Chapter Twelve

On the stage, Gary sits with the writers in a chair they find for him, which gives him a kick. He’s already charmed the writers and I didn’t even see it happen. He’s watching us rehearse the scene where Carter’s character D.C. has just fucked the daughter of his boss and he’s freaking out that he’s going to get fired. What happens then is I come into his bedroom and D.C. makes Nina, the girl, who is even worse today than usual, if that’s possible, hide under the covers because he’s so afraid of the possible wrath of his boss. So I sit on the bed, on Nina, and don’t even notice because that’s the funny kind of guy I am. I talk to him about the thing with Trish not being comfortable with the sex in the apartment and wondering what the hell I’m going to do because I can’t just move because the apartment is so dope and they’re my best friends (plus, duh, it’s the concept of the show), but then I can’t just not ever have sex. And he’s trying to hustle me out of the room and then finally, for the joke, I’m like, “See, I heard Nina when you guys were doing it just now and it didn’t bother me at all. And Nina doesn’t care, right, Nina?” and Nina says, “No,” from beneath the covers, and then I thank them for the talk and then I leave.
          So we’re going through the scene and Carter is doing his lines and then also giving direction and the writers keep running up to him and then Jordan is there with his defeated look on his face making cell phone calls which I’m pretty sure are about a movie he’s trying to get hired to direct. I glance over at Gary who gives me a silent, “Argh!” while he’s watching, which makes me laugh. But then everyone settles and we get back to rehearsing and then after I try the Nina line a few different ways and make the notation in my script of how I’m going to do it, I notice something that I didn’t notice before, that wasn’t in the past drafts. I’m supposed to get up and walk out, and then as I’m walking, slip on Nina’s panties. And fall.
          “Hey, Jordan.”
          Jordan tells the guy, whose film Jordan will never get to direct because Swiftly was a piece of shit that lost the studio money, to hold on. “Yeah?”
          “What the hell is this?” I hold my script out to him.
          Jordan reads, “Dex smiles and then heads to the door. He slips on a pair of Nina’s panties and falls to the floor. He exits. Okay, so what’s the matter now?”
          “Well, the fall. Why would I do that?”
          Jordan looks confused. “Um, because you slip on the panties.”
          “But what function does that-— Wait,” I say, remembering something, “what do you mean ‘What’s the matter now?’”
          Jordan puts the phone to his ear. “Let me call you back,” he tells the person, and hangs up. “I didn’t mean anything, Jason. I was just asking what your concern was,” he turns to me, his eyes tired and dead. It suddenly occurs to me that maybe he knew one of the people on the planes or in the buildings. Maybe that’s why he’s put me in charge of our tribute. But then I think, no way. Jordan isn’t interesting enough.
          “All I mean is, what is my motivation for slipping on the panties?”
          “They’re in your way?”
          “No,” I say, glancing over at Gary, who is just talking to a couple of the other writers, and not even listening. “I was just saying that maybe I don’t have to always fall.”
          “But you like falling,” pipes in Carter. “That’s what you do.”
          “But it doesn’t fit here. It doesn’t fit nowadays.”
          “Oh,” says Jordan. He turns to Carter, dialing his phone. “It’s your call on this one.” He walks away, resuming his conversation.
          Carter leans in to me and smiles. “Let’s have this talk then.” He leads me across to Wally’s bedroom set and shuts the door, which is really funny because it’s not a real room, and so one wall is missing.
          “Okay, Jason. I know it pisses you off that they’re letting me direct four episodes this season, but I’d appreciate it if you’d leave our competitive crap out of this.”
          “What competitive crap are you talking about?” I respond, genuinely confused, but also looking around to see if anyone noticed the funny thing with him closing the door.
          “Dude. Look, you’re the ‘funny’ one, okay? I let that go in season four. I was never going to be as ‘funny’ as you. So I’m directing as well because D.C. is never going to be the one they spin off. So let me have this, okay?”
          I take a step back to see if anyone heard, “You really think I’m the funniest one?” Carter takes his glasses off, which is a nervous thing he does, so I continue. “I don’t want to do the fall. Jordan said it was up to you, so make a decision against the fall. It’s a show of power.”
          Carter considers. “Fine. Don’t do the fall.”
