Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [64]
The Great Antonio, a Montrealer, was considerate enough to enclose an idea for a feature film with his letter.
BY THE GREAT ANTONIO MOTION PICTURE STORY — NO. 1
The Great Antonio is very popular and impression the whole world.
Antonio pulling 4 buses 70 tons — World Record.
Hold with his hands 10 horses.
Pull by his hair 400 people.
One Championship Wrestling match.
Also Love Story drama with an actress.
Reconciliation.
Finish with big parade in front of millions and millions of people. Downtown mainstreet of Tokyo, New York, also Rio de Janeiro, Paris, London, Rome, Montreal, and all major cities in the world.
The Great Antonio arouses the curiosity of the whole world. The film will be big record success because all the people of the world like to see The Great Antonio. The film will cost one hundred million dollars, and will take two years to make. It will bring in between five and ten billion dollars. Everybody in the world wants to see The Great Antonio with his mysterious strength. The Great Antonio is invincible. The Great Antonio write the story and will direct The Great Antonio film.
THE GREAT ANTONIO REAL GOLDEN MINE.
Totally Unnecessary Productions Ltd. 1300 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, QUE H3G 1J4 Canada Oct. 5, 1995
From the Desk of Barney Panofsky
Dear Great Antonio,
It is with deep sorrow that I must turn down your blockbuster idea, the most exciting I’ve seen in years, but ours is too modest a production company to do justice to it, and it would be selfish of us to hold you up. However, I have had a word with my good friend Bobby Tarlis, of The Amigos Three Company in Toronto, and I have never heard him so enthusiastic about a project before.
In the fond hope that I can be a midwife to this amazing venture, I am enclosing a cheque for $600 to cover your return airfare to Toronto, and other incidental expenses. The Amigos Three address in Toronto is 33 Yonge St. Don’t bother to phone ahead. Bobby is expecting you. The sooner the better, he said. Oh, and I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Bobby is the former Hungarian amateur wrestling champion, and he has bet me a considerable sum that he can take you two falls out of three. I’m betting on you, Antonio, so don’t fail me. Immediately you enter his office, try him on a drop-kick. He’d love that. Good luck.
Respectfully,
BARNEY PANOFSKY
At five p.m. I looked in at Dink’s and lingered too long at the bar, moving on with Hughes-McNoughton and Zack Keeler, the Gazette columnist, to Jumbo’s and, in the early-morning hours, to a blind pig that Zack knew. Sean O’Hearne once told me, “In the old days, when we wanted to know where the illegal booze boxes were, we used to sit in our unmarked car waiting for Zack to stumble out of Jumbo’s, and then we’d follow him to wherever he was heading. Bastard always had a nice bit of stuff with him. How does he do it, eh?”
“He does it,” I said, “by being an uncommonly attractive man. Astute. Witty. Things beyond your grasp.”
But that evening Zack, just back from a quick trip to Toronto, a gig on CBC-TV, got on my nerves. He had run into Miriam and Blair at a party. “You’d have us believe Blair’s an unredeemed bore. Okay, levity is not his problem. But I liked him. If he was such a nerd, what would a woman like Miriam be doing with him?”
“How was she?”
“In terrific form. You know, very funny in that understated way of hers. But she isn’t wild about Saul’s new girlfriend. ‘He’s drinking out of a used cup,’ she said. And she even worries about you. Your children say you’re drinking too much. Shame on you.”
It must have been four a.m. when I got home, two hands required to fit my apartment key in the lock, but I woke up early all the same, adjudging Tuesday a write-off. So I decided to show the Daddy flag, devoting my day to doing a round-up of the Panofsky progeny. I started with Mike. His secretary said the family had gone to Normandy for the weekend. The weekend? It was only Tuesday. A long weekend, she said. A British weekend. Next I rang Saul.
“Oh, my God, it’s not