Authors: Joe Keenan
“Assault!” shouted Lily.
“More like attempted murder!” cried Gilbert.
“You all saw that!” declaimed Diana, and Moira said she’d gotten a picture on her camera phone.
“You keep your filthy hands off him!” said Billy, fearlessly leaping between his father and the fallen star.
As he knelt and helped Stephen to his feet, Gina, who’d been looking a tad bilious since Stephen had addressed Billy as “darling,”
rose and announced she was going to be sick. Grimes, remarking that she wasn’t the only one, said that Dottie would see her
to the ladies’ room. Diana volunteered to accompany her, though I sensed from the leery glance she and Stephen exchanged that
she was less concerned about Gina’s well-being than the risk of her buttonholing the first stranger she met and wailing, “My
husband cheated on me! WITH A MAN!”
With the ladies now gone Stephen and Billy sat boldly together on the couch, Stephen rubbing his jaw as Billy rested a comforting
hand on his knee.
“I know you’re upset about this, Dad, but you have no one to blame but yourself! You’re the one who brought us together!”
“You’re blaming this on
me?!
”
Billy explained that they’d met at the bar the night that Rusty had traded barbs with us. Billy, embarrassed by his father’s
rudeness, had introduced himself and apologized. Then, said Billy, I’d left and he and Stephen had talked more.
“We felt this immediate attraction.”
“Instant!” agreed Stephen. “Which was really weird for me ’cause I’d never been with a guy before —”
“Phmph!” said Lily, covering her mouth. “Sorry. Go on.”
Billy, his powers of invention honed by years of Stephen-themed fantasies, sweetly unfolded the tale of their brief, idyllic
romance. He spoke of their great love, their unquenchable physical passion, and many shared interests and beliefs. The need
for secrecy had, of course, been paramount, and they’d had trouble at first finding safe places to meet. This problem was
solved by the genially discreet Moira, whose spa’s treatment rooms provided ideal trysting spots.
As Billy spoke we all listened with gently sympathetic smiles, save, of course, for the Grimes boys, who could not have looked
queasier had they been watching a male-to-female sex change on the Surgery Channel. But their disgust didn’t faze Billy. Nothing
could mar his rapture at sitting thigh to thigh with his dream man, spinning stories of their love and hearing each detail
tenderly corroborated.
“I was so excited for Stephen ’cause I was sure he was going to win an Oscar for
Lothario
. Remember?”
“You always believed in me, Billy.”
“Whenever I’d tell him that, he’d just look at me and say, ‘You’re my Oscar, Billy. You’re the only prize I want.’ ”
It was this remark that had inspired Billy’s idea to surprise Stephen by showing up for a tryst costumed as an Oscar. Knowing
that Moira had security cameras, he’d asked her to film this encounter, claiming he wanted to present it to Stephen as a keepsake.
The truth, he sheepishly conceded, was that he’d wanted it for himself.
“You see,” he confessed, eyes misting at the memory, “we knew by then we’d have to end it soon. Stephen was married. The scandal
could’ve ruined his whole career and I loved him too much to let that happen. We finally said goodbye after he got nominated.
The attention was so crazy by then we’d have been nuts to think we could keep going and not be found out.”
Not long after they’d parted, explained Billy, he and I had met for drinks. He’d talked about the affair (which I, of course,
knew of, having been under the table) and unwisely mentioned his filmed memento. Agog, I’d begged to see it until Billy, less
wisely still, relented. We watched it on my laptop, and unbeknownst to Billy, I’d copied the file onto my hard drive.
“So you could blackmail Stephen!” accused Rusty.
I maintained, blushing prettily, that my motives had been purely recreational. I then confessed that I’d later loaned my copy
to Monty, who, most foolishly of all, had screened it for Rex.
“So there you have it,” said Claire, summing up for the jury. “No prostitution, no extortion — just a star-crossed romance
and a very personal keepsake passed around a damn sight too freely.”
“Chin up, old man!” said Monty, giving Rusty’s shoulder an avuncular pat. “We know this is quite vexing for you, as witness
your face, which resembles a bowl of steaming borscht. But do try, if you can, to learn from your error. This all might have
been avoided if you’d been less hidebound on matters of sex and raised your son in a loving, broad-minded home — one in which,
if asked how his weekend had gone, he’d not have hesitated to reply that his tips had been sluggish but, on the bright side,
he’d done it with a movie star. I hope this experience will open a dialogue that in time may—”
“Fuck off, you snotty old queen!”
