by Lillian Ross
The first screenplay I ever wrote was about the Black Sox scandal of 1919. That’s the kind of thing I couldn’t make independently, because it has so many people in it. I tend to have a lot of characters. I’m interested in the way people work on each other—how that shows the inner workings of the mind more than getting inside somebody’s head. These guys who make horror movies are always saying, “What is this? You’ve got sixty-five speaking parts here; give us a break, we’ve got to cast this.”
Horror movies are a lot of fun to write. At least, the ones that I’ve written were, because you were given the premise and could do what you wanted—make the people what you want to make them. I wrote “Piranha,” which Joe Dante directed. He started out being a writer for those little horror-movie magazines. When he was thirteen or fourteen, he wrote an article called “Dante’s Inferno,” about the fifty worst horror movies of all time. He became an editor at Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, and then Roger let him direct. You work for Roger until he can’t afford you anymore. Joe got “The Howling” after turning down “Motel Hell” and a couple of other chain-saw-massacre comedies. The main problem with the story they had for “The Howling” was that there wasn’t any consistency in what the werewolves could and couldn’t do, so in one afternoon Joe and I wrote down the rules for werewolves. We found that they had nothing to do with the full moon. Werewolves were like witches—they were shape-changers. And they usually did it to get people and eat them up and blame it on wolves. They were pretty decadent characters, so we decided to use that instead of making them be these people who couldn’t help themselves. There was some responsibility involved in it.
The effects are pretty good—you haven’t seen them before. It’s tough for Dee Wallace to stay pinned against a wall for five minutes while a guy turns into a werewolf. It’s very tough, when you’ve been in makeup for three hours so you’ll look as if your throat’s been torn away, to come out with everyone laughing at you and do a scene, even if it’s just screaming. Dee Wallace does some nice things where she doesn’t scream. People don’t always scream when they see something horrible. That’s when the Tingler grows. Did you ever see “The Tingler”? It’s about a big, long worm thing that comes alive in your spine until you scream or get your fear out. But I don’t like going to scary movies much, and I don’t wake up in the morning saying I have to write about piranhas.
1981
MELNIKOFF’S — Mark Singer
MELNIKOFF’S is a general-type store at Eighty-fourth Street and York Avenue. This time of year, it caters to the summer-camp crowd. You don’t really belong there on a spring afternoon unless your name is Jared, Jamie, Jennifer, Jeffrey, Jonathan, Lauren, Dana, Courtney, Brian, Benjamin, Eric, Stacy, or something like that—the sort of name that’s likely to be sewn into two pair white gym shorts, two pair green gym shorts, twelve pair athletic socks, one poncho, one terry-cloth robe, three nylon swimsuits, one duffelbag, etc.—or unless you are one of those happy but sad adults who have decided to spend two thousand dollars to send Jared/Jamie/Jennifer away for eight weeks so that he/she can receive individualized attention and sensitive, experienced personal instruction while learning everything it is possible to know about art, dance, drama, music (jazz, rock, folk, chamber, opera), archery, riflery, water-skiing, tennis, night tennis, soccer, horseback riding, golf, painting, sculpting, graphics, white-water rafting, canoeing, backpacking, fishing, conservation of natural resources, go-carts, minibikes, rocketry, campcraft, ham radio, video, batiking, silver-smithing, weaving, photography, lacrosse, and kayaking, with stress on citizenship and high personal values. If you happen to be such a happy but sad adult, go to Melnikoff ’s and take along about a thousand bucks.
“What’s your name?”
“Ethan.”
“Where are you going to camp?”
“Wildwood.”
“I heard your mother mention that you go to school at Ethical Culture. So you’re a philosopher as well as a camper, huh?”
“Dumb.”
“Is it true that at the camp you’re going to they make you eat your vegetables?”
“Yucch.”
“Is it true that they serve only vegetables?”
“Yucch.”
“How do you feel about insects?”
“Yucch.”
“Wildlife in general?”
“Yucch.”
“Ethan, when this man asks you a question can’t you give more than a one-word answer?”
“Yucch-yucch.”
