Jacko: The Great Intruder

  In the sorts of magazines which told you what was coming up on Fall television, Jacko’s picture appeared and re-appeared, but I only heard from him once, when he left a recorded message saying that unhappily he would not be able to come to the party for the launch of my book on China, the one on whose revisions I had worked all the previous New York winter.

  Jacko was clearly in California a great deal, being produced by Tracey perhaps. Since, in a sense, I had gone to the Northern Territory at his bidding, and since I might have died of thirst on the errand, I felt chagrin that he didn’t seek me out for a report.

  The book was published and was featured on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, for, as people liked to say then, what that was worth.

  In November there was a further sequence of recorded telephone conversations, as if he were calling at times he knew I would be out. My wife and I were invited to his launch party in Los Angeles, the launch of the game show that is. The invitation came inconveniently late and, though my wife urged me to go if I wanted to, I decided against it. I had begun another book, and two days of flying and a night of wildness with Jacko did not seem to me to be best for it.

  So the television season began, and Jacko’s show was madly successful in the seven-thirty time slot on Wednesday night, in the meat of the week, the primest of prime times. I watched the credits and found Tracey’s name listed as Executive Producer. I left a note for him at the bar of Mary O’Reilly’s, the sentimental non-IRA bar above which he lived.

  —I know you’re on the other side of the country all the time, I wrote, but if ever you have time, I’m not averse to having a drink.

  I hoped that did not seem like pleading. I wanted to tell him how Sunny and Delia were, even if I were forbidden to tell him the full story of Lucy. The fact that he did not urgently call to ask me about Lucy – whether I’d tell him the truth or not – made him seem more trivial to me by the day.

  He still did the doorknocks, getting past all barriers, transcending them this way and that. Basil Sutherland reputedly paid him a fortune for doing three doors per week. Social commentators speculated that people wrote to Jacko begging to be included in his raids of the suburbs. He did the taping of his game show over three days in California – I quote a newspaper – and perhaps a day of that was spent practising his material and his timing. He had remarkably talented people willing to play his quiz game. Jacko picked up a small but renowned English comic, an Oxford graduate, who would answer ten questions in a row correctly, and then, at what passes as centre stage, Jacko would lift him in his arms and turn him upside down, like a wolfhound jovially cuffing a kitten. This image became talismanic in all the advertising for the show.

  —It’s not his success that’s making him avoid us, I said to Maureen.

  —I wish it damn well was, she said.

  I got a call from him one Wednesday morning, when I was still working on the beginnings of the new novel.

  —Aren’t you supposed to be in California on Wednesdays? I asked.

  He had none of the liveliness of a man whose mad show would take viewers by the scruff of their sensibilities at seven thirty that night.

  He said, We’ve got some episodes in the can. I need to see lawyers this afternoon. Do you want to meet in the Odeon afterwards?

  —I’ve got a workshop at seven, I told him, just to show that he couldn’t expect to be put, on a whim, at the top of my list.

  —Four then. What do you say?

  —You still drink at the Odeon? I asked him, making it hard for him, wondering how nostalgia for Lucy must lie in ambush for him in that place.

  He seemed to understand what I meant too.

  —Jesus, mate, he protested. I know it’s got memories eh. But it’s just around the corner after all.

  All right, I said, trying to sound grudging, but avid for the hour.

  At four, Jacko and I had – as usual – the barman to ourselves. The gritty residue of daylight invaded the floor where Lucy had danced in her ‘waistband’, singing in her helium-childish voice.

  Jacko was seated at a table, whereas all our former mid-afternoon Odeon confidences had been at the bar. This afternoon, however, the Great Intruder wanted his privacy. He had lost some poundage since last I saw him and had an untouched glass of white wine in front of him. This was close to being a penitential drink in Jacko’s case. To show that I would not be allayed by social boozing, I ordered water. All this must have confused the barman.

