Middle Men (12 page)

“I'd like to pick your brain,” he said.

“Why?”

“It seems like you've been around,” he said. “You know what you're doing.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Please,” said Hobbs, and his voice faltered a little. “It's hard meeting people out here.” It was almost dark now and he took off his sunglasses. “I'll buy you dinner.”

They walked down to a Mexican restaurant. Adam ordered a margarita and a plate of carne asada. Hobbs said he wasn't that hungry, but every time the waiter came around, he asked for more chips and salsa. Hobbs peppered Adam with questions about agents and managers. Instead of admitting his own ignorance and frustration in these matters, Adam gave a speech on the nobility of craft. “If you do things right and put in the work, everything else will take care of itself,” he said, with surprising conviction. He felt like he was channeling some future version of himself, the total pro who had attained mastery in all areas of life. Then it occurred to him, with creeping horror, that by summoning this wise man too soon, under false pretenses, he was precluding his existence. He was fucking with the space-time continuum. He imagined the two versions of himself—the young fraud and the old pro—standing on either side of a dark chasm. If there was some blessed third version of himself, the middle man who could bridge the gap, Adam saw no trace of him in the darkness. Rarely had he felt so defeated, and yet here was Hobbs, hanging on his every word. Adam thought he lived at the bottom. But he was wrong. There was no bottom. Adam ordered more margaritas and talked about the first time he heard one of his dad's old George Carlin records. Hobbs admitted that he had never heard any of these, but Adam forgave him, saying that it was dangerous to become overly familiar with the canon. “That kind of knowledge can be a burden,” he said. “It can paralyze you.”

When the bill came, Hobbs peered despairingly into his wallet. “I only have twenty bucks. I didn't think you'd drink so much.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“I'm signed up at three different temp agencies,” he said. “I can't get anything right now.”

Adam, in an expansive mood, paid for everything, explaining to Hobbs that he was actually making good money for the first time in his life. “Sixteen dollars an hour, plus benefits,” he said. “There's a three-month probation period, but eventually I'll have benefits.”

“I don't have health insurance,” said Hobbs.

“What doesn't kill us makes us hopelessly in debt for the rest of our lives.”

Nothing. Hobbs just nodded morosely. As they walked back down Sunset, Hobbs asked, “So did I blow it with Thorpe?”

“Don't worry about it,” said Adam. “I know things don't look good right now, but in the long run you're way better off than that guy.”

“But it wouldn't hurt to get him on my side.”

Adam saw a liquor store and popped in. He came back out with a carton of eggs. “Come on,” he said. “We're going to do Thorpe a favor.”

“What?”

“We'll egg the shit out of his car,” explained Adam. “It'll help him reevaluate his life.”

Hobbs politely refused. He thanked Adam for dinner and promised to pay him back the next time he saw him at El Goof. They shook hands and said goodbye. Adam watched Hobbs walk quickly down Sunset; he started to jog and then, at the crosswalk, he sprinted away.

By the time Adam got to the parking lot, he had lost his nerve a little. This mission seemed pointless without Hobbs. He suddenly missed the devoted gaze of his pupil. He found
Thorpe's car and saw that someone had beaten him to it. The word “DOUCHEBAG” was scrawled in black Sharpie across the driver's-side door of his Corolla. Adam felt bad for Thorpe, who was somewhere in the club, feeding off scraps. He decided not to throw the eggs; instead, he lined them up, one by one, along the windshield wipers. He figured this would be more effective than egg splatter. Who would take the time to do this? Who would show this kind of menacing restraint? It was surreal and unnerving, the work of a madman. After seeing this, Thorpe would have no choice but to change his life.

•  •  •

With no taping scheduled, the producers took Friday off, so Adam spent most of the day cruising around the lot. Everywhere he looked a stoic Teamster was gathering up electric cable. In one of the soundstages, he witnessed a man spray-painting the udder of a cow, to make it a brighter and more classical shade of pink. Like everyone else who had made it onto the lot, the cow seemed willing to put up with anything.

