Calling All Cars

Finding an apartment in New York City is like trying to find an embryo inside a man with ultrasound.

Richard didn’t want to impose on his friend Rodney and stay at his place too long.

It had been years since Richard picked up the ‘New York Times’ to search for a place to live. It seemed as though only real estate agents advertise apartments in the ‘Times’ and the average monthly rent for those places start at $2,000.

“I remember when landlords begged tenants to rent their crummy apartments. Now they want to do credit checks. They ask for first and last month’s rent in addition to two month’s security deposit-- damn Europeans are buying up everything in this town,” claimed Richard.

“My God, what the hell is going on?” Richard asked Rodney will scanning the ads at Rodney’s kitchen table. “I can’t afford to live in New York any longer on my $50K salary,” cried Richard as he started to get nervous.

“That’s what you get for picking up every stray you find and attempt to turn it into your lover,” replied Rodney sarcastically. “They have you arrested for wife-beating and they steal your apartment—it’s the latest craze.”

“I’m calling my celebrity friends to see if they can help me out,” said Richard.

“Do you consider Geoffrey Holder to still be a celebrity, he’s over the hill and hasn’t worked since that 7-Up commercial in 1972,” insisted Rodney. “Besides, isn’t Geoffrey Robert’s friend, not yours?”

“He’s my friend too, or I should say, I’m his personal secretary,” replied Richard.

“What about that actor friend of yours, Keith David, he must have a few properties here in the city, maybe one of his brownstone’s has a rental unit,” suggested Rodney.

“Keith David still lives in his mother’s house, believe it or not, Rodney. He’s a lot like you once were. Besides, the last I heard from him he was in Australia filming a movie called ‘Volcano’. He’s playing the part of a fire fighter,” bragged Richard as if he were part of the Hollywood A list.

“Those people are all Robert’s friend’s, Richard, they are going to blow you off now that the two of you are no longer a thing,” advised Rodney.

“But Geoffrey is a good friend, he’ll be able to make a few calls and find me an apartment,” Richard said.

“Did you sleep with him too?” asked Rodney.

“I never mix business with pleasure, Rodney, besides, Geoffrey is not really gay. He has a wife,” explained Richard.

Richard believed his celebrity friends could somehow help to find him an apartment in the Big Apple. But it didn’t work out like the script in his head.

Geoffrey Holder, his part time employer, hired another guy to assist him with artistic endeavors. Harry was hired to carry his paintings around and run other personal errands while Richard was the hired typist.

When Richard was at Geoffrey’s loft on the days he worked for the Tony Award winning artist as a secretary, he developed a friendship with the other hired help, Harry.

Both Harry and Richard knew Geoffrey Holder as a very private man who is very careful as to who he allows in his private circle. Both employees felt honored to work for the theatre legend.

And he paid very well.

Richard would have paid Geoffrey to do typing just for the thrill and experience of working as the right hand to such a talented man. It seemed as if Geoffrey’s artistic skills rubbed off on his employees and Richard valued that fringe benefit of the job.

Geoffrey was working on a play, a secret musical play in his head that he was absolutely convinced would one day hit the Broadway stage and make Stephanie Mill’s performance in Oz seem like a Christmas Eve theatrical church service in a trailer park town.

Geoffrey would only allow Richard to type certain parts of the play. Most of the story remained in his head, in paintings or scribbled on little pieces of paper which lay in piles around his massaging recliner.

When Geoffrey’s artistic mind would start to wander or when he wasn’t feeling very artistic he would assign menial tasks to Richard, his right hand.

The secretary was asked to piece together all Geoffrey’s thoughts, phone numbers of other celebrity friends, and lyrical poetry, all scribbled on little pieces of paper, into some form of a computer database.

Richard was more literally minded than mathematical.

The scary thing to Richard was how from little quotes on pieces of paper, a story seemed to be weaving itself into a rough draft of a Geoffrey Holder musical master-piece. “Geoffrey, I have an idea for this,” Richard would start to say and rattle on about an idea he picked up from a little piece of paper.

“Who told you that? Nobody knows that but me. This story is still in my head,” Mr. Holder would shout as his secretary typed at nearly 80 words per minute and captured his own suggestions as Geoffrey smiled to cover the ‘anger’ in his voice.

Richard was hired to type down Geoffrey’s artistic thoughts and sometimes, the artistic genius turned to his secretary for suggestions in writing his secret musical.

Harry and Robert were both in the room when Geoffrey asked, “I need a funny way to say: On the seventh day God rested.’” Richard looked to Harry for a suggestion and he just smiled at Richard as if to say, “Don’t ask me, I’m not God.”

The secretary looked up from the keyboard on his lap and turned to the diva to suggest “On the seventh day, God took a breather,” while reaching for a sip of 7-Up sitting next to him.

Geoffrey laughed just like he did in the Seven Up commercial. “Write that down, I’m going to use it,” said Geoffrey almost in tears.

Harry and Geoffrey started respected Richard as an artist, as they too were masters of their crafts, otherwise Geoffrey would never have hired the two hicks.

Harry was a heterosexual but had a very cool personality. His dirty blonde hair was slowly turning white, but his hazel eyes still shown brightly. He was a rather thin but still quite sexy and stood about six foot two. He reminded Richard of real men back home in central Appalachia.

“Harry is a famous model on runways in Paris. That’s where I met him,” explained Geoffrey as he introduced the two guys who grew up in rural America.

Richard reached out to shake Harry’s hand and felt a surge of aura energy.

