“Oh, Hildie, he’s such a darling man!”
“G. Gordon Liddy? Honey, I can think of a lot of ways to describe one of former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate henchmen, but darling isn’t one of them!”
“Oh, you know what I mean! He was a fantastic guest! As soon as he walked in the door, he started giving us a lecture on how to make our penthouse apartment invulnerable to terrorist attacks. Then, later in the evening, he entertained us by holding his hand over the flame of a candle and vowing not to remove it until everybody at the party was having a good time.”
“Charming…”
“He certainly was. By the way, how did your party go?”
“Oh, pretty good. Peter Jennings from World News Tonight appeared briefly and gave us his opinions on next year’s Presidential election. Later in the evening, Marvin Hamlisch and Barbara Streisand favoured us with some of their favourite show tunes…”
“So, it was just another typical New York party?”
“Umm, Fran Lebowitz popped in for five minutes to sneer at the food and show everybody how superior she was to everybody…”
“Like I said: just another typical New York party.”
“Well, I had invited Sirhan Sirhan, but he was denied parole again! What was I supposed to do? In desperation, I considered Bernhard Goetz, but, at the last minute, the jury acquitted him! I couldn’t very well invite a person convicted merely of illegal possession of a firearm, even if he had gotten national publicity. My guests would never have stood for it!”
“Definitely not. What about Ivan Boesky?”
“No good. He’s booked solid for months. Besides, insider traders have become passe as party guests – I just read that in the New Yorker the other day, so it must be true.”
“Good criminal party guests are hard to find these days, aren’t they?”
“They certainly are. Time was when you could have an entertaining party with a cat burglar and a minor embezzler. Now, they wouldn’t even rate a mention in The Post! Have we become so jaded that only a nationally known crime figure will make our parties worth attending?”
“I don’t know…oh, have you been invited to Carrie’s outing this weekend? I hear it’s going to be quite the shindig…”
“No. Where’s it being held?”
“An abandoned maximum security prison upstate.”
“Damn her! Where does Carrie get such great ideas?”
“Do you want to hear more?”
“Not really. Tell me everything.”
“Well, guests are supposed to gather at her apartment late Friday afternoon. They’ll be taken from there to the prison in vans made up to look like police cruisers. Everybody will then be fingerprinted, photographed and issued jail clothes. Strip searches are optional. The caterers will be dressed as guards, and will serve authentic prison-style food. Everybody will have to be in their cells by 10, lights will be out by 10:30, and then the drug deals and random violence will begin.”
“Carrie always throws the best parties.”
“I heard that the least entertaining guest will be put on Death Row and sent to the electric chair on Sunday night.”
“God, how often I’ve wanted to do that to guests at my parties! Only Carrie could get away with such realism…”
“And, you know who the guest of honour is going to be?”
“Don’t tell me it’s Charles Manson.”
“Who have you been talking to?”
“Nobody. I swear.”
“Oh. Well, you’re right. Charles Manson is scheduled to be the guest of honour.”
“That must have cost Carrie a small fortune!”
“Not as much as you might think. She just wants to get him out on a weekend pass; that’s not nearly as expensive as buying a parole or a pardon, even when you figure in the cost of six guards for the weekend.”
“She really goes all out for her guests, doesn’t she?”
“I hate her. I love her parties, but I hate her.”
“You know, I heard a rumour that somebody in town was thinking of having an old-fashioned get together. A small number of close friends – good food – no celebrities. Have you heard anything about that?”
“No. I don’t know…it sounds pretty boring…”
“Not necessarily.”
“You don’t think so?”
“You never know. Some people find the strangest things entertaining…”