B) When Pacino's Hot, I'm Hot (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1)


And then there's the "relationship" I spoke of, which was
also the time I broke most all of my rules. We're going back a dozen
years here, but there are still nights during which I'm abruptly
awakened by the sound of my voice calling her name. When I'm not alone
these outbursts cause my bedmates to awaken rather abruptly themselves,
but I think at least a part of what they find disconcerting is that the
name I call is "Roger"-her father wanted a boy and he hadn't taken no
for an answer.


A sparrow of a girl, no more than four-foot-ten and
alarmingly skinny, Roger had thick black hair that, falling over most
of her face, also fell nearly to the floor. The first time I saw her,
from the other end of a long and crowded bar, I thought she was a
half-opened umbrella standing on its handle.


We were introduced later that evening by a casual
acquaintance of mine she turned out to be with who knew nothing about
me except my real name (and who was obviously trying to dump her). But
when he said, and quite clearly I thought, "Roger, I'd like you to meet
Pete Papadoupolous," her reply was: "Mr. HOFFMAN! What an honorary and
spectaculated phenomination. This is PEERLESS even."


Now the thing was that when I saw what was happening normal
procedure in this circumstance went out the window. I think I knew
immediately that Roger was a keeper and at once recognizing how much
she wanted me to be Hoffman and deathly afraid that she would turn away
at the slightest hint that I wasn't (which would have been difficult to
tell since her hair made it all but impossible to know in which
direction she was facing), I went out of way to nourish and perpetuate
the "misunderstanding."


What can I say? I was in love for the only time in my life,
and when, in our initial embrace a couple of hours later I must have
squeezed her too hard and she urinated all over my sneakers, I just-I
guess it was the intimacy of it-went over the top. Indeed, before the
sun came up I had invited her to live with me and she had accepted.



"I'm so excrutiated," she gushed. "I'm besides both sides of
myself. And yours too!"


Yes, of course I knew there was no way it could work, that it
had to end badly. But I couldn't help entertaining the fantasy that if
I drew her in really tight before she discovered her error, we might
achieve a depth of bonding that would make my true identity (or lack of
one) irrelevant.


On the following morning, and amazed by the calming effect
her simple presence was having on my flying roommates (who'd stopped
fluttering around so much and were making sweet cooing sounds), I was
anxious to know everything about her.


She hadn't, I learned, had an easy time of
it.


Her father, she said, had been a profligator of languigistics
at a presticated universalment but had quit his tender position and
dissipated- just, and poignantly, a day after Roger, then a toddler,
had spoken her first paragraph.


No less heartbreaking, her mother, on whose insurance policy
she'd been living for the last twenty years, had tragicastically
electrified herself when she inexplaciously dropped a George Foreman
grill into the bath she was taking-this on the evening of the day she'd
come to Roger's first grade class to hear her recite "Mary Kept A
Smallish Lamb."


But at this point (and apparently wrestling with her
delusion-which was something I'd never known any of my women to do
before and which, I thought, said something about the quality of her
character, though I'm not sure what exactly), she began to ask some
questions of her own.


"How come you don't seem to have the majority of cash I
respected?" she said. "How come you don't inhabituate in a nice place?
How come you don't have a phone if Steven Spielberg and Sidney Pollack
want to hand out some rings? How come your closet is only fulminating
with jeans? Also, how come you don't keep your birds in cages?"



Considering that I wasn't used to such an interrogation-and
that I was obliged to think on my feet-I came up with something that I
thought wasn't bad.


"Honey," I said, "you've entered my life at the worst
possible time and while I know that it's asking a lot, I can only hope
you'll find it within yourself to bear with me. I'm afraid that I may
be afflicted with what's called the 'J.D. Salinger Syndrome'. It's a
condition of creative paralysis that sometimes develops in artists who
have achieved a legendary stature. Owning the prospect of a fame that
will survive their demise, they live in terror of losing that prospect
by producing work that might be inferior to what they've already
accomplished. Rather than risk tainting their image, they cease to
function and, in the worst cases, to even appear in public where the
possibility of a clumsy or mediocre utterance could alter and diminish
the way they're perceived. What happens is that they effectively
sacrifice the remainder of their lives to their immortality. I may or
may not overcome this disease and I'll understand completely if its
something you want no part of. All I can say is that I'm deliberately
staying out of the public eye right now and that I've cut myself off
from even my closest friends and associates who, meaning well but not
understanding, would only make light of my problem and encourage me to
work. This unfortunately includes my accountant who happens to be the
only person with access to my bank accounts. As for the apartment, it's
my hideout. It's perfect as a hideout because no one would ever think
to look for me in such a crummy place. You're the only one who knows
about it, the only person I've trusted enough to bring to it. But
again, I'll understand if this isn't something you want to involve
yourself with because it won't be a whole lot of fun and I don't know
how it will end."


And it worked. Roger said nothing, but in addition to
breaking out in a really hideous rash as I spoke, her chest swelled
noticeably, almost expanding into something like a bosom. She must have
felt five feet tall to be deemed worthy of sharing in my time of
trial.


