The Reluctant Tuscan

by Phil Doran

  Later, Nancy described what happened when the mayor’s wife stepped inside the near-empty chapel. How the heavyset woman marched to her usual spot at the side altar of Santa Dominica. Dropping to knees sheathed in brownish-orange support stockings, she lit a candle and began to say her rosary in the fat, waxy smoke. But she quickly became distracted by the muted sobbing of the woman next to her. She tried to keep praying, but the weeping grew louder. Nancy apologized for the disturbance, prompting the mayor’s wife to ask what was the matter.

  “La mia mamma,” Nancy sobbed. She didn’t know how much time her mother had, and tragically, Nancy could not be at her bedside, because we were unable to leave town on account of a legal matter we were ensnarled in (sniff, sniff ). And the whole thing only happened in the first place because Nancy wanted a little house here so her saintly mamma (sniff, sniff ) could spend her last days in her ancestral homeland.

  “La sua mamma è italiana?” The mayor’s wife asked with sudden interest.

  Eyes glistening with tears, Nancy described how she had grown up listening to Mamma’s stories of La Bella Italia, and how Nancy had vowed to someday buy a little rustico, just like the one Mamma was born in, so Mamma could (sniff, blow) be buried here.

  Nancy dropped her head and wept into her hands. The mayor’s wife, walking on her knees, scooted closer. “You’re such a loving child, I wish my daughter felt that way about me!”

  I was eating the most delicious frittata, made in the shape of a fish and colorfully embedded with green chives and chunks of sweet red peppers, when I spotted Nancy and the mayor’s wife coming out of the church arm in arm. They spoke for quite a while, with many comforting nods and reassuring pats on the arm, all followed by their kissing each other on both cheeks about forty times. I could tell by the look on Nancy’s face as she crossed the street just how successful this gambit had been.

  “She’s going to talk to her husband and he’s going to review our case and if he finds out Pingatore pulled a fast one, he’ll overturn the whole denuncia!” she said without taking a breath.

  “Brava.”

  “And once that’s lifted we can begin construction.”

  “Isn’t there one small hitch in your master plan?” I asked as Nancy sat down and started eating my frittata. “Eventually your mother’s going to have to show up.”

  “I have a mother.”

  “Your mother is a little Irish lady from New Jersey whose idea of fine Italian dining is a can of Chef Boyardee.”

  “But my aunt Rose is Italian, and ever since Uncle Kenny died, she and Mom have been traveling everywhere together. So who’s to say which lady’s my mom and which one’s my aunt Rose?

  “I don’t know . . .” I said, shaking my head.

  “Look, I feel bad about using Mom like this, but it’s the only way.”

  “You mean bribery no longer works around here?”

  “Remember when I first started coming to Italy? I was staying in that little apartment the next town over?”

  “Uh-huh.” I speared the last bite of frittata and popped it in my mouth.

  “Mom wanted to visit me, but I didn’t have a bed for her. You can’t rent something like that here, so I ran all over town looking for a cheap one to buy. Well, you know how things are here . . . everything was closed, or everything was the wrong size, or too expensive, and it was just hopeless. Time was running out and I was getting frantic. Finally, the day before she arrived, I found one that was perfect. But when I told them I needed it that day, they told me that it was impossible to have it delivered until the end of the month. Well, I guess it was so hot and I was so aggravated, I started to cry. I was sobbing my head off and blubbering that it was for my mamma and if I didn’t get it today, she’d have to sleep on the floor!”

  “Wow, what’d they say?”

  “Nothing. They threw it on the truck and delivered it that afternoon. And that’s how things get done around here. They’ll do anything for the mamma.”

  We came home to find our heater still running full blast, causing every radiator in the house to glow like the fuel rods of a nuclear reactor. We promptly decided that we had accomplished enough for one day and that we richly deserved an afternoon in the pool.

