Borderlands 3

by Thomas F. Monteleone (Ed. )

  He pulled his cowl back, and revealed a mild-looking man, his blond hair looking as though it had just been freshly snipped and coiffed at a Beverly Hills salon.

  "Hi!" he said.

  "Hi!" greeted the congregation.

  "I was having breakfast today at Ciro's with Michael Ovitz, and I had absolutely nothing to talk about to him. So I'm thinking, here I am at a meeting with one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and I haven't got a thing to pitch!"

  Boy, I could identify with that! I looked around, and I could see the looks of terror and sympathy trembling over people's faces.

  "Thank God he wanted to talk to me about something!"

  Nervous laughter.

  "But I thought to myself, in these troubled and troubling times in our profession, how lucky I was to know that we have our Church. And I thanked the spirits of our Founders that we have this solace once a month. And in particular I thanked them that this Thursday night was a service."

  "Praise the Founders!" said the congregation, their voices firm and almost chant-like around me. I noticed that Jim blended his voice in with the rest quite emphatically. I was wondering if we were going to have to sing hymns sometime during the service. I really couldn't carry a tune very well, but if it helped my writing, then I'd be happy to stand on my head.

  "Welcome to the Church of the Sublime Inspiration!" said the priest, beaming. "Welcome to both new members and old. Our secret society has been meeting for many years now. We have preserved our anonymity these years and we know that we shall continue to do so because of our bonds of flesh and spirit. Let us remember that although at times our lives are very secular, this order is ultimately of a very sacred nature. Ours is the burden of helping to forge the stories, the characters, the themes that inspire and ignite the hopes and dreams of our culture. Our nation, indeed the whole world depends upon us not only for the entertainment that makes their lives less humdrum, but also the dreams that spark their futures and the values of their children."

  "Amen!" intoned the assembled. "A-MEN!"

  I found myself joining in. A lapsed Methodist, I at least knew that word.

  The ceremonies proceeded. None of which made a whole lot of sense to me. There was more chanting in foreign languages. More lighting of candles. Different music wafted from the speakers and at one point an old film projector in a dim part of the gymnasium suddenly came alive, showing clips from classic movies. Similarly, in another corner, an old television set zapped on with a re-run of I Love Lucy.

  The service seemed to consist of a hodge-podge of liturgies and verses from different religions and different sects. The English that was used and the verses from the King James Bible seemed to concern aspects of creativity, virility and fecundity. Lots of seeds were sown, and lots of baskets hopped off mystical inner lights. Nonetheless, for some reason the use of verses from the Bible I was familiar with comforted me somewhat. This wasn't, it would seem, any kind of pact with the Devil—not that I believed in the Devil. I was a pure agnostic, with little thought of God for very long. Nonetheless, if the God of Inspiration was around and He had a little cult in the Hollywood Hills, who was I to refuse to drink from His heady cup?

  Especially when I'd paid a thousand bucks to do so!

  Speaking of which, I thought... When do the lightbulbs start lighting up above my head?

  Jim probably noticed that I was getting kind of antsy. "It's coming along. Don't worry."

  "What's coming along?" I couldn't help but whisper.

  He looked at me with an expression I'd never seen in a TV producer's face before: solemnity.

  "Communion," he said.

  ▼

  Actually, what the Hollywood priest called it was 'the L.A. Eucharist'.

  One by one, we lined up in front of the altar.

  "What's going on?" I asked Don.

  "Simple. You do what they tell you to do. You eat and drink what they give you. Just like Mass. You've been to Mass?"

  "I've been to Communion."

  "There you go!"

  An usher came up and tapped our row. Our turn to go down and kneel at the altar. The dirge-like synthesizers from the speakers began to sound like that song 'Hooray for Hollywood' slowed down to a drone. A curious feeling of dread and despair seized me and for a moment I felt frozen to the hard wood of the pew. It wasn't just a sensation of leaping into the Unknown that bothered me, although I'd been feeling that to various degrees the whole trip here, the whole strange service.

