Mutt just kind of smiles at me and it's freezing in the apartment and I'm slouching in a big pile of white satin pillows that the crew brought and some Japanese guy is filming the interview that MTV will be filming and another Japanese guy is taking photographs of the video crew and I start throwing out names of bands they should play over the segment when it airs: Supergrass, Menswear, Offspring, Phish, Liz Phair ("Supernova"), maybe Pearl Jam or Rage Against the Machine or even Imperial Teen. I'm so lost that I don't even notice Mutt standing over me until he snaps his fingers twice right under my nose and I purse my lips and wink at him and wonder how cool I look in other people's eyes.
"I'm going to smoke a big Cohiba during the interview," I tell Mutt.
"You're going to look like a big ass**le during the interview."
"Hey, don't forget who you're talking to."
"MTV policy. No smoking. Advertisers don't like it."
"Yet you sell Trent Reznor's hate to millions of unsuspecting youth. Tch-tch-tch."
"I want to get out of here, so let's start this thing."
"I was chased through SoHo earlier tonight."
"You're not that popular, Victor."
I buzz JD on my cell phone. "JD-find out who just chased me through SoHo." I click off and since I'm in my element I'm all smiles so I call out to the really muscular girl with the clip-on nose ring, "Hey pu**ycat, you could hail a cab with that ass."
"My name's David," he says. "Not Pussycat."
"Whoa-you got that whole boy/girl thing going down," I say, shivering.
"Who is this clown?" David asks the room.
"The same old story," Mutt sighs. "Nobody, up-and-comer, star, has-been. Not necessarily in that order."
Hey, keep the vibe alive," I say halfheartedly to nobody and then the makeup girl brushes my sideburns teasingly and I snarl "Don't touch those" and then, in a more vacant mode, "Can somebody get me a Snapple?" It's at this precise moment I finally notice the thing that's totally lacking in my apartment: Cindy. "Wait, wait a minute-where's Cindy?"
"Cindy's not conducting the interview," Mutt says. "She's just introducing it, in her own faux-inimitable style."
"That sucks pretty majorly if you ask me," I say, stunned.
"Does it?"
"I wouldn't be sitting here now if I knew this earlier."
"I doubt that."