Easy Street (the Hard Way): A Memoir (20 page)

I made sure Opal was out of the house and on a business trip. My planning took a few weeks. I knew exactly how I was going to do it: I didn’t want to make too much of a mess. There was gonna be no blood, no drama. There was just going to be, “Now you see me, now you don’t.” That’s what it was going to be.

So I did it. And it was over. Or so I thought. About twenty-four hours later I woke up. I was groggy; zoned out to the point at which I couldn’t put a sentence together for the next couple of days. But I was semifunctional, and as these drugs and shit that I took began to wear off slowly but surely, I realized, “Okay, I fucked up. I didn’t make it.” I thought I did all the right stuff, left no room for error, but something happened. And this perfect, flawless plan was thwarted. As if some force rebuked me and said, “Not yet. You’re not going anywhere.”

The only reason I could have made it, after the amount of pills and alcohol and shit I took, was that somebody or something decided it wasn’t my time. It certainly wasn’t me making that call. It was something external. And when you’re infused with the presence of this positive external force, which is so much greater than all of your efforts to the contrary, that’s about as empowering a moment as you can have in your life.

These days we have a plethora of drugs one can take to ameliorate the intensity of this lack of hope, lack of direction, lack of choice. So fuck it and don’t be embarrassed or feel like you can handle it yourself, because lemme tell ya something: you can’t. Get fuckin’ help. The negative demon is strong, and you may not be as fortunate as I was. My brother wasn’t.

For me, despair eventually gave way to resolve, and resolve gave way to hope, and hope gave way to “Holy shit. I feel better than I’ve ever felt right now.” Having actually gone right up to the white light, looked right at it, and some force in the universe turned me around, I found, with apologies to Mr. Dylan,
my direction home
. I felt more alive than I’ve ever felt. I’m not exaggerating when I say for the next six months I felt like Superman. Like I’m gonna fucking go through walls. That’s how strong I felt. I had this positive force in me. I was saved. I was protected. I was like the only guy who survived and walked away from a major plane crash. I was here to do something big. What started as the darkest moment in my life became this surge of focus, direction, energy, and empowerment.

I wanted to change everything, and the first thing I thought of was to try to find a way to make some dough to pay the rent, ’cuz selling handbags just wasn’t cutting it. I saw this TV commercial for Fugazy Continental, one of the early limo companies in New York City, advertising for drivers. Part of what they were advertising was that if you come work for them, you can be an owner/operator, setting your own hours and making the dough of your dreams. They were trying to recruit a lot of guys to jump on board and pay them a very, very hefty fee in order to have access to the amazing opportunities that being a part of Fugazy Continental entailed, or so the commercial said. I needed a job that let me set my own hours so I could continue with auditions, so I finagled my way into the company without paying anything. I was hired as an independent and was paid per fare. I had a fuckin’ chauffer uniform, a hat, and the whole fuckin’ get-up.

I worked for them for about a week before I realized I hated working during the day, so I said, “Can I get the car for twenty-four hours a day, and I’ll bring in a second guy. He’ll be my day guy, and I’ll do the night?” That was when I lured my friend Nameer El-Kadi, who was the second lead in
Quest for Fire
, into joining me. And so it went, me and Nameer. Ya got the two leads in the greatest caveman movie of the last six months in our new roles as chauffeurs for this fuckin’
limo company. Fuck it, though, we made the best of it, and the money they said they’d pay didn’t seem bad. You drove around all types of money people, some celebs, some politicos. I was okay at it, treating it as though it were a part in a movie. Speaking of which . . .

One day I got an assignment to pick up some guy and his secretary someplace in Midtown and take him to the American Bar Association on the Upper East Side. So he got in the car—very sweet older fellow, very well mannered, very warm—and began to tell me what a thrill it is for him at his ripe old age to be treated to his first limo ride. Turned out this guy was a distinguished New York magistrate, beloved by all in the industry, and that night all his peers would be honoring him. Very exciting. And a limo to boot.

So I said to him, “Yeah, I kinda know what you mean. I just took my first limo ride a few months ago.”

“Oh really? What was the occasion?” And when I told him I had starred in a movie he leaned forward and looked at me closer. “Wait a minute . . . were you in
Quest for Fire?”

