Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  Then it was only fitting that the profound themes of DDS’s 30th symphony ran through Butterbugs’ mind as edifying scoring for the scene. He looked over at Yakov, who was engaged in the same rapturous lookabout, no doubt with his own private scoring. His head nodded in parallel rhythmic engagement, luxuriating in similarly generous offerings of leitmotivs and variations that Butterbugs himself was exploring.

  ‘You’re in Russia,’ he thought to himself. ‘At precisely the right time.’

  And when the sensually-thin, ethereally-hued face of Katya Nestelovna shone through the blurry glass of the back door, and she emerged, framed by dark hanging hair which curved onto her black wool-clad shoulders, a completeness was added to the joined experience. Seeing the two associates in this midst of this etude, she too entered the reverie, which, though it was hardly pacific due to the lowering weather, nevertheless brought on a compatible and contemplative state. Linked, as if by swaying wires, to both Yakov and Butterbugs. She held out her hands towards the two, and they, in spite of their preoccupation with the intensity of the moment, grasped them, thus completing the circuit and solidifying the mutual energy and the shared wonder.

  As the semi-bluster increased, they moved into the garden’s nexus, which provided a balanced prospect, not only on the storm’s dimensions, but the super-emotional cyclorama of architect Malyutin’s residential work of art, looming in back of them.

  Indeed, it was all a ‘Mir iskusstua’ show. A World of Art. Bakst could have costumed it! Benois, the colors! The mood was purely theatrical, like the latter’s ‘Bronze Horseman’ without the characters. But the tones were there, in this morning, and in Moscow!

  Yakov and Katya were exact contemporaries of Butterbugs, but the fact that they had pulled off the entire production design, art direction, and costumes of ‘Lenin’ had Butterbugs in total thrall.

  ‘My friends,’ he murmured, ‘it is as if you designed not only the film, but this day, as well!’

  Yakov looked soulfully back, and said, with actual conviction, ‘Perhaps we did…!’

  Katya took the lead actor’s hand and kissed it, and the warmth of her breath made his knuckle rosy. Then they came together in a passionate kiss that was an exact duplicate of the one they had lavished upon each other the night before. It had been warm, silent, and under deep cover of both coverlet and leaden skies above.

  Now, today, the three of them felt a part of the same greatness. It was a feeling that could come forth in the form of group intimacy, as well as on a thronging film set. Just the three of them. Creative communing was something that Butterbugs knew a bit about, but in this variation, his mind was opened to the idea of kinkiness for the communal good. Maybe it went back to the idealism of NEP and the optimism felt at the constructivist dawn of the USSR, which was their current métier in work and thought. (Both Yakov and Katya vastly preferred the world of the World of Art, c. 1900, though…)

  Having never thought he would be in such a situation as ‘doing alternative love’ in Moscow, there was even less expectation as to what its form would be. Actually there wasn’t much to it. The kinkiness, that is. Katya and Butterbugs got it on in all seriousness, while Yakov watched (some of the time), while satisfying himself. It was the kind of secret they could cherish without resorting to conventional thought as far as their responsibility as artists was concerned. No complications. Just well-placed pleasure as an antidote to the pressures and highs of pulling off a major-major motion picture.

  On one occasion, Butterbugs elected to try out a bit of raffish Russki humor on his partners. Eschewing makeup demolition after the day’s shooting of the Speech to the Locomotive and Boiler Engineer Workers’ Congress in Smolensk sequence, he stole out of the studio in stocking cap and highly-wrapped scarf. Back at the Pertsov Apartments, he and Katya hopped in the sack, slightly before Yakov was to enter and assume his usual position of observation. When she found a Bolshevik in her bed instead of a movie idol, Katya suppressed any giggling that naturally tried to escape. Looking like the real Lenin himself, in his most genial of expressions – as in Gerasimov’s famous portraits – Butterbugs…winked. Therefore, she went with the jape and assumed a most Muscovite somberness, willing to take the thankless Krupskaya role, as if the final editing of ‘What Is To Be Done’ depended upon it.

