88 Fucking new guy.
89 Barry Levinson, director of Diner; The Natural; Young Sherlock Holmes; Tin Men; Rain Man; Good Morning, Vietnam; Avalon. The book was Alibi for an Actress by Gillian Farrell (Pocket Books, 1992). This is the way material is pitched—as exactly like something else successful, with a twist. The twist is that you’re combining it with something else successful.
Chapter
THIRTY-FIVE
WHEN THE PARTY was over, Hartman went back to his office. Sakuro Juzo and the other two Japanese took up stations outside his door. It was 3:00 A.M. Nonetheless, he picked up the phone and called Mel Taylor at home. Taylor was asleep.
“Is it an emergency?” Taylor asked.
“What I want to know is the truth about Joe Broz.”
“You have the file. Don’t you have the file?”
“Do you really take me for that much of an asshole? These missing years, and the civilian work in Vietnam, what’s the real story?”
“I’ll get it for you,” Taylor said. “Is first thing in the morning alright? Is that OK?”
“Sure,” said Hartman. He hung up. He liked Joe. Liked him and Maggie together. On the other hand, he liked silk ties, Hunan cooking a couple of times a year, the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and London tailors. He liked RepCo agents to wear black socks, but he’d yet to fire anyone for wearing navy blue. “Like” was not one of the heavies.
Chapter
THIRTY-SIX
“I DON’T WANT to go home,” Maggie says when the party winds down.
“Well, take the car, I’ll call me a cab,” I say.
“Hey, Joe, you got two bits, Joe?”
“Maggie, don’t start . . .”
“Buy me a cup of Java, Joe. Come on, Joe.”
It’s a cool night, by L.A. standards. Maggie’s dress is on the skimpy side. I give her my jacket. I drive. Maggie turns on the radio. Pirates of the Mississippi, k. d. lang, Patsy Cline. “Who is Bambi Ann Sligo?” she asks. I tell her. Maggie slides close, puts her head on my shoulder. “Won’t you tell me about yourself, some,” she says. The top is down. One time I went home. On leave after my first hitch. Joey’s dad said Joey’d done his duty, it was time to go home. Joey said he was going to re-up. Like me. With me. His dad, Pasquale, owns a grocery, has four kids, three girls and Joey, so, you know how it is, his son is what matters to him. Anyway, he has some money. Tells Joey if he come home, stays home, he’ll buy him a convertible. We went down to the Chevy dealer, test-drove one, top down, me and him and his sister, Annette. Pasquale, he comes to me, says, “Tell Joey, stay home. He listen to you, Joe.” I owed him, owed him a lot. So I should’ve done it. But I didn’t.
“What you see is what you get,” I say. “Where we going?”
“Venice,” she says. “There’s an all-night place on Pico. I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry?” There had been plenty of food at the party, nouvelle southwestern cuisine. That’s the Hollywood version of Mexican food, less fat and fart-free beans because there’s nothing worse than a room full of movie stars all stressed and contorted trying not to pass gas.
“I can’t eat at those things. I get afraid someone is going to see me eat. Once they see you eat, they look for signs of fat. Then they decide not to even call you because they don’t want to have to tell you to your face that you have to lose four pounds before the start of shooting or they can’t get a completion bond.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Of course it is. But it happens. So sometimes I don’t eat at those things. Let ’em think I live on air.”
When we get to the restaurant, Maggie goes into the bathroom, right away. I get us a booth. It’s one of those places that could only be L.A., imitating a place that’s just like America was supposed to be, back between Buddy Holly and going to Vietnam. Maggie washes her face, takes off all the makeup, and pulls her hair back into a ponytail. Our waitress recognizes her anyway. But she doesn’t fuss about it. Maybe she’s good about that sort of thing, the celebrity thing, or just tired.
Maggie orders a stack of pancakes, some sausage—which most of the time she wouldn’t approve of—and coffee. I get a couple of eggs and toast. There’s a bunch of musicians in back. Everything black and lots of leather.
“He was a drunk,” I tell her. Why shouldn’t she know about my father. “When he got drunk, he used to whale on me some. Not like on the movie of the week, where he’s breaking my ribs and sending me to the hospital and such. Just beating on me.”
