Middle Men (10 page)

Adam took his place in the audience and clapped mechanically for Hobbs, who bounced up onstage.

“What's up!” he shouted, and from there he gave a blow-by-blow account of his recent audition for a webisode of
Smallville
. Adam tried to be attentive and respectful, but he had collapsed in on himself and after a while he didn't hear a word Hobbs said. He got up quietly and went to the bar, where Frankie bought him a beer.

“
Mein Kampf
,” whispered Frankie, smiling and giving Adam a big thumbs-up.

“Thanks, man.”

Adam finished his drink and left in a sulky mood. He felt guilty not staying for the people who had endured his set, but not that guilty, because solidarity was not a watchword among these people.

Driving home, he couldn't see the city. He could only see himself, from the perspective of the audience, witnessing his every weak-minded pause, his every false gesture. He had been putting himself through this for almost two years and he had nothing to show for it. No agent, no booked gigs, nothing. He thought of all the people who had been regulars at El Goof when he first started going, how he would suddenly notice, after a few weeks, that they were no longer there. At some point they had vanished, melting back into the general population. He felt sorry for these people, especially the ones who actually had talent, but after a bad night onstage he often wondered if there wasn't something deeply satisfying in their decision. At times he craved the sweet tantalizing oblivion of giving up. His favorite word in the English language was
“stick-to-it-iveness,” but the longer he hung around, the more he felt the enormity of his delusion. A voice in his head kept taunting him with the old gambling adage—
if you can't spot the sucker at the table, it's you
—which seemed like an intensely American piece of wisdom. He always figured that being aware of his own suckerhood would somehow redeem him from it, but now he wasn't so sure. He was waiting for something to click. In books and interviews all of his comic heroes had described a moment onstage when, after stumbling for many years, they suddenly, and oftentimes inadvertently, became themselves. Now and then he touched the contours of his own personality, the one that seemed to entertain his family and friends; but most of the time he felt totally disembodied. The words coming out of his mouth seemed like they could've been coming out of anyone's mouth. He was desperate to become who he was, to not care what others were thinking, to dissolve the world around him. He decided that this elusive state of being demanded either total humility or total narcissism. Right now Adam existed in a no-man's-land between the two.

He spent the weekend trying to forget the disappointment of Friday night. He Swiffered his studio apartment in Mar Vista, and then sat down on his futon with a fresh notepad and tried to work on some new bits. He hated topical humor, and the heady, off-kilter stuff wasn't working either, so he tried to think of things from his own life that might be used for material. After a while he remembered an incident from his days as a gas station attendant. One afternoon, as he stood by the pumps, with a squeegee in his hand, a man in a BMW handed him twenty bucks for gas and said, “Why don't they just train a monkey to do your job?” Adam didn't have a comeback then, and he didn't have one now. It was just
another random moment of humiliation. He put his notepad down, opened a beer, and proceeded to watch six hours of
The X-Files
on DVD. Saturday seemed to drag along, and then, on Sunday evening, something strange happened. Around six o'clock, as the light was fading, he noticed a distinct lack of dread for the coming week. Instead of wallowing in regret for having accomplished nothing in his life—his favorite Sunday pastime—he was actually looking forward to getting up in the morning and going to the studio. For the first time, his
job
felt like the escape.

•  •  •

It was a quiet week, with no tapings scheduled. Adam ran his normal errands, zipping around the lot in his Benz. One section of the studio featured a fabricated Main Street, with shops and a town square. The old-timey buildings, once facades, were now used as administrative offices. Adam liked to eat lunch in a little courtyard just off Main Street. Most of the casting offices/eugenics labs were here, providing uncanny thrills. On Tuesday, Adam watched an anxious group of teenage girls, all blond, standing in line outside one office, clutching their headshots. On the landing above, a dozen thirtysomething brunettes were striding into another office.

“Adam,” said a voice.

He looked up and saw the guy he used to temp with. “Hey,” he said, hoping that would be enough.

The guy was nicely dressed in crisp slacks and a collared shirt. Adam didn't have to dress like that anymore, now that he was full-time. He wore jeans and a T-shirt to work. The guy said he was now temping in corporate, in the clearance department, whatever that was.

