The Piano Has Been Drinking

The Piano Has Been Drinking – Tom Waits

'So whaddya think about the war?' the guy sitting on my right suddenly comes out of left field. It’s ten fifteen on a Tuesday night, in a wine bar around the corner from where we live. The place is about as empty as the dark side of the moon. That’s unusual, even for a school night. It might have something to do with the New York Yankees making it to the World Series for the first time in nine years, and this being one of the rare bars in our neighborhood without any flat or other screens. (‘World Series’ being the rather megalomaniac definition for what is in fact an all-American event in baseball.)
The man sitting next to me is drunk, very drunk. He is the type of guy who, when abroad, will stubbornly stick to English; should the local bartender/hotel manager/masseuse not understand what he wants, he will just repeat himself in a louder voice, confident that the key to conquering any language barrier is merely a matter of volume. We have been talking politics – or rather, the guy has been giving me his two cents on the current state of affairs that is threatening the American Way. He has been saying things like, 'Goddam Democrats are gonna kill this country!', and, 'I’m not paying no goddam health insurance for no goddam slackers!' He is the type of guy who would mistrust a sunset. 'Too goddam red, if you ask me.' For the past fifteen minutes, however, he has been gazing infinitely into space; I figured he had forgotten we were talking. But no.

'WHAT! DO! YOU! THINK! ABOUT! THE! WAR!' the guy says again, thundering this time. He spills his beer as he hoists himself up from the bar stool to turn and look at me, making an effort to redistribute his weight and keep his balance. What war? I think. Ask any Dutch person to talk about ‘the war’, and they’ll either dish out a heroic resistance saga involving their grandfather in World War Two (which, as far as the Dutch are concerned, can be neatly summed up as five days of bicycle-throwing before being run over by German efficiency) or mutter a vague unpleasantry about the Dutch contribution to the war in former Yugoslavia (which, as far as the Dutch are concerned, can be neatly summed up as a pretty dark day for military bureaucracy).
Our mandatory military service was discarded in 1997; every soldier deployed in international crises after Yugoslavia has been a professional combatant who voluntarily joined the army. Unless Prince Woof from Belgium decides it is time to reclaim The Netherlands, no 19-year old Dutch boy will ever be drafted again.

My nation’s war history is a puny one, compared to that of the US. No less than 47 wars have been declared by the US since the British settlers fought out the American Revolutionary War or War of Independence among themselves. Only 2 of those 47 wars involved a foreign nation trespassing on what was considered US soil: the War of 1812 against the British Empire, and the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. Save for a first excursion into Korea in 1871, the other 25 wars of the 18th century were all civil: from the actual Civil War to the whole lot of wars against Native Americans. However, not a single one of the 19 wars the US has been part of since the beginning of the 20th century has been settled on American soil. That’s 110 years of fighting in other people’s countries, for other people’s freedom.

'You know, our boys in Ahf-gha-ni-stahn?' the man clarifies. What do I think about that? I tell the man I really don’t know anything about war. 'Dam right you don’t', he says. 'If it weren’t for us, you’d all still be talkin’ goddam German.' Although I am sure it has been a while since anyone actually said this to anyone, out loud, I still want to assure the man that Europe, The Netherlands, and myself for that matter, are very grateful indeed for the Americans saving us from the linguistic claws of Nazi Germany. I married a Canadian for Christ sake! I want to tell him. How’s that for gratitude! But the man has slouched back onto his stool, and is staring pensively into his beer. 'My nephew’s there right now', he says finally. 'Fightin’ for goddam peace.'
With 19 independent wars over the past 100 years, all battled out on foreign territory, the US spits out a war veteran pretty much every five years – that’s not taking into account that most wars go on for years, needing fresh soldiers to fuel every new tour of duty. The list is endless. This guy’s grandfather might have fought in World War Two; his dad could have been in Korea, an uncle or two in Vietnam; he looks like he could have been drafted for the Contra-War in El Salvador in the early ‘80s. His younger brother might have been sent out to play a part in the Gulf War; his son may have fought in Somalia or Yugoslavia, and now his nephew is being alternately bored and terrified to death in the War On Terror. Somehow the 'My grandpa used to hide his pigs from the Germans' I had in mind as a counter seems to fall short, as would a light-hearted 'Well, whaddya know! Us Dutch sent some boys to Afghanistan, too!'

