Still Holding

by Bruce Wagner

  Entities

  REGGIE MARCK HAD a three o’clock meeting with a married couple. They had been referred by Rodrigo Muñoz, a well-known attorney who specialized in civil rights violations stemming from police misconduct. He was seeing them as a favor to Rodrigo, who’d sought Reggie’s services after being too closely portrayed in a Law & Order episode a few seasons back. He felt maligned. Reggie had gotten a small but reasonable settlement and they’d become friends.

  Rodrigo had told him some colorful stories about “the Munsters,” and Reggie thought Lisanne might get a kick out of meeting them. Lately, she’d been so dispirited. It seemed like she was gaining weight by the week. His wife thought he worried too much, but for Reggie, Lisanne was family. He asked her to sit in and take notes.

  “Rodrigo said you were the Man,” said Cassandra.

  “I hope I can be helpful,” said Reggie. “How’s the big guy doing?”

  “El jefe?” said Grady. “Still causin trouble. Stirrin it up.”

  “He keeps it real, though, that’s for damn sure,” said Cassandra.

  “Sounds like Rod,” said Reggie. “He’s sharp.”

  “I call him the Brown Man of Renown.”

  “That’s better than the Brown Turd!” said Grady.

  They bantered like that until Mr. Dunsmore finally got to the point. “See—the thing is,” he said, “that we want to make movies.”

  “But we don’t know too much about it,” said Cassandra. “Ain’t our world. I mean, we’re learning, don’t get me wrong. Learnin quick. And we know a shitload of people—”

  “A shitload.”

  “—in the business, but the bottom line is, if they’re successful, they ain’t really in too much of a hurry to say hello. Not to no virgins. And I can understand that. Shit, I’d be the same way. Show business is a motherfucker, it ain’t a charity. Took ‘em this long to get to where they’re at and here comes some asshole wanting to know the secret of their success. Hey, how’d ya do it! I wanna be rich too! Know what I’m saying?”

  “Absolutely,” said Reggie, nodding.

  “There are only so many pieces of the pie,” said Grady.

  “That’s what they think,” said Cassandra. “That’s the fallacy in a nutshell, see, cause that is one hundred percent, gold-plated bullshit. There’s plenty of apple pie to go around—cherry and blueberry too! Motherfuckers just greedy.”

  “Greedy,” echoed Grady, like a pilgrim at a tent meeting. “Damn straight.”

  “And I ain’t even sayin it’s the Jews. Cause hell, they’re the ones we need to be learning from.”

  Lisanne kept her head down and scribbled furiously, trying not to laugh.

  “Rodrigo said we got to form a production company.”

  “That would seem a logical way to go,” Reggie said.

  “Goodie!” said Cassandra, clapping her hands. “Can you do that for us?”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Does that cost a lot?”

  “A few thousand dollars.”

  “We want to get into music publishing too—we want to own catalogs. Rodrigo said that’s where the real money is.”

  “If the soundtrack of one of our movies takes off,” said Grady, eyes on the prize, “we want to be ready.”

  “We know lots of movie people,” said Cassandra. “Actors and directors—agents and managers too. Hey, they come to us. Jimmy Caan calls us Playboy Mansion East.”

  “We live up on Mulholland, right across from Jack.”

  “We started renting the house out for movie locations—the Strokes are doing a video tomorrow, and Drew Barrymore might be there cause she’s going out with someone in the band—but not cause we need the money. It’s a cool way to make connections. It’s all about networking.”

  “We’re right across from Jack Nicholson.”

  “You already told him that, fool!”

  “And Brando. We keep asking him to come over, and one day he will. He don’t answer the phone. He’s famous for that. We heard you gotta leave a message on the machine for his pet rat or somethin. That’s the only way he’ll pick up.”

  “We tried that. But he ain’t called back.”

  “Oh he will. I know he will,” said Grady, winking at Reggie like a crazed hillbilly. “Cause he’s stone nuts. And he knows we’re crazy enough for him to want to get to know us. We’re his people!”

