by John Irving
"Donald says you're fired, Jack," the bodybuilder said.
"It's a good job to lose," Jack repeated. (He knew that line would have legs.)
Out on the sidewalk, Roberto was still holding the keys to the silver Audi. That's when Jack remembered he had the parking chit in his shirt pocket; he'd already written down the license-plate numbers. "You'll have to write out a new chit for the Audi," he told Roberto.
"No problem," Roberto said.
Jack walked along Main to Windward. It was a nice evening, only now growing dark. (When you've grown up in Toronto, Maine, and New Hampshire, when isn't it a nice evening in L.A.?)
Emma was writing away when Jack got home, but she overheard his 911 call. "What did you do with the kid?" she asked him, after he'd hung up.
"Gave her to her parents."
"What's that on your forehead?" Emma asked.
"A little ketchup, maybe--I've been in a food fight."
"It's blood, baby cakes--I can see the teeth-marks."
"You should've seen the fucker's lips," he told her.
"Ha!" Emma said. (Shades of Mrs. Machado--that exclamation always gave Jack the shivers.)
They went out to Hama Sushi. You could talk about anything at Hama Sushi--it was so noisy. Jack really liked the place, but it was partly what Emma called "l'eau de Dumpster" (her Montreal French) that eventually drove them away from their Windward Avenue duplex.
"So what did you learn from your brief experience as a parking valet, honey pie?"
"I got one good line out of it," Jack said.
What convinced Emma that Jack should be a waiter at American Pacific, a restaurant in Santa Monica not far from the beach, was neither the location nor the menu. She went there on a date one night and liked what the waiters were wearing--blue Oxford cloth button-down shirts with solid burgundy ties, khakis with dark-brown belts, and dark-brown loafers. "It's very Exeter, baby cakes--you'll fit right in. I stole a dinner menu for you. Just think of it as an acting opportunity, as Mr. Ramsey would say."
Emma meant that memorizing the menu was an acting opportunity. It took Jack the better part of a morning. Counting the salads and other starters together with the main courses, there were about twenty items.
Jack then called Mr. Ramsey in Toronto and alerted him to the modifications Emma had made in Mr. Ramsey's recommendation for Jack; just in case someone phoned Mr. Ramsey to verify Jack's credentials as a waiter, Jack wanted his beloved mentor to know that Mail-Order Bride was supposed to be a fabulous bistro.
"You have to make reservations a month in advance!" Mr. Ramsey responded, with his usual enthusiasm. "Jack Burns, I know you'll go far!" (Maybe, Jack thought--if only as a waiter.)
Jack showed up that afternoon at American Pacific; it still sounded more like a railroad than a restaurant to him, but the maitre d', a handsome fellow named Carlos, was a welcome sight. Jack knew at once that Carlos was no Canadian. When Carlos looked at Jack's letter of recommendation, he nodded as if he'd eaten at Mail-Order Bride many times.
The specials were on a blackboard by the bar. "I'll bet you can memorize them in a heartbeat," Carlos said.
"I've already memorized the menu," Jack told him. "You want to hear it?" That got the attention of the other waitstaff. It was only about five-thirty in the afternoon--no customers as yet--but Jack had his audience. He skipped the veal chop with the gorgonzola mashed potatoes, just to make them think he'd forgotten something--only to surprise them by mentioning the veal chop at the end of his recitation. He forgot nothing. He'd already dressed as if he had the job, and he knew he'd nailed the audition. Carlos didn't ask him to recite the specials.
It was to be the first in a long line of auditions for Jack--not counting the aborted one with Donald--but all of Jack's other auditions would be as an actor instead of a waiter; he was at American Pacific until he no longer needed a job waiting tables.
Emma had arranged for Jack's head shots with a photographer she knew; they were ridiculously expensive. Emma carried them around with her. At the studio in West Hollywood, she occasionally met an agent or a casting director. But she was more likely to meet someone important on a date, or in any of several restaurants in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
Some young hotshot at Creative Artists wanted to bang Emma in the worst way. There wasn't an agent at C.A.A. who would represent a nobody like Jack Burns, but the guy told Emma he would negotiate a contract for Jack--if Jack managed to get an acting job. (Just how Jack might do that without an agent wasn't made clear.)
