Chuckerman Makes a Movie Read online

From where I sat, I could see their heads. With every ding of the bell, I checked to make sure that the Mormon Rodeo’s head had not been added to the mix. I had anticipated the possibility of running into her this morning but dismissed it as remote since I figured I’d be gone by the time the yogis arrived. I decided that if she showed up, I’d crawl into the back room and sneak out the emergency door. How embarrassing to be caught premiering one’s work after a single lesson. Although I have to say, the bakery audience seemed to be entertained. Whether they were being enlightened (as was the goal, according to the Mormon Rodeo), was another story.

  “Davy, whatcha doing up here with all the old hags? Shouldn’t you be playing downstairs?” Estie was really hamming up the part of Ida from 27, giving her speech a very slow cadence and a heavy New York accent.

  Ida didn’t have a New York accent; she was from Chicago. She did, however, have arthritis. Her knuckles were gnarled and her fingers bent in inhuman directions. That night, when she put a hand under my chin and lifted my head, I had to force a smile and look away from the knuckles.

  “Leave him be,” my grandma told her. “He’s getting Paula cigarettes and then he’s going downstairs.”

  Ida’s face lit up and she began to rummage through her purse. “Be a sport, David dear. Whatever you’re getting for Paula, get a pack for me too. Save me the hassle in the morning.”

  “Paula smokes Marlboros,” my grandma offered.

  “Marlboro Lights,” my mother corrected.

  “A cig’s a cig,” Ida answered as she pulled a pile of change from her bag.

  “I agree, Ida,” my father interjected. “One rots your teeth same as the next.”

  Ida put a hand on a hip. “Dr. Melman, not only am I sixty-eight years old, but thanks to you, I’ve got access to free dental services. Rotten teeth don’t scare me.” She looked up at me. “What is it? Fifty cents?”

  Again, a hullaballoo in the bakery broke Estie’s rhythm. Some of the women—the smokers, perhaps—felt the need to remark on how cheap cigarettes were back then, which gave more recent arrivals an opening to ask when this story took place.

  “Whenever it was,” someone said, “they didn’t even realize that cigarettes caused cancer.”

  “It was 1977,” I heard Marcy say.

  The rest of the reading continued like this, at a snail’s pace, as Marcy’s friends interrupted every other line to comment. I wanted to stand up and order them all to be quiet, to stop squabbling over details and listen or else they would miss my favorite part of the scene: the part where Gladys Greenberg makes her entrance.

  Truthfully, at the time, I didn’t notice it happening because I was still fixated on Ida from 27’s misshapen fingers as they headed in my direction with her coins.

  But then Gladys Greenberg spoke. “I don’t know why we’re paying all that money for those cockamamie pinball machines if the kids ain’t using them.”

  My head whipped around to see her standing on the border of the kitchenette and the dining room, staring down at me.

  Up to this point (and this should really be in the script), I’d never had a personal exchange with Gladys Greenberg, but I was aware of who she was. The Poncho Lady. Everywhere she went, she draped herself in a poncho. To the pool, she wore ponchos that matched her bathing suits. Now, apparently to woo free dental services from my father, she wore a black-and-gold poncho with a blue-and-red rhinestone pin on the collar. The pin said CUBS.

  Gladys Greenberg was the president of the Imperial Towers 100 Condo Association and sister to a man named Big Sid, whom the audience will meet soon enough. At this point, all moviegoers need to know was that my grandfather and Big Sid were archenemies from way back when. As a result, Estelle and Gladys Greenberg were also enemies, and Estelle expressed her loyalty to Slip by repeatedly refusing to allow Gladys Greenberg a spot in her Vaudeville kick-line, which everyone knew Gladys Greenberg coveted as much as her presidency.

  Ordinarily, I would have bolted from the apartment the second Ida’s coins hit my hand, as I was anxious to get on with my evening. But the appearance of Gladys Greenberg was an unexpected event, and it drew me in.