  “Mr. Marck,” said Cassandra. “If you can help us with the legal then we can have more of a foundation. Cause we’re already lookin at scripts. Gonna put up a whole Web site like Kevin Spacey did so unknowns can submit screenplays.”

  “Tha’s right.”

  “Gonna be all over Sundance. Want to do us a Project Greenlight too. But right now we couldn’t get nothin goin if we wanted to. Rodrigo said we need an ‘entity.’ ”

  “Like a poltergeist!” said Grady.

  “Can it, goon,” she said, kicking at him.

  “What you’ve got to do,” said Reggie, “is come up with a name for the corporation. Lisanne will send the papers to Sacramento, and they’ll do a search, for clearance. If the name isn’t being used, you’re good to go.”

  “Can we put you on retainer for company business?”

  “You know, unfortunately, much as I’d like to, I wouldn’t be able to take you on—that’s not really my thing. But I’ll happily refer you to someone who has that kind of day-to-day architecture already in place.”

  “Cool,” said Cassandra. “We like architecture!”

  “Ain’t it cool?” said Grady, doing his Travolta.

  “We already come up with a name,” said his wife, proudly. “For the entity.”

  She rested a hand atop her gigantic stomach and smiled. Grady reached over to pat her swollen fingers.

  “QuestraWorld,” he said, beaming.

  “QuestraWorld Film and Television Productions,” Cassandra added. “Incorporated.”

  The Life of a Working Actress

  SHE LAY ON a towel, on a Six Feet Under gurney.

  They’d brought her in for another show. This time, the casting lady said that her face would probably be featured. Becca wondered if one of the actors who’d hit on her had arranged it. That seemed a little far-fetched.

  She was bewildered that Rusty had been so harsh when she tried to tell him her good news. It came as a shock that he could be so insecure. But then she felt bereft and asinine, because she really knew nothing about this man. The first time she saw him, he was beating up some pathetic look-alike! She wondered if she should be afraid. With a shiver, she flashed on Grady trying to shoehorn his dick inside her. An upside-down Rusty looked into her eyes while reaching over to put his hands on her legs, spreading them for his friend. Thank God Grady was too loaded to do anything. Rusty was panting, and she could tell how much it excited him to be pimping her. (She still hadn’t told Annie.) That’s the kind of person she was dealing with. The man she’d fallen in love with.

  Her back was killing her. When they were done shooting, she decided to treat herself to a massage. She was calling Burke Williams on her cell when Annie rang through. She said Becca should drive over to the theater on Delongpre right now—Kit Lightfoot was inside, rehearsing with Jorgia Wilding.

  • • •

  THEY SAT IN Annie’s car smoking and waiting.

  “What are they rehearsing for?”

  “I don’t know. I think a movie. Cyrus didn’t say. I don’t think he knows.”

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “With Kit Lightfoot?”

  “Heh heh.”

  “Oh! You mean with Cyrus.”

  “No, I meant with Jorgia.”

  “Hey, if it would make me a better actress . . .” They laughed, then Annie reconsidered the question. “Cyrus and I? We’re kind of sleeping together.”

  “I love that. ‘Kind of.’ ”

  “Kinda sorta. Are you sleeping with your friend?”

  Becca nodded reluctantly.

  “Well that�
��s not very enthusiastic,” said Annie.

  “Oh, it’s pretty enthusiastic all right.”

  “Really,” said Annie, intrigued.

  “Be careful,” said Becca, putting it back on Annie. “I mean, he’s the director.”

  “I know. It’s that old saying, ‘Don’t shit where you act.’ ”

  “It’s much harder to find a good acting company than it is someone to fuck.”

  There was movement at the front door of the theater. A worker-type came out—false alarm.

  “I’m gonna split,” said Becca. “Are you staying?”

  “Guess I’ll go. And don’t tell anyone about this.”

  “About what?”

  “Kit Lightfoot! It’s supposed to be a total secret.”

  “You should come get a massage with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Burke Williams.”

  “I’m going to Koreatown for a sauna. It’s cheaper.”

