited by beautiful women who, as far as I can tell, are fantastic cooks. If I ever lived here I would become their manservant and serve them nobly until I died, not once expressing my love and devotion.
"You have to be a girly-guy to live here." He says. "Well maybe not girlie, but quiet and unassuming. Like Dave. As soon as I met him I knew he'd be ok. I'm a girly guy myself, but it was too much for me."
One of the women comes in and asks what we want to listen to. She is wearing a tan dress and a tan shirt and she is built, if it's not too vulgar, to break men's hearts.
"The soundtrack for monsoon wedding?' and Dave says, "Yes, Alex here is a big fan of the subcontinent."
Then they are off again and cooking and I realize that dinner hasn't been served and I've already had three beers.
There are more guests -- a landscape architect and her husband, a comic book illustrator. They are expecting a baby, they are fixing up a house nearby, they are floating away with a batch of balloons over the foggy Brooklyn skyline.
Then the food arrives and I find myself stuck next to the litter-box, behind the candelabra, surrounded by the strange men who are at the dinner party. I'm too far away from the beautiful women, but I can make out their arms and legs and flashes of smiles between the candles and wine bottles. The food is amazing. It includes apples and fish and sausage and blue cheese and bacon. This shouldn't taste this good, I think to myself. These foods, in this combination, should be a disaster. But they aren't.
After dinner everyone moves and I get a chance to chat with a girl with a rose tattooed on her arm and a girl who looks like Meg Ryan's cool little sister. They are making plans for a party that will be unlike any party anyone has ever seen. They know a bartender whose star is on the rise. They will have photographers there. It will make you feel like somebody fantastic just to come in and have a glass of scotch. The two know one another, and they talk in a pidgin of innuendo and half phrases. I want to climb on the ceiling and sing.
Then we are being shown the door, and I'm downstairs and outside in the rain and then on the subway talking with Dave's girlfriend. "Is it true," I ask, 'that you baked a cake for the queen's birthday, and that they gave you a medal for it?"
"Yes," she says, "but it really wasn't a big deal."
"Are you kidding"?
"Well... I guess it was a big deal.'
"You and Dave have to have me over and cook the queen's birthday cake."
Across from us the girl with the rose tattoo and the Meg Ryan's cuter sister are stretched out across the subway seats talking and I'd like to go with them somewhere for a drink, but I'm broke.
After they got off at their stops I tried to imagine what the Queen's birthday cake would taste like, but all I can come up with is chalk.
---
Meanwhile. I don't like the story below, and I don't plan to finish it, but I think I should leave it here to remind of what I'm not trying to do.
