“And?” My mother’s hands will again gesture for information.
“She said Lucille was nothing but a two-bit hussy and Estelle should watch out.”
“Oh fabulous,” my mother will respond.
Rachel: “Is it true?”
My mother: “Is what true?”
Rachel: “Is Lucille a two-bit hussy?”
Marcy: “What is a hussy?”
I, also wanting to know, will hold my breath on the hallway carpet.
My mother will not define hussy but simply clarify that Lucille is not one. “No one is to use that word again,” she’ll instruct. Then she’ll order my sisters to finish their cookies as she helps herself to one of her own and mumbles that the whole conversation has been nothing but disturbing.
I, to the contrary, found it overwhelming and mesmerizing.
While the kids finish eating, the narrator will explain that when you’re a kid, you know a whole complicated world exists out there—the world of adults and their dealings, coinciding with yours but distant as the moon. I could feel its vibrations in the nighttime chatter and low whispers, in the “tsks-tsks” and the “isn’t that a shames,” in the “God forbids,” in the “knock on woods,” and naturally, in every “did you hear who died?” But I (maybe because I was male, or maybe because I was human) never had the desire to delve any deeper. It always seemed so complicated, so much easier to stay out of the fray. In fact, the closest I’d come ever to getting involved in making sense of the mess was in writing this silly movie.
Not so with Rachel and Marcy. They were like the Woodward and Bernstein of Imperial Towers Building 100, although not as on the mark—eavesdropping, spying, and piecing together and reporting (mostly to each other) the news from the adult world. I liked to be, and mostly was, left out. But on that day, the idea that they’d amassed such a load—not just the news itself but the vernacular—while I was doing cannonballs off the low dive caused me to sit up and come out of hiding.
When I do this in the movie, my mother will say, “You heard all this, too?”
A response will not be necessary, of course. Mothers know the answers to these questions automatically.
Another “oh fabulous” will issue forth, followed by a command to go back to the pool. “Stay away from the gossip,” she’ll holler as we head down the hall, and in the pre-SPF era of optimism, she’ll add, “Try to keep your faces out of the sun.”
CHAPTER 11:
Transitions
I assume, as Laurel instructed us to do, that my viewing audience will be intelligent and therefore will have inferred that we are on the cusp of Christmas from the strands of colored lights and preparatory hubbub around the pool deck. But at some point, like when the kids go back to the pool deck after lunch, the narrator should probably say something like, “It was Christmas Eve Day.”
He will add that the pool deck is humming with excitement because the next day, Christmas, will bring the annual Christmas party—the centerpiece of the vacation, as reliable as the seasons themselves, as festive as two hundred boiled hot dogs can be. Nonetheless, he’ll continue, we were kids, and to us the preparations for the event created a buzz that reverberated up to the highest balcony and as low as the deepest depths of the pool. As if we didn’t know exactly what the next day would bring. As if the games might include something beyond ring toss and Bozo buckets. As if the dessert might stretch beyond red popsicles. As if Santa Claus might pay us a visit. As if any of us actually celebrated Christmas as a religious event.
But an event it was, and you can be sure that the prior scene will be shot so that the party setup is visible, prominent even, in the background.
I’m sure the director of the film will be able to figure this setup out for himself (or herself, as Laurel would have me emphasize). No special effects involved, just a lot of hauling. As the camera lingers over the afternoon activity, the audience will see the hauling of card tables, of metal vats for the hot dogs, of cardboard boxes labeled BUNS, of oversized snowmen and matching Santa Clauses, of the record player and the albums of holiday songs.
The hauling will be done by Franklin, the building custodian and security guard, along with the evil Big Sid and a few of his cronies. The directing will be done by Eileen and her whistle, a typical silver instrument that she wore around her neck and blew in various patterns, like a shofar, to command her troops. The whistle made Christmas at the pool deck an unpleasant experience for adults (even those hearing deprived), which, my Grandma Estelle explained to us on our way to dinner that evening, was why she hadn’t minded the crowds at the mall a bit.
