Hollywood Animal

by Joe Eszterhas

  “Jozsi,” he said, “I’m sorry. I know you’re happy here, but at the end of your school year we’re going to have to move back to Cleveland.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. “Why?” I said. “You just got here. We’ve only been in this house for six weeks.”

  “You will be going to college in a couple of years,” he said. “I asked the Franciscans for a raise, but they refused to give it to me. I found another job at a Hungarian life insurance company on the East Side in Cleveland. I will do that job and I will also still do the newspaper job from Cleveland. I will send my articles down here to Youngstown by mail.”

  “But where will we live?” I asked.

  “We will find an apartment in the Hungarian neighborhood on the East Side,” he said, “on Buckeye Road. That’s where the insurance office is.”

  “Where will I go to school?”

  “You will finish your last year at Cathedral Latin,” he said.

  “No!” I said. “I don’t want to go back to Cathedral Latin! I hate Cathedral Latin! I don’t want to leave here!”

  I started to cry.

  “Jozsi,” my father said, “I’m sorry, but we have no choice. You have to go back to Latin. How would it look if you went to three different schools in high school? We will be living closer to Latin. We’ll be on the East Side. It will be easier for you to get there.”

  I was crushed.

  My mother was in the backyard of our house on Portland Avenue in Youngstown, looking at the roses she had planted, the roses she would never see bloom. She was crying soundlessly, the tears on her cheeks.

  “He misses his friends,” my mother said, “he misses the applause. There aren’t enough Hungarians here to make speeches to. There aren’t enough Hungarians to come into his office to tell him he is a great man. It doesn’t have anything to do with your going to college, it has to do with him, with the silly stickers he sticks in his books. Ex Libris! He knows that what he is doing by taking us back to Cleveland is terrible. He is using you as his alibi.”

  “Stop it,” I said. “Nana, please, stop it.” I felt myself starting to tremble.

  “He doesn’t love you,” she said. “He doesn’t love me. He is not capable of loving anyone else. He loves himself.”

  I turned and ran from her into the house.

  I was reading a book about Auschwitz in my bedroom. My father came into the room.

  “Auschwitz,” he said, “a terrible thing.”

  “Tell me about Mauthausen,” I said. “This book mentions Mauthausen.”

  “I can’t tell you much,” he said.

  “But you told me we were there. When I was little.”

  “No,” he said, “we were not exactly at Mauthausen. Not at Mauthausen itself. We were at an adjunct of Mauthausen called Perg.”

  “But you said we ate the same food that the Jews did.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but we were removed from them.”

  “Did you know that at least five hundred thousand Hungarian Jews were taken to Auschwitz?” I asked.

  “By the Germans,” he said. “They invaded our country. Their troops occupied Hungary just like the Russians occupy it now.”

  “Did you know that the Jews were taken down to the Danube in Budapest and murdered?”

  “We all heard rumors,” he said. “But that’s all they were. We didn’t see anything firsthand. We didn’t know.”

  “What would you have done,” I asked my father, “if you would have seen it yourself? Would you have tried to stop it?”

  My father looked at me a long moment.

  “I could tell you that I would have,” he said. “It would be easy for me to say that to you. I could look like a big hero in my boy’s eyes. But it was a feverish and insane time. The Nyilas [Hungarian Nazis, the Arrow Cross] were terrorizing everyone. I don’t know what I would have done if I would have seen it myself. But I hope I would have done the right thing.”

  He thought about that a moment and handed the book back to me. He smiled.

  “Why are you engaged in such depressing reading?” he asked.

  “Shouldn’t I be reading it?”

  “Of course you should,” my father said. “The more you know about history, the better. We must learn not to make the mistakes of the past.”

  [Close-up]

  The Auteur

  THE SCRIPT HE had written was from the heart. Not only did all the studios bid on it, but one of them asked him to direct it. It was all a dream. Millions of dollars and his first directing gig. His career was guaranteed.

  And then, on top of everything else, Bruce Willis agreed to play the lead. Millions of dollars … control … and the biggest box office star in the world (except for Tom Cruise)!

  In the first week of the shoot, he gave Bruce Willis an acting suggestion and Bruce said, “Are you an actor?” He sheepishly said, “Well, no, but—” And Bruce said, “Okay then.”

  He gave Bruce no more acting suggestions. When he saw the rough cut, he felt that while Bruce was sometimes over-the-top, the movie still worked. But Bruce didn’t think so. Bruce thought his performance was completely over-the-top.

  The studio didn’t blame Bruce; the studio blamed him. He was the director, wasn’t he?

  Then Bruce demanded to recut the picture.

  The director went to the studio head to complain and the studio head said, “Are you kidding me? This is Bruce Willis! He can do anything he wants!”

  Bruce recut the picture but Bruce still didn’t like his performance so he said he’d do no publicity for it. The studio then decided to cut the ad budget for the movie in half.

  The movie was released but failed miserably. Most critics blamed the director for Bruce’s performance. The studio not only blamed the director but also his screenplay, saying that while it “read well” it obviously didn’t “play.” Word spread among the other studios that the director “couldn’t work with actors.”

