Celebrity Chekhov (9 page)

Chapter 17
A Trilogy: The Man in a Case, Gooseberries, About Love

T
HE
M
AN IN A
C
ASE

In Northern California, almost on the border with Oregon, some men went fishing and then stayed for the night in the Moosehead Lodge. There were two of them, Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler. Jack Nicholson had been born John Joseph, a rather formal name which never suited him, and he was called simply Jack from the time he was a boy. He came fishing every year to escape the city. Adam Sandler stayed every summer at Pelican Bay, so he was thoroughly at home in the area.

They did not sleep. Jack Nicholson, a burly old fellow, was sitting outside the door, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight. Adam Sandler was lying inside on his bed, and could not be seen in the darkness.

They were telling each other all sorts of stories. Among other things, they spoke of the fact that the elder's girlfriend, a striking woman in her thirties, had never been outside of Los Angeles, had never boarded an airplane in her life, and had spent the last ten years biking from her house to yoga and the grocery store, only occasionally getting into a car.

“That is terrible but not unheard of,” said Adam Sandler. “There are people in the world who try to retreat into their shell like a hermit crab. Maybe she has her reasons. I mean, maybe she's in touch with something ancient. Maybe she's returning to the period when the ancestor of man was not yet a social animal and lived alone in his den.”

“Or maybe she likes waiting for me,” laughed Jack Nicholson. “You can understand that.”

“Who knows?” said Adam Sandler. “We're not psychologists. But people like her are not that uncommon. That's all I'm saying. I'll give you another example. Back in my early days at
Saturday Night Live,
I worked closely with Jon Lovitz. In those days, he was nothing like he is now. He was remarkable for always wearing rain boots and a warm wadded coat, and carrying an umbrella even in the very finest weather. He also kept the sleeve for the umbrella, and he had a pocket watch that he kept in a leather bag, and when he took out his keys, they were also in a little case. His face seemed to be in a case too, because he always hid it in his turned-up collar. He wore sunglasses even on overcast days and earmuffs if it was less than fifty degrees, and when he got into a cab always told the driver to turn off the air and roll up the windows. In short, the man displayed a constant impulse to wrap himself in a covering that would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation. Maybe to justify this agitation, he always did old-fashioned comedy. He spoke in a formal tone. He watched black-and-white movies. ‘Oh, no one talks like this anymore,' he would say despairingly while watching some old film noir; and as though to prove his point he would screw up his eyes and do an impression of Trevor Howard or one of those old British types. It became central to who he was as a performer. It was like his umbrellas and his rain boots, in a way.

“Jon Lovitz also tried to hide his thoughts in a case. The only things that were clear to his mind were show schedules and newspaper articles about crime, because those kinds of things helped him stay rigid and fearful. When he read an article about an attack on East Forty-first Street, say, he became clear and definite about not walking on that street at all. Whenever anyone took a risk, it made him nervous. If there had been a boat accident and I told him I was thinking of going sailing, he would shake his head and say softly:

“ ‘Sailing seems fun, I guess. I mean, I don't know. I hope it won't lead to anything!'

“Every sort of breach of order, deviation or departure from rule, depressed him. If one of the other cast members was late for rehearsal or if we heard about some other actor who was arrested for driving drunk or if he saw a guy two-timing his girlfriend, Jon Lovitz was much disturbed, and said he hoped that it wouldn't lead to anything. At rehearsals he simply oppressed us with how careful he was, and how sure he was that everyone else's carelessness would drive them into ruin.

“He hoped that everyone would settle down. He hoped that the network wouldn't find out about this scandal or that one; that the featured player who was gambling too much would get a talking-to, or that the one with a drug problem would be forced into rehab. And, do you know, by his sighs, his despondency, his downcast face, he crushed us all, and we gave way, started to see the problems in the same way he did, and eventually bounced those people from the show.

