Now?

The other evening I was at a party for the painter Jonathan Gent. The UK native's work covered the apartment walls of a Wall Street banker, who had been gracious enough to support a live artist. His patron was a basketball player. They always have cred with me. The mini-paintings sold fast and Jonathan was in a good mood. I was too. There was plenty of rose wine, the evening was warm, and conversation was easy. Later in the evening the great B Movie actor Eric Mitchell showed up. We spoke about publishing a collection of my short stories. I have hundreds of them. Eric and I traded stories from the 70s and Jonathan joined us, as I recounted a tale of Eric defending James White, the sax player from the Contortionists, at CBGBs. "It had to be 1978. A biker busted James' nose and you protected him." "By getting my nose smashed." "The hardest punch I ever saw thrown in CBGBs." Jonathan has gone to school in Edinburgh. The Scottish capitol is renowned for its toughness. Somehow Eric challenged Jonathan to a duel. Jonathan whipped off his jacket and said, "Right. Outside." He was ready for a knuckle dust-up. It wasn't my fight and the wine was having too much an effect, but Eric was my boy. We went back in time and I took a couple of steps closer. "I was joking." "We never joke about that." Jonathan picked up his jacket with a left hand. No one should joke about fighting around fighting men. It always goes bad when they don't get the punch line.