Selling Out

by Dan Wakefield

  When the first notes of the upbeat theme music sounded, Perry felt as if he might go through the roof. When his credit appeared in a scroll of gold letters on the screen—Written by Perry Moss—he felt what he could only describe as a rush, a sensation surely as powerful as the high produced by any drug in the world.

  Though he’d seen the show dozens of times, watching it now as it was aired was an entirely different experience, for he knew at this very moment the picture on the screen before him was being seen on other such sets by millions of people all over the country.

  Millions.

  In New York and Dallas, Peoria and Pittsburgh, in mansions and hovels from Maine to Seattle, his scenes, his words, were being witnessed by people of all ages and sizes and sexes, people of all political and religious persuasions, people who had doctoral degrees and people who had never read a book in their lives, people who could not even read at all, but were now, all of them, separately but together, unified by the simultaneous showing of the image that Perry himself was watching. This massive national viewing audience was now being gathered and held, entranced, entertained, by his story. And his story was true to his own best perception, his own understanding of life; it was not just drivel or junk, but a tale of which the teller was proud.

  He had never seen the film with commercials before, the screenings had simply gone to black at the ending of the acts, the breaks where commercials would be shown, and he had feared that the appearance of the usual hyped-up jingle-jangle pitches for cars and colas, pizza and pantyhose, would break the dramatic spell of the film, would seem like simpleminded mockery of the emotions being portrayed so poignantly.

  To his total surprise, however, the commercial interruptions seemed to him to actually enhance the overall effect of the story. After the action had gone to a certain pitch of emotion or point of plot, the total break from it seemed a relief, a chance to catch your breath—yes, even go to the bathroom, what was so bad about that need?—refill your glass, stand up and stretch, or simply to watch the sales pitch for whatever it was and divert your mind from concentrating on what had just been absorbing it. Besides, if it weren’t for the commercials, this miracle wouldn’t be happening at all, this fabulous transmission of a wonderful drama into homes all over America wouldn’t be possible. To the amusement of the others, Perry actually cheered the commercials!

  “Eat those vitamins!” he shouted, standing up and shaking his fist with frenetic fervor.

  Perry had also fretted beforehand that seeing the show on the small screen would be a real downer after having viewed it so often in the luxurious large expanse of a movie-size screen in a projection room, and yet in fact the whole thing looked better to him. During one commercial break he stopped cheering long enough to ask the others if in fact he was crazy, or if the film didn’t seem more effective on the smaller screen.

  “That,” explained Kenton with a smile, “is what it was made for, you see.”

  “It’s amazing but true,” Ned said. “In this case, smaller is better.”

  What a miracle.

  The next morning the miracle grew.

  Ned’s secretary let out such a scream that office doors flew open all up and down the hall, and Perry joined everyone else in rushing to see what happened.

  “We got great numbers!” she shouted, waving a single sheet of mimeographed paper that Ned Gurney grabbed from her hand and began to pore over as if it were some kind of code that foretold the future.

  In a way, it was. These were the overnights, the Nielsen ratings computed on the spot in the three major markets of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The final computations of the previous evening’s television viewing audience for the whole nation would not be ready and released till the following week, but this first quick bulletin from the entertainment battlefront conveyed to the contending forces the running of the tides that would carry them irrevocably on to victory or defeat.

  Executives and secretaries, electricians and actresses, makeup artists and film editors, all rushed as breathlessly and eagerly to hear the news, for whatever their age or experience, their income or status, their immediate fate and future would be determined by these results; like the members of an army, from the top-ranked general to the most menial private, they shared a common stake in the outcome. Their survival—as part of this particular show, anyway—depended on it.

  “We got a forty-two share in Chicago!” Ned shouted.

  A cheer went up.

  That meant that 42 percent of the people who had their television sets turned on the night before in the city of Chicago had chosen to watch “The First Year’s the Hardest.”

