“What’s gotten into him?” I heard bellowed behind me.
I passed by Molly Boy, a dealer who frequented the club; I’d met him while I was painting the frescoes. I handed him a fifty and told him to give me what he had. I didn’t care if anyone saw us. “The sleepy stuff,” I demanded.
“Sleepy stuff?”
“Shut the fuck up. You selling or no?” My appropriately candid but uncharacteristic response stunned him, a little like a Pacquiao jab, and his grubby hands swam Olympic freestyle through a run of cargo pockets reserved for his various illicit stashes. He slipped me a palmful of downers.
“Twenty of that is credit—don’t forget,” I said.
Molly Boy was Hungarian and spoke in a thick Eastern European accent; he had clothes made of tatters and flip-top tabs for jewelry, clothes that made girls gooey—an authentic downtown all-star. His eyes were blackballing, though, and he was too fucked up already to take issue with my newfound frankness.
I was ready to move on, but he placed a jittery, thick Hungarian-goulash paw on my shoulder. “You seen The Raven?”
“Yeah, he’s contemplating his life in a pool of sweat, holding on to the one friend who always sticks by him. Fuck off . . .”
“Rodrigo—”
“Hey, Molly Boy, don’t ever let anyone call you a loser,” I called back to him over my shoulder.
As I climbed the stairs step by step and looked upon my wall art spread high and low, I was leveled with even more disdain. It made my hair stand on end, all the hours I’d spent painting it. However, people loved it, and the place was jumping—it had gotten its liftoff. But I wanted nothing to do with it on this night. Or any other night. I felt as if the walls were closing in on me. If I never saw the frescoes again, I’d be a happy fellow.
Upstairs, I bypassed the crowd outside clamoring to get in, and I reversed back to the lobby bar just to equilibrate, if possible, and give myself some air. I downed a couple shots of whiskey and took an incoming phone call from an old friend.
“Yeah,” I responded. “Hey there . . . Congratulations,” I added neutrally. “Yeah, we can catch up . . . No, I am excited . . .”
I couldn’t have sounded more sarcastic, and my old friend Julia had caught it. I was a heap of exposed nerves with a time fuse and was desperate to get out of there. “No, I’m okay . . . Midnight sounds peachy . . . Yes, I’m sure; just take me far, far away . . . Bueno.”
I walked away from the bar, still on the phone. The swollen doorman built of mortar and musclement, who always gave entrée to me and my tribe, accosted me. “Hey, Rodrigo, great party.”
“Okay, see you then,” I finished the call. I raised a get lost finger, but the guy didn’t take the hint and considered my dust-off gesture more of a wait a second invitation. To extend my preoccupations, I pressed Uber on my phone and arranged my ride while the door jockey was still jawing at me.
“What did you say?” I redirected to the doorman, whom I didn’t know.
“Place is slammed—”
“Is it?” He didn’t know what I was saying, and I said something only because they were words to say, which pissed me off even more, to be someone’s marionette, someone’s trick pony, forced to converse with a standing eight-count steroid bag.
“Well—yeah.”
“Whatever, door guy . . .”
“What?” To macho over my comment, his HGH-infused and dimwitted brain tried to compensate. “Say, Rodrigo, can you introduce me to a few chippies? I mean, you know ’em all.”
And now I was taken aback. But the guy was serious; it wasn’t an insult to him, just fat on the cerebellum. Who the hell did this guy think he was, asking me to find him girls?
He said, “I know the groupies, the sluts, but not the high-end—”
“Hey—I don’t even know your name!” I snapped. “Now get the fuck outta my face!” Then I shoved him away and charged out the revolving door with a whish.
I sauntered to the corner of Park Avenue and calmed down. Thankfully, my Uber arrived and I slipped inside.
“Where to?”
“Peking Duck. You know it?”
“In Chinatown?”
“Check.” I lit up then and watched the smoke billow out of my mouth.
“Sir—no smoking—”
“Just having a quick puff.”