  When Yakov, now prepped to enact his part of the ménage, glanced up and beheld the iconographic bust of Lenin going at it in his very own quarters, he – didn’t smile.

  The two active lovemakers did their duty to the State, but something was missing. They couldn’t go on. Their observer remained especially detached. Aloof, even. They even looked up again to find him facing the wall.

  ‘Yakov! What gives, my friend?’ Butterbugs called out.

  ‘Oh, what troubles you, Yatushka?’ Katya asked.

  There was a stony pause.

  ‘Ulyanov… is not particularly welcome in such a non-intellectual scene of action,’ Yakov joked.

  The ice broke further with a little steam of escaping mirth from Yakov’s beard, and soon they were all howling. Katya got out her camera, and with her remote control, took a most remarkable series of photographs, capturing the burlesque, the closeness, and even the moments of tenderness of Lenin’s secret love life. When the collection was later published (with an introduction by Butterbugs), it became an instant classic of erotica, and signed editions by all three participants were particularly coveted.

  By the time filming wrapped and it was time for Butterbugs to decamp and return to the West, the inspiring couple came to say goodbye to their star. There were bear hugs and kisses, and jiggers of vodka thrown back.

  ‘Lenin is now safely in his tomb!’

  Butterbugs toasted in the direction of Red Square. Today he in no way resembled the character he had just played.

  ‘You know, my friend,’ said Yakov, ‘you have saved us. Everything we owe to you. You made our professions possible. We have been asked to head up Mosfilm’s art department! Just what we wished for!’

  ‘It was meant as a surprise. I’m glad you weren’t disappointed when the news leaked out early.’

  More bear hugs, and all cheeks were again addressed in relentless Rostropovich style. (Slava himself was already on the plane; he and Butterbugs would sit next to each other, as he was concert-bound in LA.)

  ‘And most important, Pushkin-like Butterbugs,’ said Katya through tears, never so radiant, ‘you brought Yakov and me together again.’

  ‘Where you belong!’ said Butterbugs.

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Yakov. ‘But we had to be shown – by Lenin himself!’

  ‘Who would have known that we would all have such a glorious time. We love you!’

  She looked more beautiful, more lovable than ever. Butterbugs was able to stop time long enough to engrave her fair face just as it was right now into the most prominent aisle of his memory banks.

  ‘Dear Katya! Dear, dear Katya!’

  Yakov was seized with such a wave of love that he drew Katya around and kissed her ecstatically, and surely would have cheerfully taken her at that moment, had Butterbugs not gently reminded them of their position in the airport concourse, with the press corps not five meters away, shotgun mikes active and Sovscope cameras grinding.

  ‘Almost my turn to be the observer!’ laughed Butterbugs.

  ‘Next time!’ Katya was able to get out, between sobs.

  ‘Dear fellow!’ said Yakov, with much emotion, shaking both his hands, one with Katya, one with their departing actor.

  Butterbugs was in tears, as well.

  ‘My best-of-friends! I could never have dreamt of your friendship and creative association. We will always remain close. We shall see each other soon!’

  55.

  Parlor. I Think It Was Parlor

  Butterbugs was not immune to the tendencies of cliché. It was inevitable, then, that he should become involved with a rock star. A girl who played a guitar.

  It was during the filming of ‘Bludbob t
he Magnificent’ (WB), his expansive picture set in the outback of the Chaco of Paraguay, when he first saw her.

  There she was, in her scene as the wild singer girl from down along the border, in the barn cantina of the Cuortos de Zuaz setting, singing ‘You Know Me Now, You Loved Me Then’ and then the mega-hit, ‘Here In This Dim, Remote, Forgotten Wood’, wearing those scanty squirrel-fur rags. It was as if he had witnessed the creation of light. Sonny found him panting, and whispered:

  ‘Wint Kegstone is history. His bobsled’s off the tracks. Zoom in.’

  Since the dynamics of his not unpleasant domestic life at Vinejuice had changed, it was kind of fun to be able to be thrilled with the intent of conquest again. Well, perhaps ‘conquest’ was too aggressive a term. ‘Receptive to possibilities’ could serve as a perfectly applicable phrase.

