Hollywood Ass. (17 page)

“So what should we do? Good cop, bad cop? Or we both try to be as gentle with him as possible?” Cesar was “working” from that day (another perk of his new job) and was definitely more into this than any kind of work task he was supposed to do. He had realized my life could provide plenty of entertainment.

“I'll help you with that,” I said and helped him tie a classic Windsor knot. He was looking pretty dapper for a guy who a few days before could have been mistaken for a Rastafarian albino baby.

“I'm getting more and more handsome by the day!” Cesar exclaimed as he was eyeing his new, polished look in the mirror. “What was I doing to myself before? I could have been on that show - How Do I Look.”

“Yeah, I should have tried to get you on it. And the first thing they would have thrown away are those jeans you just stepped out of. Aren't those the same goddamn ugly ones you had at university?”

“Don’t be mean now. I know your heart is breaking and all, but those are my favorite pants dude, my lucky pants.”

“How can they be lucky pants when you never got lucky
in
them?” I said, looking at the washed out heap of holes and stains, but Cesar didn't reply, he was too busy studying his features. Without the massive locks of hair, you could actually see them. He was right that I wasn’t in my best mood, those pictures of
B
and Matteo were still at the center of my being, but I tried my best to focus on the task at hand.

“Where are we meeting the kid? I’m hungry.”

“Bar Pitti.”

“They got some great sandwiches there.” Cesar said and adjusted his tie one more time, then he turned to me and gave me a serious look, “So what’s the news on your love? You told me the cameras caught her last night?”

“Well, the news is that it’s news and it looks pretty bad. It’s all over the Internet.”

“I know it might hurt, but doesn’t that make it easier for you to move on? Let’s face it, she doesn’t seem to be a person you
want
to be in love with.”

I didn’t know what to tell Cesar. You didn’t choose who to fall in love with, you just fell. A part of me of course wanted to move on, let go of
B
and her crazy life, and one part couldn’t because I cared for her too much.

I was in limbo.

“You know what?” Cesar said, sensing I was in no mood to talk about it, “let’s make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to start our appetites.”

Cesar snobby?
Fuhgeddaboutit.

***

We were at an outside table at Bar Pitti, the sun was shining and it was too hot to wear a suit. I didn’t feel like taking my jacket off though, because I had collected two onion ring-sized sweat stains under the armpits of my light blue shirt, so I left it on. I prayed that everything would go smooth and fast so I could go back to pondering my bleak future.

“Can that be the guy?” I turned around and saw a Latino-looking guy in big jeans, white t-shirt and some kind of puffy west. As a matching touch he wore a few gold chains around his neck, a Jay-Z style Knicks cap, a black leather Adidas shoulder bag and fake diamond studs in his ears. I couldn’t spot any tattoos, but I’m sure they were there somewhere.

But just when I was going to walk up and reach out my hand, the guy strode past the restaurant with confident steps.

“I could have sworn that was him,” I said to Cesar.

“Just because you wear gold chains and a Knicks cap doesn’t mean you’re a rapper. You’re quite stereotyping for a black dude, Darryl.”

“Shut your hole, albino boy,” I said and looked at the crowd passing by our table. It was five to five, which meant the guy was soon going to be late and there was no fashionable way to be late when you were trying to score a record deal.

After two more minutes of nervous waiting, a tidy-looking guy in a white shirt and a navy pullover came up to Cesar and asked whether we had a meeting with Luís. The guy looked more like an Ivy League college boy than a rapper, so I thought maybe it was one of Luís friends, the “Carlton” of his entourage. But I of course stereotyped wrongly again, because the elegant young man with short hair and glasses was indeed Jorge’s son. This raised my hopes when it came to relating to the guy.

The confident Cesar took the lead, “We sure are. And you must be Luís,” he said. They shook hands. Luís sat down opposite us and put his leather laptop bag on the wooden table. “Eatin’ or drinkin’?” he said.

“Drinking, but order some food if you want, it’s on us.” Cesar said, like he’s been playing this part all his life
and
was paying.

“Sweeeet,” Luis said and scanned the menu.

