She’s right. There’s nothing to do.
Back on the casino floor, one of my regulars, Mrs. Helen Donalson, calls me over from one of the high-limit territories, Zone 4. She’s very nice. She’s here almost every night and is always pleasant, win or lose. So she calls me over and says she’s heard from someone, doesn’t remember who, but someone in the know, that I’m really a famous author. So am I? Am I really an author and am I really famous? I answer no, I am really a famous slot attendant.
“I don’t believe you,” she says. “There’s something different about you. I would love to know more.”
Even with people who appear to be reasonable, coherent and intelligent, I prefer to skip the details. They turn off as soon as you begin. So why bother? Why make a nuisance of yourself? Most people are interested in themselves and even more people are fascinated about themselves. About you, nobody cares. So often when people find out you’re a writer they say that’s nice, but wait till you hear my story.
Then, as if to prove my point, she says, “This machine better pay off soon.”
She’s playing dollar Joker Poker.
“I’m already in two thousand dollars. It’s bound to hit. My husband’s going to kill me. Oh, well.”
She plays the same machine every night. She has hit in the past. She used to be a professor of English before she retired, over at Rutgers.
“You can’t fool me,” she says as she keeps playing her machine. “You’ve got class.” I like this. I like hearing this. She’s reading the latest Roth at the moment. What do I think of him? What am I reading these days and what am I writing? I go stupid and do something I never do; confess that I wrote The Ice King. This doesn’t stop her play at the machine but she does give it an, “Oh my. I loved the movie.” Right, this is expected. “I wrote the book, the novel.” She did not know, she says, that there was a novel. This too is expected. But wait! “I read your book,” she says. “What a wonderful book.”
Maybe she did read it and maybe she didn’t and certainly I will not test her. This can only lead to vexation and right now this is good, too good to waste.
As this is going on between me and Mrs. Donalson, Omar walks over and, this is a surprise, he’s coming at me with an executive from Las Vegas, a silky man. Our Vegas bosses come around now and then to check up on the operation, how it’s going and why – why there’s not enough money coming in. There’s never enough. There’s always talk about layoffs. There’s even talk about the casino being sold. The name Carl Icahn keeps popping up. So here comes Omar with this guy and I know there’s something Mr. Vegas wants to tell me but he won’t since it’s just not done, from his level to my level. So it’s left to Omar and what he says, and quite loudly, is that my shoes are not shined well enough. They should sparkle. That’s what they’ve come to tell me, and then turn abruptly and leave.
“Can’t you make this machine wake up?” says Mrs. Donalson. “Rub it for me. You’re good luck.”
Chapter 8
Toledo Vasquez is a good kid. He’s abundant in muscle and toughness, but around me, at least, he’s got charm. He’s always telling me about the fights he gets into to thwart those pugs competing for his girl. Just the other day, he says, he got into it and knocked some guy unconscious over a slight. I believe him. That’s back in his Camden neighborhood where he gets into all those rumbles, but around the casino nobody messes with him, either. I’ve taught him a few martial arts moves and he’s grateful. He’s from one side of the world, I’m from the other, but we match. He’s from one generation, I’m from another, but we still match.
We got it started months ago when we were alone in the cafeteria and he started talking about Maria, his girl, and I told him I knew the score.
Yes, as long as there are women, there’s going to be trouble.
So we’re pals and he was kind enough to trade off-days with me. I needed his Friday. “No problemo,” he said.
So Friday morning Melanie drops me off at the Greyhound/Trailways bus station in Mount Laurel. I’m off to New York. I go in and buy my tickets, go back out and sit in the car with Mel, waiting for the bus. I leave my briefcase outside to secure my place in line. That’s how it’s done. It’s very civilized here in Mount Laurel. We don’t say much, but then she says, “I like it so much better, you off to New York.”
“Yup.”
I try not to get overly excited, but am touched by travel fever. On the other hand, I know too much. That’s never good. I love New York but does New York love me?
We keep going back to find out. Big meeting coming up. Every trip has become Gog and Magog.
But this meeting is really big.
Melanie is trying to find the right words. “Go there, walk in, like you’re somebody. Remember who you are.”
She’s trying to prop me up.
“You’re somebody, remember?”
Right, that other motto, I am nothing, I am nobody, won’t do today.
“I can’t heeeear you,” she says.
“Okay, I am somebody.”
“This is war, right?”
“Right,” I agree.
“You always say this is war.”
“Yes I do, Mel.”
“So go in there and take no prisoners.”
“Right, no prisoners.”
“Just go in and take control,” she says. “Dominate! Dominate the meeting.”
Matter of fact, my movie The Ice King was on TV just the other day (it does appear quite regularly) and despite the law in our home that we don’t watch the movie anymore we did stay for the credits, the opening credits only, just to be sure that my name was still where it belonged, and it was. You never know. Someone might decide to delete you altogether, for whatever reason. Anyway, Rob Lowe, or someone like that, introduced the movie and mentioned the director and the screenwriter but not me, the author, the novelist who started the whole thing from scratch, wrote a 200 million dollar movie that made everybody else rich; wrote it on the kitchen table. That was a bit of a downer. Actually, Melanie was outraged.
