The Other Side of Paradise

I was finishing dressing as Ash came creeping into the room. She just stood there. I said, scornfully, "...Have fun last night?" Ash deployed the faux-weeping countermeasure - like the flares that an F-16 uses to distract heat seeking missiles and said pleadingly, "Oh Erik, I am soooo sorry."

I said, straight-faced, "Sorry for what? I'm not exactly clear what you are sorry for?"

Ashley rushed to me to be held and comforted - which would lead to sex - which would then lead to her being forgiven. It was a stale old tactic, and I wasn't buying it this time. I held her at arm's length as I said, "Actions have consequences, my dear. You made your choice. Now, I have to make mine." Ash looked terrified. Daddy must have really insisted.

She said, sounding pissed because her ploy hadn't worked, "Oh grow up! It was just one night, I wanted to get him out of my system, and I have." Then she added seductively, "There was no love. It was just sex, for old time's sake. Now, we can return to our wonderful life together in California like nothing ever happened."

I had to laugh at that. I said, "Do you honestly suppose I'd believe that fairy tale? Because if you do... then you must think I'm a total doofus." I added briskly, "Well it doesn't matter anyhow. I'm going on a trip. We can talk about it when I get back... That is... if I come back."

With that, I turned and walked out the door. I heard a plaintive, "But Erik..." as the room door slammed shut behind me. I mean... the concept of Ash and honest remorse didn't compute. So, Daddy must've been brutal with his little darling - at least after he caught up with her.

I knew I would need money to survive long-term. So, I took a cab for the short ride over to a gold dealer on West 47th. Gold was still legal tender back in 1925. Hence, I wouldn't have a problem finding the right currency. Several hours later I had a hundred thousand dollars' worth of one ounce gold bars, in a leather satchel. It represented half of Ash and my net worth. She got the other half in the prenup.

I also brought along a few modern antibiotics. Since penicillin was a decade in the future. I thought those might come in handy in an era when common illnesses would kill you. Seriously!! immunities that we take for granted like the Salk vaccine didn't exist in the 1920s - ask FDR, who was just coming down with the early symptoms of the polio that would put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Now, all I had to do was wait. So, I meandered around the various stores on Fifth waiting for the sun to set. As I did that, I had a sense that I was being watched. How delicious... Daddy was having me tailed. He no doubt hoped to unearth something he could use as counter-programming to any accusations of impropriety on his daughter's part. If he was... then, he was in for a BIG surprise.

It finally got sufficiently dark. So, I wandered over to my park bench - while ignoring the rustling in the bushes behind me. I plopped my bag full of bullion on my lap and lay my head back. The magic happened and it was evening on an exceptionally beautiful Manhattan night.

The full moon was hanging over the trees on the pond. Crickets were chirping, bugs were buzzing and there was no sign of the guy with the Nikon behind me. I rose and walked out to my faithful Rolls and motored down to the Algonquin.

I had plenty of cash. So, I rented a room for a month. The bill was a total of eighty bucks. If you doubled that and added two or three zeros, then you'd have what it would cost today.

I took the brass room key and went up to fifth floor. The room felt a little peculiar - at least, compared to modern hotels. But it was luxurious if you discount the fact that there was no air conditioning. Even so, there was a floor fan and with the windows open it was refreshing to fall asleep to the sound of the City in 1925.

I awoke to the same sounds. It was a combination of traffic, horses, and the occasional rattle of a trolley. I ate breakfast in the Pergola restaurant and ventured out to find cab. There were several bright yellow model A's sitting outside the hotel. Now I knew where the term "Yellow Cab" came from.

I needed a wardrobe appropriate to the times and I knew that Brooks Brothers was doing business over on Madison Avenue. Three hours later and almost six hundred dollars lighter, I was fully equipped for life in the Roaring Twenties.

I had taken a thousand-to-one beating converting my bullion into its 1920s equivalent - but the price of things back in the '20s made up the difference. Then... dressed for the occasion in a tailored Harris tweed suit, I took the elevator down for my appointment with the Vicious Circle.

The Algonquin Round Table comprised a distinguished group of journalists, authors, publicists, and actors that gathered daily for lunch. They sat around a 15-seat - duh! round table in the Rose Room which was actually the back part of the Algonquin's lobby restaurant.

