The International Writers Magazine: Reality Check

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PARKER POSEY STOLE MY CAR The Hazards of This Gig Come Home To Roost • James Campion Most times I do not take this column seriously. Some of you have noticed. Others get angry and call me names in print, which I relish. The best and the brightest get hammered in print. Ask Tom Delay. He was vilified in this space two weeks ago. I sent the damn thing to his office. No response. When I followed up they said something about spending all their time keeping him out of prison.

I understood implicitly. "We spend half our time getting into things and the other half getting out," I said. It was loaded wisdom. They agreed and excused themselves, and I told them to add the joke where it fits.

Anyway, we have fun here. I like it. Then other times it becomes serious, personal. Needless to say, I am sick of being sued or defending the first amendment in court. I just want to write, cash the check and go home to my wife and cats. Is that too much to ask?

Take, for instance, last Thursday, when I was doing research for a piece I’d been commissioned to write for New Jersey Monthly on independent filmmaking. I’m lazy, so I usually begin by picking the brains of acquaintances in whatever business I’m covering. Sometimes you get great stuff, inside info, because you don’t have to pry with friends. Other times you get taken advantage of, hoodwinked, sandbagged. This was one of those times.

So, the thing is, I missed my deadline for this paper last week because of the mishaps that resulted from this "assignment". It wasn’t even a column that was late to press. I was submitting the poorly edited rants you people send in the guise of "reader mail". But I could not get it in on time because my car was stolen on Second Avenue. Stolen by an actress. You may have heard of her, Parker Posey.

She’s been in some things. She was in "House of Yes" and she had a part in "You’ve Got Mail" and the lead in a few others. She’s in that Christopher Guest troop that does all those great satires on acting and folk music and dog shows. Anyway, she’s an acquaintance; some with lesser credentials might call a friend. But she is my enemy now. And if she doesn’t do jail time for this there will be trouble. I have friends in higher places than Hollywood. The hammer will have to come down.

At first, as in most cases with me, I figured the whole ordeal an oversight. She said she couldn’t find a cab. This is not news. People often say these things in Manhattan. They say them all the time. But then your car doesn’t usually disappear. I write "usually" because in the 1980s’ your car disappeared quite a bit. I lost two of them to chop shops and one rental to the brownies. But this is the new era in NYC. Lock down. The car, by all measures of logic should have been there. Now, my wife claims I told Posey to "have it back by two", as in two in the am, which is nonsense, because at this juncture for me to make it past eleven is pushing it these days. I wake up in cold sweats at 6:30 every morning, so burning late nights is out of the question.

Not to mention Posey is loaded. Come on. How much do you think she’s worth? Got to be a couple of million, minimum. Why would she need to pinch my Toyota RAV 4. I could tell she admired it. Although she had no problem spitting her sunflower seeds all over the floor and barking to me, "Why don’t you have this car cleaned, Campion?" It was a fair question, but hardly worth using in court as an admission of guilt. "I like black mini-SUVs" she noted later. I remember that. Once again, initially, I thought it the kind of things friends say. Idle compliment. Meanwhile, it turns out, she’d been eyeing the thing for years.
"Parker Posey?" the cop told me later that night. "She’s a huge car jacker."
"What is this, some kind of Winona Ryder thing?" I asked him.
"Worse," he laughed. "She won’t break down and weep and beg for mercy. She once whipped the keys of a bailiff’s Ford Explorer off the chest of a judge in Dade County, Florida."
"Isn’t that where they busted The Lizard King for flashing his pecker on stage?"
"Please, one loon at a time," he chuckled. "At least there wasn’t a kid in there." I knew better than to report this. Insurance fraud pays heavy penalties in this state. It was a difficult claim. Actress asked to borrow my car, and the next thing I know I’m checking into the Park Central at quarter to three in the morning with my wife standing on the lobby sofa demanding to see a vegan chef. Good thing for the venerable crooner from Brooklyn, Buzz. He saved my ass.
Finally, I received my car late Sunday. It was missing about 240 miles. The interior smelled of stale beer and the faint embers of soot. There was a note on the dashboard written in red lipstick.
CLEAN THIS FUCKING CAR.
I swear on the living soul of our holy mother of god, this is not over.
© James Campion April 11 2005
www.jamescampion.com


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