The Destiny of Nathalie X Read Online Free PDF Page B

(obfuscation takes on new meaning), but I guess the check is still in the post. But, I do not repine, as a great English novelist once said, I just get on with the job.
    I have a theory about this town, this
Spielraum
where we dream and dawdle: one of our problems—perhaps it’s
the
problem—is that here ego always outstrips ability. Always. That applies to everyone: writers, directors, actors, heads ofproduction, d-boys and unit runners. It’s our disease, our mark of Cain. When you have success here you think you can do anything, and that’s the great error. The success diet is too rich for our digestive systems: it poisons us, addles the brain. It makes us blind. We lose our self-knowledge. My advice to all those who make it is this:
take the job you would have done if the film had been a flop
. Don’t go for the big one, don’t let those horizons recede. Do the commercial, the TV pilot, the documentary, the three-week rewrite, the character role or whatever it was you had lined up first. Do that job and then maybe you can reach for the forbidden fruit, but at least you’ll have your feet on the ground.
    “Kaiser?”
    “Bob?”
    “He’s not at the house, Kaiser.”
    “Shit.”
    “He’s got to phone her. He’s got to apologize.”
    “No. He’s got to lie.”
    “She called Vincent.”
    “Fuck. The bitch.”
    “That’s how bad she wants to do it. I think it’s a good sign.”
    “Where is that African bastard? I’ll kill him.”
    “Nancy says the French babe showed.”
    “Oh, no. No, fuckin’ no!”
    “It gets worse, Kaiser. Vincent told me to call Tim Pascal.”
    “Who the fuck’s he?”
    “Some English director. Lanier wants to meet with him.”
    “Who’s his agent?”
    “Sheldon … Hello? Kaiser?”
    G EORGE M ALINVERNO . I got a theory about this town, this place: everybody likes pizza. Even the French. We got toknow them real well, I guess. They came back every night, the French. The tall black guy, the ratty one and the blond girl. Real pretty girl. Every night they come. Every night they eat pizza. Every night she ties one on. Everybody likes pizza. [Bitter laugh] Everybody. Too bad I didn’t think of it first, huh?
    They film one night. And the girl, she’s steaming. Then, I don’t know, something goes wrong and we don’t see them for a while. Then he comes back. Just the black guy, Aurélien and the girl. He says, can they film, one night, a thousand bucks. I say for sure. So he sets up the sound and he sets up the camera behind the bushes. You know it’s not a disturbance, exactly. I never see anybody make a film like this before. A thousand bucks, it’s very generous. So the girl she walks up, she takes a seat, she orders beer and keeps on drinking. Soon she’s pretty stewed. Aurélien sits behind the bushes, just keeps filming. Some guy tries to pick her up, puts his hand on the table, like, leans over, she takes a book of matches, like that one, and does something to the back of his hand with the corner. I couldn’t see what she did, but the guy gasps with pain, shudders like this, just backs off.
    Then we get a big party in, birthday party, they’d already booked, fourteen people. She sits there drinking and smoking, Aurélien’s filming. Then we bring the cake out of the kitchen, candles all lit. Whenever there’s a birthday we get Chico to sing. Chico, the little waiter, tubby guy, wanted to be an opera singer. Got a fine strong voice. He’s singing “Happy Birthday to You”—he’s got a kind of drawn-out, elaborate way of singing it. Top of his voice,
molto vibrato
, you know. Next thing I know the girl’s on her feet with a fuckin’ gun in her hand, screaming in French. Nobody can hear because Chico’s singing his balls off. I tear out from behind the bar, but I’m too late. POW. First shot blows the cake away. BAM. Second one gets Chico in the thigh. Flesh wound, thank God. I charge her to the ground, Roberto jumps on top. We wrestlethe gun away. She