“Man,” Chuck said, watching a group of young girls holding posters of Jack. “You must get laid everywhere you go.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jack said distractedly.
“Hey,” Lindsey called. She and Alison were still in front of the television. “Seward’s on TV”
We all turned to see Seward, in a black suit and blue and red tie, walking past a group of reporters as he made his way through the crowd outside. There were beads of sweat under his perfectly gelled-back hair, probably due to the fact that he’d had to abandon his car and walk the last mile, and an annoyed arch to his eyebrows, which was probably congenital. He carried himself with a nervous arrogance and had the weathered good looks of an ex-athlete except for his eyes, which seemed too dark and small for his face. “We’re all relieved that Jack’s okay,” he said, in answer to an unheard question. “Beyond that I have no comment.”
“Have you seen Jack Shaw since he returned?” someone shouted. “Have you spoken to him?”
“Yes,” Seward lied. “We spoke briefly yesterday.” He stopped in his tracks. “People,” he said, condescending to address the media. “I’m going in there to speak with Jack right now. I hope I’ll have more to say to you after that. For now, I’m asking you to please get out of my way.” With that he strode up to the barricade, where he was stopped by a state trooper. The trooper spoke to Seward, who looked irate and began gesticulating wildly with his hands until finally a second trooper joined the conversation, followed by Sheriff Sullivan. Seward pointed an angry finger at Sullivan’s chest, but Sullivan didn’t seen impressed.
“We might as well let him in,” Jack said uncertainly. “I mean, I’m going to have to deal with him sometime.”
“No you won’t,” Alison said. “You never have to see him again. He needs you, you don’t need him.”
“That’s not how it works,” Jack said. “We have contracts. He’s a player. I can’t stonewall him.”
“Let’s let him in,” I said. “What’s the worst he can do?” I stood up and opened the front door, and there was an audible “Ooooh” as the crowd hushed. I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I was on live television. The reporters began shouting questions to me, but they were too far away to be understood. Still, I knew the cameras were all zooming in on me, and many of them were in the middle of live feeds, so I smiled and made a few peace signs, which made me feel like an idiot. When you’re not in front of cameras every day, you have no damn clue how to act and you just become this wooden dolt. I called to Sheriff Sullivan, who turned to face me, and I pointed to Seward.
“Is he okay?” Sullivan asked.
“Nah, he’s a prick, but he can come up,” I called back, hoping that the cameras had picked that up.
Seward stormed past the troopers and headed up the lawn with a purposeful stride. Someone in the crowd started a chant of “We want Jack,” and within seconds the whole crowd, easily a few hundred people, was screaming and whistling for Jack. I nodded at Sullivan who flashed me a sarcastic half-grin, as if to say all his worst expectations had been realized. I guess he had a point, seeing as how we’d turned his town into a circus. He blamed us for the crowds, the closed road, the humiliation of having to call in the state troopers, and probably last night’s injuries too, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. And now that Jack was back safely, he couldn’t even save face by arresting us. I didn’t know how the hierarchy worked out here, but someone had to be coming down hard on Sullivan for all of this. Basically, it sucked to be him today.
Seward blew by me and said, “fucking lightweight,” out of the side of his mouth, which was a kind of nebulous rank out, and I responded with, “dickhead,” which was, I thought, much more to the point and followed him into the house. Seward walked right across the living room, ignoring everyone in it, and leaned over to hug Jack on the couch. “Thank god you’re okay, man,” he said. “Thank god. You had me worried sick. Where the fuck were you?” Jack just shrugged and sat back in the couch. “It’s okay,” Seward continued, hurrying to fill the silence. “We’ll work everything out. I’ll get on the phone with Luther and the studios and we’ll smooth it all over. We might need to make a few minor concessions, but they’ll be so glad you’re back they’ll be kissing our asses to make it all work. Don’t worry about anything, I’ve already got a few scenarios in mind. We can go over them on the plane.”
