This being a collection of short stories about lunch, I must tell you about the time I was sitting in McDonald's at midnight, in the middle of Shanghai, where my good friend Tiki and I were eating cheeseburgers (I had two) and French fries. It was noon New York time, so this counted as lunch for an American visiting abroad. We'd only been there two days and, as you know, Shanghai is twelve hours ahead of New York. As far as I was concerned it was 12:00 in the afternoon and not 12:00 midnight.  

            Normally, I would never eat in a McDonald's, especially in New York City. But we were in a smashing mood — post-inebriated from an incredible party at a Dolce and Gabbana opening we had just stumbled out of, where the bar never stopped pouring. Not becoming hammered at these functions is an impossibility. If you're too lazy to make your way to the (very handsome) bartenders, a waiter will happily whisk your elixir over to you on a tray.

            The shindig had been located in the first floor boutique—and remaining six floors—of this ultra-chic hangout where people smoked too many cigarettes, laughed, talked, flirted and screamed. The entire evening had been really just too stunning, 360 degrees of fabulousness. The store's building is nestled in the Bund, which is the main strip in Shanghai. At night, this large avenue is a marvelous kaleidoscope of colorful lights. Each building has a different order of architecture: Greek Revival columns, Second Empire facades, Gothic Revival stone work, etc.

            I've always recommend world travel. It broadens one's experiences in life. Oh, the thing's you'll see—like the golden arches of McDonald's! The food at a McDonald's in China is basically the same as in America, except for the pies. There are no apple ones, I don't think. I'm not sure, actually. I remember looking up at the large colored menus at the front, and there were pictures of ones with bright green goo inside (hopefully not Soylent), and another with bright purple filling. I didn't know what the purple one was, and never found out as the counter people didn’t speak English. Even if they did, I honestly felt more comfortable not knowing. The cheeseburgers taste just the same (the meat patty is just as mysterious).  I've never had the fish sandwich at a McDonald's in New York or New Orleans, but I tried the one in Shanghai several times.

            Frequenting this American fast-food eyesore late at night to revive ourselves became a vital ritual for Tiki and me while on this getaway in a foreign land. It was a ritual I would have never predicted. 

            Lunch delicious that night. And having just left the D&G party, we were of course dressed to the hilt. Thank goodness I was wearing a new silk tie, Hermes pocket square and Belgian loafers. I believe one can never be overdressed if one is accessorized properly. This especially counts for a twilight lunch under the golden arches in Shanghai, where we of course stuck out like two fabulous ex-pats, fashioned on F. Scott Fitzgerald and his beloved Zelda (or hopefully, at least one half of that).

            I'll never forget another night on that trip. Tiki and I were becoming very drunk during a cocktail dinner party amongst forty other colorful guests. The hostess was Shanghai's mistress of all that is new and great in the art scene, Miss Pearl Lamp, best known for representing all that is "China Chic," not "China Cheap." I was seated next to the best-selling novelist Mian Mian. She wrote a book called Candy, which exposed a new youth drug culture in changing China. I was attired in a brand new orange linen Mao jacket with orange silk frog closures—Mao never did that! I also wore a beaded orange beanie purchased in New York from the Dahesh Museum on Madison Avenue. At one point, some fellow guest asked if I was Jewish, and I answered "No, I’m chic!" Not that Jewish people aren’t chic; some of the most fashionable people I know are Jewish.

            Tiki and I spontaneously went to a McDonald's a total of five times while in Shanghai for three weeks. One evening, after an opening party at the Diesel store, I was recovering from being jammed into the VIP area with ex-pats from around the globe. Tiki and I arrived home from the event only to find we were craving—you guessed it.

            On the way down to the street to grab a cab (I had rented an apartment in the French Concession neighborhood), Tiki suddenly guffawed as we both realized I was wearing only my boxer shorts underwear. We had made the decision for burgers while I was in post-party, mid-pants change, and I got carried away and just walked right out the door. We giggled as we decided it really didn't matter. Shanghai is more fashion-forward than New York. In a country where a live chicken and a plastic bag is sometimes considered a matching hat and coat, you can get away with wearing almost anything.

