Moderaator: Meeskond
We drove back to his place. Why Tommy didn’t tell me his address and have me meet him there, I have no idea. He also didn’t know how to use his windshield wipers. He drove leaning forward as close to his windshield as possible and made the sign of the cross after every church we passed. After nearly killing us several times, Tommy descended into his complex’s parking garage, which had hardly any cars in it. Every time he did see one, though, no matter how far away it was, Tommy slammed on the brakes. He pulled into a space that had a Bad-era Michael Jackson poster on the storage door in front of it. Once parked, he reached into the backseat for the anti-car-theft device known as the Club. He hung his Club over the steering wheel but didn’t lock it. I asked Tommy if he was going to lock the thing into place. He’d lost the key, it turned out, but the mere appearance of a Club, he explained, was enough to deter thieves.
Next to his parking spot was another car he owned, a beige, early-1980s Trans Am. All of its tires were flat and it was covered in roughly five coats of dust—in which someone (Tommy?) had used his finger to draw the Zodiac Killer’s symbol. This unnerved me greatly until Tommy admitted he had no idea what that symbol meant. At least I now knew that Tommy was (probably) not going to murder me when we got to his condo.
I wanted to drink some water before we started rehearsing, so Tommy took me into his kitchen. All the cupboards were open and his sink was filled with a pile of dirty dishes and cloudy water. Hanging from the ceiling were two long sticky flytraps, both prodigiously covered in fruit flies. I no longer wanted to drink anything.
“How about some carrot juice?” Tommy asked.
I checked the date on the bottle he gave me. “This expired three months ago,” I said.
“Well, excuse me,” Tommy said. “The maid is on vacation.” He put the carrot juice back into his fridge.
On his refrigerator door Tommy had an array of magnets he’d collected of iconic American tourist sites: Las Vegas, the Space Needle, the Grand Canyon, the Hollywood sign, Graceland. Just in case his patriotism was in any doubt, he’d arranged them around a larger magnet of the American flag. Magneted to the fridge door was an outdated headshot with THOMAS P. WISEAU written underneath it. Below that was a picture of Tommy with what looked like his natural hair—it was shorter, and chestnut brown—sitting in a storefront window at what appeared to be Christmastime, in a place that may have been New Orleans. In the photo, Tommy was looking off into the middle distance, past the camera. How clean and untroubled these young-Tommy eyes were, especially compared to the eyes of the man standing next to me, and their spook-house repository of secrets.
“I don’t like the dailies. They just don’t cut it. We need something bigger, more spectacular.”
For Tommy, “bigger” and “more spectacular” meant green screen. The green screen was like a portal into Tommy’s imagination and having it as an option gave him a scarily limitless range of possibilities. A few days before, Tommy had pulled Raphael aside and told him his latest big idea.
“I want my car,” Tommy began, “to fly off the roof and into the sky.” By now, Raphael was prepared for literally anything when Tommy discussed his ideas. Even so, I could tell this particular vision had really, deeply stunned him.
“Why,” Raphael said, “do you want to do this, exactly?”
“It’s just possible side plot. Maybe Johnny is vampire.”
The Room’s costume designer, Safowa, had ducked out for a moment to run some wardrobe errands because Tommy was so late. Of course, the moment Tommy learned that Safowa was no longer around, he decided he was ready to get dressed for his scene. He began to panic. “We need her now, not tomorrow!” he said. “I don’t hire her not to be here! I’m not doing her job.”
Amy told Tommy that Safowa would be back any second, but Tommy, unsatisfied, headed directly to wardrobe and dressed himself. He probably could not have picked a worse outfit had he been blindfolded: an ill-fitting navy blue sport coat over his favorite black tank top and sand-colored cargo pants, the pockets of which were stuffed with lotion bottles, antiwrinkling gel, purple scrunchies, hair clips, and cash. He looked like an aging metrosexual commando.
Safowa returned from her errand, took one look at Tommy, and nearly fainted. I believe the word she used to describe his outfit was “unfilmable.”
Tommy, of course, refused to change. “I keep my stuff, sweetie. You are late. Please don’t do this again.”
“Tommy,” Safowa said, “you can’t just pick things off the rack at random and start shooting.” Sensing she wasn’t going to win this argument, she turned to grab her camera. “I need to get a Polaroid of your outfit for continuity.”
“Continuity,” Tommy said, stopping her, “is in your forehead.”
“Would you at least empty your pockets?” Safowa asked. “Can we agree to that?”
“I cannot,” Tommy said. Safowa briefly looked like she was about to punch him. Tommy, noticing this, put his hand on her shoulder. “You are very sweet, and I push you little bit. But don’t hate me yet.” From Safowa’s expression it was clear that Tommy’s request was several seconds too late.
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