Talk about omitting a key detail! I also forgot to explain in the last scene that as I did my cannonballs, my father had returned to the pool deck to report that he was finished with his dental patients and was taking my grandmother for gym shoes. “Nobody should be driving in those heels,” he’d said, and speculated that they were part of Estelle’s problem.
By dinner that night, he’d modified his position. And here is where we’ll pull the camera from the pool deck and plop it down at the Rascal House using one of the techniques listed on the Basic Film Transitions handout Laurel had left on my kitchen table on Tuesday morning. She was going to distribute the handout later that night in class, which I had to miss due to work. With the handout, she had also left me a note saying the terminology was self-explanatory, I should be able to figure it out on my own. She gave me too much credit, I saw now, days later, as I sat at my desk and looked over the terms.
Laurel was asleep. Had it not been late, the middle of the night, I might have woken her to tell her that I didn’t see any difference between a CUT TO, a QUICK CUT, a FADE OUT, or a DISSOLVE TO. Only the SMASH CUT, described as an abrupt a shift used to startle the audience, like when a person wakes up from a nightmare, stood out to me. A notation next to the term said to use the SMASH CUT sparingly to avoid looking like an amateur. Since an amateur I am, I make no promises. In the meantime, however, we’ll simply DISSOLVE TO the Rascal House’s enormous and overstuffed waiting area.
Holy day or not, we were at the Rascal as early as usual, packed as tightly as usual in a line that extended much longer than usual, as no Jew likes to eat at home on Christmas Eve. My theory is that misery loves company, and the knowledge that everyone in the Western World but you is caroling and nogging forces minority religions to band together in a way you don’t see any other time of year.
As the camera closes in on the Melman family, the audience will begin to pick up from the conversation between my father and mother that Estelle’s afternoon driving lesson didn’t go so well. Even in her new Adidas, which she will wear proudly as we stand in line.
“Whether or not they help her driving,” my father will say to my mother, “the gyms are better for her to be walking around in.”
“They are so comfortable!” Estelle will comment as the camera pans down to her Adidas-clad feet. “Now I can stand with you guys the whole time instead of sitting with Slip.” She’ll nod toward the senior waiting area, where Slip will be lined up on a rickety brown chair, winking at his favorite waitresses as they walk by him. “Merry Christmas to me,” my grandma will exclaim. “Thank you, Allen. This is the nicest gift I ever got.”
From our line—Parties of Five or More—Estelle will hike up her slacks and lift her leg to show her shoes to her friends in the adjacent line, Parties of Three or Four. Eventually, a big to-do will brew around the shoes. One friend will tap another, and gradually they’ll all lean over to see Estelle’s Adidas.
As the women bend down toward the shoes, the rest of the crowd will clamor skyward toward the finger sandwiches—mini corned beef and grilled cheese—that are being handed out to appease the Christmas Eve crowd. A panoramic shot will best capture the competing interests at work.
“Are they really that comfortable?” one of the women will ask Estelle.
“Yes, they are so comfortable, like standing on cotton balls.”
“How much did
you have to pay?”
“I haven’t the faintest. They were a gift from Allen!”
My father will keep saying, “Enough, Ma. Take your foot off of the bar.”
My mother will laugh and her mother, my Grandma B, who always joined us on Christmas Eve (a splitting of hairs, really, since Aunt BoBo and her crew were the party behind us in line), will ask my mother if she’s getting shoes, too.
“No,” my mother will answer.
“Good,” my Grandma B will reply. “They’re not my style.” Any shoe that promoted physical activity was unlikely to be her style. Grandma B was, by anyone’s account, the laziest woman alive. House shoes were her style.
Adidas, now they were mine. These were the exact shoes I’d been coveting. I’d spent the whole summer campaigning for a pair. As I’ve already mentioned, I wanted blues too—the Roms—but to no avail. They were leather and deemed too expensive for a ten-year-old boy. But they were perfect, apparently, for a sixty-eight-year-old woman.
