Mary. Thank you so much for coming. We'll talk tomorrow. I am so glad you're interested. Tyler should be here any minute! You know how he is, fashionably late!

Huh. I didn't recognize you. What's the cane for? You have a hernia? What a bummer. Wow and you're so young for such an injury. Wow. It's funny I thought the cane was fake. Like it was one of your crazy fashion statements . . . you making your big entrances like you do! Like that time you wore an adult diaper. You didn't? I thought we all decided you did. Oop! Hold on—

Hi Ghostface Killah! Sup! Thank you so much for coming! How goes it? How's the new record coming? Great to hear, great to hear.

What kind of surgery did you get? On which side? Well, you may as well keep the cane handy because you know what they say. It's just that Ben my boyfriend is a doctor and if you have a hernia on the right side you are almost certain to have one on the left. If you have a flaw deep in your chromosomal makeup, that makes you susceptible. It's just weirdly inevitable. Like if you have sinus allergies you're susceptible to facial aging. Or if your first love ended badly, you will repeat the tragedy over and over. Or if you lean toward cocktail consumption, you're bound to get throat cancer.

Are you okay? You seem weird. Do you want another vodka tonic?

Have you seen my boyfriend? I wonder where my boyfriend is. That's weird my boyfriend was just here a minute ago. Where is he? Ben, my boyfriend? My boyfriend Ben? Oh there he is!

Oh look who's here, pooky, pookypoo. It's Ben. Benny Wenny woo woo. Ben honey bun? I don't think you 've met my old old old old friend. My oldest friend in the universe. Ben, this is—

Oh. All right, no, of course your patients are the priority, of course, go ahead. I'll be here till ten, and then we'll meet up at Da Silvano and go home. OK, kissy kissy moomoo.

He's on call. He's a little stressed. He's actually heard a lot about you and knows who you are.

Don't you just love Tyler's work? It's so "post graffiti." All those late nights he spent with Chinese and Latino gangs in the Bronx, tagging subway cars and power plants while other people took the typical road of internships and jobs at coffee shops. He's genius. With work that is robust and energetic. The biomorphic curves of graffiti in new emotional ways. Figurative and abstract simultaneously. So serious and informative of our culture's loss of community. Tyler's is a sacred art. I know how you kind of looked down at Tyler's work in college, but—