“Nowadays I carry an aspirin and an Ex-Lax with me wherever I go,” I’d say.
But no, that wasn’t me either. That was an excellent actor by the name of John Fiore. I felt sorry for John because he had a nice part and he got written out early. Plus, people will know him as the guy who died on the toilet in The Sopranos. Maybe I’m lucky that people can’t remember who I was in the show after all.
“I know, I know! You’re the guy who hung himself in the basement because Tony wouldn’t let you retire to Florida.”
“Have you got some Bengay?” I would say. “My neck is still killing me,”
Wrong again. That actor’s name is Robert Funaro. Really nice guy. He was in the scene with Gandolfini I mentioned earlier. I had time to shoot the shit with him on the set that day. I lost touch with him, though, and I don’t know what happened to him after The Sopranos.
What about me? What did I do after my big scene in The Sopranos? Well, they brought me back for two more scenes where my part was even smaller than the first one. I went from having one line to having no lines at all. I didn’t even know if I was playing the same character. One time I worked up the courage to ask the director if I was playing the same role I played the previous year. You know what the asshole said to me?
“Does it really matter?”
Does it really matter! I can understand why directors get annoyed with actors for asking, “What’s my motivation in this scene?” But don’t you think a director should take an actor seriously when he asks, “What’s my character in this scene?”
The long and the short of it is I played nobody on The Sopranos. Nobody knew my name. Nobody knew who the hell I was. Onscreen or off. Not the director. Not the writer. Not even me. Which is why I was so excited when I got a telephone call from my agent saying that another cable television network had created a spin-off (or a rip-off) of The Sopranos called Button Men. They wanted me for a recurring role.
The concept behind Button Men was that while The Sopranos looked at organized crime from the boss’s point of view, Button Men would focus on the guys who did the dirty work every day. The Mafia called them button men because when the boss says push a button on somebody, they pushed a button. Each week’s episode told the story of a different button man. The producers assured me that my starring role would come early in the second year of the series. Meanwhile I appeared as a minor character in several other episodes and got to say a few lines every now and then.
You can’t believe how happy Caitlin and I were with this news. After more than ten years in New York, one of us was getting some traction as an actor. We were so excited we decided to celebrate by doing something stupid.
We decided to have a baby.
“If we don’t do it now, when?” said Caitlin. “I’m running out of time to get pregnant naturally. Things are starting to happen for you as an actor. I’ll stay home with the baby, and we’ll focus on your career for a while. Then when the baby is older, I’ll go back to acting. It’ll work out perfectly.”
It worked out like shit.
Not the baby. Her name is Bianca. I love her with all of my heart. The baby turned out just fine. But everything else turned out badly.
When the first ratings book on Button Men came out, it was clear there were more people watching cockfights in Spanish Harlem every night than there were viewers around the country watching our show.
The cable network wanted to cancel us right away. The producers came back with the usual argument that a show like ours needs time to find its audience. The network caved in and gave us thirteen episodes (half a season) to show some improvement. But the second ratings book was even worse than the first, and Button Men went belly up.
So there you have it. That’s my fabulous career in show biz. Do you think the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences might consider me for a lifetime achievement award?
It’s time for me to stop talking about myself and get back to my story.
The morning autograph session came to an end. It was almost time for me to meet Jeremiah Pennington for lunch. First I had to find a phone booth and make a quick phone call.
Who the hell uses a phone booth nowadays?
I do.
I can’t afford a cell phone.
5
“So have you gotten laid yet?”
“Please, Caitlin.”
“I’m curious.”
“Honey, we’ve been through this a thousand times.”
“Who’s ‘honey’? Is that me or one of your adoring fans?”
“I don’t have any adoring fans, Caitlin. If I did, I wouldn’t be signing autographs for a living.”
“Stop and think about that sentence for a minute, Joey. Tell me if you can find the logic in it, because I can’t.”
