Tricks Of The Trade

by Ben Tyler

  Bart whined. “Now I’m supposed to buy a magnum of Cristal champagne, no expensing it, and personally go down to LAX tonight and find Zarita before she takes off for New York on the studio’s corporate jet. I have to hand her this token gift and, on bended knee, apologize for editing her bio. Which is my job, for Christ sake.”

  “What was wrong with her bio in the first place that made you change it?” Dr. Ecle asked.

  “The hyperbole was excruciating. It gave me bleeding hemorrhoids. Honest to God, this is how she wants it to read. I’ve memorized it verbatim. ‘What a moviegoer gets from their two hours in the dark of a cinema house depends entirely on the dazzling, effulgent star, in this case Academy Award–winning, Tony Award-winning, BAFTA, Emmy, Grammy, People’s Choice, and NAACP Image Award-winning Zarita Wetmore, the most successful Haitian-American actress in the history of all time.’

  “‘In the history of all time?’ What kind of cockamamie redundancy is that! It goes on to say, ‘She loves telling you, her loyal, devoted audience, a real story and fully developing her characters.’

  “Well, I would hope she’d fully develop her frigging characters! She is, after all, an actress. Excuse me, star. There’s a difference.

  “‘So we all leave the movies enriched and overwhelmed by her unforgettable roles and excitedly await the next great story she will share with us on-screen.’”

  “And you feel that’s all wrong?” asked Dr. Ecle.

  “It might be acceptable in a Saturday Night Live parody. One in which Zarita accepts a Golden Loom Award from Star Jones, on behalf of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, for one of her pub-licity-perfect humanitarian efforts, such as the Save Our Children from Kathie Lee Foundation. But it’s not fine in a press kit. At least not in a press kit that has my name as the writer on it.”

  Dr. Ecle pressed his hands together. “I sense you’re filled with anxiety, Bart. Even with the Klonopin I’ve prescribed.”

  “It’s that obvious?” Bart said sarcastically. “It’s my maniacal boss who got me on this drug in the first place. I have too much pressure at work. And now that I should be getting fucked—excuse me—literally by the only man I’ve ever met who’s off the Richter scale of earthshaking sex, I’m forced to work way overtime on arbitrarily created assignments. It’s as though Shari knows all about Rod and she won’t let me have so much as nine thick inches of a personal life. Anxiety? It takes on a whole new meaning with me!” Bart paused. “Sorry about the ‘F’ word. I’m using it a lot lately.”

  “Follow that thought about Rodrigo,” Dr. Ecle suggested, his prurient mind making the segue to a more lascivious issue. It was the first time since Bart’s session began that the shrink became seriously attentive. “What’s going on there?”

  Bart finally smiled. Lying on his back with his eyes closed, he flashed on Rod’s dark-skinned body hovering above him in all its naked anatomic beauty. Hard as steel in all the right places. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  Bart sighed. “Well, for most of my adult life, I’ve equated sex with love. This is the first time I’m seeing sex as play, as extracurricular activity. I’ve always had to at least think there was a future with a guy before wrinkling the Laura Ashleys with him. With Rod, it’s just so damned much fun. He’s the perfect stud! It’s driving me crazy that I can’t be with him all the time. I even want to quit my job just so I can stay in his bed all day, even if he’s not there. I just want to wrap myself in his dingy sheets and hibernate.”

  “Bart,” said Dr. Ecle, “you’re beginning to display rather overt signs of becoming obsessive. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Obsessive? Over Rod? You bet your prescription pad, Doctor. I even stole a pair of his underpants. When I put them on, I get so hard I start to come without touching myself. I can actually get off just wearing his goddamned underpants! It’s like they have some magic aphrodisiac property! Next I want one of his perspiration-soaked tank-top gym shirts.”

  Bart paused, then: “I told you, he’s a wanna-be screenwriter? Coverage came back on one of his scripts that I sent to a friend in the story department. The guy gave it an Excellent. It means Rod has real talent. I’m obsessed with a guy who’s a stud and talented at the same time. That’s a first for me. A breakthrough, wouldn’t you say?”

  Dr. Ecle shrugged. “That diagnosis is yet to be determined. But tell me more about the sex.”

