by Rick Goeld
I met her in an internet chat room. We were debating the merits of Steely Dan’s new CD, Two Against Nature. She thought it was too jazzy; she liked the old stuff better. I agreed with her—it is too jazzy—but I thought I’d argue the point, just for the sake of arguing. So we argued, and when we got tired of arguing, we chatted, which is what I assume you call it when you’re in a chat room.
She said her name was Marcy, that she was 25 years old, and that she was in law school. Right! Did she take me for a fool? For all I knew, she was a bleached-out housewife, swilling bourbon and looking for some extra-curricular action. Or some teenager jerking my chain. Or some gay caballero really looking to jerk my chain. And what a coincidence: we both lived in Manhattan. So, after some more “chatting,” we agreed to meet Saturday morning for a “get acquainted” breakfast at The Stage Delicatessen, a tourist spot in Midtown. I don’t know why she insisted on The Stage, but she did. Maybe she knows someone there. Or maybe she gets a discount there. We agreed to wear our Steely Dan hats so we would recognize each other. She bought hers during the 1993 tour; mine’s from the 1994 tour.
Who knew if she really was twenty-five? Who knew if she would show up? Who knew if she was even a “she”? Nonetheless, I decided to go. Maybe I’d get lucky.
I arrived shortly before nine and stood waiting in the entryway. A few minutes later, here she comes, wearing the SD hat. And she hadn’t lied: she was definitely a woman, in her mid-twenties, I guessed, and pretty good-looking. I mean, I couldn’t be sure she was 100% female—if you know what I mean—but maybe I would get the chance to find out.
We introduced ourselves. She said her name was Marcy Koffman—probably Jewish, I guessed. We went inside, hung up our coats, and the hostess seated us.
I took a good look at her. Her most striking feature was her eyes—beautiful blue eyes, with soaring, dramatic eyebrows, just like Liv Tyler, whom I have worshipped, from afar, ever since I saw Armageddon. She had a pretty face, with a dimple on her left cheek, and she wore an array of earrings—half a dozen, at least. Her auburn hair fell around her shoulders. And, from what I could see, she had a nice figure.
The waitress brought coffee. I ordered my usual deli breakfast, nova with cream cheese on a sesame bagel. She ordered a plate of sable with an onion bagel, sliced but not toasted, on the side. This got my attention.
I didn’t want to appear completely ignorant, but I had to ask. “What is sable?”
“You don’t know what sable is? Sable Carp? It’s a kind of smoked fish.”
“No, I’ve never heard of it.”
“I’ll let you have a taste.” Her marvelous eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you say you were from the city?”
“Jersey. I grew up in Jersey. But I’m living here now.”
“Jewish?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. You grew up in Jersey and never had sable?”
“I was deprived as a child.”
“You must have been.”
She sipped her coffee, and her eyes twinkled, and I started to fall in love.
(to be continued)
24
Monday, March 20, 2000
The ride uptown was slow and painful. As the bus snaked through horrendous mid-morning traffic, Eddie ate his jelly donuts, drank his coffee, stared out the window, and wondered how fate could have brought the unlikely trio of Alison, Mark, and Marcie together to make his life a living hell. Well, correct that; as far as he knew, Alison and Marcie had never met.
He got off the bus at 95th Street, and, carrying his Steely Dan Rules! sign, headed east. It was a mild, breezy day, and he kicked his way through dead leaves and blowing newspapers. The streets were crowded—cars double-parked, trucks jockeying for space, and delivery men pushing dollies overflowing with fresh produce. He walked past a teenager who was either trying to fix a car or steal it.
As he approached River Sound, he heard a window slide open across the street.
“Hey, Steely Dan person!” An old guy stuck his head out a third floor window. He was wearing a New York Rangers cap.
Eddie looked up and spotted the man. “Hey.”
“I saw that thing in the newspaper about you.”
“No kidding.” Maybe this guy knows something. “You ever see Fagen or Becker around here?”
