by Gayl Jones
How was town? I asked.
Ain’t a lot changed, he said. Then we pretended we was at the movies and he sat with his arm around my shoulders like we’d see the teenage boys do, then his mama bought us some hamburgers and some of them little apple pies and some Coca-Cola. We had us a picnic and pretended it was us first picnic, which it was.
Even as a little boy John Hollywood were real muscular and kinda remind me of a man. Didn’t remind me of Dick in Dick and Jane, but reminded me more of Dick in “Dick Tracy.” Except even more a manly man, but he weren’t nothing but a little boy.
I don’t know what else us pretended. I asked him if he’d ever thought of settling in North Dakota, but he said it weren’t nothing there but the railroad and lumber.
Your mama look like a Indian, I says.
She is a Indian, he says. And then he told me ’bout his grandfather, a medicine man, and give me a belt of deerskin supposed to be made by his grandfather. I still got that belt, Nadine, and sometimes I thinks it’s got real medicine in it.
I ain’t know if that a true story he mama a Indian, but you know, Nadine, that’s when I started to look at John Hollywood a little different, like they was something a little mysterious about him, even though he were the same John Hollywood. And he the same John Hollywood.
I know that some of y’all don’t think that just them letters and even that story from Monkey Bread is enough and y’all want to see her for yourself. Well, stories ain’t like them novels where there’s plot unity and coherent scenes, when you’s telling a true story, you don’t always get to meet the folks you wants to meet. I know when Delgadina introduce a character in one of her stories, the teacher tells her that when you’s writing a story, if you introduces a character you’s got to do something with that character, especially if readers likes that character. I mean when Delgadina would take them creative writing courses. I told you about her taking them creative writing courses at that Community Center. She wanted me to take one of them courses myself and even read me some of the stories they had had to read for that class. I don’t mean the stories that the students wrote, but they had to read stories that were published in anthologies. I remember she would sometimes read me some of them published stories. She know I like them storytelling types of stories and she would mostly read me them. Some of them stories was built around character and some of them stories was built around story. I mean, some of them focused on the characters in the story and some of them focused on the story in the story. I think Delgadina favorite were the story of an intellectual southern woman. She ain’t say that that were her favorite, but she read me the whole of that story. I think the name of the character were Miss Leonora. They had colored people in that story, but I didn’t identify with none of them colored people. Seem like whenever they is colored people in stories like that they is people of diminished humanity. Even that Faulkner that they talks about, and has got all them extraordinary stylifications in his storytelling and knows about all the stylifications and trickifications of the South and can hear the different peoples languages. Seem like the colored people in them stories has more diminished humanity than the whites in them stories, even though the stories themselves is written good. When that story say something about that Miss Leonora be an intellectual woman, Delgadina kinda paused at that line like it were a description of herself, although she were unlike Miss Leonora except for the portion of the story where it described her as being a beauty. And they were a description of her that I liked myself. That were where she were described as being a woman ready to talk about any subject except herself.
They’s supposed to be certain rules to storytelling. Well, they ain’t exactly rules. But you ain’t supposed to tell written stories like people tell real stories. Like when I was coming out West I met a lot of different people, but if it were a novel I’d have to meet them people again or else it wouldn’t be satisfactory as a novel. I mean, the most important of them people I’d have to meet again. I did get to meet that movie star, though, and I got to see Monkey Bread and them Nzingha people. But that were years later, when I decided to drive out there to California. I wasn’t driving no truck then. I not only wanted to see Monkey Bread and them Nzingha people, that Nzingha herself and even her star, but I didn’t like the fact that I’d just got as far as Texas City. I know when her star made a movie out there in New Mexico, Monkey Bread had written for me to come out there. She said, My star’s making a movie out here in New Mexico, Nadine, so why don’t you drive out here. She’s playing a Indian, I mean a Native American. She didn’t think she oughta play the Native American when they’s real Native American actresses and even some woman named Sally who she believed would have made a better star for that movie, but she insisted that most of the other actors be true Native Americans, I mean true Navajo and Hopi and Zuni and Cherokee, ’cause they prefers to be called they true names like everybody else. The filmmaker thought that the American audience would still only come to see the movie if my star was in it playing Native, so she decided she would go ahead and play Native. She’s a modern Native American woman who owns a hotel in Gallup, New Mexico. They’s a lot of Mexicans in the movie, and I get to play the role of one of the women who stays at that hotel. At first they wanted me to play the cleaning woman and I told them I wasn’t going to play no cleaning woman, so I gets to stay at the hotel. It ain’t no glorified hotel, but just a little tourist-type hotel. Anyway, I thought you might like to come out to New Mexico whilst we’s making that movie, plus my star got to have her own trailer and they treated her more like royalty making a movie in that little town than they do when she’s in Hollywood and just a star amongst stars. And ain’t got that blond hair neither, but got her hair looking like Elvis.
