Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (22 page)

No sets, less than two hours for rehearsal, and every single actor had come through. Especially Kirk Kelly. Kirk had done a tremendous job. Obviously he had memorized his lines. No reading.

Nothing could have proved his willingness to try and work hard

more than that.

J.T. felt a gentle tap on his shoulder from behind. He turned.

Standing there was Kirk.

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“I, um”—Kirk looked down, then forced his eyes back up—

“wanted to thank you and Ash.”

“You really don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I do.” Kirk twisted his head twice, then stepped forward with his left foot once.
Obsessive-compulsive, too?
J.T. thought.
Poor
kid. How come I didn’t see that before?

“I just had to say thanks. It’s not like I don’t know what you did for me—
are doing
for me.”

“Well, Kirk,” J.T. said as he watched Kirk go through his head

and foot movements again, “not only is it my job, but I want you to succeed. You’re a wonderful young man, and . . .”

Kirk quickly took a small pill from his pocket and placed it

under his tongue.

“ . . . Um, I was saying, you’re gonna be great.”

“Please thank Ash for me. I know they want all the actors to

get lost so they can give notes and everything they do, so—again, thanks, man.”

Before he left, Kirk twisted his head twice, stepped forward

with his left foot once, and then started to walk away, but suddenly turned back and touched the spot on the floor with his right foot, then started to leave again.

Notes were about to begin. J.T. was steeling himself for the usu-al barrage of comments the titled elite felt they needed to make to justify their attendance at Notes (“Why did Devon touch his face during the joke?” “I saw that, too!”). He didn’t see Kirk stop to tie his shoelaces, which were already tied. But Ash, sitting alone in the bleachers, noticed that Kirk continued to tie and untie his shoes.

J.T. gathered with the Pooleys, the gaggle of executive produc-

ers/coproducers/ producer-writing staffers—anyone who had a ti-

tle—and set for Notes in the middle of the empty stage. Not a one acknowledged J.T.’s presence.

William whispered loudly to Marcus and Stephanie, “It’s safe!”

“Not one fucking laugh!” Marcus Pooley smoldered.

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“Who are you addressing, sir? Because your cast did an exem-

plary job,” J.T. said immediately.

Marcus spun on J.T. “This script is funny. Are you telling me

the cast did a great job?”

“Yes, I am,” J.T. repeated. “I have faith in the process. It worked, and it also failed miserably. That is what run-throughs are for. The show is exactly where it should be on a Tuesday.”

This was high treason. In the world of the Pooleys Rule the

Universe, no one spoke to a Pooley like that, and everyone there knew that.

“No one laughed and my script is funny,” Marcus Pooley re-

peated.

“Our
script, Poodles,” Stephanie reminded him. “
Our
script is funny.”

“If you believe that, so be it,” J.T. said, standing his ground.

“Then it must be your direction that sucks, because nothing

was fucking funny! Did you hear one laugh from that audience?”

Marcus screamed.

Ash decided that now was the time to share. “If you will ex-

cuse my impertinence . . .” he interjected. Necks cracked as heads whipped round to see who had the balls to speak up in this
high-level
argument.

William thought he could avert a confrontation. “Yo, bro, ya

got mad game, but—” Before J.T. could say it, Marcus snapped,

“Shut up, William.”
Finally,
J.T. thought,
we agree on something.

“Zippin’ it!” William quickly said, making the zipped-mouth

move—but had to add, “After sex.”

Marcus Pooley was on fire. At any moment he could’ve set off

the sprinkler system. He turned to Stephanie, the only one who

truly understood the depths of his outrage at Ash’s lack of understanding of how the totem pole worked. “That . . . that
accomplice
of J.T.’s keeps undermining me! He keeps sneaking in places and then
talking
! I cannot have him talking! Make him stop!”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

Before Stephanie could intervene, however, J.T. said, “Please,

Ash, go ahead.”

“They enjoyed the show very much,” Ash said with a pleasant

look on his gentle face.

“And you know this because . . . you have special fucking powers?”