“Who?”
“Steely Dan? You know, the musicians?”
The old man took off his cap and looked inside it, seemingly lost in thought. Maybe the answer to the question is in the hat? Finally he looked back toward Eddie.
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“You sure?”
“Wouldn’t know what they looked like.”
Then why bother me? Eddie started moving down the sidewalk.
Ranger fan continued, “Can’t say as I ever heard of Steely Dan.”
Then why the fuck bother me? He walked a little faster.
“That is, before I saw that thing in the newspaper.”
Then why not shut the fuck up? He stopped and turned. “Well, thanks anyway … for your help.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice.
“Glad to oblige,” the old man said, a satisfied look on his face. He pulled his head back inside and slammed the window shut.
Eddie began to parade.
Minutes later, Flagman was back, this time with two of his cohorts. Flag was wearing what must have been his traditional array of red, white, and blue clothing. His friends were less colorful, wearing jeans, grey hooded sweatshirts, and fake leather jackets, but all three sported the same “wild hair and thick glasses” look. An invasion of the nerds.
Flag led the group, shouting “my main man” as he raised his hand, expecting Eddie to high-five him.
Eddie was in no mood to high-five anybody. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Hey, man,” Flag replied, “I saw that article about you in The Post.”
“No shit.” Regret crept into Eddie’s gut.
“No shit, man! You’re famous! Eddie something, right?”
Regret gave way to resignation. “Yeah. My name is Eddie.”
“I knew it!” Flag smiled like he had made a new friend.
Eddie, not accepting defeat, decided to change tactics. “You guys must live around here, right?”
“Right. Right up there.” Flag gestured across the street at the building where Ranger fan lived.
“All three of you?”
“Yeah. All in the same building.”
The heartbreak of inbreeding. “You guys know the old man wearing the Ranger cap?”
Hooded Sweatshirt, looking proud, replied, “My old man.”
The four of them stood in a small circle, eyeing each other. Eddie did some quick thinking: He probably couldn’t get rid of them—hell, he figured, they were part of the neighborhood, just like stray cats and overflowing bags of garbage.
“Look, you want to parade with me?”
Flag, Hood, and Wild Hair looked at each other, shrugged, grunted, and nodded—lots of non-verbal communication between these guys—until Flag, obviously the leader, said yeah, why not.
“Okay,” Eddie continued, “but listen, you’ve got to be cool. No craziness.”
More shrugs, grunts, and shuffling of feet. “Oh yeah,” Flag said, “No problem. Just like last week.”
“No, not like last week.” Try to be diplomatic, Eddie … “We’ve got to be cool. Okay?”
“Okay … cool,” Flag replied. “Yeah, we can be cool.” More nodding, grunting, shuffling, and a belch from Wild Hair.
“Then let’s go. Follow me.” Eddie started down the sidewalk.
“Cool,” Flag said, leading his cohorts forward.
Eddie glanced at his rag-tag collection of followers. What the fuck am I doing?
Soon the procession was marching in a rectangle: East along the south side of 95th Street to River Sound, then across the street, then west back to Second Avenue, then across 95th again, and so on and so forth. To break the monotony, Eddie told them a little bit abou
t The Dan, and seconds later heard soft chanting behind him, first “Steely Dan” and then just “Dan, Dan, Dan” over and over. Between chants, Eddie found out that his three “helpers” were just friends—not first cousins as he had suspected—and all lived with their parents. Flag and Wild Hair were part-time students with part-time jobs. Hood seemed to be more into web surfing and game playing. Eddie suspected that smoking weed occupied a good deal of their time—and he felt a twinge of sadness as he remembered his dinner date with Marcie.
But the parade was unproductive. There was no sign of Fagen, Becker, or anyone who remotely resembled them. No one approached them with news of The Dan. Other than a few curious stares, and an occasional “get out of the way,” they were pretty much ignored.