“Jon Lovitz had a strange way of visiting your apartment. He would come over, sit down, and remain silent, as though he were carefully inspecting something. He would sit like this in silence for an hour or two and then go away. This he called ‘maintaining good relations with his colleagues'; and it was obvious that coming to see us and sitting there was tiresome to him, and that he came to see us simply because he considered it his duty. We were afraid of him. Even Lorne Michaels was afraid of him. Would you believe it? We were all brave people, all young, all successful, but this little guy, with his rain boots and his umbrella, had the whole show under his thumb for years! Show? He had our lives. Our girlfriends didn't drink too much at parties for fear he'd hear of it. Under the influence of people like Jon Lovitz we got into the way of being afraid of everything. People were afraid to speak their mind, afraid to write down their thoughts, afraid to be foolish, afraid to help others . . .”

Jack Nicholson cleared his throat, meaning to say something, but first took a drag on his cigarette, gazed at the moon, and then said, with pauses:

“Yes, people can seem brave enough when you talk to them . . . but put one of those types in their midst, and they'll show their true colors soon enough . . . that's just how it is.”

“For a while, Jon Lovitz lived in the same apartment building as I did,” Adam Sandler went on, “on the same floor, in fact, down the hall from me. We often saw each other, and I knew how he lived when he was at home. And at home it was the same story: pajamas, sometimes even a little cap he wore to bed, blinds on the windows, bolts on the door, every kind of restriction you can imagine. He had dietary restrictions like you wouldn't believe. It wasn't that he was vegetarian. That would have been too easy. He had lists and lists of what he could and couldn't eat. And though there was a young assistant on the show who liked him and offered to cook meals he could eat, he was worried people would think it was inappropriate, and instead he searched until he found an older man, a Jamaican guy named Clive who had never been high. Can you imagine? A Jamaican who had never touched a joint? You'd go over there and Clive would be in the kitchen, wearing a bright white apron. Jon Lovitz would always mutter the same thing: ‘Such a small island, but there are so many of them.'

“Jon Lovitz had a little bedroom like a box; his bed had curtains. When he went to bed he covered his head over; it was hot and stuffy; there was a droning noise coming from the VCR or something and a clanking from the kitchen. He felt frightened under there. He worried about an electrical fire, or that Clive would come in and murder him, and he had troubled dreams all night, and in the morning, when we went together to work, he was depressed and tired, and it was evident that the show, with all its ego and its competition, was something he dreaded, and that even walking to work with me bothered a man of his solitary temperament.

“ ‘Everyone wants to be seen,' he used to say, as though trying to find an explanation for his depression. ‘It's sickening.'

“And then the man afraid of his VCR, this man in a case—would you believe it?—got himself a beautiful girlfriend and almost married her.”

Jack Nicholson turned slowly.

“Yeah?” he said. “Sounds unlikely.”

“That's an understatement. There was a new guy on the cast, Chris Kattan, and he had a sister, Polly. He was a short, dark young man with big eyes and hands. He looked vaguely like a monkey, and whenever there were monkeys in skits, he played them. His sister was taller, well-made, with black eyebrows and red cheeks, but she was energetic in the same way as her brother, always singing and laughing. You didn't even really have to make a joke, just cock an eyebrow at her, and she'd let loose with a ringing laugh. When Chris Kattan started with us, Lorne Michaels, who ran the show, threw a party. That was the custom. We weren't sure if Polly was Chris Kattan's friend or girlfriend, and when we found out she was his sister, she laughed that loud laugh like she was getting away with something. She was a bright light that season, and there weren't too many. She would dance crazy dances, sing songs she made up on the spot. She should have been in the cast instead of her brother. She fascinated all of us, even Jon Lovitz. He sat down by her and said with a little smile:

“ ‘Your brother reminds me of Ernst Deutsch. You know him? He was a famous German actor who played Baron Kurtz in
The Third Man
.'

“That interested her, and she began telling him that she had never seen an old movie when they were growing up, only watched television, and that since then she had started watching everything she could. She said she loved old movies from the early seventies.”

Jack Nicholson lowered his cigarette and raised his eyebrows. “Old movies from the early seventies? Are you kidding me?”

