Excerpt from Book:
Hollywood But Not Just Hollywood
Long before the drinking:
When the bathroom’s empty I get the whole
mirror. Bulbs instead of spotlights. Slightest
eye shift magnified, Richard Gere doing low-key
lines from American Gigolo, shift to Brando
saying I could have been a contender, shift to
Belmondo, he boxed too, rubbing thumb over lips,
shift to Gere in Days of Heaven, just the look,
just moving my eyes, looking away then fast at.
At the bar:
“That’s what they did, drinking and smoking and
driving those smooth roads and everything
possible.”
“Tell me some of your favorites,” she says.
“They’re not all great. Some of them aren’t even
good. And they’re all way before my time. But
they make me feel high, the way they look and
even the way they manipulate, even when I see
how manipulative they’re being, I still feel
it.”
“Tell me some.”
“The Wild One with Marlon Brando and Sweet Bird
of Youth with Paul Newman and Bullitt with Steve
McQueen and early James Bonds where the villains
were characters instead of cartoons and there
was more dialogue than special effects, when
Sean Connery was Bond and not those others, or
lesser known movies with Richard Burton when he
was young or George Peppard, those movies when
color was Technicolor, and some foreign movies,
the ones with that old Hollywood feel even if
they weren’t shot in Hollywood, movies with
Oliver Reed and Jean-Paul Belmondo.”
“I know most of the names, but I didn’t see
those movies. We’ll have to go sometime.”
“We can go drinking and driving and watch a
bunch of movies.”
“And you can pretend you’re high.”
“It’s not pretend.”
After the second round:
“Like and movie. I can’t see the first word.”
After the fourth (maybe fifth):
“What do you do?” she says.
“I run.”
“I’m a runner. That’s more than running.”
“I do push-ups and pull-ups.”
“Very disciplined.”
“When I have to be.”
“What are you, a military brat?”
“Are you?”
“I’m a professor brat,” she says, “which is
close to a military brat. My dad travelled all
over for work. We moved so much I got tired of
making new friends and then leaving them, which
is why I started running. Instead of playing in
whatever neighborhood with whatever new kids
there were, I relied on myself and ran. Now I
teach that idea when we read The Loneliness of
the Long Distance Runner. I teach and I help out
with the cross-country team during the season.”
“I saw the movie. Tom Courtenay. He had a good
look. He looked like a smart delinquent, not a
Hollywood delinquent.”
“Do you look like a delinquent when you run?”
“Probably. A real one. I don’t love running, but
I do it.”
“You don’t get a runner’s high?”
“I don’t.”
“That’s too bad.”
I raise my glass.
“I get a three-count high when I ask the
bartender to tip the bottle and pour heavy. And
then in the morning I run, even when I’m hung
over.”
“Your penance,” she says.
“My penance. I absolve myself and do it all over
again.”
I down my drink.
“Another?”
“You’re fast,” she says.
“Fast. Where are you staying?”
“A cheapy hotel called the Belnord.”
“Near here.”
“Near here. You are fast.”
I rub my thumb across my lips like Belmondo.
“Do you know that movie?”
“I do,” she says. “He looks like a Hollywood
delinquent.”
“He was a tough guy first. And he was playing
Hollywood, so he looked Hollywood, but not
today-Hollywood.”
“I believe you.”
“It’s a great movie. It’s like life should be.”
“Let’s leave the car stealing and the cop
shooting for the movies,” she says.
“Let’s hold onto the thumb across the lips.”
“We can do that.”
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