The flight into LaGuardia had been a bitch. So, had my wife.

She’d been that way since I’d told the Netflix people, “not interested.” I viewed that decision as the first step in getting a square peg out of a round hole. Ashley saw it as a “craven abandonment of a promising career.” Afterward we’d agreed to disagree - for weeks. In fact, we disagreed so much that our sex life was more like a conjugal visit.

I’m a writer, and writers write. It’s a compulsion. We do it because we have something to say - thoughts that we want to pass along to anybody willing to listen. We occasionally offer up memorable insight - the kind that helps people better understand their lives. But at a minimum we try to write something we can be proud of. That’s why six long years of grinding out crap for the likes of People Magazine was so soul-sucking.

Prostituting my talent DID buy us a nice place in Mill Valley. But I was thirty-two years old, and up to that point, my most memorable achievement had been an episode of The Time Traveler’s Wife - which was fucking humiliating. So, I had to make my move now or slide down that legendary slippery slope into a lifetime of mediocrity and self-loathing.

I knew that the glacier would only melt when I got another gig. So, I planned to talk to a literary agent while I was in Manhattan. Meantime, we were really in New York for the wedding of Ash’s slut sister, Nadine.

The sister was marrying some clueless loser who thought the little whore was the Princess Bride. I don’t know whether corporate tax law causes brain damage. Or you have to be absolutely “special” to get into the field. But the guy was totally oblivious to the fact that he was going to be cheated on perhaps as early as the reception.

The two of them the sisters, that is were polar opposites. Nadine was the younger of the Vonn girls. She was short, voluptuous, and steamy hot. Ashley took after her dad - the Congressman. Ash was tall, model slim, cool, and classically gorgeous - with a studied air of style and refinement.

How Ash and I got together is irrelevant. But it took a bit of persuasion to get Ash’s family onside. Fortunately, I knew a few Hollywood types. So, our engagement generated positive press for the Congressman. That was all it took. The man was an utter media-whore.

The family planned to stay at the Plaza. Of course, we were staying at the Plaza!! The wedding was in the Terrace Room on the 29th. But my wife and I were in town a week early because the micromanaging old twat Ash calls “mother” wanted both her “girls” at her beck and call - histrionics being right smack dab in that ancient cow’s wheelhouse.

The first unpleasant surprise happened fifteen seconds after we entered the Fifth Avenue foyer. The Congressman and the Dragon were standing at reception wearing the phony grins they habitually plastered on their faces when they saw me. But this time, they were sharing the stage with William Wentworth IV’s haughty, slightly equine countenance.

Billy, as Ash referred to him, was an old flame from their Horace Mann days. They’d dated off and on through prep school, and I understood it was hot. But Ash and Billy were allegedly not on speaking terms. Hence, I’d assumed that the douchebag wouldn’t be attending the wedding. Especially since one of the reasons Billy and Ash broke up was that she had caught him fucking the bride-to-be. Still, as Scott Fitzgerald put it, “The rich are different from you and me.”

Even more disturbing was the fact that Ash blew right past her enthusiastically smiling parents and threw her arms around the pencil neck of the glowingly smirking William Wentworth the Fourth. I stood with the bags and bellman, taking in that poignant scene.

Ash’s mother said, snotty entitlement oozing from every pore, “Billy insisted on greeting you, Dear.”

Wentworth, as always, looked like he’d stepped off the cover of GQ. He was five inches shorter, but he was slim and elegant in his stylish preppy uniform open-collar dress shirt, de rigueur cashmere sweater, tailored khakis, and polished penny loafers all J. Press Boola! Boola! The varmint’s carefully studied insouciance reeked of class superiority.

Once Ashley disentangled herself from Wentworth he stepped forward and offered his hand to me. He said in that nasally preppy accent - that makes it sound like you’re swallowing every word, “Erik, my good man nice to see you.” Even his handshake was stylized and affected. I was rendered speechless by the utter shamelessness of the whole thing. So, I just stood there pumping his arm like a dork.

Our touching little moment was broken up by the Congressman saying bonhomie dripping from every syllable, “Come on - we have a reservation at the Palm Court. We have to discuss our wonderful week together.” Great!! Wonderful!! ... and with that, I was dragged across the foyer to that eponymous little confection for tea.