  I wondered if it was drawing in the bakery crowd, too. Although I wouldn’t admit this to anyone, a part of me was enthralled by my bakery audience. I’ve always been the silent observer, the guy behind the brands and the stars, the idea man. Who knew I’d be susceptible to the pull of the crowd? But as it happened, I was, and at that moment, as golden-ponchoed Gladys Greenberg crossed into the dining room, dumped her purse (black-and-gold, to match the poncho) onto the table, threw “how-do-you-dos” around the room, and took a cookie, I decided that I’d continue the class.

  Maybe my creative well could dig up more than names for pop stars and perfumes. I began to envision my relatives on the big screen. My mother in the role of her mother (my Grandma B, who had yet to make her appearance in the movie). Estie as Marcy. How ironic, I thought, as Estie threw herself into the part of Gladys Greenberg, that the guy who hated movies as a kid would one day have one of his own.

  Who would play the part of Gladys Greenberg? Hers were obnoxious shoes to fill. Everything about Gladys Greenberg was oversized. Her body, her opinion of herself, her mouth—and so, too, it seemed, her dental implants. She explained this to my father as Ida from 27 took a seat, my grandmother stared down at her cards, Frieda from 9 kicked up her performance a notch, my mother looked at my father, and I backed up toward my mother.

  Gladys Greenberg started in with, “Dr. Melman, dear, could you be a doll and take a peek in my mouth? My upper implants are making it nearly impossible for me to eat.”

  “You seem to be doing fine with the cookie,” Ida commented, pointing as best she could one of her bent fingers at a butter cookie.

  My grandma’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter. She shot me a wink, collected herself, and in her official receptionist capacity, interjected, “I’m sorry, Gladys. Dr. Melman only sees existing patients while he’s on vacation.”

  “I am existing,” Gladys Greenberg responded. “I don’t think anyone would argue with that.” She chuckled at her joke and eyed her reflection in the mirrors.

  Now my father got involved. I knew he hated her too. But my father was a master peacekeeper, as the son of Slip would have to be. So, much to my grandma’s chagrin, he handled the situation with diplomacy.

  “That is the policy, Mrs. Greenberg. However”—he paused as my grandmother groaned—“if you are willing to wait, I will see if I have time for you after I get done with Mrs. Pine and Mrs. Bliss. I am almost done with Mrs. Pine.”

  Gloria from 14 (aka Mrs. Pine) spoke up. “No need to rush, Allen. I’ve got all the time in the world. Maybe you’d even like to drill a bit, for fun.” She raised her head and, through the mirrors, gave Gladys Greenberg a look of disgust.

  “Well, I’m certainly going to take a while,” Ida from 27 (aka Mrs. Bliss) said. “My pain is getting worse by the minute.”

  Gladys Greenberg was not deterred. “I’ll take my chances,” she said as she sat herself down next to my grandmother. “I’ll wait.”

  And wait she did. She took another cookie, too, while my grandmother rolled her eyes.

  My mother smiled at me. “You better skeedaddle,” she said. “It’s getting late, and if I didn’t need a few cigarette puffs before, I sure need them now.”

  My mother waved me on as Gladys Greenberg’s head gave a disapproving shake.

  “You know,” she said to my mother, “I’d be more careful if I was you. It’s against code to smoke in bed.”

  Then my mother: “It only looks like a bed. It’s really a couch.”

  Laughter came from my grandma and Ida from 27 as Gladys Greenberg fired back, “Do what you want. But you’re asking for trouble.”

  “Enough,” my father declared. “If I can’t work in peace, I’m not working at all.”

  While my father gave a cautionary point of his pick, I went to the door.

  My grandma
called after me, “Davy, when you come back, why don’t you use your quarter to buy your way into a gin game with me? We’ll see if you can beat me.”

  “Maybe,” I told her, as if I’d seriously consider the offer. I did not want to draw suspicions or hurt my grandma’s feelings. She’d taught me how to play the game—the basics, at least. She viewed my victories as a testament to her teaching abilities. But the truth was, I’d picked up the finer points of the game from sitting with Slip in the Men’s Card Room—which was, in my mind, the most exciting place if not in Miami Beach, then certainly in Imperial Towers Building 100. It was a place of lawlessness. Of thick wads of cash. Of cigars and smoke. Of language I wasn’t supposed to hear. No one under the age of eighteen was allowed in the Men’s Card Room. But since Slip was the tsar of the card room—and everything else, actually—an exception was made for me.

