Pick Up the Phone

The first chapter

Another tidbit from a manuscript in editing, this time taking a hard look at the “grass is always greener” concept from inside Hollywood looking out. Being number one on the call list isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

"Ben. Benny."

"Hmm?"

"Benj, come on, man. You're doing it again."

I looked up from the raw years-long hangnail, my focus, almost surprised to see him sitting there. My phone lay wedged on its side between the leather couch cushions, buzzing incessantly under my leg. I hadn't noticed.

"Pick it up. If you don't she's just going to keep calling. See what she wants and make her happy."

I grabbed the phone without looking at the screen. Only a handful of people ever called me, three only when jobs were rolling, one was sitting on my couch, and my mother was somewhere floating out in the Caribbean with husband #4. That left one person.

"Hello?"

"Babyyyyy," she mewed, one of two moods. "Why haven't you been answering? My card's not working again and these shoes are to die for." I glanced sardonically down the couch as Theo licked the orange Cheeto dust from his fingers.

"Is it money or...?" He grimaced, holding out his hands like claws. The two moods. I held up one finger and he tilted the bag back scooting farther down into couch. "Yeah. I can hear her squeaking."

"Yeah - no, Sam, I'll figure it out. I'm sure it's nothing. Try it again." I waited, listening to the sounds of Saks or maybe Bergdorf, the buzz of money. A ring. A squeal. I held the phone away from my ear until the line went dead, shoving it back between the cushions. One last buzz let me know that an exorbitant amount of money had been deducted from my account.

"You're such a cliché," Theo snickered, tossing the bag and unmuting the game. Such a cliché. Sitting in my Spanish Colonial at 6 o'clock on a Monday afternoon, on a couch that was designed for my living room, watching a game on a TV that was somehow programmed into my walls. I could afford all of it. I could afford the girl on the phone, a blonde bombshell borne out of Iowa corn fields and spending all her time being photographed and told how absolutely perfect she was. I'd said it myself. First over beers, nonchalant. Young actors and models, like peanut butter and jelly. It's what we did around here. No one remembers waiting tables or living in shitty apartments. No one remembers the thousands of bags of ramen and the inability to crap after two weeks at a time from lack of fresh fruit. Was there a time before one or two jobs a year, before all the zeros and the Spanish Colonials? I couldn't remember.

You get to a point in your life when you've "made it," you've become the person not necessarily that you wanted to be, but the one the world idolizes. They don't idolize me necessarily, but just the idea of a "me." The suits, the awards nights, of course, the beautiful girl. It's all money and lip-filler, and the constant climb higher and higher; the utter disappointment (and delight) when any one of us slips. But during those slips we have people, layers of cushioning around us to hide and protect, to give the press honest-to-goodness reasons why we're injured, why we disappear, why the mugshot or the drunk-and-disorderly caught on camera. And if you peel away those many, many onion layers, we're somewhere very small at the bottom. Naked and childlike, defenseless, and unable to handle for the world around us on our own. The second we succeed is the second we stop growing. And for those lucky enough to have made it into adulthood first, we've got a real chance at survival. Not like those poor schmucks who grew up on a soundstage at Disney.

"Dude, we should order out. What should we get, tacos or something?" Theo pulled a joint from his back pocket. "You want?"

"Nah, I'm good. Yeah, tacos." He lit the joint, the blue smoke pulled immediately into the HEPA filter installed somewhere in the attic.

"Cool - cool, can you do it? Get me three with everything." I pulled the phone back out of the couch.

See, the thing about success is it doesn't matter if you're a lifeless super model, an unemployed hack on the end of someone's couch, or even divorced parents floating out in space somewhere. I'm no longer the friend, the boyfriend, the child. I'm not the one they're proud of or worried about anymore. Now I'm more of a source. Money certainly, but also reservations at most places in town, free clothing, plus ones. Status. And as much as I'm a cliché for the wealthy, successful actor, Theo is the cliché for the codependent friend, Sam the model girlfriend. And without them I'd be going to everything by myself, uncomfortable and dying in the back of a limousine somewhere, and struggling who to thank when someone hands me a hunk of metal with my name scratched into it.

We ate the tacos, Theo periodically yelling something at the screen. I wondered if he was going home tonight. Eight beers later (his) I figured not, tossing a blanket on the couch and starting to clean up.

"Oof, I should help you." Theo reached out one arm, his maximum effort. "Nah, you're house," he laughed, wobbling to his feet. "I gotta pee." I filled a garbage bag with mostly Theo's beer bottles, empty bags of chips, and wet-wiped down the ashes and dried cheddar cheese sprinkled across the full-grain leather. I thought I saw a burn mark, but it was quickly replaced by his ass and a fresh beer.

"I should go home." How it always starts.