The car slowed. “Mister, I said no smoking . . .”
“You’re going to tell me I can’t smoke?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“You’re a private car and I’m hiring you—you get it? I’m. Hiring. You.”
“Put out the cigarette or get out!” The car stopped.
“Turn on the radio. Fuck off.”
The guy got out then, a wiry borough baron with the New Yawker accent, and opened the rear door. “Out!”
“Out?”
“Either the cig goes or you go!”
“It’s my car, you’re just an employee!”
The man lunged at me and I put up a blocking forearm. A scuffle broke out, and some mild fisticuffs, and we half-wrestled upright there, twisting back and forth until I tossed him to the side and walked away.
“You! Motherfucker! Your account is finished! You hear me?” He added some more choice words in my direction, and I gave him a solid uninterrupted look at a place he was welcome to kiss.
I hailed a yellow cab and continued on to the Duck. The increasing—and considerable—amounts of drugs and alcohol I had been consuming couldn’t have had anything to do with my heightened feelings of shame and disappointment in my work or with my suddenly short temper. I was strong, and I could handle it.
But looking out the windows of the cab, I did entertain a notable meditation: What the fuck is the matter with everyone? I thought—with absolute conviction. After all, I knew it wasn’t me; it must be them, all of them. An entire city’s worth. It was as if they had all been highlighted with fluorescent markers and they were just carrying on as the daily jackasses they were—but now they were glowing green.
9
DUCK WALK
My midnight dinner date at the Peking Duck was with Julia, one of my closest friends from a few years ago, when I’d lived at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In the time I’d known her, she’d gone from posing in print ads for shampoo to bona fide supermodel. Tonight she’d phoned me after her Fashion Week runway gig and given me the kind of lifeline I desperately needed to get the hell out of that regressive subterranean den. And God bless her.
I dry-throated one of Molly Boy’s pills and tried to calm the fuck down. As my taxi glided downtown, I attempted to gain a further sense of perspective. There’s nothing like a Manhattan cab ride for introspection. Epiphanies can happen on any fleeting block the eye can frame and capture.
The fact is, I was self-aware enough to know I was off. Or on, as it were, depending on your angle of appraisal.
Specifically, I was feeling . . . tangential, like a bold tangent or offshoot of my persona, not like my normal character, which knew how to be polite and play the game and was one people liked to be around.
But this tangent-persona was in no mood for any games. It felt unforgiving and merciless. It was me, all right, but the uncensored me, the fed-up me. I was rude, I was nasty, and the way I was feeling made me want to call everyone on their bullshit. And I was enjoying it. I even felt proud of myself.
It had happened before, this change to the more deliberate, truthful me, but somehow this time it felt different. This was not just a mood swing; it was as if the chemicals in my gut had changed and they were tingling away at the molecular level in an altered arrangement and form.
I supposed it was best for me to disappear, while I was in this state of mind, and let Rafaela handle the business details. But the thought of business didn’t excite me in the least. I really didn’t give a shit.
The feeling had gotten hold of me around the time of Art Basel, but now it was even stronger. This industrial-strength version gave me a certain pow
er. And that was exciting. I gave thought to the new work in the studio that I had under lock and key. It brought a smile to my face.
And her.
Carlotta.
I wanted to know her better. I needed to. I was missing her. My hands were anticipating her. My soul was craving her. Was she real? Or a figment? Of course she’s a figment, I thought in jest, and laughed evilly—I knew now how to capture her; to denunciate her, neutralize her, even denigrate her, to thwart the power she had over me.
From what I had gathered of her sensibilities, she would have lasted about thirty seconds at that club gig. When I thought of her, just from what little I did know of her, I could see the bullshit of my life so clearly. None of that shit would pass the Carlotta test. The buzzer went off at every shallow interlude, at every phony handshake. The buzzer had gone off on my art, too. Storybook frescoes. Malice in Wonderland was more like it.
