Monkey Suits

by Jim Provenzano

  “I guess you’re right,” Ritchie admitted.

  “You make dresses?” The maid was walking by, glancing up at Raymond.

  “Why, yes.”

  “Show me later, eh?”

  “Why, of course.”

  “My daughter getting married. You do wedding dresses?”

  “Occasionally. Are you thinking of a traditional laced gown, or something more modern?” The two nodded and smiled, moving off to another part of the kitchen to talk business.

  Ritchie and Marcos were left looking at each other.

  “Well, I guess he’s gonna pay the rent,” Marcos said.

  “It’s nice to get paid for what you like to do,” Ritchie added. A few of the other waiters responded in a kind of collective shrug.

  “We’re going to the Designer’s Ball next month at the Armory,” Marcos said. “He got comps.”

  “How’d you snag that?” Ritchie asked.

  “Met a certain designer at the Townhouse,” he grinned.

  “Whose townhouse?” Ritchie asked.

  “The gay bar,” Marcos explained.

  Ritchie shook his head. “You guys, always getting connected. See, I don’t have that.”

  “But the art world isn’t completely gay,” Marcos said.

  “True, but still, I don’t know if I could ever ‘work’ somebody like that.”

  “You takes your breaks and you go with ’em.” Marcos turned to them and added, “After all, my dears, nobody’s going to hand anything to us on a tray.”

  “Except dirty glasses,” Ritchie commented.

  “And half-chewed crudités.”

  “Well,” Ritchie said, “When I make the turn around, you’re all gonna see me in a tux and I’ll be wearing a red bow tie and suspenders.”

  “The ones you wore to that first job you worked?” Marcos grinned.

  “You remember that?”

  “Honey, you were my lowly B waiter. I loaned you my spare black tie. I remember it well. You couldn’t even pour a glass of wine. You clutched it up at the top like a cock.” He grinned catlike as a few eavesdropping others chuckled.

  Ritchie blushed. “C’mon, I wasn’t that bad.”

  Marcos patted his shoulder. “Your clumsy charm got you through, yes?”

  Neil Pynchon briskly whisked back into the kitchen. “Okay, you two on food. You three on drinks. Ritchie and Marcos do the door and coats. The rest wait here. And remember, no munching, and keep your hands and eyes off the art!”

  For a moment the group merely stood, watching the first two leave, until Marcos mumbled, “Poor bitch. Sounds like she needs a good butt plug.”

  They spilled out into the enormous dining room, laughing and snickering. Neil glared back with a shushing gesture.

  As he folded his coat into his bag before leaving, Ritchie thought about Raymond’s persistence. He couldn’t see himself charming these women. He did occasionally see a beautiful one, but more often looked at them as odd imported creatures, clinging fast to their husbands. How some investors who dabbled in art could work wonders he couldn’t completely comprehend.

  By merely taking a moderate interest in some brooding painter, a name could quickly leave the tiny Village Voice listings and enter the ranks of Art Forum glossy spreads and interviews, moving from East Village hole-in-the-wall beer parties to the Whitney Biennial. Ritchie had some desire and as much talent. It was that cruel streak of self-serving ambition he lacked, or repressed. Fear of success, Ed had called it, as he gave Ritchie the self-help book he’d never finished.

  He walked to the train in the Park Avenue night, nearly getting caught in a few poodle leashes. How had they worked it out, he wondered. Not everyone inherited money.

  Ritchie wanted fame, but wasn’t sly enough for the hustle. His high school track coach had called him the “dog man,” good and steady, but not a competitor. He would race against the clock, but not with other runners, consistently coming in second or third. The tape never broke across his chest.

  When he got home, the loft was quiet. He heard Brian and Ed breathing in the bedroom. He walked to his corner of the loft and flicked on the light, looking over his latest work. He’d been toying with more animated works, stealing pop images and cartoons.

