Tales of Times Square: Expanded Edition (34 page)

“Diz girlz got Don Johnson callin’ her every day, Michael Douglas callin’ every night, she’s confused, she called me cryin’ yesterday morning, wonders if all they want is to get in her pants. But now you got it over them. Ya take diz bitch to
SNL,
get her a few drinks, then a few more drinks, till she’s drunk, and you can fuck the shit outta her all night. I’m the closest friend she’s got, I know. Just follow my instructions.”

“Make her be a mercenary,” adds Sammy, pitching his own strategy. “She thinks you’re a big shot. But if Francis sits down next to her to discuss movie stuff, she’ll walk off with his 300-pound belly. If you forget that and think she likes you for your looks or ‘cause you’re a nice guy—if you let down your guard and reveal your desire—you’ve blown it. You’re merely her liaison of the moment into the world of movie directors.”

Grubman remained awestruck over Meg. “I’d be a nervous wreck in your shoes,” he admitted. He once asked Shark what he could cook up to get Meg, but Shark said Fuhgeddaboudit, Jack, you don’t have the guns to deal with diz chick, she’s outta your league. It was the movie biz, and nothing but, that got her attention.

On the day of the
SNL
rehearsal, mid-week, I received a morning call from Shark. “Remember,” he reiterated, “just say Francis to her, that’s the key word. Don’t say Francis Ford Coppola, that’ll fuck it up, just Francis. That’s music to her ears. She loves Francis, she’s totally mesmerized by diz guy, she almost met him once, she’ll do anything to get in one of his movies. But make it sound familiar. Just say, ‘Francis’ll be there.’ Then call me back in a coupla weeks when you come up for air.”

Shark caught his breath a moment, showing fatherly concern toward my welfare. “Just remember one thing with diz girl... Don’t ever let down your guard. It’s easy to fall for her, surrounded by all her beauty and largesse. Then you let down your guard and get hit by a right cross and it’s lights out. She’s a maneater.”

Shark was spent. His work was done. Working diligently for several weeks to secure this event, he could now bow out and let nature take its course. Thereafter, with Meg on my arm at parties, according to Shark and Sammy, every big shot in the room would stop in their tracks; women would act catty and jealous, important people would gravitate toward me, anxious to exchange numbers, to ask me for her pictures and portfolio. This was the type of pimpish power that Sammy and Shark craved more than anything in life.

That afternoon, right on time, my doorbell rang. “Meg Calendar,” sang the voice at the intercom.

“Want to come up?”

“No.” I went down, exited the elevator and saw her in person for the first time through the lobby window. Her photos did her a disservice. She was a goddess, blindingly beautiful, the effect of which could not be experienced from any photograph. She wore what might be considered a tastefully expensive ensemble. A scarf wove through her flowing blonde mane, impassible curls bouncing with vitality. Eyes of charismatic blue sparkled, creamy flesh radiating health. Her cleavage revealed just enough bosom to inspire wonder, yet not be offensive at a PTA meeting.

For some reason, I wore a turquoise V-neck sweater as a shirt. I’d never worn it this way before and felt like a schmuck from the get-go. I hailed us a cab. Meg allowed me to open the door and stepped in. I introduced myself. Slightly annoyed, she felt obliged to mumble a few words back.

“I’ve been with the Ford Agency since I was fourteen. Now I’m twenty-three,” she confessed, with a sorrowful shrug. “I looked exactly the same when I was fourteen as I do now—built the same.”

“Wow, you must really be... used to yourself.”

“Well, now I have a few wrinkles.”

There were no wrinkles. She began to tell of her background. She was the only white girl at an all-black school in Virginia. A tomboy who learned to fight. It was hard to imagine Meg ever being remotely boyish. However, I jumped on this odd coincidence. I’d once been the only white kid at a black school on Long Island. For an exhilarating moment I imagined we’d bond on this. But she didn’t hear me and continued her own story. She met Shark when she was a child. Somehow, her parents trusted Shark to escort her to a football game where they sat at the sidelines of the visiting team. The visiting team was the New York Jets and Shark was part of their entourage. She never knew in what capacity. But it was a special day and they’d been friends ever since.

As she spoke I inhaled complicated layers of her fragrance. She wore only a hint of perfume, but more than that, Meg exuded some hormonal charge that touched nerves I never knew existed. Enclosed in the back of a funky cab, her scent touched off sensations of early childhood when the taste of ice cream or the scent of a Christmas tree was brand new.

