by David Stukas
“What is it now?” I asked, exhausted by her line of questioning.
“I think my last sour-apple martini evaporated. Could you see what you could do about getting us another round?” she said, smiling.
I spent the next day puttering around my apartment, throwing out old magazines and organizing my closets. When the count came by early that evening, he entered. Without uttering a single word to say so much as, “I don’t believe anyone could live in something so small!” or “My God, I’ve seen better places in East Germany just after the Wall fell,” he pushed me backward toward the bed and made vigorous love with me before we left for the party. I know this fact isn’t relevant to the story, but I feel the need to rub it in every chance I get, since it’s a new thing for me.
I was going to pop the Uli question to Siegfreid in the cab on the way to the party, but I was in such bliss, I didn’t have the heart—or the nerve—to doubt him. We arrived at a large loft in TriBeCa that looked like the manufacturer that formerly occupied the space had just moved out moments ago. It never failed to amaze me how lofts in this area could charge such high rents and still look like parts of downtown Beirut.
The elevator ground dubiously upward, leaving us on the top floor with signs pointing down the hall to a large loft. The door was wide open and the room was completely silent.
The moment I entered with the count, dozens of people jumped up and shouted surprise with such volume I almost soiled my underwear.
The loft was almost raw, but it was wondrous. The walls were painted blinding white and the space was filled with a few sofas scattered here and there. But the best part were the dozens of metallic pillows filled with helium that floated around and around, pushed into flight by large electric fans. It was straight out of Andy Warhol’s factory. The only sour note was sounded by a huge banner strung across one wall that proclaimed, “Bon voyage, Robert. Belgium, here you come!”
Michael no doubt had had a hand in the decorating.
I tried to make out some familiar faces in the crowd, but I didn’t seem to recognize anyone. Just then, Michael elbowed his way to the front of the crowd, planting air-kisses on the count and myself with all the sincerity of Elizabeth Dole welcoming a member of the North America Man/Boy Love Association into an all-boys prep school.
“Did I surprise you?” Michael asked excitedly.
“Absolutely, Michael. I had no idea.”
“Well, the count was in on it. He gave me a list of his friends.”
“Michael?” I asked, still looking in vain for a recognizable face. “I don’t see any of my friends. Are they here yet?”
“Well, Robert, most of your friends suck and are more boring than insurance, so I invited a lot of my friends. I hope you don’t mind. I mean, you want this party to be fun, don’t you?”
I quickly calculated how much it would cost to have Michael killed—or at least have all his white spandex circuit party wardrobe slashed to pieces—and wondered how I would ask the count for the money.
I looked around and quickly saw all the signs of Michael’s friends: people who looked like they hadn’t worked a day in their lives, partied all night, and didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
One of the partiers, dressed in black and wearing a sport jacket that looked like it was spawned by an unholy coupling between a hausfrau cotton dress and a furry car coat, strode toward us. He was also wearing a red leather neck brace studded by metal insignias that presumably signaled a new trend I wouldn’t be following.
“Siegfreid, my darling!” our fashion victim gushed, throwing his arms around the count and giving him a big, mushy kiss.
“Robert, I’d like to you meet Elmore, one of my best friends this side of the Atlantic,” he said, gesturing with pride toward Elmore.
“Glad to meet you Elmore,” I returned. No sooner had I said, “The count has told me so much about you,” that I realized that the count hadn’t really. I mean, I had some sketchy details, but nothing much.
At just that moment, Monette came up to me, took one look at Elmore, shook her head as if trying to reset her brain, then did a double take at Elmore, figuring she really was seeing what she was seeing.
“Excuse me, Siegfreid, Elmore, but I’d like to introduce my good friend, Monette.”
Monette extended her hand. “Monette, this is Elmore. And this . . . is Siegfreid.”
Monette’s face lit up, and she shook hands with the count. “Well, thank you for inviting me here. Robert has done nothing but talk about you and,” she said, smiling in that devious way of hers, letting me know she was going to drop a bombshell, “the furniture you’ve broken.”
Normally, I would’ve strangled her right then and there with the dream catcher (lesbian catcher) that hung from her car’s rearview mirror, but I was actually proud of my sexual accomplishments. Before the count, my idea of wild sex meant I would leave my socks on.
Introductions were made all around and drinks were promptly fetched by waiters who looked like they were hired away from a Communist airline, their serving skills still intact from training that equally emphasized serving in-flight drinks and garroting capitalist spies with movie headphones.
Monette pulled me aside, asking me if I had questioned Siegfreid about Uli.
“He came to my apartment and had his way with me,” I whispered. “How was I supposed to ask him after that? It would sound like I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t,” Monette reminded me. “You think he’s cheating on you.”
“Well, it sure looks like he is. To tell you the truth, I don’t think this guy’s name is Uli and I think he made up the whole art dealer thing.”
“But think about it, Robert. You said neither the count nor Uli saw you in the restaurant. So if they had no reason to think anyone was watching them, why would this guy make up this fake name and story about his being an art dealer? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know, Monette. I just can’t help but be suspicious. It’s my nature. Just look at Siegfreid’s friends,” I said motioning to the people at the party. “They all look so unreal!”
