“Jim.”
“Are you uh…oh forget it. I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s fine. You aren’t bothering me, Denise.”
“Are you reading a script for a potential movie? If you’re allowed to talk about it, I mean.”
“I am. Friend of mine who happens to be a director slipped me this script a few months ago. I hadn’t had a chance to read it until now. Between you and me, I don’t think I’m going to do it.”
“Are you working on anything right now?” she asks.
The real Jansen is not. He hasn’t done a movie in three years. I have to keep tabs on that sort of thing unless I run into a real Jansen fanatic.
“Not at the moment,” I say. “But I am looking at doing some theatre.”
“Is that why you’re going to New York?”
“Exactly.”
“What play are you considering?”
“I really shouldn’t say anything yet, since I haven’t met with the director.”
“Oh, of course, I’m sorry.”
I glance out the window, just to make sure we aren’t plummeting earthward. To be honest, flying sort of scares me. I’ve only flown once before.
Below, the land is very rumpled and green—the Appalachians.
“What do you do, Diane?” I ask, intentionally forgetting her name to see if she lets it slip.
“I’m a consultant for brokerage firms,” she says, nodding like it’s such a commonplace job and she’s a little embarrassed to tell me. “I’ve got several meetings over the next week in New York. Can I ask you something?” she says, leaning in.
“Sure.”
“I read once somewhere that you remember every line from every film you’ve ever done. Is that true?” It is true. Jansen is smart as hell.
I say, “Well, I do have a photogenic memory.”
For some reason, Denise laughs and takes a magazine from her briefcase. I’d like to know where she’s staying in New York. The real Jansen isn’t married. I almost ask her if she’d care to have a drink one evening in the city, but before I do, I try to see her through Jansen’s eyes. Through eyes that can have any woman they want. Don’t get me wrong. Denise is a very attractive woman, but Jansen grazes in the stratosphere. She’s the-most-beautiful-woman-on-the-plane attractive, not Hollywood attractive, so I don’t ask. Nothing against her. If I were me, I’d ask her out without a thought. She’s as far beyond Lancelot as Jansen is beyond her.
Chapter 3
the worst hotel in the world ~ what it smells like ~ Columbia ~ Professor Wittig ~ funnel cakes on 5th Ave. ~ O. Wilde’s ~ vodka, one ice cube, no lime
I’ll be honest with you—I don’t know the first damn thing about New York. I grew up in the South, and I only visited the city once with my parents when I was thirteen, and that was only for a night.
But I do know one thing going in. It’s expensive as hell. Which is why I don’t bother to reserve a room at some swanky hotel near Times Square. Instead, I tell the taxi driver at La Guardia that I’m going to a hotel on 227th Street. That’s Edenwald. The Bronx. And I know a lot of bad shit goes down there, as they say, but I really don’t care. In a way, if I got knifed or something, it wouldn’t bother me at all. I’m not saying I’m looking to get knifed. It just wouldn’t be the end of the world.
So I check into this perfectly terrifying hotel, and I’ll bet every hooker in New York has been in my room, because the place smells like a blowjob. But hey, for $100 a night, I’m not complaining. And I check in for a whole week. I’ll bet no one in the history of this place has ever stayed longer than thirty minutes.
I unpack my things. My window overlooks some public housing project, and I sit on the sill for awhile and watch these kids throwing dice for money on the steps of an apartment building.
It makes me nervous as hell leaving my belongings here, but it’s only one o’clock. I’ve got the whole afternoon ahead of me.
So I step out into the hall and lock the door. The carpet is squishy. Someone grunts in a nearby room.
I take the stairs down four dusty flights, and then I’m standing on the sidewalk. Man, is it hot for mid-May. I never noticed the smell of a real city before—oily concrete and concentrated exhaust, like the greasy innards of a car engine. And it’s noisy. Not loud noisy. Busy noisy. Like a hundred thousand little sounds all coming together to make one city sound.
A cab finally shows the hell up and I tell the Somali fellow to take me to Columbia University.
My heart starts going as I walk into Dodge Hall, home to Columbia’s School of the Arts.
First door on my left is closed, but I can hear someone speaking inside.
“It’s the idea of dirty pantyhose, Dan. You’re sick.”
Another voice: “Lauren, you rushed that last bit.”
I continue on, the walls papered with audition notices and advertisements for upcoming productions.
I’m still wearing my sunglasses, because that’s another rule. The bigger the Star, the darker the environment in which they’re allowed to wear shades, even dim corridors like this one where I can hardly see the first damn thing.
I knock on the door of Professor Paul Wittig’s office.
Maybe I’ll tell you how I found out about him later. I’m an excellent researcher.
This small, very Jewish man opens the door and looks up at me through glasses without lenses.
I remove my deep dark shades.
“May I help you?” he says. He has thinning gray hair, a charcoal beard.
“Professor Wittig?”
“Yes?”
He looks highly intelligent. That’s probably why he doesn’t recognize me yet—he’s been in his office thinking so hard.
“I was looking for Jerry Boomhower. He has an office down the hall, but he isn’t in. I wanted to drop in, surprise him.”
“Jerry’s taking the summer off.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah. Hmm. Well, I was just in the city, wanted to see him. Thanks.” Wittig nods curtly and starts to shut his door, but I stop him. “Say, I’m here for a couple days, and I was hoping to see some first-rate theatre. Not Broadway bullshit. Something cutting edge.”
Wittig really looks at me for the first time.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I extend my hand. “Jim Jansen.”
“Paul Wittig,” he mumbles, and man does his interest level rise. His eyes get very twinkly. “What an honor. My goodness. You have no idea how much I admire your work.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s very kind of you to say.”
“I obviously have no manners. Please come in.”
I step inside his office and sit down on a leather couch. I figure he’s going to take a seat in the matching chair, but instead he sits down beside me and leans back and crosses his legs. He’s a superior dresser, one of those guys who look better in slacks and a white linen shirt than most men do in a tux. I can tell he’s pretty jazzed to be sitting here with me. He’s left his door open, and I’ll bet he’s praying someone will walk by, catch him shooting the shit with James Jansen. It’s understandable. Probably the highlight of his life. That’s what being famous is really all about—wherever you go, you’re the highlight of everyone’s life.
“So are you in town on business, Jim?” he asks, like we’re fast friends.
“To be honest, I’m looking at doing some theatre. I’ve got several months before I start my next project, which incidentally, is about an aspiring actor trying to get work in New York.”
“Marvelous, so you’re doing a bit of research then.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do to lend some insight, I hope you’ll impose on me.” He kind of brushes his hand against my knee when he says this, and I’m not sure if it’s one of those unconscious brushes or an I-want-to-ride-your-bones brush.
“You know, I may take you up on that,” I say, and I sort of graze his knee back with my fingers. Instantly, I regret it, because I can see in his eyes that he’s trying to determine whether or not that was a pass.