The audience will see Davy’s eyes fix on the blue-striped shoes and his eyeballs pop out of his head. The directive in the script will read, Davy is speechless, but his face conveys jealousy toward his grandma and frustration toward his parents. This seems to me like a tall order to fill with one person’s face, but hey, I’m no actor. I’m sure whomever we hire will nail it.
In the meantime, the Melman party will inch its way up the line.
“One more and then us,” Marcy will announce.
“No matter,” my Grandma Estelle will reply, “I could stand forever.”
At the same time, Grandma B, dressed in a sequined tracksuit, will chew methodically on a grilled cheese. “Does Slip know about the shoes?”
My mother will shrug.
Grandma B will press further. “Why does Estelle need them?” She’ll guess bunions.
My mother will shrug again, smart enough not to reveal the reason. She knew a brouhaha would ensue—something I didn’t anticipate.
“Estelle is learning to drive,” I will announce to Grandma B as I smugly lean against the silver bars that separated our line from the others. I didn’t think anything of the announcement. I was proud of my grandma. I was proud that driving had been my idea. I was even proud that my idea had been the catalyst for the new Adidas. Yes, I was jealous. But no, I didn’t blow my grandma’s driving secret out of spite, which is what Rachel accused me of after word of Grandma Estelle’s driving lessons surpassed talk of her new shoes within the line.
This happened thanks to Grandma B, who relayed the news to Aunt BoBo at a speed too quick for a movie camera to capture. The audience, however, will bear witness as word spreads to the senior waiting area, along with speculation that either Slip is losing his driver’s license or my father is taking away the Cadillac as punishment for his beating up Big Sid. None of this will sit well with Slip, and so the audience will also see my father jump the holding chain and dart over to Slip to restrain him from attacking his fellow seniors.
Slip will jump on Estelle instead. “You had to go blabbin’, didn’t ya,” he’ll say as he meets up with us on our way to our table. His legs will move like lightning. So will his hands, as he opens and closes them to symbolize the blabbing. “A trip around a parking lot and a pair of sneakers and already you’re a big shot. Maybe you want to give Gloria a lift to the hairdresser tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Rachel will whisper to my mother. “The hairdresser is closed.”
“You are embarrassing us,” Estelle will say as she smiles and waves at acquaintances, doing her best to pretend that everyone at the surrounding tables isn’t looking our way. “For a change,” she’ll mumble to herself, “there’s a scene around the Melmans.”
“If we just could make it to our table in one piece,” my father will say as he brings up the rear. “I have some good news.”
No one will be listening.
“Papa, you shouldn’t blame Grandma,” Marcy will blurt out. “She didn’t tell, Davy did.”
As I turn ashen, Slip will give me a friendly shove into the booth. “I find that hard to believe. Davy’s my man.” He’ll slide in next to me.
The audience might expect my Grandma B to step up and take some blame at this point, but instead they’ll see her conveniently drop to the back of the pack and busy herself with lighting up a cigarette, leaving me no choice but to break down.
“I didn’t know the driving lessons were a secret,” I’ll cry as I slide further around the sticky seats of our booth. I’ll repeat myself like seven times; repetitive talking was a ritual I used to ward off tears. In this instance, however, the routine didn’t work, and just as the waitress, wearing a green elf cap with jingle bells dangling from the end, plunked down the trough of sour kraut and basket of bread in the middle of the table, I burst into tears.
I did not have a handle on what set them off, but my adult self can see that the catalyst was a concoction of things—the outing of my grandmother, the jealousy over the Adidas, the guilt over the jealousy, and the worry over Lucille Garlovsky’s itch for an affair—all topped off by the fear that I had given legs to everything by suggesting the driving lessons in the first place.
“Don’t you worry, Davy,” my Grandma Estelle will say to me as she fishes a ball of Kleenex from her purse and hands it to me. “You didn’t mean any harm.” She’ll pull me closer to her and kiss my head.
“Of course he didn’t,” my Grandma B will offer as she smiles at me to the best of her ability and flicks ashes into her ashtray. (She wasn’t ill-intentioned, just depressed and lazy. Prozac would have done wonders for her.)
