I gave him my address which was #7 Gay Street and despite no one believing this street exists it is not an invention, it connects West 4th Street with Christopher Street in a portion of Manhattan that is off the grid in so many directions.
He could’ve waited for me to trot downstairs but instead for some reason he asked to be buzzed in and he huffed up the three flights of this old narrow townhouse and he knocked at my front door. When I opened the door he was sweating under his raincoat and he surged inside, and I was thinking, his behavior was that of a typical rich person who would assume the door must lead to an entrance hall, a vestibule, a mud room, in ‘rich’ parlance, anything beyond nowhere to go. Trapped. Here our realities collided when the surge upon which he had entered made it probable he would smash his face on the back wall of my minuscule studio. I hoped this vile reality would make him sympathetic toward me, maybe employ me?
This guy was a big shot, a raging bull, short and tough. Compact you could say. He was a writer, a director and a producer and he’d been in the business for many years.
This particular evening the movie producer was focused on hiring someone to write him a first draft of a script. He was auditioning me and another contestant over dinner. Lucy and I both wanted the job which the producer was thoroughly enjoying. What he failed to grasp was we needed it far more than wanting it. Truth be told we’d rather be sunbathing on yachts but circumstances demanded lucre.
Lucy was mildly notorious so I figured the job was for sure mine, after all, I was the writer, no?
He hired Lucy. I was mortified but I knew he had made the right decision, for one thing Lucy is lucky.