For the Love of Money (23 page)

“I see. Well,
Flyy Girl
proved
that
assumption wrong, huh?”

“Exactly. That's why we have to come back to it. The proof will be in the sequel.”

$   $   $

I stepped out of the NBC studio and felt like I was walking on air that morning. I couldn't get too carried away with it though. I still had to drive down the street to do WHAT-AM with Mary Mason for an eight o'clock show. Their studio was seven to ten blocks down the road, and right past WDAS-FM. City Line Avenue was media city in Philadelphia!

I arrived at 54th Street at WHAT early as well, and walked up to their second-floor offices. I even had time to stop off for a donut and orange juice, and after having such a good show with Steve Levy that morning, I was no longer nervous about Mary Mason.

I was introduced to her in her office before air time. She looked up at me from her crowded desk, with big hair, full body, and plenty of zest in her eyes. She said, “So, what did your daddy say about you taking your clothes off for that movie, Tracy?” Her young producer broke out laughing and started shaking her head. I guess she was used to Mary Mason's in-your-face candor, and still shocked by it at the same time.

Mary reminded me of an aunt, the one who still smokes, curses, and goes to church every Sunday for forgiveness, just so she can tell everyone
else
what
they're
doing wrong in
their
lives. You couldn't tell Mary Mason that to her face though, because then you'd have a fight on your hands. Nevertheless, the people in Philadelphia loved her, because she had that Philadelphian fire to tell it like it was no matter what. Just like me.

I smiled and said, “You can ask me that on the air. I'm sure that everyone else would like to know too.”

She didn't budge an inch. She grunted at me and said, “Did you
like
doing it?”

“Not necessarily,” I told her. “I wasn't even supposed to play the part.”

“What part were you supposed to play?”

“I just wrote the movie, actually. Then things just started to happen in other ways to get the project done.”

“Project? Is that what you call it?”

“That's what it's called when it's not done.”

“You plan on doing anymore
projects
like that one?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You plan on
writing
anymore like that?”

I began to wonder what she would ask me on air with so many rapid-fire questions in her office.

“Hopefully, I can extend my range into other vehicles like Sharon Stone was able to do. Or Julia Roberts and Glenn Close.”

“You plan on doing any
black
movies?”

When she asked me that I just stared at her.
This is going to be a long damn interview,
I told myself.

“Black movies, meaning what, an all-black cast?” I asked her.

“A movie that
means
something,” she answered.

“You think
any
of these movies
mean
something nowadays?” I asked her back. “Hollywood only makes what the people want to watch. So if we
really
wanted movies that
meant
something, we would
watch
more of them. I don't think Will Smith has made a movie that
meant
something for black people yet, outside of the fact that he makes twenty million dollars a movie now.”

She had stepped on
my
fire button, and I was breathing like a dragon. I wasn't afraid of her, and if she wanted a challenge that morning, we could get on the air and go word for word for it!

“Well, when I get Will Smith on my show, I'm gonna ask him the same question.”

She seemed to soften up a bit with that, right before her phone rang.

“Excuse me,” she said. Her young producer showed me back out and to the studio room.

“Is she always like that?” I asked her.

She chuckled and said, “She can be
worse
than that. And don't believe what she says about Will Smith. She loves him. If you represent yourself well and keep your cool, she'll love you too. I wouldn't even worry about it. You just can't let her scare you or get under your skin. Just stay relaxed and make a joke out of it. Mary likes to laugh, trust me.”

It sure didn't
seem
like she liked to laugh, but I had nothing to lose, so if push came to shove, I figured I would make it light. It beat getting into a generational argument. That's all that it would boil down to in the end if we didn't hit it off with each other.

I sat down in my guest chair in front of the microphone at eight o'clock on the nose. The earlier guest and host were both leaving and commercials were still being played. Mary Mason slipped into the room and into the host chair right in time to kick off the show.

“How many of us are sick and tired of these same-old black movies and the stupid roles that some of our people play. I know
I
am. I'm so sick and tired of it that I don't know what to do anymore but keep talking about how sick and tired I am. So I brought on a local actress this morning who played in a recent Hollywood movie called
Led Astray,
where the poor black girl plots to get back at all of these producers and directors who fooled around with her and promised her things that never came true.

“If you happened to see this movie called
Led Astray,
that came out in February, then please call us up this morning at WHAT-AM and let us know what
you
think. We have the young star, Tracy Ellison Grant, in the studio to talk to us about the business of Hollywood.”

She looked down at her notes and said, “Tracy Ellison Grant is a graduate of Germantown High School and an English major from Hampton University in Virginia with a
master's
degree.

“Now, Tracy, what I want to know is what do your professors at Hampton think about this movie you starred in? I thought an education was supposed to elevate us
past
the down-on-your-luck whore roles.”

“Well, my character spoke good grammar in the movie, so I believe that my instructors would have been fairly pleased with it,” I joked. What the hell else could I do?

“Your character spoke good
grammar?
Well, that's about the
only
good thing your character did.”

“Well, she didn't allow herself to continue being a victim of falsehoods,” I responded. “She did what very few people in Hollywood, or even people at WHAT, are able to do, and that's get even with their bosses.”

Mary gave me a look that could kill, but she couldn't deny that I was working it, so she kept right on plugging away at me.

“So what did your daddy say about the naked sex scenes?”

“He said, ‘I couldn't look at all of it, but I'm sure proud of your body, girl. You wear it well,'” I lied.

“Your father did
not
say that,” Mary snapped at me.