  —Okay, he said when we had settled. We know where we are, don’t we? You’re pissed off at me for not calling. But you don’t know how busy I’ve been. The time I’ve had free to ask you about the women, I’ve been utterly rooted. And I know something about them anyhow, from phone calls. On the other hand, you went up there under your own steam. I know that. I saw an article on it in the in-flight magazine of some airline. Makes Burren Waters sound pretty bloody picturesque eh. Not half as picturesque as it is in reality. You had the grace not to mention Sunny or Delia or Lucy. So … my apologies. I’m a silly prick who doesn’t deserve his friends, and so say all of us.

  —I did go up there, and I covered my expenses. But I would have preferred to be at home working on my new book, and damn the whole troop of you!

  Jacko gave a throaty laugh.

  —Come on. You can’t tell me that. You were dying to find out what happened to all the girls. Come clean eh. You’ve got a mill and this is your bloody grist. You can’t tell me what happened to Sunny isn’t astounding. Out of the box in San Bernardino County, and into Burren Waters. Bloody astounding!

  —And there’s a more plebeian mystery too, I told him. How well Chloe gets on with Lucy.

  —That’s no surprise, said Jacko. Women are amazing that way. They have a common cause against bastards like me and the mongrel bastard. Maybe he and I’ve got a lot in common, even though he probably doesn’t think so. Listen, are you going to take this high moral tone all afternoon?

  —Maybe not, I conceded.

  —I can tell it’s a bloody strain for you, said Jacko.

  —It’s not a strain. I was always a partisan of Lucy’s. Whenever you mention Burren Waters, you put Sunny first. You’ve got to expect me to wonder how normal that is.

  —Blood-ee hell! Give me a chance. I’ve got enough answering to do in the next day or so.

  He merely wetted his lips with his chardonnay. It was as if working for a network had made him a more seemly drinker.

  —Bloody Silverarts’ve taken an injunction against my game show, he told me then. They say that I was still legally under option to them when I signed on with Hubie Greenspan. It’ll be heard downtown tomorrow. In the meantime the network has pulled tonight’s episode because they don’t want to be sued retrospectively. You wouldn’t believe it, but you’re looking at a man people have been distancing themselves from all day. My bloody agent made me sign a sheet of paper indemnifying him for the advice he gave me at the time!

  —But you had legal advice about it too, I argued.

  —Jesus, and I still do. Up to the bloody ears eh.

  —Silverarts can’t possibly win, can they? They’re not within their rights?

  —Well, both Greenspan and I got advice which said I was clear to make a new contract. But now, after this writ, the lawyers are all at once more cautious. They’re looking at me like someone who’s just been told he’s got bloody cancer.

  For the first time since I’d known him, Jacko covered his eyes from daylight with both his hands. This I found prodigiously affecting, and I reached out and held him by the inner elbow – a large gesture from one Australian male to another.

  —They’ve joined the injunction with a damages writ for three million dollars against me and eight million against Hubert. It’s legal opportunism, but it could work. If the injunction sticks tomorrow, I’ll have to file for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy. And I won’t last more than a month as a bloody popular idol.

  —They can’t win, I stated in a flush o
f brotherly conviction. Surely.

  —Well, we’ll see eh. If they don’t, we’ll come back here tomorrow night or the next and have a total shit-heap of a party, I tell you that.

  The idea of escaping the damages writ and reassuming his godhead made his eyes glitter in a way that had very little to do – I believed – with egotism as such, and more to do with the childlike intentions of mischief which had first brought him to New York and carried him over thresholds. I asked him if there was anything I could do, as if in some sense I could be a buffer against the sometime shame and modern day expediency of Chapter Eleven.

  He looked at me, weighing me.

  —You’re going to stick around till the bloody last. Is that it?

  —Well, I confessed to him, I’m a novelist. I’m certainly going to be an interested observer, which is as close to friendship as a novelist would want to claim.

  —Bloody good, he said. Let’s get really pissed.

  His eye was moving along the bottles on the lower shelf by the Odeon’s mirrors. The bottles which said Black Bush and Laphroaig and Calvados and Metaxa.

  —No, I said. No. I’ve got my class.

  He held up his hand.

  —Listen, mate, I understand.

  The next morning the story of the injunction was in the New York Times and on morning television. Even Morning Manhattan ran it.

