The Manny Diaries, Part Four: Grey Gardens and Bellevue

People have been stopping me on the street and asking, "Why didn't the Manny make that plane flight?! Tell me now, or I'll have to wring your neck. Whaddaya been doing, writing more children's novels or something? Cease it now and write the MANNY DIARIES."

So the Manny had gone into the city, and his flight was the next day. On that day there was a snowstorm. But that's not why he didn't make his flight. In fact, we texted him during the snowstorm:

"Make it out OK?"

"A-OK! 70 degrees and sunny," was the reply.

But the very next day I got an ominous message from Manny's friend, to whom I had never spoken directly. She told me that Manny was in the hospital and asked that I call her immediately. Wild speculations flew through my mind. He had arrived in CA and had mixed it up with the criminal dentist, who had placed a hit on him that had misfired at the last moment. He was now on the run with a bullet hole through his midriff and the evil dentist's disembodied teeth implanted in his shoulder! All bets were off.

I called her back.

"Well," she said. "Manny was supposed to catch this plane tonight, right?"

"No, last night. He already caught a plane last night. He's in California, right?" I said.

"Uh, no. I think he might be in Bellevue?" she said.

As it turned out, Manny had gotten the date of his flight wrong by one day. That left him with 24 hours in which he thought it was, perhaps, a really grand idea to go out and buy a few bottles of Tito's vodka. He had apparently gargled with Vodka, washed down his eggs with Vodka, had a Vodka-induced nap, and proceeded to sample additional Vodka snorklings until his friend arrived home from work. He'd knocked over the shelf in her bathroom and was lying about in a stupor, mumbling about the evil dentist who was going to extract his molars without permission.

"You gotta plane flight to catch!" she said, helping him out the door. He retrieved his roll-aboard and promptly fell all the way down the stairs of her apartment building, his luggage clattering after him. A horrified neighbor popped out and said: "Call an ambulance!"

"He has no health insurance!" said Manny's friend. Manny was lying comatose at the base of the stairs, his exploded luggage of T-shirts and briefs around his ankles. Faced with little alternative, she called the ambulance. The EMTs arrived and tried to get Manny into the vehicle. He awoke quickly and resisted fiercely.

"You fat sons-o-bitches! You sons of pig-whistling cockmonkeys!" he shouted, as they tried to take his vitals.

Finally the EMTs subdued our Manny and strapped him down into a bed in the ambulance, where he continued wailing and thrashing and burbling about the criminal dentist who was out to pull every good tooth in his head.

They asked Manny's friend what his name was, but she didn't really know anymore. So she gave some random name that was an amalgamation of his "real name" and his "fake name." It probably sounded like "Maneerdaniel Smith."

So no wonder when, later, she called every hospital in the city and they didn't have him. They'd never heard of him. We did some searching and could not find him.

"He detoxed while at my apartment," said the friend. "He stayed in his room for a week and sweated and swore. I wanted to help but...it was like Grey Gardens. There were like 1,000 empty bottles of Tito's under his bed."

Just don't invite ANY tenants into your home, OK?

"Made in Austin," said I. "Titos, that is, you know. Good stuff!"

"He's out to kill me," said the sweating friend, who Manny had told me wore a leopard-skin bathrobe that didn't tie properly and revealed a naked tummy. "I seriously think he will take revenge on me because I knew he didn't have health insurance. But I was just trying to help."

"He's as gentle as a kitten," I said.

"Tell that to the bouncers at every bar on 10th avenue!" she retorted.

I said that I would investigate and, if I had any clues, I would report back.

I went to bed. I woke up the next morning, and went to open the living room curtains. The morning sunlight illuminated a rolling suitcase, seated by the door.

"Aw, honey?" said I. "Whose suitcase is in our living room?"

Husband came down and rubbed his eyes and looked at it.

"Why, that's Manny's," he said.

"He's in the house," I said.

The Manny Diaries, Part Three: Evil Dentists

Manny had been gone for almost seven weeks. We'd spoken to him a couple of times and he sounded just terrible. Mumbling and slurring, he told us that he had "the flu" and that I had really fouled up everything by using his real name.

"You never use that name!" he said, sotto voce.

"Of course, of course," I apologized. "I'll be sure to use your fake name from here on out."

He told us that the place in which he was living was a particular type of hell. He had rented a 6 x 10 room in his friend's apartment and she kept the heat at 90 degrees. He boiled his dinner on the radiator. His landlady forbade him from walking about the apartment in his underwear and so he'd had to purchase a pair of pajamas, which was irritating to him. His landlady also didn't allow him to cook (his one true passion!) and so he was spending bundles of money on takeout meals. He was really sad.

So when he called not long thereafter, sounding sober and cheerful, we were pleased. He announced that he was headed back home, to us, but only briefly. He needed to stop in and fiddle with his possessions. Then he was off to California for a week.

He showed up. He'd gotten a haircut! He looked like a changed man. He launched into cooking with a new fervor. He was overjoyed to see the boys.

"So why are you off to California?" I asked.

"I need to see this dentist," he said. "This criminal dentist who needs to fix my tooth. He's a criminal! He's a Mexican! He's a criminal!"

Manny had visited a crooked dentist while he still lived in CA, and when he woke up from the ether with an aching jaw it was revealed that the dentist had pulled the wrong tooth. The dentist had pulled a perfectly healthy tooth and left the rotten one sitting there.

Evil Dentist Quiz! Which one is the rotten tooth?

"That's like cutting off the wrong leg!" I said. "Do you really want to go back to this man?"

Without tooth insurance, returning to Dr. Nasty-Pliers was the most affordable option. Because the man had pulled the wrong tooth, he'd make good by charging Manny only, say, $350 for pulling the correct tooth. And maybe a bunch more for the implant and a new tooth. So it was cheaper to fly to CA then to see a reliable dentist here in NY.

But Manny was all in a sweat and a dither about the dentist. He couldn't stop talking about him. Every time I came down for a glass of water he'd spring out, perseverating about the "evil dentist," who would surely devise something painful and criminal while he was under the gas.

"Dentists can cause people pain...on purpose!" he said. "Why, this man might do me real harm! Miss Jennifer! Miss Jennifer, do you hear what I am saying? This could be very bad. He might try to kill me."

"Don't go to him!" I counseled. "It's not worth the money saved. He sounds like a terrible man and a worse dentist. I know a nice dentist right here who could help you."

But his ticket was purchased and the hotel booked; no turning back. He asked me to show him how to record a voice memo on his iPhone so he could go into the dentist's office "wired" and record the evil criminal while he (Manny) was out cold. I squawked, "Testing, testing, I am an evil shady dentist!" into his phone and demonstrated how he might stuff it inside his shirt when inside the man's office. I'm sure this was ill-advised and would have gotten him whacked if discovered but I was trying to be helpful.

Then he packed a bag and headed out. He was planning to stay in NYC for the night and would board the plane the next day.

He never made that plane flight.