Tricks Of The Trade

by Ben Tyler

  Bart also knew that JtH could be squashed with one of two comments: “Get off my back, you fat-assed yeti!” Or, “How do you find your dick under all that lard?”

  It was almost like automatic writing—the words not coming from Bart but through him. The sometimes-unintelligible sentences reminded him of one-sided conversations with his schizophrenic next-door neighbor, whose words poured forth with no continuity of thought.

  Nine o’clock came too quickly, usually when Bart was on a roll. He resented having to put away his scrawled notes and begin his workday, preparing questions for interviews for a new press kit. For example, his list of those from whom he needed quotes right away included Richard Dreyfuss, Bill Murray, and Jenifer Lewis. (The funniest woman alive, she managed to make her truck driver’s vocabulary endlessly entertaining. “You’re gonna have to clean this shit up for print, honey.”)

  By 9:05 the trade papers and Bart’s mail were delivered. He finished the dregs of his coffee and scanned Army Archerd. Daily Variety’s famed columnist may not have had the biting sardonicism of the Hollywood Kids or DishtheDirt.com, but his clear and polished prose was a breath of fresh air to the stodgy old guard of Hollywood has-beens. But the young Turks who now ran the community found more dish in the Ladies’ Home Journal.

  Several interesting stories peppered the paper today. Something about Robert Downey Jr.’s jailhouse uniform of basic orange. Some wunderkind studio head in his early twenties losing it at the shoulders when his latest Chevy Chase comedy and a spate of Catherine Zeta-Jones films flopped at the box office.

  Bart shook his head. “Poor son of a bitch. Washed up at twenty-three!” He really wasn’t worried about the studio head, whose parachute was more likely the color of platinum—or Downey, either, for that matter, who still had movies coming out despite his incarceration.

  As for the twenty-three-year-old executive, he would do just fine. There was an unwritten law in Hollywood: You can only fall upward. If you get fired from one studio, you always go on to a bigger and better job at another one, regardless of what offense caused your termination. Lying. Cheating. Embezzling. Masturbating on the centerfold picture in a porn magazine in front of your secretary, then making her clean up the mess. No sin in Hollywood goes unrewarded.

  Take David Begelman, still the poster boy for dirty tricks in a town with more scandal than Washington, D.C. Begelman and his partner bankrupted Judy Garland. Begelman personally halted Cliff Robertson’s acting career and God only knew what other atrocities. But like countless executives before and after him, Begelman was commensurately rewarded with a better-paying job—running M-G-M. The Devil finally caught up with him, though, taking his soul in a suite at the Century Plaza Hotel; made it appear to be a suicide. “Ah. Karma,” Bart said triumphantly at the time. “Film producer Don Simpson paid the Devil big-time, too. Yes!”

  Even though he’d already cashed in, Simpson’s name was on the Gregg ruled steno pad under “Bart’s Top-Ten List of Disposable Assholes.” He just hadn’t gotten around to crossing him off. Simpson accompanied John Landis, Oliver Stone, Jerry Lewis, Michael Feinstein, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Rob Schneider, Zarita Wetmore, and of course, Shari Draper and Mare Dickerson.

  Each day, the mail boy brought a stack of newspapers as well as re-sumés from hungry freelance writers hoping for a chance to do some work for Bart and thus add Sterling to their list of credits. There were also the screenings and premiere invitations from his counterparts at rival studios and announcements about awards banquets. Stacks of crank letters from disgruntled filmgoers completed his daily haul from the U.S. Postal Service.

  One of Bart’s myriad duties was to personally respond to the morons who had nothing better to do with their lives than complain about the tarnished image of Sterling Studios. Nine out of ten letters quoted the Bible and ended with some unimaginative, clichéd prophecy that the studio’s famous grandfather-like founder was “spinning in his grave.” “He’s frozen, you dunderhead!” Bart often screamed mentally at the semiliterate letters. “Ever hear of cryogenics? He ain’t spinning unless he’s on a spit roasting in hell!” Which was a definite possibility, considering the several unauthorized biographies that brought up evidence of his Nazi affiliations and homophobia.