            We grabbed a cab (me legs-akimbo), and did the usual charade-like motions to the driver; miming eating a burger and saying loudly "MACK-DON-ALDS." The cab driver nodded his head and then proceeded to drive for an eternity through really dark streets and alley ways. Tiki and I kept looking at each other, and eventually I told her that I felt our driver didn't know where he was going. That, or he was kidnapping us for a white slavery ring (maybe me getting into the cab wearing my underpants sent him the wrong message?). I'd been in the city long enough to know that the Mickey-D's in Shanghai were all located on large avenues, not dark little streets. The driver eventually stopped and asked a few people for directions. We were getting a bit scared, and it was too late to call the Four Seasons hotel, which is something one can do. We weren’t guests there, but learned that if you called their concierge desk on your cell phone and asked them to give directions to the driver in a taxi, they would be happy to comply. This was the usual course for foreigners. No such luck tonight. As Tiki and I were discussing all of this, our driver was still zooming all over the place. I told Tiki, "I bet he drops us off at McDonald's Street!" and we laughed.

            Finally, when the cab stopped and the driver turned and smiled, we looked and realized you couldn't even see anything outside of the cab. Had he driven us into the ocean? The corner we were on was as dark as the corner of a cemetery intersection in New Orleans. There certainly was no McDonald's there. I asked him "Where is McDonald’s?" and he pointed at the street sign, which said "mec donal lue" ('lue' being 'road' in Mandarin). We got out and found another cab, and finally were delivered to Mickey’s. We wisely held the cab this time, and were driven home safely afterwards.

            Anyway, during that particular post-revelry, post-champagne conference amongst the fluorescent lighting and plastic molded furniture (where we really enjoyed not being waited on hand and foot), Tiki kept giggling and laughing. It was a little strange because she was covered in sweat, and it wasn't from the dancing at the party, plus it wasn't hot in there. Her face was red, and she was fluttering a sandalwood fan on her face—and was on her fourth one. I then realized she was going through those souvenir fans faster that I usually went through a bag of M&Ms. She'd been this way before. I suspected, but wasn't sure, and finally I just came out and asked her, "Is it hot flashes? Menopause?"

            She failed at suppressing her embarrassment, and stuttered "Yes." I felt a little bad, but didn't know why she was embarrassed. We were good friends.

            Everyone gets older. She had just turned 50. She was always beautiful and young, and was now in the beginning of "middlessence." I've always assumed it's that netherworld of over 50—not old, yet no longer young. While growing up in New Orleans, Tiki was constantly dancing and partying, and had the most beautiful boyfriends all through high school and college. But I would imagine when all of that eventually stops, it could leave one a bit disparaged when they reach that certain age. I, having never been beautiful, don't think I'll find it disparaging at all. As I've always said: as long as I'm accessorized, I'm pleased.

            "And don't use the M-word." she added.

            "What word?" I asked, taken aback.

            "You asked me if I was in men..." she then paused (no pun intended), and concluded, "Don't use that word. The M-word."

            "Sorry dearie," I said, ducking my head half an inch, "but that's what it's called."

            She said nothing, and gazed over at a poster of Mayor McCheese as if it had suddenly caught her attention.

            "Tiki?" I said.

            "Yes?" she said, still looking away.

            "Do you think I'm effeminate?" I inquired, trying to change the subject.

            "No." she said solemnly, "You're just flamboyant."

            Realizing I'd put my foot in my mouth a tad, I decided to make a declaration. So, in the middle of that McDonald's, halfway around the world, and with several natives chewing within earshot (plus the smiling staff behind the counter), I proclaimed loud and proud, "How can you complain that I'm talking about you having a case of the hot flashes from menopause, when I'm sitting here with psoriasis of the penis head?"

            We burst out screaming in laughter. Then we quickly stopped, and looked around eagerly to see what people's reactions had been. Nary an eyelash had flinched. We shrieked again. We realized we could say whatever we wanted, and no one in the place could understand a single word. Breathlessly, I shouted, "I want to shoot come like the boys in the dirty movies from the old porno days! I want to do nasty things with nasty women!" adding maniacally, "I want to put one in the pink, and one in the stink! Ride me like you're on the pony express!" We had to stop before we passed out.

            Nobody in the place budged. Which was weird, because I still had no pants on. They couldn't understand us, although we did get a few brief stares. Actually, I think they're used to screaming—have you ever been to Chinatown during rush hour?

            We calmed down, and those who looked became distracted with their own food again.

            Tiki, giggling with a mischievous grin, told me loudly that she wanted to know every single detail about the psoriasis lump on my penis head—as she chomped the end off a French fry dipped in ketchup! We howled again. Was this not polite mealtime conversation? It was McDonald's.

