Her boyfriend. I could almost see him, a lanky, loose-limbed man-boy with shaggy hair and a fringe jacket, a black gaucho hat, walking the street with two guitars strapped over his chest. I don’t really have extra money, I said, as if that made me a little bit less of a jackass than she might be assuming. I was told everything was included, so I brought very little. Maybe, Nina said, what to you is a little is to me a lot. Anyhow, no problem. I can take your big strong hand, and we can go to an ATM, which is ten meters from the hotel. All I want two thousand U.S. dollars, and then I will tell you all how I decided to become a part of the adult travel industry. I’m not sure I have two thousand dollars in my account at home, I said. I’m not like the other men on this tour. And then I added, financially speaking, that is.
I heard the door to the restaurant open; then I heard the familiar clomp of Michael Piedmont making his way. He had an exhausted, sick expression, and he was blinking rapidly, as if having trouble staying awake. Next to him was a rather plain woman in a fuzzy white sweater and white skirt. Her eyes were bright blue, her lipstick bright red, her hair was bright yellow, and the beret she wore at a jaunty angle was bright green—all the colors of her seemed to come from a Lego set. Piedmont’s shirt collar was bent backward, and the rim of it was submerged in his shirt back; the woman with him busied herself with turning his collar up and then patting down the points, as if to coax it into staying put.
He came directly to my table. The chair was too small for him; he perched upon it like a candy apple on a stick. The woman stood off to one side, until he motioned for her to sit.
Nina? she said to Nina, uncertainly—making sure, I guessed, that it was the name in use for this particular job. Nina said something to her in Norwegian, and the women exchanged brief kisses.
Piedmont didn’t bother with introductions. Rebekah and I are going out to an after-hours club to hear jazz, he said to me. That sounds like fun, I said. You have to have the whole package, Piedmont said. Dinner, dancing, going out. It makes it more fun. You should come with us. I’m pretty tired, I said. The last time I slept was in New York. Piedmont looked at me sympathetically, as if I’d just told him I had cancer. Oslo has a thriving jazz scene, he said. They love jazz. And you know what? I love jazz, too. My first computer company was called Giant Steps, which I named after one of Coltrane’s albums, on Atlantic. Ahmet Ertegün called me personally, I had nothing at the time, I was just a baby, and I thought he was going to threaten to sue me or something, I was really shaking in my boots, but he was calling to wish me luck. Wasn’t that nice of him? That was very nice of him, I said. The Turk, Piedmont said, nodding. I have a Piedmont computer back home, I said. I know, you already told me. What do you want? A rebate? You’re asking the wrong person if that’s what you want. They kept my name because it has buyer recognition, but I have nothing to do with the company anymore. When I had my little playdate with the law, they took the whole thing away from me. He rotated himself in his chair to call for the waiter, who was already on his way over with the food Nina had ordered.
I watched as the waiter put a plate of sliced beef in a dill sauce in front of Nina, and the same thing in front of me. Piedmont arched his brows and pressed his lips together as he regarded our food. Sorry about that, I said to Piedmont. About what? About mentioning my company? Hey, I’m doing fine. I make an obscene amount of money giving talks, seminars; people are throwing money at me all the time. Pretty soon I’ll start another company; that’s the beauty, that’s the thing nobody gets. Once you’re on the merry-go-round you can just stay there. Look, I was never that computer oriented in the first place. It’s not like I was writing software. I manufactured the things; it could have been toasters. You understand? I had real smart people working for me, a cool product, and I knew how to get it built at a good price.
One of the Metal Men wandered in; it was Olmo, his boiled face and deep-set eyes a mask of defiance. He moved his shoulders as if he were hearing a great song, but he didn’t really look very happy. He had changed into a blazer and slacks, a white shirt and red tie. The woman he was with would have looked like a hooker if she had been standing on line at the Motor Vehicle Bureau. She wore a shawl, a short leather skirt with silver doodads in it, like an old Wells Fargo pouch, fishnet stockings, and clunky high-heeled boots. She was heavily made up, and she seemed mean and vulnerable, like one of the transsexual hookers who patrol downtown Manhattan at night, who look as if they could stab you and then go on a crying jag. Olmo stopped when he saw us, furtively, like a man stepping out on his wife who sees his brother-in-law. Mr. Olmo, the Great Mr. Olmo, Piedmont called out in a merry voice, as if there were something intrinsically humorous about Olmo.
