Naked.

It occurs to me that my neighbor across the courtyard sees me naked more often than anyone has in a long time.  I wonder if I should get back into the dating pool.  After a long and eventful weekend with my stepmother I once again have my apartment to myself.  This means that being naked is once again on the menu along with a host of other things that one can only do when living alone.  I plan to cherish these moments as my solitude will end a week from Thursday.  This is when the first, and least dramatic, of the legs of my journey will begin as I crash with Erik for two weeks uptown to prepare for Canada.

Last night Erik stopped in on his way to the Bowery Poetry Club to read me a poem he was preparing to read aloud.  The subject of the poem is an infamous weekend we had in Atlantic City in December.  It is told from Erik’s perspective as he tries to put on my shoes after I’ve been drinking, gambling, and having sex for sixteen hours.  I haven’t fully told this story and even Erik knows only a portion of the details (the missing detail being how much I lost, and no, I won’t be telling you either).  My recollection of the night is as follows:

Erik and I sit down at a roulette table and I place bets for my coworkers in five dollar increments.  Nothing hits.  We play for a while and I begin drinking whiskey to remain lucky.  I was drinking whiskey when I won an absurd amount of money in Puerto Rico and in my imagination this night will dwarf that little take.  We lose our first hundred within an hour.  Erik takes a break, but I’m never one to waste time in a casino.  I move to three card poker.  This is a game based entirely in luck where everyone basically loses all the time and once in a blue moon someone hits a streak to win thousands.  In Puerto Rico, I was that lucky someone and stumbled out of the casino at 11am to call my dad and tell him about the 3K in my pocket.  Tonight I’m not so lucky.  I drop hundreds in a half hour and without blinking walk the straight line to the ATM that I will learn so well.  The ATM does not dispense my money, though I have the funds available.  I call my bank and they are unhelpful.  It’s fine.  I’m going to make so much tonight I might as well borrow from my credit card.  So I do.

Eight hours later I’ve been to every table in Bally’s and Erik is getting tired.  I’m playing roulette again and I’m deep in the hole.  Erik suggests we go to a dance club and I tell him maybe later.  At this moment Erik meets some girls at the table who he is clearly smitten with, so he buys back in.  A scruffy, handsome olive skinned man in a tailored suit flirts with the girls as well.  This goes on for a couple more hours.  I’ve now lost all but my last hundred dollar bill and I’m frustrated.  Erik has left.  The scruffy man continues to flirt with the girls.  I should leave.  I stagger away from the table and realize how incredibly drunk I am.  I begin to walk the floor when the scruffy man appears at my side.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

I shrug.

He says, “What do you want?”

At this point I’m feeling brazen.  I’ve just lost X amount of money and I’ve drank my weight in unlucky whiskey.

“I want to have sex with you” I tell him.

He doesn’t hesitate.

“Ok.”  He gently ushers me in another direction by the shoulder.  We begin to walk.

“Did you hear what I said?” I ask him, confused.

“This way.” 

He leads me out of the casino and into a taxi.  We ride for a while, and I watch the flashing lights blur around me.  We stop in front of a large hotel which is flanked with security guards in tuxes with ear-pieces in.  I’m certain they won’t allow someone who is so drunk inside of wherever this is, but the handsome man and I breeze by each of them.  We take half a dozen escalators and then an elevator to a landing where we take four more escalators.  I can hear the man’s shoes echo on the marble floors through the cavernous rooms with walls of glass.  Silent tux-clad guards stand stone-faced in every lobby.  We ride another elevator and finally arrive.  The man is staying in an expansive suite which stretches out further than I can see upon entering.  There are plush linens everywhere.  The room is immaculate.  I don’t see any personal belongings.  

“Would you like to take a shower?” the man says.

I nod.  We strip down and shower together.  

Afterward we lie on the king-size bed and he tells me about his wife and his son.  He tells me he has lost over eighty thousand dollars in this hotel and that’s how he can afford the suite.  It’s a comp.  He is completely broke.

He then turns over and opens the bedside drawer.  He pulls out what I can only assume is a crack pipe and begins to smoke.  He asks if I’ve ever smoked crack.  I haven’t.  But I respond as if he’s asked if I’d like another helping of dessert.  I put my hand up.

“I shouldn’t”.

I want to get away.  I have to find an exit strategy.  Slowly I begin to dress as he smokes and struts about the room naked.  

“Well, I should…” I move toward the door.

“Yes!  Let’s get back to the table.” he rushes to put his clothes on.

I want to be away from him.  I walk through the living room.  As I put my hand on the doorknob, he’s appears behind me, half-dressed.  We walk into the hall and begin to make our way to the elevator.

“My pipe!” he says.  “Hang on.”

He walks back toward his suite.  And I begin to run.  I realize I’m beginning to look like Cinderella but sometimes running is called for.  I get into the elevator and jab at the button.  I can hear him rushing back down the hallway, probably stuffing his crack pipe into his fancy blazer.  His face appears just as the door shuts.  I begin the ride down and immediately find it overwhelmingly apparent that I have no idea where I’m going.

I rush out of the elevator into one of the many marbled lobbies and sprint past several statuesque security guards.  They don’t bat an eye.  I take escalator after escalator two steps at a time and step out onto several terraces which I think are the ground floor.  It’s now pouring rain and I can see only a few feet into the darkness.  I run and run and finally, thankfully, I step out into a circle filled with taxis.  The first two wave me away and the third lets me inside.  We ride back to Bally’s.  I walk back onto the casino floor dripping wet and out of breath.  I stroll back to the roulette table.  The girls are still there.  I buy in with my last hundred and a moment later the scruffy man appears at my side to do the same.  No one seems to know the difference.

When I finally leave the table, I find our hotel room and pass out on the bed.  When I wake up, Erik is jostling me.  We can stay in the room, but only if I check in, because the hotel is offering me a comp night for all the money I’ve lost.  Erik struggles to put on my shoes.  He carries me through the lobby as I yell at passerby:

“Are you not entertained?”

I ask the hotel agent if she has “bacon and eggs back there?” while I try to stand up straight.

At the actual breakfast counter I tell the woman “coffee gives you heart palpitations” and she gives me a cup anyway.

I wish for weeks that I could erase the weekend.  But all you can do is move forward.  I won’t have Erik to put my shoes on when I get to Monte Carlo, so I’ll do my best to stay away from the tables.  In the meantime, he’ll have to find some new poetic inspiration…