  Bruce went on to make $20 million for his next movie. The director wrote another script but no one bought it. Many of those who passed said the script didn’t have “a commercial touch.”

  The last I heard the director was no longer writing but still directing—episodic television.

  CHAPTER 23

  [Naomi’s Journal]

  Please Take Care of Joseph

  CARLY

  Did you and Naomi sleep together?

  ZEKE

  I hardly knew her.

  CARLY

  She told someone you had an affair with her.

  ZEKE

  It never happened. Maybe she fantasized. She did have an affair with your friend.

  CARLY

  What friend?

  ZEKE

  Your writer friend.

  Sliver

  April 30, 1993

  The day after I last saw Bill, Gerri Eszterhas called me from Marin and asked me to go up there and get away from everything.

  “It’ll do you good,” she said, “we’ll have fun.”

  And then Joe got on the line, telling me to “get the hell up here.”

  They both stayed on the phone and we started to talk. And the more we talked, the more we discovered that Bill had lied to us on so many recent occasions.

  The night I went to all that effort and made that wonderful dinner and got all dressed up—Bill trashed that night the very next day. He called Joe and said, “It was awful. Last night Naomi was hysterical and then the roof started leaking and Jake got loose on the beach and when I finally caught him, I came back in and Naomi was threatening to drink a barbiturate cocktail.” I was stunned.

  As much as I trust Joe, I don’t think I would have believed something this heinous—that Bill was spreading this about me—except for the details. Because it was Bill’s favorite excuse, the one he used all the time when someone was trying to reach him from the office, the one he had told me to tell people. That “the roof was leaking and Jake had gotten loose on the beach” and he’d had to com
e home to help.

  Gerri met me at the airport when I arrived in San Francisco. It was wonderful to see her. I had lost nearly fifteen pounds in the past two weeks but I felt good in my jeans and boots and hugged her as I tossed my bag into the trunk.

  Joe greeted us at the door of the house. He had thrown his back out—a chronic ailment—and was stooped over and walking with a cane. The first thing he said was “You look great!” and that meant so much to me since I felt I’d been through hell and back since he last saw me. They both made me feel so welcome. Suzi and Steve came down the stairs with shy smiles hiding their sadness about what had happened to me.

  Gerri fixed an elaborate dinner and after the kids excused themselves and went about their high school ways, Joe, Gerri, and I began to talk.

  We compared notes. They told me that shortly after Bill dropped his bomb, they went off to Hawaii together, largely because Gerri was so undone by the events.

  While in Hawaii, Gerri had what she called “a vision.” It was very strange. She said she woke up cheerful. Then she went for a walk. When she returned, she sat down to take off her shoes and looked out the window. Her vision blurred to a white screen. She saw Joe in a passionate embrace with another woman. She even described the woman’s hair, since she was facing Joe and visible only from the back.

  She said Joe appeared to be in a state of great excitement, and when her vision cleared, she felt she had to ask Joe if he’d been unfaithful to her. As strange as this story seemed, Gerri would repeat it again and again and again. She felt that Sharon Stone was “a demon” who had “beamed” her the vision from L.A.

  She even went so far as to elaborate that whenever Sharon had called the house, after an initial hello, her voice would deepen to become “the voice of the beast.”

  She believed Sharon Stone was a demonic being who had cast a spell on Bill and had, she believed, also seduced her husband, though Joe vehemently and repeatedly denied it.

  Gerri told how, after her vision, she confronted Joe and asked him if he had been with other women. Gerri said she fled to the bathroom to rip off her wedding and engagement rings, running her hands under the water to try and force the rings off her fingers.

  One day in Tiburon Suzi, Gerri, and I went shopping. While Gerri went into a store, Suzi and I decided to wait for her in the car. At sixteen, Suzi has never been in love.

  She suddenly said, “You know, Naomi, I just don’t understand caring about someone so much that it would make any difference to me if they left. I’m really independent. I mean—if some guy wanted to go, I’d just say ‘Fine. Go!’”

  I considered for a long moment and said, “Well, I guess it’s like if your dad left. And you knew from that day on, everything would change. Your life as you’ve known it for so many years would never be the same again.”

  Her eyes widened for a moment and then she said, “Ohhhhhh.”

  I talked to Gerri about how much I love books. How, in any situation, I’ve always taken comfort in a book.

  She said, “You’re just like Joseph. He loves his books. I’ve never liked reading much.”

  I said, “I’ve read since I was a child. I can’t imagine not reading.”

  “You know,” she said, “you and Joseph have so much in common. You’re the woman he should have married.”

  I said the usual things about how important she is to Joe; how she shouldn’t always underrate herself. But truthfully I find this dynamic between the three of us more and more strange.

  A Current Affair called wanting to interview me. One night when Joe talked to Gerri from L.A., he asked her to give me the phone.

  “Are you going to do A Current Affair?” he asked.

  I said, “I don’t know. I’ve always stood up for myself and I hate what I’m reading about the breakup, but I’m not sure I want to talk about it. What do you think I should do?”

  He said, “I can’t answer that for you. Only you know the answer to that.”

  So I said, “What would you do in my place?”