          “Okay. Good,” I say. “But you know what, fuck it. I’ll do the fall. But thanks for letting me not.”
          Carter looks up to the ceiling, then he starts to walk out, using the door again.
          “Hey,” I add. “So they’re really letting you do four episodes?”
          We eventually break for a little bit while they do some lighting stuff, and I join Gary, who’s standing over the Craft Services table. For a minute I think he’s smirking, but then I realize there’s something else on his face: marvel. Like I saw when he told me that he was getting married. Or when he showed me one of the few reviews we ever got, from the Santa Monica Breeze, which compared him to Marlon Brando (and me to a taller Steve Guttenberg, but everyone has their own opinion or whatever). Or when he found out how much money his parents had, right after they refused to loan him two thousand dollars for a car.
          “Take whatever you want. Like, pocket some Life Savers.” I tell him. Gary just keeps staring. Finally he speaks.
          “I was just thinking about our opening night of Hurlyburly,” Gary says.
          “That show ruled.” I grab some Turkey Jerky and bite in. It’s still not the right kind. Fucking Geoffrey.
          “Opening night we had our biggest audience. There must have been fifteen people or something. Felt like we were playing the Hollywood Bowl compared to what we were used to.”
          “Three and a half hours, and they were there with us on every line. Your crying scene…” I say, remembering now. It was a beast of a show. That’s how I remember it. Like a big growling bear or a puma. Powerful and sexy and somehow very scary. (I’m not really sure I ever fully understood the play—it was really long and wordy. But I felt safe having Gary on stage leading me through it. That happened more than once, come to think of it.)
          “You were really funny, too.”
          “Thanks.”
          “Do you remember what you said to me, right after the curtain call?” Gary asks.
          “No.”
          “You said, with fear in your eyes, almost. I’d never seen you look like that before. Well, once when you saw that big black water bug sitting on your pillow at Hobart.”
          “That bug was a robot. It had to be. Bugs don’t get that big.”
          “You said, ‘Gary. We’re going to make it.’”
          “And you said, ‘I’m afraid so.’”
          We both smile, looking down at the row of donuts and cheese danishes.
          “Well,” Gary says, picking up a chocolate one with white frosting and coconut shavings, devouring half of it with one bite, “I was just thinking of the party we had afterwards. Me, you, Lou and the girl, what was her name?”
          “Constance?”
          “Yeah. The four of us decided to have a spread for the audience afterwards. And so we all chipped in and shopped, and then after doing a four hour play, we immediately went to work dragging tables onto the stage and setting up the food and uncorking the wine. And everyone ate and laughed and asked us stuff about the show.”
          “We stayed until five in the morning.”
          “Everyone did. Even the girl from the Santa Monica paper.”
          “Chips and cheese cubes and Old Milwaukee and Trader Joe’s $2.99 wine,” I remember.
          “Cost us a lot.”
          “We went up to the roof and smoked weed.”
          “That’s the night Constance put your hand on her breast,” Gary says. I had totally forgotten about that. She cornered me outside when I was dragging a bag of trash out to the back dumpster. She told me she hated me and then put my hand on her titty.
          “We spent about sixty dollars,” Gary says, picking up a cinnamon roll and checking it out from all sides before biting into it. “That was so much money back then. But we wanted people to have a good time. We wanted people to come back and see our shows again. We wanted to be famous.”
          “Is that why we did it?” I ask.
          “Because we wanted to be loved. That’s why we do this.” Gary turns and faces the stage. “And look how much love you have now.” I turn and try to take everything in, try to understand what he’s talking about. I think I do, but it’s so hard to see all this after seven years. I can barely see anything.
          “Yeah,” I say. “It’s pretty incredible. How different.”
          “Indeed. How different, my friend.”
          We stand there for a minute, Gary finishing the cinnamon roll. “So tell me,” I ask, “did you sleep with the bitch Santa Monica reviewer girl that night?”
          Gary turns to me, a smile slowly spreads across his frosting-covered face. “No,” he says.

For lunch, me and Wallace took Gary to a restaurant. Gary and Wallace hit it off right away, like I knew they would. They both discovered a love of rice pudding, and bonded over that. Rice pudding is perhaps the most disgusting thing you could eat in the world, aside from stuff like cow butt. Meanwhile, I sat and tried to think of what our “Later Daze” tribute could be. I didn’t come up with anything.