I think about how hard it must be to deal with, to grow up in a country whose war veterans stay 19 forever, what with them being yearly renewed. How do you memorialize war when war is ongoing, and how do you commemorate dead soldiers that keep on dying? Then again, America has its own peculiar way of paying respect to fatalities of war: to honor the victims of 911 they built a war ship forged from steel salvaged from the ashes of the World Trade Center. 'On September 2001, our nation’s enemies brought their fight to New York… The USS New York will now bring the fight to our nation’s enemies well into the future', the website promises happily. I tell the man this. I am not even sure what I mean by all of it, but he definitely takes it the wrong way. 'Goddam!' He shouts, his voice wobbly. 'Goddam! If you don’t like it here, why don’t you just go back to your own goddam country!' He slams his drink on the bar. Tom Waits without the poetry.
What does that have to do with anything? I want to say to him. And, Yeah mister, that’ll really hold up in six-year-old court. But all that I can muster is a rather lame 'Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say.'
The man throws me a look, the startled, helpless look of a drunk who nodded off smoking and is just now waking up to find his hair is on fire. 'I––I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to be rude', he says, his bloodshot eyes slowly filling with water. It’s time to go home.

White Wedding

White Wedding – Billy Idol

'Ahem… Uhhhh… Well… Yeah… I guess… I mean, yes… I do. I do.' His dandelion mustache trembling, the boy strings the words together much in the manner his prospected spouse used to take her birth control pills: irregular, absentminded and strangely convinced that, if you just make sure to finish the strip at some point, all will be well. His fiancee is clutching the wedding bouquet her mother purchased from one of the smooth operators standing day in, day out, at the base of the steps outside the New York City Marriage Bureau, selling (and, on bad catch days, reselling) posies for fifteen bucks.
The will-be groom's suit itches. Any sudden movement might urge his imminent stepfather in law to seize him by the collar of his borrowed attire lest he make a run for it. So instead of scratching, he studies his immobile feet, cemented in the floor of the Marriage Bureau like a Mafioso about to sleep with the fishes.

The registrar wipes his brow, simultaneously glancing at his watch. He is sweating profusely; little streams of wet salt trickle down his chest and settle, for now, in the basin of his belly button. Somehow the conditioned air in the Marriage Bureau never seems to reach the little white alcove that is impersonating a small town wedding chapel. Just off the spacious main entrance hall, its dimmed lights, white curtains, candelabras and all the near-intimacy in the world can't hide the fact that The New York City Marriage Bureau churns out a fresh Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So roughly every 10 minutes. That's 42 wedding albums a day (210 a week; 10,920 a year) filled with pictures featuring the alcove and the outside steps and the Bureau's brick walls.
The registrar finds some relief in the triple mint gum he has been chewing since he directed his first ceremony of today. People never comment on the drudgery his jaws deliver with the vows uniting them till death do them part, he ponders. Couples getting married at the Marriage Bureau tend to be quite modest when it comes to expectations on the part of his performance. The registrar's main concern is not with them, but with the precious minutes leaking from each ceremony like the brackish drops that ooze from his pores. He looks out the alcove and into the Bureau lobby, at the next couple already waiting to be served; a blissful looking middle aged duo surrounded by boisterous friends, number 17 today. Better wrap things up.