  Bart’s written responses to the sometimes-hostile letters were unfailingly polite. He protected his professional integrity while maintaining the appropriate image and preserving the rich culture and history of the studio, which had been built primarily on the success of the country’s biggest hit song ever from the sound track of one of Sterling’s short films from World War II. The ballad, “Meet Me at the Zoo (When the War is Through)” from Over Dover, was still raking in royalties more than fifty years later.

  Bart’s letters sometimes sounded as if they were written by an automaton with the same affected congeniality as a recorded voice at Disneyland admonishing parents to keep a tight leash on their dysfunctional brats.

  Bart had long ago run out of original ideas for his responses to these letters. Now they were all pretty much uniform:

  Thank you for taking the time to write. We appreciate your patronage and promise to continue to strive to live up to your highest expectations for the finest in family film entertainment…you cocksucking, ass-wiping, dildo-fucking, shithead.

  The tag never made it into any of Bart’s correspondence, but he often fantasized about insulting the cretins who took up his time with their lame protests and threats to never again buy Sterling’s videos at the local K mart or spend their yearly vacations at any of the company-owned theme resorts. Instead, he strove to sound as sincere and sickly sweet as possible when he imagined the ignoramuses who bitterly complained about profanity in the studio’s films or asked why the young hero or heroine in so many stories was always fatherless or motherless or orphaned. Nine out of ten times that loathsome phrase “family values” appeared in their idiotic missives.

  It was a testament to Bart’s tact that he was able to respond with diplomacy one time when a barrage of letters with nearly identical sentences was delivered by the sackful day after day from the Coalition for Traditional Nuclear Family Unity, a faction of the so-called Religious Right who were having a field day with Hollywood and and with Sterling in particular. Their general content was:

  Dear Sirs:

  My family and me we always take Christ along when we go to your Theme Place in Texas each and every year for over five years in a row now. But now we hear you got yourselves a Homo Day. Our pastor over at the Weeping Mary Praise the Lord Who Is Nailed to the Cross for Our Everlasting Sins Worship Center here in West Crumbutt says you close the place to Christians, the only true religion, and let queers with AIDS have all the rides to themselves for a spell. My question is, if they stay in your hotels, we want to know what you do with the sheets after them queers use them because we know what they do on those sheets and hope that you do too. Also, do you let them go to the toilets?

  Please contact me for an answer because then we can plan our vacation this year and maybe you won’t see us so much which would be a real shame for the little ones.

  Yours in Christ,

  Mrs. Mylanta M. Pepsid

  (Married to my husband who is a man for twenty-seven years now. Nine born-again sons. Soldiers for our Savior.)

  “Let me see if I understand that last part,” Bart mocked aloud. “Mylanta here has been married for twenty-seven years to her husband who is a man…or is it for twenty-seven years her husband has been a man? And she has nine sons, or sons who were born nine times? That’s really clear, Mylanta. Or Mydol. Or Placenta. Or Gynalotramin.” (The names were interchangeable.)

  There was always a postscript:

  P.S. Please repent while you have time. I will pray for you and your employees. Stop your evil. Only God can save you. We have to go back to family values.

  “Yea, yea, and you don’t hate the sinner, only the sin,” Bart jeered, parroting Pat Buchanan-like rhetoric.

  Bart bet that if the w
riters of these letters knew about the bulletin board outside his office door, where he posted the week’s most asinine complaints for all to read, there’d be fewer letters for him to answer. He would have loved nothing more than to take his red pen, write “Suck my queer cock!” across the letters, and send them back without any further explanation.

  But Shari insisted on reading every one of his responses, especially since her WACs in the White House debacle. “Too arch!” she scrawled with her Sharpie across one of his typical replies. “Your condescension is too obvious!” she wrote in the margin of another “Don’t patronize!” she declared on still another response to which he attached a patron’s frayed sheet ripped from a spiral notebook.

  After flipping through the pathetic, typo-filled crap he’d just read and adding it to the hundreds of its nearly identical sequels into his “To Do” file box, Bart picked through the rest of his morning’s mail. To his surprise, there was an invitation-size envelope with his name and the studio’s address handwritten in elegant calligraphy.

