At a quarter to ten that evening, Neil saw Mary Jane come through the door of the club and try to adjust her eyes to the dark interior. He rushed over to her, hugged her, and cried, “Mary Jane, thanks for coming. Christ, I’m nervous. All the guys are here, waiting to tear me apart. Feeding time at the zoo. Jesus, they’re so jealous that I’ve had to hire a food taster. Hey, you look great. Very Mildred Pierce-ish. When she’s on the decline.”
He was so kind. Even in the midst of his spritz, he took the time to notice. Mary Jane had been collecting vintage clothes for years. Neil always managed a riff based on the film or actress she dressed as. He always said she looked great, and Mary Jane always ignored it. But she didn’t usually look as wrecked as this. Well, she’d done the best she could. He took her coat as he led her toward the small room at the rear.
“This place is larger than I thought, Neil,” Mary Jane said. “How many people does it seat?”
“Seat? Forget about seats. We got standees here tonight. The entire bridge-and-tunnel crowd, plus every out-of-work stand-up motherfucker in the city. Them alone would fill Shea Stadium.” Indicating the one unoccupied table in the front, he added, “The publicity about my pilot is paying off. But there’s always room for you, Mildred. Boy, what a crowd!”
Bending to kiss her, Neil whispered, “Wish me what I need, Mary Jane.”
Mary Jane patted Neil’s cheek. “I do, Jughead. Break a leg. Now, get started, funny-man, and make me laugh.” She followed the waiter to her table.
Neil was a good friend, and the crowd looked good, too. Hell, everything was rosy to her now that she knew Sam was waiting for her at home. After all, he had apologized. She shifted in her seat. The crowd was noisy tonight. It was the short break before the headliner, her pal Jughead.
For years, since they’d discovered that, among other shared tastes, as kids they both had read and collected Archie and Veronica comics, she had called Neil Jughead, and he’d called her Veronica. Now, with any luck at all, her pal would kill ’em. She felt her stomach tighten in nervous anticipation. He’s good, she reminded herself. It will go well.
Neil had taken the three steps up to the stage and walked off into the wings. Now, after a rave introduction, he returned with a hand-held microphone, entering to a roaring welcome. He looked at her. “Hello, Veronica,” he said. She smiled, and he was off on his spritz.
“Evening, folks. Good crowd. You all look very prosperous. You, sir”—pointing to a well-dressed man in the front row—“you look like you do all right. What do you do for a living?”
What was this? Mary Jane knew that Neil never stooped to working the crowd for his act. It was for hacks and amateurs, he said. Now he watched his mark in the audience, and so did everyone else. Mary Jane shifted, uncomfortable in her seat. Was Neil going to embarrass the poor guy?
“I’m an investment banker.” The guy sounded wary but self-satisfied.
“You are?” said Neil. “And what did your father do?”
“My father?” The guy paused. Not so self-satisfied now. Embarrassed. Mary Jane hunched her shoulders. “My father was a school custodian.” There were a few titters.
“School custodian?” said Neil. “You mean a janitor, right?” Someone actually laughed, but the rest of the audience was silent. What’s he doing? Mary Jane wondered. That’s nothing to mock. He’s shaming the mark. He’ll lose the crowd.
The guy adjusted himself in his seat and after a pause finally said, “Yeah, you’re right. He’s a janitor,” and managed to laugh himself.
“And did he get you your job?” The audience tittered, but more out of confusion than embarrassment. They were definitely uncomfortable. Where was this going? Mary Jane again asked herself nervously.
“How could he get me my job? I told you, he’s a janitor. I got my own job.”
“Me, too,” Neil agreed. “We got something in common. I got my own job, too, which is weird, ’cause that doesn’t happen much in show business anymore. I mean it. Like now there’s a new generation of Fondas making it in the movies. Henry’s grandchildren. Can you believe this shit?