I’ll keep crying.
My Grandma Estelle will keep talking. “You’ll see. Another lesson or two and I’ll be racing down A1A like Mario Andretti. We’ll see who’s laughing then.” She’ll laugh at the prospect of it.
“I’m glad you’re finding this funny,” Slip will rant. “Although I suppose that if my wife doesn’t mind everyone thinking her husband can’t take care of her, get her where she needs to go, then I don’t neither. What the hell do I care,” he’ll say as he shakes salt on a piece of bread and butter like a madman. “I hate everyone in that goddamn building.”
“Except Lucille,” Rachel will whisper to her own bread and butter. Luckily, Slip won’t hear her because my father will be yelling at him for over-use of the salt, Estelle won’t hear because she’ll be busy comforting me, and Grandma B won’t hear because she’s deaf. Only Marcy, my mother, and I will catch the remark, and in reaction to it Marcy will whisper, “The hussy.” I will start to cry harder and my mother, seemingly to no one, will say, “Put a cork in it.”
“Thank you, Paula,” my Grandma Estelle will respond, thinking that the comment has been directed at Slip. Estelle hated controversy as much as Slip thrived on it. They were like war and peace, like the oil and vinegar my mother drizzled over her dinner salad, and the yin and yang I’m billing Laurel and me to be.
In the movie, dinners will be delivered to the Melman table, and with them quiet. The tears over my mistake will be eased by my grandmother’s handkerchief and her secret promise to get me some Adidas herself. Marcy will wonder aloud, “How does Santa Claus, if there even is a Santa Claus, deliver presents to an apartment building since there’s only one chimney?”—and with that idiotic remark, the mood and conversation at the Melman table will transition back to normal.
For everyone but me. I still felt the undercurrent of tension that follows a family upset, and I, an alarmist by nature, a pro at extrapolating finality from every bump in the road, had no stomach for it. I assume the audience will gather this from the way the Davy character slumps against his grandma’s side, his face pale, his chocolate shake untouched.
“If I may have your attention, please.” My father will clank his spoon against a water glass. Then he’ll pause and wait for us all, even Grandma B, to look at him. “I am happy to announce that I have it on good word that Slip will once again be allowed into the card
room.”
He won’t say how the deal was worked out, or by whom. He’ll reveal no details, explaining that they aren’t relevant. “But in the next day or so,” he’ll explain, “all should go back to normal.”
That the reinstatement will be shrouded in mystery will not favor a return to normality. Instead of the unilateral outpouring of congratulations that my father is anticipating, based upon his own raised glass of Coke, conversation will splinter in six different directions. The audience will see Marcy applaud and cry, “Our first present from Santa.” They’ll see Grandma B ask my mother to clarify what my father just said. Rachel will ask the important question, “Did you have to do something illegal?” I will wipe my nose and say, “We can go back to our games, Papa.” My Grandma Estelle, looking more concerned than happy, will whisper to my mother, “I hope my driving lessons will continue.” My mother will rub Estelle’s shoulder and tell her, “Of course they will. One thing’s got nothing to do with the other.” Then Estelle will offer up the rest of her navy bean soup to the table and my mother will ask my father, “So when can Slip go back?”
Then Slip: “I’m not going.”
Followed by silence. Except for the sound of my mother, who has accepted the soup from Estelle, choking on it. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you go?”
We will all be wondering the same thing, except for Rachel, who will tactfully say, “Because he was having so much fun at the pool today.”
We’ll put a camera under the table so the audience can see my mother kick Rachel in the shin. Rachel will grimace.
“It was fun, wasn’t it?” Slip will say to Rachel, his icy eyes lighting up. He always perked up when he spoke to any of us, so his giddy reaction couldn’t be called evidence of an affair, although that’s what Rachel would contend. “But that ain’t the reason I’m not going.” He’ll pause to tear up his chicken.
We’ll wait in silence.
“I ain’t going out of principle, Allen.”
Chuckerman Makes a Movie Page 17