No hyperbole, that. National Biscuit not only found ways to ship their empty calories halfway round the world with crunches undiminished, but also to make sure that somebody was already craving them upon arrival. With such a wide reach achieved, their products ceased to be mere treats and took on the status of institutions, as unifyingly uniform as any flag, oath, or anthem. These brick walls witnessed the nativities of Zu Zu Ginger Snaps, the Lorna Doone, Ritz Crackers, and, of course, my hated adversary, derailer of my New Year’s Eve, that dark satanic sandwich, the Oreo cookie.
I suppose I ought to be pleased by the evening’s serendipitous circularity, but I can’t quite manage. While it’s tempting to cast my long walk as an accidental mock-heroic—arriving at last in the lair of the beast that wrecked my dinner plans, defeated though it now may be by my powers of digestion—there’s nothing but phantoms to counterattack. Aside from this painted wall, no physical trace of my enemy remains.
Anyway, this is silliness. If my enemy were on hand to be vanquished, what would it look like? A crisp morsel composited from sugar, flour, and fat? A bookish child in a TV commercial? An invisible pile of money, flashing around the globe in the form of Nabisco Brands stock?
Or would it just look like me? After all, no one made me buy those Oreos. Or did they? I imagine Leslie Monroe and Geraldine Kidd emerging from the darkness, glamorous and camera ready, reminding me with a cluck of the tongue and a pat on the shoulder that real advertising—not the primitive quilting bee I apparently mistook for my own copywriting career—is an inside job: deep inside our heads and hearts, the secret crannies where we hide ourselves from ourselves. Who’s been more the mother to Gian in the years since I fell apart, vigorous me or dying Julia? How did my son get by when I was fogged with liquor, or rebuilding at Silver Hill? All my cherished memories of his smartness, his sweetness: how many other such moments slipped by me undetected? I can brood, and I can speculate, but I can never know for sure—although I can buy a package of cookies.
Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest.
The freight elevator elevates me not into the party but to yet more blazing candles, these blazing a trail down a wide corridor toward the ever-louder music. The hallway is lined with prints of Wendy’s photographs, alternating with canvases presumably done by her husband, all hanging unevenly against the bricks from thick steel wires strung between exposed pipes.
I’m no art critic, but even though Peter’s paintings look accomplished—abstracted landscapes in an attractive California palette that reminds me of Richard Diebenkorn—I like Wendy’s work better and think that she is the superior artist. Partly this is because Wendy’s work pulses with rhythms and textures that I know well; it’s of the city, while Peter’s is simply in it. Or maybe my preference is even more straightforward: Wendy’s images have people in them and Peter’s don’t. My biases always run against the systematic and the stylized in favor of the mess and adventure of human life. It’s the same with music: Gian is always chiding me about my inability to appreciate all the modern compositions—atonal, aleatoric, serialist—that he and his colleagues inflict on their students, the poor dears who a year ago were playing Leroy Anderson tunes in high school gymnasiums.
The music coming from the party, though, I enjoy. It’s not like anything I’ve heard before. It sounds as if it’s coming from inside a cave or a subway tunnel, a simple repetitive bass melody with the occasional crashing cymbal and distant, slightly yelpy voices repeating something about slipping in and out of phenomenon. I don’t know what that means, but it feels evocative and exciting.
I emerge from the corridor into a vast central space.
A pair of bare bulbs and a Vaticanload of candles barely succeed in lighting the room, which is thronged with people, mostly men, a few women, all young. What little furniture there is has been pushed to the walls. Some people sit but many are dancing. A lot of the women wear lace tops, and skirts over capris or fishnet stockings. A lot of the men wear trousers that seem impossibly tight. Both the women and the men wear interesting earrings. Everyone seems to have taken great care with his or her appearance, which I appreciate. I take off my hat and smooth my hair.
By instinct I make my way through the bustling darkness to the provisional kitchen—a hodgepodge of countertops and cabinetry, basins and hot plates, threaded with rubber hoses and extension cords—to set down my gifts. Here, too, to a person, the guests all have meticulous outfits and thoughtful haircuts. I am glad, as I always am, that I made a point of dressing up, as I always do.
The crowd parts slightly so I can reach the counter. Except for one young man—with a face like a jack-o’-lantern: snaggled teeth and too-wide eyes—who peels himself from a conversation to stand in my way.
“Who the fuck invited Nancy Reagan?” he says.