The core members of the Round Table included Frank Adams, Alexander Wolcott, Robert Benchley, George Kaufman, Harpo Marx, and Dottie, of course. Besides the core group, today's lunch featured Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, who had just founded a little magazine called the "New Yorker. That was pretty much anybody who was anybody in the New York literary scene.

Ziegfield wasn't there. That was crushing because I had hoped to run into Julia. But since Ziegfield was more showman than wit he was never going to get an invite. When she saw me - Dottie said, "Grab a seat Frank, or is it Erik?" Oops, I'd left my real name on the cover page. I said, laughing, "That's the pen name I wanted to use in case you hated it. Call me Frank if you liked it."

My heart was hammering as she said, "Loved it... Frank. The literary world needs to take itself less seriously." I could have kissed her if she wasn't on the other side of the table. Because a blessing from Dorothy Parker was the golden ticket.

Ross turned to me and said, "Hey - we need an article. Can you get us something for next month?" I didn't ask him what they paid since I never thought I'd get the opportunity to publish anything in a career pinnacle like the New Yorker. I simply said, "Yes."

The group then settled down to lunch, accompanied by wisecracks, wordplay, and witticisms that would eventually be disseminated across the entire nation through radio and the newspaper columns of its members. In fact, the Round Table was the place where most of America's slang expressions and social attitudes were shaped in the 1920s and 30s.

But it wasn't a place for the faint of heart. Dottie captured it best when she said, "The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."

I just sat there listening. I didn't participate because there was an undercurrent of cerebral intensity and pure malice that told me I couldn't take their kind of punch. It was like watching a heavyweight fight at Madison Square Garden. Nonetheless, it was intellectually stimulating, as some of the best minds of that era sparred with each other over concepts that would shape literary ideals to this day.

But I wasn't in the 1920s to debate ideas. I was there because, as crazy as it might sound, the woman of my dreams lived in that epoch. I finally leaned over to the sportswriter Heywood Broun, who was sitting next to me, and asked, "How long does this go on." He laughed and said, "Endlessly.

So, I stood and said, "My apologies and thank you for inviting me. But I have some critical business I have to attend to, now." Dottie waved dismissively, like I didn't need to apologize and went right back to the fray. I mouthed, "I'll talk to you later."

Then I turned, walked out to the reception desk in the lobby and asked the clerk for a phone book, which he produced. It was amazingly thin compared to the Manhattan phone books from later decades. But phones were still novelties in the 1920s - owned mainly by rich people and businesses.

Julia lived in a boarding house. But there was no Julia Richmond listed. So, all I could do was call the number that she had given me. I needed a telephone. So, I asked the desk clerk for the house phone. He gestured across the lobby to a phone that was mounted on the wall, with a built-in speaker and a separate cord to the receiver.

I picked up the receiver, there was a click and a female voice said, "Number pulleeze." Really?? I said tentatively, "Pennsylvania Six, Five, Oh, Oh, Oh." The voice said, "One moment, pulleeze," and there was a loud click and a very distant tinny buzzing sound. Somebody picked up after about eight buzzes, and said, "Yeah!!"

I said, "Miss Julia Richmond, please." The distant voice said, "Hold your horses..." and it sounded like they dropped the receiver, because it banged against the wall several times. After an excruciating period, a distant voice said tentatively, "This is Miss Julia Richmond, who's calling please."

My heart was in my throat as I said, "It's Frank Sullivan, Julia. I was wondering if I could meet you somewhere and we could talk writing like we discussed." There was a pause. Then she said with pure joy in her voice, "I'd like that, Frank." I said, with relief, "Give me your address and I'll pick you up."

So there I was going to meet a total stranger, who I, a currently married man, absolutely yearned for. That situation was fantastically improbable and no-doubt a sign of my utter mental collapse. But there was so much at stake that I was as nervous as I was the night I picked up my first prom date.

My faithful Rolls was clearly part of my delusion, because it followed me around like my dog Buster did back in the 21st Century. I was beginning to think of the future as the past which ought to give you some idea how fucked up the whole circumstance was.

