Уильям Голдман - The Princess Bride

I had had, then, enough of Mr. Morgenstern for a while.

I didn't actually read Buttercup's Baby, either. I happened to be at Columbia University one afternoon—I gave my papers to Columbia—and some Florinese kid stopped by, handed me a rough translation to glance at. The full title of the book is this: Buttercup's Baby: S. Morgenstern's Glorious Examination of courage Matched Against the Death of the Heart. Had a great opening page, a real shocker, but that was mostly what I remember. It was just another book to me then, you see. It had not become lodged in my heart.

Yet.

SO WHAT CHANGED things?

To tell you the truth, and I might as well, my life the last dozen years has been, how can I put it, what's the reverse of giddy? Oh, I've written plenty of screenplays and some nonfiction, but I haven't written a novel, and please remember that that's painful for me because in my heart that's what I am, a novelist, a novelist who happens to write screenplays. (I hate it when I sometimes meet people and they say, "Well, when's the next book coming out?" and I always make a smile and lie that I'm on the homestretch now.) And the movies I've been involved with—except for Misery —have all brought their share of disappointment.

I live alone here in New York, in a nice hotel, room service twenty-four hours, all that's great, but I feel, sometimes, that whatever I wrote once that maybe had some quality, well, maybe those days are gone.

But to balance the bad, there was always my son, Jason.

You all remember how when he was ten he was this humorless blimp, this waddler? Well that was his thin phase. Helen and I used to fight about it all the time.

He had just passed three hundred biggies when he turned fifteen. I had come home from work early, hollered my presence, was heading for the wine closet when I heard this heartbreaking sound—

—sobbing—

—coming from the kid's room. I took a breath, went to his door, knocked. Jason and I were not close at this point. The truth is, he didn't care for me all that much. He barely acknowledged my existence, pissed on the movies I wrote, never dreamed of opening any of the books. It killed me, of course, but I never let on.

"Jason?" I said from just outside his door.

The awful sobbing continued.

"What is it?"

"You can't help—no one can help—nothing can help—" And then this forlorn wahhhhhh ....

I knew the last person he wanted to see was me. But I had to go in. "I promise I won't tell anybody."

He came rolling into my arms, his face fiery, distorted. "Oh, Daddy, I'm ugly and I've got no friends and all the girls laugh at me and make fun because I'm so fat."

I had to blink back tears myself—because it was all true, y'see. I was trapped there in that moment. I didn't know if he wanted to hear the truth from me or not. Finally I had to say it. "Who cares?" I told him. " I love you."

He grabbed me so hard. "Poppa," he managed, "Poppa," the first blessed time he ever called me that, his hot tears fresh on my skin.

That was our turning point.

For the past twenty years, no one could have asked for a better son. More than that, Jason's the best friend I have in the world. But our real clincher happened the next day.

I took him down to the Strand Bookstore, on Broadway and 12th Street, where I go a lot, research mostly, and we were about to enter when he stopped and pointed to a photograph in the window, the front cover of a book of photographs.

"I wonder who that is?" Jason said, staring.

"He's an Austrian bodybuilder, trying to make it as an actor. I met him when I was in L.A. last. He wants to be Fezzik if The Princess Bride ever happens." (This was the late '70s now, twenty years back. Schwarzenegger was nothing then, but when The Princess Bride did finally happen, he was such a huge star we couldn't afford him in our budget.) "I liked him. Very bright young guy."

Jason could not take his eyes off the picture.

Then I said what I guess turned out to be the magic words: " He was pudgy once too. "

Jason looked at me then. "I don't think so," he said.

I didn't think so either, but it didn't hurt to say it.

"It came up in conversation." I said. "He said he thought he had gone as far in the bodybuilding world as he could. What drove him was he didn't like the way he looked when he was young." An aside about Arnold, which I bet you didn't know: he was friends with Andre the Giant. (I guess strong guys all know each other.) Following is a story he told me. I used it in the obit I wrote when Andre, alas, died.

Andre once invited Schwarzenegger to a wrestling arena in Mexico where he was performing in front of 25,000 screaming fans, and after he'd pinned his opponent, he gestured for Schwarzenegger to come into the ring.

So through the noise, Schwarzenegger climbs up. Andre says, "Take off your shirt, they are all crazy for you to take off your shirt, I speak Spanish." So Schwarzenegger, embarrassed, does what Andre tells him. Off comes his jacket, his shirt, his undershirt, and he begins striking poses. And then Andre goes to the locker room while Schwarzenegger goes back to his friends.

And it had all been a practical joke. God knows what the crowd was screaming for, but it wasn't for Schwarzenegger to semistrip and pose: "Nobody gave a s——if I took my shirt off or not, but I fell for it. Andre could do that to you."

"I wonder how much that picture book is?" Jason said then. (We're still outside of the Strand, remember, and we didn't know it, but the earth has moved.)

Are you surprised to learn I bought it for him?

This is what happened to Jason in the next two years: he went from 308 to 230. He went from five-foot-six-and-a-half to six-foot-three. He had always been tops in his class at Dalton, but now, ripped and gorgeous, he was popular too.

This is what happened to Jason in the years after that. College, Medical School, the decision to be a shrink like his mom. (Except Jason's speciality is sex therapy.) New York magazine rated him tops in the city and he also met this lovely lady Wall Streeter, Peggy Henderson, and they got happily married.

And and and had a son.

I went to the hospital as soon as he was born. "We're calling him Arnold," Peggy told me, holding him in her arms.

"Perfect," I said. The truth is, obviously, I was hoping they might remember me too, somehow. But down was down.

"That's right," Jason said. "William Arnold." And he took Willy and put him in my arms.

High point of my life.

FOR THOSE OF you who have not yet thrown the book across the room in frustration, let me explain that this all really does have to do with why only the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby. And I promise to get there so fast you won't believe it.

OK. Willy the kid. Jason and Peggy live only two blocks away and I am careful not to drive them nuts, but I never had a grandson before. Not a toy at Zitomer's escaped me. Not a cough from him didn't keep me up all night going through my health encyclopedias.

I could refuse him, obviously, nothing.

Which is why my behavior in the park was so odd. Gorgeous spring day, Peggy and Jason holding hands up ahead, me and seven-year-old Willy tossing a Wiffle ball back and forth a step behind. We already go to some weekend Knick games together. (I've had season tickets since Hubie Brown was sent down to earth to destroy me.)

"We have a request," Jason began things.

"Guess what we finished last night?" Peggy went on. "The Princess Bride. We took turns reading it out loud."

Trying for casual, I asked the youngster what he thought of the entire enterprise.

"It was good," Willy replied, "'cept for the end."