Tuesday 16 December 2008
	Milford Plaza, New York and My interview.
	It's Wednesday December 10th and I'm in New York and I'm staying at the Milford Plaza on 45th and Eighth Street.  I've got an interview at a national radio station on Thursday December 11th and I want to be as relaxed as possible so I phone a couple of women I know in the Manhattan area and to my surprise one of them agrees to visit with me while I'm at the hotel. One of the women I spoke to on my hotel room telephone said: "Gimme a few hours to make myself into something I know you'll like, Norman." And then she hung up. Fuck. Me. Sometimes when I'm nervous or tired I'll sing or invent spontaneous poetry and while I'm unpacking my suitcase I'm singing: When you're walking down the halls and your balls hit the walls It's a rupture... When you're walking down the halls and your balls hit the walls It's a rupture... When you're walking down the halls and your balls hit the walls It's a rupture. If I'm confused or feeling kinda shorted out I'll just start chanting the following: I got a big dick... I got a big dick... I got a big dick... I got a big dick... I'm not confused or feeling shorted out (at this time) but for safety I switch from my halls, balls thing to: I got a big dick... I got a big dick... I got a big dick... While I'm chanting I got a big dick there's a knock on my hotel room door. "Open up, it's me." I say: "Violet?" She says: "C'mon.  Open up." While I'm opening the door I say: "How long were you standing there?" I met Violet a few years ago.  She lives near Central Park and she'd like it if I lived there, too.  She has brown shoulder length hair, full lips and brown eyes.  A couple of years ago she was an NYU journalism student but dropped out after she was put on academic probation.  The last time I spoke to her she was a floor manager at Bergdorf Goodman.  This evening she's wearing a black Catherine Malandrino knee length dress, black Spanx tights and a white Roberto Cavalli stitched sleeve blouse.  For shoes it's likely she's wearing black Jimmy Choo Kidskin pumps. When the door opens she puts her arms around me and pushes me back into the room closing the door with her foot.   While she's kissing me I'm thinking about how much I'm enjoying her perfume and when she's done kissing me she says: "Tell me all about it, Norman." I say: "It's just an interview.  Radio.  National radio.  I'm hoping I can pitch a talk show after midnight.  We'll see." Her mother works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Her father is a patent attorney.  She's a million miles from where I came from and I can't help but wonder what she sees in me but I know if I try to understand it I'll ruin it so I direct my thoughts elsewhere. I say: "I'm gonna try to get on stage at the HA! comedy club.  Wanna go?  We can head off to dinner afterward." She says: "Yes please." Yes please?  Jesus.  A couple of days with this girl and I'll be married. I say: "I'm gonna take a bath.  Gimme twenty minutes." Without hesitation Violet says: "Me too." Forget what I said about a couple of days.  I might be married before nightfall. "I'll run the water," I say. I always liked the idea of bathing with a woman.  She's (the woman) sitting in the tub on one end facing me and I'm sitting on the other end facing her.  We're partially submerged in water; water that's been here since the Lord thought it all up.  All water is holy water.  Water sanctified by a priest evaporates while in the font and rejoins/becomes a part of Earth water cycle all over again.  To heat the water in the bathtub coal is burned.  I imagine the Lord is indirectly responsible for the conception of coal, also.  The both of us sit partially immersed in warm holy water, able to see one another because of a light bulb created by a man the man a byproduct of the Lord and the woman in the tub with your correspondent also a byproduct and esteemed assistant creator for the Lord.  The bathtub was designed by a man (or woman).  The bathroom floor tile, too.  The building also.  It's not just the two of us taking a bath together.  It's much more.  The two of us are being melted down, atomized, absorbed, brought home.  We're molecules dripping off a tablespoon like warm honey and when the honey makes contact with a surface it's oftentimes hard to find the honey because the honey has dried paper-thin and become a part of the surface the surface that in all it's differentness is as familiar to the honey as was the beehive from where the honey originated.                Violet says: "Are you ready for me?" I'm in the tub and Violet is talking as she lowers herself down and into the water. She says: "Not a lot of men like baths." I say: "Let's get it on, Violet." Normally I would have said let's fuck sugar but I've been away from her for awhile so I figure me saying let's get it on is a safer bet and a lot less intrusive. (Dale Carnegie said, "The sweetest sound in any language is a person's own name.") She says: "It's really good to see you, Norman." Ten minutes later Violet lifts herself out of the tub and while she's lifting herself out of the tub she slips on the wet tile floor and kicks the water adjustment knob off the radiator and hot water and steam come out. I say: "I'll call the front desk." A Mumbai Indian (the front desk manager) moves us to another room.  He reminds me that I paid for just myself.  "It costs more to have two guests occupying your room," he says. I tell Mumbai that Violet lives locally and is visiting. "She's just visiting, sir."  At the comedy club I fall down two flights of stairs.  The comedy club is in a basement.  The club walls are painted black.  It smells like a basement.  It's similar to photographs I've seen of Treblinka or Auschwitz only somehow it seems worse.  Way worse. It's open mic night and when I start my set the microphone is switched off as I speak. "Profanity isn't allowed," I'm told.  The other comics I walk past as I exit the stage sneer at me.  The only words I would use in this room would be swear words.   On my way out I give the the man that told me, "Profanity isn't allowed" the finger.  Into the microphone he says, "You want a piece of me?"  Violet tells him to, "Fuck himself."  Shit.  Maybe your correspondent will be married within the hour. *I was to meet with the radio executive at 9:15 in the morning on Thursday.  I was told he wasn't in.  I came back and tried to see him on Friday morning.  I was told he didn't come in either Thursday or Friday.  I left my name and telephone on his voice mail but he has yet to return my call.  I'm still thinking about the dude (the emcee) at HA! comedy club.  I'm in midtown Manhattan and the best he could come up with is, "You want a piece of me?" It is my personal believe that the HA! comedy club was once used as a private subscription sex club (When I fell down the stairs I stood up only to nearly fall again when I stepped on a heavily used ball gag). PREVIOUS   HOME   NEXT