Short Story / Henry Michael Emmerson: The Inebriated Playboy

“I got fucked up on rum one night; lost my virginity on the beach… dated the girl for a meaningless three weeks…

...Did the same thing… different girl, on the other side of the island…

...This time I kept the dating to three days, hopping on the first flight home to England after that…”

To anyone who cares to contend, let it be known that Henry Michael Emmerson and his 6’1 frame, Aryan features, and pseudo-academic British accent are a detriment to womankind.

Equipped with disposable income (from his rainmaker profession of obtaining venture capitalist funding for high-end international projects), Henry Emmerson’s genital threat stands on a global red alert.

Having dated every variety of female from San Francisco to the South Pacific, Emmerson prides himself on his multi-lingual abilities, which enable him to cross business borders and uncross native legs.

An obvious whoremonger at the very least, Henry Emmerson was my enchanting date last Friday evening; the location of his attempted seduction being the overrated but very pleasant Le Cirque Restaurant, New York City.

A la modern technology, the proposal of my date began with the much cliché text message:

“You want to go to the new Le Cirque on Thursday night?”
----Henry Emmerson…”

Reading the message over my shoulder, my characteristically nosey mother began her inquiry:

“Who is Henry Emmerson? ... Why does he want to take you to Le Cirque? Shouldn’t you be going there with Barton?”

(Barton Baxter III is the homosexual Internet entrepreneur from Georgia whom I had been dating for the past six months.)

Brushing off her maternal petulance, I counter Henry with a Friday night proposal. Thursday night is my summer internship interview dinner.

Agreeing to Friday we finalize the plans:

Dinner at 9:15; drinks before at 8:30.

Pulling out a sleeveless, black puffy dress that falls above the knee, I make a mental note that the cute and sultry summer season is around the corner and the pasty color of my sluggish mid-winter body is not going to cut it. An actual visit to the gym that so dutiful deducts its $70 monthly fee from my bank account would be a must along with some sun.

The look is finished with a pair of black stockings, brown alligator heels, and a royal blue silk Pashmina to distract from the paleness.

In a mild melee with the male species due to Barton Baxtor III being a useless phallus who stood me up on our previous Sunday night dinner date, I decide not to shave my legs for my outing with Emmerson. Having a sense that Henry Emmerson is a playboy I reason that if he were to try something, he’d just have to endure the stubbly prick of my scorned womanhood.

Fifteen minutes late because I was considerate enough to shower after work for the evening, Emmerson and I meet at the top of the stairs on the Madison side of Grand Central station.

A taxi takes us to Le Cirque at the bottom of the Bloomberg building on 58th street. It is a tall oddly circular shaped, metal and glass structure intended to mimic a “hug.” I tell Emmerson this and how the “hug” shape is supposed to generate a warm and welcoming feeling in those who enter the edifice.

Laughing, Emmerson slightly curses the American’s for being “such corny bastards” by trying to attribute warmth and sentimentality to cold steel and glass.

I agree on that point and we begin our night with a conversation on how this holds true with today’s American corporate culture, with the whole work/life balance, according to Emmerson, being pure bull.

(Mind you, Emmerson is a foreigner to the United States, who has never actually worked an American job and thus has never actually experienced the American work environment, that is, unless you count his pro-bono gigolo sessions with the New York ladies around his east village apartment).

When we walk into Le Cirque, Sirio Maccioni, the reputed hard-ass of superficiality is waiting to greet us. After having the plump and very tired looking middle age lady check our coats and bag, I notice Maccioni’s eyes scan us up and down, and I laugh because regardless of what he thinks, the point remains that we’re young and he’s old; we get to leave the restaurant after we’re done pissing away our money on mediocre food, whereas he’s stuck there; the shit’s on Maccioni.

Seated against the wall below the understated circus-theme décor, I feel like I have taken a wrong turn into my company’s boardroom.

Dark, mahogany chairs and matching mahogany walls keep the funeral feeling alive while an array of monkey images embalmed in glass and ceramic figurines are displayed like corpses on a clear shelf in the middle of the main dinning area.

Our fifty-dollar appetizers arrive:

My Crab King looks more like Crab Puny with a whopping three-inch piece of unseasoned crab claw, dime-sized splotch of tasteless caviar, three pieces of arugula, and an ounce of chopped mini shrimp topped with thin slivers of apple.

Emmerson asks for more bread to eat with his escargot that is swimming in a bowel of soapy greenness.

Thirty minutes at the table and already about two drinks of Merlot and one glass of Chardonnay for my slowly inebriated date, Emmerson is speaking with the enthusiasm of a chimpanzee: arms flailing and torso continuously bouncing with each colorful and largely naive thought that pops into his twenty-six year old head.

He is lively engaged in explaining the “ultimate question in life” where he feels it’s necessary to point at the short stubby men and wet behind the ear I- Bankers, who are eating at the other tables with their busty bosomed dates. Emmerson hollers the men’s estimated net worth aloud, ending his rambunctious soliloquy with an eloquent boast of how the “ultimate question” is:

“How do I get these mothafuckas money into my bank account?”

To finalize his point, Emmerson points to himself as he says “bank account” and I nearly choke on my flounder entrée because if you’ve ever heard a tipsy British person pronounce “mothafucka” you’ll understand that it’s one of the most ironic and hilarious sounds to the ear.