  Bart let out a moan of pleasure. “I’ve only been with him six times, but he’s awesome. When I arrive at his house—or, rather, the room he rents—he merely slides open the door…. I walk in, and he immediately pins me against the wall. It’s as if I’m the only guy he’s fucking—I know I’m not—but he can’t seem to wait to send his long, hot tongue snaking down my throat. Picture a special-effects shot on Ally McBeal.

  “He always has a bottle of tequila on hand. We start by taking a couple of swigs. I’ve gotten very used to the taste. Then I start by slowly disengaging my lips from his and dragging my tongue from his Adam’s apple down his chest, over to an armpit, which I thoroughly clean like I’m a cat licking its coat. I go for his brown nipples and gnaw on them. Then I make my way down his arched chest that has a green-and-blue tattoo on the right side. Gang symbols, I suppose. Then on to his stomach. I usually linger for a picnic in his navel, cleaning it out. He’s got an ‘inny.’ Then it’s on to the main course, which is feathered in a bed of black alfalfa sprouts and anchored with the pits from two ripe avocados.”

  Dr. Ecle’s mouth was agape. He looked like an asphyxiated fish.

  Bart concluded: “We eventually make our way to his bed and…and…we do it.”

  Dr. Ecle swallowed and snapped out of his reverie, disconcerted by the abrupt end to the scenario. “Do it?”

  “You know. We have sex. Kinda rough sex, I’ll admit. I think he intuitively knows he’s brought me out of my shell. I’m not so much the mild-mannered little wuss that I appear to be. Years ago, I had a guy say to me he wanted to ‘fuck me until my head caved in.’ Nothing out of the ordinary happened with that jerk. We had sex, but my head was still intact—just brain-dead from boredom. Rod actually makes me feel my head—and I do mean the one on my shoulders—will explode. He’s perfect. Except…”

  “Except?”

  “Every time after…you know…after the first climax…”

  “First?”

  “Oh, we always go at least two or three full rounds every time. After the first round, he gives me the third degree about his script. He does it furtively. Like he’s merely making after-sex, lovey-dovey small talk. First he laughs and says, ‘Man, you’re really some wild fuck.’ Or ‘Did you have as bitchin’ a time as I did?’ Then he always whispers in my ear as we’re holding each other, ‘Hey, man, any news about our project?’

  “I confess, I’ve been sort of evasive.”

  “Haven’t you told him? About the coverage?”

  Bart shook his head. “Not yet. I keep telling Rod to be patient, that I’m sure my friend will come through soon.”

  “So basically you’ve been stringing him along.”

  “Not stringing…per se.”

  “Why do you think you’re withholding this information?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t,” Bart parried.

  “I think you do.”

  “Then you tell me.”

  “I can’t give you the answers, Bart,” Dr. Ecle said.

  “But that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

  “Are you afraid of something?”

  “Like what? That I’m being used? That when he gets the coverage it’ll be adios amigo?” Bart paused and thought for a long moment. “Maybe,” he admitted for the first time aloud.

  “Who’s using whom?”

  “Hey, he’s lucky to have me. I’m his entrée to the biz.”

  “But isn’t he your entrée into the world of sex for play?
You’ve bitched about not finding anyone special ever since we started these consultations.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Bart insisted. “I can’t explain it in words.” He paused. “Do you think maybe I’m falling in love?”

  “You tell me. The answer, Bart, is deep in your subconscious.”

  “Why must it always be the subconscious? It’s my consciousness I’m aware of.”

  “We’re going to have to do a lot of excavating to find the answers to your questions. Very arduous.” Dr. Ecle sounded like a Gestapo agent preparing a prisoner for torture.

  “I don’t usually do this,” Dr. Ecle continued, “but let me tell you about another patient of mine.”

  “Isn’t that a tad unethical?” Bart said, lifting his head off the pillow and turning around to look at Dr. Ecle, who was staring into space.

  Bart used to get a woody just thinking of his shrink, even though the guy usually took up half their sessions talking about himself and his lack of lovers. Dr. Ecle had explained that the anecdotes he revealed about his own failures as a love machine would be useful to Bart as he progressed along his own journey of self-discovery. Now Bart was getting a little scared of what Dr. Ecle had up his sleeve for therapy. Bart lay back down.