  I went downtown by the subway from West Fourth Street and though, through my brushes with the media, I thought I knew what to expect, I was astounded by the crowds of journalists and camera crews in the corridor leading to the courtroom where the injunction hearing was taking place. The courtroom gallery was already full – men and women with the intense grains of the street in their faces and wearing old bits of clothing, and young, lost-looking men with halitosis who had a folder with everything ever written about Jacko in it. For this is the truth of stardom, temporary or transcendent: only the demented, the manic, the lost, have time to tend the altar.

  I found half of a seat amongst them all. I stood with them as the judge entered, a hard-nosed looking fellow of about fifty years.

  The case opened with the calling of the chief executive officer of Silverarts. He argued that the contract Silverarts had with Jacko entitled them to be contacted if Jacko envisaged availing himself of the windows of opportunity. That contact had never been made.

  The man then indicated Silverarts’ plans for Jacko, plans for a gradual acceleration of career which would have pitched him at a level of stardom far in advance of the mere game show notoriety which Hubert Greenspan had planned for him. While Silverarts worked on production plans for Jacko Emptor, it had, after all, consistently continued to pay Jacko Emptor a monthly fee for the past two years. The concept of that fee was that Mr Emptor would keep Silverarts apprised of his intentions and of other offers.

  I saw Greenspan and Tracey in court. Greenspan laughed briefly in Tracey’s direction, or perhaps into the breast pocket of his Zegna suit, at Silverarts’ low estimation of game shows and their renown for quality.

  Greenspan’s lawyers then did a powerful, probing job on the president of Silverarts: taking him through the option agreement, clause by clause; getting him to identify the windows of opportunity; trying to have him contradict himself on the matter of the liberties Jacko was thereby entitled to. By the end of a morning of this I was feeling hopeful for Jacko.

  But Jacko’s agent, called to the stand just after noon, was a grievous disappointment to the Greenspan-Jacko camp. I had met him before at parties at Jacko’s place. He was a thin, ageless man, a competitor in half and full marathons. Silverarts’ lawyers did not have to wait long for him to utter the decisive sentence.

  —I reminded him of the existence of the option agreement, as was my duty as an agent. And I told him that he needed to be very careful about the Silverarts agreement and his duties under it.

  —But did you advise him to go with Greenspan?

  —I said ultimately it was up to him.

  —But is it true that you had him sign an indemnity agreement, exempting you from liability?

  The agent said yes, it was so. He had the indemnity agreement with him. He produced it. Throughout the court you could hear Jacko saying, Oh Jesus, as if this were something he had forgotten. You could hear Greenspan snorting.

  Greenspan’s lawyers, joined in action with Jacko’s, argued that it was a nuisance suit, that Silverarts’ agreement with Jacko was of dubious legality and violated his constitutional rights to enter contracts. The president of Silverarts could not produce any convincing documentation – other than a few speculative letters – for his claim that Silverarts was actively working on a project involving Jacko. The idea that Jacko had somehow damaged them by working for Greenspan was fatuous, and their injunction writ was opportunistic and meant to create the basis for a damages settlement.

  The judge sent us all to lunch. In the corridor, I stood on the edge of the sizeable group which included Jacko and Greenspan.

  —You didn’t tell me you signed an indemnity, Greenspan marginally complained.

  —I did it to set the bugger’s mind at rest, said Jacko.

  I was aware of the curious bewilderment in Jacko’s eyes. There was still that much of Burren Waters in him: he did not expect to suffer for technicalities.

  Greenspan said, I wish you’d told me.

  Tracey looked at the distempered wall and pursed the corners of her mouth. Jacko’s agent appeared and walked smoothly past, but Greenspan detained him by the elbow.

  —Do you generally sell out on your clients like that?

  The man pulled himself free and shrugged.

  —I can only lead my clients to water. I can’t be expected to drown with them.

  Greenspan told the agent, I’ve put five million dollars development and promotion into Jacko. I wonder about your intentions.

  —That’s your prerogative, said Jacko’s agent. It’s all speculative at the end of the day, isn’t it?

  —Oh hell, said Jacko, but it was more in despair than in fury.

