Loser's Town (21 page)

Potts saw the woman again in Dairy products. She was buying yogurt, those little containers you saw healthy people slurping on TV. She was around Potts’ own age. She wore a pale-blue button-up dress and as she reached up to get the yogurt Potts realized she had a pretty good figure and nice legs. She was small and tight and she had this face
like a grade school teacher. Potts didn’t think anymore about it. She wasn’t his sort of woman. But she reminded him of all those teachers he’d had the hots for as a kid, the series of not-gorgeous women in plain dresses who still managed to give him a hard-on every time they bent over his shoulder to correct his work. Potts stood in the Meats section and tried to figure out how much fat he needed in his ground beef.

He passed her once again buying toilet paper. She nonchalantly picked up a big package of toilet paper and dropped it in her cart, like it was the most natural thing in the world, which of course it was. Potts on the other hand couldn’t pick up a roll of tissue unless the whole goddamned aisle was clear and even then he’d bury it under whatever was in his cart. Like nobody in Potts’ universe ever had a bowel movement. She smiled again at Potts and passed him with her big package of ass-wipe paper and Potts admired her, admired that ease in the world that he would never have. Potts sniffed some kind of perfume as she passed or maybe it was soap. Potts saw her bending over his desk, gently pointing out what a fuck-up he was in math, inhaling her scent and having his ear brushed by the cloth of her dress and praying, praying, she wouldn’t call him to the board because of his small but proudly distinct nine-year-old’s boner.

He didn’t see her again in the store. He looked for her at the checkout but she’d already gone. Potts paid and lugged his peachless few groceries outside, two small bags. There
was a Starbucks next door. Potts hadn’t eaten breakfast and he wanted coffee. Normally he wouldn’t be caught dead in the place. It was always full of teenagers from the high school and the girls were cute and wore revealing clothes and Potts always felt like a pervert. I mean, it was only human to look but still you felt like a pervert and what’s more you were convinced they knew you were looking and that you were definitely a pervert. Potts went in anyway because he’d forgotten to buy coffee. What Potts really wanted was a simple goddamn cup of Folgers but he submitted to a fucking coffee-Nazi interrogation and wound up with something from Sumatra and a triangular maple thing. Where the fuck was Sumatra? One more place designed to make you feel like you didn’t belong. He looked for a seat and saw the woman sitting alone at a table in the corner. She was reading a book. The available table was near hers. She gave him a big smile. Potts sat down. She said:

‘How do you get those groceries home on your motorcycle?’

Potts was surprised. How did she know about the bike?

‘It’s a trick,’ he said.

‘I’ll bet. You strap them on the handlebars in some way?’

‘I’ve got panniers – saddlebags. I’ll just take them out of the bag and put them in the panniers.’

She laughed. ‘Not much of a trick. I didn’t notice the saddlebags. People always want to make things more complicated than they are.’

‘I guess,’ said Potts. ‘You like motorcycles?’

‘My brother liked them. He used to put me on the back of his sometimes. I was a kid. It was the most exciting thing in the world then.’

‘It still is. Maybe. What happened to your brother?’

‘You’re thinking: tragic motorcycle accident. But no, he just got married and got responsible and stopped riding. I think I liked him better when he was wild and irresponsible.’

‘Not all bikers are wild and irresponsible,’ said Potts, although he clearly believed that he was.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’ve put my foot in my mouth.’

‘No, it’s okay. I know what you meant.’

‘Thank you for being a gentleman about it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have to go. It was nice meeting you.’

‘You too,’ said Potts.

She gave him another of her smiles. Potts watched her walk out into the sunlight. He imagined, as he did with practically every decent person he met, what her home life was like. Whatever it was, it was not something Potts would ever have in common.

Twelve

A TV screen. Bobby Dye is being interviewed.

BEV METCALF

(
to camera
)

Hi, I’m Bev Metcalf, and today we’re on the set of
Wildfire
, the new movie starring Bobby Dye, Tiffany Porter and Sir Ian Whateley. And we’re talking to Bobby Dye – Bobby, we’ve managed to catch you and pull you aside here. Wow, it’s a busy time for you, huh?

 

BOBBY

Yeah, I’m in a lot of scenes, and the days are long, but you know, it’s going to be worth it. It makes a difference, as an actor, to be working on a film you’re really proud of. You want to give it your all.

 

BEV

Can you tell us what the movie is about?

 

BOBBY

Well, it’s the sort of movie they don’t make anymore, at least not since David Lean. It’s an epic, a big movie, about a Montana ranching family at the turn of the century. I play Chad Halliday, a rebellious son, and Sir Ian plays my father, a powerful rancher who’s fighting to keep his ranch not only from crooked land developers but a massive forest fire that’s threatening to wipe him out.

 

BEV

It sounds symbolic, the forest fire raging . . .

 

BOBBY

Oh yeah. That was one of the things that really attracted me to the script, the whole environmental side, the encroaching of industry on nature, and the destruction of a whole way of life. I mean, we’re seeing that now. Look at the rainforests.

 

BEV

Wow!

 

BOBBY

And of course Tiffany plays my half sister, with whom I fall in love . . .

 

BEV

What? Ooh, this sounds pretty racy!

 

BOBBY

Well, I can’t give away the plot. But everything works out okay in the end. I mean, there’s nothing to really offend anybody. So, you know, you can bring the kids. Something for everybody.

 

BEV

What’s it like working with Tiffany Porter? This is her first serious acting role, after her fabulous career as a pop star.

