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A Little Smarty Party
by Tonya and Sonya Rothmeyer My book had just appeared on the bestseller list. OK, it was number eight, and a bunch of books I thought were inferior were still on top of it, but still, it was there. My editor told me, “Now Ernest, the world is your oyster,” and she speculated that I must be “on top of the world.” But the new book deals were not pouring in, and worse yet, the ideas were not pouring in. I had no ideas for stories at all. The world was not my oyster. It was a scary blank page. I felt like a flash in the pan, but I certainly did not reveal that to my editor because I was afraid that she would become fond of the phrase. I decided to visit my sister in New York City. Angela lives in a tiny apartment in the Bronx. For what she pays for that apartment, she could buy the whole apartment complex where I live in Melville, Florida. Her building is sandwiched in among other similar apartment buildings. There are numerous bagel shops and good Asian restaurants within walking distance of Angela's apartment. I figured that if I went up there and stayed a couple of weeks, maybe I would get inspired, or meet other writers, or publishers or something. After a little wrangling with the cab driver, whom I suspected of wanting to take me all over creation rather than straight to my destination, I arrived at Angela’s. She had a big spaghetti dinner waiting. I slept on the couch, and Angela went to work the next day. I had a hard time getting up, and ended up watching TV until Angela came home. We had leftover spaghetti. After a couple of days of this with slight variation in the food, I felt a tiny vibe of disapproval from Angela. She said nothing. That’s how I could tell she thought something was really wrong. Angela is a graphic artist and she works at the Museum of Natural History. I sensed that she and her smart colleagues had been discussing me and my situation, and the consensus was that Angela should say nothing, at least for the moment. I too felt that something was wrong, but I was sure that I would become motivated and at least do some tourist activities. Maybe on Sunday. On Saturday Angela announced that the Rothmeyer twins were coming over to watch Smarty Jones run in the Preakness. She said that they were neighbor girls and they don’t have a television. Right, no TV at all, said Angela. According to Angela, their mother was a health-food/peace-corps type. I asked what the twins' mother did. “You mean for TV? She comes over here.” “No,” I said. “For a living.” “She’s an activist.” I was impressed that one could make a living at being an activist. Angela said I would like the twins. I tidied up the couch area, and I suspected that the purpose of inviting the Rothmeyer twins was to motivate me to tidy up the couch area. At precisely 4:45 p.m. the buzzer rang, and Angela buzzed up the twins. They each had a copy of my book for me to autograph. “Oh Mistah Gaizer, it is so nice to meet you. We would just love it if you would autograph our copies of your book.” The Rothmeyer twins were identical brunettes about fifteen years old. They had New York accents. An expert on accents would have probably been able to identify all the influences on their accents. They were dressed identically. The only way that I could tell them apart was the band-aids. Their legs were covered with band-aids. I suspected minor shaving accidents, but I didn’t ask. They were bespectacled and distinctly nerdy in appearance. “Our Muthah read your book, but we haven’t had the chance to yet. We are avid readers. I bet by the end of the week, we’ll have read that book, and a couple of others. We write too. They have a very good creative writing program at our school.” Sonya was giving out all of the information. Tonya was silent, and eyeing the television. I asked what school they went to, and Sonya replied, “Huntah.” Angela had told me that the twins went to Hunter, a public high school in Manhattan that has extremely high entrance standards and is a steppingstone to world-class universities. The world is their oyster, I thought. “Oh yes we love to write. We write short stories. Nothing we’re ready to show to anybody yet. Well, Tonya did get a letter to the editor published in the New York Times magazine recently. We collaborate sometimes on the stories. And we write plays. Again, nothing we’re going to do anything with. We just do it for fun.” I asked what they planned to do for college, and Sonya said that they had been accepted into Julliard. “Julie-odd,” she said. What they really did was play music. They just wrote stories to horse around, but the music was work, hours and hours of work. Well, OK, they wrote music too. At very little urging from me, Sonya played “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” a Chopin Mazurka, and the theme from Mister Roger’s neighborhood on Angela’s little electronic keyboard. Sonya said the keyboard wasn’t quite as long as a regular keyboard, so I was to excuse the little silent areas where she would have been getting into some other notes on a longer keyboard. Angela stayed in the kitchen just about the whole visit, periodically coming out to refurbish the snacks which the twins and I rapidly consumed. When Sonya played the keyboard, Angela stuck her head out of the kitchen and asked Sonya to play one of her own compositions. With a little laugh, Sonya refused to play any tunes of her own invention. At that point, Tonya could stand it no longer, and declared that it was time for the “Smarty Party.” They had come over to watch Smarty Jones run the Preakness. And they knew everything there was to know about Smarty Jones. His owners, a car dealer, and his wife, a social worker, were on the verge of getting out of the horse business when a trainer, Bob Camac, suggested that they buy a filly named I'll Get Along for $40,000. That filly eventually became the mother of Smarty Jones. Smarty was regarded as a small horse, by thoroughbred racehorse standards. He was about 11 hands high. He had an accident when he was a young colt and just about put his eye out and smashed his head. Although he was not expected to recover, he ended up full of racing spirit, and was going undefeated into the Preakness. Had they been allowed to bet, the Rothmeyer twins would have bet all of their money on Smarty Jones. “Now watch his owner. He’s on an oxygen tank. He has emphysema. I hope he doesn’t just die from excitement when Smarty wins,” said Sonya. And the race was just as the twins described. The old owner was there, and yes, I did think he would die with excitement. And yes, Smarty won easily, ears forward, eleven lengths ahead of all of the other horses. He was hardly winded. Sonya and Tonya reminded me to watch the Belmont stakes. They said it would be a historic moment, and that the last Triple Crown winner was Affirmed and that was twenty-six years ago. The Rothmeyer twins were experts on Triple Crown trivia too it seemed. They could name all the Triple Crown winners, the dates of their victories, their pedigrees, and the life histories of their trainers and jockeys. They explained that they had never been to a race or even ridden on a horse, but they had gone through a horse craze when they read everything they could get their hands on about horses and collected model horses. The craze was almost over. Not quite over, they confessed, but almost over. When it was time for the twins to leave, they each shook my hand politely, and Tonya declared that it was an honor to have met me. Sonya said she was sure that my writer’s block would clear up soon. I felt my face get hot. I never say “writer’s block.” I don’t want anyone to think I have writer’s block, but apparently Tonya and Sonya were writers enough to know that my presence in New York was a symptom of the dreaded writer’s block. “You know Mistah Gaizer, Tonya and I are always chock full of ideas. If you evah lack for subject mattah, just let us know,” said Sonya generously. “Why, we’ll even write the story for you, if you just give us a little credit,” said Tonya with a wink. |
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