So about 8 months ago I’m snorting Coke off this hooker’s ass in a room in the Waldorf when her cell phone rings. She makes no move to pick up even though it’s right there within reach on the end table at the bed’s corner. I finish the blow and am feeling mildly annoyed and not just because snorting blow makes me irritable and short tempered. It’s also because the phone rang for like a minute, stopped for a couple of seconds, and then started again. As if this isn’t harshing my buzz enough, (not to mention eradicating my erection), her ringtone is set for the annoying 80′s Michael Jackson knockoff, “Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell.
Cocaine being a natural mental stimulant to me I then begin to have to deal with wondering why Jackson himself would lend his voice to the chorus of a song ripping him off, wonder what the societal import of a high class hooker in 2007 listening to him by way of Rockwell could mean, realize I’m having a Michael Jackson pop cultural dialogue with myself, and scream, “Pick up the phone you dirty hoe!”
She kind of just blurrily looks back at me, still on her stomach, and says, “what’s the problem?”
“Rockwell fuckin’ sucked is what’s the problem!”
“I like this song.”
“You’re too young to like this song. What are you, barely 20? How does someone born sometime after goddamned Live Aid even ever hear this song? It don’t make sense ya silly hoe!”
This is really pissing me off because I’m confounded that such an obscure track, from an even more obscure guy, makes its way to this girl and garners a ringtone. This song doesn’t even make 80′s compilations, one hit wonders collections, or worst of the decade VH 1 festivals. Unless you were there you shouldn’t know it and shouldn’t care.
Like seeing Dennis Kucinich speak in person.
You had to be there. Otherwise, you know, who cares?
“I like Michael Jackson, he’s on it,” she mumbles to me, too high to really speak up and annunciate like a good high class call girl should. I mean I was paying $2200 for the night. For that kind of money I’d like my hooker to be able to handle a little high grade sugar without falling apart and letting her phone keep blasting, “I always feel like, somebody’s watchin’ me…And I get no privacy,” over and over. At those rates an ass that makes Newton look like an imbecile just isn’t enough.
“Michael Jackson is on it,?” I say. “Michael Jackson is fucking on it?! Is that what you’re telling me?!! You’re honestly fucking telling me that you downloaded that shit song because Michael Jackson is goddamn on it?!!”
“Um huh.”
I felt like I’d been deceived.
And the phone is still ringing.
I jump over the sleekness of her buttocks and grab the phone. She tries to stop me but doesn’t have the energy. I look at the phone’s readout and it says, “Client 9.”
I’m thinking it could be her owner, or pimp, if the pimp title could be properly used for what can amount to a $5000 a girl high end operation like the Emperor’s Club.
Maybe it was a codename for her police contact.
Knowing I was on to something really wrong, mainly because of this Rockwell nightmare, and just generally believing that a good consumer must do his research, I wanted answers and set out to get them.
The phone stops ringing before I can flip it open.
“So you like Michael Jackson? Are you trying to tell me that?” I’m thinking that maybe she could be redeemed if it turned out using that ringtone was a sort of ironic commentary.
At least Jackson is notable. Unlike Rockwell. So taking a shot at him by using a song about celebrity in which Jackson himself sings background before Jackson himself became one of the most notable and watched celebrities ever for engaging in possibly the strangest celebrity behavior ever, could be construed on the hooker’s part as a sly and subtle bit of genius.
So i’m hoping she says no, she didn’t download it strictly because she liked Jackson. Per se.
I swear if she added “per se,” I would have forgiven her for every horrid moment of those past 3 minutes and even helped her clean up after the, well…let’s call it, more organic and carnal reenactment of Flashdance, I was paying her for later that evening.
But she didn’t answer me.
She had fallen asleep and was too far out of it to wake up and give me a decent answer. So I open her phone up and check out her missed calls. Client 9 had what looked like a cell number and I called it.
“Kristen?,” a voice with a distinctive New York Jewish accent says.
“Client 9?,” I says.
“Who’s this?” He asks.
“Apparently Client 8. Who the fuck are you?”
“Where’s Kristen? Is she ok?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“She ok?”
“She’s unbelievable. Sweetest ass in the business.”
“I know,” he says with a chuckle.
“So what do you make of the Rockwell thing?” I ask.
He doesn’t know what I’m talking about so i tell him. He tells me he’s heard other tones when it’s rung around him so we figure she has different tones for different people and I start wondering what my tone is and thinking that if its Morrisey I’m gonna kill this bitch before she wakes up.
But then this guy starts getting nervous about his song and asks me more about it. I sing him some lines and tell him about the video with this Rockwell fella in the shower and walking around his house being all paranoid about being watched. And this is all really freaking this guy out so I ask him what his deal is and why it’s such a big deal that she’s chosen this tune for his ringtone. “Besides the colossal bad taste it shows,” I add. “Unless she’s super ironic and arch. In which case I want to marry her and dedicate our lives to destroying Morrisey.”
