2 comments/ 10179 views/ 2 favorites It's All About Jack Nicholson Ch. 01 By: BOSTONFICTIONWRITER I dedicate this story to Amanda, a fan of Jack Nicholson and a fan of Bostonfictionwriter. She asked me to write a story about Jack Nicholson with her in the starring role. I agreed to write the story because I've always been a fan of Jack Nicholson's, too. Normally, as you can discern from my name, Bostonfictionwriter, I only write fiction, generally fiction about Boston, Massachusetts. Only, this time, I decided to sway a bit from fiction and from Boston to write the true story of my meeting with Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles, California, only reverting from non-fiction to fiction by changing the character of Jana, Marty Scorsese's real script assistant with Amanda's name and description. * Jack Nicholson's last starring role, the end of an era. Positioned at the end of a long corridor, we watched him from a distance appear, push the elevator button, and then disappear inside the elevator before we could reach him. Seeing him was surreal. At first I didn't recognize him and then, when I knew it was him, I was star struck. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was really him. He was there and then he was gone. It all happened so quickly. "Hey Jack! Jack! Wait up. Hold the elevator," yelled Marty while laughing and picking up his pace with the two of us, me and his script assistant, Amanda, lagging behind like puppies following their pack leader. "Jack! Wait," he said waving a hand after him when he had already disappeared inside the elevator. I controlled my impulse to run to the elevator and ask him for his autograph. I didn't want to be like every other pain-in-the-ass star struck fan and I knew that I wouldn't score any points with him by acting that way. I needed to play it cool, but I knew that attitude would be impossible, once I met him. I looked at Marty's script assistant and smiled and she looked at me and giggled. Even though she was very pretty, there were more important things on my mind than flirting with a pretty woman. We both knew it was going to be a special day, a day we could treasure for the rest of our lives. I knew I'd be talking about this day to my friends and family for years to come. We were both ecstatic with the thoughts of meeting Jack Nicholson. We had talked about it on the drive over with Marty Scorsese with him filling in treasured tidbits of what Jack is really like off camera. "Jack? He's the same off screen as he is on screen. Quick witted, funny, personable, but irreverent, there's no difference with him when he's playing a role or playing a round of golf. What you see is what you get. He has no off switch from his intensity. He's always on and he'll be like that until the day he dies," said Marty. "I hope he has a lot more movies to make," he said turning to look out the window of the limo and suddenly growing pensive in thought. "Only, I have a foreboding feeling that this is his last film." Why did he say that? He caught me completely by surprise with his insightful confession. His words sent chills down my spine. I couldn't imagine life without a new Jack Nicholson movie. Did he know something that no one else knew or was it just a psychic moment? "Why do you say that, Mr. Scorsese?" "Marty, please call me Marty. Everyone calls me Marty." "Why do you say that this may be his last movie, Marty?" "Oh, I don't know, it's just a feeling that I have," he turned to me and gave me a half smile. "We can't live forever and we're all old men and he is 71-years-old you know and is not in the best of health. He doesn't take care of himself the way he should. He smokes, he drinks, he eats too much, he still chases women, and he doesn't get enough sleep. He is a worrier, too, and worrying about everything is what will kill you. He worries too much about things that he can't change and he will never change, never. He's a shooting star and he'll go out that way rather than to be extinguished and forgotten. Besides, he's never been the same since he lost his mentor." "His mentor? Who was his mentor?" "Marlon Brando. If you want to score points with Jack," said Marty with a laugh. "Tell him how you loved the work of Marlon Brando. He'll talk your ear off about how the talent of Brando was ill appreciated by the mass of moviegoers. He'll tell you how the man was misunderstood and never understood by those in the business and by those not in the business. He loved him." "Well, I am a fan of Brando, especially his work in the Godfather movies. Actually, I've been a fan of Brando since I was a kid. I remember being so excited when Francis Ford Coppola was making the first Godfather movie and how it was talked about in the newspapers that Brando would play the part of Don Corleone." "Did you know that Jack's name was mentioned when casting for Michael's role in the Godfather movie?" "No, kidding. I didn't know that." "In addition to winning more awards than nearly every actor in the history of Hollywood, he's been considered for more movies that other actors make. Socerer, Annie, Space Cowboys, Angel Heart, Misery, In the Line of Fire, Hoosiers, Three Kings, Straw Dogs, The Silence of the Lambs, The Mosquito Coast, The Exorcist, Coming Home, One Hour Photo, Bad Santa, Nixon, Caliglia, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Sting, he's either been considered or turned them down for one reason or another. I don't know of another actor so honored with so many offers. He's offered roles all the time. "Well, as far as Marlon Brando goes, I can't tell you how many times I watched A Street Car Named Desire, The Wild One, and On The Waterfront on our small black and white TV with my parents when I was a kid. My folks loved him." I had the urge to scream out, "Stella!" but I controlled myself from doing so within the small confines of a limousine. "Well, to him, Brando was the best actor who ever recited a line. They even lived next door on Mulholland Drive for years, nicknamed Bad Boy Drive because of who lived there, Jack, Warren Beatty, and Brando, until Brando died and when he did, Jack bought his house and leveled it to include the property with his. I suspect that he didn't want Marlon's property purchased by someone who didn't appreciate who had lived there." Marty gave me a look, as if he was reading me, and as only an experienced director could. Their genius is insight into movie scripts and people. They see things that the rest of us don't see and imagine things that the rest of us can't imagine which is how they are able to get the best out of the talent of their actors. It was almost as much of a thrill meeting Martin Scorsese as it was for me to meet Jack Nicholson. There are so many Martin Scorsese's films that I have seen that I loved, The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Casino, The Age of Innocence, Cape Fear, Goodfellas, The Color of Money, The King of Comedy, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, and so many others. Here was a man with credits as long as Jack Nicholson's taking time out of his busy day to meet with me over my movie script. I couldn't believe it. I was on Cloud 9. This was my golden opportunity to break into the big time. There is nothing like the feeling when people who love movies, as much as do Marty Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, and I get together in a room to discuss movies. I couldn't wait to sit around and just talk about past movies, present movies, about making movies, about acting in movies, and to hear those treasured insights that Marty and Jack could share with me. "He hides behind his celebrity, as we all do, but his persona is easily scratched, especially when his persona is not a persona but the real him. Everything with Jack is on the surface. Everything with Jack is immediate and now. Sensitive, immature, and insecure, he's like a child in those regards, which is why you'll never see Jack on a talk show. He's too vulnerable to be exposed like that and he doesn't need that kind of exposure and/or scandal should he respond in an inappropriate way to the wrong question, which undoubtedly, he would. Yet, we all know that about him and we all help to protect him and his image, especially his best friend, Danny DeVito, those two are close, real close. They'd