“I’m sorry, Joe,” she says, full of sympathy.
“Don’t be. You say shit like that, I won’t tell you nothin’.”
“I’m sorry. That I was sorry.”
“I’ll tell you a story. How I come out on top. First off, you gotta understand, you got an old man like that, it teaches you you can take it, makes you tough.” She still looks at me with sympathy. Which makes me angry. “You don’t get it.” She doesn’t.
“OK, tell me.”
“Kids used to brag about how hard their old man hit them.”
“Men are such assholes,” she says.
“Yeah, men are assholes. No question about it. Why don’t you get yourself a girl. Maybe that’s what you should do. Maybe that’s what you really want.”
“How tough was your old man?”
“He worked a foundry most of his life. Ever been in a foundry?”
“No.”
“They make molds. They pour molten metal in the molds. Most of the molds are made out of sand. Plain old wet sand. Like at the beach. So the man spent his life carrying around boxes of wet sand, buckets of molten metal. Hundred pounds, two hundred pounds, five hundred, whatever. All day long. And it’s hot. The metal splatters. It finds any bare skin you got. You can’t drop what you’re doing, because what you’re doing is carrying one side of a hundred-pound bucket of liquid aluminum, so hot it flows like your morning coffee. So that’s how tough my old man was.”
“Pretty tough.”
“Pretty tough. Man’s work. Good work for a man. Anyway, problem was, problem was, he drank. So we weren’t living too good, between him missing work and spending his money down in the bar. It was mostly when he got drunk that he’d get angry and beat the shit out of me, or take a couple of swipes at me, anyway. It was just a matter of surviving until he thought he’d done enough or he went to sleep. I’m not bitching about it. That’s the way it is, until a boy grows big enough to go out and make his own place or big enough to stand up for himself and say ‘No more.’ That’s the way it is in nature, you know that.”
“If you had a son, is that the way you would raise him?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, would you beat him until he was big enough to beat you back?”
I have to stop and think about that. Funny, you would think that I would’ve thought about it before, lots of times. But I never put it to myself and nobody else did, that simple and straightforward. I didn’t grow up thinking, the way kids do, If I ever grow up, I won’t treat my children that way, I’ll always let them stay up late and eat candy or whatever it is that kids think that parents do wrong. Oh yeah, and I’ll always be fair and never punish them unjustly. Stuff like that. “I always said I would never be a drunk like my old man. And I never have been. I guess, I guess I sort of intended to have a woman around. A mother. A man alone, raising a kid, it’s hard. Especially with no other women, no grandmothers or aunts or nothing, around. It was the luck of the draw, bad luck of the draw, that my mother didn’t leave anybody around to take her place, raising me. So, no, I guess not. Not with a woman around. It wouldn’t have to be that way. There are other ways a boy can turn into a man besides getting beat up all the time. Maybe not as effective,” I say, as a joke, “but there are other ways. Of course there are other ways.”
“You were going to tell me, about the last time, how you made him stop.”
“I was about fifteen. Almost fifteen, anyway. He comes home, drunk again. Which mean
s no money. We start to arguing. I should know better, but I don’t. ’Cause even stumblin’ drunk, he’s a damn sight bigger and stronger than me. A damn sight. He starts up to beat on me. I tell him, ‘No more. Not this time.’ He swings at me. I duck. That makes him madder. Then he comes at me for real, big right hand, in a fist. I don’t run. I don’t hide. I step in and take it right here,” I point to my forehead. “He busts his hand. Drunk as he is, he feels it. He just sits right down and stares at it. At his hand. He holds it and cradles it and he hurts too much to hit me anymore.
“I didn’t beat him, but I beat him. I walked out. I never went back.”
The waitress is behind the counter, having a smoke. She sees Maggie finish her coffee and comes over with a pot, gives us refills.
“Pardon me, do you have an extra cigarette?” Maggie asks her.
