Still Holding

by Bruce Wagner

  Becca was flustered until she realized Elaine was talking about the Six Feet Under premiere.

  “It was amazing. Ohmygod, did you cast it?”

  “A close friend of mine,” she said, shaking her head. “A protégée. She handles the extras. She’ll be doing principals soon, wait and see—they all just won Emmys. The girls who cast the show. They do a great job too. But you burn out doing a series. It’s an assembly line. That’s a fuck-load of faces, each and every week. They’ll be wanting to move on.” She took a long cigarette from an antiquey silver case, then shuffled beneath the contracts, hunting for matches. “Fun when you’re younger, though. They really work you. Everyone wants a lot of bang for their buck. I’ve been with all the biggies—Altman, Ashby, Nic Roeg. Do you even know who Nic Roeg is?” Becca shook her head. “Well, why should you? My God, I worked with Nic when I was a baby—your age. Married to Theresa Russell. Were they the couple: hot, hot, hot! I’ve got a fabulous Theresa Russell, but I can’t use her. Saw her on the street—not even she knows she looks like Theresa. Who’s heard of Theresa Russell anymore?”

  Elaine found a matchbook and lit up. She dipped into a steel file drawer and passed an eight-by-ten Becca’s way—a pretty girl with wavy blond hair dangling from beneath a fedora, like a starlet from long ago. “There she is,” said Elaine. Becca noticed some acne on the chin that should have been airbrushed. “That’s my Theresa, for all the good it’ll do me. I don’t even know where she is. Phone disconnected. She was working at either Target or Hooters, can’t remember which. Maybe Costco. I get all my kids confused.”

  “What is it that you do here?” asked Becca ingenuously.

  Elaine literally threw back her head and laughed. “ ‘Do’? I do look-alikes! Ground control to Becca! I mean, that’s what it says on the card, right? Look-alikes. I cast look-alikes.” Becca still seemed perplexed. “For trade shows and special events, OK? Meet-’n’-greets. Conventions. Comedy sketches. Ever done comedy?”

  “I’ve done improv. I’m in Metropolis—the theater group.”

  Elaine wasn’t impressed.

  “Last week, Rusty was on the Leno show—my Russell Crowe. You know how Jay sometimes does movie takeoffs? Like Johnny used to. God, I used to book Johnny like crazy. He’s got emphysema now, poor man. But he’s richer than Croesus so I ain’t gonna feel too bad. I flew Rusty to Japan just last month, they’re crazy about Russell Crowe in Japan—and Drew too,” she said, with a wink. “They did a nine-eleven memorial thing over there. I had my Russell, my Clooney, my Bette. She did ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’ Does she have a voice on her! I’m desperate for a Nicole—lost mine to pilot season, what can you do? I’d kill. I actually do have a couple of Ewans, believe it or not. Thought they’d be harder to come by. Audiences eat the duets up. But the Nicole really has to be able to sing. Moulin Rouge has become a cash cow for us. And,” she said dramatically, “I’ve got a Cammie Diaz and a Lucy Liu . . . but no Drew.” She inhaled deeply. “That’s where you come in.”

  • • •

  THAT NIGHT, BECCA made Annie go with her to a nightclub in Playa del Rey that Elaine recommended. Some of her people would be performing.

  The show was a cavalcade of look-alikes. Most of them were tacky, but a few had natural talent as impersonators. Annie was stoned and couldn’t stop laughing, but Becca was moved in a way she couldn’t explain. A bad Kit Lightfoot did his thing, then a Russell Crowe came onstage in a cheap gladiator outfit and Becca thought him awful. He was muscle-bound and inelegant, his accent was absurd, and you had to squint even to imagine a resemblance. Her opinion of Elaine Jordache’s judgment soured right there.

  Toward the end, after a few peculiar acts—a lurid Celine Dion, and a ranting John McEnroe being interviewed by a long-haired Larry King—a second Russell Crowe took the stage. Becca thought this one to be nearly charismatic as the real thing. He did the hand-to-forehead tic of the character from A Beautiful Mind and spoke in “schizophrenic” tongues, a creative stream-of-consciousness monologue that Becca found funny and poetic, with pointedly scathing asides directed at his earlier, idiotic incarnation. This Russell was someone who didn’t relish sharing the stage.

