Symbolism Costs Extra
“I understand you can help me set up an hour of good chat,” I said.
“Sure, honey. What do you have in mind?”
“I’d like to discuss Melville.”
“Moby Dick or shorter novels?”
“What’s the difference?”
“The price. That’s all. Symbolism’s extra.”
“What’ll it run me?”
“Fifty, maybe a hundred for Moby Dick. You want a comparative discussion - Melville and Hawthorne? That could be arranged for a hundred.”
“The dough’s fine,” I told her and gave her the number of a room at the Plaza.
“You want a blonde or a brunette?”
“Surprise me,” I said, and hung up.
“I shaved and grabbed some black coffee while I checked over the Monarch College Outline series. Hardly an hour had passed before there was a knock on my door. I opened it, and standing there was a young redhead who was packed into her slacks like two big scoops of vanilla ice cream.
“Hi, I’m Sherry.” They really knew how to appeal to your fantasies. Long, straight hair, leather bag, silver earrings, no make-up.
“I’m surprised you weren’t stopped, walking into the hotel dressed like that,” I said. “The house dick can usually spot an intellectual.”
“A five-spot cools him.”
“Shall we begin?” I said, motioning her to the couch. She lit a cigarette and got right to it. “I think we could start by approaching Billy Budd as Melville’s justification of the ways of God to man, n’est-ce pas?”
“Interestingly, though, not in a Miltonian sense.” I was bluffing. I wanted to see if she’d go for it.
“No. Paradise Lost lacked the substructure of pessimism.” She did.
“Right, right. God, you’re right,” I murmured.
“I think Melville reaffirmed the virtues of innocence in a naive yet sophisticated sense - don’t you agree?” I let her go on. She was barely nineteen years old, but already she had developed the hardened facility of the pseudo-intellectual. She rattled off her ideas glibly, but it was all mechanical. Whenever I offered an insight, she faked a response: “Oh yes, Kaiser. Yes, baby, that’s deep. A platonic comprehension of Christianity - why didn’t I see it before?” We talked for about an hour and then she said she had to go. She stood up and I laid a C-note on her.
“Thanks, honey.”
“There’s plenty more where that came from.”
“What are you trying to say?” I had piqued her curiosity. She sat down again.
“Suppose I wanted to have a party?” I said.
“Like, what kind of a party?”
“Suppose I wanted Noam Chomsky explained to me by two girls?”
“Oh, wow.”
“If you’d rather forget it…”
“You’d have to speak with Flossie,” she said. “It’s cost you.”
Woody Allen, “The Whore of Mensa” (amzn)
