The Masked Man: A Memoir And Fantasy Of Hollywood

by Tom Wilson

  There, in a darkened corner, deep in the womb of the Dunes Hotel, was a keno girl. A tall blonde in her early twenties with a sequined blue skirt and a small, matching hat, she stared nervously into the eyes of the large man holding her against the wall, tightly gripping her wrists. The air was silent and thick with fear. She nervously fidgeted, pulling her arms gently away, but the man held on tightly, pinning her against the wall and cornering her.

  I've always felt like the kind of guy who would jump into a situation like this, saying something a T.V. cop might say, like "Let her go, punk," looking tough and baring my savage and expensive teeth. I say that I felt like that kind of guy, because my theory hadn't been tested all that much. As I squared my reasonably broad shoulders, inhaled a little to increase chest size, and prepared to bark a sharp "Hey, now. Is everything alright here, Miss?" the man turned around to face me and I stared into the eyes of the hungry hunter with his prey, who also happened to be the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

  Mike Tyson turned slowly toward the sound of the opening door, and leveled me with a stare that I'm guessing he uses only for men he is about to kill, and ex-wives, the stare of the first few moments of a fist fight, when his message is very clear. Soon you will see a blinding flash of light, and then sweet slumber will surround you. It took his hooded eyes only a fraction of a second to give me a feeling that was so elemental that I was entertained by the strange fear. My knees buckled slightly and in an instant I was a gazelle on the Serengeti Plain. Unfortunately for me that day, I hadn't been paying close enough attention, and walked into the hunting path of the lion. Like the surprised gazelle, all I had were my legs, and they could not freeze, they had to move quickly, ready to serpentine around the tiny room in evasive action. "Uh, pardon me," I said, brushing past the cinder block of Tyson's shoulder and slamming through another set of doors. There behind the second door was the Tyson track suit gang, standing around in the dark hallway, gold rings and cell phones at the ready, waiting for Iron Mike to finish his courtship with the keno girl. Shocked to see someone come through the doors from the opposite direction, they said "Who are you?" but the gazelle was well past them by that point. "The Show. Show I'm… I'm in the show," I whined over my shoulder, "Getting the show ready. Yup, the show. Backstage. Allowed to be there. Me. Yes. Allowed."

  I ran from the casino and found my friend Harry in his hotel room.

  "We've got to do something!" I said, "Mike Tyson is backstage with a keno girl!"

  "What?"

  "Mike Tyson! He's got a keno girl backstage!"

  "Mike Tyson is playing keno?"

  "No! He's backstage with a keno girl! We've got to help her!"

  Nothing can make a guy forget about throwing up on an audience member like a frenzied story about what I'd just seen, the heavyweight champ of the world and the future Mrs. Tyson playing around backstage and kind of threatening to kill me.

  "They're still back there, but his track suit guys are blocking the door!"

  We ran to the opposite side of the casino and used a different entryway to get backstage, where we shushed each other, listening for fearful cries for help, or perhaps a pronounced lisp.

  "He was right back here!" I said, as Harry began climbing a ladder to the wooden catwalk twenty feet above the stage, high enough to peek into the hallways and dressing rooms from above.

  "He was going to kill me!" I said.

  "What did he say?"

  "He didn't say anything, he just looked at me!"

  "What did the keno girl say?"

  "She didn't say anything either!"

  I climbed the ladder myself, following him onto the high scaffolding, looking for Mike Tyson and a young lady in a glittering blue skirt.

  "What did you say to him?" Harry asked.

  "I said "pardon me."

  "And he didn't say anything!"

  "No! But he looked at me!"

  "He looked at you? He just looked at you?"

  "Harry, I'm trying to help somebody here!"

  The stage was dimly lit with a few work lights and hushed with the kind of silence that only happens behind thick velvet curtains. Then we started to rattle curtain chains and talk like workmen, yelling in tough guy voices about plugging in lights and setting up props, hoping to scare them off in case we came down the ladder into the waiting arms of Iron Mike himself.

  "What are you guys doing up there?" a voice piped up from the darkness.