  My mind was way ahead of my movie. While Estie was still wrapping up the dialogue between my mother and Gladys Greenberg about smoking in bed, I had in my head already run down to get the cigarettes and tossed them into the apartment. I was well on my way to the card room when I heard applause. Apparently, Estie had finished the reading.

  I held my breath and cocked my head as far back as possible to get a better view of faces and reactions on the other side of the counter. I figured if people looked pleased, I might stand up.

  “Is that the end?” someone asked.

  “Just of this scene,” Estie said.

  “Well, fabulous job,” said a woman whose baby hung around her neck in one of those slings. “Did you write that? That’s very good for someone your age.”

  “But not so great for a thirty-five-year-old man,” Ryan said.

  Marcy told him to be quiet. “My brother wrote it,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Ryan said, and nodded in my direction. “He’s down there.”

  The crowd peered over the register and a fuss broke out. Some women apologized for not realizing that the writer was present. Others said they enjoyed the reading. One woman asked me if readings were going to become a weekly thing.

  “I don’t think so,” Marcy said, motioning for me to stand up. “My brother has no plans to continue his writing.” She paused to give me a formal introduction. I stood up and waved. They waved back. The bakery was more crowded than I’d imagined. I whispered to Marcy that I’d premiered to an SRO crowd. She rolled her eyes.

  A cute woman—the type I’d been hoping to find in the writing class—asked if I was the brother who created Share. The women came closer to the register, Estie came around to work it, and I fielded questions. Most of them about Share. How did I meet her? What was she like? Was she going to release any more than the one song?

  “You’re, like, famous here,” Estie whispered.

  “No, Share is, like, famous here,” I said.

  Finally, the woman with the baby in the sling asked, “Why aren’t you going to continue writing?”

  “He’s not really a writer,” Ryan answered for me. “My mom made him do it.”

  Marcy told Ryan to mind his own business, and then she explained to her friends, “The story’s not that simple.”

  “Well, it’s too bad,” said a skinny woman wearing a black sweatshirt over black, flare-out exercise pants. Based on the pants, I assumed she’d been to yoga that morning, and as she spoke, I wondered whether the Mormon Rodeo had been too, and if she was now on her way to the bakery. “I want to know the real reason the Poncho Lady comes to the apartment,” she said. “I have a feeling she wanted something besides getting her teeth fixed.”

  “Of course she did,” Marcy said.

  “How do you know?” the woman asked.

  “It’s a true story,” Marcy explained. “However,” she added, looking my way, “you got some of it wrong.”

  “You weren’t there that night. You have no idea what happened.”

  “Basic facts, David. Gloria from 14 had the bent knuckles, not Ida from 27. Grandma set out Salernos, not Lorna Doones. And Slip hated the Melman Special. He never thought Dad should give services away for free.”

  I told her she was wrong on all accounts. “But,” I said, “you want the story told your way, take the class.”

  “Funny, David.” Marcy explained to her skinny friend, whom she introduced to me as Claire, that I was taking Laurel’s class.

  “I adore Laurel,” Claire said. “So do her students, from what I understand.”

  Ignoring her, I told Marcy that if she took the class, she’d learn that a writer doesn’t need to be accurate on everything. “In fact, writers aren’t supposed to be,” I said. “You can ask your friend Laurel when she gets here.”

  “She’s not coming today,” Claire offered.

  “Of course not,” I said to Marcy. “She probably didn’t want to have to tell you how sorry she was that she let your brother into the class.”

  “No, she’s in LA,” Claire said as Marcy headed to the back of the store for more pastries.

  I followed Marcy. “Is LA where her fiancé lives?”

  “Her agent. She doesn’t have a fiancé.” Marcy opened a refrigerator and began to pull out sheets of additional miniatures. She motioned for me to hold out my arms.

  “Then why is she converting to Judaism?” I asked as she loaded pastry sheets across my body.

