The Bag Lady Papers

by Alexandra Penney

  I have an additional, more inspiring plan for my trip, though. I want to take on-location photographs while I’m down south—it’s emotionally crucial that I stay focused on my work.

  Several years ago I began to photograph plastic blow-up sex dolls that come equipped with cavernous open mouths and huge breasts. The irony is that my work comments on insatiable consumerism, greed, dishonesty, and the deformed and warped values of our times. The dolls, with their gaping mouths, are symbols or ciphers that provide a visual scaffolding for social observation. Nothing in the pictures is genuine (unless you consider plastic “genuine”) and neither, of course, was the MF.

  Now “the girls,” as I call them, are stacked in open wine cartons behind me, along with their wigs, clothes, lingerie, bags, shoes, gloves, and jewelry, all of which I bought on Canal Street in Manhattan—two bogus Hermès Birkins and a fake green Goyard bag, featherweight look-alike Rolexes and Panerais, spangle-laden bras, bikinis made of strands of edible plastic candy pearls. The tab for an afternoon’s shopping for their sexy faux-luxe-brand dresses, bags, underwear, and rhinestone trappings has never topped eighty dollars.

  Don’t ask me where the idea of sex dolls came from. I am a nonkinky, heavily bourgeois kind of person. I had no interest in Barbie stuff when I was a kid. My best guess is that the dolls represent something deeply Freudian that is best left undisturbed. Or maybe it’s more prosaic, maybe using the girls simply evolved from a bunch of weird, deformed children’s dolls I photographed over and over in a dusty window in Rome when I was a visiting artist at the American Academy three years ago.

  I-95 is a terrifically boring stretch of road and while I drive, my mind keeps slipping back to yesterday, when I finally had to tell Carmina that I was leaving the city to go down south to sell the cottage and that the MF had chopped my financial life into mincemeat.

  We were standing in my kitchen after she’d just unfolded the ironing board.

  “I can’t have you here so often,” I heard myself saying. “I just don’t have the money. That guy took all my savings.”

  I burst into tears for the second time since December 11 and just kept hugging her sturdy shoulders as tightly as I could. She started crying, too.

  “What will you do? Do you have enough money?” I asked, not even waiting for her to answer.

  “I will pay you as much as I can,” I said, having no idea where I’d earn my next dollar but knowing with certainty that somehow Carmina had to be part of my new frugal life. “Don’t worry, I will still pay you—I’ll find a way. Can you come for just a half day a week, or two mornings for a couple of hours?”

  “Don’t worry, Alexandra,” she said through the tears, “I know about that guy from the newspapers and also TV. Everything will be all right. Really. You work very hard, you’ll be okay. I’ll be okay, too. Really.”

  “Let’s sit down and have some coffee,” I said and proceeded to heat up the espresso maker. Carmina had just finished a cup but she can drink endless amounts of dark brew.

  I was relieved when she told me she had a new boyfriend who treated her well and she felt safe. She’s a very brave woman and nothing gets her down. She’s a role model of optimism and spunk and hard work. But I know her family is depending on her back in Bolivia.

  “I’ll make money,” I said. “I’m even thinking I can write another book. And the art market has to revive someday. And I will never let you go. Unless you want me to.”

  “I would come even if you don’t pay me, “she responded instantly. At those words I started crying again and even now, as I write this, tears come to my eyes. Carmina is blood-close and always will be. And I will find a way to pay her. There’s no choice about this. Carmina will be employed by me as long as she is willing or until I call it a day. Learning what parts of my BMF (Before MF) life are indispensable is a process I now deal with daily, sometimes hourly.

  I wish the radio or the old-fashioned cassette player in my car still functioned, because as I drive this silent, interminable highway, my mind begins to race with the same old scary thoughts. How am I going to survive? Was I greedy? No, I don’t think so. Nine to ten percent interest was not disproportionate at that point in time. Maybe others wanted to strike it rich with the MF. I didn’t. I just wanted financial stability, financial security, and the calming feeling that came from having my money in a safe place. I had lost money with other financial advisers, but the MF’s fund, I was told, would yield a steady interest—not too high, not too low—allowing me to have a studio and work on my art. And the fund money, along with sales of my photographs, did support me for the past couple of years.

