Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  Full cast and crew were on tonight. Everybody worked. After all, it was a Grauman Late Sunday Night Epilogue. Here was every sort of labyrinthine concrete austerity and mechanical illusion generator, to serve the functions of show-making. What a fitting antithesis to the ornateness on the other side of the fire curtain. The house? Everyone from Steve Martin to Sandra Oh. Practically SRO.

  A show was soon to go on.

  Again, he was stunned by the gentle urgency of the backstage agenda. Like a Hyderabad bazaar, players and their supports, some swirling to get done what they must do, and others stationary amidst the bustle, ready at their posts, committed to following a sequence in service to the scenario specially designed for audience consumption. To Butterbugs the profession of the business was again apparent by being immersed in it. Dreamy-dumbo speculation was right out. No room for tipsy partying or bits of a lark. These were professionals who took every side-step and every pull of the rope with utter seriousness. People’s lives depended on it, more often than not.

  He had felt a sort of isolation on the ‘Doughboy’ movie set, where dramatic execution occurred on a more radically controlled plane, the volumetrics sliding up and down, as needed. In fact, filming was more like a task performed within scientific method. But here, with the great wall at the back of the stage, the apparatuses to run everything, and the fall of vertical light that separates the backstage pros from the uncertainties of a given audience, all were free to enact what they needed to do, to the best of their ability, with the proviso that what they were doing couldn’t miss. No misfires tolerated. Not with this much talent, in this high a venue, and especially with an SRO audience out there. This wasn’t a drama by O’Neill or Churyonvicz. It was an unabashed entertainment, for crying out loud. Surely, with enough grouped sincerity, could it not galvanize an audience just as well?

  Love welled up in Butterbugs’ romantically-influenced breast. Love for the stage and its excitements. Treasure lay hereabouts, under the lights, and within live human gaze.

  At precisely 11:59PM (so that the pageant could be labeled ‘Sunday’) a brassy overture sounded, all in a major key. Constantin and Mischa Bakaleinikoff took turns conducting, even in mid-phrase; theirs was a unique arrangement. The late night energy was flowing. As was pointed out by the curtain-twitching crew already, many a star and tech personality were in the audience.

  Butterbugs stood in the wings – in the shadows of the wings – unnoticed by all. Back here in the set-back teasers, near the cyclorama, a showgirl pleaded to her guy.

  ‘Oh, Johnny, don’t go on… Don’t go…’

  ‘You don’t know why, doll, but I gotta.’

  ‘Johnny!!’

  ‘Gotta do what ah gotta do…’

  ‘Johnny, you can tell me. Really now. We got a few seconds still!’

  ‘Gotta go, doll. Gotta.’

  ‘Oh, Johnny-O, don’t go on…!’

  But he did.

  Backstage life was here; only the newcomer didn’t know how to tune in. He just awaited his cue.

  Butterbugs was costumed as a 17th-century grandee from Haarlem. He would pose in the very center of an immense live reconstruction of Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’. (Sid plumped for the more sober paintings in this scene, so as to promote the spectacle angle of this particular Epilogue, while the Grauman Gals would make the most of ‘The Laughing Cavalier’, with a specially commissioned song by Al Dubin, in the next scene change.)

  Not encountering much in the way of Dutch drama by which to present a monologue while standing within the heavy frame of Sid’s clever tableau, Butterbugs chose to fill the halt in the musical accompaniment with a poetic tribute to Rembrandt himself, penned by Groote van der Hergenfoon.

  In those six minutes of dramatic recitation, the feather in his hat may have bobbed, and the high-water boots he wore may have been a trifle swish, and though the whole scene might have been pushed past the dignified restraint of Mijnheer van Rijn himself, in true showbiz style, it was all worthwhile and eye-catching, and the ear was piqued as well. The flowing incidental music was helpful and explanatory, and when it artfully paused, as if composed by Nielsen (though thrown together by a team of arrangers this afternoon), Butterbugs, though undirected by anyone but the notion of Sid’s innuendos, took the center stage and pushed his opportunity into tangibility.

  ‘On dark paint,

  Earthen but warm

  Tapped he the soul of us all,

  A moment to grasp.

