Selling Out

by Dan Wakefield

  “What’s wrong with the way we always dressed?”

  “Nothing! I like the way I’ve always dressed. Obviously. Or I wouldn’t have dressed that way all my life. But I never lived in California before.”

  “We’re only going to be here a few more months. Till the end of May. Aren’t we? Is that still the plan?”

  “Of course it’s the plan! You think I’d change any plans without telling you?”

  “Just checking.”

  “We start shooting next week. Then we go on location. I’d like to have some things to wear—you know, just some appropriate, casual stuff. Something besides my old sport jackets. They’re too damn formal for this kind of thing.”

  Jane took a slug of her drink.

  “You know what Thoreau said?”

  “What has Thoreau got to do with this?”

  “He said, ‘Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.’”

  Perry took a long, cool pull of his vodka and tonic.

  “Thoreau never lived in Los Angeles,” he said.

  They went in to Beverly Hills and had lunch the next day, both to celebrate the fact that shooting began the following morning, and to have the little shopping spree Perry was so intent upon. He really wanted to enjoy his role in the production and felt he had to look the part, just as his colleagues did. He wasn’t out to top the flamboyant Archer Mellis with any orange silk jumpsuits, but at least he wanted to seem in the sartorial spirit of the others.

  Once Ned assumed the mantle of executive producer, he switched from his Ivy League garb to the more casual, semi-military look of the working West Coast show business mogul, and even Kenton had a well-stocked wardrobe of the right stuff, clothing-wise.

  Perry bought himself a fatigue jacket at a fashionable men’s store on Rodeo Drive that except for its silk lining and London label might have been purchased at any Army Navy store for around thirty bucks, but seemed a wise investment at $465. He also got three pairs of pants with a mind-boggling array of pockets and flaps and brass buttons, and a half dozen sport shirts with epaulets on the shoulders. He felt himself to be now one of the many important officers in the Army of Entertainment, a veritable George S. Patton of show business, and it was only appropriate that he look the part.

  Jane could tell he was pleased, like a kid with a new baseball outfit, and she relaxed and seemed genuinely happy for him.

  “They’ll never be able to tell you apart from Steven Spielberg,” she said when they went to the dark, cool bar of the Beverly Wilshire for a glass of chilled Chablis.

  “Well, now what about you?” he asked.

  “I’m not part of the team,” she said. “I don’t need a uniform.”

  “It’s not fair for me to be the only one in the family with new clothes.”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “Aw, c’mon. It’s for fun. Get into the spirit of it, huh? For me?”

  She agreed to go look for something just to please him, but not on Rodeo Drive, where the prices were so outlandish. He took her to one of the nice department stores in Century City. She put on a couple of the dresses he liked that were as tight as the skirts Amanda LeMay wore, but she pulled and tugged at them uncomfortably as she looked at herself in the mirror, grimacing and frowning. She wouldn’t even try on any dress that was clingier than a sack, and absolutely refused to consider slipping into a pair of high heels. She said all this stuff made her feel like a hooker.

  “This is what the top women executives wear out here!” Perry argued.

  “Then thank God I’m not a top woman executive out here!”

  Just to please him and be a sport, she bought a new slinky silk dress. It wasn’t really slinky by Southern California standards, but she acted like it was something wild.

  They ordered ribs and cole slaw from Greenblatt’s Delicatessen that night. The idea was to eat in and get up early so Perry would be fresh for the first day of shooting. He wanted to be on the set before seven, along with the cast and crew. He didn’t mean to drink much, but found that both he and Jane seemed to be constantly refilling their wineglasses instead of talking. He was disappointed with her obstinate refusal to get in the spirit of the shopping spree, but knew the subject was best left alone.

  “You always used to like what I wore,” she said suddenly.

  Perry took a gulp of his wine.

  “I do like it. I just don’t see why you can’t wear something different in a different place.”

  “I’m not a different person.”

  “Are you trying to say that I am?”

  “Well, are you?”

  “For God sake, are you accusing me of going Hollywood?”

  “I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

  “It sure sounds like it.”

  “Well, I don’t like you accusing me of being a prude, either.”

  “I never said any such thing!”

  “You acted like it. Just because I don’t want to buy all my clothes now at Frederick’s of Hollywood.”

  “That’s a lie! You’ve distorted this whole thing!”

  He jumped up and went to the kitchen to pour himself a brandy.

  Then they really went at each other.

  The tension the next morning was so great it seemed tangible. It was obvious that neither of them had slept well the night before. He was still in the shorts he wore to bed, while she was wrapped in her old ratty bathrobe.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She started to pour from the electric pot, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t hold the cup steady. She put it down and turned away from him. Instinctively, he started to reach for her, then drew back, and poured himself the coffee. He took a sip and winced. It was bitter and hot. He put the cup back down on the table.

  Then everything went black.

  Perry could feel his heart pounding. There were tears welling up in his eyes. He was all at once extremely sad and happy. The situation was so poignant, the pain of both husband and wife so real that the viewer had to feel sad, yet there was something deeply human, universal, about it that was oddly uplifting, even ennobling. In the silence and darkness that followed, Perry felt a sense of awe.

