Table by the Window - Part 3
For author's notes see Part 1
I know, you must be dying to ask me: “Why on Earth didn’t you try to approach her, man? Now from what you’ve been telling I cannot say what prompted your interest in her in the first place, but c’mon - mooning over someone like this in our old age? Get to her, take her to dinner, fuck her and get her out of your system - haven’t you learned they are all the same in bed…” I can almost hear you saying it as I write. The answer is - I don’t know.
No, not right. Whatever is making me write this story down, tell it to you, just a need to share with someone - it all doesn’t make sense unless I try to be completely honest - with you and most of all with myself. And even if I was not analyzing my own behavior at the time I sure have pondered this very question for a long time since, and - convoluted as my reasoning may seem to you - just remember - I only put it in the words afterwards, and the feelings were - complex, to say the least.
Mind you, I was living pretty much my ordinary life during the days, now that the depression was behind me and - work on my current project finished - I was not pressed into any kind of schedule to conform with: riding my bike, pumping occasionally in the gym, reading some stuff I needed for the next projects, consulting with my publicist about the oncoming appearances on TV and such, and in the evenings - wining and dining and jamming with friends, and attending their concerts, and drinking beer in the after concert camaraderie, dating some new and occasionally some old girl-friends, - so, you see, I was not lacking attention or… a fuck-body to bed… But it was, see, like another life… this time at the night café didn’t have anything to do with whatever happened by day, some kind of a twilight zone, a quiet place we slipped into as the daytime life abided… So, alright, I’m taking my time with irrelevant mutterings once again, instead of answering the question. Sort of interesting to notice how I just keep putting heaps of words on paper every time I find it difficult to tell an embarrassing truth. Oh, well, darn it… so, the answer is fear, man. The answer’s - I was afraid.
Yes, exactly. As ridiculous as it seems. Not of anything in particular, not of her rejecting my advances as such… Don’t know if you even will understand the line of reasoning I came up with, sometimes… no, oftentimes now it seems way strange and unimportant even to me. But those feelings were real, and important, and all-consuming - mostly, I think, because I have come to treasure this quiet non-intrusive companionship, illusory that it was, quite a lot - and I feared that all I’d do was - just somehow screw the things up. There were just so many things I could imagine that could so easily go wrong! I was never a genius at approaching people unless I had a valid reason to do so, getting all tight-rope nervous and tongue-tied, and the necessity to be a public persona my so called stardom had imposed on me only helped in that way that it taught me to pretend: “OK, this is just another role you have to play. Let’s get there and be a polite and gracious guest of honor and then slip casually into some shady corner with a person you’re already acquainted with” - this kind of shit. But I didn’t want to pretend with her, nor would my public pretense be of any help on so different an occasion.
What was I supposed to do - approach and introduce myself? Yeah, right. Come up, interrupt her as she sat engrossed in her writing (and mind you, I would be ready to kill a person, who’d dared bother me when I was trying to concentrate on my work) and what - tell my name? I know, in your book my name would be a reason for her to just fall instantly into my hands, all ready and ripe for sex. So… would you believe, if I said you that this was the foremost thing that I feared? Her recognizing my name if not my face. Turning from a stranger with whom she felt so comfortable to share our nightly vigils into a freaking pop-culture icon, with all the good and bad biases that had ever been attached to my person. And for some reason - I didn’t feel she would be flattered by such attention, intimidated - maybe, bothered, even scared away.
And what if I were wrong? What if my name indeed did work the trick? What if she did feel flattered and fall into my arms as you predicted?.. I wasn’t buying it. I didn’t want her to adore me and jump eagerly into my bed because I was some kind of a freaking idol! I didn’t need her as an obliging fuck-body to bed and forget... Even though I wanted her, yes, I admit, I did - to put a hand through her hair and pull her close, close enough to finally see what color her eyes were, to feel her body hiding now under the concealing clothes, to watch the puzzled, questioning, no, astonished look at her own rising desire slowly turning to the recognition of my answering need… yes, I wanted it all, but also to share and care, and talk, and laugh - as two equals bound by this sense of companionship I felt was possible between the two of us, the companionship we seemed to already share - divided as we were. Something special, something to guard and treasure. And I was deadly scared that somehow or other it can all just turn into, eh… whatever… into an ordinary shit.
