For the Love of Money

by Omar Tyree

  “Well, how come Will Smith gets to do all of these crazy alien movies then? Is that believable?” Mom asked him.

  “I’m saying, Will Smith is still a guy though. He’s like my height, he started pumping weights, and he plays in those science fiction action movies with humor in it. That’s different. This is a mean cop flick, with a girl, so it should feel like it.”

  My father looked at me and nodded. “He’s right,” he said. “If you really want to play this role, you have to play it like you mean it. It is more action in it than Silence of the Lambs?”

  I said, “Yeah, much more action.”

  “Well, that’s what you have to do then.”

  Jason nodded his head and said, “Yeah, and I would go to see that.”

  I smiled and said, “Yeah, I bet you would.” I was damn sure glad that I had talked to my little brother about my next film though, because I had some major changes to make.

  $ $ $

  When I went next door to say my farewells to Raheema’s parents, it was close to ten o’clock, and I was thinking about Mercedes again. I had to at least call her up and tell her what I planned to do about that house in Yeadon. Hopefully, there was a house and she wasn’t scheming twelve grand out of me.

  Her mother, Beth, greeted me at the door. I had called them to make sure they were home before I visited.

  “Here she is! Everybody knew you would be a star,” she told me. I gave her a hug.

  “Either that or in a crazy house for trying,” I joked with a laugh. As soon as I said that, I wanted to take my words back because of the hell that Mercedes went through, but it was too late.

  Beth ignored my comment and asked me what time my plane left the next day.

  “After one o’clock,” I told her.

  Mr. Keith walked out from the kitchen with a Pepsi in his hand, a thicker and calmer man than he had been when we were all growing up.

  He smiled and said, “I hope they pay you well for those roles.”

  I guess some things never change. I said, “You mean to tell me that you wouldn’t look forward to seeing Raheema in a Hollywood role like mine?”

  He laughed. The younger, leaner and meaner Keith wouldn’t have.

  He said, “You’d get Mercedes in one of those roles before you’d get Raheema in one.”

  “Stop riding Mercedes. You don’t even know if she can act,” Beth responded to him.

  Damn, things had changed! Beth was the biggest house mouse in the world when I was younger. She rarely spoke back to her husband then. I smiled. It was good to see both of them loosen up and sound like a normal man and woman who bickered. They had found a way to hold their family together too.

  I said, “Do you guys mind if we called Mercedes up while I’m over here? I want to speak to her before I leave tomorrow.”

  Beth went right for the cordless phone.

  “So did Mercedes ask you for any money yet?” Mr. Keith asked me. He was as calm about it as if he was asking about the weather.

  “Why, did she talk about it?” I asked him.

  He started laughing again. “As soon as you came home, she started talking about getting a house all of a sudden.”

  “She hadn’t been looking for one before?” I figured I would milk her father for all the information I could get, since we were already on the subject.

  He said, “Yeah, but she wasn’t all that excited about it. Then she kept coming over here to see us every other day. I knew that something was up then. I guess she figured she would bump into you.”

  I smiled and said, “Well, she sure did.”

  We quieted down when we heard Beth on the phone with her.

  “Yeah, Tracy’s right here with us. She’s leaving out for California tomorrow afternoon.”

  I waited to be handed the phone.

  “Hey, Mercedes,” I answered.

  She whispered, “You see how they get along all peacefully now? She even talks back to him. My mom acted more like his third daughter instead of his wife when I still lived there.”

  I held in my laugh. Mercedes was a social genius if you asked me. She could read people through one word or with one look. I just wished that she could use her talent more constructively.

  I said, “I’ll call you up within a week, okay?” If I got the Road Kill lead, I planned to send Mercedes fifteen thousand dollars with a tough-love warning to spend it well. What can I say, I still had a warm heart for her.

  “A week? I sure hope that house is still for sale by then,” she responded.

  I continued to smile and shook my head, thinking about Mercedes’ father. Keith knew exactly what she was asking me, in code or not. Maybe she had gotten a lot of her social genius from him; I just hadn’t bothered to see how cunning he could be.

  I said, “I’ll be calling you. I still have to pack tonight.”

  “So, when will you invite me out to visit you?” she asked.

  “So you can snatch up my acting roles for yourself?” I joked.

  “I’m not any damn actress,” she commented.

  Ain’t that the truth! I told myself. You couldn’t get any more street realism than Mercedes!

  I said, “I’ll let you know. And I love you, girl.”

  When I said that, it seemed like everything just stopped for a second.

  Mercedes said, “Thank you. I love you too.” I knew that she meant it, whether she was twisted or not, because she was still human, and she was like family to me. Even through all of the bullshit Mercedes had been through and was still going through, I just couldn’t shake my love for her. So I called her up again once I had packed my things that night.

  “Hello,” she answered the phone, scratchy-voiced.

  “Were you sleeping?” I asked her.

  “Tracy? Girl, aren’t you going back to Hollywood tomorrow? Get your damn rest, girl ...just don’t forget to hook me up,” she added with a tired laugh.

