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[extoere]

...stood there beneath the porte cochere, sheltered momentarily from the cold, unforgiving breath of the mysterious Orient. Just another night, as rainy nights go, in a city that knows little shame and fewer regrets. Ah, Shanghai.

I'd come on an errand for an old friend back in the City of Angels. No, not Raymond Chandler. Her name was Mei Mei and she was more beautiful than original sin and twice as willing. Now I found myself waiting outside one of this city's more elegant old brothels, watching through the narrow slits of beveled glass, as Madame Tang paused at the mirror in the small foyer to touch her hair and smooth her dressing gown, then opening the door to stare at me ---- "Yessss?" --- a man of modest height, obviously of serious years, now considered "natty" or "dignified," when properly dressed. Which wasn't the case tonight. Rain does things to yesterday's dashing young heldentenor.
"I'd like to see Tofu," I told Madame Tang.
This once proud beauty, reduced now to Keeper of the Abacus, eyed me with that patent disdain reserved for ESL teachers and others with low expectations and bleak prospects. Sort of like a serious collector viewing the erratic scales of a butterfly pinned by its thorax beneath a strong light. "Tofu is very expensive," she said. Said it in a tone that told me I was a moth, headed for the nearest sh-tcan.
"I have money," I told her.
"A thousand dollars? U.S.?"
I whipped out the roll of bills I was carrying and quickly peeled off ten big ones and handed them over.
Madame Tang, a humble woman whose heart is obviously gladdened by the successful completion of small tasks and untaxed transactions, threw the door open. "I've always found a touch of gray at the temples very appealing in a man. Walk this way."
A moment later, I watched Tofu descend the stairway like the spiritual fog of old Bach's "Air With A G-String," seeming to float down in a vision of white pegnoir and long stockings, a raven-haired, golden-skinned apparition, more beautiful than original ---- I said that before, didn't I?

Lord, what a woman, I thought to myself. Didn't know whether to applaud the author or break into a Puccini aria or fall to my knees in silent supplication. Hell, I would've gladly done all three, but collapsing like a blob of soft pizza dough at this ungodly hour would've been the likeliest.
"Come, little man," Tofu beckoned, curling an index finger.
I followed her up the stairs and into a grand, well-appointed bedroom.
And there following was perhaps the most agonizingly-exquisite hour in the history of Bacchanalian revelry; the most consummately erotic experience of my life. Well, since Zhuhai, anyway.
By the time I'd laced my sneakers, I could barely make it down the stairs.

Ah, but the next night I was back. Another rainy night. Another doorbell answered. Another ten big ones from my diminished roll. And Tofu, this time in a wickedly black bustier with black stockings and stilleto heels, beckoned me to follow her up the stairs.
Again, I was transported to the realm of the senses in a way whose passions are yet to be described in mere words, for the retelling would surely reveal only my own incoherence after such a celestial encounter.
This time, Madame Tang kindly helped me down the stairway, pausing at the bottom to point out the bust at the foot of the bannister. "Note Neptune," she said. "Struck in bronze for me by Klaus of Innsbruck. Thought a rarity."
"Uhh. Yeah."

The third night, it was still raining. Uncooked cats and dogs. The last one-hundred big ones of my roll thus paid, I was once again summoned by Tofu, who appeared in Firehouse Red, the most wickedly-delightful, quite whorish Angel of the underworld, ready to breathe death and forever with each feigned orgasm; ready to rain fire and destruction upon my immortal soul. (I didn't say that before, did I?)
Never in this lifetime do I expect to ever again achieve such a state of total ecstasy. I was Young Siegfried and she, the golden Vakyrie, bearing me Up, Up and Away, into the silken clouds of Valhalla. Thunder and lightning. Spectral implosion. Ascending higher and higher, embraced by Forest Murmurs, encircled by Magic Fire Music, at the mercy of an overwhelming flood that engulfed the world in eschatological climax ----
--- and we were descending, her hair flowing about me in a curtain of midnight, sweating and depleted, cooling in the fragrance of jasmine that floated through the open window.
Finally, she said to me. "You are quite the little man. Tell me, where are you from."
Reaching for a Camel, I sighed. "Los Angeles."
Tofu bolted upright. "I have a sister in Los Angeles!" she cried.
"I know," I grunted, snapping a light to the Camel. "She gave me three thousand dollars to give to you."

