Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  ‘Sounds like a memory from deepest childhood.’

  ‘But the word sounded, I don’t know, ugly.’

  ‘Now it has a beauty all its own.’

  Butterbugs got up and looked through the window at the Midtown mainframe without. Like a 3-D circuit board, each component out there was working perfectly. Each right angle and curve, every verticality, all the rooftop water towers masked by Romanesque or Moderne ornamental screens, the vehicles on the avenues – as if from the Futurama exhibit at the ’39 World’s Fair – the shipping on the river, the charcoaly Hugh Ferriss shadows increasing, office lights down in the canyons starting to come on early, the crushing scale of the Neo-Gothic Lincoln Building, New York Public’s big MGM kittens out front, the American Radiator’s O’Keeffe-depicted crown – soon to ignite… all were signs that the organism worked, in chemical harmony.

  Then he turned around and faced her.

  ‘As do you.’

  Enough time had gone by so that even the brilliant Dr. Huapphuapp had lost the train of thought. She had been watching him the whole time, his commanding silhouette in the window, the Milo Bizhparc Building growing out of his left palm.

  ‘What did you say, Butterbugs?’

  ‘As do you. A beauty. All your own. Your very own.’

  ‘Why, why thank you, Butterbugs.’

  ‘You really helped me.’

  ‘It was my pleasure, Butterbugs.’

  ‘Perhaps prevented me. From…’

  He drew closer, regarding her. She did the same. Suddenly, breathing grew short. Things changed.

  ‘Last night – Butterbugs – I have to tell you, now… I saw you… on the big screen. ‘I, Doughboy’… My heart is still up there, with you!’

  It was a confession. Brought on by the change in things.

  ‘I cannot tell you right now what I feel,’ he said, picking up on the obvious and welcome cue.

  ‘You did, last night.’

  ‘When? We linked at no time then in such intimate terms…’

  ‘Oh, but we did. You! As I said, on the great screen!’

  ‘I can again. Right now.’

  ‘Say it…?’

  ‘These past weeks… I had… I have an overwhelming desire…’

  ‘I, I do too.’

  The lofty office was bathed in warm afternoon light. He had her dress raised in about four seconds, and her hair was lowered in a red wedge, like the summer fire cascade at Yosemite.

  The Dr.’s enthusiasm was marked. Accessing a secret pouch in her ribbony garter belt, she had a condom installed in seconds, and the hop, the spread, and the long-legged wraparound ensured truly cinematic achievement of congress with this Colossus of Rhodes, way up here in this skyscraper. And then there was just a frenzy of moaning, thrust-pumping, sex-sweat scent, and tipped-over bowls of sunflower seeds.

  After, or at any rate, later:

  ‘You know, my Doctor, I had no intention of making love to you as a consequence of this session.’

  ‘Oh, oh, but I did! When you first walked into my office that day, I knew there was something about you. Not necessarily sexual…’

  ‘Thanks a lot!’

  ‘No, hear me out, lover. Here I am, seeing you as a patient, and knowing nothing about you, except your name. Time goes by. I examine your case. I crack it. Then, I go to the picture show, horny as hell, because it’s late on a dull Thursday, and everyone has left the city. So I dress like a hooker and go down to Times Square, but everyone ignores me.’

  Patting her slathered flanks, Butterbugs the stud could not resist asking:

  ‘What was the ‘hooker’ wearing, then?’

  ‘Tough black leather shit that I’ve never told anyone else about. And I won’t tell you, either, except you are the only one who knows that I wear ‘something else’ at all.’

  ‘And now you’re wearing fairly little of either style.’

  She pointed the way towards her brassiere, which, due to the urgent programme which ushered in this intimate debate, he had not yet probed, and folding each globular panel up and then removing the whole assembly, there was a bit of fuss about this discovery, and a bit more excitement, including several odd orgasmic experiences betwixt them, before she could resume her narration.

  ‘And, oooh, then – (no lube needed, baby-lover – I’ve always been a youthful pussy, and how do you like 38 years’ worth? Fuck me again in a few minutes, hmmm?)…’

  Close-up, examining her dainty crow’s feet, and yet further on, the sandy-reddish hair of a high school girl attached nearby, and the out-thrust invitation of her jaw and the lips just above, there was nothing for it but to heave-to in quick-march again and serve the mutual lust-hub around which they both inexorably revolved. It was all very helpless, and thus, pure.