What followed was carefully choreographed posturing aimed at conveying to the riffraff around us that we were better than they were or at least some of us were. The seating was Pere and Madame Vonn, Ashley, Wentworth, and me. Douchebag out-maneuvered me by do-si-doing my wife to the seat between her parents and himself. I ended up between Wentworth and Ash’s old man.

The Congressman started the inquisition by saying, “So Erik, I hear you lost your job?” Ash must have been commiserating with her parents. They always thought I was punching above my weight. Oh well, we might as well get down to the real nitty-gritty n’est-ce pas?

I said, “If you mean, did I turn down the opportunity to touch up sitcom scripts for Netflix then the answer is yes. But I’ve written a real novel, and it requires a literary agent to sell it. So, I’m talking to one this week.”

The Dragon sniffed and said, “How will you support your family if you’re out of work?”

I knew better than to act long-suffering with the old bitch. She would just love for me to get defensive, since her only goal is to paint me in a bad light. Instead, I said good-naturedly, “I’ve saved plenty of money. It’ll bridge the gap between now and my first advance.”

The old bat sniffed contemptuously and muttered, “Lazy cur!” Everybody at the table expected me to call her out. Instead, I laughed merrily and said in a voice oozing with good humor, “You are SUCH a character Mrs. V. I always admired that.” The cunt didn’t know whether she’d been complimented or insulted. But she DID know that she’d been dissed. She just sat there making sputtering noises.

That’s when Douchebag chose to put in his oar. He said condescendingly, “Seriously, Erik don’t you think that’s a little juvenile? Every teenage boy wants to be Hemingway. Then they grow up and join the real world.” That from a guy with a multi-million-dollar trust fund, who “worked” at being a venture capitalist using his daddy’s cash.

I was thinking about punching the motherfucker in the throat when the Congressman interrupted with, “If Erik wants to waste his life, then it’s no concern of yours.” Now, I didn’t know whether I’d been supported or insulted. But - the cucumber sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, and the Fortnum and Mason showed up just then and we all tucked into having super-pretentious “afternoon tea.”

I lit into Ashley the minute we got up to the room. She was hanging up the boutique-busting shitload of stuff that she’d brought with her, while humming a happy little tune. I said, “What the actual fuck, Ash!!?” She turned, regarded me cooly, and said, “Manners, Darling.”

I said, “You told me that you and Dickhead were finished forever. Then when he shows up out of the blue, you practically dry hump him in the lobby.”

My wife said, eyes twinkling, “Billy and I decided that jealousy is just so bougie, Dear. So, we agreed to be friends.”

I said, still fuming, “And when did THAT little dÈtente occur. I don’t recall you ever talking about it.”

Ash said, matter of fact, “Oh Billy Facebooked me a couple of months ago when my parents invited him to the wedding. He wanted to clear the air. It really is no big deal now that Daph is about to be a married woman, and of course I’m married to you.”

I could see the Dragon’s fine hand in this, so I said, “Of course.”

Ash failed to pick up on my sarcasm. Instead, she said lightly, “Just to show us that there are no hard feelings Billy has invited us to accompany him on a tour of the Met. They have a new Monet exhibit, and Billy is a connoisseur of his work.”

The last thing I wanted was to be hauled around the Met by that pretentious D-bag. But I wasn’t going to leave my wife alone with him, either especially after the exhibition they’d BOTH put on downstairs. So, I said, “That sounds like fun.” The lack of sex must have permanently disabled Ash’s irony sensors. Because she proceeded to cheerily drag me downstairs to join Billy. The timing indicated that it had all been arranged in advance.

We grabbed a cab for the short ride up Fifth. Ash was the smallest. So, she sat in the middle. I was scrunched against the right rear passenger door, trying to give her a little space. I assumed Ash was leaning away from me for the same reason. But it looked like she was actually leaning into Douchebag.

I have always liked the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The building is elegant, the atmosphere is invigorating, and spending an afternoon surrounded by high art and culture is intellectually absorbing. That is unless you are trooping along with a self-important asshole who has to stop and bray like a jackass in front of every Monet in the exhibit.

Wentworth would pause, cock his head to one side, and ostentatiously proclaim that Monet’s layering of the paint made the canvas look weathered and that his deconstruction of sunlight by using juxtaposed dabs of color was shadowy.

