After a live reading of his play, hearing his dialogue out loud was for Sachs like taking a cold shower. How awful it sounded. How foolish and immature. He was no longer the same person who wrote those words when he was typing on his Olivetti in the Village. He needed to fix it up, make it more real, less naive. Maybe the producer was OK with it, but Sachs had outgrown it. He wrote Lulu’s praise off to the fact that she wanted to be encouraging. It no longer satisfied him. It needed work.

  He and Lulu flew to Palm Beach to attend her friend Claire’s wedding. They tried to make love in the bathroom of the 727 in flight because she loved the idea of saying they both were members of the Mile High Club. Sadly, turbulence made the required choreography too slapstick. When Lulu read the first act of his rewrite, she was surprised how much he had deepened it, and even though she liked the original draft she could see this one was clearly better.

  He said someday he would write a terrific and complex role for her because she was terrific and complex. She said that was not why she was with him, so he could write for her. She said he should only write what inspired him. She bought him a leather-bound edition of Miss Julie and inscribed it “To Jerry, You only live once. If you’re a schlemiel, twice won’t help. Love, Lulu.” By that time, she was just about living with him, and they looked for a larger apartment they might move into together. Her friends thought they made a great couple and felt, of all of Lulu’s romances, this one was actually going to hit paydirt.

  One afternoon in October, Sachs returned to the bench where he met her. He was looking up at the penthouse where it all began, but now with a slightly different perspective. He had been there, done that, and had seen it firsthand, and it was very lovely if not precisely a set where Tracy and Hepburn could solve their unsolvable dilemmas. He laughed at himself when he thought he had learned how to tolerate burgundy, even if it was only one glass. He knew now how much to tip and how to get logs for his fireplace and what Mahler sounded like and what the best brownies tasted like and what aftershave never to buy again. He realized what a small life he had previously led. How limited was his upbringing in so many ways. Of course, he understood his parents did the best they could given their struggles and on his father’s tiny income. He wondered if he had not judged Ruth and Morris too harshly, too unrealistically. At that moment he felt sad that they would never live high above the city unless someday, if things went right, he could splurge and make it happen for them. He resolved to take them to dinner at Lutèce and laughed, thinking his mother would say something like “Aunt Rhoda’s halibut is much better.” He envisioned his father loving the food, then complaining all night of heartburn. Still, maybe it would be nice to treat them even if they kvetched. These random thoughts ran through his head as he sat waiting for Lulu to meet him. She was coming back through the park from her West Side acting class, and her parents were going to take them for dinner. The night before the two of them had pizza downtown and saw The Zoo Story, and he wondered if he could ever write so beautifully. He was staring up at the buildings, listening to the street musicians play “A Night in Tunisia” very professionally. Then she arrived. First a whiff of her mother’s Shalimar caught on the breeze, then the big smile, the big eyes, the happy energy, and finally, the whole award-winning package.

  “Hi,” she beamed, “waiting long?”

  “Twenty minutes, but I was enjoying some kids play a Dizzy Gillespie tune.”

  “This bench is where it all began,” she said. “We should ask the city to put up a plaque.”

  “You look extra beautiful. What the character Charlie in my play calls cripplingly beautiful.”

  “I’m looking forward to dinner,” she said. “I’m having the lobster thermidor.”

  “You know already!”

  “I love La Côte Basque. I don’t think you’ve been there. You’ll get a kick out of it. Very chic, very socialite. Great for people-watching.”

  “I wore a tie, you’ll notice.”

  “I love it. My mother was right about you. You always look great in suits and ties.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Would you like to go to an orgy?”

  “Run that by me again?”

  “Would you like to go to an orgy?”

  “Sex?” he asked with a touch of incredulity.

  “That’s usually what an orgy is,” she said.

  “What is—what do you mean?” he asked.

  “A guy in my acting class who I’ve gotten friendly with asked if I’d be interested in going to an orgy.”

  “I hope you dusted him. Who is this guy?”

  “I asked if I could bring my boyfriend.”

  “That’s what you said?”

  “Yes. And he said sure, no problem. It’s this Friday in the Village.”

  “You must be kidding,” Sachs said, a bit flustered.

  “No. Why?”

  “That’s a terrible idea,” he told her.

  “Why? It sounds very exciting,” she said.

  “An orgy’s lots of naked men and women all doing stuff to each other.”

  “I know what an orgy is.”

  “You ever been to one?”

  “No. That’s why I thought it would be exciting.”

  “You like the idea of everybody sleeping with every-body?”

  “Don’t you? It’s very erotic.”

  “But other men will be having sex with you, sleeping with you.”

  “And women with you. Maybe a few at the same time.”

  “I don’t want other men to have sex with you.”

  “You’ll be one of them, and you’ll also be with new women.”

  “You’d like that idea?”

  “Don’t you? It sounds so hot.”

  “But, I love you.”

  “This is not about love, it’s lovemaking. It’s pure sex.”

  By now he knew he was in trouble. She was clearly captivated by the idea.

  “I don’t want to sleep with anyone but you,” he told her.