He found Doug outside, smoking in his gimp mask, and they spent a couple hours throwing a Frisbee around. For a while Adam had fun—he couldn't believe he was getting paid to fuck around on a movie lot—but then he remembered that it was open mic night at El Goof. He didn't want to go. He felt like a kid, on Sundays, waking up to the dread of evening mass.

“How much do you make a year?” Adam asked.

“Don't talk about money,” said Doug. “It's vulgar.”

“Are you in the Writers Guild?”

“That's where I get all my pussy.”

“I want in the Writers Guild.”

“Then write something.”

“How often do jobs open up here?”

“Not very often,” said Doug. He put out his cigarette and looked Adam in the eye. “But if something does, I'll put in a word for you. I know you'd be good at it.”

“Thanks, man.”

Adam spent the rest of the afternoon putting together his set. At some point earlier in the week it came to him that his studio apartment in Mar Vista had roughly the same dimensions and floor plan as the Unabomber shack. He wrote that down, trying to get something going, and by the time he left the studio he had convinced himself that it was a good bit. He was suddenly excited to get onstage.

When he got to El Goof, Frankie was watching the Dodgers game on mute. There was still some natural light coming through the porthole in the front door and most of the regulars were working on their second or third beer. Adam looked around but couldn't see Chris Hobbs. Last week he had hated him, but now he was actually sort of worried about him. Members of Sleeper Cell were crowded around
Ms. Pac-Man
, cheering each other on. Frankie limped over to Adam, handed him a Coors Light, and picked up his clipboard.

“I'm letting Ramon go first,” he said, sounding apologetic.

Ramon, sitting a few stools away, said, “Is that cool?”

“That's fine. I'll go second.”

“I have you further down.”

Adam looked up from his beer. “How far down?”

“Last.”

“Why?”

“Because you keep running out when you're done,” said Frankie.

“So?”

“It's not fair to everybody,” said Ramon. “We sit through you.”

“You do the same shit every week,” said Adam. “I don't need to hear it.”

“I'm doing new stuff tonight.”

“You mean old stuff you haven't done in a while.”

Ramon grabbed his beer and walked to the end of the bar. Frankie turned up the sound on the game and then got down in a little crouch so he could address Adam in private.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Sorry. I'll go last. I'll be attentive and respectful toward my peers.”

“I know last week was a bummer, but you're really close on a lot of that stuff.”

“Close?” Adam snorted.

“An act is like a string of pearls.”

“Jesus Christ, Frankie.”

“You've got some pearls, but the act is like—”

“The string that holds them together. I
know
.”

“Yeah, you've gotta string it the right way.” Frankie smiled and rebanded his ponytail. “That's the hard part. Stringing it together. That's what takes time.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It's a string a pearls, man!”

“I get it, but you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.”

From the end of the bar, Ramon said, “Don't talk to Frankie like that.”

“Dude's just blowing off steam,” said Frankie, shrugging.

Adam put money on the bar for his beer and stood up.

“That one's on me,” said Frankie, pushing back the wadded singles, but Adam wouldn't take them.

“Give my three minutes to Ramon,” said Adam, in a loud voice, so everyone could hear him. “Or give it to that sad little fuck.”

He pointed to the pedophile, who was sitting alone at a table next to the front door, slowly peeling the label from his bottle of beer. As Adam approached him, he kept his head down and his eyes on the bottle.

“Why don't you just get it over with?” said Adam, standing over him. “Why don't you go home, right now, and kill yourself?”

The pedophile kept his head down as the guys from Sleeper Cell burst out laughing.

“That's what we should all do,” said Adam. “There's nothing waiting for any us. Well, maybe him.” He pointed to the most talented terrorist, who, like all the great ones, didn't seem at all surprised by the praise.

One of the other terrorists, with a sudden look of panic, asked, “What about me?”

“You're fucked. Everybody in here is fucked. So let's do it. Let's kill ourselves. Come on! Let's Hale-Bopp this shit right now!”

For a moment it was quiet.

“Hale-Bopp?” said Frankie.

“That cult down in San Diego,” said Adam. “They all wore black Nikes.”