Since Monet had more or less invented Impressionism, weathered and shadowy was the whole point of the exercise. The docent who had been paid to accompany us kept cutting me looks like, “Who the fuck is this guy?!!”

After Dickhead’s dozenth clueless comment, the docent finally challenged him. She said, “None of what you say is true, Monsieur. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense.” Wentworth stopped, looked down his long equine nose at her, and said icily, “And who are YOU to question ME?”

Okay the docent’s doctorate WAS in art history. That might have been a persuasive argument. And she HAD been certified by the Met as an expert in Monet’s life and work. Yet - instead of being embarrassed by Douchebag’s over-entitled arrogance, Ash gave him an adoring look like, “What a man!!”

The docent turned and walked briskly away. I chased after her while Dickhead moved on with Ash. I caught up with the docent as she stomped into the next gallery. I said, “I’m sorry, that’s just who he is.” The docent said over her shoulder, “Well then he’s a conceited fool,” and continued to walk. I couldn’t say that I disagreed with her.

By the time I got back to the Monet exhibit, Ash and Billy were nowhere to be found. I searched for a while, then hopped a cab back to the Plaza. The Met is a big place, and Ash is a big girl. If she wanted to spend the afternoon letting Wentworth wrap his coils around her, then that was her choice.

Neither Ash nor Douchebag had returned by dinner, and Ash’s parents were nowhere to be found. So, I walked across the Grand Army Plaza to Harry Cipriani’s. It’s a knockoff of the Harry’s American Bar, which is located in Venice. That joint was allegedly one of Hemingway’s favorite hangouts, and I felt the need to get in touch with the Lost Generation - a time when people read books for entertainment and literature was truly literature. Okay the food is excellent, too, even if it’s an arm and a leg.

I sipped a glass of Casa Marengo Chianti and sat at my lonely two-top, watching the bright, hot day turn into evening. I was wrestling with a thought that had been hovering at the edge of my consciousness for some time - which was that my marriage was over.

In retrospect Ashley’s actions were a red flag that anybody who was paying the slightest bit of attention would have spotted. I’d missed it at first, because I was too caught up in my career problems ... I get kinda neurotic when I feel like I’m drifting. And yes I know it’s something I need to get over.

Nonetheless the colossal disrespect that Ashley had just shown me, brought the problem to the forefront. It was clear that Ashley and Douchebag were a matched pair. I mean, seriously!! Ashley is beautiful like a Lamborghini is a superb car sleek and immaculate. Even so, I realized there was nothing under my wife’s hood except a massive ego and an innate sense of entitlement. I didn’t know why I hadn’t recognized that sooner.

Alas you’re always too caught up in the mating dance to recognize the flaws in the person you’re pursuing. Ashley and I had a lot in common at least in terms of our social interests and traits. But by year six, I realized that she was a bad choice mainly because she didn’t respect or value the person I was. Hence, it was clear that the only sensible solution was to part ways with her.

Was my pride wounded? Hell yes!! Was I angry? You bet!! But it wasn’t for the reason that you might think. I was pissed at MYSELF for taking so bloody long to figure out who and/or what I was married to. That failure was on me. But Ash’s imminent betrayal was on her. So, let the games begin.

Dickhead was obviously making a big-time play for my wife, and she wasn’t exactly discouraging him. In fact, it looked like she was trying to “trade up” from a regrettable choice of her own. Accordingly, it was predictable that Ash would cheat with Wentworth. And if that happened then we were most assuredly done. Since betrayal wipes the slate clean.

Seriously ... A guy who can live with a marriage that has been tainted by cheating is either hopelessly naÔve or entirely lacking in self-respect. Why would I say something so mindlessly absolute? Well everybody knows the rules. I mean You say them out loud while you tie the knot. Consequently, if one party makes the willful choice to ignore their publicly stated commitment - then by definition, there is a fatal flaw in the marriage, and you just can’t sweep that under the rug.

Fixing the problem might run the gamut from pistols at dawn - to shared parenting. There might even be reconciliation if the two parties find a path that preserves everybody’s personal integrity I mean that’s what marriage counselors are for right? But you can never make another person play by the rules. That’s a decision they - and they alone must make. And it was clear that Ashley had made a very intentional choice - at least as far as her fidelity was concerned.