When I arrived at Peking Duck, Julia was already seated and inspiring a good deal of attention. She signed an autograph and waved off a selfie in the time it took me to check my coat. She stood up, and did she ever look stunning. Her auburn locks were pinned up in a bun with Ivana wisps dangling down around diamond drop earrings. She wore an elegant black shimmering Hervé Léger gown tight to the bosom and pelvis, and her accentuated backside was available for all to see. She was in full glam mode and sucking the air out of the room. And dressed like that, she was also cool enough to go to a place with violent lighting, like Peking Duck.
With the eyes of the restaurant upon us, I meant to peck her on the cheek, but instead she met my lips with hers. She had great lips, and violet eyes like a young Liz Taylor. Since we’d met, she’d become a full-fledged sex symbol, the most coveted configuration of DNA in town. She modeled swimsuits and lingerie as well as high fashion, and lately she’d started acting lessons in an effort to branch out even more. The body was sick. The breasts were genuine, even though she spent most of her time in L.A. surrounded by all that what I have isn’t enough pressure.
Julia was one of my closest friends, though I hadn’t seen her much recently. We had met casually five years before on the garden terrace of the Beverly Hills Hotel, a glamorous hotel that has had most of the world’s entertainment royalty as guests.
I was nursing conjugal wounds at the time of my full-time residency, inhabiting a bungalow for months on end after my marriage had ended. I’d turned the space into my own private studio and had painted frescoes on all the walls. The social parade was nonstop and the parties absolutely wild.
Julia was reading at a nearby table on the veranda when we struck up our first conversation. She had just appeared in her first Victoria’s Secret fashion show, and her career was taking off to the point that she was wearing horn-rims and baseball caps to downplay her recognizability. She had been unknown and struggling, and suddenly, she was on top of the world. I was already enjoying my own mild celebrity but was not as well known as I would eventually become.
I had just decided to move back to the U.S. after living in Madrid for a few years. I was wearing a cast on my leg after my ex-wife, Maria, had stabbed me for repeatedly cheating on her. She’d come into my Madrid studio one day and caught me having sex with one of her good friends. I guess that was the final blow. She started screaming, and as her friend scurried away crying and half-naked, Maria went into my room, where I kept an old hunting knife, a gift from my dad. She rushed in with it, serrated edge first. Maria was shaking all over, and I was trying to calm her down; I was convinced she wouldn’t do anything crazy. But I was wrong. Not only did she stab me, she tried to up the ante and cut off my member. She missed, but the blade dug into my thigh, nearly severing the femoral artery, which would have meant a long Spanish sunset siesta—the type from which you never awake.
In the movies, when people get shot or stabbed, they can talk and even run—but it burns like a motherfucker, and all I could say before passing out was “Babe, really? You fucking stabbed me! Fuck you!”
When I woke up in the hospital, the police were there, and they started asking me questions. They had already arrested Maria; but I knew she never meant to hurt me, and somewhere in my heart, I knew I deserved it. I told the police it was an accident and that I was not going to press charges.
I saw Maria about a week later, and we agreed that it would be best for us to get a divorce. So with respect to our marriage, we said, “CUT!”—pun intended. And I took the next flight I could book to Los Angeles and left Spain for good.
So there I was, perched on the veranda at the hotel, my crutches leaning against the table, a few feet away from this sweet, gorgeous angel. At some point she came up for oxygen from the book she was reading and noticed this raw exposed nerve of a soul. She asked me, “Hey, what happened to you?”
And I stuttered, of course. “I am—” I began awkwardly. “Well . . . my ex-wife stabbed me. She had a bit of a Spanish temper. Can I buy you a drink?”
