No Land's Man

by Aasif Mandvi

  “They can have their movie stars,” Ismail scoffed. “I have managed to snag the biggest celebrity in the world.”

  “You have?” I said, wondering if Oprah could actually ruin my career if she hated this movie.

  As I stepped out of a limousine with my parents at the premiere, which Ismail had turned into a fundraiser for the American India Foundation, I saw what he meant when the handful of press who had showed up suddenly stopped taking pictures of me and turned their lenses on the biggest celebrity in the world who also happened to be a board member of the American India Foundation: Former President Bill Clinton.

  As the film started, I realized that Ismail Merchant had done what he did best. He had told the story the way he saw it. The movie was not perfect; in fact it got tremendously mixed reviews from the people in the theater that night and beyond. It would not go on to do much business at the box office or change my life in the way I thought it would, but as I watched the film, I saw for the first time what my story really was. It was not the story that I was hoping it would be—that of a young actor who gives an Oscar-winning performance his first time out and is applauded as the next great talent of our generation. It was instead the story of a young actor who is given an unbelievable opportunity, not to become a movie star, but to learn how to star in a movie.

  Bill Clinton may have stood up and left ten minutes after the film began and gone to Paul Newman’s party down the street, but it didn’t matter. After the screening was over and people came up to me and my parents and congratulated me on a job well done, I realized that Ismail Merchant had given me something that perhaps no one else could have. He showed me how to make a great story out of a broken chair.

  BROOKE AND MONDAY-WALA

  BROOKE SHIELDS KICKED ME OUT of her New Year’s Eve party and I blame Jenny Cockshot and a very powerful pot brownie. Now, I have never been that guy that people kick out of their parties. It had never happened to me before. I am a fairly decent conversationalist and with the right music I’m a pretty good dancer, so mostly people like having me at their parties.

  First of all, let me preface this story by saying that it was perfectly appropriate for Brooke to throw me out of her party. I might have done the same thing in her position. However, the reason this incident was significant was because of my strange history with Brooke Shields. Brooke and I were not friends. In fact, I had never really spoken to her. And yet when I was fourteen years old I went to sleep every night staring into her eyes.

  When I was a kid, everyone had posters up in their bedroom. And since it was the seventies, most boys had posters of the scantily-clad Farrah Fawcett or the libido-raising dominatrixy Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, or in the case of my friend Darren, the tightly-uniformed Erik Estrada. I had only one poster on my bedroom wall. It wasn’t even really a poster, it was just a photograph torn out of a magazine. It showed Brooke as a young screen goddess, barely a teenager, with puckered, moist lips, hair blown back, and a sultry expression in her eyes. I had posted the picture on the wall right to next to my pillow, so every night just before I turned off my lamp, Brooke was the last face I would see. She was the girl with whom I imagined I could go see movies. A beautiful girlfriend to hold my hand. Someone I could talk to.

  I was too young to have seen any of her movies (although I had seen the trailers and I was determined that Blue Lagoon would be the first movie I would rent as soon as I turned sixteen) and her famous Calvin Klein ads had somehow never made it across the Atlantic, so I became aware of Brooke mostly because of an interview that I saw on TV one night.

  She was a child star, appearing before the cameras to promote a film. I was instantly captivated by her. She was beautiful, but my attraction came from more than that. She, like me, seemed sad and alone. I had recently discovered my passion for acting and even though she was a glamorous Hollywood movie star who lived in a world very different than that of an Indian kid whose father had a corner shop in a Pakistani ghetto in the north of England, I was sure that if we ever did meet, we would have an instant connection.

  My real-life Brooke was a girl named Jenny Cockshot. I had secretly been in love with Jenny since I had arrived at Mandale Middle School. She was very real, but just as unattainable. Her lips, her teeth, her eyes, her training bra: all of it was perfect. She used to wear sexy white turtlenecks that made her seem regal. I had never spoken to her either—she walked around school on the arm of a young tough guy named Brian.