The count’s friends seemed to be of a much better class than Michael’s—big surprise! They seemed to be witty, intelligent, well-mannered, and were vastly different from the people who usually attended the parties I was invited to. No, the parties to which I was usually invited were populated by people who threw up on your shoes, had sex in the bathroom, or stole things. Michael’s parties differed only in that his revelers dispensed with the bathroom and had sex right in full view of everyone else. It was nice to step up in class from the trailer-trash crowd I was used to.
The count spotted someone else and pulled him toward Monette and me in order to make an introduction.
“Robert, Monette, I want you to meet another friend of mine. This is Uli Steben, my art dealer. Uli, this is Robert and Monette.”
It was none other than the man Michael and I saw having lunch with Siegfreid at Café Vicuña. He was still stunning and impeccably dressed. I felt like such a fool to have suspected that the count was cheating on me.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Robert and Monette,” Uli said, extending a hand to shake.
Monette shot me an I told you so glance. Like I didn’t feel stupid enough already.
“Well, I guess that settles that,” Monette commented to me out loud, knowing only she and I would know what she was talking about. “Siegfreid, would you excuse us for a moment? I have something to discuss with Robert.”
“No, no, not at all,” the count replied, then dived back into the crowd with Uli.
When Monette and I were out of earshot of anyone we knew, Monette turned to me and said, “Well, I guess that puts the final nail in the coffin of your cheating theory. Now forget about this whole matter and go have fun with the count.”
“You’re right. When you look at it, my life couldn’t be better. I have an honest-to-goodness German count who’s head over heels about me, I’m about
to leave for Berlin and live in the lap of luxury, and I will probably never have to work again. Try and top that, anyone.”
When I thought about how my luck had turned around practically overnight and looked nowhere but up, I realized I had no right to be anything but enormously happy. And I was! I was flying on a cloud until I overheard, not one, but several guests ask one another, “So which one is the count?”
I was ready to dismiss these party-crasher comments when I heard one person say something even more obnoxious: “So which one is the count and where’s the gold digger who’s sunk his hooks into him?”
I was just about to scratch the offender’s eyes out when I was distracted by a waiter who happened to drop an entire tray of canapes on my pants.
The count came running over to me, wiping fruitlessly at my pants in order to make it look as if I hadn’t rolled across Wolfgang Puck’s kitchen counter. I looked over at Monette, thinking this was one of her practical jokes, and shot her a glance that accused her fully.
“Now, Robert. Who do you think I am? An amateur? Paying a waiter to spill food on you is child’s play,” she responded.
“Poor Robert,” the count said, dabbing some more. “There, it doesn’t look so bad! Just a little cheese in your cuffs. The dry cleaner will get that out in no time,” he said, rising to a standing position. He pulled my head downward and planted a kiss on my forehead, and I swear it made me feel better.
“Maybe I’d better go to the bathroom and run a little water on this,” I reported, thinking it would probably be better if I tried to make a composed reentrance—minus food.
“Robert, we’ll cut the cake after you clean yourself up. So hurry back!”
I headed off to the bathroom, which I found to be decrepit and almost unusable. Was living in TriBeCa worth this? Of course, I couldn’t throw a stone of condemnation very far myself. My studio apartment more closely resembled a heroin-soaked, fifth-floor walkup from a 1970s drug-smuggling movie than a presentable habitat for someone paying in excess of one thousand four-hundred dollars a month—and I was lucky to be paying that.
I was about to reach for the water faucet when, from behind the shower curtain, came the very faint sounds of breathing. I slowly parted the curtain with my finger and saw two men who were obviously very happy to see each other.
“Michael, could you come outside soon? They’re going to cut the cake,” I said, flinging the curtain open and exposing them completely—what little wasn’t already exposed.
I walked out into the hallway and passed a scary-looking woman dressed in military fatigues who walked into the bathroom, saw Michael and his instant date, and proceeded to use the facilities without so much as a thought about her audience of two.
“In the Israeli army, we go to the toilet side by side, we are all equal,” the woman said, as if that made everything all right.
“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” I responded.
I was making my way to the bar for another martini when the count swooped down and collected me.
“It’s time to cut your bon voyage cake! Come this way! And I have arranged special entertainment for you!” he said proudly.
Siegfreid made an announcement that the festivities were about to begin and everyone crowded around, making me feel even more self-conscious. The inscription on the cake was in German, so the count translated for me.
“It says ‘Good fortune and a good life, Robert!’” the count announced to all. “Now blow out the candles!”
I made an attempt at blowing them out, but could tell from the suspicious sparking that the candle flames produced, the count was using those relighting joke candles that were impossible to blow out. It was clear the count felt I had never seen such a thing and was proud of the fact he thought he had pulled a fast one on me, so I didn’t have the heart to tell him this joke was older than Goldie Hawn.
“It was Monette’s idea to use the joke candles,” the count confessed.
When Monette played practical jokes, she followed a certain pattern I had been able to discern over time. Her jokes usually came in threes, with each succeeding joke more devastating than the last. One down, two more to go. There was no letting my guard down now.