“Look, I made one mistake. Are you going to make me pay for it for the rest of my life?”
The truth is I’d made many such mistakes. Caitlin only knew about one of them, because the crazy girl thought she was in love with me. Somehow she got hold of my home phone number and started calling us day and night. She showed up at our door once in her goddamn Wonder Woman outfit, her face covered with greasepaint and glitter.
Caitlin only knew about the one affair. But I’d jumped into the sack with dozens of fangirls since I’d started going to these conventions. I don’t even know why. I was probably soothing my dwindling self-esteem. If I could find some work as an actor and start making some money to support my family, maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to sleep with every superhero in a Lycra skirt.
Most of the girls weren’t even pretty. They were geeks. Girls can be geeks, too, I’ve learned. Dressed in Batwoman outfits, wearing vampire dentures, covered from head to toe in purple makeup and glitter, sporting Star Trek uniforms. I even did it with a Klingon girl once. I took her up to my room and tried to maintain my erection for forty-five minutes while she removed her makeup. It was an elaborate concoction of latex and modeling wax that makeup artists call build-up. By the time she was ready to hop in bed I was as limp as a piece of overcooked rigatoni.
“I don’t want to talk about it now, Joey,” said Caitlin. “Why did you call?”
“I wanted to talk to Bianca.”
“She’s not here. She’s on a play date.”
I thought Caitlin was lying. When she first picked up the phone, I thought I heard Bianca giggling in the background. If Caitlin was keeping me from talking to my own daughter, I’d shit a brick. That would mark a new low in our relationship.
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where’s the play date?”
“With the daughter of a friend of mine from work. You don’t even know her.”
“Well, if I don’t even know her, do you think it’s a good idea to trust her with our daughter?”
“Who are you, Robert Young in Father Knows Best? I trust her. That’s all that counts. I trust her more than—”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
This was how our conversations went nowadays. Bitter. Nasty. Mean-spirited. Which made me sad because neither one of us was like that. Caitlin used to be the most cheerful, charming, and generous person I’d ever met in my life. I wasn’t such a bad guy either. Not really. Now we talked to each other like two heavyweight boxers at a press conference before the weigh-in—hurling jibes, taunts, and threats at each other with reckless abandon. I couldn’t stop myself from picking fights with her. So I brought up the other subject I knew would make her mad—money.
“I’m making lots of cash at this convention.”
Actually, this was one of the worst attended Fan-Cons I’d ever been to. The Taj Mahal Hotel itself seemed like it was on the verge of bankruptcy—and the demand for my autograph was minimal.
“Must be nice.”
“What must be nice?”
“Making money by signing your name on a photograph. Getting your picture taken with some idiot in a zoot suit. It beats waitressing by a long shot.�
��
“I’ve told you that you can give up that waitressing job whenever you want.”
“I thank you for that, Joey, I really do. But I have a weakness for food, clothing, and shelter. So does your five-year-old daughter. That’s why I have to keep doing it.”
“I can get a regular job to help out.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” she sighed. “I can’t talk about this right now. Not on the telephone. Thanks for calling collect, by the way. Silly me, I thought collect calls had gone out of style. I bet you’re in a phone booth,” she said with a nasty chuckle. “You’ve found the last working phone booth in America and used it to call me collect.”
Just then I saw Tony Rosetti walk by the bank of phone booths. He didn’t see me, thank God. He walked like a lion in the noonday sun. I felt the hair on the back of my neck and on my forearms stand up. What was it about this guy that was so scary? I made a mental note to walk in the opposite direction when I got off the phone.
“Joey, are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, I got distracted.”
“Hot-looking chick in a Wookie suit?”
“Are you sure Bianca isn’t there, Caitlin? I’d really like to talk to her.”
“Am I sure? Gee, let me see. I lose track of her all the time. Maybe she’s in Queens betting the exacta on the fifth at Aqueduct. That’s where she was the last time I lost her.”
“I’ve got to go. I’m meeting someone for lunch.”