Marcus shouted into the bleachers. “You mind-read? Okay! Mind-

read me, Mr. Special Powers. What am I thinking now, M. Butterfly?”

“Hold on a moment,” J.T. said, coming to his friend’s defense.

“No! You hold on a fucking moment! How dare this . . . this

. . . this . . .”

“Man?” J.T. said.

“Man! How dare this . . . this . . . agh! This
man
tell me that this audience enjoyed the show? How the fuck could he know?”

“Because, Mr. Pooley,” Ash said in his calm baritone, “their

tour guide told me.”

Marcus Pooley froze in mid-rant. “
Tour guide?
”

“Mr. Pooley,” Ash continued for all the group to hear, “your

audience was a group of beekeepers from Bosnia and Herzegovi-

na. They are touring the States to get tips on pollination, which of course, I’m sure you know, is one of the first steps in creating an independent and thriving food source for their country.”

“Bees? Fucking bees? So?! They still should’ve laughed, you

dumb fuck.”

“There’s no need for personal attacks, Pooley,” J.T. said with a different tone in his voice.

“But bees? Did you hear him? He’s saying they didn’t laugh be-

cause of pollen?! Holy shit! I’ve heard excuses, but that one takes the fucking honey!”

All the writers laughed. Not a single laugh was genuine. J.T.

walked over to Ash to show support and, as the maestro, allow Ash to have the next solo.

“I believe you are missing the point, Mr. Pooley,” Ash gamely

continued.

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“And the point would be
? They are African killer bees? Bumble-bees?”

The writing staffers laughed like a group of dentists playing

with the nitrous oxide tanks after business hours. Ash waited for the cackling to subside. “No, Mr. Pooley,” he said slowly, “not a single one of them
spoke English
.”

Silence fell with a silent thud. The writers tried not to move, but they were all checking each other out with quick eye movements. Lance, who’d had no reason up to that point to throw his weight around, blew his chameleon-like cover by trying to stifle a laugh. Instead, snot came out of his nose. He quickly grabbed his silk handkerchief, but he couldn’t stop laughing.

Lance was, in fact, very impressed. Not so much with the script as with the efficiency of the run-through. Lance actually knew

what J.T. had just pulled off. From the cover of his handkerchief he smiled at J.T., who acknowledged the gesture with a quick, non-committal grin.

The Pooleys looked daggers at Lance, then sheathed them to

look at each other. In that symbiotic moment, Marcus was ap-

pointed spokes-screamer.

“Who’s responsible for this?!” he bellowed. “We had an audi-

ence that
didn’t speak a word of English
?! I want to know who is responsible for this group from Bosnia and the other group from Hertze-go-renta-car-ia!”

“Herzegovina,” Ash corrected Marcus, respectfully. Ash then

continued as only Ash could; and J.T. loved it.

“It’s a country formed by two very distinct territories: Bosnia takes it name from the Bosnia River. Herzegovina gets its name

from the German noble title
Herzog,
which, interestingly enough, means ‘duke.’”

“Interesting? This is interesting to you? ‘Duke’? Did I ask for a fucking lacrosse game?! I asked for a fucking
audience
! Who’s responsible for all those fucking dukes being here?!”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

A small female voice, tentative in its unaccustomed humility,

squeaked from behind the writers. “Um, it was such late notice

that this was the only group I could get.”

J.T. recognized this voice, only now it wasn’t arrogant and

bitchy or safe because she was talking into a telephone.

“Who the fuck are you?” Marcus yapped.

“Marcus, it’s me. Me. Julia. Julia . . . Pooley? Your cousin Tom-my’s niece? So I’m, like, your cousin too.”

“You’re fucking fired, that’s who you are! I want you off the lot by the time I get back to the office. Fuck. An audience that doesn’t speak English! I told you this script is funny!” But now, Marcus was very insecure. “Am I right? Am I right?”

“Of course you’re right,” came a Doppler-like response from

the writers.

So J.T. took out his script and a pen, and was ready for notes.

As Marcus’s cousin’s niece fled the room in tears, Marcus Pool-

ey spotted Kirk Kelly in the shadows, still tying his shoes. He ran to Kirk with scenery-chewing dramatics, hugging him and lathering

him with spittle and praise.

