Odd Adventures with your Other Father

by Prentiss, Norman

  (I admit I was a bit star struck, Celia. Sullivan’s initial remarks were brief because, he said, he wanted to allow us time to ask questions. I should have had a lot of questions, you know, but I couldn’t think of any at the time. Has that ever happened to you?)

  Jack held his hand high, and for a second I thought Sullivan called on him, but it turned out he was pointing to the annoying guy behind us. “What’s it like to work with Lori-Ann?” was the predictable question. Sullivan joked that he had a difficult job, and he insisted nobody in the theater ever wanted to be in his shoes. We all laughed, and he said how lucky he’s been to work with so many attractive women, naming them each in turn, implying some of the romances continued offscreen for a time—yet being too much of a gentleman to brag or spread gossip.

  Each question was a springboard. Sullivan had that way of stringing threads together, so his responses were more like stories than simple answers. One question about the movie and he mentions financing, reading the script, changes he suggested to the script to make it better, how long he’s known the director and what other films they worked on together, including Sea Capture, and underwater scenes were more difficult than you might expect, and he mostly did his own stunts, including (back to the current film) that fall over the apartment balcony while the evil manikin clawed at his neck—what did everybody think of that ending?

  Someone asked about the manikin, and he explained some of the special effects. It was mostly stop-motion, and he had the challenge of looking at empty space where the animated creature would be added later. “Some of this,” he told us, “I’m seeing for the first time in the finished film. The little guy scares me as much as he scares you.”

  That was the publicist’s cue to wheel out the prop, accompanied by the prerecorded growls. Sullivan lifted the black cloth to reveal the caged manikin. “There were four different puppets, including the articulated doll our special effects guy animated one frame at a time. This guy, we used in a few of the long shots.” The publicist and his wife brought out a folding table and chair. “Come up and see him if you want. I’ll stick around, sign a few autographs.”

  #

  The line moved slowly. Most people just had their tickets signed, but a few folks brought a full box of memorabilia. Sullivan was gracious, signing each glossy or lobby card or poster, each issue of Screen Star with him on the cover. If a fan asked a question he’d answer it, then in that rambling way he’d answer more that hadn’t been asked, the line at a standstill, stretching down the theater aisle and out to the lobby and presumably into the street. At some point, a lot of the lobby and street folks gave up and left.

  I decided I was just going to shake his hand and say that I enjoyed his movies.

  The line creeped closer, and we reached the short set of steps leading up to the apron stage in front of the movie screen. We’d been lucky with Jack’s penchant for an aisle seat, since that allowed us quick access to the line when it first formed. Now we were close enough to hear Sullivan’s anecdotes as he spoke with fans. Some stories repeated, but he never seemed to mind, adding small variations or new details in the telling. Once we were on stage level, I noticed how he held each fan’s attention in turn, making them feel for a moment like they were the only person in the room. As agitated as I was getting about the wait, maybe anxious that he’d close up shop before Jack or I got our turn, I couldn’t help but admire how he treated people.

  There was that star quality thing, too, that glow I talked about. It was a celebrity aura, where you couldn’t stop thinking, it’s him, it’s really him. And his deep, resonant voice was unchanged, just as I heard it through all the Saturday afternoon screenings of my childhood. He seemed magical, almost.

  Jack arrived at the signing table first, and I knew he’d be brave enough to prompt a good anecdote.

  What I didn’t expect was how well the two of them would hit it off.

  I waited at the far end of the table, directly in front of the caged manikin prop. The rods and wires nudged it on occasion, a growl looping from the sound system. The manikin looked just as fake as it had in the noonday sun.

  Jack asked Sullivan to autograph his reporter’s notebook. He told the actor about his road trip collecting odd stories for future articles or a collection of essays—and he mentioned the journalism prize he won from Chesapeake University, a large monetary vote of confidence in his future as a writer. Sullivan listened, said he might have read about that prize in the newspaper, and next thing I knew Jack handed him one of those jagged-edge business cards he’d made up using an Apple II and a dot matrix printer.

