The Overcoat

The Overcoat.
I’m flying high and I’m about to die. Of mortification.
On Char Street, therein lies a quaint little club aptly known as White Traash. On Mardi Gras nights, lovers cavort in shadowy alcoves; cheap beads adorn sweaty necks and litter the linoleum floor, gutter trash hazards. A magnet of burgeoning artists, celebrities of every genre descend and liquor flows like milk. Tempers are bound to flair and egos clash. For a Rolling stone intern, this is the perfect place for some choice interviews. Aunt S, a woman who’ll swear blindly that she’d last seen me at my baptism (I wasn’t invited, but I came anyway. Like the wicked fairy), owns this establishment. On well-lit nights, puzzle boxes of inhuman origin appear, looking for the next hot (young) thing. One must always be careful of any deals made with these Mephistophelean characters. It was her idea: This or the appointment at the New York Fashion Week which Elaine took. Front row seats have the redemptive qualities of dragging all sorts of personnel from the clutches of obscurity. It was a sweet deal, besides, what do I know about fashion?

The girl’s bathrooms were packed. Illegalities in the form of white lines littered the ceramic sinks and black granite tops. Making hay while the sun shone, I trooped off to the deserted men’s room. They tumbled in just as I was zipping up. Cracking open the stall door some, I took in the scene. A mess of dark hair topping off a leather clad body, eerily familiar. There’s really only one person I know who dresses like that. Time flashed, a chance meeting, a poser get up. But this was White Traash, celebrities and Plebeians mixed alike. To presume he was the real deal was tantamount to sacrilege even if he did wear phenomenal built in pants with swathes of clashing lime green and violet. Choice words were exchanged in designer Cajun, half of which I neither understood nor followed. They then set upon each other with a ferocity reserved for the very drunk and passionate. Poser or not, they guy was clearly outnumbered. Grabbing a roll of tissue, I injected myself into the fray, stunning the mass. There was an immediate retreat and a stagger of drunken bodies from the vicinity.
So here we were.
Perched on a spread eagled perfect specimen of male; the same in fact, now that I’ve had a close up visual, noted a keen interest in my tattered coat. An interest I heartily responded to, having been secretly prior watching him get down to some electric bath symphonies and some weirder than weird Japanese pop in a little shop tucked away in Shinjuku. In a scramble of limbs, I try to right myself, but Gabriel (even his name is divine), adopts a pinched look upon his visage.
‘Please, don’t move’, he gasps
Oh. Oooh… I immediately cease all movement. I’m quite sure he is a gentleman, top of his prime. He wouldn’t, how to phrase this, let such a theme appear so prematurely. There’s a whispered apology for his slightly inebriated state accompanied by a sheepish smile. My face is a neon beacon.
In a small alcove overlooking the bar, he lets me paint his bruises with alcohol. 2 years and the man hadn’t changed one iota. Groaning, he leans back into the shadows, leaving me to fumble about with the clasp of the First Aid Kit. Oh dear, what to say…
“Um… I don’t know if you remember “, is my elegant beginning. At once, a tan hand is on my knee. “I know Baxton. Well met in Shinjuku. You were wearing the most outlandish overcoat I had ever seen” he turns to me, eyes glinting with mischief, “ you didn’t think I’d forget did you?”