Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  ‘Boy, you guys are pretty much on top of the situation.’

  ‘We endeavor to be, Butterbugs.’

  ‘Even though we’re at the bottom of the building right now!’ he smiled.

  The Leungs and the Cheungs, the Billmores and the Spruigs, plus a few others, appreciated the levity, but some looked a little awkward.

  Smith preferred to remain businesslike.

  ‘We have a very great responsibility in these acts.’

  ‘And one of those future films will be produced through Parker Pictures,’ Butterbugs offered helpfully. ‘While the other appears through Foonman Stvdios.’

  ‘We know, Butterbugs.’

  ‘Two of six studios are – or were – owned by Isaac Davis Heavy Industries International.’

  ‘True, Butterbugs! Too true!’

  ‘What perks shall I have?’

  ‘I can only answer you, Butterbugs, with the following question-cum-declaration: what perks shall you not have?’

  ‘I’ll do it!’ orated Butterbugs.

  ‘Oh! The joy!’ Deukalion and Loby sounded off, almost in unison.

  ‘I tell you, I’ll DO IT!’

  61.

  Loungin’ On The Throne

  ‘Daily Variety’ came out with a particularly harsh headline slamming Butterbugs.

  ‘Stupid, Dupéd Idiot’.

  How dare, the story raged, the most treasured asset now working in pictures be hijacked by the most dubious corporate force in Hollywood, and the entire filmic world!

  The media was abuzz with all sorts of reportage and rumor. Chat shows fizzed with turbo-babble. Dying print media found a surge in sales. Nayland Gribgrib made great efforts to smooth the waters on Butterbugs’ behalf, but even he found his thumbs tied together, so that they couldn’t even be twiddled in desperation.

  The only person that seemed untouched by all the hubbub was Butterbugs himself. That was because he willingly entered a world that was so completely managed and orchestrated by the Board that he might just as well have been on Planet X, while Eden back home – burned.

  ‘I just don’t know what the big deal is…’ he mused, repeatedly.

  Enveloped in this corporate daze of vast pleasantries, Butterbugs soon learned just how good such a life could be. It was certainly upper-echelon in quality. As a world-class city, LA easily provided all the padded mechanisms that create separate worlds, and the separate peace that comes along with them. All that was needed were: a private motorcar (and there was talk of a private chopper), private entrances and exits, and shielded living and working quarters, whether they be joined, or in remote locations. All efforts were focused on maintaining a distance from the Great Unwashed. And Heaven knew, the picture business was rife with such types. Only the rubbish disposal industry and the used car world had more. And computers.

  Now, as a rising star, he had certainly experienced many premium lifestyle currents, but they were within a context of having both feet on the ground as a hard-working cinema player. Happily, there had been little time for the folderol of Fame.

  Now, however, as an instant executive of highest standing, Butterbugs had literally been whisked away into secret rooms and routes, known only to inner circles and covert councils.

  Different breeds of persons also moved in this orbit. People like Mr. Weoka, largest stockholder in the new aggregate of industrial and service companies that now made up the post-Isaac Davis combine. His was the force that put a new face on the outfit. He even ponied up $950 million of his own cash to change the name of Isaac Davis Heavy Industries International (IDHII) to Merrette plc (always spelt in italics, at Mr. Weoka’s utter insistence: ‘Low key, but distinctive – plus, I’m paying for it, dammit!).

  Mr. Weoka – mysterious mega-millionaire. Always on the make, and always seeking an upswing. He took an immediate interest in Butterbugs from afar – they never met in person – and undertook to gently hook him up to the velveteen harnesses of corporate satrapy and other sovereign/noblesse oblige practices. Protégé-making was not a hobby for him. He was simply seeking out a successor. He kicked things off by introducing, via remote control, the fledgling COO to persons of consequence. As Kenny-Boy Lay and Adnan Khashoggi were on indefinite leave in undisclosed locations (perhaps the same one), Mr. Weoka gave that old LA hand, dear friend, and associate Kritchurd Puerile a call.

  ‘Your wisdom is needed for one of our own, Kritch-bitch,’ was all Mr. Weoka had to say.