“Just say Jonestown,” said Ramon. “Everyone knows Jonestown.”

Adam pushed open the door, but stopped when he heard Frankie yell his name. Adam turned around.

“Are you going to Del Taco?” he asked.

“No,” said Adam.

Frankie pulled a twenty out of the register. “Bring back some tacos for everybody.”

“Fuck that,” said Adam.

•  •  •

When he got back to his apartment, Adam called a friend he hadn't seen in a while, a nice guy he knew from Long Beach State who now sold insurance. The friend sounded surprised to hear from Adam, but agreed to meet up. They got a drink in Santa Monica. “A few weeks ago I had to make a snack run to Smart & Final,” Adam told him. “Guess who was behind me in line? M. Emmet Walsh!”

On Saturday Adam spent the day lounging in the pastel oblivion of Manhattan Beach. He drank margaritas at a fake dive bar and wandered up and down the terraced streets. He felt bad about his exit from El Goof, particularly the way he had talked to Frankie, but he didn't feel that bad. It was too nice just sitting there in the sand, listening to the waves.

He kept drinking when he got home. In a jolly mood, he ordered a pizza and finished off another season of
The X-Files
. He called his old friend to see if he wanted to come over, but he didn't hear back, so on his own he stumbled down to the video store to get the next season. The place was closed. He went home and passed out on the couch. However, the next morning, when his cell phone rang, he was no longer on the couch. Instead, he was facedown on the linoleum floor of his kitchenette. His phone read “Private,” so he let it go to voice mail. Gray light seeped through the alley-side window. He sat up and rested against the cabinets. That's when he noticed the
vomit, fanned across the floor and all over the front of his shirt. He had spent the night making vomit angels. The phone rang again and he answered.

“Why aren't you picking up?” said Max.

Adam rubbed his eyes. “I didn't recognize your number.”

“The other day you hung up on me,” said Max. “Did you think I had forgotten about that?”

“I waited for a long time. I figured—”

“I needed to talk, but you were gone.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Lavoy.”

“I'm not saying you're a bad person. But, at the same time, I know that if I kept my feelings to myself, I would regret it. And honestly, just talking about it right now, I feel much better. There's probably no need for you to apologize, because as far as I'm concerned, that's all in the past. Are we okay?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I need your help with something. I don't want you to panic, but this is kind of an emergency. I've already talked to Melanie and she cleared you for overtime. She said that's something you might be worried about.”

“Okay.”

“Leave now. And bring some towels.”

Adam put his mouth under the kitchen tap and drank as much water as he could. As he threw his soiled clothes in the trash, he was thankful for his hangover. It gave him a kind of clarity, or tunnel vision, at least, that would be useful today and throughout his career with the show.

A half hour later, he rang the bell and took off his shoes, an old pair of New Balances. Max opened the door. He was wearing khaki shorts, a golf shirt, and a generic green baseball cap.

“You look terrible,” Max said.

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm not saying that to be rude. If I looked like that I'd want someone to tell me, so I could do something about it.”

“I was sick last night,” said Adam.

“Well, you're here. That's the important thing.”

Adam, seeing that his Chuck Taylors were no longer on the rack, decided to carry his shoes as he followed Max into the living room.

“Sit down and I'll explain what's going on. Do you want a soft drink?”

“I'd love one,” said Adam, taking a place on the couch.

Max crossed the room, but instead of going to the kitchen, he stopped at the giant window and peered into the canyon. “When I met my wife she was a beautiful and intelligent woman. This was a long time ago, when we were both at university. But then, over the years, she became a frump.” He sighed. “For reasons I'm not eager to go into, she had our marriage annulled ten years ago. It was a complete travesty, of course, and since then I've been at odds with the archdiocese. I donated generously for many years, and I was a generous supporter of the new cathedral downtown. In fact, I made arrangements to have my bones buried in the crypt after I died, but not anymore. Not anymore.” Max turned around, finally, and sat down on the edge of an ottoman. “Let's face it. I don't know you from Adam, so it's strange telling you all this. And maybe it's strange for you too. I hope you're not nervous.”