[Introducing the Players. One of the pleasures of writing fiction is that you create characters who become your intimate friends. None of them are real, but none are complete fabrications, either. Better yet, you can introduce the characters to each others. You can make them fight; you can have them make love; you can share their anguish. Watch how children play with dolls or action figures; that’s what writers do. Put us in a playpen or a playground or a sandbox, and we all become writers. SB SM].
Artie and Cuzzin arrange to meet for dinner that night at Anna’s, which used to be called Jack Colton’s when they were growing up. Back then it was smoky and seedy. Now, it’s been tarted-up. Food’s better, though.
At the cottage Artie looks at the unsightly mess on the front lawn. He is way behind where he expected to be. Before plunging back in, he monitors the messages on his cell phone:
- His agent wants to know if he is interested in speaking to the National Press Club on the issue of fairness in the media. (Maybe, but could be an ambush)
- A representative for Imus in the Morning. Calls to see if he’d like to appear on the show. (Definitely an ambush. They love kicking people when they are down.)
- His son Liam calls to see if he is ready for him to come down and help at the cottage. Liam is just finishing up his next-to-last semester at the Berklee School of Music, and has just taken a job working second shift at a Dunkin Donuts baking plant.
- Meiko calls to remind him that he is the world’s best lover, with the world’s biggest penis. She tells him his house in Hollywood is fine and asks when can she come visit him in Boston. She’s sure the cottage is “super cute.” (“Super gross” is more how she would describe it. He knows she’s exaggerating about the penis. She probably just means the biggest penis she’s ever seen.)
- Mike Wallace’s executive assistant calls to say that Mike sends his thanks and hopes he liked the finished 60 Minutes piece. The ratings were excellent. (Mike must have put her up to this, and the entire 60 Minutes’ staff are probably in the office holding their hands over their mouths as they choke with stifled hilarity.
- Jimbo Phipps, his longtime associate producer, expresses rage and sympathy over 60 Minutes, and mentions that he has signed on to help Michael Bay produce the new Men in Black IV, so won’t be available for future projects. No need to return the call. (Maybe I’ll call just to say “Fuck you, too, Jimbo.”)
The only call he answers is Liam’s. Liam, wearing a hairnet and white smock with a Dunkin’ Donuts logo, is on a break from his new job of frying glazed donuts. He is slight and dark, with the heavily tattooed arms of a fledgling rock star. He is smoking a cigarette. Artie sits in a wicker chair that he has dragged out onto the lawn. The cottage is in close proximity to other houses.
Right next door, separated by a low picket fence, a woman in a leotard is going through the slow motions of Tai Chi exercises to the sounds of soft classical music. Artie watches her as he speaks:
“Liam. Wuddup? It’s your Papa. Finished with exams? How’d they go? Yeah, I’m here right now, at the cottage, sitting in the front yard that hasn’t been mowed for three years, watching this weird babe next door do one of those slow motion kung fu things. This place definitely could use your help. In fact, it can use all the help it can get, but not yet. Right now it’s an embarrassment, and I’d rather you didn’t see it this way. Give me today and tomorrow to get the first layer of filth off, then come down on Friday. By then I should have electricity, water—you know, the basic conveniences of 19th century life. Until then, I might as well be camping out. Actually, camping out would be a big step up from what I’m doing right now. Have they given you your work schedule? Good. Call me again tomorrow. Hey, guess what, I’m having dinner with your Uncle Cuzzin tonight. Do you even remember him? What a piece of work. See ya soon.”
Here is Liam’s side of the conversation:
Hello. Hey! Ooooo, Poppa’s a rapper!. Yeah, O.K. Uh-huh. O.K. I have Fridays and Tuesdays off. Cool! Sure I do. I will. Seeya.”
Artie closes his phone and lingers on the woman in her languid world of slow motion. She’s got an ok body, he decides, for an old broad.
The cleaner (relatively speaking) the cottage becomes, the messier the lawn. Artie brings out a braided rug, hangs it over an line, and starts whacking it with an old-fashioned, wire rug beater that he found in the utility closet. Whap, whap, whap! Each blow brings a satisfying puff of dust. Artie likes the violence of it and begins attaching names to the swings. Here ya go, Mike Wallace. One for you, Jimbo Phipps. Haven’t forgot you …
“Do you really think you can beat something into cleanliness?”
Artie turns to see the Tai Chi lady leaning on the fence. He guesses her to be about his age, but well preserved and more athletic. Her expression is not welcoming.
“This is how we’ve always cleaned the rugs in the spring. Beat the dust out and let them air out in the sun.” Artie demonstrates with a few solid whacks. “Look at that,” he said, gesturing proudly to his last dust cloud.
“Can you do it when the wind’s blowing the other way? You’re dealing in levels of filth that I can’t relate to. I guess I don’t see the point.” She doesn’t wait for a response.
