Downward Dog

by Edward Vilga

  Part of me—and I admit this is not a sign of emotional health—is actually really pleased that Shane saw the article. Like the misbehaving toddler, I somehow prefer any attention over being ignored.

  And yet, I note that Shane’s last remark is the only time during our encounter that she condescends to show any emotion whatsoever. Frankly, the fact that that emotion is intense disapproval, bordering on disgust, doesn’t bother me that much. Given the choice between having her hate me to my face or never seeing her again, I’d rather get what I deserve than lose her completely. Like a badly mismatched prizefighter, no matter how battered I am, I like to think that if I’m still in the ring, at least there’s some tiny flicker of hope.

  In other words, I’m delusional.

  DOWNWARD FACING DOG

  (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

  Dogs just whip into the pose all the time, instinctively knowing that they need to keep moving in order to stay in the groove.

  Humans are a lot less bright. Tight, sometimes seemingly straitjacketed, we need to be reminded, even retaught through yoga, the most basic stretches, the most natural way to breathe.

  Not that I’m totally dissing the intellectual benefits of being Homo sapiens. I like Mozart and Bach and the Beach Boys and movies and video games. But our species does not have a total advantage, especially in the physical world.

  And when it comes to animal instincts, drives, desires, and urges … well, if anything, we’re even more disadvantaged than those that crawl or walk on all fours. Spending most of our time denying our nature, when we do indulge, it’s a constant, losing battle to keep things from blowing up in our face.

  Downward Facing Dog, indeed.

  Chapter 14

  If Monique and I had been a real couple, our parting outside Blue Ribbon might have been more dramatic and fraught with jealousy over my unspoken Shane history. As it is, Monique never makes a further inquiry during the rest of our dinner, smiling warmly as she heads off in a cab to her own bed.

  The evening’s unpleasantness was in no way her fault, but maybe it all stems from my mistake of taking our situation outside the 450 square feet of my apartment. I half wonder if this is simply Nature’s way of telling me that the Monique situation has simply run its course. And the part of me that still feels a little guilty about free and easy F-Buddy sex wonders if I somehow brought this on myself.

  In any case, I resolve not to call her again although I know that’s the kind of resolution I might break easily enough. On some cold March night, when Monique texts me at a quarter to midnight, I know she’ll probably be far too tempting to resist.

  There is one unexpected consequence to the Monique/Shane episode—one I’m completely bewildered as to how to interpret—but three days later, when I go online, I see that Shane has finally cashed my check for $500.

  When I get home from teaching, I’m surprised to find that there’s a message from Gigi on my machine. “Give me a call when you have a moment, baby. I’d like to talk a little yoga with you.”

  To my great discredit, it actually takes me two days to get back to her. I don’t know why exactly. I am busier, but I’ve gone from taking pretty much daily classes at Thank Heaven to now maybe one or two a week. When it comes to your yoga practice, Gigi always quotes Woody Allen: showing up is 80 percent of the job. Still, my not calling her back is shoddy behavior, even for me, and especially toward Gigi, the woman who opened up the door that’s given me the possibility of getting my life out of the crapper. Finally, almost as though I’m making amends, rather than calling, I decide to drop by the center and take her class.

  Post-class, Gigi alludes, jokingly, to the delay. She’s too cool to be that angry, but she’s also too much of a straight shooter to let me get away with shit, either. “Things must be quite busy for a yoga celebrity like yourself,” she says. “That was an awfully snazzy photo of you.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m an asshole,” I apologize.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, sugar. I’m sure you’ve got lots of people around you who will be more than happy to scold your bad boy ways. No big deal. I do want to talk to you though.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Well, you know how tight the schedule has been here at the center. There are so many excellent teachers who come out of the training, and I just can’t find spaces to give them all classes. I swear, we’re ready to outgrow this joint, and it feels like we just moved in.”