  Lately, in before-bed meditation (Ed’s suggestion), Ritchie liked to imagine his sculptures in cloistered museums on another planet hundreds of years into the future. His vases had classic shape and form with witty contemporary images trailing around the sides; TVs, futons, mangy animals. He’d begun a series borrowing the shape and style of Egyptian canopic vases, but with diner coffee cup slogans like, We are Happy to Serve You. Without a sense of humor his work looked downright stupid.

  But for whom was he making this art? Rich collectors who only bought them to horde and resell? Money changers culling profits after his death, provided his life had a bit of popularity, or scandal, perhaps. He wondered about the contention that so few in the world were hoarding the world’s riches. He’d read that the largest collection of pornographic art is owned by the Vatican.

  He’d been to a home with a Manet in the living room, hanging on the walls for a select few. How soon would it all collapse? Black Monday seemed a mere irritation to these people, an inconvenience from over a year before. A flat tire. What if it really happened? Who would assume the role of conqueror and pirate? How many times had great works changed hands, only to arrive in a looming over-decorated Park Avenue mansion? Who would steal them next?

  21 Lee worried that he’d missed it. It was nine-thirty. He hadn’t been awake this early in weeks. He raced through a shower, gobbled half a bagel, pulled on sneakers, jeans, a new T-shirt and a jacket and ran to the train.

  Since he usually crossed under the river when thousands of other were coming back, everything seemed different.

  He rushed along with clusters of people riding up the escalators. Business-suited men stepped briskly by in clear paths through the World Trade Center mall. Women in formal office blouses, skirts and Reeboks walked with a determined unseeing pace, late for work, lining up at Au Bon Pain, eager for a quick egg sandwich and a coffee. The smell of these thousands of breakfasts, hurled out over counter tops, passed warmly through the cool hallways.

  Outside, the day underway, huge slats of sun bounced off the buildings of Chambers Street. A brisk March wind blustered over the Hudson. Striped ties flapped over the shoulders of men in business suits, making Lee smile, momentarily forgetting his purpose.

  As he approached the corner opposite St. Paul’s Chapel, a street cleaning truck roared past him, veering away from a row of blue barricades and a lumbering white and blue police van. Beyond the moment when the hissing of the street cleaning truck should have waned, a different noise echoed off the walls of the building, another more varied roar that surged and fell, sprinkled with high-pitched whistles and clapping. He turned the corner.

  And then he saw them.

  In the cavern of City Hall Park, the white colonial building seemed puny, plotted in the center behind trees, completely surrounded by a horde of marching bodies, thousands, a crowd of jeans, boots, T-shirted and leather-jacketed men and women. In their upraised hands swayed a hundred or more posters with sharply printed lettering, others with harsh black and white blown-up faces and bold face print.

  Traffic was completely at a standstill. At the pointed end of the park, near the circular fountain, a row of mounted police clopped by. He dodged their hooves and a small pile of hay-mixed dung, walking faster, then running to them, the crowd, the ebullient mob.

  Without ceremony, the line of chanting marchers welcomed him in. A flyer was thrust into his hand, a sticker pasted jovially on his jacket by a short-haired woman, who at that moment appeared to him as possibly the most beatific dyke ever. He remembered her from the meeting he’d attended. The talk had been loud and angry. It had given him a headache, all the names of drugs, all the confusing acronyms. Somehow, through it all, he’d been convinced to attend the meetings,
sacrificing several nights’ work to attend those Monday meetings.

  As he picked up the rhythm of the chant, “Healthcare is a right! Healthcare is a right!” the line brought him to the east side of the park, opposite the immense scaffold-encased Municipal Building. Suddenly a dozen T-shirted men and a few women, each one charged, ecstatic, screamed and chanted, firmly plopping themselves down in the middle of the street. They linked arms.

  A cluster of video cameras and microphones jutted toward them. Riot-geared cops pushed through to them and began dragging them off. Lee panicked a moment and stood, scanning the crowd of amused bystanders, who looked on, emotionless, pointing fingers. As their lips moved, he imagined the slurs passing from their mouths under the roar.