  More people came running to hear the news, and the whoops and screeches increased as Ned continued, his own voice rising to a higher pitch of triumph as he called out the victorious statistics: “A forty-four in New York … forty-one in Los Angeles!”

  There was pandemonium.

  They had done it.

  They had triumphed.

  The show had not only “won its time” against the opposition in all three big cities, it had captured more than a forty-percent share of the audience in each of those major markets.

  They had clobbered the opposition, not only beating the expectedly weak baseball game between two noncontending clubs, but also handily thrashing the magic show special on NBC.

  In Ned’s office, he and Kenton explained to Perry the full dimensions of their success, in the ratings.

  A thirty share means you did OK, you held your own and showed your viability, proved your worth as a potential series. You can stay on the air and get renewed with a consistent thirty share.

  A forty share is solid gold. A forty share in TV ratings is like a baseball pitcher’s twenty-five-victory season, a rock singer’s platinum record, a jockey’s winning the Triple Crown.

  Anything over that is gravy.

  Golden gravy.

  The forty share not only gave the “First Year” team credibility, it gave them prestige, and more importantly, it gave them power.

  Power is a magnet. It even drew Archer Mellis to their office. Since the time he had assembled this team and hired them and got them signed to contracts, Archer had never come to visit them. It was understood that for any meeting, they went to Archer.

  Now he came to them, not of course in humility, but in professional respect. It was rather like a state visit, when the commander in chief himself comes to shake the hands of the troops, the people whose hard work has made him look good, affirmed the wisdom of his own judgment.

  Archer was muted, subdued, on this day of triumph. He was wearing a starched blue work shirt, crisp jeans, and those heavy orange boots with leather thong laces favored by construction men. The very simplicity of his garb, without adornment, seemed to identify him with the ordinary labors of those beneath him, conveying the kind of impression of solidarity that the young Mao Tse-tung must have shown his faithful followers in the early days of the revolution.

  He spoke softly, warmly, expressing not only his own gratitude but that of the Paragon executive board, whose chairman he had heard from early that morning, and passing on also the heady enthusiasm of the network people. Amanda LeMay was absolutely bubbly, Archer reported with a smile, as, in comradely chat with Ned, Kenton, and Perry, he quietly sipped a diet cola, before going on down the halls and over to the stage to convey his personal congratulations to each and every member of the cast and crew, with the firm handshake, the confidential wink, the bolstering squeeze of the shoulder bent at the wheel of production.

  The point of course now was not to sit around in idle celebration but to move ahead even more purposefully to the task of turning out the first shows of the series that would solidify, perhaps even build more strongly, on the popularity of the pilot. When lunchtime came no one suggested going off the lot to celebrate, but rather the triumvirate went as usual to the commissary, consuming their Cobb salads and iced teas as they consorted over problems and plans. Who needed booze wh
en the spirits were lifted naturally, by the fruits of creative, collaborative labor, to a pure and clarified sense of nearly superhuman elation?

  It was the work that counted, and Perry was determined to plunge back into his script revisions, just as he would have done on any other day; yet he couldn’t escape the indications of his triumph. There was a stack of pink phone message slips as thick as an overstuffed wallet, and even several yellow envelopes from Western Union waiting for him on his desk.

  Though friends back home had no way of knowing about the real triumph of the numbers, they had seen the show and many had seen the rave reviews in the papers from the wire service reports the day before. Perry smiled as he leafed through the messages of congratulation and requests for calls from publishers, newspaper and magazine interviewers, invitations to speak at seminars on the problems of young married couples and the future of television in the arts.

  But above all else, one message told him of the true dimensions of his triumph as the creator of a hit show, and the new status it gave him in the great world of entertainment.

  Vaughan Vardeman had called to invite him and Jane to dine at their home Saturday night.

  It was not going to be just any old potluck supper.

  This was an invitation to one of Pru Vardeman’s New England Boiled Dinners.