“Sure, hon,” she says. She gives Maggie one. Hands me a pack of matches. There’s a silhouette of a girl with a pony tail on the cover. Underneath, it says, “Can you draw this?” I light Maggie’s cigarette. I give the matches back to the waitress and she walks away. Maggie looks at me through the smoke. She’s playing some kind of scene, I guess. That’s OK. A woman thing or an actress thing.
“Do you love me, Joe?”
“Yes, I guess I do,” I say.
“Then you better take me home,” she says, “and make love to me, Joe.”
Chapter
THIRTY-SEVEN
I WAS RIGHT about one thing: once it starts, there is no stopping.
Mrs. Mulligan arrives at seven, just a few hours after we get home. We still haven’t been to sleep. She goes about her business. I cancel myself out of the office. Maggie and I come downstairs, hungry and thirsty, I don’t know, eleven, twelve o’clock. Mrs. Mulligan makes us orange juice and tea and scones. Can she tell the difference in us? Yeah. Who couldn’t. I didn’t know it could be like this. We manage to drink the juice, but we can’t finish the tea and scones. We need each other. Again.
We’re ready to go back upstairs. Or on the couch. Or the deck. We really should be alone.
“Mary,” Maggie says.
“Yes, Ms. Lazlo, what can I be doing for you?”
“Why don’t you take a couple of days off.”
“You two,” she says. “Like kids. American kids, not Irish kids. No Irish person, even a teenager, would behave like this. There’s something in the Irish water that maintains the human glands at sensible levels. It’s altogether missing in California. Maybe it gets washed away with the shipping of your water all the way from the North. In Ireland we get our water direct from the sky, whole, as God intended.”
“With pay,” Maggie says.
“Of course with pay. Should I make you a bit of dinner before I go? A salad you can pull out of the fridge, or something to pop into the oven?”
“That’s OK.”
“You know,” Mrs. Mulligan says, “he’s not such a young one. He’s going to need some good solid food, keep his strength up.”
“I love him, Mary.”
“Oh, Oh, yes. I see. I’ll be going then.”
“Don’t gossip about us too much, alright?”
“Oh, no, miss. I wouldn’t ever gossip about you. Well, yes. I better get my things and be gone.” She goes and gathers her handbag and her coat, which she doesn’t wear since it’s too warm, but always has with her. She goes to the front door. Then she turns and comes back. “Ms. Lazlo, there’s something I’ve got to be telling you. They’ve come after me. They say they’re Immigration, but I don’t know if that’s true. I’m thinking it’s not. I’m not legal, you see. I don’t know if you know that—I’m not legal. They said they would turn me in and ship me out. Now how much money do you think I’d be earning scrubbing floors in County Cork? To hell with the Irish water, all rain and damp it is, hell on rheumatism. Not enough to keep body and soul together and under a dry roof. They want me to tell them things about you. You and him in there. If you were truly involved with each other or if you were up to something. I’m frightened o’ them. Immigration, they treat you with total contempt and you’ve got no place to turn, now have you? But I’m not an informer. None of my people have ever been informers. Never will be.”
“If they come again, tell me,” Maggie says. “If you need a lawyer, I’ll get you one. Meantime, tell them . . . what you see.”
“That you’re in love with that lug of a man?”
“Right.”
“I’ll do that. With your permission, ma’m.”
“Yes, Mary. Do that.”