          Now we’re on stage going over Gary’s scene, where he comes to the hotel room door to bring us some post-humping food. During lunch I gave Gary hints about being aware of the camera and not playing to the audience. I didn’t share my notation technique with him, because that’s mine and it look me a long time to figure out. But I also didn’t share it because I’m not sure what he would think of it.
          “Just be good,” said Wallace, by way of advice.
          There is a knock at the door and I answer in my boxers and a t-shirt. The network isn’t into bare chests on the sitcoms. What a world, when the cop shows can film up the actor’s butthole, but we can’t show male nip. So I answer the door to Gary, who wheels the cart in. At this point in the episode we’ve been coming here every day for sex. So I have a funny line about the mini bar and he says, “Yeah, and just so you know, sir, refilling the Vodka bottles with water is an old trick.” Gary says the line and it gets a big laugh from the writers. They always, always laugh harder at the guest stars, but I’m happy for Gary. We have a couple more lines and then when he’s leaving he says, “Oh, and if you guys could quiet down a bit during sex, that would help us out a lot, thanks.” He shuts the door to big laughter and applause.
          The writers clap for Gary who smiles shyly and just studies his script. Francis gets out of the bed and says to me, her sunglasses still on, her nose red from whatever she’s doing these days, “Your friend is funny.”
          “Yes he is.”
          Francis sneezes three times in quick succession. “Oh, my allergies,” she moans.
          “You are such a drug addict, Francis. Why don’t you clean your shit up? Don’t you think it’s a bit self-indulgent, when people are suffering so much in the country right now, to be spending your nights snorting crank?”
          Francis takes a long sip from a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. “Suck my balls,” she says.
          I throw her some gang signs, and head to congratulate Gary who is nervously folding and unfolding the script brads.
          “That felt pretty good,” says Gary.
          “It was good. You did fine.”
          “People laughed.”
          “You’re lucky, a lot of times the guest stars get shit lines. But you were really funny, too.”
          “So what would happen now?”
          “Well, they’d come over and give us notes and while they set up again or go over camera tweaks, the make-up girl would come over and powder your face and the prop department would wheel your cart back out.”
          “I could do that.”
          “Yeah, but don’t try. They’re union guys. It’s all they do, so if you take that away from them they feel lost and unneeded.”
          “Okay,” Gary says, mouthing through his lines again. “And what is the audience doing right now?”
          “Oh, they’ll just be sitting there waiting. The comedian will be doing lame schtick to keep them occupied.”
          “Who’s your warm-up guy?”
          “Just this failed stand-up. Tripp something. I think he won ‘Star Search’ once.”
          Gary can’t stop smiling. He takes a couple breaths and then exhales. “Do you think I’m a big dork for getting off on this?”
          “Yes. But I get off on this every week,” I lie.
          “Yeah, but you’re you.”
          “True.”

Later, when Gary is off having another costume fitting, I’m in my dressing room on the floor unable to breathe. I’m feeling this really good feeling of being with my old friend in my new life, but also the notion of worlds colliding is making my brain count the steps I take from one side of the stage to the other during rehearsal, and that’s fucking up my comic timing, which is all I have to work with here, aside from my ability to fall. This engine of Hollywood—despite the extra security and the sincere cocktail party talk of using this as a wake-up call and a touchstone of a new global awareness and the way that for the first few days everyone drove courteously and no one got pissed in line at the Coffee Bean—the engine has, after a quick spiritual pit stop, lurched right back to life, maybe even faster now, since we have lost time to make up for. Are the good intentions all false and insincere then, just because we can’t say no to returning to our contractual obligations? Or do we get back to the crass business of this business, but also go forward with a vow to do something good? Like, if I’m bringing Gary, my poor, garden-magazine-working, wife-with-kid-on-the-way-having actor friend into this world does that make me, well, good? Maybe the point is to both not back down, and also to do good things. And I’m doing them, aren’t I? I’m going to organize something. A party? A concert? A fair? A PSA? Maybe the cast will cut a PSA of us saying that America is great, or to be cool to Arabs right now, and the network will run it. I have to try to remember that. I should make a list.
