Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  But Blair was a man possessed and would not let go. His clout attracted other investors and with a sizeable contribution from his own personal fortune, he was able to plug the holes and start again. Although, it must be said, he did not start over completely.

  He kept the Africa scenes. Partly, Blair was pleased with the way those scenes turned out and he did not think he was going to be able to improve on them. Also, the Africa scenes did not involve any of the main characters in the story, so he knew he could keep that footage without implicating the new casting decisions. Just as in the original story, the Africa scenes were like a self-contained dream upon which the main characters reflected, but in which they did not directly participate.

  I also think Blair chose to save the Africa scenes because he did not want to have to return to that place without me. This is not something he ever said to me. But whenever he spoke of those weeks in Tozeur and Mombassa, and of our nights on the veranda, on the high ground of his island, drinking wine and pulling nyama choma from the bone with our teeth and our stained fingers and listening to the dark sea serenading the beach beyond the circle of torches, it was with a great and almost wistful fondness. That was back when I found him ferocious and unforgiving and savagely inaccessible. Back when I could not resist him. He knew he could never go back to that Africa.

  So, he did not start over completely. And it is also not quite right to say that he recast the entire movie. It is more accurate to say that he and Angus were prepared to end up with an entirely new cast. All of the actors were fired, that is true. But they were not precluded from re-auditioning for any of the roles along with the rest of the acting world. It was conceivable from the beginning, therefore, that a member of the old cast would be selected again, for either the same or a different role.

  Blair repeatedly assured me that he, personally, did not have a problem with my performance, although he expressed general agreement with Angus that they needed a fresh start. Either he did not know, or chose not to tell me what Angus thought of my performance. He did encourage me to re-audition for the part of Ivanova, an invitation I repeatedly and dramatically rejected.

  “What’s the point?” I shouted at him from out on his balcony, my back to the lights of Los Angeles. “You say you liked my performance. If you’re telling me the truth, then just cast me and stop making me jump through extra hoops. And if you don’t like my performance then just tell me and spare me the humiliation of an audition that you will simply flush down the toilet. And if that’s the case, by the way, if you really don’t like my work, then fuck you because I know that character – I know her, Blair – I nailed that role and I know what I’m doing and if you can’t see that then…”

  “It’s not up to me, Tillyjohn,” he said, sitting down on the bed rubbing his forehead in his palms. I came inside, slamming the door behind me.

  “Bullshit. You’re not auditioning for your own movie?”

  “We each have a veto. Angus will do the first audition and will pass on to me anyone who meets with his approval. Then I will audition from that group. I don’t have to accept anyone I do not like and he does not have to accept anyone he does not like.”

  “That’s insane, Blair.”

  “Audition, Tilly. If you can convince Angus that you know Ivanova as much as you believe you do, then he will pass you up to me and I won’t make you audition again. I promise. You’ve already proven yourself to me, love.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Tilly, please. You want me to call your agent? I’ll call Milton.”

  “Oh, leave Milton out of this. This is insane. Since when does Angus Mann know the first goddamned thing about acting?”

  “He doesn’t. Angus wants…it’s important to Angus that the actors…”

  “What.”

  “That they really understand the essence of the characters. That they really get the importance of the greater context. You know? It’s all about the story for Angus. He’s trying to maintain the integrity of what he has written and I have to concede that…”

  “Oh, of all the self-important bullshit, Blair. The guy really needs to get over himself and come to grips with the fact that he sold his little story. It’s yours now.”

  “No, Tilly. The studio owns it, yes, but it is always his story. I respect that.”

  “Well isn’t that just incredibly fucking honorable of you.”

  “It has nothing to do with honor. It’s just the way it is.”

  “Right. Angus hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you, Tillyjohn. If he hated you, then he’d have blacklisted you.”

  “He has a blacklist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Not you, and that’s all I’m saying. He could have if he hated you, as you say. But he didn’t.”

  “So you have discussed names.”

  “Yes.”

  “For Ivanova.”

  “For everybody, Tilly.”

  “There’s a blacklist for Ivanova.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you talk about me for the part?”

  “Yes. We talked about a lot of people.”

  “What did he say?”

  “You have to reapply like anyone else. No favors.”

  “No favors. No favors? Goddamnit, Blair, I already have the part!”

  “Tilly, come sit down.” He patted the bed next to him.

  “No.” I opened the door and walked back out onto the balcony to watch the city burn like phosphorous glittering in a black wave.

  “He didn’t exclude you,” Blair said. “He could have. You’ve got a leg up. If you want the role you should audition. If you don’t – I’ll make a film just for you, Tilly.”

  “I don’t want your charity, Blair.”

  “Okay, Tilly. Okay.” He sat there for several minutes and let me fume. Eventually he stood and joined me on the balcony, enveloping me from behind in his arms. I wanted to shrug him off and almost did, but I was not completely without pity. All attraction was gone for me, but I was still human and Blair was crumbling before my eyes like dry sand. “It’s all going to be okay,” he said, burying his face in my hair.

