Dad … I
remember.
I was there. I heard you bitching at the dinner table back in the Gramercy Parkapartment when I was a kid. You used to
suffer
over the casting. If you didn’t get a major name, you practically had to be peeled off the roof, and things for Mom and Marie and me were lousy till you cheered up and got somebody you could splash on the marquee.” Alan was breathing hard. “Your memory is playing games with you.”
“Casting stage isn’t the same thing.”
Alan placed his water glass down, irritably. “Exactly the same thing! You think because it’s put on film it’s not
real?
It has no substance? What’re you talking about?”
“Ah, ah, ah,… hold it. Film isn’t the issue. Lotta fine films have come down the pike. But they were the expression of a single artistic vision …”
“Right, sure. And the studio had
nothing
to say about it.”
“… those visions were not preprogrammed, clinically manipulated, and analyzed. They were not paint-by-the-number regurgitations of a bunch of fucking TV executives. Suits who know
nothing
, not one goddamn thing, about art. They’re in the business of programming Mars bars for a nation of
brain-dead.
”
Alan hated Burt when he got like this. It had driven his mother crazy. Maybe it was part of what happened. Made as much sense as anything else. Burt always assumed people found this behavior stimulating. But one by one, they backed away, put off by his exhaust in their face.
But Alan was stuck up on a mountain. A lonely citadel in the clouds where old St. Bernards came to die. He couldn’t leave and wondered if his dad had chosen this place deliberately. It was getting chilly and Alan crossed his arms.
The two were suddenly surrounded by singing waiters carrying a burning cake. They sang “Happy Birthday” and Burt blew out the sixty-one candles that were sunk to the waist in frosting. The waiters cut two pieces and left proudly, feeling they’d spread Alpine cheer.
“Musta been Wanda’s idea,” said Burt, delighted by the surprise. “She amazes me. Always puts me first. Even after the life she’s had …” He pressed lips; philosophical sadness.
Alan nodded, properly grave; tried to feel bad. But it was impossible. Every time he ran it through his head, it always struck him as absurd she was so fucked up. How bad could it be? She’d been a top sandal model with perfect feet and as if that weren’t dumb enough, she’d had a vapid-eye-movement marriage to a guy who did lighting for huge New York stage productions. The bulb-hubby was booted after Wanda met Burt, who was directing one of the productions.
According to giggly legend, as told by an always breathless Wanda, she’d been backstage, giving herself a pedicure, waiting for her husband to finish work, and Burt, taking a note break, had been instantly struck by her; the uncoaxed smiles, radiant curiosity. Her inordinate level of health. They fell in love and she’d only told him after the marriage about the epilepsy. She hadn’t wanted to scare him off, knowing he’d been living with an ill woman.
But Wanda had two seizures on the honeymoon, in Acapulco, the worst during waterskiing, when her ski binding had refused to release, as her tongue flushed into her throat, and she’d shorn off three perfect toes. Her modeling agency had been compassionate but thephone instantly died. And the seizures timeshared her world.
Over years, the epilepsy had gotten worse and any little upset seemed to make Wanda stop breathing for seconds, waiting for her throat to form hands and strangle her. She drank teas, visited acupuncturists. Wore sandals with hundreds of rubber nubs, to calm her nervous system. But seven toes just weren’t providing enough surface and every couple of weeks, she’d go wolfman, foaming, snarling.
As father and son licked frosting from forks and Burt tried on the blue sweater, Alan chose his words carefully.
“Dad … I wanted to tell you, I may have sold a
remember.
I was there. I heard you bitching at the dinner table back in the Gramercy Parkapartment when I was a kid. You used to
suffer
over the casting. If you didn’t get a major name, you practically had to be peeled off the roof, and things for Mom and Marie and me were lousy till you cheered up and got somebody you could splash on the marquee.” Alan was breathing hard. “Your memory is playing games with you.”
“Casting stage isn’t the same thing.”
Alan placed his water glass down, irritably. “Exactly the same thing! You think because it’s put on film it’s not
real?
It has no substance? What’re you talking about?”
“Ah, ah, ah,… hold it. Film isn’t the issue. Lotta fine films have come down the pike. But they were the expression of a single artistic vision …”
“Right, sure. And the studio had
nothing
to say about it.”
“… those visions were not preprogrammed, clinically manipulated, and analyzed. They were not paint-by-the-number regurgitations of a bunch of fucking TV executives. Suits who know
nothing
, not one goddamn thing, about art. They’re in the business of programming Mars bars for a nation of
brain-dead.
”
Alan hated Burt when he got like this. It had driven his mother crazy. Maybe it was part of what happened. Made as much sense as anything else. Burt always assumed people found this behavior stimulating. But one by one, they backed away, put off by his exhaust in their face.
But Alan was stuck up on a mountain. A lonely citadel in the clouds where old St. Bernards came to die. He couldn’t leave and wondered if his dad had chosen this place deliberately. It was getting chilly and Alan crossed his arms.
The two were suddenly surrounded by singing waiters carrying a burning cake. They sang “Happy Birthday” and Burt blew out the sixty-one candles that were sunk to the waist in frosting. The waiters cut two pieces and left proudly, feeling they’d spread Alpine cheer.
“Musta been Wanda’s idea,” said Burt, delighted by the surprise. “She amazes me. Always puts me first. Even after the life she’s had …” He pressed lips; philosophical sadness.
Alan nodded, properly grave; tried to feel bad. But it was impossible. Every time he ran it through his head, it always struck him as absurd she was so fucked up. How bad could it be? She’d been a top sandal model with perfect feet and as if that weren’t dumb enough, she’d had a vapid-eye-movement marriage to a guy who did lighting for huge New York stage productions. The bulb-hubby was booted after Wanda met Burt, who was directing one of the productions.
According to giggly legend, as told by an always breathless Wanda, she’d been backstage, giving herself a pedicure, waiting for her husband to finish work, and Burt, taking a note break, had been instantly struck by her; the uncoaxed smiles, radiant curiosity. Her inordinate level of health. They fell in love and she’d only told him after the marriage about the epilepsy. She hadn’t wanted to scare him off, knowing he’d been living with an ill woman.
But Wanda had two seizures on the honeymoon, in Acapulco, the worst during waterskiing, when her ski binding had refused to release, as her tongue flushed into her throat, and she’d shorn off three perfect toes. Her modeling agency had been compassionate but thephone instantly died. And the seizures timeshared her world.
Over years, the epilepsy had gotten worse and any little upset seemed to make Wanda stop breathing for seconds, waiting for her throat to form hands and strangle her. She drank teas, visited acupuncturists. Wore sandals with hundreds of rubber nubs, to calm her nervous system. But seven toes just weren’t providing enough surface and every couple of weeks, she’d go wolfman, foaming, snarling.
As father and son licked frosting from forks and Burt tried on the blue sweater, Alan chose his words carefully.
“Dad … I wanted to tell you, I may have sold a
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