Authors: James Scott Bell
When the urge to drink hit me, it was always like a Randy Johnson fastball to the ribs. It would take the breath out of me, crush some bone, leave me staggering toward first. If you’re a problem drinker, you never really get rid of all the urges.
But it seemed I was getting hit more and more by the urges, knowing about Paula and Troncatti. And Maddie. The hitting incident really knocked me flat. Nor did it help that Steve Monet was the one who got the Colgate commercial. He called me up to tell me, and I wanted not just to drink a whole bottle of vodka but actually eat the bottle.
Though Maddie seemed to have forgotten all about it, I couldn’t. I kept seeing myself in the newspaper as some awful dad, nabbed by the police before I did more harm.
Drinking seemed a great alternative to the demons. I almost did it, too. I almost left Maddie with Mrs. Williams so I could go out to a bar and get soaked.
It hit me hard Sunday morning and that scared me. The morning? This was bad.
Without much thought, I knew I had to do something drastic. And when Maddie walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, I knew what it was.
I took her to the same big church in Hollywood where Paula and I got married. Part of my thinking was that this would be a goodwill gesture to God on my part.
Hey, God, I’m here, see me? Remember the wedding that was right up this aisle five years ago? That was me, and here I am and you can do that miracle thing they say you’re always doing.
For Maddie, there was a full-on Sunday school program, which she did not want to go to at first. I couldn’t blame her. All these kids who were not her kindergarten class, who were not her day camp troop. Strangers. Threats.
She held on to my leg like I was the last life preserver on the
Titanic.
“I don’t wanna go in there,” she said. I had managed to get her this far, to the church building. She’d even seemed somewhat excited about a new place to play.
But now that we were here, and all these kids she didn’t know were walking by, she didn’t want to leave me.
Then Mrs. Hancock came.
There are some people who really deserve the word
saint
attached to themselves. Mrs. Joyce Hancock was one of those people. She had a smile that made her eyes crinkle, so you knew it was genuine.
After introducing herself to me—I must have had a neon sign around my neck that flashed
Lost Father: Help Wanted—
she bent down and said, “And who are you?”
Mussolini stuck her lip out. “Madeleine Erica Gillen,” she said, tightening her grip on my leg.
“That is a fantastic name,” Mrs. Hancock said. “Do you know where it comes from?”
“No,” I said. Maddie whipped a disapproving look at me for answering the question.
“Magdala was a village on the sea of Galilee in Bible times. It means
tower
in Hebrew. Mary Magdalene was a woman from Jesus’ time who was called that because she was from Magdala. And guess what?”
“What?” Maddie said, loosening her grip on me a little.
“She became a great friend of Jesus.”
Maddie broke into a big smile.
“I’m going to tell some more Bible stories today,” Mrs. Hancock said. “Would you like to come hear them? Your daddy will be close by if you want him.”
And then my little Mussolini became as soft as new snow. She let go of my leg. “Bye, Daddy.”
The church service felt weird to me.
Maybe it was the surroundings. Stained glass windows and polished wooden pews and a choir with robes and everything.
When people sang, they stood up.
The minister was a trim guy with slate-colored hair and a great speaking voice. Looked like he could have been an actor at one time. Maybe he was. This was a Hollywood church, after all.
“This morning,” he began, “I’d like to continue our series on prayer. Specifically, how God hears and answers prayer.”
That got my attention.
I could use a direct line to God right now,
I thought.
I’m all ears.
The preacher read from a Bible. “‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.’”
I’d heard that before, somewhere. It always seemed a little like mumbo jumbo.
“Now people will do all kinds of things to gain God’s favor and receive his blessings, especially when they are in great need or in extreme danger. You know:
God, I’ll do anything if you’ll just save me from this.
They make all sorts of promises. But while people are often willing to do great things in return for God’s blessing, things God has not asked for and does not want, they are unwilling to do the one small thing that he actually requires, which is to pray.”
Made sense.
Duh.
“So how do we receive God’s blessings?”
Bring it on, preacher dude.
“We ask in faith. We cannot come to God with an attitude of,
Well, I’ll try praying to God, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try something else.