  I shook my head and smiled again. That damn Mercedes was a trip! I said, “I just wanted to talk to you again before I left, that’s all.”

  She got quiet on me. “Thanks,” she responded. “I’m glad you still feel for me like that.”

  “What, you thought that I wouldn’t?”

  “Well, when people go Hollywood on you ... shit changes.”

  “And sometimes the people around you change,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, that too,” she admitted. “But, you know, you gots to do your thing and make that money, right? That’s what it’s all about.”

  I stopped her and said, “That’s not what it’s all about. I mean, sure, you make good money and everything, but you have to love what you’re doing first to become any good at it. That’s where you were always wrong, Mercedes. You can’t love money, and things, and people who idolize money, because all of that stuff will eventually fade away.”

  “Not if you make enough of it and you know what to do with it,” she argued.

  “And how much is enough?”

  She paused. “Give me about twenty-five million, and I’d be aw’ight for life!”

  “And what will you do to get that twenty-five million?”

  “Whatever you have to do.”

  “And you’ve started on your plan already?” I was playing her bluff, because I knew that Mercedes didn’t have a clue. I hated to think it, but her way of getting twenty-five million would be more like seducing a basketball player. Or seducing me if I let her; seducing me through our lifelong sisterhood.

  She said, “Tracy, I’m just saying what time it is in the world right now, that’s all.”

  “And that’s why the world is so fucked up!” I snapped at her. I was calling Mercedes back for a peace talk, but she was getting under my skin with the ignorance. I had worked my ass off to get paid, not because I wanted to be paid alone, but because I wanted to be good at what I did, and gain recognition for my work,but all that anyone ever counted was the fucking dollar signs and the facade of fame, and that shit was really beginning to piss me
off!

  Mercedes only laughed at my temper tantrum. “Calm down, girl. It’s too late at night for that hyper shit. And I’m just gonna tell you like this: If you don’t have any money, nobody gives a fuck about you. And even the people who do care about you, they can’t do much for you without money. And I’m just being real about that.”

  I said, “In other words, if I didn’t have any money, then telling you that I love you wouldn’t mean shit? Is that what you’re saying?” I asked her.

  “I’m not saying that it wouldn’t mean shit. The thought of it is nice. But if you’re on your deathbed, Tracy, and you need an operation to survive, a thought ain’t gon’ save your ass from dying. That’s all that I’m saying.”

  I could see that Mercedes and I would end up on the phone all night, and I still wouldn’t get my point across to her. She was nearly middle-aged and definitely set in her ways, so I just decided to end our conservation.

  I said, “Well, you know what, Mercedes, I do love you . . . and maybe that’s all I should leave you with. I just hope that you’re not on your deathbed right now, because I’m sorry to tell you, but money alone is not going to save your life.” Before she could respond, I simply hung up the phone on her, because I didn’t have anything else to say on the subject.

  $ $ $

  “So, when will you be making your way back home again?” my father asked me. We were on our way to the airport on I-76 East.

  I yawned. It had been a long night for me. I planned to get at least three hours of sleep on the plane.

  “I don’t know, Dad. Why, you want me to move back in?”

  He smiled. “Your mother and I were thinking that we could move in with you.”

  I read his face to see if he was serious. My father was still hard to read. His entire personality was filled with misdirection, always three steps ahead.

  He said, “You’re thinking too much, Tracy. It was only a joke.”

  “I can’t tell when you’re joking or when you’re serious half of the time,” I told him.

  “That’s because I don’t want you to tell.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then your daddy would be boring to you.”

  “But I would still love you.”

  He said, “Yeah, you just wouldn’t admire me.”

  I laughed. “Who said that I admire you now?” I did admire my father, I just wanted him to explain himself to me again.

  “Nobody has to tell me.”

  “You just know, hunh?”

  “Just like you know that I admire you.”

  My eyes lit up and I felt all excited about it. “You do?”

  “Yeah, I admire you. You remember how nervous your mother was when you first started talking about Hollywood?”

  I thought back and said, “Yeah.”

  “Well, I had to convince her every other night that you would be fine out there. If you would have called home more often, it would have helped me out a bit, but I guess you were busy taking care of business.”

  “Yeah, I was, plus we have that three-hour time difference, so I didn’t know when to call a lot of the time.”

  My father looked at me as if I were crazy. “Now you know damn well we didn’t care what time you would have called, as long as we heard from you.”

  I turned away, feeling guilty about it. “I’m sorry. I won’t let that happen again. I’ll make sure I call home once a week now.”

  He started laughing and said, “Don’t promise me something you can’t keep, just call us when you can.”

  When we pulled up to the airport, a few of the baggage checkers noticed me, but they tried to stay calm about it because of my father. I could tell.

  “Give me a big hug, girl,” my father told me as they ticketed my luggage for the flight.

  I hugged my father and squeezed him like a giant teddy bear. “I’ll call as soon as I get in.”

  He nodded. “All right then. I’ll tell your mother.”

  “Bye,” I told him, while I headed inside backward.