“Francis’ll be there,” I blurted out, as I was coached.

Meg fell silent. The rest of our ride was silent.

Outside 30 Rock and once inside the cavernous RCA Building art deco lobby, the heads of male pedestrians turned. Meg had learned to act oblivious. But I found the attention terribly unnerving. She couldn’t walk a city street without hearing catcalls, whistles, hoots. Jayne Mansfield heard the same on walks, but she craved it. I imagined the pressure some poor boyfriend or future husband would have to endure. Meg Calendar was possibly the most beautiful woman on earth which, by definition, made her a sociopath. I was walking with a freak.

Hardened NBC stage crew—Local 1 union palookas used to seeing beautiful women every day—dropped their jaws as we strode past. A group of electricians led us through the labyrinthine corridors toward Studio 8C to make sure we got to the right destination. Every time I looked over at her face I grew weaker, tripping over words. I searched for any sign of imperfection I might focus on to dull her effect. Voluptuousness was out, so perhaps this is what held her back in the industry. She had none of the heroin-faced teenage waif look currently in vogue.

We reached Studio 8C. There was a bustle of activity. Camera men, sound men, electricians, lighting crew, set builders, musicians, writers, directors and cast members. It appeared they were putting together a show. If you so much as touched a mike boom, you risked physical ejection by the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians. Meg scanned the terrain, taking it all in and she came alive. This was the promised land, the road to stardom. Camera men were notating shots, actors blocked out scenes as grips laid down masking tape for position. Her cold heart warmed even more the moment she stepped on center stage. She began asking questions to a makeup assistant. Meg had now ditched me as her escort.

In the middle of the hurly-burly was Francis Ford Coppola. Or should I say, Francis. He looked like a bearded slob. But Meg homed in, distancing herself from me. Fly, Meg, fly.

An extra on the show, some struggling soap opera actor who’d auditioned with her once, stopped by to chat. He approached with manly confidence. Meg stood by a popcorn machine looking positively perverse. Hundreds of kernels bubbled over the top in fluffy buds. She helped herself, pumping melted butter over the popcorn with a cockeyed look of satisfaction. The extra left a minute later looking like a woeful bloodhound.

Meg and I finally took chairs near Francis. As he rehearsed some sketch, she kept sliding her chair away from me, a few inches more toward the hirsute director. Each time she laughed insincerely at a cast member’s joke, or touched one’s arm, a stab of anguish shot through my gut, like I was losing rope.

But the cast of
Saturday Night Live
wouldn’t really give her the time of day. They were into some advanced stage of anti-glamour, and turned up their noses at models. So did Francis, apparently, who didn’t acknowledge her presence. Only stagehands came close for a sniff.

We rode the elevator to the lobby, where Meg abruptly shook my hand, offered a tight goodbye smile and was off to hail her own taxi. I cursed my turquoise sweater.

The next morning I debriefed Shark, who absorbed the information like a general. “We’re picking up our wounded on stretchers, reforming our battle plans,” he said. “Remember, you’re in the league with Babe Ruth, Jack.”

I told Shark how Meg always kept five paces away from me.

“Five feet away?” said Shark. “Ain’t that better havin’ a super knockout, just five feet away—than showin’ up with some everyday dog fawning all over you. You walked into
Saturday Night Live
with Meg Calendar! But this is gonna take a little more of a push than I first thought. What was that other thing you mentioned?”

“The cast party?”

“The cast party!” yelled Shark. “That’s perfect! You take her back to that
SNL
cast party on Saturday, sit her next to Francis when he’s hot off the air—buddy, you’ll have her like a hole in one.”

“Won’t she wonder why the hell I’m doing this for her?”

“No,” said Shark, “that’s the thing with narcissists. She’s so self-centered and obsessed with herself, she thinks everyone else is too.”

“I dunno.”

“You’ve got to get her to that cast party,” said Shark.

The Exercise Tape

Sammy had his hands in a few extra-curricular operations, one of them called The Exercise Tape. It purported to be a clearinghouse for models needed in the burgeoning exercise video market. Every out-of-work celeb was a fitness guru all of a sudden, from Marie Osmond to Debbie Reynolds. They were the latest snake oil salesmen. In Sammy’s case, as always, there was a small degree of legitimacy to the operation. He did occasionally land girls in minor modeling jobs. Ads for The Exercise Tape appeared in community papers and on bulletin boards and telephone booths.

