“It’s a hard business,” Shirley said, sadly. “It’s not fair. You knew that when you went out there. It seems to me that Hollywood is only peripherally about art. Like everything else nowadays, it seems to be mainly about the exercise of power and making money. It’s a business.”
“You’re right about that. And I should have known it, without having to become a cliché.” He didn’t say what he’d often thought, which was that he should not have gotten married, nor had children. Being a creative artist of any kind is often synonymous with starving. No use putting others through the same thing so they come to pity you — or worse, hate you. “One of my big mistakes was thinking I could act and still earn a middle-class income so we could live in the suburbs like a normal family.”
“You did the best you could. I’ve always admired your dedication and commitment, Richey. I wish I had it. Most people don’t. You’re a talented actor. Everyone who has seen you on stage acknowledges that.”
“Yeah,” he’d interrupted cynically. “I’m committed. I’ll appear in any production within driving distance –– provided the performances are on the weekend, ’cause that’s the only time I can get away from my real job that pays the bills. Even if my real job is disgusting and demeaning.”
Shirley shrugged, indicating she hadn’t come to rehash old arguments or make suggestions about his career.
“You look really great, as usual,” Richey said, striving for a high note. Shirley was an average-sized woman, but her distinguishing feature was perpetual neatness. Every hair seemed in place, her makeup evenly applied, blended and complementary. She wore a gray skirt with a large pleat running down the front. Black boots hid her legs. The long sleeve flower print blouse seemed to be her only stylish statement. She weighed now what she’d weighed when they were married.
Shirley reached across and smoothed back his hair. “You look tired, Richey.”
“Yeah, I know. Lotta stuff going on in my life right now.”
“And, I just added to it. I’m sorry.”
He flicked a wrist to dismiss her concern. “It’s one thing or the other, right?”
“In retrospect, I shouldn’t have insisted that you quit working at The Wheel,” Shirley said. “It wasn’t so much that I was ethically offended by the operation, although I was, in a way. I was more fearful something would happen to you.”
Her comment prompted Richey to think about last Friday night’s events. “Well, you weren’t wrong about that. The Wheel can be a dangerous place. Even Marshon is thinking about moving on.”
“It was certainly good money. If I hadn’t pushed you to quit, maybe you wouldn’t have gone to Hollywood. Would that have been a good thing, or a bad thing, Richey?”
“Going out there would have been a brilliant move had I been successful,” he answered. “I certainly picked the wrong time to go,” Richey said, sadly, “with Ethan in his first year of college.”
“We made it work financially,” Shirley said, although she had greatly resented the financial strain at the time. She’d returned to teaching middle school several years earlier, when Ethan entered high school. However, the salary was low and she really didn’t like the job. As Richey had become disillusioned with Hollywood, Shirley had become disillusioned with teaching, which now seemed to be solely about test scores and discipline. Student academic achievement and student self-discipline had both declined precipitously.
In Hollywood, Richey had made a halfway decent living as a blackjack dealer in a LA casino, but it barely stretched far enough to support two households and a kid in college. Had he persisted, they would be drowning in debt today.
“As you know, I tried to explain it all to Ethan, both before I went to Hollywood and after I came back. I even visited him at college.” The recollection caused a look of despair to appear on Richey’s face. “He really didn’t want to hear any of my ideas about the difficulties of being an artist in a business-oriented society. Told me he just didn’t care. Didn’t ever want to talk about it. Our relationship was never the same after that.”
“He’s more mature now, Richey. I think he understands. You should talk to him again. I should have been more supportive and positive about your career when he was younger and living with us. I apologize for that.”
Richey looked at his ex-wife with suspicion and confusion. Was she here to proclaim the end, or hint that they might revive their marriage on a more congenial level? He had never been exactly certain about how to read women and determine what they really wanted, or what they were really trying to say. Men were blunt; women were subtle. He was from Mars, she was from Venus.
“Maybe Ethan should give me more credit than he is inclined to do,” Richey said, cynically. “I’ve served as an example of how to fail in life, and he seems to have learned his lessons well.” In his mind, he recalled a scene from Death of a Salesman.
When Ethan graduated from the University of Missouri earlier in the spring with a degree in economics, he moved to Chicago and stayed temporarily with his mother. Shirley had moved there a year earlier, taking a teaching job in Elmhurst, a western suburb of the city. Within only a few weeks, Ethan got a job with a bank, as a management trainee.
“I don’t know, Richey. That could be true, in a way, but he became a banker quite by accident. They offered him a job when he didn’t have one.”
“That’s how I got on at Biederman’s,” Richey said, laughing. “If there are actually people who plan their life and life develops according to plan, I’ve never met them.”
“Me, either. And, I regret you going to work at Biederman’s. You should have held out for something else. That job didn’t exactly bolster your ego, and I understand that now.”
At the time, Richey recalled, she had been happy about Biederman's benefits package for managers, which included dental insurance, which wasn’t included in Shirley’s school insurance package. His wife and son, who were ashamed of him for working in an illegal casino, said nothing about accepting the $1,000 a month that Richey’s private, probably illegal lottery channeled into Ethan’s education. In addition, both rushed to get needed dental work done. However, today obviously wasn’t the time to open old wounds.