do anything for one another." "A lot of professional athletes are like that," I said. "Especially the big stars who think that they can do no wrong. They think that the laws that apply to the rest of us don't apply to them. They've been revered since high school and the special privileges that everyone around them has afforded them since their unique athletic talent was discovered would change even the strongest person for the worse." "Yes, too many professional athletes are spoiled rotten, which may account for why Jack spends so much time at Lakers and Yankees games and why he loves professional wrestling and professional wrestlers, as much as he does. They understand one another and he feels comfortable carousing with the professional players who are just as immature and specially treated as he is. Only the careers of professional athletes, unless they get into announcing or the movies, as O. J. Simpson did, is short lived. Their careers don't span 50 years. Jack hasn't lived in the real world since he's been an adult," he said with a laugh. "He hasn't matured past young adult since he was a messenger boy at MGM back in the mid fifties. Unfortunately, Hollywood has taken a toll on him by stunting his emotional growth and maturity." "I didn't know all that about him. I didn't even know he was a messenger boy. I had no idea. We all are too busy looking at his acting in present movies to see how he paid his dues in the past to earn such respect. Wow, that's so interesting." "Yeah, his office boy career was short lived when he got his first acting role in the late fifties. He got to meet many of the big stars back then at a time when talent was more important than media hype and that got him hooked." "What about you, Amanda? You have that star struck look in your eyes anticipating meeting Jack," he said focusing his attention to his young, pretty assistant and laughing. "A look, I might add, that you never had when meeting me," he said with another laugh. "Don't kid yourself, Marty," she said with a blush. "I'm still in Heaven working with you every day. I count my lucky stars when I interviewed for this job and got it. I still can't believe it. I appreciate everything you've done for me. You are without doubt the most generous—" Obviously embarrassed by her kind comments, Marty raised a hand by Amanda's sudden confession and to stop her from continuing. "So, again, I pose the question to you, Amanda," said Marty. "What attracts you, a young woman in her twenties, to a man like Jack, who is in his seventies? I've always wondered about that. He's never without a young woman on his arm." "I don't know about the other women, but I can tell you what attracts me to Jack. He's older for starters," she said with a smile. "He's a bad boy but he has a good heart, that's obvious and I can clearly read that in him. And he seems pretty powerful. I don't mean physically. Not like he'd rough me up but maybe he'd threaten me and I like being made to feel submissive with my lover and relinquishing my control to him," she said turning a bright red, as soon as she said it. "I can't believe I said all that. I can't believe I revealed so much of myself to you two like that," she said averting her eyes from our stares. "I guess the excitement of meeting Jack Nicholson overwhelmed me," she said fanning herself with pages of my script. "I'm so embarrassed." "Save the embarrassment for when you meet Jack," said Marty reaching out to pat her knee. "Without a doubt, he'll surely do something or say something to embarrass you more than you've ever been embarrassed before," he said with a laugh. "That's just how he is," said Marty with a shrug of his shoulders. The limo pulled up to the building where we were to have our meeting and we all got out of the car and walked inside. Thank God for air conditioning. Going from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned building, it was unbearably hot this time of year in Los Angeles and the early morning smog didn't help the air quality either. Just when we thought we were too late and would keep everyone waiting, especially Jack, just when we thought the elevator door would close and we'd be further delayed and tardier for the meeting than we already were, Jack stuck his head out the elevator door waving for us to hurry. I couldn't believe it. There he was, Jack Nicholson in the flesh. He was looking at us. He was looking at me. He was holding the elevator door open for us and he was smiling. My hands were shaking, my pulse was racing, and my heart was pounding. I was so nervous that I couldn't stop smiling. I must have looked like an idiot. Yeah, sure, I had met a few celebrities in my life, but nothing like this, nothing so up close and personal and not such a big star as he obviously was. In the next chapter Jack teases Marty. * Thank you for reading my story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Please take a moment to vote, make a public comment, and/or give me feedback. Your support is why I write. Your feedback will motivate me to write a better story the next time. If you haven't already, please take moment to add me and/or this story or any other of my stories to your list of favorites. Thanks, Freddie, Bostonfictionwriter. To be continued... It's All About Jack Nicholson Ch. 02 I dedicate this story to Amanda, a fan of Jack Nicholson and a fan of Bostonfictionwriter. She asked me to write a story about Jack Nicholson with her in the starring role. I agreed to write the story because I've always been a fan of Jack Nicholson's, too. Normally, as you can discern from my name, Bostonfictionwriter, I only write fiction, generally fiction about Boston, Massachusetts. Only, this time, I decided to sway a bit from fiction and from Boston to write the true story of my meeting with Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles, California, only reverting from non-fiction to fiction by changing the character of Jana, Marty Scorsese's real script assistant with Amanda's name and description. Jack Nicholson's last starring role, the end of an era. * "So, again, I pose the question to you, Amanda," said Marty. "What attracts you, a young woman in her twenties, to a man like Jack, who is in his seventies? I've always wondered about that. He's never without a young woman on his arm." "I don't know about the other women, but I can tell you what attracts me to Jack. He's older for starters," she said with a smile. "I like it that he's a bad boy but he has a good heart, that's obvious and I can clearly read that in him. And he seems pretty powerful. I don't mean physically. Not like he'd rough me up but maybe he'd threaten me and I like being made to feel submissive with my lover and relinquishing my control to him," she said turning a bright red, as soon as she said it. "I can't believe I said all that. I can't believe I revealed so much of myself to you two like that," she said averting her eyes from our stares. "I guess the excitement of meeting Jack Nicholson overwhelmed me," she said fanning herself with pages of my script. "I'm so embarrassed." "Save the embarrassment for when you meet Jack," said Marty reaching out to pat her knee. "Without a doubt, he'll surely do something or say something to embarrass you more than you've ever been embarrassed before," he said with a laugh. "That's just how he is," said Marty with a shrug of his shoulders. The limo pulled up to the building where we were to have our meeting and we all got out of the car and walked inside. Thank God for air conditioning. Going from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned building, it was unbearably hot this time of year in Los Angeles and the early morning smog didn't help the air quality either. Just when we thought we were too late and would keep everyone waiting, especially Jack, just when we thought the elevator door would close and we'd be further delayed and tardier for the meeting than we already were having to wait for another elevator, Jack stuck his head out the elevator door waving for us to hurry. I couldn't believe it. There he was, Jack Nicholson in the flesh. He was looking at us. He was looking at me. He was holding the elevator door open for us and he was smiling. My hands were shaking, my pulse was racing, and my heart was pounding. I was so nervous that I couldn't stop