Film School (23 page)

Our class is exceptional in one way: the men are all handsome, the women all pretty. Compared to my first go-round, the class looks older, more mature, and more poised. I expected the reverse, since I am two years older, and the undergraduates on campus certainly look younger. But as we introduce each other and spend the first day in class, I realize all the men in the class are straight and, well,
manly
. Four of the women are straight, and the one lesbian, the Valley Girl, is straight out of the imagination of Howard Stern. Everyone seems confident and upbeat, in school to work. It's as if our class sidestepped the usual film school clichés I've already witnessed at USC—the slacker, a cigarette dangling, who yammers on about avant-garde French cinematographers; the Lexus-driving Marxist, who drones on about the total unfairness of the world economic system; the wandering rich kid, who uses film school as some sort of extended personal therapy session.

Everyone in my 508 class seems interested in making films, not posing, not complaining, not searching. It's only the first day, of course. And I wonder how much of my observations are shaded because of the simple fact I'm just out of the hospital. Four nights in a stroke ward makes everything look good. I notice the air smells good. The sun shines brightly. USC looks beautiful. It
is
beautiful. It's August. The days are long. The sun is hot. It feels like the Southern California the Beach Boys sang about.

After class, I tell Dan I spent the weekend in the hospital and he seems to brush it off—
okay, cool, how do ya feel?
I don't want to dwell on the details, and I make my patient time sound pretty minor. If he's worried, he's hiding it well. I introduce him to Julie and they hit it off. We joke that we are going to take our son out for dinner, which we do.

O
n this first day back, the San Fernando Valley hits 102 degrees. It's in the nineties at USC, which is down in the L.A. Basin. When Julie and I return to Carl and Irene's house, we find my room is heavily damaged. The broken pipe sprayed enough water to soak all the carpets, which in turn soaked the walls, which in turn damaged the sheetrock. The carpet is pulled from four rooms, and a handful of large industrial fans are drying the mess. The air-conditioning is off. It's hot, humid, and loud, as the fans blast 24/7. We spend a sleepless night, my first out of the hospital.

Julie needs to return to Minneapolis, and I drive her to the airport at 5
A.M.
It's still eighty degrees outside. I return to USC, park, and leave my engine running and AC blasting. I try to take a nap in the back of the Suburban. I can't sleep. I'm now six days into my return to grad school and I've had a mild stroke, I discover I have a hole in my heart, and I find that my home-away-from home has been damaged in a way that seems a mocking echo of my own body. As I lie there, the Suburban engine sucking gas, the sunlight filtering in the window, my head still aching slightly, I realize the broken water pipe is so spot-on for a metaphor that it wouldn't work in a fictional script. I hear the critique already: “Too on-the-nose, Steve. Try something a little more subtle.”

I feel very alone. Julie is gone. Classes are starting, and I don't know a soul on campus other than Dan. I made him promise not to tell others about what happened to me. I know film school is a gossip chamber, and I don't want misinformation to spread.

Luckily, film school semesters at USC start with a slow ramp-up: in 507 and in 508, I'm not expected to do much in the first few days of class. I haven't missed a thing, nor fallen behind. The first long weekend is meant, apparently, for students to socialize and get settled before the real work begins.

As I lie in my truck's backseat, I think:
What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Am I an idiot?
My mind spins toward the macabre. I foresee a news story:

From The Associated Press: A forty-two-year-old Minnesota man was found dead in his vehicle on the campus of the University of Southern California yesterday afternoon, apparently from natural causes. The man was enrolled in the university's School of Cinematic Arts, officials said, and was pursuing a master's degree in film production. Police and USC officials refused to release the name of the man until relatives could be notified.

A classmate said the man apparently had been hospitalized earlier in the week for a stroke. The classmate, who only identified himself as Dan, said the death of the Minnesota man “was kind of a bummer.”

“He didn't seem a bad guy, but he was a pretty old dude to be going to school,” Dan said. “This is sure going to f'-up my semester.” Police were unable to determine exactly how long the man was in the vehicle, but officials noted that his 2002 Chevrolet Suburban appeared to have been idling until it ran out of gas. “Judging by the smell, he'd been in there a while,” said one officer, who asked not to be identified. Police ruled out foul play. No other details are available at this time. An autopsy is pending.