  —If I can manage it, Greenspan told the agent, I’ll ensure that before the end of this year you’re wearing your anus like a necklace.

  —Are you threatening me, Mr Greenspan?

  —Well, as they say, I hope it’s more than a threat.

  —It’s a big industry, said the agent.

  He turned his eyes to Jacko.

  —Jacko, I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out.

  —Bloody hell, said Jacko, nearly beyond protest.

  By mid-afternoon the judge granted the injunction against the screening of Jacko’s show. Jacko was not to participate in any game shows, other than those produced by Silverarts, for the next three years. He was free to go on making his living through doorknocks and current affairs.

  That night, when those who had not heard the news tuned in to see Jacko, they found a re-run of a comedy show instead. Jacko drank vodka in the Odeon with me and a young lawyer, and his new segment producer on Morning Manhattan, Angela, whom I had met briefly at the start of the summer. She was a robust looking young woman from Wisconsin who had gone to Rutgers on a swimming scholarship. Her manner was not unlike Lucy’s – very country, not New York gritty.

  At one point in the evening when Jacko and I both stood at the urinals, Jacko said, Jesus, couldn’t be permitted, could it? Jacko Emptor, wealthy and a star. Just couldn’t be permitted. Would’ve fucked the universe some way or other.

  Back at the table Angela, his new producer, said, Better watch it, Jacko. You might be wiped out for the morning.

  —Are you doing a show tomorrow morning? I asked Jacko.

  Jacko put his head in his hands and then laid his brow down on the table.

  —As per contract, he told me. To keep the bread and butter on the table. I think it would be a good morning for the Bronx. Despair within, despair without.

  He turned to the young country girl.

  —Will you come home with me and make sure I get up? r />
  Angela reached out and put her hand on his wrist but didn’t say yes or no. She didn’t want word to get back to her mother perhaps, or maybe she intended to get him to his door and then leave him to sleep until the wake-up call.

  Next Jacko turned to me.

  —Then you’ll come out too in the morning eh?

  —But why me?

  —Solidarity with the bloody downtrodden, said Jacko. Besides, you stay in that apartment of yours all day and keep writing, and you’ll be mad as a cut snake.

  —Like television people perhaps? I suggested.

  —All jokes aside, he said. You’re my fucking sage.

  —I’m your fucking stooge, I said.

  And Jacko said a garbled Biblical-sounding verse he may have heard when he came down from Burren Waters to Sydney to go to boarding school at the age of fourteen.

  —So shall the wise man appear foolish … Eh? Eh?

  —You’ve got that bit right, Jacko.

  I had the embarrassment still ahead of me of arriving home having drunk too much in a bar in which, yet again, I was the oldest person, and then of admitting that I would rise before dawn at Jacko’s bidding.

  —This is madness, I said.

  I was no closer than I had been before our estrangement to working out why I obeyed Jacko or why I wanted to.

  As I have already confessed, I was by now used to the process of waking with the night’s sins not quite burned away in the blood. There is first the sense of having awakened in hell, beyond the ambit of Divine Grace and mother love. Then the stirred and abused brain begins to coruscate with the unabsorbed residue of the night’s alcohol, and a curious, fatuous, reviving energy sets in, which will leave you stark-eyed by mid-morning yet strangely equipped for the flippant demands of dawn.

  The limo picked me up first. It was the hour when cities are still and pensive, the night’s crimes behind and the day not yet marred. At five-fifteen berserk thoroughfares like Houston and West Broadway were vacant except for the trucks bringing the countryside’s bounty into the city.

  At Thomas Street, one mere ring of the bell brought Jacko suited, coated, in his porkpie to the car. He was accompanied by his producer. I deliberately did not look to see if Angela was wearing the same clothes as last night under her coat. She was such a pleasant girl, and I might one day get into a situation where I needed to claim ignorance in front of Chloe or Lucy. She packed Jacko functionally into the back with me, and checked if she had brought everything Jacko needed downstairs. This neo-Lucy was foolish if she thought she had a chance with Jacko. Someone should be in loco parentis to tell her, but please God not me, not this morning.