smiling. I must have looked like an idiot. Yeah, sure, I had met a few celebrities in my life, but nothing like this, nothing so up close and personal and not with such a big star as he obviously was. And Marty was right. Even though meeting Martin Scorsese was an exciting, unexpected, and an unimaginable pleasure, it was nothing compared to how I felt now when about to meet Jack Nicholson and I pondered the why of that. Perhaps I didn't feel the same way about meeting Martin Scorsese because he's behind the screen and Jack Nicholson, between writers, directors, producers, and a cast of dozens is the conduit of all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes for him to appear alone in front of the screen. He's the one who stands in the spotlight. He's the one who takes the bow and receives the applause when the movie is a hit or the abuse and bashing when the movie is a flop. He's the one, more than anyone else who is such a big part of the movie and who has his career and reputation on the line. He's the face of all those who worked so hard to make the movie happen. Just as one can't work without the other, so much depends upon the writers, actors, director, et al to work as a team for the artistic sake of making movies. He looked exactly as he does on screen, only shorter and with a few more wrinkles but, unless he lost weight since his last movie, he didn't look as heavy as the camera made him appear in The Bucket List when he played Edward Cole with Morgan Freeman who played Carter Chambers or in About Schmidt when he played with Kathy Bates and Hope Davis. Maybe it was the makeup that they had on him to make him look older, appear more tired, and seem sicker, but he certainly didn't look that way now. He looked good. He looked energetic and vigorous. He looked better. He looked more rested. He looked younger. Certainly, he looked like a man more in his fifties than in his seventies. In the way that he carried himself and held his head up high, he looked like the star that he truly was. He looked so good that I wondered if he had some plastic surgery done. Nah, not Jack, he'd never do that. I hoped that I looked as good when I was his age, 71-years-old. Suddenly, when one of his lines popped in my head from the movie, The Bucket List, and only in the way that he could say it in his slow drawl; I knew he was my new muse. "We live, we die, and the wheels on the bus go round and round." I don't know why I remembered that one specific line from that one specific movie, but I think I remembered it because, to me, it sounded like something Kurt Vonnegut would write when he wrote, "And so it goes...tweet, tweet." On the same note, it reminded me of a Peggy Lee song, "Is that all there is?" I remembered reading a biography about Jack Nicholson once and reading that his biggest fear was of dying, as is most people's biggest fear. Certainly, it's my biggest fear. Who wants to die? Unless you are depressed and suicidal, no one wants to die. We all fear the unknown. No one has returned from the dead to tell us what happens when you die. Maybe, in the words of Jack, "We live, we die," and in the words of Vonnegut, "And so it goes," and like the song of Peggy Lee..."Is that's all there is?" Only, in Jack's case, maybe dying is a bigger fear for him because he doesn't believe in God. He was once quoted as saying, "I don't believe in God now. I can still work up an envy for someone who has a faith. I can see how that could be a deeply soothing experience." Apparently, by not believing in God, religion wasn't a soothing experience for him and that made me wonder what was. No doubt, with all the women he has gone through, women were, but were they? Maybe, it was just his work. Maybe his work is what soothed his savage soul. Certainly, I don't think it was money. You can't do what he does just for the love of money. Once you have money, you need more to motivate you to do greater things, as he has done in winning three Oscars and dozens of other awards. Only, regardless if he is a religious man or not, a spoiled actor or a mature adult, he has had one Hell of a life. Wow! What a ride? An icon in Hollywood, he knows everyone and everyone knows him and he is loved by all. The three of us walked towards the elevator while Jack held his fat hand at the door jam to prevent the elevator door from closing. "Well c'mon, c'mon, I don't have all day," he said with the same impatient attitude as he would have shown while acting as a character in one of his movies. His smile quickly gave way to a stern look. He always seemed annoyed. Remembering bits and pieces of his irritated dialogue and holier than thou attitude, I couldn't help but picture him in a Marine Corp uniform as Colonel Nathan Jessep in A Few Good Men while delivering his lines on the stand of a courtroom with Tom Cruise questioning him. "Maybe he was an early riser. Maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I don't know the travel habits of Santiago. Are these the questions I was called here to answer? I hope you have something more." I'm not a big Tom Cruise fan, but that was a good movie and he did a good job, especially with the exchange that he had with Jack Nicholson. The entire courtroom scenes were great scenes and they glued my eyes to the screen. Once a Marine always a Marine, I can watch that movie again and again. Marty snapped me out of my daydream about the movie, A Few Good Men and about Jack playing Colonel Jessep, and returned me to what was happening now when he started talking to Jack again. "Thank you, Jack, for holding the elevator," said Marty with a big smile. Already having worked with Jack and having met him numerous times, he was the obvious spokesman of our odd looking trio. Marty with his big, black rimmed eyeglasses that still weren't thick enough to cover his bushy eyebrows and with his grayish white hair that so contrasted with the black frame of his eyeglasses that the contrast between the two was startling, looked more like a barber or a doctor than a famous movie director. I could just picture him wearing a white coat. Amanda, tall, shapely, and beautiful, with her coiffed brown hair, hazel eyes, and high cheek bones, and in the way that she carried herself, looked much more like a super model in her high heels than a script assistant. She was so tall and Marty was so short that his eyes were at her chest level, which wasn't a bad thing, as she was appropriately endowed with full, shapely breasts that were highlighted by a low cut top. Nonetheless, it was obvious that she was intelligent and more than qualified, as anyone who worked as a script assistant for Marty Scorsese had a talent for reading, comprehending, and interpreting scripts and imagining movie scenes. Nothing like Roman Polanski in the heyday of his sexual appetite for young, pretty things, Martin Scorsese wasn't the type who employed women for their looks. He preferred surrounding himself with smart people, people who were smarter than he was or just as smart. When you think about it, that was a smart philosophy on his part. Then, there was me, casually dressed in my usual writing attire of wrinkled jeans, dirty sneakers, unbuttoned shirt, and my never without worn, Boston Red Sox baseball cap, I looked more like a student than a writer. A subscriber to the rule of not only being at the right place at the right time but also being prepared, as they taught me so long ago in the Boy Scouts, I always carried a completed script in one hand and briefcase full of script changes in the other, along with a forgotten pencil tucked behind my ear. Adhering to that rule and a believer that there is a reason for everything is how my script was discovered in the first place when Marty Scorsese's car bumped my car in a parking garage and we struck up a conversation while exchanging papers. He wanted nothing to do with me or my script. He just wanted to exchange insurance information and leave. I imagined he's attacked by budding writers all the time. I showed him my screenplay and something caught his attention after he read only the first paragraph, actually, after her read just the title of my screenplay. I gave him a copy. Within the week his people called me, they set up this meeting, arranged for my airfare and hotel, and here we are. It all happened so fast that I feel like