Just before noon, the four men stood in front of Ray’s Famous Pizza, discussing the improbable concept of having lunch together, when a police cruiser pulled up. The policeman rolled down his window and turned toward them. Eddie saw his reflection on a pair of aviator sunglasses.
The policeman addressed him. “Are you the ringleader of this motley crew?”
Eddie grinned nervously as Hood stepped forward and mumbled something about that being a good band, too.
The policeman got out of his cruiser, whipped off his sunglasses, and eyed Hood. “You better step back, son.”
Eddie stepped in front of Hood. “I’m the leader, officer.” Hood was going to fuck this up.
The policeman asked Eddie for some identification, which he handed over. After glancing at the driver’s license, the policeman handed it back and said, “You can’t demonstrate out here.”
Eddie studied the policeman—Officer Gregory, by his name tag—young, blond, and intense. This guy could have been a storm trooper in another life. “Officer, I was told that there was no problem with a peaceful demonstration.”
“Who told you that?”
“A policeman.”
“What policeman?”
“His name is Vince. That’s all I know.”
“Well,” Officer Gregory stood with hands on hips, “this is my beat, and I don’t allow any demonstrations.”
This is my beat?
Hood mumbled something about police brutality. Office Gregory gave him a quick glance and then turned back to Eddie. “Shut your friend up.”
Eddie turned toward Hood and told him to shut up. Unfortunately, he was still holding his Steely Dan Rules! sign, which caught Officer Gregory flush across the face. The policeman grabbed his nose, and things quickly spun out of control. A minute later Eddie was leaning up against the police cruiser, hands cuffed behind him. Flag, Hood, and Wild Hair—neighborhood guys who were just passing by, they had pleaded—beat a hasty retreat into Ray’s.
25
The back seat of the police cruiser smelled like a sewer. The key word is survival …
Eddie cursed softly to himself as Officer Gregory drove to the 19th Precinct on East 67th Street. The policeman seemed to be calming down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anyone that angry. He’d been lucky; Officer Gregory hadn’t suffered anything more serious than a bruise. Maybe that would work in his favor, come trial time.
Arriving at the station, Officer Gregory un-cuffed him, shepherded him through the booking process, and put him in a one-man holding cell. Before his cell phone was confiscated, he was allowed one call, which he placed to his brother. Mark, in a meeting in Connecticut, said he would leave immediately. Not much I can do except wait …
Just after two, another policeman escorted him to an interview room, a windowless, puke-green cube perhaps eight feet on a side, with a metal table and four metal chairs all bolted solidly to the floor. He watched as the officer stepped into the hallway, closed the door, and locked it from the outside. The perfect place to work me over while no one is looking.
Minutes later, he heard the door being unlocked. He looked up, expecting to see his brother. Instead, Lois Lane Smith walked briskly into the room.
“Well, Mr. Zittner.” She offered her hand. “We meet again.”
Eddie, surprised to see her, and disappointed that she wasn’t Mark, nevertheless gathered his wits, stood, and took her hand. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
She took off her coat, dropped her handbag at her feet, and sat. “Who were you expecting? Your lawyer?”
“My brother. I don’t have a lawyer. Never needed one.”
“Until now?”
Eddie eyed her. She was wearing a red sweater over a striped blouse, and navy blue slacks. Her hair was styled differently than the last time he’d seen her. She looked different—better. “How did you know I was in jail?”
“The desk sergeant gave me a call.”
“No kidding.”
“Yeah. He saw your Steely Dan sign and figured you were the guy in the newspaper article.”
“Do you know many policemen?”
“A few. I am a reporter.”
He thought for a minute. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
She reached down and took a pen and notepad out of her handbag. “Will you sit down and answer a few questions for me?”
“What, you’re going to write about me being arrested?”
“Yeah, that was the idea.”
“Well, I don’t want this . . .” Eddie, still standing, gestured at the walls, searching for a way to describe the “experience” he was having. “This, this, this, in the newspapers.”
“This? You mean your arrest?”
“Yeah, my arrest.”
