Where Am I Now?
August is my birth month, turning 80. I have so enjoyed bringing you these stories, and I have been pleased and honored by your responses. This will be the last in the series, though I will still be writing, and, when we’re able to do so, I will be offering readings and plays in the Santa Ynez Valley. Meanwhile, here’s a story I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s pretty close to the bone for me. The funny bone. Have a good time!
WHERE AM I NOW?
by Gerald DiPego
I thought I was in a hospital. Yes, I remember that. People were rushing. I was on a bed or… I was being wheeled, so I must have been hurt, but I don’t feel any pain, and I’m walking now, walking without hurry, not sure where I’m going. It looks like the suburbs, wide streets, no trees though, and the buildings are not homes. Bigger than that. The weather is pleasant, and I wonder… I wonder about everything. I can’t seem to think it through. There are other people here, walking in the same direction, maybe twenty, thirty. One woman is wearing a robe. There’s a man in his underwear, but most are dressed, and I check myself and recognize my clothing. No shoes though, bare feet, but I’m comfortable, just… lost.
All of us, the walkers, are reaching what looks like a bus stop, at least there are two sleek busses parked there. Several people are waiting, young people, all dressed in the same tan shirts, tan pants, men and women. As I move closer, I see they’re smiling at us. They seem very pleasant, and now a few of them wave. This puts me at ease. They’ll tell me what’s happening, where I am. My mind is blank except for images of the hospital. They come and blink away.
“Welcome,” I hear. The young people are greeting the walkers as we join them near the busses. I’m approached by two of them, and their smiles are so… true. “Name”? the young man asks. I find I actually have to think about it. “Jackson,” I say. “Jackson Deaver,” and then the young woman asks me a question as the man checks a list on his clipboard. Her question is, “What is your work, Jackson?” and I find that my answer comes easily. “Screenwriter,” and the man, looking at his list, says “I have him. Number eighteen.” The girl takes my arm with a light touch and leads me toward the busses.
People tell their names and their work and are placed on one bus or the other, but I’m guided to a bench to wait with three other people. “You’ll all be picked up soon,” the girl tells us, so we wait as the busses pull away, and we’re alone.
I look at the people beside me. “Do you know what’s going on?” I ask. One only shakes his head. The other asks me, “What is this place?” And I can only shrug. A few minutes later an SUV arrives, empty except for the driver. He reads from a clip board, calling out the 'work' of the three people on the bench with me: “Gardener? Teacher? Plumber?” And as he calls out, the people enter the SUV, and I’m now alone. The driver smiles. “You’ll be picked up soon,” he says, and drives away, and I wait. And wait. Several smaller cars drive by, slow down. The drivers look at me, at their clipboards, and then they move on.
Finally, there is a young woman on a bike. It’s a two-seater, and she smiles and says, “Screenwriter?” and I nod and she motions me toward the empty bicycle seat behind her. I find that there are no pedals for me, just places for my feet. She does all the pedaling, and we’re off, moving along, and I ask “Where are we going,” and she says “Everything will be explained.” A few busses pass us, a car, and she speaks to me as she pedals on.
“So… does the screenwriter write what the actors say, or do the actors just make it up as they go along?” I’m happy that I’m able to answer this question while the rest of my brain seems to be in the OFF position. I guess it’s because I’m so used to answering it. “The writer writes what they say.” She nods, pedaling on, and I watch as more cars and busses pass us. “And also…” I add, “we describe the scene and the people and the… attitudes and the… weather, the action and…” “Wow,” she says as we travel on, and I’m wondering why I needed to try to school her. Do I always go on like that? And now I finally see, coming up on our left, another double bicycle. A young man is pedaling and an older woman is behind, looking at me as I study her. She raises her voice to speak to me.
“Screenwriter, right?” And I nod my head.
“Me, too. Movies or TV?” she asks.
“Both. You?”
“Series. You?”
“Longform.”
She nods, and I ask… “Do you know where we are and where we’re going?” But the young man on her bike pedals faster to pull ahead, and I don’t hear her answer clearly. It sounded like “Eleven,” which makes no sense, and then I work it out, and the answer shakes me, and I ask my bike driver. “Did she say Heaven?!” The girl doesn’t turn, just pedals on, saying again “Everything will be explained.” She takes the next corner and there is now a slight hill to climb so she rises up off her seat and pedals harder. I’m trying to think this through, about death, about heaven, but my brain is made of mud, thoughts sink under and disappear, so I just watch as the standing girl’s butt moves side to side in the rhythm of her pedaling, and while I’m watching this, I begin to feel… guilty that I’m watching her butt, given where we might be. Did I die? I keep asking myself, but I simply don’t remember.