I cut the cake and passed it around. Michael emerged from the bathroom just in time to get a piece.
“Michael,” I said, handing him a plate, “here’s your piece ... not that you didn’t just get one in the bathroom a few minutes ago.”
Michael smiled. “I’m sorry about that, Robert, but I’ve been after this guy for so long. You know, the funniest thing is he said he was attracted to you, but I said you were taken, so I figured he was fair game.”
“So was he fair?” I asked.
“He was great!”
“Did you get his phone number?” I asked, trying not to show too much interest.
“Yeah, but I flushed it down the toilet. I tell these guys I’ll call, but I never do.”
I decided to put all my cards on the table. “Did you ever think I might want to contact him just in case this thing with the count doesn’t work out?”
“No. Robert, your problem is that you hold on to the glimmer of a distant hope too much. What you fail to realize is there’s always another guy standing in line waiting. Just move on, is what I say.”
“Just eat your cake, Michael. Oh, and another thing. I just met the guy Siegfreid was having lunch with at Vicuña the other day. Uli is an art dealer. So there.”
Michael looked at me as if I had just showed him a certificate entitling me to a portion of the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Who told you this?” he said, scrunching up his eyes in disbelief.
“Siegfreid just introduced me to him.”
Just when the world was starting to make sense, Michael pulled the rug from under my feet and my tidy, ordered world where everything is good and sensible came tumbling down like a house of cards.
“My God, Robert. Do you believe everything people tell you?” he said, firing another mortar shell into the ruins of my world.
“What do you mean? The count just introduced me to Uli and told me point-blank Uli is his art dealer!”
“Look, I know you’re a little naive at these things, being from Ohio and all,” Michael began lecturing me.
“Michigan, Michael. I’m from Michigan,” I said, setting the record straight.
“For God’s sake, Robert! I wouldn’t say that so loud if I were you. People are going to know you drove the family combine to your high school prom!”
“For your information, I drove my mother’s Pontiac Bonneville to the prom.”
“That’s just as bad. Maybe worse. Say, who let you into Manhattan? Didn’t the border guards stop you at the tunnel?”
“Yes, the fashion police pulled me over on the New Jersey side, but I made a break for it and swam the Hudson River instead. But to get back to the story, Michael, you were just about to belittle me and destroy my confidence by telling me how naive I am.”
“Oh, yes,” Michael said, recomposing his thoughts and reloading his cannons. “Uli—if that’s his real name—is definitely having an affair with the count. He knows we’re on to him, so he puts Uli right out in front to make it look like he’s got nothing to hide. It’s like hiding an object in plain sight.”
While I wasn’t quite sure Michael’s twisted logic explained the situation, he seemed so sure and matter of fact that I believed him. My line of thinking, however, was interrupted by the count, who stood up on a chair and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “I have some entertainment for you now, so if you will all take your seats, we will begin!”
Siegfreid motioned to a chair in the center of the front row, where I would have a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings. The lights in the loft dimmed, and out from the kitchen strode several men in traditional German folk costumes, complete with Tyrolean hats and lederhosen and carrying accordions, glockenspiels, and tubas. They played several tunes and actually got the jaded New York audience
to start clapping to the music.
When they finished, a piece of opera music came on, and as the music built to a peak, a huge drag queen dressed up as Brunhild appeared and galloped back and forth in front of us, her wired gold braids dancing in tune to the music.
But that wasn’t the only thing that danced back and forth. Her breasts, as big as watermelons, twirled and swirled to a beat of their own as she hurtled herself across the stage. No mere amateur, this drag queen had fashioned realistic but false arms on her costume, while her real hands were hidden in her ample bosom. This allowed her breasts to do the sort of acrobatics available to only the most physically coordinated chesty girls.
Brunhild then dashed up to me, surrounded my head with her breasts, and pounded on my head to the music. For a person who raised feeling self-conscious to an art form, this was one of the most exquisite forms of torture Monette could play on me. To her credit, she was doing a damned good job. Two jokes and counting.
Brunhild skipped away from me like a demented Heidi of the Alps, picked up a wooden picnic basket, and started tossing flowers out into the audience. When she had exhausted her supply of Alpine ammunition, she looked at the audience in mock surprise as if she had found something in the bottom of her basket. She tiptoed up to me, reached in the basket, and hit me smack in the face with a pie. On tasting it, however, it turned out to be apple strudel.
Monette would pay dearly for this one.
The guests erupted in gales of laughter, and someone snapped several pictures of me in my moment of glory. I decided to be a good sport and stood and bowed to the audience, all the while plotting revenge on Monette. The count, laughing hysterically, handed me a towel he had hidden underneath his chair for the occasion.
“Oh, my goodness, Robert. I hope you don’t mind, but Monette thought this would be a good way to send you off to Europe. I was worried at first that this joke might have gone too far, but you have taken it like a man,” he chuckled. “Let me go get you another towel,” he said, setting out in search of something to clean me off.
Monette appeared at my side, martinis in hand, and offered one to me. “I think you could use one of these,” she said.