Storytellersunplugged

by Janet Berliner

We writers justifiably complain that we’re underpaid, undervalued, underappreciated–and we certainly are. National Geographic pays well. Reader’s Digest pays well. Porn pays with regularity. Playboy? Sure. But for the most part, if you ain’t a Biggie, you ain’t nothin’ at all. So, like lyricists turn to writing jingles, we supplement our incomes with writing-related jobs like editing, ghost writing, and working for ad agencies.

There’s a cute commercial for a certain credit card (sorry about the alliteration). After the commercial quotes the value of three different items, it shows the viewer a fourth–generally something that fits right in with happiness being a warm puppy. Then comes the tagline, which is inevitably something like: “Flying kites with your grandchild? Priceless.”

Those things, the ones that don’t carry a dollar sign, are the priceless perks that we so often fail to take into account when we total the plus side of the balance sheet.

In the mid-eighties, the owner of a boutique in Monterey offered to give me a pair of 1920s black satin shoes in exchange for a signed book; in 1989, in Tel Aviv, I swapped a book for a pair of earrings; a year later, on a Sunday, I locked myself out of my car in a mall in Oregon. The locksmith saw one of my books in the trunk and recognised my photo. He asked me to sign it in exchange for work done. Last week, the library of my High School in South Africa asked for a signed copy of a book for their library; yesterday, a man who came to measure a window in my house treated me with more than ordinary respect. I couldn’t figure out why until he said that he was a reader and had read everything of mine he could find.

Twenty years ago, a woman in Los Angeles sent me a copy of RITE OF THE DRAGON to sign because, she said, I had clearly modelled Negwenya, the dragon, on her.

Most significantly of all, more than one concentration camp survivor has thanked me for my Holocaust novel.

Priceless Perks.

But wait. There’s more. Like the people you would never in your wildest dreams have believed you’d meet, let alone with whom you’d work and socialize.

Here’s one example: In the early 90s, I wrote a proposal for an anthology and sent it to David Copperfield. I’m talking about the illusionist; I’m old, but not old enough for it to have been the other one. It was a really good proposal, but I put it on a mental back burner and began working on a new book.

Early one morning, I was awakened by a telephone call.

“Hello. This is David.”

“David? David Who?”

“David Copperfield. Get your tail over here. I’m ready to talk to you.”

My first meeting with David was interesting…in the Chinese sense of the word. He owns a massive converted warehouse on the outskirts of Las Vegas. At the time, it was fronted by a bra shop. In order to get into the inner sanctum, my assistant and I had to use a buzzer disguised as the right nipple of a torso displaying a teddy.

His bodyguard, a big ex-New Orleans cop, who really liked me and quickly became one of my favorite members of David’s large retinue, showed us inside. He was a member of the inner circle, in fact I remember seeing David borrow three hundred dollars from him to go to the movies, this although I had seen thousands in his wallet. Seems he and Claudia wanted to go to the movies “like normal people”. In their case, that meant buying every seat in the movie house, so maybe he did need the extra three hundred.

Back to the warehouse.

The downstairs is mostly offices and a huge conference room. The walls are plastered with photos of him at all ages and stages. Somewhere, there is a second hidden entrance to his Museum of Magic. Upstairs, there’s a tanning booth, a bedroom, an exercise room, a dressing room (his closet, then, contained dozens of black sweatshirts and black pairs of slacks, all identical), and a viewing room with plush leather sofas and chairs.

David was upstairs, leaning over what looked like an architectural design, a preliminary drawing for a new illusion he told us later.

He turned the drawings face down, stood upright, and gestured to the sofa with his oh-so elegant hands. All I could think of was that he looked like a young kid, tall, tanned, and very thin. He excused himself for a moment, then returned with what looked like a thick manuscript.

“Before we get started, read this and tell me what you think. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Five minutes! I saw my assistant and David’s look at each other and roll their eyes.

What David had handed me was a TV proposal that must have cost the offering company ten thousand dollars to put together. They wanted David, and wanted him badly. Fortunately, I had taught myself to speed read in college and, more fortunately still, I had time to spare before David returned because my analysis came to me well before I was halfway through.

The proposal was great, the TV show was interesting, but there was one thing glaringly missing. None of it seemed to me to have anything to do with the heart and core of David Copperfield.

Which is exactly what I said when he returned to the room and sat down beside me.

He took the proposal, tossed it onto a glass table, and said, “I agree completely. Now lets talk about what we’re going to do together.”

There followed discussions about the writers he wanted in the anthologies–I had provided him with an initial wish list in my proposal–negotiations between his people and mine, discussions with publishers, contacting some of the best known writers in this country, most of whom I had met personally, and warnings from his staff that I would never be able to keep him focused. Only two things mattered to him, they said: his work and Claudia Schiffer.

On the way out that first day, we were shown the part of the warehouse that was used for storage, with labeled containers stacked to the ceiling. David told me that, among other things, those containers held the very first magic trick he had learned, when he was eight and living in New Jersey. His mother told me later about the frequent long trips to replenish his supplies and buy new tricks. His father, always there when she was, smiled proudly and told me that he was the head of David’s fan club. That part of the warehouse was also used for building and storing his large-scale illusions. I started to run my finger along a blade of his fan illusion and he stopped me. “Want to lose fingers?” he asked. His assistant took two Polaroid photos of me being levitated by David and asked me to sign them. I said sure, “As long as David signs them, too.” David pointed at other such photos on the wall. “I didn’t sign any of those,” he said. “Tough for them,” I said. “That’s my deal.” He started to laugh. “I can see you’re not going to be easy, Berliner,” he said, signing the photos.

There’s a lot more to the David story, which will probably show up in its entirety as a chapter of RIVER OF STONES or as an Amazon Short. Here, I’ll add only this. Two years ago, after selling one of the anthologies to China, we redid the photograph and sent it to the Chinese publisher. They put it inside the book and had life-sized cutouts made and distributed around Beijing and other places where there were books.

Now I know that doesn’t pay the bills, but it sure is fun to contemplate.

It’s one of those Priceless Perks.