10
The movies being shot all over SoHo tonight are backing up traffic everywhere and it's damp and cold as I exit Lauren's place and wheel the Vespa down the sidewalk on Fourth Street to the intersection at Broadway and the red light waiting for me there.
I don't spot the black Jeep until the light turns green (nothing moves, horns blare), and I pretend not to notice as I merge into the traffic heading downtown. In the handlebar mirror I watch the Jeep finally turn slowly behind me, making a right off Fourth, and I casually begin moving across lanes to the far side of Broadway, wheeling past dozens of cars, their headlights momentarily blinding me as I them, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps, the Jeep trapped in traffic behind me.
Passing Third Street, I'm keeping my eyes on Bleecker, where I immediately jam a right, zooming around oncoming cars, "... bumping over the curb onto the sidewalk, almost hitting a group of kids hanging under the awning of the Bleecker Court apartments, and then I make a hard left onto Mercer and take it down to Houston, where I make a wide right, and just when I think I'm clear I almost collide with the black Jeep waiting at the corner. But it's not the same black Jeep, because this one idling at Wooster and Houston has a license plate that reads SI-CO2 and the one still stuck on Broadway has a license plate that reads SI-CO1.
As I pass this new Jeep, it pulls away from the curb and surges after me.
At West Broadway I swing a wide left but with construction everywhere and all the movies being shot the street is virtually impassable.
Inching toward Prince Street, I notice vacantly that the first Jeep has somehow gotten in front of me and is now waiting at the end of the block.
In the mirror I notice that the second Jeep is three cars back.
I wheel the bike between two limousines parked at the curb, Space Hog blaring out of one of the sunroofs, and I hop off, take the keys and begin walking very slowly down West Broadway.
On the sidewalk, lights from the stores lining the street throw shadows of someone following me. Stopping suddenly, I whirl around, but no one's there, just this sort of semi-electric feeling that I'm unable to focus in on, and now someone, an extra, really passes by and says something unintelligible.
Behind me someone gets out of the black Jeep.
I spot Skeet Ulrich hanging out in front of the new martini bar, Babyland, and Skeet's signing autographs and wearing suede Pumas and just taped the Conan O'Brien show and finished an on-line press conference and maybe or maybe not has the lead in the new Sam Raimi movie and we compare tattoos and Skeet tells me he has never been more hungover than when we got wasted together at the Wilhelmina party in Telluride and I'm kicking at the confetti that surrounds us on the sidewalk and waving a fly away with a Guatemalan crucifix Simon Rex gave me for my twenty-fifth birthday.
"Yeah," Skeet's saying, lighting a cigar. "We were hanging with the new Thai-boxing champ."
"I am so lost, man."
"Caucasian dreadlocks?" Skeet says. "He had an Ecstasy factory hidden in his basement?"
"Rings a bell, man, but man I'm so wiped out," I say, looking over my shoulder. "Hey, what were we-I mean, what were you doing in Telluride?"
Skeet mentions a movie he was in, while I offer him a Mentos.
"Who were you in that movie, man?"
"I played the 'witty' corpse."
"The one who lived in the crypt?"
"No. The one who f**ked the coven of witches."
"And taught them slang in the cauldron? Whoa."
"I'm a strict professional."
Someone walks by and takes our photo, calls Skeet "Johnny Depp," and then Kate Spade says hi and I still have Lauren's folded-up hat hanging out of my pocket and I touch it to remind myself of something. When I casually glance over my shoulder, the guy who got out of the Jeep on West Broadway is standing three doors down, staring into the windows of a new tanning salon/piercing parlor, and I can't help giggling.
"Johnny Depp, man?" Skeet mutters. "That's cold."
"You look so much like Johnny Depp it's eerie, man."
"I was relieved to hear that Johnny Depp has won a hard-earned reputation for monogamy."
"He's slightly more famous than you, man," I have to point out. "So you should probably watch what you say."
"Famous for what?" Skeet bristles. "Turning down commercial scripts?"
"Man, I'm so wiped out."
"Still modeling, bro?" Skeet asks glumly.
"Sometimes I wonder how I keep from going under." I'm staring past Skeet at a guy who gets out of the jeep on Prince and slowly, vaguely, starts walking my way.
