King of the Worlds. M. Thomas Gammarino

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СКАЧАТЬ it was possible to be at Cardinal O’Hara High School, and not just among his peers but teachers, parents, custodial staff, alumni, and everyone else who’d come to see the show or read the stellar reviews in the News of Delaware County or The Springfield Press as well. To be sure, there are few ways to inflate a teenager’s ego more than to assign him the role of God in the school musical. One way, though, is to award him “Most Likely to Be Famous” in his senior yearbook, and Dylan had that honor too. It didn’t hurt things either that he had lately begun dating Erin Wheatley, the dance captain, who’d been cast as his temptress in more ways than one. The future had never looked so gorgeous.

      Then, a few weeks after graduation, Dylan had his first brush with bona fide celebrity. Chad Powell, who’d played Judas opposite Dylan’s Jesus and was soon to be his roommate at Temple University, found them a gig as extras in 12 Monkeys, a time travel film about a boy who witnesses his own death as an older man. The Convention Center had been made up to look like an airport, and over the course of two days Dylan and Chad played a couple of luggage-toting travelers. The opportunity to work with (i.e. in the same film as) Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt would have been compensation enough; that they were granted access to the same catered spread as the stars was just a bonus. Indeed, for Dylan it would turn out to be something of a bonanza.

      He was in the donut line on their second morning on the set when a voice from behind him intoned, “I’ve had my eye on you since yesterday.”

      Dylan peered over his shoulder. The dude was big, had long hair and was wearing some sort of cowboy hat. Chad was over in the coffee line, so Dylan was on his own here. “Um…why?”

      “You’ve got the sort of look I’m after.”

      “I have a girlfriend,” Dylan replied. He knew acting had a reputation for drawing gay dudes, and he had nothing against them; he just didn’t happen to be one himself.

      The guy chuckled. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

      Dylan looked again. “Should I?”

      “Not necessarily. I do happen to be directing this film you’re in, though. Pleased to meet you. Name of Terry.”

      The two plain donuts on Dylan’s styrofoam plate leapt off and began rolling in opposite directions. Dylan wasn’t as up on his directors as he’d have liked, but murmurs from other extras had made it clear that Terry Gilliam was a pretty big deal. “I’m so sorry,” Dylan said. “I feel like an idiot.”

      “No worries,” Gilliam said, taking two more donuts from the tray and setting them on Dylan’s plate. Once they were steady, he fished around in his wallet, took out a business card and placed that on the plate as well. “I’m quite busy today, for obvious reasons, but I want you to call me this evening. Say around nine or ten? Can you do that?”

      “Okay,” Dylan said, oblivious as to what was going on.

      “Are you free for lunch tomorrow?”

      “Sure,” Dylan said.

      “And what, may I ask, is your name?”

      “Dylan…uh…Dylan Greenyears.”

      “Perfect,” Gilliam said, putting one hand on Dylan’s shoulder and grabbing himself a croissant with the other. “Now back to the wars.” He winked at Dylan and went off to direct Bruce Willis.

      Dylan had no idea what he’d just agreed to—why in God’s name did this world-famous director want to have lunch with him? And was his lack of understanding somehow his own fault? Had he missed some subtle cue or signal? Failed to interpret Hollywood-ese?

      For some reason, either because he didn’t want to presume or didn’t want to gloat—he himself wasn’t sure—Dylan went the whole day without mentioning to Chad what had happened. Filming ended around seven, and Chad suggested they go get some grub, but Dylan told him he was feeling sick to his stomach, which was true in a way. He dropped off Chad at eight-fifteen, got home at eight twenty-eight, and called Mr. Terry Gilliam one fashionable minute after nine o’clock.

      He answered on the first ring. “Hi there, Dylan. I’m glad you called. Look, I know I suggested lunch tomorrow, but it turns out I’ve got a prior engagement.”

      “That’s okay,” Dylan said, crestfallen.

      “However,” Gilliam went on, “could you meet me for some s’mores at around half three? There’s a café at 4th and Chestnut. It’s spelled ‘X-a-n-d-o,’ though I don’t know whether to call it Zando or X and O.”

      “‘Half three’?”

      “Right. Sorry. That’s three thirty on this side of the pond.”

      “Okay,” Dylan said.

      “Till tomorrow then.”

      “Yes. See you tomorrow.” Dylan had sworn to himself that he’d find out more about Gilliam’s intentions before agreeing to meet him, but his star-struckedness had gotten the better of him.

      So the next day Dylan took a trolley at noon to 69th Street and then the el downtown. He was a couple of hours early, so he wandered the city, wondering at omnipresent graffiti warning him that “Andre the Giant Has a Posse,” and ogling all the exotic city girls. Suburban girls so often put a premium on comfort, but these city girls dressed up. Even Erin was wearing sweats around him lately, and while he loved her, he was at the height of his virility and beginning to feel the tug of wanderlust.

      Come half three, he made sure he was at Xando, however it was pronounced. Gilliam showed a couple of minutes later and gave Dylan a firm handshake. “Shall we dine al fresco?”

      “Okay,” Dylan said. Now what did ‘al fresco’ mean again?

      “So, Dylan, you’ve grown up in this fair city?”

      “Near it,” Dylan said.

      An androgynous, bald barista came to take their order.

      “What’ll you drink, Dylan?” Mr. Gilliam asked. “It’s on me, of course. A cappuccino?”

“Can you do an espresso con panna?” Dylan asked the barista. This was just a fancy way of saying “espresso with whipped cream,” but having spent the past couple of summers working in the café at Borders,9 he had become a bit of a coffee snob.

      9_____________

      One of the mega-bookstores once ubiquitous throughout the United States. These temples would stand as the high-water mark of American literary culture in Dylan’s mind. No one knew back then how fragile the business model was, how Omni was about to usher in a whole new paradigm. For a heady moment there it was like the Library of Alexandria was up and running again, and everyone had a card.

      “Sure,” the barista said.

      Mr. Gilliam looked impressed. “I’ll take the same. And some s’mores, too, would be lovely.”

      “Will that be all?”

      “For now anyway.”

      The barista went away.

      “All СКАЧАТЬ