Everybody Ought to Know

It was high entertainment when my dearly departed friend Randy would drunk-dial me from deep in the heart of Dallas every-other-month or so. The laws of nature seemed to argue for the practice. We would hoot and whistle and stomp our feet over many irrelevant miles of fiber optics when he would get all liquored up and decide I needed to participate, if only by proxy.

With Randy, getting cocktailed and picking up the phone was as sensible as picking up your racket and hitting tennis balls. What would two or eight Bourbon and Cokes be without someone to call? Those long, raucous descents into the basest topics of conversation are marked indelibly in my memory. I treasure them the way you would a torn pair of panties from the first time you had really good sex. If I could scotch tape them into the book, they'd sit next to the dinner napkin on which we doodled at the Senior Prom in 1982. I have high expectations, therefore, when the drunken masses stumble upon my number in their little black books. Be entertaining or suffer the consequences.

When David called from the comfy confines of his Hell's Kitchen condo to announce his love for someone whose middle name likely escapes him, I pegged the drunk dial up front. David calls for three reasons only: He's in Love, He's Suicidal Because He's No Longer In Love, or He's Going To Make Me Famous. I keep picking up the phone when I see the 212 area code on the off chance that the latter might be true in time for me to have B-listers at my funeral. Hope springs eternal and all that.

"Dahling," he mumbled, "You're going to be published!"

"Published by whom?," I asked, after running through the who/whom rules. I had no intention of screwing this up over a misappropriated indirect object, even if he was just drunk and over-exuberant.

"New... York... Magazine," he stated emphatically. I think it was emphatic. He could very well have been slowing down the pace to remember all three words. Sometimes you just don't know. From the stature of the publication, I knew he was over-exuberant and over-liquored.

"Really. New York Magazine. Hmmmph," I snorted. "What the hell would New York Magazine want with the ramblings of somebody like me," I challenged.

"Dahling," David huffed, "I told them all about you. How you're gay and you used to live in appropriate cities and how you have AIDS and now live in Kansas and have become a writer."

I lowered my forehead to my lap. On the off-chance that he had actually told someone I was a writer, he had told a lie of biblical proportions. He'd also put me on the hook to fulfill one of those dreams that I'd assumed would be on my Last and Final Regrets List at my passing. It's lodged in between having sex in the Tuilerie Gardens of Paris and lying naked with my newly minted partner on a beach in Greece. And making a loaf of bread that weighs less than my bicycle. Writing would be a kick. I'm just not sure I'm the schmoe for the job.

"I met a woman at a cocktail party," he continued with all the exuberance that intoxication would allow. "Her name is Lana."

"As in 'Turner'," I chimed.

"As in 'Turner'," he confirmed.

"She's a manager or editor or owner of New York Magazine. Or she was serving the crostini at the party. They had a very nice spread..." And he was gone. My literary future took a quick back seat to the quality of the booze and bruschetta at not one, but two NYC cocktail parties. I remember that one of them was in honor of a new camera. A camera.

"They give parties for cameras now?" I poked.

"Dahling, that is not the point. The point is I mentioned you to Lana and told her that you were fabulous and MUST be published immediately,"

My David is an architect. He speaks with authority on literature in the same way that your average plumber might critique your couture. Since the day I started jotting down thoughts, David has seen a book, a column and a movie starring Meryl Streep and someone who approximates my appearance without all the nasty flaws. I'd say Eric Roberts, most likely.

And that's what he does. He calls, all be-liquored and in love, and digs at my Lost Opportunity List like it's his mission to have me die sans regret. I thrust and parry and deflect and blush all the while wondering in the back of my mind, "You think so?"

"Put the boy back on the phone," I told him.

"Hi!," said the child. How the hell he manages to lisp where there is no 's' is a remarkable talent, I thought.

"He met someone at a party tonight - a literary type. She was from New York Magazine," I repeated. My hope was that the kid was more sober than the 50-something demi-socialite and would set me straight as to my publishing prospects.

"Right....," he drifted off. He was either lying about remembering this or someone was fiddling with his belt. I hurried along.

"He said her name was Lana....as in Turner."

"Who?"

"Lana Turner."

Nothing. You could hear a hairpin drop.

"Tell me you've at least heard of Lana Turner," I sighed.

"Is she old," he asked.

I'd had my fill of the child. "EVERYONE IMPORTANT IS EITHER OLD OR DEAD!!" I ranted.

"Put David back on the phone," I snapped.

"Dahling, you wouldn't believe how beautiful this man is," he purred.

"He'd have to be," I sniffed. "You found the only homosexual in New York City who hasn't so much as heard of either Carol Channing or Lana Turner. Where ARE you shopping nowadays?"

"Now don't be mean, dear. He's from Connecticut," he said. Now, I have never lived in New York City. I visited once when I was 18 - for part of a day. I assume that "He's from Connecticut" is the equivalent to our sweeping dismissal of "He wasn't raised In Town". If one was not raised In Town, chances are they will misuse your indoor plumbing or ignore it altogether in favor of your lawnmower shed. Not being raised In Town means an acceptable lack of social graces, such as they exist in this pleasant oasis of deprivation.

"Still," I pleaded. "You gave a ring to someone who doesn't know from Carol Channing" I implored.

"How long have you known this person?" I repeated the question the way a teacher would on a final exam - just to make sure you hadn't gotten lucky the first time.

"32 days." He stuck to his story.

Fine with me. In the space of ten minutes, I'd managed to sit in rural Kansas and feel culturally superior to a gay man in a recently renovated Hell's Kitchen condo who had just been to TWO hobnobbing affairs. I let the thrill of shaming an urban twinkie roll over and over my tongue like damn good wine - the kind with a corked bottle.

I walked outside the house here on the corner by two churches in a town through which no major road passes. My neighbor was outside, my parents drove up simultaneously and I triumphantly announced to one and all,

"I'm talking to someone in New York City who's never heard of Carol Channing or Lana Turner!"

"Don't be ridiculous," said my John Deere dad.

"Everybody knows that."