Nondenominational Has Its Privileges

Colin and I used to come here on weekends. Sammy’s was the only place that accepted our fake IDs.  Now everything except the name has changed.  Something about the lighting back then, plus, I think, a mechanism in the floor, created an illusion of speed.  A lush female impersonator played the piano and sang bawdy old blues songs while the whole place seemingly hurtled through space.  Now the light is steady and bright enough for reading.  The music is piped in, and really, pretty much white noise.  Predictable, insipid changes or not, the strangest thing about wandering into Sammy’s was how unstrange it was. How unexpectedly normal it made me feel.

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

I’m finishing a spanakopitta platter—Sammy’s Greek food stayed on the menu—when Carlos calls me from the Swissôtel.  He’s booked us for two weeks in a suite costing seven hundred and fifty per.

“Per what?”  I asked.

“Per night, of course.”  (Of course.)  “We need it, so we can work; so we can think.”  (Oh well, in that case...)

All the other places he looked at seemed cramped.  (I’m sure.)  Our suite has a plasma TV.

“Nondenominational has its privileges.”  (Right.)

“A joke. Wait ’til you see this place, Malcolm. The view is incredible!”

(I bet.)  But I’ve still got one more night before Mad Mike and company rip out and haul away the last wall and floor board of my only home.

“Maggie will pick you up. Where are you?”

*

Carlos the maestro-provocateur rolls up the cuffs of his gorgeous new celadon shirt and, pressing me from behind, clasps his hands over my belt.  “Look at the view,” he whispers, resting his chin on my shoulder.  But for once I shake him off.  The view is everywhere you look.  All brilliant, thrashing Lake Michigan in one direction; all shining city in the other:  the suite’s walls are solid glass.

(Click here to read the next episode.)