Olmo and his escort drew up chairs, but the table was too small for them to fit around it. Olmo sat more or less behind Nina, and his date was behind me. Piedmont was no longer resisting the pieces of herring, nor was he abstaining from the olives. We’re going out to listen to some really great jazz, he said to Olmo, and you’re welcome to join us. Okay, Olmo quickly said, but without enthusiasm. I glanced over my shoulder to see if his date even knew what was being said, but as soon as I turned I was brought up short by her implacable eyes, so much like stop signs they might as well have been octagonal.
A moment later, Len Cobb walked into the restaurant. Piedmont boomed out a greeting and waved him over to my table. Cobb was dressed in a dark blue Italian suit, a white shirt, light brown loafers so soft looking they seemed made of nectar. He had a fresh-looking bump on the side of his forehead, about half the size of an egg. He walked slowly, but his legs were long and he was at the table in a moment. He was clearly out of sorts. He seemed even unhappier than he had been with Magdalena back in Iceland; with his chin jutting out and his lips pursed, he was making something of a show out of remaining calm, while communicating how upset he was. If Piedmont noticed this, he chose to move right past it. Where’s your friend? Piedmont asked. You gotta go get her; we’re all going out to hear some jazz. He said the word jazz in some vaguely Louis Armstrong voice.
Who told you I like jazz? Cobb said. I just assumed you do, because you’re black, Piedmont said. Don’t all African American people like jazz? Ooh, that’s cold, said Olmo. Despite himself, Cobb smiled, shook his head. This is not what I expected, he said. Not at all. Did you get a bad one? Olmo asked. Because you can switch. You can have mine, actually. Cobb shook his head. I don’t know. Maybe it’s me. This kind of money? I thought I’d be seeing something I never saw before. Like what? Olmo said. Like a girl with two pussies and ten breasts?
What is he saying? Nina asked me. I’m not sure, I whispered. He’s not happy with the girl? she asked me. She pronounced it gull. Then, without waiting for an answer, she cried out at him, Who is your girl? But Cobb didn’t answer. He was extending his lower lip and stroking his chin, like a general trying to figure out how it had all gone so wrong. Who is your girl? Nina repeated, even more loudly.
Maybe you were expecting too much, Piedmont said. They’re just human beings; it’s not going to be that different. It is what it is. It’s a lot of money is what it is, Cobb said. I never thought I’d be paying for pussy, especially not this much. Don’t think about the money, Piedmont said. You can never think about the money. We live in a prison, and the bars are made of dollars and cents. Cobb nodded reasonably, the way you do when someone recites a Zen koan or some other pithy piece of spiritual advice, and no matter how faulty it may sound you don’t want to be rude because, in the end, you’re touched the person would want to enlighten you, and, also, you’re embarrassed for them, spouting off little sayings. I went to the exercise room, Len was saying, but it’s closed until morning. I just need to ride a stationary bike or get on the treadmill, I need to move. If I don’t get a certain amount of exercise, I start to lose it.
Who is your girl? Nina said, yet again. I wanted to tell her to stop asking that, to, in effect, shut up, and it was interesting to realize that I was not only too polite to say that but actually a
bit afraid.
Marit, Cobb finally said. She’ll be right down. Marit’s great, Nina said. She’s the most beautiful of all the girls. You don’t know how lucky you are. Cobb responded with a baleful stare and then busied himself with removing a speck of lint from his lapel. Maybe if you’re not happy with Marit, Nina said, you can’t be happy at all. Get out of my face, Len said. You don’t know the first thing about me. Marit’s great, Nina said, her voice continuing its rise—soon, it seemed, she’d be shouting. There are too many men in Oslo who want to fuck her. That’s her problem, Len said. No, Mister, that is your problem. You understand me? Your problem. Len reached into the olive plate and plucked out the single wrinkled, dented black olive Piedmont had left behind and threw it at Nina, hitting her in the forehead.