In short - I lusted after her soul as much as after her body. The soul I largely imagined. The soul I couldn’t be sure if existed at all… That was, perhaps, the worst of my fears: to lose her not through somehow screwing things up, not through any kind of misfortune or misunderstanding, or even downright rejection or lack of interest on her part. But to lose her completely and irrevocably for the simple reason that she was never really there… that all I had come to long for and lust after was nothing but a false image conjured within my head. That would have been a cruel awakening indeed, and - for now (as I kept telling myself over and over again) - I wasn’t ready to try it. So I waited, and waited, and bid my time. And then there was that Philly filming I had to fly over for, and I was almost happy for a different setting, different tasks and different problems to immerse myself in, and a chance to have a break from this hopeless obsession.
Oh yeah, a break… little did I know of what it gonna turn into. I didn’t sleep on an overnight flight, but then I rarely slept on planes, having found that such a short and uneasy slumber left me still tired, cramped in the most uncomfortable places and generally much less ready for the tasks of the following day than if I just quietly read the night through, or watched some movie I hadn’t time to watch at the time of it’s theatrical release. All said - one sleepless night didn’t much encumber my working abilities, I spent a very satisfactory day talking with the director - an old acquaintance, with whom I have already crossed paths a pair of times, in his other incarnation as an executive producer of two independent projects I’ve participated in over the years - and getting to know the cast. As the evening neared, however, I felt decidedly tired, and not at all eager to go to the surprise party the director had organized on the occasion of my arrival. The actual filming, or at least the rehearsals of the scenes involving my character were to start the following day, and all I could think of - was getting a good eight hours of sleep, but refusing to go - seeing the efforts he had put into preparations - was way too impolite, so I dutifully stayed for a few hours, by the end of which I was practically falling asleep on my feet.
And I slept indeed, as soon as I reached the sanctuary of my hotel room and the welcome bed - for all of two hours, after which I woke with a start, squinting at the still dark windows, and lying down with a sigh of relief, short-lived - as after a few hours of twisting and turning I finally acknowledged that I’m not going to get any more sleep, still tired that I was, my head leaden but my body high-wired with nervous tension. “It’s the new place, - I said to myself, trying to find any reason, - the new place, and the time difference, and the strange bed”. The reasoning sounded feeble, I was known to be able to sleep on the bare earth, even if I was a whole lot younger when last I had been forced to do it as the bus broke and all the crew was left high and dry virtually in the middle of a desert. The time difference… now this could well be the cause. I looked at my watch… oh yes, I forgot to change the time. It was two in Los Angeles. Just about the time I would be nearing the café, three to four hours before I usually got to sleep. Of course, I hoped that the lack of sleep during the flight will take care of reinstating me in the new time-zone, but as it apparently wasn’t the case, there was nothing to do, but to bear it with good grace, so I stood up, splashed some cold water in the face, and used this opportunity to unpack the few items I took with myself for a monthly stay and freshen up on the scenes that were planned for the coming day.
It wasn’t all that bad that first day, but it progressed, as for the next and following nights I was unable to catch more than a few hours of sleep, and for the most part of the night lay there immobile, eyes closed but sleep stubbornly refusing to come - almost hallucinating with exhaustion - my hallucinations being always the same - the night café with it’s dim light, the leaves softly moving beyond the window, her hand softly sliding over the paper - left to right, left to right, my eyes gliding upward this conjured image, tracing the line of the elbow, up to the shoulder, the delicate collarbones, the slightly inclined neck, touching on the hair curling around her ear. The image was unfocused and unsure, existing only as long as I didn’t look straight, dissipating on too direct a glance and leaving me in helpless frustration for without knowing it I knew if I managed somehow to sneak a look at her face - there it would be - that only welcome, that ghost of a friendly smile she had given me on the very first day when I noticed her presence and never since.
The days were a horror, my working abilities dwindling on a scary rate, I felt my body heavy and unwieldy, my concentration scattered to pieces, my memory failing - by the end of the week I was forgetting the lines, napping away during the directors instructions, and having to do take after take after take knew without doubt it was I who had failed to produce. It was so unlike me, so totally out of character, so against my own principles, so… shameful, I couldn’t look into the eyes of fellow cast-members for fear to see their disdain mirroring the one I felt for myself. And it was insane, insane! I couldn’t find any viable reasons for what was happening now, the “change of time” one outliving its validity, for I had flown half across the world - to China, to Europe, and it never took me more than some three days to overcome the jet-lag and settle to a new schedule. I tried whatever I might, walking long distances around the city - my current state making it dangerous to rent a bike - to no avail, pumping in the hotel gym till my muscles cried for help - only resulting in me feeling even more sore and stiff in the morning, sitting half night at everywhich all-nighter was open in a hope that following the familiar habit will bring the much wanted sleep. But even this didn’t work - they were all wrong: the lighting too bright or too dim, the patrons too few or too many, the music too loud or too quiet, - in short - they simply were not the café that I craved, that I needed. And of course there was no her.