  We stared at each other for three seconds, waiting for the other to respond.

  "We're in the show!" we both said.

  "You in the stagehands union?"

  "…no," I said.

  "Get down from there." The voice said, starting a long tirade about darkness, danger, and the benefits of union membership, and we scurried from the heights, hoping that we'd saved the keno girl from harm. I never saw him again, but a little while later, Mike Tyson went to prison, and I really became a boxing fan, going to Harry's house to watch the big bouts when Buster Douglas and Evander Holyfield began to face him down and punch his head in.

  NINETEEN

  We pulled into Las Vegas, crawling in bumper to bumper traffic so far down the Vegas Strip that you might be fooled into thinking that, despite the four and a half hour car ride, you're still in L.A.

  "That's something," the Ranger said, looking out the car window.

  "Mike Tyson doesn't fight anymore, though," I said.

  "Is he in prison?" the Ranger asked.

  "No," I said, "He acts in movies."

  "He what?"

  "Yes," I said, "he acts in movies."

  The Ranger squinted through his mask and wiped the windshield as we approached the "New York, New York" casino hotel.

  "Wait a minute, Tom," he said, "This is not Las Vegas."

  "It sure is," I said.

  "That's the Statue of Liberty!" he said.

  "It's a casino. New York, New York casino," I said.

  He stared at Lady Liberty, incredulous. "The Statue of Liberty decorates a casino?" he asked.

  "It's part of the roller coaster they have there."

  He rubbed his face with his hands, sighing. "Flat wrong, Tom," he said, "Flat out wrong."

  "Oh, gimme your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to gamble and drink," I said, weaving the car to avoid hitting an elderly couple, jaywalking while drinking out of dumpster-sized soda cups in matching NASCAR tank tops. We jerked through the traffic on the Strip, and the Ranger gasped in the middle of every block as the next mega-casino came into view.

  "Look yonder, Tom! It's the Eiffel Tower!"

  "It's a casino," I said.

  "You're kidding!" he said, then distracted in a flash, "A pirate ship!"

  "Casino."

  "Wow! Look at those dancing waters!"

  I looked at him and we said in unison "Casino."

  We pulled into the International Hotel, where thousands of pear shaped white guys stretched Hawaiian shirts over their corn fed frames to attend the annual convention of Three Vine Foods, a multinational corporation that revolutionized how to flash-freeze and sell vegetables, an idea so successful that they decided to have a party in a big showroom and hire a comedian to perform for them. While they drink.

  In the giant hotel/casino resorts that have swallowed Las Vegas, the lobby for the actual hotel is as easy to find as a Franciscan monk. The check in desk must be in there somewhere, because, I mean, it's a hotel, right? But the clanging and jingling and puffs of blue smoke wafting over lines of flashing lights that sparkle in the reflective hair of cocktail waitresses fills the eyes and ears with so much casino camouflage that it's tough to figure out where to slap your palm on a Formica desk and ask for a room. If the military hasn't already spent tens of millions of dollars looking into it - and they probably have - they should think about using rows of slot machines as camouflage on the battlefield. Dress our heroic Green Berets as "Jackpot Slots!" and any foreign enemy, dazzled by the dream of clattering American money,
will walk right up to the things with zombie eyes, fishing for quarters in their pockets.

  We finally reached the front of the check in line, greeted by a young man with neatly trimmed hair, a large corsage, and perhaps a hint of eye shadow.

  "Welcome to the International Hotel!" he chirped, "Your reservation would be under what name?"

  "Wilson, Tom Wilson. I'm here to perform for the frozen vegetable people."

  He squealed with girlish delight. "Sounds like a sick sci-fi movie to me! Ha!"

  "Do you need a credit card from me?"

  "Ha! The performer for the frozen vegetable people!" he said.

  "Right!" I said, extending my palm for a key.

  He looked at the Ranger, arched an eyebrow and looked back at me. "Double room?" he asked.

  "Nope. King size bed. Non smoking, please."

  A smile creased his polished face as he gleamed back and forth between us. "Yes, sir!" he said.

