POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
If the Weirdo is there, fuck Runyon, Im turning back.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Shit yeah.
(gesturing)
Can we get another round?
Everything on him is free. His black Calvin Klein jeans hard won two years prior at a party celebrating the famous designers spring line. Stacks and stacks of the jeans, up to the ceiling, but more pertinent than the companys publicity budget was the fear they might not have brought your size, or another journalist might beat you to your size, thus the resultant frenzy described the next day in Page Six of the New York Post. His T-shirt arrived in the mail one day with an advance copy of Public Enemys latest release. Mickey Mouse heads festooned his socks, Goofy his boxer shorts. His shoes bounty from a Michael Jordan-Nike charity event, intended for the disadvantaged kids but everybody helped themselves so J. figured why not. They are a little tight, and pinch.
J. rummages through his canvas bag for some new clothes. They had been washed by Laundry in the hotel hed stayed at the night before and charged to his hotel bill, which was in turn picked up by the record company that had invited him there. There is always an entity at the top who pays for things. While sifting through his bag, J. notices a log of tissue paper and opens it up. He remembers: at the end of the night hed wrapped up a small ham sandwich from the food table to save for breakfast. One time he woke up with dozens of cocktail napkins in his pockets, all stuffed down in there. He pulled out the dingy bouquets from his trousers like a hobo magician. The sandwich still looks edible. J. picks off the dried brown edges from the ham, considers for a moment the wilted iceberg lettuce, and sticks the sandwich in his maw. He starts to feel better.
Strung out from the gin and tonic and the nap dream, which was antic and enervating and which he cannot recall, he wonders what time it is, how long he slept. The desk man at the motel gave him a press packet when he registered, checking his name off a list, but J. hasnt bothered to look at it so he doesnt know what time dinner is. It is still light out. Someone will come fetch him. Out of boredom he picks up the glossy folder of the press material. In a golden circle, John Henry pounds a railroad spike with a gigantic hammer. He has a big grin on his face. Behind him the other workers are bent over the track, small and human compared to the black titan in the foreground. Building the country mile by mile. This is the forging of a nation. This is some real hokey shit.
After the knock on his door, he hears Lawrence call his name. He reluctantly opens the door for the publicity man. Lawrence Flittings is tall and boyish, attired with his usual elegance in a light blue summer suit. Current New York style straight out of the lifestyle mags; a subscription card could fall from his navel at any moment. His blond hair is compact and slicked back with a particularly obedient mousse, considering the Southern humidity. He smiles at J., green eyes penetrating, and says, Im glad you could make it, J. Get here okay?
Lawrence is a lieutenant at Lucien Joyce Associates, one of the most influential publicity firms in the country. Have their hands in everything from home electronics to beauty products to independent movies, an interdisciplinary and gangster army of hype. Theyd publicize the debut twitch of a bean sprout, an unspectacular bud in a field of identical bean sprouts, if the money was right. Lawrence is Luciens new right-hand man, replacing Chester, who is now in Development at Paramount. J. still runs into Chester at various events. Chester enthuses about his new job profusely and at length. The man has yet to connive one of his projects into the multiplexes; the scripts in question endure successive drafts, gain talent, lose talent, find new talent and sigh through more drafts. Chester draws up budgets, revises, revises again to accommodate the new people who have come aboard, and then the new people lose interest and the budgets are revised again. He is highly regarded and considered successful.
J. has yet to warm up to Lawrence. He still sees him as the new guy, a judgment that flatters J. somewhere because he has been around for so long. J. tells him he arrived without incident.
How have you been? I havent seen you since the Maverick Records event.
The usual. Working a lot.
I loved that piece about Whitney Houston. Youre so clever.
Thank you, Lawrence.
Im not the only one who thinks so, J., Lawrence says, spinning the valve. The publicity man proceeds to name publicists and personages whose events J. has attended on his recent junketeering streak, the ones who have fed and housed J. over the last few months. J. thinks it is his way of saying, I know what youre up to. A smug little display of Lawrences power, a momentary adumbration of the inner chambers. And another indicator that Lucien controls the List. As J. dangles in the door frame and listens to Lawrences spiel, he makes a note to share this tidbit with One Eye, should One Eye show up this weekend.