Julia's rooming house was in the Chelsea district which was still mostly mansions and brownstones. But there were a few of the older clapboard buildings just west of the Flatiron. I got out of the Rolls and walked up a steep flight of steps to knock on the cheap wooden door.

I was greeted by a rottweiler in a dress, who was either the owner of the rooming house, or it's guardian. I doffed my hat and said as politely as I could, "I'm here to see Miss Julia Richmond." She eyed my car and muttered, "Floozy."

I got it. She thought I was somebody like Ziegfield. But she yelled back over her shoulder, "He's here!" I stepped down onto the sidewalk to await Julia's appearance - which happened moments later. She looked both expectant and nervous.

Julia was glorious in a simple pencil skirt and white blouse wearing a little decorative man's tie and with one of those shell-like hats that were popular with the flappers. Her gorgeous face was without the party makeup that I'd last seen her in - only some lipstick, rouge, and eyeliner... she was the freshest, most beautiful sight I'd ever beheld.

She dimpled and said coyly, "Hello, Frank."

I said, "Good afternoon my beautiful lady. How about an afternoon of talking writing?" I was planning on taking her down to Café Dante on Mc Dougal, south of Bleeker, in the Village. It was a hangout for writers in that era and it was still around in my time. People like Eugene O'Neil, Edna St. Vincent Millay and even Hemingway used to get their espressos and cappuccinos there. So, I knew it would have the right atmosphere.

Julia looked as eager as a five-year-old on Christmas morning. It was an amazing transformation. You have to understand that this was a gorgeous woman and my experience with those creatures, at least in my century, is that they are ALL over-entitled, diva adjacent, narcissists - like my present wife. This woman was as sincere and artless as a kid. She had no concept of her potential power over men.

I opened the door to the Rolls and Julia looked at me with wonder. She showed off a length of perfectly shaped leg as she climbed into the fine leather back seat. She said, "I had no idea you were rich, like Mr. Ziegfield." I didn't either. But the Rolls appeared to have adopted me - and I most assuredly was wealthy now, with the bullion I had stashed in my room at the Algonquin.

The thing that astonished me about Julia was how she referred to her lover as Mister, rather than Flo. That was about as ingenuous - perhaps even strange - as anything I'd ever experienced. But it perfectly summed up the contradiction that was Miss Julia Richmond. She was fucking a major celebrity - and yet she still sounded as innocent as a farm girl from Toledo Ohio.

I said curious, "Why do you keep referring to Ziegfield as Mister? Isn't he your boyfriend?"

Julia blushed cherry red - it was an endearing quality - and she said sounding embarrassed, "Please don't bring him up... He was only using me for his own pleasure. He told me that I was going to be his protégé and that he would help me break into the writing business. But I was just one of his passing fancies. I am so ashamed."

Well-well-well... that was excellent news - perhaps.

I said, trying not to sound too eager, "I'm sorry. But I don't understand. I thought that Ziegfield was your mentor as well as your lover, that you two were an item." She said angrily, "We were never an item! Yes, I gave myself to him. But he was a very persuasive man. He made me think that he cared about me and that he would protect me and watch over me."

She continued sadly, "A strong, confident guy like you doesn't understand what it's like being a woman alone in a place like Manhattan. I couldn't even sleep when I first came here because I was so scared. Then Mr. Ziegfield found me and made me feel secure and loved."

She added sheepishly, "That's all I ever wanted in life. So, naturally, I fell for him. But Billie Burke..." Ziegfield was married to her at the time... "heard about us." I thought, "How could she not? Ziegfield was showing Julia off all over town." Julia was still talking, "And she insisted he break off our relationship."

She began to sniffle. "He was so cruelly matter-of-fact, like he didn't really even care."

Seriously!? She believed he cared!!?? The woman was a paradox. Looking at Julia, you would just assume she was a maneater - hard-hearted, selfish, conniving, and entitled - just like every other woman whose life is facilitated by a perfect face and body. But that was not who Julia was. The woman was a genuinely nice person who just assumed that the people she met were as polite, honest, unassuming, and decent as she was.