She goes and it doesn’t matter that Mel Taylor and U. Sec. are still checking up on us. It doesn’t fucking matter. We’re in a different world now. We make love. We talk. We go out on the beach a couple of times, but we need to touch each other in ways that we don’t want to do in public. We stay home—not taking calls—not going out—for about three days. We talk about maybe making movies together. For real. I say that my bullshit is bullshit. Maggie says everybody’s is. The book I found is good, she says, we have to see if a good script can be developed from it. When and if I get out of bed and into the office, I’ll track down the agent and option it. The Catherine thing is more difficult. It’s bigger and against the common wisdom. So it needs a name writer. Who will be, therefore, expensive. And therefore should be paid for with Other People’s Money, through the development deal that we do not yet have. I tell her a little more. About how when I left home, on my own, almost fifteen, Pasquale, father of Joey, took me in. Gave me a home, for a year, year and a half, until me and his son joined the Marines. Joey was older than me. Maggie, of course, keeps asking me about Annette—did I make it with Joey’s sister? Well, we fooled around a lot. Those days, she is still supposed to be a virgin when she marries. This is before the pill practically. Everybody who does it it seems like, gets knocked up. Every wedding, it seems like, the bride is glowing and on the plump side, the groom embarrassed, wishing he was somewheres else. And she’s Joey’s sister, so I fuck her, Joey’s got to get angry at me, we have to have a fight. I don’t want to do that. I love Joey like a brother. And Pasquale like a father. Because he is more father to me than the asshole who broke his hand on my head. “So what did you do?” Maggie wants to know. I get embarrassed, because of course she is right. I just say, “We fooled around.” She insists that I get specific. By hand? Yes. Her mouth? Well, once. How was it? Why only once? “It didn’t work that well, that’s why.” What about me? Did I use my mouth on her? “I was fifteen, I never heard of that,” I tell Maggie. She thinks that’s really funny. She holds me and kisses me and says, “I love you, Joe Broz.” It puts me in another dimension to hear that. But Maggie’s back at it again. “Come on, didn’t you get it into her once? Didn’t you even try?” “Nah, nah, I told you, she was Joey’s sister, she was afraid of getting pregnant, Pasquale would’ve thrown me out and where the hell was I going to go?” “I don’t believe you,” she says. “She was a good Catholic girl and wanted to be a virgin,” I tell her. “Oh-oh,” Maggie says, “you put it in the back way.” She giggles. “No,” I say. “Don’t lie to me, Joe Broz, I love you, you can’t lie to me.” “OK, yeah, I admit it.” Why am I embarrassed. Because I never told that to anyone in my life?
I love her.
Maybe there is a future here. Maybe the masquerade has become the reality. The illusion, an actuality. Maybe Magdalena Lazlo’s next role is Catherine the Great and mine is Potëmkin.90When I finally arise from her bed, I let my empress dress me as her producer. Are we going to forget John Lincoln Beagle and our quest for his secret? I think we don’t know. I think we’re too involved in each other and in our possibilities to know.
I will tell you one thing about our lovemaking. When we get to bed the first time, I reach into the drawer beside the bed where I know there are condoms. I’ve been all over this house. I know everything in this house. She puts her hand over mine, to stop me. Neither of us has mentioned HIV or AIDS or blood tests. Also, I’m virtually certain that she doesn
’t use any other form of birth control, at least not pills or a diaphragm. So without the condoms, if we have sex, maybe there’s a birth, maybe someone dies.
“Do you love me, Joe?” she says.
I say, “Yes.”
“Maybe there’s a birth,” she says, “maybe someone dies.”
That’s what I’ll tell you about making love with Maggie.
When I finally go to the office, there’s a load of messages and mail is stacked up and I’m going to need people to help me for real. I haven’t even picked the mail off the floor, the phone rings. This kid, not a kid, he’s twenty-five, twenty-seven, he says, “Hi. My name is Teddy Brody. I heard from a friend of mine that you’re looking for someone. From the description, someone just like me. I’ve been to Yale Drama School and UCLA Film School. And I currently do development and research for John Lincoln Beagle.”
“Yeah, Teddy,” I say, “I’d love to see you.”
90 Potëmkin, Grigori Aleksandrovich (1739–91), a Russian statesman who became the lover and favorite of Catherine II in 1771 and remained until his death the most powerful man in Russia. He was the governor general of “New Russia” (Ukraine). The famous story about him is that he claimed to have established entire cities and villages that in fact had not been built. Catherine insisted on sailing down the Volga to view them. Potemkin had crews set up false fronts—like the facades of a town in a Western movie. As soon as the empress’s barge passed, they would race ahead to the next location to set up new ones there. Then the next and the next. The expression “Potëmkin villages,” which means to have the appearance of a thing but to really be empty, comes from this.
Potëmkin engineered the colonization of the Ukrainian steppes and the conquest of the Crimea. He became a field marshal in 1784 and was commander in chief during the second Turkish War (1787–91).
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