Meeting Manny Fox

So I of course knew nothing about Manny Fox the one and only time I met him; only years later would the obituaries inform that he was some sort of Broadway legend, a prolific producer who had worked with the likes of George Burns, Orson Welles, Barbara Streisand, Johnny Cash, Salvador Dali, Louis Armstrong, and etc, etc.

But then, I was only 19 after all, and a Mormon missionary in Puerto Rico.

I was in my first area, in the gorgeous coastal town of Humacao;  the F-14s still flew high over head to practice bombing runs on nearby Vieques ("Paz para Vieques" was a common tag on highway underpasses).  Puerto Rico is almost America in some places (Humacao alone had a Wal-mart, Chilis, etc), while almost third-world in others; for example, in the poorest part of Humacao, a small fishing barrio named Buena Vista, the chickens still wandered freely across dirt roads.

But like so much of Latin America, Humacao's poorest area was also next to its richest: in this case, a massive, expensive resort called Palmas del Mar.  While we visited Buena Vista all the time, I only made it over to Palmas del Mar a handful of times.

And with good reason: I was intimidated when I first entered!  The gated security, the opulent mansions, the Mercedes-Benzes, the dazzling displays of wealth--suddenly I didn't want to be there, I was uncomfortable, I felt like I didn't belong.  I went from feeling like I was condescending to the masses in Humacao to suddenly feeling way out of my league in Palmas del Mar.  Even after a group of us missionaries somehow talked our way past the front gate, I was still wary.  Nevertheless, I soon sucked it up and went out knocking doors.

As my companion and I walked in the sun, we approached an elderly gentleman in shorts, sandals, and a button-down guyabera, out on his morning constitutional.  He had a newspaper under arm and a coffee mug in his hand.  His fedora and sunglasses obscured his features, so I instinctively assumed him a Puerto Rican as I called out "Bueno' dia' señor."  Yet even as the words left my mouth, I spied not one but two fat cigars between his fingers.  This here was money.

I was paired off that day with a Salvadorean-American from Texas called Elder Rovira--he was very clearly Latino himself, which is relevant because this elderly gentleman replied in thick, New York English: "Well well well, looks like we got ourselves a pair of good Jewish boys preachin' the word today!"  Rovira and I glanced at each other, briefly baffled.

Before we could formulate a response, he barreled forward with, "Ya know, someone once said that the last good Christian died on the cross; that is, no one since--or at least not enough folks--have lived up to his teachings, so to speak.  What do you say to that?"

By then we'd recovered and fallen back on script: "Well, funny you should mention that sir, because we actually have a message to share about Jesus Christ today."

I guess he was game that day, for he shot back: "How fast can you give me this message of yours?"

"10 minutes," I blurted out.

"Can you do it in 5?" he said, as though we were giving him an elevator pitch.

Now I was game, and I like to think I half-smiled as I said, "You bet."

"Walk with me," he said.

Shortly thereafter, we were lounging in the shade of his car port (a peculiarly Puerto Rican affect), as he got on speakerphone with his secretary.  "Carol, I'm out here with--what's your names?" he asked.

"Well, I'm Elder Bender," I began, "and this is--"

"No, no, no, your names, your real names," he cut in, as though there is such a thing.

"Um, well, I'm Jacob," I stammered, which sounded so strange in my own mouth as a missionary--then I realized I didn't even know my companion's first name--"And, uh, I'm Frank," Rovira said, which marked the first and last time on either of our missions that we gave out our given names on a first meeting.

"Carol, I'm out here with Frank and Jacob," he said into his phone, "Hold all my calls!"  To this day I wonder if he actually had calls to hold, or if it was all just an act--and given his Broadway background, I wouldn't be surprised by either, or both.

I launched right into the same standard spiel I gave throughout all my mission--there is a God and Jesus Christ died for our sins so we could return to him--God has always sent Prophets to preach of Christ--one of those Prophets was Joseph Smith--and The Book of Mormon is evidence of this, and if your read it and pray about it, then you will know these things for yourself by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Truth be told, it was kind of exhilarating, even a relief, to be forced strip our message down to its barest elements, to cram it all in only 5 minutes.  Most of us missionaries back then (I was among the worst offenders at the time) were rambling on for 20 minutes at least, sometimes a full hour, on a first discussion.  The LDS Church was still nearly 2 more years from instructing all missionaries to teach only 10 minute lessons--and I was still several months away from realizing the same for myself, how I needed to get out of the way of the Holy Spirit and the peace which surpasseth understanding, the only thing that matters.