When I do go out there to meet them in California, she got her blond hair again. She a more diminutive little woman than the way she seem in them movies. She got blond hair and a real fair complexion. I don’t think it a natural fair complexion. I think she uses them creams. And she say, So you’re Nadine. I’ve heard so much about you, Nadine. Monkey Bread talks about you all the time. And she shakes my hand, and she got them little tiny hands, and they’s well manicured.
That movie where she got to play Native made her more of a star than her other movies, but she ain’t acting the diva, though. She got on blue jeans and a white sweatshirt and treating me like real people. And even treating Monkey Bread like real people. ’Cause I’m thinking she gonna be treating Monkey Bread like a glorified maid or some shit or maybe even her pet monkey, but she ain’t. Or maybe she’s one of them sorts that treats they pets like they’s human beings. So maybe she is treating Monkey Bread like a pet, but she’s just one of them sorts that treats they pets like they’s human.
Monkey Bread got her own office that a combination of studio, office, bedroom, but a whole wing of the mansion is hers and she got her own entrance and can even invite her own guests up there, ’cept they’s got to use her entrance, though. ’Cause her star got her own security people, and she got her own security person. Her security person kinda remind me of them Muslim, but she say he ain’t no Muslim, though. He kinda fine, ain’t he? she say. And he my own security person.
I even gets to go to one of them Hollywood-type parties, just little cocktail party, with some of her star’s friends, a coupla starlets, a model from New York via the Caribbean, an investigative journalist, a chef at a Hollywood club, ’cause them Hollywood chefs they’s supposed to be celebrities theyselves, a director of independent films, and me and Monkey Bread, and we’s sitting at the table with them, and they’s treating us like we’s human. Well, they’s kinda treating me like I’m Monkey Bread’s pet.
Didn’t I see you in that new Robert Townsend movie? one of them asks.
I’m nibbling on some caviar and drinking a can of Budweiser. Monkey Bread say the star ordered that Budweiser especially for me. The others got champagne. The room they’s having the cocktail party in is one of them modern rooms, with colorful geometric
furniture, which make the room look like it belong in one of them modern paintings. It’s kinda like a room inside a room. It got one of them geometric-type mgs in the center of the room, and all the furniture is arranged in geometric patterns on the rug, so that the room outside the rug is free for the cocktail people to roam around in, like they’s in the margins. Then if they want, they can go into the room inside the room. It’s a room full of greens and oranges and yellows, and the movie stars is wearing them same colors, and the dresses they’s wearing is geometric theyselves. I tries to think of the name of that painter that paints like that. Everything supposed to be geometry, so everything in the paintings is geometry. Everything in them paintings is abstracted into triangles and circles and squares. They’s got paintings on the wall that look like them kinda modernist art. Some of them is prints of art by some of the famous painters and some of them is supposed to be the original art itself. Her famous artist, though, is a contemporary painter named Gillette Viking. I ain’t never heard of that painter myself. The star say she supposed to be a descendant of them real Vikings, though. Least that’s what she have in her publicity brochures.
Naw, I says. I owns a little restaurant in Cuba. . . .
And before I can tell him it’s Cuba, New Mexico, he’s thinking I mean that other Cuba. He a angular-type man, tall and slender, with straight black hair and could be geometry hisself. Somebody say he from one of them southern states, but his accent sound like California.
