The Ayatollah's Money
Page 61
Chapter 61 – Laleh Confesses
The rest of that day, and the next, consisted of setting up Laleh’s ingenious system of dual screens. It was all hands to the pumps, including the prima donnas Wegs and Big George. They thought they’d be able to slip away for lunch with wine followed by afternoon delights, but Sody said hell no, he needed stage hands; and that’s what they did. By the end of the second sixteen hour day, they had the two screens in place, the film projectors installed in the rear of the theater, and a lighting guy up in the gantries, crawling around like a monkey, who had flown the redeye from LA. After three hours of playing with the lighting, Sody took a box cutter and made four incisions in the front screen, each shaped differently and located at different heights from the stage floor, to create different effects. Wegs, George, and Gale took turns climbing through the slits from front to back, and back to front, mimicking different actions and behaviors and moods, at Sody’s direction. At 10pm, finally he said, “Ok, that’s good. I think we got it. I think this is going to work.”
Everyone thought, “Thank god, let’s go eat,” which is what they did, heading down the street for a late night dinner at La Fourchette. They took up the entire small dining area, which was ok with the owner, being it was late and he knew the Junes were big tippers. Within minutes the table was covered with three decanters of burgundy and a dozen small plates of hors d’oeuvres. There was little conversation until the first glasses of wine and the food was gone. Everyone felt better, and Laleh decided it was a good time to confess. After the appearance of the goons, she owed it to them. “I need to tell you about those guys. I didn’t mean to bring that onto you or into our project. I’m very sorry, and if you want to cancel out, I’ll understand.” Everyone just looked kindly at her and sipped the burgundy, which was excellent.
Roger said, “You don’t owe us anything, and don’t have to tell us anything. We all can make up our minds about participating in this, or not. As for the goons, well, Jinny, you scared of ‘em?”
He said, “After I left with ‘em the other day and took ‘em down to the park, I put ‘em in a three seat stroller, rolled ‘em around for a while letting the ole ladies go ‘kuchee kue’ to ‘em, tickle ‘em under their chins. Made ‘em giggle like lil babes.”
Roger looked at his wife, said, “You ‘fraid of them, hon?”
She played it straight against Jinny’s joking, saying, “They’ll be back, and we’ll have to be aware of that all the time, on guard. But I’m not terribly afraid. When they show up, we’ll deal with it.”
Laleh said, “We’ve only been working together a few weeks, but I trust everyone here, and I feel like telling the story, so everyone knows what’s behind this thing. You know I’m from Iran, and those guys are from Iran. I got sick of my life over there a few years ago, and decided to do something, and I did it. The Ayatollah is the symbol of everything I hate about my culture: anti-modernism, religious fanaticism, oppression, misogyny. Those guys were right: I did steal from him, from his personal account. And that’s the money we’re using here. I thought I’d covered my tracks completely, but I guess not. Sorry. Sorry. When I got to Charleston I just liked everyone, and the place, and the idea of the production; and I didn’t think of possible trouble from them. Sorry. That’s the story.”
Now it was Monique’s turn to say something. She looked around the table at her crew, which included Shim, George, and Sody, and said, “Are we afraid? Do we want to bail out? We can. We don’t have to play here; don’t have to do this show. We don’t have to sit around worrying about those guys coming back. We can go back to Lake Como, play soccer with the school kids. Learn how to make good gnocchi, smiling at Sody. What do you think?” George looked at Sody who looked at the wuss writer who looked back at Monique, each in turn positively shrugging their shoulders in acquiescence. Monique picked up her wine glass and offered a toast, “Fuck the Ayatollah.”