Playworld

by Adam Ross

Talent, I thought. That great leveler. Smasher of gates and all-access pass. Velvet-rope opener and the penthouse view. Follow me please, says the maître d’ to talent, I have our best table waiting. That uniquely and unfairly bestowed gift America had figured out how to tap more efficiently and mercilessly than any other country in history. It should be written on the goddamn Statue of Liberty: Give me your talented, your gifted, your huddled geniuses, yearning to breathe free. That was our country’s exceptionalism—her thrown-wide-open doors she might just as suddenly slam shut. Rob my father of his money, like that insurance agent did; call him Burger or hebe or kike, but you still could not wrest from him his talent. I said I was not the only one to notice how perfect Dad was as the lead, how—I truly believe this—the fortunes of that show might have been otherwise if he’d been properly cast, if they’d given him his one shot.