The Real-Life Marty Supreme Taught Me How to Hustle

Back in 2005, when I was recently out of college and new to New York, one of my closest friends was a 75-year-old self-declared con man named Marty Reisman. Twenty years later, he’s the clear inspiration for the maddening, morally bankrupt, wildly entertaining Ping-Pong prodigy played by Timothée Chalamet in “Marty Supreme.”

We were an odd pair, Marty and me, orbiting each other that humid summer. I’d recently moved from Texas hoping to become a writer and instead found work as an assistant to a literary agent. I hardly knew anyone and almost rented a room in a NoLIta walk-up from a man on Craigslist who, as he toured me past the bathroom, reassured me, “I’m not a pervert or nothin’, but if I happen to catch a glance, I’d rather it be a girl.” I still smiled at people on the F train.

I met Mr. Reisman when I read the manuscript for his memoir, which I unsuccessfully championed. He cut a distinctive figure, walking around the Lower East Side in vintage Panama hats, tinted aviators and custom-made pastel pants. He always had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

I hesitate to call him a mentor. After all, Mr. Reisman was, by his own account, friends with members of Meyer Lansky’s Murder Incorporated gang, a self-declared Ping-Pong hustler who, paddle in hand, had, he told me, taken money off everyone from Montgomery Clift to the president of the Philippines.

I remain useless at table tennis and lose bets to my 7-year-old, but Mr. Reisman taught me that if I wanted to make it, I’d need to cultivate my own kind of con. He showed me how to reinvent. To self-mythologize. To stop apologizing and start throwing elbows at the Barneys Warehouse Sale. To order an off-menu roast duck bowl at Mee Noodle Shop.

It’s easy to feel as if you’re going to get eaten alive when you first step out into the world, especially in a place like New York City. It’s a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of place, where it seems as if most of the people you meet were born on third base. Anyone who’s ever tried to weasel inside or work her way above her station knows that a certain amount of hustle — even con — is required. It’s why we love Jay Gatsby and Don Draper and have welcomed the woman known as Anna Delvey back to Fashion Week.