  He was asking Sullivan for an interview. Jack admitted he wasn’t affiliated with any magazines, but said he’d made some good freelance connections after winning the college journalism prize.

  I couldn’t believe it. Sullivan accepted Jack’s business card, flipped it over and scribbled something, then returned it to Jack.

  “You know, if the interview works out, I might have you ghost my autobiography. I’ve had a few false starts over the years, but maybe you could help me actually finish it.”

  Jack nodded, ready to leave the line, then Sullivan began a nested series of anecdotes about previous interviews, how often he got misquoted, and this one magazine never talked to him and faked the interview using studio press releases, and how his agent was fine with movies but didn’t know the first thing about negotiating a book deal. “I should save these stories for when we talk later,” he said, but then he launched into another anecdote.

  The manikin prop started wailing and shaking in its cage, as if it expressed the frustration of everyone who remained in line.

  “Let me tell you about that thing,” Sullivan said. “Most movies today, the special effects get more budget than the actors. I hear he wanted his own trailer, and a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown candies removed.”

  He finished talking, but Jack asked a follow up about the manikin effects—the funeral where it ran through the feet of weeping onlookers, and the night scene where it climbed down the drainpipe outside the boss’s home. As Sullivan answered, at length, I felt icy stares in my back from the people behind us.

  (Sure, they were all mad at Jack instead of me. Who does this guy think he is?—that sort of thing. But most people could tell we were together. And when you’re a couple, you kind of feel responsible for each other’s behavior—so maybe I should have tapped on his shoulder then tugged Jack away by his shirt sleeve.

  Except, I was proud of him, too. Sullivan was doing that thing where he stared, giving each fan his full attention, but he treated Jack as more than a fan. It was pretty amazing Jack had made such a connection with one of our childhood heroes.

  If Sullivan hadn’t been a movie star and, well, notoriously straight, I would have been jealous.

  When the conversation between the two of them finally broke off I wedged in, shook Sullivan’s hand like I planned, then got out of there as fast as I could.)

  #

  “He sure can talk,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  Jack was only a few steps ahead of me, following the empty aisle toward the lobby. He was easy to catch up with. I expected him to show a little more excitement.

  “So, you’ve got an interview?”

  “Later tonight.” He showed me the back of the business card where Sullivan had written his hotel room and phone number. “I’m supposed to call in an hour or so.”

  “Damn. Of all the phone numbers, I bet you never thought—”

  “Listen, Shawn, I want to investigate a bit.” He led us though the Rialto’s dingy lobby to the outdoor box office.

  Crowds still passed on the main sidewalk—it was Times Square at ten o’clock on a Friday night—but the recessed area surrounding the box office was clear. No more screenings tonight, and the afternoon’s attraction had been moved indoors.

  Jack kneeled at the empty pedestal and ran his fingers along the bottom edges. He knocked on the sides where the movie stills were paste
d, then put his ear against one side and safecracker-tapped as if he hoped to find a secret panel.

  “Stand over there, would you? Right against it, to block me from the street.” Jack pulled his car keys from his pocket and started to pry beneath one of the boards. I felt like Ethel Mertz at Grauman’s Chinese Theater when Lucy decided to steal John Wayne’s cement footprints.

  (You don’t remember that episode, Celia? It’s really funny. We can watch it on DVD tonight.)

  Anyway, Jack couldn’t see into the dark space he’d flipped open, but he hooked two fingers into the gap.

  I whispered at him, asked what he was trying to find.

  He didn’t answer. He stood up, looking at the vacated top of the pedestal. There were holes where angle braces had secured the plexiglass cage.

  “Do you have a dime?”

  “Sure.” I dug into my pocket. Jack rarely had change, since he usually paid by credit card.

  “This is supposed to work like a screwdriver. Keep blocking me from the crowd.” There were screws on each corner, painted black to match the rest of the pedestal base.