  But for once, he didn’t care. From the wide expanse of the street, past the emptiness of which the cops seemed to value more than the people blocking it, he saw the distance between them. He was amongst allies.

  He heard his name called. Standing on a curb, a video camera on his shoulder, Cal waved.

  “You got my message!”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

  Cal hugged him. For the first time in his life, Lee passionately kissed another man in daylight.

  “You gonna get arrested?”

  “Hope not!”

  “I’ll get it if you do!”

  Lee returned to the marching line and lost Cal in the crowd. For a brief moment, he thought he saw Kevin being dragged off, this time in person.

  A poster was thrust into his hands. “Here, take this. I gotta go marshal,” a thin young man with glasses and a goatee said before disappearing into the crowd.

  Lee glanced at the image on the poster. The frowning face of the Mayor was crossed out by a red bar with the phrase, in bold red letters, AID$ NOW! Dozens more waved amid the rush of noise and bullhorn shouts: “This is an order to disperse. If you do not disperse, you will be arrested ...”

  He raised the sign, continued marching and was suddenly filled with a surge of what he knew he was supposed to feel when the American flag flew, but didn’t; what he knew he was told to feel when the president spoke, but wouldn’t; what he knew he had been forced to feel when “Oh, say can you see ... ” blared, but hadn’t.

  It was the burning power of dissidence. Intoxicated with a joyous anger, his throat emitted a shout, and another. As he sucked in to breathe, his lungs filled with brisk morning air, the first defiant gasp of a new life.

  22 Undisturbed by the orchestrated riot ninety blocks south, the afternoon concerto at City Center was wonderful, at least to Ritchie, who rarely went to hear live music.

  Mai Ling thought differently. Their afternoon post-performance discussion in the lobby was quickly interrupted by a half dozen fans walking up to congratulate and shake hands with her. An older man, his white frizzy hair slicked over his bald head in a side comb, cornered her to discuss his theory of interpreting classical works until Mai Ling waved to Ritchie, who got the signal and interrupted him, pulling her away.

  “You saved me,” Mai Ling sighed. “His breath was terrible.”

  “Does that always happen?” Ritchie asked.

  “No, fortunately. Usually I just look like some student. But once one of them starts pointing ...”

  “You should hire a bodyguard.”

  “Well, you’re doing a pretty good job today.”

  “Thanks.”

  They stepped outside. The afternoon was cool. A few people stopped outside the doors of the theatre to light cigarettes. Ritchie led Mai Ling down the street. Once away from the crowd, she continued her critique of the concert.

  “The cellist was sluggish. I’ve worked with him before. The viola soloist, however, was rather sharp, in a good way.” They walked a few blocks before hailing a cab, since they were both unsure where they were going.

  “Oh, yes,” Ritchie agreed, although he was unsure with what he was agreeing.

  “Do you listen to music when you work?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, mostly jazz. Philip Glass for steady, circular inspiration. You know, the repetition is good.”

  “Mmmm,” she nodded. “Minimalism has its place.”

  Ritchie chuckled. “Of course, I do listen to your music a lot more now.”

  “Oh, and what kind of work comes out of that?”

  He took her hand. She flinched a moment, then relaxed as they walked.

  “Um, usually I get very distracted and have to stop and really listen.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.”

  “No, it’s good. Gives me a break.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t know many people who are on sale at Tower Records.”

  “Oh, that. Just try to think of me as a person, okay?”

  “I’ll try.”

  They walked on a bit before Ritchie suggested stopping someplace for coffee. Mai Ling declined. “Hearing others makes me want to work harder. I should go practice. But we could share a cab. Where are you headed?” Ritchie hesitated, then agreed.

  As they sat in the taxi, Jamaican reggae rolled softly from the driver’s radio. Mai Ling nodded her head to the beat. “Do you have any new gallery showings coming up?” she asked. Unfortunately, Ritchie had lied about the number of previous exhibits. In fact, he’d lied by about a dozen.

  “Uh no, in fact. But I’m working on a lot of new stuff.”

