say. I’d probably agree to anything right now. I’m more focused on meeting a famous person. Should I care? Should I not care? Will he be offended if I don’t care? What if he finds out that I’m transgender? I sit up and straighten my shoulders.
The door swings open, and an old man (maybe around eighty?) with a perfect head of hair (probably fake?) enters the room. Big guy is accurate—he’s a mountain of a man. “So, this is Pony, I presume,” the actor says, coughing. I can’t place him, but he’s got a great face—it’s easy to see the movie-star features buried underneath years of aging. He hobbles over to me and extends his hand.
I hesitate.
“It’s not contagious, kid,” he says.
I grab his hand and give him a firm shake. A good handshake was something I studied during boy boot camp.
“Lovely to meet you, son. I’m Ted London.”
Ted London? The name doesn’t ring a bell. I’m scanning my mental catalog of movies but coming up empty. He waits patiently for me to speak.
“Hi, I’m—”
“Pony. Yes, interesting name you’ve got there. I’m sure there’s a good story behind it.”
He’s right, but I’ll never tell him.
A moment of silence passes between us. I listen to him struggle for a deep breath. I wish I recognized him, but I don’t watch really old movies. This would be less awkward if I could compliment him on something, anything.
“Victor, you found us a real talker here,” he says playfully.
I look down, embarrassed. I worry about my voice. At my age, a guy should be almost finished with puberty and have a deep voice that occasionally cracks. I have learned how to lower my voice and keep it steady, but it takes concentration. Shorter words are easier to keep low. I clear my throat. “Just at first, sir.”
“It’s no bother at all. I can talk enough for the both of us.” Ted London pats me on the back. “Now, young Pony, how about we have a tour of the place?”
“Yes, please,” I say, then follow behind Ted as he limps toward the door.
“Have you seen that Hoarders television show?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Is the camera crew stuck under some boxes around here?”
He laughs. “Would you look at that? He’s got a sense of humor.”
Ted London leads me from room to room, working up enough air in his lungs to tell me stories of his grand Hollywood life. He drops name after name, and I pretend to know who he’s talking about. Each room is jam-packed with crap. This man has saved everything from his life: scripts, props, magazines with him on the cover, costumes, photos, endless stuff that couldn’t possibly have any value today.
“Jackpot!” Ted holds up a napkin. “Lauren Bacall wrote me a love note on our last day of filming . . . oh dear, what were we filming? Victor, what was the movie Lauren—”
“A Walk in the Park,” Victor shouts from the study.
“Ah, yes, it was the bar scene. A camera lens broke into pieces, and we had to wait for hours. Luckily for us, the bar was stocked. We got quite loaded, actually. It helped film the scene, no acting needed.”
He hands the napkin to me. I try to decipher what it says, but the handwriting is drunken scribble scrabble. Yet he saved it for years and years. We move on to the next room, overflowing with boxes.
“Look!” he says, picking up a framed picture. “It’s me and Ronald Reagan!”
I stumble over a box to check it out. “You met a president!”
“Oh no, this isn’t real. The prop department doctored it up when I played the vice president in End Days.”
“Great movie,” I say.
“You’ve seen End Days?”
“No,” I admit.
He laughs and leads me into another room. I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. I throw myself down on a beanbag in the corner of the room. To be clear, if there’s a beanbag chair, I’m going to sit in it.
“So, Mr. London, what have you hired me to do?”
Ted laughs at the question. “I don’t know! How would I know? Call me Ted.”
“OK, Ted,” I say. He doesn’t know what he hired me to do?
“I’m dying, Pony. I don’t want to leave this world thinking all my treasures are going to the dumpster. I need you to get it in order, for whatever is next.”
He rummages through a box of film canisters in search of another story to tell me. What is this guy’s deal? Why does he live in a quiet,