Саша Кая – Stupid genius (страница 1)

Sasha Kaya

Stupid genius

«Oscar» in the Garden

“You’re invited to two weeks in paradise on tropical islands” I read on a travel agency brochure handed to me by one girl on my way to work. Funny thing! Everyone rushes to the sea, the ocean, the sun, the beach and I ran away from there. I was born and lived for twenty years on an island in the ocean. Now I’ve come to Los Angeles, planning to become an actor and, of course, win an Oscar. Back home, everyone valued my acting talent and sense of humor very highly. Here, I’m just a waiter. At home, I was also a waiter, only across from our café there was the sea and fresh air; here the air is dirty and heavy, cars constantly roar by, and there’s a big dumpster at the door. I earn significantly more here than I did at home, but prices are higher, expenses greater. On weekends, I go to castings, so there’s no question of going to admire the local sea. No, I haven’t been disappointed yet. I know what I’m capable of, and I know that luck will come to me. The hope of landing a major film role never leaves me for a second. My colleagues (waiters, not actors) say that if luck never comes, at least I’ll get plenty of chances to see Hollywood stars they’re everywhere here, like vegetables in a garden.

Today, on a sunny April day, taking out the trash in the middle of my shift, I saw a homeless man. In him, I recognized the famous actor Bill Fly. What a catch! Three-time Oscar winner, four-time Golden Globe winner, and a pile of other awards, but most importantly, he was the one who hung on my wall at home! Not him personally, of course the poster for one of his films. Awards and recognition were long past, but the tabloids wrote about him constantly. One thing he certainly knew how to do was deal with the press: always smiling at the camera, waving at the paparazzi, loving to act absurdly. I’d heard that Hollywood stars often dress up to go unnoticed in the city, or, like Bill Fly, lie down to rest in the middle of the day… but why in a dumpster? Passersby walked or ran past, seemingly bewitched, unable to process seeing a star fallen into a pile of garbage. I saw, and so I reached out my hand (after wiping it on my apron). Nobody would believe I met this world-famous person, a great actor of our time! Bill Fly smiled at me, even though I had no camera in hand… I should have grabbed my phone for a selfie, but he could barely stand, was humming to himself, and smelled of alcohol, like a freshly uncorked bottle.

“I loved your character in your cult film… what’s it called… well, it came out about twenty years ago… You played the cop who rebelled against the corrupt colleague!” I said as sincerely as possible (my voice always wavered with excitement).

The eccentric actor said nothing and collapsed back into the dumpster. It reminded me of a scene from a 1984 film, where he played an impoverished aristocrat.

“Why are you hugging this bum?” my colleague asked when she saw me helping the star to stand.

“That’s Bill Fly himself! Don’t you see? He’s disguised as a homeless man, but he’s rich and famous!”

“Okay… Wash your hands afterward, don’t forget.”

She didn’t believe me. I handed her my apron and asked her to let them know I wouldn’t be coming in today. She said, “Not guaranteed they’ll let you back in.” I shrugged; at that moment, it didn’t matter, because in my hands was a man who won the Oscar in 2001.

I hailed a taxi and helped lift Bill Fly onto the back seat. He refused to give an address… or maybe the smacking sounds he made were meant to indicate the location? Never mind. The driver was experienced, often drove tourists, and knew all the houses of local celebrities. And yes, he didn’t believe I was with Bill Fly the great actor, Oscar and Golden Globe winner but he didn’t refuse to take me and the bum to the right house for a fee.

A snowy-white mansion with columns appeared on the horizon, and doubts crept in. What if this man, resting his head on my shoulder out of exhaustion, wasn’t Bill Fly at all, just an ordinary homeless man? I couldn’t leave him by the gate! Paparazzi would surely swarm, and they’d accuse me of deliberately finding a similar-looking bum to compromise the real one.

Ranger in jeans and a T-shirt came out to meet our taxi. I decided to wipe the homeless man’s wrinkled face with my handkerchief so that, if I’d made a mistake, he would at least slightly resemble Bill Fly just in case. But before I could bring the handkerchief to his cheek, ranger greeted him by name. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you trying to sedate him with a chloroform handkerchief?” she asked, smiling. When I shook my head, she continued: “Then help me get him to the living room sofa. Yes, yes, under the arms… Carefully… Yes, he’s heavy, I know… Thanks, young man, thank you.”

