Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (29 page)

Ash looked sharply at J.T., who had a peculiar look on his face.

Kind of like the first time someone who doesn’t like art sees Mich-elangelo’s
David
.

“Are you okay, man?”

J.T. squinted and looked upward. “Wow. It’s still daytime,” he

said deliriously.

Conrad Cutler, the senior vice president of Broadcast Standards and Practices, was waiting when J.T. and Ash got back onto the set.

His suit was clearly tailor-made and his rimless glasses expensive, but he wore them almost apologetically, as if he’d rather be in kha-kis like J.T. He walked over to the men and asked Thing Seven to go find Marcus and tell him to join them.

“Hello, J.T. Good to see you back in the saddle,” Conrad said.

“Hey, Conrad. I think I just fell off my high horse,” J.T. re-

sponded. He’d known Conrad since the executive was a bit actor, at the time when J.T. was transitioning from acting to writing with directing gigs in between. He’d even had the opportunity to direct Conrad. Their history made for familiar but sometimes awkward

chemistry, now that they were no longer teammates fighting on

the same side against random network rules.

Conrad patted J.T. on the shoulder, then looked at Ash and

said, “I see you brought your secret service with you. How have you been, Asher?”

Ash liked Conrad. Conrad had always been very reasonable in

the past. Conrad remembered his name.

“How have I been?” Ash grinned. “Well, would you care for an

honest answer, or the standard one?”

“Standard will do.”

“I’ve been great!”

“Glad to hear it.”

Conrad was also not one to waste time. The niceties out of the

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way, he clapped his hands and said, “J.T., I want you to hang in there.”

Oh fuck. What now?
J.T. thought. “Hang in there, J.T.” was not a phrase that preceded anything he wanted to hear.

“Now, I’m going to make life slightly more difficult for you,

but don’t take offense,” Conrad went on, checking to see if Marcus was in earshot. “I’ve had my ear to the ground and know what you’re trying to accomplish in the long run, and I’ll stay out of your way. I just have to do my job.”

“No problem.” J.T. shifted his weight but remained very cor-

dial. “Understood. Completely.”

Marcus Pooley came over and sullenly joined the others as if

he had been asked to move to a ghetto. “What? Get this over with quickly. What?!”

Conrad looked at the showrunner with obvious distaste.

“We’re going to have to bargain a little here, Marcus,” he said, taking out a slim notepad from his inside suit pocket.

“Like what? What?!” Marcus said, hyper from the cocaine

high that was quickly wearing off. He tried to peek at Conrad’s notes.

“Well—this being an eight o’clock show”—and then Conrad

began reading off his pad— “the network cannot have more than

two carolers at the time of the explosion. And if the candy glass shatters, we can see
no
blood,” he explained, looking up to see how the showrunner was taking the compromises.

“Not a problem,” J.T. quickly answered, believing that the

faster someone signed off on the notes the less unpleasant mat-

ters would become. Wrong.

Marcus got in J.T.’s face the way an angry baseball manager

does just before the umpire tosses him out of the game. “Where

the fuck do you get off telling this man that
it is not a problem
? This is not
your
show!” he yelled.

Why, oh why can’t this be baseball?
J.T. thought, turning his head away from the menthol-mango-chemical stench of Marcus’s

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

breath.

Then Marcus spun on Conrad. “If I want blood, then I’ll get

blood!” he snarled. “Even if I have to call the man over your head, or even the network president! How would you like that, Mr. No-Blood?”

“We don’t need blood, Marcus,” J.T. said, shaking his head. “It would look out of place. We’re stylizing everything. Putting in an element of cold reality will send visually mixed messages. Not to mention that it would expose our flimsy production values and

wreck the clever illusion we have all worked so hard to create. It would look silly and classless. As it is, if it works, it will be a very hip way of telling the story of a main character surviving the best ever explosion.”

“Don’t talk down to me, Mr. College Professor! I want blood!”