  Afterward, the two girls went out for a smoke. Annie got woozy from the wine and the weed and they decided to go home. On the way to the car, Becca saw the second Mr. Crowe and called out, “You were amazing!”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, head down, as if still in character.

  She walked a little closer. “I’m a friend of Elaine’s,” she stammered. “Elaine Jordache. She told me you were in Japan—that you went to Japan.”

  He eyed her warily. “Oh yeah? That was no thanks to her. She’s a cunt—worse—a Jewish cunt. And she’s trying to fucking rob me.”

  His ears pricked like an animal’s and he bolted, sprinting down the block. Annie gasped then broke into laughter, while Becca’s mouth remained open in astonishment. They ran for the car and tussled awhile, Becca trying to wrest away the keys. Annie insisted on driving and made a screeching turnabout, stopping at the light in time to see the Russell chase down his inferior. He threw his shadow to the ground and pummeled him. Like puppet and despotic puppeteer, the weaker Russell squeaked and moaned, squirming under the rain of blows.

  “Ohmygod!” muttered Annie, and floored it.

  Sleepless in Albany

  HE HAD BEEN dead just forty-five minutes when Lisanne arrived. The nurses stayed out of the room while the aunt and one of her father’s neighbors sat vigil. All of the medical equipment had been disconnected.

  His skin was like tallow. The aunt spread baby powder on the hairless, purple-bruised arms, draping a small towel over the genitals, then gave Lisanne the powder and gestured for her to do the legs. She wasn’t sure why they were doing it, but it was somehow a comfort. His shins reminded her of slick wood handrails. The cologne of the talc commingling with death smells faintly sickened. His mouth twisted to one side, like that of a whispering conspirator in a medieval religious painting.

  • • •

  AFTER HE HAD been cremated, Lisanne kept dreaming that she was a victim of one of those undertaker scams and that what she thought were the dusty remains of her father were actually those of animals or indigent men. Finally, to break the cycle, she went downstairs.

  Her aunt sat in Dad’s favorite chair half asleep, the cool, ash-filled vase poised on a thin shellacked table beside her. It took four hours—four whole hours to burn a body then grind its bones to dust. Lisanne picked up the urn, revolved it, then quietly set it down. She traced a half circle around it, then tapped the tabletop’s veneer. Just the kind of piece people bring to Antiques Roadshow, she thought randomly.

  Lisanne heated up milk in a saucepan. While her aunt slept, she padded to the library to browse the bookshelves so she might further distance herself from the soot of nightmare. Her father had been a professor, a learned man. She drew a forefinger over the spines: Poverty—A History; Wedekind’s Diary of an Erotic Life; The Norton Dictionary of Modern Thought; The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa; The Book Lover’s Guide to the Internet; a cool green, five-volume set called Mexico—A Traves de los Siglos; Hardy’s Selected Poems. She never really knew him, nor would she now by his obscure and bloodless books. They would crumble soon enough, like the body of their collector, whose exit she’d been too late to observe.

  “Why didn’t you fly?”

  The aunt appeared in the door like a dark oracle.

  “Because it terrifies me.”

  Lisanne paused, wondering if she should go on. Why should she have to explain herself to this crone?

  “And because I would have had to drug myself into a coma, which always makes me uncomfortable.”

  The old woman winced at her niece’s low comedy but said nothing. She left the room.

  Lisanne climbed the stairs and returned to the same bed she’d slept in as a girl—the same bed her mother chose to die in, ten years back. She had missed that death too.

 
She took half an Ativan and settled under the covers, imagining herself on a 747, first class, selecting wines and cheeses offered by the handsome steward . . . joshing with a flirty fellow passenger after a spate of turbulence . . . the uneventful landing . . . the connecting plane and swift arrival to hospital . . . Dad’s deep-water eyes rising just once more to surface sea brightness at the unexpected sight of her, and the aunt’s tearful relief as she entered the room . . . a convocation of hands prayerfully entwined as he shanty-sighed his last respirations, sinking back to the briny depths.

  As the first wavy softness of the drug entered her bloodstream, Lisanne’s thoughts drifted to her high school boyfriend. The aunt said Robbie had moved back to town six months ago. It was at least ten years since they’d spoken and she decided to see him before the train left for Chicago on Sunday night.

  Command Performance

  “WHAT THE FUCK are we doing here?” asked Kit.

  They were at a club on the Strip frequented by young television stars.

