I wait for someone to shout out ‘Watch me piddle!’ But instead I hear a sharp intake ofbreath.’
‘Oh my god! It’s her! It’s the Menace ofManhattan!’
‘Oh my goodness. I see it! Shall we call thepolice?’
‘We definitely should. Don’t let hergetaway.’
I look up sharply. They’re talking about calling the police on me? Why are they calling me a menace? I’m just having a little meltdown is all. A tiny little meltdown. And with very good reason, Ithink!
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, peering up at the small crowd of besuited people. ‘Look, I’ve just had some bad news, okay? Sorry to be making such a fuss. I’ll just go.’ I stand up. ‘You don’t have to call the police! Talk aboutoverdramatic.’
Lisa, the assistant, stands in front of me. ‘Sit back down! You’re not going anywhere. We know what you’ve beendoing!’
‘We all know,’ FakeChuckadds.
‘The police are on their way,’ someone in the crowd pipes upgleefully.
‘Excuse me?’ I stand up again and try to get past Lisa, but a few other people have joined her in an attempt to block me in. What the fuck ishappeningnow?
A young man in a suit hurries over from a nearby office carrying a bunch of newspapers. ‘This is you, isitnot?’
Puzzled, I grab the papers off him. All of them are copies of a paper called theNew York Daily News. I squint at the paper on top of thelittlepile.
‘Ten per cent off at PatzDeli?Huh?’
I don’tgetit.
Lisa taps a manicured finger at a picture and small column on the bottom left of the page. ‘There! We know allaboutyou.’
I look more closely at the newspaper and start splutter-coughing as I realise that the picture is a picture of me. In Gramercy Park. Unicorn horn atopmyhead.
Key Stolen in Gramercy Parkreads the headline. I feel my cheeks flush. I quickly scan down the text. It’s a report of a ‘British girl with a pink fanny pack masturbating in Gramercy Park without a key’. And when confronted by a resident – one Elissa Johnson, a luxury mommy blogger – she stole a key from the local andranaway.
Ohmygod.
I quickly pull out the next paper in the pile. There, again, in the bottom left corner, is another picture of me at the mailbox where I accidentally posted Birdie’s letter. I’m clasping my pink bumbag to my chest. Next to me is the cop I ran away from and the dumb man who reported me. The headline here says ‘Gramercy Park Thief Caught Stealing Mail’. I read the accompanying text that outlines how I tried to groom a New York citizen into helping me to steal mail, then when confronted ran away again, escaping the cop who ‘gavechase’.
What the hell? I wasn’t stealing mail! I wasn’t trying togroomanyone and that cop did not ‘give chase’. And even worse, the picture is very obviously me. That beret, as it turns out, was not covering as many as my curls as I hadhoped.
Right at the bottom there’s a one-liner that suggests that the recent ‘Watch me piddle’ character inSunday Night Liveappears to be based on this ‘Menace of Manhattan’, as spotted by a waitress atZabar’s.
You’ve got to bekiddingme!
I pull up the third paper and look at the bottom leftcorner.
It’s another picture of me, taken when I was in Zabar’s innocently trying to order a bagel with smokedsalmon!
The headline here says: ‘Menace of Manhattan pilfers hat frompasserby.’
Pilfers a hat? I’ve never pilfered a hat in my life! I read on, my eyes quickly skimming down the salubrious copy. Apparently I stole a hat from one FranklinBeckett.
‘She whipped the beret right off the top of my head!’ said Franklin, a 54-year-old saxophonist from Morningside Heights. ‘And it was my favouriteberet!’
‘Outrageous!’ I hiss at the newspaper, my hands trembling. ‘That guy told me itwasn’this favourite beret! He sold it to me! I paid ten American dollarsforit!’
This whole thing has become ridiculous. Now I’m the Menace of Manhattan? This is farcical. It can’tbereal!
‘I need to leave,’ I utter, trying to get past Lisa, Chuck Ellen and the mini barricadethey’vemade.
