CLICHÉ. It's not simple. It's just … stupid.”
She is silent on the other end and, as for me, I can hardly speak. Finally I say, “This is a joke, right?”
“Collin, these things happen. You know? It's nobody's fault.”
“Chip Ralston?”
“I can understand your being upset.”
“It's pathetic.”
“Don't make me say things you don't want to hear.”
“That fucking midget,” I say, then slam down the phone and regret it immediately. Scooping up an Imari vase, Philomena's prized possession, I hurl it against the wall, where it shatters gratifyingly. We bought the vase on a trip to Kyoto, and I remember wondering what would happen to it, the first durable object we purchased together. Would we look at it ten, twenty years hence and remember? Afterward, we went back to the ryokan in the hills, where a deep cedar tub was steaming in anticipation of our arrival, and blue-and-white striped robes had been laid out on the black-bordered tatami mats. Would I go back to that time, if I could? Would I relive it all to this moment, with foreknowledge? Or would I drown the bitch right there in the tub?
Parting Words from the Editor-in-Chief
“Please hold for Jillian.”
I'd rather not, thanks.
“Whatever you did to alienate Chip Ralston and his people,” my editrix says by way of greeting, “I'm afraid it's rather the last straw. At any rate, I don't think your heart was ever in this enterprise. I'm sure you'll find a position more worthy of your, uh, talents elsewhere, yes? Well, I think that covers it.”
“What I did? The son of a bitch is fucking my girlfriend.”
“Well, I think that's very democratic of him. Droit du seigneur and all. Quite an honor.” She pauses to inhale. “You know, I keep thinking you've been hanging out for long enough—that you ought to be dry behind the ears by now. I kept waiting. Good-bye, Collin.”
One Week Later, Theater District
We are clustered around the side entrance of the Ed Sullivan Theater, on West Fifty-third Street, home of the Late Show with David Letterman. Two blue police barriers make a corridor from the curb to the stage door. A security man stands nearby while we press up against the barricades, autograph books clutched to our chests, stamping our cold feet. We don't mind the cold. We're fans, real fans, big fans. We are the biggest fans. As in “Hey, Clint, I'm your biggest fan.” (Most of us are, anyway, although one is an impostor.)
Clarence, for instance, with his huge, fur-hooded Army-surplus parka, his scholarly thick black glasses, has the unabashed air of a man engaged in an important pursuit: “I just got Brooke Shields, man. She's a real nice lady. Not like that Richard Chamberlain. Richard Chamberlain, he comes through here, he shakes your hand. That sucks, man. What I'm gonna do with a handshake?”
“Can't sell it,” says Charlie, an incongruously sane-looking gentleman in a Mets warmup jacket who is probably a plumber in Patchogue, Long Island, when he isn't here outside the Ed Sullivan Theater or in the lobby of NBC headquarters in Rockefeller Center. He and his friend Tony are armed with five-by-eight index cards and the squeaky-wheel, Me-Me-Me manners of born New Yorkers. If they can get three cards signed, they will sell two to a dealer.
Suddenly the throng goes taut and silent, a lovestruck jellyfish, as a shiny black stretch fins up to the curb and stops, its cargo invisible behind the smoked glass.
The stately, plump driver marches around and opens the door.
“Chip!” screams one of the photographers. “Over here!”
“Hey, Chip!”
“I'm your biggest fan, Chip.”
“How about an autograph, Chip?”
“Look over here! Smile!”
Chip hesitates, framed in the open door of the limo, before he launches himself toward the stage door, hunched over, his head retracted into the shell of his jacket, moving quickly, but not quickly enough to dodge me as I slide under the police barrier and cut him off.
“Hi, Chip, I'm Collin McNab.” Savoring for a nanosecond the infusion of fear in his much admired and, indeed, very striking, hazel eyes, I then nail him with a hard right jab, aimed at the bridge of the nose, that actually connects with his temple as he tries to duck away. Solid contact, nonetheless. Solid enough to hurt the shit out of my hand.
“I'm your biggest fuckin' fan, Chip,” I say as he wobbles and then sinks to his knees just as a security guard tackles me and smashes my face against the grainy concrete.
Good news, Clarence and Charlie: I see stars!
The Lemon Light
By