  “Scene twenty-three, take two!”

  The crisp voice jerked him from reverie as the screen flashed to life again, showing the torso of a man with head and feet cut off by the camera, holding the traditional black-and-white slate-board of film production. The hinged upper arm with diagonal stripes was held aloft and then smartly clapped down to signal the new take of the scene.

  Perry felt a sudden déjà vu, and he realized he was living now an experience he had fantasized way back in his other life, while he was waiting for the call from Hollywood and watching “Entertainment Tonight.” They had showed some film in production on location, with a close-up of the slateboard announcing the new take of a scene, and Perry had been electrified with the thought, like a precursor of the act, that he would someday himself be involved in such a ritual with his own work. And here he was, not just fantasizing his dreams of glory on a cow path in Vermont, but sitting in a darkened studio on a movie lot in Los Angeles. The slateboard bore in chalk the name of his own show, his own creation.

  And now it came to life.

  Perry’s story. His characters.

  They moved. They walked. They talked.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Perry was entranced, captivated. He was amazed at how much more wonderful the words sounded when spoken by the actors, instead of when only read on a page. The only dialogue in this scene were the two words, one word apiece, per actor, the most commonplace words in the most commonplace setting and situation, words that not only were uninspired but almost obligatory under the circumstances.

  “Coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  But oh, when you heard human beings say them, when you saw their faces, their expressions, those simple w
ords took on another life, new dimensions. Watching and hearing the words being spoken, they seemed now to Perry as profound as Hamlet.

  Coffee.

  Thanks.

  “I can’t explain it,” he told Jane later.

  “You just did, love,” she said. “It was eloquent.”

  She touched him tenderly.

  “No. I said the words, I told you what I felt like, but I know I didn’t convey the actual experience, the amazing feeling of seeing those actors on the screen, bigger than life, saying my lines.”

  “I can’t wait to see it myself.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. We just started shooting.”

  “Can’t I see what you’re seeing? The little bits and pieces? What do you call them officially—the ‘rushes’?”

  “The ‘dailies.’ But lovey, only the staff gets to see the dailies.”

  “My God, do you have to have a national security clearance? It sounds like you’re watching nuclear strategy secrets.”

  “I’ll ask Red Simmons if he minds your coming.”

  “Who the hell is Red Simmons? Did I miss him in People magazine this month?”

  “He’s the director of photography. The head cameraman.”

  “Pardon my abysmal ignorance, but how was poor little me supposed to know?”

  “Because I’ve told you about six million times, that’s how!”

  “You’ve also told me about six million names of other people I’ve never met, along with all the wonderful things they do, complete with your new terrific show biz terminology, and I can’t even come and look at the pictures—or whatever you show biz insiders call them.”

  Perry started for the brandy, then stopped.

  He went to the couch and sat down next to Jane, taking her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “All this is new to me, and I’m nervous as hell about it.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.”

  “I was just about to get a brandy, and then we’d both be starting in again like we did last night. We can’t fall into that. I have to have my mind clear in the morning. All day.”

  “I don’t get any work done either when we do that. Shall we stop?”

  “You mean altogether? Go dry?”

  “I will if you will.”

  Perry tensed; that seemed a little extreme.

  “Maybe we should just cut down. Cut out the hard stuff. Nobody out here drinks anything but wine, anyway.”

  “I guess that’s more realistic. OK. Just wine with dinner. And we ought to cut back on our eating, too.”

  “Great. We’ll diet, then,” Perry said. “And get more exercise.”

  He had begun to feel self-conscious about that extra ten or so pounds around his middle. Also, he’d begun to notice that although before he liked Jane a little fulsome and fleshy, out here, compared to these amazing women whose stomachs seemed as flat as ironing boards, she began to look by comparison a little frumpy. Some diet and exercise would do them both good.

  “I’m willing,” Jane said.

  They shook hands, smiling, and then embraced.

  Then Perry pulled away. The fact is he didn’t feel like making love. It wasn’t just the thought of Jane’s frumpiness compared to the sleek California women. Being on the set all day, involved in the shooting, was really exhausting. He simply didn’t have a lot of energy left over for sex.

  Perry was high, and about to get higher.

  The feeling had nothing to do with drugs, though in fact he’d felt a real rush when he saw the tall director’s chair with his own name on it in big black letters.

  PERRY MOSS.

  Now all he had to do was climb up onto it, as if this were a commonplace occurrence, in front of all these people whose eyes were on him. They were shooting on location at the little college up north near San Jose, and a crowd of students and faculty had gathered, as people always did around cameras, drawn to the magic of filming.

  Perry felt like a star, for all the people who were watching knew he was one, or might be about to become one, just like the actors who also had their own director’s chairs with their own names—MELINDA MARGULIES, HAL THAXTER—along with the executives, NED GURNEY and KENTON SPIRES.