He asks me my name before he goes any further.
And I tell him.
“Alex Rodriguez.”
“Hey Alex, see, you can appreciate where I’m coming from then. You know how hard it is on public figures.”
“Sure do,” I say, really meaning it since even though I’m not the Yankees pretty boy $25 million a year All Star 3rd Baseman I’m middle management for NY State Government and understand where he’s coming from. “So what do you do?”
He doesn’t want to tell me and I go easy on him, telling him i understand and then spend time reassuring him that the song is no reason to think she’s spying on or making fun of him.
Because he’s really worried that’s what it means.
Me I’m still worried it means she spent time looking for Michael Jackson ringtones to download, got a hit on the Rockwell song because he’s sort of on it, and chose that one over Beat It and Billy Jean because she actually liked it more even though she’d never heard it and didn’t even know it wasn’t him singing most of the song. In fact just thinking these thoughts again had me pacing around the kitchen area looking for large plastic bags and carving knives in case things got sketchy when she came around or, “The Boy With The Thorn In his Side,” came out of that phone when I rang her from my own cell.
Then to divert this poor bastard and maybe trick him into giving something away I start telling him about my Rockwell concerns. I start talking about how I would call her when he and I hung up to see what my tone is too. He jumps back to my issues with Rockwell.
So he says, “Well if she had chosen “Beat It,” would you feel better?”
“Yeah. Not much because a 21 year old Manhattan hooker has no call being into Michael Jackson as if the past 20 years of embarrasment and obsolescence hasn’t happened. But yeah, I mean at least she’d resemble a human being at that point.”
“So it’s bad because there’s no nostalgia factor for her?”
“It’s horrible.”
“Would you rather she have you set for a modern song you hate?”
I’m pondering the hell out of this question as I stalk around the hotel room. “Again, at least it would constitute a semblance of normality. The Smiths would be fucked up on so many levels. Aligning me with My Chemical Romance would just be fucked up.”
“That’s a lot to think about Alex.”
“Yeah it is….” I wait for a name. He’s hesitant. i don’t want to push the Jew bastard.”I’m glad you see that Nine. I like you.”
“But it’s an all together different concept you’re grappling with than this Rockwell thing. I have a political career to consider.” This should have gotten an excited rise out of me. I had gotten a clue. But at this point I’m walking around the living room with a bottle of Schnapps in my other hand, occasionally stepping onto the balcony and looking down at the City from my 18th floor vantage point, and wondering if I could make things look like an accident if the bitch had me set for Carrie Underwood.
Because as bad as The Smith’s would be, I’m thinking she’d more likely screw me with a more modern song like “Jesus Take The Wheel,” to really fuck with me with some kind of calculating action at a distance diabolicism.
But if her cell phone ring tone thing had an 80′s era theme all together it would make all this more tolerable and arch. It would still call into question her choices within that decision. But at least there would a connective theme.
“You like Van Halen?” He asks me.
“Sure.”
“Would you download “Beat It” because Eddie plays the guitar?”
This takes me the fuck back for a moment.
“Holy shit dude, that’s a god damned good question.”
“I know.”
“I did like that song more that most of Thriller because of Eddie’s riffing on that tune. Kind of made it acceptable for people of my persuasion. Can’t say I’d listen to it now because of it, but you know it is kind of eddie’s song even though it’s not. You think it’s the same with the Watching Me song?”
“Could be.”
“But Eddie Van Halen is not synonomous with ignominity,” I say, impressed with myself for pronouncing ignominity correctly while doped up on cocaine and fruit brandy. “Listening to Eddie, or more to the point…” here I struggle for a name as if I’d forgotten, playing like I need it to make this conversation flow more smoothly and because we have a connection now.
“You’re not a cop?” He asks me.
“No man, it’s really me. Alex. You want me to tell you what I hit last year?”
“You’re fucking funny. I like you Alex. My name’s Elliot.”
“Ok elliot, Listening to Eddie, or more to the point, setting Van halen as your ringtone, is not socially dubious E Dog. Even “Beat It.” If you’re at all self-aware and culturally discerning you’d have to know how it’s going to be taken no matter how you mean it. I mean it’s like sleeping with a hooker while you’re say…the Governor of NY. THere’s nothing wrong with it but you have to be aware of how it’s going to be viewed and that it doesn’t work as irony unless in a really unique context.”
He was silent for a bit then said, “Like what context?”
“Well a politician like Hillary Clinton could sleep with a hooker ironically. That gay politician from Jersey could do it ironically. He and cool people across America could have a real nice laugh and I’d totally get out the vote for him if he did that.”