  "No!" I blurted, "That's not what…uh, maybe give me a double room." I looked at the Ranger.

  "What, me?" the Ranger said, "I'm not staying here. Or, no, I don't have to."

  "I…You're not staying, right? I mean, what was the plan?" I said to him.

  "Just get a king sized bed. That'll be fine."

  I looked at the Ranger, peeked at the desk clerk and said way too loudly "But not for you, right?"

  "For me? No, I don't need a king sized bed," he said.

  "But…I mean," I continued, "You're not going to be staying here, right?"

  "I'll go whenever you like," he said.

  The clerk overdid a pouty face. "No squabbles, kids!"

  I rested my forehead on the beige counter. "I just need a room key, please."

  "Why don't we take a walk outside?" the Ranger said.

  "Are you kidding?" I said, "It's a pottery kiln out there!"

  "It was a long drive," he said, "It would be good to stretch the legs."

  "Ranger, let's put the bags down. They're measuring temperature on the Kelvin scale or something. The only sunscreen I use is rated SPF - DON'T GO OUTSIDE."

  "Look at those people!" he said, pointing through the window at deeply tanned retirees, their flabby arms weighed down with pounds of gold.

  "Those aren't people!" I said, "They're reptilian bipeds! Nothing human could be that brown and wrinkled!"

  "Well, let's go to the room then," he said.

  "3124 North Tower," the clerk said, handing over the keys in a thick pamphlet of orientation maps and coupons, "King bed!" he added, with a wink.

  "Thanks."

  "We call it the Aloha Deck around here!" he said, smelling his corsage, "Front!"

  We walked away, through cumulonimbus tobacco smoke exhaled by the shuffling gamblers.

  "And they're smoking!" I said, "They're smoking while standing in an oven!"

  "What did he mean about the king size bed thing?" the Ranger asked.

  "How do they light the cigarettes?" I asked, "holding them under their arm? You could put corn kernels in your ear and pop popcorn out there!"

  I dropped my bags in the room and we walked out of the air conditioning onto the Strip, through the fog of water misters around the entrance and outside onto the surface of the sun, crammed with sun burned pedestrians who gambled away their money for cab fare.

  "Look at all the cars!" the Ranger said, as a greasy man on the sidewalk handed him an orange flyer.

  "Thank you, sir!" the Ranger said, walking toward downtown.

  "Ranger, you're probably not interested in that," I said, pointing at the slip of paper.

  He looked at it, focused on the graphic ad for a porn queen at a strip club, and averted his eyes with a whip of his head, almost knocking an elderly man in an electric scooter into oncoming traffic.

  "Oh!" he said, shuffling his feet and twisting through the throng of pedestrians to a trash can.

  "They do a lot of that stuff here," I said, "Don't take the pieces of paper from anybody."

  He shook his head. "Right under the nose of the Statue of Liberty. What kind of liberty is that?"

  "So, where do you want to walk?" I asked, as another flyer was shoved into the Ranger's hand.

  "No, thank you!" he said, offering it back to the man, who didn't accept it, sending the Ranger back to the trash can.

  "There are quite a lot of these types," the Ranger said.

  We made it all the way to the crosswalk, but as we waited for the signal to change, another man in a filthy baseball cap shoved a pink flyer at the Ranger.

  "No, thank you," the Ranger said, hands on his belt.

  "Half price table dance Tuesday!" the man croaked, shoving the paper into the Ranger's face.

  "I said no thanks, friend."

  The crusty man reached into the pocket of his apron, shoving a different flyer into his face, an even more graphic ad decorated with a muscular young man.

  The Ranger turned to face the man, lowered his chin and stared at him with a gaze powerful enough to make him cough.

  "What part of no don't you understand, Mister?" he said.

  The guy choked on a part of his tongue for a moment, wiping his hands on a windbreaker rubbed black with grime. "How the hell should I know what way you swing? Nice mask." he said.

  The Ranger turned to me and leaned in close as the light turned green. "Tom," he said, "Do you think it would be alright if we went back to the hotel?"

