 |
|
| Jackson Square Jazz | | Date Created: Oct 27, 2004, 02:32 PM |
I'm currently only 65 pages into Jackson Square Jazz by Greg Herren. It isn't a great book. It isn't even very good, but books like these give me something to do on Fridays while I sit at Cafe Felix with a martini (dirty, gin, up, with gorgonzola stuffed olives) and wait for the other boys to show up.
The lowdown is that the main character Scotty, a former go-go boy who is trying to become a private investigator, discovers a dead body in the hotel room of a famous figure skater whom he's supposed to be tricking with, but the figure skater is missing. That's as far as I've gotten so far.
And yes, I almost got through typing that without laughing. People wonder why I decry the current state of gay fiction?
Anyway, my point isn't to bash the book...I am still reading it after all. (I've read a bunch of other actually good books recently, but I'll review them some other time.) I tend to miss important plot points in deep, meaningful books when I'm working my way through a couple 9oz martinis anyway.
So in this scene, Scotty, who has spent his whole life in New Orleans is visiting his big butch closeted FBI agent boyfriend in Washington, DC. I enjoyed this little observation about us northerners:
Frank's place was in an extremely sterile-looking yellow brick apartment building on the corner of Seventeenth and New Hampshire. He let us in through the glass door with his key. A couple of people were waiting for the elevator. One of them was wearing a sweaty white T-shirt and black bike shorts with blue stripes up the sides. He was holding bicycle and breathing a little hard. I took in his smooth legs and noticed a little razor cut just below his muscular calf. Definitely family, I thought, as he pointedly watched the lighted numbers above the elevator change. The other person was a woman in a gray overcoat. She was holding a plastic bag of groceries. She was wearing sunglasses, and her graying black hair was pulled back into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. I glanced into her bag. Fettucini, a jar of spagehetti sauce, a loaf of garlic bread. The elevator door slid silently open and we all got inside, various people hittting numbered buttons, which lit up. I kept looking back and forth at the strangers. No one spoke as the elevator moved up. No one said hello; no greetings, no smiles of recognition. I looked at Frank and he winked at me, but didn't say anything...
The guy with the bike got out on three. The woman with the bag got off on four. Again, total silence.
It was creepy.
So, you see the writing is bad, but the observation contained in the vignette is amusing. Riding in elevators up here is different than riding in elevators down there. I've talked to lots of visitors to the Great Lakes State who think us Michiganders are stuck up, rude, standoffish. I think it only gets worse the farther north you travel. Personally, I have a theory about the relationship between annual snowfall and reserved politeness stoicism.
It is kind of ridiculous when you think about it, how elevator time is supposed to be silent. So, next time you're in an elevator, say "Hi" to the other passengers and instead of moving to the opposite corner, stand as close as possible.
Unless I'm in the elevator...then please, this is quiet time. Anyway, I won't hear you with my iPod on. |
|
|
|
|
