介绍:
LOVE AT THE BOWERY BAR, PART III
Barkley, twenty-five, was an artist. Barkley and my friend Carrie had been
"seeing" each other for eight days, which meant that they would go places and
kiss and look into each other's eyes and it was sweet. With all the thirty-five
year olds we knew up to their cuffs in polished cynicism, Carrie had thought
she might try dating a younger man, one who had not been in New York long
enough to become calcified.
Barkley told Carrie he was a romantic "because I feel it," and he also told
Carrie he wanted to adapt Parker's novel into a screenplay. Carrie had offered
to introduce them, and that's why Barkley was there at the Bowery Bar that
night.
But when Barkley showed up, he and Carrie looked at each other and felt .
. . nothing. Perhaps because he had sensed the inevitable, Barkley had
brought along a "date," a strange young girl with glitter on her face.
Nevertheless, when Barkley sat down, he said, "I totally believe in love. I
would be so depressed if I didn't believe in it. People are halves. Love makes
everything have more meaning."
"Then someone takes it away from you and you're fucked," Skipper said.
"But you make your own space," said Barkley.
Skipper offered his goals: "To live in Montana, with a satellite dish, a fax
machine, and a Range Rover—so you're safe," he said.
"Maybe what you want is wrong," said Parker. “Maybeb what you want makes you uncomfortable.”
"I want beauty. I have to be with a beautiful woman. I can't help it,"
Barkley said. "That's why a lot of the girls I end up going out with are stupid."
Skipper and Barkley took out their cellular phones. "Your phone's too
big," said Barkley.
Later, Carrie and Barkley went to the Tunnel and looked at all the pretty
young people and smoked cigarettes and scarfed drinks. Barkley took off with
the girl with glitter on her face, and Carrie went around with Barkley's best
friend, Jack. They danced, then they slid around in the snow like crazy people
trying to find a cab. Carrie couldn't even look at her watch.
Barkley called her the next afternoon. "What's up, dude?" he said.
"I don't know. You called me."
"I told you I didn't want a girlfriend. You set yourself up. You knew what I
was like."
"Oh yeah, right," Carrie wanted to say, "I knew that you were a shallow,
two-bit womanizer, and that's why I wanted to go out with you."
But she didn't.
"I didn't sleep with her. I didn't even kiss her," Barkley said. "I don't care.
I'll never see her again if you don't want me to."
"I really don't give a shit." And the scary thing was, she didn't.
Then they spent the next four hours discussing Barkley's paintings. "I
could do this all day, every day," Barkley said. "This is so much better than
sex."
THE GREAT UN-PRETENDER
"The only thing that's left is work," said Robert, forty-two, an editor. "You've
got so much to do, who has time to be romantic?"
Robert told a story, about how he'd recently been involved
was clear that it wasn't going to work out. "She put me through all these little
tests. Like I was supposed to call her on Wednesday to go out on Friday. But
on Wednesday, maybe I feel like I want to kill myself, and God only knows
how I'm going to feel on Friday. She wanted to be with someone who was
crazy about her. I understand that. But I can't pretend to feel something I
don't.
"Of course, we're still really good friends," he added. "We see each other all the time. We just don't have sex."
NARCISSUS AT THE FOUR SEASONS
One Sunday night, I went to a charity benefit at the Four Seasons. The theme
was Ode to Love. Each of the tables was named after a different famous
couple—there were Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker, Narcissus and Himself,
Catherine the Great and Her Horse, Michael Jackson and Friends. Al
D'Amato sat at the Bill and Hillary table. Each table featured a centerpiece
made up of related items—for instance, at the Tammy Faye Bakker table there
were false eyelashes, blue eye shadow, and lipstick candles. Michael Jackson's
table had a stuffed gorilla and Porcelana face cream.
Bob Pittman was there. "Love's not over—smoking is over," Bob said,
grinning, while his wife, Sandy, stood next to him, and I stood behind the
indoor foliage, trying to sneak a cigarette. Sandy said she was about to climb a
mountain in New Guinea and would be gone for several weeks.
I went home alone, but right before I left, someone handed me the
jawbone of a horse from the Catherine the Great table.
LOVE AT THE BOWERY BAR: EPILOGUE
Donovan Leitch got up from Francis Ford Coppola's table and came over. "Oh
no," he said. "I totally believe that love conquers all. Sometimes you just have
to give it some space." And that's exactly what's missing in Manhattan.
Oh,and by the way, Bob and Sandy are getting divorced.
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