Free Going Down in La-La Land by Andy Zeffer Page A

everybody and behaving out of control.
    “ Yo! What up dude?” he’d yell down the hallways.
    With a grandma in some faraway state, the agency seemed to be his daycare while he was in LA. Now well into puberty and entering his teen years, this kid was on his way to having an impressive arrest record to go along with his acting career. Not that the agency cared; as long as he was bringing in money they’d put up with his antics.
    The cocky, aspiring actress who wore an annoyingly trendy choppy haircut and spoke with a squawky voice was almost as bad. She constantly hung around the office walking in and out of the place like it was her home, and it almost was.
    “ Hey baby!” she’d coo to the male agents, hugging them and smothering her breasts against them.
    “ Somebody get that girl a part on a location far away,” I told Kim after she passed by us the twentieth time in one day.
    By the third month of my being there Acclaimed Talent Agency was beginning to be the ninth circle of hell. Even in bed the words “Thank you for calling Acclaimed Talent Agency, how can I direct your call?” raced though my head like a reoccurring nightmare.
    What did I get myself into? I thought. The phones never stopped there. The headsets we receptionists wore seemed to congeal to your head. Was this what I went to four years of college for?
    “ Adam, can’t you at least try to become friendly with clients in the waiting room? Maybe you can get a job as an assistant or something,” Candy asked between puffs of her cigarette one evening when we were sitting out on her balcony.
    I had just finished my latest tirade about how intolerable life at Acclaimed Talent Agency had become.
    “ Are you kidding? I’m just a parking stamp or bottle of Pellegrino as far as they’re concerned. Besides, even if they cared to speak to me to begin with, we’d be continuously interrupted by my answering and connecting calls. Or getting rid of them, depending on what kind of freak is on the other end,” I said flatly while picking wax out of one of tens of cast iron candleholders placed around the terrace.
    “ I can see how that would be a problem,” she pondered, flicking her ashes over the railing. “What we really need are some mentors.”
    Candy was forever going on about mentors, and how it was really important to have an important role model in life. Her idea of an important role model was Sharon Stone or Cathy Moriarty, both of whom she was always thinking of trying to contact.
    Personally, what I felt I really needed was a few thousand dollars saved to give me a decent start on an apartment and time to buy to find a decent job.
    But coming to LA with less than $500 in my pocket hardly provided the luxury of time to seek out a rewarding job that actually led to a career. And with a one-hour lunch break that was strictly enforced, looking for something better seemed a near-impossible task.
    The temp agencies I called still made appointments for a week or two ahead. In New York I usually walked in or even went out for an assignment the same day I called. Everything in LA was a big production, even if it wasn’t showbiz related.
    In fact, any temp agency that took me would probably just send me out on a job like the one I had now, answering phones. Besides, some of the temping experiences I had in New York were just as scary as Acclaimed Talent Agency. And doing extra work seemed hardly in the cards for me either, as I called that stupid hotline at Central Casting all the time and they never had any work for my look or age range.
    As a matter of fact, Central Casting had only called me once in three months.
    “ Is this Adam Zeller?” a snappy voice called one day.
    “ This is him,” I answered.
    “ We submitted your profile to some show producers and they want to know if you are available for an audition in Santa Monica this Wednesday between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.”
    “ Is it for a speaking part?” I asked.
    “ No,” the woman answered