Well, a lot of Americans are going down there, aren’t they? he asks, ’cause you know he know I ain’t Cuban myself, though I’ve seen Cubans that looks like me. I wanted to make a movie in Havana, but you never know what the State Department’s policy is. Well, I wanted to have a few scenes down there, then we ended up using some stock footage. . . .
So I don’t tell him Cuba, New Mexico, ’cause the real Cuba sound more romantic. Then the star comes over and starts talking to that director. I ain’t sure who’s brownnosing who. Then they starts talking about the American movie as a genre. While they’s talking the star acts like she wants to draw me into the conversation. But I can say for that movie star, she ain’t as dumb as she looks.
Everybody wants to make the American movie, she says. Well, not everybody, but a culture’s has got to be pretty strong to keep its own ethos, all the global standardization, all the talk of the international mind. I’ve got this friend who’s a German filmmaker, you know, and he says if one of his movies doesn’t duplicate the American movie, then his German audiences don’t like it, say it’s a second-rate or third-rate movie. But the truth is, he first wanted to be a filmmaker when he saw an American movie, then he saw Rashomon and the Italians and then realized it was the German movie he wanted to make, the truly German movie, not anything nationalistic, you know, but just the truly German movie. . . .
Isn’t he the one making the movies based on Brecht’s plays?
Brecht? He thinks Brecht is superficial, poetic, but superficial. . . . Anyway, he thinks you can’t make a truly German movie without something about the war years. He wants to do something with German resistance, though, the Germans that resisted Nazism. He considers them the true German heroes. But he doesn’t believe the Germans want any true movies about the war years. He might get an American production company. You should hear him tell you about the war because he’s got a lot of stories that don’t get in the history books. He wants to do this other movie about jazz, because he considers it the music of resistance, you know. Because they banned jazz in Germany during the war, so it was like a music of resistance, anyone who listened to jazz, you know. So he wants to make a movie about this subversive German who would listen to and play jazz. Then she’s talking to me. Telling me about how a lot of the resisters would listen to jazz. Says he never understood jazz himself, can’t decode it, but he still wants to do this movie about jazz. I love jazz. That’s the thing about jazz, you’re not supposed to be able to decode it. . . . Look at her. You’re just supposed to love it.
She combs her hands through her hair. It that silky-type blond hair. I ain’t know if she a natural blonde. Seem like Monkey Bread say she ain’t no natural blonde. Monkey Bread say it the fashion in Hollywood now amongst some of the true blondes for them to color they hair a color other than blond so’s that they can prove they’s true actresses.
I gots to say that she is the stereotype of the movie star, ’cause I ain’t see no flaws even up close. Seem like see the aesthetic of perfection. I ain’t know if they’s tricks that them movie stars uses. I mean the ones that plays the movie stars, to obtain that aesthetic of perfection, at least the aesthetic of perfection based on they own standards of perfection. I ain’t want to ask that woman her beauty secrets, though. I kinda would like to see her at one of them movie studios, you know, but Monkey Bread didn’t invite me for no tour of none of them movie studios. But she say a lot of them stars’ movies they ain’t made in them studios, they’s made on location. Still I think us coulda toured one of them movie studios.
Years later, though, I asked her how come when I come out to Hollywood she didn’t invite me for no tour of none of them Hollywood studios.
Nadine, I didn’t think you wanted to tour none of them Hollywood studios. If I’d thought you wanted a tour of one of the studios, we’da toured them. But I just ain’t imagined you to be one of them people with that type of interest.
Of course when peoples tells you shit like that, you wants to imagine that you’s the type of person they imagines you to be.
Well, I did want to kinda tour one of them studios to see if it would interest me, I said.
