God Hates Us All by Jonathan Grotenstein, Hank Moody Page B

Staten Island, and one that starts Haitian but rapidly deteriorates into
Diff’rent Strokes
: “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Mister D.?” Luckily, Billy’s years of taking calls from the highly stoned means that it’s pretty much impossible to sound too weird. But I’m no Rich Little: Impersonations have never been my thing. I max out at six, maybe seven voices that sound remotely convincing. So I transform them into regular customers, requiring the purchase of a small black notebook at Duane Reade to keep track of my polyethnic cast of characters and their imaginary smoking habits. I don’t want to fuck up. While I’m not exactly scamming the Pontiff—if anything, I’m generating more business—delivering two pounds to Danny each week certainly exposes me to risks outside the operation’s comfort zone, something Rico, during my audition, impressed upon me
never
to do.
    Friday night, my third week of moonlighting for Danny, I return to my room at the hotel after making my last legitimatedelivery. I load my shirt with the bags. “That’s quite a potbelly,” I say to the cracked mirror. I open the door before the mirror can reply, jogging down the stairs toward the subway and Danny’s office. Only this time I nearly steamroll K. as she’s walking into the elevator.
    “Hey, you,” she says. She’s freshly showered, hasn’t bothered with makeup, and isn’t suffering for it in the slightest. My heart’s beating like a jackhammer, but I’ve never been more lucid. I finally have an honest answer to the question of why I chose to live at the Chelsea.
    “I’ve been looking for you,” I say. “About that second date.”
    She smiles. “It’s going to have to be a quickie. I’ve got to get back to Nate. They’re flying to Chicago tonight and they’ll never make it to the airport without me.”
    “I can work fast when I have to.”
    “A fast worker, huh?”
    “Don’t get me wrong. I prefer to take my time.”
    “You know, I’m not that easy.”
    “Me neither,” I fire back. “But I’m open to rehabilitation.”
    She smiles again. Could my rap actually be working? Her eyes dart back and forth, signaling an internal debate. “I’ve got a show tomorrow night,” she finally says. “Versace.”
    “Congratulations.”
    “Thank you, thank you,” she says with a curtsy. “But would you believe that I still get nervous up there? Lame, I know, but I could really use a rooting section and with Nate out of town …”
    “I’m there!” I say, grinning a little too much.
    “Don’t get any ideas: I’m a good girl. But I can’t say the same for all of my friends. A roomful of beautiful, insecure women of questionable character. A guy like you might do all right.”
    “‘A guy like me’? I believe I’ve just been insulted.”
    She gently slaps my cheek. “Poor baby. There’ll be a pass for you at the door, if you can get over the hurt. Ray’s going too. Maybe you guys can share a cab.” She struts past me into the elevator. She’s smiling as the doors close shut.
    “You shud write a pome abut hah,” Herman chimes in, having caught the scene from his perch behind the desk.
    “I just might,” I reply, scurrying out into the street to avoid further interrogation. I let my momentum carry me to Seventh Avenue, where I catch the train downtown.
    DESPITE K.’S SUGGESTION, WE DON’T need a cab—it’s only a ten-block walk to the show, a former slaughterhouse in the Meatpacking District that’s been reclaimed as an “art space.” Like a true Dixie gentleman, Ray brings along a flask of Southern Comfort to warm us along the way, leaving us nicely lacquered by the time we take our seats. We hoot and holler when K. struts out for the first time, decked in a fluo-rescent green smock I couldn’t imagine ever seeing on a civilian. Like the true professional she is, she ignores us completely.
    A half hour later—about twenty-five minutes after thenovelty of seeing so many imperious beauties