Emma took advantage of the young agent's lust and brought him one night to American Pacific. His name was Lawrence. "Not Larry," he told Jack, with an arched eyebrow.
Not much came of that meeting, but Lawrence made a few calls on Jack's behalf. These were calls to other agents, not at C.A.A. but on Lawrence's personal B-list--or more likely his C-list.
Someone whose name Jack confused with Rottweiler (the dog) told him that his recommendations and college acting experiences were basically worthless. "Ditto the summer stock," Rottweiler said, "except for Bruno Litkins." Bruno had a Hollywood connection: casting directors occasionally consulted him on roles related to transvestism. "Or transvestitism," Rottweiler said. "Whatever the fuck you call it."
Jack's toe in the door, albeit an odd one, was that he had found favor with Bruno Litkins for his creation of the gay transvestite Esmeralda in Bruno's transformation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Not what I'd call super-marketable," Rottweiler informed Jack. (Not that Jack was at all sure he wanted to be marketed exclusively for roles related to transvestism or transvestitism.)
Another of the agents on Lawrence's B-or C-list sent Jack to an audition for a movie in Van Nuys. The place looked like a private home, but doubled as a film set. When the woman who did hair or makeup told Jack the name of the movie, Muffy the Vampire Hooker 3, Jack thought it was a joke. He didn't understand the situation until the producer introduced herself and asked to see his penis.
"Small schlongs need not apply," she said. Her name was Milly. She was wearing a slate-gray pin-striped pantsuit, very businesswoman-banker chic, which stood in seeming contradiction to her old-fashioned pearl necklace--of a kind worn by ladies who belong to bridge clubs. Her hair was huge--a silver-blond bubble, like a motorcycle helmet sans insignia.
Jack said there'd been a misunderstanding and started to leave. "You might as well show me your schlong," Milly said. "It's a free opportunity to find out if you measure up." That got the attention of a bodybuilder-type with a ponytail and a busty young woman who looked like a vampire. They were sitting on a couch, watching a movie on a VCR. It was footage of themselves, probably from Muffy the Vampire Hooker 2--a long, unvarying blow job, in the throes of which the eponymous Muffy occasionally bared her vampiric canines. One would hope that when she was moved to bite the bodybuilder and suck his blood, she would do so in his throat. Jack saw that Muffy did not have the bloodsucking canines inserted while she watched the movie on the couch; she was innocently chewing gum.
The guy with the ponytail paused the blow job on the VCR, and the three of them had a look at Jack's penis. While this was not specifically the film career Jack sought, most men are curious to know how their penises compare; after all, here was a panel of experts.
"It's okay, buddy," the bodybuilder told Jack.
"Cut the crap, Hank," Milly said.
"Yeah, Hank," Muffy the vampire hooker said.
Hank went back to the couch and started up the blow job on the VCR again. "His dick looks fine to me," Hank said.
"It's cute," Muffy told Jack, "but in this business, cute doesn't quite cut it."
"Forget quite," Milly said. She was in her fifties, maybe sixty--a former porn star, one of the cameramen had told Jack, but the cameraman must have been kidding. Except for the big hair, Milly reminded Jack of Noah Rosen's mother.
"It's cute, and it doesn't matta how big it is," Muffy whispered in Jack's ear. She went back to the couch and plopped down next to Hank.
&
nbsp; "It doesn't cut it, period. And it does matter how big it is," Milly said. "It doesn't matter if it's cute."
"Thank you," Jack told them, zipping up.
Hank, the big guy getting the endless blow job from Muffy on the VCR, followed Jack to the car; there was nothing cute about Hank's schlong, which Jack had noticed was enormous. "Don't be discouraged," Hank said. "Just eat healthy. I'd stick to low-fat, low-sodium, low-carb stuff, if I were you."
"Hank, are you ready?" Milly was screaming from inside the house.
"This job isn't for everyone," Hank admitted to Jack. "There's a lotta pressure." He had a high, nasal voice--a mismatch with his hulking presence.
"Hank!" Muffy called. She was standing in the open doorway of the house, baring her teeth in a broad-mouthed grin. She had inserted the bloodsucking canines; Muffy was ready for the next shot, whatever it was.