Oh no, I thought. Now I have to be gallant, now I have to come to her defense? Come on, Len, I said, none of that. You could have hit her in the eye. Control your woman then, he said. Hey, I said, I can’t control anybody and anything, and I don’t want to. Nina, in the meanwhile, had retrieved the olive, which had bounced off of her head and landed on the floor, and she threw it wildly at Len, missing him by several feet.
These are the moments we will always remember, Piedmont said. Food fights at the Christofer. He slapped his hands on his stomach, smiling happily. When I was in the gulag there’d be a food fight every Saturday night, it was like a tradition. We had guys in there, some of them pretty quote unquote successful out in the world, doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers, spot commodity traders. And I’ll tell you something, a lot of the men in there are going to look back at their time inside as some of the happiest months of their lives. There was always something going on. Greatest food fight of my life was in La Paz, Olmo said, with these awesome fucking guys from Dodge Phelps. We’d just fucking killed the copper market. Nothing in life is worth it if you don’t have fun doing it.
What are they talking about? Nina asked me, in an annoyed—and, frankly, annoying—manner. Our relationship, such as it was, was already on the rocks. Michael is an important businessman in America, I said to Nina, in a low murmur, hoping she would get the idea that these little sidebar comments needed to be kept at a discreet level, and he got in trouble over his company’s stock and had to go to jail for six months. Prison? Nina said. That man was in prison? She did murmur every word, except, of course, prison, which she fairly barked out. That’s right, Piedmont said to her. A lot of fine people have gone to jail, some of them prisoners of conscience, some of them framed. Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Henry Thoreau when he was in prison, and he said Henry, what are you doing in prison?—to which Thoreau famously answered, Waldo, what are you doing out of prison?
This may have wowed them in Aspen, but Nina didn’t seem impressed. She looked at me, her eyes alive with sparks of delight. Her finger lunged at me like a little dog at the end of a leash. You see? Mr. Castle promises us all the men have passed many tests, all are clean, honest, and good. Back and forth the finger went; I almost wanted to lean forward to offer her the relief of finally poking me in the chest. Believe me, I said, there’s nothing to worry about. He’s a very important man back home. He’s streamlined the lives of many people.
Why, thank you, Avery. Piedmont pressed his hands together, bowed, saluting the divine within me. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. What does streamline mean? Nina asked me. It means what I should have done to my own fat self, Piedmont said. Slimmer, sleeker, faster. He put his hands on his knees and, from a seated position, thrust his chest forward, like a Sumo wrestler about to engage. Any of the ladies who end up with me, he said to Nina, are lucky ladies. Isn’t that right, Becky? Rebekah was plucking at the fuzz on her white sweater and might not have recognized the name Becky as having anything to do with her name. I am respectful, I am generous, and I have such a tiny little penis you hardly even know it’s there.
What is he saying to me? Nina demanded of me. I don’t know, I said. Don’t ask me; talk to him; he speaks the same language I speak. You don’t need to filter these things through me. She furrowed her brow at the word filter, increasing my impatience. Talk to him, I said, not me. The ancients, Piedmont was saying, tilting his head in an erudite manner, believed that having a big cock was a sign of imbecility. Priapus, who was always pictured with a shlong halfway down to his knees, was an idiot. All the A-list gentlemen had modest, even delicate genitalia—I like to think of myself as following in that noble tradition. With all these extra pounds, what used to look like a toe now is more like a nipple. He laughed and patted Rebekah on the top of the head. But you’ve got no complaints, right? Her smile was quick, startled. She leaned over and whispered into his ear. Well, that’s very neighborly of you, he said. And then, to the rest of us, he announced, No complaints, she’s very happy with my dainty ding-dong. As the great artists always say, Less is more. Isn’t that so? he said to Rebekah. It is like fucking a giant bear, she said to the rest of us. Piedmont thrust his arms into the air, as if he had just scored a goal at the World Cup. Are you interested in monster cocks? Olmo asked no one in particular, and no one paid it any attention.