“As far as I’m concerned, the first fucking generation of those bastards was more than enough. Then we had to have Jane and Peter. He was a fuck-up, and, let’s face it, Jane was a dog.” Some shocked laughter. “You think she got parts based on her looks or her talent? Get the fuck out of here! Even with her father’s connections, she had to settle for Barefoot in the Park. And she had to marry Vadim to get cast in Barbarella. You think there aren’t ten girls in the room right now better-looking and more talented than she was? But, hey, let’s talk about Peter, a true no-talent degenerate. What the hell did he ever do? Now we got his kid, and we’re going to have to watch her for another generation?
“They call them show-business dynasties. Get the fuck out of here! That isn’t a dynasty. That legitimizes the no-talent dog shit. It ain’t a dynasty, it’s a conspiracy. This country is supposed to be a democracy, but we’re fighting nepotism.”
He paused and looked around the audience. “See, America was supposed to be a meritocracy. It was what you did, not who you knew, remember? And it sure wasn’t who your father was. Who the fuck was Thomas Jefferson’s dad? Or George Washington’s? The trick is, this isn’t private enterprise. Hey, you want your son to join you in your plumbing business—aces with me. But this is broadcasting. This is television, radio. Airwaves that are owned by us all. But these fuckers have a lock on ’em. Nothin’ left for us.
“See, show biz has lost that grand American ideal of rewards based on talent, a combination of hard work and talent. Tell me that Talia Shire was the best Connie that her brother Francis Coppola could buy. Well, maybe not, but his daughter was perfect as Mary in Godfather III, right? Get the fuck out of here!” The audience laughed. “Hey,” Neil continued, “there were entire theaters that cheered when that bitch got shot down. Did anyone count the number of Coppolas in that movie? Of course not, because no one can count that high. You know, Coppola won a special lifetime-achievement award for putting more family members in a single movie than anyone else. And he had stiff competition in that category. Let me tell you about Anjelica Huston. No, you tell me. A big, ugly girl who can’t act. John Huston put her in all his later films, ’cause Nicholson wouldn’t marry her and she needed an income.
“What I love is when these bastards say they had to audition for the part, just like everybody else. We know how she had to audition for Nicholson. What I don’t want to think about is how she auditioned for her father! Don’t ask.”
The audience was rolling now. Mary Jane saw heads nodding, the laughs were building. And the janitor’s son shouted “Right on.”
“I’m a working actor, and what burns me up is how rarely I get to work. Then you hear these assholes on TV telling Arsenio or Jay Leno how much harder it is being Debbie Reynolds’ daughter, because people expect so much more from you. Get the fuck out of here!
“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I have compassion. Being rich and having famous, powerful parents in the Industry can be a liability. And I’m sure Arsenio will schedule me as a guest so I can explain how being Nunzio Morelli’s son made it easier for me, since people expected so little.”
There was a true explosion of laughter, and Mary Jane sighed with relief. Despite the bitterness, the hostility, in the routine, the crowd was going for it.
“Of course, in the music industry it’s different. Wilson Phillips were a different story. I mean, even if they hadn’t been the children of multimillionaire, drug-addicted, degenerate recording artists, I really do believe they’d probably be the same dog shit they are today.”
The audience was rolling with shock and laughter now. But Neil had no mercy. “Or the Nelsons. Oh, excuse me. Just ‘Nelson.’ Get the fuck out of here! They’re the California white-bread visual equivalent of Milli Vanilli. But, hey, Grandma Harriet says they’re her pride and joy. Well, that makes it all right for the rest of us, right? Shit, even Ricky was a lousy musi
cian.
“Okay. So you’re mad, too, but you say there’s nothing you can do. You say the abuse is too rampant. You say you’re just another man on the street. Get the fuck out of here! The solution to the problem, as I see it, is taking a simple action. Like the Boston Tea Party. Join the Neil Morelli Antinepotism League. You can make a difference. I say a few acts of terrorism could liberate the airwaves.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. He’s gone too far now, Mary Jane thought. Some people in the audience “ooooh”ed.