it's all a dream. I still can't believe it. One day I'm in my home office writing fiction on Literotica and the next day I'm sitting in a limo with Marty Scorsese and his beautiful assistant. None of us looked like what I imagined were the typical Hollywood movie types. Certainly, I wasn't a player, but I was about to become one should Jack Nicholson decide to do my movie, a movie that would be directed by Martin Scorsese. It was all dependent upon Jack. He had the final say. We couldn't do it without him. Sure, we could hire a stand in, someone who resembled him, sounded like him, and somewhat acted like him, but it wouldn't be the same. Besides, Marty would never disrespect him by doing an unauthorized movie on his life, that is, while he was still alive. He never told me but I think I got Marty's attention when he saw my screenplay was a loving and living tribute to Jack Nicholson. That's what did it, I think. That's why I'm here, I think. It wasn't so much the writing ability or lack thereof, as it was the subject matter. As soon as he saw the title of the screenplay, "It's all about Jack...Jack Nicholson, that is," for some reason, I had him hooked and he wanted to read it. After he accepted my screenplay and left, I was so excited. I couldn't believe that Marty Scorsese was reading my work. First, it was my dream and then it was my reality. Surely, he knows the popularity and the fan base that this one actor enjoys. Surely, he knows that nearly every movie made with Jack Nicholson starring in it is a guaranteed box office success and more so if the movie is about his life with plenty of tidbits that would satisfy even the most curious of fans, who want to live vicariously through the actor. Everyone is hungry for the inside dope of Jack Nicholson's life and I wrote what I knew about Jack and filled in the rest with a creative biography of fiction. I left it up to him to include whatever priceless tidbits of information that he wanted to include about his own personal life in the script, if he agree to do the movie. Now, after Marty's insightful confession in the limo about this perhaps being Jack's last movie, maybe now I know why he chose to make my movie. Maybe he wanted to do this movie about Jack and his life as a tribute because he felt that Jack was going to die and this would be his last and fitting farewell. If that's the case, then definitely, I was at the right place at the right time. I know it sounds so mercenary to profit on someone's death, especially someone so famous and who has brought so much pleasure to so many people, but if not me, someone else would do it and this is my lucky break. No one would even think of doing a movie like this, before the actor dies. Only, would Jack do the movie or would he find it morbidly depressing to make a film that showed his career from beginning to end and one that ended with his demise? It's never been done before, that is, doing an autobiographical film and killing someone off in the film, especially a real live celebrity before they even died. Sure, it's been done plenty of times with the actor playing a character of someone else, but never to my knowledge of the title actor playing himself. Maybe that was the hook for Marty, Jack being Jack while playing Jack. I have no idea. Directors don't openly share their thoughts with mere writers and mere actors, unless they are directing them. Even then, they'll never give anyone the full picture, only bits and pieces that come together once the film is done. "Oh, so that's why he did that. Now, I know and now I understand." I don't know how he'd change my script for his creative interpretation of the movie and what role Jack would play in making changes, too. I don't know and I don't care, so long as they do the movie. I'm just thrilled beyond words to be here in this serendipitous position, to have my name appear on the movie credits as the screenwriter and to be inline to receive a very large paycheck. I have my fingers crossed that Jack will say, "Yes," to do my movie. "I'm late for a meeting," said Jack impatiently pushing the close door button more than once while stressing the t of late with as much impatient hostility as he showed when playing Jack Torrence in the movie, The Shining, and when talking about writing his infamous novel to his wife, Shelley Duvall, when she played Wendy Torrence in the movie. Now, he showed a similar and appropriate amount of annoyance in being delayed by our late arrival as he did then when being interrupted in his work and disturbed in his thoughts in the movie. Again, Jack's way of talking, and in the way that he carried himself, lulled me back to the movie and to his insane character in the movie, The Shining, with him interacting with his wife Wendy. "...let me explain something to you. When you come in and interrupt, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me...and it will then take time to get back to where I was. Understand?" "Fine." "We're making a new rule: Whenever I'm in here...and you hear me typing...or whatever the fuck you hear me doing in here...when I'm in here that means I am working. That means don't come in. Do you think you can handle that?" "Fine." "Why don't you start right now and get the fuck out of here?" That was Jack at his best. Then, again, he's made so many movies showing Jack at his best with so many memorable scenes that I feel like I know the man, especially seeing him act a bit like that now. Suddenly, I felt like a stalker. Again Marty's voice jolted me back to present time and from recalling any more of Jack Nicholson's movie scenes. "I know you're late for a meeting, Jack. We're late, too," said Marty with a chuckle. "The four of us are having a meeting with—" said Marty Scorsese, as the elevator doors closed behind us and the elevator started silently climbing up to the top floor. Obviously, Jack wasn't listening. He gave Marty a heavy albeit confused look and interrupted him before he could tell him that we were all attending the same meeting. "Do I know you?" In the next chapter Jack continues teasing Marty. * Thank you for reading my story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Please take a moment to vote, make a public comment, and/or give me feedback. Your support is why I write. Your feedback will motivate me to write a better story the next time. If you haven't already, please take moment to add me and/or this story or any other of my stories to your list of favorites. Thanks, Freddie, Bostonfictionwriter. To be continued... It's All About Jack Nicholson Ch. 03 I dedicate this story to Amanda, a fan of Jack Nicholson and a fan of Bostonfictionwriter. She asked me to write a story about Jack Nicholson with her in the starring role. I agreed to write the story because I've always been a fan of Jack Nicholson's, too. Normally, as you can discern from my name, Bostonfictionwriter, I only write fiction, generally fiction about Boston, Massachusetts. Only, this time, I decided to sway a bit from fiction and from Boston to write the true story of my meeting with Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles, California, only reverting from non-fiction to fiction by changing the character of Jana, Marty Scorsese's real script assistant with Amanda's name and description. Jack Nicholson's last starring role, the end of an era. * "I'm late for a meeting," said Jack impatiently pushing the close door button more than once while stressing the t of late with as much impatient hostility as he showed when playing Jack Torrence in the movie, The Shining, and when talking about writing his infamous novel to his wife, Shelley Duvall, when she played Wendy Torrence in the movie. Now, he showed a similar and appropriate amount of annoyance in being delayed by our late arrival as he did then when being interrupted in his work and disturbed in his thoughts in the movie. Again, Jack's way of talking, and in the way that he carried himself, lulled me back to the movie and to his insane character in the movie, The Shining, with him interacting with his wife Wendy. "...let me explain something to you. When you come in and interrupt, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me...and it will then take time to get back to where I was. Understand?" "Fine." "We're making a new rule: Whenever I'm in here...and you hear