I dared not use the sleeping pills for fear that they would only make me fall asleep on the set, so as the week went by, and I was driven to a stage I was actually feeling on the verge of frustrated tears every time the director called for a new take - I resorted to buying a few bottles of wine and later, alone in the quiet of my hotel room purposefully proceeded to drink myself into a heavy dreamless slumber that lasted all night even if in the morning it gave me a blinding headache no amount of aspirins could quite cure. But headache was good, headache was something I well knew how to deal with, and even if I held my head at odd angles in some of the takes, all in all it was the first day I felt I was not all that ashamed of the way I acted.
Of course, this remedy couldn’t be used every evening, so I spent another couple of frustratingly sleepless nights, only now they were harder to endure for knowing that the easy way out was ready at hand. So I drank again, and again, then forcibly made myself to abstain, suddenly scared of becoming a regular drunkard - but God - I needed that sleep, I needed… I needed…
The director called me for a talk before the second week of the shooting was done.
- Look, - he said, - it isn’t going to work. If I didn’t know you before, I’d fire you here and now even though it would mean much less of a potential box-office for this movie, and never look back at the money I’d have to pay you for this two weeks of your precious time, and if your lawyers tried to sue me for the breach of contract I have a pair of my own I can rely on. But I know you, boy, and I know the way you can work, and the fact is - I want you for this movie, for this character, and not totally because of box-office. So I figure something is happening to you, and I wouldn’t even try to pry what it is, if it wasn’t hampering the movie we are trying to do. - He paused for a bit, his round face a picture of genuine concern. - I’ve heard of the death of your buddy, and that it had affected you greatly… - he hesitated, - and seeing as it is almost a year now, a year since he died that is, I thought that it might be it, and I do understand, my boy, two such close buddies you were…
I felt mortified. Yeah, really - it was almost a year… But the fact was I didn’t even think of Kevin in the past few months, much less even - in the past two weeks. The shame bit deep. But I just hanged my head letting him think what he wanted, and afraid to look him in the eyes for then surely he would see that I was lying. I didn’t dare lose this project… and it wasn’t even the deeply imbedded (even after all this years in the industry) fear that if I failed but once nobody would cast me again, no… but being fired was a shame that scared the living daylights out of me.
- Look, - he continued meanwhile, - I’m willing to help. I know they changed the schedule around you on your previous project. I’m willing to do the same. But we’re running on a tight budget here, so a week off is all that I can allow. And you must promise me that in that week you’ll try and come to terms with whatever is ailing you, so that when you return we can put some good work into this movie. That alright, that suits you?
- Yes, - I croaked out the throat suddenly feeling hoarse and parched. - Yes, that’s alright, Andy. A week will be enough. And… thank you.
He was already walking away, a funny little man with a wrinkled face habitually having a slightly amused expression, never known for being kindly or having some hidden depths, but he turned and waved at me:
- Oh, it’s OK, boy. I’ve lost some friends of my own. Remember - some good work for this movie on your return.
And off he went leaving me standing there torn by the feelings of shame and guilt, and self-reproach and… now this list could go on endlessly… feeling like total shit. And if any - this was the ultimate moment to go and get drunk. So I went and bought a ticket to LA instead - for the first flight next morning as the overnight was already booked.
Los Angeles greeted me with a gloomy weather unlikely for this time of year and light dripping rain that only added to my despondent and restless mood. All I wanted really was to quickly reach my house via a friendly Italian restaurant that was used to providing me with weekly supplies of frozen pizzas and pastas at the times when I was busy filming and came home too tired to bother and go out for dinner (and I never was much of a cook). Right now, of course, I had all the time in the world - seemingly. But by visiting my favorite eating holes I ran the risk of meeting someone from the same tinseltown I worked for, not to mention the ever pervading paps, and I didn’t much fancy answering the questions as to “how come I’m idling it in L.A. when I’m supposed to be shooting on the other side of the country?” No, it was gonna be a quiet and reclusive week - per force as well as per inclination. And I really meant to pull myself together and catch up on sleep - provided that my strange malady did not follow me from Philly to L.A.
