A recent short story

In any case, she was, according to Prankert, said to have said just what we thought all along (or so it was reported in the Columbus Dispatch the month before).  For all the maneuvers to stall the process that you and I―and they―know well enough, the conclusion was arrived at (not counting time and time again the “end runs” summarized in detail by Dr. Alan Ben-Combe out of Rutgers University, now in the private sector in an interim-based capacity, not so much a liaison chief as a, what they call, “liaising proponent developer”) to the effect of canning the enterprise from top to bottom. Wilkis Andreues, as you well know, never denied that he had failed to acknowledge―nor even conceded any avowal of a lack of ignorance on his part (or on the part of his staffers) about―the various discrete elements that, all told, consequent upon even the most rudimentary dot-connection imaginable (correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m sure you’ll agree), came together to “ramp up” what became known after the fact (at least by the Wall Street Journal op-ed crowd) as the Features.

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way at this juncture: Neither do you nor do I know what kind of tree the branch outside my 4^th story window belongs to; though being a branch at a 4^th story level, it must be one damned tall tree.  After some two years and 17 months assigned to this “field office” where cross-town affiliations are buffered for contingency, I still don’t know, and apparently, neither do you. And what does that say about people like you and me...?  I can, withal, appreciate it after a fashion.  For here, looking sidelong out that same window, a cup of coffee in my hand, raised occasionally, almost as an afterthought, to my lips for a brown-study sip, it has tickled me more than once how picture-perfect is the resemblance of this side street in lower west Manhattan, with its rows of facing brownstones, poplar trees (plus the as yet nameless tree outside my window), very few pedestrians, and sedately parked sedans here and there to some of those little cul-de-sac-like pen-and-ink scratch art drawings in the corners of pages of The New Yorker (at least in its golden age, circa 1959-1979). But enough diversions: Back to business, so they say. First off, has Margaret Knowles contacted us yet? About the Stammerschonn contract. You know, Singapore? Well, get your girl―what’s her name... Janet, Janice, Jacqueline, Jessie, Joan, Jean, June...?―to locate the file; you may have to whistle down a bike-messenger and pull some strings, figuratively speaking, but it’d be worth your while.  Whiles are worth a lot these days, and you and I are not so different that yours are, all things considered and generally speaking (caveats aside), worth any less than mine. Hang on, a late April breeze picked up, apparently, leading to a bumblebee nosing around my 4^th-story window about that branch of which we were speaking, and before long (which doesn’t mean it didn’t take its sweet time, relative to my admittedly manic attention span) getting in through a crack. I pause, coffee cup in mid stride, eye the bee as it bobs and weaves over to the far side of the room.  I focus, even train my consideration upon it.  The decision comes to me, at least in principle, and I guess it’s preoccupied over there for now, and I can return my mind to my recent thought, while doing so most conducively, looking like I’m looking out the window, coffee cup readied and steadied at half mast at a comfortable elbow crook. Where was I?

Lord knows this situation is (as most situations are) a concatenation (maybe plain old “mess”, as the financialist Stu Whitmare, an old classmate of Louis Ruykeyser’s, put it at the gala banquet in Baltimore last July, which would be more accurate) of a multitude of factors, some not even related to the others―and none, as far as can be told, contingent on the actuarial statistics; yet one of them being filterability.  Now that would be a presentation sure to flag the attention of the suits in the Off-Beltway, I suppose, as I solicit another sip of now nearly lukewarm coffee, looking off into the leafy, now and then sun-dappled distance, where a red car is pulling into a spot not so tight.  Is that―?  I’ll be damned it is―an Edsel!  1961, I’d hazard the guess, knowing my cars a mite better than my trees.  Yes, my mind remarks to myself, in a curiously absent presence of itself: Nursing a half cup of coffee while looking askant through mildly fluttering leafage out a window of a 4^th story corner office somewhere between Tribeca and Soho, verging on but―it’s safe to say―not quite in Lower Manhattan (occupying that neat yet indicible limbo somewhere between Bohemian and Swank), and supposing, short of a decision, during one of those moments of some indefinite late afternoon on a Thursday, knowing you’re not coming in on Friday or (for that matter) Monday, do go together as few things in life do―

I meant to tell Regina to feel free to rearrange any pieces of the furniture or—hell, even and/or—items of paraphernalia in my head she sees fit; but it’s now past 4:00 (well past, in point of fact), and the moment has passed―

Doug Delgado from Mergers (but not Acquisitions) came by for some reason, and we got to talking about the history of jazz, there in the hallway by my open door.  We won’t drop any obvious names, other than to mention for a refreshing change at least that Red Garland and Gerald Wilson did come up, if only in passing.  Not the usual names that come up in conversations like that.  Usually, it’s straight to Miles, Coltrane and, if you’re lucky, Cannonball Adderley or Thelonious Monk.

“What was it you came by for, Doug?”

He hung in mid-air for a second or two.