Then, of course, she were not in the employ of that star, but she did have somebody in the Hollywood studio tour business that she met when she were in the employ of that star to send me some brochures that stated I could get me a free tour of any one of them Hollywood studios. Before you could get your free tour, though, you had to see a certain number of Hollywood-produced movies and include your sales receipt. Since most of the movies that interested me wasn’t produced in Hollywood, I didn’t use none of them free tour brochures. To tell the truth, knowing Monkey Bread, I ain’t know whether them was real brochures or confabulatory. I might see all them Hollywood-produced movies, go out to Hollywood to get my free tour and somebody tell me it a confabulatory brochure, or that brochure was just good for during the days when Monkey Bread was still in the employ of that movie star. Plus if y’all looks at the fine print, it says Monkey Bread Hollywood Promotions International. Or maybe I ain’t know the true Monkey Bread and just think she a trickster.
Then they’s looking at me like they wants me to join in that conversation, I mean the star and the independent film director, and tell them what I thinks about American movies or German movies or some kinda movies or maybe that conversation about jazz. I kinda wish that Monkey Bread were standing over there to talk to them, ’cause she could tell them all about that jazz, ’cept she’s over there talking to some other stars and starlets. And there’s even a colored starlets that y’all’s probably seen in some of them movies. To tell the truth she kinda look like the star, but brown-skinned. But she do have a similar quality of perfection, even by the aesthetic standards of Hollywood. They both looks like they middle name could be Venus. Or one of them goddess of love and beauty. I wants to go over and maybe ask her her beauty secrets, but Monkey Bread standing over there talking to her. I don’t know what they’s talking about. But the colored star standing there looking like from slavery to freedom, then she look towards me, then she look back at Monkey Bread. Monkey Bread must be talking to her in Ebonics or something, ’cause she like to do that with the colored elite, especially when they’s at places like Hollywood cocktail parties. I did hear a earlier conversation between them, but they was talking about the star’s boyfriend:
Naw, Monkey, he’s part Japanese and part African American, from Tokyo, but he’s got USA citizenship. His father was over there in Japan during the American Occupation of Japan af
ter the war helping to rebuild the Japanese cities or whatever and met this beautiful Japanese woman. . . . A braidmaker. That’s supposed to be some kind of art over there in Japan. The Japanese can make art out of everything. . . .
I know exactly who you’s talking about, ’cause we’ve got some of his art around here somewhere. I saw somebody on MTV looked just like him. I mean, it was BET not MTV. He was dressed up like a rapper and interviewing one of them rappers, looking Japanese, but talking like a rapper. I thought it was him and asked my star whether that was the same one who art she collects but I know he wouldn’t be on MTV or BET. . . . Well, he might be on BET but not on no video.
Then the star asks me if I’d like some more caviar, and I ain’t even tasted the first caviar, but I would like another Bud Light. And she go over and get me Bud Light her ownself and brings it, and I’m standing there feeling like I’m the one supposed to be serving the caviar. The independent film director is nibbling on some caviar and talking to me again about the possibility of playing a role in one of his new movies.
But they’s all acting like they’s real nice people. Ain’t even none of them catty scenes like in the movies. They might be brownnosing each other a little, but there ain’t none of them catty scenes. And they ain’t even got Monkey Bread to serve them. I thought Monkey Bread be serving them but she ain’t. They’s treating her like she’s one of the stars. In fact, the only one I seen Monkey Bread serve were that colored star. She went over and got her some caviar and oyster crackers, but she musta told her to get her own champagne, ’cause the colored star went over and got her own champagne. They ain’t got nobody to come around and serve the champagne, you’s got to go up to the bar to get your champagne, and they’s a man behind the bar that’s serving the champagne. He ain’t no colored bartender, like on the Love Boat, though. To tell the truth, he kinda looks like the mens you see on the covers of them romance novels. Maybe he out here in Hollywood trying to become a star hisself, and so he works the various Hollywood parties. Monkey Bread says they’s a lot of them types in Hollywood. Then I think she’s going to talk to me about the type of Hollywood that you reads about in them tabloids, but she ain’t. Kinda like I’m supposed to be a naive in Hollywood, and she ain’t want to tell me no Hollywood Babylon stories, not the Hollywood Babylon of the stars theyselves, but the Hollywood Babylon of them that wants to become stars.