  Under the shade of the backyard awning we spread out a lunch of insalata alla caprese. Slices of plump, vine-ripened tomatoes alternated with wedges of creamy bufalo mozzarella cheese made from the milk of Asian water buffalo brought to Italy a century ago to graze in the marshy wetlands around Naples. The fiery red of the tomatoes and the porcelain white of the cheese were garnished with green sprigs of basil. We felt like we were eating the Italian flag.

  Then we settled onto our Pokémon rafts with thick novels to float in sun-splashed serenity. The sun warmed my skin to the point of tingling. I put my book down, closed my eyes, and let my breathing fall into harmony with the sucking of the pool skimmer. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew our cell phone was ringing.

  I called out to Nancy to pick it up, but she had gone inside. So I rolled off my raft, dunked my head in the water to wake up, and climbed out of the pool just as Nancy was coming out of the house. I picked up the ringing cell phone and flipped it open.

  It was my agent calling from L.A. He was speaking so rapidly, I felt as though we were not only in different time zones, but in different dimensions. He told me that he had liked my script very much and that he’d sent it to some producers who wanted to buy it. His words shot through me like electricity.

  Nancy stared at my head, which was bobbing in idiotic delight while my agent described how excited they were about my script and how they want to be in production by the end of the year. This meant I had to get back to Hollywood immediately for meetings and rewrites. I was practically stammering when I told him I’d be on the next plane.

  “Congratulations.” That was all Nancy could say. And she said that very flatly.

  “I’ve come back from the dead!” I squealed, taking her in my arms. “Can you believe it?”

  Her sad little smile said it all. She was happy for me because it was something I wanted so desperately, and, yes, we could use the money, but this was happening just when it looked like we were trying to live another way.

  I swore to her that this time was going to be different. The last few years of struggling to find work had changed me. And being here in Italy, even for such a short time, had opened me up to new ways to live. Even though I was going back into the anus of the beast, I vowed to her that I would not let it consume me as it had before.

  I was hoping that she believed me, but I’m sure she didn’t because even as I said it, I was picturing the size of the office they’d give me and how I might wrangle an associate-producer credit, so I could be more involved in the production. Or, no . . . on the basis of this sale my agent should be able to get me other writing assignments. I was so electrified by the sudden wealth of possibilities, I barely noticed how Nancy’s shoulders slumped as she trudged inside the house.

  I’d try to smooth things over before I left, but first I had to book a flight. I quickly discovered that it wasn’t going to be easy. Tourist season was in full swing, and every seat was sold, unless I wanted to go standby or spend a fortune flying first class.

  After repeated calls to an assortment of airlines and travel agencies, I was able to cobble together a schedule that would put me on an express train to Milan, where I would catch a midnight flight to Frankfurt, then shuttle off to Amsterdam, where I would hop aboard a charter to Toronto, and, if everything took off and landed on time, I would finally arrive in L.A.

  I dreaded the impending fifty hours I would spend in transit, and the hell of spending most of it in middle seat coach, but I was buoyed by the fact that after traveling through a hodgepodge of foreign countries, it would certainly be good to get back to Los Angeles, where everybody speaks the same language. Korean.

  7

  The Comeback Kid

  For most of my series of flights I sat in
muted anticipation of my newfound success. I read a book, four magazines, saw three movies, and was served breakfast eleven times. On the last leg of my journey, just hours out of LAX, I took out the script I had sold. It was called Son on the Moon, and it was a thinly veiled account of my life as a shy kid with an overheated imagination, coming of age in a small midwestern town during the pre-Beatles sixties.

  I read it twice. First for pleasure and then in a defensive mode so I could fend off any arguments to change the parts I really liked. I did this with the full understanding that I was breaking a cardinal rule of show business. When I first came to Hollywood, an established writer gave me this advice:

  “Don’t ever fall in love with your own stuff, kid,” he said. “They’ll only break your heart.”

  As soon as I stepped off the plane and into a terminal full of my countrymen, I began to notice seismic differences. Americans looked heavier, more serious, more racially mixed, and not nearly as happy as a random crowd of Italians. Little details began to accrue, like how in Europe those luggage trolleys are free, but here they charge you a dollar and half, like, yeah, I just got off the plane after a month in Borneo, so I certainly have a pocketful of quarters.