Marcus Pooley declared. “You two can go off and live together in the land of
Let’s Never Offend Anyone
! What—did the perv schoolteacher blowing his naughty little head off give you a phobia about
all
things red and chunky, or just blood? Is Manhattan clam chow-der off the menu in the studio restaurant permanently? Are you

wimping out on me, Mr. Big Shot Director? Are you gonna cry

again?”

Marcus Pooley is going to get knocked out someday,
J.T. thought.

But after the morning suicide, he had lost his taste for a fight, so he just turned to Ash, who forced a smile. J.T. got the message quiet and clear, and followed suit with his own forced smile. Once J.T.

managed to make his lip curl upward, Ash shook Conrad’s hand

and excused himself.

“I’ll be seeing you,” Ash said.

Conrad nodded, “I know you will.”

J.T. looked to see where his best friend was heading, but Ash

was gone.
Shit! The guy really is invisible. Amazing
, he thought.

Conrad was all business. “I’m sorry to say I
do
have the authority on this. If you use blood, we will never air this scene. It’s that R o b b y

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simple.”

J.T. chimed in softly, conserving his energy but still dogged.

“We’re not using blood. I have been hired, at least for the moment, to be the director. No blood. Period.
My call
.” J.T. was really over-stepping his boundaries, but he knew if he did it with enough confidence, Marcus might not realize it.

It worked—just. Marcus remained belligerent. “If I want

blood, I’ll put it in . . . in post. That’s what I’ll do!” He started to walk away, then turned back. “But the final decision is certainly not J.T.’s, and it is by far not for some low-level, power-mad guy in a suit from the network to say. It is the Creator’s! Mine! Understand?!”

Conrad and J.T. watched him storm off. “Shit, J.T.,” Conrad

asked, “why on earth do you do this?”

“DGA insurance. My kid . . . needs it.”

“Oh God. I’m really sorry. Hang in there. And listen, J.T.? So, off the record, whatever you do, don’t hit this Pooley guy or his cockeyed harpy of a wife. They’re the network’s cash cow. As long as they’re in the top ten, the Pooleys could be speaking in tongues and spewing pea soup, and the big boys would still turn a blind eye. And this Marcus Pooley character seems like the type who

would sue you for everything you’re worth,” Conrad advised. Then he lowered his voice. “J.T., listen,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I did a little snooping around. Make sure the Christmas bag

of gifts that Janice holds in the scene doesn’t say
Saks Fifth Avenue
.”

“Will do,” J.T. said. “Trust the Pooleys to try and sneak in a

product endorsement for some extra cash.” Then he smiled. “It’s good to see someone who still does their homework.”

“Yeah—people hate me for that,” Conrad said.

“I know the feeling,” J.T. answered. “Okay, I’ll make sure we

Greek out any brand names. We only have one shot at this bit. I’d 2 1 0

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

hate to have to lose the scene.”

* * *

and if all went correctly, they

would have the shot.

The Hollywood Dictionary

“William,” J.T. called

TO GREEK OUT:
To hide or change

out, not knowing where

brand names of products so that

William was but hoping he

companies don’t sue the pro-

was where he was supposed

duction. “I saw a fucking beauty

to be: on the set. Ready to

shot of a Tylenol bottle, and Ex-

work.

cedrin is one of our sponsors!

“Here!” William called

Lose the scene!”

back from a place he wasn’t

.

supposed to be: in the prop

room playing with gadgets, singing a lyric to a kids’ song. William threw down a $400 antique Zephyr model train and came a-runnin’.

“Please notify all the
Powers That Be
and get them down to the stage so that they can see the shot,” J.T. said without even looking in William’s direction. Notifying the Powers That Be was protocol.

Debbie from the network wanted to be there; so did Lance from

the studio. William nodded, sincerely, and then went and made all the calls.

J.T. went over to where Mick and Skip were standing. “You

guys ready for this?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.