  In the showers after P.E. I couldn’t help but notice that Brian had perfectly developed biceps, real honest-to-goodness biceps. I had never seen such huge biceps before, but his dad was a builder and I figured Brian probably spent his summers building houses. However, that failed to explain his giant penis. I had never seen a penis that large before, either. Everything about Brian was larger than me and standing next to him in the showers made me feel like a stick figure.

  It seemed that Brian’s biceps, his penis size, and the fact that he was handsome and white gave him a sense of entitlement to do whatever to whomever he felt like. Once during P.E., Brian’s friend Justin caught me staring at Jenny while we were supposed to be climbing ropes. Brian had easily climbed to the top of his rope with biceps bulging while I spun around entangled at the bottom of mine like it was a maypole.

  “Hey, Brian,” Justin yelled across the gym. “I think Monday-wala fancies your Jenny.”

  (Mandviwala was too difficult for the kids to pronounce, so they called me Monday-wala. Since I never objected and instead played it off like I thought it was hilarious, soon I was not only called Monday-wala, but Tuesday-wala, Wednesday-wala, etc., depending on the day of the week. I heard it so often that I once failed to recognize my real last name during roll call. The teacher stood at the front of the room for a good fifteen seconds just saying my name in a flat monotonous tone, “Mandviwala. Mandviwala. Mandviwala.” It wasn’t until one of the other students laughed and reminded the confused teacher it was Thursday that I perked up and paid attention.)

  As soon as Justin yelled, I panicked and averted my gaze from Jenny’s direction. My eyes darted around the gym like I was possessed.

  “No, I don’t,” I protested, feigning laughter.

  Jenny shot me a look that was a mixture of confusion and outrage from across the gym, which sent me into another panic.

  “I mean not that I wouldn’t, I just meant . . .” I mumbled apologetically in her direction. I looked up and saw Brian hanging atop the ropes watching me silently like a bird of prey.

  The bus ride home that afternoon was tense. Brian taunted me from the back with his arm around Jenny.

  “Hey Monday-wala, look at me,” he called. “Hey, look at me, you wog. You like my girl? You like my Jenny? You want my Jenny?”

  The city bus was always filled with a dozen or so riotous kids that the bus driver yelled at all the way home, but that day felt different. Except for Brian’s taunting the rest of the bus was silent. I turned for a moment and saw Jenny laughing with her head on his shoulder as Brian threw a half-eaten sandwich in my direction.

  As soon as the bus came to my stop, at the top of Great Horton Road, I jumped up, grabbed my school bag, and ran. I heard Brian screaming as he and three others followed in hot pursuit. I dodged traffic and went slamming through manicured bushes, trampling flowers in strange backyards.

  “Don’t you ever look at my girlfriend, you fuckin’ wog!” he yelled as he gained on me. “Don’t you ever look at her again.”

  I ran down the hill. My school bag tangled between my legs, threatening to trip me up. But before Brian could catch me, I turned and ducked into a back alley, jumped over a wall, and ran down past the reservoir to the back of our subdivision and over the fence into my own backyard to safety. I walked into my bedroom exhausted, my pants ripped, my arms and face covered in dirt, and there she was. Looking at me with that puckered mouth and those soft-focus eyes as if to say, “Don’t worry. Those guys are assholes. I like you. Go get yourself a peanut butter sand
wich and a glass of milk and come lay next to me and make up a conversation that we might have if we actually knew each other.”

  A few years later my parents made the monumental decision to leave our life in the UK and move to Tampa, Florida. I remembered that in some teen magazine I had read that Brooke lived in a place known for its lavish gardens. A place called New Jersey. I imagined her walking through gardens and meadows every day with flowers in her hands like she was a character in some BBC period drama. I pulled out a map and saw that New Jersey was actually quite far from Tampa and not a place that I could probably go to on my own. However, the state itself seemed small, and conceivably if we lived there, I would most likely run into Brooke at the grocery store or maybe we would even go to the same school.

  I decided to make a heartfelt campaign for us to move not to Florida but instead to New Jersey, much to my parents’ confusion.

