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  Jasmine

Fact: Jasmine is the only flower whose scent cannot be synthetically reproduced.

Jasmine, the official bartender of Bombay Harbour, is twenty-two. She has a porn star body, skin the colour of espresso, two-tone nails, home-girl ployphonic ring tones that follow her everywhere, and low, evertin-gonna-be-irie-baby voice. Chinese boys come in looking to buy a mysterious substance called "karma" from her, and old men come in looking for drinks and sympathy.

Jasmine is chronically late. And Ali, the boss, is getting "seek of thees sheet."

Today, he's had enough. "Meddy-Anne, Meddy-Anne, c'mere."

I go over.

"Jamseen ees seek again today. Can you bartend?"

Hmm. Officially, I am not liscenced, but . . .

"Oh, sure," I say, thinking, hell yea.

Jasmine is only to happy to turn the place over to me. "You'll do fine," she purrs. "You know it's all an act, right? You gotta take care of 'em. They tip you fat. Then you go home and sleep in. It's simple, honey!" She lays a warm, dark hand on my sickly-pale gooseflesh. "And don worry bout not bein an Indian. You don even hear the sittar music after awhile. But don take any shit." She warns. And with that, Jasmine shakes the dust from her Jimmy Choo heels and wiggles off into the night, leaving me to care for all the Hindi/Bengali/Neplai etc men.

You can't be reproduced, Jasmine, I think. And certainly not by Kansas City me.

I finish my smoke, go back upstairs. Three men are already at the bar. Small, indian, angry old men in suits. I pour their whisky and, after two rounds, their frowns begin to melt. At the end of the night, the oldest one, with white hair, takes my hand in his.

"Meddy-Anne." He says. Low and soft, like an old elephant ear. "Meddy-Anne. I must say dat I am -- " he searches for the words. "I must say -- I am so veddy happy. Tank you."

You're welcome.



  ¶ 8:18 PM

  Phone call

Me: Hello?

Peter Orlovsky: Hello?

Me: Jesus. I'm at work. What do you want?

PO: You're at what? Where do you work?

Me: Jackson Heights. Bombay Harbour.

PO: What? White people don't work there!

Me: I do.

PO: How did you get the job? I have never heard of a white person working there.

Me: I was crying on the subway . . . it's kind of a long story.

PO: There's something about you, Marian, I swear . . .

Me: All the naan, curry and mango lassi is on the house. And I might learn some Bengali.

PO: And you'll make cash. You can be the provider.

Me: What does that make you, the artist?

PO: No. I'm not an artist. I'm not anything. I'm (blah blah blah blah blah . . .)
  ¶ 8:06 PM

  Gee, I should cry on the subway more often.

So there I was in the village, having had a few drinks in the Duplex (a good gay bar, though not as good as Paddy's in Ventura) when I notice this little mancreature crying. I offer him a cigarette, some water . . . but he just collapses in my arms and starts sobbing.

"He left me," he cries. "He doesn't love me."

Oh, jeez. He's getting snot all over my shoulder, but what can I do? I'm a sucker for drunken sob fests.

"Honey!" I tell him. "There are so many other fish in the sea."

"Not like this fish," he instists. He looks up at me, all bleary and weaving. "You are so beauty-full. Can I put make up on you?"

I'm about to put him in cab when the door flies open and in struts his posse. Four gorgeous gay latino Divas. And they are pissed.

The ringleader, a boy with several gold chains and eyes like illegal double moons over Havana starts spewing angry spanish. He indicates his watch, throws his arms in fury, goes so far as to slap his friend on the cheek. The other three stand tough and judging behind him. Ringleader flashes me a toothy smile.

"I am so sorry, my dear. We'll take over from here." I get the hint.

Rinse, repeat. It was my misfortune to comfort four seperate and sobbing gay men that night.

By the time I got on the subway, I was in tears. I felt like I should've been a priest, hearing all those sordid confessions. And I had gone to gay bars because I thought they'd be safe. An Indian man handed me a pocket hanky.

"What ees wrong, leetle girl?"

Much to my chargin, I do not remember that conversation, between me and the tall dark stranger who bummed me some Arabian cigarettes and insisted I keep the mascara stained hanky. But I must have given him my number and told him I was unemployed because he called the next morning.

"Meddy-Anne? Meddy-Anne? Thees ees Ali."

My brain tried to turn itself on, but blinked battery low and died. I paged through my people-roledex manually. Ali, Ali, Ali. Hmm. The only one I could find was the one who floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

"Leesten, Meddy-Anne, I wont you come waitress my place. Een Jackson Heights. Queens. Eets call Bombay Harbour. Off Broadway exit. You can?"