            I began to tell her about an earlier incident, before the psoriasis. It was the time I thought I had contracted a sexually transmitted disease: genital warts. I had flown into a panic when I first saw it on my body. Eventually deciding it didn't warrant a 911 call, I instead hired a car and rushed to the office of my internist, Doctor Montana, for a same-day consultation that I had nervously demanded on the phone while pleading with his receptionist. When I finally saw him, Dr. Montana first made sure I hadn't gone into shock. He then calmed me down by assuring me that these things were quite common, and very treatable if it was indeed what I had. He asked me to get on the table and said, "Spread your cheeks!" Talk about common.

            I leaned against the table, put one hand on a love handle, and pulled. He said, "You're not posing for Playboy, get on the table and spread your cheeks!" What a bedside manner! I guess he wanted a Hustler Magazine pose instead, and indeed that's what it took. You know I never did like exposing myself, but I did it anyway. I think my face was actually pinker than my exposed rear end at that moment.

            Well, I was never more relieved at what he had to say after examining me, but the driver of the car service on the way home was horrified, no doubt, as I made my way back to the office. Sitting in the back seat, I called everyone I had told, and enthusiastically described into the phone how I didn't have anal warts after all, but a skin tag. Of course they all asked what a skin tag was, so I had to go on and on about that. As we pulled up to the office, I noticed my driver's face was a peculiar shade of chartreuse.

            "Okay. Go on…" Tiki sat there and said with a grin, deciding to order another vanilla shake. Nothing goes better with talk about grotesque diseases of the skin! But she told me to skip ahead to the part about my "decaying prick," as she put it. So eloquent. I think it was her revenge for me using the M-word.

            Well, I told her that when the psoriasis showed up, I thought to myself, that's it, I have Human Papilloma Virus, or HPV. I went online and looked at some really, really, frightening photos. I called all of my friends again. Tiki was one of them, and also Harry. Of course Harry told me that I shouldn't be fooling around with dirty people and Tiki told me to sit tight. I went to Doctor Montana again, who told me he wasn't sure what it was, and sent me on a battery of tests—Syphilis, Gonorrhea, HIV.

            Anyone who's ever had an HIV test knows they're very frightening. You're waiting for that fatal announcement for what seems like eons, while in your mind you're re-tracing and re-imagining every single sexual encounter you've ever had (in the most un-fun way possible). By the time the waiting is over you've practically made out your will and drawn up your funeral arrangements.

            Not to discourage people from getting them. Once you finally get the results, the clarity of mind is remarkable. But I can't lie—if you want to lose weight, get an HIV test. You'll sweat off ten pounds in the first week alone—from sheer terror.

            And those people assigned to deliver the news! What quack school did they go to? They must be instructed in a class on how to drag out the results as long as possible, and also lecture you, without actually telling you the good or bad news first. It's a whole five minutes of finger-wagging! The suspense! Bernard Herrmann, the conductor, could have scored the moments in that office when the doctor was about to give me my results! I wonder if anyone's ever died of a heart attack in those moments while waiting for a doctor to finally give them their HIV test results—only to find out they're negative? Wouldn't that be ironic. Perhaps this tortuous technique is a way of discouraging you from future "brushes with the law," which is my expression for "doing nasty doings."

            Well, I got a clean bill of health from all those tests. However, they still didn't know what the mark on my penis head was.

            So I scheduled an appointment with my dermatologist. I arrived at his office, which is located directly across the street from the Pierpont Morgan Library. So beautiful – East 36th Street. But this was no beautiful day. I went in so frightened, thinking I was going to be told I had cancer of the penis, or melanoma – cancer of the penis skin. I didn't dare imagine the treatment for such a thing. I was beyond nervous. You'd think a skin tag on my rectum would have been scary enough, but oh no! The front half of my body now felt like it had to up the ante. I sat in the waiting room, sweating. I think I sweated as much as Tiki did during her menopause. Only I needed a leaf blower rather than a sandalwood fan.

            When I got in to see the doctor, I breathlessly gave him a twenty minute discussion about how I'd discovered "it," and what lead me to his office, and what tests I'd had. He just kept looking at my file and nodding. Finally, he just looked at me and said, "Mr. Charbonnet! Would you just pull it out?" When did all doctors become such perverts?