  “Bye now, baby.”

  If it wasn’t for my father being with me, I would have been asked to sign at least five autographs for the baggage claim guys, because they were still sneaking peeks at me as I slipped away toward the escalators.

  I carried on my black leather briefcase with the Road Kill script to fall asleep while reading on the plane. I planned to begin jotting down ideas for changes on a notepad.

  Luckily, I was able to walk through the airport with only a few looks and no big commotion. Everyday citizens had no idea how tiring notoriety could be sometimes. You just never know when you’ll be asked to share your time with twenty people who you have never seen in your life before. Nevertheless, I had asked for it, and I was getting it, the good parts and the bad parts.

  I boarded the airplane, first class, thinking, Great, this is pretty painless! However, a sister in her late thirties noticed me after I had been seated.

  “Tracy Ellison Grant! You go, girl! When is your next movie coming out?!”

  I smiled, embarrassed by her enthusiasm in front of a bunch of white passengers who didn’t seem to know who I was, which was a peaceful thing.

  I answered, “Hopefully next year.”

  “What’s it about?” The older sister was holding up the aisle.

  “It’s an action movie,” I told her. “I’ll talk to you about it when we land,” I said, just to keep her moving along.

  “Okay.”

  I settled back down in my window-view seat, with a gray-haired white man sitting next to me. He was minding his own business, so I began to read my script as we took off down the runway. Before I could reach page five, my minding-his-own-business white man turned to me and asked, “So you’re an actress? What movies have you been in?”

  Here we go again, I thought to myself before I responded to him. I need to start flying in a damn private jet!

  “I starred in a recent film called Led Astray, about a woman who gets revenge and a big payday after dealing with some greedy Hollywood men who had misled her career interests and used her. It was my first starring role.” I figured I would get it all out of the way so he would have less questions to ask me about it.

  He nodded his head and said, “Oh. That’s sounds interesting.”

  I was so tired of giving my résumé to strangers that I wanted to hand out a sheet of paper sometimes, or post it across my damn chest. However, was I irritated enough to give it all up and become an around-the-way girl again? ...No way! I wanted to be special. So I had to learn to deal with it.

  Sub Conscious

  I had a dream

  that I was sinking

  and watching the earth

  turn darker

  as I went down

  in slow-sand,

  because there was nothing quick

  about it.

  My voice

  only echoed upward,

  sounding weak

  and panicky

  as I cried for help,

  with no rope,

  or rescue

  to save me.

  And when I awoke,

  I realized

  that my future

  was ALL on me,

  a solo arrangement.

  That’s when I sang

  at center stage

  like ARETHA!

  Copyright © 1998 by Tracy Ellison

  Spring 1998

  Before 1997 was over, eleven out of fifteen of my scripts were produced for television on various networks, and I assisted on five other produced scripts. I even got Coe some acting work in a couple of sitcoms. (When I said I had to let him go, I didn’t mean completely, I just meant that I had to unleash him from my grip and treat him more like a young man instead of as my plaything.)

  What I didn’t like about my writing progress was how many of my scripts were changed in production. It wasn’t as if I could hold any creative direction with my work through spec writing. Everything was produced at rando
m. There also were not enough black drama series in Hollywood to write for. Everything had to be a damn comedy! Nevertheless, for the fall of ’97, I was still “the flavor of the month” in Black Hollywood for my writing skills, which led me to meet more of the movers and shakers. I got to know a lot more of the actors out there too, and if they were not connected to a stable show, they were mostly scrambling to find work and passively complaining about the lack of roles being offered to blacks in either television, commercial advertisements, or film. I say complaining “passively,” because many of them didn’t have a clue as to how to change anything. I felt for them, I really did, so I tried to write as many new actors into my scripts as possible. I was getting a lot of these actors jobs, and I became a very cool person to know. Go figure! Writers were supposedly the last people to make things happen, but as fast as things heat up in Hollywood, they can cool off just as fast.

  By 1998, rumors were everywhere that the big boom of black television shows was about to come to an end, and a lot of it was more than just rumors. Living Single and New York Undercover were the biggest shows on the way out. Everyone was nervous about a big domino effect on all black shows. However, Moesha was still hanging tough.

  By February, Richard Mack’s creation, Brothers and Sisters, was well under way, but the writing for the show was horrible. No wonder Rich was thinking of only creating show ideas instead of sticking with them; he couldn’t write a lick. I was embarrassed to even tell him that, but I had to.

  “A lot of shows start off in the basement and then they get better,” he told me over the phone.

  “Not black shows,” I argued. I had just finished watching the third episode of his show. I was developing my own ideas for scripts, but so far Brothers and Sisters was nowhere close to what I had envisioned.

  Rich said, “The Cosby Show wasn’t that good when it first started, nor was A Different World, or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

  “Yeah, but they all had major stars attached to them,” I reminded him. “Besides, just because they ended up doing well, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to be afforded the same opportunity to stick around long enough to be good. We both can name a hundred other shows that didn’t go on to be winners in the ratings game, black or white.”