9/02/2011 Darts

At the mention of investors, Des abandoned his dismissive attitude towards Wendy’s documentary project.  Anyone who had money who was interested in making a movie was somebody he wanted to meet.  It didn’t matter if the movie these people were investing in was Wendy’s; Des could convince them to finance the documentary for the full amount and take home a healthy chunk for producing it.  And as producer he would get to know these fortunate people with disposable income.  Along the way anything could happen.  One of the old guys featured on the volleyball court could have a stroke while jumping up for a spike.  The whole project might fall apart.  But Des would always be there to suggest other ventures that would give them a valuable return for their movie money. 

Gruff, forceful, and quick to take offense, Des was, even at his most duplicitous, a great salesman.   Perhaps because of his duplicity, which, if confronted with, he maintained was merely cunning, a sharpening of his business acumen, perhaps because he cherished himself as the sly outsider preying upon the dominant culture it emboldened him when it came to convincing people that their money was in good hands if the hands were his hands.  Dale Carnegie was his god; he believed that with enough willpower he would be come rich.  And if he didn’t quite tell his investors the complete truth about how their money was being spent, he was sincere about how that spent money would, in the end, make them all wealthy. 

Sitting at the patio table with Wendy and Des at the Cat and Fiddle, I made a mental note to tell Wendy at some later time about introducing her investors to Des.  If she were serious about wanting Des to produce her movie, whether it was because he was an Oliver Stone protégé, or because she thought he had talent, she was going to have to understand that he would be simultaneously trying to inveigle them to invest in his own projects.  Maybe it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.  Maybe she just wanted to make a name for herself as a writer-director so she could get a good agent and didn’t care where they money went after that.  But I doubted it.  It didn’t matter if she were fresh out of San Francisco, anyone who had experienced the L.A. field of competition for more than a couple of weeks quickly figured out that if you found a money tree, you kept shaking it until all the limbs were bare, and even then you kept shaking it until one of your friends came by and slapped you in the face to tell you to move on. 

At any rate, for the moment, when it came to the old timers making their last movie on the volleyball court of fading dreams, the game was on.  With the cool air of the night beginning to settle on the outside patio, Wendy and Des appraised each other in the only way possible, as personalities that meshed, or clashed. 

From what I could tell, they seemed to be simpatico.  Des reached for the inside pocket of his vest and took out a small wooden box that he put on the table.

“Cigars?” Wendy asked.

“Darts.”  Releasing the catch, Des opened the lid and displayed a row of blue-feathered darts with gold tips.

“Wow.”  This was a sign of a man who took his evening leisure seriously.

He looked up at her.  “Do you play?”

“Yeah,” she half-shrugged and nodded.  “I mean I’m not in the league where I have my own personalized set…”

“They have plenty inside,” Des informed her.  “How about it?”

This was my cue to signal for the check.  I liked darts as much as the next guy, but commuting to L.A. back-and-forth from Albuquerque I always felt that spending hours at a pub seeing how many times I missed the bulls-eye was a monumental waste of time.  The night was still relatively young, and while Wendy and Des took each other’s measure, I had another producer to talk to in the valley.