Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(5)

“Where is this place?” barks Jerry. The image of a caramel-colored, ninety-pound Asian girl draped over his pasty enormous form goes through my brain like a flicker of the lights.

“Tribeca. They have a converted loft. A few makeshift rooms and a few gals there. It’s open all day. You can just duck over for lunch.”

“Get me that address tomorrow.”

“Will do.” Ron and William stand a little straighter as though they’ve just been promoted.

Frank cocks his head the way a dog will when you speak to it and it is trying hard to understand your words. “Do you feel like that’s cheating?” This is a courageous question, especially since Jerry already showed interest. Honest, from the heart. Maybe this is how Jerry was too, thirteen years ago. I can’t remember. For a moment, I start to like Frank. On the other hand, it is the sort of wet-blanket question no one wants to hear and is a conversation killer. Bad form.

“I’ve actually thought about that, and the answer is no, for two reasons.” Conversation still alive. William continues his CPR. “The first reason is simple. If I scratch an itch and no one’s the wiser, then no one gets hurt. It’s like the tree falling in the forest. It’s not cheating unless both parties are involved and you complete the transaction.”

It occurs to me that “simple” to him means that any corner that can be cut will be cut. “But aren’t you stuck in a relationship covered with itches?”

“But they’re mine, it’s my business. If I’m okay, the relationship is okay. It’s not cheating.”

I don’t follow the logic but am amused by it, so I let it pass. I’ve been to a rub and tug too. It’s just been about ten years since and I did it twice in my life. I haven’t waved it in a few times a week like a turkey sandwich. “Okay, so what’s reason number two?”

“Number two is a little more complicated.” Here we go. “You have to switch roles in your head. If my fiancée had an itch and she went to some Asian guy, or gal, therapist who gave her a massage, then fingered her to orgasm to help her relax and feel good, I wouldn’t care. I don’t feel an ounce of jealousy over that. It just makes her happier and better able to deal with me.”

I find myself smiling while listening to this. I haven’t yet decided if it is sheer lunacy or if there is some twisted genius in what this kid is saying. Jerry has leaned back, slowly nodding, while Ron has an “amen, brother” look on his face. Frank looks confused. The silence from all of us lasts long enough that William just continues.

“Anyway, it’s not cheating. Because, what is cheating? Cheating is an affair with someone you know, a personal relationship. Not a professional relationship. An anonymous hooker or massage gal is not cheating.”

He says this with the tone of a philosopher, like he’s quoting an important passage. The philosophy of William. A one-woman-and-many-hookers man. I turn and get another drink. Not only did Frank not kill the conversation, but we just brought back a red-light district Frankenstein. I’m still pondering William’s theory of personal versus professional cheating, or noncheating. I’m struggling to connect the dots. Good for him if he can get some mileage out of professional noncheating and make it work. I can allow that he is on to something in that there are degrees between the two. I don’t think I could handle being on the receiving end of my wife having an affair and actually developing another relationship that had more meaning than just scratching an itch.

From this happy thought I begin to suffer from another bout of the syndrome I have recently begun to call “what am I doing in a bar with a bunch of twenty-five-year-olds when I’m thirty-five.” Bourbon always helps amplify my mood, for good or ill. In the last twenty minutes it’s been heading down, and fast. This is my career. By day I sell paper from companies whose business I don’t fully understand and could never run. By night, this. I’ve developed no real talents. A few people report to me, but the extent of my management skills is to give them a hard time over cocktails. Every time I think I need to get out and do something else, that thought is followed up with the realization that there is nothing else. What the hell else can I do? This job is all I’ve done for more than a dozen years and I have no other skill, if you can even call this a skill. At least I’m making some money. At thirty-five is it too late to pull out and switch careers? I think better never than late.

“Guys, I feel like crap. I’m going to pull the rip cord and get home.”

“What!” in chorus. “Come on. A couple more drinks and we’ll head over to Scores. We’re already on the East Side.” Jerry attempts the argument of geographic convenience after having dragged us all the way uptown. Home is downtown and farther west, so there isn’t any advantage for me. Plus it has gotten hard to expense strip club bills and we’d probably have to come out of pocket. And I really do feel like crap.

“Not tonight, guys. Enjoy the club, I’m out.” I bolt for the door before they can mount another argument.





3 | ON A PATH


November 15, 2005

I GET IN A CAB AND REST ONE SIDE OF MY FOREHEAD against the glass window. It’s about twenty minutes from J. G. Melon to home. I watch a few pedestrians that we pass on the sidewalk, then close my eyes and my mind drifts. I remember my first time at Bear Stearns when I interviewed and got the job. It’s the kind of memory people can have that feels like yesterday and also another lifetime. The winter of 1992 is my senior year. I drive to Manhattan in my Explorer that has 190,000 miles on it and is worth less than what I pay the garage to park it for three days in the city.