me typing...or whatever the fuck you hear me doing in here...when I'm in here that means I am working. That means don't come in. Do you think you can handle that?" "Fine." "Why don't you start right now and get the fuck out of here?" That was Jack at his best. Then, again, he's made so many movies showing Jack at his best with so many memorable scenes that I feel like I know the man, especially seeing him act a bit like that now. Suddenly, I felt like a stalker. Again Marty's voice jolted me back to present time and from recalling any more of Jack Nicholson's movie scenes. "I know you're late for a meeting, Jack. We're late, too," said Marty with a chuckle. "The four of us are having a meeting with—" said Marty Scorsese, as the elevator doors closed behind us and the elevator started silently climbing up to the top floor. Obviously, Jack wasn't listening. He gave Marty a heavy and detached, albeit confused look and interrupted him before he could tell him that we were all attending the same meeting. "Do I know you?" Jack, always in character, suddenly with his tone tense and his posture stiff reminded me of his character, Melvin Udall, in As Good As It Gets when he interacted with his neighbor from across the hall, Simon. "Mr. Udall...excuse me. Hey There! Have you seen Verdell?" "What's he look like?" "My dog...you know...I mean my little dog with the adorable face...Don't you know what my dog looks like?" "I got it. You're talking about your dog. I thought that was the name of the colored man I've been seeing in the hall." "Which color was that?" "Like thick molasses, with one of those wide noses perfect for smelling trouble and prison food." Yes, it's true, that writers gave him wonderful dialogue to recite but, in the way he recited their dialogue, he made their words his own and made them even greater by injecting all of himself in his performances. You felt all of his emotions as he was feeling them and you are there with him experiencing what he is experiencing. My fantasy button was wide open while in the presence of Jack Nicholson and reluctantly I returned back to reality. He made me want to stay in the fantasy zone of Hollywood movie stardom. He made me want to write a movie for him. Just seeing him in person inspired me to write so many wonderful things that only he could say in the way that he says them. My brain was bombarded with as many old lines as I imagined writing new lines for him to recite. Over the years of our collaboration, I imagined moviegoers quoting my lines written for him as his lines for years to come. Jack gave Marty a stare that made us all uncomfortable and I didn't know if he was acting or if he was serious. All I know is that I couldn't stop staring and I couldn't stop smiling. It was as if I was watching him act. It was if I was a bystander in a three D movie and I was there. I was confined in an elevator with one of my favorite male movie stars. I was delirious with excitement. I couldn't wait to call all my friends back home in Boston to tell them that I was in an elevator with Jack Nicholson. I couldn't wait to tell them that I had a meeting with Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese. I couldn't wait to tell them that Jack Nicholson may be in my movie that Martin Scorsese was directing. I couldn't wait. Sure, there are stars like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, but there's only one star like Jack Nicholson. There's no one else like him. He's an original. He's reminiscent of the Hollywood movie stars of old, bigger than life and going through life with a zest and panache for being over the top and with the added flair for being selfishly self-centered and overly dramatic. With three Oscars, 63 assorted awards, and 46 nominations, his list of credits spans half a century. He is one of the greatest actors of modern times. I love the lines and the comedic interplay in Terms Of Endearment between Shirley MacClaine who played Aurora Greenway, an overprotective mother, and Jack Nicholson, who played a retired Astronaut, when he played Garrett Greenlove. Having trouble loosening Aurora Greenway up on their first date, coercing her to relax enough to have some fun, he had this exchange of dialogue. "You're gonna need a lot of drinks?" "To break the ice?" "To kill the bug you have up your ass," said Garrett. Then later when he's taking her home they have another memorable exchange at the door of her home. "Would you like to come in?" "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes," said Garrett. Finally, this one is priceless and so typical of what Jack Nicholson would say in a movie and/or in real life, perhaps. "I just didn't want you to think I was like one of your other girls," said Aurora. "Not much danger in that unless you curtsy on my face real soon," said Garrett. He's the type of actor where you must sit and pay attention to not only the dialogue but also to see what he does with his expression when delivering it. I'd rather watch that kind of a movie than a shoot 'em up and blow 'em up. Able to make life's hardships funny, he makes fun of everything including phobias, neuroticism, and depression, just as this exchange he had with Helen Hunt's character Carol Connelly, in the movie As Good As It Gets. "I've got a great compliment for you, and it's true," Jack as Melvin Udall said to Helen Hunt as Carol Connelly. "I'm so afraid you're about to say something awful," she said. "Don't' be pessimistic; it's not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I've got this, what -- ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I hate pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never...well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills." "I don't quite get how that's a compliment for me," she said. "You make me want to be a better man." "...That's maybe the best compliment of my life." "Well, maybe I overshot a little, because I was aiming at just enough to keep you from walking out." Of course the dialogue is taken out of context and without seeing the interaction between Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt and it misses some in the translation. Yet, still, it is a powerful moment between a man and a woman, both of which are desperate in Jack's case and hopeful in Helen's case to have a relationship with one another. More movie scenes of him flashed through my mind, scenes that I don't remember from other actors, except for Paul Newman movies and a few Pacino and De Niro movies; perhaps because many of his lines were funny, I remembered many more of Jack Nicholson's scenes. I pictured him sitting in the back seat of the Mercedes 600 with his lurch look-a-like driver driving at break neck speed in the Witches of Eastwick movie. I read somewhere that he has owned a Mercedes-Benz 600 for 30 years and considers it the best touring car ever made. I remember him in the scene of the movie when he was disheveled from being blown around in the wind and sought shelter in a church, of all places, while the Witches of Eastwick, Cher playing Alexandra Medford, Susan Sarandon playing Jane Spofford, and Michele Pfeiffer playing Sukie Ridgemont stuck pins in a Voodoo doll of him. Here he is the Devil in a Church of God addressing the congregation while pins that are injected in the Voodoo doll have a direct effect on his person with pain and indignation, as he is talking while trying to walking down the aisle without falling and succumbing to the pain of the pins. "Just having a little trouble. A little trouble at home. A little domestic problem. Nothing to be alarmed at. Just a little female problem. Don't pay any attention. It's just a cheap trick. Anybody can do it. I taught it to them myself. Ungrateful little bitches, aren't they?" Meanwhile, Jack's Voodoo doll is continually jabbed with pins and he is in excruciating pain while delivering this masterpiece of dialogue before the congregation of horrified churchgoers. Then, there were the feathers and the cherries, but that was more of a visual thing that you'd have to see to believe. "I want to ask you something. You all go to church. Do you think God knew what He was doing when He created Women? No shit! I really want to know. Or do you think it was one of His minor mistakes? Like tidal waves! Earthquakes! Floods! Do you think women are like that?" He