Shea Provost’s perspective: I’ve busted my butt to make something of myself. I excelled in high school and college. I kept my nose clean. I worked a free internship. I endured unwanted sexual passes from my bosses and undeserved catty comments from tight-assed secretaries for the opportunity to work fourteen hours a day for despicable clients whose only virtue was that they could pay our bills. I have been a highly-polished white collar prostitute, and I have done it damn well so that I scraped together the money for the down payment on my own little winterized cottage in a safe, quiet neighborhood where I can have a little peace and privacy. Now, some buffoon who owns the shack next door, which should just disintegrate into the marsh, comes by and makes his front lawn look like a permanent yard sale. To make matters worse, he has to advertise his presence with his repeated thwocking of a rug that should be put out into the trash. Maybe I should call the authorities.
By nightfall Artie has applied a veneer of civility to the cottage, a very thin veneer. Cuzzin comes by, holding the prerequisite beer, plus one for Artie, and takes the nickel tour.
Cuzzin’s thoughts: This place is a museum of memories. I can tell you a story about each piece of furniture and knickknack. But it is so run down! I can’t see anyone living here. I couldn’t even see me living here, and I’m the world’s biggest slob. Artie should just tear it down before it falls down. What’s going on in his head? God bless him. I’m hungry. Let’s eat.
“Are you really going to stay here?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t even have any water. What if you have to take a dump?”
“I’ll figure something out. They’re turning on the water in the morning. Can I call you if there are any leaks?” For all his shortcomings, Cuzzin has always been proficient with a blow torch.
“Yeah, sure. Hungry?”
Dinner means Anna’s of Squantum, the Jack Colton’s of their youth. Cuzzin grabs beers directly from the cooler and works the bar area as if running for office.
“Cuzzin! Any stripers in the Bay, yet?”
“Is that truck of yours still on the road? You could hear it coming all the way from the Mound.”
“You break your bike out of mothballs yet!”
“I haven’t seen you since the night Tubby Tropiano busted us.”
“You know what you should do? Start selling those sea kayaks.”
Cuzzin’s laugh, the revved motorcycle, energizes the room. People buy him drinks. He buys a round. The Sox are playing Baltimore. There’s a six-nothing lead for the home team. All is right with the world.
Eventually, they are seated. Artie orders the fried fisherman’s platter. It arrives as a golden mound, with fish, shrimp, scallops, and clams piled high on a bed of French fries. Cuzzin orders littlenecks on the half shell, followed by the fried clam plate.
“I feel like I’m eating my inventory,” he says, vroom, vroom, vrooming at his own joke. “Did I tell you about my idea for fried sushi?”
Not much of Jack Colton’s can be seen in Anna’s, although the entrance to the kitchen is still in the same place. The smoke-stained paneling has been replaced with new paneling, which is now being smoke stained. The people seem roughly the same, however.
“I’m not complaining, but you just can’t get fried fish as good as Bull’s,” says Artie. “But, of course, in Hollywood eating fried food is a sin that ranks up with pedophilia or gang rape. What kind of wine is appropriate with fried shit?”
“All you’ll get here is red, pink, or white. I’d recommend something with bubbles.”
“Is there anyplace that serves fried seafood as good as Bull’s”
“Nah!” says Cuzzin emphatically, “Not even close. These clams spent about ten seconds too long in the fat. Ten seconds ain’t much, but in the world of world class frying, ten seconds is a lot. I also find the batter too heavy. And while we’re being critical, the cole slaw needs vinegar and pepper.”
“They didn’t ‘listen to the grease.’”
“Exactly. They didn’t ‘listen to the grease.’”
Artie chimes in “I don’t like the way they served the seafood on top of the fries. It makes for an impressive looking plate, but by the time you reach the fries, they’ve blotted up the grease from the fish.”
“That’s why paper containers are perfect for fried food. They insulate, but absorb. But you’re right, you gotta keep the items separate.”
“Now that my career as a Hollywood mogul is down the tubes, maybe I can get back into being a fryer of fish.”
That’s good for a vroom or two.
The two men compare their worlds.
“You gotta tell me one thing,” says Cuzzin with bits of clam batter clinging to his muzzle. “You ever fuck anybody famous?”
Artie looks left and right, to make sure they were alone in the din. He takes a sip of his drink. “Yup, I fucked Harrison Ford.” That is good enough to fill the room with Cuzzin’s laugh. Suddenly everyone has to know the punchline, and Cuzzin loudly repeats it, as he will for bait shop customers for the next month.
“How about starlets. Is it true they’ll do anything to get a break?”
“You’ll get to meet a starlet in a couple of weeks. My girlfriend Mieko’s coming as soon as I get the cottage fixed up. You can ask her?”
“What movies has she been in?” asked Artie.
“The only one so far is My Mother, My Lover, and that was just a walk-on bit that I threw in to shut her up. But to answer your question, everyone in Los Angeles is desperate to see their name in lights and face on the big screen—it’s true for guys and girls. And they will do anything, anything, for someone who is in position to move them up a step on the latter. It’s an American cliché and it’s totally pathetic and completely true.”
Cuzzin takes it all in with knowing nods of comprehension, then says in a tone that reflects Artie, “It’s the same in the bait business.”
