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You are the stuff of which consumer profiles-American Dream: Educated Middle-Class Model-are made. When you're staying at the Plaza with your beautiful wife, doesn't it make sense to order the best Scotch that money can buy before you go to the theater in your private limousine?
You stayed there once before, with your parents and your brothers, when your father was in between corporate postings. You and Michael rode the elevators up and down all day. The next day you were going to embark for England on the Queen Elizabeth. You told Michael that they didn't have silverware in England, that people had to eat with their hands. Michael started to cry. He didn't want to go to England, didn't want to eat with his hands. You told him not to worry. You would sneak some silverware into the country. Prowling the halls, you stole silverware from the room-service trays and stashed it in your suitcases.
Michael wanted to know if they had glasses. You packed some just in case. At customs in Liverpool Michael began to cry again. You had warned him of the terrible penalties for smuggling. He didn't want to have his hands cut off. A few years ago you were home for the weekend and you found one of the spoons with the Plaza crest in the silverware drawer.
You walk up Fifth Avenue along the park. On the steps of the Metropolitan Museum, a mime with a black-and-white face performs in front of a small crowd. As you pass you hear laughter and when you turn around the mime is imitating your walk. He bows and tips his hat when you stop. You bow back and throw him a quarter.
At the ticket window you say you're a student. The woman asks you if you have an ID. You say you left it in your dorm and she ends up giving you the student rate anyway.
You go to the Egyptian wing and wander among the obelisks, sarcophagi and mummies. In your several visits to the Met this is the only exhibit you have seen. Mummies of all sizes are included, some of them unwrapped to reveal the leathery half-preserved dead. Also dog and cat mummies, and an infant mummy, an ancient newborn bundled up for eternity.
From the Met you walk to Tad's place on Lexington. It's a little after six. No answer to the buzzer. You decide to go for a drink and come back later. In a few minutes you are in singles' heaven on First Avenue. You start at Friday's, where you get a seat at the bar and finally succeed in ordering a drink. Prime time approaches, and the place is packed with eager secretaries and slumming lawyers. Everyone here has the Jordache look-the look you don't want to know better. Hundreds of dollars' worth of cosmetics on the women and thousands in gold around the necks of the open-shirted men. Gold crucifixes, Stars of David and coke spoons hang from the chains. Some trust in God to get them laid; others in drugs. Someone should do a survey of success ratios, publish it in New York magazine.
You are sitting beside a girl with frosted hair who emanates the scent of honeysuckle. She has been sneaking peeks at you in between conferences with her girlfriend. You would guess her age to be somewhere in the illegal range. Underneath her eyes she has painted two purple streaks suggestive of cheekbones. You know what's coming, it's only a matter of time. You don't know how to respond. You catch the eye of the bartender and order another drink.
"Excuse me," the girl says. "Do you happen to know where we could get some coke?"
"No can do."
"I do," she says. "I mean, we know where we can score a gram but we don't have enough bread. You wa
You are not this desperate, you tell yourself. You still have some self-respect.
You wake to the voice of Elmer Fudd. "Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!" You feel like a murder victim yourself. Then you see a girl with frosted hair and puffy eyes looking down at you and you wonder if the crime isn't rape.
"What happened?"
"Nothing," she says. "Not a goddamn thing. Story of my life. Meet a guy at a bar and carry him home so he can pass out on my bed."
This account of events relieves a fraction of the pain in your head. You are in a strange bed. A television shows the cartoon on the other side of the room. You discover that you are still partially clothed.
"At least you didn't puke," she says.
"You better hope your luck holds."
"Say what?"
"Where am I?"
"You're in my goddamn apartment."
"Where might that be?"
"Queens."
"You're kidding."
"What's to kid?" Her face softens and she strokes your forehead. "You wa
"What time is it?" you say. "I'm late for work."
"Cool your jets. It's Saturday."
"I work Saturdays." You sit up in bed, extracting her hand from your hair. You feel ravaged. On the television screen, Wile E. Coyote is building an improbable contraption to catch the Road Ru
You hear sounds coming from the next room. "Who's that?" you say, pointing at the door.
The girl is putting a record on the turntable. "My parents," she says.
By the time you get back to Manhattan it is two o'clock. You feel as if you have come across oceans and mountains. The parents were watching television when you finally worked up the courage to slouch out of the bedroom. They didn't even look up.
You have never been so glad to see the inside of your apartment. You check the refrigerator for liquids. The milk is sour. You are trying to nod off on the couch when the buzzer rings.
When you punch the Listen button a voice says "United Parcel Service." Possibly some kind soul has sent you a brand-new mail-order heart. The voice sounds like it is coming through layers of cloth. Where the hell is the doorman? Does UPS deliver on Saturday? Do you care? You press the Door button and go back to the couch. When the bell rings you go to look through the peephole. Michael is standing in the hall, greatly reduced in size but no less menacing. You consider the fire escape. He steps forward and pounds on the door. The fisheye peephole makes his fist seem like a monstrous appendage. Maybe if you're quiet he'll go away. He pounds again.
You open the door. Michael seems to fill the entire frame.
"Michael," you say. You meet his eyes, which are implacable, then you look down at his feet on which there are a pair of genuine work boots of a type not usually seen in the city.
You leave the door open and walk back to the living room. He doesn't follow immediately. Presently he enters and slams the door. You stretch out on the couch. "Take a seat," you say. He remains standing in front of you. This is not really fair, you think, aggravating, as it does, his advantage in height.
"What the hell is going on with you?" he says. He is growing larger by the minute.
You shrug.
"I've been trying to track you down for over a week. I called your office, called here."
"When did you get to the city," you ask.
"And then when I take the goddamn bus down to the city and stake out your doorstep, you bolt when you see me."
"I thought you were somebody else."
"Don't give me that shit. I left about a hundred and fifty messages at your office. And then yesterday I go to your office and they tell me you are no longer employed as of Wednesday. What the fuck is going on?" His fists are clenched. You would think it was his job you had lost.
"What did you want to see me about?"
"I don't want to see you. I'd just as soon leave you here to drown in coke or whatever it is you're doing. But Dad's worried about you and I'm worried about Dad."
"How is Dad?"
"Do you care?"
You have always thought that Michael would make a great prosecuting attorney. He has an acute sense of universal guilt and a keen nose for circumstantial evidence.