  Coffee and crumpets, doilies and fussbudget pillows embellished the poolside perch in the Puerile household in Palos Verdes Estates, where Butterbugs was duly granted entrance, one fine afternoon-into-evening.

  Kritchurd’s headquarters were located right up next to the most intimate of the whole chain of swimming pools that punctuated his compound – seven at last count, with one a-building. But John Cheever wouldn’t even bother describing it, nor would Esther Williams ever gambol in such dubious environs. Why? Because, the ickiness of a war profiteer’s spoils lay heavily over everything here, like spray-painted mucus.

  Notwithstanding this, in demitasse doses did Kritchurd approach the young, oh-so-young but oh-so-full-of-potential actor, as potential kingmaker.

  Some of K.P.’s technique wasn’t even verbal. As flabbo kids played in the beloved pool, Kritchurd merely showed Butterbugs his collection of embroidered cushions, some done up in golden thread, some with vanadium, platinum, silver, and tage-root strands. Some were even woven from the beards of the hyper-rare Klymidgeon sea-mollusk (now extinct) and dolled up with yilmweed filaments.

  And the proverbs ran by the greenhorn like tickertape:

  §

  I

  §

  I, ME

  §

  I AM ME

  §

  I LOVE ME DO

  §

  IF I BUY, I WILL OWN

  §

  EGGS IN MANY BASKETS, ALWAYS

  §

  A SMART MAN IS A MAN OF PROPERTY

  §

  PROFIT BECOMES ME; IT GOES WITH MY HAIR

  §

  I WANT WHAT I WANT. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?

  §

  PLEASURE IS WORTH WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR IT [sic]

  §

  TRUE FREEDOM GROWS OUT OF A CERTAIN KIND OF MISANTHROPY

  §

  IF YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT, WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST UNDERSTAND THAT?

  §

  MORALS MAY QUESTION ME, BUT I DO NOT WASTE TIME QUESTIONING MORALITY

  §

  TO SOME, GREED MAY NOT BE GOOD, BUT IT IS BETTER THAN MISSING OUT ON ALL THE FUN

  §

  …and on and on.

  There was a whole pleasure-kiosk full of these puffy quotable ornaments in the Lower Pool Gardens, with a full time Filipina (named Tina) to guard, dust, and rotate the holy collection.

  ‘Now then,’ said Kritchurd, re-tucking the last of the cushions into a carefully-built pyramid on their own special display trolley, and gesturing to the butterballs in chlorine with distinct pride. ‘You might find that, observing our way of life and the benefits therein, you too may sit at a place such as this, and when it is yours, and you know you earned it by dint of your stock and trade, you can breathe deep satisfaction from the results of your choices.

  ‘But listen, no? Hark! As of the present timeframe, I am inviting partners to participate in a tremendous new opportunity. My latest enterprise: Dromon Concerns. Really!

  ‘Out of the society of good will that exists, wherein needs arise, my Dromon undertaking will have powerful international connections, ensuring rock-solid performance and virtually risk-free involvements, given the increasing and now permanent demand for security services in preferred situations across the globe. We also have a robust selection of instruments to employ in a pleasing variety of satellite outposts, for the purposes of protection, and (if need be), ‘diversion’, shall we say. I’m sure that discretion is one of your most valued virtues, Mr. Butterbugs. We ‘in the spotlight’ m
ust have all our strategies of privacy in full play, must’ve we? I’m sure you don’t want some fan crawling up to your bathroom window to scrutinize either your dirty bits or your naughty bits, do you? So this is a terrific chance for we like-types to join together! That way, you’ll be able to come over here whenever you wish, and take a dip! You’d like that now, wouldn’t you now? And because you have Mr. Weoka as your exclusive reference, you may enter unto partnership with custom-crafted seven-year delayed investment requirements (at a mere 0.4% interest), by which time your earnings will doubtless surpass your pledge requirements by exponential sums.

  ‘It’s as if… Let’s just say it is a beautiful day, and you’re seeking to put some meaning into your life, and to put it into practice. Make it work for you. You know, not just talking about it. Say you saw a neighbor girl, all leggy and attractive, patrolling her new bailiwick, and you, grown bold by your attraction and your John Thomas’ honest – uh – response, and you call out to her, in all sincerity: ‘I’m Butterbugs, the fellow next door, and I’d prefer that you walk around your back yard topless…’ And then, she does what you prefer. Just that… nothing more. Think of the power therein… the authority…!’