That isn’t faith. That’s just covering your bases. God is not willing to be just one option among many. He will not be satisfied with a piece of our love, a piece of our devotion, a piece of our trust. He wants all of it. He claims his rightful place at the center of our lives. He demands that we trust in him, and him alone.”
Now I started to squirm around a little bit. I think my mind was telling my body that God was certainly not in the center of my life, not the very center.
“God is not willing to be put on the shelf with all of the other deities, to be installed as part of our personal pantheon of gods. Maybe I’ll try praying to God to meet my needs, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try a little Zen Buddhism, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try wealth and power, maybe some self-actualization. It’s like asking five women to marry you, and then waiting to see which one says yes.”
Paula had said yes. Once.
“It’s an insult. On the contrary, we must place our faith and trust in God alone, with no backup and no contingency plan. The key to answered prayer is not the amount or strength of our faith, but the object of our faith. ‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’ The power doesn’t come from our faith; the power comes from the One in whom we have faith.”
I didn’t quite get that yet, but the thing about the mountain got me curious.
He finished off the sermon by talking about praying in Jesus’ name. Frankly, that sounded a little like a magic formula. And I couldn’t quite connect it all up. But when it was over, I felt like I was glad I came.
And Maddie didn’t want to leave, she’d had such a good time.
Why couldn’t it have lasted? Why didn’t I just take her home? Did the thing in the park have to happen? What would the preacher man say about that?
Serrania Park is in the Woodland Hills area of the Valley, next to a development of some of the most expensive homes in town. It’s a place you get a better class of parent and kid, not to mention dog. Maddie liked the swings at Serrania, because you could go so high.
A daredevil, Maddie.
We—Paula, Maddie, and I—had come here three or four times. I remember trying to teach Maddie how to throw a Frisbee here, when she was four. She got the hang of it real quick, as Paula applauded my efforts from a bench under a tree. Best applause I’d had in years.
Today there was some good activity in the sandbox, like a toddlers’ convention, along with some kids Maddie’s age taking to the slides and swings. Since the good high swings were taken, Maddie headed to the digging part of the convention. She is a natural conversationalist and immediately invited herself to join a boy’s shoveling near the stone camel.
I took my flip-flops off, sat on the far edge of the box, and wiggled my toes in the sand.
And started to think about what Maddie would be when she grew up. I didn’t see her going into acting, like her parents. Too unstable a profession—unless an Antonio Troncatti picks you out of thin air for a major flick.
I thought Maddie would make a good lawyer. She knew how to argue, could dig in her heels when she had to, and was already gaining a fine appreciation of the art of charging outrageous sums of money for her efforts. One day she asked me for a twenty-dollar bill.
“Twenty dollars? What for?”
“I cleaned my room.”
I laughed. “But you’re supposed to do that.”
“Okay.” She thought a moment. “Then give me ten dollars.”
Smiling at the thought, I watched my daughter negotiate the plastic shovel out of the boy’s hand.
“Yours?”
It was an attractive woman about my age. She was looking at Maddie and the boy.
“Yes,” I said. “She’s five.”
“Mine’s four,” the woman said. “But big for his age.”
“Yeah, he is. A middle linebacker, I’d say.”
“His father was. Played in college. Really.”
“Mark Gillen,” I said, standing.
“Kay Millard. You live around here?”
“No, I’m from the land of the studios. Maddie just likes this park.”
“Maddie? Short for Madeleine?”
“Yeah.”
“I always liked that name.”
“What’s your boy’s name?”
“Duncan.”
“Scottish, isn’t it?”
Kay Millard smiled. “Very good.”
“I know that from the Scottish play.”
“Ah,
Macbeth.
“Shh!” I said. We were having fun. Not many people know the actor’s superstition about Shakespeare’s most notorious play. You’re never supposed to mention the title, so the belief goes, or something will go wrong during the production. Like a set falling on an actor.
“You must be an actor,” Kay said.
“I’ve been accused of that.”
“You seem too nice to be an actor.” She sat on the concrete next to me, her Reeboks in the sand.
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”
“It is. I know a lot of actors. My husband’s a director.”
“Oh really?” I tried to keep my voice calm and nonthreatening, even as my actor’s insides began to quiver, like a hungry dog hearing the supper dish being pulled off the shelf. Out-of-work actors are trained to pick up every possible vibe that might mean a
connection
to a
job.