No one named Melnikoff really has anything to do with Melnikoff ’s. The owner now is a Felenstein—Marshall Felenstein. Marshall Felenstein also runs a chain of retail clothing stores in the Midwest, called Marwen Stores. His wife, Diane, runs her own P.R. firm. She has just returned from Cuba. The children in Cuba lead different lives. In summer, they have activities and they learn crafts, but they have no minibikes, no video, and no lighted tennis courts. In Cuba, there is no Camp Winadu, no Camp Winaukee, no Camp Lakota, no Camp Towanda, no Camp Tegawitha. The children in Cuba are not nearly as fortunate as the children who shop at Melnikoff ’s.
“This size feels big.”
“He’s ready for a men’s medium. He’s just used to everything being so tight. He’s going to a weight-watchers’ camp next summer. The list says eight pair of socks. You want tube socks, Andrew? You want these with the colored stripes?”
“Look at those socks. You wouldn’t wear those socks, Mom. Damn, you’re cheap. I’m not wearing those socks. Everybody at camp’s gonna think I’m gay if I wear those socks.”
“That’s enough of that! Try these shorts on.”
“Maybe I got nice legs, but I ain’t gonna wear shorts.”
“Yeah, you have nice legs. Too bad they have to go with that big stomach.”
“Shut up, Jill.”
“Try this on. I don’t have all day.”
“What is this—a dressing contest? Don’t rush me.”
“Andrew, come on out now. I want to see how those fit.”
“You’re embarrassing me.”
“I’m not embarrassing you. You’re embarrassing me. Now, open the door.”
“O.K. How does this look?”
“You gonna wear those with the waist all the way up around your chest, Andrew?”
“Yeah.”
“You look like a dingdong.”
“Shut up, Jill.”
“Stop it!”
“Why?”
If you place your order before a certain date, Melnikoff’s will sew in the name tapes free of charge. The name-tapers are Boris and Alex. Boris owns a tailor shop down the block from the store. Alex is his son. No question about it, free name-taping attracts a lot of customers. Marshall Felenstein supports free name-taping. Marshall Felenstein says, “Free name-taping’s the hook. That plus personal service.”
“I ordered these two extra shirts for my son, and they came late. Could you please sew name tapes in them?”
“Mr. Marcus, we already shipped your order and we mailed you extra name tapes.”
“If I bring you the name tapes, could you just sew them in these shirts?”
“Mr. Marcus, it’s only two shirts. Can’t your wife just sew those in?”
“If she could sew them in, I’d still be married to her.”
When you’ve put down your deposit for everything at Melnikoff’s, the people there pack it in a cardboard box and put it downstairs in the storage room. If there are special-order items yet to come in, they wait for those, and when everything is ready they send the entire box to Boris and Alex for name-taping. When that job is done, it all comes back to Melnikoff ’s for final folding, packing, and shipping. You should plan ahead, but even if you don’t, don’t worry. They’ll ship the stuff to you or ship it directly to the camp. They’ll ship anything on your list of Necessary Articles and Optional Articles, but they will not ship the following items: live animals, expensive jewelry, stereo equipment, knives and axes, explosives. So don’t ev
en bother asking. They won’t do it.
“I see you’re here with your brother. Are you going to camp, too?”
“No.”
“In a couple of years?”
“No.”
“Have you already been to camp?”
“No.”
“You’re going to spend the summer in the park?”
“No.”
“You’re going somewhere, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, where else is there?”
“Italy.”
1982
BOJANGLES’ — William McKibben
CHICKEN. Biscuits. Chicken ’n Biscuits. Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ’n Biscuits. The building—three stories of crossing-guard orange—beckoned. The sign—“OPENING WEDNESDAY, 6 A.M.”—tantalized. We launched an immediate investigation. Our report is as follows.
MONDAY: “It’s the first Bojangles’ in the North—there are a hundred-some down South,” William Levitz told us. “The kicker,” he continued, “is the biscuits. They are Southern biscuits—the best I’ve ever tasted. I’m a New Yorker, and six months ago I didn’t know a biscuit from a bag of beans. But this city has seen bagels and it’s seen croissants. Now it’s going to see biscuits. And let me tell you—these biscuits are going to take the North by storm.”
