Curry: Joe, this is really becoming a he said/he said situation. What proof do you have, because so far you're the only source for this information, that Mel Gibson had these rants and said these things? What proof do you have?
Me: I have a tape that my fifteen-year-old son made in the middle of a violent harangue in Costa Rica, a threatening harangue, where he said the vilest and most threatening things…
Curry: You know … that Mel Gibson released a statement. He's called everything that you said "utter fabrications" and he's called your script "substandard." Are you planning to release this videotape that you say you have, that is proof of what you're alleging?
Me: I don't know what I'm going to do with the videotape…
* * * *
THE MEDIA PLAYED IT in Ann Curry's words: "he said/he said." There was no proof, the news accounts said.
My grown daughter, Suzi, who lives in Marin County, California, got an anonymous email saying, "Tell your dad to release the Mel Gibson rant. Let him know that Kata (Mel's property manager) has agreed to say that your dad is a lying SOB! Kata will do anything to protect Mel. Releasing the tape is the only way to teach that monster a lesson and clear your dad's name. Your dad will know what this means!"
The email was signed "Anonymous."
I liked Kata and didn't believe she'd lie, even though she worked for Mel.
I had no idea who'd sent the email. It was sent from a walk-on email site. Anyone could walk in and send anything anonymously. It was impossible to track.
Meanwhile, my grown son Steve, who lived in Portland, Oregon, was awakened at 7:00 one morning. He had only gotten to bed a few hours earlier.
"Is this Steve Eszterhas?" the caller asked.
"Yes," Steve Eszterhas said groggily. "Who's this?"
"This is Harvey Levin from TMZ."
"What's that?" Steve said, "Who are you?"
Harvey Levin, a very successful and well-known man, explained who he was and said, "We'd like to buy the tape."
"What tape?" my barely awake son asked.
"Nick's Tape," Harvey Levin said.
"Nick who?" Steve said.
"Nick Eszterhas, your brother," Harvey Levin said.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Steve said, and hung up on him.
Steve called me instantly.
"Pops!" Steve said to me. "What the fuck is going on?"
* * * *
WE DECIDED TO RELEASE "NICK'S TAPE."
We didn't sell it to anyone. We just put it out there. Nick made our decision. "You've got to do this," Nick said to me. "This tape shows exactly who he is. He's sick. He needs help."
We released it to The Wrap. The site had been fair to me and I wasn't about to give it to Alan Nierob's (and Mel's) pals at Deadline Hollywood.
This is what was on "Nick's Tape":
Mel (screaming the whole time): "Why don't I have a first draft of The Maccabees? What the fuck have you been doing? I'll type it!"
Mumbling inaudible.
"It's her!"
Mumbling inaudible.
Mel, continuing to scream, "I go to work, you're getting paid, I'm not! Shit! I'm earning money for a filthy little cocksucker (Oksana) who takes advantage of me! Just like every motherfucker! So hurry the fuck up!"
Mel throws things and knocks down a totem pole in the billiard room.
Mel, screaming, "Fuck! God!"
Mel comes up from the billiard room and approaches the dining room table and screams at the top of his lungs in the face of his guests.
Mel: "Who wants to eat?! Who the fuck wants to eat!? Go have something to eat! Hurraaayyyy!"
Mel, screaming, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fucking hate! Fucking cunt cocksucker whore!"
Mel runs toward the driveway.
Mel, screaming, fading away, "Fuck!"
* * * *
"NICK'S TAPE" WENT GLOBAL within minutes after it appeared on The Wrap. It was everywhere. All the other sites simply stole it. "Nick's Tape" was on YouTube within hours.
His tape was a knockout punch for our side.
"This isn't 'He said/He said' anymore," one website reported. "This is 'that's all she wrote' for Mel Gibson." Many websites wrote variations of "Is This the End for Mel Gibson?"
"Hell of a way to cover my back," I said to Nick.
"Anytime," he said.
The night that "Nick's Tape" went global, Mel Gibson was appearing in Austin, Texas, at the premiere of "Get the Gringo."
Mel and the film's director, Adrian Grumberg (Mel's former assistant director), spoke with moderator Harry Knowles.
Knowles said to Grumberg: "I see that you've got a Star of David on. How was it — did y'all have any trouble working together or anything?"
"I hate his guts," Grumberg said, and then added that he got along fine with Mel.
Moments later, co-writer Stacy Perskie said, "I'm Jewish."