  • • •

  WHILE BECCA GOT rubbed, her thoughts drifted lazily to the Colony. She fantasized that the look-alike movie was a big hit. Charlie Kaufman had written a part especially for her, and Rusty was OK with that because now Rusty was famous too. He and Becca were known in the magazines as having one of those reliably unreliable on-again, off-again relationships like Ben and Gwyneth, pre-J. Lo. But they would always be great friends. She was in Malibu, at a party at Spike and Sofia’s. George Clooney and Nicole Kidman were there, and Pink and Drew and Leo and Kirsten and Tobey. Sofia’s cousin Nic Cage was grilling Becca a hamburger while they talked to Charlie K about something funny that had happened during the making of Adaptation. She was walking on the beach with the wise and amazing Shirley MacLaine (always one of her faves, and her mom’s too) and Francis Coppola, and Becca told the director how much she loved Rumble Fish and how she’d always thought of herself as the girl floating above the classroom. Then Becca was on Leno telling the already famous story of once being hired by Cameron Diaz as a Drew Barrymore look-alike for a surprise birthday party for Drew and how funny and ironic that was because of course now she and Cameron and Drew were thisclose, with Becca having subsequently been cast in A Confederacy of Dunces. Critics said she’d stolen all her scenes.

  The masseuse dug too deep, interrupting Becca’s pleasant jag. She was the type who never really listened when you said you wanted it light; you could tell them a hundred times and they’d just keep digging. For the rest of the rub, Becca tensed beneath the onslaught.

  The Omen

  ON HIS WAY to the production office, Kit zipped into the Coffee Bean, on Sunset. By now they were used to seeing him. Even though most of the customers and employees were actors, they kept their cool. They were careful not to get too ruffled.

  “Next guest in line, please!”

  The server was mildly retarded. He spoke loudly, with a perceptible slur—straight out of I Am Sam.

  “A large latte please,” said Kit. “With no foam.”

  The server called to the nose-ringed barrista at the machine. “One no-foam latte large for guest, please!” he exclaimed, turning back to Kit. “We are living large!” He used a gloved hand to point. “Your drink will be there, sir, in ohnee one minute!”

  The barrista seized the quirky moment to exchange warm, sidewise looks with the superstar. Kit could see her tongue stud.

  • • •

  HE DROVE TO the Valley and hung with Darren. They were shooting in ten weeks, but the kind of barely suppressed anarchy that typically characterizes preproduction hadn’t yet kicked in. Today, everything seemed under control.

  A P.A. came in to say that Marisa had arrived.

  Kit had met the actress before socially, with Viv. They small-talked before reading through the scene. Then Darren made a few suggestions and they started over, with a different approach. The director liked the way they worked off each other.

  At the end of the afternoon, on the way to his car, Kit saw a man scurry toward him with a cockeyed, swivel-hipped gait. It was the retarded server from the Coffee Bean.

  “Hi!”

  He was nonplussed. Was the kid delivering cappuccinos on the lot?

  “Hey,” said Kit tentatively.

  “Sorry to bother you but—I just wanted to say that I think the project with Aronofsky is killer.” The tilt and slur had miraculously evaporated.

  “Who are you?” asked Kit.

  “Larry Levine!” said the man, sunnily. “I’m an actor. Goin up as one of your rehab buds. Kit Lightfoot and Darren Aronofsky—I am so stoked. It was a total omen running into you this morning! I’ve only been there a week but it took me months to get that job. They don’t even know I’m doin my ‘research’ thing. It’s a whole different world out there when people think you’re ‘challenged’—”

  “Hey, fuck off.”

  Larry Levine stood there, perplexed and bleary-eyed.

  “Don’t draw me into your bullshit process, man. You want to perpetrate that nonsense on people, fine—”

  “But Darren said—”

  “I don’t give a shit. Why would I want to fucking hear about it?”

  “I’m sorry, man,” said the dismayed actor. “I’m really sor—”

  “Just stay away from me, OK?”

