From Episode One of Produce, Me? :
"Jesus, fuck! That's a lot of zeros!" That's when the dry heaves start. I have a pill for everything but that.
I stay in my apartment for a week. It feels comfortable in a bathrobe-meets-straightjacket way. A lawyer (?!) leaves messages. My phone buzzes, saying I'm out of minutes and owe more money. But I guess I have money now. Plus, a whole shelf of mac & cheese.
Squirrel-like, I emerge, hood down, eyes darting to see who might be watching. The check is safe. The envelope flap wears thin as I flip it open-then-closed in my pocket.
The teller gulps, holding back...vomit? I know the feeling, lady. “My great aunt–” I mumble. The manager's voice is garbled in wah-wah-like tones. He smiles, tight-lipped, pretending the yellow pasta is a brooch. I promise to pay for his dry cleaning.
I slide out of the winter sleet and into a bowl of pho – soothing and warm. A brothy steam facial. The TV in the corner is loud, too loud. A high-pitched talk show pings off the walls for an audience of one: me. When I ask to turn it down, a woman (the owner?) points at an autographed picture on the wall – the woman and a smiling man in gold-rimmed Hollywood glasses. She shouts at me in broken English, "...famous movie producer, good customer." She looks me up and down and spits on the floor dismissively.
On the TV is the same man, older. He is grizzled and sallow. He has stolen Al Pacino's voice down to the "who-ahh" except it comes out as “retired.” The screen says otherwise: “bankrupt.”
Garbage trucks wheels bounce through potholes along the street. A slosh of winter hits my shoes. Fuuu. My eyes are stinging – maybe from flying rotten scraps, maybe the snow, both? Funnels of steam rise through manhole covers and I start dreaming of getting the fuck outta this wall-to-wall city. A palm tree, a coconut, warm sand on my Scrooge McDuck flipper feet.
Cars honk at a gaggle of tourists blocking all movement, their shrill voices and phones out, taking selfies with...the TV guy. The Al Pacino lookalike. I think he’s shorter in person. Aren’t they all?
I’m caught in the whirl of people, trying to move through the crowd, around him, away, but they capture me in their horde. I spin, looking for an exit. Scraps of paper, pens, cell phone camera flashes (in daylight!?) thrust around me. Not at me, at him. What the fuckaroo is this? I’m a steaming pot of pho. A pressure cooker whistling. I’m screaming. They recoil.
Now I’m face-to-face with him – Al.
He stops, tilts his head. My screaming blows his hair. He rests a hand on my shoulder, steadying me, then slaps my face. Kapow!
Then, I am still, sane, reasonable. The world turns right-side up. He looks at me eye-to-eye in this shitstorm of people, sizing me up – now docile, pliant. He is leading as we are dancing. He holds his arms are steady, guiding me. I am a human shield as we exit the throng.
"Do dogs whine when you scream?" he says.
I blurt something – just vowels without meaning. His eyes narrow. We are now a block away. He is stronger than I thought. He is old-world Roy Scheider, a cigarette in one hand, a .38 in the other, a fast car and a shark named Death on his heels. I am a pasty schmo who won’t return a crummy latte.
At a bus stop, there is a pile of (human?) shit next to the bench. We're clear of the crazies, all but me. He pulls out a doobie and a flask, offering the flask to me. I sip; he gulps. He laughs as I gag, sputter, cough. He, Al, is a dragon blowing smoke rings into the sleet – barbed wire hula hoops floating past the awning. Puff. Gulp.
“Bring the car around!” he shouts at the street, laughing. His hacking cough sounds like his insides might tumble out in wet clods. “Four ex-wives and a shelf of gold statues! Bang, whimper, muerto.” He trails off. My head swims in whiskey with a foreign lilt. The liquid is swishing in my stomach, veins, head, fingers, lips, tongue.
I whisper in his ear –
"I'm nobody," I say, telling him about the check, the zeros. I keep talking under the bus stop awning, next to the traffuck. He adjusts his coat, scooting closer. I haven’t told anyone else, might as well be a stranger. I tell him about my shitty apartment. About the girl who broke my heart once (5 years ago). About the job I can’t stand. The pills to keep me sane. About how everything me amounted to nothing. The scent of a withering, over-ripe human is on my lips.
I start to think better of it but can't stop myself, "Can I hire you?"
I say it like someone who robbed a bank and needs money laundered. His head rolls toward me. I think he can't hear. He is shaking his head, slapping his ear like a swimmer. His face is a crushed can of intensity as he looks at me.
He takes a swig, a puff, grabs my shoulder, "How fullashit are you?"
He doesn't wait for an answer and hustles us into the bank. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder as I ask the teller to print out my bank balance. She, wide-eyed, clicks a button and the machine spits out a receipt. He grabs it, doesn't blink but smears a wet kiss on the plexi. I withdraw some cash, hand it to him. He kisses it, too.
He pulls me by the wrist to a brightly lit store full of computers. He frantically starts typing, first hunt-and-peck, then search-and-destroy fast. Like a maniacal stenographer, he hacks at the keyboard. A contract.
"Your finger!" he says, grabbing my tentative claw. He means for me to sign on the screen. That's how all the kids do it, how all the deals are done, I think. I sign, but it looks more like the scribble of a cock and balls done by an eighth grader.
He pulls a pen from his jacket, scrawls an address. "Tomorrow, 9:30" he says, pushing the empty flask at me.
His hands make two L's with his thumb and forefinger framing me: "Drink up!"
