Mad Atoms

You can literally hear it in her voice when your mother shifts from talking about your father’s bursitis and the son of a bitch your sister married to asking you how it’s going for you out in Hollywood: Hope.

Hope that her little boy or girl is not actually doing what they say they are doing, and toiling in the mailroom at a third-rate talent agency. That the child she wanted to be a doctor, a congressman, fuck even an accountant, isn’t literally washing someone’s dishes just to have a job in ‘the industry.’ With that kind of sentiment underlying your every conversation, why would you do anything but lie your balls off?

A few weeks ago I spent two hours in the office of a powerful director trying to cover his massive, floor-to-ceiling windows with a black, velveteen cloth to make sure no light could get in during an upcoming screening. The process involved cutting and hanging a textile approximately the size of Connecticut without disturbing any of the man’s plants, metallic Buddhas in repose, framed head shots or Arabian tea sets, a task that required me to delicately and painstakingly tap a series of tiny nails into the window molding, standing on a chair.

Not long after, she called.

“Well, I was just in a Powerful Director’s office for a couple hours, actually...”

“Really? What were you doing?”

“Having a meeting.”

“What were you talking about?”

“Art. Movies. Religion. We just kind of talked.”

The Man Himself was actually at his Malibu home at the time, but what the hell.

“Wow. Is he going to read your script?”

“Ma, it’s not like that. He has to ask for it. It’s impolite to offer it.”

“You were in there for two hours and he didn’t ask?”

“He said he was thinking about it.”

“Well, at least you’re not washing his dishes.”

“True. True.”