“I’m not sure―” and laughed.  The potted plant nearby, a silver & lemon glazed affair, and the chic bric-a-brac of our suite interiors, designed by Lauren Metcalf of Sentinel Interiors Ltd.―appearing warmly cluttered (almost Christmassy, even if out of season) in this rather narrow hallway that led eventually (though out of sight here) to a rather quaint staircase befitting more an upper-crust antique store perhaps―were offset nicely by his loud yellow paisley tie, orange-gold vest, and something like a deep maroon, but bordering on umber, dress shirt, open at the collar (as the tie―itself a loud pink―was undone a notch).  What are you, Sonny Bono or Doc Severinsen? I recall once quipping to him for his rather flamboyant threads.

“Well,” I concluded, “when it comes back to you, let me know. I’ll be around for a while, won’t be leaving before 5:35ish.”

“That’s right―you have that gallery opening at six to get to, the one your ex’s fiancé landed a nice grant for―”

“Seven o’clock actually.  But yeah, it’ll be nice to see Megan―”

“What is it, two years now―?”

“Three―in May; May 3^rd, to be exact―”

“Well,” Doug Delgado said, saluting me with his Styrofoam cup of tea with the bag still hanging out of it, which must have been tepid by now, if not room temperature, “have fun.  Wish I could  make it myself!”

“Make it where―?”wondered Hélène (not ‘de Troie’ as the more literate guy on our team, Maurice Flapp, once joked), when Doug Delgado passed her going off the other way down the hall back to his office.  He stopped in his tracks and turned his head around with a wicked grin, but I nipped that in the bud.

“You will not start belting out New York, New York―!”

With a laugh he put his hands up in a mock under-arrest charade, not even spilling his tea, before turning back around on his way.

“Oh,” I said, and answered her question. “The Sadie Kaplan exhibit at the Panache.”

“Sadie Kaplan―isn’t she the lesbian who uses her body with neon lights as her artwork―?”

“That’s the one.”

“Sounds interesting, I guess,” she said, somewhat distracted, and without any follow-up (not that one was needed) headed around the even narrower corner past Sid Mintaugh’s darkened office (currently out of the office on a flight to San Francisco) to the blind ell where three pastel painted doors―set in walls painted impeccably frost cobalt blue―abutted on each other in a surreal cramp worthy of an Escher sketch, to hand off the folders she held under her arm to the steno temp person they’d hired who often was tagged by sub-departments to slave away in the ‘Xerox room’ sandwiched between a half-restroom and a mysteriously banal supply closet.

I glanced the other way down the empty main hall and seeing no one to collar for more chit-chat, moseyed back to my own office like I had all the time in the world (and in a way, I did, for now).  On a side-table resembling more a counter bolted into the wall I kept a grey ball of rubberized polymer possessing astronomic resiliency, which I picked up now to toss up repetitively and catch on energetically athletic slaps as I paced the floor, gleaming red wood draped in a rug shaped like a landing strip and decorated with Mandelbrot paisleys.  The phone on the desk buzzed, it was a landline so I couldn’t access the call via the wireless device hooked on my belt.  Our office still used landlines, as we were trying to freeze the years at 1999, and for the most part succeeded.  On one final percussive seizure of the ball in mid-air I reached down with my other hand to grab hold of the receiver before the fifth ring, and it was a good thing, too, since Cynthia would inform me of a visitor in the lobby at that moment, a guy I hadn’t seen in 17 years, Drew Lintire, long ago estranged, once pretty good friends back in the day. So much so, I drew a blank when Cynthia repeated his name, and I stood there wondering should I go downstairs or should I have her send him up…? 

“Phil…?” (We had our secretaries address us informally on a first name basis; that’s the kind of atmosphere we cultivated.). 

“Thanks, I’ll take care of it.”

On the way down, speaking of not seeing someone for a long time, Renate passed me on the way up carrying what looked like a cardboard box of pastries or something.  Spinach pies maybe, like tarts…?

“These are tomato quiches, for Sam’s office party…”

I didn’t think I was going; I didn’t know Sam that well, as she worked for the adjacent concern with only an infrequent relation to our firm.  It was good nonetheless to see Renate again after what was it, two months…?

“Something like that; Steve still talks about that handball game you guys had at the Y…”

“Oh yeah…?”

“Well, I don’t mean he literally talks about it all the time―but he’s mentioned it once or twice; and when he did the last time, this past weekend at Holt’s dinner party, Frida Rank said she recognized you. You know her…?”

I did―I do―but wasn’t looking to get mired in such details and left it on a vaguely bright note of casual breeze.  She for her part didn’t want the tomato quiches to get cold anyway, so it was just as well―a triter win-win one could only with extra effort imagine.

“Drew…?”

“Phillip!”

(He’d always called me that, I remembered.)

“I never pegged you for a colored binder-clasp person…”

I’d forgotten I was carrying a folder with colored binder-clasps attached―more than necessary, as an example I wanted to show Gerty over at the Random Integers Specialist division.