“It’s news, Eddie.”
He circled the table, mumbling “oh, shit” under his breath, much to Lois’s amusement. She continued, “Look, I’m going to write this story with or without your help.”
He did another circuit around the table. Finally, in a flash of clarity, he realized that if the story was going to be written, at least he could tell his side of it. He sat down opposite her. “Okay. I’ll tell you what happened. But, look, you’re going to tell the truth about it, right?”
“Right, assuming you tell me the truth. I’ve already seen the police report.”
“What did it say?”
“Why don’t you tell me your story first.”
Eddie proceeded to tell his version, explaining that it was a mistake, a misunderstanding—an accident, truth be told, that the officer had been hit with the sign. Lois raised her eyebrows; the fact that the policeman had been hit with the sign was not in the police report. She wondered if Officer Gregory—whom she’d never met—was trying to save face. Eddie concluded his story by describing the indignity of being cuffed, finger-printed, photographed, and placed in a holding cell that smelled like, well, the bowels of northern New Jersey.
Lois couldn’t resist a smile. “So this hasn’t been one of the high points of your life.”
“Closer to the low point.” He couldn’t resist smiling back.
“I guess this means no more parading?”
“I guess not.”
“Eddie, look, I’ll write the story as truthfully as I can, okay? It does sound like a misunderstanding.”
“An accident. I accidentally hit the policeman with my sign.”
“I’ll probably let that slide. I don’t think Officer Gregory wants to see that in the newspaper. Trust me, okay?” Lois flashed her best winning smile.
Eddie grinned his acceptance.
Seizing the opportunity, she continued, “Eddie, listen, since I heard that you were arrested, I’ve been thinking about you and your search for these rock stars.”
“And?”
“And, I’d like to write a feature article about it; more depth, about your search, and you as a person. More detail about Steely Dan, and why you feel the way you do about them. I’ll even do some research about them.”
“You mean you’re gonna write about me being arrested, and then another story after that?”
“Exactly! The story of your arrest will be a great lead-in. You know, drama, sympathy, human interest.”
; He stretched his legs, crossed them at the ankles, jammed his hands into his pockets, and gazed at the ceiling. Is this a good idea, or just a bigger pile of shit? He looked back at Lois, who was scribbling furiously in her notebook.
“Why can’t you just skip the story about my arrest?”
“It’s the lead-in to the big in-depth interview. Drama? Sympathy? Remember?”
“Embarrassment? Humiliation? Ridicule?”
“I promise it won’t be like that. I’ll put a positive spin on it.” More scribbling in her notepad.
He looked back at the ceiling, as if some clue to his fate was encoded in the myriad of holes that penetrated the acoustic tiles. Finally, with a skeptical look on his face, he said, “I’ll think about it.”
Then he heard the lock click, and the door swung open, and a policeman stuck his head inside. “Hey, you can go,” the officer announced. “We’re dropping the charges.”
But will my mug shots disappear? He smiled and caught her eye. She smiled back at him, and said she had to run.
*****
Minutes later, having picked up his wallet, keys, cell phone, overcoat, CD player, and Steely Dan Rules! sign, Eddie pushed through the doors of the 19th Precinct. He paused on the sidewalk and savored his return to the free world. Then, spotting a bench, he sat and called his brother, giving him the news that the charges had been dropped. Relieved, Mark told him that he was going directly to his office, and might not be home for dinner.
Eddie closed his eyes, put his head back, basked in the sunshine, and thought about his next move. He had fucked up last time. This time, he would do the right thing. He dialed his father’s cell phone.
“Harry Zittner speaking.”
“Dad, it’s me, Eddie. How’s it going?”
“The Dow is up, and my office is full of clients. I’m a happy man.”
Tax time, Eddie remembered, picturing his father’s smiling face. “Dad, I won’t keep you long.”
“What’s up?”
“Remember last week, the newspaper article about me?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, how can I put this … let me just tell you straight out: I was parading again, and got arrested.”