Mr. Levitz is senior vice-president of Horn & Hardart, the firm that is busting biscuits across the Mason-Dixon Line. He led us down from his office—on the second floor of the Bojangles’ building, situated between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Streets on the west side of Sixth Avenue—to the object of his boundless esteem, the soon-to-be fast-food restaurant. On its ground floor, in preparation for the Wednesday début, five young women hunched over cash registers feverishly totalling mythical orders and making pretend change. Behind them, in the kitchen, student cooks were frying chicken after chicken and, under the watchful eye of Bob Raspanti, baking tray upon tray of biscuits. Mr. Raspanti usually works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is director of the Master Biscuit Maker Training Center for the entire Bojangles’ chain, and, if anything, he is prouder than Mr. Levitz of his products. “You can’t just come in off the street and make them,” Mr. Raspanti said emphatically. “You have to understand the dough in order to relate to it.”
Mr. Levitz informed us that all Bojangles’ biscuit-makers employ the same kneading techniques. “There’s an exact way of pressing down on the dough, and all, but it’s secret,” he said.
Mr. Raspanti chimed in, “It’s like an art. It’s like painting. You can do it by the numbers, but it’s not the same. You have to understand it.”
TUESDAY: From across Sixth Avenue, as we approached Bojangles’ for the pre-opening party, we could see a woman in a large chicken costume sauntering back and forth in front of the restaurant. It occurred to us that she might have something to do with the festivities, and, on inquiry, we found our hunch to be correct. “I’m an actress; sometimes I do mime for Horn & Hardart,” the chicken, whose name was Bernadette Brooks, said, adding, “I think it was my legs that got me this job.”
Inside, the joint was hopping. From the restaurant’s basement floor, the hot Dixieland sound of a band led by the vocalist Emme Kemp blared forth, and a number of well-dressed men and women wearing name tags boogied around the room in a long line. Upstairs, the bartender poured drink after drink, and nearly everyone ignored the soda, coffee, juice, milk, and tea that will slake the thirst of Bojangles’ patrons. Almost no one, though, ignored the Cajun-spiced chicken (peppery), the biscuits (all that Mr. Levitz had claimed, and more), and the “dirty rice,” a Cajun specialty, cooked with ground sausage and spices. One fast-food honcho sampled the French fries, and then told his companions, “They’re better than Burger King’s but not as good as Arby’s. Or maybe it’s the other way around. If my six-year-old was here, he’d know in a second.”
Emme Kemp was singing “This Could Be the Start of Something,” and William Curtis, a director of Horn & Hardart, agreed. “The concept of dirty rice will make a big hit with New Yorkers—they like something a little way out,” he told us, and added, “ ‘Dirty rice’ is just a name, of course.” He went on to say, “Northerners are ready for food like this. I don’t necessarily call it a Southern food, though. I call it an American food from another part of the country.”
WEDNESDAY: At 5:48 A.M.—with Sixth Avenue still dark and pretty well deserted—the first tray of biscuits emerged from the ovens. Shortly thereafter, Salvatore Romano, the manager, spied one employee wearing bluejeans instead of the standard-issue Bojangles’-brown trousers—a problem he solved by lending her his spare pair. Then he grabbed the restaurant intercom and said, “Attention all cashier personnel! All cashiers to the front line! Stove area, are you ready?” Shouted replies in the affirmative. “Grill area, are you ready? How are my eggs? Front line, are you set? Smiling? We’re opening up!”
At 6:00.22 A.M., a man walked through the door. “There, ” Mr. Romano announced, “is our first paying customer. No, it’s not. It’s our first late employee.” Let history record, however, that seconds later the door opened again, and through it strode the first patron of the first Bojangles’ in the American North. At precisely 6:01, he ordered a sausage biscuit, for which he tendered a dollar twenty-five and received eighteen cents in change. Behind him came a string of lesser firsts:
6:05—First customer to present a twenty-dollar bill.
6:06—First sit-down customers, who experienced the first cash-register problems after ordering the first egg biscuit.
6:12—First tray of biscuits discarded. (“Know why I’m throwing these away?” Mr. Raspanti asked. “Too dark.”)
6:16—First customer in a suit, who ordered the first steak biscuit and had the first dispute over a bill.
6:20—First batch of iced tea produced from the depths of the kitchen and poured into an enormous vat.
6:27—First customer wearing a Key West Yacht Club windbreaker.