  “Well, you can’t just watch. I mean you can, that’s part of the fun, but you also have to participate. I thought you’d love the idea.”

  “Well, I don’t. Why would I find it exciting to be in a room with strange naked men?”

  “My god, have you never heard of a Turkish bath?”

  “That’s a whole other thing. And I find a Turkish bath disgusting.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t love the idea. How often do you get an opportunity to have real group sex?”

  “I don’t want group sex.”

  “Why not? It’s exciting. To watch, to be watched, to have multiple partners, simultaneously, consecutively.”

  “You don’t have to explain what an orgy is to me.”

  “I thought you’d love the idea.”

  “Stop saying that. I love you. Sex between us is—I don’t know. Something sacred.”

  “Sacred? I’d hardly use the word ‘sacred.’ It’s not a religious ritual.”

  “No, but I don’t want to watch you with other men.”

  “You don’t find that a turn-on?”

  “I don’t like the idea that you want to have sex with other men. And in a group. That the whole idea doesn’t put you off.”

  “But none of them mean anything to me. It’s not as though I have emotional feelings for them. They’re strangers. Fresh faces. I always wanted to take part in an orgy.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. You look so stricken.”

  “I’m flabbergasted.”

  “Why? My god, I never thought you’d be so uptight about it.”

  “Well, then you don’t know who I am.”

  “I’m flabbergasted you’re flabbergasted.”

  “You want us to take part in an orgy?”

  “Yes. Yes. Stop repeating yourself. You’re like a shell-shock victim.”

  “Look, honey,” he said firmly, “we’re not going to any orgy. And I’m hurt that you want to, and just who is this guy in your acting class who invited you and clearly wants to get into your pants?”

  “A lot of guys want to get into my pants, but I’m with you. That’s why I said I’d have to take my boyfriend.”

  “I’m sorry, Lulu, we’re not going.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “You are? Without me?”

  “I want you to come, but I’m not going to miss it if you’re too scared to have an adventurous experience.”

  “Free-fall parachuting is an adventurous experience, but I’m never going to try that either. You’re nuts.”

  “Why? Because I like to try new things? I’m sorry, but I didn’t figure you to be so hung up.”

  “I would hardly call me hung up because I’m not into sex with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”

  “I’m very disappointed. I find it very off-putting.”

  “I can’t believe this. You can’t just up and go to an orgy without me.”

  “Then come. Don’t be such a priss. We’ll have fun. New people, new bodies, different desires. Why are you so frightened?”

  “Stop saying I’m frightened.”

  “I must tell you, I find your namby-pamby attitude very unattractive.”

  Sachs was dumfounded, lost. He was trying to reason with someone who could not see the logic of his position. The bottom line was she wanted to go, was going, with or without him. He tried to be super fair and asked himself if he was being small-minded and had a blind spot, but the cricket on his shoulder assured him that he was right and she was a wild thing. Am I a coward? he cross-examined himself. Was he a namby-pamby? A schlemiel? Was he too inhibited to burst the bonds of middle-class morality? Too scared to choose sexual freedom over convention? Too weak to go with Lulu to a bacchanale? Was he finally at heart a pharmacist? At that moment he sensed he was on the verge of losing a woman he clearly was not able to tame. He couldn’t bear the thought that she would want to go to an orgy, much less with or without him. Like with the tasting of the snail, she teased, cajoled, shamed, charmed him, and finally, against every molecule in his body that screamed no, he agreed to be a good sport.

  He was sick with tension when Friday night came and he accompanied her by cab to a townhouse on Morton Street. She looked like a zillion dollars, and, true schlemiel that he was, he wore a tie. She rang the bell, and a nice-looking young man came to the door, and she said she was Lulu Brooks and that Vic had invited her, and they were let in. In the deep background they could see a room with naked bodies messing around. A woman in a robe, half open so you could really see everything, gave them coat hangers and told them to hang up their clothes and that the drinks were over there and they should help themselves and the party was in the parlor. The parlor, she called it. His Aunt Sylvia had a parlor, but in it you had tea and prune Danish, not intercourse in a daisy chain. Lulu slipped off her shoes. Sachs was paralyzed. He couldn’t bring himself to remove a stitch of clothing or even loosen his belt or even untie a shoelace. He avoided glancing into the back room for fear he might see a naked man’s body and regurgitate his baked potato. Lulu was peeling off her blouse and pulling down the straps of her lacy black La Perla bra, oblivious of him as he edged toward the door and slipped out into the fresh night air.

  As he walked to Sixth Avenue where he would get a cab, he knew the movie that started on a bench was over. He had looked into her eyes too many times now and had glimpsed in their violet sparkle the rest of his life. What a last reel, he thought. This is not exactly a Hollywood ending. He hurried along. Fall was here early and with it coming attractions of winter nights. As he wandered toward the avenue, he passed the Minetta Lane Theatre. His play would open there, and soon rehearsals were beginning. He was reminded it still needed tweaking.

 

 

  Woody Allen, Zero Gravity

 

 

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