  No, it was a sudden surge of deja vu, the feeling of vertigo I first felt, moving to Los Angeles to attempt a scripting career. The almost supernatural uncertainty, the mysterious buzzwords, the sweeping insincerity, the vacillations of producers and networks, the sensation of being chewed up, digested and shitted out by mammoth egos prowling beneath the sunny skies and smog for prey.

  I'd forgotten those sensations. I'd joined the drooling pack. And now, oddly enough, deprived of the central device that keeps the hungry hungering, the searching was overwhelmed with a sense of wrongness. I don't know if I actually felt evil up there at that altar any more than I ever felt it, toiling in these dark mills of TV and Film Babylon. All I know was that there wasn't a trace of good, and the vacuum seemed to suck out whatever courage I'd packed with me.

  "What's wrong?" asked Jim.

  "Can't."

  "Huh?"

  "I can't go up there. I can't do it."

  "What? Are you crazy? You paid the thousand dollars!"

  "They can keep it. There's something wrong up there."

  The others filed up, pretending not to notice the commotion we were creating. Don sat down. He took a breath, sighed it out, put a hand on my shoulder. "That's okay, buddy. That's okay. Yeah, I guess it is a little weird, huh? I'm remembering it was for me, too. Yes, I do recall that I had second thoughts. But I did it, you know. And there's really nothing to it. Look where I am now! I'm successful. Monstrously successful. The American Dream? Hell, I've got more than the American Dream. I've got a great life. But you want it, babes... You want that life and the creativity that brings it, you've got to worship at the altar, you got to drink the cup, you got to eat the offering... That's the way it is out here, babes, and that's the way it's always been, even before the Church started up." He tapped me on the shoulder and cocked a thumb toward the proceedings below. "Jim, you've worshipped at that altar before. You just don't know it."

  I looked in his eyes, and I knew, instinctively, he was right. Somehow, the fear left me—and I found myself standing up and walking down that aisle to join the assembled partakers of the mysterious communion.

  The actual wine wasn't all that mysterious. In truth, I almost laughed as I knelt down beside Don. In front of us where champagne glasses and the priest was merely walking along, filling up the people's glasses.

  "Sip," he intoned, when he was through. "Sip in the name of Mulholland, in the name of Doheny, in the name of Rodeo Drive." Somberly.

  I sipped. Dom Perignon. Excellent.

  "Now, the most sacred of the Offerings. Take what is given, eat—and enjoy High Concepts!" The last two words were uttered with total reverence. "Lights," he whispered as he lifted a bell-shaped lid from a tray. "Camera! Action!" He picked the tray up and began to serve its contents. "Eat this in the remembrance of great dialogue. Swallow this that the plot points may shine. Take this and chew, that thy character arcs may spark! Digest, in the name of Foster's sunglasses, the Sun and the Holy High Concept!"

  On a silver tray, nestled just so amongst doilies, were what appeared to be hors d'oeuvres. Round white crackers, each spread with a neat mound of pate that looked like chopped chicken liver.

  My stomach gurgled. I realized that I was hungry.

  When the priest passed, I took one of the crackers. Just as the cracker was at my lips, I paused. This was it, something told me. Take this step and you can never go back.

  My stomach gurgled again. I could feel saliva in my mouth. The Eucharist smelled really good. It smel
led of onions and mayonnaise.

  I popped it in my mouth.

  I chewed.

  It tasted even better than it smelled, like a high quality beef with character. I chewed it and I swallowed it and then, taking the lead from the others, I washed it down with first rate champagne. You'd have to figure, only the best in Hollywood!

  One of the less mannered members of the kneeling pronounced his opinion on the subject, belching loudly. No laughter, no 'pardon me's.'

  We filed back and took our seats.