  “I hate weddings” was Bart’s muttered response as he sliced the top edge of the envelope with a serrated opener. However, when he withdrew the ecru-colored engraved card, he was surprised to discover it was an invitation to a black-tie soiree.

  Your presence is requested at the home of Jim Fallon,

  February 9th

  To commemorate and screen his final appearance on

  The Grass Is Always Greener.

  Regrets Only.

  A handwritten message was scrawled at the bottom of the Benneton Graveur stationery card. It read, “Mitch says you’ve got the cutest dimples. Please cum.” It was signed with the initials J.F.

  “Please cum?” Bart groaned. “That’s so tasteless and just plain high school juvenile!” However, he looked again at the date on the card and then checked his calendar. As a rule he hated Hollywood parties, but this one was taking place on a night when Rod was scheduled to work at the Trap. Rather than sit at home alone wearing Rod’s underpants and fantasizing about his Latin lover, Bart decided he should probably accept the invitation and at least make an appearance. But he really didn’t want to show up alone, unwilling to give the obviously lecherous Jim Fallon the impression that he was available. Bart wondered if he should talk to Rod and see if perhaps he could switch shifts that night with another bartender. Bart thought aloud, “It would certainly be a novelty having an actual ‘date’ with Rod.”

  Thus far, Bart had been content to keep the relationship on a purely sexual basis. The “old-fashioned boy” shackles that Bart had cast aside since meeting Rod made the idea of dinner and a movie not an option if instead they could spend their time on the sheets igniting each other into a sexual conflagration.

  Dates are for people who were testing the waters or were tired of making love to each other, Bart thought. This was his time to quench his nearly insatiable thirst and appetite for Rod’s naked body, and he didn’t want to share Rod with anybody.

  Reevaluating the party situation, Bart thought, In a town that pays absolutely no attention to me, if I make a grand entrance with Rod on my arm at Jim Fallon’s, even Hollywood’s most jaded movers and shakers would probably do a double take. We’d be King and King of the Prom.

  Bart confessed to himself that, just once, he’d like to know what Eliza Doolittle really felt when she appeared coiffured and couturied to the nines at the top of the palace staircase as royalty and servants alike whispered to each other, trying to deduce her identity. The same thing might actually happen at Jim’s. “Who’s the stud—and the lucky stiff he’s with?” Bart could practically hear the covetous crowd murmuring.

  By 9:30 the office was alive with the sound of the Xerox machine spewing out stapled copies of film reviews, the fax machine pouring out memos from the New York office, phones ringing everywhere. Secretaries usually preceded the arrival of their bosses in order to make coffee and flag meetings and luncheon appointments on daily calendars and clip stories from the major daily newspapers and trades about the studio’s films and stars. The exception to this rule was Cheets. She sauntered in when she damn well pleased, and more often than not, it was Bart who got Cheets her coffee. If he was going to the commissary, he figured he might as well be gracious enough to bring her back a decaf. She always thought she was getting the real thing, but Cheets was generally so wired, Bart didn’t want to contribute to a meltdown.

  After returning with Cheets’s java, Bart called Mitch to acknowledge he’d been invited to Jim Fallon’s party.

  “That’s my handwriting on the envelope, silly,” Mitch said, pleased with his penmanship and clout.

  “You also told Jim I have dimples? There’s just the one.”

  “How do I know you don’t have one on a cheek I’ve never had the pleasure of kissing?”

  “Save your lines for the Arrowhead delivery guy.” Bart laughed. “You’d better be there to protect me.”

  “Trust me, you won’t have to wear a snackproof codpiece. Jim’ll be too drunk on martinis and completely impotent. He’ll just embarrass himself, as usual.” Mitch sighed. “But you’ll meet some stars. Totally A and B list. It’s a who’s who of Hollywood leeches. They’ll be bloodsucking Jim for the last time. Fortunately, I’ve spiced the list with an assortment of the cutest bag boys from Gelson’s.”