“Yeah. You really recognize me from that?” He said he knew something was weird about me the minute he stepped in the car but only finally put his finger on it. So then he said, “What’s a movie star doing driving a limo?” And I told him how things don’t always work out the way ya thought they might but how much I loved being in a limo too. So when money got tight I figured, “What the hell? I’ll drive a limo. It can’t be that much different in the front than it is in the back. You know, one year you’re in the back, the next you’re in the front. And that, my friend, is America to me!” The judge laughed his fuckin’ ass off. When he got out he tried to give me a tip, not knowing the protocol. “Thanks, Judge, but keep it. This was the best ride I had all month!”

So I did that for about a month when the first check came in that was supposed to pay for the first weeks’ fares. The dollar amount seemed off. I did the math, and it seemed like I worked my ass off. I felt like I worked 175 hours the first week, and the first check was only $230? How is it possible that I could have put in that many hours and
ended up with so little? So I walked up to the cashier who fronts the paymaster, and I said, “Hey, who do I talk to about this check?”

“What’s the problem?”

“It seems as though you guys shorted me a little bit.” I was getting really loud.

The cashier says, “Sir, would you keep your volume down?”

“No, I won’t keep the fuckin’ volume down. I worked my ass off the week this check is for, and I’m supposed to get thirty-five dollars more. Not two-thirty—it’s two-sixty-five! What the fuck is going on here?”

“Well, the paymaster is inside, but he’s a little bit busy right now, and hold on, you can’t go in there . . .”

But I already said, “Fuck it,” and pushed open the door to this back room, and I held the check up in the air with my left hand and said, “Who the fuck do I speak to about this fucking check?!” I’m talking at the top of my voice. As I get halfway through the sentence, I realize I’m in a room with thirty-five guys. They all are wearing suits, but with no sports jackets, and they all have shoulder holsters on. I’m the only guy in the room that’s not packin’. But some fuckin’ jerk inside me keeps going. I said, “Who the fuck do I talk to about making good on this check?”

There was about ten seconds of silence, and then one guy looked around to the other guys in the room and said, “Who the fuck does he talk to about taking care of this fuckin’ check?” Everybody started laughing. The guy then came over to me and put his arm around my neck, like in a mafia movie, and he said, “This kid is beautiful. I love this fuckin’ kid.” He looked at the check and asked how much I was shorted. He told some other guy to make the check right. He looked at his other guys and said, “For thirty-five fuckin’ dollars. I love this kid. This kid has got
some
fucking brass over here. Give this kid whatever he wants.”

After that, the dispatcher started throwing me these crazy good accounts. I was driving for some major players in New York—ESPN guys, CBS guys, and everyone like that. They were throwing me some
really good accounts because I amused them, if ya know what I mean! For thirty bucks I was ready to get shot 175 times. I was gonna look like fucking Sonny from
The Godfather
. This was part of the new me, when I was starting to feel really, really good about myself. So the next phase of this “recovery” was to take charge of my acting career. After getting paid for a few more weeks I decide to catch a cheap red-eye to Los Angeles. Bobby Littman, my Hollywood agent, had always said I was welcome to stay with him anytime, so I took him up on his offer. Early the next morning I knocked on his door. “Listen, Bobby,” I said, “I ain’t got no money, so can I sleep on your couch?”

“Of course, Perlman. Come in. You don’t have to sleep on my couch. I have a guest room. We’ll have a marvelous time.”

I basically moved in and quickly started taking over the place. I borrowed one of his cars. I made him stay up late and keep telling me stories about Hollywood and all of his buddies and pals, to the point at which after about a week and a half he came into the guest room where I was sleeping and sat on the side of the bed.

“Can I ask you a question, Perlman?”

“Sure, Bobby, anything!”

“How much longer are you going to be here?”

“Bobby, you know, I’d like to leave, but I learned from my first Hollywood agent that I shouldn’t really go anywhere till he gets me a fucking job.” He just looked at me. “Do you know who my first Hollywood agent is, Bobby?”

“It’s me.”

“It’s you, Bobby. So I leave the minute you get me a fucking job.”

He got on the phone and I heard him yelling, “YOU GOTTA HIRE THIS GUY. GIVE HIM ANYTHING.” He came back into the bedroom and said he’d have a contract for me before the month was out and that I should go home. Instead of a horse head in his bed, Bobby got me. To this day I never did see a man more possessed!

