(Steely Dan Project) Prologue

He had not been to his agent's office in years.  David Runmoney lived in L.A.  His agent, Lester, lived in New York.  Still, the office smelled and looked exactly the same as it had the last time David was there.  David's agent liked to smoke cigars and cigarettes in that office all day long, against the protests of a long string of female secretaries.  His agent, Lester, did whatever the fuck he wanted to do.  His agent, Lester, made no apologies for his shabby, sometimes lewd behavior.

Maybe that is why David had stuck with him for so long.  Actors who lived and worked in L.A. (like David) had rocket salad eating, kombucha drinking, raw food despots for agents.  Despots who lived in L.A.  Truly vital little beasts who live to destroy others:  on the links, the tennis courts, and over the phone.

(Prologue interlude):  She has forced me oot on to the porch, smoke rising, mixed between my breath, siring wailing, then stopping just as sudden.  Kitten scratching at a window.  Peace beheld.

David soaked up the Manhattan, messy atmosphere.  He lit up a cigarette, ashed on the carpet, and made a wry smile.  He was going to stick by his crusty-lunged reprobate agent, no matter whatever type of crushing bad news Lester had for him today.

Lester adjusted his ass in his chair, coughed mightily, swore silently, wiped his mouth, squinted across the table at David and very softly iterated a litany of unmitigated bad news, crappy developments, insipid forecasts, and fiduciary shortfalls.  The litany began simply enough, "David," Lester said, "No one on either coast will hire you right now, ..."

*****

"Jeez, " thought David, "Sounds like Tootsie," as he sunk in to his posh hotel bed.  Lester's Litany was now a few hours in the past.  Lester's Litany had stretched across the space of three hours, including lunch at Lester's favorite deli.  David's insides hummed. Now David sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone.

The cable news channels hissed mutely while he weighed his options:  Call downstairs for Champagne; send Kat an upbeat, newsy, "I'm in New York," text; get the porn going on the teevee; call his Girl Friday here in New York; and throw back a couple of rails.

David finished his 'chores' in record fashion.

The dewy bucket rested on the window ledge, David's fizzy, sighing tulip flute within an arms' reach.  Kat had responded to his text.  It was a smushy, teeny missive, written in that very silly language that crushed David's soul every time he had to read it.  Cable news had been replaced by Assbusters 40, starring Veronnika, Kandy Korn, and Tawny Port.  David got his Girl Friday on her Brooklyn landline and arranged for their get-together tonight.

There was a table in David's room.  The folks that care, the folks that know everything about us, and nothing, they found David's rolled-up two dollar bill (a superstition of his) and parked it away in their brassiere.  "It means something," they said to their family, "It says, 'We are right here, we are safe.'" and then they counted sheep until their lovely children began to dream.

His Girl Friday was actually named Anneke and she was a friend of David's from the old days, high school and college.  Five minutes back in 1981:  Anneke and David were 'officially' going out.  Yet, they dint actually do it until the mid-80s.

David figured he had slept with Anneke eight or nine times total.  David figured he was going to sleep with her tonight.  It was something that brought him joy, something that blew Assbusters 40 away, something that reminded him of David at twenty-eight; and what he had said to her then, "I am so happy you are here.  I saw you walk away wearing that lipstick.  And I had thought you had put that on for me."

"Oh. my, " she said, "You are good, " and she kissed David.

There was something about the no-nonsense attitude Anneke carried.  Something about the inevitability of it whene'er they saw each other, something about the way Anneke de-mythologized sex for David when he was young and needed the myths of sexuality blasted, destroyed.  Something about how she was the first to acknowledge his (very limited) seductive power and make David realize for the first time that his person/body/self has real impact on others, that his words and expressions and muggings do not exist in a vacuum and that everything about him meant something and affected everyone in his orbit.

David sipped his Champers.  Then he turned the teevee off.  David's mind started cranking.  He thirsted for a cigarette.  He felt the icy chill of mortality race down his spine.

(The two big questions re his mortality were:  1, Will I know before? and 2, If I do know, will I accept or will I fight?)

David sipped his Champers.  He had to get out of here.  There was dinner with Anneke and others in Brooklyn.  That was at nine.  Maybe he would see a movie or do the bookstores.  David was dying for a cigarette.

He grabbed his mobile.  He closed the door behind him.