theater actors in Boston, where they met Elijah. Ten years ago, they moved to Los Angeles to get into the film industry. They founded a theater company, started staging new plays, and did all kinds of things to survive. Now, Steve is a producer and Tara owns a casting agency and directs plays from time to time in small theaters, just for the heck of it. When Elijah later decided to storm Hollywood with his average screenplays, they offered him a place to crash until he found a job. He accepted the offer and four years later he’s still there. He occupies a tool shed crammed with mowers, junk, and boxes of books. At least it’s by the pool.
“Hey, Zack Attack!” I see his big orange head peek through the door. “Who gave you that black eye?” He grins.
“I fell down the stairs,” I say as I collapse on the couch. A Hummer parks outside, the dogs bark, and Steve opens the front door. He’s been shooting a commercial all day and is glad to see me. He grabs a bottle of scotch and offers ice. I say, “No, thanks, no ice.” He smiles and we lift our glasses for a toast.
Hours later, the four of us are standing around the bar in the kitchen, sipping wine and munching on cheese, ham, and grapes arranged on a pig-shaped cutting board. We talk about movies, theater, Hollywood, Europe . . . Steve tells a funny story about something that happened to him in South Africa while producing a stupid movie. Tara laughs loudly, throwing her head back. Her cheeks are already flushed. Elijah is gloomy. Elijah is always gloomy. Maybe because he doesn’t eat meat, drink, or smoke. I’ve never seen him with a girl, either. Elijah is not gloomy only when we talk about romantic comedies. Pacino, the dog, is sleeping at my feet. The other one, I still don’t remember his name, follows the fish in the tank with his amber eyes.
“Hey, guys,” I begin nonchalantly. “I want to meet with that Jamaican dude you introduced me to last year at Jeff’s party. Remember? What’s his name? The guy . . . with the turban?”
“Oh, you mean Chris?” Steve says.
“Yeah, that’s the guy.”
“You need some pot? We’ve got some here if you want.” He looks at Tara with that it’s ok to light a joint, right? glance.
“Pot,” I say, “is the last thing I need right now. I just wanted to talk with him about something.”
“He’s a little . . . you know,” Tara begins, “discrete. I’m not sure whether he’d like to . . .”
Steve jumps in. “A discrete guy.”
Chris is an enormous, muscular black man with a handsome, inspired face that radiates peace and wisdom. He wears white, free-flowing clothes and, sometimes, a colorful turban on his head. Last year I spent half an hour with him at a party and, while we were drinking (I—wine, he—orange juice) by the pool, we talked about inner peace, freedom of choice, inspiration, happiness, and all sorts of nonsense. The next few days I was in a cheerful mood. I was later told that he provided Steve and Tara with marijuana; they liked to smoke from time to time.
“I’m writing a novel,” I start lying through my teeth, detecting how Elijah instantly perks up, “in which the main character stumbles upon a bag of marijuana.” Elijah relaxes; a lame idea, nothing new. “So, I guess, my question is . . . what can my hero do with a bag of weed? Could he sell it, how much would it cost, stuff like that?”
“Don’t you know?” Steve asks.
“Well, if I did, why would I be looking for Chris?”
“And how does the story end?” Elijah says.
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, how can you start writing something without knowing how it ends?” He almost snaps.
“Goddammit, Elijah, if I knew how it ended, why would I start writing it in the first place? That would be totally boring for me.”
“How can you reach the end when you don’t know where you’re going? The end is the most important part.”
“It’s no more important than the way there.”
“You have to know the end. Start at the end. Start there and go backwards, to the beginning.”
“Go backwards?”
“Sure! What does your hero want? That’s the question. What does he want? What drives him? What drives the story chapter after chapter after chapter?”
“A bag of weed.”
“A bag of weed can’t do that. What does your hero want to do with this bag of weed? Can he possibly achieve it? Or not? From there, you know whether you’ve got a tragedy or a comedy. But there’s another problem.” Elijah pauses. “Pot is too . . .” he gesticulates, “harmless. It doesn’t have that aura of . . . evil, so to speak. It doesn’t push people to do terrible things. On the contrary, it brings joy, relaxation, peace. Nobody kills somebody for a joint.” Pause. “Plus, it’s not expensive either. So the stakes are low. You should think of a different drug: heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, something like that. You should raise the stakes to the max—money or death!”
“Listen, my friend. This isn’t a script for a thriller. This is a story about . . .” I try to calm down and sound convincing. “Actually, this is not a story about drugs. This is a story about a guy who loses his talent . . .”
“His . . . what?” Elijah’s eyes narrow, puzzled.
“. . . loses his faith,” I keep going.
“Ay, ay, ay.” He shakes his head mockingly.
“. . . loses his appetite for life . . .”
“Existentialism?” Pure disgust.
“. . . loses his love . . .”
“So you’re writing a love story?” Sarcasm, plain sarcasm.
“. . . himself . . .”
“And he finds a bag of ganja? Genius!” Elijah slams the table with his fist.
“But one night, one crazy night, as if in a dream, he stumbles upon a bag of marijuana.” I sigh and stop. I won’t bother telling the skeptical bastard what my story is about. He doesn’t ever leave his shit-hole because he’s too busy reading countless how-to handbooks on screenwriting written by losers who haven’t made a single film. I know Elijah is searching for the formula behind the romantic comedy. He talks like a character from a romantic comedy, yet he’s neither romantic, nor comic. Elijah is just a benign tumor on my life story, and Lord only knows why I like him.
Silence.
Tara nods at Steve. He goes to the post-it spotted fridge and starts looking for something. Somewhere among the numbers for insurance agents, dentists, auto mechanics, producers, actors, lawyers, bankers, handymen, and the like, is the link to Chris. Then Steve dials a number and makes an appointment for me for the next day. We drink more wine and go to bed very late. I fall asleep the second my head meets the pillow.
I dream about Stella.
*
I can’t remember myself ever doing less than three things at the same time, which has made me confusing—I suppose—for people who neatly
