Jim Gavin - Middle Men - Stories

Adam took his place in the audience and clapped mechanically for Hobbs, who bounced up onstage.

“What’s up!” he shouted, and from there he gave a blow-by-blow account of his recent audition for a webisode of Smallville . Adam tried to be attentive and respectful, but he had collapsed in on himself and after a while he didn’t hear a word Hobbs said. He got up quietly and went to the bar, where Frankie bought him a beer.

“ Mein Kampf ,” whispered Frankie, smiling and giving Adam a big thumbs-up.

“Thanks, man.”

Adam finished his drink and left in a sulky mood. He felt guilty not staying for the people who had endured his set, but not that guilty, because solidarity was not a watchword among these people.

Driving home, he couldn’t see the city. He could only see himself, from the perspective of the audience, witnessing his every weak-minded pause, his every false gesture. He had been putting himself through this for almost two years and he had nothing to show for it. No agent, no booked gigs, nothing. He thought of all the people who had been regulars at El Goof when he first started going, how he would suddenly notice, after a few weeks, that they were no longer there. At some point they had vanished, melting back into the general population. He felt sorry for these people, especially the ones who actually had talent, but after a bad night onstage he often wondered if there wasn’t something deeply satisfying in their decision. At times he craved the sweet tantalizing oblivion of giving up. His favorite word in the English language was “stick-to-it-iveness,” but the longer he hung around, the more he felt the enormity of his delusion. A voice in his head kept taunting him with the old gambling adage— if you can’t spot the sucker at the table, it’s you —which seemed like an intensely American piece of wisdom. He always figured that being aware of his own suckerhood would somehow redeem him from it, but now he wasn’t so sure. He was waiting for something to click. In books and interviews all of his comic heroes had described a moment onstage when, after stumbling for many years, they suddenly, and oftentimes inadvertently, became themselves. Now and then he touched the contours of his own personality, the one that seemed to entertain his family and friends; but most of the time he felt totally disembodied. The words coming out of his mouth seemed like they could’ve been coming out of anyone’s mouth. He was desperate to become who he was, to not care what others were thinking, to dissolve the world around him. He decided that this elusive state of being demanded either total humility or total narcissism. Right now Adam existed in a no-man’s-land between the two.

He spent the weekend trying to forget the disappointment of Friday night. He Swiffered his studio apartment in Mar Vista, and then sat down on his futon with a fresh notepad and tried to work on some new bits. He hated topical humor, and the heady, off-kilter stuff wasn’t working either, so he tried to think of things from his own life that might be used for material. After a while he remembered an incident from his days as a gas station attendant. One afternoon, as he stood by the pumps, with a squeegee in his hand, a man in a BMW handed him twenty bucks for gas and said, “Why don’t they just train a monkey to do your job?” Adam didn’t have a comeback then, and he didn’t have one now. It was just another random moment of humiliation. He put his notepad down, opened a beer, and proceeded to watch six hours of The X-Files on DVD. Saturday seemed to drag along, and then, on Sunday evening, something strange happened. Around six o’clock, as the light was fading, he noticed a distinct lack of dread for the coming week. Instead of wallowing in regret for having accomplished nothing in his life — his favorite Sunday pastime — he was actually looking forward to getting up in the morning and going to the studio. For the first time, his job felt like the escape.

• • •

It was a quiet week, with no tapings scheduled. Adam ran his normal errands, zipping around the lot in his Benz. One section of the studio featured a fabricated Main Street, with shops and a town square. The old-timey buildings, once facades, were now used as administrative offices. Adam liked to eat lunch in a little courtyard just off Main Street. Most of the casting offices/eugenics labs were here, providing uncanny thrills. On Tuesday, Adam watched an anxious group of teenage girls, all blond, standing in line outside one office, clutching their headshots. On the landing above, a dozen thirtysomething brunettes were striding into another office.

“Adam,” said a voice.

He looked up and saw the guy he used to temp with. “Hey,” he said, hoping that would be enough.

The guy was nicely dressed in crisp slacks and a collared shirt. Adam didn’t have to dress like that anymore, now that he was full-time. He wore jeans and a T-shirt to work. The guy said he was now temping in corporate, in the clearance department, whatever that was.

“If you guys have another ticket promotion,” he said, “maybe you could get me in there.”

“Sure,” said Adam. “Maybe.”

“Do you have my email?”

“I think so.”

“Great. Let me know.”

“Sure. I mean, there’s probably nothing I can do,” said Adam. “But still. Yeah.”

After lunch, Melanie called Adam into her office and handed him a thick white manila envelope.

“This needs to go to Max’s house,” she said.

“Do you want me to call the studio messenger?”

“No, Max doesn’t trust them. You need to drive it to his house.” She wrote down the address. “There’s no gate. Just ring the doorbell.”

“What is this?”

“Paperwork for one of his charities.”

Adam read the seal on the envelope. “What’s the St. Maurice Foundation?”

“It provides assistance to Walloon-Americans affected by Katrina.”

Adam laughed, but Melanie looked serious. On a bookshelf behind her there was an autographed picture of Robert Fox worth.

“He stuck me on the board of directors so I have deal with it,” she said. “Have Max sign these and bring them back. Tell him if he has any questions he can call me. And make sure you take down your mileage. We give you thirty cents per mile.”

“Cha-ching.”

“Yes, cha-ching. Hopefully, you’ll get there before Max’s afternoon jog. Go.”

Driving north into the Hollywood hills, Adam saw Max twice, in billboard form. He crossed Sunset and gunned his gray Saturn along the shady curves of Laurel Canyon. He turned left at some point and drove for a few miles along a barren ridge. He had envisioned Max living in a baronial manor, his sprawling grounds lush with topiary and crisscrossed by wayward stags, but the ridge just became more and more narrow and the houses lining the road were increasingly modern-looking. Hanging above the dusty canyon, they didn’t occupy any land, really, just empty space. Adam reached the address. The view of the house from the road consisted almost entirely of the garage. It was a fancy, modern-looking garage, charcoal-gray with a door that was white and opaque, like a pearl. Next to the garage there was a smaller pearl-white door, and Adam took this to be the front entrance. He walked down concrete steps, past a concrete planter overflowing with star jasmine, and pushed a silver button. A few seconds later Max opened the door wearing dark blue running shorts and a teal tank top. He was barefoot.

“Are you a messenger?”

“No.”

“I don’t deal with studio messengers.”

“I’m not a messenger.”

“Liars and cowards. All of them.”

“I’m Adam, the new P.A. Melanie sent me.”

“Good.” He put out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”