Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (39 page)

come back to Marcus’s office and overheard him. He hated it when she did that.

“I mean here. On the lot. Not at home.”

“You want mine? It’s in my purse.”

Marcus looked at his wife as if he’d never actually seen her before.

“What?”

“Steph, you have a gun? I mean . . . you carry a gun?”

“What of it?”

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“Go shoot him!” Marcus demanded.

“Fuck that. I’m not gonna end up in some HBO movie about

a showrunner who shot her director. You go shoot him. You’re the one who said if you had a gun you’d kill him. Here. Here’s my gun.”

Stephanie pulled a small handgun out of her purse.

“Wow. You could shoot . . . me?”

Stephanie put the gun back in her purse. “I wouldn’t dwell on

it, Poodles. But I wouldn’t forget it, either.”

Ash delivered everything J.T. had asked for, including Mick

and Kirk. He was also thrilled with the notion that J.T. was happy and had a theory . . . but it was only a theory. He said as much to J.T. “And,” he continued, “it’s going to take you forever. I mean all night. You won’t be done until . . . shit; it’s a massive job. I’ve got to stay and help you.”

“No,” J.T. wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s very important that tomorrow one of us is rested. Besides . . .” J.T. stared off at the set, part of his mind preoccupied with his brainstorming, “I don’t have time to talk or be nice . . . you get that. I’ve got to act out each character in the scene and know exactly where I can hang these cue

cards so that they are never in the shots but also it doesn’t look like our actors are reading them because I’ve taped the cue cards in the wrong eyeline. I might end up acting like an ass tonight—you know, get pissy ’cause I’m already tired—and I don’t want you on the receiving end of that. It’s best I do this alone. But I think this’ll work, Ash.” J.T. mugged for the monitor again. “I’ll have plenty of time to rest this weekend. Go get some sleep, my friend. Oh, and one last favor you could do me: Can you go by Oliver’s and get my suit, and bring it tomorrow?”

“Suit. You got it.” Ash knew when it was pointless to protest.

He gave his brother-from-another-life a hug and, against his better judgment, followed J.T.’s wishes and left the cave for the night.

2 8 0

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

Mick and Kirk had been waiting just out of the sight lines of

the monitor where Ash had asked them to stand. Kirk hung back,

but Mick now started toward J.T. “You wanted to see me, J.T.?”

J.T. met him and pulled him off to the side so that the live feed couldn’t see the two of them conspiring.

“Mick,” J.T. whispered, “I want to ask a . . . delicate favor. It puts you on the line and I don’t want any political harm to ever come to you, so say no if this is too much.”

“What, J.T.?”

“You know the film that is at the lab and never was developed?

The shot that ‘wasn’t on TV’?”

“I’m on it,” Mick smiled.

“Can you get it digitized by tomorrow evening so I can use it

as a playback on the monitors for the audience without it going through the Pooleys or the

editor?”

“Say no more. It’s as good

The Hollywood Dictionary

as done.” Mick had a con-

tagious smile. He marched

DIGITIZING:
(1) The process of

converting analog film into digi-

with new purpose out of

tal video information so it can be

the cave to make the single

played back as video footage. (2)

phone call to his “man at the

One take means that an editor

lab” that would ensure the

doesn’t have to be involved in

footage would be there by

the digital playback. (3) A huge

morning.

gamble.

Then J.T. went over to

Kirk, who by this time was

beginning to step a little back and forth in nervous excitement.

“Kirk, I’m going to trust you. I’m also going to need your help.”

“You name it, J.T.”

“I don’t understand your . . . reading disability. Can you help me?”

“How?”

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“Well, Kirk, I’m going to write cue cards out for you and I need to know that you’ll be able to read them. In case I alter a line, here or there.”

“Oh,” Kirk said quietly.

“Tell me. I want to make this work for you.”

“Well,” Kirk began. Nervous was getting the better of excited,

and his physical tics became more pronounced. He moved back-

ward two steps, then forward two steps, twisting his head from one side to the other and touching the boom stand in between each

move. “It’s not that simple . . .” he finally said.

