L.A. Success
Page 17
LONNIE HERISSON
ARRRGGGGHHH! Jesus!
The congregation imitates LONNIE, screaming “arrrggghhh! Jesus!” LONNIE runs toward the stage and is quickly surrounded by worshipers. He looks over to see GERTIE laughing evilly. Then, all at once, her eyes return to normal, and she is surprised to see LONNIE dancing with the others.
The DANGEROUSLY THIN PASTOR steps up to the microphone.
DANGEROUSLY THIN PASTOR
Thank you. Please take your seats.
LONNIE, a bit spooked, returns to his seat.
GERTIE ELLIOT
(Whispering to Lonnie)
Wow. That was some show.
LONNIE looks at GERTIE suspiciously.
DANGEROUSLY THIN PASTOR
Last Sunday, I explained to you how to handle the barbecue situation when you find yourself serving the burgers and dogs, or whatever your main course be.
OVER-ZEALOUS CHURCH GOER
Amen!
DANGEROUSLY THIN PASTOR
Yes, amen indeed! But that was the easy part, for even the most unapologetic atheist will listen to you tell him he’s going to the eternal fires in order to have that delicious burger on his plate. In part two of my series, I explain how to go about it should you find yourself holding the potato-or Jell-O-salad spoon, for no man will listen to harrowing news for such a meager pay off. Without the proper technique, you’ll find that your heathens speed off, back to their wickedness, and you’ll lose soul after soul.
LONNIE begins to zone out. The words become distant mumblings. His expression is one of worry. He watches GERTIE from the corner of his eye, waiting for the DWELLER to return.
EXT. PENTECOSTAL CHURCH IN REDONDO BEACH - LATER
GERTIE, LONNIE, ABIGAIL and JACOB exit the church. They wave goodbye on the way to their cars.
GERTIE ELLIOT
We’ll visit the house tomorrow. Bless you two!
JACOB and ABIGAIL smile giddily, get in their angular Chrysler and drive away.
GERTIE ELLIOT (CONT’D)
For fuck’s sake I thought that would never end! But you were amazing. This calls for a celebration.
INT. ISLANDS RESTAURANT - LATER
GERTIE and LONNIE sit at a bar table at Islands restaurant, the only restaurant that successfully answers the question “what if we could combine burger-and-fry obesity with a tropical-island, grass-skirt theme?” They are drinking margaritas on the rocks.
GERTIE ELLIOT
Do you have any idea how much money I’m going to make tomorrow? You know, one beautiful thing about this city is that there’s always a fresh wave of suckers looking to move here. No sooner do you kick one weary soul out than another starry-eyed wannabe is lining up to pay whatever price you ask. That’s why you never negotiate and you always raise the rent, no matter how the economy is doing.
LONNIE takes a long drink of margarita.
LONNIE HERISSON
Yeah, I guess that’s cool.
GERTIE does a double take.
GERTIE ELLIOT
What do you mean “you guess?” Are you going soft on me?
LONNIE stares into his margarita and then looks into GERTIE’s eyes, unable to speak.
GERTIE ELLIOT (CONT’D)
Ah…I see. You’ve fallen for The Gert. It’s normal. I’m powerful, mysterious, and successful—I’m in control and you aim to please. You will make a great real-estate agent, won’t you!
LONNIE HERISSON
I hope so, but it’s not that. I’ve lost the best thing I ever had in life, and it’s finally eating me up.
GERTIE ELLIOT
Why don’t you buy me another margarita and tell me all about it. There’s no love position I haven’t been in.
LONNIE tells GERTIE all about his love life, his desire to win Helen back, and how he feels powerless to change things.
INT. LONNIE HERISSON’S HOUSE - NIGHT
LONNIE sits on the couch watching television. He hears a knock on the door.
LONNIE HERISSON
It’s open!
The door opens. It’s GERTIE, holding some papers.
GERTIE ELLIOT
I forgot to give you these. They’re next week’s targets.
LONNIE takes the stack of papers and looks them over.