Whoever designed Shanghai's sidewalks must've had me in mind when they left all those knee-eating potholes. Sure as hell, the rain gods did.
Well, at least I wasn't some Hemingway misfit whose face was about to be eaten by a hyena. Not yet.

For a few minutes, I sat there buck naked, trying to get into my Brooks Brothers before the friendly folks from PSB could offer their assistance, hearing in my darkest visions the soft crunch of gravel beneath the iron wheels of the winged chariot. I thought about Arioch and God. About nice looking young women in long skirts carrying blades, bearing God's own moral vengeance on Old White Men. Aramas and Athyp. (Those names sound sorta like ancient Greek temple gods, don't they?) Rhonda and Kitegirl and Philo and Dan. I pondered my own misspent years of abusing semi-colons and ellipses ---- Cursed Ellipses! Whitjohn and JohnSlat. Think they're related? " ..worse than ... Darth!"

In search of a friendly taxi, I wandered off down the dark, stormy streets of Shanghai, careful of those Nobakovian puddles, still restless with guilt about all those damned ellipses and confusing quotation marks.
Inside or Outside? Ah, but tomorrow is "..." another day.

And even though Laine and Ray Chandler have given us a certain succor with, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown," I'm still left to ponder the nature of my own small universe, filled with fatigue and dread, as I think to myself:
What would Ma Linday up on the sixth floor make of this? What dragons and owl's entrails, what coveted inspirations might she offer to a pilgrim in search of a taxi outside a whorehouse?

And so I beat on, a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into that ...dark ... rainy ... night ... in Shanghai.

cheers,
Ever Searching Extoere

[khmerhit]

Dear Ex,
Don't give up the day job!
regards,
khmer

[extoere]

Kmer, does this mean Ann-Margaret probably won't accept the role of Madame Tang when Jerry Bruckenheimer offers me a three-pic deal with final cut and ten percent of the gross? Gee, I may never eat lunch in this town again!

Watch for "A Long, Tepid Day in ... " ---- how d'ya spell Phenome Penn?
(There's these two guys, see ....)

Cheers,
F. Scotttoere

[khmerhit]

Ex!

something tells me you know more about the film biz than your lighthearted and fairly witty posts so far reveal.

BTW, You'll Never eat lunch--now THATis an amusing read if there ever was one. One of my favourites is when she has lunch with david geffen in the company of a cockatoo. Or when... ah forget it. Great book though.

Youll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again by Julia Phillips--oddlly similar to Joan Littlewood's Diaries, if you know them.

all grooviest
khmer

[extoere]

Not familiar with Joan Littlewood's Diaries. I've enoyed a number of books about Hollywood over the years. I've lived there, ridden my bike through every twisting street of every twisted canyon, performed at the cavernous Shriner's Auditorium, cut a soundtrack on an MGM sound stage and been stranded, nearly starving, at the Wilcox Hotel. Just lucky, I guess. My favorite screenwriter remains Paddy Chayevsky; currently living: David Mamet. And I think the collaboration of Donne and Didion in "True Confessions" was the most seamless, in some ways flawless, screenplay, I've seen. On the whole, though, I follow the skin trade only because I'm a bored, low-level civil servant who reads the LA Times while riding a commuter train. Ah, but come August, I'll be in a decidedly less vicarious mode --- somewhere in China On A Dark, Stormy Night ....

cheers,
Ernest (if nothing else) Extoere

[Roger]

I am breathlessly waiting for your next instalment. Delightful plot! And appropriate name-dropping...