But her obvious uneasiness with the situation in which she
found herself would periodically surface. A couple of days later she
wanted to know why more people didn't notarize me on the
street.


"Really good actors," I said, "have the ability to be
anonymous when they want to be, sometimes even invisible."



I remember that when I said this it made her
giggle.


But even putting aside the considerable tensions caused by my
charade (and the always frazzling necessity to invent places I was
going to when I left the house for the car wash every day), living with
Roger was nerve-racking all by itself-like being tuned to two radio
stations at once in a room with the light bulb loose in its socket.
Periods of incessant chatter, for instance, would suddenly be
interrupted, often in mid-sentence, by a dead silence, as though her
plug had been pulled from the wall. At such times she might become
motionless as well. Although her eyes would remain open I couldn't be
sure if she was actually conscious. In fact, on several occasions, I'd
have been ready to believe she'd expired were it not for an odd
clucking sound, the origin of which I was never able to locate, and
something peculiar and unattractive that she did with the muscles
around her mouth.


Still, as enormous as the problems were, the moments of bliss
I experienced in those first weeks more than compensated for them.



Spring was beginning and celebrating its arrival, we did the
things new lovers do when spring is upon them. We went to a windswept
beach where we romped and frolicked in the sand. Locked in an embrace
we rolled over and over down a steep hill in Central Park. In the
evenings I washed her hair and she gleefully folded my penis into
woodland animal shapes.


I'd have to say that, all things considered, life was pretty
good.


Then it went bad.



Roger read in a newspaper that Hoffman was going to shoot a film
somewhere in the Midwest and that he'd be on location for two
weeks.


"Why didn't you push my head up?" she said, showing me the
article.


Even though I'd known all along that such a development was
inevitable, I was nonetheless shaken by this news. It took no small
effort to collect myself sufficiently to say: "I was going to tell you,
but I thought I'd wait until the last minute because I wasn't sure the
part would work out and because I knew how painful a separation now
will be for us. I didn't want to make you sad before I had to."



But she was happy. Clapping her hands she said, "I'm so glad
to know you lastly clambered over your jaded salanjastiker
hippodrome."


"Well let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said. "It could be
just a fleeting thing."


With no other place to get lost for two weeks, it was left
for me to seek accommodations at the car wash. And the night before I
left Roger helped me pack my things. When we were done she went to the
kitchen and brought back a bottle of cheap champagne she'd concealed in
the back of the refrigerator.


"This is a time for jubilating," she said, pulling the cork
herself. Then, touching my glass with hers, she said, "Breakfast with
eggs, Duster!"


As you can imagine, the following days were either bad or
worse than bad. Sleeping in various vehicles in a lot adjoining the
wash, I showered and did my laundry standing behind cars on the
conveyor belt. And missing her terribly, the fact that I couldn't reach
her because the apartment had no phone was torture for me. I could only
hope that she was okay.


Finally, mercifully, the two weeks were up and I went
home.


Hearing my key in the lock, Roger came to the door with one
of my " birds" perched on top of her head and holding another
newspaper. Without a word, she shoved the paper at me before I'd even
crossed the threshold. It was open to a story about Hoffman. Some kind
of budget issue had arisen and production on his film had been
suspended. During the hiatus Hoffman was staying in New York. The paper
had been printed on the date he arrived.


He'd been here for a WEEK!


Putting the paper down I met her eyes and saw that they were
red and swollen.


"Where were you?" she said. " A whole plus seven-and
twenty-four as well."


When I had no quick answer she said, "You're doing an
exquisite triathlon, isn't it?"


You will appreciate that, as heart wrenching as her question
was, my principle emotion at that moment was relief.


"Darling, Darling," I said, "No way. There's no way I would
ever betray you like that. No, I'm not having an illicit liaison. How
could you think such a thing? I'm playing an unhappy man and to stay in
character I deprived myself of your company-for as long as I could bear
it anyway. It's just a coincidence that it was exactly one
week.


Roger stepped toward me and buried her face in my
abdomen.


"I was scared," she said


She was trembling and so was I. We stood holding each other
for a very long time.


Determined from then on to be more careful, I made a special
effort to monitor what she might read, see or hear. But I couldn't
cover everything. Just a few days later we were awakened by the radio
alarm clock and immediately heard on a newscast that the budget problem
had been resolved and that Hoffman was back on location. Fleeing to the
kitchen to find something to kill myself with, I could feel Roger right
behind me. I expected flying dishes. What I got was a juicy
kiss.


"You didn't have to submit a misleader about being Dustin
Hoffman," she said. "Why did you think you had to be duplicacious with
me?"


I was stunned. Had my wildest dreams come true? Was it
possible that Roger had come to love me for myself after all? I
couldn't believe it. Nor could I believe the sex that was to
follow.


I always knew Roger was hot when (it was her signal to me)
she lay down on the bed on her stomach, raised her skirt and floated an
air biscuit. But that morning's air biscuit resonates for me to this
day. Indeed, it will be forever etched in my memory, not only for its
remarkable housekeeping application (it worked to clear the apartment
of all vermin for almost a month), but because it served to set the
stage for the most incredible orgasm I've ever had.