  I think, as I often do, of the thousands of other Madoff casualties. Many have far worse troubles than I. Some are very old and fragile and truly penniless, with not even a relative to turn to and with no conceivable way to make a buck. Some will be forced to leave their homes and what will happen to them? At least I’ve been told I can stay for the near future in my sunny apartment. You might expect that thinking about these poor souls would make me feel better, but somehow, perversely, it turns my own outlook darker and blacker and more self-absorbed. My fate may become their fate. You’re going to lose your edge, I think, you’ll be walking around with swollen ankles, you’ll be holding your moth-eaten layers of old clothes together with rusted safety pins, your hair will be grayish yellow and dirty and stringy and you’ll be cold and lonely and alone.

  It’s very clear I need to learn meditation immediately, because I just don’t have the mental discipline to stop thinking obsessively about myself and about the future. I will check the Yellow Pages as soon as I reach my destination. Cars are murderously swerving in front of me as I hold to a steady 65 mph in the right-hand lane. I again try to concentrate only on driving, but my racing brain will not cooperate.

  But wait, here’s the worst thought of all: people are going to feel sorry for me. I can feel that pity right now, right here in my gut.

  I don’t want to feel like an object of pity, a damaged person who’s marked down like a “second.” This, I suddenly see, is what a real bag lady must feel like: a person who has no standing in society, a lone woman who trudges along with her ragged bags or pushes her creaky shopping cart with all her sad belongings. Where does she go to the bathroom? Where can she wash her hair? She has no place to call home. No place to cheer her. No one to love her.

  No way is that going to happen to me! No effing way! I’ll keep up appearances with my self-ironed white shirts and my self-applied nail polish (feet are no problem but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of doing my right hand yet). And I will keep up my spirits and my belief in kindness and decency until I can’t anymore and my soul starts to shred and shrivel—and then it will be time to call it quits. But not yet. Not by a long shot.

  Eventually, the old dented wagon has carted me all the way to North Carolina and I pass several large peeling yellow-and-red-lettered road signs that advertise Café Risque in a hamlet called Dun, right off I-95. Café Risque! It’s a topless bar/sex-shop/adult video place that offers “trucker showers.” I have a huge urge to steer off the highway to investigate further. My mind has clamped onto a wild visual image of what trucker showers must look like. What a great location for the girls! I’m positive they would shine at their best in Café Risque. I pass the exit by, but am grateful for the temporary distraction.

  The road is so straight and monotonous that, once again, my thoughts snap back to my life AMF (After MF). My brain replays the words a woman left on my answering machine a few days ago. She mumbled in an intimate semi-whisper, “I heard of your recent problems and would like to buy your jewelry.”

  Ugh! What a creepy message. I know generally what my stuff is worth—I was the only one who ever bought me earrings and rings and bracelets. I have a couple of good gold watches, also self-purchased, and I often sport a white Chanel J12 that was a gift from a generous girlfriend as a thank-you for some photographs I took of her children. I know exactly what I have and my
jewels, however much I love them, don’t add up to that much. For all I know, this jewelry-buying scheme may be part of a new Madoff family heist!

  Another caller that same day, my friend Annette, left a message inviting me to a Christmas Day lunch in Palm Beach. When I RSVP’d “Love to!,” I signed my e-mail with my new title, “AP, aka Person of Reduced Circumstances (PoRC).” As I continue to the long drive toward Florida, I think about Annette’s party and about Palm Beach, which happens to have been the prime hunting ground where the MF went snouting for investor prey. People joined the Palm Beach Country Club where he hung out so they could be “invited” to join his exclusive enterprise.

  This will be the first party I’ve attended since I was MF’d. Will people see me differently? Will I notice if they do? Should I bring a small Christmas gift, as I would have if this were last year? And what in the world would be appropriate for a PoRC to give for a hostess present? What will I wear? I try to remember what clothes I’ve packed for myself. Thank god! Finally, I’m thinking about something fun! I’d much rather waste time ruminating about wardrobe options than dwelling on bag lady fears.

