In the early evening of the last day of October, in Copenhagen, when the cold was already starting to set in and we were forced to turn up the collars of our coats and put our hands in our gloves, I met Fran Lebowitz. She was standing next to the door of the Imperial cinema, wrapped in her impeccably starched gray overcoat, her hemmed jeans with just the same fold out, and the inevitable cigarette between her fingers, while she sipped smoke in the company of her bodyguard and agent. There was something unshakable about that little New York trio, a kind of private territory that seemed to admit no approach.
It wasn’t easy to gain the courage to get closer. The bodyguard, the agent, the coat, the cigarette, everything seemed to tell me no, that it was better to stay quiet, but I thought, screw it, I have nothing to lose. When will I have another chance to talk to Fran Lebowitz? Probably never. So it is.
I approached and, almost unable to articulate a sentence, I was immediately stopped by the bodyguard, who fired a shot. Node! categorical, before even knowing what it was coming from. But not Fran, she wanted to listen to me. He showed a spontaneous interest, without a single sign of stardom. Stammering a little, under the unfriendly looks of the agent and the security guard, I managed to explain to him that I was going to watch his public talk at the cinema and that I would really like to have a signed copy of the book. He asked me if I smoked. I replied that occasionally. He told me that this was the occasion, following the sentence with a brief gesture, almost as if brushing off flies, he ordered the agent and the bodyguard to move away, then he handed me the pack of Marlboro Gold and offered me a light. And we stayed there, on the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette.
I told her I was Portuguese and she told me that she really liked Porto. So, without ceremony, as if smoking a cigarette with Fran Lebowitz was a perfectly banal thing on a cold October night in Copenhagen. Then she asked me if I wanted to accompany her to the dressing room, where she could autograph my copy of The Fran Lebowitz Reader. I followed her, still having some difficulty believing that this was really happening. I, who always admired her public personality, her sharp intelligence, her sarcasm, even the way she seemed to have no patience for people, often wanted to look like her.
We entered the dressing room. Fran took a Bic pen from her coat pocket and signed the book for me, then looked up from the page and looked at me. We remained like that for a second in strange silence and, with an enigmatic smile, he told me that he needed to tell me a secret, that I had to promise not to reveal it to anyone. I nodded immediately, of course. That woman in front of me was not Fran Lebowitz, she was an impostor out of a prank. Halloween which the author herself had prepared. A game on night trick or treata small number of dark humor in the North American way.
I didn’t laugh, I never found Halloween funny.
These chronicles are part of a fiction project by writer Cláudia Lucas Chéu with P3. A marathon of daily chronicles with no goal in sight.