“Oh this―yeah, it’s just for a show and tell I thought I was going to do today…”

“Have you got maybe 20 minutes you can squeeze in…?”

I checked my Mickey Mouse watch for no good reason, since my time―today especially―was largely discretionary.

“Yeah sure.  I know a good sandwich place around the corner.”

To describe our meeting as uneventful would be an understatement―not that anything else that happened today, for that matter, distinguished itself as remarkable.  The day was typical in that way, almost as though discrete events, circumstances and contexts were arranged as panes of a 3-D construction in papier-mâché and stolider cardboard, some corrugated, some smooth and seamlessly white without a threat of their underlying factory-issue brown.  Pre-arranged, discrete, at angles, posed in mid-air thus establishing the third dimension (though that would be an odd way of seeing it, admittedly).  The waitress―not really a waitress, per se, more like a person who worked there facilitating the relationship between the food preparer and the customer’s orders―was one of those brunettes you think of as mildly attractive, as though they were founded as a baseline for such a standard; and yet it was sufficiently mild, it almost didn’t count.  Her thin lips and boring eyebrows may have had something to do with it―as well as her ordinary hands, hands you could stare at intently and not be able to detect even the slightest erotic suggestion…  Needless to say, we can bracket out oafs who would blurt out that “I’d do her…!” and redirect our attention to a more considerate and sophisticated appraisal by which one can observe her almost odd metric of being at once appealing and yet blasé.  Sure, Drew agreed, I can sort of get that, but isn’t it kind of subjective when you think about it…?  Well, I rejoined, even if it is, so what?  It’s either a thing (to talk about) or not…  Hmmm, he said, chewing on that, even as he also chewed on his Monte Cristo sandwich with a pickle attached.  When he got his full mouth under sufficient control, irrigated with a swig of his ginger ale, he asked the obvious―albeit not really earth-shattering―question.

“Do you find her attractive…?”

“I guess I’d have to say yes and no…  It’s almost like if I were making out with her―necking as they used to say―and I was getting to second base (the night is young), I’d feel like I’d have to think about why I’d want to act out my attraction on her physically―it wouldn’t just spontaneously bubble up, so to speak…”

“Not sure I follow, pardner…”

I concluded that maybe it wasn’t worth picking apart anymore, since at the end of the day, it’s a subjective and relative thing, even if I kind of implied there was some generality―if not universality―there to explore.  Oh well.  Took a huge chomp from my whitefish sandwich, washed it down with my beer.

“Wish I could drink a beer in the middle of my work day…”

“Who’s stopping you…?”

“Well, you know what I mean…”

The paradoxically un/attractive girl came by to whisk away our ware and asked if we were all set.  We said yes, we were ready to pay the check―which I insisted was on me.  She smiled with those thin, prim lips and left us to leave.  What Drew wanted involved a project whose contours one could map out in diverging directions, to the point of a synergy of perspectives worthy of a PowerPoint™ presentation, were one―or some committee―so disposed to think an in-sourced launch date for such useful.  Something to do with the contextual incapacity of the symbolic capital inherent in an office culture of ‘impression management’ given the outsourcing of consulting firms, whose stats based in bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals he promised to fax over by the end of next week.  Had it not been me he asked―and had it not been him who asked me―it likely would have become consigned to a request that forever inhabited in-boxes but never saw the light of day.  We exchanged business cards―his was glossy blue with electric lime lettering, mine was conventional matte white with black typeface―and I promised him more or less to be in touch.  Outside we parted ways.  The establishment was but 3 doors down on the same side of the street.  The two other doors belonged to a dry cleaner’s (of course) and some other venue I honestly had no idea what it was.  When one pauses before its entrance―one looks at the door and its window and for the life of one cannot divine what exactly is supposed to be done there.  So far I’ve never seen anyone inside, or enter or leave.  It hit me that although there was a seam between it and us―sort of an alleyway so narrow it was but a matter of mere centimeters apart―maybe one of our offices or storage closets on that side offered some form of contiguity and maybe even a view of some open window.  Some day maybe I’d find out.

Are these yours…?

That was Shirl who sometimes manned the front desk (such as it was, not that we really needed one), referring to the binders I’d left before having the lunch of sorts with my caught-up friend.

Thanks Shirl!  How was that concert by the way―was it marching bands or something…?

It was great!  Yup, it was my niece’s marching band, junior high.  They did ‘Turk’ by Fleetwood Mac…!  And a lot of other stuff I can’t remember now…

Milt Filbert and Joyce Kinnear interrupted us―not that we were embroiled in anything of substance, and anyway, we probably were relieved (if only mildly) that our small talk had a natural closure forced upon it, as it were―to bring up the benchmark premiums we were going to float at the next sit-down (which ironically most of the time I’d stand through, particularly if they were under 20 minutes, which they usually were).  I said that sounds good and shuffled back up the stairs to my office to while out my last hour or so.  On the brick wall where the staircase crooked up was hung an oil painting, an abstract rendering of ‘Man of La Mancha’ in pleasingly tan and yellow pigments with a nice juicy orange sun surrounded by concentric haches of white.  I noticed for the first time the frame was ever so a bit askew, so I paused to correct it.  Stepped back on that small landing to make sure, figured since I’m relatively immune to OCD impulses that it was good enough, and was on my way.

