In the lobby of my building I stop at the front desk and try to get the attention of a black Hispanic doorman I don't recognize. He's on the phone to his wife or his dealer of some crack addict and stares at me as he nods, the phone cradled in the premature folds of his neck. When it dawns on him that I want to ask something, he sighs, rolls his eyes up and tells whoever is on the line to hold on. "Yeah whatchooneed?" he mumbles.
"Yes," I begin, my tone as gentle and polite as I can possibly muster. "Could you please tell the superintendent that I have a crack in my ceiling and..." I stop.
He's looking at me as if I have overstepped some kind of unspoken boundary and I'm beginning to wonder what word confused him: certainly not crack, so what was it? Superintendent? Ceiling? Maybe even please?
"Whatchoomean?" He sighs thickly, slumped back, still staring at me.
I look down at the marble floor and also sigh and tell him, "Look. I don't know. Just tell the superintendent it's Bateman... in Ten I." When I bring my head back up to see if any of this has registered I'm greeted by the expressionless mask of the doorman's heavy, stupid face. I am a ghost to this man, I'm thinking. I am something unreal, something not quite tangible, yet still an obstacle of sorts and he nods, gets back on the phone, resumes speaking in a dialect totally alien to me.
I collect my mail - Polo catalog, American Express bill, June Playboy, invitation to an office party at a new club called Bedlam - then walk to the elevator, step in while inspecting the Ralph Lauren brochure and press the button for my floor and then the Close Door button, but someone gets in right before the doors shut and instinctively I turn to say hello. It's the actor Tom Cruise, who lives in the penthouse, and as a courtesy, without asking him, I press the PH button and he nods thank you and keeps his eyes fixed on the numbers lighting up above the door in rapid succession. He is much shorter in person and he's wearing the same pair of black Wayfarers I have on. He's dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, an Armani jacket.
To break the noticeably uncomfortable silence, I clear my throat and say, "I thought you were very fine in Bartender. I thought it was quite a good movie, and Top Gun too. I really thought that was good."
He looks away from the numbers and then straight at me. "It was called Cocktail," he says softly.
"Pardon?" I say, confused.
He clears his throat and says, "Cocktail. Not Bartender. The film was called Cocktail."
A long pause follows; just the sound of cables moving the elevator up higher into the building competes with the silence, obvious and heavy between us.
"Oh yeah... Right," I say, as if the title just dawned on me. "Cocktail. Oh yeah, that's right," I say. "Great, Bateman, what are you thinking about?" I shake my head as if to clear it and then, to patch things up, hold out my hand. "Hi. Pat Bateman."
Cruise tentatively shakes it.
"So," I go. "You like living in this building?"
He waits a long time before answering, "I guess."
"It's great," I say. "Isn't it?"
He nods, not looking at me, and I press the button for my floor again, an almost involuntary reaction. We stand there in silence.
"So... Cocktail," I say, after a while. "That's the name."
He doesn't say anything, doesn't even nod, but now he's looking at me strangely and he lowers his sunglasses and says, with a slight grimace, "Uh... your nose is bleeding."
I stand there rock still for a moment, before understanding that I have to do something about this, so I pretend to be suitably embarrassed, quizzically touch my nose then bring out my Polo handkerchief - already spotted brown - and wipe the blood away from my nostrils, overall handling it sort of well. "Must be the altitude." I laugh. "We're up so high."
He nods, says nothing, looks up at the numbers.
The elevator stops at my floor and when the doors open I tell Tom, "I'm a big fan. It's really good to finally meet you."
"Oh yeah, right." Cruise smiles that famous grin and jabs at the Close Door button.
The girl I'm going out with tonight, Patricia Worrell - blond, model, dropped out of Sweet Briar recently after only one semester - has left two messages on the answering machine, letting me know how incredibly important it is that I call her. While loosening my Matisse-inspired blue silk tie from Bill Robinson I dial her number and walk across the apartment, cordless phone in hand, to flip on the air-conditioning.
She answers on the third ring. "Hello?"