"No, you should stay." I didn't want him to stay. But he still had the shitty apartment, or he had it again. That and the fact that he insisted on driving up the hill instead of an Uber every time he "stopped in," drank too much, and always had a toothbrush in his glove box, I'd given up on pressing. It was a big house, and despite all the high-end furniture it echoed and I didn't enjoy being alone. I'm not sure I enjoyed hosting much more.

"Yeah, okay. Twist my arm. I guess if Sam's in New York then I can keep you company. What are friends for, right?" Sure. I cracked open a beer. "How long's it been then, man? Two years?"

"How long for what, us?"

"Not us, me and you. God no. I don't even know how long. You and Sam."

"Oh. Coming up on four."

"Shit, four?" He flicked the cap across the room and I heard it land somewhere in the kitchen. "Damn."

"Yeah." Not much to say there. Pretty girl. Nothing going on behind the steely-blue eyes. Enjoyed my company nonetheless.

"So what then? You guys going to...do the thing? I mean, people probably expect something." He wasn't wrong. My PR expected something and had been pushing it for months. I needed to take some sort of next step; all the magazines were waiting. We were the "it" couple, after all. People regularly dreamed up our large family in AI, three girls like their "mother," three boys just like me. I don't even think we'd said "I love you" once over the three-ish years, if you don't include interviews. But I'm an actor, I act, fawning over her on the red carpet, watching her float past in a cloud of credit-card receipts from up and down Rodeo Drive. The image of perfection. I reached a little, maybe brushing her elbow. She'd smile winsomely, two sets of flawless white teeth I'd paid for. Yes, they surely expected something.

Of course this was Hollywood. We all lived different lives behind the curtain, had our little habits and relationships away from the public eye. For her that meant long weekends away with big execs on their private islands. Sometimes late nights on Sunset with young up-and-comers, wide-eyed kids still learning to do their own laundry fresh out of film school. And while I approached 40 with some modicum of grace--as a man could afford to in this town--she'd nipped and tucked away every year after 25, everything still pointing sky-high. She had doctors for her face, her teeth, her butt, and her breasts. But her favorite were the pain docs, who nipped and tucked away at her brain with uppers and downers, a quiet bottle in her mailbox anytime she asked. And though I'd been around for some of it, most of the concoction of who she'd become started with couches and contracts long ago.

"Well, you could be like me"--I could smell Theo's socks, warm and moist against the leather--"broke, single."

"Doesn't sound half bad."

"Oh fuck you. Look at this place. Look at you guys." He pulled out his phone, scrolling through tabloid shots. "Tell me you'd rather be broke. Honestly, bro."

"I'd rather be broke."

"Fuck you," he said again, punching my shoulder with a half-drunk grin. "Then you're a better actor than I thought."

"Why's that?"

"Your life looks pretty damn good from where I'm sitting. Okay sure, she's a shit-show. But she's a hot shit-show and people know she's with you." He chose his words carefully, aware of her extracurriculars. "You're the couple. You're the face on the magazines. How many assholes do you think come home from work every night to something like that?" He tossed his phone in my lap, a lewd picture of Sam from her hungrier modeling days flashed across the screen.

"Yeah, I know."

"You know?"

"Yes, I'm aware. I have all the things."

"You have all the things." Theo rolled his eyes. "You do have all the things, and you're still not happy. You're such an idiot." But I didn't hear him. And I hadn't looked at the picture of Sam. "Dude, you're nodding again. You tired?"

My eyes came back into focus.

"Yeah, probably. I don't know. Just thinking."

"About what?" There was Theo. Old Theo. Psychotherapist Theo. I knew he was fishing for thoughts, emotions, a path to go down to avoid thinking about himself, or at least the bits and pieces he didn't enjoy. My problems he enjoyed.

"You know, just the same old stuff. Trying to figure out how to be happy."

"Because you're not?"

"Yeah, but I should be. Why wouldn't I be? You said it yourself, look at this place." Past the kitchen a large swimming pool gleamed through bay windows, the lights of Hollywood glinting off the water. From somewhere the scent of sandalwood overtook the stale tacos and empty beer bottles in the trash. Everything was completely taken care of. Immaculate. Simple but over-the-top. Theo shook his head.

"You remember when I met you?"

"Sure."

"You were just a scared kid back then. Finally enough money in your pocket and you spent it on therapy. I found that very weird."

"My parents are therapists."

"I know. I mean, I get it. But it's kind of a strange choice for someone that age. You're given a lot of money and power and most people think they're invincible. That first magazine cover"--he smacked his knee--"and you can do no wrong. Buy a house in the Hills. All the chicks want a piece of you. As long as you can afford it you can be friends with whoever you want."

"Yeah, that's true." I wondered how many "friends" I'd bought over the years.