LONNIE HERISSON
These are police reports…
GERTIE ELLIOT
I’ve got connections in the force. These are all from home owners who have lodged multiple complaints against their neighbors. I’m going to need you to study these and come up with ways to up the ante. One of the bad neighbors keeps taking a whiz on his neighbor’s property. Maybe you could save up a few gallons and pour it all over in the middle of the night. I’ll offer my services the very next day. Just an idea.
LONNIE HERISSON
You came all the way over here just to give me these? I could’ve got them in the morning.
GERTIE glances toward the guest room.
GERTIE ELLIOT
Well, I haven’t said hello to your charming roommate in a while. Is he in?
LONNIE HERISSON
(Calling out)
Hey Tommy! Come on out a minute.
The guest-room door opens, and out walks TOMMY, a muscular, handsome Frenchman with a full head of wavy hair. His shirt is half unbuttoned, revealing a tanned, hairless chest. He has an air of mystery about him. One could even say he looked as if he were concealing something. He speaks with a very light accent.
TOMMY
Gertie! I’m so glad you dropped by. How have you been?
GERTIE ELLIOT
(Coquettishly)
Oh, you know. Working away. A girl’s gotta make a living. Come have a glass of wine with us. Lonnie was just going to open a bottle.
LONNIE HERISSON
I was? Oh yeah. Let me go get that.
LONNIE gets up and goes into the kitchen. TOMMY sits down on the couch. GERTIE sits down right next to him, even though the couch is quite long.
From the kitchen, LONNIE hears small talk and laughing. With bottle and glasses in hand, he returns to the living room. He immediately notices that GERTIE has placed her hand on TOMMY’s muscular leg.
LONNIE HERISSON
So Gertie, how is Steven doing? That is the love of your life’s name, right?
GERTIE scowls slightly at LONNIE.
GERTIE ELLIOT
Never heard of him.
LONNIE opens the bottle and pours the wine.
LONNIE HERISSON
Well, I’m sure he’s thinking about you.
They all toast. The small talk continues. After half an hour, LONNIE begins to yawn.
LONNIE HERISSON (CONT’D)
Time to hit the hay. Talk to you tomorrow, Gertie.
LONNIE gets up, expecting GERTIE to stand as well.
GERTIE ELLIOT
(Remains seated)
Okay. Sweet dreams, right-hand man.
LONNIE heads to his room. As he closes his bedroom door, he peeks out into the living room. He feels horribly worried. Will GERTIE take the innocent flirting to the next level and cheat on her lover? Should LONNIE, in reality a private investigator hired by GERTIE’s lover, step in and break it up before discovering if she would really go through with it or not? Should LONNIE be worried that GERTIE will transfer the SUPPLEMENTARY TERRIAN DWELLER to TOMMY, thus moving it one step closer to its final objective: returning to LONNIE? All of these questions and more will be answered in the final installment!
33
I leaned back and admired my work. Spieldburt was definitely going to be on the edge of his seat after this one, and no matter what kind of negotiating he did, he wasn’t going to see one more page until I had some money.
That reminded me, it was about time I got some photos of the old gal in the sack to go along with the third act. I’d been putting it off for as long as possible because seeing Tommy naked had already freaked me out enough. He and Gertie together could do me—I mean cause me—some serious psychological d
amage.
I turned a few pages and noticed that I had spelled all sorts of things weird. There were even a few paragraphs where it looked like some kind of localized dyslexia had kicked in, and I could barely make out what I had written. I thought about fixing all this stuff, but then realized that’s what people like Grant are for. How many times had I heard about famous L.A. movie-producer guys who had the dumbest ideas, but who pulled together a team of poor suckers from all over the country to work like slaves cleaning everything up? “Hey guys, I got an idea: There’s some kind of disaster, maybe an earthquake, tornado, giant asteroid—whatever—and then there’s like a hero, but different in some tiny way from all the other heroes that have been out recently. Maybe this one has OCD, so he has to turn the light switches on and off 25 times before he can pull anyone out of burning buildings—what the hell do I know? Anyway, everybody would’ve died if this guy, girl, or trained dog, didn’t do something amazing at the end. And then, when everybody’s safe and happy, they do it. Okay, write all my sweet ideas up on your fancy computers. You won’t get any writing credit for this one since it is my idea, after all.” I decided to mail it as is. I’m sure nothing ever arrives on someone’s desk looking professional. An editor always goes through it and makes it readable before it gets to the public eye, so Spieldburt was probably used to seeing crappy spelling and whatnot when he read through first drafts.
