Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  Within Butterbugs’ drifting habits, such concepts fell within the domains of nuance and subjectivity, but it was time to get off his ass, TABP-style. With a soul under reconstruction, he was now up to the task of facing a ‘normal’ job. Whereas, in any of his previous Hollywood days, such a prospect would have been largely unthinkable, due to his own private distortions of reality.

  That being the case, when he marched on up to the ЯR’s doors for his first step upon the stage of Actors’ Purgatory (e.g. waiting tables), there was not a little excitement on account of his actually being involved with some activity of importance, rather than undergoing the fringe-observer route.

  Яance Crankshaw got all situated – all ready – to go into instructional mode. And thus, the extremely nasal quality of his speech increased by half. Яance wasn’t even remotely Russian. He just liked the Cyrillic look of things, and desired Los Angeles to be Russified as quickly as possible. Privately, he wished the Julian calendar would be restored, worldwide.

  ‘‘Annnnnd, how are ya, today?’ That’s how all you serving peoples are supposed to greet our patrons at table. And then you say: you give your name. And then you say: ‘And I’ll be your wait person, today.’ Then you wait for their response. OK?? Right?? It’s all about the here and now. To-Day. We’re a contemporary eatery.’

  After the sophisto-cool of the TABP environment, Butterbugs couldn’t quite help thinking that this Яance effect was – he didn’t know – a little hokey. The expression on his face betrayed this thought. On top of that, the monkey suit he was required to wear wasn’t even hokey, it was downright preposterous.

  ‘Now what’s so funny?’ asked the prominent but goofy restaurateur.

  Butterbugs almost started tittering.

  ‘That’s so – so, dimbulb. You know. That kind of talk.’

  ‘Now you looka here, Sunny Jim. That’s the way Mundsloth Holiday Holdings want you to talk.’

  Then he got very condescending.

  ‘Who are you to question it? Huh? Dimbulb?? You don’t even realize why. You don’t even faintly know that there are some people, some very important people – people that you’ve probably seen on color television – who come here simply BECAUSE we talk to them that way. They LIKE it, Skippy. You will talk that way to them, and if you do not know how to do it, listen carefully to other staff around you as you do your training. Failure to do so will ultimately lead to your early dismissal on the grounds of in-sub-ord-in-ation. Mundsloth Holiday Holdings look extremely grimly upon insubordinates. There have even been lawsuits around here. Now, mind!’

  Butterbugs was privately aghast, but he needed the balloons this gig might hand over, and he so wanted to prove himself to TABP, so he proceeded to recite his ‘lines’, as dictated by this putrid ’Enry ’Iggins.

  Not for a microsecond, though, did Butterbugs assign dubiousness to TABP for leading him to this gig. He was enough of a progressive at this point to objectively deal with the situation and not lapse into self-pity. That was one of TABP’s legacies: soul-bolstering.

  Aside from the tiresome gibberish, there was a definite restaurant scene to get into.

  No one helped him with his uniform. Saddle shoes, high water pants, a cummerbund that extended from his belt practically to his collar, and a boiled wool vest, dullish red, way too small. But that was the way Яance wanted it. (‘To establish the individuality of my establishment.’) The most absurd – or egregious – requirement was for every server to wear a bib. That’s right, a bib, of the pabulum kind, an icky icing to an already horrendous assemblage of livery. Surely, any old J.W. Gacy-styled clown-suit would have been less humiliating. Topping off the kit, he was crowned with a squat Azerbaijani fez, with a too-long tassel that annoyed his neck and slapped his lips every time he conscientiously scanned the dine-room for anything that needed attention. Thus was he girded for battle.

  Influenced by the strategic wryness of his Protector’s sense of humor, Butterbugs thought, ‘Where’s the highchair I’m supposed to sit in…?’

  TABP’s referral must’ve been to the point and forceful, as Butterbugs found himself in the upper echelon of server personnel assigned to this occult VIP crowd. Aside from the insipid mission statement from the man of the ravintola himself, there was a bit of instruction, but no tests to pass or qualifications to present. If there was any distaste that emanated from Яance as far as accepting the mandate from The Owner (e.g. TABP, the former owner, in fact), for taking the kid on, Butterbugs contented himself with a fantasy that he might have appeared as the offspring of some congress involving miscegenation, caught by TABP’s eye, as a project to encourage. His springboarding into this cushy position had to be accepted, lest the race card ruin the winnings of the House.