“So you’re quite a musician I hear?” I said, trying to sound in control.

“Artist.”

“Artist. What music do you make? Did you bring a sample?”

“I’m in R&B, hip-hop, I sing, rap and dance. I got you some songs to check out.”

Luís unclasped his brown bag and brought out an iPad, which he started clicking around on, “I made this video with a friend of mine, he’s an independent film producer, B-reel. I hope you dig it.” He handed us the gold-black headphones he was wearing around his neck and the iPad.

“Order two beers and I’ll listen first, okay?” Cesar said to me and put on the headphones.

I waved to the waiter, ordered two Heineken and looked at Luís who replied: “I’ll have the Toscano panini and a fresh grapefruit juice.”

“You don’t want a beer?” I asked him.

“I’m 19, dude. I ain’t breaking no law.”

I chuckled nervously. I completely forgot we were dealing with an underage person.

“What’s the name of the song?” I looked over at Cesar who was in deep concentration, like he was trying to count the pixels on the screen or something. He should have been an actor, not a computer programmer.

“Bornastar. It’s about the feeling that you just know, you know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re destined for greater things. That God has put some bigger plan in your hands.”

Yeez!
I don’t remember ever feeling this good about myself, especially not when I was 19 years old, but my second reaction was that Luís might have just the right amount of arrogance to go places.

While Cesar was listening to the song, my phone rang again. It had been one of those days with endless requests for communication. Not a single one of them uplifting.

“Hello?” I said as I rose from our table.

“Did you know about this?” I didn’t recognize the voice at first, but it soon hit me - it was
A
and he didn’t sound happy.

“What do you mean?” I said as a reflex, while I walked a few steps away from the table in an effort to find a quiet spot on the street.

“Don’t bullshit me, Darryl. You know what I’m talking about. The Italian guy she went to dinner with last night. I’ve been wanting to ask her about it, but she’s not picking up the fucking phone!”

When I said he didn’t sound happy, I meant he sounded furious.

The first question that came to my head was whether I should try to save her ass? Did she really deserve it? In the end I thought: yes. “He’s a friend of hers and he’s actually both gay and harmless. I met him in Rome.”
Why do you worry anyway?
I thought to myself,
you’re the one filing for divorce.

“It’s your job to tell me these things! I was having second thoughts for a minute or two and then I saw this shit. If she’s been cheating on me I’m going to make this divorce a living hell for her. And if you know something and you’re not telling me, then you’re going to be in trouble as well, I promise you that.”

I could feel my heart pounding, I had never been threatened or spoken to like that by
A
before and with
B
recently having called me a worthless amoeba, my share price as a celebrity assistant was falling rapidly.

“I promise you this is nothing to be worked up about, it’s just gossip. You know how these so called journalists work. Focus on your movie and I’ll see to it that she calls you as soon as she can.” I don’t know why I said this, because I was putting myself in all kinds of possible trouble, but I’d been caught off guard and way outside my comfortable lying zone.

When I got back to the table I found Cesar and Luís talking animatedly and sounding almost like old buddies. “Sorry, business call,” I said and held up my phone.

“This guy is amazing!” Cesar said with a grin as wide as his face, “Just wait until you hear this.” He put the iPad and headphones in front me. I sat down and opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t in the plan to encourage the kid, we were supposed to shoot him down gently. I gave Cesar an angry stare, which he of course didn’t register, then I sighed and put on the headphones. The situation had spun out of control and there was nothing to do but listen to Luís song and then hopefully figure something out.

The video player started and at first the screen was pitch black. Then a spotlight was turned on and a muted bass beat started thumping in the background. A few seconds later another spotlight came on and a muted piano began clinking a looping melody. It was all surprisingly nicely produced, but I guess Jorge’s talk had lowered my expectations a great deal.

After the fifth and last spotlight had been switched on, a man walked out of the darkness and into the light, wearing a red hoodie, a pair of beat-up jeans and a big, red, oversized baseball cap. This was Luís of course. He opened his mouth and let out a soft wailing sound and although I was prepared
not
to like it (I kind of wanted not to like it) - I did. Only 30 seconds into the song even a layman such as myself could see that the guy had talent.