  The raccoonish tints around K.P.’s eyes made the great greasy manipulator wholly look like a… bandit. And a voyeuristic one, to boot. Thayer David might have played him in a biopic! Or Jacques Aubuchon! Audiences would surely upchuck as a result!

  ‘Oh,’ said Butterbugs.

  ‘Come to me when you are ready. I’ll be placing your name at the top of my ‘Great Expectations’ list.’

  ‘What is it that Dromon does?’ queried Butterbugs in lightweight dumbo fashion.

  ‘The essential questions now! Ah-heh-heh. Well. We’re always ready to respond to conflict! That’s what we say, in our public guise, anyway. That’s really all there is to it, and it’s really all you need to know. Because really, you want total simplicity, don’t you? Your busy-busy life is complicated enough. Just keep that dip in the pool, just yonder there, in mind. And the topless girl in the back yard! I can assure you, Butterbugs, the manifold benefits of our open-door-to-open-door policy, leading directly to opportunities in previous schemes, has led our partners to great and everlasting prosperity. Honest!’

  After he awoke from his swoon back in his office, Butterbugs thought about Puerile and his propositions. This man – who did he remind him of? Why, Donald Pleasance! Not physically, of course, as K.P.’s coonskin eyes and bloat factor cancelled any pictorial resemblance possibilities to the always excellent and distinctive Pleasance. But yes, definitely Pleasance as the Dark Hermit in George Stevens’ ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ (UA, 1965). Not a dead ringer, bang-on target, in tone though. There was even a sallow moon that rose after Kritchurd had attempted his wooing. Not that it was seen from the depths of the pent-up-house at the bottom of the Isaac Davis cistern…

  The temptations!

  ‘Not that I’m daring to compare myself to Jesus or anything…,’ the actor-into-exec pondered. Right now, that was the furthest his analysis went, regarding his celebrated solicitor.

  There were more helpful sessions to come in the Weoka series. Bob Abplanalp, Bones Xanakakkis, Bebe Rebozo, and the recently ‘rehabilitated’ Charles Keating were next on the seminar list, to inspire, instruct and invite Butterbugs in the arts of high-level command.

  If the truth be told, as a result of this trip into corporate COO World, Butterbugs was currently experiencing a subtle but complex dumbing-down. It was as if he’d never worked with any director of worth. Rather, these ‘mentors’ were directors of cults, not entertainments. They were turning his brain into gooey foam, ready for the next mold coming down the assembly line.

  It was as if a leaden shroud had been pulled across the grandeur of his accomplishments so far, smothering his self-awareness as a thinking person. And worse, this barrier of insulation had stalled his progress toward wisdom as an artist.

  One thing was certain. As a result of these and other influences, Butterbugs had become a cocky, pain-in-the-ass pinwheel, full of toxic hubris, and completely open to suggestion concerning the premise of advancement. How else could he have politely listened to K.P.’s lurid intonations without engaging in any stimulating debate over character development, or motivation, or anything truthful, like he would have if Puerile had been a screenwriter or a director, talking about a role?

  ‘What about your desire to act? What happened to that? Huh? Isn’t it still your primal instinct?’ queried Sonny, after a trying session of corporate-blabber from his client.

  ‘This might be the greater role,’ was all the COO could add.

  Sonny came that far from calling him ‘Mumpkin Boy’.

  ‘I mean, where is it written that you must learn life this way?’ queried Shonnaleen via telephony. She’d been referencing what she called ‘the BS of the Suits’, a janitorial byproduct she’s once had to process like so much restroom sewage, on a regular basis. Butterbugs’ stupid comments about the reasonableness of Dromonism got her going, and she said some things he didn’t want to hear.

  ‘The Suits? You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I saw, sweeping up after ’em those long years. Speaking of shit, the dumps they take are full of blood, pus, and come –’

  ‘Oh, Shonnie, stop, will you…?’

  ‘You listen to me now, ex-actor! The truth is grotesque, and I’m trying to prevent you from being plastered with it. Sometimes the crudity of toilet habits says a lot. ‘They’ shit everything but honest fecal matter.’