  My mind slows its anxious whirring and I begin to concentrate on driving. I don’t go over the speed limit much—the old dented wagon wouldn’t like it—but mostly I slow because if I am caught racing down the road with the girls in the back, I might land in the local clink, labeled a pervert, a kind of trouble I definitely don’t need right now. And then I see the humor in it. With all the bags and boxes in the wagon, I’m a bag lady on wheels!

  It’s getting dark. I have to find a place to sleep. Signs have been whizzing by with motels advertising $29.95 and $39.95 a night. My friend Tom, an inveterate New York–Florida driver, and a man of swell taste, tells me that the finest hostelry on the route are Hampton Inns. All the hotel chains have well-lit franchises staked out immediately off I-95 exits so it’s easy to find a Hampton Inn.

  “Eighty-nine dollars,” says the pleasant young lady at the desk when I inquire about a room. I, who used to buy only retail and have always been highly reluctant to bargain, ask for a discount. She takes it down ten bucks. For no reason. Just because I asked.

  Although it’s expensive compared to what is down the street, it isn’t in the same solar system as the Ararat Park Hyatt in Moscow, where I was on a work project last year and where the rate for a single room was $2,100 per night. That number staggered me; I ended up at a fine place a few blocks away that charged a tenth of the Park Hyatt’s rate.

  I’ve stayed at a lot of ultrapricey hostelries, but who in their right mind would pay $2,100, except look-at-me-see-my-money oligarchs? I wouldn’t be surprised if those Gazprom guys and those other oligarchs had tons of rubles stashed away with Madoff. I keep thinking of Magritte’s surreal paintings. My new meltdown world seems like a bizarre replica of what it used to be.

  The Hampton Inn is my new Four Seasons! The room is warm and inviting with white duvets fluffed high on the king-size bed. There’s even a polished maplewood board to rest in your lap so you can work on your computer in bed. There’s no charge for wireless access, the pale beige stone sink is set into genuine granite, and the oversize white bath towels are extraheavy. The place is immaculate and breakfast is free! A sweet scent wafts down the hall and someone knocks on the door and offers freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Can I be dreaming?

  The aroma makes me realize I’m hungry. As I turned off I-95 I spotted a nearby Popeyes, my favorite fast-food place, and I head there now. Giggling youngsters are gulping down Coke from quart-size plastic cups. They eat the mashed potatoes and gravy with gusto. They gorge on biscuits that really are scrumptious but don’t kids need protein and milk? The chicken is a bargain, $3.49 for three pieces (50 cents extra for a drink), but mostly the children leave their chicken untouched in the red plastic baskets. The parents don’t seem to protest. Fast-food joints are the cheapest dining option—and the least healthy. Nonetheless I opt for a caloric binge and order two pieces of spicy fried chicken and a mountain of creamy coleslaw.

  The buffet breakfast the next morning at the Hampton Inn has some more nutritious options. I load my tray with low-calorie yogurt, fresh fruit, and Special K. While the voices of TV hosts jackhammer over the soft Southern accents of the hotel’s guests, I appraise the guests’ butts. They are large, larger, huge. Mine is quite expansive, too, I must admit. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to control the spread; it’s a combat that never ends.

  These are nice folks, who smile and say “hi” as they microwave flour gravy to heap on the biscuits. The coffee in the large spigotted metal urns is labeled “robust,” “regular,” and “decaf.” I take my first sip, and the coffee is already sweetened. More calories! No wonder people’s butts are expanding.

  After breakfast, I climb into the old wagon in another clean white T-shirt and I’m back on I-95 with four hundred miles to go. I wish I could chauffeur myself right over the horizon to China. I want to drive for the rest of eternity and never arrive anywhere. Arriving will mean reckoning with my future.

  The miles zip radiolessly past; the girls seem content in the backseat. I took a few minutes this morning to slide some $10.99 Canal Street dresses on them to cover the sexy underwear they usually wear—just in case a state trooper happens to check out my cargo. Some of them are still in wine cartons, but the dressed-up ones are now stuffed, semi-deflated, into shiny shopping bags with old towels covering them. The bags will soon be tattered…but will be reused in my new life as a bag lady. The dark visions are back. Forget this meditation business, I need heavy-duty tranquilizers. I’ve brought my new prescription bottle with me but I’m still compos mentis enough to know it’s not wise to partake of chemical serenity while driving.