  Яance though, held rights to Яightful Яejection (as he styled it on the Staff Bulletin Board), if servers did not meet his Standards of Perfect Presentation (applicable to both Food Creation and Food Distribution staff divisions). The mechanics of his Stalinist rule were grandfathered-in well before TABP bailed out Яance’s sorry, bankrupted ass two years ago, in order to keep the doors of prestige open. Enter takeover by the dubious Mundsloth Holiday Holdings, which TABP quickly scraped off his shoes.

  Eat your heart out, Ma Maison et Brown Derby!

  The place was posh, but the décor was a ponderous hotch-potch of too-red faux-kitsch Chinese and Chinese Turkestan gobbledygook, even though the cuisine was Georgian, with an exec chef all the way from Tiflis, and a chief busboy from Gori. The setting combined a Chungking Mansions feel with Shanghai Tang hipness, via a watery Trans-Caucasian ‘exotisme’. Supposedly, that’s where the backwards ‘R’ came in, to set the theme and all. Not that interiors mattered to Butterbugs just then. Now that he’d been given his tray and his tip cup, it was the clientele in this mongrel mix that were starting to have an effect.

  Even though he might not have known their faces, the diners hereabouts had a certain authority, so as to communicate, ‘I am a person of cinematic consequence’, toward anyone sensitive to the complexity of making motion pictures.

  Real fluorescent tubes from Communist China had been successfully installed and ignited overhead, spreading a hard-edged, cobalt-cold light over the diners, though random double-happiness lanterns cast their joss-house glow upon the select tables. Libations of Skybytzskygog wine, successfully decanted from rock-hewn bottles originating in the port of Poti, were inevitably added to the mulligatawny, ensuring that most customers were fully wrapped in thick red wining and dining. Thus primed, those participants in the Industry who fancied coming here spread their gossip leaks and sage commentary all over the room, chiefly regarding the bureaucracy of the twenty-first century studios, and their tech divisions.

  One dame with piled blonde wigwag curls, dining solo, casually addressed Butterbugs, as he passed her table.

  ‘I love to hear their behind-the-scenes talk!’

  Not prepped for a comeback line, especially one with ‘today’ tactically included, the wait person dared not reply. His gait was somewhat clumsy, his tray burdened with a group-mug of Barrel champagne, bound for a distant cove upholstered in awful brown Cultural Revolution ‘leather’, encircled by unknown techie hogs with surging tales, bitched out loud.

  On his way back, she continued.

  ‘Actually, they are very intelligent people, you know. What they say always makes sense, don’t you think? Unlike the higher-ups.’

  Butterbugs was intrigued.

  No doubt about it, the lady was specifically addressing him as he went by.

  She happened to be a lesser-known Drumpf, Wycanda (Ivana’s not-very-Czech-sounding cousin, who’d married The Donald’s cousin Irwin for a mere fortnight once). Every now and then she made a rare appearance at some comparatively proletarian eatery, and today it was the ЯR, which she privately thought was thoroughly ghastly.

  Butterbugs took her at face value, choosing to trust her ‘alternative’ take on the environment that surrounded both of them. Perhaps
they had a commonality: she the cameo-appearing New York dolly-wog, who finds herself in the mood for a diversion; he a slave to the Drama, who finds himself in questionable territory, and for all the wrong reasons.

  ‘Is my glove on straight?’ she asked him, after his third trek past her. She held out a white satin paw, artistically altered in its finger levels. Might he kiss it? She thought he might, just.

  ‘Well, uh… It looks OK, uh, today’, Butterbugs managed to get out – in Яance-babble.

  After the monumentality of the VIPs he had encountered in person in Hollywood so far: Sid Grauman (from afar), Vonda Van Den Dell (very, very close-up), and The Angry Black Priest (as close as the vein in his neck), La Drumpf-ette seemed small, and, quite frankly, ordinary.

  ‘Gloves, they are important…’

  She wiggled her fingers.