My sweetheart and I are sitting in front of one of the computers in the center of Marriage Bureau entrance hall that are poking each other in the ribs like a huddle of wired bridesmaids bracing themselves for any incoming bouquets. We are applying for a marriage license, and vaguely consider the possibility of getting married right here, at the Bureau; all it takes is a 24 hour wait and an appointment. It's cheap (a total sum of $ 60: $ 35 to apply for a marriage license, another $ 25 for a ceremony, performed by an appointed official), quick, and painless – we remind ourselves that romance is dead, anyway. After we get a number to have our application certified and bonafide by one of the Office of the City Clerks, we take a quick look around.
If marriage is an institution, the New York City Marriage Bureau is its undisputed headquarters. From the first line you stumble into upon entering the neo renaissance hall (to state your affairs); via the line for the computers (to apply for your license); down to waiting your turn for the City Clerks (to complete your application), and the final queue for the actual institutionalization; along the way, everyone’s love story is minced in the meat grinder of bureaucracy. This morning, there is a hive of shotgun, tourist and drunken monkey weddings to be performed, already buzzing around the entrance hall, and peeping into the make-believe wedding chapel; as morning grinds to afternoon, they slowly make way for the low budgeters, third timers, and elopers who'll start bustling in around lunch time.

For a city where the pursuit of individual happiness reigns supreme, a whopping average of 182 marriages are performed every day, adding up to a solid 66,483 mutual 'I do's in 2007 alone. Promising enough, the state of New York can boast the country's third lowest divorce rates (with 8.1% in 2008, only in New Jersey and North Dakota do couples stick together better). We decide that romance isn't dead, after all. Not only is it very much alive; it is calling out our number. Next! (We decide to get married somewhere – anywhere! - else in the city, where there are bound to be fewer strangers, no lines and only one bride around. Well, anywhere but the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn.)

'By the power invested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife,' the registrar brings the ceremony to a close. He slams his folder shut. The groom's wistful upper lip jumps to attention. He may kiss his bride. Should he use his tongue? Or just give her a quick peck? How does one go about these things? His girl looks at him, blushing. She tilts her head, expecting once more. Where does he put his hands? He should have thought this through! Too late now. He closes his eyes and lunges. The mother of the bride, too, shuts her eyes, in reluctant anticipation: the inevitable clatter of teeth will make for a clanking first toast to their happy ever after.

Dear Doctor

Dear Doctor – The Rolling Stones

Instant nausea. Sweating. God, can I sweat. My mouth is watering. I need to throw up, there's no way around it. Only thing is: I am afraid to even blink, let alone heave. Standing between me and a purifying round of projectile vomiting is the metal instrument that, from the feel of it, is trying to stab my frontal lobe to shreds by way of my right ear. The doctor at the other end of the stick is trying hard – sweat on his brow, too – to scrape a full summer's worth of caked ear wax out of my head. His assistant, a worrisome twenty-something, is holding up an awkward looking, '80s desk lamp to my right lobe, her eyes shut tight against the bright light. Or maybe she's trying to shield her innocence against the clotty mess the doctor is hauling out of my ear with grim resolve – brains and all, if necessary. I press my nails into my palms and sit quiet as a mouse – well, I am squealing like a piglet getting a shave, obviously, but without so much as a whisker twitching.

Out of 30,085 (give or take) practicing physicians in New York City (says NYC.com) I have dug up one right around the corner from our place, on West 97th Street. Or rather, I have found two: one general practitioner and one gastroenterologist sharing a practice. It's open for consultation, all day long, the lady on the phone reassures me. In a long, healthy family tradition I have waited to see a doctor until my loved ones couldn't stand my pseudo-brave litanies ('Really, I'm feeling much better – Don't touch it!! What, are you crazy?!') any longer. Last straw is the moment I whine out loud on how our apartment seems drenched in stale French cheese for three continuing weeks now – and my sweetheart delicately (and from a considerable distance) points out that really, I am the only one actually smelling Camembert where ever I turn to the right and maybe, just maybe, is it possible that the smell is coming from inside my own head? There is no further denying: I am suffering from a bad case of cheese-ear and it's not going to heal on its own. To the doctor's it is.

The doctor's office is fitted with four rows of tepid smelling patients, some moaning softly, some explaining in assiduous Spanish why they really, seriously should see the doctor right now. Either of them. The desk ladies are in perfect control of everything, except of the incessant tears streaming down the face of one of them, a tremendous ruin of a woman. In between the friendly and firmly directing of patients back to their seats and the copying of identity cards, nameless rivers are leaking from her crushed face. Every time the phone rings, she resolutely addresses herself in Spanish, snorts and answers in a tone that is just a bit too bold, 'Doctor X and Y's office, how can I help you!' She listens, answers in Spanish and sometimes in English, hangs up the phone and buries her crumpled face in her plump hands once more.