“Can I ask you a question, Richey? Did you take the job at Biederman’s just because we needed the income and the insurance package, or was there another reason?”
He decided to be blunt. “You were still angry at me for being irresponsible enough to launch an acting career at an inopportune time, and working evenings meant we couldn’t argue when you got off work at five p.m.” He decided not to say that the job also was attractive because it was meaningless. He didn’t have to care whether he did well, got promoted, or fired. He could sit in an office and drink all evening long, run his lottery, daydream, and then stop in at The Stadium and drink until closing time. Taking the job at Biederman’s Food Products was really a sign that his and Shirley’s marriage was over, and that Richey’s acting dream was, in fact, a pipe dream. In the acting world and the real world, he was a dime a dozen.
Shirley put her hand on his arm. “I’m here to make amends, too, Richey. I’m sorry about all the things I did that made our marriage fall apart.”
Richey reached over and took Shirley’s hand, and linked his finger through hers. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. It’s not clear if the same fleeting thought crossed each of their minds, having to do with the possibility of goodbye sex, but it might have since both hastily withdrew their hand.
“Hey, I’m the alcoholic. I should get to make amends first. I apologize for everything I ever did that was wrong, which apparently included nearly everything I ever did. Okay?”
She smiled brightly. “Okay! Let’s be done with the blame game.”
Booze had eroded many of his memories, but Richey remembered one conversation he and Shirley had when he came back from Hollywood. He’d bemoaned being forced to work a job he hated, while being denied the right to pursue his dream.
She had
said something like, “Richey, you don’t have to win an Emmy or an Oscar to be a success, or to be happy. That comes from within, knowing you’ve done your best. Otherwise, you give control of your life and happiness to outside forces you can’t control. Besides, you’ve already won the greatest prize in life. You have a wife and a son who love you.” He’d felt as shitty then as he did now in recalling that indelible conversation. He had really lost everything. He was still lost. And, he was to blame.
Shirley had grown independent and more self-confident while he was gone, playing at the acting game in Tinsel Town. She learned that she could make it in the world on her own. Even though she wasn’t enthralled with teaching middle school, her profession became the means by which she could move to Chicago and start her life anew. Ethan graduated college and moved in with his mother, and then promptly moved out. Now, Shirley didn’t want to be alone.
“Do you love him? What’s he do?”
“He’s a school teacher, too. I like him a lot. We’re comfortable together. It’s not as if he’s the love of my life who I’ve always waited for. I’m too old for that. I just need someone. So do you. Do you have anyone?”
He hesitated. “I am seeing someone.”
“Good. What does she do?”
He smiled ironically. “She’s a talented artist who works for an ad agency that sells dog food.”
They both laughed and each decided not to explore than irony.
“I gotta go, Richey.”
“I guess you won’t invite me to the wedding.”
“You wouldn’t come anyway, would you?”
He smiled broadly and lapsed into a teasing mood. “I might show up, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, standing in the balcony of the church, screaming and beating on the glass to stop the ceremony.”
She laughed, stood and took her trench coat from the back of the barstool. “I have no doubt it would be a grand performance that would upstage the wedding.”
“On a serious note, what can I do, Shirley, to help you? I’ve got some money. I’m still in the house. Half the equity is yours. I can sell it.”
“Not until you’re ready. I don’t need the money.”
“And Ethan?”
“He’s doing well on the job and dating a beautiful young woman who’s halfway through medical school.”
“Good, I’m happy.”
“Call him, Richey,” Shirley said, as she walked toward the exit.
Richey called after her. “He was the good part.”
She stopped, turned and said, “Yes, he was. The good part of both of us. Don’t ever forget that. We’ll always be together, through him. Love you, Richey.” She blew him a kiss and was gone, out of his life once again. Maybe Ethan’s marriage and the possibility of grandkids would bring them together again farther down life’s road. Richey hoped so.
Richey stayed right on the same barstool through the noon hour and the start of his shift at Biederman’s. He called his boss, Beems, and told them he’d suddenly come down with the flu. Then, he called Carmen and left a message on her voice mail, saying he had the flu and planned to quarantine himself for a couple of days.
About five o’clock that Thursday, he left the bar and walked two doors down to a liquor store, where he stocked up on vodka, vermouth, quinine water and Bloody Mary mix. For the next few days, he sat in his house, drank continuously, and thought about his miserable, ineffective life. All telephone calls went to the answering service, which he didn’t bother to check until Monday morning.
At some point, Richey began to write on a yellow legal pad about all the “good times” he could remember, as if that would validate his and Shirley’s marriage. 1. The wedding, everyone happy. 2. The honeymoon, no complaints! 3. Ethan being born. A great day! 4. Grandma holding her first great grandson. 5. Ethan having a blood test with he was five or six days old — our first family trauma.
The list turned out to be a horrible idea that got worse as he got drunk and couldn’t remember details from a week ago, let alone past years. He couldn’t make it to his original goal of a hundred entries. At some point, he’d skipped from thirty-three to the final entry: 100. Divorced, two decades of precious life shot to hell, wife remarried, end of family, saddest day of my life.
