Thank You and Good Night

by Ray Succre

  Slowly, we pull back, tilting, until we return to the original shot of the three, but there is only EMERY present, in his pajamas, looking tired and haggard. He stares down at the bomb. The static is loud and aggravating.

  CUT TO:

  The passage of time, accountable as a construct of myriad moments, yet with moments from the unknown. Short periods full of events and, at times troublesome, non-events. Emery did only what he could, pouring the coffee down, the whiskey down, breathing the cigarettes and waltzing with the clock in his study. For the Asher family, the end of this period of trouble, this time of a distant husband and terse father carried away into his moodiness and work, came in the middle of August, when a telephone call ruptured the home’s melancholy and roused the invaginated writer from his creativity’s drunkenness. Bernie Dozier, a man whom she had yet to meet, and one with which she hoped never to shake hands, had called to explain his own hard work over the summer, and that he had managed to acquire a second season for The Other Side.

  Emery’s elation came later that night, once his baffled and bitter rant over network bureaucracy and groping pseudo-demographic had abated. Bourbon helped in this, and Beth chose to aid him in celebration, giving a physical element to their happiness. The laughter and warmth served as a breaking of “the Emmy hex”, as he had come to describe his recent bad fortune.

  The news had come, and he was in it again. Emery was above the water and would now gain speed. That night, they had a celebratory few hours over at the Belmonts’ house (Calvin Moffat had been there, as well, bringing with him a rather ugly dog he had just purchased). After this fun evening, Emery and Beth returned home, dismissed the sitter, and then invited a thing into their bed that had not visited in months: Intimacy. They returned somewhat to the poses of thought and expectation for which they knew one another to hold. Was it really so simple? Work made the man happy? They seemed again to be the sort of couple they cherished, and the past months of Emery’s shame and moping melted into a conglomerate murkiness they both brushed out the door along with his short-lived coldness.

  Emery made a short promise to her that night, aloud and with the sound of realization, that he would not allow himself to be so troubled by bad news again. There was also an apology. This came from the top of his head, but had an element of charm in it, and thus, it felt well-written. This annoyed her, but the apology did seem sincere, and it was quickly accepted. Somehow, though this change in weather was pleasing and needed, Beth felt it a little unfair. The trouble had ended with what Emery might have called a deus ex machina.

  His work began immediately. He improvised outlines and would write episodes until summer’s end, which was quite near. Production on the first episode of the season was to begin immediately. This evidence of the fates had conspired Emery to his fruition again, and his eyes lost the silt that had overcome them. Beth had been given her husband back, which of course was a cruel trick, as having him back meant losing him to work again. She supposed she would prefer work to bitterness, if one of those had to be in play. The fashion of their marriage had embraced absence in the past, and it would again. She found it an ignominy that the only time the girls had enough time with their father, enough presence with him to get to know the man, had been during that unemployed summer when his mind and heart had been amidst so much wreckage of expiry and occupation. The daughters did not know the fun, charming man their mother did.

  Beth vowed to change this relationship between father and daughters. For better or worse, somehow, Rebecca and Vivian were going to be given more time with him. Whether this required pressure on Beth’s part, or her downright intrusion into his work schedule, she would force it to happen. The girls deserved it. Emery deserved it. For the daughters, this would begin in the form of visiting the studio and seeing daddy at work on the weekends. Perhaps that would be a decent start. Beth brought up this idea several times, and eventually, Emery reluctantly agreed to try it.

  “Beth, we swear like sailors, and a lot of us blaspheme, and I’ll be running crazy, ordering everybody around all day. It gets stressful on set and it’s fast and everybody has a part and there’s a lot of yelling when someone isn’t in the right place at the right time. We’re mangy; it’s a place for dogs, honey, not little girls.”

  “Then swear, Emery. Bark orders, you wolf. They know you’re at work and they’ll be fine.”

  The cancellation had brought to life every bit of failure he had long dreaded might one day come for him. The irony was that he was now often recognized in the streets and in restaurants due to his appearance as the host of the show, and while there were some that would refer to him in these moments of recognition as ‘the Other Side guy’, most did seem to know him by his name. He had become somewhat popular in presence, as well as in certain writer circles. Never had he been so liked, and this had caused him the sensation of acclaim, the kind he could bite down on and truly taste. That the cancellation happened at a peak of this fan demeanor, just after receiving two Emmys, had been both startling and cruel, and now that a second season was in the works, he wanted to move forward as quickly as possible.

  The fans were ancillary, and always present. The studio had concluded that the fans of the show made up a small group of people, without the power of a united lifestyle or age. This was not a demographic studios sought. A scattering of fans, even a massive scattering, seemed diminished and appeared minuscule to a network. The fans had to have an age or gender or class in common, to count with the network. Networks looked at the mortar, not the bricks. When several major newspapers reported the cancellation of ‘Mr. Emmy’s new show’, the fans came out in droves. They sent letters that were likely thrown out without being read. They met and discussed how to get the show back on the air. In one odd moment, two young men knocked on the Asher door to express their condolences. What Emery at first thought were two strangers kindly referring to his mother’s death, ended with a stroke of gratitude when he discovered their agenda: They wanted the show back and had simply thought to say as much. Emery had been pleased to tell them that the show was, in fact, being given a second season, and that they’d soon be tuning in at 8 p.m. Dozier had managed something amazing, and while this news had made Emery happy, the two fans at his front door had re-impressed upon the writer the reason for his work. He had almost forgotten that he wrote for others, and that they noticed when he did it well. The network had changed him over the past year; he would need to make sure that did not happen again.