  Saskia and Justy wanted to get married ere long. With Butterbugs’ blessing, of course. The ménage was still operative, but it had matured into a more pragmatic and less romantic association. The wonder of it all was that it was so harmonious. Everybody was on the other persons’ side.

  As a stone monument that stands on the road to Kathmandu readeth: ‘IF EVERYONE IS OUR FRIEND, THEN NO ONE IS OUR ENEMY’, the same logic applied to the Vinejuice Three. But S and J, vigorous as ever in their professional pursuits, cottoned more and more to the concept of settling down. Life up at the villa suited them nicely, while Butterbugs’ aims were increasingly dynamic, if not kinetic. After all, he was most junior of the three decades that each represented in their ages, and his world continued to expand. Lots of location work, lots of studio time, lots of time in transit.

  Lots of interesting people, en route.

  S and J were also talking of getting pregnant, if not simultaneously, then in alternating fashion. Naturally, Butterbugs got first consideration as far as seed supply was concerned. No decisions had yet been made, but the appropriate legal literature, covering every possible angle (noteworthy for its extremely favorable stance for every party involved), had been drawn up and notarized for implementation, when needed.

  Peace reigned, and the ménage merrily got on with the business of life. For Butterbugs, that business was now in the Chaco of Paraguay.

  Filming was not the only matter to which he attended. Parlor McKenna became all his. Of her own free will.

  She was a free-will child, certainly. A bundle, with corporeal elements of Sheryl Crow, of Lucinda Williams, of Kasey Chambers, of Beyoncé, of Timminni Klemmins. But she was like none of them. On beyond what had come before. Sort of like Butterbugs himself in that sense. Only no known names of persons, either in or out of showbiz, were ever ascribed to Butterbugs, and after Butterbugs started dating her, none were applied to her anymore, either.

  They stole away to a cabin on the shores of Lake Ypacarai, with a door so small that her guitar wouldn’t fit in, and when it lay busted on the wicked boards of the verandah, she actually laughed. Besides, the laugh was cut off by moans, which turned into a song of love, turbo-driven and greedily gulped by both.

  The next day, Butterbugs, still smelling of sex, drove all the way into Asunción to get her a replacement, an instrument with a history, which he found in a back alley shop, and she fell in love with its mellow tone.

  P played: ‘If It Makes You Overjoyed With Joy’

  Bb: Yeah, it does.

  P played: ‘My All-time Favorite Putting My Foot In My Mouth’. Just kidding.

  Bb: At least I’m a favorite.

  P played: ‘Transubstantiation Day’

  Bb: When I met you!

  P played: ‘Let’s Get Lib’ty, I’ll Get It, Lib’ty, I’ll Get It For Ya, Lib’ty!’

  Bb: Love has no cost. Nor liberty!

  P played: ‘Endeavoring and Endeavoring’

  Bb: To restrain myself from coming before you do.

  P played ‘Returning To Reno’

  Bb: We’re nowhere near there right now.

  P played, ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Lucy-Lu’

  Bb: What about YOU?

  That was the lineup on that particular weekend. They did all those things. And they did lots of hard screwing. Very willing participants. Young man. Slightly older (not old) woman. Something of a pattern, but pure dynamite.

  Melrose-y inflections curled and knurled between and around them, but neither recognized the fact that they had met before, and under considerably different conditions.

  ‘Love you!!! Come for coffee!!!!????’ was a line that Butterbugs would never use with her, and to Parlor, he could not have possibly been one of the Great Unwashed, or a nameless nobody of the streets, with assault on his mind.

  Parlor!

  Parlor McKenna! Of the clean-flowing lines and the tawny hair. Honey-coated lips, powder-blue eyes. All there was to define an ideal – it, or rather, she, was here, lying beside him.

  Her rendition to his audience-of-one of ‘Returning To Reno’ almost made him want to quit pictures.

  She always electrified him by raising her legs and showing off her sandy-blonde puff.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s cute?’

  He did.

  The ÆYRIE

  Night.