  All eyes were on him as he went to mount the chair that had his name on it, and suddenly it seemed a challenge. It looked storklike and flimsy on its crossed toothpick legs. Bravely, he seized the arms as if he were going to mount a wild bronco, hefted himself up and onto the canvas seat, teetering only slightly, silently saying a prayer of thanks as he opened the large notebook that held the script and pointed his nose down into it, pretending to focus on the swimming words.

  When he looked up, Ned and Kenton were beside him on their own personal thrones, each looking as comfortable in his perch as if he were born to it. Perry still felt slightly dizzy, as if he might tip himself over if he leaned too far one way or other, or coughed suddenly. He got out his pipe and lit up, hoping that process would distract him from his newest phobia—fear of falling off a director’s chair while shooting a TV film on location and being watched by the natives.

  “This is a big scene we have coming up,” said Ned.

  “Mmm,” Kenton nodded. “Our happy couple’s first big fight.”

  Perry smiled, proud of his drama. This was a scene where Jack thinks Laurie is flirting at a party; he leaves, she rushes after him, and they “grapple” before he runs off and she chases him.

  “Kenton?” Ned asked. “Do you see this as a tag-team wrestling match—or something more subdued?”

  “Frankly, I was grappling with the word grapple.”

  “Luckily,” Ned said, looking at Perry, “we have our author here to elucidate.”

  “Oh, well, I just meant the way people do—I mean, a young man and woman, recently married.”

  He realized he was picturing a scene from his own first marriage and added quickly, “A couple like Jack and Laurie, I mean.”

  “Naturally,” Ned said reassuringly.

  “You know how people like that kind of grab each other, in an argument?” Perry asked.

  “Like grabbing by the arm?” asked Kenton.

  “Sure, right,” Perry said, not wanting to reveal how he and his first wife had rolled around someone’s gravel driveway in such an argument.

  “Good,” Ned said. “That suits our couple, I think, better than a knock-down, drag-out, roll-around kind of thing.”

  “We’ll get more frustration and fury by having them hold back a bit,” said Kenton.

  “Exactly,” said Ned. “Keep it civilized.”

  “Perfect,” echoed Perry.

  When they saw the scene in dailies they agreed it was both civilized and dramatic.

  It was not till the next day that they heard a dissenting opinion.

  At the crucial moment of shooting the picnic love scene in an open field near the campus, a plane began circling overhead. The soundman took off his earphones and complained he was picking up the drone.

  “Cut!” said Kenton.

  All eyes of cast and crew turned upward. They not only saw a plane circling, they saw someone jump out. There was a gasp and several shrieks. Then a sigh of relief as a parachute opened. Perry followed Ned and Kenton as they ran toward the uninvited paratrooper, who landed at the far end of the field and was pulling in his chute.

  It was Archer Mellis.

  “What’s going on?” Ned asked.

  “That’s what I want to know after looking at yesterday’s dailies,” said Archer. “Doesn’t anyone here know how to stage a real fight between a young married couple?”

  “It was supposed to be understated,” Kenton said.

  “Civilized,” Ned added with emphasis.

  “I call it bloodless and boring,” said Archer.

  Sweat popped out on Kenton’s brow, and the big vein in Ned’s temple began to throb as his face grew lobster red.

  “What the hell do you really want, Archer?” Ned demanded.
“Violence?”

  Archer looked as if someone had just insulted his mother.

  “I didn’t hear that,” he said. “I didn’t hear anyone in good conscience accuse me of resorting to something I entered this industry to oppose.”

  “So what is it you want?” Kenton asked.

  “I want that scene reshot.”

  “I’m the executive producer here,” Ned said. “What are you trying to do, take over the picture?”

  “I’m trying to save it,” said Archer, and, pulling in the last cords of his chute and balling it up, he strode toward the camera and crew.

  VI

  As the lights went down in the small executive screening room at Paragon, Perry could feel his pulse rising. He was about to see his dream from beginning to end. This wasn’t even the final form of the film, it was only the rough cut, but it was the first time anyone except Kenton as the director and Kim as the film editor (along with her assistant) would view the work as a whole, in sequence, instead of just the disconnected pieces of the dailies. Perry was as nervous as if he were about to see a documentary of his own life on a large screen.

  No matter how it came out, it would in a sense be a victory over many odds. There were times when Perry wondered if it ever would be finished, if the production would get past the conflicts and emergencies, the artistic tantrums and budget crises, the unexpected breakdowns of nerves and equipment, the acts of God, like the drenching rain that fell the day of reshooting the picnic scene (they used it to show Laurie and jack’s true grit by having them kiss and fondle under umbrellas).

  From the time Archer Mellis landed in the field up at Saratoga like a paratroop guerrilla, challenging Kenton and Ned (and Perry by association), he came to seem almost like their adversary rather than their leader, relentlessly prodding and pressing, yet goading them on. They were the production company while he was the studio, a higher force, a more powerful critic and judge. Yet despite its disadvantages and tensions this new situation, if anything, brought the “First Year” company even closer together, made them more determined, more dedicated to their cause, and devoted to their eventual triumph.