My heart went out to her. She was going to attract predators without having a scrap of natural defense. I sat there for a second trying to formulate the words. There are the glass half empty folks and then there are the glass half full kind. Julia was clearly one of the latter. I'm a pragmatist. To me, the only proper approach is to find the right sized glass. That was the reason why it was so easy for me to walk away from Ashley. She didn't fit.

But Julia Richmond was the perfect container. I mean seriously... in 21st Century vernacular she was sex on a stick -a heartbreakingly beautiful face, and bold womanly curves. But she was genuine - honest, forthcoming, and uncomplex, as well as intelligent and perceptive. Then, the irrelevant thought struck me, "I bet she thinks she's fat - with all of the skinny, flat chested flappers around her. Thank God for female insecurities!"

Whatever... Julia's beauty quickly merged into the background when you got to know the soul living inside that gorgeous skin. If you are raised in a happy family, like Julia must have been, you assume that the world is kind and loving. You get that reinforced by the people around you and you come to believe that doing the right thing is the only way to live your life and THAT makes you think that everybody around you feels and acts the same way you do.

It's a worldview that a few lucky people have. The problem is that most of those folks are either part of a religious community, or never get off the farm. For those of us shmoos - meaning anybody who is forced to deal with the real world and all of the assholes who inhabit it - you quickly realize that empathy and consideration isn't normal. And it makes you grow a thick and very cynical hide.

Seriously, my friends... godliness is nice and all... but the primitive ground ape that we're all descended from - the one that the bible calls "original sin," and psychology calls the" id" - always has to have his say. So, there's this continual internal argument going on between our tendency toward violence, dishonesty, and egotism... and our willingness to do the right thing. And that conversation is never rational.

Hence, you have to make a conscious decision - almost force yourself - to live a decent life. Julia had clearly chosen morality over the dark urges that lurk within us all. And in that respect... Julia's honesty and integrity distinguished her from Ashley, and if I'm truthful - myself. Julia prioritized her principles over her own self-interest. She had already proven that - at least to me - by her irrational loyalty to that reptile Ziegfield.

Julia was staring at me, looking puzzled. I'd had another one of those moments. I told myself that I'd better start acting like a suitor, not a carnival act. I said cheerfully, "I'm going to take you to a writer's hangout over in the Village. It isn't much to look at, but it's where the real authors congregate. We might even see somebody you know." Julia's look of sheer delight was precious.

Café Dante, which in my era is simply known as Dante, is an Italian Coffee house. Back then, it provided espressos and cappuccinos for the predominantly Italian immigrant residents of the area. It was also a hangout for the era's artists and writers, who were everywhere in the Greenwich Village of the 20s. But it also served nascent mobsters, such as Albert Anastasia, Joe Bananas, and Big Sam Acardi.

The place is unprepossessing, located in the middle of a mostly tenement block on McDougall in the West Village. Everybody stared at us as we took a sidewalk table under the awning. It was hard to tell whether that was because of the Rolls that we'd rolled up in or Julia. The Italian waiter couldn't take his eyes off her as we both ordered a Café Americano and an apple tart.

Everyone has probably experienced what happened next. My only goal was to get my dream girl alone. I hadn't planned beyond that. And it was clear that Julia was even more nervous than I was. So, we were effectively two strangers sitting together at a small table with absolutely no idea of how to start a conversation. The pause was - to say the least - unsettling.

I finally said, "So you want to be a writer? What have you written so far?"

Julia blushed modestly, which was an endearing quality in a woman so beautiful, and said, "I've written three complete novels and a lot of poetry. None of it has been published." I said, focusing on her face, "Tell me what they're about."

She said, "They are observations about growing up in an age when all the old certainties have vanished. I was born in 1902," - so she was twenty-three, a bit older than I thought - "and think about how much has happened since then. I mean... there were no airplanes, movies, radio, or telephones, and we hadn't fought a World War. More importantly, as far as I'm concerned, women got the franchise. This has all happened in my short lifetime."

WOW!! I had spent the past ten years writing about the exact same thing. I mean... Julia had perfectly characterized the angst that outrageous advances in technology and the resultant social and political movements have built into our society. In fact, I had written a few magazine pieces about how the internet was the most significant influence on human evolution since the invention of movable type - at least, in terms of its impact on society in general, and our own lives in particular.