Accordingly, in my mind our marriage was finished. And frankly - I had no desire to salvage it. I mean Ashley was who she was. With those parents and that upbringing, how could she not be? At least she hadn’t turned into a nymphomaniac like her slut sister. Then the dire thought struck me maybe Ashley was just a whole lot smoother. Nadine was sorta stupid.

The realization that Ashley might have been fucking around throughout our marriage should have crushed me. But deep down my only feeling was relief - not anger, not jealousy. That’s because it let me out of any feeling of obligation to her. Elie Wiesel’s line about the opposite of love being indifference rang true here. Seriously!! ... my utter lack of anguish over Ashely’s absconding with a former lover told me everything I needed to know about the next step.

I’m not that emotionally shallow really! But in my mind, getting weepy over my wife’s adulterous behavior gave the bitch far too much face. Indifference seemed to be a more appropriate response. I just didn’t give a shit what Ashley did from now on. Fool me once that’s circumstance - fool me twice; that’s enemy action.

I was still a relatively appealing guy. So, I knew I could find a woman somewhere who would give me a genuine loving relationship. But first I had to shed a 120 pound burden. The prenup the Congressman had insisted on, as a way of protecting his little girl from predatory me, would make the parting of the ways simple. Hence, maybe Ash’s forcing the issue was a good thing. I really didn’t know. But I DID know that I was not going to stay in a dishonored marriage any longer than it took to file.

I settled the exorbitant tab with an Amex Black. Don’t look so surprised! I told you that literary prostitution was lucrative. Then, I stepped out of Harry’s air-conditioned cool onto the hot Manhattan pavement. I let out a big sigh and stood there, hands in my pockets, taking in my surroundings, trying to decide what to do next.

Grand Army Plaza, with the garish statue of Uncle Billy Sherman, was in the foreground. Central Park was behind it. It was the height of summer, and the trees looked like bright green icing on a giant sheet cake. Dusk was falling in the busy city, and the peace and quiet of the Park was too much to resist. So, I strolled across the plaza, past the Lombard Lamp, and onto the trail leading down to the Pond.

It was nearly dark when I got there. I plopped down on a bench and stared out at the water. I’m a guy who lives in his head I suspect all writers do. We’re like that because we need to observe, not participate. So, for years, I’d watched and analyzed and tried to fit life’s vagaries into a rational frame all without spending much time in the cut and thrust of the real world.

Now, the shit that fate had dumped on my head was coming home to roost if I could torture a metaphor. It was as if, to quote Yeats, “The center cannot hold.” My entire world was flying apart. It was as if the things I valued most, my dearly held sensibilities, were incompatible with the time I was living in. Or, in more prosaic terms, my soul - or inner self - or whatever the fuck you call that voice in your head - didn’t belong in this world.

The Park dates back to the Civil War, so it could just as easily be 1884, 1924, or 2024. The traffic along 5th was muted to a dull roar by the trees, and I felt disconnected from all of life’s troubles. I put my head back for a second and stared up at the lights of passing airliners tracing their way across the hazy night sky, and it felt like the world shifted.

I startled awake and looked at my Rolex. It was close to ten o’clock. I must’ve dozed off. I knew Ashley wouldn’t notice my absence since she was undoubtably off doing other things. But I had to get back to the hotel. So, I hurried out of the park and ran directly into a sight that was so outrageously out of kilter that it made my knees buckle.

I staggered over to Tecumseh’s statue, plopped down, and braced my back against the base. I’m sure passing pedestrians thought I was drunk. But alcohol was the least of my worries. Especially since they didn’t sell it back then.

The problem was that although I could see the Met Life Tower over by Madison Square and the Woolworth building further down, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were both missing. In fact, NONE of the familiar Manhattan skyscrapers were there!!

I could smell coal smoke, and a streetcar rattled past me along 59th. The buildings were illuminated by old-fashioned Edison bulbs; hence, the lighting was yellower and less bright. There were still people strolling along Fifth. But the men were much more formally attired, in coats, vests and fedoras. All the women wore dresses and little hats, not jeans and blouses. That was when it struck me. As impossible as it might be I wasn’t in Kansas anymore!††

I searched my memory for a plausible explanation, and I found nothing. There was no rational reason - except mental breakdown I must be hallucinating. But it wasn’t because of my wife’s infidelity. I mean I’d already decided about that - and I fully understood and accepted my decision. So, I heartily doubted that I was headed for a rubber room because of Ashley.