  Bernie Dozier was not so much a whale as a shark, and only in rare moments. He chose his battles with caution and much planning, it seemed, and when something struck him as worth assault, he moved with the pressure of those many others he could sway to his side. This was the way The Other Side had gained new life, and the pressure under which a second season had been granted. Dozier knew people and was fond of doing favors for them. He rarely collected on these, but if there was a demand, he could pressure and, ultimately, cash in as he needed. The workings of Bernie Dozier would not have succeeded however, if it were not for the catalyst of the show’s audience, which proved to be far broader than the demographic for which the studio had aimed. The most vocal of these fans were young, male, and of the college age, but the greatest number of letters coming in were from housewives. CBS had underestimated the cross-genre appeal of the show, but caught on quick once the first news articles began to circulate (one of Dozier’s tactics that had worked wonders). Emery was both elated and frustrated with the network, and though his mood was in the stratus over a second season, he was troubled over the granting of that second season after months of having been dismissed without so much as a thank you. In the end, Dozier had struggled to bring the show back, calling in favors and waging a strong yet quiet media campaign, but Emery’s return as head writer was waged more by the fans, themselves, than by any producer.

  The cancellation had removed Emery from contract. He did not need to return to the show any more than a person needed to reinitiate a love
interest with someone that had previously abandoned them. The truth was that Emery would have traded every one of his plaques, certificates, and Emmys in exchange for more fans. Acclaim felt to him far greater than any other sort of prize, though often called these into being.

  Dozier had been right when stating Emery need not worry for work; the offers had taken some time to begin, but they started coming in at nearly the exact moment the second season was granted. At times, the world preferred to throw someone everything at once. He was asked to write a picture for Sandal Studios and offered a job as one of five writers on The Cattlemen, an early-evening western that was somewhat popular on a competing network. One of the offers was peculiar and struck much thought into Emery before being declined, and this was an offer to weekly guest lecture for a scriptwriting course at Los Angeles University. This did appeal to him, but he did not feel ready to leave the active business of writing for television, and in his mind, a guest lecturer who wasn’t also working in his field was a sad thing to be. He did accept the Sandal picture, and had a year to write it, but declined the other offers. They did not have the feeling of being approachable, and his home, for the time being, was on set and before a typewriter.

  FADE TO:

  INT. THE BALLROOM - NIGHT

  We see the empty room again, but it’s dim. The Mark V demolition bomb is still present, but not the Ashers, and not Emery. It is quiet. We remain in a long shot as, suddenly, the television spotlight comes on above, lighting the bomb below. The static is quieter, due to our distance, and shortly, the channel is changed. We hear the opening credits of The Other Side. After a moment, we hear HOST ASHER speaking from the television program, his voice tinny and reverberating throughout the empty ballroom. This gains in volume as we watch the bomb. The monologue seems to be a medley of statements and lines from various episodes. It has no real bearing or specific meaning.

  Into the spotlight, from behind, steps HOST ASHER in his usual, hosting suit. His hair is slicked back and he seems about to address us. Three teamsters enter frame, carefully lift the bomb, and exit with it, leaving us only with HOST ASHER in the bright light. We hear the nonsensical monologue from the television as HOST ASHER stands there in the spotlight, looking nervous and never at us, as if in guilt. We hear the television close the piecemeal monologue.

  TELEVISION ASHER:

  He is a man unlucky in life but lucky in love... a woman with a particular fascination... Pilots in the midst of a difficult maneuver and running low on hope... two children who are about to take a very long sort of nap, only to wake up on... The Other Side. With nowhere to run and his soul on the chopping block... please take into consideration... on The Other Side on The Other Side we call this story, The Silver Tongue, and it comes straight from the twisted hands of fate on The Other Side... tonight we have a tale that... where the best one-liners come from... so stay with us as we show you a little something about faith... on The Other Side.

  FADE TO:

  Reading aloud to himself, Emery studied into his more acclaimed works for marrow. Each new script had to sound right, feel strong, and convey the thing with more than a gimmick, but with intrigue. He was eager to search hard for what had made certain previous scripts work, and others falter. The season line-up was uncertain, but he wanted to make certain he had material for anything that did not fetch the program’s scattered fans. In just three weeks, his show was going back on the air, using the season one finale, which had never aired, as a sort of re-launch episode. Emery had four weeks to ready another episode, or risk falling into re-runs for a time.

