THE MEN'S PLANET V:

Jane's Wedding

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My friendship with Jane ended abruptly a year ago. Billy the Fireman was the catalyst.

"I'm dying to fuck this gorgeous fireman," Jane had gushed. "I know it's meant to be because the last time I walked by the firehouse a firefly flew onto my shoulder and stayed there for like five minutes."

"Jane, I'm sure he's married."

"No, he told me he's single."

"What is he-late 20's, Irish-Catholic, lives on Staten Island?"

"How did you know?"

"Jane, when I wrote all those crime articles for Penthouse and interviewed about 50 cops, they were all married, they all fucked around, and they all lied like dogs about it. One guy swore up and down he was single, then a woman cop told me he had a week-old baby. Firemen are probably worse because they can sleep at the firehouse."

"Billy's different. I sent him an invitation to one of my performance pieces."

"Did he show up?"

"No."

"Did he mention receiving the invitation?"

"No. Maybe it got lost."

Jane ignored Aunt Hariette's excellent advice and procured a dinner invitation from Fireman Bill.

"Make me two promises," I urged. "Try to find out if he's married, and don't fuck him on the first date. He's not one of your musicians or playwrights. Trust me, he's got retrograde sexist values."

"How can I find out if he's married?"

"Ask him for his home phone number. Ask how many kids he has. You're an actress. Act!"

I waited up for Jane's report. She delivered it in her princess Di voice.

"We had a lovely evening. He picked me up in his car and took me to an Italian restaurant, where we had a delightful meal and a bottle of red wine. Afterwards we went for a pleasant stroll and stopped off for a nightcap."

"Okay, and then?"

"We talked about our brothers, how his are always borrowing his car."

"Did you talk about his wife?"

"I did not feel it was appropriate, under the circumstances, to ask him such a personal question."

"I see. Did you think it was appropriate, under the circumstances, to sit on his face or suck his cock?"

"Certainly not! He insisted on coming up to my apartment. We made out, and when he wanted to go further, I told him it was simply not my custom to engage in sexual relations on the first date."

"Good. Because if you had there would be no more cozy dinners, no cocktails, no holding hands. Next time, he'd call you at midnight, come over, get his rocks off, and leave. I've been there, Jane. It's not great for your self-esteem."

Jane waited for Fireman Bill to call again, but he never did. She blamed yours truly and dropped me as a friend. I was relieved because I had grown sick of her selfishness. During 10 months of friendship, she had left at least 20 identical messages on my answering machine. In her Melanie Griffith voice: "I need a favor" But whenever I asked her to do something for me, she would blatantly refuse, or promise to and then forget about it. Then she'd rationalize by saying, "I'm a flake." In the Melanie Griffith voice again.

I had given Jane many items of fab footwear, including a pair of barely-worn $215 Stefan Kelian ankle boots. She gave me a bright orange rayon skirt. I donated it to homeless people.

Then, a month ago, I received Jane's wedding invitation. An enclosed note explained that her fiance, Sy, age 45, was a fellow aspiring actor. I hoped that getting engaged had mellowed Jane out. Even though she lived on Avenue C and practiced karate, I knew that she was a middle-class girl from Long Island whose goal in life was to snag a hubby.

We made a movie date.

When I called to finalize arrangements, Jane said, "I don't really have the money for the movies. How about a drink and dinner?"

"Um, okay. Where should we meet?"

"I can't afford to eat at a restaurant. I thought I'd make something here."

"Well, okay, but I have a touch of the stomach flu and can really only eat bland things."

"What if I make some some fresh corn and tomatoes?"

"Jane, did you ever take Home Economics in high school? Corn is the hardest food to digest, and tomatoes are really acidic."

"How about a tabouli salad?"

"Scallions, lemon juice, tomatoesare you listening to me?"

"Wellwell" She was sputtering now, practically hyperventilating. "I'll make a green salad with some tunafish."

"Let's order Chinese food. I'll get egg drop soup."

"Fine!" She slammed down the phone.

I took a cab to Avenue C. My bad back was spasming up. Jane's building was located next to a vacant lot, where a group of homeless people built a nightly bonfire. On her front stoop, two crackheads were beaming up.

Sy answered the door. He was about 5' tall, with a chinless, flabby face. Jane is gorgeous-that's how she gets away with all her shit. Sy probably thought he was really lucky. Poor schmuck.

I sat on a beanbag chair and popped some codeine.

The phone rang in the bedroom and I heard Jane inviting someone over. The evening had metamorphosed from a movie date into a party. I hoped Jane wasn't talking to Sara. She seemed normal, even intelligent, when I met her at Jane's. Then I went to her play, "Housework." Two women held up banners embroidered with "herstorical" facts about female domestic workers in America. Jane pounded on a table, repeating "Po-ta-to!" over and over. Then she wandered into the audience, singing a Native American song and making odd hand gestures. Other cast members fell down, as if drunk.

"Wasn't it brilliant?" Jane asked me afterwards.

Jane entered the room, perky as Liza Minelli. She gave me an anemic embrace and began complaining about how her mother would only buy her thrift shop clothing.

"She just has a problem with giving," said Jane.

'Calling Dr. Freud,' I thought. 'Dr. Freud to the white courtesy telephone, please.'

I showed Jane a silver, garnet and marcasite ring I'd scored from a street vendor.