We reach a building where several bikes are parked. We dismount, and she walks me to the door and inside into an empty lobby. Everything is so clean. She takes me to a large elevator, presses a button, and when the door opens, with a sound like a breath, she gestures for me to enter. She stays outside, smiling her smile and saying “Third floor. Just take a seat in the hallway,” and I nod, and the elevator ascends.
I look around me and see there are two other people in the elevator, a man I don’t recognize and a woman that I do! My breath catches and I’m shocked and… so pleased. It’s the actress, Jean Simmons, quite old, and quite lovely, and it’s as if I have two heads, one telling me that she died years ago so I must be dead, too, and the other head just grinning widely at meeting her again.
“Jean, hello! So good to see you.” She gives me a pleasant smile and asks, “Have we met?” “Yes, we met on the film ‘One More Mountain’. I’m Jackson Deaver.” Her smile remains, but I see she doesn’t remember. “You were in that covered wagon set,” I tell her, “and we talked between takes, for hours, remember? All about your pets and my… pug.” She never loses that lovely smile, sighing and saying, “Jackson… there were so many movies.” The elevator stops at floor 2, and she begins moving toward the opening door. Before she exits, I have to ask, to make sure. “Jean, am I dead?” Her beautiful face beams. “Oh, don’t you worry about death, Jackson. It’s just another part to play.” As she exits, I’m still speaking… “No, no I’m not an actor, remember? I’m the…” The door closes, but I finish my word: “Screenwriter,” which she doesn’t hear, and now I’m gliding upward again, and I hear the man behind me say,” Oh… really? Listen… do you write what the actors say, or do they come up with that?”
The hallway of floor three is empty of people, but lined with chairs, and I sit and wait without knowing what I’m waiting for. After a while a door opens down the hall and a man enters the hallway, walking quickly, passing me without a glance, and I’m tempted to ask him… but he’ll probably just say that bit about everything being explained. Fine. When? It feels like another half hour crawls by when a different door opens and the woman steps into the hall, the older woman I met while she and I were traveling on the bikes, the woman who writes series. She looks… angry.
“HI,” I say. “It’s me… from the bikes.” She stops and nods, but her look is sullen. “What goes on in these rooms,” I ask, and she says, “Panels. You have to meet with a panel.” She starts to leave, but I call out, “What kind of panel?” But she says only, “Be careful,” and she walks on. A… panel? Some sort of interview? Careful of what?
Another door opens in the hallway, but nobody comes out. I hear voices from that room, so I rise and walk toward the open door, and now the voices are more clear, both men and women, and I hear “That was in 2012.” “Does anyone else feel stuffy in here?” “Everyone ready?” I stop at the doorway and lean in. There are eight people getting settled around a large table. Most are older than me, but not all. One man sees me and says to the others, “He’s here,” and he waves me in, saying, “Mr. Deaver, come in. May we call you Jackson?” They’re all looking at me as I sit, and some are smiling, but not the deep, open smiles I’ve been getting from the ‘staff’. These are quick and fleeting and simply polite. One of the older men looks familiar.
“Sure,” I say, “Call me Jackson. You know… I just shared an elevator with Jean Simmons. So lovely. Is she… ” One of the women breaks in, “Oh, she’s on an actors’ panel today. Shall we begin?” But the man who is familiar is staring, and I say, “I know you, right? I mean, we met, when you were…” I was going to say ‘alive,’ but swallow the word, and he says, “Yes. It was ‘The Mother of Wickham’ project,” and I nod, that title unearthing memories by a slow and heavy dig, and I say, “but… you weren’t a writer.” And he says, “No… not a writer,” and I wonder why he’s on my panel, but the woman speaks up again, showing a smile that comes and goes like a camera flash. “Why don’t we get started,” she says. “First page,” and I look down at the large book on the table in front of me. Each of us has one, and I open the cover and see that page one is a series of three film reviews, films that I’ve written. I remember these reviews. Who doesn’t remember bad reviews? They stick in the mind like darts.
I ask, “Why do you have these negative reviews here? I had some good reviews, you know, and sometimes what they’re picking at is not the writer’s fault at all. You must know that, as writers. Sometimes the director disagrees and has his or her way, and then there are the studio people, wanting this change and that change, and even if you make a clear argument why that change is wrong, well, you know what can they do. They can replace you. Bring in another writer. I’m sure that pissed you off as much as it does… did me. Right?”