  She stuck her face back into the fridge. “How do you know she’s converting?”

  “She told us. It was her interesting fact.”

  Marcy’s head came out of the refrigerator, along with another tray of sweets. “Interesting,” she said. “What was your interesting fact?”

  “I didn’t have one. Why is she converting?”

  “Why do you care? And why are you just standing there with my stuff?”

  “I’ll deliver as soon as you answer the question.”

  “I actually don’t know the answer.” She began to stack more minis onto the trays I was holding. “But I would like to know why you’re so interested.”

  “I’m not interested. I’m curious.” I moved my trays away from her and pushed into the door that led to the bakery. “You really have no idea?”

  “Not really. I know she’s taking conversion classes, but she doesn’t discuss it much, other than to ask questions here and there about holidays. She’s never explained, and I’ve never asked. Some things are personal.”

  “Then she might have a fiancé.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. She dates. As it so happens, she left me a message about you after your class.”

  I let the door swing shut as I recommitted myself and my trays to the back room for a minute. “Really?” Not wanting to come across like I cared, I said, “I never would have pegged me as her type. I’m way too conventional. You should have seen the crew in that class. They all came straight off a commune. Except for the—”

  “The makeup of Laurel’s student body is irrelevant to her taste, since she is there to teach the students, not to date them. But she said you seemed funny”—she started pushing me back toward the door—“and interesting.”

  “There’s no way she said I seemed interesting,” I said. “I didn’t have a fact.”

  Marcy winked at me. Eyes scrunched, mouth open.

  “You’re just trying to get me to go back to class, aren’t you?” Marcy shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Is it working?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. I’d rather have her believe that I was driven back to class by the prospect of a date with Laurel than by my new romance with pleasing an audience. I could never give my sister the satisfaction of thinking that her original idea was a good one.

  “But don’t mess with me,” I said, rocking the trays of pastries on my arms, humming a few beats of “The Hustle.” “I am, thanks to you, the one writing our story, and I could do a lot worse than just describe your yellow satin disco jacket.”

  I imitated my sister’s dance moves of 1977 and hustled my way through the door to the front of the bakery, saying over my shoulder, �
��Exit Davy.”

  CHAPTER 4:

  The Catalyst Scene

  The Mormon Rodeo blew into the classroom the following Tuesday as if the plane from Los Angeles had opened upon its approach into LaGuardia and dumped her like excess fuel. Her hair was going every which way. Her pants—these long, white linen things—were as wrinkled as Ida from 27. Her messenger bag, the same beat-up brown purse from which she’d produced the syllabi the previous week, hung open around her body. She yanked it over her head, tossed it on the desk in front of the room, and, without a pause to adjust any aspect of herself, asked for a show of assignments.

  “Who did the homework?” she asked. “Raise your papers high.”

  I raised mine only semi-high because I don’t do group participation, but most hands headed to the sky. Laurel gave a quick nod of approval and appointed Rhonda, the Asian woman with the bandana, to collect them.

  She continued to dig through her bag as Rhonda collected our papers and Don kicked my foot. I looked at him.

  “I see you’re slumming it now like the rest of us,” he said, nodding in the direction of my shoes.

  Yes, I’d dressed down this week, in a T-shirt, shorts, and basketball shoes. I hadn’t thought anyone would notice.

  “Just adjusting to the hot temps,” I said.

  The entire couples club was staring at me. They did everything—wrote, traveled, and even opined—collectively.

  “You’re trying to fit in,” said the widow, Don’s sister, Susan. “How adorable.”

  “Must mean you’re here to stay,” Don said.

  “When I come in sandals and tattoos, you’ll know I’m here to stay,” I said.

  “I think it’s a good sign,” Don said. “Helene said you wouldn’t be back. She thought the teacher scared you away. Mel said you were put off by the front row up there.” He nodded toward Judd and Candy.

  “I don’t scare that easy,” I told them—realizing, as I spoke, that I was telling a lie.

  “Great,” Don said. Then he turned to the rest of the club members. “Pay up.”

  Wallets and billfolds emerged and five-spots floated in Don’s direction.