Actors Anonymous (15 page)

[They sit in silence.]

VANCE:
You get much pussy back there?

JERRY:
Hungh?

VANCE:
Pussy. You get much. You clip it often?

JERRY:
Oh, uhh… no.

VANCE:
No? I love pussy. Actually, no, I love ass. I don’t do it in the pussy no more. Not since I was a kid. You ever do it in the ass? With a girl I mean?… You should try that shit. Totally psychological. Like they’re just letting you in, you know what I’m saying? Not that I’m totally into a power struggle, I just like to know that they would let me in there, in that superprivate place. You know? The dark hole. You can get lost in there.

JERRY:
You see that accident?

VANCE:
Yup.

JERRY:
Maybe we should stop.

VANCE:
Yeah, and pick up another winner like you.

JERRY:
I’m just saying maybe they’re hurt.

VANCE:
They have cell phones. It’s the modern age. Everyone has cell phones.

JERRY:
Well maybe we should at least call.

VANCE:
Go ahead.

JERRY:
I don’t have a cell phone.

VANCE:
Well, neither do I.

[Silence.]

VANCE:
So,
you don’t like anal, huh?

JERRY:
No.

VANCE:
No? You crazy? I bet you never done it. I can tell. At least I know you haven’t done it with a girl… Are you gay?

JERRY:
No.

VANCE:
You half a fag?

JERRY:
What?

VANCE:
It’s okay. I got no problem with that. I mean ain’t nothing gonna happen with us, you know what I’m sayin’? That’s not why I picked you up. I’m just sayin’ if you’re half gay and like putting it in other men’s assholes that’s okay with me. I gotta lotta friends who are half fags. Ha ha.

JERRY:
I think you should have stopped for those people.

VANCE:
People? What the fuck you talking about, kid?

JERRY:
Those people. They looked like they were in bad shape.

VANCE:
You kidding me? I ain’t going back there. I’m already late because of your ass. If you want get out and run back there it’s fine with me, I’ll slow down to ten miles per hour for ya.

JERRY
[to self]
: What the fuck? Crazy man.

VANCE:
Crazy man? What, are you talking to yourself? Crazy?

JERRY:
I think you’re crazy. I think you’re a fucking asshole.

VANCE
[laughs]

JERRY:
I mean who talks about anal sex to a total stranger? I mean what the heck? I don’t want to hear about it, all right? And now you’re just driving off and leaving those people back there! Where are you going that it’s so important?

VANCE:
You want to know?

JERRY:
Yes.

VANCE:
To beat on a guy.

JERRY:
What?

VANCE:
To punish this fucker for raping this guy’s daughter.

JERRY:
What?

VANCE:
You know, rape? This frat boy faggot raped this girl so I’m gonna go punish him for it.

JERRY:
What are you going to do?

VANCE:
Beat him. Beat him with a pipe. Beat him till he’s out. Maybe stick it up his ass.

JERRY:
Are you serious?

VANCE:
Yeah, why not? You think that guy deserves less?

JERRY:
…
Well, are you sure he raped her?

VANCE:
No. I just do what the guy tells me. If Dad says frat fag raped her, then he raped her.

Ext. Café—Day

VANCE
sits with
SAUL,
a middle-aged man.
SAUL
is nervous and
VANCE
is his regular self.

VANCE:
So you liked it.

SAUL:
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I liked it.

VANCE:
So it was like the best script you’ve ever read.

SAUL:
Well, that’s a tall order. I mean I’ve read a lot of scripts.

VANCE:
Yeah, but nothing like this. I mean honestly, name me one script you’ve read that’s better.

SAUL:
Well, in school we read
Chinatown,
so I guess technically I couldn’t say it’s the best script I’ve ever read.

VANCE:
Okay, so second best.

SAUL:
Well, we read
Casablanca
too. And
Citizen Kane
and…

VANCE:
Okay, okay, so besides
Chinatown
and
Casablanca
and all that shit, it’s pretty much the best script you’ve ever read.

SAUL:
Well… it was very real.

VANCE:
That’s right, very real, very real. That’s because it’s my life. That’s my life, sucka. Can you believe it?

SAUL:
No, it’s actually quite scary.

VANCE:
It’s not all real, I don’t want to lie to ya. I mean, I didn’t actually take down five cops like that with my bare hands, but the bit about getting sober is all real, of course…

SAUL:
Of course.

VANCE:
And when I slapped the shit out of my sister for dating that fucking Chinese motherfucker. And then how I slapped the shit out of his Peking duck ass and made him chew dog shit on our front lawn, that was all real.

SAUL:
Wow.

VANCE:
Oh that’s nothing. I mean that was just kiddie shit. That script is just my twenties and thirties before I got sober. I’m thinking about writing a sequel for the sober years.