“Hey Phil…”

It was the redhead from Stuyver’s team headed down the stairs―what was her name…?  Oh yeah…!

“Hey Jill…”

She lent a pleasantly pursed smile but otherwise sailed right past, and only one of those people who have that uncanny ability to detect flirtation where ostensibly there’s zero evidence for it would be able to discern if she might have showed me some kind of ‘signal’―me definitely being not one of them…  Though on the other hand, I hadn’t done so bad for myself, I guess, since I’d broken up with Megan―I’d been out on about five dates, one of them flowering (briefly) into a little affair that lasted maybe six months or so…  On the fourth and last landing (my landing) I slowed my pace as I passed Gib’s office (or at least the one he shares with Matt Draysdile) to pop my head in their open door; not for anything wildly important, just wanted to touch base and maybe shoot some shit, but their office though bathed in the ambient light of sunbeams coming in at a glorious tangent from their three broad windows was palpably vacant…  I moved on down the hall, passed someone I didn’t feel necessary to hail or even really nod to (and the feeling―if you can call it a ‘feeling’―was evidently mutual), and ducked into my half open door.  (The thought of locking our doors here at Strossen & Carruthers Creative Consulting & Dynamic Enterprising Management Services would be amusing if it even occurred to us at all, and even partners who go away on vacation or conferences more often than not leave their offices open―though no doubt locking key cabinets or drawers within, as I myself have been known to do.)

On second thought, I unducked myself back out on the thought that I could―and indeed did―take a detour around the elbow into the narrow hallway and past Sid Mintaugh’s darkened office, to flirt with the idea of looking for some connection to the building next door.  At the ‘community benchmark’ midway, however, I noticed a stack of magazines on the upper plank. The one on top caught my eye―headlined A Meteoric Neoteric? The Digital Museum at the 92^nd Street Y.  Sooner than you could say ‘procrastinate’, I’d picked it up, plopped down on the only chair in the vicinity (formed with Danish ideas of ergonomics not conducive to my body’s spinal and muscle memory, but for a few minutes and my purpose, passable enough to be largely unnoticed).  With not the greatest posture in the world, I sat partially hunched, my elbows on the arms almost too narrow for comfort, my right leg propped up on my left knee (via the fulcrum, so to speak, of my right foot).  Absent-mindedly picking out a yellow nit attached to the ankle nodule portion of my black-and-pink polka-dotted sock, I lay the magazine open to the page of the article on my leg, able to read the relatively small print with ease, my eyes blessed to be adept at sight near and far.  Indeed, at my last three optometrist’s appointments, I’d aced the eye chart test (which, perhaps for that very reason, I always found fun) and even at the spry age of 36, still had no need of glasses or eyewear at all.  If I had timed myself, I would have noted I spent a little over 7 minutes reading the article.  It was fair, though not noteworthy, containing only one nugget to retain for future reference: a parenthetical anecdote about Riley Fontainbleu, the Broadway theater critic, famous for his delightfully quirky twists of English, as when he was overheard―some say by Liv Tyler, others by Norman Mailer from (one assumes) a nearby table―at Elaine’s to have said “I’m different to pistachio ice cream”―a cleverly roundabout way of meaning he was not indifferent to it; i.e., that he liked it.  The anecdote in question was―

“Hey Phil, have you seen the Amberson folder?”

This aroused me suddenly out of my tunnel vision.  It was Mill Bryer, hugging a canary yellow folder to her sweatered breast―presumably not the Amberson folder.  The sweatered breast―and of course the sweater as a whole―was a nice baby blue crêpe with a grey cast to it, almost (but not quite) a periwinkle, nicely set off by the canary yellow folder.  Her body language indicated she wasn’t there to linger, and indeed she turned away before I answered to walk over to a nearby wall cabinet one of whose 4 metal doors was half open, and nosed around after I effectively said sorry, I hadn’t seen the folder since last Wednesday’s remote conference.  When her cursory search turned up nothing, she swiveled on her low heels and managed a thanks and farewell so minimal, it just barely scraped under the threshold of existence.  And it wasn’t because she was some shy wallflower, either.  Neither here nor there as far as I was concerned, as we hardly ever crossed paths anyway.  I reciprocated effectively in kind, more or less effortlessly conjuring up the same threadbare goodbye.  Perhaps this jogged me to close the magazine and replace it on the stack and to set about doing what I had wandered over here to do―find some access―even if only to a limited view―to the building next door.  The severely foreshortened ‘Xerox room’ seemed as good as any to start with (not that I planned some extensive project on this). 