I realize the thoughts I'm having are self-defeating. Feeling sorry for myself and being scared aren't going to help. I didn't come back to USC to fail, and I'm not going to quit again. It's time to pull myself up by my sorry-ass bootstraps.

Though it is early, I call my pal Pete Krause.

Pete and I met at Gustavus. We lived in the same dorm and had an English class together and that was that: we became friends. We had a grown-up, thoughtful friendship.

For example, when we were in college, we spent the evening before our graduation visiting a few bars in little St. Peter, Minnesota. Then we went visiting the apartments of various friends. It's a small town, St. Peter. I'm a little hazy on the details, but I recall shoving carrots into a powerful room fan and laughing hysterically as carrot shrapnel sprayed about the room. I remember challenging some locals in their muscle cars to a race, with me on foot. I recall us carrying glass syrup dispensers filled with whiskey, dispensers we had borrowed from a local pancake restaurant. We figured the cops would be hoodwinked by our clever trick. When we drained our “syrup,” we began conducting liberation raids into campus housing looking for more drinks. Sometime before dawn, we found ourselves at the entrance of the college, where a four-foot-high stone sign announces GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE. Spread out in front of the sign was a beautiful tulip garden, perfectly manicured and loamy in the warm May night. Pete and I both climbed up on top of the sign, and we leapt off and did belly flops in the soft, muddy earth. Then we did it again. And again. And again. It was like landing in water, the ground was so soft.

Over the years, our friendship grew and actually matured a little bit. He went to NYU to study acting after college. I gave him an old leather motorcycle jacket I owned, figuring he would look like a New York toughie with it.

I moved to southern Minnesota and worked as a reporter. I'd visit his family over the holidays. He'd come down to Rochester and hang out. Somewhere in the archives of Minnesota Public Radio, there is a story featuring Pete. I did a comic spoof talking to Santa Claus. Pete was Santa.

Pete was a good actor in college, and it was clear he had that special
something
onstage. Right out of NYU he was hired by Carol Burnett to perform on her short-lived reboot of a comedy show. It wasn't a fluke hire. He worked steadily in Hollywood and kept climbing the ladder. When Julie and I visited California so she could interview at Oxnard, we stayed at his house. Pete had been a lead on SPORTS NIGHT, Aaron Sorkin's dramedy, but the show had been canceled, and he was looking at other gigs. One morning during our stay, he pulled me aside and said he just got word he was cast in a new series. It was called SIX FEET UNDER. It would be on HBO.

Julie and I had just moved to California with our girls when they had the red carpet premiere for SIX FEET UNDER. Julie and I sat next to him as his face filled the screen of the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. It was very cool and somewhat surreal to see your college buddy's mug on the big screen—or on any screen.

During the three years Julie and I lived in Ventura County, Pete's place became a getaway pad. Sometimes I'd take the whole family, sometimes I'd visit myself. We couldn't have been less ENTOURAGE-like. Pete and I played a lot of ping-pong in his awesomely huge living room. Swam in his pool. Went for runs. Talked. Went out for pancakes or Mexican food or sushi.

That was it. We never went clubbing. Pete is a private guy, and he got where he is by working hard, and the last thing he wants is to find his face in the publicity beast that feeds on Hollywood mischief. When I was staying home with the girls and going a little stir-crazy, Pete came up and hung with the kids and me. After Annette died, I was feeling very low. Pete told me he'd take me out and “do anything I wanted.”

He drove up to Camarillo and took me bowling and we had some beers. Then we went to In-and-Out Burger.

Pete became a star. He was nominated three times for a best dramatic actor Emmy for his work on SIX FEET UNDER. He's worked with a Who's Who of talented people.

In 507 I had been too busy to see him much. We touched base a bit. I didn't want to look like I was trading on his celebrity. Now, I don't give a rat's ass. I just want to see my old pal. We meet for lunch that day. He approaches me with wide eyes. I tease him by giving him a jerky, Frankenstein-like hug. It's defensiveness on my part, really. I don't want to admit I'm scared. So I joke about it. Joking about mortality is a lot better than crying about it.

