Two Parties

By Raanan Geberer

One Monday morning in 1994, I got a call from Danny Klein. I was surprised but pleased. Danny was a member of an amateur rock band I had played in 15 years beforehand. Although I’d occasionally seen him at parties, I hadn’t known that he’d lived near me for the past three years until I met him on the train the week beforehand. I hoped I could become friendly with him--I felt a little out of place on Kings Highway amid the insular Orthodox Jewish families, the clannish senior citizens, and the new Russian immigrants. When I moved into the area--one of the few safe neighborhoods in Brooklyn I could afford--I took that Transit Authority's word that it was 35 minutes from lower Manhattan by subway. Too late, I learned that it was more like 65 minutes.
"Rob," he said, "some of us '70s burnouts are having a Christmas party at my apartment in Sheepshead Bay next Friday night, and you're invited. A lot of the people from Park Slope and from Manhattan are coming, too. Some interesting artistic and metaphysical types are sure to be there."
"It sounds interesting, but some guys at my job are having another party earlier that night. What time does it start?"
"It starts at 9 in the morning, but runs from until about 2 in the morning," he answered. I told him I thought I could make it. Mike and Tommy's party in Carroll Gardens would end early--they lived in a two-family house, and their landlord didn't like late-night parties. From there, I could swing down to Coney Island on the F train, cross over to the D train, and take the D up to Sheepshead Bay. "Give me the address," I inquired.
"It's at 969 Emmons Avenue, five blocks from the subway, past Captain Walter's bar, Apartment 4B. We have a terrace overlooking the bay. If you have any problems, call 889-4695. See you."
* * *
At about 8 o'clock on Friday, I arrived at Mike and Tommy's in Carroll Gardens. Mike was an ad salesman for the community newspaper chain I worked for; Tommy drove the delivery van. For the past week, Tommy had been bragging about the dishes he'd been cooking--baked ziti, meat pies, stuffed peppers, cheese sticks. And he had a full bar, too. I vowed to try to control myself, but I knew that sooner or later, I would pig out.
I rang the bell, and Mike, a perpetually nervous, balding little guy with dark hair and beady eyes, opened the door. "Rob. How the hell ya doin', babe?" "OK. Where do I put my coat?" "Inna first bedroom off the hall!" After I put my coat down on the bed, I entered the living room, which was adorned with Christmas decorations and black velvet paintings of Billy Joel, Elvis and other rock stars. Muzak-like versions of Christmas songs like "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" played on the CD player.
On the couch were Concetta, the education reporter, and her boyfriend; Lizette the bookkeeper and her husband; and Mike and his girlfriend Kathleen, a heavy-set nursing student he’d met at his weekend job behind the bar at O’Donnell’s. Sitting in armchairs were Tommy, clownish as always, unshaven with his big stomach hanging out of his shirt; Basil, the elderly movie and theater columnist, long rumored to be gay; and Reginald, our crime reporter and the company's only black employee. I went over to the object of my desire--the food table--and proceeded to eat.
"Hey, Tommy," I asked, "what's in those meat pies."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Beef."
"Oh, okay." I wasn't strictly kosher by any means, but at least I was trying to avoid eating pork, which wasn't easy given my gluttony. Tommy sensed my motives and started laughing.
"Oh, no, Rob's trying to be a fuckin’ Jew again! Hey, you look like Moses with that beard!"
"How do you know what Moses looked like? How do you know there was even such a person as Moses?"
"Hey, I seen the movie! `The 10 Commandments'!"
I laughed halfheartedly. I didn't want to antagonize him--it wasn't worth it. On my way back to the couch I bumped into Mike.
"Mike," I asked, trying to be as tactful as possible, "did those black velvet paintings come with the apartment?"
"Hey, whaddya talking about?" he bristled. "Those are my paintings! Doncha know I got good taste?"
I poured myself a vodka and cranberry juice and sat down next to Lizette, who was showing Concetta photos of her two kids. Soon, I found myself pouring another.
"Hey Rob," Tommy asked, burping. "Is that your third drink?"