  The other jobs had started heaving in like a tide. News of the cancellation had taken a couple of months to spread, and now the job offers were coming in, right when he no longer needed them. A strange development had occurred in that people seemed to want him as a bit-part actor, instead of a writer. Very few wanted him to work with scripts, and those that did only wanted the speculative arena in its basest sense. They asked for more science fiction and horror, yes, but far less drama, and certainly no presentations that might contain moral. They wanted mummies and flying saucers, not allegory. They wanted image over wit, with a touch of shock, stories of various people that faced an ill fate, but without the reason for that fate.

  Many of the offered projects failed to understand wanweird, or his stylizations, his conceits, and even his means. This, in itself, presented a story in which he played protagonist, a story that at times found him wreathed in sardonic self-disgust, and at other times, tittering from the mistakes of his fellows with a jocular dopiness. Many writers were now killing off characters as a somewhat meaningless pacing device. These writers weren’t unemployed, however. Emery needed to remember that.

  There was a new contract for The Other Side. Creative control still belonged to Emery, but this meant every bit of trouble would still belong to him, as well. There was a fresh title animation with an altered introduction to be recorded. Emery wrote it the night of Dozier’s telephone call. There were A-grade actors lined up for episodes, fantastical scripts written by Larry Belmont and Calvin Moffat, with well over half the season written by Emery, himself. Orson Banry’s episode had been put on hold, much to Emery’s dissatisfaction, as Banry wanted to keep giving it attention, and was dragging his feet. The episode was no longer slated, but would likely air in the third season. With the exception of Banry’s episode, all the work they had done in pre-production for this season had been completed before the cancellation, and was now available again, or at least, for the first six episodes. Some of the personnel were busy on other jobs and shows now, so some hiring was going to occur, but the executive producer would handle most of that. Strangest was that the network had decided, with the backing of Dozier, to film half of the season on videotape. Emery was worried about this, and through some complaint, managed to talk the network down to six episodes on videotape, rather than half of the season. There would be problems with the format, the first and most pressing being that videotape looked like garbage, and removed the possibility of shooting on location. This would prove simply to be one more thing Emery needed to weather and handle as it came.

  The cancellation, though brief, had staggered the show, but only a portion of the summer, some personnel, and a month of much-needed pre-production time nad been lost. Beyond lost time and resources, Emery was forced to agree to a new clause stating that some of the episodes would be shot on videotape. The scramble was about to begin, but Emery was more than ready. The month of his bitterness had served as a sort of forced, tragic vacation, but he had written much. The second season would be much better than the first, and he knew how things worked with more scrutiny now. He knew how to work with Jamison, how to handle Dozier, where to spot a Warren Tult, and when to give Belmont and Moffat power in an episode.

  There was a slight trouble when Emery learned that Jamison had not yet agreed to executive produce a second season. Emery didn’t like Sol, but the man had backed him when it was needed, and Emery had grown accustomed to Jamison’s strange, bossy aspect and his ever-blanketed personality. Dozier was certain Sol would come aboard shortly. The only major change to the season, provided Sol came back, would be the first episode, which Emery dismissed after notice the season was going to happen. Between the cancellation and the re-assertion of the show, he had written several scripts, and one of them was a better story for which the season could embark. Emery wanted it to pass the “Belmont Test”, a private phrase he had concocted in the first season, and something Emery had found was useful to him, as quickly as possible. The Belmont Test, or, what Larry thought of a story, was most accurately an indicator of a fetching story when it was waged in the rough phase. He had to go over a story close to the beginning stage or else the Belmont Test was largely useless: Larry liked nearly everything once it was polished.

  “What’s it about? Ah, I think you’ll like it, Larry. I’ll have it over to you tomorrow. It’ll make a good lead for the season, because this season’s a little darker, no thank
s to you. Here’s what I’ve got in the rough: We start with a woman at a funeral who believes she can hear the voice of her deceased sister, who’s about to be buried. That’s all narrated. So we get to the funeral and the majority of the first act is the service, and the woman keeps hearing the voice. We hear it, too. The pall-bearers bring the coffin to the plot, and there’s the priest and all, then the coffin is set in the ground. But the protagonist can still hear her sister’s voice coming from the coffin. It's a faint, uncertain sound. We hear it, too, of course. Should the woman say something? She’s certain she hears the muffle of her sister. The coffin is then buried and they relocate to the service.

  “We’ve got our commercial break, and then the second act has the family telling stories about the dead woman. They reminisce and we learn that it was a car accident. Through this, though, we learn that the dead woman is the twin of her sister. The protagonist and the dead sister are identical twins. And of course, out protagonist keeps hearing her sister’s voice, but she can’t understand the words through the coffin, and now, through the soil. It gets more muffled as we go, but we still hear it. By the end of Act 2, the sound of the sister’s voice has become too much for the protagonist to bear, which results in her screaming out that her sister can’t be dead (also, because they’re twins, we start to realize that the voice is the same as the protagonist’s). The onlookers at the service are startled by the shouting, and they try to subdue her. She insists she can hear her sister. Her own husband has to hold her down while a doctor examines her.