In New York With Ma
On a Somewhat Recent Trip to New York City and a Stay With a Bank Robber
I went to New York City not too long ago with my mother. We traveled there to film a video promo for a book I wrote. Penguin has published it. (Very kind of them, I super appreciate it. Small Doggies Book Review of Please God Let It Be Herpes, here.) My mother and I visited Penguin’s headquarters. Specifically, we went to the offices of the Penguin imprint releasing my book – New American Library. What’s an imprint you ask? Dude, I don’t know. All I know is I went to one. New American Library published John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, William Faulkner’s Sanctuary and now my book – Please God Let It Be Herpes. The time had come to stop by Penguin headquarters to film a fake video dating profile promoting the book the same way William Faulkner did way back when. The reason my mother tagged along is because she wrote the introduction to the book. In writing a book about your various romantic misadventures, it’s always a good idea to have your mom write the intro… can I get an amen?
My mother does not live in New York City. Neither do I. Consequently, we rode a great big giant bus to The Big Apple. (First, I got on a plane but I didn’t land in NYC. It’s very complicated. Don’t even worry about it.) My mother and I had to ride the bus through New Jersey. As I looked out the window while we drove along the turnpike, I noticed people in New Jersey drive a little differently than people in California. Some people in New Jersey read books while they drive, while others leave the driver’s side door open in case they need to make a quick escape. That’s not how we roll on the west coast, but it’s the differences in cultures that make this country so great.
While we rode on the bus, my mother and I practiced our lines for the video promo shoot. She was nervous. I told her not to worry because she was hardly going to be in the video. The night before we left, she tried on about forty-five different outfits. She would come out to the living room and ask, “How about this one?” My dad and I would both say that outfit was fine. Then my mother would go into the other room, come out with yet another outfit and ask, “How about this one?” She repeated this until we asked her to stop. Any one of the eighty-seven outfits would have been fine. The next morning she wore something completely different than the clothes she tried on the night before.
Our bus eventually dropped us off on a sidewalk in New York City. There were lots of people on that sidewalk and they were all rushing around the way shoppers storm Walmart entrances the day after Thanksgiving. In New York, that’s called walking. Somehow, we managed to avoid the surge of pedestrians coming at us, and we hopped in a cab. We were headed to a friend’s apartment who was out of town and had graciously offered his place. My friend’s name was Moran. Moran was not your average citizen. Born in France, he was raised in Israel. He still spent a lot of time in Paris, when he wasn’t in New York or Los Angeles. He used to rob banks for a living, hacking into their security systems to test their vulnerabilities. One time he actually physically robbed a bank, but it was still a work assignment. Now he was just a regular neuro-scientist who studied the human brain. No, really, this is a real person.
Moran had a way of standing out in a crowd. I was at a party in California once that Moran attended with his beautiful, tiny, lithe girlfriend. His girlfriend looked as though she could be a ballerina. There was another fellow I knew there, a man named Jenner who was also visiting from New York. When Jenner saw Moran and his girlfriend across the room, he stared at Moran with intense curiosity and asked me if I knew him. I told Jenner that I did know Moran and that Moran was also in town from New York. A spark of recognition flashed in Jenner’s eyes. Shaking his head, Jenner said, “I knew I recognized him. He goes to my gym. He wears the most ridiculously tight pants without any underwear. He's always free balling it in lime green pants. Sometimes they're orange or pink.”
A few nights later, I had dinner with Moran and his tiny girlfriend. Moran got to talking about France, about living in France and the French culture. He told me French people didn’t believe in wearing shorts. It just wasn’t done. He didn’t own a pair of shorts, nor did he know anyone else in France who did. Whenever he was in New York and wanted to exercise, he put on a pair of his girlfriend’s pants and headed for the gym. So that explained that. There are a lot of names people might call Moran at the gym as he worked out in his girlfriend’s tight fitting lime green pants. I would call Moran a badass.
Anyway, Moran wasn’t in New York while I was there with my mother so he said we could stay in his apartment. We didn’t have the key, but that was no problem. Moran told me a guy named Guy had the key, and if we stopped at such and such address, Guy would happily hand over the key. I called the guy named Guy on the way there and he agreed to meet the cab in front of his workplace.
We arrived a few minutes later. I thought Guy was going to step out of his office and hand me the key from the curb. The cab wouldn’t even have to stop. I’d grab it from Guy as if it were a brass ring on a merry-go-round. But Guy had other plans. He poked his head inside the cab, looked at me, and said, “We need to talk.” I got out of the cab and walked a few steps away from it with my new friend Guy. Guy was tall with wavy, stylishly disheveled hair. I’m not sure what he did at his workplace but I’m guessing he modeled for romance novel covers. He handed me the key and matter-of-factly stated, “There is a bed, a couch, and an air mattress in the apartment. How are we going to do this?”
Surprised, I asked Guy, “Um, are you staying?”
“Yes,” he responded, “I’m paying Moran rent.” Confused, I explained that Moran didn’t mention his apartment included a guy named Guy. Guy smiled and shrugged, commenting, “This is so Moran. It’s fine if you stay with me. But I do have a date tonight. If you and your mother could go somewhere between eight and eleven that would be great. Also, I’ll be working at home tomorrow -- I’ll need you both to be really quiet.” Hmm. I told Guy my mother was an excellent judge of character and that she would be happy to let him know if the girl he was going out with was worth a second date. Guy didn’t go for it.
I borrowed the apartment keys from Guy, heading there long enough to log onto the computer inside and book a proper hotel. There were lots of models of brains around the apartment, a neuro-scientist’s touch. They were simultaneously fascinating and unsettling. My mother discovered a pile of dishes in the sink that were green – despite the fact that green was not their original color. She hoped for Guy’s sake that his date would not wander into the kitchen that night. Once we had a hotel booked, my mother and I left Moran’s apartment. Our hotel room turned out to be pretty nice. No brains or moldy dishes, which is always a plus.
The next day we filmed this video at Penguin headquarters and then ate a corned beef sandwich at Carnegie Deli: