Movie Stars Read online

  “Children remind me of that once-famous achondroplastic fellow now in the shameful regional commercial,” I told my friend. “Have you seen it? He is forced to say, ‘I’m short on cash.’ I never cared for him at the height of his popularity, yet I am moved when I consider what he goes through. Ha ha, ‘height of popularity,’ that’s marvelous, his unusually short stature being the sole source of his notoriety.”

  “Jen and I are going to have a baby,” my friend said.

  “Have I ever told you about the couple my brother knew who had a pet chimpanzee with cancer?” I replied. “This was in New Orleans, the Crescent City. For a long time you could walk by their house and see the chimpanzee glaring out the window at you. It was very sick. The husband was a wine merchant. He traveled around the nation to fabulous restaurants and sometimes he would take his wife along. During one of these professional visits, a rather famous chef in Charleston asked where the wife was and the fellow answered very matter-of-factly, ‘She couldn’t come. She’s taking the chimpanzee for chemotherapy.’ The chef made a certain face, so my brother’s friend smashed a valuable champagne flute in his eyes. The traveling wine salesman felt insulted and judged. Perhaps he was sensitive. You may be asking yourself, ‘What were the consequences of his rash actions?’”

  But my friend had ceased to listen to me. He was huddled together with his tiny wife, with whom he seemed to be sharing a private joke. I examined her figure for signs of pregnancy and saw none.

  I have nothing against babies per se. People are fascinated by their own babies, perhaps with good reason.

  A typical conversation with a parent might go something like this:

  “After Maddy’s nap, I either heat a bottle of breast milk or mix up a bottle of formula. Marcie pumps at work and puts the milk in these little plastic bags for me to use at home. We’ve been feeding her baby food for about the last month, too. She likes sweet potatoes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Avocado.”

  “Exotic and promising!”

  “Squash.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Green beans.”

  “An old classic!” (Here, his gracious avocado sentiment having been ignored, the secondary participant is trying again to muster some excitement and bring the discussion around to something more universal.)

  “Green peas.”

  “Those I’m not so crazy about. But I’m sure they’re good for a baby.” (Introducing a Hegelian dynamic to jazz things up.)

  “Beef baby food.”

  “My, what a hungry baby.”

  “After you feed Maddy, you need to burp her. I either set her on my knee or put her on my shoulder and pat her back. It’s fun when you get a big burp. It’s funny when a big burp comes out of that little mouth. Sometimes you can hear the air coming up her throat right before it comes out of her mouth. Sometimes Maddy spits up. It’s mostly pretty random. You just wipe it up. Once or twice I’ve changed shirts when she spit up on my shoulder. And about once I’ve changed her outfit because it was so wet from spit-up. She seemed to amuse herself a few months ago by waiting for me to change a soiled diaper, then going again as we were putting the new diaper on. Sometimes she would do it two or three times in a row. I hope that means she’s going to have a funny sense of humor. I’ve heard her laugh repeatedly twice. I mean, not just a random laugh, but a prolonged bout of laughter that had some object to it.”

  Once I suffered through just such a conversation with a former friend, a man called Mr. Harris. He was rather aged for a new father, which may have accounted for the otherwise unaccountable relish with which he employed such coprolalia.

  “Why is it,” I asked him, getting into the spirit of things, “that a cat knows not to crap on the floor from the very day of its birth, but a baby will gladly crap in its own pants without a second thought?”

  “But then a baby learns to talk,” said Mr. Harris. “What does a cat learn?”

  “One of Little Jimmy Parker’s twins crapped on my breakfast table when she was a baby,” I informed him. “The other one crapped in my new porch swing. I think you could give babies a serum. Something with feline genomes in it or something. I just had an idea for a product. Something you put in a cat’s diet so its feces smell good.”

  “Lavender,” said Mr. Harris.

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Harris. “It might work.”

  For a moment it was there, the familiar spark. Mr. Harris was my old science teacher, and how we had always loved to come up with ideas for products. None of them amounted to anything, but our dreams kept us going. After he married his much younger wife—a former biology lab partner of mine, in fact—nothing was ever the same.

  I observed the long table of tailgating dainties, so lately full of promise, all of which the infected nephew had rummaged through with antic physicality. Hands in pockets, I took my leave.

  I smoked as I walked, recalling, as I often did, a father who was carrying his baby around a department store. The child was not wearing shoes, a fact I noted aloud at the time, as the temperature outside had taken an unseasonable and precipitous dip. I thought perhaps that the father had been shopping in the department store for some hours and was unaware of the change in weather.

  “You know who says things like that?” the father responded. “Old ladies.”

  He said it in a jesting and harmless fashion, as we had known one another for some years. I went on to humorously respond, “That is exactly what I am!” The humor derived from the fact that I am middle-aged and male. I was poking fun at my own shortcomings to be a good sport.

  The father went on to describe how an actual “old lady” had come up to his wife, who was carrying their boy in her arms at the time. The old lady in question grabbed the baby’s bare foot and remarked, “His feet are like ice!”

  The wife jerked her baby away from the old lady’s grasp and said, “Don’t you dare touch my baby.”

  This story was presented as an example of bravery and fortitude on the part of the wife. The teller’s face shone with pride as he related the manner in which his wife had snarled at an old lady. I could not help feeling somewhat chastened, albeit it in a passive and not unpleasant way. At the same time I was bewildered.

  Similarly, my thoughts were crazed and muddy as I walked home from the football game, a state of mind I welcomed. Hot air balloons, the electric coffee pot, the poetry of William Blake—here are just a few of the items we would not be able to enjoy today if someone had pushed a crazy thought to the back of his head because he didn’t want to brood about it.

  The Bible says something about a “still, small voice.” What a beautiful thought. Another Biblical phrase is “like a thief in the night.” Inspiration does not come crashing and stumbling like a lout.

  Few of us are old enough to remember homemade crystal radio sets, a pastime of yore. I do not believe I ever put one together successfully, yet somehow I retain a mental image of the process, possibly from a movie. What I am picturing is the infinite patience with which the young enthusiast groped for a signal. Somewhere, from the stars, a message!

  I would not have to get my teeth fixed to become a so-called “Hollywood character actor,” portraying the henchman or goon of a corrupt and oleaginous Southern senator, saying things like, “Get in the car.” My unfortunate smile might even turn out to be a benefit.

  “He’s authentic! He’s the real thing!” Such encomia I could imagine bursting from the lips of agents and casting directors as I stood by modestly within earshot.

  Upon arriving home, I made up a list of the good points and bad points about my town.

  Good: friends.

  Bad: a chemical smell.

  Good: plans to revitalize the economy through tourism.

  Bad: tourism based on an infamous murder in a creepy doll hospital.

  Good: flowers.

  Bad: a dog somewhere that barks all night.

  Good: old-fashioned hobby shop
provides nostalgia and irony in equal measures.

  Bad: racists.

  The list thus completed, I called my friend. It was halftime, and the marching band was playing.

  “There is nothing keeping me here anymore,” I said. “I’m off to pursue my dreams.”

  My friend said, “Who is this?” He said, “Hello?”

  Joan Crawford: A Hot-Looking Woman

  ROBERT MONTGOMERY DUMPED JOAN CRAWFORD AT THE ALTAR. After that, there was a jump cut to Joan Crawford chopping wood at a mountain cabin.

  “There she is, chopping wood!” I said aloud.

  My girlfriend would have known what I meant, but she didn’t come over anymore.

  Maybe I was drunk, but Joan Crawford was a hot-looking woman. I could watch her chopping wood all day long. It wasn’t her fault people turned her into a camp figure later on. Time turns us all into camp figures in the end.

  Jerry Lewis

  AN OPEN BOX OF DOUGHNUTS ON THE COFFEE TABLE. LITTLE BULLETS lined up in a pretty little row. The girl working on the chamber of a revolver with a little tool like a Q-tip expressly designed for the purpose. Her yellow hair hanging in her eyes.