          But the counting of the ceiling tiles is now being compounded by the dripping of my crap sink. I call Simon again, but get no answer. Fucker. I head outside to get some air and start walking down the studio lot streets, Grips on bikes and PA’s in golf carts whizzing by me, some saying hi, some carrying on loud walkie-talkie conversations as they pass. I walk into an open stage and watch some construction dudes building a set that looks like it’s going to be the surface of the moon. I consider talking to them, but then remember the fiasco with Craft Services Geoffrey, so I walk out and continue down the row of stages. Eventually I come to an area between a stage and an administrative building where some old bald dude is playing basketball alone. It takes me a minute to recognize that the guy is Patrick Stewart, that English dude who used to be on “Star Trek.” He makes a nice shot from the top of the key, and then notices me.
          “You want to shoot?” he says, his big voice booming at me like Hamlet or that other guy. It rattles me, until he smiles and fires me the ball. I dribble a couple times and shoot. It goes in.
          Patrick Stewart wants to play Horse, so we do. He starts kicking my ass, but I find his weakness in lay-ups, so I fight back with a couple reverses and some finger-rolls. We’re even at H-O-R-S, when he asks me how the show is going.
          “So, you know who I am?” I ask, mystified. Somehow it doesn’t seem like Patrick Stewart would own a TV. Or even, like, live in an era that has TV’s. I guess it’s because he’s English, and also because every time I see him in something he’s either in the past or the future.
          “Of course. I watch your show sometimes while I’m cooking dinner.”
          “It’s on a lot,” I say apologetically.
          “Have they paid you for the syndication yet?”
          “No.”
          “Bastards!” he booms.
          “Can I ask you a question?” I say.
          “Sure.”
          “Would you like to guest star on the show sometime?” We have a running contest to see who can land the best guest stars. Wallace is way in the lead right now, with Alex, who just got Bridget Fonda, in second place. Getting Patrick Stewart would certainly put me ahead of him.
          “I’d be happy to. I’d like to play someone with a New York accent,” he says. “People think of me as very English, I’m afraid.”
          “Done,” I say.
          He raises the ball to take his shot.
          “Can I ask you another question?”
          He stops mid-shot.
          “How do you handle it when they want you to do something you don’t want to do? Something that you think goes against your training, or maybe that you’re just tired of doing?”
          Patrick Stewart puts the ball on the ground and sits on it. Sweat is beaded on his perfectly round dome of a head. I crouch down in front of him. I feel like I’m in church kneeling before Jesus. Or talking to Santa Claus.
          “When you undertake the life-long process of actor training, you acquire tools, like a carpenter acquires screwdrivers and nails and hammers. When that carpenter is asked to build a cabinet, which perhaps he wouldn’t build if left to his own devices, in the end he’ll build it, because he had been paid to, yes, but also because he has been well-trained and therefore, can. As a trained actor, you have the requisite tools to do anything. The direction may be silly or plain wrong, but in the end, you’re getting paid to do the job, so you reach into your tool box and find a way to make it work.”
          When I realize he’s done talking, all I can say is, “Wow.” How true, what he just said. It’s my job to find a way to make the fall work. I stand up and hold my hand out. “Thank you, Spock.”
          He must not like being called by his character name, because he gives me a strange look, then gets up and walks towards the administrative building. But then he stops and launches the ball over his head behind him. I watch as the ball bounces off the backboard and goes in.
          I turn to tell him what an amazing shot that was, but he’s gone.

Later, when I’m lying in the infirmary, watching the tiny studio nurse with the raisin-sized neck mole rinse blood out of my hair, I think of Patrick Stewart’s words and wonder what went wrong. I know the character of Dexter better than anyone, and so if some douchebag actor who wants to try to direct because his jowls are widening and lowering and he knows the end of his career is neigh tells me to do something that doesn’t feel right, the advice should go out the window. Because I am Dexter. It would be like me trying to tell Corey that I don’t think the character of Corey would smoke a cigar like that or telling Gary that I don’t think “Gary” should be such a chub-monster. So when Carter basically insisted—well, he told me it was my choice but it was so passive-aggressive you could cut it with a spoon—that I do the fall, I should have ignored Spock and told him no.
