Man About Town with Armani Versace

"What do you mean you can't get me a table? Do you know who I am? Even
a stupid unrefined tit like you should know who I am!"
"Sir…"
"No, you listen here; the name is Versace. Armani Versace. That's
right THE Armani Versace. I want a table and I want it NOW!"
"But sir…"
"Save it flunky, I want the manager out here right away."
"I am the manager! I'm the manager and the owner!"
"Well then what the hell is the holdup?!"
"Sir the restaurant is closed. It's five in the morning."
"Well what about the bar?"
"Sir the police are on their way. You've been screaming down here for
the past forty-five minutes. My wife and I were sleeping! You woke us
up when you tried to kick in the door."
"Oh, well is your wife a looker? And how about that bar?"

By then I heard the police sirens and figured it would be best to find
another restaurant. This guy's wife was probably a bug-eyed Betty
anyway. Besides, if this guy didn't recognize me, the police certainly
would.

The sun was just starting to come up. I figured the best thing to do
was to go and have breakfast somewhere nice; a place where they
appreciated class. I walked down the road for a while trying to figure
out what the hell part of Manhattan had this many trees. I was sure
that I had to review a new restaurant somewhere in SoHo, but I
couldn't find the place. I walked down the road for two hours before I
came across a little bar and grill called "Exxon". There was some yutz
just sitting on a crate behind the joint. I was sure that he only
spoke Spanish and wouldn't understand me, but he was drinking a beer
and the way I figured it, soothing my nerves would be a good idea.

"Say, uh, Juan or Julio or whatever your name is. I'm all balled up
here, where the hell is Broadway?"
"Actually the name is Paul."
"Don't worry about it, can you get me a beer?"
"I can get it if you can pay for it."
"Look here, my name is Armani Versace and I am a gentleman's gentleman."
He looked at me for a minute.
"So?"
"So let me explain it this way, first of all you can bill everything
to my editor LaRue. Secondly, if you play your cards right I might be
willing to write a little blurb about this fiasco you call a
restaurant in my column."
"Buddy this is a gas station."
"Whatever you want to call it, just get me a cocktail. Something
refreshing but that'll still get me plowed. How about a house
specialty?"
I could see this bastard turning it over in his head.
"Listen I don't have time for games. I'm a very important man with a
very important job. I'm on assignment and I need to review a
restaurant and fast. How do I get to SoHo?"
"You're in Wlkes-Barre."
"You mean this is the diamond district?"
"You're in Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. What's with the
get up anyway?"
Apparently he had never seen a white tuxedo before.
"It's called class, kid. Anyway, how about you give me a lift to
Manhattan? My editor can pay you for your trouble when we get there."
"Why don't you have any shoes on?"
"The real question is why don't I have a fancy cocktail in my hand."
The lazy bastard heaved a sigh and got to his feet. He used a back
entrance to get into the place and came back out with two 40oz bottles
of Olde English. He put them down in front of me and plopped back down
onto his crate.
"I've had enough of the shenanigans here, I asked for something fancy."
"Yeah, it's called Olde English?"
He had a point.

I opened it and began to drink. In all fairness it was delicious. At
least ten times better than the stuff you get at home improvement
stores to huff but end up drinking later on in the night when your
really bored. This may be a strange concept to certain people of poor
breeding, but high art and culture has its dark side too. I noticed
the guy staring at me.

"You're barking up the wrong tree pal."
"What the fuck happened to your hands?"
I looked at the cuts and scratches all over my hands.
"At first I thought it was from punching out a couple of windows in
this abandoned garage chasing after a cat, but now that I think about
it I'm pretty sure it's a henna tattoo."
"What's a henna tattoo?"
"To understand that you would have to understand the Russian alphabet
which I really don't have time to get into right now."
"Oh."
"Hey, speaking of which, I need something to keep me awake. I have
quite a journey ahead of me. Do you have any espresso or perhaps some
crushed up Ritalin?"
"Just some ephedrine."
"Well I'll take all that you have."
"Look, you're gonna have to pay for this, I mean, my boss is gonna fire me."
"OK, just let me get on the horn with LaRue and he'll wire me some
money right away. He might even come and pick me up. That'd be quite a
thrill for you, to actually see two success stories in one night. What
are the odds?"

I followed him into the service entrance. I figured he was just trying
to give me a 'behind the scenes' experience for my article. He told me
to wait while he went in for the phone. He returned in a panic about
two minutes later.

"Fuck, my boss is here. Just…here, take these ephedrine pills and go
as fast as you can, try to cut through the woods in back."
He kept talking but I was already on my way. After all, I had a
restaurant to review somewhere.

There's a lot of character to the Pennsylvania wilderness. Shoes or no
shoes it's just a fact of life. The mountains encompass you and make
you think about the totality of all things. I got hungry and started
chewing those "stay awake" pills this poor sap had given me. I
couldn't be certain, but I was pretty sure ephedrine was an imported
African herb made more digestible by delicate human processing. I
walked for another sixteen hours through the woods before stumbling
onto a bus station and heading back towards civilization.

I was not sure where this bus was heading, but I knew for damn sure it
was somewhere better than Pennsylvania. Sixteen hours later, I found
myself arguing with a classy bus-station dame named Annie the Gimp. I
hadn't seen her in years. We started debating where to find the best
tapas bar in the East Village and ended up wrestling on a Port
Authority bathroom floor over three half-smoked cigarettes she had
found during the day. Ultimately I stumbled off with one of the half
smoked cigarettes and set out to find another adventure. I was fairly
certain that I had to review some sort of museum exhibition.