  “I totally respect you. I—”

  Kit got in his G-wagen and gunned it.

  • • •

  THAT NIGHT KIT and Alf were at the Standard, drunk on scorpions and laughing their asses off.

  “You didn’t get spammed, you got Samed! He fucking Samed you!” cried Alf, showering spittle onto his friend. “He I Am Samed you!”

  “One large no-foam latte for guest!” said Kit, in spot-on imitation.

  “That is so fuckin genius. Tell you one thing, man. You better make sure they don’t hire this guy—it’s Eve Harrington time!”

  “We are living large!”

  “Café latte?” said Alf, in his best Sean Penn improv. “Excellent choice, excellent choice!”

  “Mr. Tourette’s” stumbled over to join the dysfunctional fray.

  “Shit motherfucker!” ticced Lucas, dusting off the clinical signs of what Alf called Golden Globe syndrome. “Shitpissfuckcunt. Tampaxdick down Grannie’s throat! Fuck Mommy’s hairynaziniggerass!”

  Kit convulsed.

  “I love my li’l guhl!” whimpered Alf, in emotional paroxysm. “Why you no think I c’n love her? You cannot take my li’l guhl! She the only-est thing I have!”

  “Fuckpissnigger! West Nile smallpox shitstained babycunt JonBenet Elizabeth Smart sucksbeanerdick! Arf! Arf! Arf! AIDS! SARS! Sickle Cell! Arf! Arf!”

  “Stop!” cried Kit, clutching his gut. “You have to stop!”

  “Excellent choice! Excellent choice!”

  “No more! No more! No more!”

  Beginner’s Mind

  SHE WENT TO the Bodhi Tree on Melrose. A child was forming within her, already the size of a toenail. She was lost.

  There was too much to learn. She stared awhile at the statues of saints and bodhisattvas inside the glass case. Of course, none compared with Kit’s. There were crystals, beaded necklaces, and all manner of fetishes with centipedal arms. She wandered past meditation pillows, through aisles of Vedic texts and theosophy, to the only section that made any real sense: fiction. She scanned the volumes, her fingers settling upon Siddhartha. She dimly remembered reading it in high school. The pretty black-and-white cover hadn’t changed.

  Poetry followed, and she saw the fat book from her father’s library—The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa.

  Loitering in Eastern Religions, she quick-study gleaned a Buddhist 101 introductory: the Three Jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha) and the Four Noble Truths—(1) suffering (duhkha), (2) origin of suffering (trishna), (3) cessation of suffering (nirvana), and (4) the Eightfold Path (marga). She flipped through the primer’s pages but couldn’t focus. Instead, she selected a book called Spiritual Tourist. That was what she felt like.

  She grabbed th
e Upanishads, recognizing the title from the blond Bel-Air guru’s mention. She picked up some incense, a poster of the Wheel of Becoming, and a few yoga magazines before returning to the shelf for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Buddhism. (Just thinking about which Eightfold Path to take first seemed exhausting.) She was going to buy a statue—a Tara or a Kali—but they were sort of pricey so she got some beautiful laminated cards instead. One was of the “Shakyamuni Buddha.”

  Tad Yatha Om Muni Muni Maha Muni Shakyamuni Ye Soha

  Seated on a lion throne, Shakyamuni Buddha holds his right hand in the earth-touching mudra. With this gesture he called upon the earth to witness his lifetimes dedicated to attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all beings and triumphed over Mara, Lord of Illusion.

  Lisanne stood at the cash register while they ran her credit card. She was somehow ashamed—ashamed of her life—and was looking over her shoulder with random paranoia when Phil Muskingham materialized.

  “Well, hello!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She looked stricken, as if caught shoplifting.

  “My therapist told me to pick up a lingam stone.” He held the egg-shaped thing in an open hand for her to see.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s supposed to balance energy—or something like that. What, are you a complete idiot?”

  Lisanne was taken aback until she noticed him nodding toward the Day-Glo orange tome as the clerk bagged it.

  “Yup, that’s me,” she said. “A total spiritual moron.”