Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (27 page)

Except Terry Dills didn't make it down. He had a rewrite
for a hot new writer/director named Jake Pyne. Pyne specialized in yuppie thrillers. This one was a story of not-so-nice
yuppies being attacked by their own greed in the form of a
satanic insurance salesman. Very upscale horror. Terry had a
Thursday deadline and no time to party.

"But enjoy, Johnny. Everything's good, right?"

"Oh yeah, great, bro," Johnny said. "Love this place."

But in truth, he was feeling a little bit lonely. After all, he
wasn't exactly freaking Siddhartha. A week or so was all he
could take of examining his inner being. He had to face it, the
inner guy wasn't all that well developed anyway.

Sitting alone for a few more days might make him go into
another nosedive, one even worse than when they'd tossed
him off his own show. Christ-what the hell was he gonna
do?

Then he remembered something ... the basketball court,
only a few minutes away. Yeah, he could get down there, shoot
some hoops, nothing like the camaraderie of the ball game.
Maybe he'd even make a few new friends. People not in the
freaking business.

He ran into the bedroom and changed into his Nikes.
He had that feeling inside ... the one he'd had as a kid. He
couldn't wait, man. Let this old Baltimore East Coast boy
show these O.C. guys how to jack it up.

A few minutes later he was running down the street,
bouncing his ball. Just like a happy kid. Not a care in the
world.

The court, which was only two blocks from the ocean, was
just as cool as he'd imagined. The rims were new and they
actually had fresh twine up there. When you played street
ball back in N.Y.C. or Baltimore, you NEVER had a net up
there. Well, that wasn't quite true. You had one for about five
minutes until one of the players decided to take it down and
put it up somewhere closer to his 'hood.

Man, these ballers from Dana Point were polite.

But they could play. There were some big white boys, two
who wore UCLA letter jackets, and another one-a Czech
named Toni-who had started at Pepperdine. They could run
and shoot, but they played a West Coast finesse ball. More
about speed than rebounds, muscle, or trash talk. All three of
the guys were in their late twenties, and in law school. In between plays and during water breaks they talked about mak ing partner at Jones Gray as soon as possible. Turned out JG,
as the blond guy Mark said, was paying, "$160,000 for firstyear employees." The other two guys nodded and Toni added,
"Why I love America." They all laughed at that.

All but the fourth guy, a big wide Italian guy named Eddie Ivarone. Eddie wore painter's pants-not retro painter's
pants that you bought at Old Navy but real ones covered with
real paint. This was because Eddie was a housepainter. He
was working on a condo unit right nearby, he explained, down
near the lighthouse. He didn't live that close, though.

"My pad is over in Mission Viejo," he said. "Drive over
here to show these yuppies who is really the court king."

The three law students laughed a little, and one of them,
Joel, another blond guy with a space between his front two
teeth, patted Eddie on his wide shoulders. "He's a beast," he
said in a slightly patronizing way.

Right away Johnny liked Ivarone. Even just shooting
around, he knew Eddie was the kind of guy who would be a
workhorse under the basket, dig out the rebounds and pass to
Johnny to pump it back up. Eddie had a friend with him too,
a short guy with a bald head named Stenz. Stenz didn't say
much but Johnny recognized the type. Catholic kid who was
fast and tough. Maybe the three of them could give the taller,
sleeker lawyers a good game.

The first few games of three-on-three half-court ball didn't
start that way. The three ex-college players had obviously
played together for a while. Their passing and teamwork were
excellent. They played without any noticeable emotion, just
efficiently, and effectively. In no time at all the first two halfcourt games of 15 were over, and the scores weren't pretty.
15-5, 15-9, and 15-10.

Johnny, Eddie, and Stenz were improving, but not by that
much. Then Johnny had an idea.

He called a time-out and brought his team over to the
water fountain.

"We're guarding the wrong guys," he said. "Eddie should
be on Toni. He's their scorer but you can muscle him outside.
If he drives, I'll give you help. Stenz, you wait in the middle for
the kick-out pass. When it comes, grab it."

The two housepainters looked at one another and
shrugged.