"Coming!" Hank called back to her. "It might have worked out differently if I'd met Mildred's sister," he said, "but I met Milly first."
"She has a sister?" Jack asked.
"Myra Ascheim is legit," Hank said. "Mildred is the porn-producer side of the Ascheim family."
Jack saw that Mildred Ascheim had joined Muffy the vampire hooker in the doorway. "Stop stalling, Hank!" Milly yelled.
"What is Myra Ascheim legit at?" Jack asked.
"She's some kind of agent," Hank told him. "She used to represent Val Kilmer, or maybe it was Michael J. Fox--lots of people like that, anyway. It's all about who you meet out here," he added. Hank was walking back to the house like a man about to have nonstop sex with a vampire hooker. He looked less than thrilled.
"Good luck!" Jack called to him.
"I'll look for you on the big screen," Hank said, pointing skyward--as if the big screen, in both their minds, lay in a heavenly direction.
"Good luck, little schlong!" Milly called to Jack.
Hank stopped and walked back to Jack for a minute. "If you ever meet Myra, don't tell her you've met Mildred," he warned Jack. "That would be the kiss of death."
"It's not as if I actually auditioned," Jack said.
"This was an audition, kid. I'll look for you," Hank said again.
Jack would look for him, too, although he didn't tell Hank that at the time. His porn name was Hank Long--a big, handsome guy, no stranger to a weight room, always with minimal dialogue, no doubt because of his high, nasal voice. Jack would see him in fifteen or twenty "adult" movies after their first meeting--for the most part, nothing memorable by title or plot.
Jack could have recognized Hank's penis all by itself--Emma could have, too. They watched Hank Long movies together, after Jack's not-exactly-an-audition in Van Nuys.
"Never go to Van Nuys," he told Emma, when he got home. "There are a lot of guys with huge schlongs out there."
"Like that would really keep me away," Emma said somewhat ambiguously.
Jack told her the whole story--how his penis, in Mildred Ascheim's estimation, didn't cut it; how he was "cute," according to Muffy the vampire hooker, but not in a league with Hank Long.
"I wouldn't say you were tiny, baby cakes, but I've seen bigger." More than Milly's small-schlong assessment, Emma's bluntness left Jack a little crestfallen. "For Christ's sake, you're not trying to be a porn star!" Emma said, trying to cheer him up.
She called Lawrence at C.A.A. immediately, beginning the conversation by telling him she would never fuck him. "Let's get that out of the way," was how Emma put it. "Do you have any other brilliant ideas about which agents Jack should see?" Emma covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and turned to Jack. "He says no," she reported.
"Ask him if he knows Myra Ascheim," Jack said.
Emma got a quick answer to her question over the phone. "Lawrence says she's a has-been, honey pie. She's been let go by everyone. She doesn't even have an assistant anymore."
"She sounds like a good place to start," Jack said. "Ask Lawrence if he'll make a call--just one call."
Emma asked the bastard. "Lawrence says Myra doesn't even have an office."
"She sounds perfect for me," Jack said.
Emma conveyed Jack's feelings to Lawrence over the phone. "He says not to mention Myra's sister," Emma told Jack.
"I know," Jack said. "It's Myra, not Mildred. I know, I know."
That night there were three messages on the answering machine when Jack got back from American Pacific. He was anxious that one of the messages might have been from a housewife he'd been banging in Benedict Canyon. The woman was insane; she claimed that from her bedroom she could see part of the estate on Cielo Drive where Sharon Tate had been murdered, but Jack couldn't see it. When the Santa Anas were blowing, she said she could hear the screams and moans of Ms. Tate and the other victims--as if the murders were ongoing.
She called Jack frequently, often to reschedule their rendezvous. Usually the postponement had something to do with her husband or one of her children, but the last time the family dog had been to blame. The unfortunate animal had eaten something it shouldn't have; the complications were so severe that the vet had promised to make a house call.
Emma said that Jack should learn to read between the lines--clearly the housewife was also sleeping with the vet. Emma loved listening to all the reasons the Benedict Canyon woman found not to sleep with Jack, or at least to postpone the illicit act. But Emma had been writing; she'd not answered the phone that night. She and Jack listened to the answering machine together after Jack came home.