Jack, who had maintained a stone face through his agent’s entire rap, straightened himself out on the couch and softly asked, “What plane?”
“Back to LA, Jack,” Seward said, speaking as you might to a mildly retarded young boy. “We have to get back there as soon as possible. We’ve got to meet with Cain and Schiller and put a new deal together. We’ve got to resolve the breach of contract thing—not that it will be a problem, I’ve already got it worked out, pretty much, and then we’ve got the insurance issues. We’ll also have to do a little spin control, I mean your little interview was okay, but we’ve got to tighten it up for the trades . . .”
Watching him talk at Jack, I began to understand Paul Seward’s operating style. His technique was to make everything seem overly complicated and involved so that his clients, actors like Jack, would want to sit back and let him sweat all the details, which left Seward in the driver’s seat. I would have fallen for it myself, had I not watched Jack work most of it out with one phone call that morning. Seward might have been a good agent, but he was also a bullshit artist, which I guessed was what qualified him for the job in the first place. What I was having a little more trouble understanding was Jack’s seeming inability to stand up to Seward. Jack was never one to lack confidence, yet as soon as Seward entered the room Jack became quiet, almost meek, as if Seward instantly sucked all of the resistance out of him.
Jack sat back on the couch staring at the ceiling, and the longer he stayed quiet the more Seward bombarded him with plans and strategies. While Seward paused briefly to catch his breath, Jack flashed me a quick, meaningful look, which I took to mean he wanted a little help with Seward.
“Do you mean Luther Cain, the director?” I asked Seward, who was about to speak again. He flashed me an annoyed look, and said, “Yes, of course that’s who I mean,” in a patronizing voice before turning back to Jack. “Now I’d like to arrange for a car to come get us to the airport—”
“The reason I ask,” I interrupted him, “is that I spoke to Luther Cain this morning, and he didn’t say anything about you being at the meeting.”
That got his attention. “You spoke to Luther Cain,” he said skeptically.
“The director,” I added helpfully. He looked at Jack, raising his eyebrows in disbelief, as if we might be playing a joke on him, but Jack nodded quietly.
Seward now turned his full attention on me. “You spoke to Luther Cain,” he repeated between clenched teeth. “Do you realize the damage you may have caused? Who the fuck do you think you are? Jack,” he turned to look at Jack again. “Did you know about this?”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“Of course he knew,” I said. “Listen, arrangements had to be made.”
“Arrangements?” Seward shouted incredulously. “Arrangements! Who the fuck are you? I am Jack’s agent, and I make the fucking arrangements.”
“You weren’t here,” I pointed out.
Seward opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was an incredulous gasp, and he actually clenched his hands in frustration. I noticed a vein throbbing alarmingly in his temple and briefly wondered if he ate a lot of red meat. “If you called and harassed Luther Cain,” he finally spat out, “you may have put Jack in a very bad position.”
“I thought I did okay,” I said.
Seward took a deep breath, and exhaled into his hands. When he looked up he had a new, fake smile plastered to his face, which looked doubly ridiculous in light of his recent outburst, the kind of smile that often precedes psychotic violence. “Look,” he said, running his trembling fingers through his stick
y hair and wiping the residue on his pants. “I’m sure you thought you were just helping out Jack, but you have to understand, there are complicated contracts that need to be worked through here, obligations that must be met in one way or another, and you couldn’t possibly begin to work your way through them. Still,” he turned to Jack.
“I’m sure when we meet with Cain we can straighten this all out. He’s a stand-up guy, and he and I go way back. We’ll get on a plane this afternoon and I’ll have a meeting set up by tomorrow—”
“Jack, you can’t go back to LA today,” I said. “You have a meeting at seven this evening.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, will you cut that shit out!” Seward screamed at me, his voice tinged with hysteria. “You’re not helping here. Do you understand?”
“No,” Jack said. “I do have a meeting this evening.”
“Jack, who could you possibly be meeting with here? Now I don’t know what these people have told you, but—”
“We’re meeting with Cain and Schiller,” I said. I was really enjoying myself now.
