LITMIR.BIZ

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seeking the approval of others was a constant.

      “Come with me. I wanna show you something,” Kitty said as she stepped out of my dressing room and onto the wooden path.

      She waddled at such a brisk pace that I almost had to run to keep up with her. After a few minutes, we stood in front of a bungalow on the other side of the lot that I had not noticed before. Kitty and I entered, walked to the back of the building, and descended a flight of rickety stairs. The dimly lit, Tampa-Jewel-smoke-filled basement served as Century’s projection room. It had two rows of empty chairs, behind which stood a non-descript man next to a card table that supported a small, hand-cranked movie projector. I thought I recognized Fishbach and Goulding with their backs to us sitting in the second row.

      “Is that who I think it is?” I whispered. Kitty nodded.

      “Roll it, Roland.” Goulding ordered.

      The scratchy numbers four, three, two, one appeared on the screen, followed by the title, A Corn-Fed Sleuth. Over the next twenty minutes, for the first time ever, I watched myself on film. From the opening scene where my tiny mother paddled me, to the final shot when I returned the stolen loot, I was riveted. Not so much by the story, but more—much more—by my image.

      There was something other-worldly about seeing yourself projected on a small screen in a darkened room. I wondered what it would be like to see that image on a huge, bigger-than-life screen in a real movie house. I couldn’t wait for my friends and family to get a load of this.

      I was also captivated by seeing the other players react to me. That was a first. In my seventeen years of life I’d never before thought of others responding to me. I was always reacting to everyone else, trying to wedge myself into their lilliputian world, a place I didn’t fit.

      When the scene of me squeezing myself through the hotel door lintels played, Roland, the man operating the projector, laughed out loud. I noticed that Kitty giggled, too. I was too green to understand why, but I liked how that made me feel.

      Later, I would come to appreciate what I enjoyed so much about acting in flickers. Even though they were just slapstick comedies, they gave me the power to connect with and impact others.

      Something else, something very strange—and another first for me—happened as I watched that footage. Ever since I was seven, when I met someone or encountered a new group, I automatically focused on how different I was than everyone else. Watching me painted onto that silent film screen with the other actors, I recognized, if just for twenty minutes of gags, how much I was like the others, just taller. I got the chills as the screen went black and the movie ended.

      Flap, slap, flap, slap, flap, slap. I heard the percussive sound of celluloid popping against a metal movie reel, a noise that would become more and more familiar. Roland stopped winding the projector and switched on the lights. Other studios were using projectors powered by electricity, but because Julius Stern was such a skinflint, we still used an old-fashioned version at Century. By then, Fishbach and Goulding had stood up, turned around, and approached us.

      Goulding yawned and stretched. “I promise, Jake, it’s the wallpaper that put me to sleep and not the acting,” he said with a wink.

      “Great job, Jake.” Fishbach added. “Kitty, I think we’ve got us the making of a new star; if we can only convince Stern.”

      When I heard the name Stern, my stomach started to churn. What was he talking about? Why did Stern need convincing? I had just gotten started in the movie business. Was my job already in jeopardy?

      As if she sensed my concern, Kitty took my massive pinky finger in her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

      XXXX

      Ahuga, ahuga.

      As promised, the next morning, Zion Meyers, one of the talent scouts who discovered me on the Santa Monica Pier, was outside my boarding house honking.

      When he dropped by the set on the Thursday before, Meyers had made the date. “To celebrate wrapping A Corn-Fed Sleuth, we’ll go to Musso and Frank on Hollywood Boulevard. It’s a hot watering hole for the film crowd. Be ready at twelve-sharp on Saturday.”

      I had been eagerly awaiting my Hollywood outing ever since Meyers mentioned it. Whenever I wasn’t busy working, all kinds of fantasies of the sites and celebrities I would see ran through my head. So when it came time to go, I bolted out of the apartment and ran down the stairs. As I flew out of the front door, I realized I had forgotten my sweater again and turned to go back and get it.

      Ahuga, ahuga.

      Meyers honked the horn on his new sapphire Packard again.

      The heck with the sweater, I thought, and hurried to the curb and got in the car.

      “Hey Jake, how’s tricks? I’m sure glad we talked your Pop and Mom into letting you stay,” Meyers said as we pulled away.

      “Me too!” My knees were pressed, better said smashed, up against my chest. I could barely fit in the tiny front seat.

      “Before lunch, I wanna take you on a little tour of Hollywood.” Meyers drove east down Sunset toward Western. As we passed Vermont, he looked over at me and then back at the road. “Jake, they’re really charged up about you at the studio.”

      I sensed the excitement in his voice. “What about Stern?” I asked modestly, unsure whether or not I should bring up what had been troubling me since I heard Fishbach’s comment the day before.

      “Why do you ask?”

      “Yesterday afternoon, Fishbach said something about Stern needing to be convinced about me. Is there a problem?”

      “It’s no big thing. Don’t worry, sport. There are some conditions to the deal, but we’ll talk about that at lunch.”

      I felt queasy. I hated when anyone said “Don’t worry” or “We’ll talk about it later.” Based on my experience with doctors, whenever I heard those words I would cringe and wait for the other shoe to drop. I also wondered what deal Meyers was talking about.

      “Don’t worry, sport,” Meyers repeated. “I’ve got a contract right here for your next flicker.” Meyers tapped the breast pocket in his blazer. “It’s a formality; just waiting for your John Hancock.” As we crossed Figueroa he looked at me again. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and patted my forearm as if to congratulate me. “They wanna call it A Howling Success. I say, strike while the iron is hot!”

      Meyers was still looking at me. The traffic had stopped suddenly because a farmer in a small truck full of flowers four cars in front of us had a flat.

      Ka-Pow!

      Meyers smacked into the back end of an elegant, fresh-from-the-showroom-floor, ebony Pierce-Arrow Touring car. Luckily, we hadn’t been driving too fast. It was just a fender-bender, so nobody was hurt. That’s why Meyers and I were both shocked at what happened next.

      The two cars in the crash pulled to the curb. The driver of the Pierce-Arrow, a muscleman of a chauffeur, flew out of the limo. When he surveyed the damage to his limousine, he ripped his black-billed cap off his head, threw it down in the street, and stomped on it with his boots. Wounded-grizzly-bear-mad, he glared at us. Then with both fists ready for war, the chauffer charged Meyers’ side of the car.

      “Get out of there, you little weasel!” he demanded.

      If Meyers’s window hadn’t been shut, I’m certain the chauffer would have punched my new friend where he sat. Meyers turned pale. He tried to sink under the dashboard to escape from the danger. “Stand up, Jake!” Meyers, now huddled on the floor, spoke in a demanding whisper.

      I couldn’t understand why he wanted me to stand up. What did it have to do with me? The chauffer pounded more violently on the window. Then he began to pound on the roof.

      “Please, stand up!” Meyer’s terrified tone let me know that he was no longer demanding, he was begging.

      Still

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