  There was a virtual rain forest of labor about them, and they kicked back within it.

  ‘Now that you’ve dripped on me and wicked in me, I’m going to return to professional mode, Butterbugs. Actor-lover! What the fuck did you do to me in ‘I, Doughboy’?’

  His tongue happened to be frolicking in the northern regions of her crack out back, which, truth to tell, was a tad less eroticized than other territory here and there, so she was able to resume her tale, albeit breathily. Just standing there, with freely responsive hand gestures, her ass conformed to new invitations as she shifted from hip to hip.

  ‘And so I’m high heeling-it along and up towards the Palace. I didn’t really know why. And I saw, at the Ziegfeld, a corner of the marquee. It said ‘BOY’, and it was part of ‘I, DOUGHBOY’, up there in – pushy – letters: you know, the picture showing. Oh yeah, baby, lower! Uhhhh! Ohhh, yeah, gimme my drink. No Shirley Temples! Bloody, bloody Mary! I’m not, you know. Wet. Wet, check it out… Mmm. Tastes good. Celery. Like your cock, with sex spices! Oooh, where was I? Oh, but I wasn’t even thinking. I was of one mind! Here’s why I linked ‘horseradish’ with you! You’ve gotta be of one mind, baby, and I was when I strutted up the Ziegfeld’s red mats to the box office and slapped down my fourteen bucks to see this war picture. But, because it had boy in the title,’ (big shiver, for a number of reasons) ‘maybe I could find one to satisfy me in this film somewhere. Oh hell, I’m drinking and fucking and running on, aren’t I? I’m running further! I saw the picture, and I didn’t cross my legs the whole time. Legs open. But not because I wanted some overcoat-loser to take me on. There weren’t any of those types there anyway. I sat there, baby. I couldn’t move. It was YOU. You made me stop. You made me forget myself. I – can’t – hardly – say what you did to me. And to that audience. I swear, I crawled home. You took so much from me that night. Yet you finally made me walk out of there with head high; invincible, safe, intact. You broke my heart in performance, but your actor’s power repaired the damage and left me better off. Oh my God, I have to kiss your balls. It’s my way of saying thank you.’

  Butterbugs came up for air.

  ‘I don’t think there were any sex scenes in it…’, he reported, honest as ever.

  ‘Lover! The sex scenes are now. I don’t care. What you have to know is that, here, yesterday, I didn’t know you. Then you change my life from on screen, and then you change it again right – ahhh – now.’

  ‘Am I OK?’

  ‘I want to tell you, oooh, baby. There’s a lot more I want to say, and…’

  ‘Why, Pixie O’Kenna!’

  ‘Ooh, shit, come on, more. Fucker! You don’t have to call me Doct – Ohh – cuz that’s what I tell them to say…’

  ‘You talk a lot, ‘Doct’.’

  ‘What, then, should I add. Ooooooh! In (gasp) closing?’

  ‘Just one word, Doc.’

  ‘?’

  ‘Horseradish.’

  ‘Ooooooh! Ooooooh, YES! YESSSS! Horrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs

  ssssseeeeeerrrraad – –!’

  34.

  But Let Me Tell You, Or, Yet Once Again, There Was A Producer Named Parker

  ‘Back on your feet, are ya?’

&
nbsp; It was Porter Parker. His silhouette at the sill of the soundstage door faded into pear-shaped reality in medium shot, and without any SFX at all. He wore a string tie today, and a sort of frockish coat, like a country doctor. Something out of the ‘Harold of the Country’ that never was, perhaps?

  Porter jumped right in.

  ‘Your little escapade into publicized drug-play was, uh, well, it was PR, but was it good PR? What does your… agent… say?’

  ‘I’m… We’re…’

  ‘…Not exactly talking, these days?’

  ‘He’s out of town.’

  ‘I guessed as much. So was I for a while. To heal.’

  ‘So was I.’

  ‘Yep. It was a time for retreat, a time for restoration! Well then, you’re better. I’m better. But what about Sonny?’

  ‘I can’t say, Porter.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘Just, what is it that you want with me, Porter?’