Oh, yea, buddy. I can waitress with the best of them. Hand me that job.


  ¶ 7:35 PM

  Back to School

Got a little gossip backwash from the kids out in Southern Cali. Sounds like the drama is starting up like an excellent German car.

From 3000 miles away I can say these things to kids at TAC:

1. Having bagels, peanut butter, grapefruits and several varieties of tea just lying around for one to partake of is a situation not to be taken for granted. Grapefruits are sinfully expensive in New York. Corollary: Cigarettes at 3 greenbacks a pack is . . . is . . . also something to be gratefull for while it lasts.

2. STUDY HARDER THAN I DID. this should not be hard. you wont be sorry.

3. The MacLean/Lettney regime is a fair and righteous one. They do what they gotta do. MacLean really likes to listen to people. Lettney really likes to whistle on his way to the bathroom.

4. God bless everyone at that school. It's a strange little place, but if you are patient with it, you'll be rewarded a hundredfold.


  ¶ 11:40 AM

  ("You can make it anywhere") California is to New York as France is to Russia as Emma Bovary is to Anna Kerinina as swallowing rat poison is to jumping in front of a train as passive is to aggressive.

(I hear SeanChim saying, with a smile, as physics is to metaphysics? Perhaps?)

Also: Queens is an old baseball. Manhattan is an espresso machine that never stops, and certainly has no time for you.


  ¶ 7:37 PM

  Brotherhood and Chaos

My brother, Matt. Is there any boy who knows me better? He has my full lips and harsh eyebrows, and my habit of caring for and talking to homeless people.

Once he told me his theory of the world: If you stack coins on a table and leave them there, anything natural that happens to them after that (a gust of wind, a sound wave, a fist) will only knock them further apart. And so it is with creation. It's order turning naturally into chaos. I never wanted to believe him. But then . . .

I guess working at a place where I spent most of my time looking out the window onto thirty ninth street in Kansas City, I was doomed from the start. I picked out a favorite early on. He was always dressed all in black, always reading. He had large eyes, like a priest who's heard it all. He was quiet, polite, and never asked anyone for anything. Two weeks after I'd started watching him, I worked up the nerve to say hello, but he took off down the street, scared as hell. Three days later he walked by my window, pupils dialated, yelling curses at the sky. Of course he didn't recognize me.

My favorite homeless guy had finally cracked. (So did my heart.)

Should I have asked the man in black how his day was going even though he was out of his mind? After all, I stuck with my brother Matt even when he was convinced he had cancer, after the doctors had laughed in his face and told him he was fine. And aren't we all Christian brothers? Or is Matt's theory right? Does everything become chaos through dilated pupils to a soundtrack of explatives?

As John Marie once said to me, I'm sick. Help.
  ¶ 11:12 PM

  Stranded in NJ

I have plenty of time to watch TV before figuring out how to move myself and some clothes across PA to see Bombshell Bernadette Sockey marry Michael Matthie.

Watching TV, mostly news, makes me think: Politics makes me sad! It all seems to be about who can convcince the most people that the Other Guy is a phony who wants to take their money and kill their kids, one way or another.

On the other hand. We have fillibusters. And how cool is that.


  ¶ 8:24 AM

  Kansas City leaves me this phone message:

"Hey, so I'm calling really late, I'm glad you're asleep, but I just thought- um . . . anyway, you know, the rain was really hard and all the sirens in Midtown were-- oooooh, eeeeeh-- and like in a minor third, and in this really wierd way. And the rain was coming down really really fast and I saw all that was happening and took off all my clothes and ran around in the backyard for half an hour and I just- I don't know- I, ah- don't know what I'm trying to say-- it was just a really, really great experience, all the rain so fast and that minor third in the sirens-- and um . . . anyway, never mind . . . Have a good trip, okay? You're awsome. Bye."


  ¶ 11:20 AM

  My Boyfriends Gorgeous and My Girlfriends Brilliant Every time I showed my boyfriend's picture to the other waitresses in Kansas they'd say, "Wow, he's hot, he looks like . . . ummm . . . " and they'd bite their lips and shake their heads, confounded.

"I know," I would laugh. "He looks like . . . umm, uh, hmmm, can't-think-of-it, whastisname . . . to me, too."

We could not figure it out.

Until Anna came to town. She took one look at the rumpled photo, the boy, crouched on the floor, looking up at the camera with a near-smile on his face, and MonaLisa eyes, fingers elegantly entwined, and said, "Oh, you know who he looks like? Christpher Walken."

Of course!
  ¶ 5:18 PM

  Look what I found   ¶ 3:58 PM