Jim Gavin - Middle Men - Stories

“No! I just figure every little bit helps, right?”

I put the check in my pocket. Ray asked what I was working on. As I gave my vague answers, he casually practiced his backswing with an imaginary driver. It was his signature move. When I had finished talking, he looked out on the imaginary fairway where he had hit his imaginary ball. “Shot three under today.”

“How’s Aunt Holly?”

“What?” He squinted at me for a moment, confused. Then he realized I was referring to his wife of thirty years. “Yeah. She’s great. Drink this.”

Two more shots appeared.

“Look at Fig!” Ray announced, drumming the bar. He pointed across the room. “He’s posing for holy cards!”

Fig, to the seeming delight of several young waitresses, was balancing an empty pint glass on his forehead. He was a short, wiry man with a sunburned face. For the last half century his hair had been slicked into a pompadour. The waitresses smiled relentlessly. My mom used to work at a restaurant in downtown Long Beach, near the convention center, and after a long night collecting tips from boozy conventioneers, she would come home with that same miserable smile.

“When do we eat?” I asked.

“I want you to meet some people,” said Ray. He put his arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the magic circle of men. One by one, I shook hands with the Illuminati.

Gus Lavelle, a general contractor who built houses in the high desert, said, “I’ve heard all about you.”

“They call Gus the ‘Inland Emperor,’” Ray said.

“Fuck off!” said Gus, in good cheer.

Then I met Jerry Tolliver, who owned a shipping company.

“Wait till you hear this story,” Jerry said. “It literally gave me the chills.”

“When can I see your movie?” Gus asked.

“Never,” I said. “It’s not getting made.”

Jerry, sucking meat from a chicken wing, said, “How come they won’t make it?”

I shrugged, affecting a look of martyrdom.

“But if it’s good, I don’t get why they won’t make it. It’s good, right?”

“It’s genius,” I said.

“It’s all who you know,” said Gus.

“Get in good with the schnozolas,” Jerry advised. “Otherwise you’re fucked.”

“Once you write this thing,” said Ray, “we can start talking to people.”

“We?”

“It’s our idea. Me and Fig.”

“Quid pro quo,” I said. “I’m going to etch that on your fucking tombstone.”

“There’s no Easter Bunny, baby,” said Ray, laughing, as the hostess summoned us to the dining hall.

• • •

Two years ago, all my dumb ideas and tenuous connections came together. I sold a screenplay to a finance company that was working with a production company that was developing a project for a pair of comedians who had appeared in commercials for a popular men’s body wash that wanted to distinguish their brand by underwriting a feature film in which the body wash somehow played a crucial role in the plot. At the time I was doing close-captioning for television. I could type ninety words per minute and I made $24,000 a year. At night I took screenwriting classes through a collge extension program and one of my instructors was nice enough to pass along my script to his manager, who liked it, or thought he could sell it, at least, and one thing led to another. My script had nothing to do with body wash, but everyone thought that was an easy fix. After it sold, I was acutely aware that something absurd had just happened to me and I felt obliged to mock myself and the shadowy figures who had lowered the drawbridge on my behalf, letting me into the castle. The day I signed the papers I told the head of development an anecdote about Flaubert. I told him that as Flaubert was nearing the end of Madame Bovary , he wrote in a letter to a friend that he could actually hear the rhythm of the final chapters, the fall of every phrase, though he didn’t yet have the words. I explained that I had experienced something similar as I approached the third act of my multiethnic buddy cop adventure comedy, Hyde & Sikh .

I planned this in advance, thinking it would be funny and convey some sense of proportion to the proceedings. But then the head of development, bright, sincere, handsome, looked at me with sudden admiration and asked which translation I preferred.

“Of Madame Bovary ?” I said slowly, trying to buy some time.

I said I wasn’t sure, which was nonsense, because I had only read one version. I never paid attention to things like that. I had ripped the anecdote from the intro to whatever edition I had. I looked at the young man sitting behind his glass desk. Who was this gorgeously literate sociopath?

“It’s a tricky business, translation,” he said dreamily, as he walked me to the door. I thanked him for the opportunity he had given me.

After taxes, and after my manager and lawyer got their piece, I took home $57,000, a figure that somehow was both less than I imagined and more than I ever dreamed possible. I took my mom out to El Torito and told her the good news. I told her I had money, lots of money, a great deal of money. This was the happiest moment of my life. I paid off my student loans and a good chunk of my mom’s credit cards. I still had about twenty-five grand, free and clear, and according to my calculations, this would last forever. I moved to Redondo Beach, a few blocks from the water, and I quit my job. Over the course of the next six months, I took meetings with a few production companies—“What worlds do you want to explore?”—and I spent the remainder of my afternoons kicking around the beach like a bona fide asshole.

Then nothing happened. The finance company dissolved, the production company lost their studio deal, and so forth. Nothing always happens. The literature of Hollywood is depressingly consistent on this point. During my brief period of decadence, I tried to remind myself that the fun probably wouldn’t last, that all good fortune is prelude to disaster, and soon I would be starting over at a temp agency, trying to raise my scores on the Excel test. I tried very hard to remind myself that I was a fool, that the definition of a fool is anyone who thinks he is not a fool, but my weekends grew brighter and more expansive and I felt increasingly worthy of the exalted visions I had of my future, which for reasons I still don’t understand, always involved sitting next to one of those “zero horizon” pools that seem to blend into the ocean.

• • •

We sat beneath an enormous painting of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, charging up San Juan Hill. The dining hall was quiet and dimly lit. In this prosperous gloom, Ray listened with impatience to the wine steward.

“Just bring us a bottle of dago red,” he said, slapping shut the leather-bound menu.

Fig buttered every piece of bread in the basket. His mouth was stuffed. He had a scar on his chin and a big gold ring on his right pinkie. Fig served with Ray in Korea. Once their superiors found out they were both scratch golfers — Ray had actually led El Camino College to a California state title — they spent most of their tours getting flown to Japan to play golf with generals. I had known Fig all my life. He’d show up with Ray at my birthdays and Little League games, but after so many years I still wasn’t sure of his full name and I had no idea what role he played in this world beyond that of Ray’s eternal golf buddy. I always assumed he was in the irrigation business.

“Look at this beauty eat,” said Ray, amused. “His thyroid is out of control.”

Fig gave him the finger and kept chewing. The waiter poured our wine.

“So listen to this. Last week me and Fig went to Santa Anita.”

Another waiter brought our appetizers. I sipped my wine and settled in.