“Sometimes the story finds you, man.”
“What makes you think I can break the story, man?”
Miles looks stumped, and perhaps a little hurt at my mocking. But I can’t help it; stoners who say man are a pet peeve.
“Don’t you need a great story?” he asks.
“I need three stories a day—that’s my quota.”
“Sure, but a quota is just getting by, I’m talking about making it,” Miles says. “I’m talking about balling and shot-calling, not just one or the other.”
Evidently, Miles doesn’t know much about journalism—a field that repels would-be ballers and shot callers the way male porn stars repel women who aren’t their costars.
“If you break this story wide open, I’ll bet you get your old job back at the LA Times,” Miles says. “Maybe a book, like a true-crime book. Maybe even a movie deal.”
There it is. The journalism trifecta. A story that turns into a book, which turns into a movie. Not only can you pay off your student loans with that kind of windfall, you get to write your own ticket, assuming people actually see the movie. Even the shittiest version of the trifecta looks like a swimming pool of gold compared to my present beat, but it’s not like I was setting the world on fire before I stumbled into porn.
“I was a cub reporter on the sports desk,” I tell Miles. “And I got downsized before I got my first assignment. They hadn’t even given me a bathroom key, let alone a press pass.”
“Well, how hard could it be?” Miles asks. “Just figure out who had the gun to his head.”
“You mean the battle-ax to his chest.”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
I ash the canoeing joint into one of the red plastic cups that is a permanent fixture on our coffee table. I need to think it over. Like a seasoned idea man, Miles knows when it’s time to stop selling, so he gets up and puts a well-used copy of the movie Friday into the DVD player.
***
I’m watching Smokey recount his bad experience with angel dust and trying to handicap the odds of me solving Toxic’s murder, when I notice that one of Miles’ customers is sitting in our den. He’s an assistant at some talent agency with just enough name recognition to get him laid in the Valley, but not a good table at a B-list restaurant on the other side of the hill. Such is the hierarchy of the Hollywood underclass.
Miles sells the wannabe agent an eighth of LA Confidential at a substantial markup, the idea being that the wannabe agent will get it all back one day, ten percent at a time, when Miles hits it big as a screenwriter, then a director, producer, and finally, a hyphenate.
Miles is an “idea man,” all his best customers say so. But tonight Miles isn’t pitching this assistant his next rom-com or low-budget horror flick in between gratis bong hits. Instead, he’s asking about the prospects of selling the film rights to a story about Johnny Toxic’s murder. Whether it’s paranoia from the weed or just good business sense honed from a few years in Hollywood mail rooms, Miles is short on the specifics and generous with the hype.
Watching Miles work stirs something deep inside my gut. What Miles is pitching sounds possible. Actually, it sounds good. It sounds like an idea that could become something, maybe even a concept, if not an actual movie. Or maybe I’m just stoned. Either way, I’m intrigued and a little excited, even if we’re just blowing smoke.
The assistant coughs and nearly drops the bong on a carpet that’s seen worse.
“True crime always sells,” he says. “Always.”
That word—sells—hits me in the chest and locates a place that had gone dormant, a place where my dreams used to live.
“Really?” Miles asks. “Always sells? Hmm.”
“Sure,” the wannabe agent says. “This town has a boner for true stories. Any hack can make shit up.”
“Right,” Miles says as he packs another bowl. “Any hack.”
Miles shoots me a sideways glance just before he pulls a massive bong hit.
“And it’s not like you have to be a genius to write one,” the wannabe agent says, holding his hand out for the bong. “We rep a writer who used to work at McDonald’s. Guy wasn’t even a manager, but some psycho gangbanger comes in, takes them hostage, and kills a fry cook!”
“No shit.”
The wannabe agent holds a giant hit in his lungs, then coughs it out.
“It was like fucking Die Hard meets Good Burger,” he says.
The wannabe agent sounds so convincing that for a moment I actually believe that would be a good movie.