The ruse took place at a respectable-looking midtown office. Sammy and his partners kept a professional production atmosphere, with editing equipment, video cameras on tripods and a white backdrop. Even a receptionist.

“A lot of these girls are great at camouflaging their flaws from ten feet away,” said Sammy. “You get a big boner, but on close examination they look terrible.” If a girl came in wearing a floppy dress, Sammy instantly knew something’s amiss. “If they’re not showing it, they’re hiding something.”

A typical appointment at The Exercise Tape went as such: A toothy, disheveled girl entered who had no chance of getting a modeling gig whatsoever. She was accompanied by a short Italian boyfriend with a pompadour and a black eye. Their car exploded on the Jersey turnpike, drenching her clothes. Sammy was mortified. The poor girl was too nervous to answer questions during a videotaped Q&A. She had a bad smile, bad body, terrible speaking voice.

“Do you exercise?” asked Sammy, off camera.

“I give my boyfriend a workout every night.” She was given the obligatory five minutes for showing up, then thanked. In such instances, Sammy didn’t even waste tape, he secretly unloaded the camera.

“I hate it when they come with a boyfriend,” explained Sammy. “It’s the wrong way to audition. See the way that moron planted himself near the camera? When this happens at my apartment, I usher them out in two minutes. Never trust the boyfriends. Sometimes they bring a Negro, you never know if he’s coming back to rob you. This was the biggest night of their year, those two from exit 39 on the Jersey Turnpike. They think they did a big New York audition, now they’ll probably tell all their friends she’s being considered for rock videos. Can you imagine the vile sex they have?”

“I’m here to do test shots for print work,” said the next appointment, a tall blonde. There was a stark difference between what Sammy called “test shots” and what desperate hopefuls called “print work.” Sometimes Sammy ran home from his instant black & white developer with these prized test shots, masturbating before the chemicals dried on the contact sheets. Here was Sammy juxtaposed against real-life female human beings seeking work.

But Sammy cuts this interview short also. The tall blonde wrote down her number on a fast food wrapper from her pocketbook. “Call if you need me,” she said, with a needy wink.

“You’re not going to call?” Sammy warned. “She’s a horse. Maybe she’s got huge tits, but after that, forget it. Her legs are like tree stumps, she’s a horrible, sweating pig. If you don’t believe me we can call her back for a test shoot, you can see her in a bathing suit.”

A twinge of guilt occasionally came over Sammy. He felt a need to defend his actions: “Look, you’re going to be dead and buried, you’re nothing, you’re not going to exist forever. Except for about seventy years. Now, during these seventy years, you’re not going to have any sex with girls unless you resort to trickery, scams, deception. That’s the only way you’ll have sex. Otherwise you can be a good, decent guy, never have sex, then be six feet underground forever. What would be your choice?”

The third appointment was a winner. Jean Service was a pretty twenty-year-old blonde, presenting a whole different picture of womanhood from the toothy girl and the tree-stump one. She listed Danbury, Connecticut as home on the form. During her video Q&A, she acted like the Ivory Girl, presenting Miss America answers to Sammy’s bland questions, with a full smile and bouncy hair. Sammy was most pleased. He then upped the ante, asking her to pose in a bathing suit and roll around a bit on the floor. Emerging from the changing room, she bent down, rolled over slowly as instructed, pushed out her little titties for as much cleavage as she could muster. A slutty move.

“Maybe we should take her to meet the
backers
at the Palladium,” Sammy said aloud, baiting her gameness. He hesitated to ask if she’d “oil up,” not wanting to scare away this potential Palladium date. Jean Service left The Exercise Tape optimistic.

“I’d have degraded her more during the test shoot,” said Sammy, chewing his cud over a comforting plate of cow’s muscles at Sun Lok Kee. “Except she was too nice.”

Sammy loved slimy, off-the-menu dishes in Chinatown. Fish with their heads intact; tripe and mysterious concoctions of gruel, dishes only ordered by Chinese peasants off the boat. Whole shameful plates of tough sinews, which he gnawed at, hunched over, masticating in private disgrace in the backs of dumpy Chinatown restaurants. Here, Grubman was a throwback shtetle Jew, an inbred, an outcast, right out of a nineteenth-century Polish ghetto. This was his perfect night out. Could Jean Service possibly indulge him over a romantic candlelight dinner of livestock intestines?