For the Love of Money (46 page)

I read his face to see if he was serious. My father was still hard to read. His entire personality was filled with misdirection, always three steps ahead.

He said, “You're thinking too much, Tracy. It was only a joke.”

“I can't tell when you're joking or when you're serious half of the time,” I told him.

“That's because I don't want you to tell.”

“Why not?”

“Because then your daddy would be boring to you.”

“But I would still love you.”

He said, “Yeah, you just wouldn't admire me.”

I laughed. “Who said that I admire you now?” I did admire my father, I just wanted him to explain himself to me again.

“Nobody has to tell me.”

“You just know, hunh?”

“Just like you know that I admire you.”

My eyes lit up and I felt all excited about it. “You do?”

“Yeah, I admire you. You remember how nervous your mother was when you first started talking about Hollywood?”

I thought back and said, “Yeah.”

“Well, I had to convince her every other night that you would be fine out there. If you would have called home more often, it would have helped me out a bit, but I guess you were busy taking care of business.”

“Yeah, I was, plus we have that three-hour time difference, so I didn't know when to call a lot of the time.”

My father looked at me as if I were crazy. “Now you know damn well we didn't care what time you would have called, as long as we heard from you.”

I turned away, feeling guilty about it. “I'm sorry. I won't let that happen again. I'll make sure I call home once a week now.”

He started laughing and said, “Don't promise me something you can't keep, just call us when you can.”

When we pulled up to the airport, a few of the baggage checkers noticed me, but they tried to stay calm about it because of my father. I could tell.

“Give me a big hug, girl,” my father told me as they ticketed my luggage for the flight.

I hugged my father and squeezed him like a giant teddy bear. “I'll call as soon as I get in.”

He nodded. “All right then. I'll tell your mother.”

“Bye,” I told him, while I headed inside backward.

“Bye now, baby.”

If it wasn't for my father being with me, I would have been asked to sign at least five autographs for the baggage claim guys, because they were still sneaking peeks at me as I slipped away toward the escalators.

I carried on my black leather briefcase with the
Road Kill
script to fall asleep while reading on the plane. I planned to begin jotting down ideas for changes on a notepad.

Luckily, I was able to walk through the airport with only a few looks and no big commotion. Everyday citizens had no idea how tiring notoriety could be sometimes. You just never know when you'll be asked to share your time with twenty people who you have never seen in your life before. Nevertheless, I had asked for it, and I was getting it, the good parts
and
the bad parts.

I boarded the airplane, first class, thinking,
Great, this is pretty painless!
However, a sister in her late thirties noticed me after I had been seated.

“Tracy Ellison Grant! You go, girl! When is your next movie coming out?!”

I smiled, embarrassed by her enthusiasm in front of a bunch of white passengers who didn't seem to know who I was, which was a peaceful thing.

I answered, “Hopefully next year.”

“What's it about?” The older sister was holding up the aisle.

“It's an action movie,” I told her. “I'll talk to you about it when we land,” I said, just to keep her moving along.

“Okay.”

I settled back down in my window-view seat, with a gray-haired white man sitting next to me. He was minding his own business, so I began to read my script as we took off down the runway. Before I could reach page five, my minding-his-own-business white man turned to me and asked, “So you're an actress? What movies have you been in?”

Here we go again,
I thought to myself before I responded to him.
I need to start flying in a damn private jet!

“I starred in a recent film called
Led Astray,
about a woman who gets revenge and a big payday after dealing with some greedy Hollywood men who had misled her career interests and used her. It was my first starring role.” I figured I would get it all out of the way so he would have less questions to ask me about it.

He nodded his head and said, “Oh. That's sounds interesting.”

I was so tired of giving my résumé to strangers that I wanted to hand out a sheet of paper sometimes, or post it across my damn chest. However, was I irritated enough to give it all up and become an around-the-way girl again? ...No way! I
wanted
to be special. So I had to learn to deal with it.

I had a dream
that I was sinking
and watching the earth
turn darker
as I went down
in slow-sand,
because there was nothing quick
about it.

My voice
only echoed upward,
sounding weak
and panicky
as I cried for help,
with no rope,
or rescue
to save me.

And when I awoke,
I realized
that my future
was ALL on me,
a solo arrangement.
That's when I sang
at center stage
like ARETHA!

Copyright © 1998 by Tracy Ellison

B
efore 1997 was over, eleven out of fifteen of my scripts were produced for television on various networks, and I assisted on five other produced scripts. I even got Coe some acting work in a couple of sitcoms. (When I said I had to let him go, I didn't mean completely, I just meant that I had to unleash him from my grip and treat him more like a young man instead of as my plaything.)

What I
didn't
like about my writing progress was how many of my scripts were changed in production. It wasn't as if I could hold any creative direction with my work through spec writing. Everything was produced at random. There also were not enough black drama series in Hollywood to write for. Everything had to be a damn comedy! Nevertheless, for the fall of '97, I was
still
“the flavor of the month” in Black Hollywood for my writing skills, which led me to meet more of the movers and shakers. I got to know a lot more of the actors out there too, and if they were not connected to a stable show, they were mostly scrambling to find work and passively complaining about the lack of roles being offered to blacks in either television, commercial advertisements, or film. I say complaining “passively,” because many of them didn't have a clue as to how to change anything. I felt for them, I really did, so I tried to write as many new actors into my scripts as possible. I was getting a lot of these actors jobs, and I became a very cool person to know. Go figure!
Writers
were supposedly the
last
people to make things happen, but as fast as things heat up in Hollywood, they can cool off just as fast.