“Ah, well. Baby steps.”
“So that’s it, huh?!” sneered Rusty, his jowls gratifyingly aquiver. “You think I’m just going to buy all this crap and let
you waltz out of here?”
“You’d better,” warned Billy. “Because if you arrest
any
of my friends I’ll go downstairs and tell that whole mob how you squandered thousands in taxpayer money in a dumb-ass effort
to frame my boyfriend!”
“And we don’t want that!” yiped Stephen.
“No,” Claire said to Rusty. “No one does, least of all you. If this comes out you can kiss the governor’s mansion goodbye.
The last thing your party wants is a candidate mired in scandal—or a bumptious oaf who set out to uncover a crime ring and
found nothing but his own son in a gay love nest. Which is why I doubt you’ll be charging these two for their little caper
with Rex. Not when they’ll be forced to defend themselves by explaining they were trying to keep him from exposing your son’s
affair with Stephen.”
“You’ve got it all worked out, don’t you, Missy!” said Rusty, spittle flying, as Prudence Gamache would have observed, from
his enraged, incensed, livid, furious, unhappy lips. “Well, what if I just don’t buy it? Huh? What if I think the whole story’s
one big fat lie?”
“Well, in that case,” Claire said blandly, “we’ll show you the DVD.”
I gasped and my eyes swiveled to Stephen.
Speaking strictly as Cavanaugh the historian, I confess that the greatest challenge I’ve faced in recounting this tale is
that, in the course of it, both I and the other dramatis personae suffered so many abrupt and hair-raising reversals of fortune
that the further along I get the more I fear I’ve exhausted the vocabulary of rude surprise. I assure you though that at no
point in the whole harrowing journey was anyone quite so unhappily startled as Stephen was by Claire’s breathtakingly casual
offer. He rocketed from his chair like a pilot from an ejector seat and his face was that of a man struck by lightning while
eating a bad oyster.
“
WHAT?
HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?!”
“I know you’d prefer not to, Stephen, but if it’s the only way to convince them—”
“You can’t!” thundered Diana. “The film doesn’t exist! The copies have all been destroyed!”
“Not mine,” said Monty, winning a fond look from sis.
“It’s not like they’ll show it to anyone,” argued Billy, the complete altruism of whose motives I was beginning to question.
“You brought it
with
you?” marveled Hank.
Monty explained that no, we did not have a copy immediately at hand. Billy, determined to protect Stephen, had destroyed his
own. The sole remaining disk was the one he’d borrowed from me and he’d sent it to a friend in Key West for safekeeping. He
could have it Express Mailed back today and have it on Rusty’s desk by noon tomorrow. Would that be satisfactory?
Rusty, who’d sooner have identified his son in a morgue than in a skin flick devoid of ladies, just glowered murderously at
the grinning dandy. His brother placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “You don’t have to watch it, Russ. I’ll check it out.”
“How will you even know it’s my kid under that kinky fucking mask?!”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Billy. “I only had the mask on when I first walked in. I pulled it off right away so Stephen
would know it was me. From then on I had it off the whole time.”
Billy turned and beamed at his once and future lover.
“Right, hon?”
“Of course, dear,” muttered Stephen, somehow managing a wan smile. Gilbert, Monty, and I discreetly exchanged a wry glance,
for we knew that beneath the smile he was positively seething with resentment.
One understood, of course. If there’s one thing self-important film stars loathe it’s reshoots.
T
HOUGH
I
HAVE SPARED FEW KIND
words in this account for my rival Gina, I must concede that at close of day, when there was nary a centimeter between our
backs and the wall, she proved herself one heck of a good sport. She did, of course, display a pardonable lack of enthusiasm
when first asked to wait patiently in the wings while her husband was humped to a fare-thee-well by a gilded bartender, then
enter on cue to reprise her role as a clueless cuckold. But once Claire had helped her grasp the full ghastliness of the alternatives,
she relented and signed on for the remake. She did, however, inform Stephen that the magnificent diamond-and-sapphire choker
she’d been loaned for the Oscars would not see the inside of Buccellati again.
