A Virtual Incitement

I saw a wiry old fellow with a face like a collapsed lung striding my way, his drink wobbling in one hand, a cigarette on the other, trying to keep his balance while knocking down what I think was a William Yeoard crystal vase. He continued his journey towards me with heedless, hurried haste. He stumbled awkwardly, he stopped – breathed in, took heart and ventured on, with mingled cunning, imprudence and fear. Now a child, a clown or a moralist would be appalled by that display of demeaning existence, but my philosophy goes beyond that. We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule and congratulating ourselves on their defects. We have always a superfluous quantity of bile in the stomach and we want an object to let it out upon. He stood in front of me and laughed quietly and his nose crinkled up. He smelled strongly of meat, as though he’d recently handled carcasses. I regarded him with a sort of mystic horror and superstitious loathing.

“Yes,” I said politely. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Just another little vodka,” he slurred. I made space for him next to me on the bar and shifted my Lanvin clutch to the other hand, as you don’t want any of your nice stuff near him.

I looked around Kelly Hoeberman’s apartment. Vintage Buccellati spoons were poised over  East India Company porcelain dishes overflowing with Osetra caviar and there were orchids and Kadupal flowers brought from Sri Lanka everywhere you looked. In all, the party was probably not dissimilar from the lowers reagions of hell.

Everyone from the Rich and Dysfunctional was there. To my right – that ridiculous vintage man had left – was Lenny Rosenberg. She was wearing a fabulous Chanel dress – albeit prêt-a-porter – and kept elbowing me right below my ribcage. She used to be one of New York’s most illustrious JAPs but now she’s thirty-four and looks like a thirty-four year old shoe, whom obviously no one wants. To my left, Claudine Belfort - who came from a rather vague and unsure line of nobility but was entitled to rape her husband’s bank account on a daily basis - was animatedly talking to Mark Gabor, a gorgeous media mogul from L.A – highly ornamental but totally hopeless and useless -  and it occurred to me that they were probably having an affair, even though I now cease to bat an eyelid at that sort of thing. In front of me were Harry – an appropriate name for a forty year old Wall Street hedge-fund guy with a hairy-ear problem – with his fiancée Ella, whose qualities were somewhat vague except for the fact that she was nineteen; and Jennie von Wunderland, a Park Avenue Princess. Anything I said about her would be an understatement.

We were all making pleasant conversations about the cocktails at Spoon and Voile Rouge; and Graff and Chanel on Madison and the air around us was thick with envy, passion, resentment, awe, comparison, reverence, jealousy and ecstasy. We give up the external demonstration, the brute violence, but cannot part with the essence or principle of hostility. Beautiful women have always suffered from loneliness and infamy, thus being the victims of the problems of bliss. They are not forgiven for the slightest deviation: everyone is on the watch to charge them an extra existential price for the sin and felony of being so above average, so frightening. The quid of the question is, however, would any of them rather be less beautiful?

 Lenny elbowed me again, whereupon she sweetly announced that she was very very sorry and gave me a caustic stare. I looked upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin that she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of  her unworthiness, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of sorrow and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world (it is looks of dislike and scorn that I answer with the worst venom of my pen). The court was a cat’s cradle for conspiracies - principles have always been liable to waste away and perish at the sight of a throne, particularly where monarchy had grown from a yeasty mass of feudalism. Anyway, it was all a bunch of show, painful to observe.

Now there are a million things one could do at a party like that – network, political campaign, murder – but I nursed my vodka, pretending that my life wasn’t quite so completely shit. With a gasp, I noticed that Pierre, my date, was walking towards me. I had completely forgotten about him, which possibly means I have Alzheimer’s. I told him breezily that I wasn’t feeling very well and he asked if he’d see me at Teterboro on Saturday. I waited for his point. He grinned and told me he wanted to take me to France and then blinked about seven times. He was clearly bipolar. I was thinking I must depart immediately so I flew, faster than a bat out of hell, and gratefully stayed in the bathroom for as long as decently possible. Suddenly the door burst open and Anya Vasilnevich, a complete and utter sociopath stumbled in. Oh God, more friends.

“Sweetie, hi! Have you been doing yogalates?” she asked, examining my left arm. “I have a yoga guru that is beyond. All the stress from organizing fabulous events was nearly giving me a heart attack!”

I considered this gemstone from Anya.

“Until I discovered Viktor Kumaré,” she went on, applying a seventh layer of make-up. “He really awakens your soul and gives you strength and serenity to endure life’s responsibilities,” she nodded.

