Mickey Rourke put on his lucky pants. They were silk and looked a little like clown pants and they had a hole in the crotch that sometimes his balls fell out of. They also happened to be his only pair of pants. He looked at himself in the mirror. There was an old t-shirt wedged into the folds of his face. He pulled it out and put it on. It was an old Mighty Mighty Bosstones tour t-shirt. There was a time when he used to get invited backstage places. Then came the sad years, which was most of the years. But he could feel it coming back to him. Success. Cocaine gave him unreasonable confidence again, as opposed to bringing on long crying jags that would end with him destroying the few possessions he could still afford to rent from the R-A-C. People said his name without laughing again. A man on the street referred to him as “Mr. Rourke.” He liked the way that it sounded, and he said it to himself often. “Good morning to you, Mr. Rourke.” Or, “Would you like another ice cold bottle of Premium Budweiser, Mr. Rourke?” “Don’t mind if I do, Mr. Rourke.” He was drinking Premium Budweiser again. Out of bottles!

The phone rang. That had also started happening again.

“Hello?” Mickey Rourke said.

“Mickey, it’s your agent. I have a lot of big movie deals that I would like to discuss with you later this week. Let’s set up a meeting.”

“OK.” Mickey Rourke hung up the phone. A moment later it started ringing again. He picked it up. “Hello?”

“Mickey, it’s your agent. I thought maybe we could set up that meeting now? What’s a good time for you?”

“Oh, OK,” Mickey said.

“How about tomorrow at 1. How is that?”

Mickey hung up the phone and looked for a crayon and a piece of paper. The phone rang again.

“Hello?”

“Mickey, it’s your agent. Tomorrow at 1. What do you think, baby?”

Mickey gripped the crayon in his fist and wrote “1″ on the back of a copy of Hustler and hung up the phone. He injected some anabolic steroids into a thick vein in his groin, drank a fifth of Ketel One vodka that had come in one of those bags that people kept giving him at funny parties and drove to the Outback Steakhouse. It was 5:30 PM, time for lunch after all.

He slid into a booth and ordered The Melbourne, a 20 oz steak that the menu described as “like two steaks in one – a flavorful strip and filet tenderloin together, seared for a juicy tender taste.” The waitress brought it over with the extra bowl of butter pats Rourke asked for, and his gin and tonic. And his other gin and tonic. And his third gin and tonic. Mickey drank two of the gin and tonics right away. He was still dehydrated from the seven hours he’d spent at the gym this morning.

When Mickey Rourke finished his steak and was paying his bill he left a 10 percent tip. He could afford to be generous these days.