  “What’s wrong with you, beta?” my father asked after I made my pitch. “You will love Florida. They have sunshine, beaches, and even Disney World.”

  I was too embarrassed to admit the truth, so I replied, “I don’t like beaches, I like gardens.”

  My father looked at my mother and said, “This is what happens when you allow your son to do theater.”

  Needless to say, we didn’t move to New Jersey and soon the image of the girl on my wall faded into the distant past only to be rekindled by a moment many years later when, having pursued my dream of being an actor, I lived in New York City and worked as a waiter for one of New York’s finest catering companies. One of the events that I worked at one year was the NBC upfront party, where the network would announce its upcoming season. All the network stars were there, and as I stood by the door in my tuxedo surveying the room, I suddenly spotted “Suddenly Susan” herself, Brooke Shields, amid a gaggle of paparazzi and admirers. As I stared at her from across the room, it all came flooding back: the nights I went to sleep staring at her face, the fantasy that someday I would get back at Brian by having Brooke Shields be my girlfriend, and the dream of wanting to live in New Jersey. Fifteen years earlier I would have given my right arm to be standing exactly where I was in that moment.

  It was as if the preteen inside of me was screaming, “Oh my God, it’s her! Oh my God, it’s her! Come on, let’s go over there. Just make an excuse to walk over to her.”

  “No, I am staying right here,” I told myself. “I’m an adult now. That was a long time ago and I’m not going to act like some crazy teen fanboy.”

  “Are you insane?” my middle school self shot back. “Standing ten feet away is the girl of your childhood dreams! At least walk by and make eye contact. It may be the only chance you ever get.”

  Just as my inner argument was reaching its peak, Brooke suddenly looked away from the flashing lenses and microphones, turned and locked eyes with me. She smiled. It was surreal. Brooke Shields was smiling at me and I know this sounds crazy but it was as if she had been looking for me and was relieved to have finally found me after all these years. My middle school self was absolutely elated, saying, “She remembers. She remembers!” while my adult self stood in complete shock. As if things couldn’t get any stranger, a moment later she lifted her hand and beckoned me forward. Was I dreaming? Could this really be happening right now? My middle school self seemed to push me forward and I floated toward her with a strange grin on my face.

  As I reached her she put her arm on my shoulder, leaned down, and whispered, ever so softly, “You are the man I have been looking for. Could you please get me a glass of red wine?”

  I blushed and nodded as I scurried away to do her bidding, then returned a few seconds later and handed her a glass of cabernet, reminding my middle school self that he should not be too disappointed. Brooke Shields did softly touch my arm, look into my eyes, look down at my name tag and say, “Thank you Asaaf.” I mean, she said my name . . . kind of. But I could sense that middle school me was not satisfied and secretly hoped that he and Brooke would be in the same room again for a do-over. Ten years later, it happened.

  It was the night before New Year’s Eve. I went out to dinner with my friend Carol, who is a very beautiful and successful actress in her own right. Carol knew the chef at this particular restaurant and so we were both curious about what unique appetizer he would prepare for us. The chef, a buoyant energetic fellow, came bounding out of the kitchen with a grin on his face soon after we sat down. We talked about the menu and before he went back to the kitchen he said he had something special for us. I was excited to see what gastronomical delight he would come back with. To my surprise he returned with two small discs wrapped in tinfoil, and sheepishly handed them to us.

  “These are my gift to you, to enjoy,” he said. “Take them tomorrow night before midnight and have an amazing New Year’s Eve.”

  Inside were two beautifully constructed pot brownies. Carol looked at me.

  “Will you try it?” she asked.

  “My first pot brownie,” I replied. “I will if you will.”

  We both agreed that we would take them wherever we were the next night and then meet up. I fantasized a little about the idea that perhaps we would meet up in some alternate pot-brownie-high universe where inhibitions might be discarded and for a moment she would forget that she didn’t think of me “that way.”