“I’d see that,” Miles declares.
“It’s in turnaround, but our client is doing a rewrite on a Captain Ron sequel.”
Mile looks glum for a second. He really wanted that Captain Ron sequel job. But he recovers when the wannabe says that no writer in town has cracked that one yet.
Miles thanks the wannabe agent for his advice, and rewards him with a medicated lollipop that his dispensary gives out to patients who spend more than a hundred dollars.
“This is important—you need a sexy angle,” the wannabe agent says as he walks toward the door. “A sexy angle is non-fucking-negotiable. Like the McDonald’s guy, he had this totally hot customer in the script, and her and the hero boned down in the freezer...you know, to stay warm at first, but it was totally hot, and very realistic.”
Miles shoots me a conspiratorial look.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got the sexy angle covered.”
I’m too stoned to ask Miles if he means we’re partners on this, or if he’s using the royal we.
Chapter 15: A clusterfuck at deadline
December 27, 2011
Putting the magazine to bed is a little like a gangbang. At least, that’s how Booty describes it. The trouble is, I’m pretty sure we’re the girl.
Our magazine is 140 pages—way more than anyone needs to know about porn. But the really crazy thing is that we actually do print, in the middle of the digital revolution, in the midst of an economic meltdown. But like Dean says, it’s all about image.
“Without print we could just be some dude in a basement jerking his gherkin all day, dude.”
Dean says this during lunch, which makes his mention of the pickle all the more troubling. But I take his point, and promise to hunt down a rumor about a sheriff in the South who arrested a local video store owner for selling a movie that depicted a blow job. Among other questions, I plan to ask how the video store managed to hang on this long.
This story doesn’t matter to anyone, not anyone who reads our site, I think. It matters to the sheriff, the video store owner, and the wankers in that sad town without decent internet access. Nevertheless it is an important story because we need to fill a whole in our legal section.
At 140 pages, every section came up short, which is what gives the day that not-so-fresh gangbang feeling. I stop counting when I file my ninth story of the day. But it’s not just stories. Half the book is ads. That doesn’t make our job any easier, because we’re responsible for proofing the ad copy, too. If we screw that up, Booty warns, the advertiser will demand a refund and probably our jobs.
To make things more difficult, we publish what’s known as a tabloid-style magazine, which means our pages are the size of the free alt-weeklies that are now all owned by the same big media company—so much for indie. It’s a lot of content, but it’s an especially tall order for a small staff that’s as dysfunctional as ours.
I file the story about the sheriff and the blow job and camp out in Sunny and Dean’s office. This is where we’ve hunkered down, but for the moment, there’s nothing to do. This is because Booty and Dean are battling about the cover, specifically whether or not the current cover girl was used in an issue several months prior. Neither man is backing down, and neither man is checking our archives.
“You’re fucking wrong,” Dean says.
“No, I’m fucking right,” Booty responds.
And it goes on and on like that.
Sunny interrupts to make a comment about how Oz wi
ll fire us all if there are any typos on company names or key industry figures. But she neither assigns that task to anyone nor takes it on herself.
Booty and Dean continue their argument. Sunny goes back to her editor’s note, which is to say that she stares vacantly at a blank screen, fighting her workweek depression.
At this point it doesn’t matter if we use the same cover we did a few months back. Our art department has left early with the flu, an occurrence, Booty explains, that happens every third issue, or “whenever there’s an especially bizarre exhibit of avant-garde German shit at LACMA.”
Sunny sends us back to our office with a stern warning about typos. Unfortunately, we don’t have the book, which means we can’t do anything about typos. We don’t have heat either, but that’s not a problem. Booty takes the rare free moment to warm his hands on a vibrator that some adult toy company sent us for a review.
When we finally do get the book for proofing, all the names, companies, and titles check out. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we consistently spell hard-core three ways: hardcore, hard core, and hard-core. I want to fix this, but Dean says we have bigger worries. I need to look for dicks.