“I’m so damn proud of you, kid! What the fuck are you doing

onstage? You should be resting.
Why isn’t he resting, William?
”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, boss. It’s not safe.”

“Well, kiddo, Kirk, my boy, get outta here! Get a massage! You

deserve it!”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said a stunned Kirk, who did a con-

tained version of his obsessive-compulsive movement and then

jogged off the stage.

As soon as Kirk left, Marcus turned to William. “Is it safe

now?” he asked, looking around him. “Are all the fucking actors gone?”

“It’s very safe now, boss,” William said, the pencil he’d been

puffing on in place of a cigarette bobbing in the corner of his mouth.

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“Okay.” Marcus Pooley sighed and looked at Lance. “I don’t

know what the fuck to do with that Kirk Kelly kid. He’s tanking the show! I want him gone.”

“Well . . .” Lance said, “I thought he did . . . a much better job than at the table read. It’s obvious that
someone
has been working with him.” Lance looked at J.T. again, smiling and nodding his approval.

Weasel
, thought J.T. He knew from Ash that Lance had him in his sights. He was being set up, but Lance didn’t want anyone to know which gun the bullet was coming from. Lance’s mistake was

to think he’d fooled J.T. into believing he was the good guy.

In the meantime, the praising of J.T. had its intended effect of infuriating the Pooleys.

“I don’t like the chair Janice sits on in the ‘A’ scene!” Stephanie, the Style Führer, barked.

“Um . . . it’s a
folding
chair,” J.T. said.

“Um . . . Ex-fucking-actly!” She mimicked J.T.’s tone with sur-

prising accuracy.

She’s not a bad actor,
he thought. What he said out loud was,

“What I mean is . . . we have no sets; no set dressing for that scene.

So I grabbed the first chair I could find in order to give you a noon run-through.”

“Excuses. Blame! I don’t want to hear a fucking word about

why
! I just want to see results! No fucking folding chairs on my show!” Stephanie yelled, gesticulating at a taupe metal folding chair instead of at J.T.

How odd,
J.T. thought. “I’ll make sure that note gets to set dressing,” he said, jotting in his notebook. He took another deep breath. “I think, if you don’t mind my saying”—he chose his words carefully—“we should discuss the best ever explosion that, according to the director’s notes I received, should have”—and then he read straight from the notes—“
no form of explosives
in the best ever explosion.”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“What’s to discuss?” Marcus Pooley said bluntly. “I want to see the best ever explosion and I don’t want to use explosives. What’s not to get?”

“Wow. Well, where do I begin?” J.T. shook his head.

“Are you being condescending to me, Baker?” Marcus Pooley

threatened.

“I’m at a complete loss as to how you’d like me to accomplish

this feat. You know, the best ever explosion with no explosives, no animation, no computer generation; how does one do this?” J.T.

honestly wanted to know. “Do you want compressed air to blow

the fake snow we don’t have a budget for and add a
kaboom
in the postproduction mix?”

“One does this if they are a skilled direc
tor
. Making film is nothing more than an illusion. If

you cannot find a way to give

me the illusion of the best

The Hollywood Dictionary

ever explosion without ex-

THE “A” SCENE:
Not to be con-

plosives, then you are not a

fused with the “A” story. All the

direc
tor
. You are merely tak-

scenes are alphabetized. When

ing the production’s mon-

edited together, they should tell

ey.” Marcus Pooley glanced

both the “A” story and the “B”

story by the final credits. (Jeez!

at Lance to see if he’d appre-

Look how many credits there

ciated the reference to the

are!)

budget.

“Okay—
an illusion
. You’ve

got it. So—the purpose of this best ever explosion is that Janice survives, being one of the carolers? And that is the ‘A’ story that makes this the best ever Christmas?”

“Duh,” Stephanie expectorated.

“D-U-H,” J.T. said, writing it down verbatim into his script, “I just want to make sure I’m clear with you.
D-U-H. Duh
. Gotcha.