“THey aren’t the Governor.”
“Well if Monica Lewinsky was the Governor, it would be ironic. Damn if Bill Clinton was Governor it would be ironic no matter who it was with. Like self-homage. IF Ken Starr became Governor and did it it would be god damned performance art.”
“And the current Governor of NY?”
“If it was the governor, well in our case that’s Elli…” and it suddenly dawned on me. “Spitz? Is that you?”
“Oh god, you didn’t know?”
“Spitz, it’s me. Mark!”
“D Dog?”
“Yo.”
Man was I surprised. Talk about a small world. I started to remember stuff. The voice, 1977, Studio 54, the smell of semen all over my light saber, huddling together down in the bowels of the 86 St Station. My vomit all over a series of the laps of various leisure suits. Man those were times. Me and Spitzer tied together in white slavery. Working the streets for our “Daddy.” Don’t ask me Daddy’s real name because I can’t tell you that hear and now. It would shock you far too much.
I was 10.
“You were what Spitz? 17?”
“18.”
“You still like to jerk off in 10 year old boys mouths?”
“No. That was practice for The Show. I stick to women.”
“You ever hear from Daddy?”
“I put him away a long time ago.”
“Oh you’re a lawyer?”
“Uhhh, I was.”
“So what do you do now?”
“Uhh, I’m the Governor of NY State asshole.”
“Oh yeah, yeah.” Man that Schnapps was good. “So you want to get lunch tomorrow?”
“You’re not Rodriguez. You lied.”
“Hey man you didn’t run the streets and stay alive simply on the merits of your ass with Alex Rodriguez. That was me Spitz.”
“Where do you work?”
I tell him. As a NY employee ironically I sort of work for him.
“You say anything about this I’ll have your job you cocksucking motherfucking cumfilled whoremonster.”
“Shit Spitz. you’ve changed.”
“I’m serious. I can have you killed.”
“Dude I can cost you your job. relax. We’re good here.”
“No one would believe I solicit hookers.”
“Is this about Kristen?”
THen the bastard starts crying like a baby.
“Suck it up asshole! You’re the goddamned governor of NY State. you’re an ethics maven. I’m behind you as long as you keep the hookers on the streets and the coke flowing freely. Now get back to your wife, get your shit together, and don’t put yourself on the line like this.”
“Check her purse?”
“Huh?”
He wanted me to check and see if she had anything on her that would i.d. her as a cop. Or some recording device she could use against him.
“Rockwell song really has you messed up?”
“You too?”
“Damn fucking right Spitz! It makes no sense! I gotta wake this hoe up and find out what the fuck is us with that song. GET UP BIAAAATCH!”
I finally get her up, tell her I got Spitzer on the line, and ask her to come clean.
“It’s a fun song is all. I swear. It’s just a fun song I came across.” She was genuine. She detailed how it happened and we brought it. Spitz was relieved. “I’m sorry Kristen,” he says on speaker. “I should never have doubted you baby.”
“FUCK THAT! Damn stupid hoe how you gonna like that song?! What’s my ringtone? Huh? What is it!!!”
She says she doesn’t remember. I tell her I’m gonna hang up on Spitz and call her to find out. I can tell she doesn’t want me to and I start getting really scared.
“Fitz, it was good talking to you but I gotta go.”
“Don’t do anything stupid D”
“Fuck it I gotta find out. None of this makes any sense. ‘Somebody’s Watching Me?’ It makes no goddamn sense. How can she like that song? Neither of you should know it even exists and yet now you both do. THis wasn’t supposed to happen can’t you see that? Something is wrong here. We’ve slipped through some kind of alternate dimension where up is down and left is right. Smart is stupid, Spitzer sleeps with hoes, and Wookies live on Endor. Her cell should have rang with Linkin Park or Justin Timberlake. Somewhere it is ringing with one of them or John Mayer. Maybe Alicia Keys. But i know it makes no sense to be ringing this way here and now Spitz. You gonna endorse Hillary, Spitz?”
“Yeah. She’s New York’s Senator. I think she’s…”
I hung up and started dialing my own cell with my other hand as I held hers up waiting to hear what happened. Kristen is imploring me to stop. She is off the bed, still naked and voluptuous, trying to coax me back to bed with her body. But I’m determined to get to the bottom of things.
Sure enough it rings with a different tone.
I scream, run towards the balcony, and hurl the phone into the brightly lit NY night. As it spins away on its course to it’s inevitable destruction I hear those faint dying echoes of the sweetly high male voice of Pete Cetera crooning, “If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me…ewwwww-uh-ewwwww Noooo-oooh, baby please don’t go.”
And I knew I was in the right place and all would be ok.
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