“If you guys have another ticket promotion,” he said, “maybe you could get me in there.”

“Sure,” said Adam. “Maybe.”

“Do you have my email?”

“I think so.”

“Great. Let me know.”

“Sure. I mean, there's probably nothing I can do,” said Adam. “But still. Yeah.”

After lunch, Melanie called Adam into her office and handed him a thick white manila envelope.

“This needs to go to Max's house,” she said.

“Do you want me to call the studio messenger?”

“No, Max doesn't trust them. You need to drive it to his house.” She wrote down the address. “There's no gate. Just ring the doorbell.”

“What is this?”

“Paperwork for one of his charities.”

Adam read the seal on the envelope. “What's the St. Maurice Foundation?”

“It provides assistance to Walloon-Americans affected by Katrina.”

Adam laughed, but Melanie looked serious. On a bookshelf behind her there was an autographed picture of Robert Fox worth.

“He stuck me on the board of directors so I have deal with it,” she said. “Have Max sign these and bring them back. Tell him if he has any questions he can call me. And make sure you take down your mileage. We give you thirty cents per mile.”

“Cha-ching.”

“Yes, cha-ching. Hopefully, you'll get there before Max's afternoon jog. Go.”

Driving north into the Hollywood hills, Adam saw Max twice, in billboard form. He crossed Sunset and gunned his gray Saturn along the shady curves of Laurel Canyon. He turned left at some point and drove for a few miles along a barren ridge. He had envisioned Max living in a baronial manor, his sprawling grounds lush with topiary and crisscrossed by wayward stags, but the ridge just became more and more narrow and the houses lining the road were increasingly modern-looking. Hanging above the dusty canyon, they didn't occupy any land, really, just empty space. Adam reached the address. The view of the house from the road consisted almost entirely of the garage. It was a fancy, modern-looking garage, charcoal-gray with a door that was white and opaque, like a pearl. Next to the garage there was a smaller pearl-white door, and Adam took this to be the front entrance. He walked down concrete steps, past a concrete planter overflowing with star jasmine, and pushed a silver button. A few seconds later Max opened the door wearing dark blue running shorts and a teal tank top. He was barefoot.

“Are you a messenger?”

“No.”

“I don't deal with studio messengers.”

“I'm not a messenger.”

“Liars and cowards. All of them.”

“I'm Adam, the new P.A. Melanie sent me.”

“Good.” He put out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Once again, Adam was impressed by his grip. He handed Max the envelope.

“Wait here,” said Max, and he closed the door. Then it quickly reopened. “Actually, come in. I need your help.”

Adam took a step forward, but Max put a hand on his chest and pushed him back with force.

“Take off your shoes.”

Adam put his Chuck Taylors on a metal rack just inside the door and followed Max into the house. Steps of polished wood led down to a bright and sparsely decorated living room. A sleek sectional couch, gray with burgundy throw pillows, was placed in the middle of the room, facing a glass coffee table and a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that offered stunning views of the canyon. Behind the couch there were two metal bookshelves packed with thick hardcovers from the sixties and seventies, their plastic spines gleaming in the sunlight. The walls were white and empty, except for Godfrey de Bouillon's coat of arms. Adam was struck by the contrast between the medieval tapestry and the house's modern design. It seemed just right. He tried out a couple vague architectural terms in his head: Modular? Orthogonal?

“This is great,” said Adam.

Max turned around, looking slightly confused, as if he weren't sure who was talking. “What?”

“Your house is beautiful.”

Max nodded and made a quick slicing motion with his hand. “Clean lines. That's what I wanted.
Clean lines
. Have you heard of the painter Paul Delvaux?”

“No.”

“Nobody has. Which pains me. His grandnephew designed this house. Based on my own imaginings.”