Adam Sandler held up his hand. “Wait. The rest of us watched this conversation and listened, and suddenly the same idea dawned upon us all. ‘It would be a good thing to make a match of it,' Lorne Michaels's wife, Alice, said to me softly. She remarked that not only was Jon Lovitz unmarried, but that he hadn't even had a serious girlfriend since she had known him. What was his attitude to women? How had he settled this question for himself? This had not interested us in the least till then; perhaps we had not even admitted the idea that a man who went out in all weathers in rain boots and slept under curtains could be in love. ‘He seems set in his ways, but she seems strong enough to handle it,' Alice went on, developing her idea. ‘I believe she would marry him.' The idea took hold. All sorts of things are done through boredom.”

“You're telling me,” said Jack Nicholson. “And most of them come in on two legs.”

“Right,” said Adam Sandler. “Alice was on it, and soon the other wives and girlfriends were, too, and they grew livelier and even better-looking, as though they had suddenly found a new object in life. Alice would arrange for a movie screening or a concert, and make sure the two of them—Polly and Jon Lovitz—were sitting together. Or we would throw a party and see to it that the two of them came early to help set up, or that they stayed late. She was always beaming and energetic, and he looked like he had been extracted from his house by pincers, but the machine was set in motion. We got the feeling soon enough that our efforts might not be in vain. Polly wasn't against getting herself a boyfriend or even a husband. She lived with her brother and didn't like it much; they squabbled all the time. Here's the kind of thing that happened: Chris Kattan might be coming down the street, holding a magazine. Polly would be following him, holding what seemed to be a copy of the same magazine.

“ ‘Why would you say that you want to go to one museum and get me interested and then switch at the last second to another?' she'd be saying. ‘I'm telling you, you're impossible.'

“ ‘You're the impossible one,' Chris would say, thumping his stick on the pavement. ‘I asked you a hundred times where you wanted to go and you said you didn't care.'

“ ‘Because I thought you had made up your mind.'

“ ‘Manipulative!' Chris would shout, more loudly than ever.

“At home, if there was an outsider present, there was sure to be a skirmish. Such a life must have been wearisome, and of course she must have longed for a home of her own. Besides, she wasn't a kid; as it turned out, she was four years older than Chris, and once at a party she told me that she had been to six weddings of childhood friends in the previous year. Whatever the reasons, Polly began to show an unmistakable interest in Jon Lovitz.

“And Jon Lovitz? He used to visit the Kattans just like he visited the rest of us. He would arrive, sit down, and remain silent. Polly would sing one of her made-up songs, or invent some crazy dance, or go off into a peal of laughter, but he would just sit, never speaking.

“Suggestion plays a great part in love affairs. Everybody—both his colleagues and the ladies—began telling Jon Lovitz that he ought to make a play for Polly, that there was nothing left for him in life but to get married; we all shoved him gently in that direction, usually with platitudes like, ‘Marriage is a serious step,' that we knew would appeal to his joyless nature. Besides, Polly was good-looking and interesting; she was closer to him in age than we had first thought; and what was more, she was the first woman who had been warm and friendly in her manner to him. His head was turned, and he decided that he really ought to try for her.”

“Well, at that point you ought to have taken away his rain boots and umbrella,” said Jack Nicholson. “Give the poor guy a chance, at least.” He laughed and lit another cigarette.

“He was already too far gone for that,” said Adam Sandler. “He put a picture of Polly up in his dressing room, kept coming to see me and talking about her and home life. He parroted the platitudes back at us. ‘Marriage is a serious step,' he liked to say. He was frequently at the Kattans', but he didn't alter his manner of life in the least. Indeed, his determination to consider Polly seriously seemed to have a depressing effect on him. He grew paler and quieter, and seemed to retreat further and further into his case.

“ ‘I like Polly Kattan,' he used to say to me, with a faint and wry smile, ‘and I know that everyone ought to get married, but all this has happened so suddenly. I need to weigh the duties, the risks and responsibilities. If I do this, it has to be perfect, with no loose ends, with nothing wrong. It worries me so much that I don't sleep at night. And I must confess I am afraid: her brother and she have a strange way of thinking; they look at things strangely, you know, and she's impetuous, at least. What if we get involved and we get married and then I find myself in an unpleasant position?'