My homeward progress however was abruptly interrupted by an insistent buzzing of the cellular, which at the moment was safely buried at the very bottom of my bag. For all and everyone I was in Philly filming, and I never, never-ever brought my cellular on the set, so I expected whoever was calling to remember that obvious fact and disconnect after a few unsuccessful beeps, but the buzz persisted, and by the time I dug the thing out, I was pretty sure that there could be only one person who would have lasted this long. And my mom was also the only person, who - while supposedly calling all across the country - could take the news of my presence in L.A. so much in stride that her: “Great! Then you’re dining with me at Ivy. I can make it at six” - followed smoothly almost without any pause. I issued an exaggerated sigh - meant to be heard but gone completely unnoticed - and there was no use trying to tell her that I got from the plane no more than forty minutes before, that I ached for rest and Ivy of all places was completely out of the question. When mom said: “Jump!” people usually jumped, and I by no means am speaking only of myself.
Mind you, I love my mom, more than that - she’s somewhere there - in the realm of role models whom you do not try to emulate for one simple reason - you know without doubt that you never can even dream to reach the same level of easy assurance they seem to naturally possess in anything they do throughout their lives. In my case genes certainly have played me wrong, and having acquired much of my mother’s looks I miserably failed in the realm of character traits - where she jumped into the new endeavor right on the spot, I had to go through the painful period of doubts and qualms, where she shrugged off the failed relationship and almost immediately opened up for a new one as fully and wholeheartedly as before, I chose to strictly divide the friends from casual acquaintances, and permanent (or better said long-term) lovers from one-night dates. And the latter had nearly no chance to ever become the former, to belong to the close circle with whom I could really allow myself the luxury of slightly opening my pretty firm shell. But well, I’m telling you the things that you of all people already know. With our friendship going back for years you’ve had the chance to learn both my mother’s and my own quirks almost better than I know them myself. All I wanted to stress here - is that with all my love and admiration for dear mom, there were times when I obeyed her out of habit - even though my own instincts cried out loud that the moment is very wrong.
So in another hour - barely having time to drop the bag and take a quick shower - I was smoking over coffee on the Ivy outdoor terrace, listening to my mother animatedly informing me about the latest events of her ever so eventful life, the tale that - my mother being a born storyteller - usually seemed much more captivating when heard, than when you actually had to participate in the said events. Actually I could listen to it for hours so long as she didn’t ask me whether I’d like to accompany her at her next charity dinner or shopping spree, because… any guesses?.. I usually found myself unable to say her “No” unless I really had a very valid excuse.
Today however I felt too tired and restless to concentrate on her story. My mind drifted, taking me either to the recent disaster of a filming or to the coming night that filled me both with hope and dread, depending on whether I would be able to find some sleep. And before that I still planned to go to the café - if for the shortest while, just to see that everything was as it should be, just to make sure that my hallucinations were true to form. So I twitched and turned in my seat, and smoked too much, and winced on my mother’s pointed remarks about just how bad I currently looked, and that I needed to shave, and to comb, and to live a more scheduled life, and take better care of myself - and all those things that even the best of the mothers tend to say at the time you are the least inclined to hear them told out loud even if you know or uncomfortably suspect them to be true.
My mood was not in any way improved when I spotted a group of paps busily clicking their telephotos in the general direction of our terrace. I scanned the area in the vain hope that there could be some other victim of their unwanted attention, but my luck these days seemed to run especially thin. Briefly considering if I should inform mother that our meeting is being documented for an eternity I decided against it, for even if she - for one, was a person, who didn’t mind it one way or another (as long as they knew their distance and did not spring right before her nose for a close-up), she knew how much I hated such invasion of my private life and could well volunteer to quickly remove me from there, i.e. drive me in her car. And a hasty escape with my mom through the late hour Los Angeles traffic was a little bit more than my tired nerves were ready to take. So I silently prayed that the paps would choose to stay in the background just long enough to let her leave and did my best pretending to be entirely at ease and unaware of their existence.
This forced passivity overlaid onto my inner restlessness left me both edgy and exhausted by the time I saw my mother off and left myself almost fighting my way through the flashes of overzealous paps, who had the guts to follow me for almost entire block before swerving abruptly back to Ivy on seeing an approaching car - no doubt to continue hunting some other unlucky soul. Annoyed, I headed down the street, turning up the collar and digging hands deeper into the pockets against the drizzle. I was starting to float a little - everything becoming blurry and coming as if with a slight time-delay - not surprising as I haven’t slept for more than two hours in the last… what was it?.. two or three days. By all rights I should have gone home now where the sleep was waiting, indeed - beckoning, but not unless… not until… so I made myself concentrate on the process of walking, as my feet - of their own accord it seemed - brought me closer and closer to the familiar corner and the dim light inside the café.
