Easy to Like (3 page)

Thinking she was correct in her
assessment of the situation, “It's a great place you have here” was all Elliot
could think to say.

“Used to belong to some old Hollywood
director. You know, the communist. Pissed everybody off.”

“There have been a few.”

“I heard the story so many times that
I've forgotten,” Robin said. She was grasping her vodka in one hand and, with
the other, absent-mindedly brushing a nipple already hardened by wintry gusts of
conditioned air. Perhaps she had been making a pass back at Jerry's place after
all.

“It's a storied town,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It . . . it has a
lot of stories . . . in it. You know, a history.” Elliot
hadn't been laid in many months, and the last few exchanges, fraught with the
tension of a terminal relationship, had not been rewarding. Robin was
presenting. The prospect here was of sudden and meaningless gratification. There
was a vascular manifestation.

“I thought, when I came out here, years
ago, from Wisconsin, that it would be much more exciting.”

“I'm from Canada originally. When I
came down I thought the same thing.”

“Hardly anybody drinks
anymore . . . everyone goes to bed early. Lucky and I go to
parties, everybody leaves around ten o'clock.”

“Their bankers' hours are in New York,
so . . .”

“There's nothing they can do until the
overnights come in.” The comment betrayed Robin's age. “Why not relax, enjoy
yourself? Lying in bed at home worrying is not going to make people watch your
stupid TV show or go to your stupid movie.”

There was definitely something going
on, for now Robin was working the nipple, pinching and rolling it between her
fingers. Her long, pale coral nails were, if real, flawlessly manicured.

“There has always been a puritan
streak . . .”

“Elliot.” She put her hand up to stop
him speaking. A thought seemed to have come to her, something she had to say
before its sense was lost. “Can I . . . Well, listen, how
would you like to fuck?” She placed her tumbler on the coffee table and turned
around to face him, coming so close that he could feel her boozy fever. “I would
love to fuck.”

How many people had made such a request
of Elliot? Few. None so directly. Maybe good-looking lifeguards or firemen heard
it occasionally. Movie stars, even the B's, heard it. You got it on the other
side of the Hollywood Hills, in “Silicone Valley” (“Let's take it again, from
‘Fuck me, fuck me'”), but that was lazy writing.

Elliot was faced with one of the most
intractable of choices: that between fucking and eating, between screwing some
thriving producer's wife and the faint hope of working for the man. Elliot
thought of a starving, horny rat sent into a maze, the path to one side leading
to a mate, the other to a ration of feed. Today, facing, as he did, escalating
debts and a diminishing professional reputation, he first considered the pellets
of meal.

“I always like to fuck,
but . . .”

“I had some work done down there” — she
looked into her lap — “cosmetic, and this is the first day I'm allowed to test
drive it.”

“Unfortunately —”

“And like you said, even if you weren't
the most beautiful lover I ever had, I might think about you from time to
time.”

“I'd love to be in your thoughts,
Robin . . . and elsewhere, but —”

“Sex is tremendous for my
self-esteem.”

“Mine too, but I have an appointment,
with my agent, that I cannot break.” This was almost true. He did have an
appointment with Mike Vargas, his agent, though, given what Mike usually had for
him these days, breaking it probably wouldn't matter.

Robin snatched her vodka back off the
table. “See! This town is a total bore!”

“I really appreciate the thought,
Robin. Thanks for the drink.”

VARIOUS CUTS OF
what might have happened with Robin screened in Elliot's head all
the way to Mike Vargas's office in Century City. No matter how gratifying or, as
now, frustrating the experience, Elliot was left wanting more. He was closing in
on fifty and desperately awaiting some diminution in his drive. The infrequent
act wasn't such a problem, but the social theatre surrounding it wasted so much
time — to say nothing of the thousands of hours spent thinking about it. Elliot
was a creator, a man who made his living making things up; now valuable
imaginative resources would be blown on the what-might-have-beens with Robin.

He was dealt a red at the intersection
of South Beverly Glen and Wilshire. A long, tall white guy, a stork in a Speedo
and a muscle shirt, crossed the street, glassy eyes glowering at Elliot through
the windshield as he passed in front of the car. He mouthed something carefully,
and with deliberate menace. Was it “chaff”? Elliot saw, as the man stepped up
onto the curb on the other side, that he was wearing, for shoes, hollowed-out
loaves of bread. Dude was one of those . . . what did they
call themselves? “Farinists.” Elliot knew of them. They were holed up in a
compound in the hills west of Paso, near the site of the old Enredo Mission, not
far from his vines. They were rumoured to be armed to the teeth. The latest in a
line of apocalypse-hankering wackos, waving the Bible or the Constitution,
neither ever read, under your nose.