  Thank Heaven has two large rooms—very decently sized, actually—yet Gigi’s right. Classes have been so popular that the center could soon grow into being one of the two or three biggest studios in New York City.

  “It’s no surprise. Thank Heaven’s the best,” I tell her.

  “Off the record, I like to think so myself,” she says. “Anyway, I don’t know if you know this yet, but Merissa is going on a six-month retreat to work with Amma’s missions.”

  Amma is regarded by many as a living saint, a true manifestation of the Divine. Basically, she travels everywhere, giving free hugs to the masses. No joke: She hugs you, and many think the simple moment of contact carries a real jolt of mystic voltage. I tried going to one of her events on her annual pilgrimage to New York City, but once I learned that the visit required at least a six-hour wait in line, I jetted out. I’ve never been one to wait in line for concert tickets; there’s no way, saint or no saint, I’m giving up my entire day for a hug.

  “Anyway, the schedule’s always evolving and I’ve had my eye on you since yoga school for a spot.”

  “Really,” I exclaim, surprised. “Because of my final?” I blurt out, like a pathetic apple-polishing student clinging to a success. (I aced the yoga school written final with a perfect score, but honestly, only because all my Yale cramming tricks and mnemonics got me through.)

  Gigi chuckles. “Are you kidding me? I mean, our teachers need to have the right practical information of course, but the written final’s the least important part of it. It’s not even your very snazzy practice either. I don’t necessarily select the teachers who have the most advanced practices—we’re not training folks for Cirque du Soleil—but the ones who really have put their hearts and souls and guts on the line. I’ve just been impressed with how you consistently keep showing up for class and how much passion, how much focus you put into your practice.”

  “Thank you,” I say, hoping she hasn’t checked the class rosters for the last few weeks.

  “My pleasure, sweetheart,” she tells me. “So, right now I’m happy to offer you a slot. I’d like you to teach Day-Breakers every Saturday at 8 a.m.”

  Damn! It’s not just on Saturday—it’s on Saturday morning. Which means I couldn’t go out on Friday nights anymore. (I know that like New Year’s Eve, going out on the weekends is for amateurs, but now that I’m forced to pretend I’m a morning person five days a week, weekends are my only outlet.)

  “I wish I could pay more, but we’re offering $25 a class, and then $3 more for every student over ten.”

  “That’s cool. And how many people have been showing up?”

  “Usually around twelve, but I’m sure you’ll be quite popular. We’ll have to get a velvet rope,” she jokes.

  If I were a better person, the choice would be obvious. It’s an honor to be asked to teach at Thank Heaven—a real yoga center, not a cheesy spa—and it’s the least I can do for Gigi. Unfortunately, I am not a better person. Not by a long shot. I’m making $150 an hour teaching privates. My Epitome class with fifty students currently nets me even more. Right now, a Thank Heaven Saturday morning class would be paying me $31. Sure, maybe it would build—perhaps I can do a nude photo spread somewhere and really rope them in—but the low pay, combined with the god-awful hour, are the deal breakers regarding Day-Breakers.

  “You know, Gigi, I’m really honored, but I don’t know if Day-Breakers is going to work well with my current schedule.”

  As always, Gigi’s bullshit detector is razor-sha
rp. “Oh, really?”

  “It’s just that I have this private student I sometimes see on the weekends. If I didn’t already have him as a client, I’d totally pick up the class,” I explain.

  As she takes another sip of her herbal tea, I can tell that she sees right through my rather pathetic lie. It’s pretty lame: an imaginary on-again, off-again client whom I didn’t remember until after I heard the pay rate. “I’m really sorry,” I say to her.

  “Well, darlin’, whatever journey you’re on is great,” she assures me. “Come and go as you please. Explore every trail. But know this: You’re family. We’re always here for you, baby.”

  I can tell she’s disappointed, but at least she’s not busting me on my lie when I know she could. And the truth is, while it feels like shit to lie to Gigi and turn down her offer, I just can’t see myself getting up early one more day a week for $31.