They’re all staring. One of the men says, “Let’s stay on point, Jackson. We’ve noticed some weaknesses in several of your scripts, and we…” But I cut him off. “Weaknesses? What about weaknesses in YOUR scripts? “We’re not screenwriters, Jackson.” The man says. And I say, “What?! What are you?!” And the man says… he actually says… “We’re all studio executives, and we think we know scripts pretty well….” “STUDIO EXECUTIVES?!” I’m shouting now. I can’t help it. “You think you know scripts?! Not from the inside, you don’t. Why don’t I have a panel of writers?!” The women says, “We know what we’re doing….” And I cut into her sentence like an axe blow. “Not always, you don’t! You don’t! And I refuse, I REFUSE to be judged by you. Studio executives?! I DEMAND a jury of screenwriters. I DEMAND a jury of my peers!” I realize I’m standing now, standing and glaring at them, and they begin looking at each other, and the older man, the man I knew, says to me… he says… “I think we’re done here.”
So, I’m back outside now, and I see the girl waiting for me by her bicycle, looking like she knows. Somehow she knows, and I walk to her and ask, “What happens now?” and she says “Everything will be…” “Damn it! Will you stop saying that?!” I have erased her smile, and I’m sorry and I tell her I’m sorry. It’s not her fault, right? And she asks me to get on the bike, and I do, and I ask her, in a normal voice, “Where are we going? And please don’t say that ‘all will be…'” She starts pedaling and says softly, maybe breaking some rule, “Jackson… we’re going to the person in charge.” I think on that a while. “You mean…?” I don’t know what to call this person. Actually, I’m afraid to use the word. “You mean the… supreme being?” “No, Jackson, the person in charge of this level.” “This LEVEL? So… what’s this ‘level’ called?” And she takes in a deep breath and speaks softly, saying it once more, after all. “Everything will be explained,” and I let her have that one. Why not?
I’m surprised to find that ‘someone in charge’ is in such a small building, more like a house, showing its age. The girl gets off her bike and moves to the door, and I follow. She pushes a button and the door sweeps open, and she turns to me with a very serious look and whispers, “Be careful.” I start to ask what she means, but she nods her head toward the open door, and I walk in. She stays outside as the door slides closed. Every wall is lined with books, floor to ceiling, and some look very old, and very used, like the rumpled man, the very old and rumpled man sitting at the desk in the center of the house. He stands up with a genuine smile and gestures toward the chair nearby, saying, jovially, “Come in, Jack.”
I take the chair, which rocks as if there’s one short leg, and I say, “Thank you. It’s ‘Jackson.’” “And how are you feeling, Jack?” I wonder if his hearing is faulty. “I’m very confused, and my memory seems to be offline.” “Oh, that’s typical, typical. Now, what’s this outburst I’ve heard about?” He says this with some mirth in his eyes. “You scattered a whole panel. Sent them running.” He chuckles as he creaks back in his old leather chair. “I’m afraid you’re in some trouble, Jack.” I explain about the ‘jury’ and he nods, smiling, but then, slowly, the smile fades. His eyes are still kind, though. He sighs and says, “I’m afraid you went too far, too far, Jack, and it looks like you might have to leave this level.”
“What ‘level’ is this,” I ask, and he leans forward and says, “It’s the middle, Jack.” “It’s Jackson,” I remind him, and I say, “You mean… purgatory?” “Oh, we don’t call it that. It’s just… the middle.” “So that means, whoa! You mean I’m actually going to… hell?” “We just speak in terms of levels, Jack.” “Can’t you… give me another chance? You’re in charge, right?” He nods and says, “But there are rules.” “Nobody TOLD me the rules! Nobody explained! I don’t deserve hel… the bottom level! It’s extremely hot there, right? And painful?” “Oh, it’s not what you think.” “But it’s BAD, right. It’s… hellish. It’s…. Is there ANYTHING I can do to avoid this?!”
He’s thinking, his aged fingers tapping on his desk, and I hold my breath, and then his eyes come back to me. “There may be something,” he says. “You may be just the one for this, Jack. Yes. Just the one.” He reaches down to one of the desk drawers and starts to pull it open but it sticks. He is shaking it now and pulling, and it only moves by millimeters. I want to jump over the desk and grab that damn drawer…. It has my salvation in it!! He’s still pulling and shaking, and I’m about to leap, but now he’s reaching in and coming up with several stacks of papers’ and he puts them on the desk. Some of the smile comes back to his eyes.
