I apologized for my own wandering eye. “You know what they say.”
She stared at me.
“A wolf cannot change its spots.”
“It’s the leopard, you fool.” She slugged down some beer like we were buddies at a bar and said, “And while the leopard cannot change its spots, you can change the way you react to the leopard. That’s how you keep history from repeating itself, Chuckerman. Change your own actions and reactions. My father, for example, was mean and unfaithful, and he never changed.” She told me that just last year her mother, who’s a blond, found several long black hairs in her bed. “On white sheets, as if he was asking to get caught.” She shook her head. “There was a fight—yet another fight—but in the end, she stayed.” She took another drink and slumped backwards into the corner of the couch. “One thing is for sure, Chuckerman. As much as I love my mother, I am going to be the opposite of her.”
“If you want to be the opposite of your mother, why do you spend Sunday nights in her robe?”
She shrugged. “Objects of affection, Chuckerman. Some things defy explanation. Why do you hang on to that car?”
I told her I’d already told her why: out of loyalty.
She told me that she didn’t buy that explanation; she thought there was more to it than I was willing to admit.
Before I could argue, she went on to explain that the robe was one of the first ones her mother made. Now, her business was booming. “She calls herself Lazy Daisy. She puts daisies on everything she makes.” Laurel pointed out the daisies on her robe, as if I hadn’t noticed them. “But she doesn’t just travel around to fairs and craft shows for a hobby, like I told the class. The real reason she travels is to get out of the house. It’s her escape.”
“Just another woman looking to get away from her man,” I said, thinking of my grandma and the driving lessons.
“My father is not your typical man,” Laurel said. “His temper has mellowed a little with age, but he rarely has a nice word to say. As soon as the eight of us left, my mother hit the road with her stuff. I’m proud of her for that. Maybe that’s why I keep the robe.”
“You have seven siblings?”
She told me they were all still in Utah, except for her and her youngest brother, who was gay and would have been locked in the proverbial closet as long as he stayed in Utah. He lived in San Francisco now.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Your mother doesn’t seem so bad to me.”
She shrugged. “I would have left my dad,” she said. “I wouldn’t have stuck around.”
“Maybe she didn’t have a choice.” I didn’t know why I was defending her mother. Maybe because her embroidery was worthy of sympathy. (Now that I’d been close to the robe for an extended period of time, I could see it wasn’t seamless.) Or maybe I just didn’t like the idea of leaving. Melmans never leave.
“That’s the thing, Chuckerman. There’s always a choice. There are always deal breakers, and there is always a choice.”
My beer was almost finished, and so was I. The discussion had taken a serious turn, and the clock, which now read past ten, was moving quickly toward Monday morning, and with it the dilemma of Ezmerelda Rich and my Omnipotence campaign. If I couldn’t get Ezmerelda on board, there’d be no campaign. I scooched to the edge of the couch—a signal, albeit my own personal one, that the drop-in was ready to depart.
The Mormon Rodeo, oblivious to the significance of my move, just kept on going. “That’s one of the things I like about Judaism,” she was now saying. “The rules aren’t as rigid as they are in my religion. They make more sense. For example, in Reform Judaism—which is what I’m studying—the rabbi has jurisdiction over marriage, but divorce is governed solely by civil law. So here in New York, where the law is no fault divorce, all you’ve got to do is file, no questions asked. Mormons have never heard of the concept of ‘no fault.’ The Mormon mentality is that divorce happens because of sin, and while you can get divorced if you want, you will be shunned from the Church and screwed forever after.”
“So your position is that a person should convert to Judaism in case she wants a divorce one day?”
“No, all I’m saying is that Judaism offers freedom and flexibility. I can drink coffee if I want without feeling guilty. I can have this beer.” She held up the bottle and took another long swig. “And, I can have another, if I want. Which I do.” She stood up again.
“The Jews are low in numbers,” I said as she took off into the kitchen, “so we throw in some nice perks.”
She returned with two more bottles and bright eyes. “It’s liberating, really. To be able to act without strings attached. Like, I could take you to my bed right now without any concerns of eternal repercussions.”