  And yet, if I’m being really honest, it’s not the combination of the low pay and the early hour that resulted in my passing on her offer. It’s that I’d have to teach far better than I do now at Epitome. With Gigi, there is just no phoning it in. Knowing that Gigi or Calypso might come to my class would mean that I would have to deliver something of quality and substance. Unlike my private students, with whom I can just go with the flow and teach in an improvised style, and unlike my Epitome classes, which are now consistently tough workouts but generic and completely uninspiring, at Thank Heaven I would have to, for my own satisfaction and for Gigi’s, consistently deliver something excellent. Not just poses and sequencing, but something with an inner quality. Something that could only come from a deep, authentic place inside myself.

  I’m not willing to do that work. It’s not so much that I’m lazy per se—it’s just that frankly, right now, I’m not sure if I could ever dig that deep.

  Just as I’m leaving the center, I turn my cell phone back on and it’s buzzing. It’s Monique, and, astonishingly, it’s not even nightfall.

  We haven’t spoken since the messed-up Valentine’s Day incident, so I take the call more out of curiosity than a desire to get laid at 2 p.m.

  “Hi, what’s up?” I ask.

  “Something interesting,” Monique replies. Already, I can tell that this is a different kind of call. Her phone manner has shifted out of full-time flirtation gear; she’s blending business and efficiency into her purr. “I have a possibility that might be right for you,” she tells me. “A property that’s available on the Lower East Side.”

  “What? Thanks, but I’m not exactly in the market for real estate at this time.”

  Monique is undaunted. “It’s an interesting space for a club that was offered to us. It’s wrong for us now since we’re focused on expanding the brand into South America, Europe, and Asia. We don’t want to dilute our NYC interests with another project. But I thought it might be the right next step for you.”

  “Monique, you know I’ve told you I’m outta the game.”

  “Please stop wasting both our time. This is an incredible opportunity that I’m sharing with you. I wanted to be sure we were passing, but now that we are, I’ve persuaded them to show it to you first, before it goes on the open market. You need to meet me there in twenty minutes. I’m going to text you the address right now.”

  It seems that whether we’re talking hookups or business propositions, all my Monique encounters are characterized by urgent phone calls and rendezvousing twenty minutes later. Sure enough, she and I arrive pretty much simultaneously at a beaten-down Lower East Side building. Its exterior shows some character (read: “grime”), with a boarded-up front window that indicates some serious neglect. I remain increasingly skeptical about this entire episode.

  Walking inside with Monique and the property manager, however, I’m amazed. The space is cavernous, infinitely vaster than the outside would suggest. The ceilings are vaulted and enormous with a tremendous, ornate skylight you’d never have guessed was there.

  Monique sees my open-mouthed surprise. “Maybe they were growing weed. Perhaps it was seized by the DEA or something before it got on the market again.”

  The space even has sections that occur naturally—architectural nooks and crannies, as it were—that lend themselves to VIP rooms, or the like. The place has character that transcends function—like the constantly reinvented space that houses Limelight/Avalon on Sixth Avenue and 20th Street—or like I’m told Area had back when I was breastfeeding.

  Last year, I tried (and failed) to open up a small restaurant, one of those places that could handle a twenty-person seating, tops. This place—I don’t even know how many it could hold. It’s not super-enormous, like the defunct Roxy, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Monique then adds the coup de grâce of her selling strategy: there’s a working kitchen.

  “You’d have to have everything inspected quite thoroughly before you signed anything, but we can check it out now, and you’ll see that it seems fully functional,” Monique tells me.

  This actually is the kind of place I’ve long dreamed of opening but as my third or fourth venture. This kind of joint would be my step up into the Big Time.