further horrified the churchgoers by insulting and disrespecting their God while disrespecting women. "What's the matter? You don't think God makes mistakes? Of course He does. We all make mistakes. Of course, we make mistakes, they call it evil. When God makes mistakes, they call it...nature. So what do you think? Women...are mistakes? Or did He do it to us on purpose? I really want to know! If it's a mistake, maybe we can do something about it! Find a cure! Invent a vaccine. Build up our immune systems. Get a little exercise. Twenty push-ups a day...and you never have to be afflicted with women, ever again!" I imagined him when he played The Joker to the best that character had to offer. I think the Batman that Jack Nicholson played The Joker was the best Batman, better than when his best friend, Danny DeVito played The Penguin. "Thankya, thankya. Ladies and germs, I'm here to tell you...we have one helluva quarter. Panic's up. Terror's up. And fear...fear's gone straight through the roof. You guys should be proud...'cause I couldn'ta done it without each and every one of you! I feel it's time to expend the Joker line. I was askin' myself, what are the products that every consumer wants most? And that's when it hit me: the water you drink, and the air you breathe! Huh? Bingo! Now, some of you have your eye on the profit margin. You're thinkin': this boy's too ambitious. You don't approve. In fact, some of you have been talking about turning me in to the cops. Or knocking me off. But that's okay. I understand. Not everyone shares my eye for beauty. And just to show there's no hard feelings, I'm throwin' a little shindig tonight...and you're all invited! How 'bout it? Is everybody happy?" Yeah, sure the dialogue was corny, but his character was modeled after a comic book character and Jack did the best he could with it and better than anyone anticipated and even better than everyone knew he could with the role. Because of his percentage negotiated from box office receipts, he made sixty million dollars in that movie alone, more than many of his other movies combined. And now here he is in living and breathing color as Edward Cole in the Bucket List, Colonel Nathan Jessep in a Few Good Men, Jack Torrence in the Shining, Melvin Udall, in As Good As It Gets, Garret Greenlove in Terms Of Endearment, Darrell Van Horn a.k.a. the Devil, in the Witches of Eastwick, and The Joker in Batman, et al the characters he ever played. Again Marty's voice returned me back from the land of movies to reality. "Jack," said Marty with an expression that showed half hidden hurt and a half forced smile, looking from me to his assistant and back to Jack, I could sense that he was uncomfortable with the cool reception received from this iconic actor. "It's me, Marty, Marty Scorsese," he said offering his hand to Jack. "Ah, you're such a kidder," said Marty laughing and waving a hand at him. "I don't know if I should kiss you or hit you. I never know with you if you are serious or pulling my leg." "Marty," said Jack in the way that only Jack can say someone's name. He gave Marty a shark like grin and put a finger to lower his never without signature sunglasses enough for us all to see his famous raised eyebrow. "Marty! Marty Scorsese, of course, how are you? I didn't recognize you. You look taller. Perhaps, that's why I didn't recognize you. Have you grown since last we met?" "Have I grown? You're such a joker," said Marty showing his always present sense of humor by laughing with Jack at his own expense. "Not since I was twelve," laughed Marty again at Jack's jab at his short stature. "Have we ever done a movie together," said Jack looking appropriately perplexed and taking Marty's hand and pumping it and continuing talking without giving him an opportunity to respond to his question. "We should do a movie together," he said pointing an index finger to pontificate his intention to do a movie with him. "Let's do a movie together," he said waving his finger at him. "Have your people call my people and we'll make it happen. We'll make a movie," he said pointing his index finger to pontificate his point again. "...but Jack," said Marty only to be interrupted again by the comedic actor. "I've always admired your work, Marty. I'm a big fan. The Godfather movies were my favorite, but now I'm late for a meeting," he said looking away from him and up at the lighted floor numbers anticipation of leaving the elevator to attend his meeting. Unable to get a word in, Marty looked from Jack to me and to Amanda while smiling an uncomfortable and equally impatient smile and waiting for his moment to speak. "Godfather movies? You have me confused with my illustrious colleague, Francis Ford Coppola. He made those wonderful movies. I made—" "Sorry," interrupted Jack again while smiling and staring at Marty's assistant, Amanda and making eye contact with her. "After a while all the movies get jumbled up in my head," he said twirling a finger at his temple and smiling at her, as he would have done in his movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest when he played R. P. McMurphy while mocking and making fun of one of the other crazy patients. When he made that gesture with his hand, I couldn't help but think of the famous basketball game scene in that movie when the mental hospital took the patients out on a field trip, that is, before Jack stole the bus and kidnapped the patients for a joyride. "Ever play this game, Chief? Come on, I'll show you. Old Indian game. It's called put the ball in the hole. Now, that ought to be just...Hold it right there. All right. Now, that's your spot. Don't move. Never move. That's your spot, you understand? Right there. You don't move. Now...take the ball. Here, take the ball. That's it. Hold on to it. Not too hard, Chief. You'll crush all the air out of it. We're gonna put her in the basket. You understand? All right. Now, raise your arms. Raise the ball up in the air, Chief. Raise it up." Jack's voice knocked me back to reality. "Still, we should do a movie together," he said to Marty. "Something where I play an aging movie star falling in love with a young, tall, and very beautiful woman," he said while leering at Amanda. "Yeah, I think we could make a great movie," he said now addressing all of his conversation to Amanda instead of to Marty. "Who knows, maybe we'd even win an Oscar for the best movie, yes, an Academy Award for making the best love scene." He gave her a warm smile. "Of course, we'd have to do a lot of rehearsing to pull that off, don't you think, my Dear?" "Yes," she said, "especially since I'm not an actress. I'm Marty's assistant." "We did do a movie, Jack," said Marty with a nervous chuckle and snapping Jack out of his sudden and immediate infatuation with Amanda. "Don't you remember?" Marty touched his arm and lowered his voice. "Are you feeling okay, Jack?" "We did?" In the next chapter Jack is formally introduced to Amanda. * Thank you for reading my story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Please take a moment to vote, make a public comment, and/or give me feedback. Your support is why I write. Your feedback will motivate me to write a better story the next time. If you haven't already, please take moment to add me and/or this story or any other of my stories to your list of favorites. Thanks, Freddie, Bostonfictionwriter. To be continued... It's All About Jack Nicholson Ch. 04 I dedicate this story to Amanda, a fan of Jack Nicholson and a fan of Bostonfictionwriter. She asked me to write a story about Jack Nicholson with her in the starring role. I agreed to write the story because I've always been a fan of Jack Nicholson's, too. Normally, as you can discern from my name, Bostonfictionwriter, I only write fiction, generally fiction about Boston, Massachusetts. Only, this time, I decided to sway a bit from fiction and from Boston to write the true story of my meeting with Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles, California, only reverting from non-fiction to fiction by changing the character of Jana, Marty Scorsese's real script assistant with Amanda's name and description. Jack Nicholson's last starring role, the end of an era. * "I've always admired your work, Marty. I'm a big fan. The Godfather movies were my favorite, but now I'm late for a meeting," he said