Homeland Elegies(81)
“How about both?” he countered coyly, biting on a bread stick. I’d been there before, glad-handing a star over a drink or meal, trading compliments as we sniffed out each other’s vanities. I’d done it before and never well. What’s the harm in playing along this time? I wondered. I conceded the counter—and did so by way of needlessly flattering his intelligence—but I would regret it. He would take my encouragement for permission to create a version of the character entirely too buoyant and one-dimensional, too indifferent to the murkier tonal range that was the essence of the play’s dramatic plight. His cloying take hadn’t worked in the rehearsal room and was working even less now that we’d moved onto the set. The director wanted me to give in and let him keep some stage business I’d hated since he introduced it early in rehearsal—in which he needlessly gave out money to a character who worked for him in the opening scene. The gesture was gratuitous and unjustified dramatically, but he’d gone to great lengths to build it into the physical action. When I asked him to explain why he was doing it, he lectured us on the importance of a save-the-cat moment—his name for any early story point where the hero does something the audience will find appealing (like Sigourney Weaver—he explained—saving Jonesy the cat in that first scene where we meet her in Alien). “Your play doesn’t have a save-the-cat moment; I’m doing you a favor,” he said. I responded by laughing out loud. From that point forward, things only got worse between us. Every time I saw him do his save-the-cat nonsense, I told him to stop. He wouldn’t. And then he told the director he didn’t want the writer talking to him anymore. The day before, on set, he’d done it again, and I stormed out. We were at a standstill, and the director believed the tension between us was the real reason he couldn’t remember his lines. She counseled me over the phone to give in: “Just let him have it. It doesn’t hurt the play. If he sees you soften on this, he’ll feel like he’s won something. It’ll be the boost he needs. I won’t be shocked if he shows up the next day line-perfect.”
I was skeptical this was all it would take, but I told her I was game to try.
Our call ended as the exit for Elm Brook approached. A steady light rain had been falling since I’d crossed the border into Wisconsin, and here, where the off-ramp and road into town were paved with a speckled beige-gray concrete, the wet surface sparkled beneath the streetlamps. The town center was two miles down a sloping road, and the police station sat just past a raised set of train tracks in the building that also housed the local library. I pulled up into an empty spot alongside the only squad car parked in front and got out just as an approaching freight train sounded its horn.
Inside, the passing rattle of train wheels on rail joints sounded surprisingly close, floating in through the open barred window in the cell where my father snored on his side, a Green Bay Packers blanket covering much of his torso. The cell was large and clean, with a single bench of dark varnished wood on which my father slept. Benji unlocked the jail door, pulled it open, and stepped inside. He got to his knees and gently prodded Father awake. Father roused, grumbling, then turned and lifted his head. His sleepy eyes narrowed with suspicion as he registered Benji, then widened with sudden alarm as they found me standing beyond the bars. He looked like a frightened child, I thought, a forlorn runaway. “Hi, Dad,” I said gently, hoping to soothe him, but he only sighed, his head dropping back against the bench.
“Can I go now?” he demanded with a petulant bray. Benji didn’t reply. Father sat up, glowering. “Hmm? Can I go?”
“You’re free to go. You always were—as long as there was someone to drive you home.”
“Where’s my car?”
“At the casino.”
“You separated me from my veeehicle?” I would have laughed at the question if I hadn’t heard the earnest outrage in it. He was clearly still drunk and confused.
“Just trying to make sure you don’t hurt yourself or someone else, Doctor.”
“Good Samaritan. Yeah, yeah,” Father groused.
“Dad. You might want to thank Benji for helping you. It could have been a bad situation if—”
“What do you know? Hmm? Were you there? I didn’t see you. I never see you anymore.”
“Doc—” Benji interjected gently.
“Okay, look. Fine. Thank you, Benji. Thank you for humiliating me in front of my boy. Who thinks he’s better than everyone now that he’s famous. But you know I was not nobody, either.”
“—Dad.”
Benji shot me a quick dissuading glance.
“I used to treat famous people, too. I was a doctor to kings! Did you know that, Benji?”
“That’s what you were saying, Doc.”
“Kings!”
“So I’m gonna go get your things,” Benji said. “And let you gentlemen be on your way.”
“My car?” Father asked again, confused.
“I’ll take care of it, Dad. Don’t worry.”
Benji headed up the stairs as Father tottered to the cell door, still finding his feet. I reached out for his arm, which he snatched away angrily, banging his hand against the bars. He yelped, cursing in Punjabi, “Bhenchod,” then trundling off up the stairs to the front door.
I met Benji at reception, where he handed me Father’s wallet and keys. “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “He’s obviously embarrassed—”