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Carter and the crew used to go through two cases of beer by the afternoon. Sometimes they went harder, if shooting was particularly punishing—the prop guy wielding his Wild Turkey like he was offering up a sacrament, a big Good morning! swig in Carter’s coffee. These days it didn’t get much crazier than a few beers, and a beer was basically a Coke, providing the same gentle tonic. Carter was not totally clean, not totally sober, but pretty much. It had been a sacrifice, a genuine trial, giving the rest of it up, but it was worth it, he knew—he had to rise to the occasion.
There are certain moments in life that ask much of us, Carter thought to himself. He couldn’t recall, suddenly, if that had been a line of Pa’s from an old episode or a thought he was having right this second.
i can't recall, suddenly, if i liked this or didn't like this
Carter lay back. The walkie-talkie was glitching—a PA was asking for Michelle’s status, someone else was responding with the code for bathroom break. They found ways to amuse themselves, the crew: their different codes for different genres of activity. Ten-one and ten-two, those were self-explanatory. Ten-three was the crew’s invention for a possible jerk-off situation. Ten-ten, they used back in the day, thinking Carter didn’t notice. Ten-ten meant he was on one of his benders, unresponsive to their knocks on the trailer door or the increasing static from his walkie and the shouts to open up.
Carter retrieved the movie script from the drawer of the trailer’s kitchenette. Just the heft of it soothed him, distracted him from the thought of Michelle. He ruffled the pages, the pleasing blips of dialogue flashing past, the chunky monologues. He wasn’t sure anymore which parts he’d written and which came from Jennifer. Everything was working beautifully in this latest draft. Bergmanesque, he thought, a phrase he’d first heard from Jennifer. Carter had not seen any Bergman movies, but he felt like he had.
There had been a night when he and Bobby had descended on a vial of pure Merck, the two of them giddy from the holy whiteness and chattering till the sun rose.
“Jennifer says it’s Bergmanesque,” Carter babbled.
not sure how i feel about this either
They stopped for dinner at a red-sauce place off Sunset, their weekly ritual to kill time before Bobby dropped Carter at his Tuesday meeting. Carter went to an all-men’s group, one of the conditions of Jennifer’s forgiveness. A lot of the guys were in the industry, too, and Carter had grown genuinely fond of them. The group often joked about how their jobs made you believe in a higher power—you just thought it was a studio head in Beverly Hills. Jennifer would be waiting to pick him up when the meeting was over.
He pulled Michelle up on the bed, positioning himself between her legs with a pillow under her ass, and he tried to do good work, to apply himself, but kept almost dozing off. Strange, all his amped excitement now transmuted into sleepiness, and she was mewling a little but seemed sleepy herself. He looked up to gauge her response. Pleasing her—apparently another thing he had failed at.
“It’s okay,” Michelle said with kindness, maternal kindness.
She knew Carter. She saw him, the middle-aged man currently crouched on her sateen coverlet, chest hair sopping with vodka sweat. Those all-seeing eyes comprehended everything, understood exactly what kind of fuckup he was. It didn’t seem to faze her.
He lay back beside Michelle. It was peaceful here in her bed. Jennifer, wherever she was, would be furious. Electric with rage. Throwing his shit on the lawn, the whole performance. They’d probably get divorced. There would be no trip to Sayulita this summer, Jennifer tanned and frisky. No Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Why didn’t this bother him? He felt strangely calm.
hmmm not sure how i feel about this either
Twenty years ago when I moved to Washington and went to Don Giovanni starring Erwin Schrott, I did not know that I was destined for a decade of increasing heartaches culminating in a bonanza of heartache that ultimately calibrated my soul with insight my soul had been waiting for its whole life. Till then I never understood the adage that failure and despair can be elucidating and strengthening. All that was unbeknownst to me twenty years ago.
<3
The cherry blossoms were duly out in the cool gray evening. Cherry blossoms don’t ordinarily grab me but I will admit they looked nice. Giant pandas don’t really grab me either, even though everyone is constantly raving about how adorable they are. There were no cafés to stop at as I proceeded on my way to the opera hall. That’s the nature of this town—all business. Methodical, plodding, no cafés for boulevardiers and bohemians. There are no bohemians or boulevardiers in Washington. So I just sat and read for an hour in the hall, being early.
heh
Ever since I started keeping my diary of remorse, my remorse has evaporated. The answer to a personality problem or spiritual malaise is to keep a diary of it because then the quantity you are quantifying seems to disappear. Therefore I should go on to keep a diary of other troubling quantities. Such as Diary of Lassitude, Lack of Motivation, Failure to Act, etc.
cute
The last time I saw Walker Percy, who lived across Lake Pontchartrain in Covington, a giant storm was rolling in over the bridge—the longest bridge in the world—that I would be driving on to get back home. We looked out at the gathering storm and he said, “Delery, the next half hour is going to be good for your soul.”
Because fear is good for the soul? The way despair can make you notice things more? That is the whole point of everything—to notice things more. But I don’t know exactly what he meant, as I suspect his comment had a religious connotation; he was a zealous Catholic convert. Good for the soul like the bracing fear of the wrath of God? Or when you think you are lost, salvation is near?
Adelaide was in town working at an anarchist bookstore. We met for coffee after work. I had spent most of the day in Judge Blanchard’s courtroom. His comportment was dignified and sincere and he kept order and was respected and everything ran smoothly in his courtroom. It’s just that he has no charisma.
Judge Blanchard was associated with vastly lowering the bail bonds of gang members, which would make Adelaide proud but many others worried.
Things sometimes got dicey when Adelaide’s inability to modulate her crusade against injustice in a social setting clashed with certain members of the establishment—such as my stepmother—and I had to mediate or gloss things over.
Adelaide says I have Stockholm syndrome for my stepmother.
Then she rushed off to a leftist picnic.
heh