The Philadelphia Story (pt. 3 - When You're a Jet, You're a Jet All the Way)

Well, it must be your lucky day, because today you get two installments for the price of one. How jealous I am.

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At a little before two the titty-bar shut down for the night and we were left to our own devices. "What now?" asked one of the cousins.

"Let's go strangle some hookers!" I suggested. People were offended. "Well, it seems like the logical progression to me," I said, defending myself. Nonetheless, we were soon back at the Embassy Suites, drinking shots of way-too-expensive-to-be-drunk-as-shots Scotch, watching especially bad hotel room porn, and, for some reason, winging fun-sized bags of Cheetos at one another. I was relatively sober and generally sat back and watched all this with amusement, like an indulgent parent. Eventually, though, boredom crept in and the cry was sounded for cheesesteaks. By now the cousins had departed (one had just flown in from Hong Kong that day, the other had a parent-teacher conference in the morning), and the crew was down to four. The man of the hour, despite having lapped up a steady stream of Jack and Cokes, seemed to be holding up well. His brother seemed okay, although suspicions were raised when he decided to change into shorts before setting out into the cold night. Their sister's boyfriend (who I'll call "La'tron") was quite happily drunk and quite drunkenly happy. I was not feeling too spirited, myself, but then I never have, so I reluctantly joined them.

We caught a cab headed wherever. It was about 3:30. The others sat in the back, where La'tron called his girlfriend and tried to trick her in a silly, cutesy-poo voice. I sat in the front and talked a little to the driver, showing off by asking, "Dakka?" when he told me he was from Bangladesh. He told me he was from some other city. "But Dakka IS the capital of Bangladesh, right?" He told me it was, thus keeping my pointless personal universe of trivial bullshit from unraveling. Very soon, we decabbed at a fairly quiet urban intersection dominated by the bright white light emanating from a large, seemingly recently constructed clapboard building, glaringly illuminated on what seemed to be every side. An extremely bright green sign declared it, "Geno's." Catty-corner to it was a smaller, shabbier building, not half as brightly lit (but still pretty brightly lit). This was Pat's. Both of them were supposedly famous for their cheesesteak, but I have a feeling nineteen out of twenty restaurants in Philadelphia are supposedly famous for their cheesesteak.

Chilly's brother (who I will henceforth call, "Tony," because that's his name, and there's really no need for anonymity) told me, after much deliberation, that he preferred Pat's, so we headed over there first and he ordered a cheesesteak, "with Whiz." He then proceeded to wander across the street to Geno's, while La'tron (who I will now refer to as "Jamie") kind of disappeared, and Andy (who used to be known as Chilly Willie) staggered away down the sidewalk towards what seemed to be a residential neighborhood. Cheesesteak in hand, I followed after Andy, who sheepishly explained that he was wandering off to vomit in peace. I headed back toward Pat's, but I saw Jamie involved in what appeared to be an animated conversation with some young people, which made me nervous. I hid in the shadows across the street and wolfed down half the sandwich before heading over to Geno's, where I'd spotted Tony placing an order.

When I got there, I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser, as I hadn't taken any at Pat's. As I was doing so, a wiry but muscular guy leaned out of the service window and asked me, in very loud, very belligerent tones, "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm taking a napkin," I said, taken totally unawares.

"You come here with a Pat's cheesesteak and take one of our napkins?" he asked, rhetorically.

"I don't know," I answered. "I don't know what that means. I've never been here before; I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then why were you hiding that thing when you walked up here?" he shouted.

"I wasn't hiding anything. I just walked up here. I was holding it."

"Put the goddamn napkin back!"

"It's a... it's a napkin."

"Put it back. You want a napkin, go back and take one of theirs."

"This is ridiculous," I said, tossing the napkin into a nearby trashcan.

As I walked away, I heard him tell his coworkers, "You see the look on his face? He looked like a fuckin' little kid." Tony apologized profusely for not warning me of the ugly, antagonistic history between the two establishments, but I hadn't quite thought to blame him. He gathered up his Geno's cheesesteak and we crossed the empty, two-lane street, back over to Pat's.

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(Coming soon... Philadelphia continues to live up to its reputation.)