  Not unexpectedly, after long moments of silence, his hands began to work the buttons of my blouse. I did not resist him this time. I should have resisted. I had vowed not to give in. But in that moment I felt overcome by a mixture of fatigue and compassion that made resistance impossible. When he had undressed me completely, I stood naked and still and impassively in the night air, the room behind him blazing yellow, and let his eyes pull the meat from the bone. He undressed and tried to take me inside to the bed but I refused. He would take anything I was willing to offer but I simply could not offer anything so connubial as a bedded lovemaking. It was not in me. But my pity for him and not a small amount of self-loathing, got me to the railing of the balcony.

  “What do I have to do,” I asked after he was done and the dissatisfaction was slowly coming back into his eyes.

  “About what?”

  I shook out my camisole and pulled it over my head. I pointed to my blouse laying in a heap by the door. He pulled it up with a finger and handed it to me.

  “About auditioning,” I said.

  He looked up at me with some surprise.

  “Just curious,” I warned.

  “I’ll get you the packet.” Blair left his clothes scattered across the balcony and went downstairs. He returned with a manila envelope. “Answer the questions and give it back to me,” he said, a little out of breath. “I’ll get it to Angus.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “No. He’s not seeing anyone. Not even you. He’s working. Don’t bother him.”

  “You’re not my father, Blair. I’ll see him if I want to see him.”

  “He’s changed hotels, Tilly. You don’t know where he is. If you’re really interested, you’ve got to fill this out and get it back to me.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a
questionnaire about the story.”

  “Christ. What, multiple choice? Do I need a number two pencil?”

  “Sorry. They’re all essay. He wants you to compose your thoughts so he can see what you think about things.”

  “He’s auditioning for writers,” I said, scanning the pages of questions.

  “Not quite. He’s auditioning people who think like writers. He’s auditioning for depth of understanding. He doesn’t like actors much.”

  “I’m an actor, Blair.”

  “Yes, Tillijohn, you are an actor.”

  “So?”

  “So he doesn’t agree.”

  * * *

  The sheaf of questions stayed in the manila envelope, and the envelope stayed on my kitchen table, undisturbed for ten full days. During that time I banished Angus from my thoughts and I did not see or speak to Blair even once, though he tried incessantly to speak to me. I did not return his calls. I erased his messages. Blair knew better than to show up on my doorstep, and I was grateful for that.

  For ten days I endeavored to lose myself completely in the celebrity social scene that I had never really enjoyed in the first place. My friends – Martina and Chad and Zoe and the rest of the group – were shocked to find me suddenly so available, and though I found their good-natured ribbing annoying – Tilly what’s gotten into you? Are you feeling alright? Has Hell frozen over already? – it was also understandable.

  In high school and college I completely burned out my social impulses; that louder, faster, higher, wilder, try-anything, do-anything, party-‘til-you-pop, dance-‘til-you-die engine of youthful rebellion that seemed sometimes like it would just never stop. But it did stop. The irony was never lost on me that when I moved to California and started to make it in Hollywood where the party scene exploded at my feet like a free carnival, I was increasingly disinclined to participate. I suspect this was because public socializing was suddenly expected of me by my culture, my profession, my agent, my friends, and even my mother, all of them pushing, pushing. You’ve got to be out there and be seen, Tilly, get some attention, Tilly, rub some shoulders, Tilly. My contrarian nature instinctively just dug in its heels.

  My hermitage, at least by Hollywood standards, was doubly reinforced by the, you-are-who-you-know ethic of self-worth to which both of my parents tended to subscribe as I was coming up as a defiant, button-pushing, teenage beast. I have grown up loathing the idea of going someplace just because someone worth meeting or being seen with might be there. It is for this reason that the story of my adolescence brims with overly-close associations with people absolutely not worth meeting or being seen with.

  The most rebellious thing one can do in Hollywood is to choose to be alone. So I suppose it might have been rebellious impulses still guiding me. For whatever the quality of my reputation among the tabloid readers, I earned a reputation among my closer friends as an aspiring recluse who liked a simple, even if self-indulgent, routine and who always had an endless list of creative reasons that prevented my attendance.

  This was a completely alien disposition for my friends. With the exception of Chad Donnelly, who had a regular part in a daytime soap and was something of a heartthrob in his own right, very few of them were actors. Most of them tended to come from the post-production industry. Martina and Lucas were in catering. Rich was a CGI geek. It is remarkable, I suppose, that while my social setting changed dramatically upon moving to California, my compulsion to associate with the wrong crowd never did.

  Everything is relative, of course. These were all smart, beautiful people without a single felony conviction or infected piercing among them. But they all lived in the shadows of the in-crowd just the same. I was the only one among them with a real Tinsel Town ticket. And to have both a ticket and a disinclination to make any use of the ticket was to my friends both an affront to the laws of social Darwinism and a waste of access, which, in my business, was more important than food and water. They tended to float around me like a school of hungry, frustrated cleaner fish.