Then she looks up, sighs, and calls out my name. Do I have insurance? Of course I do, I nod confidently as I flash my Dutch Achmea World Health Insurance Card. The desk lady and I both stare hopefully at the plastic card for a bit, as if, any second, it can transform into an exotic doctor who will magically heal my cheese-ear and whisk her away from her tear stained life, to a place where everything is good and beautiful and well insured. No such luck. The lady sighs again, then smiles and says: 'Do you have anything else on you?' Not yet, I start valiantly, but you see, as soon as I am registered as a legal partner I will be added onto my sweetheart's insurance. So I do not have any actual health insurance in the US, at this moment? Well… I can't just be tucked away into the line of 46.3 million Americans without any kind of health insurance (says the U.S. Census Bureau, statistics 2008), can I? 'You know what, dear', the lady solves any upcoming am-to, am-not insured debate, 'what if I make a copy of your ID and enter that into our system for now, and you can go see the doctor for 110 dollars. Once you are insured, you will be reimbursed for the money.' And so it is done.

So here I am, in a pretty bad state. Without puking, or moving, for I am sure this doctor will not hesitate to yank my sense of humor out through my ear, for all the world to see. His private office forces itself upon the corners of my eyes: a row of peculiarly put up – for every single one is askew at the exact same angle – paintings (crying Gypsy boy, ocean panorama, still life with fruit), dust flecks on the carefully slanted frames. Stacks of papers on the desk, the floor, the window sills, the bookcase, the relentlessly patched up upholstered chair.
On a wash table coated with a determined grease film, a glass jar filled with surgical instruments. No two minutes ago the doctor, using his pen, pulled the metal stick that is now jammed down my ear from that same jar. On a coffee table next to the door are a couple of happy family pictures: the doctor, his arms around two successful looking young men; a little girl on a swing. Not a glove in sight. Or a professional examination lamp, for that matter – hence the assistant. Next to me lies the full scale model ear the doctor used to explain what he had in store for me. 'Ay theenk you hab ay sure-o-money infection, si, and plus a regular eer infection, tambien', he declares after a whiff of my ear. 'Forst, I wheel take out dee eer wax, and after, wee will see. I know dat aroma, ha ha! Dat aroma ees classico!' We both laugh.

That was ten minutes ago. As it is, the doctor is using one leg to brace himself against the examination table; his free hand freeze-fixes my head as he is rummaging around my most inner thoughts. Suddenly, with a horribly smacking plorp sound, he pulls back his arm. He almost trips, grabs his perplexed assistant by the head to steady himself, lets out a breath of relief and says, 'Bueno! Dat ies part one!' Another ten minutes and one woozy ear flush session later, I am back in the lobby, clutching a prescription for antibiotics and one for eardrops – to cure both my regular ear infection and my additional Pseudomonas infection – and a check-up appointment in ten days. I leave behind my inner beauty in a metal dish: a pestilent, pungent nugget in stark yellow and clotted red. Nice.

Rapture

Rapture – Blondie

‘Beware! Never receive the mark of the Beast! The number will be 666! If you receive it on your right hand or forehead, you will go to hell! Christ is coming! The Rapture is nigh!’ The man does not pause to breathe between exclamations. The end is so nigh that there is no time for any respiratory break, not even for dramatic effect. The man is holding a thumbed bible up to the false light illuminating the subway passage below 42nd Street, but his eyes stay transfixed to a point somewhere at the end of the long hallway, as if he expects god to come running around the corner any minute, to catch the last train home.
He knows what his bible says – and he knows what it means. Anyone who is not a true christian will be missing out on a one way ticket to heaven when Rapture comes; they will, instead, be forced to endure unspeakable sufferings under dictatorship of the Beast, who will dominate the earth in a terrifying reign of digital consumerism.
His sidekick, a woman with a mop of rather despondent hair, hands me a brochures as I pass, explaining it all in a step-by-step fashion: when Rapture is coming, how to recognize the signs, and – not irrelevant – what to do when it comes around and you are found wanting in the religious department (‘Suggestion # 1: do not panic; that is absolutely useless now.’[ ...] ‘Suggestion # 4: pray like you have never prayed before in your life.’). I for one am glad I got one. You never know!