“Okay, he didn't,” I admitted. “But what do
mothers
say to their boys when they do
their
things in
their
sex roles? I think it's all hypocritical myself. Humans are humans. Why should it make that much of a difference that the woman is naked if the guy is naked right along with her?”

“Well, in your movie, it wasn't as if the girl was in love with any of these men that she was with.”

“Nor were the men in love with her. That's just my point. How come no one ever talks about how terrible it was for the men to do what
they
do? Why is the woman always at fault, when she's no more than the victim?

“I think that a lot of women could relate to the movie in some form or another,” I said. “Even you, Mary. Haven't you been led astray by a man before when you were younger? If you haven't, then you happen to be a very lucky woman.”

She ignored me with a knowing grin and went to our first caller. That was fast.

“I saw the movie, and I
loved
it,” an older sister from West Philadelphia commented.

“What did you love about it?” Mary asked her.

“I loved the fact that she took her life back from these guys.”

“How, by sleeping with them and blackmailing them for money?”

“Whatever it takes. Like Tracy said, it wasn't as if these guys were saints. If they were, then the girl wouldn't have been after them in the first place.”

Mary took the second caller, an older brother from South Philly.

“I wasn't particularly thrilled with seeing such a beautiful young sister
on-screen with these white men, but I did get the point. The only thing that
I'm
concerned about was how she became led astray in the first place.”

“Exactly,” Mary huffed in agreement with him.

I said, “You're right. I don't know how women fall for men and the American dream either. It must be something in the water that only affects us, the same water that makes so many men want to sleep with every woman they see.

“Like you, sir,” I addressed him. “I bet that your wife was the only woman you ever had, and you have never led a woman astray in your thirty-something years of dating.”

Mary began to laugh at that one herself. She knew damn well what the truth was. Everybody was led astray, even men.

“Well, I wouldn't say that,” the older brother responded. “We all make our mistakes in life, and I have made a few of them.”

“Exactly,” I mocked them both.

After that, I didn't have a problem with Mary Mason for the rest of that hour-long show. She realized that I could hold my own, so she kept it professional and stopped trying to deliberately set me off.

The young producer said, “See, I told you you could do it. Now she'll have you back again.”

“I bet she will,” I responded with a grin. I actually enjoyed the show with Mary. She gave me a chance to practice my sharp wit and poise, something I had failed to do with Wendy Williams on Power 99.

I had a huge gap between nine o'clock and two-thirty (the time I planned to pick up my cousin Vanessa from school at Engineering & Science that afternoon), so I drove out to Springfield Mall to try and do some more shopping. Since I arrived there before ten o'clock, I sat inside the car and listened to more of Power 99's Dream Team with Wendy. This girl was forever trying to get the juicy info on celebrity gossip. I guess we all have to make a living
some
way, but Wendy seemed to take things to the extreme. I guess someone else could say the same thing about me. However, was reporting the sleaze any better than being involved with it?
I
didn't think so. It was all hypocritical, even for the people who loved to listen to it and help spread the damn gossip!

I walked inside Springfield Mall at ten o'clock, right as the doors were opening and strolled past a shoe store. The next thing I knew, a young sister had run out of the store and asked me for my autograph.

“I loved your movie,” she said. “I heard you on the
Wendy Williams Show
yesterday and I saw you on the news this morning. Is it tough in Hollywood?”

She was a pretty dark brown sister with a short hairstyle. I don't know why, but it looked as if she could sing. Maybe she reminded me of Anita Baker.

I said, “Everything that's worthwhile is tough. Do you go to school?” I asked her. She looked young and studious. What the hell was she doing working at a shoe store instead of going to college?! She looked roughly around twenty.

“I go to school. I go to Community College. I'm taking media courses right now, but I plan to take courses in computer science soon. I hear there's a lot of job openings in the computer information business to give me something to fall back on.”

“Something to fall back on? So what do you
really
want to do?” I asked her.

She said, “I want to be a singer. I'd like to act too, if I had the chance.”

Bingo! She
could
sing. I thought about Kiwana.

“Have you ever thought about performing in musical plays?”

“I
have
been in plays before, but not in musicals. I used to perform at the Freedom Theater in North Philly.”

I smiled. “I used to go there.”

“Oh my God! You performed there, too?!” She seemed really excited by that, as if we were connected in some way. I felt sorry to let her down.

“No, I was just watching back then, but it
did
inspire me,” I told her.

“You're a writer too, right?” she asked me. I could see where she was going with that before she even started.

“It's very hard for writers to choose people to play different parts, even when we write things with certain people in mind,” I told her. I was assuming that she would ask me if I could get her a small part in a television series or something.

“I meant poetry and books,” she corrected me.

“Oh,
that
kind of writing.” She caught me off guard.

She said, “I write poetry too, and my own songs. Do you mind if I say one of my poems to you right now? I mean, I know you're busy and all, so if not, then I understand.”

“Only if you tell me your name first,” I said with a grin.

“Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Staci Madison. Staci with an
i
.”

“That's a good name,” I told her. “It sounds famous.”

“Okay, here's my poem.”

She went ahead and did a performance poem right there in the middle of the mall about her “Dark Beauty.” I was impressed. Really!

She finished it and said, “I never had a problem with being dark in my life.”

“I wouldn't either as pretty as
you
look.”

“Thank you.”

“Do guys have a problem with it?”

“No.” She said that with confidence.

I laughed out loud, imagining how many guys would fall for her.