Christopher Hacker - The Morels

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, AFTER Ioffered my resignation, Suriyaarachchi said, “But you’d be turning down a full-fledged producer credit, which would be a real shame.”

“On Dead Hank’s Boy ?”

“That ship has sailed, my friend, no. I’m talking about our new project.”

“A documentary,” Dave said.

“About?”

“Your boyfriend down the hall. Dave, show the man.”

Dave held out a copy of yesterday’s New York Post . “Page nine.”

I looked from Dave to Suriyaarachchi to the Post in my hands. The headline: “Brick Suspect Rips Rudy’s Homeless Policy.” I thumbed past the movie listings. Page 9. There were three stories here. One involved a retired television weatherman convinced that a coming storm would wash away the sins of the city and was building an ark on the roof of his Cobble Hill brownstone. The neighbors had filed a court injunction against it. The man’s name was, improbably, Fludd. Another was an update on the kidnapping of a Queens woman’s two-year-old — it turned out the whole thing was a hoax. To what end was not made clear.

The third story was about Arthur: “Local Writer Sued — by His Own Family.” The article began, “Herald Square resident Arthur Morel, who has made waves in literary circles, now finds himself in deep water with his family upon the release of his latest effort, The Morels . Franklyn Wright, Mr. Morel’s father-in-law, has filed a defamation suit on behalf of his daughter and grandson. Mr. Morel’s openly autobiographical book makes explicit mention of an act of incest between himself and his then-eight-year-old son. Mr. Wright claims the portrayal of his daughter and grandson in such a manner constitutes unfair and damaging use of their names for the express purpose of furthering Mr. Morel’s own career. Mr. Morel could not be reached for comment.”

“And?” I said, handing the paper back to Dave.

“And!” Suriyaarachchi spread out his hands and jumped. Ta-da! “There is no and . This is it, baby! This is the movie that’s going to make us famous.”

“But we’re out of money. You said it yourself.”

“Let me worry about that. Tell me you’re not itching to get out there and shoot again. Look at me and tell me honestly.”

“But a documentary? They lack something. Michael Moore on the red carpet looks like a boom operator who wandered in by mistake. And you’re forgetting what production was like. We’re not equipped.”

“But we are equipped. A camera, a subject, a place to edit. That’s the beauty.”

“What about my script?” I said.

Suriyaarachchi gave me a look: What script?

“The one I’ve given you three times already but you keep losing!”

“That one. I don’t know. Dave, what did you think?”

“It was a little derivative.”

“Too many long speeches. And Mexican standoffs. Leave that stuff to Tarantino and John Woo. I keep telling you, you want to make your mark, you’ve got to do something different.”

“Anyway,” Dave said, “that’s a narrative feature. It would be months before we could begin shooting. Even if we did it on the cheap.”

“With this documentary we could be shooting tomorrow. Tomorrow! And be wrapped with a final edit in time for next year’s festivals. We wouldn’t have to reenter a movie that’s already been rejected”—the envelopes were already coming back to us—“we would have this new effort, a film that would be even stronger for us having been through Dead Hank’s Boy . And if we got the attention of a distributor? It could only be good news. It’s leverage.”

“A two-picture deal.”

“I was up all night thinking about it.”

“The only problem is your subject,” I said.

“Arthur?”

“He’s awkward.”

“He is awkward,” Dave said.

“And,” I said, “he’s a writer. This lawsuit aside, I don’t think you’re going to find he’s much of a subject. It’s not like he’s Salman Rushdie or anything.”

“Rushdie would be a subject,” Dave said.

“I think he’s still in hiding.”

“He came out for a cameo on Seinfeld .”

“That wasn’t Rushdie. I saw that episode. That was someone who Kramer thought was Rushdie.”

“It wasn’t Rushdie? Are you sure?”

“Look,” Suriyaarachchi said, “you don’t have to have a price on your head to be interesting.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Dave said.

“What about the crazy weatherman,” I said. “I think he’d make a great subject.”

I was dissembling, of course. From the moment Dave handed me the paper, I knew where this was headed, and I didn’t want any part. Despite Suriyaarachchi’s claim, we couldn’t start shooting tomorrow because, for one, we didn’t have Arthur. And this was where I came in: the one who could bring him around. Luckily, I was still feeling hurt and angry at the both of them from the day before, or I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to refuse. It struck me as unseemly, trying to capitalize on the very real turmoil the Morels were going through. And then there was the mess with Penelope; just thinking about it tightened a knot in my chest. But Suriyaarachchi worked on me all day long. He bought me lunch, kept calling me “the man,” laughing hysterically at any little thing I said.

“Just think,” he said, “this would be your project. No more running errands, no more ‘associate’ producer. You’d be a full partner in this. An equal voice in all creative decisions. And I’m planning on funding it without my parents’ help, which would make your license in these decisions that much more free.”

A few days later, against my better judgment, I went to knock on the Morels’ door. To say that I had refused Suriyaarachchi may be an overstatement. In fact, I told him that I would have to think about it and, having thought about it some, came around to the idea of a documentary about Arthur. Although they lacked the glamour of narrative features, there was something pure about documentaries; they were more serious, higher-brow. And despite what I had said to Suriyaarachchi, Arthur did seem to be a good subject — the perfect subject, in fact. He said and did things that got him into trouble. What could be more entertaining than that? And to the question of using the misfortunes in his life for our gain, I thought: this is what artists do. No need to make it sound so sinister. It offered a way for me to face Arthur again, a way for me to make it up to him. In my fantasy — a fantasy that Suriyaarachchi encouraged — this movie would make Arthur famous. I would be doing him a service, I reasoned, while atoning for my sins.

The door was open. A red suitcase blocked my way in. I stepped over it and called out, “Hello?” There was someone here. I could hear sounds coming from elsewhere in the apartment. I called out again and walked down the short corridor toward the bedroom. The light was on in the bathroom, door partway open, and when I peeked in I saw Penelope crouched at the cabinet under the sink. Stuffing things at random, it seemed, into her purse. I tapped my knuckle on the door.

She screamed, wheeled around. “What are you doing?” She stood up, then elbowed past me out of the bathroom.

I followed.

She said, “I thought I told you to stay away.”

I told her I had been, but something had come up, an opportunity — she could be a part of it. That I’d like to make her a part of it, if she was willing.

She didn’t appear to be listening. “Look,” she said. “Something’s happened, and I’m just, I’m on my own. I have to deal with it on my own.” She was in the bedroom now, pulling open dresser drawers and tossing clothes by the handful into an open suitcase on the bed. I want to say she had been crying, but her eyes weren’t red or puffy. I might say they were a little shiny, and in her high sweet voice there was a new throatiness, a new depth.