Continued in - Part 4
I know, you must be dying to ask me: “Why on Earth didn’t you try to approach her, man? Now from what you’ve been telling I cannot say what prompted your interest in her in the first place, but c’mon - mooning over someone like this in our old age? Get to her, take her to dinner, fuck her and get her out of your system - haven’t you learned they are all the same in bed…” I can almost hear you saying it as I write. The answer is - I don’t know.
No, not right. Whatever is making me write this story down, tell it to you, just a need to share with someone - it all doesn’t make sense unless I try to be completely honest - with you and most of all with myself. And even if I was not analyzing my own behavior at the time I sure have pondered this very question for a long time since, and - convoluted as my reasoning may seem to you - just remember - I only put it in the words afterwards, and the feelings were - complex, to say the least.
Mind you, I was living pretty much my ordinary life during the days, now that the depression was behind me and - work on my current project finished - I was not pressed into any kind of schedule to conform with: riding my bike, pumping occasionally in the gym, reading some stuff I needed for the next projects, consulting with my publicist about the oncoming appearances on TV and such, and in the evenings - wining and dining and jamming with friends, and attending their concerts, and drinking beer in the after concert camaraderie, dating some new and occasionally some old girl-friends, - so, you see, I was not lacking attention or… a fuck-body to bed… But it was, see, like another life… this time at the night café didn’t have anything to do with whatever happened by day, some kind of a twilight zone, a quiet place we slipped into as the daytime life abided… So, alright, I’m taking my time with irrelevant mutterings once again, instead of answering the question. Sort of interesting to notice how I just keep putting heaps of words on paper every time I find it difficult to tell an embarrassing truth. Oh, well, darn it… so, the answer is fear, man. The answer’s - I was afraid.
Yes, exactly. As ridiculous as it seems. Not of anything in particular, not of her rejecting my advances as such… Don’t know if you even will understand the line of reasoning I came up with, sometimes… no, oftentimes now it seems way strange and unimportant even to me. But those feelings were real, and important, and all-consuming - mostly, I think, because I have come to treasure this quiet non-intrusive companionship, illusory that it was, quite a lot - and I feared that all I’d do was - just somehow screw the things up. There were just so many things I could imagine that could so easily go wrong! I was never a genius at approaching people unless I had a valid reason to do so, getting all tight-rope nervous and tongue-tied, and the necessity to be a public persona my so called stardom had imposed on me only helped in that way that it taught me to pretend: “OK, this is just another role you have to play. Let’s get there and be a polite and gracious guest of honor and then slip casually into some shady corner with a person you’re already acquainted with” - this kind of shit. But I didn’t want to pretend with her, nor would my public pretense be of any help on so different an occasion.
What was I supposed to do - approach and introduce myself? Yeah, right. Come up, interrupt her as she sat engrossed in her writing (and mind you, I would be ready to kill a person, who’d dared bother me when I was trying to concentrate on my work) and what - tell my name? I know, in your book my name would be a reason for her to just fall instantly into my hands, all ready and ripe for sex. So… would you believe, if I said you that this was the foremost thing that I feared? Her recognizing my name if not my face. Turning from a stranger with whom she felt so comfortable to share our nightly vigils into a freaking pop-culture icon, with all the good and bad biases that had ever been attached to my person. And for some reason - I didn’t feel she would be flattered by such attention, intimidated - maybe, bothered, even scared away.
And what if I were wrong? What if my name indeed did work the trick? What if she did feel flattered and fall into my arms as you predicted?.. I wasn’t buying it. I didn’t want her to adore me and jump eagerly into my bed because I was some kind of a freaking idol! I didn’t need her as an obliging fuck-body to bed and forget... Even though I wanted her, yes, I admit, I did - to put a hand through her hair and pull her close, close enough to finally see what color her eyes were, to feel her body hiding now under the concealing clothes, to watch the puzzled, questioning, no, astonished look at her own rising desire slowly turning to the recognition of my answering need… yes, I wanted it all, but also to share and care, and talk, and laugh - as two equals bound by this sense of companionship I felt was possible between the two of us, the companionship we seemed to already share - divided as we were. Something special, something to guard and treasure. And I was deadly scared that somehow or other it can all just turn into, eh… whatever… into an ordinary shit.