            So I did. And there I stood, exposing myself in daylight, again—probably more in that one week than I had in ten years.

            "Wait a minute," he said looking closer, "this is… it's psoriasis!"

            I raised one eyebrow and blurted, "Psoriasis? Isn't that what people get on their elbows?"

            "Yes," he said, "but some people also get it on the genitalia." He proceeded to pull out a book full of pictures—worse than those I'd seen online—and show me pictures of poor scab-infected souls. He really seemed to enjoy showing me the photos, as I squinted at them with slack-jawed dread. He kept thumbing through the pages, going on and on, pointing to horrific images of what I think were hands, necks, foreheads, earlobes, elbows and knees, going "Oh yeah look at that one!" He kept getting lost in them and then saying, "Wait a minute, where's the genitalia? I know it's in here somewhere!"

            By this time I was near-death, from sheer disgust. I said, "I've seen enough."

            "No, no, no," he scolded me, pulling more books off his shelf, "I have the genitalia in one of these books!"

            He continued to search, and from underneath a growing mountain of discarded books, I eventually heard him shout "Ah-ha! I found it!"

            "Oh goody." I quipped, finally pulling up my pants. He opened the book wide, and there it was, sure as shit. It was a photograph of a penis with what looked like Frosted Flakes all over it. My face turned the color of a ping pong ball.

            My ailment did not look book-worthy, thank God (I think most people's dreams of modeling stop just short of medical ailment encyclopedias), and he assured me a prescribed cream would get rid of the problem. Lucky me.

            Lucky is right, in retrospect. After all, it wasn't gonorrhea, it wasn't syphilis, and it wasn't AIDS. I'll never forget what a very dear friend of mine, Marty, who passed away because of that terrible illness, would say to me all the time. "I don't have AIDS, I have HIV," he would state, in that same tone Tiki had used to scold me about the M-word.

            I remember Marty looked at me in the last stages of his illness and saying, "Don’t cry for me, I had a good time getting this. I was no altar boy."

            Interesting, because I had been a real altar boy all my life, figuratively speaking, I mean. Dirty thoughts, dirty mind—and a couple of dirty games. That was it for me. As I once confessed to my mother, late at night (and quite drunk) on the phone, "I had a few brushes with the law." She took that to mean unsafe sex, and she had guessed right. She let me know the next day that she was horrified. I was dismayed to know that I had even said such a thing to my mom and didn't remember! But we talked about it openly afterwards, and learned from each other. I don't recommend drunk-dialing your mother, but doing it once or twice in life could possibly strengthen your relationship. Red wine, Ativan and AT&T—bonding families for decades!

            So I didn't have HIV, I didn't have syphilis, I didn't have gonorrhea, genital warts or HPV. I had psoriasis of the penis. And today is the first day of the rest of my life. A cream twice a day would get rid of it. I am lucky, indeed.

            Although, to me it seems as tragic as a sexually transmitted disease, in a way. As strange as it will sound to anyone who might read this, who might think I'm so blessed to have something far less serious, and believing it's just as bad; sexually transmitted diseases are usually transmitted when people are having a good time, or at least trying to. Psoriasis of the dick is something one could get from knitting alone at home on a Saturday night. It's a "knitting disease."

            "What were you doing when you got that?" they'll ask. "I was being an altar boy," I'll answer. I wasn't out having a great time and doing all sorts of crazy, fun things that would entitle me to such a punishment. And to call it a knitting disease isn't even correct because I don't know how to knit.

            And talk about discrimination. When someone hears that a person has AIDS they respond "Oh, how sad." When someone hears that a person has psoriasis of the penis head, a person says "OH, GROSS!" and flees.

            Well, I'm happy to say that after all the self administered treatments, I've been screened by my doctor and am cleared of the psoriasis. The culprit? Stiff twill cotton briefs, believe it or not. From now on, it’s Pima cotton boxers only.

            "What a delightful story!" Tiki cracked, thanking me for sharing. She then looked over at the menu and said, "I think I'll try one of those hot purple goo pies now."

            We were midnight revelers, lost in bedlam in a McDonald's on the edge of the earth, having lunch during the witching hour. I was in my underwear. The two golden arches buzzing outside were the only light on the dark street, right above a sign announcing in Chinese and English "Open 24 hours." We sat there, Tiki in her hot flashes and I in my knitting disease. We were laughing and laughing, and the natives were looking at us as though we were crazy. And we were.