looking away from him and up at the lighted floor numbers anticipation of leaving the elevator to attend his meeting. Unable to get a word in, Marty looked from Jack to me and to Amanda while smiling an uncomfortable and equally impatient smile and waiting for his moment to speak. "Godfather movies? You have me confused with my illustrious colleague, Francis Ford Coppola. He made those wonderful movies. I made—" "Sorry," interrupted Jack again while smiling and staring at Marty's assistant, Amanda and making eye contact with her. "After a while all the movies get jumbled up in my head," he said twirling a finger at his temple and smiling at her, as he would have done in his movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest when he played R. P. McMurphy while mocking and making fun of one of the other crazy patients. Jack's voice knocked me back to reality. "Still, we should do a movie together," he said to Marty. "Something where I play an aging movie star falling in love with a young, tall, and very beautiful woman," he said while leering at Amanda. "Yeah, I think we could make a great movie," he said now addressing all of his conversation to Amanda instead of to Marty. "Who knows, maybe we'd even win an Oscar for the best movie, yes, an Academy Award for making the best love scene." He gave her a warm smile. "Of course, we'd have to do a lot of rehearsing to pull that off, don't you think, my Dear?" "Yes," she said, "especially since I'm not an actress. I'm Marty's assistant." "We did do a movie, Jack," said Marty with a nervous chuckle and snapping Jack out of his sudden and immediate infatuation with Amanda. "Don't you remember?" Marty touched his arm and lowered his voice. "Are you feeling okay, Jack?" "We did?" "Yeah, we made The Departed with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Mark Wahlberg. You played the infamous, South Boston crime king, the ruthless mobster, Whitey Bulger as Frank Costello and—" I drifted off remembering a scene from the movie where Jack was having a meeting with the Asians to buy some drugs. "For his own good, tell Bruce Lee and the Karate Kids none of us are carrying automatic weapons because here, in this country, it don't add inches to your dick. You get a life sentence for it." Even though he doesn't look his age, I realized how old Jack really is by an exchange of dialogue in the movie The Departed said by Billy Costigan played by Leonardo DiCaprio that hit close to home with Jack. "You're seventy fucking years old. One of these guys is going to pop you. As for running drugs, what the fuck? You don't need the pain in the ass, and they're going to catch you. And you don't need the money." "I haven't needed the money since I took Archie's milk money in the third grade. Tell you the truth, I don't need pussy any more either...but I like it." Again Jack's voice jolted me back to present time. "Just funning with you Marty," he said giving Marty a warm smile before throwing an arm across his shoulders and giving him a big squeeze. Jack towered over Marty. At only 5'4" tall, everyone towered over Marty. "I'm just funning with you. Can't you take a joke," in the way that he said the word joke, enunciating the k, made me smile. I felt as if I was watching him act in a movie. It was surreal. This is Jack Nicholson breathing the same air that I am while confined in this small elevator. I felt as if I was an extra watching him perform. He was acting so typical Jack. He was wonderful and I was so in awe of him that I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Suddenly, in the way he talked to Marty and in the way that he looked so expressively when talking to him, he reminded me of Dr. Buddy Rydell in Anger Management when he was talking to Adam Sandler as Dave Buznik. I laughed recalling the exchange of dialogue between the two men in the movie. "Now then we need to go over some ground rules. You are to refrain from any acts of violence including verbal assault and vulgar hand gestures. You may not use rage enhancing substances, such as caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, crack cocaine, slippy-flippy's, jelly stingers, trick sticks, bing bangs or flying willards," said Jack as Dr. Rydell. "How about fiddle-faddels?" "Under my supervision. Also, if you are unable to stop masturbating please, do so without the use of any pornographic images depicting quote, unquote 'angry sex'. That having been said, I'm a pretty good guy and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how much fun we can have together," said Adam Sandler as Dave Buznik. "Gees, without slippy-flippy's or angry masturbating I don't see how that's possible. "Sarcasm is anger's ugly cousin...from now on, unacceptable." Here I was expecting someone else and he was exactly the same person as he appears on screen. Only, I wondered how that was acting when he is just playing himself all the time. Certainly, he was more entertaining now playing himself than he would have been had he shown a different side of his personality and acted like some other character in real life, someone who was nothing like the way he was in the movies. Watching him interact with Marty now was like watching him act in a movie. I was mesmerized by him. In that regard, he was a natural. "Gees, Jack, I never know with you if you are fooling or being serious," said Marty with a nervous laugh. "You gave me a scare. I thought for a minute that you had Alzheimer's or a head injury or you had a little too much to drink." "God forbid if I ever got Alzheimer's. It's an awful disease. Imagine always having the feeling that you have to take a piss and not remembering if you actually already peed or not?" He gave Marty a sad face, "I have a friend in Cedar's Sinai Hospital who doesn't even remember his name, his wife, and his children." "I'm sorry for your friend, Jack." As if an old friend, Marty turned to me, smiled, and put his hand on my shoulder. "Let me introduce you to Freddie, Bostonfictionwriter. He's a wonderfully talented writer and he wrote the script that I am excited about and that we are meeting about for the movie—" Jack interrupted Marty and eyed Marty's assistant before focusing on me. "Hello," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet, yet, another writer who will make me look good on the silver screen," he said with a pause. "I like writers," he said and then he qualified it. "Sometimes," he said haughtily raising his head high, as if letting out a puff of cigarette smoke, only he wasn't smoking. "It all depends how they act with rewrites," he mused, "if they are sensitive or thick skinned about editing even one of their sacred words." "Well, Freddie is a fabulous writer," said Martin. Jack ignored Marty's comment as much as he ignored me. It was obvious that he was playing to an audience and that audience of one was beautiful Amanda. He looked at her, as if to see if he impressed her with his celebrity and/or with his words. "For me, that is the telling sign," he said puffing out his chest. "Which will I have...pleasure or misery working with them?" He shot me a look. "Of course, I prefer the thick skinned kind, a writer who doesn't think that he created a new religion when writing a God damn sentence." He gave me a look of contemplative circumspection. "Which type of writer are you, thick skinned or...sensitive?" "I'm whichever writer you want me to be, Mr. Nicholson." I gave him my best smile. "I'm at your service, Mr. Nicholson. After all, this is a movie about your life. This is your movie. You tell me what to write and I'll write it exactly the way you want to act it. "Ah, I see...you're my kind of writer. That's a good answer. There's nothing I like better than a writer with talent who is not too proud to brown nose the star of the movie." Just to hear him speak was thrilling and to hear him direct his words at me was more than I could have imagined in a dream. Jack briefly took my hand to shake it with a limp grasp, but as quickly as he glanced at me, he returned his stare to Marty's assistant. It was obvious to all of us that he was more interested in her than he was in me. "And who is this delightful creature?" "Oh," said Marty shrugging me his apology at Jack's obvious rudeness in paying more attention to Amanda than to me. "This is Amanda. She's my new assistant. She'll