I opened the door and switched on the light.  The temp evidently had long left for the day.  I hadn’t ever spent any observant time in that quaintly chockablock cove―I’d probably visited it 5 times in the past year, and some of those times just poking my head in to ask whatever temp was in there for something (e.g., whether they’d finished making copies of something or other I was working on at the time).  Basically, it was a cubic rectangle not by virtue of its width but of its height―insofar as its walls rose chimney-like to an unusually high ceiling, but those same walls formed a perfect square below―a severely small square at that.  There was a nice work table of brightly beige formica that extended wall to wall, where the portion at one end was not really able to be accessed other than by leaning into that corner, given that the door opened right up to it (unless, it occurred to me, the temp could enjoy a time of solitude with the door closed, knowing no one would barge in―say, after hours).  The table had some clear work space upon it (the amount of such dependent in no small part upon the habits of the temp in question), as well as a clunky 1980s desktop computer.  Directly above was an almost surreal bookcase extending literally to abut the ceiling―then continuing on the east wall where two shelves were situated contiguous to the ceiling and ending where the window began, then reappearing below the window to the floor and, if that wasn’t enough books, lining virtually the entire wall opposite where the Xerox machine sat (along with a waste paper basket and a standalone file cabinet knee-high).  The books were a dazzling array of glossy paperbacks of all sizes and colors―mostly vivid pop hues as one sees in chain book stores featuring new paperbacks you just know nobody really reads even if they may have hyperactive blurbs on their back cover and may well have been highly touted in reviews of various newspaper inserts, gazettes, or magazines―tightly packed in with no breathing space visible, without any appearance of slovenly disarray, only a kind of festively chaotic ambiance that imbued the cramped quarters with a kind of subliminally warm mood of amorphously cryptic professionalism.  This complex compression of primary colors was appositely offset by walls (what little peeked through) and ceiling painted a subdued slate blue.  For now, it was the window I was after. 

It was a long window of relatively narrow width, with two old iron levers situated near either end which by rotating clockwise (the right one) or counter-clockwise (the left one) allowed one to push a pane outward.  Though there were venetian blinds to cover it, they seemed to remain perpetually furled up, thus perpetually endowing the room with a wide strip of a brick façade immediately outside.  I walked over and peered out, I guess expecting to see something more than what I could already see on entering―essentially the brick wall of the mystery building adjacent.  Standing up close to the glass did at least afford me some leeway of peripheral vision left and right (east and west), as what faced our window was sheer brick with no windows readily apparent―until I pressed my nose against the glass (so to speak).  The brick was of a pleasantly light ocher, its construction reflecting a pleasantly antique asymmetry―not to mention that it was literally only inches away (probably no more than 4).  As I craned my head to the east, I could see what looked like 4 windows to the rear of the building.  To the west, I saw only one window, up high and toward the front.  I suppose it’s not that odd for old buildings to lack a regular framework of windows, but it still struck me as at least interesting., since I knew for a fact that on our side, we had a regular pattern of 4 windows per floor, front to back, lined up; a norm we all have become accustomed to, often if only taking it semi-consciously for granted.   Sure, we (we who haven’t lived all our lives in some rural farmland) have all seen at one time or another large sides of buildings, such as an old manufactory we notice in our absent-minded way out our driver’s side window as we drive to some destination, where the entire wall is devoid of windows (or may on closer inspection contain a window or two, long ago walled in and painted over).  But these we safely file away, as it were, in the cabinet of the back of our mind as exceptions that prove the rule.  For some reason I did not render conscious, I opened the window to stick my head out and see if I could get a better gander.  Without leaning forward more than incrementally, I could have, if I wanted to, brush my hair against the bricks of the mystery building.  I saw nothing more worth noting side to side, then glanced straight down to scrutinize the ‘alley’ (barely 5 inches wide).  It seemed to be a concrete strip with growths of weeds and possibly flowers, but I couldn’t tell for sure.  I retracted my head, secured the window closed, lent a last look around at the colorfully busy display of books left and right, then exited the room on an uneventful switch off of the light and click shut of the door. 

Ambling back to my office, I could feel our building in that telltale phase of the day, well after 5:00 pm (5:47, actually) when one could palpably sense the absence of most of the staff and workers.  Indeed, as I walked out the ell into one of the main halls up there on the 4^th floor, I could tell the entire floor was vacant―though I was open to being proven wrong (not that I cared to do so).  I guess I’d missed the ‘rush’ to get off work at ‘closing time’―probably because our company rarely had one, since most of my colleagues set their own hours anyway. It’s kind of a cozy magical feeling, especially if you don’t really have a schedule of your own, where time seems to dilate and a calm subdues the atmospherics of the office spaces.  In addition, it’s the time of day when the sun’s light bronzes and mellows as it slants in through windows (on the right side)―which it was doing when I stepped back into my office.   I didn’t have all the time in the world―and at any rate, who would want to linger in an office, no matter how nice its interiors, into the late hours of the night (let alone past midnight)…?  Excluding the serendipity of an extemporaneous office fling, of course…  Anywho, I had about an hour before I kind of had to leave―if I wanted to get to Megan’s opening, that is, which I guess I sort of did…