"What the fuck?" Stenz said. "I'm up for it."

They went back on the court with their new defensive
lineup, and the results were stunning. With Eddie's big body
on him, Toni couldn't get underneath. He had to shoot outside, and just as Johnny had predicted he was mostly short
with his shots. Without their driving attack the three lawyers
started gunning from long range. They missed shot after shot,
and lost 15-7.

Johnny felt good about the win, especially his part in figuring it out. But Eddie and Stenz were ecstatic. They trash
talked the lawyers, who took it all with a grain of salt, or at
least pretended to.

After gulping down some more water, the six guys played
again. This time the three grad students worked harder, and
came closer. But a beautiful pass from Eddie to Johnny under
the bucket, threaded right through two other players, set up
the winning score, and Johnny didn't miss.

Once again, Eddie and Stenz carried their celebration
to the extreme, but Johnny got a kick out of it. The lawyers
seemed like the passionless guys who would probably end up
working in property law or corporate tax write-offs.

So he was happy to win, and even felt better for Eddie and Stenz, working guys who probably spent most of their lives on
the short end of the stick. It was nice to see them celebrating,
even if Eddie was carrying it a bit over the top.

By the end of the long day, Johnny was happy he had
come. It'd been a really good afternoon, and he felt fulfilled.

He started to say goodbye to everyone, when Eddie put
his arm over his shoulder.

"Hey, man let's not break up the team yet."

Johnny was touched by the bigger man's obvious affection.

"Sorry, I haven't played for a while," he replied. "Gotta
watch the knees."

"No, no, no," Eddie said. "I'm played out too, but we
oughta get its some beers. There's a place not far away, off
Harbor Drive. Called Minelli's. Great subs, pizza, pasta. Let
me and Stenz buy you a cold one."

Johnny was going to say thanks but no thanks. As much
as he'd enjoyed playing with these guys, he wasn't sure he
wanted to spend the evening with them. Still, he didn't
relish going back to Terry's house and staring at the moon
again.

"Okay, I'll come down for a little while. Can't stay out too
late, though. Got work tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's fine, bud," Eddie said. "A couple of brews
and we're on our way home. Leave your car here. We'll get
you back."

Johnny was going to say no to that too. He wasn't at all
sure he wouldn't feel trapped by these people ... but what the
hell, he didn't want to be a snob. After all, they had been a
great team.

"All right. Why not?'

"All fucking right!" Eddie said, scratching his five-o'clock
shadow. "The team endures."

"The Big Lebowski," Johnny said. "You guys like that movie?"

"Like it?" Eddie Ivarone said. "We are it."

They all laughed at that one and then walked over to
Eddie's primered 1971 Dodge Super Bee.

"Hop in the trusty chariot," Eddie said. "Cause this is the
way we roll."

The pizza place was exactly as Johnny had imagined it, dark,
wooden booths, pitchers of beer, and mediocre pizza. There
was a pool table and a jukebox, and a small bar with five
stools. In short, a dump, the kind of place Johnny had hung
out in when he was a kid in Baltimore. The kind of a place
he'd wanted to escape from. But today, saved from the agonies
of solitude, Johnny decided to embrace Eddie and Stenz, and
have a good old-fashioned drinking session, with pitchers of
beer and discussions of old-time TV shows, and after a few
rounds, a little singing along with the jukebox. It was all great
fun, and soon Eddie's girl came by, an attractive, if slightly
sluttish woman named Connie. She had short blond hair, and
a long, sexy body which she poured into tight jeans and an
Oakland Raiders T-shirt.

She was a waitress at a nearby Denny's, and when she
smiled she showed a little too much gum, but she was fun,
warm, and liked Johnny right away. He could tell because
when he got around to mentioning what he did for a living,
the two men were impressed: a TV producer.

"Whoa, Eddie, do you know what we have here? A real
Hollywood celebrity. Man, are we lucky or what?" she teased.

Eddie and Stenz looked at Johnny to see how he would
respond to her baiting, and when he laughed and wagged a
finger at her, they were relieved, and began doing their little
Hollywood routine too.

"Oh, I'll have the cafe con leche jamba juice with the cappuccino latte," Eddie said.

