by Jim Gavin
He spent the weekend trying to forget the disappointment of Friday night. He Swiffered his studio apartment in Mar Vista, and then sat down on his futon with a fresh notepad and tried to work on some new bits. He hated topical humor, and the heady, off-kilter stuff wasn’t working either, so he tried to think of things from his own life that might be used for material. After a while he remembered an incident from his days as a gas station attendant. One afternoon, as he stood by the pumps, with a squeegee in his hand, a man in a BMW handed him twenty bucks for gas and said, “Why don’t they just train a monkey to do your job?” Adam didn’t have a comeback then, and he didn’t have one now. It was just another random moment of humiliation. He put his notepad down, opened a beer, and proceeded to watch six hours of The X-Files on DVD. Saturday seemed to drag along, and then, on Sunday evening, something strange happened. Around six o’clock, as the light was fading, he noticed a distinct lack of dread for the coming week. Instead of wallowing in regret for having accomplished nothing in his life—his favorite Sunday pastime—he was actually looking forward to getting up in the morning and going to the studio. For the first time, his job felt like the escape.
• • •
It was a quiet week, with no tapings scheduled. Adam ran his normal errands, zipping around the lot in his Benz. One section of the studio featured a fabricated Main Street, with shops and a town square. The old-timey buildings, once facades, were now used as administrative offices. Adam liked to eat lunch in a little courtyard just off Main Street. Most of the casting offices/eugenics labs were here, providing uncanny thrills. On Tuesday, Adam watched an anxious group of teenage girls, all blond, standing in line outside one office, clutching their headshots. On the landing above, a dozen thirtysomething brunettes were striding into another office.
“Adam,” said a voice.
He looked up and saw the guy he used to temp with. “Hey,” he said, hoping that would be enough.
The guy was nicely dressed in crisp slacks and a collared shirt. Adam didn’t have to dress like that anymore, now that he was full-time. He wore jeans and a T-shirt to work. The guy said he was now temping in corporate, in the clearance department, whatever that was.
“If you guys have another ticket promotion,” he said, “maybe you could get me in there.”
“Sure,” said Adam. “Maybe.”
“Do you have my email?”
“I think so.”
“Great. Let me know.”
“Sure. I mean, there’s probably nothing I can do,” said Adam. “But still. Yeah.”
After lunch, Melanie called Adam into her office and handed him a thick white manila envelope.
“This needs to go to Max’s house,” she said.
“Do you want me to call the studio messenger?”
“No, Max doesn’t trust them. You need to drive it to his house.” She wrote down the address. “There’s no gate. Just ring the doorbell.”
“What is this?”
“Paperwork for one of his charities.”
Adam read the seal on the envelope. “What’s the St. Maurice Foundation?”
“It provides assistance to Walloon-Americans affected by Katrina.”
Adam laughed, but Melanie looked serious. On a bookshelf behind her there was an autographed picture of Robert Fox worth.
“He stuck me on the board of directors so I have deal with it,” she said. “Have Max sign these and bring them back. Tell him if he has any questions he can call me. And make sure you take down your mileage. We give you thirty cents per mile.”
“Cha-ching.”
“Yes, cha-ching. Hopefully, you’ll get there before Max’s afternoon jog. Go.”
Driving north into the Hollywood hills, Adam saw Max twice, in billboard form. He crossed Sunset and gunned his gray Saturn along the shady curves of Laurel Canyon. He turned left at some point and drove for a few miles along a barren ridge. He had envisioned Max living in a baronial manor, his sprawling grounds lush with topiary and crisscrossed by wayward stags, but the ridge just became more and more narrow and the houses lining the road were increasingly modern-looking. Hanging above the dusty canyon, they didn’t occupy any land, really, just empty space. Adam reached the address. The view of the house from the road consisted almost entirely of the garage. It was a fancy, modern-looking garage, charcoal-gray with a door that was white and opaque, like a pearl. Next to the garage there was a smaller pearl-white door, and Adam took this to be the front entrance. He walked down concrete steps, past a concrete planter overflowing with star jasmine, and pushed a silver button. A few seconds later Max opened the door wearing dark blue running shorts and a teal tank top. He was barefoot.
“Are you a messenger?”
“No.”
“I don’t deal with studio messengers.”
“I’m not a messenger.”
“Liars and cowards. All of them.”
“I’m Adam, the new P.A. Melanie sent me.”
“Good.” He put out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Once again, Adam was impressed by his grip. He handed Max the envelope.
“Wait here,” said Max, and he closed the door. Then it quickly reopened. “Actually, come in. I need your help.”
Adam took a step forward, but Max put a hand on his chest and pushed him back with force.
“Take off your shoes.”
Adam put his Chuck Taylors on a metal rack just inside the door and followed Max into the house. Steps of polished wood led down to a bright and sparsely decorated living room. A sleek sectional couch, gray with burgundy throw pillows, was placed in the middle of the room, facing a glass coffee table and a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that offered stunning views of the canyon. Behind the couch there were two metal bookshelves packed with thick hardcovers from the sixties and seventies, their plastic spines gleaming in the sunlight. The walls were white and empty, except for Godfrey de Bouillon’s coat of arms. Adam was struck by the contrast between the medieval tapestry and the house’s modern design. It seemed just right. He tried out a couple vague architectural terms in his head: Modular? Orthogonal?
