THE BEST FORM OF FLATTERY by Peter Nolan Smith

Written Sep 24, 2010

Midtown traffic was snarled by the security measures protecting foreign dignitaries from any harm during the annual UN General Assembly. Crosstown streets were closed east of 5th Avenue and the beeping tentacles of the congestion packed Madison Avenue. My bus took twenty minutes to cover ten blocks. I was late for a gallery opening on 78th Street and abandoned public transportation for the more ancient mode of walking. My pace was accelerated by two panicked calls from my landlord AP and Billy O. Our dinner guest, an Irish hedge fund banker, was on a 'craic'.

"This is polite society up here." Billy O was looking for clients. He was a real estate broker in the East End. Most people living above 72nd Street had money, especially in between Park and 5th Avenues. "I'm afraid that he's going to shag an old heiress."

"Would be the worst thing to happen to her? When I was living down in Palm Beach, I dreamed about seducing a wealthy octogenarian with three weeks to live."

"You would have given her the best two weeks of her life." Billy O and I went back to the 80s.

"At least." I was never stingy with love or lust given the right circumstances, however my time on Palm Beach had been off-season. Secondly those crones with money knew the game. Men fought over them at the Leopard Lounge. I was too proud to enter that arena.

Except for once.

"Hurry up." Billy O sounded desperate. "He's offering the owner a line of blow."

"Ten minutes."

I made it in 15. The police had blockaded 72nd Street for the passage of POTUS. This evening Obama was speaking at the UN. High-level conversations were scheduled between the Israelis, Palestinians, and our leader. Peace initiative # 257. The presidential cavalcade passed at 65 mph. A fast-moving target. I waved to what I guess was his car. My support for change remained strong.

After disembarking from the bus I hurried the final six blocks to the gallery. It was located in a small townhouse. The crowd was gentile. The artist hailed from the Hamptons. Some of his paintings had crows in them. Two women complained about the crows on their property.

"They're bad eating and worse as pets." A tall man in a Versace suit slurred from his slouch. It was Irish Johnny. His accent was pure Hollyfield drenched by the slobber of art wine.

The two middle-aged women in matching Chanel summer drag glanced over their sloped shoulders at the intruders. Their noses wrinkled with disdain. They had the expression down pat and clattered away from Irish Johnny in spiky stilettos. Popular footwear this season.

Irish Johnny staggered to the bar and grabbed two glasses of Chablis. The first one lasted a second. The second balanced his careen through the gallery. His trousers were rolled to mid-calf and his sneakers were unlaced. He was drunk enough not to recognize me. We had drank at a bar in Easthampton a year ago. I didn't say hello, but nodded to Billy O and my landlord. They signaled to keep an eye on Irish Johnny. The banker was difficult work after closing time on the NYSE. I engaged him in a long conversation on John Kelly, Ireland's premier DJ, and drinking at the Shelbourne Hotel Bar. Irish Johnny couldn't have been happy and neither could the gallery owner.

The dead drunk was with the living drunk.

Billie O and AP schmoozzed the rich. A hard crowd to work, but the two had been laboring in the Hamptons for years. AP spoke to a prospective new client. He owned a football team. His girlfriend was an old friend. The connections were snaking together. It was time to leave. Irish Johnny was hitting on a painting.

"How much you want for one night?"

Billy O took charge. Irish Johnny was his boy. They proposed dinner at Danielle's. A posey place. I begged off that future. Billy O and AP said, "Come."

"Veni, vidi, ibam."

"I came, I saw, I went." Johnny Irish was a Latin Scholar too.

I waved my goodbyes and walked to the 77th Street Subway. Lex Line to Bleecker Street. D train to Atlantic Avenue. Key in the front door at 8:23. I climbed the stairs to my apartment and wrote about Hoegaarten Beer. My wine-weakened fingers were slow on the keyboard.

A knock on my door.

AP.

He wanted to smoke some pot.

"Dinner was fantastic, but you were so right to go. He never broke open the bag of cocaine."

"Better to have a $20 bag with a friend than an 8-ball with a fiend." The lack of an 'r' made a big difference.

AP and I smoke some weed. We drank some wine. We listened to garage rock. Our favorite genre of music, although he loved the Beatles and I hated them as pop poseurs. At least we agreed that WORKING CLASS HERO by John Lennon was brilliant.

"You know I really love having you live here." AP considered me a NY legend.

"Thanks." I loved living here too.

"No one in New York is like you now and no one writes like you, but I have to say one thing and that's you have been plundering old writing and putting it on your website as if it was new."

"So you noticed."

"I'm one of your most faithful readers."

I had been adding stories to gain girth on treads of interest. Not lazy, just that I don't have much time in the day to write with my boss asking me what I'm doing every two minutes. No much of a defense for AP.

"You should be writing all the time."

"Agreed." I love writing on the 4th floor of his brownstone. My view of the downtown Brooklyn skyline. The changes of the sunset. His kids sleeping on the lower floor. Their falling asleep to the MC5. "I'll try to be more original."

"No one is more original than you in these days of mediocre." AP truly was a fan. "All I want to see is more new."

"Oof." More work.

A sign of the times.

"I promise to not rob the grave, unless it makes a nice flow."

We smoked more weed and drank the rest of his Hoegaarten.

They were good and we were safe from Irish Johnny.