I closed my eyes and pondered the meaning of this. “God, Anya, that’s terribly, terribly... Buddhist of you.”

“I feel like my life has changed. If I were to meet Buddha, for instance, I’m quite sure that he would immediately embrace me as a kindred spirit.”

“Great,” I said weakly. Anya certainly seemed to have no end of stupid opinions. There was water flushing and out of the stall came Carola Ferraz, Brazilian Royalty. I was beginning to feel as if I had been born there and in all probability would die there too. I excused myself to no one in particular and quietly walked away. Being smart is very overrated, I suspected. I put my face back on and my  smile lasted all the way to the bar.  I cannot bear the state of indifference or ennui; my mind seems to abhor a vacuum as much as ever matter was supposed to. Anyway, I had only one beta-blocker left and I was saving it for an emergency, so I made an executive decision to fall in love that night. Et lá: miracle. There was a quite handsome guy at the bar, absently shaking the ice in the bottom of his glass and clearly pretending he was somewhere else. I ordered another vodka and shifted a little to relief my neck from having to support my huge head, and just as I was about to say “Ugh, my feet are killing me!” (I find that in New York one is always expected to say that, as an opening line or a silence breaker – kind of like talking about the weather), we were approached by Lolita, who was diminutive, with a forgettable face. I mean, I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hated the very sight of her.

“Oliver! You never called!” she said with a pained martyr expression. I noticed with some satisfaction that her face looked like it had been scrubbed with a nutmeg grater.

“I was in Burma,” he replied.

“Burma? I’ve never heard of it,” she said, looking puzzled.

“It’s in southeastern Asia,” he said and her expression was blank. “Between Bangladesh and Thailand,” he paused. Still nothing. Lolita, who had a cotton-wool brain looked like a block of salt. “You’re not very bright, are you?” he laughed, verging on patronizing. “I was there on business, baby, that’s why I never called.”

“What kind of business?” she raised one eyebrow. I wish I could do that. There are times when it is such an appropriate gesture.

“Well, since 2003, when the U.S imposed new economic sanctions against Burma, a major crisis shuttered the country’s private banks and disrupted the economy.”

“Hmm...” she frowned in concentration.

“So now the private’s sector access to formal credit is limited and that’s where I come in,” he added as if he was making total sense.

She cleared her throat. “Well I’m glad you’re back. Maybe we could finish off that little business that we started,” she said and smiled.

Inspiration dawned on him. “Well, no, because the thing is, I got married in Burma,” he paused. “To this gorgeous Burmese girl,” he added and put his hand on my back. Aghast, I froze. I turned to him and he was looking at me as if this was the funniest situation. Lolita’s mask crumbled for a micro-second into a twisted grimace, but only for a micro-second and she forced a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, slightly disinterested smile.

“Maybe your wife would like to have a little fun with us. Huh?” she gazed at me wistfully. I had to hand it to Lolita. There she was, mortally wounded, toothless, and yet still game. I marveled at her abundance of misplaced confidence.

“Sorry baby, not tonight,” he smiled kindly and weaved his fingers between mine. She mumbled awkwardly and headed off self-consciously, as though she was on a tv talk-show.

“I’m sorry,” he turned and faced me. “How terribly rude of me! I didn’t even ask you if you wanted a threesome!”

“Oh!” I exclaimed and slapped my forehead. “You must be one of those people whom you have to get to know before you start liking them!”

“Absolutely!” he grinned.

Now I’m a very nice person, despite what some people say. I can make pleasant conversation and I’ll talk to anyone, even if they’re boring. But this guy I immediately disliked, twice. He then took out a big, embarrassing sunflower from the vase on the bar and extended it to me. 
You see, the crazy in New York are bearable until they speak to you. If they speak to you, you enter a whole new world of pain. 
I stared dumbly at the flower and did nothing. He looked at me in amusement, probably thinking that I thought I was too good for him. Which I did, and I was.

“Fine. I’ll give it to someone else then,” he smiled and waved the flower at a couple of girls. They stumbled towards us and he extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Oliver. I own the place.” They took the ridiculous flower and he glanced at me with a prickle of pride and nodded, as though he’d just won a hundred points and didn’t quite know what to do with them.

“Hi Oliver! I’m Stephanie and this is my friend Chantal!”

CHANTAL?

“This is such a beautiful apartment,” bachelorette number one gushed again. She had one of those faces that looked as if it had been put on upside down.

“So...big,” the other one raise her eyebrows tentatively.

“Oh yes,” Oliver said. “Huge...” he added slowly.

I felt an overpowering need to keep listening, just out of academic interest.

“So Chantal,” he continued. “What is it that you do?”

“I’m a model,” she answered in a different tone, almost... proud?

“And I’m an actress,” said the other one. I noticed they were wearing acrylic, both nails and shoes.

“Oh. Have I seen you in anything, Stephanie?” I said as if it was her alleged name, because I could only assume that Chantal was some sort of nom-de-guerre.

“Oh, um, let me think,” she pouted. Her lipstick was a scintillating pink and I wondered if the eighties were back. “Did you catch Teenage Musty Ninja Girlies?”, she looked at me like seven kinds of idiot.

I gasped. Why on earth I’d felt the need to attract attention to myself I had no idea. For an awful moment I thought that Oliver was going to say something unsuitable or horribly inappropriate, but I couldn’t quite focus – maybe because I had just swallowed a little bit of vomit. I decided to stay as far as possible from them out of intellectual cowardice, so I made my way to the other end of the room. I talked to Sam for a little while, mostly about his favorite niece and how she got a manicure every week (it is worth mentioning that she was three years old. I was kind of jealous because I started getting them only when I was eleven). I wanted to tell him to get away from the window or the neighbors would think he was a gargoyle, but I was finding the whole scene quite picturesque.

I felt myself compelled to look back at Oliver and stare into his dreamy pale green eyes, which could transform from dreamy to penetrating, thus suggesting a more animalistic side, if you get my drift. His disheveled hair made him look like a beaten-up scarecrow but he was the only one there who could pull off wearing dirty sneakers and a suit, which was navy blue and if you looked closely enough, you could see very faint red stripes (I know it sounds awful but it wasn’t and I have fabulous taste). This man would definitely not prevent me from having beautiful kids.  I must be drunk, I thought to myself.

Somehow that night he ended up in my bed – and stayed there, for the next two years. I suppose the truth is you never really get to the bottom of why people do things, except maybe in books. He was kind of funny, actually, in an unorthodox, rude, wacky sort of way. He was witty, sharp, talkative and flirtatious and loved being the center of attention. Everything he said was so smart and clever I almost wanted to add “Amen”. A smile was never far from his lips and he had the gift of easy laughter, which made me feel like I was indeed quite hilarious. He embarrassed me in public places, had a sterile narcissism that was beyond poetic and was tremendously fond of his own voice, but somehow that only made him more adorable. Nonetheless, he grew on me, like a brown mole that you don’t laser off because it’s right above the corner of your mouth and kind of makes you look like Cindy Crawford. No one understands this concept, except for me of course.

We were so different and yet so alike. I went to Smith and was proper, but not quite so. He went to Columbia and was a sociopath, but not quite so. If we were Argentinean, for instance, I would live in Recoleta and he would live in San Telmo. I brought out the best in him, and he brought out the worst in me – like a frog becoming a prince and a princess deconstructed. The white streak in our own fortunes is brightened (or just rendered visible) by making all around it as dark as possible: so the rainbow paints its form upon the cloud. Is it pride? Is it the force of contrast? Is it weakness or malice? But so it is, that there is a secret affinity, a hankering after evil in the human mind, and that it takes a perverse, but a fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction.

We were all about the things you can’t really articulate. I was constantly smiling and even admiring flowers on my way to classes. He brought me tea in bed when I was sick with something really catching like SARS, and I pretended to be mad at him when he said too many bad words. He made me feel more complete than I have ever felt in my Louboutins. Destiny isn’t too selective on the choice of its messengers and has a hellified way of showing it. Our lives of partying and excess – an empty life that we recognized but weren’t bothered to fill – came to a screeching halt (or at least a lumbering intermission). Inevitably we did wind up going back to an old haunt: inevitably jealousy and lust and indifference reared out ugly heads and it was back on the all-night partying roller-coaster. End of relationship. All that clean living simply isn’t natural.

Ooh, la societè... There is a flaw running horizontally though humanity wherever it is gathered together in space. Society makes its victims, abandoning principle for statecraft, for politics, for intrigue, because of its too urgent sense that it must survive at all costs; and in its panic, looses cognizance of all the essentials by which it lives. Love and friendship melt in their own fires. We hate old friends, we hate old books, we hate old opinions, and at last we come to hate ourselves. So at last, I find myself lying dejected in bed, in the middle of what you call an anxiety attack, maybe the beginnings of a depression, maybe simply a difficult wake-up. As Hamlet says, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”.

photo doctormacro.com