At Your Service- Flash Fiction
It’s an old joke in Hollywood and I hate the fucking thing.
Meathead on the street: “So what do you do?”
Me: “I’m an actor.”
Meathead on the street: “Really, that’s great…what restaurant?”
Of course I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t true and fifteen years ago, when I came to town walking tall and assured of success and didn’t mind working at Salby’s; living off tips and a free meal every shift, I actually thought the joke was pretty funny. But that was fifteen years ago. And I’ll tell you riding the wave of artistic promise on a surfboard of poverty is one hell of a lot more interesting at twenty five than it is at forty! I’m not complaining though, not really. You get used to things. Noodles in a Styrofoam cup, dumpster diving for the last issue of Variety so you can read it on a sidewalk bench pretending to be idly unconcerned with money while urging the cell phone in your pocket to ring turns into habit; and the weather is always nice.
But I hate the fucking joke now and not only because I still work at Salby’s but because the bastards say it laughing with this snide look of ” Oh look, another wanna be movie star,” and then go back to their inspired lives filled with margin calls and debt to income ratio’s. Not that these people aren’t necessary. The world would, I’m sure, start turning counter clockwise if they weren’t around to keep everything greased right but they don’t have a fucking clue as to what I do or why I do it. I mean, when they say, “I’m an investment banker,” I don’t say, “Really, that’s great…what racist, tee-time making, tennis pro fucking country club?” I don’t judge is all I’m saying.
When they make their little joke I’ll try and recognize them and recall if it’s someone I had at table six, or nine or whatever and remember if I had to recommend a wine for them because they wouldn’t know a Pinot from a ping –pong ball or if they were a send-backer; one of those glorious folks that send back their meals mostly because they can and not because there was really anything wrong with it. I never reply back with anything really snippy though, even considering after fifteen years of hindsight I have about ten thousand pretty funny little comebacks to that particular joke. Nope, I just smile and work on one of my laughs, ( I have created over twenty-five types of laughs through my studies) and walk away knowing they’ll never know what being alive really is.
They’ll spend all their lives trying to figure out exactly who “they” are. Most likely just in time to avoid their third heart attack or write some boring memoir only their families will read, or after they watch their castles get repossessed when the deal of a lifetime goes south. Most likely they’ll still be searching for it when they jump off into the cold black nothing of nevermore.
So I let them have their joke as I spend my life zipping up into the suit of anyone else but me. I already know who the fuck I am. That’s why I walk up to their tables and say, “Good evening, my name is Trey (It’s my fourth name and my agent thinks it’s the best one yet) and I’ll be your server this evening.” And I’ll bring them their fillets and shrimp cocktails and listen to them call me “waiter” even though I’ve already told them my fucking name and wear a nametag on my pressed shirt reminding them for chrissakes!
I do all this so I can live. So I can crawl into the belly of the bum on the street, or the race-car driver, or petulant college student, (I’m really very much younger looking than I am) or disillusioned congressman with a deadly secret, or crazed painter on the verge of greatness. Their patronizing politeness and twenty dollar tip on a two-hundred dollar tab or stupid joke on their way into their corporate raiding, middle-class screwing job in some glass tower is a small price to pay for these moments of singular perfection, when I am completely submerged in the fictitious mind of someone I have only just met. After their dinners they will be entertained and remember me and I will not judge them because one day I may find myself inside their skin.
Tags: acting, Fiction, flash fiction, Hollywood, writing
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