“How can I make it simple?”

“Can you fax me my lines? I can learn my lines one sentence

at a time.”

J.T. looked around the set and picked up a page of yesterday’s

rewrites that was discarded on the cave floor. “Write down your fax number,” he said, giving Kirk the page and a pen. “What else?”

“Well—”

“I’m planning on writing all the Buddies’ lines on cue cards in different colors.”

“Shit, J.T. Colors really fuck me up. Can my lines be in black?”

“Black! They’ll be in black.”

“But you’ll still have to fax me. I, I, I, can’t do it—I, I, I, can’t do it—”

J.T. put his steady hands on Kirk’s shoulders. “Kirk, I will do anything, everything, to make this work for you. I’ll fax you your lines and I’ll write your cues in black. But just know that you have to do something for me.”

“What?”

“When you hear that fax machine ring, that’s the start of your

day. This isn’t going to be like any other shoot day. Get up, study, and show these fucks what you can do.”

“Okay. Okay.” Kirk was now in a tornado of compulsive be-

havior.

2 8 2

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

“Kirk, is there anything else? Tell me. Tell me and I’ll do it for you.”

“Um, well, um, if I get the pages early enough, I can have my

girlfriend read them into my computer. My computer can talk.

Isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” J.T. said, suddenly reminded that

he was talking to a bona fide
person
. “You’ll get them before daybreak.”

“And whenever my girlfriend’s not around, I can type ’em into

my computer and I can have the computer read them back to me,

over and over again. It’s just so cool.”

“Looks like you’re finding ways to handle your . . . so what

else?”

“Well, um, maybe for
the best ever Christmas
words, if I have to say them, you could draw a Santa face?”

“A Santa face equals the best ever Christmas?”

“Is that stupid?”

“Will it help you?”

“A lot.”

“Then it certainly isn’t stupid. Tell me more. Teach me—what

else?”

“Well, um, if you could keep the sentences short. That would

help a lot.”

“You got it.”

J.T. could see how frightened Kirk still was. “Listen to me, Kirk.

You will be more prepared than anyone else. Also, tomorrow, if

there is anything, anything at all, that is bothering you or that makes you feel like you can’t pull this off, come to me and we’ll fix it. I swear to God, Kirk, I will take care of you. That is my job. I will not let you down. Okay?”

Kirk wanted to believe J.T., but still wasn’t used to anyone in show business looking out for his best interests. “I guess we’ll, um, see, um, what happens.”

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“The worst thing that can happen is that I call ‘Cut!’ and pre-

tend we have technical problems and you and I will go behind the set and figure everything out. I am there for you, Kirk.”

“Okay. Fax! Don’t forget to fax!”

“I’m there for you.”

J.T. gave Kirk a genuine hug. Kirk left the cave still dealing with his demons.

J.T. was very pleased with himself. Finally alone on the stage, he sat back on the couch and started to look for secret places to hide all of the cue cards that would have to be numbered and would need

to synchronize with each script he had to make up for each individual cameraperson. But first J.T. went over to the camera that was sending the live feed up to the production office and pointed it at the exit sign.

Marcus was now alone. “That fuck,” he muttered. Then he yelled

at the monitor, “Good thing my wife took the gun, or else you’d be a fuckin’ dead director walkin’ . . . directing . . . you’d be dead!

Dead!”

J.T. began. On and on he went, writing out cue cards, walking

through each scene as each character, walking through each scene as each individual camera, trying to make sure that no camera was ever in any other camera’s shot and no actor was ever blocking any other actor, all by the exact placement of each distinctly colored cue card—black for Kirk and a Santa face for
the best ever Christmas
.

I hope nobody else is color-blind,
he thought. Then laughed at the irony, because that was the way he would’ve written this conflict. At least that was the way Paddy Chayefsky would’ve written it.

2 8 4

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

Paddy Chayefsky, the famed screenplay writer who wrote
Network
.

