‘Poor, suckable dick! You’re in the same boat.’
‘As you, edible one.’
‘As me. So what deck are you on?’
‘Always beneath you, worshipful!’
‘Cuz I’m older, maybe?’
‘We’re ageless!’
‘Except tonight. It’s getting on.’
‘No kidding.’
‘Too tired for hot, hardbody gettin’ it on?’
‘Yeah-yeah!’
‘Why Butterbugs, you said that so easily!’
‘I was thinking of you, babe.’
‘Not with your cock.’
‘Well! Not particularly… tonight…! Funny, huh?’
‘Uh-uhh.’
‘I’m, you know, able to, uh, perform for you… That is, if you’d like…’
‘Wouldn’t mind a snuggle though, piston-boy. Never would mind a snuggle.’
‘Oh, babe, I know, I know.’
‘We both perform.’
‘We must!’
‘I guess.’
‘Did you just suppress a yawn?’
‘Oh no, that was the Urie-Croak. That’s what we call it. Not quite a death-rattle. After all, this is a school night for the Boys.’
‘It’s a school night for us all.’
‘True, love-gubb. Say, do you mind if I shut down early tonight? You can come in via Crazy Lane if you want. The buzzer-wizzby’s set on ‘accept’ for your new hot toy BMW. I’m tuckered, to say the least.’
‘No probs, baby. I’ll cave in at home myself. Tomorrow I have to show up for costume resizing at the seventh hour.’
‘Good night then, working fool.’
‘A fool there was…’
‘Me too, sweetie.’
‘Night, love-lizard.’
‘Night, love-cub!’
In point of fact, Butterbugs was not really tired. He was inspired. Over this picture. For the next six hours, he dove into the several satchels of role-oriented information, research, speech drills and script concepts that he’d lugged home, and his steady sauté flame of phone-posing grew into a Bernz-O-Matic blowtorch corona.
He was in awe of Cody, and only wanted to protect her (not lie to her), but her – it was true – older, working-mom status belied his own surging instincts. How marvelous, despite the demands of the day, that he still felt empowered, with thought-thrusts shooting off in all directions, each ‘launching pad’ spring-loaded by Porter’s prospects.
Hot damn, but was this ‘Harold’ thing a gas, or what?
Day: Universal City. Butterbugs in chamber.
He was handed something to look at. A trademark, for a motion picture’s title card, in cursive:
Personally Produced
par
Porter Pud Parker
‘Are you sure you want to use your middle name, Porter?’
‘Whatever do you mean, Butterbugs?’
‘Well, that’s a lot of ‘P’s parading along.’
‘Ah ha ha! That’s a good one!’
‘And you think that audiences outside of France will know what ‘par’ means?’
‘You’re so funny!’
‘So you don’t think that, uh…’
‘I really want to declare my pride, especially my pride in things like my name! After all, I AM the producer!’
And he went his merry way.
Now that Porter had his hooks out, and the captive audience of his leading player had become pretty secure, he felt freer to spread his wit and wisdom.
PP: ‘I like to show class. I like people to know I have it.’
Bb: ‘What? Class?’
PP: ‘To be sure! My goyl-friend taught me that. Lakmé! She’s from Portergunge, Bundelkhand. That’s pure coincidence. The name link-up, you know. She always says it’s karma. We were destiny.’
Bb: ‘Wow.’
PP: ‘Do you know where that is?’
Bb: ‘Where?’
PP: ‘Why, Portergunge. Bundelkhand, of course.’
Bb: ‘I’m not entirely sure.’
PP: ‘Don’t be afraid to reach out, Butterbugs. Open an atlas once in a while.’
Bb: ‘That’s the kind of stuff that Sonny tells me.’
PP: ‘He’s right. Pictures are being shot in all locations, far and wide, more than ever, now. Look out the other side of the building, and you’ll find all of Universal City in high production gear. Same might be said for Portergunge, really. That’s in Bundelkhand, ya know.’
Bb: ‘I’ll remember!’
PP: ‘Oh, and also, something to keep in mind. Sonny isn’t the only one you should listen to. He’s not exactly a producer, like me.’
Bb: ‘You’re up on all kind of subjects. Not just the Industry.’