“I was less ready for marriage,” Skip said flatly.

Kevin was blowing compressed air into the gearbox. “I’m ready

too, J.T.”

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2 1 1

“You’re the man, Kev.”

J.T. mumbled, “Now, if I can only get Janice out of the makeup

chair, we can shoot this puppy.”

“Please, put the puppy out of its misery,” Skip added.

Janice had been sitting in the makeup chair for over two hours.

She was a gorgeous woman to begin with, and J.T. knew that this was her way of getting attention from the director. He took the cue and headed for the makeup room.

J.T. knocked gently and was greeted with “Go away!”

“Sorry,” J.T. said, opening the door, “can’t do that.”

“What do you want?” Janice demanded.

“Oh, you know—one of those obnoxious director thingies—

like, ‘When will you be ready?’”

“I’ll be ready when I’m ready,” Janice said. Then she pointed to her jaw. “I see a shiny spot right there, Marta,” she told the makeup lady.

Marta, long-practiced in putting up with stars, shrugged

slightly at J.T. and powdered the imagined spot. She knew that a television star’s anger could burn as hot and as quickly as their career, so she protected herself with silence.

J.T. motioned Marta

to step back, then stood in

The Hollywood Dictionary

front of Janice. “Janice, we

TO BE PULLED FROM A CHAIR:
To

are ready for you. This shot

be
pulled
from a chair.

has to be done in the next

thirty minutes. You will be

on the set in five minutes, or

I will pull you from this chair. Don’t make me throw my authority around, please,” he warned.

Janice looked up at him petulantly. “I’ll be there. Just get out.”

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

“Will do.”

Janice watched J.T. close the makeup door behind him, then

said to Marta, “Why do all the good ones have to be happily married?”

Marta, still-employed Marta, just smiled.
You heifer,
she thought.

As J.T. headed back to the set, Marcus Pooley came toward him

with a swift, odd gait, cantering on his toes
. Is he in pain, or is that
just the way he moves?
J.T. wondered.

“What the fuck is taking so fucking long?” Marcus demanded.

“For a man of words, you certainly are a man of few good

ones,” J.T. commented.

“What the fuck?”

“Janice was exploring some character choices, and I think she’s onto something.”

“What,
for fuck’s sake?”

“It’s matte, perky, unprepossessing.”

“Say what?”

J.T. shrugged. “In layman’s terms? Basically, she’s powdering

her nose.”

“Well, why didn’t you just fucking say so?”

“I guess,” J.T. smiled genuinely, “I guess I just like to hear you say ‘fuck.’”

“Say fuck?”

“Yeah. You’re really good at it. It’s nice to be good at some-

thing.”

J.T. patted Marcus on the shoulder and went to make himself

another cup of hot, sweet caffeine water.

By the time Janice made it to the set, Debbie and Lance had ar-

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rived. So had the other half of the Pooleys, along with the gaggle of baby-writer-producers. They all stuck together in the corner. On the other side of the set was the quad split.

J.T. was going over the scene with the crew yet one more
last
time
when Stephanie Pooley suddenly started yelling. She hadn’t been heard from yet this morning, so it was no surprise for J.T.

that she would make a big to-do right before the scene was to be shot.

“What kind of bag is Janice carrying?!” Stephanie barked out,

running onto the set as if she were running to rescue a baby from a burning building.

“We can’t have this!
Fifth

Avenue
? Where’s the
Saks
?

The Hollywood Dictionary

It’s
Saks
Fifth Avenue! How

THE QUAD SPLIT (TAKE TWO):

dumb are you people?!”

Knowing how to watch a quad

Stephanie was spinning

split properly is a rare skill. Very

around, not knowing who

few executives, let alone show-

to yell at.

runners, have this skill. There

J.T. stepped forward. “Ms.

are a few, though. Those show-

runners, however, are getting

Pooley, we had to Greek out

old. Like . . . thirty-five.

the label according to net-