  Girl with a half-fastened holster, like a male gangster in a movie.

  Girl in a sleeveless corrugated T, low scooped neck, like a male gangster in a movie.

  Girl in striped boxers, like a male gangster in a movie.

  She looked up.

  Humphries jerked back his head, away from the dirty window into which he had accidentally peeped.

  What was he supposed to do now? Something?

  She opened the door.

  “Hi,” said Humphries. “I’m looking for a cat.”

  His eyes went to the empty holster.

  “Are you a policeman?” he blurted.

  “What gave me away, the doughnuts?”

  “What doughnuts?”

  She laughed like a sexy crow. The way she talked was also like a sexy crow, one of those crows that can talk. But sexy. Her teeth were so white they were almost blue. They looked like happy ghosts. She said, “Have you ever seen the movie Hardly Working?”

  “I don’t think so. What’s it about?”

  “Jerry Lewis is on a job interview at the post office. He’s really hungry. He hasn’t eaten for days. So while the guy’s trying to interview him, all he can see is this box of doughnuts on the desk. He’s not listening at all. The guy finally asks him, ‘Do you want a doughnut?’ And Jerry goes, ‘Where ARE DEY?’ Just like that. ‘Where ARE DEY?’”

  She laughed some more.

  Humphries made himself laugh. He was nervous because where was the gun? In the dewy small of her back, tucked in the waistband of her boxers? He had seen something like that in a movie.

  “I’m not a cop,” said the woman.

  “My wife’s cat is missing,” said Humphries. “He’s orange? Sometimes I see a black cat on this porch, sitting on this thing.” Humphries pointed to the rusted glider, its filthy vinyl cushions illustrated—defiled—with big blotchy flowers. “I don’t know, I felt my wife’s cat might have sought out the company of another cat? He’s not used to being outside and she’s very worried, understandably. We recently moved here to Mississippi from Vermont, which is generally considered a more civilized state, no offense, and my wife is understandably concerned that there might be some barefoot children who have reverted to some kind of savagery and walk around trying to shoot little cats with a bow and arrow.”

  “I’m from Chicago, dude. I don’t give a shit. Want to know what I would have told you if you hadn’t seen the gun? My cover story is that I’m looking for a place to live out in the sticks because I want to have a baby. I’m thirty-nine. If I wait any longer, there’s some danger involved for the baby. I mean, there’s a pretty good chance of something going wrong chromosomally, am I right? Where am I going to bring up the baby I want to have? Chicago? All the neighborhoods are getting too expensive, even the bad neighborhoods. There was a torso on a mattress. Where we lived. In the alley below our apartment. They found a headless torso on a mattress. And the place was still too expensive for us. Is that where I’m going to raise a kid? Like, ‘Look out the window, there’s a torso on a mattress.’ Like, ‘Mommy, what’s a torso?’ And we can’t even afford that. Like, ‘Sorry, lady, the torso on the mattress is extra.’ Jocko had some prospects down here—my cover-story husband who doesn’t actually exist, that’s Jocko—so here we are, anyway. He wants to do voiceovers. He wants to be a voiceover guy, my made-up husband does. He can do that from anywhere. He just needs a good microphone and a special phone line.”

  Humphries couldn’t believe she was thirty-nine. She looked like a girl, like a college kid or something. Like an inspirational young teacher fresh from the academy with a lot of exciting notions about how to change the world. She had a gun.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  “I really need to keep looking.”

  “Could be I have some information about your cat. Sorry. Your wife’s cat.” She said it like she didn’t believe he had a wife.

  “Really?”

  She shrugged.

  Humphries was scared but titillated. He followed her inside.

  The place was dank. It smelled the way other people’s places always do: like the long-unwashed pillowcase of a much-sought-after courtesan—sour milk and violets.

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Ovaltine?” said Humphries.