  I caught the SuperShuttle, and the driver updated me on the weather and the Dodgers in an accent that was either Bangladeshi or Guatemalan. Sleep overcame me so suddenly, I wasn’t aware of dozing off, but I awoke with a start to cheery ranchero music on the radio as we inched along a freeway clogged with soccer-mom minivans and SUVs the size of armored personnel carriers. Through sleep-caked eyes I studied the layer of smog that constantly blankets the freeway like permafrost. It was orangish-gray, smelled of unburned Arco Supreme, and was as unlike the sfumato as cabbages are from calla lilies.

  The shuttle turned down the tree-lined street where Nancy and I had lived for the past ten years. It all looked strange and unfamiliar, as if the shadows were on the wrong side of the street and our house was now oddly inverted. I unlocked the door and disarmed the alarm. The house smelled stale and slightly metallic. I flicked on the air-conditioning and the TV, because silence gives me the creeps. I listened to our phone messages, as cool, moist air filled the house and Connie Chung interviewed a panel of women and their plastic surgeons about designer vaginas.

  It was good to be home. Seven big rooms with TVs and phones and surround sound in every one of them. A garbage disposal. A dishwasher. And a California king-sized bed, even though I was going to be in it alone.

  I picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Pronto,” Nancy said.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “It’s three in the afternoon.”

  “Oh. I thought . . .” It was too complicated to explain what I thought.

  “How was the trip?’

  “Long, but uneventful.” My eyes felt sandy. I rotated my palm in one of my eye sockets until it made a squishy sound. “How’re you doing?”

  “Well, the big news here is that Dino came over and managed to shut off the heater.”

  “But now it’s turned cold,” I said.

  “It’s still hot, but the only way he could do it was to switch off a circuit breaker, which means that the pool pump isn’t running.”

  “How green is thy algae?”

  “Not as bad as our fungus,” Nancy said. “Cousin Faustino finally took a look and said that half our trees are infected and their olives won’t be any good.”

  “Land o’ Goshen, Maw, if we lose the harvest, the ranchers’ll get our land!”

  “I know you see this as one big joke.”

  “Well, the funny things is, you know how much I love America and everything American like Taco Bell and sushi, and I know I just got here, but I swear everything seems so loud and vulgar and in your face.”

  “Then you’d rather be here?’

  “I’d rather be with you.”

  “I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time,” she said. “That wasn’t fair.”

  “No, you’re worried about me.”

  “I just have to understand that as much as I want to drag you out of there by your hair, your heart’s in Hollywood and mine’s—”

  “I’m sick of us living parallel lives,” I said. “This is the time we should be together.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  “Me too. We’re just going to have to find a way to make it work.”

  I had an uncharacteristically good night’s sleep and awoke feeling fresh and not at all jet lagged. I ran out to the market and bought milk, juice, and bagels. Yes, bagels, hot and delicious. I ate breakfast watching ESPN. Life was good.

  I left early for my meeting to allow myself plenty of time so I wouldn’t have to rush. I tend to drive very carefully in L.A., because I’m always afraid that if I’m in too big a hurry, the one car I cut off will be driven by a guy who’s fresh from some impulse shopping at a gun show because those goddamn anger-management classes are just not working out.

  On my way to the studio I concentrated on staying calm. By relaxing my facial muscles and slowly breathing in and out, I was able to generate a certain level of serenity. But as I pulled under the Moorish archway that greets both the meek and the mighty to Paramount Studios, I felt the old anxieties creep into my chest. My innards started vibrating like a hornet’s nest and my mouth went dry. While the guard looked for my name on the list of drive-ons, I told myself that this time it was going to be different. I wasn’t coming here hat in hand. They were excited about my script and they wanted me.

  I was directed to an opulent waiting room richly paneled in exotic wood from some endangered rain forest. After a wait long enough to infuse me with the proper degree of humility, I was escorted to an even more munificent office covered in even rarer environmentally threatened wood.