  As I sat there listening to the final intonations, to tell the truth, I felt absolutely nothing. I was totally confused. I hadn't the foggiest of what had just happened. Was this some weird ritual that used ceremony and spiritual 'mysteries' to unlock the secret navigation to the paths of inner creativity—or were there hidden cameras behind the wall, with some TV host about to trot out, giggling, and announce that it was a practical joke of the most obnoxious sort?

  The benediction was read:

  "Get thee forth to propagate imagination and entertainment throughout the focal point of this beautiful city, and thus through the entire world!"

  I sighed. Hell, all I wanted to do was write!

  There was no socializing after the affair. Nobody seemed to want to talk. The people simply shuffled off back to their parked cars.

  Don bought me a fresh-brewed Stout at a favorite hangout of ours, Gorky's, to celebrate my initiation. I confessed I felt no different. He just laughed.

  I bought some magazines at the corner newsstand, in expectation of my usual bout of insomnia.

  But when I got home I felt quite exhausted.

  "Out on the town, hmmm?" said my wife, watching Jay Leno and working on her nails.

  "Just a late meeting with Don. Project," I said, truthfully enough, sliding into the sheets beside her and grabbing my pillow.

  I was asleep almost immediately, and I had no dreams worth writing about.

  ▼

  The next day, I woke up with an idea.

  I sat down and started writing a treatment for a pilot for a television series about a city fire department. My father had been a fireman in a city, so I knew a lot about it. I'd had vague notions of doing something along those lines for years, but nothing ever jelled.

  Now it was just pouring out.

  So much so, that I stopped in the middle of the treatment and said, "Hell, why not?"

  I poured a cup of coffee, black, started up a new file on the old computer and jumped right in with both feet.

  I wrote straight through the weekend. I was a total demon, tap tap tapping away like a man possessed. My wife was so thrilled that something was coming out, she took it upon herself to fix coffee for me and bring in lunch and dinner.

  By Monday, not only had I written an original TV script ('spec script' in the industry parlay) but I also had a complete proposal and 'bible' for a possible series spin-off.

  I printed it out, got it copied and foldered and then drove personally to my agent. To the objections of his assistant, I walked straight in and tossed it on his desk.

  "Read it and then get back to me!" I said, doubtless fairly glowing with effulgence.

  I was going to take the rest of the day off to celebrate, but when I got back and started talking about taking my wife out for dinner, I started getting antsy. I had this positively wonderful idea for a movie.

  Two weeks later, Fires Above was written and in my agent's hands.

  "It's working!" I said, amazed and admitting it to Jim Hampton after a session of tennis.

  "Good," he said, "you can buy the Gatorade today." He grinned. "And then you can rewrite this script a guy turned in the other day."

  "Sure," I said, with a confidence I would have never had before. I knew that with the notes I'd get from Jim's story editors, I'd be able to handle the assignment, no problem. The job would pay the mortgage this month and leave me some money left over.

  Somehow, I don't know how, that service I had been to not only jump-started my creativity. It charged me with more ideas, more writing power than I'd ever had before.

  I was thrilled. It had worked. That was all I needed to know.

  ▼

  The television series sold.

  The movie sold.

  Before I knew it, I not only had more work than I'd ever had before, I had the willingness and ableness to produce it all. Ideas poured from me willy-nilly; words simply flew at the word-processor. Scenes would thunder into my head whole and complete. Sometimes it was like taking dictation from God. Inspiration, after all, meant 'the breath of God'.

  But it wasn't from God.

  I found that out soon enough.

  One morning, about two months from the time I knelt at the altar, I sat down, coffee cup full, happy as a clam to once again churn forth the words. I sat there for a minute, flexing my fingers and waiting for the ideas to burgeon. I typed out a couple of words, hoping meaning would follow.

  But no meaning came.

  An hour later, I was staring at those same two words. Absolutely nothing . I started yanking the words out. Two hours later, I had a page and a half and I was absolutely wrung out.

  I called Jim Hampton. He was in a meeting, his secretary said. Could he call me back?

  You bet he could!

  When he finally called me back, late in the afternoon, I was in a panic. I told him why.