While in a master artists’ presence, it’s not uncommon to hallucinate and taste the power of the Christ consciousness, free of charge, from those, like Geoffrey, who have made it there.

Both Harry and Richard agreed that there is something very magical and spiritual about Geoffrey Holder. When they picked up heavy vibes from one another in the presence of the accomplished artist, they bowed heads when greeting and rarely spoke.

Communication between the two employees and their employer was rarely verbal, but rather like communication between two ballet dancers and a typist who could move his fingers as if masturbating on the keyboard..

Harry’s eyes were simply beautiful. Richard was sure his eyes were what made him famous on runways. It’s sad that society throws good looking men to the curb when they turn thirty, thought Richard to himself while admiring how handsome Harry the heterosexual male model still was.

His eyes see right through your soul, Richard thought.

Richard turned to look at the real celebrity in the room, Geoffrey Holder, and repeated the thought.

He can read your mind, thought Richard as his artistic thoughts continued to race from one image to another while sitting with a keyboard on his lap in a huge loft in Soho, surrounded by paintings of the Garden of Eden, the size of billboards, painted by the man who made 7- Up drinkable.

Richard was always wiped out and exhausted after working in the same room with Harry and Geoffrey, but always felt artistically energized and manic when he left the job.

Richard offered to help Harry find a full-time job with his full-time employer, a legal service company. Harry loved the position, for it was full-time with benefits and he worked there for well over a year as he went from audition to audition, following a dream of going Hollywood as an actor.

The job Richard helped to him to land paid his rent and allowed Harry to pursue his dreams.

Richard shared his dilemma of being thrown out of his apartment by his lover with Harry over the water fountain in the employee break room at the legal service company.

Richard explained how he wanted to ask Geoffrey if he knew of any rich friends who own real estate. He wanted to know if that would be tacky to do and if Geoffrey would feel exploited simply for who he was as a celebrity.

“Isn’t your the lover who had you arrested Robert Easton? That’s Geoffrey’s best friend.

Harry realized how serious the situation was for Richard and offered, "Oh, I just so happen to have a friend who is subletting and apartment on King Street in the Village.”

The two part-time employees of the 'Un-Cola' man looked at each other and realized their friend Geoffrey was up to his Voodoo tricks again.

Richard felt liberated when he moved into a sublet apartment on King Street in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods of New York City, the West Village.

It wasn’t easy saying good-bye to Rodney, his America On-Line Buddy List friend, who offered him a roof over his head during the hostile divorce from his same sex partner, Robert.

Rodney only demanded oral sex two times during the three week period it took for Richard to find a sublet.

Finding the sublet came in the nick of time, Rodney was starting to look at Richard’s ass when he walked around the apartment in a pair of sweat pants.

The sublet on King Street was the first time in life living in his own place and Richard walked around nude in his new apartment the day he moved in, just to bless the joint and to forget the chill of Rodney’s piercing eyes.

A starving photographer named Katrina Crotsley rented the place to him at cost-- $680 a month plus utilities. There were no application fees, security deposits, first and last month’s rent or first borns involved in the negotiation process.

It was a simple introduction from friends of friends which led to the best rental deal in town, as similar apartments in the neighborhood rented for well over a grand.

Katrina handed Richard her keys and headed off to Canada to shoot snap shots of the countryside, chasing a dream that only a handful of photographers ever have the opportunity to do in life.

Katrina’s summers were spent camping alone and sleeping under stars with a camera tucked neatly inside her sleeping bag. Richard wished he had that drive to pursue artistic endeavors.

Katrina’s apartment was filled with odds and ends she obviously picked up in the backwoods of Canada while capturing haunting images of a cowboy like countryside.

She had several skulls from dead animals on shelves throughout the apartment. Stuffed rodents sat next to dried spiders and her pots and pans looked like antiques. Richard loved the place and was thankful that he found such a wonderful space at an affordable price.

She had tons of books aligning shelves in the small studio space. Katrina invited Richard to help himself to the small library, but he went off to study life during the summer of the King Street sublet and only read those who got in his way.

There were lots of windows throughout the apartment, two of which were next to a full size bed made cozy by a down blanket that smelled of Katrina.

Richard slept under it anyway.

He didn’t remember what peace and quiet at night was like until he slept in her pad, under her covers.

His first night’s sleep was filled with passionate dreams of Katrina.

He had never sexually admired women and the dream, like Katrina’s photographic images and apartment design, was freaky.

He slept like a baby the first night there. He didn’t awake until noon the following afternoon.

When he opened his eyes he saw a squirrel sitting on the window ledge next to his bed. The window was open with no screen. Peanuts were placed on the window ledge on the inside, and the cute animal reached in and helped himself.

Richard grunted, “Katrina’s one cool muff diver,” while smiling at the squirrel and waking up in his new home. He made a mental note to pick-up more peanuts.

Richard totally admired that morning moment and realized that things were getting much better in his life.

Soon after the bushy tailed animal scurried off, a Verizon worker crawled up a telephone pole on a ladder in the back yard.

Richard pretended to be sleeping. His bare ass was sticking out from under Katrina’s down blanket and his muscular legs were wrapped around the heavy bedspread, which by morning, was rolled into a bundle approximately the size of a inflated sex doll.

The utility worker pissed around fixing a wire for at least thirty minutes while stealing glance’s of Richard’s round rump from time to time.

Richard got out of bed, walked towards the pile of peanuts and pulled down the shade on the telephone man.

“I’m done with men,” he whispered in the calm silence of his new place.

He reached down, grabbed a peanut and cracked its shell with his gapped teeth.