  Those that waited

  Outside in the night

  Did not on first thought know,

  That they were the ones

  Whose faces and forms would grow,

  And attain immortality

  In the eyes of an awed world;

  So witnessing, the trial of the moment,

  The legacy of all tomorrows…’

  And onward.

  Perhaps the ‘educational’ tone was more than a bit obvious. Not exactly enlightened text, but, in his delivery, Butterbugs’ portrayal in free tongue set a kind of fire alight. Even past the lighting plot, designed to duplicate Rembrandt’s genius, a light was somehow generated – no stagehand knew how – within the frame of the gathered burghers.

  Oh, they all thought (especially those on the great Million Dollar stage) that it was some special effect. But up in his box, Sid could see something more, and many in the audience did, as well. One thing was for sure: it had nothing to do with the van der Hergenfoon text.

  Walter Morosco, important producer, leaned over to his escort and mused, ‘Who is that kid?’

  His thoughts were typical amongst the known and obscure in Sid’s audience, that late Sunday night. No one had ever seen anything like this before. That was the point of their response.

  And no one thought that such a recitation could be followed by what amounted to an executive choice made by Butterbugs. It was the type of thing he’d have done on the Tailgate Performances stage, if its limitations had allowed. A split-second decision, made upon a judgment, based on what the Bakaleinikoff brothers were doing. For this scene, each had his own orchestra, Constantin in the pit, and Mischa elevated above the stage (and visible to the audience, moodily-lighted through a scrim).

  At exactly the pause where the musical directors completed the planned sequence (the ‘doughnut’ to be filled, while Butterbugs did whatever he was going to do in his act), they prepared to go on to the next segment. Butterbugs, acting upon the added memory of Sid’s request for a ‘soft-shoe segue’, chose to add a dance element in order to bring this intriguing interpretation of one of the art world’s greatest masterpieces further to life. The Bakaleinikoff in the pit immediately caught on and proceeded with a perfectly appropriate tone poem that was standing by, and the Bakaleinikoff above the stage followed suit, with perfectly wedded and almost eerie exactitude of timing, the whole becoming a sound experience of compelling depth.

  As for Butterbugs, making his moves amongst the frozen-as-dried-and-cracked-oils supernumeraries, decked out in Age of Exploration garb (feathered but not foppish), his self-generated choreographics, accomplished within the surrounding frame, and lacking any mincing or comic cop-outs, nevertheless made sense to the audience by actually telling the story of ‘The Night Watch’’s controversy, and its meaning.

  No Gene Kelly he. Neither was he Marcel Marceau. But somehow, he conveyed his narration via style and daring. Despite restrictions of set and cast, the lighting’s calculated angles, and the dark gulf past the footlights, the capabilities of the actor were liberated this night.

  The audience ‘got it’.

  So did Sid, in his private box.

  Second night in a row.

  Monday morning dawned placidly. Butterbugs slept in, bushed by the happy medley of dramatic developments over the weekend. At ten o’clock, for the first time in his life, he embarked on an instinctive morning routine that possessed virtually all the factors most citizens of the modern world might consider normal (e.g. control over re
quisite morning procedures; nourishment under controlled and desirable circumstances; a selection of modern conveniences at hand, all as aids in accomplishing said routine, etc.). There was plenty of time before a planned meeting at Sonny’s HQ commenced at high noon.

  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, the media was discovering the name of Butterbugs. The airwaves were full of it. One of the tubes in his Davis car’s radio had blown out, and the vibrator in the speaker never did work properly. So, while every fifth person on the LA thoroughfares was at any one time hearing the name Butterbugs over their portable media, he of whom they spoke motored his way to Sonny’s complex with nothing but the corn-popper engine revving, and the crumply-jittery operational noises and sounds characteristic of his rather eccentric motorized vehicle.

  ‘Listen, Butterbugs, come on in. Let’s have a private chat.’

  There was no more agreeable act that Butterbugs had done in his life up till now than to take up his agent’s late request for such a powwow. It was the first time he had been in Sonny’s most inner sanctum, which was a paradise of clean, modern design. It was an environment that undoubtedly reflected Sonny’s style of thorough-going progressiveness and clarity of strategic planning.