PP: ‘True! And I often feel a need to comment on my fellow producers, you know? Kemmy Sprex! Always thinks he’s a combo of Tony and Ridley Scott! His pictures are OK, but for some reason, they always make me feel like I’m being force-fed pancakes with mayonnaise on them instead of butter ’n’ syrup.’
Bb: ‘Why Porter, you sound for all the world like Randi Chuzzlewit.’
PP: ‘We all hated Randi ya know, and we’re all glad that he blew his brainpan apart (the most responsible thing he ever did!). But boy, could that sicko-Walking Bow Tie turn a phrase sometimes. Now I don’t know why I actually offered him a gig to script Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, but he spat sour cherry pith-balls in my face at a party over at Ray Heindorf’s. Turbo-bastard! I’d still like to dicker with Jean-Paul on the pic, though. Maybe I could get Harry Kurnitz to pen it. Interested?’
Bb: ‘Cool!’
PP: ‘Yeah, that’s what I love about the Industry. There’s always room to live with it. To roll with the tide.’
Bb: ‘And ride it?’
PP: ‘You got it, baby.’
Bb: ‘Yeah!’
PP: ‘Plus, I can be pretty funny when I want to! You know, Butterbugs, I’m not only pumped about the three pictures now firming up. I’m getting hopped-up on sights further down the track less traveled. I have a feeling you like the same sorta route. How about: ‘Born on Bread Tray Mountain’ – part of an ongoing bucolic cycle! And a remake of ‘Tol’ble David’ is promised. By us! By Porter Parker Presents! The Bucolics shall march on! Platinum B.O.! I promise! Comments?’
Bb: ‘Personally Produced par Porter Pud Parker!’
PP: ‘Man, you got it! You really got it –’
Bang! The office door whooshed open, the frosted glass vibrating within a frame as original as the surrounding superstructure of the building.
‘Why Sonny! We weren’t expecting the likes of you! But – Come on in. Youthful Butterbugs and I were just slavering over the prospects of ‘Harold’. Yet again! Want something? Have a highball. It’s your call, friend.’
‘You pus-slucking bastard!’ Sonny wailed.
‘Sonny, baby, take it easy! What’s the beef? Whaddayagottagainst me?! Heh, heh?!’
Porter tired to make light, while sidelong glancing at Butterbugs repeatedly, for damage control.
‘Why, you incredible pig! Trying to roll into my stable and exploit my stud! Cheapie!! I said, CHEAPIE!!!’
‘Heh, heh! Heh-heh-heh! Sonny very funny! Sonny, funny! Horseplay, huh? Horsing around! Heh!’
‘You rotten lung!’
With both palms stretched out before him, to ward off any Sonny-punches that might threaten his stove-like girth, Porter pressed for a performance that might convince Butterbugs that he and heavy-hitter Sonny did this sort of repartee all the time.
‘You’re a real trick rider! A real barrel racer! And I’m your rodeo clown!’
‘Hateful – pile of meat! You knew what the flying-fuck you were doing!’
‘Sonny, wait a minute.’ Porter decided to give up the jokey, harmless joshing. He resorted to a super-slow, instructional pronouncement: ‘I’m the one… who bought the horse ranch. You’re the one… who bought the egg ranch… Remember?’
‘Egg ranch??’
<
br /> ‘You know! The chicks! The chickies? Outside of Reno?’
‘Shut up.’
Porter did so without further waffling.
‘Now you looka here, old roast. I’m gettin’ mighty sick of you. You know I refer to my clients as my ‘stable’. You know very well. I’m not talking about some bottomless cash-hemorrhage horse farm that you know will bust your already creaky reserves! I just don’t give a farting fig about your miserable equestrian nightmare. You know it has nothing to do with what you tried to pull off: to keep this kid from getting full access to the trough!’
He pointed directly at Butterbugs.
‘You just make me want to cough up blood!’
‘Sonny!’ Porter barked, but in a tone of pleading rather than opposition, before collapsing into whimperdom. ‘Oh, Sonny! I only tried to –’
‘You tried to be a cheapie, you sleaze!’
‘Sonny, I swear –’
‘To tell the whole truth. Now do it. Now. To Butterbugs. Direct. Here and now.’
‘Ohhhh, no! I couldn’t bear it!’