The end of the world as we know it does not hold any secrets for the man and woman, and they must spread the word. After all, even habitual sinners deserve a shot at salvation, or at least an honest heads up. Now, what better place to find the lord’s lost causes than directly under Times Square, the decaying core of modern day Sodom and Gomorrah? Lines A, C and E Uptown to your right; lines 1, 2 and 3 Downtown to your left; every fork a gaping mouth to the pits of hell. The underground umbilical cord connecting Times Square and Grand Central turns and twists and throbs with prodigal souls. A highly maintained lady rapidly click-clacks by. ‘God’s wrath shall be upon all who take the mark of the Beast! The signs of the return of Jesus Christ our lord the savior are unmistakable!’ The lady sucks on her cheeks and curls her lips – a typical frown for the botoxed – in displeasure with such an exhibit of poor taste, and speeds up even more, her heels tapping a licentious dance on the hallway tiles.

Rapture-announcers in the US don’t have to rely on multi-interpretable bible predictions or random guesswork anymore; they have got a website, RaptureReady.com, ‘to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting’. Forget about christian Wikipedia and its creationist near-science: key feature of the Rapture site is a Rapture Index: the irrefutable, calculated probability, at any given time, for the prophesized Rapture to occur. The Index is based on a set of categories (Unemployment, False Prophets, Iran and Russia, Floods, and Liberalism, to name a few), each with their own weight to them, that add up to a number. That number is the Index, an accurate indication of prophetic activity, to be interpreted thus, according to the ‘prophetic speedometer’:
‘- Rapture Index of 100 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
- Rapture Index of 100 to 130: Moderate prophetic activity
- Rapture Index of 130 to 160: Heavy prophetic activity
- Rapture Index above 160: Fasten your seat belts.’

The Index at the time of writing, early September 2009: 163. Don’t say they didn’t warn you.

God Only knows

God Only Knows – The Beach Boys

On the corner of the street, next to the subway entrance of 96th Street and Broadway, a man holding a bible is shouting at his fellow men, a mound of brochures neatly stacked on the sidewalk. I pass him almost every day when I take the train. The man dictates and quotes unwearyingly – even on an ominously overcast August afternoon like this one. ‘For six days, work is to be done! But the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest! Holy to the LORD! Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death!’ The man’s face flinches involuntarily. It is Sunday. Thank god he does not get any reimbursement for the warnings he is heeding to passers-by.
No need to repeat that god is almighty or that Jesus loves you; people know all that by now. What they don’t know, is that god can be mighty pissed off. And that it’s best to be on his good side when he gets angry. The lord is not squeamish when it comes to acting out his wrath, the man on the corner knows. ‘Hear Lucas 19:26-28! I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given! But as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away! But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me!’

God is great in the US. Although numbers are dwindling slowly, 87% of the population still actively professes their belief in a higher power – or several. In New York City, catholics and protestants make for a respective 40 and 30% of that number (occupying over 200 churches); 8.5% is jewish (with a solid 50 synagogues), 3.5% is muslim (saying praise in a surprising 100+ mosques); 1% states to be buddhist (and does so in no less than 20 buddhist temples), and 13% (a bit poorly, in their own homes) either believes that god does not exist, or does not believe that god exists – not as a man with a beard, anyway. ‘That there’s something out there’ does not constitute as an official religion – at least, not that I know of. Among the 4% that is left non-specified are, at any case, enough people to fill 15 jehovah’s witness churches and a couple of hindu temples. I wonder where the man on the corner has found his niche.