By 6:36, as the sun rose over Sixth Avenue, Bojangles’ Famous Chicken ’n Biscuits seemed to be catching on; two customers were ordering at once. Six hours later, at the height of the lunch rush, Bojangles’ had become a Studio 54 of the eighties. A pretty young woman in a white miniskirt told everyone who arrived in search of fast food that there would be at least a twenty-minute wait before they even reached the cash registers. The warning deterred some; more just plunged on into the fray. “It’s a smash business!” Mr. Levitz exulted. “A record two-hour business! More than any Bojangles’ has ever done.” Breakfast, he said, had generated seven hundred dollars cash. By 3 P.M., five thousand five hundred dollars had been traded for meals. “It’s chicken, which is an acceptable product,” Mr. Levitz said on being pressed for an explanation. “It’s not like Hungarian goulash. Everyone likes chicken.”
A software problem plaguing the cash registers provided Mr. Levitz’s only worry, and even that was not too serious. “It’s annoying me, it’s irritating me, but it’s not stopping me from making money,” Mr. Levitz said.
“Phenomenal,” “fantastic,” “excellent,” and “psyched” were some of the words Mr. Romano used to describe his business and his staff. Of the customers, he reported, “They’re eating chicken, chicken, chicken. They’re eating everything.”
In the Horn & Hardart boardroom, above the restaurant, folks were just as enthusiastic. “We will be the leading force in chicken within two years,” the company chairman, Barry Florescue, predicted. “We’ll be the ones people will think about when they think about chicken and biscuits.”
1982
HANDBAG — Ann Beatie
A YOUNG woman writes:
Last week, I met my friend for tea at the Mayfair Hotel. The Mayfair has good tea, so my friend didn’t have to get her own tea bag out of her handbag. Actually, if we hadn’t come in out of the cold to a place that offered food and drink we would still have survived; in addition to the tea bag she carries a chocolate bar at all times. The small pepper mill she carrie
s would probably not be useful in such a situation.
I romanticize my friend—I think her handbag contains everything. She has what she calls first-degree, second-degree, and third-degree carriers. The handbag changes, but the carriers—the little zippered pouches inside—don’t. In the first-degree pouch she carries mostly makeup: blush, lip gloss, and hand cream, together with an emery board, a mirror, and a comb. She takes this with her if she goes out for half an hour. She takes her second-degree pouch in addition (stuffed fuller than No. 1) when she will be gone more than three hours. It contains: more hand cream; perfume; lipstick; aspirin in a small bottle; toothpaste; a folding toothbrush; Stim-U-Dents and Bit O’Wax (dental floss); tweezers; eyeliner pencil; a can opener; the tea bag (Prince of Wales); the chocolate bar; the pepper mill, in its own case; a plastic spoon (“I might want to eat yogurt”); vitamins; a sewing kit; and Papier Poudre, which is blotting paper with powder on the other side. The third-degree pouch contains a desk, of sorts: a calculator with instructions for working it (she forgets); a stapler and extra staples (she says she has no trouble opening it to reload, because she uses the tweezers from Pouch No. 2); large scissors; a large eraser; automatic pencils; a regular pencil (“if I want to feel down-to-earth”); a red pencil, for special notes to herself; one large plastic paper clip; stamps for postcards and for letters; a ball-point pen; and a roller pen. She used to carry a fountain pen, in case she had to write something romantic, but it leaked one too many times. There is a special change purse with only quarters and dimes (“If you put them with your regular change, you spend them”), and a Gucci Kleenex case (“Kleenexes eviscerate themselves in your bag”). She also has: a black Gucci wallet with one credit card (lost eight times); a big change purse, which she carries receipts in; tinted glasses (three: the same frames, with interchangeable lenses, tinted dark, medium, and light); and a red Day-Timer, which includes a calendar page for lists of things to buy, exhibits to see, records to listen to, names and addresses, books to get from the library, and places to have drinks which give you free food, and also includes a pad of paper with her name and address imprinted, all her membership cards, a phone credit card, ads offering discounts, and an acrostic puzzle. There is a small folding raincoat (turquoise), a clothes-brush, a magazine. There is another can opener—can openers seem to be among her favorite things. She often uses this one in airports, to open small cans of V-8 juice. My favorite thing, I think, is the one dearest to the heart of all her friends: a Swiss Army-–knife key chain, which offers two knives, a fruit peeler, a screwdriver, a nail cleaner, scissors, and a toothpick. At the Mayfair, as she held out the Swiss Army–knife key chain the gentleman sitting at the next table, who had craned his neck around as her litany of objects progressed, quickly faced forward again.