  She was certainly keen to keep her hand on the exciting new trends that Butterbugs represented to the Industry, but red flags, strobes and sirens were popping up, due to this kid’s latest lifestyle choice. Unlike most though, she was thinking of the man first, and his box office worth second.

  ‘Is what we have here just another talented dude going all Cult-Boy on us?’ she nearly said out loud, but thought better of it. ‘I mean really, Butterhorn, look at how far we’ve come. Let’s not fuck it up, huh?’

  ‘Though I sit at the bottom of the world, notwithstanding, I feel like I might be near its summit,’ was his reply, coming from way down in the pent-up-house. There were no drugs, no booze, no chemical addictions that inspired such a line.

  It was sheer disparity, the kind of disparity Scott Fitzgerald knew of and warned against: ‘The rich are different from you and me.’

  So are The Corporates.

  But so are artists and their associates different from the purely capitalist kind.

  Still, ‘The rich are different from you and me.’

  Ernie Hemingway’s jokey rejoinder, ‘Yeah, they have more money than you and me’, did not apply in this instance.

  ‘Shit!’ exclaimed Shonnaleen upon hanging up. ‘Sounds like a Mysterious Mountain’s been inverted up the ass of the Tempter himself. If this goes on, I’m scuttling Butterbugs. Too scary.’

  To Ms. Gubbins, right now she thought more of a Mark Twain paraphrase, ‘God didn’t create humans, Satan did’.

  Taking to his corporate limo, an imposing mint-condition 1960 Lincoln, all in forbidding Presidential Black, Butterbugs had nothing to do for the day. Suddenly, a notion hit him.

  ‘Girish? Aim this tanker toward Yniguez Terrace. Yeah, I know it’s not in the ‘best’ part of town… Look sharp!’

  What if Franz Waxman could score your life – every scene – every nuance?

  What would the background music be like?

  And what of Heatherette?

  Well, not much, really. Not dependent on the expectations in day-to-day affairs, or the need for every moment to be a climax or an achievement, she was, as ever.

  Heatherette had been living quietly, mostly in the nude. It wasn’t that she was a nudist; it was just that she was trying to find herself within the huge Bupp Mansion, and it was best to be free, to simplify the quest, without burdens.

  She felt she’d left herself around there somewhere…

  If Butterb
ugs had been altered in any way, due to his new ‘corporate’ standing, it manifested itself in a sort of childish, retrograde mentality. That is, the thinking that everyone else is a bozo. That’s what happens when isolation of a certain kind descends, and his was esoteric, custom-crafted for his very own use.

  Summits are a state of mind, whether on top of a peak, or way down, down, down in a pent-up-house.

  For her own part, Heatherette was also isolated, but she did not regard those from beyond her isolation as anything lesser. There was no reason to reinvent the wheel when contemplating things from that very beyond. There is isolation that acquiesces to the necessity of intelligence, and then there is isolation that does not deem intelligence a necessity.

  Unfortunately, at this juncture, Butterbugs saw no reason not to subscribe to the latter. With so many platters of opportunity being presented to him now, all he had to do was recline on his divan and sample a little-bit-of-this and a little-bit-of-that. He was even beginning to think that Kritchurd Puerile wasn’t such a bad guy after all. That Dromon investment scheme. What was wrong with that? A little-bit-here and a little-bit-there. Besides, there was nothing to sweat about anymore. No scripts to memorize, no bossy directors, no finicky fellow actors. No 5:00AM makeup calls. No stress, no obligations, no worries.

  No soul.

  Souls can be terrible burdens…

  Today’s limo voyage was full of associations, but with all the pull of a taffy-match as seen from a remote-controlled black-and-white telly showing kinescope footage, run on a 16mm projector from halfway across an institutional cafeteria. In other words, here was Grapewin Blvd, where he had once made phone calls of desperation. Here were the inconvenience stores where he’d attempted to maintain both hygiene and body-and-soul. Here was the alley behind Yniguez Terrace, where he had staked his future on proving himself in the bullpen of the Tailgate Performances. Finally, here was the Terrace itself, with its mausolea-like lineup of Old Hollywood manses, where long ago he’d found reception and wonder.