  ‘Well, I… uh – to… day…’

  ‘Like my nylon taffeta blouse?’

  For a cheap come-on, it was actually rather sexy. Due to a jangling bus-tray though, passing by his ears, Butterbugs heard none of it.

  ‘So grumpy-tumpy!’ she pouted.

  The obviousness of her invitation would have been a nose-pinch to anyone but Butterbugs, but the actor was singularly spoiled. To him ‘Git in the car, cracker-ass!’ was the most spectacular – and successful – come-on of all time.

  At this point, he should have just asked Miss Wycanda out on a date. No shit! That way, he could have gotten some hot gossip about The Donald. (Unbeknownst to him, she would have accepted any entreaty from his amateur-but-sweet performance, no matter how awkwardly or tawdrily delivered…)

  Instead, wobbled by the grumpy-tumpy accusation, he accidentally spilled a portion-sized tray of oily Paprika Dots in Levulose Sauce onto her lap.

  Initially, Wycanda was pissed off.

  ‘O.M.G.!’ hissed a watching waitress. ‘He did a partial on her!’

  ‘He shall now pay!’ gasped another.

  Then the former Drumpf-player looked up, brushed aside a strip of misplaced fiberglass ‘hair’ from her mascara-plastered eye region, and got a good look at this, this OAF who now stood in front of her, almost kowtowing, as if she were some sort of Dowager-Empress, pleading for forgiveness, imploring not to be – he didn’t know – condemned to eunuchdom or something.

  But when she clearly saw who it was who had offended her so, perhaps involuntarily, she softened.

  ‘This big guy! He, he, adorable!’ she thought.

  Daring to smile, and thus crack the slabs of Uogeé Feschah Advanced Foundational ‘Patch-the-Dam’ jar-of-hope crème that held her face together (so far, this evening), she looked benevolently upon the humiliated server and was just about to ask him if he might be inclined to go out for a soda or something, when her diamond-encrusted mobile rattled out its little Janáček jingle. She answered it and instantly blanched, Uogeé or no Uogeé.

  ‘What time did the call come in?’ she uttered in a stunned whisper.

  Too preoccupied with the upset, Butterbugs totally missed Joan Rivers waltzing by, holding her nose and feigning upchuck as she regarded Wycanda, with flamethrower eyes. A few seconds later, Elaine Stritch foxtrotted along the same route, having shared the same late lunch, but following an independent escape route. She took one look at the Drumpf in-name-only and quipped, ‘I’m willing to bus my own table here. Now I know where to scrape my plate…’ In all probability, Phyllis Diller would have made similar gestures, as she was the third diner, but she’d left some time before.

  Without warning, Wycanda got up, brushed the Paprika Dot remains off her Bob Mackie-stitched taffeta in spite of their hunkered-in grease stains, sensed the waiter in the goon-suit would never be hers, grabbed her items, assembled her entourage of plastic toy-dogs, and left the lunch hall, without paying, of course. Such was the permissiveness of the rich and fabulous, when in protest.

  Butterbugs, still waiting to be exonerated, instead now faced the non-made-up mug of his boss, Яance Crankshaw himself, who had been peering from the sidelines, fuming with holy fury.

  Not one bit of his time upon this planet was wasted further.

  Terse were his words, delivered like blistering steam.

  ‘You’re FIRED, boy! You horror jackass! You stupid! I just can’t stand you! Not one second longer!! Now get out! Just get OUT! Now! NOW!!’

  Then he really started shrieking. In front of everybody.

  ‘WAITOR!! YOU!!! I just want you out, today! You shitty FAILURE! You shitty FUCK!! You make a FOOL outa me??? Dare, do ya?? Get OUT, I tell you! Now just GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!! Now! This day! Today!! To… day…!!!’

  His frayed vocal cords melted into falsetto peeps and blurps, and at an alarmingly high volume, too. But that was why celebrities and qualified tech people often came to the restaurant, just to hear Яance’s rages at hapless staff. It also provided edification as to power-structure behavior within an overly-pressured microcosm.

  ‘Boy, he’s sure making a big deal out of canning some poor schmuck…,’ said an Industry person to another Industry person, way over in the bar.

  ‘Well, that’s Яance!’ replied the other Industry person.