My eyes widened. Here was a twist I hadn’t expected. I took a drink of my new beer and leaned back. “Maybe not for you,” I said, and then I explained how I’d been forbidden from touching her by someone more frightening than God.
She sat up. “Who?”
“Marcy.”
She sighed. “And yet here you are. Dropping in at nine thirty on a Sunday night. You can’t be too frightened of her. Or maybe she wanted you to come by, and that’s why she told you not to.” She put her hand on my thigh.
I hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t think Marcy’s that smart,” I said, staring at the hand and wondering what to do with my own. I decided to take temptation off the table by tucking both my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt. “I didn’t come by for sex,” I told her.
“Oh, really,” she said. She moved closer to me. The tie of the bathrobe flopped onto my leg.
“Really.” I moved away from her, intent on walking the walk of someone who only came by out of guilt. Sure, I had entertained the possibility of getting lucky, but I’d defined lucky as a repeat performance of the hallway kiss. Maybe a little longer, maybe involving a little second base if my stars were aligned, but nothing more, and certainly not this. I was ill-prepared. “I’ve got news for you,” I said. “I don’t hop into bed with every girl I meet just because the Jewish God isn’t going to send me to hell when I die for doing so.” I slid my palms, damp from sweat, over my pants and, out of nerves, kept talking.
“The coffee thing, great. No downside to going hog wild with the coffee. If you want, I’ll buy you your own coffee maker so in case one day you can’t find the door to get out of this place due to clutter, you can still have your coffee. But if we start in with sex, then we’re in a relationship, and even though the Jewish God says I can bail at any time, my own personal Big Guy is a little more Mormon. He says ‘strings attached.’” I stopped to take another drink. “And why would I want strings attached to a girl with whom I have nothing in common and who is moving away? Besides,” I added, “you’re not even Jewish yet. Actually, I thought you weren’t planning to convert. You said you’re just doing ‘research’”—I paused again to finger-quote. “So isn’t all this free love business a little cart-before-the-horse?”
“Wow,” she said, sitting up and digging the palms of her hands into the small of her back—the net result of which was to force her chest toward me and me further back into the couch. “Before this outburst, I wasn’t sure you could utter more than a sentence at a time.”
“Monologues happen every so often,” I said.
“Good to know,” she said. “To continue on with your horse theme, I guess you could say I’m sowing my oats. I’m experimenting. Whether I’m out from under the reach of my father or the Church, who knows. But for the first time, I feel free, and I’m playing with my freedom. I even whitened my teeth when I was in LA.” She tapped her bottle against her teeth. “Six months ago, I never would’ve had the guts to whiten my teeth. My father doesn’t believe in it. He says our bodies aren’t really ours to tamper with.”
In search for common ground I told her my father, professionally speaking, doesn’t believe in it either. “He says it weakens the enamel.”
She nodded with little interest
and kept talking. “Do you realize that if you’d dropped in on me six months ago, you’d never have found beer in my fridge? Actually,” she said, talking more to herself than to me, “a guy as good looking as you wouldn’t have dropped in on me six months ago; I was too buttoned up. But if you had, you’d never have found as much as a crumb in my kitchen, a book out of place. You’d have found me in the robe—some habits die hard—but you’d never have found me half-naked beneath it.” She gestured, unnecessarily, to her chest. Then she raised a brow at me and, as she began to speak again, got to her feet. “You’d never have heard me talk about taking you to bed, or seen me stand over you like this and say anything like, ‘I’m attracted to you, you’re attracted to me, I’m moving to LA, you’ll never see me again, let’s just go at it without worrying about where it’s going.’” She put one leg on either side of me. “Before,” she explained from her straddle position, “I’d have saved lines like that for my characters. But not anymore.” She undid the tie on her robe and let the robe slide off her shoulders to the floor. Her hand went to her hip. “And what are you gonna do in return?”
As I stared in awe at the scene unfolding before me, she began to play with the tiny Jewish star around her neck. She smiled. Then she let her hand move slowly over her chest, raised her brow, and said, “Who are you going follow in this scenario, Mort Chuckerman, my God or yours?”