She looked at me in my pathetic state and had to laugh. Before we knew it, we were drinking martinis and talking. That same night we went to my bungalow, and Julia did not leave for three days. When we came up for occasional air and fuel, Julia helped me organize and paste up The Stabbing Diaries, my new studio collaged mural dedicated to my severed marriage (and a nod to Andy Warhol’s assassination creations after the failed attempt on his life). The Stabbing Diaries were replete with full-spectrum Polaroid photo coverage of my open wound, X-rays, bloody shirt, shredded jeans, teal hospital gown, original oxygen mask and IV hookups, intake bracelets, and a toe tag stolen from a corridor stiffy, as well as the hospital nurse centerfolds (which became a separate ongoing project, unbeknownst to the hospital heads).
This unique melding of creative minds and bodies blossomed into a romance that lasted almost six months, but Julia and I were both so busy (she more than I, at this point) that it cooled eventually and we decided to remain just friends. But being the single man and the champion of the human spirit, free will, and biological desire that I was, I let it be known I would remain open for any future rendezvous if appropriate or if it suited her.
Little did I know that the offer would be accepted and acted upon. Of course I recognized that perhaps my soon-to-be paramour was attracted by my reluctance to beg for something more substantial between us, which was the kind of attention she was accustomed to. But every now and then Julia and I would hook up and go toe to toe, as it appeared we would again this evening.
Having said that, I knew to never give a woman what she wanted. That worked for the male breed, too. If not the entire human race.
But I wasn’t ever sure exactly what Julia was looking for or what she wanted or even how she behaved in a relationship. She would often say, “Rodrigo, you’re like a drug—when I need you, I take you, and it always makes me feel better.” As it was, I had no issues with being used sexually by one of the most desirable women in the world. So I was faithful to our arrangement and don’t believe I ever turned her away.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Julia said as I sat down at her table. She was equipped with particularly acute emotion receptors, and her antennae were always up. I sensed she had already absorbed the fact that I was operating at a new frequency, a frequency with which she was not familiar, and she was unsure whether she could assimilate it, much less dominate it.
“Of course . . .” I said. We ordered food and a pair of martinis, and she studied me with a coy smile before speaking.
“We’ll always have L.A.,” she quipped, and we both had to laugh, she more enthusiastically than I, at the absurdity of it: a mockery of the classic Bogie-Bergman line in Casablanca, as in, it couldn’t get any more superficial.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah—why?”
“On the phone you seemed perturbed.”
“No—you seem perturbed,” I said with a smile.
“No, you’re perturbed.” It was an exercise she’d taught me from the acting lessons she was taking—a Stanislavski word-rep
etition drill—that was a way to sharpen one’s ability to pick up on another’s change in behavior and to enhance one’s capacity to stay in the moment. We often kidded each other about it.
“You’re guessing.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing,” she allowed.
“You’re wondering.”
“Yes, I’m wondering.”
“Yeah, you’re wondering . . .”
“You’re curious— I’m very curious,” she rerouted with new inflection, and with that, she dropped out and broke the exercise. “So what’s going on? Tell me.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know . . . Feelings aren’t my strong point.”
“Don’t hide. Try—”
“It’s in my mind, you know? I’ve been very abrupt . . . and short-tempered . . . and dismissive with people . . . and you know what? I like it.” I laughed, a guttural, boisterous sound.
But she did not laugh. “Okay . . .” she said.
“I mean the honesty of it. Of saying what’s on your mind. Of being truthful. I was really being myself. It’s a relief.”
“It’s liberating, isn’t it? It’s also dangerous.”
“But that’s just it—I didn’t give a shit, and I don’t, you know?”
“So how do you feel now?”
“Now? I feel, let me see, the best word is a Spanish word: tangencial . . .”
“Tangential?”
“Which translates perfectly, but not necessarily my meaning.”
“You mean splintered? Or like part of yourself is splitting away? Like a split personality?” Julia possessed a sharp cerebral instrument; she could decipher an emotional grid and get to the nitty-gritty of psychological states in seconds. She was in training, of course, but intuitive, too. She could delineate and define an emotion and produce it behaviorally, living it and owning it.
The Beautiful Dream of Life Page 5