  The next night a group of South Asian friends and I decided to see a play called Fuerza Bruta in Union Square. The show is designed to overstimulate, immersing the audience into the action of the theatrical experience. It has a pulsating soundtrack, strobe lights, and an underwater acrobatics show above your head (seriously, look it up), so of course it would be the perfect show to see after eating a pot brownie. In fact, I am willing to bet the show was conceived after someone had eaten a pot brownie . . . or ten.

  The show ran its full course and my brownie never kicked in. I was truly disappointed. After the show, since it was only nine-thirty, we decided to get some sushi at a nearby restaurant. While waiting for our tables, it happened, hard. I no longer knew if I was dreaming or awake, if my legs were incredibly long or the ground was on a very steep angle, and it seemed that I couldn’t change my expression. I sat all throughout dinner with a ridiculous shit-eating grin on my face, convinced that I was unable to change my muscular formation.

  Inside, I was terrified and all I could do was keep telling everyone that I was “weally, weally wowied awout my face.” My friends laughed and carried on because from their perspective my huge grin seemed to indicate that I was “weally, weally” enjoying myself.

  After dinner we went to a club. The music was loud, I had a garland around my neck, a hat that said 2011, and was trying to decide what geometric shape the human hand was. That’s when the phone rang. It was Carol. I walked outside the club to take the call.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “At a club,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Brooke Shields’ New Year’s party at her apartment. Why don’t you come? Brooke said she would be thrilled to have you come over.”

  Now I am going to assume it was the pot brownie that allowed for this to happen, but my younger, middle-school version of myself suddenly popped out of my head through my eyeballs and was standing right next to me, plain as day, unable to truly comprehend what he had just heard and was running around screaming.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes! Did Brooke Shields just say she would be thrilled to have me come over? Are you kidding me? Why are we still on the phone? Tell her you are on your way. Get the address and let’s dump these guys and go. Come on, man, get the address, let’s go!”

  “I can’t do that,” I said to both him and Carol on the phone. “I’m with a group of people, it would be rude to just leave.”

  “What? I can hardly hear you,” came her response.

  “I’M WITH SOME FRIENDS!” I yelled over the din of the music and the New Year’s traffic and drunken revelers.

  “Sure, bring them,” she yelled back, “I’m sure it will be f
ine.”

  Now, while young Aasif literally went dancing out into the street screaming, “Who the man? WE the man! Who the man? WE the man!” I sat my extremely long legs and oddly-shaped hands down on the sidewalk in a sweat-drenched, stoned, dreamlike trance and reminded myself that even though tomorrow I might discover that this was all a hallucination, right now I was going to remain coherent and marvel at the strangeness of life.

  The pin-up I had on my wall as a child had just invited me to be a guest at her home. Wow. I assumed it was because she knew me from The Daily Show. After all these years I would finally speak to the girl on my wall as an equal. We would be friends. What a moment. My do-over was about to happen.

  After we left the club I told my friends that we had been invited to Brooke Shields’ New Year’s Eve party. They were game to go, though they had to make a beer stop on the way. I told them I would meet them there, giving them the address and hailing a cab.

  Upon arriving at Brooke’s apartment I was met by her husband, who invited me in. The scene I walked in to was quite different than the one I had imagined. This was a champagne and hors d’oeuvres-style intimate dinner party with about two dozen of Brooke’s friends. Carol spotted me across the room and waved me over.

  “Happy New Year! How was the brownie?” she asked.

  “Horrible,” I said. “I’ve been smiling for the last three hours.”

  She looked confused; I told her I would explain later. I wanted to meet Brooke and thank her for inviting me. Suddenly, there she was, standing by the buffet speaking to a friend. Young Aasif started dragging me over to her, saying, “Letsgoletsgo!” But this time I told him to shut up and sit down; the grown-ups were talking.

  I excused myself and walked across the apartment toward her. She had not made eye contact with me yet, but just like that night many years ago at the NBC upfronts event I was sure that she would look up in the next moment and wave me over. Only this time it would not be about getting her a glass of wine.