Heart of Stone by the Rolling Stones just popped into my head. It’s a quiet Thursday. I guess a lot of people are still out. Bill is on the road, expected back tonight. Mike was stuck in his crib, his parole officer and four training officers came over a short while ago. 5 people watched him pee. They could have done that by looking at his Twitter page.
The world is a mess. This country is even messier. And don’t get me started about Messi. I don’t know anything about Messi except he’s been in the news the past 48 hours. It might be good or he mmight have done something stupid. Or perhaps a combination of the two.
I am listening to Compay Segundo. Lo Mejor De La Vida. The first Compay Segundo CD I bought back when Julio and I were enthralled by the whole Buena Vista Social Club. That was almost 30 years ago.
It coincided with my suit & tie fetish. I realized if I wanted a good job, I would have to dress the part. For a part of my life I think I tended to dress like the musicians who’s music I had been listening to. There was Punk and New Wave. There was the Indie Underground scene of which Maxwell’s was a landmark. And I worked in the music business and dressed accordingly.
Julio was into Buena Vista Social Club before me and when I got into them, I went whole hog. They were all older Cuban men who dressed in suits and ties. And so I did. Julio and I made it a point to see the various members as they toured in Manhattan and I always went suited up.
And I was able to get a few good jobs where I dressed like an investment banker, more than the investment bankers I was supporting. Braces, OTC TNT socks, pinstriped and chalk striped suits. It was a turn on.
In fact that is how I met Bill, at a Yahoo groups Suit and Tie party. I had gone to a few and always left dejected. In September 2000 I was determined to enjoy myself. Annemarie was very supportive and drove me to the Path train from Weehawken.
I went to a penthouse on Ann Street and mingled, had a few glasses of wine and enjoyed a cigar while out on the veranda. My memory serves, telling me I was the belle of the ball.
Everything I said was so witty and as these suited men chuckled at whatever I had to say, I looked over them to see a brown-eyed handsome man in a mustard colored suit and making eye contact with him.
Soon I was in a PDA with Bill, including a sexual act that I had never done in a ‘public’ setting. Here I am 25 years later, no longer wearing the suits and ties. It used to drive my brother Frank crazy. I think he thought I was a yuppie or trying to be one.
I was still the same iconoclast, just dressed better.
the google gemini rewrite as a Dennisa Lehane essay
The Rolling Stones don’t just pop into your head on a quiet Thursday; they seep in like oil through floorboards. *Heart of Stone*. Jagger’s sneer bouncing off the walls of an empty room while the rest of the world is out there, chasing whatever it is people chase when they think nobody’s looking.
It’s quiet, but it’s the kind of quiet that feels temporary. Bill’s out on the blacktop somewhere, chewing up miles, aiming to be back by dark. Then there’s Mike. Poor bastard was stuck in his crib today when the circus rolled in. His parole officer and four training officers—five grown men standing in a semi-circle, solemn as a jury, just to watch him piss into a plastic cup. In this day and age, with the digital voyeurism we call a society, they could’ve saved the gas and just monitored his Twitter page. It amounts to the same type of humiliation.
The world’s a mess. This country? A bigger one. A fractured, beautiful, violent mosaic that doesn’t know how to glue itself back together. And don’t get me started on Messi. I don’t know a damn thing about soccer, but his name’s been flashing across the screens for the last forty-eight hours like a neon sign in a dive bar. Maybe he won something; maybe he broke something. In this life, it’s usually a combination of the two.
—
To drown out the noise, I put on Compay Segundo. *Lo Mejor De La Vida*.
The brass is warm, the rhythm thick as humidity. It takes me back nearly thirty years to when Julio and I were completely under the spell of the Buena Vista Social Club. It was a lifetime ago, a different version of the city, and it happened to coincide with my suit-and-tie fetish.
I’d come to a realization back then, the kind that hits you when the rent is due: if I wanted a serious job, I had to dress for the theater of it. For years, I’d dressed like the soundtrack of my life. There was the jagged edge of Punk, the skinny-tied cool of New Wave, and the sweat-soaked bricks of the indie underground—places like Maxwell’s, where the music felt like a secret you kept in your pocket. I worked in the business, so I wore the uniform.
But Julio found Buena Vista first, and when I caught the fever, I went whole hog. These old Cuban musicians, men who had survived revolutions and heartbreaks, they performed in sharp, immaculate suits. They had dignity stitched into their lapels. So, I copied them. Whenever they toured Manhattan, Julio and I would go, and I’d be suited up like I was heading to a high-stakes card game.
It worked, too. I landed jobs supporting investment bankers, and irony of ironies, I dressed better than the guys pulling down seven figures. I was a walking study in sartorial armor: braces, over-the-calf socks, pinstripes, and heavy chalk-striped wool. It wasn’t just clothing; it was a turn-on. It was power.
—
> That uniform is how I met Bill.
It was September of 2000, at some Yahoo Groups suit-and-tie party. I’d been to a few before and always walked away feeling hollow, but that night I was determined to wring some life out of the city. Annemarie—bless her—was supportive as ever, driving me down to the PATH train out of Weehawken.
The party was in a penthouse on Ann Street. The air smelled of expensive cologne and old money. I held court on the veranda with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigar burning slow in the other. If memory serves—and memory is always a bit of a liar, leaning toward the romantic—I was the belle of the ball that night. Every word out of my mouth felt sharp, witty, dangerous.
As these suited men chuckled at my routines, I looked past their shoulders and saw him. A brown-eyed, handsome man in a mustard-colored suit. Our eyes locked through the smoke.
Before the night was out, the suits didn’t matter anymore. Bill and I were tangled up in a display of public affection that crossed lines I’d never crossed before, right there in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline.
—
A quarter-century has bled away since then. The suits and ties are gone, hanging like ghosts in the back of the closet. My brother Frank used to look at me back then like I’d betrayed the neighborhood. He thought I was a yuppie, or worse, trying to be one.
But he missed the angle. I was never one of them. I was the same iconoclast I’d always been, the same kid listening to the Stones in the dark. I was just better disguised.