Hence the only other possibility at least the only rational one - was that I was dreaming. I mean ... a dream feels real while you’re experiencing it, right? no matter how weird the context. And none of what I saw around me the sights, sounds, and smells - was unrecognizable to my modern sensibilities.

Think about it how would you act if you thought you were in a dream? I would wake up sooner or later, so I was temporarily okay with that premise. Thus, I was less concerned about whether I was awake in a dream than I was about what would happen next. That was when a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost long louvered hood, tan body, chrome wire wheels, and camel-colored leather top rolled up. It stopped, and I heard the voices of several people inside.

A guy leaned his head out the window and said, “Come on, old boy. There’s a party to go to.” This was a dream right? So, this must be the next scene. I stood, dusted myself off, and walked to the car. The occupant swung the door wide, and I plopped down on the rear seat which in a Silver Ghost feels like an oversized leather Davenport.

There were four other people in the back beside me. They were draped across the rear seat and on the rear-facing jump seats. All of them were clearly drunk. If this was the era I thought it was, then their drunkenness would mean they were violating the law. Alcohol was outlawed in 1920 by the Volstead Act, and this was clearly sometime in the Nineteen-Twenties.

How did I know that? Well there wasn’t a depression going on, and nobody was in uniform, so it wasn’t the ‘30s or ‘40s. Hence, it had to be the Roaring Twenties that misguided decade when the government thought it could legislate morality.

The Rolls purred its way down Fifth to Forty-fourth, turned right, and approached the front of a hotel. The people inside were singing “Makin Whoopee.” From the context, they understood the meaning of the lyrics. I thought, “I wouldn’t have added double-entendres to a dream would I?”†

The guy who’d opened the door said his name was Cantor, and that was his song. I had a vague memory of a singer named Cantor. Of course, he was long dead. So, my dream had also acquired a sense of the absurd. It was populating itself with real historical people.

The other three occupants were women skinny, flat-chested, and sporting a lot of legs. Their dark hair was cut into the sort of bob you see in caricatures of the 1920s Flapper. They were just as drunk and merry as Mr. Cantor. I said, puzzled, “Why did you pick me up.” Cantor had big, buggy eyes. They viewed me with amusement as he said, “You were drunk, old fellow. So, you must have been looking for a party.”

The Rolls stopped, and without another word - all four of my companions tumbled out in boozy merriment. I emerged slowly, stepped off the running board, and halted at the curb. The Rolls hummed noiselessly off. I stood there for a moment, getting my bearings. There was a racket emanating from a big room to the right of the reception desk. That had to be ground zero for the high spirits. The sounds of clarinet, trumpet, piano, banjo, and drums and the shouts of happy partygoers were my first clues.

I walked into a sizeable walnut-paneled space and saw something that I had previously only seen in flickering black and white. It was a genuine jazz age party with Sheiks and Flappers, all wildly Shimmying, Charlestoning, and Black Bottoming to the frenetic sound of “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue.”

Showers were not common in that era. So, people took a bath maybe once a week. Which added another contrast to my era. The room stank of perfume and unwashed people not to mention tobacco. A drunk in a tux no shit formal dress put his arm around my shoulders and slurred, “Have one on me, pard!” He handed me a flute full of bubbly and wove his way back into the churning mass.

I stood there bemused. Then I spotted an alcove off of the main room. A small group of people were standing in it looking like European explorers studying an heretofore undiscovered native tribe. They seemed sober and relatively intelligent. So, I headed for them. They might give me a clue.

There were four of them, three men and a petite woman. One of the men looked vaguely familiar. The other two were clearly literary types brown Harris Tweed suits, round glasses, and all. But the woman had me riveted because there was a picture of her on the wall in my writing room. She was Dorothy Parker, a true American character.

Dorothy, or as her friends called her Dot, was one of the best-known literary figures of the 20th Century. But her real claim to fame was her wit. Anybody who would tell an editor that she was “Too fucking busy, or vice versa,” when asked about a deadline ... or†who would shrug off an abortion by saying, “It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard,” had my vote.