‘You’re going to tell him, because if I do it, I’ll get so – so, enraged, I’d have to pop you in the gut, and then I’d have to hang you out that window, which does not open conventionally, but it would indeed open, after I’d use your spongy bulk to work that minor little problem out. I tell you, I would. And I will, right now!’
‘Oh, Sonny, please don’t.’
‘Oh, I won’t, if you do, dodo.’
‘Do what, Sonny? Do what?’
‘Do as I say. And I’ve said it. Now tell all to Butterbugs!’
Porter meekly turned towards the appalled actor, but he could not look directly at him.
‘I didn’t think you’d mind, Butterbugs. Especially since you’re just starting out. I figured you’d just be glad to be in my production at all. You seemed so excited about it. You said so.’
‘Sure he said so! Because he was! We all were! Kluck!’
‘So that’s it, Butterbugs. Now, can we go to lunch at Mungles’? I shall buy!’
Sonny got seriously in Porter’s face, but without actual bodily contact – yet.
‘Now listen, you fat, phosphorescent fungus. You ain’t said nothin’ yet! Tell him! Tell him, I say! Or mayhem will result! Mayhem. Porter.’
Then total fear entered Porter’s heart. He knew the agent’s patience was exhausted. He knew he didn’t stand a chance. Here he was, with one of Hollywood’s Top-Five most-powerful agents, right here in his high-rise-but-lowly office, bellowing at him, and for all the right reasons. He knew that even in a court of law, Sonny would totally triumph in any legal confrontation he might wish to entertain. He knew that Sonny would win all, in spite of delivering all the reactionary, even threatening, behavior he could mete out, whether white collar or bloody collar. He knew he deserved every bit of what might follow. He had tried to storm the gates of heaven, and he’d been caught red-handed. Not yet 35, his career could be cast into hell over something like this! That is, if he didn’t come clean. Time to get buttery. But under this kind of stress, could he pull it off?
‘You guys, I’m just so weak, and – and, I don’t know if I even can –’
‘You make me want to say ‘fuck’ in every sentence I shall utter for the rest of your life, which might not be all that long, lard-partner!’
‘Oh Sonny,’ Porter whined, ‘don’t threaten me so!’
‘I will not merely threaten. I will do!’
‘Oh, Sonny, Sonny…!!’
‘Now be a man, instead of a buttock boil! Step up and explain to the youngling here. You have been final-warned, Parker.’
‘Butterbugs!’ Porter enthused, aiming his mug a tad closer to his addressee, ‘New actor in town! Here’s how we producers work. You don’t know anything about this stuff, and I know it’s way over your head, but –’
‘You boiler-snake! You dirty, dirty fuck-snake! Cut the smarmy oil-application! Cut it to the bone! He may not know, but I do! Now tell him direct and without further pukey embellishment. He will learn this stuff, and I want him to get it from one of our Industry’s best teachers. Like, you. You will set the standard for him. The standard of warning against the lowest common denominator, that sickening practice which is so injurious to our race.’
‘Oh, Sonny! I feel so horrible! I feel so ashamed!’
‘That’s all, brother! It will only get worse if you proceed like this, Puddy-puddle!’
Porter knew he spoke the truth, so now, for the first time since Sonny ruined his life today, he himself decided to be true.
‘OK.’ Porter still didn’t look Butterbugs in the face, but kept going. ‘What I did… was this. In our package deal, for ‘Tess’, ‘Susie’ and ‘Harold’; you know, the Bucolics…’
‘All of them, Butterbugs,’ interjected Sonny firmly.
‘Yes, Butterbugs,’ continued Porter, who somehow found a steady voice, perhaps because Sonny was, ironically, so supportive in ‘helping’ him to get a horrible secret off his man-breasts (one secret out of many more locked away), ‘Urr, what I did was, you know, for the Bucolics, I firmed up your take, based on the first two pictures.’
‘You left out ‘Harold’, basically.’
Sonny was determined to stay helpful.
‘Yes, well, that’s about it.’
Porter thought he was through.
‘Tell him what that means, Parker. In lay terms, pretzels. Now.’
‘What it means? Yes, of course. OK. Ulp. OK. Uh, I – I – Well, I tried to gyp you, you see. Because it’s a package, I could determine your scale without being specific. We do that sometimes for contract players. Uh. That’s it.’
He looked at Sonny for approbation.
‘That’s what I did.’