Cuzzin’s turn for storytelling arrives, and he has a long tale to tell. It is a tale where each new chapter begins in response to the fuck-up that ends the last. His parents kick him out of the house because of the many miscapades of his late teen-age years. Then, they sell the house and move off to Florida after his father scores with Howard Johnson and Dunkin’ Donuts. Cuzzin is left the former fish shop, by that time a lawyer’s office where all the lawyers bitch about the smell. He considers restarting the seafood and restaurant business, but there is no remaining equipment and, by now, the Pope has relaxed the ban on eating meat on Friday. The only thing people want to eat these days are hamburgers.
More beers, more years, an occasional tear. Besides, Cuzzin continues, life is complicated. He marries the wrong girl for the wrong reasons with the predictable results. He kicks the lawyers out of the former fish shop, moves into the storeroom, and opens the bait business. “Problem is,” he says, “you just can’t get rid of the stench of lawyers!” A guffaw. “At least I don’t have to worry about things like the board of health.”
“And you can get by on the bait shop?”
“Oh hell no, but there’s always someone who needs some rough carpentry or plumbing, something torn down or hauled to the dump. All of it under the table.” He lowers his voice and draws Artie closer.
“I never did anything with my life, Artie. You don’t know this, but I once rode my bike out to California to see if you could get me a job in the movies. When I got there, I was too chicken to call you up. I sat in a Motel 6 for two days, paralyzed with fear, then got back on my bike and rode back to Indian Mound. Here I am.”
Here you are, ensconced in a cozy little place where everyone knows and loves you. I can go to The Brown Derby for lunch and be approached by ten strangers who will introduce themselves and try to hustle me for their personal scams. I get mobbed at halftime at the Laker’s games. I have to hire people to screen my calls. Even now, my agent is dealing with all the media who want to fry my ass. But I’m actually the loser in the family, not you. The winners stay home because they can. The losers are the pioneers. And the pioneers, no matter what they say, are lonely. Who do you think stayed home in the family castle in Scotland? The winners. Who got on a leaky ship to cross the North Atlantic? The losers who have nothing to lose. That’s why they’re called “losers.”
The men let the silence talk for several moments, letting their souls reacquaint after years of separation. Finally, the cosmos align.
“What do you know about the lady who lives next to me?”
“You interested?” Cuzzin’ raises a lecherous eyebrow.
“Are you kidding? Wait until you meet Meiko. I’ve been spoiled by the willing starlets. I wouldn’t know what to do with an old broad. Jesus, she must be my age.”
“Personally, I find her to be a piece of ass. Too bad she’s got a rod stuck up it. The best thing about getting old is that the young babes look just as good, but the old ones get much better looking. Her name is Shea something, and she’s some kind of executive professional type who worked in downtown Boston, but she seems to be home a lot lately. She’s really into yoga and meditation and all that crunchy, groovy stuff. When she looks at me, it’s like she’s looking at something she found crawling underneath her garbage can.” Cuzzin pauses for a moment of self-examination, “Jeez, I can’t understand that!”
Artie says “She was pretty condescending to me today. I think she’s very annoyed to see someone at the cottage. Oh well, we’ll win her over. Tomorrow’s a big day. The water gets turned on. Think of it, running water, right inside the house.”
“What will they think of next?” said Cuzzin.
Artie swaddles himself in a sleeping bag on the wicker couch in the main room. In the darkness, however, it becomes apparent that the house belongs to the critters. He feels beady eyes upon him. He hears skittering and scratching. He thinks he sees long, tapered tails disappearing around corners. Finally, after several near panic attacks, he lights a candle that he puts next to him in the middle of a metal platter. Ensconced by some of the trappings of civilization, he drifts off to troubled sleep, surrounded by his familiar.
I’m lying in a wooden shack with rodents skittering over my sleeping bag. Two months ago I was at the Cannes Film Festival with Meiko. People cared what I thought about life and art, politics, religion. They cared because I was Arthur Gordon. I was Arthur Gordon.
Bull Gordon’s Fried Fish Perfection
The perfect piece of fish to fry is the thicker end of the fillet from a 3-4 pound haddock. Cod is excellent, too, as is flounder, but haddock is the ultimate.
The best oil to use is lard, which will give your fish a deep gold appearance and will impart a slight nutty flavor to the crust. Heat the fat to 370 degrees. Use only clean fat that is kept squeaky clean due to the continuous filtration of Gordon’s Fat Filtrator. Monitor the temperature with a thermometer, or test by dropping in a one-inch cube of bread. It should brown in one minute.
Dip fillet in a bowl of cold, evaporated milk, then toss into bowl of fry mix.
To make Gordon’s Fry Mix sift together 1 cup corn flour, 1 cup all purpose flour, ½ cup powdered whey, 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon baking powder.
Shake to remove all excess fry mix and place fillets in wire basket. Do not overcrowd, as fat needs to move freely between pieces. The fat will sputter and hiss when fish is first added. When the sound becomes softer and less bubbly, lift out for visual inspection. There is a short period of time when the batter goes from gold to deep gold. Remove from heat. Shake to drain, salt lightly, and serve on a paper plate or boat. Accompany with lemon wedge, Gordon’s cole slaw, and Gordon’s tartar sauce.