  Two people rose to greet me. A tall young man with corn-rows and the long, tapering fingers of either a concert pianist or a point guard entwined his hand in mine in a soul shake. His partner was an attractive if Rubenesque Jewish girl in her twenties with hennaed hair cut in a futuristic, triangular wedge.

  After the introductions, the sitting down, and the offering of mineral water, we devoted a moment of foreplay to my house in Italy and its cornucopia of problems. I told them that whether you want it or not, Italy gives you a lesson in patience every day. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day and apparently neither was anything there. They laughed, but I could tell from their comments that, like most Americans, even the more sophisticated ones, their image of Italy was mostly macaroni and mandolins.

  Pleasantries aside, we got down to business. It’s important to understand that these script meetings tend to have a structure as tightly forged as a Kabuki theatrical. The performance invariably opens with a ritual praising of your writing. How much they were moved by your “searing insight” and your “compelling narrative.”

  But just as day follows night, their faces darken and they reluctantly voice their concerns. My script was just too time bound in the late fifties/early sixties and relentlessly mired in a type of factory town that just didn’t exist anymore. They feared that those two elements would make the film inaccessible to the all-important male teenage audience.

  Then, acting like his idea was completely spontaneous, the cornrow guy suggested we update the story by placing it in the present day.

  “Okay . . .” I said, mourning all the wonderful stuff I’d have to lose.

  “And instead of a small town, how about setting it in the inner city? Uh, like Harlem, for instance,” the girl with the triangular hair said.

  I pursed my lips and nodded as if I were thinking about it. But I wished I were wearing a Kabuki mask to keep them from seeing my left eye starting to twitch.

  They were congratulating each other over these improvements when I first heard the name Charlie. As in, how Charlie could play the living hell out of a present-day kid from the hood.

  “Charlie?” I wondered.

  Hope piled upon hype as they buzzed over the possibility
of casting Charlie.

  Apparently Charlie had read the script and expressed interest. But now with these changes . . .

  Charlie Sheen? Charlie Chan? Charlie Manson? I had no idea who Charlie was, but rather than betray my woeful lack of hipness, I grinned back in mindless delight.

  “The songs Charlie could do for the soundtrack!” the girl cooed.

  “Totally,” her partner said, suggesting they go for a mix of Charlie’s classic rap hits with some new stuff.

  They slapped hands and she broke into an impromptu riff of what appeared to be one of Charlie’s songs. It was as familiar to me as the Bulgarian national anthem.

  Of course with the casting of Charlie, I needed to rewrite most of my scenes to highlight the Charlie persona. For example, they singled out an easy change I could make. It was in the part where the kid went out to dinner with his parents every Sunday. The parents were morbidly obese, and their favorite restaurant was a place called Paul Bunyan’s, an oversized, all-you-can-eat smorgasbord whose motto was “Big Food on Big Plates.” One Sunday, as they pulled up, the owner spotted them, turned out all the lights, and pretended to be closed so they wouldn’t eat him out of business.

  They loved that scene but thought it needed to be edgier. So perhaps, outraged at Mom and Dad getting dissed, Charlie could kick open the door and spray the restaurant with an AK-47.

  This is madness! I thought. But I said, “Well, that’s certainly interesting, but don’t you think that such sweeping changes will destroy the essential spirit of the work?”

  “Not at all,” the guy was quick to say. “Charlie’s acting will bring such poignancy, it can only make it better.”

  “And with Charlie starring, we’re talking about a whole new thing here,” the girl said in a scolding tone. “Not just a TV movie. This could wind up being released as a feature!”

  And so, like many Kabuki performances that stress the importance of one’s duty over one’s conscience, our play ended with the promise of untold riches and eternal happiness for all. As I started for the door, they suggested we meet the following week so I could pitch out the changes I’d made. I indicated I would look forward to that, but first I had to go home, cleanse my hands, and slit open my belly with a harikari knife.