After that first flurry of preaching, the specifics of our encounter get hazy in my mind: I remember him cracking a couple jokes at our expense that we took in stride; him pressing us a bit as to the sincerity of our beliefs; yet over all in all it was a pleasant visit, he was good-natured (or at least bemused); and I like to think he was at least as intrigued by us as we were by him.

I can say that because I do remember at one point him locking his bright, piercing, intelligent eyes directly into mine (doubtless an intimidating tactic he'd used many times before), and me gazing right back.  Only years later did I realize that we all so rarely make real eye contact with each other, we almost never look directly into each other and not just at--hence, the few times it happens stand out all the more in memory.

In any case, he took this opportunity to network, as he asked us "if anybody in your organization is wealthy, has the big bucks?"

We initially thought he was maybe interrogating whether our Church membership really lives up to its ideals of Christian service and care for the poor (a valid question, frankly)--but no, he was looking for donors: "We here are trying get financing for Murderous Instincts, you see," he said as he handed me a business card that I only just recently realized I still have, "Our goal is to make it the first play to be fully produced here in Puerto Rico--to then go to Broadway--then on to Hollywood, Lord willing!" he continued, giving his sale's pitch, "'De aqui pa' Broadway y Hollywood--From here to Broadway and Hollywood.'  Lord willing!"

Then, I suppose to assure us he was on the level, he opened up the newspaper he'd had under his arm; it was the English edition of the The San Juan Star, for whom he wrote a regular column entitled "Diary of a Producer."  The press photo was the same as up above.  We were impressed.

Anyways, there were no follow-up appointments.  We did leave him a Book of Mormon, which he either threw away or stashed on some bookshelf--at least until his estate was executed (for time works immutably on both rich and poor), at which point it was then thrown away, or passed into the hands of someone else, for the Lord worketh in mysterious ways.  In the mean time, we shook hands and went our merry way.  At the time, the only lesson I took from the encounter was the realization that rich people are even crazier than Puerto Ricans--in fact, that I prefered the craziness of Puerto Ricans.  I left Palmas del Mar that day laughing, and was never intimidated by rich people again.

So why share this story, of my one unwitting meeting with an apparent Broadway legend?  Well, for one, it's an amusing anecdote, if nothing else--it has a pleasing Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon type vibe for me; secondly, it gives the lie to the ridiculous notion (still in circulation thanks to another recent Broadway production) that Mormon missionaries are somehow all sheltered, naive, inexperienced in the "real" world (a problematic term if there ever was one).  The sheer breadth and depth of humanity that your average Mormon missionary encounters on a daily basis is far wider than the typical echo-chamber most of us live in.

For aside from Broadway producers, I remember on my mission chatting amiably with gangstas visiting from Harlem who most assuredly would have stabbed me if we'd met in any other context; I witnessed drug deals, gun-shot wounds, car crashes, and police raids; and in the homes of the lonely and grieving, people in their vulnerability would open up to us with such astounding confessions of searing anguish, that we found we were far out of our depth to respond with anything other than lame offers of sympathy. 

Such was my mission experience that, years later as I graded the personal essays of community college students, I was merely saddened to remember, not surprised to learn, that there is such profound pain in every single person around us.  Sweet Mercy, are we all surrounded by pain!

In fact, I can't help but remember Manny Fox's opening salvo of "someone once said that the last good Christian died on the cross..."  I now know thanks to grad school that Mark Twain is who said that.  Now, like Kurt Vonnegut once said, there really are genuine saints out there, I've met them, they are real, there really are good Christians still.  But they are also rare.  And while at 19 I assumed that "the last good Christian died on the cross" was just standard atheist/agnostic snarkiness, now, the longer I live, the more I study and the more I see, the more I wonder if Twain wasn't in fact deathly serious--and if Manny Fox wasn't sincerely asking that bright sunny day.