In short - I lusted after her soul as much as after her body. The soul I largely imagined. The soul I couldn’t be sure if existed at all… That was, perhaps, the worst of my fears: to lose her not through somehow screwing things up, not through any kind of misfortune or misunderstanding, or even downright rejection or lack of interest on her part. But to lose her completely and irrevocably for the simple reason that she was never really there… that all I had come to long for and lust after was nothing but a false image conjured within my head. That would have been a cruel awakening indeed, and - for now (as I kept telling myself over and over again) - I wasn’t ready to try it. So I waited, and waited, and bid my time. And then there was that Philly filming I had to fly over for, and I was almost happy for a different setting, different tasks and different problems to immerse myself in, and a chance to have a break from this hopeless obsession.
Oh yeah, a break… little did I know of what it gonna turn into. I didn’t sleep on an overnight flight, but then I rarely slept on planes, having found that such a short and uneasy slumber left me still tired, cramped in the most uncomfortable places and generally much less ready for the tasks of the following day than if I just quietly read the night through, or watched some movie I hadn’t time to watch at the time of it’s theatrical release. All said - one sleepless night didn’t much encumber my working abilities, I spent a very satisfactory day talking with the director - an old acquaintance, with whom I have already crossed paths a pair of times, in his other incarnation as an executive producer of two independent projects I’ve participated in over the years - and getting to know the cast. As the evening neared, however, I felt decidedly tired, and not at all eager to go to the surprise party the director had organized on the occasion of my arrival. The actual filming, or at least the rehearsals of the scenes involving my character were to start the following day, and all I could think of - was getting a good eight hours of sleep, but refusing to go - seeing the efforts he had put into preparations - was way too impolite, so I dutifully stayed for a few hours, by the end of which I was practically falling asleep on my feet.
And I slept indeed, as soon as I reached the sanctuary of my hotel room and the welcome bed - for all of two hours, after which I woke with a start, squinting at the still dark windows, and lying down with a sigh of relief, short-lived - as after a few hours of twisting and turning I finally acknowledged that I’m not going to get any more sleep, still tired that I was, my head leaden but my body high-wired with nervous tension. “It’s the new place, - I said to myself, trying to find any reason, - the new place, and the time difference, and the strange bed”. The reasoning sounded feeble, I was known to be able to sleep on the bare earth, even if I was a whole lot younger when last I had been forced to do it as the bus broke and all the crew was left high and dry virtually in the middle of a desert. The time difference… now this could well be the cause. I looked at my watch… oh yes, I forgot to change the time. It was two in Los Angeles. Just about the time I would be nearing the café, three to four hours before I usually got to sleep. Of course, I hoped that the lack of sleep during the flight will take care of reinstating me in the new time-zone, but as it apparently wasn’t the case, there was nothing to do, but to bear it with good grace, so I stood up, splashed some cold water in the face, and used this opportunity to unpack the few items I took with myself for a monthly stay and freshen up on the scenes that were planned for the coming day.
It wasn’t all that bad that first day, but it progressed, as for the next and following nights I was unable to catch more than a few hours of sleep, and for the most part of the night lay there immobile, eyes closed but sleep stubbornly refusing to come - almost hallucinating with exhaustion - my hallucinations being always the same - the night café with it’s dim light, the leaves softly moving beyond the window, her hand softly sliding over the paper - left to right, left to right, my eyes gliding upward this conjured image, tracing the line of the elbow, up to the shoulder, the delicate collarbones, the slightly inclined neck, touching on the hair curling around her ear. The image was unfocused and unsure, existing only as long as I didn’t look straight, dissipating on too direct a glance and leaving me in helpless frustration for without knowing it I knew if I managed somehow to sneak a look at her face - there it would be - that only welcome, that ghost of a friendly smile she had given me on the very first day when I noticed her presence and never since.
The days were a horror, my working abilities dwindling on a scary rate, I felt my body heavy and unwieldy, my concentration scattered to pieces, my memory failing - by the end of the week I was forgetting the lines, napping away during the directors instructions, and having to do take after take after take knew without doubt it was I who had failed to produce. It was so unlike me, so totally out of character, so against my own principles, so… shameful, I couldn’t look into the eyes of fellow cast-members for fear to see their disdain mirroring the one I felt for myself. And it was insane, insane! I couldn’t find any viable reasons for what was happening now, the “change of time” one outliving its validity, for I had flown half across the world - to China, to Europe, and it never took me more than some three days to overcome the jet-lag and settle to a new schedule. I tried whatever I might, walking long distances around the city - my current state making it dangerous to rent a bike - to no avail, pumping in the hotel gym till my muscles cried for help - only resulting in me feeling even more sore and stiff in the morning, sitting half night at everywhich all-nighter was open in a hope that following the familiar habit will bring the much wanted sleep. But even this didn’t work - they were all wrong: the lighting too bright or too dim, the patrons too few or too many, the music too loud or too quiet, - in short - they simply were not the café that I craved, that I needed. And of course there was no her.