“Oh, you think that’s too extreme, huh?” Neil said, voicing her thought. “Well, let me just say one word to convince you: Sheen. Am I right? Marty, then Charlie and Emilio. He said he didn’t want to use his dad’s name to get ahead. Right! He must have used it to get an ass—that fat ass had to come from somewhere. So they make every movie a family affair, to keep it a secret. Get the fuck out of here! Waste ’em. The world will thank us, I promise you. Think of the alternative: Emilio might reproduce.”
The crowd was whooping now, and Neil, his hostile energy aflame, was playing them, pacing across the stage, punctuating his gestures with a Mick Jagger strut. Then he stopped dead and turned to the crowd, still.
“But one more thing. We can’t be accused of sentimentality or favoritism. There are a few talented children of the stars. Think of the Bridges boys. Still, we gotta be fair. Waste ’em. And then there are the old standbys. Oh, I know. You’ll beg for them. But hey, if we spare Liza Minnelli, we have to pass over Laura Dern or Tori Spelling, Melanie Griffith or Nicholas Cage. Of course, he’s a special case. He’s getting by on his good looks.” He paused, got his laugh, and went for his tag line. “Get the fuck out of here!” he cried.
It went on and on. He killed them. Mary Jane looked over to the corner tables, where Belzer, Leary, Barry Sobol, and half a dozen other stand-ups watched. Even they were laughing. At the end of the set, Mary Jane rose while Neil was still getting his ovation and made her way back to the crowded, tiny area that passed for a combination dressing room and green room backstage.
Now Mary Jane waited while Neil accepted congratulations, drank down a Scotch, joshed with the guys, and greeted the heavyset woman that Mary Jane knew was his sister, Brenda. At last he noticed her. He moved toward her and planted a kiss on her lips. He smelled of sweat and alcohol. Neil rarely drank and could never hold his liquor; the adrenaline from the set, plus the Scotch, had made him high. But he was still sharp.
“You must be one of the Aristocrats,” she said, quoting the old vaudeville joke, too dirty to repeat.
“Yeah,” he said, getting the reference, “I’ve been fucking everyone onstage,” he laughed.
“You’re stinko,” she told him. “In both senses of the word.”
“In vino Veritas. And in humor, too. That’s why they laughed. Because it’s true.”
“But too much. Too mean. It’s…” she paused.
“Bad taste? Mean-spirited? Provocative? Uh-oh. You know what happens to comics who err in that direction?” He took a beat. “They fill Madison Square Garden!” Neil took the towel from around his neck and patted down his sweating forehead. He stopped smiling, and, for a moment, his thin, almost weasellike face looked sad. “You didn’t like it?”
“I did, Neil. I did. But I just worry. People might take you at your word. It won’t endear you to Hollywood.”
“Who cares about Hollywood? There isn’t going to be one person in L.A. that I respect.”
“Neil, I’m going to L.A.”
He paused, shook his wet head like a spaniel, then recovered. For a moment, he looked serious, and tired. “Great news for me. Great news for Sam. Great news for you?”
She shrugged. Neil smiled at her, his burning energy surging again.
“Hey, we’ll grab the bitch goddess by both teats, huh? We’ll hang on hard and squeeze.”
“Yeah, a regular Hollywood Romulus and Remus,” she said dryly.
“Weren’t they with the Aristocrats?” Neil asked. “Oh, no, excuse me. They were that dog-and-parrot act.”
“Was Romulus the dog or the parrot?”
“I don’t remember, but I know Remus was the uncle.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. He was funny, and he was her friend. He smiled, his weasel face lit up by the grin, his eyes narrowing. He put out both arms to her.
“We’ll slay ’em, Veronica,” he said. And he was half right.
“I worry about you, out there with those…those…Americans.”
“Ah, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. Anyway, I don’t have to do sets anymore. I got a sitcom now. Let the writers sweat their guts out over the yocks.” He paused, his toughness draining out of him like dirty water down a sink. “But you liked it, didn’t you? You laughed?” He looked at her, needing her benediction. “I was funny, wasn’t I?”
“Neil, you were a fucking riot.”
