In front of the building we hugged and kissed.
“I had an amazing time last night,” she said.
“Me too.”
“So will I hear from you this time?”
She laughed, trying to make it into a joke, but I knew she was serious.
“You kidding?” I said. “I’m dying to go out with you again. How’s tonight sound?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. How about you meet me at the bar around midnight? We can hang out awhile, then, if you’re up for it, we can go out for a little bite. Maybe this time we’ll make it to the restaurant.”
We both laughed.
“Unless it’s too soon,” I said.
“No, it’s not too soon.”
“Wait, I forgot—you have to work tomorrow so maybe we should wait till Friday or Saturday.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can make it tonight.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. I’ll see you at midnight.”
We kissed and hugged for a while longer, then I walked away, looking back every few steps and waving. At the corner, I turned and I waved again.
I did some chores around the building—the guy in Apartment 2 had a leak in his radiator—then I cleaned the hallways and stairs, dumping out buckets of half water, half Clorox, and mopping up. My neighbors were mainly interns at New York Hospital and young college grads. They were nice enough people, but I kept to myself mostly, only talking to them if I had to do work in their apartments.
Around ten o’clock, I finished cleaning and went to a deli on First Avenue and bought a couple of bacon-and-egg sandwiches. I started eating the sandwiches on my way home and finished them in my apartment. Then I started getting ready for the audition.
When I got out of the shower I put on the outfit my manager had told me to wear—jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. In the commercial, I was going to play an average Joe, a working-class guy who lives alone with his dog. My manager thought it would be a good idea if I looked scruffy and a little tired so I didn’t shave.
When I was dressed and ready to go, I practiced my one line in front of the mirror. I had to kneel down next to a dog and say, “He eats great and looks great, too.” I practiced saying the line as many ways as I could think of, until I thought I had it down perfectly. They’d have to be crazy not to pick me.
The audition was at a studio on Fifty-seventh Street near Seventh Avenue. I took the 6 train downtown, switching for the R at Fifty-ninth. I arrived at twelve-thirty, a half hour before I had to go on.
As usual, there were dozens of guys in the waiting area who looked like they could be my twin brothers. They were all wearing white V-necks and hadn’t shaved.
I was practicing the line in my head, still positive I was going to get the part. My turn came. I went into the room where the director, producer, and a few other guys—probably the writers and ad execs—were sitting behind a long desk. There was also a woman with curly brown hair, holding a golden retriever on a leash.
“Tommy Russo,” the director said. He was a thin guy with short blond hair and glasses. He was wearing a black turtleneck.
“That’s me,” I said.
“Thank you for coming down,” he said.
“My pleasure,” I said.
“If you could just stand right over there,” he said, pointing toward a piece of masking tape on the floor, about ten yards in front of the desk.
I went to the spot and the woman came toward me with the dog. But as soon as she tried to take off the leash, the dog started barking, going nuts. She tried to calm it down, saying “Easy” and “It’s okay,” but nothing helped.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said to me. “She’s usually not like this.”
At first, the guys at the table were laughing, like they thought it was a big joke. But after a few minutes went by and the dog was still barking, trying to come after me, they started checking their watches and whispering to each other.
“Maybe you should take her out of here!” the director finally yelled to the woman so she could hear him over the crazy dog.
The woman started to walk away, but the dog kept pulling her back, scratching the floor, trying to come after me. Finally, the woman and the dog left the room, but I could still hear the dog barking somewhere.
“I guess I must’ve put on the dog-biscuit cologne this morning,” I said. Nobody laughed.
“I’m very sorry about this,” the director said.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I mean blame the dog, right?”
“We’ll contact your manager or agent if any other roles come along.”
I stood there for a couple of seconds before it set in, but then I still couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Don’t you want to hear me read the line?”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” the director said.
Again I stared at him, then I said, “Why not?”
“Because you’re not getting along with Molly.”
“Who’s Molly?”
“Molly is the dog.”
“So bring Molly back in here. Maybe she’ll calm down.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Russo, but we have to see the next actor now.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said, “because I don’t think this is fair. I came all the way down here, I practiced for this part. The least you could let me do—”
“Please leave, Mr. Russo.”
“I just want to read my line,” I said. “If you’d just sit back for a second you’d see—”
“I asked you nicely to leave, Mr. Russo. We’re not hiring you for this role so you’re just wasting all of our time by being here. So I’ll ask you nicely one last time—please leave.”
I knew the smart thing to do was to walk out of there, keep my mouth shut.
“Why do you think you can talk to people this way?” I said. “Just because you’re a big shot, sitting over there behind your desk?”
The director whispered something to the guy next to him and the guy took out a cell phone and started making a call.
“If you want to avoid a very bad scene,” the director said, “you’ll turn around and leave right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
The director and the other guys were standing up now, talking to each other. I heard the director call me an “asshole” and something in me snapped. I went after him, climbing over the desk. He backed away and the other guys tried to hold me back. I broke free, then two security guards came up behind me and pulled me out of the room. They escorted me out of the building and said if I ever showed up there again I’d be arrested.
Walking along Fifty-seventh Street, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I knew if I thought about it anymore I’d really start getting down on myself, so I did what I always did when I wanted to take my mind off my problems—I stopped at a newsstand and bought the Racing Form, then I headed crosstown toward the OTB Inside Track on Second Avenue.
I hung out upstairs, at a table in the back under the sun roof. The usual degenerates were there—guys I saw all the time, but I didn’t know any of their last names. A couple of people were my age, but almost everybody else was over sixty. Sometimes I got depressed, thinking about these guys who’d retired to spend more time with their wives and their kids, but they wound up spending all their time betting. I knew I wasn’t as bad as they were, but I also knew I could wind up like them if I didn’t watch out.
The third race was going off. I played the one and the horse jogged—suddenly, I was up over three hundred bucks. When I was collecting, I gave Lucy, the teller, a five-dollar tip. I didn’t like anything in the fourth so I sat it out. But in the fifth I loved a horse. I was going to bet a hundred bucks, then I decided, what the hell, and I let the three hundred ride. The horse got caught in a speed duel and faded to last. By two o’clock, I was back home, broke again, watching TV.