All my writer buddies seemed really stressed out. It didn’t help things for them that I was always coming here and writing as fast as possible and then leaving all happy with myself. I had noticed a few of them giving me bitter looks from time to time as I smashed a period or zorroed a question mark onto the ends of my sentences.
“Come on guys, why the long faces?” I asked.
“Don’t say long faces!” said Scarf-Guy Al. “I can’t stand long faces anymore!”
“Let’s get it together,” said Pee-Smelling, Old-Birkenstock Jerry. “We can’t lose hope on this one. If the world wants another movie from old Horse Face, we’ll come up with it.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“The studio has already chucked three scripts for a new Jessica Mary Valet movie, so they brought us in. They’ve already started filming the thing in New York,” said USC-Shirt Jake.
“Without a script?” I asked.
“Half of every movie she makes is filmed without a script. The cameras follow her around while she shops for shoes, and they stick all of Jessica’s friends together at a table and film them while they talk about penises and giggle. Hollywood feminism is more or less about proving that women can be just as stupid as men,” said Pocket-Watch Eddy. “And normally I’m fine with that, but now that I’m the one who’s got to write it…And the thing that makes everything really hard now is that old Horse Face had her trade-mark mole removed. Before, she could say any line and it would be just as edgy as her face, but now that she’s going all mainstream on us, she’s harder to write for.”
“Let’s ask Arnold-Shirt Lonnie for advice, since he’s been writing up a storm lately,” said USC-Shirt Jake, and I just about flipped because that was the first time I had heard my official writing name.
“My ex used to watch her stuff. You gotta make the ladies want to do something wrong when they watch Horse Face’s movies,” I said.
“Believe me, everything that can be considered wrong has already been done to her,” said Scarf-Guy Al. “That’s why we’re dying here! They’ve almost filmed all the shoe buying and penis giggling they can. They’re hounding us for the script every hour!”
“Just take the most popular topic of the day and let her go at it,” I said.
“I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been done,” said Scarf-Guy Al.
“You’re missing the most obvious thing—religious extremism. Here’s what you do: old Horse Face is sitting around talking about a penis mole or something—you know, she’ll be anxious to make fun of that kind of thing now that she’s had her own mole removed—and then she sees a bunch of people coming out of a mosque. All the chicks are covered from head to toe. You can only see their eyes. Then she sees the most handsome extremist she’s ever seen in her life, and he’s ordering his woman around like a dog, and this turns her on. So she rushes out of the cafe and follows the guy home. Then she goes off and buys her own veils and crap, and when the wife is off at the store, Horse Face puts on the veils, sneaks into the apartment and does the dude, who pretends not to suspect anything even though she has a pasty white ass. She starts doing this regularly and tells her friends all about her forbidden penis adventures. Then one day while they are getting it on, he rips off her veil and tells her he loves her like he has loved no other contaminated infidel in his life. She doesn’t want to ruin his marriage, so after endless, waffling conversations with her friends, she breaks it off. He comes crying at her window several times, but she buckles down and doesn’t give in.”
“That’s kind of a downer of an ending,” said USC-Shirt Jake.
“It doesn’t end there. While out taking a walk, really reflecting about her life and the ideal penis, a super-rich guy in a limousine stops and asks her for directions. After one of those ‘one-year-later’ breaks in the film, they get married. With all that money, she buys some new shoes.”
“That’s kind of random, but then so is everything else she does. Okay, let’s do it guys,” said Pocket-Watch Eddy.