Seward looked as if he’d just been punched in the stomach.
“Luther Cain is coming here?” he said softly. I nodded but he’d already turned away from me and plopped down on the sofa next to Jack, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. “Jack?” he said softly, not looking at him.
“Yeah?” Jack said, also staring straight ahead.
“Luther Cain and Craig Schiller are coming here?”
“Yeah.”
Seward nodded, as if he’d just asked Jack the time. “What’s going on Jack?”
Jack turned to look at Seward, who continued to stare straight ahead. “I don’t think we can continue with business as usual, Paul.” The use of his agent’s first name as well as Jack’s soft tone made me acutely aware of how hard this actually was for Jack. He’d been with Seward for almost ten years and they’d enjoyed stratospheric success together. Then somehow along the way, Jack became addicted, and when he wanted his drugs Seward had delivered, the same way he delivered anything else Jack asked for. It was Seward’s job to keep Jack happy, and he’d done that job well, but in the end he did it too well, and for that he was being fired. Jack felt like a shameless hypocrite, a typical Hollywood bad boy, blaming everyone else for his troubles, making a public scapegoat out of his agent. Seeing it that way, I suddenly felt bad for Seward.
“Are you firing me, Jack?” Seward asked without a trace of emotion in his voice.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I just think I need to start again, you know?”
Seward nodded. “Start again,” he nodded. “Sure. Whatever. If you think you can do better, then by all means . . .”
“It’s not about doing better, Paul,” Jack said quickly.
“I’m just curious, Jack,” Seward said, and I now realized that his carefully modulated voice was not without emotion, but brimming with rage. “Do you think it’s my fault that you’re a fucking cokehead?”
Alison gasped and I started to interrupt, but Jack waved us away. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “No, Paul, I don’t think it’s your fault. You worked to get me to the top and I didn’t handle it well. But now I’ve got to try to move on, and I have to stay clean.”
“What am I, a goddamn vending machine? If you don’t want to do drugs, don’t do drugs. You’re a pain in the ass on drugs. Puking and crying and making a mess everywhere you go. If you kick the habit, no one is happier than me.”
“I needed help, Paul,” Jack said. “I needed someone to tell me that I was out of control. I needed someone stop me. But you just kept getting me more.”
“I got you to work every day,” Paul said, finally turning to face Jack. “If it weren’t for me, you’d have slept for days, missed appointments, missed shooting. They’d have buried you!”
“I didn’t need work. I needed to get out of work and deal with this.”
“We had obligations! You signed contracts! This isn’t a fucking game! You don’t just call time-out and leave the studios to sit there and jerk off while you fly off to some spa to clean up.”
“I was in trouble,” Jack said.
“You were making millions of dollars, Jack!” Seward shouted.
“So were you, Paul,” Jack said. “And you didn’t want to risk stopping, even if it meant watching me slowly kill myself.”
“I don’t believe this,” Paul said, getting to his feet to face Jack. “This is a business, Jack. You’re expected to suit up and show up, like any professional. You work out your problems on your own time. I will not apologize for being a professional, for being good at what I do!”
“I’m not asking for an apology,” Jack said. “I’m asking you to resign.”
“You ungrateful prick!” Seward hissed. “I brought you to the top! Every goddamn movie you made, every dollar you made was because I negotiated it for you. I did everything and—”
“Which is why I’m giving you the chance to spin it any way you want,” Jack said. “After this whole disappearance thing, nobody would blame you for not wanting to represent me anymore. You have your reputation to think about. You honored your obligations and I was screwing up.”
“You owe me, Jack,” Seward said, but his energy was waning now.
“I know it,” Jack said. “You’ll get your percentage of Blue Angel II and Crossed Wires. You did both of those deals.” I didn’t think it prudent to point out at that instant that Jack had negotiated away his salary for Blue Angel II, and that Seward’s percentage would be chump change.
“It’s not that easy, Jack,” Seward said. “Our contract is for the next five years. I know you don’t think much of contracts, but I’ll fight you over this one.”