Paddy Chayefsky, who’d died at the age of fifty-eight, only nine years older than J.T. was now. Paddy Chayefsky, who had a
funny
name . . . and knew it.

“Paddy Chayefsky,” J.T. said aloud. Then, over and over again,

“Paddy Chayefsky Paddy Chayefsky.” He giggled, then laughed

loudly. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” he yelled. His favorite dead writer had suddenly become his muse. J.T.

grabbed the colored pens, opened the Pooleys’ script and began to copy “most” of the lines onto cue cards
almost
as written.
Thank
you, Paddy Chayefsky, wherever you are.

J.T. looked up to the rafters and paid tribute. Then got to

work.

It was 5:43 in the morning, according to the studio clock. J.T. had finished the last cue card with the last Santa face, hung it in the precise place for the actor, and marked up each camera operator’s script with the corresponding moves, notes, and diagrams.

He’d also snuck in some rewrites. Not many, but enough.

J.T. went into the A.D.’s office and ran off a dozen copies of

the newly marked-up scripts for the crew and crew only. The first copy to come off the $80,000 Xerox machine went into William’s

fax. J.T. keyed Kirk’s number into the fax and watched as each page made it to North Hollywood. When J.T. closed his eyes, he could feel the surge of fear that would awaken Kirk on the other end of the fax line. So be it . . .

J.T. finally allowed himself to feel the exhaustion. It hit him as he put the brads into the holes of the final script for his crew. He curled up on the couch that had already made six young people

millionaires, and dreamed.

He saw his slightly younger self in the mountains of Tennessee

assistant-coaching for his son’s basketball tournament. He strode R o b b y

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like Paul Bunyan to Utah, where he hovered over a class of Mor-

mon children he’d once taught. He skimmed the land back to the

New York City of his childhood and his first acting gigs, then leapt kitty-corner to L.A., where he’d become famous and gotten black-balled.

In each location, there were televisions, front and center: in

the home of an Appalachian dad who was eking out a living mak-

ing moonshine for his family who had no indoor plumbing. In the classroom in the desert. In the airless Manhattan audition room.

On the set of his breakout movie. And in each place, whether it was the child J.T., the children around him, or his own son with his face softly lit by the flicker from the TV, the children were watching the Best Christmas Ever. J.T. felt himself shrinking reluctantly from his Bunyan height above L.A. down, down, to where he was

responsible for what those children knew, what those children

wanted, what they visually and cerebrally absorbed, all because he was the one who decided what they saw.
The Best Ever,
his dream self said. Then he heard,
Pull it all down?

Friday

The late night set-mice had gone back into hiding, the rats were never completely gone, and the birds who’d been trapped in the

rafters overnight flew back outside into the pinkish Los Angeles air as soon as the big elephant doors opened. Who knew where the stage ghosts went . . . maybe they hung around just for the mere awe of it all—the waste.

“D’ya think we should pull it all down?” The members of the

painting crew were looking in puzzlement at all of the cue cards that were hanging out of the way of the lights.

J.T.’s guilt-inducing dream and the awareness of imminent disaster converged, and he bolted awake and came running in a panic.

“Please—no! Nobody pull down the cue cards! Please. Thank

you very much. Just touch up the paint wherever you need to, but please, for God’s sake,
please don’t touch the cue cards!
”

J.T. made it just in time. What took about ten hours to strat-

egize, plan, and position could have taken minutes to destroy.

William entered the cave limping, looking slightly ill, and

smoking a cigarette. “Yeah, I’m smoking. Fuck it,” he said before J.T. could comment. “You know how hard it is to finish a triathlon?

Fuck! I was cramping after the swim. I was smoking after a mile on the bike. I gave up. Dumped my fucking bike in the bushes at the marina and hitched a ride home. Who in their fuckin’ right mind R o b b y

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would be a triathlete? Fuck, I hurt. After sex,” William moaned, sincerely.

“Well, you missed . . . a lot. Yep. A whole lot. I’m getting fired, but you probably knew that,” J.T. said.