  Dr. Ecle wasn’t what most gay men would admit to finding sexy. But until Rod came along, Bart’s idea of sex appeal in another man wasn’t necessarily linked to physical appearance. Bart gave much more weight to how intellectual, talented, or witty the guy was. Dr. Ecle was not a six-foot-five, broad-shouldered, blue-jeaned Marlboro Man. To Bart, however, he seemed pretty smart. He was more a latter-day Professor from Gilligan’s Island, including the white dress shirts opened at the collar and down a couple of buttons.

  Bart used to get hard just thinking of the strands of chest hair revealed through the nearly diaphanous fibers of his shrink’s shirts. Although he wasn’t anywhere near runway-model handsome, he was what Bart had considered “marriage material.” He seemed stable. Had a thriving Beverly Hills practice. Lived above Sunset. Drove a sleek fern green Jaguar. He looked like a guy with whom Bart could comfortably trade sections of the Sunday edition of the New York Times in bed in their jammies (bottoms only) each weekend.

  Bart’s impression of Dr. Ecle changed when Rod came into the picture. Now Dr. Ecle seemed more like a bifocaled Ernest P. Worrel. He made Bart want to shout, “Hey, Vern! KnowwhatImean?”

  “I’m not naming names,” Dr. Ecle continued. “I just want to suggest that as part of your therapy, you continue to do what this one patient did as a means of catharsis. It may give you a better perspective on how you respond to the people who appear to have authority over you.”

  “Like Shari? And Rod?”

  “Or that last major crush you had. Payne, was it?”

  “Thane.”

  “Oh, right. The one with the wife and three kids.”

  “Ex-wife. And three cats.”

  “Hmmm. Well, the individual to whom I refer is the son or daughter of a big movie star from the old days. Doesn’t matter who the star was, but his or her towels would be monogrammed B.D. or J.C. Confidentiality prevents me from telling you the real name—of the star, I mean.”

  “M-G-M?” Bart asked, ready to play twenty questions.

  “It isn’t important.”

  “Warner Brothers?”

  “Anyway, I suggested he or she—the nameless son or daughter—write down every sordid detail about the way he or she was mistreated by one of Hollywood’s legends, who happened to be his or her mother or father.”

  “B.D.? J.C.?” Bart pondered aloud. “Old old? Or Bo Derek and Jane Curtin old.”

  “Too young. And star, not just a celebrity. But that’s enough hinting. The journal he or she—my patient—wrote turned into a best-selling book. Which became a cult-classic movie. Which made beaucoup bucks of—as you’ve said in the past—‘fuck-you money.’”

  Bart immediately bolted upright, as if he’d suddenly had a presentiment about who murdered JonBenet Ramsey. “You treated one of the Hudson sisters’ daughters?”

  Dr. Ecle’s face turned beet red, as though Judge Judy had caught him in a big fat lie. “Jane. John. Son. Daughter. Who knows? Who cares?” Dr. Ecle exclaimed.

  “You know I’m a slave to Joan! A guy I knew had her dog’s ashes in a Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee can!”

  “Yes, we’ve had that discussion. I’m not at liberty to say precisely who the star—”

  Bart persisted. “Didn’t her daughter end up with a stroke? And being disinherited and losing her husband and all kinds of personal disasters after she destroyed her mother’s perfect image? All because of that tell-all book? What was the title, I’ve Handwritten a Thank You Note to Mummsie, My Precious? And you told her to write that? Oh, m’god!”

  “Hour’s up,” Dr. Ecle said defensively. “Anyway, it’s not like she—or he—owned the Hope diamond, for Christ sake. She—or he—didn’t suffer all those calamities because she or he was cursed, for crying out loud.”

  “If you have Blanche or Jane Hudson for a mother, you’re pretty much doomed.”

  “I never said it was anybody you’ve heard of,” Dr. Ecle cried nervously. “It could have been Elsa Lanchester, for all you know.”

  “Wrong initials. Married to Laughton. Gay.”