It starts to rain, a genuine summer downpour. Within seconds, the man’s shoes are as saturated as his nylon suit. He does not mind. After all, Noah wasn’t intimidated by a little drizzle, now, was he? Within minutes, water is gushing along the sidewalks and the hopelessly under-equipped city sewers; over the steps and down the subway it goes. By the end of the day, water will be seeping through the cement construction and onto the heads of the men and women on the platforms below. For now, the man’s brochures soak together; next thing, they are swooped up by the rivulet and carried away, doomsday newsprint boats, to the sewers of West End Avenue. The man watches them go with a hint of nostalgia. He's not afraid of any upcoming floods. Bring it on, judgement day! There will be a seat saved for him on the boat.

Don't Tell Me

Don’t Tell Me – Madonna

I am spending the second weekend in August on island time. We’ve rented a beach cottage on Sanibel, a sheller’s dream dropped down the ankles of Florida like rat poo in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant - small and inevitable. We're here to witness the wedding of our two friends. The bride to be and I have escaped the wet woolen blanket heat to check her email for last minute wedding ceremonial hiccups. As she starts up the lobby computer, I leaf through a Harlequin romance novel I found in the tiny bookcase next to the resort’s brochures. The Boss’s Inexperienced Secretary. As I vaguely wonder how mogul and typist are ever going to get each other in the end (what with the age difference, not to mention the polarities in temperament), a voice booms from behind. ‘Are you the line for the computer?’

My ‘Nope, we’re all together’ collides with my friend’s ‘Almost done, I am trying to print out these wedding ceremonies I’m supposed to choose from’. The man’s face lights up like fireworks down a mailbox. ‘Ahhh, the young lady is getting married? Congratulations! Well, well, aren’t you just cute as a button! And you’re the proud mother?’ he says as he turns to me, all smiles. The grand iceberg of my emotional range suffers instant meltdown, translating into a look on my face that hovers somewhere between an incredulous giggle (you’ve got to be kidding me!), a sub-zero smile (what the hell mister?!), and an anxious swallow (ohmygodIlooklikeamom?!).
Oblivious to my mental defrost, the man cries out, ‘Wouldn’t you know, it’s me and the wife’s fifteenth anniversary tomorrow! And we’re still happy as a clam, ha ha!’ Before I can even recuperate from my initial shock to either ignore or congratulate the man, he continues, ‘Of course it hasn’t been easy for her, what with me having the brain tumor and all. I’m in remission, it’s about the size of a golf ball now. I don’t feel sick or anything, what it does is it messes with my emotions and feelings, you know? I don’t know whether I’m mad or sad – or the people around me for that matter, ha ha! Who’d have thought that a little ball in your head could do that. Doc says it’s located right here, over my left eye!’ He points at a spot just above his right eye, delivers a glorious smile, and stops talking.

Americans have an uncanny talent for springing intimate information on random strangers with an air of spur-of-the-moment carelessness that makes for instant awkward conversation – at least, when that stranger is me. What are you supposed to do with something that private coming from someone you really don’t know? The thing is that this random candidness, on second glance, isn’t that impromptu, or personal, at all. To the average well meaning American, spilling the beans is just another way of making small talk, and subject to the same type of rules. You’ll receive a scripted monologue on someone’s medical history, or a detailed rendition of a life defined by bad decisions, but were you to ask an engaging question, your company will react as if stung by a bee, instantly on the defensive. Why are you prying into their personal affairs? And so your cordial attempt to diffuse the embarrassment backfires hopelessly. All of a sudden, everybody feels awkward. Best case scenario is that your company will frown upon your questions, and add commentary to your all-too-liberal, disaster-prone Old World etiquette. Silly European!

The man is still flashing his expectant smile. It’s obviously my turn to speak. I don’t even know this guy’s name. What can he possibly expect me to say? Don’t ask any questions! I remind myself. I take a deep breath and decide go for firm yet non-committal. ‘Jeez, mister, a brain tumor, that sounds like quite the ordeal.’ This is horrible! I fight the impulse to run out the door and jump into the Gulf of Mexico.
– ‘Well, doesn’t that just sum it up?’ the man replies happily. ‘Of course I had the skin cancer before, on my back. The sun’s pretty murderous out here, you know. That’s why I always keep my shirt on these days. Ha ha! Especially when I’m on the boat. I’m a sailor, you know. Been boating all my life. The wife didn’t care for it at first, but she likes it all the same now. Are you ladies going to rent a boat while you’re here?’ And just like that, we’re out of awkward time and back on island time.