“Dominate,” she says.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll dominate the meeting.
“I still can’t heeeear you!”
“Yes, sweetheart, I’ll dominate the meeting.”
“Remember who you are.”
Is that such a good thing? No, banish the thought. This isn’t the time to go on rewind.
The New York bus pulls up and I get a slight case of the willies. The bus starts from Philly so it’s three quarters full. But I’ve got my place in line.
I scoot out.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you.” More than you’ll ever know, I am thinking.
I’m in the middle of the boarding line, the driver taking tickets, and am stricken by a strange melancholy as I watch Melanie turn the car around and begin to drive off. It’s as if I’ll never be seeing her again, that kind of sadness. I read her lips before she vanishes: “Remember who you are.” You’d never know I’d made this hour and a half trip a hundred times.
It’s at moments like this that I remember how much I love her, how much…oh hell!
I’ve got an aisle seat. I prefer window but there’s no scenery this part of New Jersey anyway. It’s all flat and a mole hill is a mountain. The bus is full of suits, some artistic types as well. The suits know who they are. The artistic types, not so much. For an artist, life is one audition after another, one tryout after another. Suits are confident people. They’ve already won, or give that appearance. This is the 7 a.m. Wall Street Special. I’m starting to feel good, almost happy; reclusive writer from the sticks onto bright lights, big city.
There’s nothing like New York, of course. It’s even more of a toss of the dice than Atlantic City. If you’re a gambler, New York is the place. In fact I behold New York from the point of view of a slot attendant. That it’s a place for gambling (just like AC and Vegas) except that in New York the stakes are higher. More than money is being wag
ered; your place in the world, that’s the bet. (You do not want to be put to shame.)
The bus turns left, left again up to Route 73, a half mile up the driver swings right and we’re on the turnpike and that’s when your heart begins to quicken.
The lady next to me, at the window seat, is from Philadelphia. I know this and everything else about her because she’s on her cell phone the whole time, no secret left behind. She’s fast-talking, in an executive outfit, not bad-looking, but all business for the world…the New Woman that was carved out of the 1970s. I know that her kids are late being picked up for school, the dishes weren’t done by Max, the maid hasn’t arrived, the garbage hasn’t been taken out, the dentist never called back, Kathy’s braces are coming loose, the decorator is in for a lawsuit, Lisa forgot to cancel the hairdresser, a check bounced, and what good is that lawyer if he can’t settle out of court? She’s cussing up a storm.
Wait a minute. I think I know who this is. Now she’s talking about column inches, typos, editing, proofreading, and can it be?
I think this is Barbara Moser, top editor of that big newspaper across the river. I can’t complain. She gave The Ice King a good review, well, her book reviewer did, though her movie reviewer was nasty, when the movie came out. I recognize her from the picture in the paper. She writes a column, Sundays, once a week. I can never make sense of what she writes, it’s all so muddled. You never know where she stands, what position she takes between two competing arguments, because she takes both, or so it seems. You never know. I guess that’s the trick.
I assume she’s now scolding her Food writer, or editor, for using the TH sound for some Hebrew delicacy.
She’s saying the TH sound is out – “You should know that for shit’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”
I reconsider introducing myself. This is some bitch.
Down a couple of rows I swear those are two writers exchanging gossip. The one says, “We don’t ship off writers to Siberia. We exile them to the Internet.” Other passengers are reading newspapers, tapping their laptops, on cell phones, or napping and some are actually snoring. All are pros, Mount Laurel to New York professionals. I do like this. A sensation of great things comes with a ticket to New York. You must be important to be on this bus. You’re going to be making deals. You’re going to dominate.
Where the New Jersey farm lands end, almost abruptly, that’s where Industrial America kicks in and you pass along acres of criss-crossing railroad tracks, smoke stacks billowing from acres of refineries and you can even smell the chemicals. What a swift and dramatic change. Local and trans-national trains speed along in different directions and overhead planes and helicopters fly low, landing or taking off.
When you’re backed up serpentine for miles but then enter the Lincoln Tunnel, that’s when you know it’s happening.
Step outside the bus station on 42nd and you’re in the suburbs no more. It’s dizzying before you start walking and make the adjustment.
So many people, and all so different, and everybody wants something. We are all so grasping, so NEEDY.
I’m way early, so I start walking just to be walking, but I do have a purpose, and that is getting my shoes shined, as there is nothing like a New York shine, and I know exactly where to go, where I always go, to those shoeshine guys outside the Grand Hyatt, right alongside Grand Central Terminal. If nothing else, I will have a terrific shoe shine. I get there, hop up, and the man gets to work and it’s almost like surgery, he’s so serious, and he puts his whole body into it when it comes to the buffing. It comes to three dollars and I give him a five to keep and he says, “Thank you, Sir.” Who says New Yorkers aren’t polite? Problem is, I can’t see my reflection in my shoes. This shine will not make it into the hall of fame. I hope this isn’t a sign.
