Until today, I thought that I had a reliably diplomatic matter. As a Capricorn, after all, I’m supposed to. But I made a remark this afternoon that left me wondering if I had any social sense at all.

Of course, if I’m really honest about the matter, it was yet another case of Abominable Conceit, my besetting sin. It’s not that I’m conceited, as we used to say (but one doesn’t, anymore, does one?). It’s that my conceit is truly abominable, a sort of conceit piled on top of conceit. I’m so conceited in, short, that I think that I’m allowed to be conceited.

What happened today illustrates the matter perfectly. I was walking up Lafayette Street, and then Fourth Avenue, with my friend T—. I probably ought to say that T— is an acquaintance, someone whom I met on the Internet, and then, three years ago, in person. We met today for the second time in life. But I like T— too much for “acquaintance,” and so I am prepared to presume, in a sort of flourish of desperation, when in fact I’ve every reason to suppose that T— despises me. 

We were walking up Fourth Avenue, as I say, and I was feeling very luxurious about living in Manhattan. This is something that happens whenever I am out and about with visitors from Europe (T— is one such) who not only love New York but who actually spend time here. To me (and this is the “luxury” part), New York just is. It’s the town outside my front door. Mind you, I don’t really think this on an everyday basis. Ordinarily, I can’t quite believe my good luck, living here as I do. Sure, it would be great if my luck could be buffed a bit, so that Paris or Amsterdam were the town outside my front door. But even if I occupied a gargantuan flat in the Seiziëme, on terms equivalent to fee simple absolute, there would be one way in which Paris (or Amsterdam) fell short: I shouldn’t have been born there.

I was born here, here in Manhattan — on West 65th Street, as a matter of fact, just a few blocks from where my grandson is going to be born in a few weeks. And when I feel luxurious about having been born in Manhattan — even though I grew up in Westchester, went to school in Indiana (“sounds like dancing”), and spent seven years of Babylonian exile in Houston, such that Manhattan was merely my birthplace until I was over thirty years old — I write myself, from time to time, a check with “Abominable Conceit” inscribed on the Memo line. Strivers from elsewhere are welcome to come to New York and get to to know the City, but I, you see, I was born here, so I don’t have to strive at all. What’s interesting about New York, in short, is the stuff that I already know. There’s a line in Molière’s Les Précieuses Ridicules that captures quite completely my fatuity here, but the last thing I want to do is magnify my conceit by quoting it. My conceit, in any case, is not so much Abominable as it is just plain Rancid.

Feeling luxurious, then, as I made my way up Fourth Avenue with a man who loved being on Fourth Avenue somewhat more than I did — but only somewhat; a good friend lives on Fourth Avenue, and I feel very comfortable walking what have become the familiar blocks just south of Union Square — I was reminded of the scene in The Good Shepherd in which an Italian-American gentleman wonders how WASPs celebrate being American in the way that the Italians and the Irish and the Germans and the Whatnots celebrate being American, and Matt Damon’s WASP character replies in words to the effect that WASPS own America, and that the Italians and the Irish and the Germans and the Whatnots are just visitors. “And that,” I said to my friend, on Fourth Avenue, “is how I feel about New York. Everyone else is just a visitor.”

What my friend said in response proved once and for all that I have no diplomatic cred whatsoever. What he said was, “Well, I’m very happy to be a visitor in New York.” I wanted, for a moment, to lose my lunch. I hadn’t meant him! I hadn’t meant visitor visitors. I’d meant — but never mind; I’ll only make it worse. That’s how Abominable Conceit works. Every attempt to prove that you’re not really so very abominable marks you out instead as even more abominable. Rancid, even.

I was feeling luxurious for a reason, though. I’d had a wonderful lunch with a terrifically interesting fellow. Stylish, sophisticated, world-traveled, and gifted with a friendliness that I have hardly ever encountered in such a thoughtful frame, T— made me feel grateful for my life at a level that’s not often sounded. Out of my depth, I made such a hash of gratitude that I forgot my diplomacy.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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