  "Oh, I forgot to tell you," he said. "The benefits of a service last a limited amount of time. You've burned yours up quicker than most. I was going to mention that some tennis afternoon soon. Didn't think it would happen this quickly."

  "Well, what do I have to do? Go to another service?"

  "Yes."

  "Tomorrow's Thursday. Let's go!"

  "No. There won't be another service until next Thursday, Don. I'm afraid you're going to have to wait."

  "But you'll take me, won't you?"

  "Sure. I'm about due myself anyway. Only, this time, don't blow it all out, okay?"

  I sweated out the week, getting behind on work but getting some input in by reading and watching films and TV shows.

  The service this time cost ten thousand dollars, but the money was flowing in, so I could easily afford it. Also, when I got to the church, I actually had to join, signing all sorts of papers that I didn't read fully. Maybe I should have read them more carefully, I don't know. Hell, I was used to my agent reading my contracts for me. But as I sat there at that desk, looking over at the altar where that precious stuff was about to be served, it wasn't just my mouth that was salivating. My entire mind seemed to be running over with drool.

  ▼

  A year passed.

  I took the Hollywood communion twelve more times in that period, and enjoyed success like I'd never experienced it before. The movie was in production, I had two television series in the works, three pilots and any incidental scriptings or rewrites I cared to take on. I felt so charged with energy I even started writing my dream book... The one that was supposed to show my true brilliance as a writer... If not the great American novel, then something merely that had some art, some taste, some representation of my true feeling, my true soul.

  For some reason, however, it just didn't come.

  And what I did write seemed as empty of soul as my scripts.

  Nonetheless, I wrote those facile scripts like a demon, not slowing down, taking each and every communion available, even though they'd gone up to twenty thousand dollars each. Hell, I thought, with what I'm making these days I'm paying my agent more than that!

  Then, about a year and three months after my knees first bent at that altar, I got a call from Jim Hampton.

  "Hey. When are we going to play tennis for Christ sakes?"

  "As soon as you finish that movie project! You know that! I'm available."

  We both laughed. But I felt a little tension in his voice. "Uhm, you know, Don... I told you to go easy on those communions."

  "Shit, I got the money. I love 'em. I'm getting positiv
ely religious. I'm starting to figure out what it all means. It's kind of Jungian, isn't it? I mean, the whole ceremony!"

  "I guess so. Lots of stuff in it and—"

  "And somehow, going through it all—well it taps at the well springs. Plumbing the old depth psychology, right? Hypnosis! Psychiatric hocus-pocus!"

  "Partially, Don. Actually, there's something more involved."

  "Really? What? I'm all ears?"

  "Some other time. Right now, you have to take a meeting."

  "Sounds fun, fellow, but I'm kind of scripted up."

  "No, this isn't that kind of meeting, Don."

  "Well, what kind of meeting are we talking then, Jim?" I said, some of my impatience doubtless creeping into my voice.

  "It's the meeting you promised to take when you signed those papers last year, Don." He said it tonelessly. Toneless with Jim meant serious. "You know, if you didn't go to so many of those services, you could have put this off for a long time. I didn't have my meeting until three years after my first communion."

  "Hmm? Okay, okay. Sounds fine to me," I said. "Where do I have to be?"

  "One of the organizers of the Church is Harry Pilgrim."

  "Right. Of Rock and Pilgrim Talent Agency."

  "That's right. Next Tuesday at 11 A.M. sharp." Pause. "Uhm... Don... You did read the papers you signed."

  "Yeah, sure. I mean, I scanned them. What was I supposed to do... have my lawyer look at them? You know how desperate I was for that dose of whatever they were handing out."

  "Yeah, right," he said in a faint voice. "Well, I'll get back to you when we can play tennis."

  "Right. Your people will call my people."

  "Yeah, whatever. Good luck, Don."

  Oh well. Just another meeting, I figured.

  And if nothing else, I gave good meeting!