  She then said to Ritchie quite earnestly, “You know, I know a few people who love to invest in new artists. One of my patrons has a terrific collection of Warhol floral prints at her summer home.”

  Ritchie didn’t respond until he realized that she meant him. “Oh, you don’t have to do any favors for me.” Ritchie grinned sheepishly.

  “No, really. They love to pay good money just to know they got an early work by someone who might be the next Jeff Koons.”

  “Stop,” he blushed.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Don’t. Stop. Don’t stop,” he smiled.

  “If you meet the right people, you’d be surprised how easy it is.”

  Ritchie took her hand in his. “I don’t think I’d be surprised at all. Just do me a favor?”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want favors.”

  “Just one.”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t compare me to Jeff Koons.”

  After letting Mai Ling off at her apartment (Ritchie had politely refused her money despite her protests), he told the driver to hook around the corner. After paying the fare and making sure to get the receipt, he walked the seven blocks to the nearest subway station.

  23 “That’s Iman!”

  “Is it?”

  “I swear!”

  “That Montana looks like a rag that ran into a glitter truck!”

  “Stop!”

  Marcos leaned in close with Brian as they gazed at the gowns on the stage at Avery Fisher Hall.

  The fashion show benefit for the American Cancer Society, co-chaired by Trish Fuller and Evelyn Carlson, the second wife of an advertising CFO whose largest client was a cigarette company, had been scheduled to take place under a grand tent in Damrosch Park. But the event had been quickly rescheduled indoors when the $15,000 rented tent and lighting poles collapsed under their own weight. Fortunately, it occurred early in the day while only a few technicians were under it. No one was severely injured. The show was postponed until after dinner in the lobby had been served.

  On the stage that usually showcased the world’s great orchestras and musical artists, the same bevy of seated attendants who regularly supported the orchestra had gathered to see equally elite clothing displayed with as much flair.

  Marcos and Brian, having escaped the table-clearing duties in the second level lobby, hid in a small enclosed room with a view of stage left, the glass-windowed private viewing booth of the reclusive Ernest Harbacher. Following his death at eighty-three, it became the Ernest Harbacher Memorial Viewing Booth, with a brass plate on the door.

  “They h
ad to rework the whole show in three hours,” Marcos said.

  “How do you know?” Brian asked, leaning closer to the window for a better view.

  “My friend Raymond is a dresser for these girls tonight. Told me all about it.” He put his arm gently over Brian’s shoulder.

  Another flush of applause swept through the audience as the lights rose on a line of Geoffrey Beene apparel, worn by a half dozen gaunt models. They sauntered about on the stage, grinning knowingly to the seats filled with women, some as thin as they were, albeit through sometimes unnatural means.

  “Can you believe those old gals are all gonna buy these things?” Marcos said.

  “Their husbands buy them. They wear them.”

  “Right.”

  “To lunches at Le Cirque.”

  “Where they plan more benefits!”

  “How very special.” Marcos rubbed his hand up the freshly shaved nape of Brian’s neck. They grinned in the dark room.

  “A benefit for innocent children with AIDS,” Marcos cooed.

  “To help the poor crack babies in the Bronx,” Brian said.

  “Project Outreach.” They giggled.

  “Project Minority.”

  “The Untalented Actor’s Fund.”

  “The Stupid Slum Kid Fund.” Marcos wrapped his arm around Brian.

  “Anything for a party.” Brian reached down, pressing the stiff bulge against Marcos’ equally bulging black pants. The two fell against the wall. Marcos pushed his tongue into Brian’s mouth. They kissed furiously. Marcos reached over and locked the door.

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “We should go.”

  “C’mon, baby. It’s been years.”

  “But I’m married. I’m monogamous.”

  “And I am the Duchess of York.” He pressed close to Brian again, crowding away any shred of guilt, pushing aside the ensuing denial for a few pleasant moments, but not the thrill of possibly getting caught.

  As the music for the Goeffrey Beene collection faded and the applause dimmed, the evening’s announcer, New York Times fashion columnist Yvan Dimetricos, stepped back to the microphone.