On the other hand, you can’t jump all over every person you meet who has some foot in the business. The two unbreakable rules for actors are
Don’t be dull
and
Don’t be desperate.
Even though I was feeling desperate, I was not going to show it. But I sure wasn’t going to let this one go, either. Breaks come every which way, but never in a predictable fashion. Lana Turner, they tell us, was sitting in a tight sweater in Schwab’s Drug Store in Hollywood when a talent scout went gaga for her. All my sweaters were at home.
But I had Maddie. The point of reference. The chip. She had opened the door for me to talk to this woman, whose husband was—
“Would I know any of his films?” I said.
“He’s done some independent work, and now for cable.”
“Hey, some of the best stuff is on cable.”
“He had a movie on earlier,
The Tin.
“The cop movie?” I let the excitement grow in my voice. “That was really good.” I hadn’t seen it, but I’d heard of it. Heard it
was
very good. And knew that this is a guy I would love to work for sometime.
“Thank you,” Kay Millard said. “We’re proud of it.”
“And you should be.”
Okay, enough of the schmooze juice. Just play it loose.
“He working on anything new?” I said.
“He’s in preproduction now.”
Preproduction! Casting decision! Loose, baby, but not too loose.
“Very cool,” I said. “Good to have something going on.”
Idiot, you sound like you’ve got NOTHING going on. Desperate!
“It’s a crazy business,” she said, in a transitional voice, indicating she was ready to change the subject.
No, not yet, not yet.
“Yeah,” I said, homing in on her. “I keep getting calls from Spielberg.”
“Spielberg?” Sounding impressed, if just a tad skeptical.
“Milt Spielberg, down at the deli. He wants me to settle the account.”
She gave me a (polite?) laugh, but I was still in the ballgame. A little joke to keep the industry talk rolling. Maybe she’d think I was funny and charming enough to introduce to her husband, whoever he was.
“Where’s she going?” Kay Millard said. I remember that clearly. She said it, looking past my shoulder. But it was like the voice came from across the street somewhere—white noise, inconsequential—because I had already formed my follow-up question and asked it the moment she stopped talking.
“Actually, I’m sort of connected to Antonio Troncatti. You’ll think this is funny, but—”
Kay’s eyes widened and she shouted,
“Look out!”
I turned just in time to see it.
Maddie was running through the sand, head down, full of purpose. She was two steps from the front of the swings.
She was oblivious to the boy on the first swing, who was already beginning his descent from a huge arc.
Two steps . . . and I could barely open my mouth before it happened. The outstretched legs with the red tennis shoes—something else I will never forget—rammed into the side of Maddie’s head.
The impact was like a tennis racket smacking a ball. The physics of it were unequal, unforgiving.
Maddie lifted from the ground, her body turning like a flipped baseball bat.
I was on my feet, not knowing how I got there, as Maddie hit the sand.
She did not move—my eyes were locked on her as I raced forward. In my peripheral vision I was aware of other adults closing in, while children stood by in silent watching.
A woman was already kneeling by Maddie when I got there. I heard a boy’s voice saying, “I didn’t mean to!” and a chorus of other voices muttering expressions of shock and sympathy.
“She’s mine,” I told the kneeling woman, partly as confession, and in part, I think now, to keep anyone from taking her away from such a negligent father.
“I’ll call emergency,” the woman said. “Don’t move her.”
Don’t move her? Because her neck might be broken? Because she might not ever move again?
A sweat came over me as I dropped down in the sand and put my hand on Maddie.
“Don’t move her,”
the woman commanded, fishing in her purse for a cell phone.
Maddie’s pink overalls over a lighter pink T-shirt weren’t moving at all, and I wondered if she was breathing. An ugly, red stamp was deepening on the left side of her face, the imprint of a tennis shoe becoming clearer.
“Maddie Maddie Maddie,” I repeated in a whisper, my lips close to her ear. “You’ll be all right you’ll be all right.” And then she moaned, low and soft. And I almost cried out with relief.
Someone else, a man, put a towel over Maddie, and then the waiting began. All the activity in the park had ceased, the crowd gathering. Even people walking dogs stopped for a look.
“It hurts,” Maddie groaned.