“Princess Leia?”
“No, as a matter of fact, it’s Jeremiah Pennington.”
“Jerry’s there?”
I heard a smile in her voice for the first time since the call began. Just like me, just like everybody else in the world, she adored Jerry. We’d had him over to our tiny apartment for dinner several times when he was still living in New York. The two of them got along like a house on fire. They talked about the theater, Shakespeare, acting, even politics. They agreed on some things, disagreed on others. But they seemed to love talking to each other. He had that effect on people.
“I thought Jerry only went to the big conventions, like the one in San Diego. What’s that called again?”
“Comic-Con. I always thought so, too. But he came to this one. Big mistake on his part. The attendance is lousy.”
“I thought you said you were making good money.”
“Look, Caitlin, I’ve got to run. I’ll call again when Bianca gets back from the racetrack.” I hoped for a laugh, but none came. So I said, “Nice talking to you.”
“It’s been lovely talking to you, too, Joey. Goodbye.”
I hung up the phone and poked my head outside the phone booth to look for Rosetti.
Damn! He stood thirty feet away from me and stared in my direction. When our eyes met, he gave me a cold smile and walked toward me.
I bolted in the opposite direction.
“Mr. Volpe, I want to talk to you,” he shouted.
I ignored him and picked up my pace. For some reason, I noticed that he’d pronounced my name correctly. Out of a thousand people I meet, most of them call me “Volpee.” “It’s ‘Volpay,”’ I correct them. Five minutes later, they’re calling me Volpee again. It’s a subtle distinction for an American to hear, I guess. In fact, Rosetti’s correct pronunciation tempted me to stop and talk to him.
But I wasn’t too tempted.
“Mr. Volpe. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
I scurried toward the hotel coffee shop where, I hoped, Jerry Pennington would be waiting for me to arrive. I knew Jerry would have some security with him. Not an armed guard or anything. Just some nerdy volunteer assigned to make sure nobody stopped him to ask for an autograph without paying for it.
“Mr. Volpe. Joey. Please. I only need five minutes.”
Joey? We were on a first-name basis?
I kept walking.
6
I kept walking as fast as I could.
Not just to put some distance between me and Rosetti. But I was eager to see Jerry. I hadn’t seen him in at least three years, except on television. And because of the phone call to Caitlin, I was late.
The only good thing that ever happened to me as a result of doing Equity Showcases in New York was that I met an up-and-coming actor by the name of Jeremiah Pennington in a production of Cyrano de Bergerac.
He had the title role, and he was magnificent in it. I played Christian, the handsome young cadet who falls in love with Roxanne but is too tongue-tied, shy, and stupid to succeed with her. So Christian asks Cyrano to write love letters to Roxanne on his behalf and hide in the bushes feeding him romantic lines. I’m sure you know the rest of the story.
Even then I could tell there were bigger and better things destined for Jerry Pennington. It wasn’t just his talent onstage, which was considerable. When he did that famous scene in Cyrano where his character rips off twenty great one-liners in a row about having a big nose, it triggered some of the loudest laughter I’ve ever heard in the theater.
Offstage, Jerry had that certain combination of good looks, charm, and je ne sais quoi that made everyone he met think they were in the presence of a star. His ruddy complexion and sandy red hair made people think of a young Spencer Tracy. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say—half-joking, half-serious—“Remember me when you hit it big in Hollywood, Jerry.” To which he would reply, “How could I forget you?”
Jerry didn’t become a big star in Hollywood, but he did pretty damn well. His first break was landing a recurring role as a Klingon officer in one of the spin-offs of Star Trek. When that series ended, they brought his character back for an even bigger part in another Star Trek spin-off. After a few years he left to take a supporting role in a network sitcom, which seemed like a great opportunity at the time. But the network canceled it after two seasons.