  ‘Welcome to my real office,’ Sonny announced after pressing a button that liberated a sleek platform from a brushed stainless cowl, revealing two towering tumblers of refreshing celery stalk beverages, providing energy and calmness, simultaneously.

  ‘It’s important that you’re here, right now and in this place, so that I can properly tell you something.’

  ‘This is quite a set-up here…’

  ‘I designed it, with Pohn Fenns. You know, Pohn Fenns…’

  ‘Oh yes! Pohn… Fenns…’

  ‘I wanted something expansive, not paranoid. Something modern, not elusive. Something permanent, but not a bunker. It passes earthquake code, but there’d be shards of glass everywhere, believe me. There’s not a position in this suite where you wouldn’t be decapitated by panes flying at too-perfect angles!’

  Butterbugs chuckled politely.

  ‘But seriously, Butterbugs, I’d like to apologize.’

  ‘Apolo… For – what?’

  ‘For the boorish behavior I displayed the other night in the mezzanine foyer of Grauman’s Metropolitan. It is an episode I deeply regret, and the recollection of it eats at me. You’ve got to know, it eats at me. You’re probably thinking: ‘Now that we’ve had some success, he’s playing Mr. NiceGuy to me’. You are correct to question my sincerity. I cannot deny it. Before this ‘Merchant’, I have to admit, you were a kutcha project in my mind. It was drug out too long for –’

  ‘Dragged,’ Butterbugs corrected.

  ‘Dragged out so long… that I was beginning to have doubts. There is a new girl over at Dino De Laurentiis that I’ve had my eye on. Should I concentrate my own and Del Nind’s considerable abilities for grooming new talent on the likes of her, instead of gambling on this (meaning you) unknown, remote personality, the likes of which are so different from what I am used to, and the behavior of whom is unusually detached and internalized…? Mind you, these are the thoughts of a mega-agent. We – my kind – occupy quarters that are nestled in the higher cwms of this very peaks-and-troughs Industry. You have no idea of how rarefied life and its interpretation can be at such an altitude! All too often, the temptation to adopt a lower common denominator in judging a given situation stares one straight in the face. I am supposed to be above such base emotion, but, I confess, I am capable of faltering when negotiating the interspersed relationships of slope, trail, and route.’

  ‘Are you a mountain climber?’ Butterbugs would have asked, in quasi-seriousness, but chose not to fake any kind of whippersnapper wit. Instead: ‘But Sonny, your talk the other night… I knew you weren’t out to get me, or put me down. Really! I knew that you were tense, and under a lot of pressure as producer-general. I knew that you were certainly stressed, and that made you say uncharacteristic things. I knew that you, not being a producer by trade, weren’t really seasoned enough to remain cool under the circumstances. I knew you couldn’t possibly mean to wreck all that you had wrought to achieve. How could you not have beheld me from your æyrie and felt that I, in my seemingly truant state, could possibly be trustworthy in such a production as yours, at no less a dramatic temple than Grauman’s Metropolitan? That talk you gave me, right then and there, in that exalted locality, next the great and ponderous urn, painful and potentially insulting though it was, nevertheless turned out to be one of the most helpful influxes of insight I have ever received. I know that now. Because of what you said, I knew it was up to me to keep lighted the beacon you had prepared and ignited. It was my responsibility and mine alone. There was no question of letting you down.’

  ‘I am greatly moved by your statements Butterbugs. So moved! I couldn’t be more gratified. Incidentally, I sense that you might want to know why I have peppered my words with mountain climbing references. Simple. I have summited Everest, Annapurna, and even Ecázadplaszt, believe it or not. They weren’t cheap, either! But they were a kick to do. Naturally, I’m a little pissed off though, about you calling me unseasoned… Oh, bullwaste. You’re right. I was nervous. So nervous I could scarcely dare give it utterance at the time. I wanted it to be such a success! And it was, I tell you! But listen. You are a good egg, and far wiser than I had ever wont to think. These are the great issues for we who take on the responsibilities of public life! I had a feeling you’d survive it. My rant, that is. But I thought afterwards, especially when I beheld your performance, accompanied by Sid and Emmaline in Sid’s box, I thought, how could I behave in so vulgar a manner towards this stout trouper? How could I be so callow?’