I dared not use the sleeping pills for fear that they would only make me fall asleep on the set, so as the week went by, and I was driven to a stage I was actually feeling on the verge of frustrated tears every time the director called for a new take - I resorted to buying a few bottles of wine and later, alone in the quiet of my hotel room purposefully proceeded to drink myself into a heavy dreamless slumber that lasted all night even if in the morning it gave me a blinding headache no amount of aspirins could quite cure. But headache was good, headache was something I well knew how to deal with, and even if I held my head at odd angles in some of the takes, all in all it was the first day I felt I was not all that ashamed of the way I acted.
Of course, this remedy couldn’t be used every evening, so I spent another couple of frustratingly sleepless nights, only now they were harder to endure for knowing that the easy way out was ready at hand. So I drank again, and again, then forcibly made myself to abstain, suddenly scared of becoming a regular drunkard - but God - I needed that sleep, I needed… I needed…
The director called me for a talk before the second week of the shooting was done.
- Look, - he said, - it isn’t going to work. If I didn’t know you before, I’d fire you here and now even though it would mean much less of a potential box-office for this movie, and never look back at the money I’d have to pay you for this two weeks of your precious time, and if your lawyers tried to sue me for the breach of contract I have a pair of my own I can rely on. But I know you, boy, and I know the way you can work, and the fact is - I want you for this movie, for this character, and not totally because of box-office. So I figure something is happening to you, and I wouldn’t even try to pry what it is, if it wasn’t hampering the movie we are trying to do. - He paused for a bit, his round face a picture of genuine concern. - I’ve heard of the death of your buddy, and that it had affected you greatly… - he hesitated, - and seeing as it is almost a year now, a year since he died that is, I thought that it might be it, and I do understand, my boy, two such close buddies you were…
I felt mortified. Yeah, really - it was almost a year… But the fact was I didn’t even think of Kevin in the past few months, much less even - in the past two weeks. The shame bit deep. But I just hanged my head letting him think what he wanted, and afraid to look him in the eyes for then surely he would see that I was lying. I didn’t dare lose this project… and it wasn’t even the deeply imbedded (even after all this years in the industry) fear that if I failed but once nobody would cast me again, no… but being fired was a shame that scared the living daylights out of me.
- Look, - he continued meanwhile, - I’m willing to help. I know they changed the schedule around you on your previous project. I’m willing to do the same. But we’re running on a tight budget here, so a week off is all that I can allow. And you must promise me that in that week you’ll try and come to terms with whatever is ailing you, so that when you return we can put some good work into this movie. That alright, that suits you?
- Yes, - I croaked out the throat suddenly feeling hoarse and parched. - Yes, that’s alright, Andy. A week will be enough. And… thank you.
He was already walking away, a funny little man with a wrinkled face habitually having a slightly amused expression, never known for being kindly or having some hidden depths, but he turned and waved at me:
- Oh, it’s OK, boy. I’ve lost some friends of my own. Remember - some good work for this movie on your return.
And off he went leaving me standing there torn by the feelings of shame and guilt, and self-reproach and… now this list could go on endlessly… feeling like total shit. And if any - this was the ultimate moment to go and get drunk. So I went and bought a ticket to LA instead - for the first flight next morning as the overnight was already booked.
Los Angeles greeted me with a gloomy weather unlikely for this time of year and light dripping rain that only added to my despondent and restless mood. All I wanted really was to quickly reach my house via a friendly Italian restaurant that was used to providing me with weekly supplies of frozen pizzas and pastas at the times when I was busy filming and came home too tired to bother and go out for dinner (and I never was much of a cook). Right now, of course, I had all the time in the world - seemingly. But by visiting my favorite eating holes I ran the risk of meeting someone from the same tinseltown I worked for, not to mention the ever pervading paps, and I didn’t much fancy answering the questions as to “how come I’m idling it in L.A. when I’m supposed to be shooting on the other side of the country?” No, it was gonna be a quiet and reclusive week - per force as well as per inclination. And I really meant to pull myself together and catch up on sleep - provided that my strange malady did not follow me from Philly to L.A.
