The Film Club by David Gilmour Page B

fingers. But what interested me about him was that he appeared to be my age. “Excuse me,” I said. “You’re a courier, yes?”
    â€œYes.”
    I asked him if he had time for a few questions. How much did he make? About $120 a day. A day ? Yep, if he hustled. I asked who he worked for, he named the company. He was an easygoing fellow with perfect white teeth.
    â€œDo you think it might be possible for me to get a job with your company?” I asked.
    He raised his sunglasses and looked at me with a pair of clear blue eyes. “Aren’t you the guy from television?”
    â€œNot at this moment.”
    He said, “I used to watch you all the time. I saw you interview Michael Moore. What a prick that guy is.”
    I said, “So what do you think?”
    He looked down the alleyway and frowned. He said, “Well, we have an age limit. You’ve got to be under fifty.”
    I said, “Are you under fifty?”
    â€œNo, but I’ve been there a long time.”
    I said, “Could you do me a favour? Could you speak to your boss on my behalf? Tell him I’m not fooling around here, I’ll stay for at least six months, I’m in good shape.”
    He hesitated. “That’s going to be a pretty weird conversation.”
    I wrote down my phone number and my name and gave it to him.
    â€œI’d be really grateful,” I said.
    A day went by; then a few days; then nothing; I never heard back from him.
    â€œCan you believe this?” I said to Tina. “I can’t even get a job as a fucking bike courier.”
    In the middle of a silent breakfast the following morning, I rose from my chair and went back to bed, fully clothed. I put my head under the covers and tried to get back to sleep. A few moments later I felt a presence like a small bird alight on the side of the bed.
    â€œI can help you with this,” Tina said, “but you have to let me. You can’t fight with me.”
    An hour later she gave me a list of twenty names. Newspaper editors, cable television producers, people in public relations, speechwriters, even a local politician we vaguely knew. She said, “You have to call these people and tell them you’re available for work.”
    â€œI already have.”
    â€œNo, you haven’t. You just looked up your old pals.”
    I looked at the first name on the list. “Not that fuck-weed. I can’t call him !”
    She shushed me. “You said you wouldn’t fight about this.”
    So I didn’t. I gave myself a day’s respite and then I sat down at the kitchen table and started making calls. And to my surprise, she was right. Most everybody was pretty decent. They didn’t have anything for me for the moment, but they were friendly, encouraging.
    In a moment of energized optimism (phoning is better than waiting), I said to Jesse, “This is my problem, not yours.” But he wasn’t a lout or a parasite and I could feel him tiptoeing around “the situation,” could feel him almost wince when he asked for ten dollars for this, ten dollars for that. But what could he do? He didn’t have a bean. His mother was helping out but she was an actor, a stage actor at that. And it certainly wasn’t up to Tina to crack into her savings (started when she was sixteen) to support my son whose free-floating, it’ll-happen-dude posture I had so confidently encouraged. In the middle of the night (when little good comes from thinking about anything), I wondered how unpleasant things were going to get, how toxic the atmosphere around money, if my luck didn’t change soon.
    The film club resumed. To lure Jesse into watching more movies without making it too school-like, I made up a game of spot-the-great-moment. This meant a scene or a bit of dialogue or image that snaps you forward in your seat; makes your heart bang. We started with an easy one, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980),