Seriously.
I’m looking for dicks.
Oz hates dicks. Well, he hates seeing dicks in his magazine. Because a dick isn’t classy, and if you’re not classy, you’re not going mainstream. So in that sense, Dean’s point about print and any jack-off artist with a website makes some sense. But my war on dicks feels absurd.
My job is to look at every image in the book to make sure that we have a gold star covering any visible dicks. For most pictures, it’s easy enough to spot the dicks because they tend to be located near an orifice. But those are the obvious dicks. There are less obvious dicks like the ones in the picture accompanying a feature on orgy content. Finding those dicks feels like I’m playing an X-rated version of Where’s Waldo?
“Do we have a loupe?” I ask Dean, who gives me a blank look. “A loupe—an eyepiece to magnify images.”
Dean chuckles.
“This isn’t the Times, dude.”
But that’s just what I’m counting on. At a place like the Times, I’d never be able to jump from a story about a porn star retiring her public-access cooking show to one about an ongoing murder investigation. That’s the upside, I guess. But even inside this chaotic media organization, journalistic fundamentals still apply. I can’t beat a dead horse, which means I need to make sure whatever I write about Johnny Toxic sticks, otherwise I can’t write follow-ups. So I have one shot to grab hold of this story, because the next minute I’ll probably have to jump on a profile of the “diabolical genius” behind Fuck Truck—a series about a trio of guys in a truck who prowl the streets of the San Fernando Valley looking for women who live only to fuck faceless strangers in moving vehicles.
We’re three hours overdue on the printer’s deadline and we haven’t published a fresh story on the website all day when I take my shot.
The Johnny Toxic story hasn’t broken yet. There was a small wire item about a homicide in the Valley. But the report didn’t use Toxic’s nom de porn or identify him as a member of the adult entertainment industry. Thankfully, it didn’t mention the battle-ax either. Omitting those two details probably kept my competition—the LA Times, TMZ, and really any wanker with a website—off the scent. Each one would gobble up the story and run with it if they could. Such is the nature of journalism, the media business, and the world. Sex sells but sex plus violence sells even better.
I pitch the story to Sunny, but she looks dubious.
“You look like I just told you I was capable of sucking my own dick,” I say.
Sunny’s expression turns from dubious to disturbed.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve spent the last three hours looking at dicks, it messes with your head.”
“We all have our problems,” she says.
“So?”
“Can you get confirmation? On the murder, not the psychological problem of dick overload.”
I nod yes, hoping I’m enough of a journalist to outmaneuver a homicide detective while simultaneously checking for errant pricks in a magazine nobody reads.
“OK. Do the story.”
There it is: the green light I need and the ask that’ll make it stick. First reporter to get a quote from the cops is certainly in the ball game.
I feel proud, so I stand there like I’m trying to milk the moment. But Sunny just looks at me like I’m an idiot.
“For fuck’s sake,” Dean says, throwing off his headphones, treating us to a few chords of “Casey Jones.”
“Booty needs to decide if this month’s top lesbian scenes are alphabetical by studio, star, or title,” he snaps. “This is bush league.”
If I were hanging out with Miles, we would’ve jumped on Dean’s pun—even though pubic hair went out of favor in the nineties. But I’m not hanging out with Miles. This is the work side of the porn business, the grind. And we don’t really do puns because there’s just too many of them. So neither Sunny nor I say a word. Besides, Dean looks crazed.
Then he picks up his stapler and slams it into the wall, creating a small impact mark.
Sunny clears her throat, and Dean grabs a one-hitter from his desk drawer, saying that he’s going for a walk.
“Heywood, make sure Toxic is actually dead,” Sunny says.
***
I call the public information officer for the LAPD and flesh out a few more details. He confirms that the dead man really was Toxic. There’s no suspect and no comment from the cops on the murder weapon.
I type up what I have and call Toxic’s production company. The phone rings for a few minutes before I give up. Apparently, pornographers don’t do voicemail.