Cobb’s woman, Marit, appeared—brunette, sleekly built, with long fingers and a sideways way of looking at people, as if only the corners of her eyes worked—and the lot of us left the Christofer. We walked in pairs, out into the moist, mild Oslo night, through the quiet downtown, where all of the shops and most of the restaurants were closed. In the distance, I could see a harp set upon a platform which was attached to pulleys being lifted up the side of a narrow, cast-iron building. Since Piedmont, with Rebekah at his side, was leading the way, we walked very slowly, and if there had been anyone out in the streets to observe us we would have made an odd sight, moving with a physical solemnity that was almost funereal. Though maybe we would have been made out to be pretty much what we were: four johns and four hookers, out for a nightcap.
Was I the only one who was entertaining the possibility that we were now being led into an ambush? Do you have any idea where we’re going? I asked Nina. People in Norway love old music, she said, but just try to give them something brand-new, that’s the day you learn what these people really are. Jazz! She pretended to spit in the street. What does jazz have to do with anything? Jazz is for some old man sitting around in his expensive flat in a silk robe. She extended her pinky, symbolizing, I guessed, everything fey, piss elegant, and done for. I myself harbored no such resentments against jazz, but I didn’t care to engage in some debate about musical forms with Nina, whose own becalmed career in the music business was clearly on her mind and was, in fact, the principal reason she was in my company in the first place, for surely if things had been going well with the Forbidden Zone, if they were touring, recording, or even enjoying the prosperity of hope, she wouldn’t be walking through Oslo with me. (Of course, if my career had been prospering, I would probably not be here. So there.)
Piedmont had to stop twice to catch his breath, Marit dropped her cell phone and it broke into pieces, but eventually we made it to the jazz club, which was recessed from the street a hundred or so feet, in a courtyard full of life-size statues of jazz musicians. The musicians portrayed looked vaguely like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan. The courtyard had an ersatz old-timey feel to it, with shiny black cobblestones, each one smooth and uniform, and the only light cast by a half-size streetlamp, against which leaned one of those generic jazz statues, this one of a vaguely Miles Davis-ish trumpeter with rippling muscles, a wife-beater T-shirt. In short, this place looked about as hip as a jazz club in Disney World.
If there was any criminal premeditation in leading us here, Nina seemed not to be in on it. She was looking around at the statues and shaking her head with obvious displeasure. This is what you’d rather do than have much more fucking, she said in that tone of voice you use to remind a child he has made a choice and is going to have to live with the consequences of that choice.
The club called itself Birdland. We entered through a glass-and-met
al door, like the entrance to a supermarket. We were in a small vestibule, at the top of a steep spiral of metal stairs leading to the music—a fierce, chaotic drum solo was in progress. The vestibule was lit by a string of red Christmas lights. The eight of us were crowded together; Rebekah said Now go downstairs, in a commanding voice she probably wouldn’t have used in her own language. We followed her down the narrow, corkscrew stairway, getting closer and closer to the drum solo, which grew louder and more oppressive with every step we took. Descents into hell might sound something like this, I thought.
The downstairs of Birdland was small and dark, a smell of extinguished candles in the air. A long bar was on one end of the room, bathed in indigo light, with no one behind it making drinks, and the reflection of three quarters of a tenor saxophone floating in the smoky mirror. There were twenty, maybe thirty small round tables in the club, most of them empty. On the bandstand, the drummer—a manic-looking blond guy in an oversize turtleneck sweater—had finally stopped his solo and was back to keeping time while the saxophonist, a black man in his fifties, with carefully cut salt-and-pepper hair, played his solo, alternating lightning tours of chromatic scales with plaintive bluesy three-note riffs.
The manager came over, greeting Rebekah first with a kiss to either cheek, and then welcoming the rest of us. He was a man in his forties, with scimitar sideburns and a long, inquisitive nose. His name was Arne, and he treated us as if he’d been expecting us. He was particularly attentive toward Cobb, grasping his elbow as he shook his hand, and repeating a couple of times what a pleasure it was to meet him. Arne might have recognized Cobb from his NBA days, but I had the feeling he was confusing Cobb with someone else. So this is the Oslo jazz scene, Piedmont was saying, with evident pleasure. I looked around, taking the place in. The other customers were an indecipherable crew—a couple of old-salt types, in knit caps and long curving churchwarden pipes, a young Asian couple who held hands and stared raptly at the musicians, a table of four guys who looked as if they were up to no good—drunk, keeping time by slapping their open hands against the table, and frequently looking in our direction.
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