“
Hi, my name is
Stereo Mike
,” Elliot sang to himself. The Bran Van number. “
Hell Hey! L.A.! Hell Hell A! L.A.!
” Indeed, the city
was visiting more mockery and humiliation on Elliot daily.

How degrading to be so hard up for work
that you wouldn't put it in some producer's wife. This was a low point. He
needed a break, needed to get the fuck out of the industry town for a time, get
his head together. Maybe France, among like minds.

As he pulled into the parking lot he
saw Priscilla Smith emerging shoulder to shoulder with the director Dutch
Waggoner. Waggoner was nodding enthusiastically at something Smith was saying.
Waggoner was hot, Smith was hot, Mike represented both talented youths,
something was probably happening. Bastards.

Elliot resolved to ask why it was that
he was never part of some package deal.

“
Feelin' kinda
groovy, working on a movie!
 . . . 
Yeah, right
.”

“Because no one ever asks to work
with you,” said Mike. “There is no one to ‘package' you with.”

“Really?”

“You have to communicate your ideas to
producers and directors if you want them to become interested in your
script.”

“Directors,” said Elliot with disgust.
He looked around. Mike's agency had recently expanded into the adjoining set of
offices. Where formerly was a wall, shared with a dental surgeon (vibe
retained), there was now floor-to-ceiling glass, through which one could observe
Mike's ever-expanding staff of go-getters making their daily flatteries into
headsets. “You fixed up Dutch Waggoner with Priscilla Smith.”

“See them in the parking lot?”

“I've still got a few teeth in my head
and a few friends downtown.”

“Is that from
Citizen Kane
?”

“John Huston in
Chinatown
, but I don't think I got it exactly right. Yeah, saw them
in the parking lot. ”

“Dutch and Priscilla, they came to me
with the idea. They took the initiative.”

“They're young, they don't know any
better.”

Mike, while the same vintage as Elliot,
didn't look it. He was as spry as his buff new clients. Perhaps he was drinking
their blood to stave off aging.

“And it's not a film or show that would
interest you anyway.”

“What is it?”

“It's not storytelling, okay, Elliot?
It's high concept.”

Elliot started to speak but Mike cut
him off.

“Yeah, yeah, high concepts are for the
lower orders, you've said it a million times. Basically, Priscilla's thing, it's
competitive rehab for celebrities. But it's interactive. The audience can vote
and reward competitors with like a therapy session or methadone, or put hazards
in their way, like booze in the kitchen cupboards or a kite of blow on a night
table. It's interacploitation.”

“So . . . what?
They're filmed in their homes?”

“They live in a compound with
surveillance cameras everywhere. Same old same old. What is entertainment these
days, Elliot? Degradation and celebrity adoration. This has got both, in spades.
It's a market-savvy pitch.”

“How do you get away
with . . . ?”

“It's shot offshore, on a tropical
island . . . what's the place called? Primitive, corrupt
government . . . no American jurisdiction, no unions, and a
tax credit to die for.”

Washed-up celebrities battling it out,
their cringe-inducing meltdowns, the audience transference and
schadenfreude
 . . . it had a
chance. Elliot recalled the delight the press took in reporting his son Mark's
arrest on drug charges. A former child actor brought low, what sport that was.

“People are afraid of fiction these
days,” continued Mike. “I mean, if it works, they identify with the character,
they say ‘Hey, that could be me' — and that scares them. The thing that makes
reality programming so much more comfortable to watch is the fact that you know
that it's somebody
else's
reality you're watching.
Reality is for people who can't handle fiction — and that is mostly everybody.”

“I would have thought television had
all the reality it could handle by now.”

“It's not for television, Elliot. It's
a new platform. This is a hand-held show.”

“Hand-held?”

“Not as in hand-held camera; as in
hand-held devices. It's for smart phones and various micro and
mini . . . portable . . . thingies. I
saw a test on my watch.”

“How was it?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Picture quality an issue?”

“Quality is overrated.”

“‘Quality'
means
rated.”

“These are lo-fi times, Elliot. The
most important part of any program is that it is on somewhere. With hand-held
the shows are not only on, they are literally
on
the
audience. Increases the odds they'll watch.” Mike looked out the window, his
visage turning grave. “People have to scramble, client-o'-mine. The Internet is
destroying this town.”