  “My roots, baby,” said Alf. “Television made me what I fucking am. Jus’ loves comin back to look after the little ones.” He scanned the room with a vulpine smile. “You’re so mega, Kitchener. Your very fucking presence makes ‘em nutsoid. Look at ‘em! Look! Trying to be all cool and not make eye contact—sad but so sweet.”

  Kit looked around in exaggerated disgust. “I meet enough TV dickheads through Viv.”

  “Think you’re gonna marry her?”

  “Man, I don’t know. It’s hard. It’s fucking hard. Sometimes I think that’d be . . . kinda great? You know, I love her—I really do.”

  “I know. I know. Great gal.”

  “Sometimes I think: OK. Let’s do it. The whole yadda-baby thing. Because she’s hot, she’s in my blood, man. Other times, I just stare at the fucking ceiling. And it’s like . . . whoa! Can’t give up the whores.”

  Alf got quiet.

  They erupted in laughter, tilting back shots.

  “Still into the Buddhist thing?”

  “Still into it,” said Kit, by rote. He was used to the tepid inquiries. “I’m a lapsed Buddhist,” he added with a smirk.

  “Fallen monk.”

  “That’s me, honey. After the fall.”

  “I read this interview with Oliver Stone? He said he was attracted to Buddhism because it wasn’t on some morality trip like most religions.”

  “That’s bullshit,” said Kit. “Buddhism’s all about morality. Right thought, Right action.”

  “I think I’m really gonna try it,” said Alf.

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’m serious—at least the meditation thing. Friend of mine has this machine, this mask and headset that put out these crazy lights and sounds. Very sixties, bubba. Supposed to put you in an alpha state without having to sit for ten hours a day. Kinda jump-starts you. He drops the shrooms, then straps it on. Cause I don’t know if I could do that—the whole sit thing that you do. I mean, I got discipline but . . .”

  “You’re disciplined at getting blow jobs.”

  “From your daddy. And he’s good, too. Guess you gave him a lot of practice. I was listening to these Joseph Campbell tapes on the way to Vegas. The ones with Bill Moyers? Downey’s totally into them. We were on our way to see the Stones. Did you ever listen to that Campbell shit? He’s a trip.”

  “Get thee to a monastery. I’ll hook you up.”

  Kit flinched at his own words. He hated his behavior of late, the way he acted, spoke, thought. His only comfort was in telling himself that he was in the at-least-conscious throes of some sort of perversely pathetic karmic regression. For years he had been meticulous, impeccable, mindful—now he was frivolous and inane, wasteful, asinine. A flabby bullshitter: every gesture and every breath was false, vulgar, wrong. He was a poisoned well. It was becoming intolerable to be in his own skin. He’d long since betrayed the precepts and spirit of his practice. When he thought of Gil Weiskopf Roshi, his root guru, monitoring his lifestyle from the afterworld, Kit shuddered with embarrassment before noting that even his shame and remorse were bogus and hypocritical. This sort of masochistic digression formed the backdrop of his days.

  Alf saw a friend come toward them from the bar. “Heads up for my man Lucas. Good little actor—got a Golden Globe.”

  Lucas was upon them. He said hello to his old friend, then turned to Kit, awestruck. “I just wanted to tell you what a big fan I am of your work.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And Viv’s great, too. I just did an arc on Together. She’s good people. Very cool.”

  Alf stood up. “Be right back. I see someone I think I want to fuck.”

  “Boy or girl?” said Kit.

  “Girly-man,” said Alf. He leaned over to Lucas and stage-whispered, “Try not to drool on my bro, OK?”

  Kit wasn’t thrilled to be left holding the bag with Golden boy.

  “You’re into Buddhism, aren’t you?”

  “Right.”

  Oh God here we go. Suddenly he felt how drunk he was.

  “My sister’s deep into it. She spent nine months at an ashram in the Bahamas. What’s it called, the meditation?”

  “There’s different kinds.”

  “It starts with a v—”

  “Vipassana?”

  “Yeah! That’s it—vipassana. That stuff is serious. She’s way into yoga too. She’s really close to Mariel Hemingway, who’s completely addicted. She wrote this memoir?—Mariel, not my sister—with the chapter headings all named for yoga poses? Did you read that?”

  “No.”

  He kept his ego in check. What was the point in dissing this nervous kid?

  “So, how long you been knowing Alf?” asked Kit.