He’d never expected Shirley to remain celibate — he hadn’t. In truth, after she moved to Chicago he really hadn’t thought much about her love life, her feelings, or her needs. That had been part of the problem. He was self-centered and self-absorbed, like most actors who didn’t want to live in the real world filled with drudgery, fear, disappointment and uncertainty. On the stage or the television or movie set, uncertainty doesn’t exist, because life on the stage or screen is scripted. Everyone knows how it will turn out. There are no decisions for actors to make, at least none that affect the already known outcome. There is no reason to worry about the consequences of one’s decisions or actions, because they are pre-determined.
When the show was over, it was over. One washed his hands of it and moved on. That unreal life existed now only on a computer disk. It if was judged to be good, one might review it now and then for comfort and laughs, and an ego boost. If it was bad, well, to hell with it!
If one were able to make a living living that way — in an unreal, scripted world — that was heaven, especially for those who really hated living in the real world, with all its realities. In that world, every aspect of one’s life could be influenced by outside, unanticipated, unimagined forces beyond one’s control. Failure lurked around every corner. Some mistakes were never forgiven, even if they were innocent and unintentional. Guilt and regret were as prevalent as Richey’s morning headache. He hated the real world and had never felt at home in it.
∞ ∞ ∞
Monday afternoon, Richey went back to work. First, he stopped at a liquor store and bought a fifth of Smirnoff and a six-pack of eight-ounce plastic bottles of quinine water. Sitting in his car in the parking lot with the door open, Richey poured about one-third of the content of each plastic bottle onto the ground. He refilled each bottle with vodka. He put all six bottles on ice inside a small chest that included a baloney and cheese sandwich he bought next door at a convenience store.
At a quarter of three, Biederman’s parking lot rapidly filled with vehicles — primarily pickup trucks — as the second shift arrived for work. Richey got out of his car and walked toward the plant entrance. Reality was about to set in.
Inside, he passed by a security guard known as Pops who waved at him wordlessly. Richey walked up the stairs to Beems’ office, and waited until the second-shift plant manager finished talking to one of the assembly line supervisors.
“Feelin’ better?” Beems asked, as Richey stood in the doorway.
“Yeah, it was just a sore throat and fever.”
“Well, I hope you’re over it,” Beems said, in a brusque manner. “I had Calvin Raines fill in for you. He did a good job. Kept the warehouse humming.”
“That’s good,” Richey said. As if the warehouse ordinarily was chaotic. “I’ll be sure to tell Calvin you thought he did a good job.”
“Already told him,” Beems noted sourly.
Halfway to his office, the whistle blew, signifying the beginning of the second shift. Richey opened the door to find Calvin sitting in his chair. “Jesus, I’m gone a few days and there’s a changing of the guard.”
Looking embarrassed, Calvin got up quickly. “I didn’t know you were coming in tonight, Richey.” Raines, an African-American in his late twenties, had a community college degree in business administration, and management was grooming him to become daytime manager of the warehouse.
“I didn’t quit, Calvin,” Richey replied, irritably. “I was just sick. By the way, I stopped and talked to Beems. He said you did a good job keepin’ the place hummin’.”
“Shit! This place ain’t never hummed.”
“You’re tellin’ me. So what’s goin’ on tonight?”
Calvin looked at a list on a clipboar
d. “We’re shorthanded as usual. I called the temp guy upstairs and asked him if he could get us three more boxcar loaders. I moved one of the more experienced temp guys to one of the forklifts. Here, it’s all there. You can take over.” He handed the clipboard to Richey.
Richey handed it back. “Naw, you get all the work details set, Calvin, and fill me in at lunch.”
At 6:30 p. m., Richey opened the door and watched as the usual employees walked into his office, and put their envelopes containing betting slips for The Richey into the box on his desk.
Suddenly, Richey saw Beems striding purposefully across the warehouse floor followed closely by Stanley Kryck, a Biederman’s vice president who exclusively worked the day shift. Kryck wore a dark-colored business suit, which made him seem larger and more important than anyone else in the warehouse.
“Can I help you?” Richey inquired, a knot forming in his stomach.
Beems stepped through the doorway and said, “We have reports that you’re running an illegal lottery during working hours, Stanton, and that you spend most of your shift drinking alcohol. If proven true, either one of these charges would be cause for dismissal.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Richey spewed, thinking he could bluff his way out of this. “Now, if you don’t mind, I got a warehouse to run.”
“I don’t think so,” Kryck interjected, walking around Beems. He picked up the box from Richey’s desk and said, “I believe this is evidence of illegal gambling.” Then, Beems opened the ice chest and took out one of the quinine bottles. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed at the contents before announcing, “It’s gin or vodka, I think. I’ll send it to a lab for analysis and then we’ll know for sure.”
“No!” Richey yelled, trying unsuccessfully to yank the bottle out of Kryck’s hands.
“It’s within company policy for us to confiscate this bottle,” Kryck explained, “especially if we suspect it may contain prohibited ingredients. Also, I’m going to ask you to provide us with a urine sample.”
The Money Game Page 14