  "Yeah," I said, "It's almost showtime."

  Performing standup comedy at a banquet for a giant corporation is a lot like making balloon animals at a party for komodo dragons. The colorful movements might distract them for a while, but all they're really interested in is eating and attacking the weak.

  "Are you Biff?" the hostess asked when I stepped up to the nametag table.

  "I'm Tom. Tom Wilson. I'm performing tonight."

  "Well, you're Biff to me!" she said, "Biff!"

  "Well, … okay then," I said.

  "Ha!" she guffawed, stirring a vodka tonic, "You'll never live that one down, huh? Ha!"

  Corporate gigs always start off on a great foot, where somebody keeps calling you by a movie character's name, and then you have to meet the CEO and all his relatives, most of whom dabbled at one time in the "Semi-pro" theatre.

  "You're doing the big show tonight, huh Biff?" a large pink man said, walking toward me.

  "It's Tom. Yes, I'm doing some standup comedy tonight!"

  "Bob Tanksley, H.R."

  "H.R."

  "Human Resources, you know, what not," he said, "I saw the tape from your booking agent."

  He swigged bourbon from a hotel water glass and winced as it went down, watching his ice swirl in the caramel liquid, preparing his critique.

  "Pretty good video," he said. Men always say "pretty good" for fear of usurping their power to you. Women will allow themselves to gush and quote their favorite section of material, while men stare at you, wary of the wiseguy.

  "Yeah, pretty good," he said.

  "Thanks," I said insincerely, "means a lot"

  "No filth tonight, right?"

  "What filth would that be?" I asked.

  "Well, I talked to Stephanie, the entertainment chairwoman about it. We had that Dennis Miller here last year. He used a lot of foul language and it really hit the fan." "Oh, well I don't--"

  "He dropped the F-bomb in front of Bishop O'Neal."

  "Gotcha," I said, "I don't think we'll have a problem."

  The muscles tensed around his eyes and I knew he didn't believe me. "We just want a clean show."

  "Right," I said.

  "Right," he said, "Clean."

  I smiled, trying to think of something else to say, a gentle lead in to the most important question of the night.

  "So…you live in LaLa Land?" he said, chuckling.

  "Yes, I do. L.A."

  "You know what they say about that place?"

  "Hey, Bob, who would be the person in charge of paying me?" I asked.

  In a last min
ute decision, the banquet committee decided to wait until after dinner, dessert, and the distribution of all sales, marketing, and lifetime achievement awards before getting to my portion of the program. By the time I was introduced, middle aged men from Idaho were wearing their neckties as headbands, and a woman had been asked by hotel staff to get down from the table she was dancing on.

  "Okay, can I get everybody's attention? We have a comedian tonight, so if you could all take your seats," the emcee said, through the utensil clatter. A few lifetime achievement award recipients hustled their plaques to the back of the room for photos and back-slapping, and the emcee plowed forward, talking over the clanking din.

  "Well, uh, thanks to a lot of hard work from all you regional managers, we wanted to show you a good time…so here he is!"

  I stood behind the corporate logo backdrop, watching for a signal from anyone close to me and waiting for my introduction.

  "Go!" a man I'd never seen before waved me on.

  "That's it?" I hissed.

  The emcee wobbled down the stage steps past me "Get out there!"

  "No intro?!"

  "I did!"

  "You didn't even say my name!"

  "Biiiiifff!" shouted several drunk salesmen, toasting the stage with empty beer bottles. "Biiifff!!"

  "Have fun out there!" the emcee said, shuffling back to his drink.

  I stomped confidently into the spotlight, smiling big in totally phony control of the situation. "Good evening!" I boomed into the microphone, walking into the tornado and strapping on a psychological protective cup.

  An early sign of trouble in a standup performance is the complete inability to get anybody to even sit in the chairs and quiet down enough to establish the fact that there's a performer onstage. Without a shred of attention from anyone in the room, when the banquet hall is a cacophony of glasses, plates, and chairs facing away from the stage, the show can't really begin without engaging somebody - anybody in the room.