I assure him I'm feeling good, that everything is back to normal, that I'm going to have heart surgery, and that I'll be right back in the game. He treats me as if I'm going to break if he drops a napkin on me. I assure him I'm fine. He's skeptical and worried, but we agree to spend a day on the set of his latest TV show, DIRTY SEXY MONEY.

When I get back to USC, my bravado dwindles. I decide to move into a hotel near campus. Carl and Irene's house is a disaster zone. The walls need to be torn out, and we're in a heat wave.

That night, I'm sleeping in my hotel room when I wake after a nightmare. I'm unsure where I am. My heart is pounding. I keep thinking I'm going to lose my ability to talk again, to read, to understand. The next morning I give myself another of my little pep talks—
get going, Steve, and quit feeling sorry for yourself
. I lace up my running shoes for the first time since I've been released from the hospital. I attempt to run around the USC campus. I can't go more than a few blocks before I slow to a walk. My legs feel awful. They're heavy as stones and painful. I knew from my ultrasounds that I had no large clots in my legs. My doctors said it is possible, however, that I have microclots in the tiny capillaries of my legs. If so, I'm going to jog them out.

M
y workload at USC is amazingly light in this first week. Dan is directing the first film of our 508 partnership. Other partnerships are already doing preproduction, but Dan hasn't finalized his script. So until that happens, I do nothing. I've got a screenwriting class, too, but that's getting off to a slow start.

On Friday I meet Pete at the DIRTY SEXY MONEY set. It's in the Paramount lot, a massive complex located in the heart of Los Angeles in a neighborhood that has seen better days. Driving through the gates of Paramount is to go back in time. Inside, it's a beautiful place, with carefully trimmed shrubbery and employees zipping around in electric carts. Pete's show is taping several scenes, one featuring a limousine dropping off two of the characters and another in an office featuring Pete and Donald Sutherland, another of the lead actors on the show.

It's a good day to visit because Pete has a fair amount of downtime between scenes. When I arrive, he gives me a tour and introduces me to various crew and the director and several of the actors—William Baldwin among them. Pete is eager to show me off. “This is my friend Steve,” he says to Baldwin. ”Do you know he just had a stroke?” Baldwin, like others, seems to think he's joking. I'm standing there looking fit as a fiddle. “I'm not kidding, he
really
did,” Pete adds, thus launching us into a little session where I explain what the heck had happened. It is a funny little shtick, and the mood on the set is upbeat and happy. The show is just a few days from premiering and there is obviously a lot of enthusiasm by everyone in the cast and crew.

Pete has his own trailer—a high-end camping trailer like you'd find at a nice RV park. We sit and talk in the velour chairs while the AC blows cold air and the crew preps the next scene. Pete is relaxed yet focused. He explains that part of his appeal to producers has been his work ethic. He says his reputation is of someone showing up on time and knowing the script and not being a drama king on the set. He says he takes pride in almost never needing a prompt on his lines. Today his scene is being reworked, and Pete's not worried. He says he'll memorize the material quickly, then focus on the acting. He's unfailingly polite to everyone on the crew. He holds a door open for some crew members when we tour the set.

We step out and grab a snack from the food cart, when Sutherland appears. I'm not a guy who gets very excited about meeting stars. I was lucky enough to interview a good number of VIPs as a reporter, including presidential candidates making the rounds in Iowa. But . . . when I meet Sutherland, I can't help but be a bit starstruck. I try not to stammer as we shake hands.
Whoa, this is cool!
I think.
This is the guy I watched in soooo many great films
.

Pete introduces me, again, as the guy who had a stroke. I wave Pete off, but Sutherland is interested in talking medical issues. We discuss various ailments, and we engage in a bit of medical ailment one-upmanship. He tells me about nearly dying of an infection in Europe decades ago. I counter about the time I had my ferocious bike accident that broke most of the blood vessels in my pecker. Pete stands back and grins. Sutherland is an intriguing conversationalist, and I'm glad to hold my own. For the last few days, I've been feeling my brain is slow and I'm not on my A game, but this afternoon the words flow freely and I'm relaxed and happy. We talk for quite a while, standing by the food cart. It's clear by the behavior of the crew that Sutherland is treated like royalty, and I'm catching a few curious glances. I have to suppress a smile. They don't know I'm merely a second-semester film student.