One of them there bis-cottis." Them there? I almost laugh. I don't, of course. I've never broken character and I'm not going to start now. "I'm new to this city," I add. "I haven't seen a friendly face in weeks."
She makes my coffee, bags the biscotti, caps my cup, taps the touch screen. "Where are you from?"
"West Texas," I say with a broad smile. "El Paso. Big Bend country."
"Wow," she replies, as if I had told her I was from Neptune. "You're a long way from home."
"Aren't we all?" I hand her a five.
She stops, frozen for a moment, as if I have said something profound. I step out onto Walnut Street, feeling tall and fit. Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead. Tall is a method, like weakness.
I finish my latte, breeze into a men's clothing store. I fashion up, vogue briefly near the door, gather my suitors. One of them steps forward.
"Hi," the salesman says. He is thirty. His hair is cropped short. He is suited and booted, wearing a wrinkled gray T-shirt beneath a navy-blue three-button number at least one size too small. This seems to be a fashion statement of some sort.
"Hello," I say. I wink at him and he colors slightly.
"What can I show you today?"
Your blood on my Bokhara? I think, channeling Patrick Bateman. I give him my toothy Christian Bale. "Just looking."
"Well, I'm here to offer assistance, and I hope you'll allow me the privilege of doing so. My name is Trinian."
Of course it is.
I think of those great St. Trinian's British comedies from the 1950s and '60s, and consider making a reference. I notice he has a bright orange Skechers watch on his wrist, and realize that I would be wasting my breath.
Instead, I frown-bored and beleaguered by my excessive wealth and station. He is even more interested now. In this setting, abuse and intrigue are lovers.
Twenty minutes later it hits me. Perhaps I have known it all along. It really is all about the skin. Skin is where you stop, and the world starts. Everything you are-your mind, your personality, your soul-is contained and constrained by your skin. In here, in my skin, I am God.
I slip into my car. I have just a few hours to get into character.
I'm thinking Gene Hackman in Extreme Measures.
Or maybe even Gregory Peck in The Boys from Brazil.