  I tried to lean casually against the pedestal while Jack scraped away with the dime. “I think that trick only works with regular screws,” I said. These were Phillips shaped screw-heads. “Maybe we should buy a little toolkit from the electronics store.”

  I wasn’t serious, but Jack said “Good idea,” stopped what he was doing and looked across Broadway at the store I’d indicated.

  “Come on, Jack. What do you expect to find?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “That’s what I want to be sure about.” Jack pressed his ear against the podium lid, and his fingers caressed the grain of the painted wood.

  “You’re being awful thorough, looking for nothing.”

  Jack scrunched up his face for a second. “The base is hollow. When I reached in, I couldn’t feel any wires for the speaker or to control the puppet.”

  “Makes sense. They took all that stuff inside with the manikin prop.”

  “There should have been some trace left: electrical tape, a hook or guide wire. More holes in the platform.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a carnival sideshow trick. They hide little motors and controls in the cage.”

  “The cage was covered in glass. We would have seen any motors.” As I mentioned, Jack understood magic tricks and movie effects. Better than anyone, he’d know how they might have hidden the controls for the manikin. “I’m pretty sure this podium’s completely hollow. They haven’t unscrewed the lid, or there’d be paint flecks around the screws.”

  “How about: the manikin was battery operated, on a set timer. Or radio controlled, like those toy airplanes.”

  “Maybe. I asked Sullivan about the manikin effects.”

  I didn’t need a reminder about that uncomfortable moment. “The guys behind me in line were ready to kill you. You’d already been talking with him for fifteen minutes.”

  “Sullivan lied to me about how the effects were done.”

  “What’s your point? Actors don’t always understand technical stuff. Or maybe he didn’t want to give away all the movie’s secrets.”

  “Exactly,” Jack said.

  Then he told me to sniff the podium.

  He had to be kidding, right? Of all the strange things he’d asked me to do, this seemed about the most ridiculous. Jack had some paranoid theory about a movie prop no bigger than a kids’ toy, and taking a sniff at a wooden podium—in the middle of New York City on a busy weekend night—was going to prove it? I refused.

  “Come on, Shawn. Just sniff it. Then you’ll understand what I mean.”

  “No,” I said.

  “How about . . . that Sondheim show you talked about? We could try for tomorrow’s matinee.”

  This was a cheap shot. I’d made a few subtle references to Sunday in the Park with George during our New York stay, but Jack never seemed to notice. I didn’t think he even knew who Sondheim was.

  “I’m sure it’s already sold out.”

  “We could try anyway. Maybe see something else—your choice.”

  And all I had to do in exchange was make a fool out of myself.

  I looked at the wooden podium. All day, grimy tourist hands had rubbed at the pictures glued to the sides. Nose-picking kids had grasped the top edges while they peered into the manikin cage.

  The podium lid, where the cage had been set, hadn’t been exposed during the day. That was the part Jack wanted me to inspect.

  People thronged past on the sidewalk. Some of them glanced up at the flashing Rialto marquee, but most of them were oblivious—other, flashier displays overwhelmed their senses. Two guys next to an empty wooden podium wouldn’t catch their attention.

  Okay. For a Broadway show, I could do this.

  I set my ticket stub on the podium top, right in the center, then leaned my head down and pretended to read it.

  “Closer,” Jack said.

  I waved for him to shut up, my hand disturbing the air. Hot summer air. Night. City. I expected such things: a waft of perfumes and deodorant and sweat from the day’s crowds, the warm breath of curious onlookers; a sickly mix of vendor hot dogs, steam from asphalt and rubber tires, the bitter tang of heated pavement. The podium itself would emit the sawdust scent of cheap, tar-painted wood.

  Those expected odors were there. But almost immediately, I realized what Jack wanted me to notice. It explained why he’d scrunched up his face after he put his head against the podium.