SAUL:
You got worse when you got sober?

VANCE:
Oh, hell yeah. That’s when I really got into the cocaine smuggling thing in Florida. It was great, pre-9/11, we just smuggled that shit in through FedEx. I had this Brazilian buddy that was in with all the dealers
over there; heh heh, they were all surfers. It was good times. That’s when I met you, you know, before I went back to New York.

SAUL:
I had no idea you were doing that when you were sober.

VANCE:
Oh man, you had to have known, at least after we got caught. I came and made an amends to the meeting and everything. I mean I felt bad because I was acting like I was living a spiritual life but I guess really I wasn’t.

SAUL:
I guess I wasn’t going to meetings for a while because I missed it.

VANCE:
Yeah, everyone at the meeting was shocked, then they just ragged me about it. I turned state’s witness on all those fuckers I was with, and had to set up a few sting operations for the cops, but then they let me get out of town for a while.

SAUL:
So you snitched on your friends?

VANCE:
On my brother.

SAUL:
Your own brother?

VANCE:
Yeah, I had to.

SAUL:
Well, are you going to snitch on me?

VANCE:
For what?

SAUL:
For this thing.

VANCE:
What? Oh
this
thing? Fuck no.

SAUL:
Why not? I mean you snitched on your own…

VANCE:
First of all, don’t say
snitch,
it just, it just sounds silly. Second, I ain’t going to say anything to anyone about this.

SAUL:
But what if you get caught?

VANCE:
Brother, listen, this shit is such small potatoes even if I did get caught the police wouldn’t do shit.

SAUL:
Vance, I mean you have a record… this kid is probably very rich…

VANCE:
Listen, buddy, I ain’t gonna rat you out, okay?

SAUL:
You did it to your brother.

VANCE:
Yeah, but he wasn’t going to finance my movie, was he? I mean why would I turn you in and shoot us both in the foot like that? I’ll tell you the truth, I’d rather go to jail for you if it came down to it. I mean that would be worth getting my film made. I mean I would, I would actually walk myself into prison if I knew that would get my movie made.

SAUL:
Okay, Vance, but that wasn’t part of the deal. When Joe Donuts said that you would come do this thing for me it never involved me trying to get financing for your movie.

VANCE:
I know that. Sheee-it. Of course not. That’s what I get the two grand for. No, we’re just talking about the script because you seemed to respond to the idea when I brought it up on the phone, and you were the one who said “I’d love to read it sometime,” I didn’t push it on you. You were the one who said he wanted to read it and now since you’ve read it and loved it and thought it was the best script that you’ve ever read I figured that you would just be dying to make it.

SAUL:
Well, we’ll see. It’s a complicated process.

VANCE:
Sure, sure, I understand. Of course. But you’ll make it happen right?

SAUL:
Well… We’ll see, I don’t know, but we’ll see.

STEP 11

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Great Director, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry out his direction.

McDonald’s II

A
FTER TWO MONTHS AT
M
C
D
ONALD
’
S,
things got into a routine. I worked nights from 9 till 2 in the morning. I would spend most of my days hanging out with my sobriety sponsor, Sonny. We’d watch old movies at his place or I would watch newer movies at my parents’ place. Sometimes I would work out with weights in their garage.

The acting thing was growing on me too. Now that I wasn’t using heroin, I thought about things that I wanted to do with my life. Acting and marriage seemed like good goals. I didn’t know where to start with either of them but I thought about them a lot. I was twenty-seven and my time was running out.

I didn’t feel like using heroin. There was a lot to live for. For extra money, I kept the handjob thing going with Juan. He could only afford to pay me the twenty-five bucks a week, but that was good
enough for cigarettes. On payday, we’d go back to the bathroom and do it. But then, after the third time, he asked me to return the favor. But I told him he would then have to pay me
thirty
-five bucks. The next week he had thirty-five, so I did it.

We used the same position that we used when he would do it to me. I put my chest up against his and my cheek against his cheek so I wouldn’t have to look at him. When he had done it to me I would close my eyes, but when I did it to him I kept my eyes open. I didn’t want to imagine anything. I stared at the drawings on the stall wall. It seems like the same guy drew all the pictures in all the bathrooms in all the world. Sea slug dicks, and beanbag tits with perky nipples, and piggy asses. The drawings made me think of the church camps I went to when I was young, back when the pictures depicted things I hadn’t done yet. While I worked on Juan, I stared at them and thought about childhood. Juan whispered in my ear, “Jesús. Jesús, Jesús. Shit, fuck, Jesús.”

His belly pressed against my stomach; it was like a waterbed. Then when he came, it moved in quick spasms and jiggled all over me. The cum shot against the wall and we left it there.