“This is great,” said Adam.
Max turned around, looking slightly confused, as if he weren’t sure who was talking. “What?”
“Your house is beautiful.”
Max nodded and made a quick slicing motion with his hand. “Clean lines. That’s what I wanted. Clean lines. Have you heard of the painter Paul Delvaux?”
“No.”
“Nobody has. Which pains me. His grandnephew designed this house. Based on my own imaginings.”
Max turned the corner into the kitchen and sat down at a small alcove desk, which had another framed photo of Max and the German shepherd. Max opened the envelope, spread out the papers, and started signing them. For a while he seemed to forget about Adam, who leaned casually against the granite countertops; but then, catching himself, he stood up straight, trying to look attentive and respectful. He could see a ghost of himself faintly shadowed in the stainless steel refrigerator. At his feet were five or six grocery bags full of empty soda cans, all of them Diet Rite. Behind Max the glass slider was open, letting in a breeze that brought tidings of a dead skunk somewhere in the canyon. Outside there was a large cast-iron table on the balcony, but next to it only one chair. Adam kept waiting for someone to join them from another room, a wife, a child, a maid, but the house was quiet. Max was alone here, prospering in the eerie stillness of a Tuesday afternoon.
Adam looked at his watch and wondered how long he would have to wait. He couldn’t decide if this felt like a privilege or a chore. It was fun standing in the kitchen of a famous man, but he worried that, even just standing there, he was doing something wrong. It was probably rude, he thought, not asking Max more questions about himself. He couldn’t think of anything to ask, so he continued to stand there, stiff and mute. Max quietly examined every page, reading the fine print, making checkmarks; but then, suddenly, he raised his head and grabbed a spiral noteboo
k that was sitting on the desk next to his charity documents.
“You mean this?” said Max.
“What?” said Adam. “I didn’t say anything—”
“Just a bit of divertissement,” said Max, shrugging. He stood up. “Do you know who Ravaillac was?”
“No.”
“He was an assassin. He killed Henry IV of Navarre, which helped precipitate the Thirty Years’ War. Of course, this had a lasting effect on the Low Countries, both good and bad.” Max opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Diet Rite. “Do you want one?”
“Sure.”
Max closed the refrigerator, opened his soda, and leaned against the counter. Adam wasn’t sure if Max had heard him or if he was supposed to just grab his own soda. He decided to stay put.
“I’m addicted to the stuff,” Max said. “I know it’s a big joke at the office. They think I don’t know, but I know.” Max took a long gulp of his soda and wiped his mouth. “Now, we’re talking about a fascinating moment in history. Dueling monarchies, religious turmoil, it was all happening. And into the middle of it stepped a frothing lunatic named Ravaillac.”
He paused for another gulp, and then said, “Am I writing a book? Yes, of course, but sometimes I think, why bother? Who would read it? A few specialists maybe, but so what?”
Max crushed the empty can, tossed it into one of the grocery bags, and for the next hour he set the scene in seventeenth century Europe, describing the lineage of all the major players and their subsequent territorial disputes. Adam dimly followed the action. The Hapsburgs were involved and, apparently, so was the Margrave of Brandenburg. Henry IV, the King of France, sent a cipher to somebody—Gustavus Adolphus?—saying he was planning war against the Hapsburgs. But Hapsburg agents intercepted the cipher, decoded it, and made plans to assassinate him. The phone rang, but Max, on a roll, didn’t seem to hear it. As he flipped through his notebook to double-check something, Adam marveled at his small and intricate handwriting. The margins were filled with notes and each page was richly adorned with umlauts and cedillas.
“On the afternoon of May 14, 1610, Henry was riding along the Rue Saint-Honoré in his coach—while the grand machinery of an enemy kingdom was plotting his demise, and while his own army was planning a massive strike—when, out of nowhere, Ravaillac, a complete nonentity, who had absolutely nothing to do with the Hapsburg plot, jumped into the coach and stabbed the king to death with his rapier!”
Max burst out laughing. Adam started to laugh too, but the phone rang again and Max’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. He put down his notebook and handed Adam the papers he had signed. “The recycling,” he said, snapping his fingers at the bags. “Help me bring them out to the bins. Otherwise it’s ant city in here.”
Adam picked up half the bags and Max sat down at the desk.
“Through there,” he said, pointing. “Open the garage and drag the bins to the end of the driveway.” He picked up the phone. “What the fuck do you want, Joanne? It’s two in the afternoon.”
The smell of skunk was especially strong in the garage, which was vacant except for the trash and recycling bins. Adam, in his argyle socks, couldn’t see a single drop of oil on the cement slab. He dumped the bags and went back to the kitchen for the rest. Max was pacing back and forth, holding the portable phone to his ear.
“. . . I thought you were going to honor our agreement. Yes, Jo Jo, we did have an agreement . . .”