  Bart couldn’t care less about the stars or the bag boys, although on second thought Gelson’s human resources director was known for having a sweet tooth when it came to hiring soap opera-beautiful young men. The store was a good place for frustrated housewives to get themselves bagged. But Bart loathed Hollywood and its pretentious parties. He often vowed that once he found a way out of Sterling, and Hollywood in general, he’d never accept an invitation for anything but intimate dinners of eight or twelve. And he’d never read another Daily Variety or the Hollywood Reporter or Premiere magazine or TV Guide, for that matter.

  When did my attitude change? Bart occasionally wondered about his intense dislike of Hollywood. When did my wondering childlike enthusiasm disappear?

  From his earliest memory, Bart had wanted to work in show business. He didn’t want to be a star, but he relished the thought of being surrounded by them and other creative people. The stifling mediocrity of living in a small town and growing up with family and friends who were so dull and passionless gave him no other choice than to pursue an alternative life. He identified more with the kids on the television show Fame than with anyone in his school. And there was never a question in his mind that he’d make it.

  Bart had left home and gone off to UCLA to study English lit. In his sophomore year, when a chance came up to do temp secretarial work at Paramount Pictures, he left college and accepted the assignment. He thought he’d never look back, and for a few years he felt right on track with his life. He even burst out of the sexual closet and fell in love with a man whom he thought walked on water.

  Then he was hired full-time at Sterling Studios, and the intense daily pressure blew the fairy dust right out of his eyes.

  It was still fun to have Marlo Thomas or Glenn Close call him personally to discuss their publicity bios. And to be urinating in the marketing department’s restroom and find that Richard Dreyfuss had sidled up to the urinal beside him gave Bart a small reminder of the gaiety he once felt about making his dreams come true in Hollywood. Bart’s real issue with the biz was the gargantuan egos of talentless senior executives and the flash-in-the-pan actors and their maniacal representatives—as well as having to write bullshit about them day in and day out.

  “Maybe it isn’t so much Hollywood I hate,” Bart mused aloud. “Maybe I’m simply burned out.”

  His reason for attending Jim Fallon’s party was almost like peeing next to Dreyfuss, only it had a more historic significance. Jim had been America’s number-one comedy star and was still the country’s most talked about celebrity in a week that also boasted such headlines as the Globe’s: “Liz and Queen in Palace Cat Fight” and the Star’s: “Child-
Abuse Experts Rage as Kathie Lee Turns Daughter into New JonBenet; and Gwyneth’s Dating Muddle: Is It Ben or Brad She Wants?”

  “If nothing more, we’ll have fun dishing the crowd,” Mitch assured Bart. “I’m planning to get Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Brendan Fraser together, then separate them from the crowd to see what happens, as an experiment. Sociology 101.”

  “I think Jonathan’s clarified for the umpteenth time that he’s straight,” Bart said. “And Brendan’s married.”

  “Next you’ll be reminding me that Jason Priestley got married, too—for a minute! Don’t you trust my infallible gaydar, sweetie? I’m legendary.”

  “And what becomes a legend most, darling?” Bart sniggered. “A dead Blackglama mink hanging on your shoulders.”

  Bart knew that in Mitch’s mind every man was considered gay until proven otherwise. He lived by the motto “I never met a man who didn’t like to get his dick sucked, sweetums.”

  The rest of the week seemed endless. Between meetings and writing press releases and press kits and cast and filmmaker bios and photo captions and film synopses and answering complaint letters and talking to agents and personal publicists, Bart had little time to think about Rod or Jim Fallon’s party. Besides, the only time he could telephone and leave a message on Rod’s machine was when Cheets was away from her desk. Her ears were as acutely tuned as a Doberman’s. Bart couldn’t risk her overhearing any plans he made with Rod.

  It hardly mattered. Rod never answered the phone before three in the afternoon. That was when his writing time ended. When he knocked off, he played back his messages. If Bart had called, Rod would return the call right away. Cheets had begun to suspect something was going on, because whenever Rod phoned and she asked in her rapid-fire cross-examination, “Who’s calling?” Rod would say, “It’s personal.”