Smaller in Person

As if I could point power out and frame it, describing it in detail, as to paint the picture for latecomers. How do you size up your heroes? He was slovenly, frankly. Shorter than me and tired looking. With a hundred million dollars in the bank, easy, he spent nothing on his appearance.

I looked down, as if the ground was the most interesting thing in the elevator, which is what people do. You get in and the doors close and you set up you sights toward a barren target. Some would face corners, others the floor - but all with fixed, unshaken stares dead on no one.

But here I was, gaze cast downward standing next to the legend. Maury Steeple produced the highest grossing comedy and a black and white subtitled drama that won Best Picture - and not in the foreign film category - all in the same year. This year. As opposed to last year where he won the Palm d'Or at Cannes and executive produced an Emmy-award winning documentary on paraplegic prostitute Christians. And we were on a long ride down to the lobby from way up top. Here I have the most valuable thirty seconds I've ever encountered and my polished screenplay is in my messenger bag. Maury was the kind of producer that didn't need to worry about anything but the concept. He could get the star, the money, the distribution. All he needed was the idea and the will to make it and it was done. It could work.

"Bong!"

Thirty floors left till the lobby. He shifts lazily, crossing his arms and exhaling. He looks disappointed somehow. If I approached him honestly, I imagined he would appreciate my candor. I expected this wasn't a novel situation for him. Everyone in the building has a script. But I wasn't everyone and I'm never in this part of town. He could tear up my script and dance on it all the way to the lobby. But as the elevator doors glided open and he shuffled across the floor and out the front doors to meet someone who was juggling calls on two cell phones, big black sunglasses and a packed tote, my fantasies of how I'd approach him went from how I will to how I would. To how I should have.