She died in 1967, so I never saw her in the flesh. Alive, she was a very attractive woman tiny, all of five feet, and slim. But it was the dark beauty of her face, thick brown hair, huge intelligent eyes, and even features that drew you in. Of course, her animated intelligence kept you riveted.

She was talking to the guy who I thought I recognized, so I sidled over to stand with them, as if I wanted to join the conversation. Dot stopped, turned her head, and said dryly, “And what species of anthropoid are you?”

I knew I had better come up with a zinger, or she would blow me off. Without blinking, I said, “I’m the bifurcated kind because I have a crack in my ass. How about you?” That got a full-throated laugh since Dot wore a girdle like all the other ladies. Hence, it looked like she only had one buttock.

Dot turned to the guy who I thought I’d recognized and said, “I like this guy, Harpo.” Great Googly Moogly!! I’d watched enough Marx Brothers and Stooges to know who that guy was. And I immediately realized that I was out of my league, which was ironic since my dream was where that league had been created.

I stuck out my hand and said, “Erik.” He took it and said, “Arthur.” That must have been his actual name something I didn’t know. Also, if you’ve ever seen a Marx Brothers movie, you know that Harpo is the one who doesn’t talk. So, it was weird to hear him speak. The other two guys were Art Samuels, who edited the New Yorker, and Alexander Woollcott, the most feared critic in New York City.

Those four were original members of the Algonquin Round Table, which was the most significant gathering of literary giants since the Inklings, and this was the Algonquin Hotel, so there was some logic to my dream. But this thing was getting weirder by the minute. I was pondering whether the mushrooms on my steak were the hallucinogenic kind.

Dot said, “So what’s a cat like you doing at this party?” Since I wasn’t a feline, I assumed that was a 1920s slang term for a guy. I could have launched into an extended tale of treachery in the Twenty-First Century, but that would have gotten me fitted for a straitjacket. Instead, I said, “I’ve written a novel, and I’m here to find a publisher.” That was easy enough because it was actually true.

Dot gave me a sharp look and said,” Have you got it with you? I said, “It’s in my room at the Plaza,” which was also true, except that was a hundred years in the future. Dot said, “I’d be happy to take a look at it. If it’s good enough, I know some people.”

Then she fumbled in her purse and brought out a yellow #2 pencil, sharpened almost to the eraser, along with what looked like a laundry receipt. She said to Harpo, “Turn around,” and she scribbled an address, using his back. She handed it to me and said casually, “Look me up tomorrow, and I’ll take a gander at it.”

That was when a fellow who was over-the-top flamboyant even in an era where self-absorbed affectation was the norm, walked into the room. More relevantly, he was with a woman who was so beautiful that she squeezed the blood out of my heart. Woollcott said, disdain dripping off his every word, “His Nibs has arrived.”

Fortunately for me, Samuel said, “And look at the lollipop Ziegfield has with him tonight!!”

That was helpful since it gave the man a name. He was Flo Ziegfield ... Hugh Hefner before Hef was even born. Ziegfield was famous for grandiose stage reviews featuring incredibly sexy women dressed in daring costumes. It created a type the “Ziegfield girl”. Sorta sounds like a “Playmate,” doesn’t it?

In the early part of the Twentieth Century, Ziegfield could make your reputation if he “discovered” you. Of course, like Hefner, that discovery usually involved visiting Flo’s ornate bedroom. So, I assumed the woman on his arm was his current mistress.

Dot turned to me and said, “He’s a showman for the ages the ages being four to eight years old. But he’s the cat’s pajamas, and he likes people kissing his ass. So, I gotta go talk to the big shlemiel. Give me a jingle or drop by.” With that, she scooted across the floor to join the gaggle of Ziegfield’s admirers. I stood there trying to translate that sentence into modern English.

Fawning appeared to be the only thing Ziegfield liked more than beautiful women since he totally ignored the girl he’d brought while holding forth to the assembled multitude. She, in turn, drifted over to stand near me. She looked lost.

I am way too cool read “inhibited” to talk to a lady without a reason. But this one was so stunningly beautiful that I scooted a bit closer and said, “It looks like your boyfriend has plenty of admirers.” She turned to me and said unhappily, “He’s not my boyfriend. Mr Ziegfield is my patron”