"Second."
"Oh boy!" he laughed gleefully, rubbing his hands together. "I'm gonna get you drunk, then I'll drag you down to the basement and rape you!" Nobody paid much attention to Tommy; it was just his retrograde sense of humor.
To avoid Tommy, I turned to Mike. "Did you get an ad from Celeste Bernstein?" I asked. Celeste Bernstein was vice president of First Brooklyn Bank, and a tough person to deal with. "That f---- hoor!" he exploded. "We thought we had her for a full-page ad for six issues, then she changes her mind and buys only a quarter-page ad, for $420."
Abruptly, Mike turned the TV on and reminded everyone that it was time for the Tyson fight, something I had completely forgotten about. I wasn't a boxing fan, but I was curious to see how long Buster Mathis, whoever he was, would last against Tyson. Mathis kept Tyson at bay by keeping his head down and butting into him, but no one was really surprised when Tyson finally knocked him out in the third round. Out of growing boredom, I grabbed a can of beer.
"Let me tell you," said Reginald in his West Indian accent. "The guy for Tyson to watch is Bruno."
"Naah, naah," responded Mike, waving his hand. "Holyfield's the one they're building up to."
"I envy that fuckin’ guy Mathis," Tommy said. "He gets $700,000 just to be knocked around by Tyson for a few rounds."
"Yeah, but Tyson got $10 million!"
Mike got up and was about to put in the Christmas CD again when the girls screamed that they wanted to hear something more lively. "Chicks!" he protested. "They always got something ta' say!" But he obligingly put on Hootie and the Blowfish. Kathleen got up and started dancing, snapping her fingers. Concetta and her boyfriend kissed and cuddled on the couch.
I looked at my watch. It was 10 to 10. Time to go. I went to the bedroom and put my coat on. "Hey, babe," Mike said, "you had a few drinks. You sure you'll be OK?" "Yeah, I'll be all right," I replied. As I headed out the door, I heard Tommy yelling, "Ooh! I'm gonna drag you into the alley and molest you! I got a big sausage for you, babe!"
I may have been a little wobbly, and it was four long blocks to the subway, but you were safe in Carroll Gardens as long as you were white, preferably Italian-American. Why the neighborhood tough guys hadn't bothered Reginald, God only knew. The bitterly cold winter air made my asthma act up, and I had to use my inhaler a few times. Soon, however, I was on the F train, and on my way to Sheepshead Bay.
* * *
While the party at Mike and Tommy's was small and intimate, the one at Danny Klein's was a mob scene. Danny shared the apartment with his 14-year-old son, and it looked like separate parties were going on in almost every room. In the living room, people gyrated to a tape of the Grateful Dead. In Danny's bedroom, people sat around talking about religion, politics and anything else. In the kitchen, people were preparing an enormous pot of vegetarian stew, with lentils, mushroom, tofu and broccoli. Only Danny's son's bedroom was spared: he didn't want to risk anyone ruining his computer.
Danny, a rotund, bearded guy whose blond hair was beginning to gray, took me around and introduced me to some of the people. "That guy over there, he's a Gnostic Christian," he said, "and this one, he's a Kabbalist, he just came back from Jerusalem. And that woman sitting in the chair, she's the head of a coven of witches!" These people were a little too kooky for me, but still, I liked them--they were alive, the music was alive, their ideas were alive, unlike the scene at Mike and Tommy's.
I noticed a few people who I already knew. Chief among them were Ronni, a woman known for her crazy clothes, and Little Fox, her American Indian boyfriend. Ronni was in the living room, dancing up a storm. She wore a headband of tiny colored electric lights that flashed on and off, a long skirt of a type that I hadn't seen since I was high school in the early ‘70s, and a button saying "Reality Is a Crutch." She wasn't beautiful in the conventional sense, but something about her was very sensuous and appealing.
Seeing Ronni got me excited so, as usual, I began to look around for available women. And, as usual, there weren't any. They were either too aloof or too old or too unattractive or too neurotic. Some of these women hadn't had boyfriends in 10 years. Maybe they had gotten too used to socializing in groups; maybe they had just given up. Once again, it was food, here I come.