  ‘A little free advice.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. About how to do my job, I should think.’

  ‘Now Porter, I don’t want to get in any further binds with you. I am an actor, not a negotiator.’

  ‘OK, fair enough. So, what are you doing here today, acting? Here, at Grillparzer Studios, where all the out-of-work actors hang, and where they make crappy commercials?’

  ‘I’m just here to check things out. Front desk says I can wait, and if I get a call –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You think I don’t know the drill? You think I don’t know what hunger lies in the hearts of those who would approach my Industry, aspiring to the high honor of actually participating in it?’

  ‘That –’

  ‘Let me back up. I have no reason to be harsh with you, even in light of the Bucolics. That was Sonny’s ploy, not yours.’

  ‘That’s, uh, nice to hear. Even though you tried to –’

  ‘Butterbugs, I think you know that I am a person of culture. I like to share my thoughts and intellectualizations with my peers, and especially with young people. Let me impart some of my thoughts with you while we wait for your, uh, ‘call’, hmm?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘What? No comment? Hello, hello! That’s all right, then. So I’ll change my tack. A thought just struck me. So brilliant that I can scarcely dare suppress it. A picture idea! No, no, listen! A series! No, it’s not the Bucolics, or even a compromise version. It’s new, and I have drawn it from my own experience. Well, my brother’s.’

  ‘Pete Parker? Of the Moon Brigade?’

  ‘One and the same, Butterbugs. Adventure on a vast scale. Stories of much value and scope! Hundreds of them!’

  Catching onto the ‘hook’, but not allowing it to enter his gills, Butterbugs moved at parade speed.

  ‘Do you, own these stories?’

  ‘Not yet! But I could! I tell you, I could!’

  ‘I don’t have my agent here.’

  ‘This is a talk we can have without your representation, Butterbugs. Right now it’s strictly off the record.’

  ‘Well, after what happened last time…’

  ‘All right then, let’s talk money.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘It’s safe! There will be no repeats!’

  ‘Porter, I’m just not that hungry…’

  ‘You aren’t? Well, you will be!’

  ‘I am of a new state of mind, and I –’

  ‘My series promises glory, Butterbugs. It seems to me that a canny young man such as yourself would be well-served to consider such an offer.’

  ‘You haven’t made an offer.’

  ‘I will! I tell you, I will! When everything has been formalized. Oh yes, you can have that Sonny fellow OK it and all.’

  ‘I just don’t want to really get involved –’

  ‘You, your Excellency, are in need of a lecture.’

  Butterbugs really didn’t care at this point if Porter rambled. Nothing much was going on around them, and there weren’t any other struggling young actors around. So, without such a community, he was a captive audience.

  Porter grabbed his own lapels, and went into Matthew Harrison Brady mode. ‘Hollywood just makes you notice all those funkily embarrassing things that can be found either on the persons of, or within, the personalities of some of the world’s most intriguing people. That’s what’s so voyeuristic about it. All the ornamentation. That’s what I’m referring to here – nothing too deep. It’s like Humbert Humbert getting a thrill out of Lolita and saying ‘My little cup runneth over with tiddles’! Isn’t that funny? Way beyond diddly tattoos and private parts piercings, I can assure you.

  ‘But let me tell you. Some of the details found on and in some of these people is – uh, are, well, amazing. And it isn’t all porno thoughts or crime deeds or druggie bits or suspect perversity. Everybody’s got an angle, but it ain’t all bad.

  ‘But let me tell you. Yeah, sometimes it’s like picking up a fuckbook, that’s for sure. Yes, I can talk the lingo, Butterbugs. I am cultured, but I am also of the Industry. I’m one of ‘them’. And when I say the Industry, I say that we are not only up in the air but on the street as well. Like you. You’re on the pavement now, aren’t you?

  ‘Anyway, I knew of an older guy who successfully linked up with this neat chick who’s got this hot model body. But, she’s got nerd glasses, and she reads. Still, she’s pretty hot. You follow my lingo? OK. Well, this fellow puts everything he can into getting her career going. And all this time, the people he’s dealing with are finding out he’s a pretty inventive and talented guy. As things go along, all things considered, she flops. She’s just another neat chick who is pretty hot and has nerd glasses. So she dumps him and tries to do it herself, but flops even worse. Him? He’s picked up by Warren Sarjent at Standard/Your Basic Pictures and eventually becomes a big time writer/producer.

