R
oi’s old friend from the army, Tal, had been an actor before he got religious and now he wanted to make another film and wanted Roi to do it. An action flick. Tal checked with his rebbe in B’nai Brak and it was all right.
“Whoa, man. Looking like that?” said Roi, waving at Tal’s face—the beard, the peyis spiraling down over his ears, the black kippa. They were at a café on Sheinkin. It wasn’t certified kosher but you couldn’t traife up espresso beans.
Tal had an answer ready right away. He said the movie would be about a former con man who’d found God but was dragged back into crime by his former con man buddies to do one last heist. So he does. It goes wrong and he goes to jail. Or maybe it goes right and he makes off with a pile of stolen cash. Tal hadn’t figured that part out yet.
“How can you make a flick like that?” Roi said. “It would have to have some cheesy ending where the guy sees the light again and gives it all back and comes to his knees in repentance. It’ll be terrible. Shit. I can’t direct shit like that.”
“No, no,” Tal said. His eyebrows were thickly bunched in concentration. Roi hadn’t noticed before how hairy Tal’s eyebrows were. Maybe because now there was so much additional hair in the same neighborhood. “It’ll be a real heist movie with a real heist movie ending. Prison or victory. The fact that the guy’s religious will have nothing to do with it. He’ll just be like all the other scumbags and thieves, only with”—he waved at his face—“this.” He paused. “What?” His dark eyes looked hard into Roi’s. “I’m not asking to film my life questions. No deep meaning here. I promise.”
Support fine writing:
SUBSCRIBE to NER!