September 16, 2004
Back at the Explorer's Club
It's rare that Travis meets his match—a woman who rivals my aristocratic grace, literary marksmanship, and two-fisted bohemian flair—yet whose knees resist buckling when I enter the room. But the breed exists, and last night one of its specimens came whirling into Manhattan and left me, frankly, windblown.
The woman in question is my Editrix Sophisticate, and the occasion was a book release party for one of her lesser authors (aren't they all?). She demanded that I escort her to the A-list event. She'd flown in from out west, because, like me, she trades in a literature too robust and grit-laden to hold but a temporary office in this claustrophobic city.
I met her at sunset in a Greenwich Village roof-top garden, clad stylishly in denim and lace, and with the champagne still bubbling she'd hauled me to the street and hailed a cab.
"To the Explorer's Club!" she cried, as the cabbie hit the gas, and then purring in her trademark Tennessee lilt added: "You do know where the Explorer's Club is, don’t you?"
The driver muttered something in his native tongue, to which ES replied in some sort of pidgin. The man erupted in smile, and before long we were there, at the stately townhouse on 70th Street.
"Put away your wallet, Travis," she scolded, flinging a pile of cash into the front seat. "The magazine is buying tonight."
That's how it always is with the Editrix Sophisticate: she orders taxi-cabs from one penthouse to the next; she calls for the best Pinot Grigio on the list and when it arrives declares it "too sweet," sends it back, then with a bawdy toss of her head demands a cigarette and crisp bottle of Belgian beer.
The party was for Aron Ralston, the unfortunate lad who'd got himself pinned in a Utah slot canyon for six days before sawing off his arm with a pocket knife and rappelling to safety with a hand-fashioned tourniquet strapped to the bleeding stump. The fellow has clearly taken a lesson from the LaFrance school of swashbuckling prose, as evidenced by this stoic gem from Between a Rock and a Hard Place, his freshly inked account of his ordeal:
In that moment, I promise myself I will yell for help only once a day.
And what better place for a reception than my old haunt, the Explorer's Club. I feel quite at home among the membership, having shared with the fellows many a rodent and reptile for makeshift dinner out in the Serengeti—the sort of crude bar-be-cue that forges friendships for life. It is perhaps silly to mention that due to our casual chumminess, the board has never formally extended my invitation to join.
And it was a fine venue for this tale of survival, there beneath the glare of the giant stuffed polar bear, in the shadow of antique toboggans that had traversed the Antarctic, and bedecked by Explorer's Club flags that had been hoisted atop every vessel worth its salt from Kon-Tiki to Apollo 15. Don't mistake this place for an institute of armchair neophytes: as the plaque out front portends:
First to the South Pole
First to the North Pole
First to the Summit of Mt. Everest
First to the Surface of the Moon
Ralston had cleaned up real good—dapper in a new three-button suit with a magnificent shining metal hook protruding from the cuff where his right hand once dwelt. He sported a pair of orange tinted riflery glasses—a nod to the another writer living in his adopted home town of Aspen, Colorado—Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
While I nibbled on coconut-crusted shrimp, roasted on a skewer and dipped in chutney, E.S. gave a brief, heartfelt introduction, and then Ralston took the stage. He said he'd done 21 interviews that day, and was set to embark on a 15 city reading tour that would land him in six different countries. He thanked the many who'd helped him, was applauded, and then got down to the evening's real business of autographing books for the bevy of sweet-smelling editorial assistants and junior publicists lining up by the dozen to shake the claw of this hunky auto-amputee who'd appeared shirtless this month on the cover of a national magazine.
Watching the young writer bask in his moment of glory, I couldn't help but to be reminded of my own lean years, bursting upon the scene with a debut which, although it didn't command the sort of crass media attention (nor was the Explorer's Club available for my own event), certainly made a lasting impression on the hearts of our nation's book-buying females.
Meanwhile E.S. was finding herself ringmaster to a veritable pony show of adoration, with the stags in blazers and khakis (permit me a quick change of metaphor here) drawn hopelessly into orbit around her magnetic field, earnestly discussing diplomacy and blue-chip stocks and praying inwardly for just the slightest flash of her ethereal radiance.
And unexpectedly I found myself humbled and inspired, both by the winning spirit of Aron Ralston and by the stunning class of my Editrix Sophisticate, and without a goodbye I crept downstairs to the street, ducked into the nearest subway stop and headed back to Brooklyn, where a good night's rest would deliver me early to sit at my station and channel the literature with which I've been burdened and blessed.
Posted by Travis LaFrance at September 16, 2004 01:38 AM