“Me and… some of my close friends… we don’t tell this to many people, but… we’ve been trying our hand at writing screenplays, and I think we’re making headway, Jack, and if you could just read them and…” He stops because I’ve closed my eyes. “Jack?” And now I feel my head lowering, moving down to the desk between us where it thumps. The blow shakes through my body. “Jack?” With my eyes still closed I raise my head again, and down it comes, with a louder bang. I begin making a strange sound, like an “Ahhhhgggg!” “Jack?!” “I’ll go!” I’m nearly sobbing these words. “I’ll go! I’ll go down there! I’ll go!”
The bicycle girl is very sad as we approach a large metal box, free-standing on the sidewalk, and I see now it’s an elevator. I dismount the bike. She doesn’t. We look at each other and I want to hold her, even kiss her goodbye, at least on the forehead. And then I think, what can I lose? I hold her shoulders tenderly and kiss her lips lightly, and feel a slight kissing-me-back feeling, and as I draw back, her eyes show a thin brush of tears. I walk to the elevator. She calls out. “You’ll see a microphone in there. Just call out your work.” I nod, enter the elevator and see the microphone. I say… “Screenwriter,” and I’m suddenly hurtling downward, passing a blur of floors to slow and stop gently on one of them, and the door opens.
Disbelief hits me hard. I’ve arrived… at a bar! It’s an enormous bar, with stools and tables, a long rank of busy bartenders serving drinks and… truly… hundreds of patrons, men and women, drinking, ordering, talking. The cacophony of voices is overwhelming. I step into this, and it surrounds me, like the room itself: warm, stuffy. I’m moving through it, squeezing through the crowd and sweating now and seeing that this room is much larger than I thought, people seated at the unending bar and tables and standing… a thousand? And the room curves around so that this place may just go on beyond my vision. On and on. “What’re you drinking?” A bartender is shouting at me. I shake my head and try to move on, but the thicket of bodies slows me down, and I’m beginning to make out pieces of conversations: “They used to make a better vodka tonic – taste this.” “Ellen and I wrote a script together. She’s awful to work with.”
I push my way toward the man talking about ‘Ellen,’ and reach through the bodies to touch his shoulder. When he turns to me, I shout: “You’re a screenwriter?” The man stares, and then begins to laugh, gut-laughing, and I shout, “Hey, what’s funny?!” “We’re ALL screenwriters here, buddy. Where do you think you are?” “You mean… everybody here…?” I look at the sea of thousands and ask “Are you on break, or…” “On break?!” “From the… shovels,” I shout. “From the ovens,” and he laughs again. “This is IT, buddy. This is all there is.” And then we’re separated by the shifting bodies.
I’m listening closely now, and everyone is talking about the film business: “Back end? Who ever gets back end money? Even if the film does great?” “Eight drafts, they had me do! Nobody could make up their mind!” “They wouldn’t even pay to take me on location!” “You should see the office they gave me. More like a closet!” I’m swimming through all of this, bumped and squeezed, moving on and on through the mob, through the steady chaos of writers’ complaints that are pushing at me, dragging me under. “Two lousy seats to the premier of my film! They cut the best scene! The sound was muddy. The camera never… the music… the meetings… theyneveraskedoverbudgetkilledthirdactgavehimcredit!” I can’t stand to hear it, and I can’t get away from it, and I start to sink, to fall… fall….
“Where am I now?” I hear myself saying, because the noise is gone and everything is dark. I shout “Everything is dark!” and a voice says, “Open your eyes, Jackson.” And I do. I’m in a hospital room. My ex-wife is there, saying “God, you’ve been shouting, mostly gibberish. How do you feel?” And I ask her “What’s wrong with me?” And she says “Do you mean in general or why you’re in a hospital?” And I actually smile, a weak one, and she says “A kind of medium heart attack. You’re going to be fine. Tommy’s on his way from UC. And I’ve been talking to your brother. I always told you you were pushing yourself too hard, so this is the proof. You know I’m always right, right?” I’m still smiling. “So you’re going to slow down now,” she says, “and write that book?” and I nod. “And are they still offering you that teaching job? That’d be perfect.” I say yes, imagining that, telling students all that I’ve learned and working on my how-to book, and…. She goes on, but I’m tired and only half listening now, and my nightmare is fading, dissembling like a thinning cloud, and… gone. When her talking stops, I ask “Did my agent call?”
#