  Perry knew he now had really arrived in L.A.

  VIII

  Power had never been one of Perry’s dreams.

  He had fantasized about fame and glory, even riches—not the great wealth of oil barons or shipping tycoons, but enough to afford the ease of luxury travel and nice homes in several choice spots around the globe—but he had never, even in his secret self, hungered for power.

  Perhaps because he had never tasted it.

  When it came to him, in his middle years, in the modest portion allotted the creator of a hit TV show—he was totally unprepared for its effects. Having never experienced it, nor even been interested by it as a subject of study or passing fascination, he didn’t even realize he had fallen under its influence. No one mentioned the phenomenon, since admission of it is the last true taboo, more so than any aspect of sexual preference or proclivity, no matter how bizarre. He was, then, completely uninformed about the nature of this crucial new force in his life, and only in retrospect did he come to understand its elements.

  Power is addictive.

  Power is a drug.

  It is the only serious drug of the film and television industry. The rest of the stuff—cocaine, marijuana, acid, alcohol—is for lightweights, for kooks, for a few far-out actors whose talent is matched by their irresponsibility; for those on the way down; for fringe people. No person of any kind of power in the field would succumb to the frivolous lure of such indulgences, since addiction to them would threaten one’s maintenance of the headiest, most soothing, satisfying opiate of all: power.

  No matter when it comes in life, power feels natural, as if it should have been there all along.

  How could a feeling so natural be anything but right? How could anything the body and mind respond to so beautifully be wrong? Unlike drugs that gave you temporary feelings of elation or relief at a damaging cost to your physical and mental well-being, power did not in any way seem to endanger your health, but if anything, enhanced it!

  That was surely true in Perry’s case in a very specific way. He had already cut down his habitual intake of alcohol from the sheer exhaustion and absorption of work, but now he felt even less of an urge to drink, beyond a few glasses of wine, since the very sensation he once frenziedly imbibed to achieve was no longer desirable. Why subdue what felt good? Alcohol is a depressant. Alcohol numbs.

  Power exhilarates.

  This is how it feels:

  There is a rush, an exhilaration, a buoyancy, a feeling of command, a sense of being taller, stronger, wiser, of imperceptibly lifting off the ground and having the capacity to look down and see things from the advantageous perspective of pinnacle vision, as in viewing people and events from the top of a private mountain, or, more emotionally accurate, a Valhalla. You are not alone, but happily surrounded by your peers, the other gods.

  Perry could feel the power swelling within him, transforming him.

  His voice even changed.

  “Hey, are you on something?” his old friend back in Vemont, Al Cohen, asked when Perry returned his call of congratulations about the show.

  Perry laughed, with benevolent joviality.

  “You been reading the Enquirer? Scare stories about drugs and TV?”

  “I don’t know what it is, but I swear your voice sounds different.”

  “How?” Perry asked, pleased and intrigued now, knowing he was different, delighted that other people could tell, even on the phone, a continent away. He leaned back in his chair, smiling, feeling the contented ease of a cat stretching in the sun.

  “Different how?”

  “Louder, for one thing.”

  “I’m not shouting, Al. You must mean stronger—my voice sounds stronger. Is that it?”

  “Hell, you sound kind of aggressive, you know?”

  Perry chuckled, pleased with himself. It meant he was fitting in out here, as was only appropriate to his role as molder of taste and opinion, mores and morals, of the mass American audience.

  “Well, I guess that’s what happens,” Perry said, “when your show gets more than a forty share.”

  “Got what?”

  Perry sighed, and looked at his watch.

  “Never mind—I was talking Nielsen stuff. It just means more people watched us than any other show, the whole goddam night. We even beat NBC’s magic show special. Beat ’em to a pulp, as a matter of fact.”

  “To a pulp? Well, I guess that’s good,” Al said, with some hesitancy, as if he didn’t really understand. “Anyway, everyone watched your program out here, of course. Big gathering in the Student Union. Packed house.”