  The excitement grows exponentially inside me with every moment. I can imagine running this place. I can see it filled with beautiful women—the best eye candy and total 11s—and cool guys, overflowing with the energy and vibrancy that only New York nightlife has. It’s the NYC, amped-up reincarnation of the vitality I first felt when I was old enough to work at The Grill on Saturday nights. The Grill was the only place in thirty miles to grab a decent meal and a beer, and although describing it as “a scene” would really be pushing it, it was definitely the only place where anything at all could remotely be said to be happening.

  I try to appear slightly poker-faced around the property manager until Monique and I are alone.

  “Well?” she asks, smiling broadly.

  “It’s amazing! Abso-fucking-lutely amazing!”

  If Monique were a dude I’d be high-fiving her.

  “I know. Believe me, I’d be all over this if it weren’t slightly off-brand. But our pass is your gain,” she says.

  “I’m happy to absorb Becker’s rejects. Tell me what it would need to make this happen.”

  “Besides knowing me,” Monique smiles wickedly.

  “Come on. I need some numbers.”

  “Over a drink,” she says. Monique hails a cab and we’re whisked off to Brass, one of Becker’s snazzy properties—thankfully not Gold, where Shane works. Brass’s interior is all sleek perfection: golden chrome and shiny surfaces everywhere.

  Monique gets us a great table, orders two drinks, pulls out a legal pad and her laptop, and starts jotting down notes and doing the math.

  She knows the costs for these kinds of ventures far better than I do, but she keeps checking in with my vision of things. I have tons of details that are important to me, and Monique gathers and estimates the gist of what it will cost to make them real. She puts everything into concrete financial terms, translating square footage into seatings, calculating how many people the club can accommodate in order to hover between the exclusive limits of the velvet rope and the maximum capacity of the fire laws.

  Monique plays with the numbers on her laptop spreadsheet, oblivious to me except when she needs something clarified. Finally, she seems satisfied, pushes her computer away, and takes a big sip of her drink.

  “$3.8 million,” Monique concludes.

  I don’t even know what to say. I’m happy making $150 a lesson, getting caught up on my rent, and—except for a $500 check to Shane—ignoring my $120,000 debt from Failed Venture #1. Thus, $3.8 million feels a tad out of my league.

  “What’s wrong?” Monique asks, sipping her scotch seductively.

  “Not sure if my piggy bank’s got that much spare change,” I say in a lame attempt at wryness.

  “Oh, please, that’s nothing at all. You can find the money if you really want this. You’re getting an amazing piece of real
estate that, if you make this work for you, will become a tremendous income generator for you.”

  “We’re talking about several million dollars.”

  “Money is everywhere in New York. We’re practically swimming in it.”

  “Trust me, I’m not.”

  “Oh, you may be a puddle personally, but come on. This is a city with over thirty billionaires. And that’s billionaires. God knows how many people with just a few hundred million there are.” There’s a wild, on-fire look in her eye that, frankly, I don’t think I’ve seen even during our most intense sexual moments. I’ll be damned, but more than screwing, talking about money really gets Monique going.

  She continues, “This is the business capital of the world. The energy of it is everywhere. Money is being exchanged faster and more furiously than anywhere else in the universe. Think of it—right now, countless transactions, endless exchanges of goods and services via the medium of currency, are happening even as we’re sitting here. At this very moment, millions, billions, probably trillions of dollars are shifting hands, moving through accounts and morphing through exchange rates: being soundly invested and squandered. Endless electronic transactions are splashing right through us as we’re sitting here. It’s like an electrical current, baby. You just gotta let it flow through you.” Monique savors her scotch and the curious eroticism she finds in all this financial talk.

  I refrain from interrupting her rapture with the obvious truth that high-voltage electric current is usually pretty deadly. Instead, I refocus on the $3.8-million-dollar problem at hand.

  “Very inspiring,” I tell her. “I’m just not sure how to get any of that energy redirected my way.”

  “It shouldn’t be that hard,” Monique shrugs, signaling the waiter over for a refill of our drinks.