Good-looking waiter kid with pointy ears talks to me
“Are you sure I don’t know you from somewhere,” I ask the kid as he walks by my table.
“Anything’s possible, Jack – know what I mean?”
“Say, how did you know my name was Jack? Or is that a term of endearment you use with every Tom, Dick and Aloysius who comes in here?”
“I don’t know. Could be a little of both.”
Oh, yeah? Well, what about that breakfast?”
“Say,” he says, suddenly sitting opposite me and smiling at me sidewise – not like he’s a homo or anything like that, but more like he’s testing his charisma out on me, the power of his presence, like he’s projecting himself at me off a screen, in all his sparkle-toothed movie-boy charm and glamour… “you know Jack Nicholson, right?”
“Well, uh, I know of him. Hey, about that breakf –”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll get it for you just this minute. But while there’s time, I just wanted to ask you. There’s nothing wrong with a couple of friendly questions, is there? I mean, you seem all right and all and I thought maybe you might know… ah, forget it. Sorry I bothered you, Mister. I’ll get that breakfast for you now. What was that: two eggs sunny-side up, or was that over easy, some sausage, hash browns, cup of joe, and, uh, what else? Did I get that right? Just tell me how you wanted those eggs again, and I’ll be on my –”
“Oh, no, no”… my abruptness plays on my conscience, and so I invite the exchange… “what was it you wanted to know?”
“Oh!” The kid lights up again and sits back down. “Uh, no, you know, I was just wondering a couple of things about Nicholson, is all; what you thought of his acting, his career, and… and… uh…”
He doesn’t seem to know exactly what it is he’s trying to say, or ask, or maybe he’s holding back, oddly embarrassed by his imposition yet determined to follow through with it now that I’d given him the opening.
“Well, I mean, what do you mean? I mean, that depends from what angle you’re asking me to consider his acting and his career. I mean, I’ve seen quite a few of his movies and I genuinely admire his acting, even though I think he’s better in some than in others, like in some he’s just winging it, while in others he’s –”
“Oh, no, no – you know, that could just be because of the movie itself; know what I mean? I mean, it might be the script, or the direction, and no amount of talent can save it.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but –”
“I mean, there’s something about his presence on the screen and what he does with that space he’s in that makes you want to watch it, no matter what the movie’s like. I mean –”
“Yeah, sure, but there’s –”
“Oh, I don’t know – take, for example, ‘The Cry Baby Killer’. Now that’s –”
“‘The Cry Baby Killer’? Doesn’t sound like one of his more recent efforts.”
“Well, ‘recent’ is a relative term; know what I mean? 1958. It was his first one.”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“Well, in it you’ve got this diner, see, this joint, and it’s not all good because the owner lets young slick punks led by a guy named Manny bring underage chicks in there to spike their soft drinks, which is illegal, see, to soften them up and then they take them out and –”
“Yeah, I get it. And who’s Nicholson – Manny?”
“No, man, Nicholson’s The Crybaby Killer. And he doesn’t kill anyone. Manny’s the guy who looks like me. It’s a cheap short movie but it’s what I consider ahead of its time and post-noir just before noir actually died. Now, a couple years later, when he made “The Wild Ride”, well, that’s real anti-noir, man; it’s like telling noir to finally go take a hike. It’s like the child of “The Wild One”, 1953, starring Marlon Brando, but it’s also like the predecessor to all the B biker movies of the ‘60s – the ones that Nicholson’s in and all the others. An entire subgenre and era in and of itself, just before the new Hollywood of the ‘70s. Boy, those really describe the terrifying zeitgeist of one fucked-up generation. Man, those movies, I mean, know what I mean, those movies, man, Nicholson, I mean –”
“Ah, ah, sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you, or anything, and we can certainly continue this a little later, I mean, I’m truly interested, I mean, I’m really intrigued, you know, fascinated, really, I mean, you know so much, and I’ve never had the chance to talk in depth about some things about the movies I’ve always wanted to talk about, and you seem like just the right person to… I mean, when you mention noir, you’re talking about a specific era, or style, I take it, like, from what I can gather just from you dating those other movies, this noir was around before, like in the ‘40s and ‘50s – am I right? I mean, you’re talking and critiquing an entire set of idioms here, and then there’s all the –”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, Jack, we can continue this later. I’ll bring you your breakfast, and then I’ll come by a little later, and maybe we can –”
“Yeah, maybe later we can, you know, set up a, you know, maybe we could just get together later and, you know, talk about these –”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, Jack. Okay, talk to you later. I’ve got a lot of work to do. See ya!”
Afterward
It’s not like I insulted him or anything. Gauging his reaction, I didn’t get that impression at all. I fully expected we would talk about the movies later. You know, go somewhere else, like a bar or something, and just, you know, talk about the movies.
He never came back with my breakfast.
Jack Step. May 13, 2014