In the kitchen, presiding over the cooking, was Little Fox, a dark, stocky guy. "How's it going?" I asked. "If you want to help, help," he growled. "Otherwise, we got work to do!" I never liked Little Fox. A friend once told me that he was cruel to Ronni and manipulated her by some kind of mind control. A few years before, I had a couple of furtive lunch dates with Ronni where she told me of her disappointment with Little Fox, especially the fact that he refused to look for a full-time job. Nothing, however, came of these encounters.
Back in the living room, I ran into Danny again. "Joel, this is my girlfriend, Alba," he said, motioning toward a thin, aging redhead. "She's from Alaska! Alba, this is Joel. He's the managing editor of two community newspapers in Downtown Brooklyn." "Oh, wow!" she exclaimed.
I hated when people made a big deal over my job. It sounded impressive, and I did have a lot of freedom, but the job didn't pay much–my company didn't even have health insurance until two months ago. I had written a series of freelance articles for Newsday and had hoped to join their staff, but they folded their New York edition earlier in the year. The whole journalism field was hopeless. I was, however, a smashing success compared to most of the people here, many of whom worked as office temps, paralegals, sales clerks, substitute teachers–if they worked at all. Half of them had psychiatric histories. To them, however, this wasn't important--what was important was their music, their poetry, their "spiritual quest." If they were happy living in fifth-floor walk-up apartments or with their elderly parents, who was I to judge? I wished I could find people who were as creative and full of energy as them but were more successful, so that I might learn something from them. But even if I did, they might not want me. I remembered what the poet Charles Bukowski wrote: "Everywhere I went, the strong avoided me, the weak and the sick flocked to me." Looked like things were the same for me.
"Joel," Alba said, "I don't know you, but I see you're distraught, unhappy. You fall short of your goals. Isn't that true?"
"Yes," I admitted.
"Come with me to the bedroom. There's something I want to show you," she motioned.
When I was in my teens, if a guy and a girl went to the bedroom during a party, they went to " make out." But Alba clearly had something else in mind. She pointed to a small altar in the corner of the room. "We're NSA Buddhists," she said, "and when we chant, we say, `Nam yoho rengey kyo.' Try it! It's the best way!"
"I don't know," I objected. "There are many ways to reach spiritual fulfillment. What about Zen?"
"I've tried them all! One hour of chanting is worth a week of Zen! Come on! You can do it!"
"Nam yoho rengey kyo," I unenthusiastically mumbled. Then I walked back to the bedroom. The music had stopped, and in its place, everyone was listening intently to a tape of Goldie. Goldie, a recently-deceased spiritual leader, had prophesied that the New York metropolitan area would soon be engulfed by a flood. She encouraged followers to purchase land upstate--land owned by Goldie or her associates.
"I was so depressed last month that I couldn't even leave my house for a month," I heard Ronni tell a friend, "but listening to Goldie really helped me!"
I wandered back into the kitchen. Little Fox had finished cooking his stew, and I grabbed a plate and started eating. He took out his guitar and started singing:
"Friends will walk in harmony
And lovers will walk in the sun
Contentment will reign everywhere
When the Age of Light has begun!"
I winced; in its own way, this song was as bad as Mike and Tommy's black velvet paintings. Al, a tall, lanky guy who was also part of this crowd, took out his flute and started playing along. Little Fox scowled. "I don't like people playing with me unless they know my songs," he barked. "They have complicated chord changes! If you don't know it, you'll just screw it up!"
From past experience, I knew he'd be at it all night, whether people wanted to listen or not. I had an idea. I went over to Ronni in the living room and asked her to go out to the terrace. She eagerly followed. Surely, no one would follow us there in this winter weather. There, overlooking the fishing boats and seafood restaurants of Sheepshead Bay, I embraced her. I ran my hands over her body, her beautiful breasts. She smiled. Without a word, we walked back into the living room.
I thought about the irony of my life. Two parties, two completely different lifestyles, but the same Brooklyn.