Mary Jane left as soon as she could and splurged on a cab to get her back to the apartment and Sam as fast as possible. Aside from the debacle at the rehearsal and the fight that followed it, they hadn’t been together since he got back from L.A. His body against hers was almost all she could think about. Just in time, she remembered the cat, though, and stopped the cab at the corner bodega to pick up Tender Vittles and a bottle of wine. What the hell.
She ran the three flights up the cold stairway, but when she got to her apartment, no light showed under the door. Midnight met her, his fluffy white coat silken smooth as he moved in figure eights against her legs. She scooped him up, flicked on the light, and called out to Sam. Had he fallen asleep? Had he not come? Her stomach tightened in fear.
She walked through the kitchen clutching Midnight to her, peeked into the empty living room, and then continued down the hall to the tiny bedroom. Maybe, she thought desperately, maybe he’s asleep.
Sam was stretched out on the bed. And he seemed to be sleeping. Well, with jet lag and all, it was understandable. As always, Mary Jane was moved by his grace—his long body stretched diagonally across the bed, his feet relaxed over one corner, an arm thrown negligently over his head reaching the other corner. It was his length and leanness more than anything that attracted her, she thought. She longed for Sam’s arms, for the comfort of his body pushing against hers. But he was tired. She’d let him sleep. There was always tomorrow. She began to undress in the dark.
But when she climbed into bed beside him, as quietly as she could manage, he turned to her. He buried his head in the soft flesh of her neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
And all at once she could forgive him. Completely. His voice, husky with sorrow and maybe with lust, released her from her anger, from her pain. He was in pain, too, and she could free him. All it took was his apology, her acceptance of him.
Because she loved him so much. “That’s all right,” she told him. “It’s all right.”
“You love me?” he asked, his mouth close against her ear, his deliciously warm breath tickling her. She felt her body warm to him.
“Of course.”
“I need you, Mary Jane.”
She pressed herself against him, her softness against his hard flesh. Pressing him at the shoulder, at the chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, she still couldn’t get close enough, be close enough to him. Then his hands were on her breasts, and his mouth was on her mouth, and his body rolled onto her body. She felt his erection, and tears sprang to her eyes: tears of gratitude and pleasure. She had the power to excite him, and he loved her. He needed her. He had said so. And she needed his love, needed him so desperately that she was almost afraid to let her neediness show.
“Sam. Oh, Sam,” she whispered.
“Promise you’ll forgive me.”
“I do, Sam.”
“No, promise that you’ll always forgive me. I need you to.” In the dark, his voice sounded as desperate as she felt.
“Yes. Yes, I promise. I forgive you.”
With a groan of relief or pain, he slid inside her. S
he shuddered, but he remained still, cradling her in his arms. Yet it was she, she felt, who was giving comfort, giving absolution.
“I love you,” she said.
“I know,” he told her, and it was only much later that she realized he had not told her he loved her, too.
The next morning, she awakened with a smile, reached across the bed, but found that Sam was already up. Quickly she rose, shrugged into her chenille robe, and walked out, barefoot, looking for him. Midnight, nestled at the foot of the bed, stretched and followed.
Sam wasn’t in the bathroom, or in the living room. She didn’t smell coffee brewing, but he must be in the kitchen, making it.
He wasn’t. But there was a note propped on the old, scarred Formica table. He had gone! Fearfully, she sank onto the sofa and unfolded the paper. M.J., First of all, your grandmother called while I was here last night. She’s real sick and wants you to go upstate.
Also, I’ve given a lot of thought to what went down and I guess I feel that I was way out of line. I’m sorry.
I’m also sorry that I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come out to L.A. You know how very, very special it was for us with Jack and Jill and how good things had been. I always told you that I wasn’t the kind of person who compromised. Something’s lost and I think it best not to go on without it.
My silks and fine array,
My smiles and languish’d air.
By love are driv’n away;
And mournful lean Despair
Brings me yew to deck my grave:
Such end true lovers have.
Then he’d signed his name and had added, “Try not to hate me.”
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