Adam quietly left the kitchen. After dumping the last bag, he opened the garage door and dragged both bins to the end of the short driveway. When he turned around, he saw Max standing at the back of the garage. He was still on the phone. Max waved cheerfully to Adam and pushed the button, closing the door.
Adam waited for a moment and then walked back to his car. He wanted to ring the doorbell to ask for his shoes back, but he didn’t want to make things awkward for Max.
• • •
Adam parked and made his way through the soundstages to the office. He figured if he was walking around in socks, everyone on the lot would be staring and wondering what had happened to him, but no one seemed to notice. Melanie was on the phone when he brought her the envelope. She immediately hung up. “Is everything all right?”
“Sorry it took so long. Max invited me in and we talked for a long time.”
“That’s a first! He must like you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” said Adam. “I just sort of stood there.”
“Well, yeah. But that’s great.” She arched her eyebrows. “Maybe if we’re lucky you’ll stick around.”
Adam felt himself blush. He adored Melanie. When he got the job, Adam had confessed his creative ambitions, something he had always kept hidden from his other employers like a preexisting medical condition. As a former actress, she understood the necessity of his double life, but now he couldn’t quite read her tone. Did she actually think it was only a matter of time before he departed for a brighter world, or was she gently preparing him for the daily grind of this one?
“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” said Adam.
“Five years guaranteed,” said Melanie. “Nobody in television has that.”
Later, Adam made a run in the Benz, delivering a box of tapes to the postproduction facility, where the editors worked in perpetual shadow. He walked down a darkened hallway, passing every few feet through a penumbra of soft blue light. It felt like an aquarium and the editors, with their sluggish movements and wide, unblinking eyes, were like those strange fish that live at the bottom of the ocean. Adam entered one of the editing bays and quietly dropped off the tapes. The editor, a squat man in his fifties with headphones on, who had spent nearly two decades appending applause to the image of Max Lavoy, looked at Adam, slowly, without expression, and returned to his work.
On the drive back, he ran into Doug, who was wandering around in his gimp mask.
“What are you doing?” Adam asked.
“Getting some exercise.”
“Do you want a ride?”
Doug got in and Adam told him about his trip to Max’s house.
“He talked about the Thirty Years’ War, or the buildup to it, anyway.”
“Did he do his whole thing on Ravaillac and Oswald?”
“Oswald? Wow. He didn’t get to that. The phone rang.”
“That’s lucky.”
“No, I was sort of into it. I mean, not really, not at all, but still. His voice. It’s so smooth. He’s got that flow.”
“When he talks about what he likes talking about, he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. But I guess that’s true of everybody.”
“Who’s Joanne?”
Doug turned quickly. “His ex-wife. Holy shit—did he actually talk about her?”
“No. She called while I was there. Max got pretty upset on the phone.”
“They divorced a while ago, but I don’t know much about it. Nobody does. Max is pretty guarded about his private life. Which I admire.”
“Me too.”
“But if you happen to find out something, I’d love to hear about it.”
“Of course.”
They turned a corner and found themselves in a traffic jam involving a catering truck and a Teamster flatbed loaded with two giant spools of black cable, and another truck pulling a star trailer. Everyone started honking and yelling.
“You’ll lose this battle,” said Doug. “Pull in through the elephant doors.”
Adam didn’t know what he meant at first, but then, turning around, he saw the giant open doors of an empty soundstage and had a sudden flash of intuition. He imagined some harrowing production from the Golden Age, a frazzled director with slick hair and a megaphone, trying to coax a pack of elephants onto his set.
“That’s lingo from the old days, right?” Adam said, spinning the steering wheel. “The doors have to be big enough to fit elephants.”
“The doors have to be big enough,” said Doug, “to fit the egos of the men who walk through them.”
“Who said that?”
“I said that.”
“No,” said Adam. “That sounds like something somebody said.”
“Maybe it is. I don’t know. I don’t have a single original thought in my head.”
They took a spin around the dark soundstage. Adam floored the Benz and did a long skid out on the slick concrete slab, scaring off some pigeons nesting in the catwalks. A security guard walked through the doors, her figure cast in silhouette against the blazing square of light; but once she saw Doug—everyone on the lot recognized Doug when he had his mask on—she gave them the high sign to continue. They got in a few more nice skids and then drove around in circles for a while.
“There’s a lot of rich history around here,” said Doug, lighting a cigarette. “Did you know this is the soundstage where they filmed Anaconda II: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid?”
• • •
The next day, at three o’clock, Adam’s phone rang. He was busy making copies for one of the publicists; as the papers collated, he did punch-ups for his set later that night. On the third Wednesday of every month, one of the big comedy clubs on Sunset held a lottery for amateurs. If your name was picked out of a hat, you got two minutes before the early show, and if the promoters liked it, you got called back to open the late show. You paid ten bucks for a ticket in the lottery, and if you didn’t get picked, the ticket got you into the late show, a consolation prize that nobody wanted. So far Adam’s name had never been pulled out of the hat. Every time he lost out he felt foolish and vowed never to go back. But he always went back.
Adam picked up the phone on the last ring.
“It’s me,” said a familiar voice.