“No you won’t,” Jack said. “You know you’ll take a settlement. You fight me and you may as well find a new line of work, because no serious actor will touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“We’ll see.”
“Go and try dealing with Cain and Schiller without me,” Seward said, pacing. “It’ll be a fucking joke. You’ll be a joke. You’re damaged goods, Jack. Everyone knows you’ve got rusty pipes.”
Jack sat back in the couch, closing his eyes. “I think you’d better go now.”
Seward looked around at us. “I hope you’re all pleased,” he said with a maniacal smirk. “You just watched your friend destroy his career.”
“I feel okay,” I said.
“I’m thrilled,” Alison said.
“Happy as a pig in shit,” Chuck said. “Nothing personal.”
“You’re all fucking lightweights,” Seward said. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“They made you agents look so much more likable in Jerry Maguire” Lindsey said.
“Jack,” Seward said, making one last desperate plea as Alison opened the front door. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“It does,” Jack said, without opening his eyes.
Seward stared at him for a few more moments and then buttoned his suit jacket. “Okay then,” he said, composing himself. “It’s your funeral.” As he walked through the door past Alison, she handed him a card. “What the hell is this?” he asked.
“That’s my friend Don, who works for the FBI,” Alison said. “You missed him by about two hours. You may want to give him a call. He’ll be more than happy to open a full investigation into who might have been supplying all those drugs to Jack, you know what I mean? Then again, he might be too busy.”
“What are you, threatening me?” Seward asked incredulously.
“Jack’s going to let you spin this however you want,” Alison said, ignoring the question. “You quit, you were fired, whatever you want to say. And he’s going to offer you a fair deal for terminating your contract, which is in everybody’s interest here, including your own.” She paused to fix Seward with a hateful stare. “My advice? Shut your mouth and take the deal. It’s more than you’ll ever be wo
rth.”
Seward dropped the card where he stood and started to respond, but Alison quietly closed the door on his face. “You go, girl!” Lindsey said appreciatively.
“Whew,” Chuck said, sitting down next to Jack on the couch.
“We should really have him over more often.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Ploop. Ploop.
“I don’t know.” Ploop.
“Are you going back home to the city?” Ploop.
“I guess.” I was sitting on the rock by the lake with Jeremy, skipping stones. He’d come running over breathlessly after dinner to see Jack, but Jack was in his meeting with Cain and Schiller, so Jeremy joined me outside, where I’d been sitting by myself for some time already, pondering the exact question Jeremy had just asked. What happens now?
After Seward left we’d all eaten a late lunch together, but there was a disjointed feeling to the conversation. It was as if now that Jack was safely back and ostensibly on the road to recovery, the very thing that had brought us out here was gone. Our private world was dissolving, like when the lights come on at the end of a movie and real life starts again. I felt an acute sense of sadness at the notion of all of us going back to our separate lives again. I knew we’d all stay in touch, at least marginally, just like before but there was something special about us as a group, something we’d rediscovered in the last week that wouldn’t be sustained once we separated. The closeness we had from our college days was still there, but time would continue to work on us, to change us or make us grow into whatever was inside of us waiting to emerge.
But there was something more. We’d put our lives on hold to help Jack, but now that it was time to resume my life, I couldn’t seem to manufacture even the smallest thread of enthusiasm. And as I sat by the lake with Jeremy, I realized that I didn’t want to go back to the life I was living. It was empty, and it wasn’t fair to expect Lindsey alone to fill it. Lindsey was a great start, a miracle actually, but like Jack I needed to make some changes. The problem was, I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted to be a real writer, not a glorified list maker, but you didn’t just wake up one day and say, today I’ll be a successful novelist. Jack planned on going into counseling when he got back to LA to maintain his resolve. The question was, what would I do to maintain mine? I looked out onto the still, empty lake and thought about the geese. I wondered if they’d made it safely to their destination yet, and when they’d be coming back.
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