I've never been able to faithfully describe that orgasm. If I
report that before it I'd had no idea how much sheer joy there was to
feel in sex, that never in my life have I known so pure an ecstasy, I
don't begin to do it justice or to convey how, in the throes of it, I
felt myself transported to a place beyond time and that, floating free
as something like total spirit, I was privy for an instant to the
deepest secrets and most puzzling mysteries of creation. (In that
apocalyptic moment I actually understood, for example, why Chuck Norris
was on the planet.)


And I can say this notwithstanding the fact that the orgasm
was somewhat premature-I was still standing over the bed and fully
clothed when it happened.


Anyway, when it was done and I lay down next to her, happily
exhausted, basking in the afterglow, I was ready to drop my guard and
reveal my true self to her in all its emptiness. Brushing away her hair
to find her face, which took a awhile, I was about to speak when she
said:


"You'll never assume the crush I had with you."



"?"


"I saw 'Our Picnics in Needles Park' six times and 'Bobby
Dearest' eleven times. God, Alfredo, how I wanted to sit on your head!"



If, only minutes earlier, I'd discovered what it must feel
like to win the lottery, now I knew the depths of despair. Even to
think about commencing a new deception was beyond my
strength.


I didn't know what to do.


The very next day, and too weary at this point to bother
checking the TV listings, the matter was taken from my hands. Pacino
suddenly turned up on a live talk show we were watching. When he came
on, Roger looked at me, then back at the screen and then at me again.



"How are you doing that?" she said.


When I could only throw up my hands she bolted from the room
and was gone for twenty minutes. She must have lapsed into her
semiconscious thing because I could hear that strange clucking sound
(which was a lot louder than usual). When she returned she stood
directly in front of me with her arms akimbo. (I could tell her arms
were akimbo because her elbows were sticking out of her hair at
precisely the same 45-degree angle.)


This time she WAS pissed.


"You're haven't been Al Pacino either," she
said.


"No, Honey, I haven't."


Where once Roger had contemplated me with an unabashed
reverence, as though an aureole surrounded my face, now she looked at
me as though I was the lowest form of nature's creepy crawly
creations.


"I've known it," she said. "You're a pathoprecocious person.
You're a hypothetical liar. Well, don't bother to make up something
improved because it'll be too little and without much else."



"Sweetheart&;#8230;"


"I mean it," she said. "I recognize the person you really are
now. I expected it for days."


Yes, I was ready to say ruefully, I'm Fred the Fraud. I'm Sid
the Shit. I'm Deforest the Deceiver.


"You're EMILIO ESTEVEZ," she said. "You're Emilio Estevez and
you're ashamed of yourself. WHY? WHY, Emilio? I know you aren't a word
that people keep inside the house, but yesterday when my suspicionings
aroused me and I said to myself, 'Roger, you're a chimp, this can't be
broccoli you're smelling', I went to a laberarium and found you in a
book. It said you were a 'thirdly ratinated thespassian who didn't
ALWAYS stink the place up'. Wouldn't I co-inhabituate with Emilio
Estevez? Am I so stuffed-up, or what the fuck is this?"



"Rog&;#8230;"


"If only you'd had the encouragement to level yourself for
me. But now&;#8230;. Oh, Emilio, I could never stay with a man who
has so weenie an esteement for his moral fibers. Nor I myself."



I pleaded with her not to go. I had no way to pull it off, of
course, but I promised to take her backstage to meet the cast of
"Cats". I know she agonized over the proposition, but this lady was not
without principles. Indeed, she looked at me then as though it was a
few years after Watergate and I was Richard Nixon wondering aloud to
Republican Party officials if they might, you know, consider nominating
me again.


A few months later Roger took up with a guy she's been with
ever since. I think she thinks he's Danny DeVito and I've often
wondered, since they have a phone, how he handles it when Jack
Nicholson and Michael Douglas never call.


And while I'm on a sour note anyway I might as well tell you
of a period in which the celebrity connection women make for me
actually worked to my detriment. It was when Pacino's "Revolution" was
released-and on its heels the video. Amounting to a devastating left
jab, right cross combination, these unfortunate events threatened to
end my career as well as Pacino's. In fact, it got so bad for a while
that even women who thought I was Gabriel Byrne would suddenly back off
and decide to take a pass. It really wasn't until "Sea of Love" revived
Pacino's popularity that I returned to full stride.


When I look back, however, it's clear to me that even during
that difficult interval I was better off than I would otherwise have
been and I know that I have nothing to complain about. Although I may
not have put up Wilt Chamberlain-type numbers, neither has my life been
bereft of carnal experiences.


Moreover, I got a woman to actually live with me and though
it was very brief, that union produced a son. (Unbeknownst to us at the
time, Roger was pregnant when she left me.) I haven't mentioned my son
because frankly he embarrasses even me. To say it as gently as I can,
most people, when they've seen him or tried to engage him in
conversation, take for granted that his parents were first cousins. But
Eileen (Roger wanted a girl and she wouldn't take no for an answer) is
almost a teenager now and I've noticed lately, when he comes to visit
and we're out on the street, that he's begun to turn the head of more
than an occasional young lady.


Here's wishing whoever they want him to be a very long
run.