had tried to dress up, garishly; polyester suits in pale colors, iridescent high heels. The air reeked of greed and strong perfume. Some of the women had their hair done especially for the occasion, and it shimmered oddly, hardened with spray.
âPick me!â
âWe love you, man!â
âWeâve been watching forever!â
A woman in a rhinestone-studded T-shirt that said Dallas Cowboys Forever lunged forward, grabbed his arm, and yelled, âLenny!â
âHands OFF Mr. Weiss!â shouted the security guard.
There was always one who was a lesson for the others. The door slammed, and the woman was marched back to her life. They all listened to her heels clicking against the floor, first sharp and declarative, then fading. The others stood, solemnly, in the silence, as though listening to the future sound of their own deaths.
They were all on this earth briefly; for Lenny, that meant he had the burning desire to be the king of syndicated game shows, one of the ten most powerful men in Hollywood. He did not know what the othersâ lives meant to them, just that they wanted what he had. Money.
Now he needed to choose his contestants. They would be the ones with particularly acute expressions of desire and sadness; they would also have to photograph well under the brilliant lights.
âAll right!â He clapped his hands. âYou want to be rich? You want other people to kiss your ass? Well, listen. Youâre going to haveto work for it. Everyone!â He knew to change his requests for each new group; he did not want any of them to come prepared from rumors off the street.
âUnbutton your shirts!â
He knew this one was more difficult for the women, but that was not a concern to him. Some of the people stiffened, pawed gingerly at their buttons. Others tore through their buttons and stood before him, shirts loose.
âTake off your shirts!â
He lost a few more with this request. Others removed their shirts as though they had been moving through their lives waiting for such an order. They stood before him, men and women, in bras and bare chests, some pale, some dark, some thin-shouldered, others fat.
âRepeat after me. Say: I am a fool.â
He heard the chorus of voices start, softly.
âLouder! Again!â
Their seats had numbers on the bottoms; he knew immediately whom he would call back. He would call Number 25, the woman with the lustrous blonde hair, and Number 6, the man with the compulsive, bright smile. Lenny clapped his hands.
âThank you. My assistant will contact those who have been chosen.â Lenny turned, almost running down the hallway. He walked around for fifteen minutes before he could get back to work.
H E HAD GROWN UP IN C HICAGO IN THE 1940 S , THE ONLY CHILD OF parents who had married impulsively and then learned that neither understood the other; Lenny dangled, suspended, in the harsh, disappointed sounds of the house. His father died when Lenny was eight. Lennyâs mother moved them to Los Angeles and got a job as a secretary at one of the movie studios. The boy was shocked by the desert light, the way it made everythingâthe lawns, flowers, carsâappearstark and inevitable. His mother was the only person he knew in this world, and at first, when she left him at school, he was wild with fear that she also had disappeared. He pretended he was collecting clouds to make a wall around her, and when the sky was cloudless, he pretended he was sick. Then his mother brought him to the place where she worked. He sat on the floor watching her, and then everything else going on around her, too.
When he graduated high school, he became an errand boy on a soap opera, then a writer. He enjoyed making bad things happen to other people: troubled marriages, sudden illnesses, kidnappings. He married a woman who was impressed by his job and his descriptions of various actresses on the set. They had a child, a girl. Then one day the
âPick me!â
âWe love you, man!â
âWeâve been watching forever!â
A woman in a rhinestone-studded T-shirt that said Dallas Cowboys Forever lunged forward, grabbed his arm, and yelled, âLenny!â
âHands OFF Mr. Weiss!â shouted the security guard.
There was always one who was a lesson for the others. The door slammed, and the woman was marched back to her life. They all listened to her heels clicking against the floor, first sharp and declarative, then fading. The others stood, solemnly, in the silence, as though listening to the future sound of their own deaths.
They were all on this earth briefly; for Lenny, that meant he had the burning desire to be the king of syndicated game shows, one of the ten most powerful men in Hollywood. He did not know what the othersâ lives meant to them, just that they wanted what he had. Money.
Now he needed to choose his contestants. They would be the ones with particularly acute expressions of desire and sadness; they would also have to photograph well under the brilliant lights.
âAll right!â He clapped his hands. âYou want to be rich? You want other people to kiss your ass? Well, listen. Youâre going to haveto work for it. Everyone!â He knew to change his requests for each new group; he did not want any of them to come prepared from rumors off the street.
âUnbutton your shirts!â
He knew this one was more difficult for the women, but that was not a concern to him. Some of the people stiffened, pawed gingerly at their buttons. Others tore through their buttons and stood before him, shirts loose.
âTake off your shirts!â
He lost a few more with this request. Others removed their shirts as though they had been moving through their lives waiting for such an order. They stood before him, men and women, in bras and bare chests, some pale, some dark, some thin-shouldered, others fat.
âRepeat after me. Say: I am a fool.â
He heard the chorus of voices start, softly.
âLouder! Again!â
Their seats had numbers on the bottoms; he knew immediately whom he would call back. He would call Number 25, the woman with the lustrous blonde hair, and Number 6, the man with the compulsive, bright smile. Lenny clapped his hands.
âThank you. My assistant will contact those who have been chosen.â Lenny turned, almost running down the hallway. He walked around for fifteen minutes before he could get back to work.
H E HAD GROWN UP IN C HICAGO IN THE 1940 S , THE ONLY CHILD OF parents who had married impulsively and then learned that neither understood the other; Lenny dangled, suspended, in the harsh, disappointed sounds of the house. His father died when Lenny was eight. Lennyâs mother moved them to Los Angeles and got a job as a secretary at one of the movie studios. The boy was shocked by the desert light, the way it made everythingâthe lawns, flowers, carsâappearstark and inevitable. His mother was the only person he knew in this world, and at first, when she left him at school, he was wild with fear that she also had disappeared. He pretended he was collecting clouds to make a wall around her, and when the sky was cloudless, he pretended he was sick. Then his mother brought him to the place where she worked. He sat on the floor watching her, and then everything else going on around her, too.
When he graduated high school, he became an errand boy on a soap opera, then a writer. He enjoyed making bad things happen to other people: troubled marriages, sudden illnesses, kidnappings. He married a woman who was impressed by his job and his descriptions of various actresses on the set. They had a child, a girl. Then one day the
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