I call Boyd.
“What?”
“Detective Boyd?” I ask.
“Yeah, what?”
“This is Heywood Jablowme...”
“So that is what you say at Macaroni Grill?”
“I don’t eat at Macaroni Grill.”
“Are you always this literal?”
“What do you mean?”
“Heywood, my burger is getting cold and my bun is getting soggy. I don’t have time to dick around with people who answer my questions with questions.”
“In-N-Out or Fatburger?”
“Don’t jerk me around.”
“I’m not jerking you around.”
“I know when I’m getting jerked around, so don’t even. Now take your hand off my pecker and tell something I need to know.”
Boyd wins in the banter department, but considering the difference in weight class, I’m pleased with my performance. Time for a question.
“I’m writing a story on the murder, and I wanted to get a comment from you. You are the lead detective in the Johnny Toxic case, right?”
“I am.”
“So do you have a comment?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“The secret menu at In-N-Out is bullshit, that’s why I’m eating at the Counter—they put all their ingredients on a list and you check off what you want. You don’t have to talk to anyone, and nobody jerks you around.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me: b-u-double-hockey-sticks shit! If it’s so good, why would you keep it a secret? Animal Style? Just cook the fucking onions, don’t make me say a code like this is a speakeasy.”
“A speakeasy? I think we’re off track. I’m happy to talk burgers, but I’m on deadline and I need a quote...”
“Don’t quote me on speakeasy—nobody uses that word anymore,” Boyd says. “In fact, don’t quote me.”
“So you have no comment?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, can I say that Detective Boyd of the LAPD had no comment on the case?”
“Sure.”
Boyd spells his name, telling me not to screw that up.
“I won’t.”
“A high-profile case like
this could get me a promotion,” he says, the implication being that he’s not about to let a rookie reporter from a second-tier trade publication keep him from his prize.
“Me too,” I say. “I could get a promotion. Well, something good. It’s a good story. I mean there’s a battle-ax for a murder weapon.”
“Heywood, the man is dead.”
I feel bad suddenly, and I go silent.
Boyd laughs.
“Yeah, the public loves its homicides weird,” he says. “There are some sick-ass people out there, Heywood. For fuck’s sake, the guy next to me ordered an egg on his burger, but substituted chicken for beef. That’s fucked up—like eating a baby-mom sandwich.”
“So no comment on the battle-ax?” I ask, regaining my momentum.
“No,” Boyd says. “I have no comment on the battle-ax. Do you have a comment on this abortion of a sandwich?”
“No.”
I circle the word battle-ax in my notes. I may not be able to attribute the battle-ax to him in the story, but he has confirmed that the murder weapon was a battle-ax.
I type up the story, print out a hard copy, and walk it over to Sunny.
She’s busy staring at a blank Word doc that says “Editor’s Note,” so she reads the six-hundred-word item fast.
“Cut the second graph, and make sure you use Toxic’s real name at the end.”
I nod.
“Nice work.”
A few minutes later, I upload the story to the site. The headline reads: “Police Seek Battle-Ax Killer in Johnny Toxic Murder.”
I am on my way to greener pastures. I hope.
Chapter 16: Timely fuck-whores
We’re spent.
Editorially speaking, we’ve shot our load.
Dean looks like an extra from an eighties ’Nam movie, his glassy eyes focusing on a point in space about a thousand yards behind me.
Layout can be grueling at any publication, but porn’s never-ending work flow makes it especially challenging. The assembly line of smut never stops.
Thankfully, now that we’re in the eleventh hour, Dean’s nitpicking has yielded to Solomonic practicality. Without an explanation, he decides to split the difference with Booty, making a collage featuring each of the year’s previous cover girls, ending the debate about possibly reusing any one girl by doubling down with a retrospective. More is always better in porn. And say what you will about Dean’s drug habit, he’s a wizard with Quark.
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