Securing Gina’s cooperation was but one of several hurdles that faced Finch/Donato Productions’ freshman effort. Ricky the
masseur had to be located and bribed handsomely to reprise his role, sans the sex this time. The most daunting challenge though
was the one posed by Rusty’s unfortunate possession of an audio copy of the original. It meant that the new production had
to be lip-synched to Monty’s copy, and lip-synched flawlessly, as any mistake would expose it as a redo. So our little band
of players had to speedily memorize not only the dialogue but the precise timing of it as well.
Stephen and Diana, seasoned pros that they were, rose masterfully to the challenge, and Claire and I, after much rehearsal,
acquitted ourselves competently. Gina, by contrast, was quite undone by the whole lurid undertaking and teetered constantly
on the brink of maudlin hysterics. The lip-synching defeated her entirely, especially at the point where she had to banter
lightheartedly about Stephen’s keen longing for an Oscar. Claire finally solved the problem by blocking the scene with Gina’s
back to the camera.
There was concern as well over Billy. We’d scripted a brief coda for him and Stephen in which they ruefully acknowledged the
madness of their affair and vowed to break it off. Billy had only acted once before when, as a sophomore in high school, he’d
assayed the role of Bud Frump in the musical
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
, delivering a performance that landed him firmly in the chorus for the remainder of his career there. We took heart though
from his more nuanced work in Rusty’s office and hoped that the presence of cameras would not unnerve him.
O
UR SHOOT BEGAN AT
two a.m. Saturday on what was arguably the most closed set in film history. We rolled sound and began with Ricky’s now PG-rated
massage. Stephen’s moans sounded less libidinous when heard against the visual of Ricky digging an elbow into his shoulder
blade. Ricky backed off on cue, teasingly informing Stephen that someone he’d be “glad to see” would be taking over. He then
opened the door to Oscar, whose costume was now accessorized with little gold shorts. His predecessor, you may recall, had
entered exposed and ready for immediate boarding. We felt this priapic approach was out of keeping with the remake’s more
romantic tone and, worse, made Ricky look like a pimp and not, as we preferred, like some discreet and worldly sexual concierge.
We carefully timed Stephen’s stoned burst of laughter to come immediately after Oscar removed his mask, revealing Billy’s
smiling face. Ricky withdrew with a continental wink and only then did the shorts come off.
Though Stephen had to stay in sync with the sound track, Billy’s lack of dialogue permitted him more leeway to reinterpret
the role. The first Oscar, in keeping with his featureless mask, had performed like some exotic sexbot. Billy was more tender,
kissing Stephen as often as the sound track allowed. The most crucial difference though was that Billy, unlike his forerunner,
knew he had exactly six minutes and twenty-two seconds before pencils down and if he meant to finish he’d better bear this
in mind. Finish he did, bringing Stephen to climax as well, as he has since remarked on times without number.
“Fear not! Cavanaugh’s here!” I mouthed, bounding up from below stairs and tossing a towel to the panting and red-faced Stephen.
Billy took his place under the table, Stephen rolled tactfully onto his stomach, and I admitted Gina. Her performance, seen
only from behind, required little of her beyond some appropriate hand gestures; her face, unseen by the camera, scowled ferociously
at Stephen even as she uttered endearments to him on the sound track. Diana entered and flawlessly re-created her drunken
outburst; Claire arrived next, discovered Oscar, and escorted the ladies out.
That was where Grimes’s audio ended. I stayed behind to apologize to Stephen and Billy for my unseemly presence, explaining
that I’d been hiding from the libidinous Monty. I left and then Stephen and Billy played their brief touching farewell, a
scene for which Billy had no problem summoning real tears.
Moira yelled, “Cut!” then retired to her sanctum to view the results and mix the sound. Stephen and his kin fled the spa with
nary a goodbye, a move that was highly if absurdly disappointing to Billy and me.
“What were you expecting?” Claire asked incredulously. “A
wrap
party?”
The three of us and Gilbert retired to the bar for a much-needed drink while Moira burned a DVD for us (no doubt making several
backups for personal use). Gilbert and I delivered the disk to Monty just after five a.m. We screened it and agreed the performances
and timing were first-rate. Though I, for understandable reasons, will always prefer the original version, I could not deny
that the new finish gave it a poignancy the Cavanaugh ending had lacked.