  And he laughed. He thought about it and said, “You know what I think? I think Sharon and Bill think they can take this hick from Ohio and say anything they want about her, create any story that suits their needs, and she won’t do a thing about it, she’ll just roll over.”

  I said, “I’m doing A Current Affair.”

  Last night on the way home Gerri started to confide in me about her lack of an intimate relationship with Joe. I have never felt comfortable discussing other people’s intimate lives, but she just seems so desperate to talk and I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

  She said, “Sometimes I just get in the car and drive around and cry.”

  The other night at dinner we were talking about children. I was describing my childhood in the country, which was ideal, and Joe said, “It was a Norman Rockwell existence.”

  I said, “Someone once asked Bill what he would want for his children, should he ever have them. And Bill said, ‘I want them to go to the finest private schools in the world. I want them to speak several languages. I want them to see the world.’”

  Then they asked me.

  I said, “I want them to know the complete unbridled joy, the absolutely exhilarating freedom of bolting out the front door barefoot, running outside, and not hearing the screen door slam until you’re halfway down the driveway.”

  Joe and Gerri were both completely silent. Joe looked at me intently.

  Then he said, “That’s really wonderful.”

  I think Joe is the first person I’ve ever told that to who actually understands it. He looked at me until I looked down.

  Yesterday Gerri took both of my hands and said, “If anything ever happens to me, please take care of Joseph.”

  I said, “Oh, Gerri, nothing is going to happen to you.”

  But she just stared.

  My heart is breaking for them all. Gerri asked me to go to Hawaii with them and I said I’d go but my conscience says I should go home and start my life.

  The day my interview on A Current Affair was set to air, I was a nervous wreck. I had misgivings about doing the interview, which had been difficult, and now had just as much apprehension about it airing.

  Joe was in L.A. that day and Gerri and I were going to watch it together. Then we realized it wouldn’t be airing in Tiburon due to a baseball playoff game.

  Gerri said, “We’re going to San Jose to see it!”

  I was unsure I wanted to see it at all, but she was determined and so we did. We booked a room in a hotel and drove down to San Jose and watched the segment.

  When it ended I felt great relief that the whole ordeal was over. I got up on the bed and began to jump—really high—and was laughing and yelling and bouncing to the ceiling. Gerri stood in the middle of the floor smiling up at me.

  Then she said, “You’re just like Joseph. You have a tremendous life force.”

  I took it as a great compliment. A few minutes later she called Joe, who’d been watching in L.A.

  After a moment she said, “He wants to talk to you.”

  I took the phone and, as Gerri sat smiling at me, I heard Joe say, “You were great! I’m really proud of you.” And at that moment I realized my heartache had stopped.

  I felt only happiness.

  · · ·

  Bill called Joe here in Tiburon and said very cheerily, “Hey, how you doin’?”

  And Joe said, “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. Renegade is off. As far as our personal relationship goes, we’ll let time tell.”

  Bill said one word—“Okay”—and hung up.

  A few hours later Sharon called.

  She said, “Joe, Bill is here. He’s crying, I’m so sorry.”

  And Joe said, “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Bill. I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to see you. As far as our personal relationship goes, we’ll let time tell.”

  She said, “But, Joe—” and he said goodbye and hung up.

&nb
sp; That night Guy McElwaine called and said, “Sharon called me crying. She said: ‘If I would’ve known Joe would act this way, I would have picked him.’”

  Guy said to her, “You couldn’t have had him, Sharon, he’s happily married.”

  Sharon said, “He fools around all the time.”

  Guy said to Sharon, “But he doesn’t leave his wife.”

  I told Joe and Gerri that I was having tortured dreams.

  Last night I dreamed about Joe. I’m not going to go into details, but when I saw him in the morning, I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

  I was reading in the living room and he walked in. I’m convinced he reads my thoughts.

  He said, “Good morning! So what did you dream about last night?”

  I just kept looking at my book and said, “As a matter of fact, you were in it.”

  He said, “What did I do?”

  I said, “You were the good guy.”

  “It doesn’t sound like me,” he said.

  He laughed. I kept reading.

  CHAPTER 24

  [Flashback]

  Howdy Doody Triumphant

  DINEY

  Do you really want to be a writer?

  KARCHY

  I wanna be somethin’, that’s the truth.

  Telling Lies in America

  MY FATHER FOUND a downstairs apartment in a duplex off Buckeye Road, the Hungarian neighborhood’s main drag, on East 122nd Street. It was owned by two Slovak sisters in their sixties, the Zniks.

  The apartment was bigger than the one on Lorain Avenue had been but a third of the size of the house we’d lived in in Youngstown. There was no yard.

  The neighborhood was residential, like the one in Youngstown, but it was at war. Black people were moving into the neighboring streets and the Hungarians had formed a vigilante committee to keep the neighborhood free from crime. Signs on the Hungarian butcher shops selling kolbász and paprikaed bacon said “Soul Food.”

  I missed Kay Jeffries and spent my time daydreaming about her and calling her on the phone. We didn’t have much to say except that we missed each other and loved each other very much. If parents were in the room when we were on the phone, we didn’t say, “I love you, too,” we said “Me too!”