"He sold me this for $22, but I think he undercharged me. What do you think its worth?" I asked Jane.

"$1,500?" she suggested, without a trace of irony in her voice.

'Possibly, she's totally nuts,' I thought.

I was astonished when a cute, hip-looking guy in his mid-thirties arrived. He had hazel eyes and curly hair. His name was Peter and he worked as a cameraman.

Sy said, "Hariette, I hear your parents were Leftists. Mine were, too."

"Where did you go to summer camp?" asked Peter.

"The commiest camp in America," I replied. " Paul Robeson's grandchildren were counselors there."

"My stepfather believed Stalin didn't kill enough people," said Peter.

I was awestruck.

After Peter left, I asked Jane, "Is he single?"

"Yes. He just broke up with someone."

"Where does he live?"

"Three blocks away from you. He has a very tidy two bedroom apartment with no roommates."

"Call him tomorrow and ask him what he thought about me, okay?" I said excitedly.

"No!" Jane snapped. "I'm leaving town tomorrow and I won't have time to make any phone calls."

Yet, the next morning, inevitable as air pollution, was Jane's four word message on my machine. In a whiny, demanding Joan Rivers voice.

"I need a favor."

The day before the wedding, I called Jane and asked for a description of the eligible single guys who would attend.
"You've already met Chayo," Jane said, referring to an obese Puerto Rican community activist. One night, he and Jane had watched a nature documentary about a goat giving birth. The farmer had to insert a chain into its uterus. Chayo got a hard-on and started kissing Jane.

"Call me picky, but eligible men doesn't include anyone who weighs 350 lbs. and gets off on goats."

"Maybe Chayo's changed," Jane countered.

"Jane"

Her voice took on a hysterical, Sean Young edge.

"There's Peter, my brother Salaam, and Sy's boss, Al Rivera. He owns three restaurants."

Jane's brother, Salaam Schwartz, had converted to Islam in the 70's. That left Peter and Al.

I wore a low-cut black lace mini-dress and French black textured stockings, the kind that induce Pavlovian responses on the Men's Planet. Salaam immediately cornered me. He fasted on Ramadan, prayed on a rug facing Mecca, abstained from alcohol. But, apparently, he still indulged in sexual fantasies. Blatantly undressing me with his eyes, he complimented my legs and added, "Among other alluring accoutrements, your perfume is divine."

I tried to escape, but he followed me around the room. I was tempted to yell at him, "You are a traitor to the Jewish people!" Finally, I spotted Peter, and gestured for him to rescue me.

"Mmm, you're wearing lots of lace," Peter said.

Salaam was outta there.

Peter and I talked about movies and music. We seemed to have similar tastes. Then we sat down-at different tables-for dinner.

I had been seated next to Wentworth, a pudgy Black poet with a chronically sweaty face. At one of Jane's parties, he had observed, "You seem like the type of person who would make someone else suffer rather than suffer yourself."

"You say the sweetest things," I'd replied.

Looking at Wentworth's damp cheeks, I lost my appetite.

I found Jane and asked if she would introduce me to Al Rivera.

"No!" she snapped. "I can't see anything. I don't have my contacts on."

Why had I ever let her back into my life?

Salaam initiated the post-dinner speeches with an Arabic prayer from the Koran. Jane's other brother, totally shit-faced, followed with a rambling obscene joke about a rabbi's wife stuck on a toilet bowl.

"That was appropriate," I said to Peter.

Peter suggested that we share a cab home. He got out with me and asked if he could read some of my Penthouse articles.

"Come on up, I'll give you a couple right now," I said "I just xeroxed some clips."

Peter took the articles, pled fatigue, and split.

The next morning, he left a message on my machine expressing admiration for my work and a desire to see me ASAP. An incipient boyfriend loomed. I blasted The Pixies' Here Comes Your Man.

Peter and I played phone tag for four days. Finally, we spoke, and he invited me to the movies that night.

Peter paid for the tickets. I handed him my bottle of Pellegrino water in its brown paper bag to smuggle it in his briefcase. Inside, he handed it back to me, saying, without a trace of irony in his voice, "Here's your beer."

A Pall Malls smoker, Peter coughed up phlegm throughout the flick. I thought the story was contrived and derivative; he found it fresh and original.

Announcing that it was his custom to end an evening with two martinis, his "Father's drink," he took me to a local bar.

"Those women over there are lovers," he observed. "The women I fall in love with always turn out to be dykes."

"Oh, bullshit," I said.

Peter had alluded many times to his original screenplay, at the wedding and on the phone. Clearly, he believed himself to be the next Paul Thomas Anderson.

Finally, I asked him about it.

"It's about this guy who tortures and murders his pregnant wife," he said.

"I see."

"How often do you wash your hair?" Peter asked.

"Every day. Why?"

"I only wash mine once every four months. The rest of the time, I just put water and gel on it. You only need to use shampoo three times a year."

I had a vision of cooties crawling all over my pillow. Nonetheless, I was trying to be tolerant. When Peter asked if he could come get some more of my true-crime clips, I acquiesced. We sat together in my big white armchair. After ten minutes, I said, "Peter, are you going to kiss me or what?"

He replied, "Hariette, I'm not attracted to you."

I said, "Then get the fuck out of my apartment."

He pouted. "Can I still read your writing?"

"No."

"That's not fair!"

He slammed the door, leaving behind a tacky umbrella.

I donated it to homeless people.

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