  Do I regret having put my savings in the MF’s hands? I’ve lived by the premise that regret is a wasted emotion. After I left college and faced many major crossroads, I began to feel that whatever decision I made was the right one at the time that I made it, given that I always collected and analyzed as much information as I could about my options. I didn’t want to leave any room for future regrets.

  The decision to invest my money with the MF was the right one at the time that I made it. I did my homework. I sought out and talked with many informed people about Madoff and, with just one exception, they all agreed I was “safe” with him. I can’t put my now wise self into my then innocent self. I don’t blame myself for my losses. Loss is a part of living; I don’t like it but I don’t take it personally.

  I finally arrive in Florida and, exhausted, fall into a troubled tossing-and-churning sleep. When I wake up in the morning, it’s sunny, and it’s Christmas Day. My little—but stylish—shack is on the wrong side of the tracks; this afternoon I am crossing over to Annette and Joe’s for their holiday lunch in the luxurious environs of Palm Beach—the island, as the locals call it.

  The luncheon is in an airy, casually elegant house with endless emerald green, close-cropped lawns; a cobalt-blue-tiled pool; and tall, slim, swaying—literally—royal palm trees. The food, prepared by the hosts’ personal chef, is superb. The dining tables are laden with white orchids, sparkling crystal, and old, heavy silver. I spot several large Warhols and some Schnabels on the walls.

  I walk through the tall double doors made of aged pecky cypress, and Annette, the very soigné and beautiful hostess, a dear and empathetic friend, sees me right away and is just the same as she always is with me.

  “It must be horrible to go through what’s been happening to you,” she says, handing me a flute of champagne, the first drink I’ve had since December 11, MF night.

  “There are some people here you don’t know,” she says. “Come over and meet them.” She steers me to a small group of guests who are laughing and sipping their icy champagne. As she’s making the introductions, one of the women gives me the once-over, checking me out from my white Chanel ballet flats and J12 watch to my pearl earrings to my Kyleat-Oscar-Blandi blond highlights. This is nothing new or Mad
off-induced. Everybody knows that women check one another out all the time. Someone else in the group says, “Oh my god, you are the person that writes those blogs. A friend of mine e-mailed me one and I loved it.” I acknowledge the nice words. They all want to hear about Madoff and how I knew him.

  “Never met him,” I explain, “but there are a ton of people here on the island who have lost huge fortunes with him.” Of course, this group knows the Madoff story only too well, but I want to get the spotlight off me. I’m grateful when I hear a man who’s holding a double shot glass of what appears to be straight vodka or gin say, “My wife and I had a lot of money with that bastard.”

  The group turns to him and starts pounding him with questions, and I’m able to slide away to talk with a couple of friends who’ve just arrived.

  The butler whispers to our hostess that lunch is served. “It’s buffet style,” Annette says, “but look for your place cards so you know where you’re sitting.”

  I’m situated next to the shot-glass man who has been Madoff’d, but now he says, “Not for so much money.” He owns several houses and a “boat,” which, down here, probably means a major yacht. No mention is made of having to sell any of the properties. Money is so relative, I think. I’ve got it easy compared to some people, and he has it easy compared to me. But I don’t have time to sink further into these thoughts because my friend Joe, the host, who’s on my other side, is so charming and funny. He’s a great raconteur. It’s pure pleasure to sit with another glass of champagne and listen. When everyone else is engrossed in conversations, Joe says quietly to me, “I know you’ll be okay but if you ever need anything, just remember I’m a phone call away.”

  I’m overwhelmed by his words. All I can find to say is “I can’t tell you how much that means to me,” and I lift my glass to him.

  I realize I’m having a great time. The Virginia Christmas ham is outrageously delicious, ditto the dripping-butter mac and cheese, the crisp haricots vert, the mâche salad, and the plethora of spectacular desserts. I take two helpings of everything, an unembarrassed three of the brandy-soaked plum pudding. For a minute I step outside myself and watch. I don’t seem to have changed that much. I talk, I laugh, I listen. I’ve regaled my table with what it’s like to write a controversial, highly personal blog, I’ve admitted some of my fears to my host but basically I’m just being me, broke, and having a good time with friends on a sun-washed Christmas Day. Until I wake up the next day at four a.m.