The Inventors by Peter Selgin

Author:Peter Selgin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780989360487
Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Published: 2016-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

A WEEK LATER you quit college and returned to New York City. You’d decided to be an actor again. You got the tip about the casting director from your personal manager, who warned you that he was a “slimebucket,” but also said he was one of the biggest in town. If he liked you it would be a boon to your career.

Punctually at four p.m. you arrived at the casting agent’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment. The casting agent’s assistant – a skinny boy probably not younger than you, but whose effeteness made him look younger – took your headshot and resumé and had you sit in the foyer. Minutes later the casting agent appeared – a plump, round-shouldered man in his seventies, wearing a gold satin bathrobe. You stood and introduced yourself.

The casting agent had a thick eastern European accent. Sze James Dean dipe, he remarked having looked you over, but viz un Idalien tvist. Randy, holt my galls vuh ze nexd hef owr.

The casting agent escorted you to his living room, the walls of which were papered with flocked red velveteen fleurs-de-lis. The heavy curtains were drawn, the lights were dimmed. Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder played on the stereo. In the center of the room was an overstuffed white sofa on which the casting agent sat. From there in his thick accent he guided you through an exercise known as The Boy on the Mountaintop.

Ze berbus uf ze eggserzise, the casting agent explained, iss do bring oud ze innozent liddle boy in yooh, ze vulnrable, innozent, helblezz liddle boy.

The casting agent told you to picture yourself on a mountaintop. It is nighttime, he explained in his thick accent. You are all alone on the mountain under a blazing canopy of stars. Among all the stars is one star brighter than all the others.

I vunt yooh do reej voh zat briedest uv ztahs, the casting agent instructed.

You closed your eyes and reached. Zat’s ryed, you heard the casting agent say, reej voh it, reej voh zhe bruydest ztah! Yooh ken do id! Yooh ken! Yooh ken! With your eyes still closed you reached as far as you could, so far you thought you would dislocate your arm. Meanwhile the casting agent sat there on his white sofa, a fat-kneed god on an upholstered cloud, saying, Yooh ken do it, yooh ken do it, yooh ken, yooh ken …

While reaching for the star you heard a shuffling sound followed by the scratch of a needle being torn cruelly from a record.

Yooh kent, the casting agent’s voice intruded. Yooh kent duch ze stah. Yoohr ahms ah doo shzought. Yooh ah doo veek, doo szmall. Hits hobelezz. Yooh hef failed. Yooh ah a bed boy, a vey bed boy. Yooh neet do be bunished. Yooh neet do be shbanged …

Dear Past Self, how I wish that I did not have to report what occurred next. How I wish I could say either that you were wise to the casting agent’s subterfuge, but decided to go along

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