Mere Anarchy Read Free

required each day to postpone starvation demands that I bus the tables at Taco-Pox, a burrito palace that languishes before the unsuspecting on La Cienega Boulevard like a Venus flytrap. That’s why when I received a message on my PhoneMate from Pontius Perry, the high-powered agent at Career Busters, Hollywood’s hottest talent emporium, I sensed that maybe it was finally my time to taste a little back end. This notion was reinforced when Perry told me I could use the private elevator reserved for top box-office draws and wouldn’t have to put my lungs at risk inhaling next to a supporting player. I divined that the business at hand just might revolve around the bestselling novel
Row Mutant, Row
, in which the role of Josh Airhead was coveted by every male star in SAG. I was perfect for the tragic intellectual, possessing just the right admixture of nobility and sangfroid.
    “I think I got something for you, kid,” Pontius Perry told me as I faced him in his office, which had been decorated by two
très chic
new Hollywood designers in a combination of postmodern and Visigoth.
    “If it’s the part of Josh Airhead, I want the director to know I’ll be using a prosthesis. I see him with a miser’s hump, embittered from years of rejection and perhaps even with some layered wattles.”
    “Actually, they’re talking to Dustin about Airhead. No, this is a whole nother project. It’s a thriller about some wino who looks to boost a moonstone-type rock from betwixt the eyes of a Buddha or some such idol of that nature. I only gave the script a perfunctory read, but I managed to glom sufficient gist before merciful Morpheus did a number on me.”
    “I see, so I play a soldier of fortune. A role that gives me a chance to utilize some of my old gymnastic training. All those classes in theatrical swordplay stand poised to bear fruit.”
    “Let me level with you, boychick,” Perry said, peering out the six-foot picture window at the molasses-colored smog that the citizens of Los Angeles favor over actual air. “Harvey Afflatus is playing the lead.”
    “Oh, then they see me in a character role—the hero’s best friend, a trusted confidant who propels the plot from within.”
    “Er, not exactly. See, Afflatus needs a lighting double.”
    “A what?”
    “Someone to stand on a mark for the tedious hours it takes the cameraman to light the scene, someone who vaguely resembles the star so the lamps and shadows won’t be too far out of whack. Then, at the last second, when they’re ready to call action and make the shot, the zombie—er, the double—takes a hike and the money comes on and plays the part.”
    “But why me?” I asked. “Do they really need an actor of genius for that?”
    “ ’Cause you vaguely resemble Afflatus—oh, you’ll never be in his class lookswise, but the morphology meshes.”
    “I’d have to think about it,” I said. “I am up for the voice of Waffles in a puppet rendition of
Uncle Vanya
.”
    “Think quick,” Perry said. “The plane leaves for Thiruvananthapuram in two hours. It’s better than minesweeping the used enchiladas off the tabletops in some Tex-Mex tamale factory. Who knows, you could get discovered.”
    • • •
    T EN HOURS LATER, after a delay on the runway while the flight crew turned the aircraft upside down to retrieve an escaped cobra, I found myself skying toward India. The producer of the film, Hal Roachpaste, had explained to me that due to the last-minute decision of the leading lady to bring her rottweiler along there would not be room for me on the charter flight, and so they had booked me passage as an untouchable with Bandhani Air, India’s equivalent of Crazy Eddie. Fortunately there was room for me aboard a return flight carrying a convention of beggars, and though I couldn’t parse a word of Urdu I was fascinated as they compared afflictions and examined one another’s bowls.
    The trip was uneventful save for some “light chop,” which caused