I worked at Fugazy for about a month more, until Littman called and said I was hired to do this movie in Hollywood called
Ice Pirates
. I had to be out there right away. The film was a spoof on
Star Trek
and
Star Wars
, done in a purely comedic version. It was shit. I don’t want to even talk about
Ice Pirates
, but it was a studio movie and I was heading back to Hollywood—with a paying gig. Finally the silence was silenced!

(CHAPTER 11)

Stage or Scream

While I was shooting
Ice Pirates
Opal came out to visit me. It was her first trip to Hollywood, and, I don’t know, there must’ve been some exotic scent in the air. What I’m tryin’ to say is that she got pregnant during that trip. I mean, she didn’t
know
she was pregnant right away, but she sure suspected it, if ya know what I mean!: “Um, excuse me, hello, but what in the fuck do you think you’re doing Mr. ‘Boy, wasn’t that beautiful’? We don’t have the income needed to have a kid right now. HEY, I’M TALKING TO YOU!”

I said nothing. I got her in the car and drove up the winding roads above Hollywood to this spot I used to go to when I had an hour to kill. It was this magnificent lookout spot on Mulholland Drive that overlooks the entire San Fernando Valley, where you could see all the studios,
plus
Brando’s house,
plus
Nicholson’s, Brando’s neighbor’s house. I mean, this was the place to sit and dream big, son! I stopped the car just short of the cliff, rammed it in park, turned to my dearest Opal, and said, “Excuse
me
! Do you know when the right time to have a kid is? WHEN IT FUCKING HAPPENS!” I paused for dramatic effect, threw the car into reverse, and sped down the hill, never saying another word on the subject—that is, just until we found out days later that her hunch was, in actuality, true, and our firstborn was, indeed, on its merry way.

After about a week being home my prophetic Mulholland resolve started to waver a little. That high an actor is on while he’s in the middle of a gig gradually started to get replaced by the same old, same old. I began thinking, “Well, once again, my career is over. The phone’s not ringing, and nothing is happening.” And reality was biting. I mean, it was one thing when it was just me and Opal I had to worry about; we got real good at the spaghetti-and-meatball, followed by the meatball-and-spaghetti diet. But it’s another thing when you’ve got a baby to think about. It takes on a completely different modality. Before I even had time to panic, the phone rang, and it was my agent girls, Pat and Shirley, with a tone in their voices that actually sounded promising. “Peter Brook is in town and wants to meet you.” The frame of reference jumped out at me. During the sixties and seventies Peter Brook was one of the true godheads of theater everywhere. He had written a book called
The Empty Space
, which became
the
textbook for anybody who studied theater during those decades. He had been the artistic director of the Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he did one iconic production after another, thus continuing to raise the bar for the work that was done at those distinguished and venerable institutions. He then eventually went off on his own and started doing very experimental stuff, and some of it was so experimental, so unconventional . . . I mean he would actually go off to a hilltop in Tibet and perform obscure versions of the classics for goats—literally, goats and animals, because there was no one else there to watch. But that wasn’t the point, was it?! However, regardless of what Peter was calling to discuss, the notion of having
any
discussion with Peter Brook commanded one’s undivided attention. So I gathered up my goat vaccine and off I went, titillated all the way.

I embarked over to my old stomping grounds, the La Mama Theater in the East Village, where Brook was holding his meetings. I was excited because this guy occupied such an amazing place in this incredibly pure part of my fascination with theater, in particular, and all art in general. More than just a director, he was like the high priest of theater at that time. When I sat down with him he told me he hadn’t
been able to get me out of his mind since he saw
Quest for Fire
and that he was inviting me to join his company. This fuckin’ blew me away. Finally
Quest
ceased to be in vain—it actually did lead to something. And although what it led to wasn’t something I would have ever guessed, and although it didn’t lead to a prime table at Spago’s, it did take me to the single-most esoteric, purely artistic avenue one could ever be invited to stroll down. He wanted to mount the classic ancient Hindu epic upon which all spirituality emanates,
The Mahabharata
, first for his theater company in Paris, the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, and eventually for the screen. His idea, as the original story is in eighteen volumes of Sanskrit and is the most epic story ever told, was to stage it as a trilogy, three three-hour plays. He had the brilliant French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere to adapt it and was offering me the role of Bhima, whose father is the god of wind and whose mother is the most beautiful mortal woman ever born to this Earth. Oh, and because the Bouffes du Nord was an experimental theater company, there was no money, or very little anyway. Oh, and I’d hafta move my newborn baby and young wife to Paris for two years.