* * * * *

The Panache gallery, sandwiched more or less between Lower Manhattan and Chinatown, wasn’t but six blocks east from where we were situated, on Varick St., a t-bone to Laight St. and Vestry St. to our south and north, respectively.  That, and the balmy weather redolent with the promise of May blossoms in the air and the sky still imbued with the blue of day even as the sun was setting behind city canyons near and far cued me to decide to walk rather than take my car or a taxi.  Another thing―probably the real reason, to tell the truth―was a visceral need I felt to stretch my legs and clear my head; nothing to do with the prospect of seeing my ex after three years…  I said to myself, with a smirk.  Should I have brought a friend (or a date)…?  The thought hadn’t occurred to me as I tried not to think about it during the past three weeks since I received that text out of the blue from Megan:

Hey, Megs here.  I know it’s been a while, but thought you’d really dig Sadie’s show―her first big one (Finkleblatt from Chicago is supposed to make an appearance, can you believe that…!?).  It’d be nice to see you anyway.  At the Panache, 26 April, 7 pm.

As my pleasant jaunt was nearly over, I stopped in Katz’s Deli to get a ‘Reuben Wrap’ and carried it, wrapped in white paper, with me as I wolfed it down on the one block remaining to Essex St. where somewhat north of Delancey St. stood the gallery.  At first glance, it was an easily ignored hole in the wall, nestled between a haberdashery and a travel office (both by now, 6:49 p.m., darkened with closure).  Were there not a sparsely haphazard crowd milling about around the door, overseen by a tall bald black bouncer (mostly politely allowing people to sift in), the average person would have little way of knowing this was one of the most happening art galleries in Manhattan, if not all New York City, and indeed had been written up with a vibrant encomium not long ago in the New York Times Magazine (and before that, in the years since its inception in 1987, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Magazine, and Los Angeles Times ).  I’d elected to remain blithely unconcerned with my attire, basically wearing the same clothes I’d had on all day―stone-washed blue jeans, an off-cream dress shirt, a pair of raw umber leather moccasins―graced only now with my trusty sports jacket which I’d snatched off my hat tree on my way out, a houndstooth number that from a distance looked like a cross between a dusty mustard and a pastel beige yet on nearer analysis presented a complex Jackson Pollock-like tapestry of burnt orange, red, cobalt yellow and a bluish magenta; and it seemed I’d erred accidentally on mostly fitting in with the crowd going in.  I told Andy―the tall bald black bouncer, a nice guy―I was a friend of Megan Gillette, and immediately he unclipped the scarlet rope and waved me in.  No sooner than I was ushered in, I was greeted by an effervescently personable lady in her 30s who welcomed me and handed me a glass of white wine (a fine Gewürztraminer, I learned later) from a nearby tray set on a pedestal.  I thanked her, took a gingerly sip to wet my whistle, and began slowly venturing in, holding the glass of wine to my chest closely but in a fashionably relaxed manner.

The artist in question was Sadie Kaplan, an avant-garde neo-Dada creator of mixed media collages, who’d electrified the literati & glitterati years ago with her ‘body neon’ stunts, moderating her style lately to attract a broader audience, perhaps.  The first piece I encountered was mounted on a wall, not quite a painting, more like a box with a glass door attached. in which the viewer if he peered in could see various ducks―carved in wood and painted―lined up on shelves.  The card on the wall indicated its mystical title, Harold Droops.  Ooo-kay…  I said to myself under my breath, and edged along to the next in line, where two or three people had congregated to lend their admiration and pretentious observations.  This one was a form of sculpture set on a plinth, the material being some shiny metal, probably copper or bronze, partially spray-painted red, the object being, apparently, a disembodied vagina turned inside out.  Its predictable title:  Hear Me Roar.

“So provocative!” gushed a young Asian female (probably Chinese).

“A wickedly devastating commentary on the patriarchy!” noted a fawning middle-aged man with a goatee and a decidedly minty lisp.

“I see that―” intoned an elder black gentleman with intellectual grey pepper salting his balding afro,  “―but even more deeply, I intuit a play on Jungian symbology leading the viewer to a confluence of stereotypes on a chthonic level!”

As far as I was concerned, lending it a second look with one eye closed and my head tilted, it was just plain silly.  Another sip of my white wine, I moved on.  Passed a gaggle of four people who exploded in laughter after one of their number spoke an apparent punchline which meant nothing to me, (thankfully) ignorant of the context:

“…so watch out for the lung…!”

Of course, I kept moving.  Before I reached the third exhibit, I felt a squeeze and a tug on my left elbow, and turned around.

“Hey!”

It took me possibly 2.5 seconds longer than normal to Hey her back.  She looked well.

