HOLLYWOOD STUNT MAN by Joe Moler

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That's what they want from me. Those people back in the old country have gone completely nuts. They're warped. Not at all the same folks I left behind. And they even talk differently, and I don't get everything they say. But I would, I repeat, get some farm machinery and dig some irrigation canals. Vegetable patches here, there, everywhere, and all of it would be mechanized with push-button controls. The pumps start working, the water flows through the irrigation channels, eggplants and green peppers grow, and the cucumbers are not far behind. I could produce tons of produce and export it, too, because I'm drawn to farming, and it makes sense. I'm more preoccupied with farming than I am with anything else. Not only that, but I like to work, too, and I like to observe and watch how the plants grow, turn green, ripen, and become fragrant.... It's as if I were growing with them, and I feel happy; I enjoy myself and feel alive. I can't describe that feeling for you, that beautiful feeling. It's something catastrophically beautiful, unimaginable. The magnificent beauty of nature has got something to do with it, and sheer delight, too. But those folks back in the old country have forgotten what is good and beautiful, and what is not ... they can't tell the difference between night and day...."
Then silence reigned again. We were sitting in a remote corner of the church hall. A thick, roiling crowd surrounded us, and everyone was bumping into everyone else, recognizing each other and greeting one another, but Milan Radunovic just sat there, his face sunburned and deeply furrowed by wrinkles, just as if the irrigation canals of his native Morava had drawn the design of a garden on his face. He still resembled Charles Bronson, and he let his thoughts wander. He lit up another Winston and finished off his glass of rakija. I filled up his glass again. He paused as if he had taken his position on a starting line, then downed it in a single breath.
In order to lure him from his imaginary tomato and green pepper patches, situated somewhere in the gardens of his imagination, I asked him the same question I did every year. It was somehow unavoidable and — I myself don't know why — so intrusive. But, maybe it was serendipitous right now to ask a genuine question that would change the subject and deliver us from these wistful, rustic themes.
"Charlie, is it true that back in the Sixties in Hollywood you stole Charles Bronson's girlfriends away from him and that you signed checks with his name? I'm only asking because you're the spitting image of...."
Charlie was never happy about answering such questions, so I bit my tongue. It was too late to do anything about it now. He took a look at me, lowered his eyes to his glass of rakija, laughed in a melancholy way, and began the same story that he used to tell years ago.
"You know, Joe, I liked sending folks letters from Hollywood, and I sent them pictures of me with Bronson, Kirk Douglas, Doris Day ... but it wasn't what the folks in the old country thought it was. It was an all an outright lie.