34
I left the guys to their writing and headed back to Dennis’ house to pick up the big poodle. When I arrived, I saw Tommy pacing in front of the gate. With all the training and writing, I had forgotten to keep an eye on this guy, and here he was again doing who knows what, maybe keeping tabs on me. He had this strange look on his face, and his lips were moving like he was practicing saying something. I parked the Charger and walked up to him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He was burning with rage, but he had to keep it in check to get the words to come out of his mouth.
“You are doing ze love to Gairtee!”
“What? Have you lost your mind?” I asked.
“You are togezair all ze time. I call hhher tonight. I hhhear noises and lawfing. She hhhang up. I call second time, no responding.”
“I was with friends all night, writing this,” I said and held up the script. “I promise. There’s nothing between Gertie and me. Why would I want to do that?” His facial expressions changed to show his relief.
“I yam vairy touched zat you would not do zat to me,” he said.
“No, I meant I wouldn’t want to do…Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. Look Tommy, have you talked to Gertie about not seeing anyone else? Maybe she doesn’t know that’s what you want.”
“I yuh…will talking to hhher,” he said.
“Good idea. Hey, come inside a minute. I want you to meet my dad.”
Tommy followed me in. The place was a wreck since I hadn’t had time to clean it in a while. My dad was on the couch playing chess.
“Hi Dad. Look who I brought—the Talking Man, right?” I figured that if Tommy was the one who had tried to break in and that if he had actually just been bullshitting me about the Gertie thing as an excuse to come spy on me, I’d find out now.
“No. I don’t know that guy,” he said and went back to playing chess.
“Okay, well, good night Dad,” I said, but he was too involved in his game to answer.
I felt relieved to know it wasn’t Tommy, but at the same time, I now had no idea who had tried to break into Dennis’ house. Maybe it had just been a robber.
Tommy, Ballsack and I strolled back home. When we got there, Tommy tried to call Gertie a few times, but there was no answer. He tried to take his mind off of it by playing his guitar, but since he could only play a few chords really slowly, he soon got tired of that. I put a movie on the tube and invited him to come watch it with me. When the actors would say something vulgar, I explained what it meant to him. That seemed to make him feel better.
The next morning when I was looking for something to wear, all of my Dennis clothes were dirty, so I took out a pair of my own pants that I hadn’t worn for almost two months. When I put them on, I was amazed at how loose they were. I must have lost forty pounds since the last time I’d put those things on. I was also amazed at how repulsed I was by them. I had gotten spoiled by all of Dennis’ nice stuff, and I couldn’t see myself going back now. I made a big pile of clothes I knew I’d never wear anymore and threw it all into a trash bag. Then I put on the least smelly Dennis pants I could find, grabbed the trash bag and the big poodle, and walked toward the Third Street Promenade to the nearest clothing donation box. I crammed all that stuff into the metal tray and slid it shut, sending my clothes to the bottom with a dull thud.
I continued over to the Promenade and walked around looking for a store I could shop in that didn’t look like a night club. The Levi’s store fit the bill, but when I walked in, an employee told me I couldn’t bring such a big dog into the store. I stepped back out and was looking for a place to tie Ballsack up when I saw Amanda, the little girl I had met in West Hollywood, walking with a man I assumed was her dad. I went up to them to say hello.
“Hi Amanda,” I said. She looked over at me and saw the big poodle. She got a scared look on her face and hid behind her dad.
“It’s okay. That dog won’t bite you,” said the man. He looked up at me for a moment. “I’m sorry, I can’t place you. Do you work at Amanda’s school?”
“No. I was in your neighborhood the other day asking about a lost dog. I talked with your babysitter.” Amanda was still hiding, so I started feeling kind of creepy. “I didn’t realize she’d be so afraid of my dog. Sorry about that. I’ll let you go.”
“Don’t worry about it. We used to have a black poodle, and one day she stepped on it and it bit her. She was so scared of it from then on that we had to give it away.” He leaned over and picked Amanda up so she’d feel safer.