  She turned from him without humor and headed for the kitchen, scratching her ass in an elegant way.

  Humphries sat on the couch where he had seen her sitting. The bullets and pistol were magically gone. The doughnuts remained. There were two flies walking on the doughnuts. He thought the seat cushion felt warm from her, or maybe everything was warm.

  Who was she? Why did she need a cover story? Obviously she knew nothing about Mr. Mugglewump. Chicago was where hitmen came from. Something awful was going to happen and Humphries would never be seen again. Part of him thought that would be okay.

  She came back with a couple of Rolling Rocks. She handed one to Humphries. It was fairly warm, like everything else.

  She sat cattycorner to Humphries, on an armchair that looked to be upholstered in some sort of immensely uncomfortable material, like tweed. It would make little red marks on the backs of her bare legs, he thought. Fascinating crosshatched patterns.

  “This place is a hole,” she said.

  She twisted the switch on a shabby lamp. It seemed to have a brown bulb. At least it leaked a brownish light that made things darker.

  “Please, Officer, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” joked Humphries. He shielded his eyes as if from the bare bulb of a searing interrogation.

  She didn’t get it.

  When Humphries and his wife were trying to find a place, they had attended an open house for which the realtor had decorated the gates with brown balloons in welcome. Brown balloons! It was an odd choice. It was odd that expensive factory machinery would be put into place to manufacture brown balloons.

  “Stay right there,” she said. “If you ever want to see Fluffy again, ha ha.” She got up and went back to the kitchen. For cigarettes, Humphries assumed somehow. His hands were sweating. There were sexual feelings mingled with terror. He got up and ran out the door, knocking over a small table, clattering.

  He ran down the street. He hadn’t run anywhere since boyhood.

  Thank goodness Mr. Mugglewump came home that night.

  “Where have you been?” Humphries cooed over him, and so did Humphries’s wife Mrs. Josie Humphries.

  The cat couldn’t tell where he had been.

  Neither could Humphries.

  Now I have a terrible secret, he thought.

  He lay in bed next to Josie and had private visions of torment.

  It was a small neighborhood. He would run into the mysterious siren. Maybe Josie, who loved a pleasant stroll, would be on his arm when the confrontation occurred! All scenarios were dista
steful.

  He couldn’t sleep.

  Humphries read the New York Times on the internet every day like a big shot. He disdained the local rag. It was a way to get back at his wife, who had moved to this Podunk burg for a job. Humphries was a landscape painter, so he could live anywhere. That’s what Josie said. But what was he supposed to paint around here? A ditch? He stood on the back porch every day and painted pictures of turds for spite. Josie said they were good.

  She was all right.

  She noticed that Humphries started walking down to the drugstore in the morning and picking up the local paper. She made knowing faces at him. Now that Mr. Mugglewump had survived on the streets, Mississippi was looking okay to her. Humphries cringed and shuddered at her implicit optimism and got back to the paper. He was looking for a story about some local jerk getting assassinated.

  On the third day he almost gave up because he didn’t want to give his wife the satisfaction. But he rose in the first smeary light, while Josie was still asleep, and walked to the drugstore. He didn’t have to bring the paper home. Without that clue, Josie wouldn’t be able to guess he was happy. Because he was happy. He was happy being miserable. He was happy that living in Mississippi would give him a great excuse to be a failure.

  There were some old codgers spitting in a cup for some reason. Humphries stood on the corner reading about Buddy Wilson, who had owned a struggling poster shop. He was a large fat man who had been found at the county dump, his head nearly severed from his body. Police suspected garroting by banjo string because there was a banjo lying nearby with a missing string.

  It was cool out. Humphries’s palms were sweating. He threw the paper in a trashcan and wiped the slippery newsprint on his pants. For the first time, he went back to the house where he had spotted the girl with the gun.

  The window glowed. He could see everything from the street. It was like a different place, draped in fabrics, oranges and pinks, full of light and life. The homey smell of bacon was in the air.