By 1998, rumors were everywhere that the big boom of black television
shows was about to come to an end, and a lot of it was more than just rumors.
Living Single
and
New York Undercover
were the biggest shows on the way out. Everyone was nervous about a big domino effect on
all
black shows. However,
Moesha
was still hanging tough.

By February, Richard Mack's creation,
Brothers and Sisters,
was well under way, but the writing for the show was horrible. No wonder Rich was thinking of only creating show ideas instead of sticking with them; he couldn't write a lick. I was embarrassed to even tell him that, but I had to.

“A lot of shows start off in the basement and then they get better,” he told me over the phone.

“Not black shows,” I argued. I had just finished watching the third episode of his show. I was developing my own ideas for scripts, but so far
Brothers and Sisters
was nowhere close to what I had envisioned.

Rich said,
“The Cosby Show
wasn't that good when it first started, nor was
A Different World,
or
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

“Yeah, but they all had major stars attached to them,” I reminded him. “Besides, just because
they
ended up doing well, that doesn't mean that
we're
going to be afforded the same opportunity to stick around long enough to be good. We both can name a hundred other shows that didn't go on to be winners in the ratings game, black
or
white.”

He said, “I wouldn't worry about it this soon. After week
seven, then
I would start to worry.”

I began to think that the network would put Rich out of his misery after only
six
episodes, but he laughed at the idea as if it were a joke. I could hear Yolanda's mouth somewhere in the back of my mind.
I told you about that black shit. You're gonna be running around in circles chasing your cheese like a sewer rat.
I could damn near
see her
in my mind!

I broke out laughing.

Rich said, “What's so funny?”

“You don't even seem as if you
care
about this show,” I responded.

“This is all business, Tracy, you
can't
care.”

That was what I was afraid of; the Hollywood pessimism had gotten to him. Rich was throwing in the creative towel for money. It was a decision that everyone would have to juggle with in Hollywood; you either sell out or starve
(Hollywood Shuffle),
unless you were plain gifted or lucky. I had been mostly lucky, because I didn't want to think of myself as gifted until I succeeded at the next level and had an original screenplay produced.

Just to change the subject, I said, “You know, I talk to a lot of the actors out here now, and it just amazes me how so many of them have no clue
where their next role is coming from. And I keep asking myself, ‘How can they live like that?' I just don't get it.”

Richard said, “That's why I'm not an actor,” and laughed. “I'm no damn fool.”

“Yeah, but when they hit it big, they can hit it for
a lot
more than us,” I argued.

“Yeah, and it's a thousand of them looking to strike it rich at only two or three slot machines.”

He was still laughing about it, but it was true. Black actors in a predominantly white country was a tough bag to be in. Oh, sure, everyone dreamed about the few starring roles, the magazine covers, and the television interviews, but I got a chance to see the paranoia of not knowing where your next meal ticket was coming from. Nevertheless, if I hadn't lucked up and gotten a chance to show off my writing skills, I wouldn't have been able to count on my meal ticket either. Thank God that wasn't the case!

“So, what's gonna happen to the actors on your show?” I asked Rich.

“They get over it and move on, but the show is not over yet, Tracy.”

In
my
book it was.
Brothers and Sisters
couldn't even get a serious look from the small black market that the studio was trying to attract. The show aired on Tuesday night when a bunch of basketball games were on cable, so it attracted virtually
no
males. I didn't tell Rich what I was thinking though. The brother simply needed to do more homework.

“You're not backing down on me are you?” Rich asked me.

I hadn't signed any paperwork or anything, and I was glad that I hadn't, because I actually
was
thinking about ditching his show. It wasn't a money thing for me; I wasn't starving, so I didn't want to ruin my good track record with some bullshit show, friends or not. I was even beginning to think of creating my own show idea.

I said, “What has Juanita come up with?” I didn't want to answer him.

“Oh, she's all right. Her stuff is just a little too hard-core. I told her to tone down some of that New York stuff. These shows need to play nationwide. It shouldn't be a coastal thing.”

“Well, in that case, what do you think of
my
stuff?” It wasn't as if I was writing girly stuff, especially for
Conditions of Mentality.
I even agreed to cowrite a Watts gang story with redheaded Liz.

Rich said, “You got all the right stuff, Tracy. Your writing is realistic, smart, funny, in-your-face, and subtle, all at the same time. It just works.”

I smiled.
Just like my poetry,
I thought to myself,
it just works!

I said, “Well, thank you for the compliment, but remember, you still can't sleep with me. You have a woman.”

He laughed it off. “All right, well, get back to me as soon as you have something.”

“Do I have a deadline?”

He paused. “I'll need something finished in another week.”