Although he doesn’t work much as an actor anymore, he still makes a nice living in Hollywood as a TV director. He also makes a nice living signing autographs at Fan-Cons. Which is how we found ourselves at the same Fan-Con in Atlantic City on this day and why we’d made an appointment to have lunch together. Jeremiah Pennington never did forget the little people he met on the way up.
I didn’t look back until I got to the long escalator that went from the casino to the shops and restaurants on the mezzanine floor. As soon as my foot hit the first step of the escalator, I swiveled my head around to see if Rosetti was still following me.
He was.
The good news was that I had gained some distance on him. The bad news was that it didn’t seem to faze him. He followed me in the patient yet persistent way a predator pursues its prey when he knows it has no way to escape.
The escalator didn’t seem to be moving fast enough. So I ran up the steps. Then I took two at a time. When I got to the top of the escalator, the coffee shop was to my right. Unfortunately, it was an open-air sort of restaurant so it wouldn’t offer me much cover. As soon as Rosetti got to the top of the escalator, it wouldn’t take him more than a minute to see me having lunch with Jerry. I had to hope that Jerry’s security escort would be an intimidating-looking guy. A tall, muscular former NFL football player would be perfect.
Alas, he was the exact opposite. Like nearly every other attendee of Fan-a-Palooza Con 2014, he was a skinny, pasty-looking little geek with his belt cinched too high on his waist. The cuffs of his trousers were at flash-flood length, and he wore a short-sleeved white shirt. On the bright side, various lanyards, badges, and ribbons draped over his neck. He must’ve had at least a dozen buttons and lapel pins on his shirt. He even had a Fan-a-Palooza cravat around his neck and a little sailor’s cap that said Fan-a-Palooza 2014 Volunteer Escort Team. In short, he looked official.
As I approached the table, he stepped in front of me and said, “Halt!”
Halt? I hadn’t heard anyone use that word since Hollywood was still making World War II movies.
“This is Mr. Pennington’s private time between appearances. As you can se
e, he’s on the phone right now. If you want Mr. Pennington’s autograph, go to Exhibit Hall B at three o’clock for the special guest autograph session. You can also see Mr. Pennington in a panel discussion with other Star Trek cast members at two o’clock in the Ivanka Trump Room. Until then, sir, I must ask you to give Mr. Pennington his privacy.”
“Look, dude, I’m having lunch with Jerry. That’s why he’s waiting for me here. We’re old friends.”
I showed him my own lanyard, which identified me as a “Special Guest” just like Jerry. All pigs are created equal, as George Orwell said, but some pigs are more equal than others.
By this time Jerry saw me standing there and gave me a wink while he continued to talk on his cell phone. He also gave the Nazi Youth Leaguer a hand signal that said something like, “He’s okay, let him sit down.”
The volunteer saluted me, which I took as an apology. He marched ten feet away from the table and stood at parade rest. I wondered whether his phaser was set on stun or kill. I was hoping for the latter because I figured I only had about thirty seconds before Rosetti tried to crash the luncheon party.
It sounded like Jerry was on the phone with his agent. I could tell they were talking about a voice-over deal, but whether it was for film, television, or just a radio commercial I couldn’t say. Jerry asked a few questions about the compensation, but he seemed pretty blasé about the whole thing. I couldn’t help but think how excited I would be if I were having a similar conversation with my own agent. Hell, I’d have an orgasm if my own agent called to say hello. I haven’t talked to her in years. I wasn’t even sure she was my agent anymore.
“Okay, let’s do it,” said Jerry. “Draw up the papers and send them to my house. I’ll sign them as soon as I get back to LA, okay? Good. You’re the greatest, kiddo. Bye.”
Jerry hung up the phone and stood up to greet me.
“J-Fox, you son of a bitch, you look great! Give me a Beverly Hills man hug, dude!”
I’d forgotten that Jerry always called me J-Fox. Volpe meant fox in Italian. So Jerry had christened me with a superstar nickname like J-Lo or A-Rod.
The Don Con Page 4