Both Lawrence and Rottweiler said they had called Myra Ascheim and told her she should meet Jack; they'd given her his phone number. The third message was from Myra. Her voice was alarmingly like her sister's. Jack first thought it was Mildred, calling to further abuse his small schlong.
"There's two people, both assholes, who say I should meet you," Myra Ascheim's message began. "So where the fuck are you, Jack Burns?"
That was the message--not very elegant, and she didn't even leave her name. Jack knew it was Myra only because he'd met Milly and recognized the sisterly voice. (It was a voice with more Brooklyn in it than L.A.)
Emma must have noticed the despondency in Jack's expression when he replayed the three messages, again and again. That some word from the insane housewife in Benedict Canyon was not among the messages appeared to pain him. Only Emma knew Jack well enough to guess that, although he was relieved to let the relationship slip away, he missed the woman's madness.
Emma Oastler's first novel was called The Slush-Pile Reader, which was almost entirely based on Emma's job--not that "slush-pile reader" was her job's official title. (With an uncustomary dignity, as if her job were a pinnacle of the profession, the studio called Emma a "first" reader--a part of the process also called "screenplay development.")
Emma read not only unsolicited manuscripts; she read the scripts submitted by agents who were less than name brands, and the occasional script by a marquee screenwriter whose agent had recently jerked the studio around. Very few screenplays were eventually produced--and most of those had more important first readers than Emma, but Emma would eventually read those scripts, too.
What bothered Emma about her job was not how many screenplays she had to read, or even how badly written most of them were. Emma's principal gripe was with the studio execs--they read her notes but not the screenplays. Emma discovered that for the majority of scripts she read, she was the only reader. This inclined her to be overgenerous in her notes, even in the case of bad screenplays; she didn't want to be the sole reason a film wasn't produced, even though Emma's foremost complaint about many of the movies she saw was that they should never have been made in the first place.
"But why would a studio hire a script reader, especially for the slush pile, if the studio execs wanted to read a bunch of bad screenplays?" Jack asked her. It seemed perfectly natural to him that, in most cases, a first reader meant an only reader.
Not to Emma; she was both indignant and unreasonable about it. "The execs should still read them, even if they're
bad," she insisted.
"But they hired you, Emma, so they wouldn't have to read all the junk!"
"Someone wrote that junk, baby cakes. It took hours and hours."
Emma surely exaggerated what she called wasting her time as a film major. What was the point of learning to appreciate good films? Emma argued. The way the movie industry worked had nothing to do with film as an art form. Jack thought that Emma's motive for revenge was misguided; it was the machinations of the movie industry that had wasted her time, not her having been a film major.
Emma insisted that the studio execs were responsible for making many terrible movies that should never have been made; therefore, to make some small measure of atonement for their crimes, they should read their fair share of bad screenplays.
Jack argued that Emma should have been more upset about what happened in that rare case of an unknown screenwriter who wrote a script the studio execs actually read and liked. On only two occasions had Emma loved an unsolicited screenplay; both times, she'd managed to persuade the execs to read it. In each case, they promptly bought the rights and offered the screenwriter a fee to write a second draft; they rejected the second draft, paid off the screenwriter, and hired an established writer to reconstruct the story in all the usual, conventional ways. Whatever quality had been good enough to catch Emma's attention (in the original script) was lost, but the studio now owned and continued to develop what they called "the property."
This didn't upset Emma at all. "It's the writer's fault--the writer caved to the money. That's what the damn writers do. You want to maintain control of your screenplay, you take no money up front--you don't even let the fuckers buy you lunch, honey pie."
"But what if the writer needs the money?" Jack asked. "The writer probably needs lunch!"
"Then the writer should get a day job," Emma said.
Arguing with Emma drove Jack crazy. It also worried him about Emma's novel--that the writing would descend to a level of autobiographical complaining; that it would be an unimagined story, without an iota of invention, full of rantings and accusatory anecdotes he'd heard before. That the main character of The Slush-Pile Reader was a young Canadian woman--a newcomer to L.A. who'd gone to school "back East" and had Emma's job--did not, Jack thought, bode well. But it turned out that Emma had invented a character who seemed most unlike herself; she'd actually imagined a story, one that was far more interesting than her own. And, sentence by sentence, she wrote well--she'd taken the necessary pains to revise herself.