 

BOBBY

Tiffany is a doll, a real sweetheart. I mean, the press has always been so hard on her, so unfair, that you expect some prima donna, and she’s absolutely nothing like that. She’s absolutely professional, on time and knows her lines, and she’s got these great instincts. I just love working with her. And when people see the movie, they’re going to get an insight into a whole different character than the one in the press. I mean, you can’t carry off a role like hers and be some sort of flake. It requires real concentration and real dedication. She’s got both.

 

BEV

And Sir Ian Whateley . . .

 

BOBBY

What can I say?

 

BEV

Were you nervous?

 

BOBBY

Oh my goodness. Nervous doesn’t even touch it. Petrified, maybe. Rigid, I was afraid to speak. There he is, this . . . legend. I grew up on his films. I wanted to
be
Ian Whateley. So I’m, like, unable to speak, and he comes over and starts talking to me in that amazing voice he has – you know, that rich plummy British accent –

 

BEV

Unmistakable . . .

 

BOBBY

And he’s like the kindest, gentlest guy on the face of the earth. He makes you feel so relaxed, you forget all about the whole ‘Sir Ian’ business. And he’s funny as hell. He has this raunchy sense of humor – oh wow, maybe I shouldn’t say that – but he’s, like, hilarious. We sit around and laugh. We’re like two schoolkids, Mark –

 

BEV

Mark Sterling, the director –

 

BOBBY

Mark has to get us aside and scold us. We’ll be doing a scene and start giggling and it’s like ‘time out’ and Mark makes us sit at opposite ends of the stage until we stop giggling.

 

BEV

It sounds like a dream.

 

BOBBY

Oh yeah, it is like a dream. Working with all these great people, and there’s this amazing script – Denny Kessel, who won an Oscar for
Lowdown
– and Mark Sterling, a wonderful director . . . Yeah, it is like a dream. Sometimes I want to pinch myself.

 

BEV

So this performance, does it have Oscar written on it? The buzz is amazing.

 

BOBBY

Oh gosh. I don’t even want to think about that. You know, you just go out there and do the best you can, just give it what you’ve got with all your heart. I mean, an Oscar . . . It’s nice people like my work, but in the end it’s about pleasing the fans, right? and trying to make a good movie.

 

BEV

Thank you, Bobby Dye, for taking the time out to talk to us.

 

BOBBY

My pleasure, Bev.

*

Bobby and Spandau were at Bobby’s place. They were sitting in front of a giant plasma TV and eating Buffalo chicken wings washed down by an expensive bottle of Napa Zinfandel.

‘She’s hot,’ Bobby said around a chicken wing. He backed up the DVD and played it again. ‘There, you see that? The way she laughs and leans forward there, that little jiggle. She wasn’t wearing a bra. You can’t tell it on screen but those babies were on display. She gave me her phone number.’

‘Your life is hell all right,’ said Spandau.

‘You think this wine is okay with the chicken wings? It’s a Zin.’

‘It seems pretty good to me.’

‘I didn’t think a French wine would be up to it. I got about a hundred French wines in the basement. I’m like an addict now. Or maybe we should have gone with beer? You think wine with chicken wings is fucking pretentious, don’t you?’

‘Look, it’s fine. I don’t know what the current snobbery is for wine and chicken wings but it seems pretty good to me. I wouldn’t worry about it.’

‘Jesus, you know, my mother worked in a fucking factory. She made can openers for thirty years, you know, those kind you turn the wing around and around? I drink a nice bottle of wine and I can’t get past that.’

‘You’re a success. Enjoy it.’

‘Nouveau riche. I think everybody’s watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. Order the wrong wine, eat with the wrong fork. Hell, they are watching me. I can’t eat soup with crackers in public, you know that? I can’t have a fucking bowl of chili anymore, in case I get fucking crumbs all over the place and it winds up in a newspaper someplace.’

‘That’s the price. You’re not so naive you didn’t know what it was.’

‘Not like this. And now with cellphone cameras, I’m afraid to take a shit in public, somebody’ll shove the thing under the wall and take off running. A big picture on the internet of me on the shitter, my pants down around my ankles.’

‘There are laws.’

‘You going to sue some fourteen-year-old? By the time you find the goddamn thing is out there it’s too late.’

‘You ever been to Mexico City?’ Spandau asked him. ‘Take a drive along the outskirts. There are people who have to shit in public because there’s no place else to go.’

Bobby threw down his chicken wing. ‘Jesus, what are you supposed to be? The fucking voice of moral authority? My fucking conscience? I tell you how I feel and you fucking try to put it down, make it less than what it is?’

‘Calm down.’

‘Fuck you, man. I thought I could talk to you. I don’t get to do this with anybody. I can’t even talk to my fucking mother anymore, or my own fucking brother. This is exactly the sort of shit I hear. You think I don’t know how lucky I am? But you think that somehow increases the number of people I can trust? How many people you think I can trust? How many friends you think I got these days?’

‘I didn’t mean to belittle it. I was just trying to put it into perspective. You’re not the only one with problems.’

‘Yeah, but those people in the slums of Mexico City, they got problems. But they got one set of problems and I got another. At least they fucking got each other. This place I’m in, it’s like a fucking shark tank.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want you to be sorry, I just want you to listen.’

‘Look, maybe I’m the wrong guy for this.’

‘Why? You’re not fucking interested? You just want to do your job and go home?’

‘You’re talking to me because you think I’m safe, because you know I can’t tell anybody, because I’m tied up the wazoo with the same fucking confidentiality clauses everybody around you signs. Why me? Look, you want a sycophant, I’m not it. You want somebody to tell you how
great you are and absolve you for being the occasional privileged asshole, it’s not me.’