  “Mmmm,” Perry said, realizing those viewers wouldn’t even register in the ratings. The Nielsen boxes that calculated the audience were only attached to TV sets in homes.

  “… was really high-quality stuff, especially for television,” Al was saying. “Of course some of the academic satire was a little broad, but I guess …”

  Perry was drumming his fingers, impatient now. He hadn’t really asked for a goddam literary critique.

  “Listen, Al, give my love to Rachel. Everyone. I’ve got to run, but I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on here.”

  “Maybe I’ll come and check things out in person.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone mentioned there’s one of those charter deals from Boston to L.A. next week. I was thinking I might just drop in on you. See the Coast, as long-as you’re out there.”

  “Oh? Well, hey—terrific,” Perry said, noticing his voice getting lighter. Damn. He didn’t want to tell his best friend not to come, but the prospect seemed awkward, especially now. He wanted to end the conversation without saying yes or no, so he’d have time to think up a good excuse. Fortunately, a brand-new phrase came to mind, one he had only heard and learned to use out here in the last month or so.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’ll get back to you.”

  It was a nice way of telling the other person not to hold his breath. He hoped Al would understand.

  Perry took Jane to dinner that night at Spoleto. It was the first time they’d gone to the prestigious restaurant on their own, rather than just as guests of powerful people in the Industry like Archer Mellis or the Vardemans. A week before Perry would never have had the balls to call for a reservation there just for himself, for fear of being politely told they were all booked up for the evening—for all foreseeable evenings. A week before, hell, he wouldn’t have called the day before.

  Perry’s seemingly reckless new confidence in his power, restaurant-wise, turned out to be more than justified.

  Dom himself came out of the kitchen to tell the new TV hit creator and his lovely wife what spec
ial magic he was working with the veal that evening. It involved an unexpected shipment of truffles flown in that day direct from his home district of Umbria, something he was doing up only for his special guests.

  Perry closed the menu and said he and his wife would put themselves entirely in Dom’s hands.

  “Trust me,” said Dom with a wink, sounding like a culinary Archer Mellis.

  Carlos, the captain, personally accompanied the sommelier, suggesting, to start, a California Schwamsberg Blanc de Blanc champagne ideal for “the celebration of a forty-four share.”

  “Sold,” said Perry.

  “My God,” Jane whispered under her breath, “how did he know? How do they all know? It hasn’t even been in the papers yet. The share.”

  Perry grinned.

  “In this town,” he said, “everyone knows.”

  He took Jane’s hand beneath the table, giving it a powerful squeeze.

  He wanted her to share and enjoy his newly won power, wanted the heady feeling it gave him to rub off on her as well. He felt full of love for his wonderful wife and wanted to make up to her for his recent neglect and indifference, even irritation, as his energies had flowed so fully into the show. He knew she was trying, too, to get in the spirit of things. She had worn the semi-slinky new silk dress she had bought on their abortive shopping spree, and the pair of medium heels that were as high as she would go toward the locally fashionable spikes. She had even put some gloss on her lips, and her hair was tied loosely with a pretty silk ribbon instead of the usual yarn.

  “You’re beautiful,” he told her. “I mean, you’re always beautiful, but tonight you’re especially beautiful.”

  “I guess I better be,” she said, “to keep up with a forty-four share.”

  She smiled, letting him know it wasn’t a dig, and returned his powerful hand-squeeze under the table.

  “You’re my best share of all,” he said. “Always.”

  The champagne soon was bubbling in their glasses and Perry sipped, rather than gulped, savoring the taste and sensation as he also savored the events of the day, recounting them to Jane, embroidering for her amusement Archer’s “state visit,” reporting the amazing pile of messages, the requests for interviews and articles, the calls from well-wishers, new hangers-on, and old friends. She perked up especially when he told her about talking to Al Cohen, and how back at Haviland the Student Union was packed for the show.