  Dr. Ecle looked around his office as if half-expecting a parade of members from the California State Board of Psychiatry to burst through the door and confiscate his perma-plaqued medical degrees, like Rose Hovick pilfering Papa’s solid-gold retirement award from the train company.

  “I’m diligently keeping the diary you suggested,” Bart said in a wary tone.

  “I know. Keep doing that. Meanwhile, we’ll pick this up next week.”

  Bart got up off the couch and left. To him, Dr. Ecle looked as frazzled as Dr. Frasier Crane after a mix-up with his tickets for orchestra seats on the aisle at a Seattle Repertory Theatre production of The Lisbon Traviata. It was amazing how much life really was like TV.

  Chapter Six

  The gates to all Hollywood studios officially open at nine every day—except Disney, where former studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg once avowed, “If you don’t come to work on Sunday, don’t bother coming in on Saturday!” Or was it the other way around? The admonishment was so stupid, no one ever quite figured out what he meant. The saying was as cryptic as the lame “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” on the poster copy for Love Story.

  For Bart, “business as usual” at Sterling meant that he arrived each weekday morning at six. Today was no different—despite the fact that he had been up until 2:00 A.M. with Rod. Over the years that Bart had worked at Sterling, he was always the first one in the office. The studio was notorious within the industry for its understaffing, thereby wringing every drop of blood, and sweat, from its employees and creating nervous breakdowns, and suicides. Still, Bart enjoyed getting out of bed before dawn because it meant quietly jump-starting the day in peace, even though his sadistically overwhelming workload actually required the long hours.

  There was an unspoken, companywide assumption that since Sterling was the most prestigious entertainment empire in the world, hundreds, if not thousands, of would-be Eve Harringtons were waiting in the wings to replace any lackey who deigned to show any lack of gratitude for the privilege of his or her employment. In an eye blink, anyone who wasn’t a team player could be history. But though unequivocal loyalty was expected from each worker, Sterling had no reciprocal allegiance to the cogs that ran the big wheel. Anybody courteous enough to resign with two weeks notice was swiftly escorted off the lot that same day by studio security.

  Bart was good at mimicking what was expected of a team player. “Yes, sir.” “No, ma’am.” “I’ll volunteer for that unpaid assignment, even though it’s in opposition to the collective-bargaining agreement between Sterling and IATSE and even though my mother’s funeral is at the same time…”

  But he felt all that was beneath him. As muc
h as possible, he tried to leave the brown-nosing to the overenthusiastic interns who didn’t complain about the slavelike treatment and less than minimum wage and the just-out-of-college assistants who mistakenly thought if they proved themselves tireless workers, they’d enjoy a meteoric rise in Hollywood and make the leap from being under a thumb to being the thumb. Invariably, they were all in for a surprise—especially at Sterling.

  Bart’s mornings were ritualistic: coffee in an environmentally responsible cardboard cup from the commissary. Download the E-mails that popped up overnight. Listen to whining voice-mail messages from below-the-main-title-credit actors or their agents complaining because they had not been asked to do publicity for the film in which their single thirty-second scene was their big break. Then there were memos to write. Post-its to plaster on Cheets’s computer monitor screen with instructions to call Holly Hunter or John Turturro to get approval of their bios for use at some upcoming film festival.

  Lately, however, Bart had a new objective for arriving early: his diary.

  With his Gregg ruled steno books in which to capture fleeting thoughts and feelings, Bart unleashed a torrent of frustrations and run-on sentences of never-before-revealed venom and resentment toward so many colleagues, family, and friends. He was stunned at his own vitriol and use of fairly vulgar language.

  He devised codes for his various colleagues in case his notes fell into the wrong hands. For instance, “JtH” meant “Jabba the Hut,” in reference to behemoth Harry Wolfman, the most frighteningly obese person he’d ever met. Harry was someone who blustered that most men—especially the younger ones—found him inordinately sexy. An ill-tempered, Nazi-like gargoyle who rode a Harley and led the Hogs on Hogs contingent at West Hollywood’s annual Gay Pride Festival Parade, he fired assistants left and right, usually as soon as they proved to be smarter than he and quite capable of doing his job. JtH was threatened by demonstrations of intelligence among his support staff, especially since he had the IQ of a flat Diet Pepsi—and he knew it.