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.This refrigerator was not that kind of refrigerator.“Ready?” he asked as we stood in front of the large steel door.I nodded.He opened the door and turned on the light.Four bodies lay on steel gurneys, covered by sheets.I stepped inside the room.He walked to one of the gurneys and lifted the sheet to peer at the face.“This fella was in the prime of his life.Thirty-two.Drug overdose,” he said.There was pity in his voice but not real sadness.It was almost like he was looking at a beautiful sports car that had been totaled on the interstate.And I thought, Maybe that’s just how all these dead bodies become after a while, like so many wrecked cars.I, however, had not had the numbing luxury of seeing a career’s worth of dead bodies, and I felt queasy at the thought of starting now.“I don’t want to see him,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.Instantly, the novelty of dating an undertaker vanished in the frigid air.“You should,” he said.The undertaker does not drink or do drugs, and I have a long history of doing both.The undertaker does not want me to become one of his clients.I approached the body.“It’s okay,” he said as he pulled down the sheet.He was a very handsome, athletic man.He looked to be sleeping.I followed the contours of his face with my eyes.It felt wrong for me to see him like that.It felt like theft.“Maybe he thought he’d do just a line or two,” the undertaker said.“Or maybe he did so much that it seemed normal.But see how his muscles are? This guy worked out.He was probably at the gym the day before yesterday.”All I could say was “That’s amazing,” because it was.It was somehow almost holy, seeing the man like that, naked and gone.“That’s just life.Only this one ended too soon.”“Great,” I said.“A profound undertaker.”“Who gives great head,” he added.“This is so twisted.”“Welcome to the world.Ain’t it a pisser?” We left the room.And we kissed for a long, hungry time.AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORAfter work today I went to Daphnia, my usual barber at the Astor Place barbershop.Astor Place is the geographical region in New York City where the West Village intersects with the East Village.Somehow in the late eighties, Astor Place became trapped in time.As a result these few blocks are filled with people who still consider safety pins to be a fashion accessory.The people who live around here tend to favor black leather, studs, and Mohawks.While people from Omaha may come to Astor Place and think, Gosh, now these must be what you call the ‘hip’ people, Manhattanites view the residents of this area more correctly as heroin addicts who have aged poorly and are stuck in the past.The Astor Place barbershop itself was here long before Astor Place was cool, in any decade.And Daphnia was probably here for opening day.Jacob Astor himself likely pinched her ass after she trimmed his mustache.Daphnia looks like Sophia Loren after some decades of terrible luck.The same raven-colored hair, teased high into a dome.But Daphnia’s hair is dented at the top, as though she banged her head on the shelf where she keeps her combs and clippers.Daphnia has a similar beauty but ignores it.Although this time her eyeliner wasn’t smeared, so maybe she was having an okay day.I sat down in her chair and took off my baseball cap, and she said, “Same thing?” and I said, “Yeah, same thing.” Same thing being short on the sides, flat on top, natural in the back.I hate that line they give you in the back, the one that goes straight across, dumbing down the haircut.It’s so technical college.She zooms the clippers over my hair as usual.But then she does something she’s never done before: she buzzes all over my ears, even the lobes, and way, way down my neck.And I’m thinking, This is really bad.It’s starting.The hair where you don’t want it.That’s when I noticed how shiny my head looked, like a baby crowning.My balding skull saying “Here I come” through the ever-thinning hairs on top.And this, despite the fact that I drench my scalp with Rogaine every time I stand in front of a mirror (about two dozen times a day).The Rogaine makes my scalp itch madly, which is probably my genetic material mutating.So when I’m forty-six, I’ll have to have my cancerous scalp removed and replaced with hip tissue.Women just smirk at baldness, as if it’s cute.How adorable would they find it if they began to lose their breasts in their late twenties? If both tits just shrunk up—unevenly I might add—and eventually turned into wine-cork nubs.Then it would be a different story.Then men would get the pity they deserve from women, as opposed to the smirks.There would be little ribbons you could wear on your jacket for Baldness Awareness Month.There would be marathons where people wept openly as bald men crossed the finish line, smiling and wiping sweat from their fleshy heads.As far as I’m concerned, baldness is the male breast cancer, only much worse because almost everyone gets it.True, it’s not lifethreatening.Just social-life threatening.But in New York City, there is no difference.Now if I had thick Italian hair, as opposed to this crappy, vague Nordic hair, I would probably just buzz it off like the rest of the fags.And I wouldn’t care, because then it would be by choice.So I’m thinking maybe I should just get my head tattooed to look like very short stubble.Nobody would know unless they got very close to me.And my intimacy issues prevent that.“You okay?” Daphnia asked while she was brushing my neck and ears with her whisk broom.“Yeah, I’m just annoyed by how fast I’m losing my hair.”She laughed.“Is fact of life for the man.”I scowled and looked at her breasts.Then I went home to write terrible ad scripts for an awful new product.I was recently teamed up with an art director whom I privately refer to as Dim, as in “Look, Dim forgot to wear shoes today!” He’s the sweetest guy, and he has absolutely no annoying attitude.On the other hand, he’s difficult to work with because things like space distract him.The other day I caught him sitting in his chair looking up, then all around, as though for a fly.Then he fixed his gaze on the wall, cocking his head slightly to the right, a puzzled look on his face.I stood in the doorway to his office and stared hard at him, thinking he’d sense my attention and snap out of it.Finally I said, “Everything okay?” And he said, “Isn’t it weird how you can’t see air? But it’s there.”So I’m working with him on a butterlike product called, beautifully, BenCol.It prevents your body from absorbing eighty percent of dietary cholesterol.Thus the name, a shortening of “beneficial to cholesterol.” Despite the fact that it sounds like an allergy medicine or a laxative, I must make it sound like a miraculous breakthrough, accidentally discovered on a farm in Denmark.Not a trick of science but a gift from Nature.The strategy reads: “So pure, it’s odorless.Natural, because it’s derived from trees.”So I’m trying to write something that’s spare and elegant and slightly magical.But really, I’m wasting my time.Because they don’t want elegant and magical.They want shit, in their own proprietary color.They want this, I’m sure of it:VIDEO:Amy Irving, star of Yentl, stands in a sun-drenched gourmet kitchen (brushed-steel appliances, cherry cabinets, an island with a granite countertop), waving her hand over dishes of prepared food items: eggs, steaks, lobster, fried chicken.VOICE-OVER:Hi.I’m Academy Award nominee Amy Irving.And I’ve got incredible news! Now, all the foods you know and love can actually lower your cholesterol by fifteen percent—guaranteed! Introducing BenCol.A revolutionary breakthrough, discovered in Nature.BenCol is a rich, creamy spread that’s sweet and delicious [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]