My homeward progress however was abruptly interrupted by an insistent buzzing of the cellular, which at the moment was safely buried at the very bottom of my bag. For all and everyone I was in Philly filming, and I never, never-ever brought my cellular on the set, so I expected whoever was calling to remember that obvious fact and disconnect after a few unsuccessful beeps, but the buzz persisted, and by the time I dug the thing out, I was pretty sure that there could be only one person who would have lasted this long. And my mom was also the only person, who - while supposedly calling all across the country - could take the news of my presence in L.A. so much in stride that her: “Great! Then you’re dining with me at Ivy. I can make it at six” - followed smoothly almost without any pause. I issued an exaggerated sigh - meant to be heard but gone completely unnoticed - and there was no use trying to tell her that I got from the plane no more than forty minutes before, that I ached for rest and Ivy of all places was completely out of the question. When mom said: “Jump!” people usually jumped, and I by no means am speaking only of myself.
Mind you, I love my mom, more than that - she’s somewhere there - in the realm of role models whom you do not try to emulate for one simple reason - you know without doubt that you never can even dream to reach the same level of easy assurance they seem to naturally possess in anything they do throughout their lives. In my case genes certainly have played me wrong, and having acquired much of my mother’s looks I miserably failed in the realm of character traits - where she jumped into the new endeavor right on the spot, I had to go through the painful period of doubts and qualms, where she shrugged off the failed relationship and almost immediately opened up for a new one as fully and wholeheartedly as before, I chose to strictly divide the friends from casual acquaintances, and permanent (or better said long-term) lovers from one-night dates. And the latter had nearly no chance to ever become the former, to belong to the close circle with whom I could really allow myself the luxury of slightly opening my pretty firm shell. But well, I’m telling you the things that you of all people already know. With our friendship going back for years you’ve had the chance to learn both my mother’s and my own quirks almost better than I know them myself. All I wanted to stress here - is that with all my love and admiration for dear mom, there were times when I obeyed her out of habit - even though my own instincts cried out loud that the moment is very wrong.
So in another hour - barely having time to drop the bag and take a quick shower - I was smoking over coffee on the Ivy outdoor terrace, listening to my mother animatedly informing me about the latest events of her ever so eventful life, the tale that - my mother being a born storyteller - usually seemed much more captivating when heard, than when you actually had to participate in the said events. Actually I could listen to it for hours so long as she didn’t ask me whether I’d like to accompany her at her next charity dinner or shopping spree, because… any guesses?.. I usually found myself unable to say her “No” unless I really had a very valid excuse.
Today however I felt too tired and restless to concentrate on her story. My mind drifted, taking me either to the recent disaster of a filming or to the coming night that filled me both with hope and dread, depending on whether I would be able to find some sleep. And before that I still planned to go to the café - if for the shortest while, just to see that everything was as it should be, just to make sure that my hallucinations were true to form. So I twitched and turned in my seat, and smoked too much, and winced on my mother’s pointed remarks about just how bad I currently looked, and that I needed to shave, and to comb, and to live a more scheduled life, and take better care of myself - and all those things that even the best of the mothers tend to say at the time you are the least inclined to hear them told out loud even if you know or uncomfortably suspect them to be true.
My mood was not in any way improved when I spotted a group of paps busily clicking their telephotos in the general direction of our terrace. I scanned the area in the vain hope that there could be some other victim of their unwanted attention, but my luck these days seemed to run especially thin. Briefly considering if I should inform mother that our meeting is being documented for an eternity I decided against it, for even if she - for one, was a person, who didn’t mind it one way or another (as long as they knew their distance and did not spring right before her nose for a close-up), she knew how much I hated such invasion of my private life and could well volunteer to quickly remove me from there, i.e. drive me in her car. And a hasty escape with my mom through the late hour Los Angeles traffic was a little bit more than my tired nerves were ready to take. So I silently prayed that the paps would choose to stay in the background just long enough to let her leave and did my best pretending to be entirely at ease and unaware of their existence.
This forced passivity overlaid onto my inner restlessness left me both edgy and exhausted by the time I saw my mother off and left myself almost fighting my way through the flashes of overzealous paps, who had the guts to follow me for almost entire block before swerving abruptly back to Ivy on seeing an approaching car - no doubt to continue hunting some other unlucky soul. Annoyed, I headed down the street, turning up the collar and digging hands deeper into the pockets against the drizzle. I was starting to float a little - everything becoming blurry and coming as if with a slight time-delay - not surprising as I haven’t slept for more than two hours in the last… what was it?.. two or three days. By all rights I should have gone home now where the sleep was waiting, indeed - beckoning, but not unless… not until… so I made myself concentrate on the process of walking, as my feet - of their own accord it seemed - brought me closer and closer to the familiar corner and the dim light inside the café.
Continued in - Part 4