We placed him on the sofa, and he laughed. I noticed Bill Fly had scratched his finger; there was blood.

“Do you have any antiseptic?” I asked, still unsure whether she was his wife or a servant.

“No,” she answered, and I noticed two more people had joined us.

Everyone in the house wore casual, comfortable clothes… and here I had thought servants of the rich wore uniforms and aprons.

“Well… May I?” I gestured to the vodka bottle on the table by the sofa.

“Pour” said Bill Fly himself. “And a glass for me, please.”

I moistened my clean handkerchief and applied it to the wound, instructing the actor to raise his hand above his head. Not sure it helped, but my mother always did that when I had abrasions as a child. She would also blow on the sore spot, but I didn’t dare blow on an Oscar winner: his servants had been watching me the whole time. One of them whispered “doctor,” and I felt proud. Everyone fell silent. Raising his arm, the host of the house suddenly laughed again.

“If the paparazzi got into the yard or are filming me from a satellite right now, what will they write about me tomorrow?”

“You wave at them, and they’ll write that you greeted them… I’m joking, don’t wiggle your fingers yet, let it dry first.”

Ten minutes passed. I looked out the window: heavy rain poured.

“I lotht my umpella…,” said John.

“What?”

“Lost… My unrella… in the dumpster,” he clarified.

The great actor (whose house I lounged in like a guest on a soft sofa) lisps and whistles, so I watched his mouth carefully to understand him; his teeth were bright white, though not cavity-free.

“Umpella… unrella… Ah! Umbrella?”

“Yes… need to go back,” Bill Fly said, unsuccessfully trying to stand.

“Oh, why bother! Buy a new one! This one could go to someone else.”

“Yes… Of course! Charity! Though it’s personalized… like this… this thing…”

Bill Fly elegantly reached under the sofa and seemed stuck, but he was a Talent, capable of escaping tricky situations: pretending deep thought, he paused, then knelt and began searching.

“There it is!”

In his hands gleamed the Oscar statuette. So that’s what he’d been looking for under the dusty sofa! Dusty… strange, so many servants, and no cleaning. Maybe he keeps the sofa like a safe and forbids dusting under it?

“No way, the real Oscar!” I exclaimed, full of genuine admiration.

“What? This little award?” the actor said, smacking his lips. “Magda! Magda, come here… put it in my grime!”

“Excuse me?” I asked, while ranger took the statuette and went somewhere.

“ Put it in my garden. Let it stand in my garden", the actor explained. "Well, you know, Oscar for ass…"

I was waiting with fascination for the continuation.

"Oscar for us, professionals, it’s a trinket". Bill said and I exhaled. “Have we met somewhere? Your face is familiar.”

Here was a perfect chance to tell a Hollywood celebrity how talented I am and how I long to make it onto the Walk of Fame! But no… I was overwhelmed with embarrassment, the same feeling that had stopped me from taking a photo after selflessly helping him home. All I could manage was: “But this is a real Oscar…”

“Think we deserved it? Think they deserved it? Think I deserved it? Ha-ha-ha! Well, maybe someone very diligent got it fairly, but actors in shabby little theaters, with fifteen spectators… they work just as hard! But who needs to promote ‘nothing’? I was once ‘nothing’! There was a time when ‘nothing,’ becoming a star, amazed! Now one ‘nothing’ isn’t enough. More than that: ‘nothing’ is a worthless element, easier to invent than to find and promote.

“Oh, you are not ‘nothing,’ you not only deserved this Oscar, you deserved all the other awards you didn’t get…”

“Actors give each other these things because they are famous,” Bill Fly continued, ignoring me.

“They won’t give them to the little-known, under-promoted, genius…,” he widened his eyes on the last word, as if underlining it with a marker, “…films, actors, directors… they give them only to those the whole world talks about or those it’s profitable for the world to talk about, because they signed contracts for superblockbusters with millions of dollars invested. Millions! First in promotion, then production. Scripts are structured with precision, evoking the right emotions, as if designed by veterinarians experimenting on animals. These films follow a worn path so the masses won’t get lost and will pay for tickets. Then… nominate for a prestigious award and attract attention to the ceremony also money. Money-money-money…”