be—" His attention to her made me feel ignored. Here I am the writer of the script to the movie that he may play and he's more interested in the script woman, albeit, to his defense, a beautiful script woman. Typical Jack, it was then that I remembered what Marty had said when talking about what Jack was like when not on camera. "He's the same off screen as he is on screen. Quick witted, funny, personable, but irreverent, there's no difference with him when he's playing a role or playing a round of golf. What you see is what you get. He has no off switch from his intensity. He's always on and he'll be like that until the day he dies." Then, I remembered Marty's fatherly warning to Amanda when she admitted her embarrassment after volunteering her sexual attraction for Jack. "Save the embarrassment for when you meet Jack. Without a doubt, he'll surely do something or say something to embarrass you more than you've ever been embarrassed before." Again, it was Jack's mellow drawl that returned me to the present moment. "Well, hello, my dear. It's my pleasure to meet you," he said giving her his trademark smile. "Aren't you quite the eyeful?" It was then that he acted so much like Darryl Van Horn, the Devil himself, in the Witches of Eastwick, in the way he was putting the moves on Amanda. He was smooth, so smooth. I could see her falling for him and him seducing her. Amanda turned bright red while shaking Jack's hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Nicholson. I've seen all of your movies." "Jack, call me Jack," he said breathing out his name as if they were alone and he was whispering it in her ear before putting the moves on her. "Jack," she said with a flushed glow. I couldn't believe it. I was crushed. He didn't ask me to call him Jack when I called him Mr. Nicholson. "I so love tall women," he said still holding her hand and lightly shaking it while patting it and looking deeply in her eyes. "You remind me of an old girlfriend of mine, Angelica Houston." "I do," swooned Amanda. "Oh, I just love her." She was tall, taller than you even and thin but with a womanly figure," he said letting go of her hand to make an hour glass gesture with his hands. "I love a woman with hips," he said looking down at her full, round ass. "Forget sugar and spice, hips and lips are what women are all about and she had both." He looked at her and put a finger to her lips. "You have nice, full lips." He looked down at her round ass. "And I see that you have hips, too. Bravo." In the way that she was looking at him, I was expecting Amanda to take his finger in her mouth and suck it, as if it was his cock. "I've seen a lot of her movies, too. She's a great actress. Only, I never thought that I looked anything like her," said Amanda looking from Jack to Marty to me, as if seeking confirmation from us and our opinions as to if she resembled Angelica Houston or not. "You do look a little like her," I said. "Yes, you have the same body type," said Jack without giving me or my comment a look of acknowledgment. He looked at her from head to toe stopping only to stare at her breasts before raising his chin and inhaling all of her with his smile. "If you don't mind me asking, how tall are you?" "No, I don't mind you asking at all. I'm 5'9," she said with a smile. "Splendid," he said in the way that he would have said when playing the Joker in the Batman movie. He slipped an arm around her slim waist. "I used to be 5'10" but I'm shrinking, he said in the voice of the witch that played in the Wizard of Oz and with the same copied hand and finger movement that she used in the movie when she said, "I'm melting." He was funny in a zany sort of way. Amanda cooed with his attentiveness and it was then that I saw how Jack had a special talent with the ladies. It was obvious that he loved women, just as it was obvious that he was already working on seducing her. The elevator doors opened and Marty and I stood back while Amanda exited first with Jack in hot pursuit of her. "Yeow!" she screamed reacting to his pinch of her ass. "Sorry, you had a bit of lint on the back of your skirt," he said enunciating the t of lint, as he did before with the t of late. "Thank you, I think," she said feebly brushing his fondling hand away from her ass. "More lint," he said half apologizing for his hand still being there but without removing his trademark grin or his exploring hand. "I have a cat," she said this time giving his hand more of a forceful swat. "It's probably just cat hair." "I'm a pussy man myself," said Jack. "I just love pussies. Meow!" By the look Amanda shot him, it was obvious that she didn't know if he was talking about cats or about pussies. Jack turned to Marty and smiled his approval of Marty's new assistant. "Her ass is as firm as a ripe piece of fresh fruit," he said out of Amanda's earshot while moving his hand to his mouth, as if he was taking a bit of fruit. "And, by the way, she's very capable in her work, too, Jack, which is the reason why I hired her," said Marty laughing. "And by the disparity in your ages, you ought to be ashamed. You're old enough to be her grandfather for Christ sakes," said Marty with a laugh. "Besides, Jack, she'd kill you." "Nonsense, I only take Viagra when I am with more than one woman," said Jack flashing his shark like grin and raising his one eyebrow above the frame of his sunglasses. "Yet, if that was my fate, that someone so young, so tall, and so beautiful killed me with sex," he said giving a smile with head raised high, "...what a way to die." When he said that I thought of another one of his quote he said in the Witches of Eastwick. "I see men, sixty, seventy years old breaking their balls to stay fit! What for? When I die, I want to be sick, not healthy." Then, it was Marty's voice that brought me back to the present moment. "One more thing, Jack." "What's that?" "She's a virgin." "A kidder can't kid a kidder Marty," he said with a smile. "She's no virgin. I can smell a virgin at 100 yards," he said taking a deep breathe and coughing after breathing it all in. "I have to stop smoking," he said. "I would be so happy if I didn't smoke, for a lot of reasons. I can't believe that I can't break the habit. I don't want to be lying around, dying in Cedar's Sinai Hospital and thinking that I was stupid enough, a man who is as petrified of dying as I am, to have done it to myself. I'm a real fraidy-cat about mortality," he said giving Marty a smile. "Ah, you can't die. You're Jack Nicholson. You'll live forever." "We've both been around the block a few times with newer, improved, and younger models. You tend to marry them while I tend to give them what they really want, a baby. You have 5 marriages and I have five kids by four different women." "I'm a close runner up to you in that area, Jack," said Marty walking along side Jack. "I have three kids by three different women." "What happened to the other two wives? Were they frigid or just barren?" Typical Jack, only he would say something so crass. "Let's just say that they weren't the maternal type." "Tell me something," said Jack turning to Marty. "How closely will Amanda and I be working together should I accept the part in this movie," he said lowering his voice and lowering his sunglasses with a purposeful finger while raising his trademark eyebrow above the frame of the sunglasses. "Close," whispered Marty in Jack's ear, "very close, as close as you imagine," he said with a smile while staring at Jack. "And don't you ever take off those damn sunglasses? How can you see? We're indoors and not outside." "They're prescription. Besides, with my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and seventy." Jack turned away, threw back his shoulders and confidently strode ahead of us. "I see an Oscar for this role," he said staring at Amanda's wiggle as she walked ahead of us. In the next chapter we discuss the script. * Thank you for reading my story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Please take a moment to vote, make a public comment, and/or give me feedback. Your support is why I write. Your feedback will motivate me to write a better story the next time. If you haven't already, please take moment to add me and/or this story or any other of my stories to your list of favorites. Thanks, Freddie, Bostonfictionwriter. To be continued...