FEINBERG LIVES ALONE AND HAS NEVER MARRIED . Came close twice , he says , engaged to beautiful women , but never pulled the marital trigger . “ I think I ’ m pretty generous with my job time , but I ’ m selfish with my own ,” he says with a shrug . “ I like coming here , smoking a cigar , talking to Rusty . I don ’ t want to hear , ‘ When are you coming home ?’ I like my freedom .”
‘ Here ’ means the stables at Warwick ’ s Goddard Park , where he spends a lot of off time , and ‘ Rusty ’ is his horse . He had a blanket with horses on it as a kid , which still adorns his old bed at his childhood home , and jokes he got his affinity for horses through osmosis just lying under that blanket .
His first horse was Cruiz , and Feinberg rode him often , sharing cups of Del ’ s lemonade with the gentle beast , or just sitting with him at the stable . But Cruiz was severely injured in 2021 after being kicked by another horse , and after eleven years of companionship with Feinberg had to be put down . It broke his heart .
“ I really couldn ’ t do anything for months ,” Feinberg says . “ I was devastated . Worst day of my life .”
But then he got Rusty , saving him from the glue factory in Pennsylvania . Rusty has Sweeney Shoulder , atrophy from nerve damage caused from a previous accident , so Feinberg doesn ’ t ride him , but walks him casually through the trails of Goddard or just sits outside the stables and reads scripts and smokes cigars as Rusty happily nibbles grass near his friend , occasionally nuzzling his pal for a sloppy horse kiss . “ Rusty gave me my heart back ,” Feinberg says .
FEINBERG IS A MAN WITH , IT WOULD SEEM , limitless amounts of heart , a heart painfully displayed when driving around his old neighborhood for a stop at a memorial for his childhood friend and film buddy , firefighter Jim Pagano . The memorial is located near the back of the schoolyard field at Garden City School , where they played as children . There is a bench and an American flag . Here , he laughs recalling how Pagano got tagged with the nickname of Tin Man . “ They were touching up part of a fire engine [ with silver paint ], and Jimmy fell off a ladder ,” Feinberg roars . “ He got covered in silver paint !” His fellow firefighters branded him with the moniker .
Feinberg was a year older than Pagano , and calls him “ my kid brother ,” warming to the memories of his best friend , which included screening his childhood movies on the Pagano ’ s garage wall .
“ Jim would do whatever I needed ,” Feinberg says . “ He played an old lady in one film , a robber in another , the villain to my James Bond once . Always willing to jump in .”
They grew up in what Feinberg calls “ our ‘ Wonder Years ’ neighborhood ,” playing and watching sports , going to the movies , making the costumed Garden City rounds at Halloween . Pagano visited Feinberg in LA . And when Feinberg ’ s movie , Fortress , screened at Showcase Cinemas in Warwick , his figurative little brother was right there .
In 2008 , Pagano was hosting a birthday party for one of his kids when a ball they were playing with bounced into a cranky neighbor ’ s yard . The neighbor swore at the kids and kept the ball . Pagano knocked on the door to talk it over . The man came out with a gun , a fight ensued , shots were fired . Pagano lay dead in the streets of this otherwise idyllic neighborhood .
The media crush following the murder and trial was too much for the Pagano family . So Feinberg and other Garden City Boys stood on the family stoop fielding questions from reporters .
Sitting in Feinberg ’ s dirty black Z28 at the memorial , he is silent for a long time until he says , “ I was supposed to be at that party … but couldn ’ t make it .
“ I would ’ ve been there , I would ’ ve gone to that door with Jim ,” he says , eyes fixed on the memorial and far into the past . “ Or instead of Jim … I ’ d probably be dead , too . But I ’ d have been there — the way Jimmy was always there for me and everyone else .”
He shakes his head slowly and drives off down the familiar street into happier memories , like a sad movie taking a turn for the better .
AT LUNCH AT NEWPORT CREAMERY IN GARDEN City , he chats with people he knows and people he just met . He unfailingly turns every conversation into questions about how they ’ re doing , what ’ s happening in their lives , as if every encounter is a scene in a feel-good film .
He turns sixty this fall but doesn ’ t see himself leaving the job anytime soon — if ever . He has too much left to do , including building a film studio to bring even more movies to his state .
“ We ’ ll have equipment , offices , we can build sets , exteriors for movies ,” he says , eyes beaming like klieg lights bathing the skies above a Hollywood premiere . “ I want shovels in the ground in a year , maybe two .”
His dream isn ’ t about him , it ’ s more about the place he will likely forever call home . One late afternoon , leaving his office across from the State House , he stops and points to its dome .
“ Every day I come in , and every day when I leave , I look at that ,” he says of the Independent Man , gleaming gold in the day ’ s waning rays . “ I work for that ideal , the independent man . Not the people in that building . But the people of this state .”
If that sounds like Jimmy Stewart ’ s Mr . Smith Goes to Washington , written as Mr . Feinberg Goes to Hollywood , going west to pursue a dream and coming home with a piece of Tinseltown in his pocket to spread around like the Pied Piper of movies , he ’ s earned that right .
He wedges into the tiny driver ’ s seat of his car with the vanity plate “ RI Film ” and can ’ t help but think that could be the title of his life ’ s movie . Feinberg hollers into the Providence sky , “ I ’ m the luckiest guy in the world !” 🆁
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JUNE 2023 71