Takes Money to Look This Poor
Lenny Kravitz’s mother played Weezy and George’s taller neighbor on The Jeffersons. Helen Willis was married to the awkward British guy from Sesame Street. He painted backwards on glass.
In real life, Roxy Roker’s trustafarian son Lenny has a Jiffy Pop hat and dreads. This limousine hippy movement is hardly limited to entertainment offspring.
Rich girls at boarding school play poor in faded batik skirts, fashionably unkept hair and no make-up. Their jute-rope espadrille sandals are souvenirs from family vacations in Spain, not from the mall or Urban Outfitters. They sport thermal underwear and duck boots or go bear-legged. This depends upon the New England weather.
Whether in Wallingford or Salisbury, a pecking-order gaggle of Park Avenue debutantes is The Social Register version of Heathers in oversized Benetton sweaters. These flocks smell like a traveling Grateful Dead show, reeking of patchouli oil and after-breakfast bong hits.
Their doormen back in Manhattan dress like chess pieces and recite Lewis Carroll poems. These men from much rougher neighborhoods run interference for Spence, Brearley, Chapin and Nightingale girls, lying to aloof parents when begged.
Accoutrements
My feet are killing me, returning home from the subway station. The culprit is my new pair of $20 Dexter wingtips, marked down 75% at yesterday’s One-Day-Sale. A crease digs a raw blister into the top of my left big toe.
Anxious to arrive home, I round the corner of 86th Street and 3rd Avenue, beneath the Jefferson’s “deluxe apartment in the sky.”
A crack addict approaches on the sidewalk. "You look like a fine young gentleman, putting together your love shack. Do you need some accoutrements?" He’s either psychic, or he’s my burglar.
“Sure! What’cha got?"
"Luggage from Polo. Ralph Lauren," he taunts. His rancid cocaine halitosis is familiar, after years of clerking for Bear Stearns on the NYSE floor. Coke breath stinks.
"I got Brooks Bros dress shirts and ties,” my haberdasher offers proudly.
The Artful Dodger of Yorkville is selling my stuff back to me at rush hour.
"I got a funky Lego phone and VCR. But it ain’t got no remote!" Well that confirms it’s mine.
A New York cop runs up behind me on 86th Street. The crack addict spots him approaching and flees across 3rd Avenue.
The panting officer misses him then turns back to face me. He grins like someone, who found the matching card, while playing Concentration.
"Oh, it's you!" barks the same cop, who took my report a few days ago. "My wife is gonna find this very funny."
“Because it is,” I affirm with a thank you, a handshake and a chuckle.
Working Capital
The next morning, I limp around the corner of 46th Street and Park Avenue wearing old loafers, a cotton ball and bandage.
The typewriter outside of Nick’s office is colonized by a distressed credit analyst, double entendre intended. Eeyore the Mentor specializes in the bonds of bankrupt companies. He silently gestures for me to linger. Nick’s door is wide open.
“It’s these damn One-Day-Sales, Jimmy!” Nick screams to Bear Stearns President Jimmy Cayne, huddled over a conference phone, in her empty office.
I stare back at Eeyore in horror. He motions to stay quiet and witness her plagiarism.
“I would never touch those bonds. Macy’s is running out of cash. Working capital is all tied up in inventory. Customers put product back on the shelf, waiting for the next clearance event. Some good old-fashioned due diligence told us to steer clear!”
My eyes bug out.
Eeyore seizes the irony, “Didn’t you just get burglarized?”
I concede, “Yes I did. Twice in one week.”
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