  “We did this series, a summer replacement. Kinda were roomies—lived down the hill from Hustler’s. On Sunset? Before that, we both tended bar at the Viper. Went on auditions together, slept with each other’s girlfriends. You know the drill. Alfie’s gone a little farther careerwise than I have. Can’t complain.”

  “You won the Globe! That’s pretty major. What was that for?”

  “Savage Song.”

  “Right! The software guy with Tourette’s? Man, I saw that. Viv thought you were amazing. Kept buggin on me to check it out.”

  “Thank you. I can’t believe you actually watched that! Thank you. Yeah, that was difficult, cause there were, like, so many Tourette’s flicks. It’s hard to stand out.”

  “Ever think you’d fuck it up? I mean, you go out on a major limb when you do the disability thing. I don’t think I have the chops.”

  “I researched it pretty well.”

  Alf came back to the table accompanied by a redhead with a tiny dragon tattoo on her neck. They ditzed around while Kit and Lucas hunched over, talking between themselves like new best friends.

  “I kind of got to know a lot of those people. My accountant’s actually got Tourette’s.”

  “You have to do it,” said Alf, having overheard. “You gotta reprise your Golden Globe–winning performance!”

  “You mean, now?” said Lucas, a twinkle in his eye. Alf knew his buddy would do anything in front of The Idol, for a laugh.

  “Kit, you gotta see this!”

  “What?” said Kit, with a half smile. He swallowed another shot.

  “OK, I’ll show you,” said Lucas. He spoke directly to the superstar, as if it were Kit, not Alf, who’d been egging him on. “But only if you put me in your next film.”

  “Done,” said Kit, along for the ride.

  Alf rubbed his hands together and said, “Let’s roll.”

  Lucas stood and instantly adopted his small-screen persona, barking, spitting and spewing obscenities with startling spasmodic accuracy as the clubbers reacted first with stunned silence then shrieks, laughter, and war whoops.

  Chagrined, Kit found himself laughing louder than anyone—to the starstruck onlookers it almost seemed like he was part of the show. He’d been feeling so miserable and so derelict, and now all
his self-loathing tumbled forth with unstoppable fury.

  Asses into Seats

  BECCA GOT TO the L.A. Convention Center early. She went to the Subaru exhibit, but no one was there.

  As she left the hall to find a coffee, Elaine arrived with a gaggle of look-alikes in tow. She was glad to see “Drew”—she insisted on calling her brood by their celebrity names—and quickly introduced her to Cameron, Louie (Anderson), Cher, and Whoopi. Shoving Cameron at her, she bemoaned that Lucy (Liu) had car trouble and wasn’t going to make it. Today, the Auto Show would have to get by with just two Angels.

  A few aloof staffers appeared and faintly sniggered while Elaine gathered the ducklings round for an impromptu seminar. Subaru had a Hooray for Hollywood! theme going, and the idea was for the look-alikes to encourage spectators to sit in the cars, kick the tires, and whatnot. Before Elaine even finished, Whoopi dived right in, spritzing a Japanese couple with Hollywood Squares–type zingers. The Louie was heartened and impulsively uprooted a prepubescent girl, forcibly settling her into one of the car’s open trunks so that she stood in it upright. The dad took pictures of his bemused, giggly daughter.

  The Cameron was awkward at first but in between entertaining consumers spoke excitedly to Becca of Elaine Jordache’s Angels Master Plan. She was tall and had no ass. Becca thought the most Cameron-like thing about her was definitely her smile, which shone grotesquely without requiring cue. She wore clear braces (she said she was “currently under construction”), with a view toward making wideness and whiteness closer to Cameron’s; the lips were chapped with grape-colored gloss ill-applied. Becca couldn’t understand why the girl couldn’t at least have given the mouth—her prime asset—a little more prep time.

  Some kids came over and hassled them. “Are you supposed to be Drew Barrymore?”

  “That’s right,” said Becca, extending an arm to one of the cars. She thought she may as well use them for practice. “Now be an angel and take a seat in the new Impreza—it never fails to impress!”

  “Take a seat on my face,” muttered his friend. They cracked themselves up until a mean-looking staffer sent them scurrying. Out of harm’s way, one of the boys shouted: “Hey, everybody! Drew Barrymore! Over there! It’s Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz of Charlie’s Angels!” His buddy added, “Free blow jobs, free blow jobs! They’re giving out free blow jobs!”