I take in a movie but don’t even know what movie I’m watching or even what theater I’m in, I’m so anxious about my appointment. I buy one of those giant containers of popcorn and gulp it all down so fast that I need burping. I wish Melanie were here with me. No, this I have to do alone. Then I stop in at some OTB and make a couple of bets. Then I stop in at a tobacco shop and find the perfect pipe. I ask the price, which tips them off, of course, and the snooty clerk mumbles something about $850. I’m tempted to demand that he put it aside. I’ll be back.
I make my way slowly to Sylvio’s office, taking in Manhattan, which has a beat, a rhythm, as no other. New skyscrapers keep popping up. Suddenly Reuters and suddenly Bertelsmann. They weren’t here last time. Or were they? I like to watch the tourists at Radio City. You know they’re not New Yorkers. So Midwest. So grassroots. So chatty and goo-goo eyed. They’re not in Cincinnati anymore. I walk around the skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza and marvel at all those glitzy shops. Where does all this money come from? Same for Fifth Avenue, where limos are parked all along the sides. Where does all this money come from?
There’s still time before my meeting and a few blocks later, here I am at the Waldorf-Astoria. I am a lobby specialist and this is one of the best, refined, plush and understated. The carpets are so thick that you’re practically floating. Feels good being among people so rich and so tall. People, even the staff and even the guests, keep smiling at me as if they know me. Maybe they feel so good about themselves they’ll smile at anybody. Maybe they remember me from the time my picture was all over the place after The Ice King came out. I made some of the talk shows and was featured, profiled, in quite a number of magazines, back then. Maybe I’m having a good hair day. Maybe it’s the shine of my shoes, though not really a great shine but good enough. I really enjoy this lobby, but it is time to go.
I take the stairs up and Marci greets me without a smile. It’s been so hectic, she finally submits; all those contracts to be mailed in and mailed out. You know how it is. Yes, I know how it is. Oh, Sylvio is not in. He’s sorry. But he’s not in. Something unexpected came up. Also, the lunch with Roe Morgan is off. He phoned just minutes ago, Roe Morgan did. “But he still said for you to go over. He can give you fifteen minutes.”
“I thought…”
“It’s been so hectic around here. I need a vacation.”
I tell her I know how it is. I still don’t think she knows my name.
I take the staircase back down and walk over to the big building on 59th and Madison where I now have 15 minutes, not lunch, with Roe Morgan. He was to be, or is to be, my publisher of last resort. He published my big novel, The Ice King, when he was still with Michael Fain Brothers & Company, a small house but prestigious, especially on fiction. Roe Morgan bought The Ice King while he was still at Fain’s and it made much money for all of them, including the Fain company and Roe Morgan personally. In fact it made his career, or so I’m told.
Soon after, Roe Morgan moved on to this much larger house, a publishing empire. No, I can’t say he got a bigger desk in a bigger office in a bigger company all on account of me and the merits of my novel. But it sure didn’t hurt. So it was something of a surprise when he didn’t invite me to move along with him, as it’s usually done, and it was an even bigger surprise when he turned down Smooth Operator. Actually, he never phoned when the movie came out for The Ice King and never phoned when the movie topped all box office records for an April opening.
Sylvio had been against this meeting. Editors don’t like to meet writers. It just doesn’t work that way. It isn’t done. Particularly they do not want to meet with an author they’ve already turned down. But Sylvio set it up anyway (as a lunch) since, after all, Roe Morgan and I have a history, a good history. I suppose I rubbed it in when, a bit on the emotional side, I blurted out, to Sylvio, these words: “I am not disposable.”
Actually, editors don’t like writers, period.
I knew he was up on the 17th floor, Roe Morgan was, and it’s what had me distracted on the bus trip over.
I usually case the lobby in instances like this, checking out the elevators to see if they’re fit for boarding. Are they big, small, fast, slow?
T
his fear of mine, it is breathtaking.
I do consider the stairs. Seventeen flights. So what? But there’s a sign and it says…Emergency Only. Alarmed.
Alarmed, you bet.
I wish there were more escalators in this world. But they’re so rare. I love escalators.
So I wait around the lobby to build up some steam. At this moment Roe Morgan is the last thing on my mind. First, the elevators. Then, Roe Morgan. Finally, a guy wearing some kind of uniform steps in, so that’ll be my choice, and it gets even better when a FedEx guy rushes in with him. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
I’m just hoping these two squared away guys join me up to 17. The elevator does zoom, and I like that, but stops at eight, where the FedEx guy gets off, and then it stops at 12, where the other guy gets off, and then it’s between me and the elevator. Up at 17, I’m in a sweat and take a deep breath, and hold it, and wait for the doors to open, but they never will, I just know, I just know this is it, and I’m already reaching for the red button, or should I try the Open button, but slowly, much too slowly, the doors do part.
Place is deserted. No receptionist, no secretary, no assistants in the lobby, only poster blowups along the velvet walls of all the bestsellers.
There are many and many are surely Roe Morgan’s doing. Though I really don’t know how well he’s been doing since I left him or since he left me.
He never even phoned when The Ice King reached number one in The New York Times.
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