“...
and aiiiaiiiiaiiiiijjjjj
...am born a star.” was how, about four minutes later, the song ended. I was speechless. Luís had just blown me away and I had no idea how to react. I had promised his father to dismiss him gently, but how could I do that after what I’d just seen?

I nodded my head in silence, returned Luís’ iPad to him, and looked over at Cesar who seemed eager to hear something.

“Well?” he said and looked at me.

“Fantastic,” I stumbled out.

Then Cesar turned to Luís: “Young man,” he said, “I think I can speak for both of us when I say I'm very impressed by this performance. You sure have a special talent and I think we can help you exploit it.” Cesar's voice was unwavering, determined and believable. For anyone except for yours truly, who depended on what he was going to say.

“We can obviously not
promise
anything here,” I said in a hurry, “the competition is extremely tough and there’s a lot of young talent like yourself out there. But I agree with my partner that this was a powerful performance.”

Cesar didn’t seem to hear me, “Is this on Youtube? Or do you have a plan to upload it?”

I could see that the kid, who had just finished his sandwich, was actually quite ecstatic and surprised by our praise for his song. He had this smirk on his face which seemed impossible to suppress: “I have thought of doing it, but when my father told me about this opportunity I wanted to show it to you first. You’re kind of the first people to see it. Do you think I should put it out there?”

Cesar was fast and answered like he’d gotten this question many times before, “I would advice you to wait with that, I'm going to check some contacts first, think about our possibilities and we'll get back to you.”

I had no idea what Cesar was talking about and neither did he. Still he kept on talking.

“Would it be possible for you to e-mail or dropbox us this clip?”

“Sure! I’ll do it straight away,” Luís said, enthusiastically. Cesar then gave him the fake e-mail address he had created for this purpose, which would redirect straight into his own Gmail account. I witnessed this in confusion, but was powerless to stop it.

“As I understood it, you're planning on participating in American Idol?” Cesar the fake music company CEO said, looking as serious as ever.

“Yeah, I thought it could get the name out, open up possibilities, stuff like that.”

Cesar lowered his voice, “Again, I think you should take it easy, let’s see what we can work on first. I’m sure we can set up something for you.”

“Sounds good,” Luis said, but I'm sure he would have agreed to pretty much anything at this stage, that's how excited he was.

“Great. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can,” Cesar said and casually asked the waiter for the bill. I looked over at Luís, who had dollar signs in his eyes. I bet he couldn’t wait to tell his friends about this amazingly positive meeting with the powerful music execs.

We all shook hands and said bye to the artist formerly known as Jorge’s son and when the kid was out of hearsay, I gave Cesar a stern look and said: “Now what the fuck was that about? Do you want to pump the guy up to make his fall harder or what? Did you completely forget what the plan was?”

“
Au contraire
, my dear Watson, I just had a severe epiphany when I listened to his stuff - this guy is really talented! He has definitely got the potential and
you
're going to help him become a star.”

“What?”

Cesar's eyes were the size of Ping-Pong balls, which made me wonder if he had snorted something prior to the meeting, “Don't you see it? This can be your big break! Your chance to wrestle your sorry self free from your assistant lifestyle and do something different, something fun and possibly
huge
!”

Somewhere in the back of my mind I appreciated my friend trying to know what was best for me and my so called career, but at this stage it was becoming too much to handle. “How could I be an agent for this kid? It would be detrimental to both of us. Besides, I’m feeling really bad going against his father’s wish.”

Cesar finished his pint and started rubbing his scalp again. I didn’t care if it was just a nervous twitch or a hint of nostalgia, it was pretty annoying. But it turned out Cesar was even more annoyed with me and my outlook on things, “Just listen to you! You're such a wimp! Take some risks for once, will you? You told me about this guy Barry, big shot in music - how lucky you are to have a contact like that! And what a fucking coincidence! Give him a call, set up a meeting, show him what you’ve got. Being an agent to a young music prodigy sounds a helluva lot sexier and lucrative than being an assistant to some crazy actress.”