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Mentors

Doug M. Dawson

    “Evening ... no, this one isn’t taken ... just sitting by my lonesome. Me? Been here about twenty minutes. I think the bartender’s name is Jack. Your first one’s on me. Place is busy tonight ... have to wait our turn. While we’re waiting let me tell you a little story.
    “I used to be a Hollywood screenwriter. That’s right. English lit teacher got me started in high school - my first mentor - had me write little fiction pieces. Journalism teacher was another; had me do articles for the school paper. At home I had two more - mentors, that is - pictures of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler on my desk. Call it an emotional crutch, I just had to have somebody inspire me before I could write. At UCLA Film School my screenwriting teacher took over the role. After I graduated, he helped me get my first job, working at a studio, reading scripts, evaluating them. A few years later they had me polishing stories that needed minor rewrites. Eventually they started asking me for new stuff - producers and directors, that is. For a while there I just cranked ‘em out: family tragedies-of-the-week for Lifetime, direct-to-video action-ers ... coming-of-agers, crazed-stalkers ... you see ‘em on cable twenty-four seven. What? Sure, it was hack work. What kept me going? Money and an inflated sense of self-worth’ll propel you a long way, my friend. Let me interrupt myself - we got to get you a drink, which was what again?
    “Hey Jack! Sorry, Mack. Bring this man a scotch and soda, and hit me again too, will you? (Pause). See that - he remembers what I had. With a place this busy, don’t know how he does it. Here comes yours ... don’t mention it.
    “Where was I? Oh, yeah - writing mediocre movies. Always felt I had more talent than that ... I just couldn’t seem to connect with it. Plus, I had a lifestyle to maintain – low six-figure income, wife who’s a babe, great apartment, view to die for, the whole nine yards. Mentors? You bet. To keep up production I adopted a truly state-of-the-art one: Syd Field’s book - the screenwriters bible they call it; tells you how to write a movie; where to put plot points, how to write your scenes, how long to make ‘em and what kind of ending always gets ‘em. Got so I could grind out a script any old time, according to the formula. Thought I was smart. I’d never been so productive, never found it so easy to write, till the day I started feeling burned out. I managed to finish whatever I was working on, but then it’s like I just ran out of steam.
    “Tried to start other scripts but got bogged down, stymied ... you like that word? It worried me, so I took a break. Told everyone I was going on a sabbatical - you know, recharge the batteries. They warned me not to stay away too long - producers and directors, that is. Self-imposed exile. Yessir, that’s what it was. A year and a half later I tried to come back. Everybody’d turned to other writers; there was a level of competition I hadn’t seen before, like every film school in the country cranked out a class of kids who could write their butts off and I had to get behind ‘em on line. With nothing on the horizon, I decided to give novels and plays another shot. Like before, I couldn’t seem to get the words out. Know what I had? Think about it. That’s right, writer’s block.
    “How’s your drink? Jet fuel, eh? I’m not used to ‘em this strong either. One thing I’ll say for Jack, I mean Mack, he doesn’t skimp on the booze. Back to my tale, back to my writer’s block. Know what else I had? A sack o’ woe! Like that one? OK, I’ll finish my story, then you can talk.
    “In earlier days I always had an answer – and that meant a new mentor or mentors. But I’d never been up against the wall before, so what did I do to fight back? Picked a more powerful mentor! How’s that for strategy? Not just anyone now, but Hemingway himself; his storytelling skills were going to rub off on me. I plugged away again and now it was three years I’d been away from the movies. My list of accomplishments? A half dozen aborted novels, one play with no ending and the beginning of a really fine movie, but no middle and no end in sight. Hemingway let me down you see, so I replaced him with bottle of Jim Beam. Quite a couple standing on my desk, like a bride and groom about to have a photo taken on their wedding day ... burgundy bottle against the beige computer ... nice contrast there. Old Jim gave me emotional security and a damn good blast, which I seemed to need more and more of and more and more often. Looking back now, seems my real mentors were John Cheever and Raymond Carver. Never heard of em? Writers and heavy drinkers. By this time the young wife, the ritzy pad ... let’s just say I wasn’t living large anymore and leave it at that. The place I now called home was a trailer park forty minutes outside L.A. (pause) No, never saw Tonya Harding there. Hit the big “4-0” on the skids and thought I’d never write for a living again.
    “Ready for another? C’mon, show me what you’re made of. Nope, my limit’s two and this is my second. No sir, my story doesn’t go on forever. Gonna hang in there with me for the last chapter, aren’t you? It’s a short one. You’re OK with that? Good.
