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I pulled up in front of New York's Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel, thinking I could get quick directions front a door
man. I was driving a Chevrolet. 1 think it was a Cavalier.
But it might’ve been a Malibu. I do know it was blue and
a very, very baseline Chevrolet.
I caught one doorman’s attention. He gave me the
bum’s rush.
“You'll have to move that car,” he said. “You can’t park
here.”
I told him that I didn't want to park. I wanted direc
tions.
But he was on message:
Can t help you, he said. “You 11 have to move that
car."
Epiphany!
'Ehe doorman was referring to the car as if the car
and I were one in the same. He didn't respect the car. He
didn t respect me. It was a common car. In his eyes, I too,
was a commoner in front of a king's palace, and I was
being treated accordingly.
I resolved to return to New York in something differ
ent. more opulent, and visit the same hotel and ask for
directions. I did. I chose a silver Rolls Royce Phantom,
base price $328,750.
It is important to note that none of my personal basics
changed in the three weeks between my first and second
New York visits. I was still short, black and gray-haired—
handsome, but in a diminutive, off-handed way. I was still
a sinner, no closer to heaven in the Phantom than I was
in the Chevrolet. And I was still carrying the same low-
credit-limit-miss-onc-payment-and-you'll havc-hell-to-pay
Visa card.
I pulled up in front of the Waldorf-Astoria.
“Checking in. Sir?” one of the doormen asked.
“Checking in, Sir?”
Okay, it wasn t the same doorman who dismissed me
three weeks ago. So. maybe this particular fellow was
more compassionate, more mannerly.
I told him that I simply needed directions. He obliged,
while another doorman stood guard by the Phantom and
even held the driver s-sidc door open for me when I re
entered the car.
Ilterc was no bum s rush, no “You 11 have to move that
car," nothing like that. And both doormen called me “Sir,”
25 > JUNE/JULY
an appellation that went unspoken by the doorman on my
first visit.
It occurred to me that I had gold-plated my charac
ter by upgrading my ride. In the Phantom, I was more
acceptable in a world that slavishly honors celebrity sans
talent—that glorifies image over substance.
Alt. my beloved, late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
You asked that we be judged by the content of our charac
ter instead of the color ol our skin. Alas, you died before
the full blossoming of infotainment, an odd form of jour
nalism in which the most inane aspects of celebrity and its
accoutrement arc treated as news, in which the gown Star
A wore on Oscar night or the car Star B drove to a night
club rival the importance of the latest deaths in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Is this the freedom you envisioned?
But I digress. It is sufficient to say that I'm generally
treated better, granted more preference in premium auto
mobiles. I have driven so many of them in so many differ
ent environments I know this to be true.
For example, consider my current house hunting safari
in the hoity-toity neighborhoods of Northern Virginia. I
have gotten it down to a science. If I want the real estate
agent on hand to give me immediate anti
loving attention, I arrive in a luxury
car—an S-Class Mercedes-Benz, 7-
/
Series BMW. Aston Martin, Cadillac
CTS-V (preferably black on black in
that model). Jaguar XJ Super V8,
or a Mascrati Quattroporte.
It's amazing!
No real estate agent looks at my
y
~ / T
ebony hue.
K /
No one asks about my bank
V
account or my political affiliation.
“Very nice car," the real estate agent
says. "How can I help you?"
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Gilding My Character
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