Help!

Help! – The Beatles

The place is dark blue and ill lit. Coming in from the sun dappled street it feels like you stumble into a solar eclipse. Knifed to the wall are bodiless mannequin heads covered in what looks like candle wax. The atmosphere is moody and unstable – vampire’s lair meets the wildest little whorehouse in the West. Behind the entrance a deejay is crouched over a double deck, adding to the general confusion by drowning the place in a beat like a heart in frenzied fibrillation. My man and I are at the Diesel Fifth Avenue store, trying to locate a specific pair of jeans. The Diesel Fifth Avenue store is very current. We convince each other that our temporary night blindness and the consequential bumping into random displays is a small price to pay For Successful Living. As our eyes gradually get used to the semi-dark, we distinguish various piles of jeans mashed together in sideboards in a far corner of the store. I start to fear there is no way we are ever going to find what we came for. We decide to stay close together and wait. Anytime soon now, from all this interior designer’s limbo, our savior should appear.

Shopping for clothes on Manhattan usually means having a personal assistant at your beck and call.
– ‘Hi, I’m Brianna/LeShawn and I’ll be assisting you today. Can I set you up a changing room?’ The second you set foot inside, a girl or boy dressed in the leading smile of the season hurries over to help you out. After all, only they know exactly what the store holds, where everything is to be found and what size you really are.
Not all stores do assistants. Some just have a regular entourage of employees filling racks and cash register. The difference between the two types of store is astounding. Employees in a non-assistant store have no idea what brands the store carries; they couldn’t tell you where you can find that dress in the window if it would save their life. If anything, they will avoid you. Five more hours until my shift ends! their heads loll in dull anticipation.

All this, of course, applies to traditional stores. Diesel Fifth Avenue has little to do with tradition. Tradition is not current. Diesel Fifth Avenue is. However, from the darkened vapor surrounding us, far-away fog-horns (‘I wasn’t joking, try it in a size 12’ and ‘I already set up your changing room’) define the Diesel store as an assistant type of getup. So what is keeping our denim redeemer?

Then, in a sudden outburst of strobe lights, our eyes shoot Polaroids of a highly androgynous silhouette in skinny jeans standing quietly in the far corner. It must be an insider. Up close, the heavy-lidded eyes and pale complexion assure us this boy must spend a lot of time inside the store, but as we sidle up next to him, he looks the other way and appears perfectly unaware of our presence. Is he ignoring us?

– ‘Hi!’ I try. ‘Can you help us?’ The boy blinks. We look at him expectantly. He looks at something infinitely interesting, right over my left shoulder. ‘Hello there!’ I try again. ‘We are looking for these jeans and…’
– ‘Uhhh, yeah, so… I’m… uhhh…. Jimmy…?’ the boy asks rather unexpectedly, his bloodshot eyes slowly swimming into focus. ‘No, we’re not Jimmy. These jeans, we believe the model is…’ I continue, but the boy has already swiveled out of sight. I grab onto my man’s hand. ‘We should just get out of here!’ I whisper. That’s easier said than done. I am not even sure I can feel my way out of this premeditated puddle of boudoir chic. Then the air in front of us seems to condense – and the boy has reappeared, looking even more waif-like than before. This time he’s clutching a pair of jeans. ‘Yeah… so… these should do… Jimmy…’ he mutters blankly as he hands them over. ‘How do you know if it’s the right…’ I start, but my voice trails off. I am talking to thin air. The boy has gone up in smoke. This time he has vanished for good. We happenstance into a dim changing room; the jeans are a perfect fit. Next thing we know, the girl at the cash register is asking us who has been our assistant today. We’re not sure. She seems to understand. Damn, Diesel Fifth Avenue is current.