I’m a private guy. I only discuss personal issues with a few people, all of whom are related to me, and I can’t think of anyone on the planet with whom I will comfortably discuss the subject of sex. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a guy’s guy. I can trash talk with the best of them. I just don’t like to talk about sex as it relates to actual relationships, mine or anyone else’s. But I was going to have a hard time keeping my night with the Mormon Rodeo to myself.
As I sat in my own leather chair and stared into the darkness, waiting for the sun to give life to Riverside Park, I realized I had to tell Broc. He was a finance guy, they all start work early. I could probably call him at five, although then Marcy would want to know why I was calling, and I didn’t want to tell her about my night with her friend. I wanted to tell Broc, because he deserved to know that he’d hit the ball out of the park, the nail on the head, when he named Laurel Sorenson the Mormon Rodeo.
It was something to experience. The whole time things were happening to me—and things were happening to me the whole time, it was an insane, six-hour free-for-all of groping and thrusting and screaming my name—two words were going through my mind: Mormon Rodeo. Broc deserved to know that. I wouldn’t give details, I was too worn out for details. But how much detail is needed when you say that the Mormon Rodeo earned her stripes in bed? The name speaks for itself. Res ipsa loquitor, as Rachel would say. To a marketer like me, it’s plain old onomatopoetic. She put all the young women I’ve been with, from Share on down, to shame.
I began to consider Don’s concept of a fling in a more positive light as I stared into the darkness and studied my reflection in the glass. Looking back at me, I saw a man with a movie script on his lap, watching the clock, waiting to call his brother-in-law to talk about his booty call, and though he looked vaguely like David Melman, I didn’t fully recognize him. Could it be that I was evolving, albeit in the wrong direction? Maybe I should call Marcy, I thought, and tell her that I actually wasn’t at rock bottom when she signed me up for the class, but I’m there now. Perhaps people do change.
I stared at my reflection some more.
But what did it mean to change? Having a one-night stand with your teacher, was that change? It was new, but it wasn’t change. If I had come home afterwards and gone to sleep without analyzing whether I’d changed, without worrying about whether the Mormon Rodeo carried any sexually transmitted diseases, without rehashing my performance—that would have been change. No sir, I concluded to myself in the glass as I picked up my pen and prepared to kill some time with my movie, a person’s fundamental character doesn’t change. Spots—my own, Laurel’s father’s, my grandfather’s—are in fact spots.
Although I suppose one’s spots can appear different at different points in time, depending on the other person’s angle or even just the time of day.
THE CADDY AND THE LOOSE CANNON
LATE AFTERNOON, SAME DAY AS WALK ON POOL DECK. INT. RASCAL HOUSE. IN THROES OF EARLY-BIRD SPECIAL DINNER RUSH
When he finally shows up at dinner that afternoon, Slip will look abnormally askew. Silver strands of hair will stray over his forehead. His white shirt will no longer be tucked into his pants, and his loafers will be coated in sand. The audience will watch as he pulls a handful of sea glass out of his pocket and offers it to us kids. To my Grandma Estelle, he’ll offer his version of an apology: he’ll whack her on the back and say, “I screwed you up today, huh?”
I remember that we had been waiting in line for a while when Slip arrived. The air was heavy with heat, uncertainty, and grease (not unlike the atmosphere in Laurel’s apartment). The room was thick with people; we’ll need a lot of extras, old ones, for this scene. We were packed so tightly together that I was beneath my grandma as I played with the plastic beads around her neck and watched the skin under her chin jiggle as she spoke.
Estelle will answer Slip calmly. “Actually,” she’ll say, “I had a lovely day. I got to spend it with my Davy boy.” She’ll tap my head, then add, “But you might want to apologize to Ruthie. She waited an hour at the Marco Polo for me. Thought I’d died. Poor thing was scared out of her pants.”
“That Ruthie can kiss my you-know-what,” Slip will declare. He’ll pause to pardon his French in front of us and the other families in earshot. “If I had a nickel for every time she’s opened her fat trap to you . . . That broad deserved to be stood up.”