“You sent the one-pager for
Nailed
to Fred over at
Litehouse . . . right?” Elliot wanted to change the
subject.

“I did.”

“And?”

“They passed.”

“Not even going to take a meeting?”

“No, they are not.”

“Did they give a reason?”

“They don't think
Brokeback
meets
Passion of the Christ
has an audience. They don't buy the whole gay Jesus thing.”

“Come off it, it is so obvious. In the
new draft Judas betrays him because he's insanely jealous of this thing Jesus
has with Mary Magdalene —”

“You've told me already.”

This was impossible, as Elliot had only
then made it up. There was no new draft.

“They think,” Mike continued, “and they
have a point, that it doesn't bring the Christian or gay audiences to the
picture, it manages to alienate both. And there was a question whether you were
the guy to write it.”

“Why?”

Mike wheeled his chair too far forward,
pressing his torso, about where the diaphragm sat, against the desk. He was
hurting himself. “You're not Christian, Elliot. You're not gay.”

“I can be gay for a studio green light.
I mean, what does it take?”

“There's also the issue of your
age.”

“My age? I'm forty-nine.”

“Shhhhh,” Mike waved his hands
urgently. “Increasingly difficult to pitch a twentieth-century writer.”

“What do I have to do to earn my
twenty-first-century cred, Mike?” Elliot was fucking around, but Mike looked to
be giving the question serious consideration.

“Become younger and more attractive?
Move to Laurel Canyon? Bring your dog to work?”

“Hilarious.”

“There comes a time after which plastic
surgery makes things worse.”

“Fuck Litehouse. Let's take the thing
to some hot young indie outfit.”

“Specifically . . . which hot young indie outfit?”

“What about Benny and Tara?”

“They're not indie. They sold out years
ago. Indie is just a step to . . . what's the opposite of
indie?”

“Dependent?”

“Then Tara is very dependent. She's an
executive in charge of production at Paramount now.”

“How many executives in charge of
production do you think there are in Los Angeles?”

“How many will take your call is a
better question. If there were ten thousand execs-in-charge, how many would take
your call, Elliot? You're becoming disconnected from the trade. You've got to
get out there more. People forget you fast in this town. Have you considered
joining . . .” Mike hesitated. “You know what is popular
now?”

“Surely the bloom is off Dianetecs.”

“Have you heard of Farinism?”

“The bread people? Tell me that's a
joke, Mike.”

“You're not networking enough, Elliot.
Not schmoozing. A lot of people are getting into this Farinist thing, you know.
Faranist writers are being attached to projects with Faranist stars and Faranist
directors. Priscilla was just in here with a bracelet that looked an awful lot
like a bagel to me. I'm just saying. They're into wheat, how scary can it
be?”

Elliot thought back to the loaf-soled
freak from the way over. Chaff? Elliot was “chaff”? That sounded anything but
harmless to him. Los Angeles would always have its Manson Families, its Jim
Joneses. Elliot needed a breather.

“The winery has taken all my time,”
Elliot said.

“Well, it can't take any more of
mine.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I represent
screenwriters, not winemakers. It means, unless something happens soon, I don't
think there is any point in us continuing. I don't represent hobbyists.”

“The winemaking isn't a hobby.”

“I was talking about your
screenwriting.”

“You're kidding, right? What does it
cost you to represent me? Nothing. It's all take, no give.”

“There are office costs.”

“Paper clips and photocopying?”

“My take of your give doesn't cover
those.”

Though he wished to tell Mike to go
fuck himself, he said instead, “Give me a couple of weeks.”

“I'm beginning to think you prefer not
working.”

Elliot looked at his watch. He had
another appointment to keep, at home.

Elliot had acquired the matrimonial
house, on Amesbury Road, fifteen years earlier. (Most of his scribe-tribe
fellows lived in Sherman Oaks, the other side of the hills. Elliot was thankful,
every day, that none of his neighbours were in show business.) He'd bought the
place outright with his fee from
A New Arrangement
,
a picture for which there had been great hopes. There was enough money left over
for the patch of old Zinfandel up in Enredo (only five grand an acre back then),
where he would plant his vines. It seemed then that things could or would only
get better. Contrary to common wisdom, no one appreciated, from the top of the
mountain, the height they had scaled. You only got it later, looking back from
among the bones in the stillness and heat of the valley floor. Hadn't Nixon said
something like that when he resigned?