"Ciao Baby,
It was nice receiving your letter. The answer to your question is NO! I
am so 'desparate' because Mel didn't want me for my professionalism. He
wanted a bed toy and of course I proudly refused. That's the whole
story. Now we are just friends."
Charles read the first lines of the e-mail letter. He understood immediately that Ulysses was tired and annoyed with his life. He wasn’t as sharp as usual. Charles couldn’t remember what was the story of Mel was about. He tried to remember. Suddenly, Charles laughed. Almost a year had passed since Ulysses wrote about his projects in Hollywood and his acting friends. Now he remembered who the hell Mel was. Mel the actor. Mel the bell. Mel the spell.
| Mel! Charles tried to say Mel, with the same confidence Ulysses was
using. It wasn’t easy. He wasn’t related to Mel in any way. But Ulysses
was. So, for that reason and for curiosity, Charles read the letter
about Mel, forgetting the job. He was reading unknown gossip about
Hollywood stars: and Mel was a son of a bitch. Kevin was different,
much nicer, and occasionally bisexual.
"It was not a good move. I didn't receive any answer. He certainly
didn't read my letters: I faxed my résumé four times. Now, if somebody
doesn't answer to your love letters what do you think? He is not
interested. After all the prizes he received... He is certainly too
busy. That son of a bitch. By the way as soon as I get out of here I’ll let you know. Florence is too much nonsense. It is another of those fucking videodreams for fast-tourists. I want to go to Venice and die in the lagoon at sunset burning on a pyre in the middle of the horizon. I think there is an agency that organizes funerals in Venice with choruses and singers and old Italian women dressed in black ready to cry for your unfair death. I would love it. I would like to see Mel watering San Marco’s floor in front of all the different TV stations and then holding his new golden prize, speaking of his estimated dead friend."
|
Charles honey, do you need anyone that is going to die and wants an Italian crying woman for his/her funeral? Tell him/her to contact me: the prize is very low: travel expenses, accommodation and prayers for one hundred thousand dollars. I know what you are thinking, but we are speaking about a very high class funeral and I need my part too. I am the manager. I have responsibilities. Don’t stare at me in that way, you dear! I know you don’t care about Italians performing at funerals and your ears want to hear about Mel. He is my problem, my cross, my pen in... As you probably have noticed I have rented a nice villa in the countryside around Florence. He comes once in a while and we play to "Actor and Director." It is a new version of the old game we were playing. Do you remember "Doctors and nurses?" Nothing has substantially changed. He wants to make a movie with me and I refuse his proposals. He is very fascinating but wants everything to be hidden in the back world of a black mysterious secret relation. I am bored of his neurosis so we have a psychologist coming once a week for our hysterical crises. God forbid you start a relationship with an actor. They will drive you crazy. I am walking through the countryside of Florence meeting Americans, Germans, British. It is a very international jet-set. We moved from one villa to another, and I didn’t meet any Italians at all. Most of the servants are foreigners and very few are Italians. The English Duchess has a young Italian gardener: such a beautiful man that the Perseo of Cellini would be an ugly rat compared to him. Well, everybody is visiting the Duchess. There is no rest for the poor gardener. Mel tried to harass him too. I had to convince the Duchess that he was playing a role for his next movie project. I looked at the scene calmly and relaxed; Mel tried with no results. He didn’t know that he was harassing the lover-boy of his lover. Mel’s wife in the meanwhile plays erotic games with a German engineer from another villa. She doesn’t know I am here and I don’t know she is there. Mel doesn’t know that we know of each other and we are pretending to be faithfully in love with the warrior. We went to an Italian course of betrayal. And we had the best scores between all the students enrolled. Mel is now licking my toes, but just as a friend. We officially have an intense, sincere and platonic friendship. He pays me to narrate this tale. The official version for the newspapers is: we never met! We don’t know each other. Charles couldn’t believe what he was reading. What kind of story was Ulysses going through? And who was this Mel? Charles laughed. He hoped not the Mel he knew. Not that one. That beautiful piece of shit. Charles was worried for his friend. He should advice him not to fall in love with him.
I am not involved with this guy: it is just an affair. We signed a contract, he pays me and I stay silent. But he is so boring. Always checking that there are no paparazzi around. My Director wants a hot scoop for the summer. I might send him a few of my photographs. But it’s too bad and Mel doesn’t deserve it. I think I am going to make him a literary creature, a mythological piece of shit. Do you know that he doesn’t wash his penis because he loves it dirty?
Charles was horrified. "How could you?" he exclaimed. Everybody in his office stared at him. "I am sorry," said Charles, and whispered, "I have true gossip about Mel." Everyone ran to read on his computer the rest of the story. Charles made a brief summary.
It smells badly for almost a mile around him. His wife didn’t pretend any extra. I had it signed on my contract: dirtiness of three days a certain amount of money, from four to five days a major amount, and so on. But I didn’t want to take any-thing over the thirty days of dirtiness.
Everyone was shocked. Charles stopped reading and jumped to the end of the letter, smiling uneasily.
Mel is not hiring me for his new film. I just have a sexual contract instead of a producing one. But now I am writing this story, the interesting story of Mel’s secret life. So dear Charles if you have time buy the magazine and read my new corre-spondence from Italy and let me know. I consider your opinion more than Bible.
PS: If you hear of any job for me let me know. New York and Los Angeles are my favorite places, and I also would like to continue working as a correspondent, but even as a dog walker in Slugsville Texas is fine. Now I am going to Roccapipirozza to fuck in the fashionable and degenerate Italian myth: "I feel like a virgin touched for the very first time." "Cause of the size. I am secure: not even Madonna could make the miracle to take it all. And if people, coming back from Italy will tell you about the art, remember that they are talking about the masterpiece between the legs of Michelangelo’s David."
I am sick and tired of this country!
I miss you and (should I say it?) I also miss New York. Well, I wish you
all the best. Say hello to Matt. With sincere friendship,
Ulysses