"Yeah, and I'll have the profiterole with a side of endive
gooseberry ... whatever," Stenz added, not quite able to pull
off the joke.

"You got me," Johnny said. "Guilty as charged. Just the
other day I ate a fig tart for breakfast."

"Gag me," Connie said.

"With a pomegranate smoothie chaser," Johnny said.

They all laughed again, and Johnny could see that they
were pleased by his good sportsmanship.

"That must be great to be a producer on TV," Eddie said.
"But what the heck does a producer do anyway?"

"He gets all the money together, silly," Connie said.

Johnny laughed but shook his head. "No, no, no. That's
what a movie producer does. But in TV, the networks and
the studios put up the money. In TV, the producer is really a
writer. All those names you see at the end of the show, Story
Editor, Co-Producer, Co-Executive Producer, and Executive Producer, all those guys are really the show's writers."

"Ohhh," Connie said. "So that's what you are? A writer?"

"Yep," Johnny replied, taking another sip of beer.

Connie nodded like she got it, but Eddie shook his head.

"Gee, I read in the paper that TV producers make a ton of
money. But I never knew they were just writers."

There was a long silence after that.

Johnny, who had heard this before, and from people much
better educated than his current crew, just smiled.

"All that for just knowing words," Stenz said.

"Yeah, that's kinda weird," Eddie said.

"For God's sake, you guys," Connie said, starting to feel
embarrassed, "you are being so rude."

"No, it's fine," Johnny said. "I think the guys here don't
quite understand. How do you think a script gets done?"

"Well, I never thought about it that much," Eddie answered. "But I guess like they set up a situation for the actors,
who kind of make up the dialogue to fit, you know ... that
situation."

"Yeah, they improvise the dialogue," Stenz said. "Right?"

"Wrong," Johnny said. "Every word that is spoken on 99
percent of all TV shows is written in the script, and the actors
have no freedom to improvise."

"Yeah, but I seen actors come on Leno and say they wrote
their scenes," Eddie said.

"Yeah, they say it sometimes," Johnny said. "But that's not
true. They say it because they want the audience to think
they do everything. But trust me, most actors couldn't write a
decent scene much less a whole script."

"Huh," Eddie said. "So the word guy is the boss, then?"

"Yep," Johnny said. "But we don't make a big deal out of
it. The audience likes to think the whole thing is real, so we
don't go running around telling them that we did it all."

"I'll be damned. And so all the stories and stuff, that's the
writers too?"

"Yep, all that stuff."

"Hmmmm," Eddie said. He looked as though he was having a hard time believing it.

"Well, here's to the word man," Connie said, toasting
Johnny.

Eddie and Stenz joined in but they didn't look all that
happy about it.

Soon the talk drifted to other subjects, though, like who was
the sexiest actress on TV, and they laughed and ate pizza and drank beer. By the end of the night Johnny was almost feeling
like they could become friends. What the hell, it was only going to be for a week or so anyway.

During the next three days Johnny worked up a routine. First
thing in the morning, a brisk walk on the beach, then get back
and drink his second cup of coffee and work on his new idea
... an idea he had gotten talking to Eddie and the rest for the
past few days. It was called Hometown, and it was about a guy
who comes back to his working-class hometown, after living
in a flashy place like L.A., and once there finds himself getting
involved with the kind of working-class people he thought
he'd left behind. He even had the log line for it. They say you
can't go home again, but what if home is the only place left go to?

Oh yeah, the networks would love that. It would be a hit
... he could feel it. A show with heart, and a lot of the heart
would be from Eddie and Stenz and Con. He'd owe them and
he wouldn't forget them when the show made it either. He'd
find a way to make them participants in the profits. Not a lot
of money, obviously, but not a trifle either. He'd be a mensch
and take care of them. Though he hadn't told them any of this
yet. No use starting a feeding frenzy for something that might
take awhile to happen.

But happen it would.

Even though he'd been kicked off of Boys in Blue, he'd still
created the number three show in the nation. Yeah, he'd have
clout for Hometown, and someday (maybe even sooner than
later) he'd get it on the air.