More bottles. More food.
And gradually he and I were brought into the talk. I was passed off as an old friend who worked in the hotel business. I went along with the lie and let Jack build the cathedral-I was looking at land here in Fairview for the Mandalay Bay group. Vail was over and Aspen hopelessly passé-Fairview, with its easy access to Denver and a back road to Boulder, was the place to invest. I was pushed on the veracity of these claims and my unwillingness to confirm any of the details impressed everyone with my discretion. Miss Raven seemed pleased that I was there. Watson’s antics had long since ceased to amuse her and when the conversation became drearily shoppy she talked to me about the weather and clothes.
Jack found his niche and as he relaxed he allowed himself to speak more freely. He drank and began to enjoy himself. I suppose this was the kind of slightly risqué high-powered party he’d been expecting to find in L.A. and hadn’t ever gotten invited to. It wasn’t exactly the dinner feast of the Satyricon but it wasn’t bad. Oysters and shrimp were followed by duck, all three flown in from some picturesque spot in Alaska that very morning, and the excellent wine was from Watson’s own vineyard in Sonoma.
Time and food and conversation flowed, and when Watson went into the kitchen to load the dishwasher, Miss Raven produced a 150-year-old vintage Madeira and preembargo Monte Cristo cubanos.
With a bottle under his belt Jack was waxing on his favorite topic: the up-and-down career of Jack Tyrone. “Yeah, the Independent Spirit nomination was a real boost, I’m getting leads now. I’m doing this movie called Gunmetal, medium budget, I play a British Victoria Cross winner in the Crimean War. You wouldn’t believe the script changes. It’s based on the video game but it’s gone in a totally different direction. We’re throwing this Brit guy into the future, steam punk, all that.”
“You’re playing a Brit?” Mickey asked skeptically.
“But of course, my dear sir,” Jack said in his faux English diphthongs.
“Don’t like the title. Don’t see the connection,” another of the other producers said. He was a svelte, tanned man in a tailored polo shirt and an expensive toupee.
“But that’s the whole thing, you see,” Jack said. “All the Victoria Cross medals are made from gunmetal from cannons that the Brits captured in the Crimea. So the title sneakily refers to the medals but it’s also about the first-person shooter.”
The dishwasher loaded and the kitchen cleaned, Watson came back and kneeled next to Miss Raven. She drummed her fingernails on his leather-encased head while Jack went on and on. Some of the men were looking bored and I wished Jack would give it a rest, but unfortunately he wasn’t capable of that. Cunningham finally interrupted the flow.
“Who’s this with?”
“Focus, for Universal.”
“I’ll speak to them. Gunmetal won’t fly. Sounds too John Woo. Doesn’t work for a historical.”
Jack wanted to defend his picture, which hadn’t even begun rolling yet, but he had the sense not to offend the producer. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Cunningham puffed cigar smoke and considered it. “Keep it short, go with Crimea.”
“Well, it’s not really up to me,” Jack said.
The producer with the toupee looked at him, strangely, as if regarding a particularly rare specimen in a butterfly net: My God, who is this person that eats with us yet doesn’t have the power to change the title of a movie?
I sipped some of the Madeira. It was sweet, rich, very good.
Miss Raven stared at me, hoping that I had something to say.
Titles, I thought to myself, what do I know about titles?
Time Can Be Either Particle or Wave.
“I like Gunmetal,” Watson said, surprisingly, from behind his mask. “But it is too John Woo. Gunmetal Sky, Gunmetal Gray-those work better and they’re short. Titles should be two or three syllables at most.”
Watson’s words hung in the air like a failed bon mot. It was easy to ignore him as long as he wasn’t saying anything, but now that he’d broken the spell we couldn’t help but see this bondage-encased man kneeling on the floor next to us.
Watson knew he’d screwed up and with a haughty look from Miss Raven he scurried off to the kitchen.
The party ended in anticlimax. Miss Raven asked us if we would mind forgoing coffee as she had urgent business to attend to in the dungeon. The men said it was no problem. She thanked everyone for coming, asked them to see themselves out, and with a bored sigh followed Watson into the kitchen.
Jack and the others walked outside and Jack gave Cunningham his phone number. It was cold now. Jack took off his jacket and placed it around my shoulders.
We said good night and got in the Bentley.
Jack wasn’t happy. Something had upset him. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You’re upset about the movie-title thing?”
“No, titles are like gossamer. Change all the time. Did you hear what Mickey said earlier? He said that my acting was an homage to the icons of yesteryear.”
“Isn’t that a compliment?”
“Like fuck it is. He was saying I was a lousy actor. Fucking queer, what does he know?”
“Mickey likes you. Miss Raven told me so.”
Jack’s mood did a one-eighty. A grin like a Party kid meeting Jefe at Pioneer Camp. “Really? Really? She said that?”
“Yes,” I assured him.
“Oh, shit, really? Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick there. Yeah, he’s a good guy. And you know, it’s not true about my acting. I’ve gotten good notices. Paul says I just missed out on a SAG award, and A. O. Scott said that in We’ll Always Have Parricide I was ‘the sole bearer of a lifebelt in this shipwreck of a movie.’ Clever, right? Did you ever see that one? We’ll Always Have Parricide? It was a black comedy, you know? Bandwagon stuff, Luke Wilson vehicle, I was third banana.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“Well, you didn’t miss much. I’ve got the DVD at home if you want to take a look.”
“Sure.”
We accelerated out of the driveway and the gates opened for us as if by magic. Jack paused to see if there was anything happening at the Cruise estate but the lights were off and the Cruises abed.
“Can I give you a ride to Wetback-to the, uhm, I mean, the motel?”
“Don’t worry, I know what everybody calls it.”
“It’s just a joke. It’s not mean.”
“I’m not offended.”
A look of obvious conspiracy flashed in his eyes followed by that boyish salesman smile. “Or, or, would you, uh, like to come back to my place for coffee?”
“Your place. Coffee,” I said quickly.
The ride to Jack’s took fifteen minutes. It was a five-minute drive but Jack had had that bottle.
The irony did not impress me at the time because I was tipsy too, but I saw it eventually.
This car. This road. An intoxicated driver. Me. Dad. Enabler. Avenger.
We arrived at the house. I stumbled as I got out. Jack caught me before I fell.
I had never had such heady stuff in my life.
Tipsy, but not drunk.
I knew what I was doing. I knew what was going to happen. There were a million opportunities to back out. No one put a gun to my head.
A gun to my head. Yeah, that’s right, more irony.
“Shall we go inside?”
“Please.”
“Let me get your bag.”
“Leave it.”
“Christ, that’s heavy, whatcha got in there?”
A telephone call to the motel would have put a stop to it. Paco, come. But I made no calls. Didn’t want to. Jack was the antithesis of all those cadaver boys in Havana.