“You look well.”

“Thanks!  I was going to say the same about you!  You seem rested and relaxed.”

“Could be the wine,” I said with a straight face, holding my glass up.

“Nah,” she said kindly, “I can tell life has been good to you.”

I waved my glass around the hall, indicating vaguely the museum we were in, the museum hosting her partner’s life of art, of which she was the guiding light and an obvious beneficiary. 

“I could say the same about you…”

She shrugged the compliment off with a sincere affectation of modesty and grabbed my arm again.

“I’d like to introduce you to some people.”

“Sure,” I said, keeping my glass steady as she led me past various individuals, some alone, others in small groups, over to the other end of the rather narrow gallery space.  On our brief way there, she made small talk.

“Are you still at Strossen & Carruthers…?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.  You must have been there a few years…?”

“Over three years,” I said.  “At this outpost, that is.  As part of the company, I’ve belonged for well nigh seven years.”

“Did you ever start that ‘dream’ of yours…?”

“You mean Features…?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s it!”

“Oh yeah, it worked out fairly well, if I don’t say so myself, though we still have a few loose ends left…”

“Didn’t you used to wonder whether it would… what was that phrase you used… morph sideways…?”

I laughed.

“Yeah--and it has, sort of…”

“Congrats!”

“Thanks.”

She turned away again, and I looked at her profile, thinking that kind of question was what, all those years ago, had in some ineffable way attracted me to her…

“Here we are!” she interrupted her next question (if she had one), as we arrived at a knot of five people hovering around a statue of vermilion basalt that on nearer view glittered with particles of silver.  It stood what seemed ten feet tall, of an angel with breasts and an inordinately long penis.  Title:  Michaela III.  One woman seemed to be commanding the other four, hanging on her words and bobbing their heads in agreement.  Perhaps it was her near spherical ball of red hair in the form of an afro―and her aura of prepossessed confidence―that made her stand out and seem taller than she actually was.

“Phil,” Megan announced, “I’d like you to meet Sadie Kaplan―the heart and soul of this show!”

Ms. Kaplan arrested her warmly bubbly flow of glib repartee in mid-stream batting nary an eyelash and extended her gloved hand my way.  She seemed personable enough, and disarmingly unassuming.

“Thank you so much for coming to my little exhibit―I hope you haven’t been dreadfully bored!”

“No!” I assured her, hoping to be diplomatic without outright lying. “What I’ve seen so far is very intriguing!”

“Oh please!” she said, fanning away my compliment, closing with her own note of diplomacy.  “But I do appreciate you saying so!”

“Sadie is just being humble!” Megan chimed in.  “The reviews are already coming in as we speak,” she added, holding up her 21^st century phone. “Robert Reese of The Central Park Journal is leading with ‘Kaplan’s third showing tonight handily outstrips her peers’…!  Mel Fiorina of Bodega Bulletin calls her ‘the New Standard of Neo-Retro-Experimentalism’…!  And look!  Greta Grade of The Staten Island Beacon positively gushed about her ‘contributions to the budding world of post-modern archetypes’…!” 

At this, Megan squeezed the biceps of her lover.  Did I only imagine some tension between the lines of Sadie’s response…?  Hard to say.  We all lingered there for a spell, then it was decided we―Megan, Sadie and I―would reconvene at a local café around the corner in about an hour, after the lesbian couple played hostesses for the requisite period of time.  They left me to go off exploring the remainder of the exhibit on my own, which I did, before leaving early to anticipate their arrival at Gorshin’s Diner.  They’d actually brought two friends along, so it wasn’t as intimate as I’d expected, and mostly the interactions were comprised of shop talk amongst them, with my occasional questions, as I spooned up the minestrone I’d ordered, hovering back and forth across the lavender line between Politeness and Fitful Interest.  Once or twice I noticed Megan darting a telling look at me, which locked eyes with me but fleetingly; but in the end, nothing came of it.  By the time we regrouped out on the sidewalk to part ways, it was definitively dark out (close to 9 p.m.).  Before I turned to go, she paused to take hold of my arm briefly, to utter a cliché which nonetheless in that moment rang sincere ―“Don’t be a stranger, kay…?”

3434343434

It was a pleasant walk back to the office where, one block down on Crasden Avenue, I’d parked my car, a sky blue 1997 Volvo Freebooter.  Not that I really needed to drive back to my apartment, as it also was a relatively short walk away―on Mercer St. in SoHo, a block southeast of the New York University campus―but the brief drive proved to be a nicely relaxing capper to the day.  Appositely, the oldies station I often tune my car radio to was already into the first minute of Billy Joel’s Scenes From an Italian Restaurant…

Things are okay with me these days
Got a good job, I got a good office
I got a new wife, got a new life
And the family's fine
We lost touch long ago
You lost weight I did not know
You could ever look so nice after
So much time…

Sure, the ‘wife’ and ‘family’ part wasn’t relevant, but the rest of it really hit home.