  The stench was appalling. You had to get right close to smell it, but once you did it was pretty powerful. Now understand, that manikin prop had been in the metal cage all day, and the cage was covered with plexiglass. It would have been an oven in there. I guessed the prop had a wood or plastic armature, pieces held together with string to allow a loose marionette movement; foam rubber gave shape to its muscles, the facial features molded from clay then cast in latex. Hair covered most of the puppet—not some polyester rug, but stiff animal fur glued into place. All these materials, baked in that small greenhouse, would produce something fairly rank—the fur, in particular, explained the overpowering animal scent. I tried to convince myself that’s all it was.

  The publicist had taken the cage away, but I feared that whatever was in it had excreted vile fluids into its prison. The fluids seeped through the bottom of the cage and into the wooden base beneath, where I now smelled the residue of something alive and afraid and in agonizing pain.

  #

  “Yeah, man, take a deep whiff!”

  God, it was that idiot from the ticket line. I’d been so startled by that horrible odor, my face no doubt frozen and wrinkled into a humiliating expression, and that guy stepped out of the theater and caught me with my nose against the podium lid.

  I straightened up. If Jack had been laughing when I looked at him, I would have killed him.

  “Party’s winding down,” the guy said, holding open the magazine he’d brought with him. “That actor will talk your ear off. Got my signature, at least.” He’d had Sullivan sign a picture of the female costar.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Jack. I didn’t want any of the disappointed fans to find us outside.

  As we walked down Broadway, heading back to our hotel, Jack asked my opinion about the manikin.

  “It looked pretty fake when I saw it this afternoon,” I said. “I thought the same thing inside the theater after the screening. But that smell . . .”

  “Yeah. Like an animal shelter, maybe. A back room where they keep the sick ones they’re planning to euthanize. Death Row for puppies.”

  A giant Coca-Cola sign flashed among other ads, making the square bright as day. People hustled around us as we navigated the sidewalk. In this huge crowd, we had as much anonymity as we’d have in a dark booth at the back of a bar. We could have planned a murder out loud, and nobody would have listened.

  “What made you suspicious?”

  “A lot of the movie effects were lame,” Ja
ck said. “But some of them were pretty good. Too good. The funeral scene was my first clue—where the doll sneaks out of the car, and he walks between Sullivan’s feet during the graveside service.” We stopped at the crosswalk and Jack swung his arm around his legs. “It walked behind his leg, then in front. Sullivan told me it was a stop-motion shot, but that’d be too complicated for the effects team to pull off.”

  (Jack kind of film-geeked on me here, explaining something about how an animated puppet could have walked behind or in front of Sullivan, but not both—something about rear projection techniques versus a traveling blue screen or whatever. I just took it on faith.)

  “I mean, I guess it’s possible, but it would be so much trouble for them to fit the animation with the live action. And the camera was panning left to right during the shot. That’s impossible, too.”

  We crossed the street, staying with the Broadway crowd. As strange as our evening had been, I enjoyed the rush and excitement of the city. Maybe it was a good distraction from what Jack’s conclusions implied.

  “Here’s an easier one. Remember in the original Kong, the way his fur would bristle? That was because every time the animator touched the Kong puppet to move his arm or neck or whatever, his fingertips couldn’t help but shift the fur slightly. Well, the manikin in this film was covered with fur. Did it bristle? Did you see it bristle?”

  “No.”

  “There you go. It’s not stop-motion. How about this one: the manikin kills Sullivan’s boss, then it shimmies down the drainpipe outside his house. It went fast. So, the principle of stop-motion is that the animator takes these individual still frames of the model, and when those frames get projected—at twenty-four frames per second or whatever—it creates the illusion of movement. Still frames, get it? Stay with me, Shawn. Now, if a person moves while the camera shutter is open to record a frame of film—like if they’re running or swinging a bat or blocking a karate kick—the rapid motion creates a blur within each exposure. An animation model can’t do that, because it’s not really moving. Got it? And when that little manikin slid down the drainpipe, arm over arm, his legs pedaling the air beneath him . . . Well, there was a blur. Definitely a blur!”