  After they broke up, Butterbugs aimed his mega-powered speakers out over the LA abyss, and let fly the poignant, full-of-longing song into the empyrean: ‘It Is, It Is, It Was’. To let her go. Too much wanting. Too much yearning, too much desire to freeze the moment, based on an improbability, with such a pony-like girl. He worshiped her person and status with a happy surrender of an egotism that always seemed in control anyway.

  Golly, how he loved for her to flaunt her superiority over him. It was the only time he dabbled in any S/M-oriented elective activity, and it was the only way he could enjoy adoring her. With such a lower-than-the-gutter stance, but with a front row seat, he could have the privilege of say, absorbing her liquid lines, her wafting scents, and the decency of her joy.

  But now, with mundane distance, there was the knowledge that none of this thing they’d tried, the ‘it’ itself, could ever work. Besides, her art was so much louder than his.

  Never mind.

  He would always honor her, but he could no longer carry her picture in his wallet.

  ‘I don’t know, she’s fleet-footed, wise, and normal. Somebody you can be normal with.’

  But that idea, that concept of his affair with her, really wasn’t the case, after all.

  In the end, the match, however fun, wasn’t right, and that was settled, which was all right for both of them. Lovey-dovey talk never came up, only ‘lusty-fucksy’. Confusion resulted, perhaps because they were both so perfect – but not for each other. Mutual inspiration flitted away. Naturally, he wanted her all to himself, and that was right out. So they split, got on with their lives, and remained dandy friends.

  How ‘Hollywood Ending’ was that?

  In The Æyrie, one particular souvenir occupied pride of place above the mantel: some scanty squirrel-fur rags, once worn by a wild singer girl from down along the border…

  56.

  The Antebellum Plea

  ‘It was in the days before the Late Unpleasantness…’

  (Not Butterbugs’ shootout on Broadway, but the South’s very late, and very unpleasant ‘ness’, as it were.)

  So proclaimed the tagline for one of Butterbugs’ most controversial pictures.

  Another chunk of civil strife? The Ruffinites were no more, but what if another Cause awaited to be Lost…?

  No, this was another controversy altogether.

  It was a major, daring story, based on TABP’s second novel, ‘Fuck the Spout’, about a slave owner in 1851 Louisiana who frees his slaves, then engages in their intellectual development, but is murdered by fellow plantation owners, all white folks.

  TABP himself was opposed to the picture carrying the same title as the book, even though Butterbugs was game.

  ‘Fuck man, I don’t want you, the star, to sound like a gang member, or somethin’. Not in this picture, anyway,’ T
ABP reasoned.

  ‘But I’m not a gang member,’ Butterbugs reasoned back.

  ‘Yeah, well, the title of a picture shouldn’t shock, but low voltage must flow,’ he sagely observed.

  In about seven seconds, he and Butterbugs came up with ‘Before The Late Unpleasantness’ (Selznick).

  TABP exec produced, and appeared as Plotinus, a martyred slave who has a big pre-death speech.

  ‘I’m glad you had The Churl play the most wicked of the plantation owners,’ the star told him. ‘Strange, good ol’ boy – like a big, huge baby.’

  ‘He discovered me,’ was all TABP said in reply.

  Butterbugs went unescorted to the Grauman’s Metropolitan premiere, but with the whole cast in his benevolent orbit. The whole cast. 243 people. Julian Bond, MLK3, Oprah, Rev. Sen. Clementa C. Pinckney, Dr. Cornel West, George Harris, Muhammad Ali – who had a special cameo in the picture, Ethel Lee Lance and Shakingah Whim were also in the audience, as well as a somewhat frail Louis Farrakhan.

  Sid picked up the tab, in sheer awe. It was unexpected, but not exactly out of inappropriateness, that a modest stage show was performed before the picture ran – the first live act the great house had seen in weeks.

  Peg Leg Sam was there, and he sang ‘Greasy Greens’ with only himself, his peg leg, and his mouth organ. The effect was galvanizing, and no one really knew why. What did it mean? Was it a portent of what they were about to see? A comment on racism in America? Or, a mere diversion before a major picture? No one knew why.