Watching him flouncing about the table as he goes on about how “morality” is a “constraint” of the “middle class,” I envision Emmerson in bed… an energetic monkey, and I reason that he’s on some kind of libido-speed that prompts him to swing from one mattress to another with the same passion and lack of self-consciousness that a baboon employs to so rapidly pick ticks out of its mates hair.

Four more drinks later Emmerson has defied every convention on alcohol that I have been taught.

So far he has mixed red and white wine, drank more than he ought to, and has yet to regurgitate, pass out, or lose a degree of his energy.

In fact, he’s more hyped than I, who after a full day of work, am about to fall asleep on my couch-like leather seat that rims the restaurant walls.

Dessert rolls around and I order the Napoleon, which is a diminished puff pastry with light crème; it is the size of my palm in length and about a half an inch in height, priced at twenty dollars.

Emmerson excuses himself to the bathroom and the waiter brings Emmerson’s dessert choice of cognac in a large snifter and a separate triple shot of espresso latte, which Emmerson has insisted be served to him in a large mug.

I thank the waiter for aiding and abetting my little alcoholic’s request, and the waiter breaks into a laugh as he divulges that the entire Le Cirque wait staff has been mesmerized by Emmerson’s drinking abilities.

“We’re all waiting for him to fall over… But he’s really good at controlling his liquor…”

I agree with the waiter and in typical stupid-American style, we both attribute it to being a “European thing.”

Back from the bathroom, my creeping lethargy causes me to focus on the funky red pattern print-screened over Emmerson’s otherwise conservative brown and leather-elbow patched blazer.

Paired with a crisp cream-colored shirt, beige pants and brown leather belt, I concede that Emmerson has a good sense of style: trendy cool.

He’s definitely not like Barton whose short boxy frame made him too insecure to wear anything other than a banana republic classic, causing him to unnecessarily look like an over yuppified conservative every time we went out.

Another order of cognac and a triple shot of espresso latte, leads Emmerson and I to the coatroom where the same middle-aged woman awkwardly helps us put our coats on. Tipping the lady and the bartender who had stroked Emmerson with droll banter, we leave Le Cirque and I propose walking to Fifth Avenue.

I lead my inebriated playboy, who by this time has divulged every “meaningless” relationship, hook-up, or in his terms: “senseless fuck” he’s had since puberty.

“I told the last girl I was seeing… do not… and I repeat do not look to me for stability… because ‘stability’ (and he makes mocking air quotes as he says this) is not Henry Michael Emmerson…”

Looking at my cute and slightly wobbling playboy, I agree that “stability” is definitely NOT Henry Michael Emmerson.

Like any mawkish female, I reflect on how Barton once summed up the “beauty” of our relationship as it having “no expectations” on either end. At the time he said that, I either hadn’t fully understood what that meant or just decided to ignore it, but as Emmerson continued on, it hit me just how hurtful the ones you love could be regardless of their profession or physical stature…

Six foot one or five foot six, if the person you are seeing wants to be an ass, it is well within his or her power…

Thinking about this I secretly yearned to be an amoeba: to spend life making love to myself, and reproducing through binary fission.

In the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, Emmerson and I find something to do since its twenty-four hour policy makes it the only open store at 12 am.

Having never been there before, Emmerson monkeys about musing over a buying himself a Mac Book Pro.

I direct his tech-un-savvy behind to the more economical and less sophisticated iBook, explaining to him that he hasn’t yet reached the Mac Book Pro level.

“But I like the big screen… And it’s a status symbol…”

Neglecting to see that it’s more of a limp “symbol” for someone who doesn’t know how to use it, Emmerson continues…

“You’ll have ore respect for me when I buy it… Can you imagine what people will say when, for example, I’m in an airport on a long haul international flight flying first class using my Mac Book Pro… ‘Who is that guy?’ they will ask.

Status.

Symbol.”

Squinting my nose at my delusional date, I imagine that the people would more likely be asking,

‘Who is that guy staring at his machine, stuck on Word because he doesn’t know how to use any other application?’

Wannabe.

Symbol.

But I acquiesce as the snot buys his limp “symbol.”

I say my adieus about five minutes later and a taxi takes me to Penn Station. Emmerson offers to drive me back to Long Island in the taxi, but I decline, because I’m not in the mood to answer any more of his questions about love, the meaning of love, and the joys of sex, which all translates to him saying,

“I’m a horny import living in the city… be my American love bunny…”

The next day, I see that I have received two text messages:

The first one is a positive thank you from Emmerson, telling me that he had a great time and that we should do it again. The time received on this one reads: 1:10 am.

The second text message is also from Emmerson, received an hour later at 2:20 am.

It reads as follows:

“Ok, I take it you didn’t have a good evening. I’m sorry. Suffice it to say the feeling was not mutual then. Thank you again even though I may not have been good company.”

Mouth agape, I am shocked; it is the most irrational, immature, and quasi-crazy message I’ve ever received aside from the ones I get regularly from my mother.

Who expects anyone to read and respond to a text message sent to them at one in the morning and even loonier yet, who sends an offended text message at two in the morning?

At this moment, I laugh out loud, as it occurs to me that perhaps Henry Michael Emmerson, isn’t so much of an international or inebriated playboy as I perceived him to be.

He’s neither smooth & composed, nor dashingly debonair. In fact, he’s just a boy, who likes to drink, and occasionally have pretty dinners with pretty girls.

For this reason, I decide to take this thoroughly flawed person as my friend, for perfect, (and Barton Baxtor III will agree with this) I most definitely am NOT.

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