Sonny didn’t even notice Porter’s visual gesture, in hopes of restoring his good name.
‘That is what these cheapies do sometimes with lesser contract players – and I’m not talking about Whits – (which even this loser here knows, are treasured assets). Producers’ ethics! But it’s certainly not done in the case of lead players, Butterbugs. This is a lead gig, not as a Whit or way lower. And I might add, piss-vat, that Butterbugs is not a contract player. And it is this agent’s sacred mission that he never shall be, you inane blubber-casserole!’
‘No, not as a Whit,’ echoed Porter. ‘I boo-booed. Out of miscalculation, I guess –’
‘Out of petty-pig greed! You sleazed me out as well, by obfuscating the contract and its language, with my agency. You really think that I’d let that go by??’
‘You’re a busy fellow, Sonny.’
‘Well, at least you’re getting frank now, lard-lips.’
‘You’ll slug me, otherwise.’
‘And broast your schmaltz-riddled carcass! Now tell him the clincher.’
‘The clincher. Yes. Well, the thing is, Butterbugs, because you’re new –’
‘The clinch-er. NOW!’
‘Well Sonny, I was just kid-gloving our young friend here, because he’s just a new kid from the wilds of nowhere, and I was being, you know, sort of delicate and thoughtful as far as giving him just the right –’
‘He’s a fucking seasoned performer, dink-squat, endorsed by Sid Grauman and the happily-late Randi Chuzzlewit.’
‘Yes! Sonny, we’re all happy that Randi is no more. Why, I was just chatting about that to the young fellow here, and –’
‘Shut up. That’s why you nabbed him, because he’s new, but seasoned. Like a new Ferrari, I daresay. (Don’t let your dome bloat too much, Butterbugs; I use a degree of hyperbole when I’m wrestling with my contenders.)’
All the actor could do was tennis-watch the confrontation in progress.
‘Oh, Sonny, I’d never attempt to storm your gates. Why –’
‘That’s just what you attempted, amateur-hour! You forgot about that? Now stay shut up until hell freezes over for once, will you? So, that’s why we went with you in the first place. We could’ve gone anyw
here else in town, but we came here. Why? (Yeah, why the hell?) OK, you’ve had a good run lately. OK, you were good and game. He’s seasoned enough, and I’m plenty seasoned for all of us.’
‘Oh, several times over, Sonny! Many times!’
‘I’m so cripplingly mad at you, and mad at myself for going along. Until now. I’m not going along. I’m just mad! And you know what? I have no intention of still being mad when I depart from your silly little candy-assed lair. You, Parker, have created war. I will create peace!’
Sensing an opportunity to gain ground, Porter daubed his duck-lipped mouth with a sanitary table napkin and dared to peep:
‘Yeah, there’s lotsa awfully darn good drama in that ‘War and Peace’ ditty, isn’t there? Heh! But heck, Mr. Sonny, take a look, if only for but a jiffy, at the facts, will ya? After all, you did get on board. You approached me, and you asked. So I answered! Yeah indeed, you got on board.’
‘Might you recall the polite request I made of you, not two minutes before the totally inaccurate bullshit statement you just made?’
‘Shucks Sonny, you’ve got me so dizzied up, I –’
‘Where I come from, flab-king, up in the Andes, getting all dizzio means a person’s gonna turn into a really stupid fuck and make some stupid-fuck decisions. Let me straighten you out, Mr. Sir, if I may. I will repeat my polite request, politely, and with courtesy. Get ready. Here it comes: the clinch-er. NOW!’
Sonny’s latest words made echoes where echoes weren’t even possible.
‘Wow. OK, that helped, but I still don’t –’
‘Shaddap! Now narrate the clincher, bum-goon!’
Porter, seeing Sonny’s power revisited upon him, almost fainted away, but he managed to find strength in placing the ball of his right foot on the slope of his putting crater (once owned by Marty Ransohoff himself), and proceeded, with dread in his heart.
‘Well, Butterbugs, the thing is, what would have happened is that, well, the contractual settlement in –’
‘Simple. Layman’s. Terms, Parker. For our ‘greenhorn’ here.’
‘Simple… yes. Well. The way I set it up, you’d, uh, be paid for two pictures instead of three, Butterbugs.’
Sonny then addressed Butterbugs straight-on, stern lecture-style.
Forward to Glory Page 37