  Needless to say, when I suddenly started to swim out into more congested waters, my friends came alive, working in shifts to plan elaborate party tours around Los Angeles. My friends tended to know the when, the where and the who and my job was to supply the access. Over a week and a half, a rough pattern emerged that included late-afternoon fare at some shi-shi cafe in Beverly Hills or Century City, followed by a party at somebody’s home up in Brentwood or Bel Air or tucked up into the folds of Laurel Canyon looking out over the starlit San Fernando Valley, followed by drinking, dancing and flirting our way through the VIP rooms up and down the Boulevard and around West Hollywood until the early morning.

  My suggestions for something a little off-center – Silver Lake, Los Feliz or even the relatively less gentrified Echo Park –were roundly rejected. Only the main stream Hollywood gauntlet would suffice. Each night was a riff on the same general theme, as though we were making a glitzy video brochure promoting the hedonistic excesses of movie star lifestyle. The Robin Leach voice-over was missing, but little else.

  It did not take long for the paparazzi, hungry for even minor celebrity sightings, to pick up the scent and to start photo documenting our every move. It took three months for the ensuing rumor of a tryst between me and Chad to lose its steam, though I could claim neither indignation nor surprise. I confess that, as Chad and I were working off too many Manhattans in a less than conservative fashion, I could not help but imagining Angus’ reaction at the supermarket checkout line. Not that he would be jealous in any sense, for I had no reason to believe Angus had any charitable feelings for me at all. Rather, I knew it would only confirm his impressions. The part of me I did not understand, the part of me with the silver tongue and the velvet voice that seduced my self-destructive impulses into the shadows, was aiming squarely for unmitigated contempt.

  My fair-weather coterie understood that my window for social abandon would be open only for a short time and they were determined to make the most of it. They did not understand why the window had opened in the first place and, frankly, neither did I, except that I had felt trapped and needed to escape the incomprehensible. So that’s what I did, night after night, wading into the sparkling shallow madness like the tiny rising star I was supposed to be and trying to shake feelings that would not let go.

  In the end, my ten-day social rebellion against my anti-social rebellion did not take. It amounted to nothing more than a painful distraction. I did not like the muscled merriment or the wall-to-wall over-stylized conviviality. I did not like the people. I did not like the music. And I did not like the endless questions about what the hell Blair Gaines thought he was doing with that movie of his. In ten days I was referred to six different lawyers. So day eleven found me back at home restless and brooding about everything I had tried to tell myself no longer mattered.

  The packet, as Blair had called it, consisted of fifteen pages of questions on the subject of The Lion Tree, by Angus Mann. Each page stated two questions, usually no more than two lines each, one question appearing at the top, and another appearing half page. The questions were typed, not printed. The ‘h’ and the ‘r’ did not take the ink. The periods looked like little half-moons around a crater of graying white space.

  As I read the questions, cursorily at first, then each with great care, I could not help but imagine Angus, disheveled in a cloud of blue smoke, typing them out at a little desk next to an unmade hotel bed and a tray of half-eaten food, with a bottle of something amber-colored sitting in front of a silver data port wall jack for which he would never have any use. I imagined a knock at the door which he does not answer, and when the hotel maid stops abruptly in surprise at the sight of him, hunched over his little table in poor light, he waves her away like a fly and he continues working, bent over his typewriter like he is bent over a hole in the earth pulling something precious and painful up through the hole and into the world for the first time.

  I did not attempt to answer any of the questions.
Not at first. I pulled out my copy of The Lion Tree and read it again. And when I was done, I started over at the beginning. And as I read, I could hear Elena Ivanova calling to me. Calling to me from between the words, from way out there on Rhuton-Baker, from beneath a dome where the light that comes from everywhere and from nowhere and that glops heavily upon the failing crops of corn and sorghum, is lifeless and suffocating. Calling to me from between the words where she is alone with a man who loves her but who does not understand his own annihilative compulsions in matters of love. I could hear Elena Ivanova calling to me from her own emotional exile; from that place in the heart where pain and loneliness and death grow from well-intentioned seedlings of self-preservation.

  When I was done reading, I answered Angus Mann’s questions. I used a black pen at the kitchen table, scrawling out my responses on the questionnaire, using the backs of the pages and attaching extra sheets as necessary, knowing that however much my penmanship lacked, Angus would find it infinitely preferable to the sterility of Times New Roman. I wrote for two and a half uninterrupted hours, thoroughly engrossed sitting next to a glass of wine I had poured but never came up for air long enough to drink. Now and then I felt like I was back at Wesleyan, writing my final exams on all of the great works of all the great dead novelists, who knew how to bend over dark holes in the earth and pull something precious and painful out onto the surface of the world.

  In those moments of slippage back into the rigors of academe, I felt an instinctive urge to critique Angus’ story, more than simply expounding upon its themes and demonstrating my understanding of its structural tension and the motivations of its characters. I am glad to say, for my own sake, that I successfully resisted that urge, for I know, as I knew then, that Angus was looking not for criticism, but understanding.