My father, who will be helping my sisters pick up some fallen sea glass, will suggest that two wrongs don’t make a right.
“But,” my Grandma Estelle will reply as she rests her purse on the silver railing, rifles through, and hands my sisters a baggie to hold the sea glass, “two Wrights make an airplane.” She’ll laugh. So will we. Then she’ll look at my mother and say, “You know, Ruthie does have a big mouth.”
My mother will agree.
My father will ask my grandfather, “Where the hell you been all day?” and my grandfather will reply, “Out walking.”
I remember overhearing my parents, as I sat on my sofa bed later that night, discussing Slip’s day. Perhaps we’ll CUT straight from the Rascal House’s waiting room to our own sitting room. The audience will see the open window above my pullout chair and the stack of quarters on the table next to the chair. I’m guessing I had about six or seven dollars’ worth. Not that much, but to me, a fortune. Enough for a few Matchbox cars or, if I kept saving, a pair of Adidas. The leather ones with the blue stripes. Roms, they were called. Talk about objects of affection. I was dying for a pair.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” I heard my father say. “Each of them spent the day walking—my ma at the pool, my dad at the beach. That kind of synchronicity must happen to people after fifty years of marriage.”
From my pullout on the other side of the partition, I agreed with my father until my mother chimed in with something like, “It’s a little less ironic when you consider that neither of them had anything else to do all day.”
Then I agreed with her.
Slip was in his bedroom watching television. My sisters and Grandma Estelle were downstairs. Rachel was playing pinball. Marcy was watching the kick-line’s rehearsal for the Vaudeville Review—which, come to think of it, the audience should see for themselves. No better entertainment than eight old ladies dancing to “I’ve Got Rhythm” in mini dresses as blinding as Laurel’s robe. Relatively speaking, back in Apartment 1812, the atmosphere was downright dull—which I didn’t mind at all. I liked the peace and the smell of the salty ocean air.
I fingered the brand-new quarter my grandfather had left next to my bed to make up for the one I’d blown in the game t
he night before. Even in the “tumult,” as Estelle referred to it, he hadn’t forgotten that just before he’d lost his card room privileges, I’d lost a quarter.
During our last film writing class, when Laurel was singing Steven Spielberg’s praises, she’d said that he always started with character because good characters were at the heart of any good drama.
“Good characters are layered,” she told us. “So layer your people, people!” She used a voice that was almost a scream. I think of it now as her bedroom voice. “Dig deep, let your characters come to you organically so they ring true, so they sing on different levels.” She motioned upwards with her hands, as if to imply that our characters would appear out of nowhere if we willed it to happen.
Well, no deep digging was required to get to Slip’s character. It was right in front of me, a shiny quarter in the palm of my hand.
The camera will close in on the quarter. Then music, the subtle tinkling of piano keys, will kick in as the narrator says, “Had I an ounce of character myself way back when, I’d have taken the quarter he’d left me to the lousy Condo Association Board as evidence of my grandfather’s good character. I also would have explained that I’d seen the fight in the card room, and Slip had been provoked. I would have lost my case. However, it wouldn’t have cost me to try. And had I won, what a victory! Not to mention, what a simpler, and indeed safer, fix to the problem than putting Estelle in the driver’s seat.”
Not everyone shared my same lofty opinion of Slip’s character. As a matter of fact, while I was upstairs musing his praises, my grand-mother’s kick-line crew was turning his name to mud eighteen floors below. The camera will follow the music playing in Apartment 1812 to its source: the piano in the back of the multi-purpose room.
A group of women, all dressed in costume, will be gathered around it. Morry Pine, the show’s accompanist every year, before his stroke and after, will sit on the piano bench. His fingers will do a shaky several bars of “I’ve Got Rhythm” as Estelle stands on stage demonstrating the next eight-count, which will include a pivot and a kick-ball change, her signature move. As Estelle dances and Morry plays, the rest of the ladies will perform their own signature move: they’ll gossip.
Chuckerman Makes a Movie Page 13