Limo Scene

The view from the front seat

It's not as if I set out to intentionally deceive anybody. Not about who I am. Not about what I'm doing to get by the little stumbling blocks that happen to stand between being a limo driver and sometime in the future writing, directing, and producing my own feature films. But you know how people sometimes get just a little bit of the wrong impression about what it is you do? Maybe you gave it to them, maybe half of it's just that there's stuff about you they want to think and believe, and other stuff—which they won't always admit to—they don't. Anyway, I never made dead certain that my mother knew that being a chauffeur is my main source of income at this point in time. Somehow she thought I was some big-shot screenwriter with a house and a pool in Brentwood.

"You're the dumbest man who ever lived" is what my friend Dusty said when I mentioned to him that my mother was coming out to visit for a weekend and that I had answered yes when she asked whether she should pack her new bathing suit.

Dusty lives in a combination guesthouse and pool house and garage behind an estate that had almost been purchased once by Mike Todd. It has a pool. And a realspringy dark-blue diving board.

"There's no way I'm giving it to you and your mother," Dusty said. "Not if you gave me all your tips for a month."

"Come on, man," I said. And I sort of got into my squint.

Well, the weekend was no snap. Somehow my mother had an idea that I was a regular guest at Charlton Heston's house. But she had to content herself with wearing her formal gown to the La Brea Tar Pits.

It kind of tickled me to roll up Wilshire to the Tar Pits in a big Lincoln, with Dusty driving up front, and me and Mom sipping champagne in the backseat.

"Is this where they're going to make your movie?" my mother asked as we looked out on the tar pond. A replica of a daddy mastodon was stuck out in the muck, calling to the mama and baby mastodons for help.

"Maybe," I said. "The picture business works very slowly. The whole deal might not happen for another couple years."

The rest of the weekend we spent floating around the pool at Dusty's. I did a double flip off the board. Dusty served us pifia coladas and some of his special salsa. On Saturday night he brought back a tape of The Cannonball Run to screen on the twenty-seven-inch Sony.

By the way she patted me on the cheek at LAX, I was sure my mother had enjoyed her stay.

"I'll visit you around Christmas," I said.

"Whenever," she said. Then she sort of got into her squint. "You just keep trying," she said, squeezing my arm. "And remember—I love you, doodlebug."

They say there's no way to put a price on happiness. But I figure it's got to be worth at least six months of tips.

—Stretch