  ‘It was I who was callow, my agent! I stake that claim. You showed me the way back to reason. You showed me the way back to mission.’

  ‘And we did it, did we not?’

  ‘Indeed we did, sir. Indeed we did.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine!’

  ‘Very fine! Very fine! Your dream, that is.’

  ‘You know, that was probably one of the best things you ever did.’

  ‘What, Sonny?’

  ‘To wander, lonelier than a midnight cloud on a moonless night in Svalbard, up unto mezzanine privilege, with such a soulful burden!’

  ‘It’s almost as if I had been guided by an invisible… you know, something or other.’

  ‘Then I salute them! Both ‘something’, then ‘other’! Cheers!’

  Sonny raised his celery stalk drink.

  Butterbugs raised his.

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘One more thing, Butterbugs.’

  ‘I listen!’

  ‘In future, I hope the sensibilities within you, the ones that still have need to acquire wisdom, are not too discombobulated if I make it official with you, that there will be no more sessions of conversation between us that digress into such objectionable babble as I delivered to you that fabled night in the mezzanine foyer of the Metropolitan! Except of course, as some kind of satire.’

  ‘A-OK there! And pray, banish the acid memory of that encounter. Think of it only as a crude but freeing step up to a higher plane, upon which we can both commune. That is what I myself have done in these long hours between. That is what I did the moment I left your presence and made my way down to the stage.’

  ‘I will, Butterbugs!’

  ‘And Sonny?’

  ‘Yes, Butterbugs.’

  ‘Sonny, that girl you mentioned. The one over at Dino De Laurentiis. Can you not still lend your expertise for her benefit?’

  Sonny regarded his client with golden wonder. ‘I can, actor. And I will!’

  Butterbugs smiled and was serene.

  ‘Now,’ Sonny enthused, ‘I have personally prepared a repast over here in the Sunken Lounge Zone, where we can have a working lunch, and plot a course for the immediate future. Come on through.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Oh, and Butterbugs?’

/>   ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry I called you Mumpkin-Boy.’

  24.

  Hated, Just, Just HATED

  He was known as ‘The Walking Bow Tie’ and by other, less banal epithets.

  Bow ties, for cryin’ out loud! Clownish, foppish, Regency-ish, nerdish, nebbish, ’50s science teacher-ish, ’70s disco wedding-ish – he ran the full gamut of display, and it got him attention. He once wore a ‘faggy’ (his own term) satin bow the size of a suitcase, first on Letterman, then on Fallon (the next night) that made him look like a baby duckling.

  It was attention that he craved, and his person was its recipient.

  His film reviews also received attention. Raw-ther! His bow ties were almost always laughable, but showing them off was something he just HAD to do. For Randi Chuzzlewit, the apparent humanoid behind the neck décor, was the most powerful and influential of any film critic now in the media.

  To call him the most despised entity that had anything to do with the Industry was an understatement of global gravity. Harry Cohn was a benevolent puddle of jolly, uncooked Jell-O in comparison. Morthah Bluck was a St. (Mother) Teresa figure. Orvetta Cazirée a demure Easter pageant princess.

  Yet, Randi Chuzzlewit’s employer was Lord Blubber-Chancre, of 1 Fleet Street in Olde London Towne. The Lord Blubber-Chancre. The Force of Nature himself.

  [1 Fleet Street being ye olde address, for those of you primitives who don’t know it, of the galactic headquarters of the all-powerful Varna Group, of which ‘The Asker’ was the flagship newspaper. The Varna Group was predicted to become double the size of News Corp. – now being referred to as ‘News Corpse’ since 20th-Fox’s happy breakaway, less than a year before. As a result, Hearst, Kane, and all other competitors were trembling in their boots, as well.]

  Lord B-C treated Randi like the cash-cow treasure that he was. His corporation retained him for the sheer pleasure of it.