"And now here you are. How many films do you have lined up this year?" I pulled out my phone, too arrogant or too careless to remember, and scrolled through the calendar.

"I had two, but the strike pushed everything back. There's a big-budget that was supposed to start in March; I'm not even sure we'll be in pre-production before the end of the year now. I might do something smaller if I don't have anything else. I've gotten a couple calls from A24."

"That's rough, man. But consider it a vacation. The strike's over; things will get rolling again."

"Yeah - no, I don't mind the break."

"Yeah, you do. I know you. You get weird when you're not working. Twitchy. Or you just disappear and stop answering calls." Twitchy. "Do you still get excited when people call you for work? Or do you feel like it's just a given now?"

It was a good question. "Not as excited as I used to. People just call me and tell me where to go, and when." Agents, managers, wranglers. "You know, when you're 21 you think life will just be perfect, skipping all the auditions and getting fat scripts in the mail. But now I kind of miss the process, the criticism. I miss the group-depression we all got back then, playing ping pong and drowning our sorrows in Crown Royal, sleeping around. It was fun to fail with people around. Now it just feels like everyone's kissing my ass."

"Uh-huh." Theo rubbed this three-day stubble psychotherapist-ally, sitting straighter in his corner of the couch. "And if they're kissing your ass then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"So if you don't have to work for a role, you don't have to be better than someone else, then what do they think of you?"

"I'm an industry puppet. I'll do what they want and they'll make a lot of money."

"And how do you view yourself?"

I'd never considered myself on most levels--personality, intelligence, looks, worth. Money well-spent in three decades of therapy.

"Vanilla."

"Vanilla?"

"Yeah. Like there's nothing interesting. I'm just usual. I'm expected. No one is excited to see me, or completely upset. They just expect me to show up and sell movies, and then they expect me to go away."

"And in so doing?"

"In so doing I'm kind of a robot. No one's really concerned with the light behind the eyes. No one's calling me outside work, or to see if I'm okay, or to congratulate me if I do something of my own accord. I'm just a cog. I'm an expensive cog in an even more expensive machine."

"But people love you. You're on all the magazines."

"People don't love me. People obsess." I could say it without being proud. It's not arrogance. I'd never loved the gross fixation people had with Hollywood. Just one more reason to fall harder in the end.

"So who loves you then? How do you fill that bucket? I mean, we all need some kind of love." I didn't answer. "For example, my Aunt Linda loves me. She loves my stupid haircuts. She feeds me the same goddamn green bean casserole every time I see her. She has pictures of me all over her refrigerator. She still sends me $20 every year on my birthday. And when I talk to her she always tells me at the beginning of the call, and at the end of the call, 'I love you, Theo.'"

I heard him say something about $20, letting myself slip again, his voice drifting back into the ether of my oversized living room. It was so much easier to float just above the conversation and let my mind wander, taking his questions with it. Who loved me? Who did I love? Certainly my parents, wherever they were. But was it the same deep love they had for me when I needed them, to fix my cuts and scrapes, pork and beans on the back porch in the summertime? Can you love your child that much ever again? Maybe so. But then who did I love? Or had I ever?

"Nodding, Benj."

"Mm."

"You tired?"

"No, I'm not tired. Just thinking."

"About?"

"Your question. I don't think I really have an answer for you. I don't know."

"That's okay. You know, I think if people were honest with themselves most wouldn't have an answer. Love is simple, but we've all learned to overcomplicate it. It's the movies, the magazines, it's the idealization of what love looks like. You guys are it, right? You're what people want. So what do you want?"

"I didn't expect to be back in therapy tonight." I shut my eyes and lay back into the cushions with a growl. "I don't know what the hell I want. This stuff is great on paper but you can't have it both ways. It's either this or that. Complicated or simple. And I have no idea when I made that decision."

"It's fluid, Benj. You're always at the helm of your own life. Not every decision is going to be the right one, but there's always time." I looked at him, remembering the Theo I'd met in the $3000 suit. I wondered if he had time, too.

"Thanks, man. Maybe I've just got to stop feeling so old. I think 40 is screwing with me."

"Oh yeah, stop that shit. This is Hollywood, dude. Forty is just a number."

He grabbed another beer and curled up in a made-to-look-ratty chic blanket, lulled by the sounds of ESPN. A good friend, though I wished he'd sleep on his own couch sometimes. But sometimes I needed him here, too, keeping me from slipping away into my own head, nodding, disappearing into the space that I shared with no one. I watched his eyes grow heavy, counting the seconds between blinks until they stopped, and turned off the TV. Safe, alone, and free with my thoughts. No, not my thoughts.

Sweetie-Pete, what are you doing up? Here, give mama a hug and go back to bed.

Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City, and is represented by Vicki Marsdon at High Spot Literary.