          After the break, during which they were rehearsing a scene with Ronny and Wally, we started again working on the D.C./Nina scene with the panty fall. I found a few good line readings for the lines on the bed and the exit line to Nina under the covers, and then I got up to walk out. See, I think my first mistake was telling Carter, who called “Cut!” and got the prop guys to bring out the mats, to forget it. I usually use mats when the fall is behind a couch or out a doorway, but this fall was supposed to be in the room, and I didn’t want to fall out of frame. I figured, if I’m going to fall, I might as well give them the payoff, which is when I actually hit the ground, splaying my limbs out in the great way I do. Carter had me block through the fall a couple times, marking where the panties were going to be laying, and I did, but without much enthusiasm; I just wanted to do it.
          So I gave the last line and I walked across the room in that funny walk, and hit the panties with the correct foot. I shot my legs out, but somehow my body got too horizontal and twisted too far to the left and then I heard this dense sound—this Thwonk!—and then seconds after I hit the ground, I felt my head split in two. In reality it wasn’t that bad, just a gash on the left side of my head from a fake windowsill, but for a second there I felt like I was going to die.
          I guess I’ve passed out or something, because somehow Corey is with me in the infirmary now and there is a dude in a white coat chatting with the nurse.
          “Jason,” says Corey, shuffling his feet like friggin’ always. “You’re going to be fine.”
          “When did you get here?”
          “A little while after the doctor.” He points to the guy, who gives a wave and walks out.
          “Doctor? I thought the nurse was just cleaning off my head?”
          “Are you sure you’re okay, Jason? The doctor gave you some gas and then stitched the wound.” I put my hand to the side of my head. There’s a bandage and the area around it is one big angry lump.
          “Five stitches,” Corey says. “We figured if we took you to the doctor the press might pull out the old ‘Jason is on drugs again’ routine. So we had them do you here. The doctor gave you some Vicodin. It’s in your bag.”
          The nurse comes and stands over me and starts talking about when I should take the pills and not to mix it with whatever. Ha, lady. I’m a famous actor. Like I need instructions on how to take Vicodin. While she’s talking, I reach up and draw my finger back, and flick her neck mole. It doesn’t move. The nurse frowns as I laugh. Corey gives a nervous chuckle and thanks the nurse, pulling her away from me. Corey obviously thinks I’m fucked up from the gas or the head injury, but really, my brain just had an impulse and ran with it. Sometimes it’s not up to me.
          We head out of the infirmary into the bright sunlight. Thank God for sunglasses. People always think actors wear glasses to be cool, but you know what, it’s fucking bright in L.A. Corey offers me a ride over to the stage but I just walk away. It’s good to keep your manager guessing about you. On the stage, everyone is very happy to see me feeling better. Gary, already very comfortable in front of these people, I notice, does a little dance in honor of my war wound. Everyone is really friendly and chatty and it feels like a family, almost, which in seven long years it never has. I miss this sense of belonging. This sense of a larger collective purpose. We don’t have that here. Maybe Gary brought it. As everyone is crowding around and checking out my bandage, I turn and come face to face with Tripp, the warm-up guy. I don’t know why he’s here today, but he makes some joke about understudying my role if I’m not up to it on Friday. I laugh, and turn quickly away from him. He’s not going to ruin this feeling. I turn my back on that and face Wallace.
          “Man. You really are a spaz.”
          “Shut up.”
          Tripp’s right behind me.
          “Do you and Gary want to come up to the house and shoot later? I got glow-in-the-dark clay pigeons now, so we can do it at night! Hom already put the launcher and the guns out on the deck for us.”
          “Maybe.”
          “Are you sure you’re okay?” asks Wallace.
          “Of course,” I respond, feeling Tripp right over my shoulder. Freak. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Wallace goes to change. I bend down to tie my shoe. I look up. Tripp’s crotch is right in front of me. And my stupid, damaged brain raises my face forward. Forward. And then at the last minute, I snap my head down and out of the way so I just end up head-butting his crotch with my forehead.
          “Whoa.” Goes Tripp, looking down.
          “I slipped,” I mumble, and then get up and walk out and under the bleachers where I bang my head against a support pole three times. Then I pop four Vicodin because I’m pretty sure that’s going to hurt later.