The trusty doorman, Kenmore, wasn’t there, kind of disappointing me, as I was looking forward to trading a smatter of badinage with him before heading in to ride the elevator.  In his place was a short black man whose blue cap seemed ill-fitting, too large for his head.  His name-tag read ‘Roger’ and he was a friendly enough fellow. 

“Kenmore called in sick today, Mr. Preston” he informed me, after glancing at my ID (which he apologized for requesting).

“Well, Roger,” I said, “I hope he gets well soon”―then swiveled in mid-stride before the revolving door―”and call me Phil.”

“I can do that, Phil,” he smiled, half doffing his cap by the bill then quickly rehatting.  “Have yourself a nice night!”

I saluted him and plowed through the revolving door, headed for the lone elevator through the sedately vacant and dimly lit lobby, rode the car almost in a state of momentary amnesia, and at last, near the end of the hall on the 7^th floor, I arrived at my door, which I opened with my key, a satisfyingly weighted silver key superior to the others on its ring.  Threw my sports jacket on a nearby console and headed over to my ‘bar’ which was really just two shelves below the kitchen island partition, containing an extemporaneous potpourri of bottles―Triple Sec ½ full, vermouth ¾ full, whiskey nearly full, two bottles of bourbon both more or less full, an unopened bottle of Malbec wine, and so forth.  Generally speaking, I wasn’t really proficient in advanced mixology and mostly just winged it if I ever wanted something more complicated than a neat shot.  For now, for some reason, what I felt would hit the spot was a jigger of Peppermint Schnapps in about half a glass of gin.  No need to stir it with one of my array of pink swizzlesticks; the former will readily seep into the latter as I sip.  Even more adventurous was my impulsive decision to liberate a thin black cigar―one of a precious few I kept but rarely smoked―from its silver foil to go with.  The perfect place to enjoy these was my favorite chair up against a glass door looking out onto the city night.  I don’t know why, but somehow I felt calmly driven to unwind this way; no doubt seeing Megan after all these years had more of an effect on me than my conscious mind could appreciate in the light of its reason.  Nevertheless, I didn’t stew, I didn’t fret, I didn’t even ruminate per se―I just sat there nursing my drink very gradually, a sip at a time, a momentary mulling for each sip, the inevitable sweet swallow, followed by a solitary draw on my cigar, taking my time blowing out the odorous smoke... 

The thoughts and feelings that accompanied this mood dissipation weren’t really coherent, and I was infinitely unconcerned. 

After a long while, I still had about a fourth of the cigar left, and after gulping the last of my drink, none of that.  It was then I noticed a cast about the dark grey sky in my perspective indicating rain.  Sure enough, tiny splatters began appearing on the glass of the sliding door.  It didn’t look (or sound) like a hard rain.  I relit the remainder of my cigar, got up out of the chair and slid open the door to go stand out on my narrow ledge of a balcony.  Minutely refreshing pricks of cool water pecked my face in random patterns, inducing me to close my eyes and inspire a deep breath, wait as long it felt right, then exhale, before then taking a deep drag on my cigar―not down my throat, of course, but filling my mouth with a rich cloud which then felt luxurious to let disperse in tentative emissions.  The traffic 7 floors down on Mercer St. at this hour was fairly light, even at times receding to near non-existent, and the surrounding buildings presented less walls of light and razzle-dazzle neon than would be the case just a few blocks away.  The rain seemed to be slightly mustering, almost unnoticeably.  Took another drag, blew out the smoke, tilted my head back with eyes deliriously closed to feel the cool, wet blessing.

When I’d smoked the cigar down to its nub I leaned on the railing and looked down, figured it wouldn’t hurt to flick it off on a spiral down, down, down in the high breeze, soon lost to my ability to track it.

Turning to re-enter my apartment, my mind was reminded of the fact that I wouldn’t need to return to work at that quaint brownstone situated on a picture-perfect side street in lower west Manhattan until Tuesday and now―I glanced at my Mickey Mouse watch―it was 10:59 p.m., still Thursday…  The unused bar towel hanging on the edge of the counter would do just fine to swipe my face and hair of its refreshing wetness, as unthinkingly I prepared to truly wind down for the night.  Not all wounds of the past have to be nursed or pondered; some just turn into benign crust and heal of their own accord, even as filaments of their bittersweet tang may re-emerge to linger, and then pretty much dissipate, more or less in ways where at the end of the day, nobody gets hurt, as the saying goes…

Pottering around my apartment, the amusing question occurred to me, debating with myself whether to turn on the .T.V. for the news and maybe stay up for the Tonight Show, what if someone wrote a short story about my day today?  It would literally be the most pointless plotless story ever told―not to mention a deadly boring one.  I wouldn’t put it past someone to try, though, and even get it published in The New Yorker…  Would I read it if I happened on it while flipping through?   Posing such rhetorical questions is something I do right before bed, brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth with a capful of red Listerine

…