Mel looked at Perskie and said, "Funny, you don't look Jewish."
Movieline reported that when they heard that, the audience "audibly gasped."
* * * *
LUKIE AND NAOMI WERE DRIVING to the market and he was staring out the window. Suddenly he turned to his mother and said, "Do you think Mel Gibson is going to come here and try to kill us?" That was our eleven-year-old boy, on the way to buy Popsicles with his mother, asking if a Hollywood movie star was going to come across country to kill us.
A close friend of mine, who happens to be a billionaire, called me from Las Vegas and said, "I'm going to hire four body guards for you. And I don't want you to argue with me, either." I argued with him and convinced him that having four people around the house with guns would frighten the kids more than anything else.
But I called a friend named Jack Silvis, a high-ranking cop in the Bainbridge Township Police Department, a five-tour fighter pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I didn't have to tell Jack what was going on. He'd seen and heard it all online and on TV.
"If he shows up here," Jack Silvis said, "he'll be making the biggest mistake of his life."
I did a Skype interview with Sharon Waxman of The Wrap. She asked if I was concerned about my own personal safety.
I said, "My favorite prayer is 'Thy will be done, not mine. Do with me what you will, my Lord.'"
* * * *
MEL ANNOUNCED that he would have a part in a sequel to Robert Rodriguez's grindhouse film "Machete," a violent, lurid, potboiler.
I wondered if, in "Machete II," Mel could finally act out the homicidal sexual fantasy that he had described so graphically to my son.
* * * *
ONE OF THE PRODUCERS associated with "The Passion of the Christ" called and told me two things.
He said Mel said to him, "I used to think of suicide, but since "The Passion" I never do."
And he said that when he asked Mel why Mel insisted on driving the nails into Christ's hand himself during filming, Mel told him, "That's my other side."
* * * *
MEL DID "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO."
The focus was on "Nick's Tape."
Mel: "A guy tapes you in your own home — in the privacy — has it really come to the place — if you can't blow off steam in your own home, even if you're justified?"
Leno: "And you didn't know he was taping it?"
Mel: "Of course not.
Leno: "Was it just you swearing at the guy?"
Mel: "Yeah. Pretty much. Maybe you don't know this about me. I've got a bit of a temper."
It was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't. It was all lies, more lies, but it didn't surprise me. Mel had told me that Leno was a friend of his.
"Blowing off steam in your own home": Did that mean vandalizing his own home, scaring the kids out of the house, making my wife sob, forcing my son to grab a butcher knife to defend himself with? Was all of that just "blowing off steam?"
"Was it just you swearing at the guy?" He swore at me (barely), swore viciously at Oksana, swore at God, and terrified everyone there.
Mel's appearance on "The Tonight Show" revealed how Alan Nierob's strategy had changed after the globalization of "Nick's Tape." Mel could no longer argue that the events and statements that I had described in my letter were "utter fabrications."
So Mel did "The Tonight Show," caught some softball questions from his friend Jay, and claimed that his rights had been violated by my son's tape.
It was ridiculous.
The audience's reaction to him, as reported by the media, proved it. "Jittery, twitchy, uncomfortable, awkward," reporters called it. No one who saw it called his performance humorous. Most press accounts said that only a small percentage of the audience seemed to be amused.
* * * *
I REREAD MY SCRIPT. I thought I'd written the perfect ending for it. It was an ending, I thought, that should be engraved in all of our hearts. The ending was… two words.
The two words came right after Judah Maccabee said: "The day will come when we will be free! We will be free to pray to our God! We will be free to educate our children! We will never have to bend our knee to anyone but our Lord! The day will come when we will be strong and mighty, strong enough to defeat anyone — anyone — who wants to wipe us off the face of the earth!"
The two words came from a crowd listening to him.
"Never again! Never again! Never again!" they chanted.
* * * *
THE MACCABEES WERE GONE FROM ME. They were no longer in my house. They were no longer in my tunnel. My office upstairs was empty, lifeless, and cold. There was no way I would ever be able to thank them for their presence, their inspiration and their company.
I tried, my brothers. I really tried. I did my best.
Shalom!
* * * *
John Law Eszterhas, fourteen, was confirmed in the Catholic faith at a Mass celebrated by the bishop.
John Law picked his confirmation name himself: "Judah," the Jewish Braveheart.
THE END
Heaven and Mel (Kindle Single) Page 12