Max turned the corner into the kitchen and sat down at a small alcove desk, which had another framed photo of Max and the German shepherd. Max opened the envelope, spread out the papers, and started signing them. For a while he seemed to forget about Adam, who leaned casually against the granite countertops; but then, catching himself, he stood up
straight, trying to look attentive and respectful. He could see a ghost of himself faintly shadowed in the stainless steel refrigerator. At his feet were five or six grocery bags full of empty soda cans, all of them Diet Rite. Behind Max the glass slider was open, letting in a breeze that brought tidings of a dead skunk somewhere in the canyon. Outside there was a large cast-iron table on the balcony, but next to it only one chair. Adam kept waiting for someone to join them from another room, a wife, a child, a maid, but the house was quiet. Max was alone here, prospering in the eerie stillness of a Tuesday afternoon.

Adam looked at his watch and wondered how long he would have to wait. He couldn't decide if this felt like a privilege or a chore. It was fun standing in the kitchen of a famous man, but he worried that, even just standing there, he was doing something wrong. It was probably rude, he thought, not asking Max more questions about himself. He couldn't think of anything to ask, so he continued to stand there, stiff and mute. Max quietly examined every page, reading the fine print, making checkmarks; but then, suddenly, he raised his head and grabbed a spiral notebook that was sitting on the desk next to his charity documents.

“You mean this?” said Max.

“What?” said Adam. “I didn't say anything—”

“Just a bit of
divertissement
,” said Max, shrugging. He stood up. “Do you know who Ravaillac was?”

“No.”

“He was an assassin. He killed Henry IV of Navarre, which helped precipitate the Thirty Years' War. Of course, this had a lasting effect on the Low Countries, both good and bad.” Max opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Diet Rite. “Do you want one?”

“Sure.”

Max closed the refrigerator, opened his soda, and leaned against the counter. Adam wasn't sure if Max had heard him or if he was supposed to just grab his own soda. He decided to stay put.

“I'm addicted to the stuff,” Max said. “I know it's a big joke at the office. They think I don't know, but I know.” Max took a long gulp of his soda and wiped his mouth. “Now, we're talking about a fascinating moment in history. Dueling monarchies, religious turmoil, it was all happening. And into the middle of it stepped a frothing lunatic named Ravaillac.”

He paused for another gulp, and then said, “Am I writing a book? Yes, of course, but sometimes I think, why bother? Who would read it? A few specialists maybe, but so what?”

Max crushed the empty can, tossed it into one of the grocery bags, and for the next hour he set the scene in seventeenth century Europe, describing the lineage of all the major players and their subsequent territorial disputes. Adam dimly followed the action. The Hapsburgs were involved and, apparently, so was the Margrave of Brandenburg. Henry IV, the King of France, sent a cipher to somebody—Gustavus Adolphus?—saying he was planning war against the Hapsburgs. But Hapsburg agents intercepted the cipher, decoded it, and made plans to assassinate him. The phone rang, but Max, on a roll, didn't seem to hear it. As he flipped through his notebook to double-check something, Adam marveled at his small and intricate handwriting. The margins were filled with notes and each page was richly adorned with umlauts and cedillas.

“On the afternoon of May 14, 1610, Henry was riding along the Rue Saint-Honoré in his coach—while the grand machinery of an enemy kingdom was plotting his demise, and
while his own army was planning a massive strike—when, out of nowhere, Ravaillac, a complete nonentity, who had absolutely nothing to do with the Hapsburg plot, jumped into the coach and stabbed the king to death with his rapier!”

Max burst out laughing. Adam started to laugh too, but the phone rang again and Max's eyes narrowed in annoyance. He put down his notebook and handed Adam the papers he had signed. “The recycling,” he said, snapping his fingers at the bags. “Help me bring them out to the bins. Otherwise it's ant city in here.”

Adam picked up half the bags and Max sat down at the desk.

“Through there,” he said, pointing. “Open the garage and drag the bins to the end of the driveway.” He picked up the phone. “What the fuck do you want, Joanne? It's two in the afternoon.”

The smell of skunk was especially strong in the garage, which was vacant except for the trash and recycling bins. Adam, in his argyle socks, couldn't see a single drop of oil on the cement slab. He dumped the bags and went back to the kitchen for the rest. Max was pacing back and forth, holding the portable phone to his ear.