    “What I remember about that trailer park is the dismal view and the widow next door. Lived off her husband’s pension - he died of cancer, I recall her saying. Lost her only kid in an auto accident ... twenty-five, I think he was. One night I stepped outside, drink in hand. There she was, sitting outside. We talked. I told her my hard luck story - you know, the decline and fall bit. That’s right - my sack o’ woe. She looked down at my glass, shook her head and said:
    ‘If that’s the worst that ever happened to you, you’re doing pretty damn well.’
    “Well sir, to my way of thinking, that was giving my problems short shrift. I just stared. Knew I’d think of a comeback, just give me time. Never did think of one, by God. Doesn’t that tell you something? So, what did I do? Well sir, I gleaned and I surmised. That’s right. Not sure what I gleaned exactly, but I surmised that never having lost a career writing for the movies, she had no idea what real tragedy is. Now I remember what I gleaned - that she was thoughtless! So right after being thoughtless she disappears, leaves me there to rot, then pops back up with three things: photo, video, piece of paper. ‘What the hell’s that?’ I ask myself. Here it comes, I think; sob story, the heartbreak and loss bit - you got it - her sack o’ woe! Why didn’t I carry the whole bottle outside with me, I’m thinking?
    “This was the way Robby looked a year before he died, and this was one of his favorite tapes,” she says. “It’s about Tennessee Williams. You know, the playwright.
    “I know who he was,” I told her.
    “Robby watched it over and over. He said Tennessee’s plays taught him about life and love, and what it costs you. My son had a sort of philosophy - it’s here in this little poem he wrote. I want to you have it - writing it helped him, maybe reading it will help you. Take the tape - I can’t look at it any more. You’re a writer - he’d want you to have it.
    “Anything I can’t stand, it’s being condescended to, but I took the tape and the paper, thanked her and went inside to finish my drink. Didn’t feel like writing anymore, so I watched the tape, half expecting to fall asleep in front of the tube. It’s called “Tennessee Williams - Orpheus of the American Stage.” There was Tennessee in his prime, the glowing tributes to his genius, those great titles: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ ‘Cat on A Hot Tin Roof.’ You’ve seen them on stage? Good man! Did Tennessee have mentors? Good question! Sure, the false ones of booze and drugs - they brought him down. I contemplated my own drinking and descent to oblivion. Like that phrase? Starting to sound like a writer, am I? Anyway, the tape’s put away somewhere, but I remembered Robby’s poem. Yeah, I got it memorized - it goes like this:
    ‘All my life I looked for something to guide me right,
    To point the way, to show me what’s false and what’s true.
    A North Star, to shine down and let me walk in its light -
    To answer the question of “what must I do?”
    When I couldn’t find it, I sought it in others,
    Discouraged and bitter when they let me down too.
    Then one day a man I met told me the secret:
    This love and this wisdom you look for in others - it’s there, deep inside you!’
    “So how did things turn out, you’ve got to be wondering, this movie-of-the-week that happens to be my life? I stewed in my own juices for a day, trying to decide if I should be offended or grateful to that lady. Finally, I tossed Syd Field’s book out the window - my show of defiance against all that formula stuff and all I’d been in my life. I went back to work on movie scripts and found I could write again. I’m back in L.A. now, minus the fancy place and sexpot wife, circulating around, trying to worm my back to the periphery of the film business. I did finish a couple of those novels and the play, and who knows, I ... what? Will I make it as a screenwriter again? Too soon to tell, but I’m surviving, doing editing and freelance writing. People still remember me - I think I’ve got a shot. What’s different this time around? I won’t grind out hack work. Even in Hollywood there’s got to be more than just making money. I take my time and look for rewarding material, so I won’t get burned out like I did before.
    “What became of the neighbor lady? I didn’t see her much after that night, because I started writing again with a passion that week and didn’t pay much attention to anything else. But I did drive back to that trailer park about a month ago, to sort of thank her. She wasn’t there. Moved away, I guess, with no forwarding address. Mentors? Don’t need ‘em any more, ever since that night. Of course, there is this worn out, folded piece of paper with a poem on it I still pick up and read from time to time, even though I know it by heart. So that’s my story, such as it is. Make a good TV movie you say? Not nearly enough sex in it, or violence. So now you want to know who was the best mentor I ever had. Let’s see .....”

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