Did you live near Lake Minnetonka?
No, nowhere close, but I used to go to birthday parties there back in the thirties when I was a kid.
Redford looks engrossed.
Phædrus says, I wasn’t one of the rich kids. I was on a scholarship at a school in Minneapolis where the rich kids went… by chauffeur usually.
In the morning these big, long, black Packard limousines would pull up outside the school and a black-uniformed chauffeur would jump out and dash around and open up the back door and this little kid would pop out. In the afternoon the limousines and chauffeurs would all be back again and the kids would pop in, one kid to a limousine, and they’d be off to Lake Minnetonka.
I used to ride my bike to school and sometimes I’d see in my mirror one of these big Packards was coming up behind me and I’d turn and wave to the kid inside and he’d wave back and sometimes the chauffeur would wave too, and the funny thing is I always knew that kid was the one who envied me. I had all the freedom. He was a prisoner in the back of that black Packard, and he knew it.
What school was that?
Blake.
Redford’s eyes become intense. That’s the school my roommate went to!
Small world, Phædrus says.
It certainly is! Redford’s excitement indicates something has connected here, a high spot in the surface of things that indicates some important structure underneath.
I still have kind memories of it, Phædrus says.
Redford looks as though he would like to listen some more but that, of course, is not why he is here. After some more conversation about desultory subjects, he comes to the matter at hand.
He pauses and then says, I guess I should say, first of all, that I admire your book greatly and feel challenged and stimulated by it. The ideas about "Quality" are what I’ve always thought. I’ve always done it that way. I first read it when it first came out and would have contacted you then but was told that someone else had already bought it.
A funny woodenness has crept into his speech, as though he had rehearsed all this. Why should he sound like a poor actor? I really would like to have the film rights to this book, Redford says.
You’ve got them, Phædrus says.
Redford looks startled. Phædrus must have said something wrong. Redford’s biographies said he was unflappable, but he looks flapped now.
I wouldn’t have gotten this involved if I hadn’t intended to give it to you, Phædrus says.
But Redford doesn’t look overjoyed. Instead he looks surprised, and retreats to somewhere inside himself. His engrossment is gone.
He wants to know what the previous film deals were. It’s had quite a history, Phædrus says, and he relates a succession of film options that have been sold, and allowed to lapse for one reason or another. Redford is back to his former self, listening intently. When that subject is covered they turn cautiously to the question of how the book will be treated. Redford recommends a writer whom Phædrus has already met. Phædrus says OK.
Redford wants to make full use of a scene where a teacher faces a classroom of students for a whole hour and says nothing, until by the end of the hour they are so tense and frightened they literally run for the door. Apparently he wants to build the story in terms of flashbacks within that scene. Phædrus thinks that sounds very good. It is remarkable the way Redford has homed in on the book. For that scene he completely bypasses all the road scenes, all the motorcycle maintenance, where other script writers have bogged down, and goes right to the classroom, which was where the book started — as a little monograph on how to teach English composition.
Redford says that the road scenes will be made on location. He says that Phædrus can visit the sets whenever he wants to, but not every day. Phædrus doesn’t know what this involves.
The central problem of abstract ideas comes up. The book is largely about philosophic ideas about Quality. Big commercial films don’t show ideas visually. Redford says you have to condense the ideas and show them indirectly. Phædrus is not sure what that means. He would like to see how this is going to be done.
Redford senses Phædrus' doubts and warns that, No matter how the film is done, you won’t like it. Phædrus wonders if he says this just to keep himself covered. Redford talks about how the author of another book he filmed saw the movie and tried to like it but you could see that no enthusiasm was there. That was hard to take, Redford says, and then adds, But that’s the way it always seems to happen.
Other subjects come up but they don’t seem to be quite to the point. Eventually Redford looks at his wrist watch.
Well, I guess there are no big problems at this point, he says, I’ll go ahead and call the writer and see where he’s at on this.
He sits forward. I’m really tired, he says, and there’s no point in romancing you all night about all this… I’ll call the others and then, sometime after that, our agency will get in touch with you.
He gets up, goes to the hall closet and, by himself, gets his cap and coat. At the door he says, Where are you living now?
In my boat. Down on the river.
Oh. Is there any way of reaching you there? No, I’ll be gone tomorrow. I’m trying to get south before it freezes around here.
Well, we’ll contact you through your lawyer then. At the door he adjusts his hat and glasses and jacket. He says goodbye, turns and moves down the corridor with a tense springiness, like a skier or a cat — or like the Sundance Kid — and vanishes around a corner.
Then the corridor becomes just another hotel corridor again.
20
Phædrus stood in the hotel corridor for a long time without thinking about where he was. After a while he turned back, went into the room and closed the door.
He looked at the empty couch where Redford had been sitting. It seemed like some of his presence was still there but you couldn’t talk to it any more.
He felt like pouring himself a drink… but there wasn’t any… He should call Room Service.
But he didn’t really want a drink. Not enough to go to all that trouble. He didn’t know what he wanted.
A wave of anticlimax hit. All the tension and energy that had been built up for this meeting suddenly had nowhere to go. He felt like going out and running down the corridors. Maybe a long walk through the streets again until the tension wore off… but his legs already ached from the long walk getting here.
He went to the balcony door. On the other side of the glass was the same fantastic night skyline.
It looked more stale now.
The trouble with paying high prices for places with a view like this was that the first time it’s wonderful but it gets more and more static until you hardly notice it’s there. The boat was better, where the view keeps changing all the time.