  ‘Guess who it was? Ezekiel Porbandar! You know, the producer? (Like me.) I couldn’t even tell you what that chick’s hair color was. Probably went back to be a waitress in Tacoma – America’s Most Stressed-Out City – or somewhere.

  ‘But let me tell you, you’ll hear all sorts of rubbish like that, in every different combination. Most of it is true, I kid you not. I’m not messing with you or anything. There are all sorts of stories, on all sorts of levels.

  ‘Like, in a little Melrosy used-duds shoppe, you know? Not really long ago. Some friends of mine were minding their own business, dinkin’ around, looking for goofball clothes, cuz that’s what they liked. She: a knockout, better’n Tender Kerrison; and he: a nebbishy shutterbug. OK, she’s trying on stuff and he’s shooting some funky-fashion head ’n’ shoulders shots. Come to think of it, it may have been an actual working session. He’s taking pix by the door, and when she goes back to change, some creep makes a pass at her. You know, one of those street-sleaze asshole/bums. Thinks he’s gonna go out on a date with her or something! She sez no, definitely no, and he starts to come unglued, sounding like a, a punctured hyena or something. She takes a dive under one of those twirling clothes racks, and the creep goes after her. The camera guy bursts in – not likely to save the day – but the creep goes after him, tackles him and for a time they get lost under the pile of old clothing. But the creep? He weasels out the back door! Can you believe it?

  ‘OK, guess who she was. Give up? But let me tell you. Parlor McKenna! She had a gig that night, headlining the Mark Taper Forum! Can you believe it?

  ‘And him? The shutterbug? But let me tell you. Hector Brainparth! One of the best lighting cameramen today! (And I’ve even used him as an actor, and will again!; that was my idea, you know.) That creep bastard busted Hec’s Hasselblad too, or whatever the hell it was, and they never caught him. Never caught him, I say!

  ‘The creep? But let me tell you. A big guy. Young! About your age? Coulda looked fine – even stage & screen material, but a real loser. Here’s the clincher: Parlor felt sorry for him!

  ‘See what I mean? All t
he weirdness, baby. Comin’ at ya. And I’m not even starting to get into the bad stuff. That’s Hollywood… I’m trying to give you a survival kit, here!’

  Butterbugs collapsed inside. There was something about this he didn’t like. Something very rotten, and he felt a part of it somehow. A familiarity-bred self-contempt.

  It was his strict code of honor that almost commanded him to blurt out:

  ‘But let me tell you – right now: I was the creep bastard of whom you speak!’

  But the command was cut short, for he could not be entirely sure that he was indeed the one. It all seemed so known, so déjà vu, but covered somehow, as if by a blurry plastic sheeting.

  ‘Whatsamatter, Butterbugs, you look sorta green.’

  ‘I, uh, I’m the [unintelligible] of whom you… speak.’

  ‘Whattayou, doing a Brando impression?’

  ‘A, uh, touch of indigestion, is all.’

  ‘Oh. Well, have another trick cigar, whydoncha? Listen kid, I gotta be over at Century City by 1:00. Mind what ya do. Think all about what I’ve said. Later!’

  ‘I, er, yeah, will… I really will. I really, really will.’

  Devastation.

  Or was it? Well now, sure, sure, he had made mistakes. Especially in the dark corridor of mirrors and delusion that those first months in this here city had led him down. But any bumbling indiscretion from that time was as nothing to the deliberate and contemporary sins of Porter Parker.

  Today, however, Porter had helped him out. Actually helped him. Inadvertently, the producer had enabled Butterbugs to purge the last (?) unsolved puzzle from his surreal days. Though he and Dr. Huapphuapp had toiled over all the manifestations of his weirdnesses in order to defuse them, this one incident, the ‘Melrose mayhem’, had gone overlooked. It had been the one innuendo that stayed with the doctor after their farewell fling at her pad in Ketzmore Towers in old Manhattan. That one small speck remaining on his clean slate, the one possibility of relapse because of an unresolved detail. But now, the spell was truly broken. It had been the one last nail to be hammered down.