  The screed continued, lapsing into incoherency. All that remained now was thick purple noise, already translated, and already over-redundant. Over and over and over again.

  Surrendering his fez to a cowardly host-and-hostess couple just as its tassel disconnected, Butterbugs thought, ‘Boy, he sure gets mad…’ Truly, he wondered just how mad The Angry Black Priest would be – at both of them. He may have let TABP down, but he had to save himself from the pissy fallout, pronto.

  There really wasn’t much chance that Butterbugs would deliver a zinging parting shot like ‘Fuck you – today!’

  With an addendum, ‘And your stupid backwards ‘R’!’

  The whole episode occurred with such rapid fire, he just plain wasn’t fast enough on his feet. Besides, an actor, who, by his tools and trade, should be very fast on his feet for banter purposes, was in this case most assuredly out of practice. Would he ever catch up?

  Needless to say, Butterbugs exited the restaurant, head hung low.

  New, later-oriented diners were just in the process of having their Quattroportos and Enzos parked by Ecstasy-charged valets. Somewhere down the boulevard, three quarters of a kilometer or so, was a beat-up DeSoto wagon.

  A time now for a chance encounter.

  ‘Hey kid. You look kinda green. What the hell just happened?’

  It was Sonny Projector, Agent. He was on his way in for a platter of fried wine vines. Without his Old Fitzgeralds on.

  For Sonny, there was too much going on, both in his head and in his exalted environs, for him to always assign non-cinematic reality to its proper (and accessible) compartments within the day-planner of his mind. No, upon encountering this browbeaten ex-server, peeling off a boiled wool vest, there was no ready reference to the attached face – that expressive and market-watch-applicable face, this particular face, that he had in fact seen in the 20th fanfare ballyhoo loop.

  But there was this: a hurried and urgent transfer of neurons, from senses to brain cells, undertook to process the obscure validity of the image just seen. This psycho-chemical procedure was why he blurted out:

  ‘Hey kid. You look kinda green. What the hell just happened?’

  The kid, after flinging his bib into the nearest cigar silo, was just heading out into the supreme LA dusk, with its blazingly-bright salmon-toned cirrus wisps, way up in the electric blue atmosphere, and quite naturally answered:

  ‘I was just fired. To-day.’

  ‘But, but whie??’

  This robust response, from the inquiring stranger, with its slick accent on the aspirated ‘wh’, was sufficient to convince Butterbugs that he was being noticed because of some sort of conspicuousness, most likely worthy of embarrassment. That was the common denominator. It had to have been the bib.

  People in Hollywood tend to ask questions when it is apparent that the
y, the askers, might have something to gain from the process. So what else was new?

  ‘Whie?’ he mimicked, restored to actor mode. ‘Well, for trying to make something right. And she was a ‘celebrity’ customer.’

  ‘Oh. They’re the worst kind.’

  Sonny started to really look over the kid, but he wasn’t sure why. The cummerbund he still wore made him look like an Armenian mountebank.

  ‘Let me guess. The alleged celebrity was – princess-like – with you, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but she was fine. It was that Rance guy…’

  ‘Ah-ha. You were one of Яance’s ‘targets’. You know, he’s really an OK fellow… A little hokey, but…’

  Butterbugs returned the scrutiny. Elements of recognition attempted to form in his mind, but there just wasn’t enough from which to build. Nevertheless, the sparse material remained on the sidelines enough to be considered at any time, if necessary. Any human encounter that took place before the demise of Vonda V.D.D., especially anything that took place in an ‘amusement park’ of half burnt-out light bulbs, was prone to ‘B’ picture status in his regard.

  ‘That’s – how it was –’

  Sonny returned the direct gaze. He certainly possessed more raw recognition data than Butterbugs, but despite the subjective notion that the kid, onscreen, communicated through his visage, there was no tangible connection for the agent to really grasp. And he was a smart cookie, too. Yet, something had to be done.

  Butterbugs reverted to staring at something mindless, like the lotus-globed lamp at the driveway entrance, and prepared to proceed further into the gloaming.

  ‘Hey, kid. Yeah, you. The one so recently ‘at liberty’. You’re an actor, of course?’

  There was nothing for it but to simply answer the simple question.