HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout

by Bill Orton

  “You don’t have any money then,” said Larry, finishing his beer. “But you already know what yer gonna say, even though you haven’t met my grandmother. What’s that style called again? Oh yeh… ‘lying.’ “

  “Everybody’s got their little stories,” said von Sommerberg, pouring the last of his beer in his glass and smiling.

  .

  “We are going to be driving some of windy parts of Highway One past dark,” I said to the three drunken people shambling towards the car. “Here we go, I guess.”

  Larry and the director piled into the rear seat, wedging themselves in, as Lena and I each slid our seats back. I felt the twin bony lumps of Larry’s knees in the small of my back.

  At first, the two-lane, tightly-turning roadway seemed to thrill the drunken passengers, with each windy turn eliciting prolonged “woooooo” sounds. After several of the most harrowing turns, the silence of the Prius and the image of the headlights shining onto a paltry railing separating the roadway from a plunge into the abyss prompted even me to sense panic. The “oooo” sounds were replaced by cussing in English – and, I assumed, Danish. By the time that fog and darkness had fully set in, von Sommerberg was openly calling for God’s intervention to save them and Lena would repeat every few minutes that this fog was thicker than anything in Copenhagen. Larry had fallen asleep.

  .

  “It feels straight now,” said Lena. “Is it straight now?”

  “There is flat land on both sides of the road now,” said von Sommerberg. “My sweet God.”

  “What if you don’t find financing?” I asked, as Larry snored.

  “Well,” said Lena, “if there are no investors, there can be no film.”

  “It’s not so much bad for me,” said von Sommerberg, “as the director is not credited on screen, but this is bad to Lena, also as producer, and to Ingeborg’s daughter. This is her story. This is Denmark’s story.”

  “And Emma Mathilde’s,” said Lena.

  “Oh, yes,” said von Sommerberg, “her, too.”

  .

  “Heya,” said Larry, into his phone, as he stood on the balcony of the Motel 6, before the final push into Los Angeles. “Make it back okay? Did the dude press charges? That’s good, but getting canned sucks. Maybe you can work for me…. Think about it? Okay, well, bye.”

  Larry and I leaned against the railing, each of us watching Lena through the open curtains, folding clothes and putting a garment onto the ironing board. Down the long hallway, von Sommerberg’s heavy boots shook the entire balcony as the morning sunshine reflected off the grotesquely-oversized lens as he approached us. We the director reached us, we all turned to see Lena, in jeans and a white brassier, ironing a blouse.

  “A truly lovely day,” said the director, “and next we are in Los Angeles!”

  “Long Beach,” I said at the same time as Larry.

  “Long Beach,” said von Sommerberg. A few moments later, Lena, now dressed, wheeled her bag to the door, closed the curtains, and then came outside with her things “Great, really great.”

  .

  “How much does a film like you’re making cost to produce?” I asked, as Lena looked out at the scenery along the Ventura coast. “Not so much,” she said. “Nothing like Hollywood. That is why Dogme95 is really good. The money is to pay for story, not sets or car crashes.”

  “So, like…, what?” I asked. “Ten million? Twenty?”

  “Dogma95 is cheap,” interrupted von Sommerberg, as Larry snored, “but it is not that cheap. Fifty million, sixty million kroner, at least.”

  I barely heard the fifty and sixty through Larry’s snorts and snoring. “That’s a lot. And for a film about a ballerina’s daughter. You don’t think that’s risky?”

  “This is Harald Lander’s love child’s kid,” said von Sommerberg.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have no idea who Harald Lander is…. Just never learned that name.”

  “Do you know our country has a monarchy?”

  “A king? Yeh, you’re telling me,” I said.

  “We have a Queen, actually, right now, but, okay,” said Lena. “And you’ve heard of ballet?”

  “The dancing? Of course. My wife danced ballet as a kid.”

  “Is that Lori, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long did she dance the ballet?” asked Lena, earnestly.

  “Oh, I don’t know… when she was a kid.”

  “Interesting,” said Lena. “Anyway, how old is your country?”

  “America?”

  “Right? How old are The States?” asked Lena.

  “Born 1776.”

  “The Royal Danish Theatre was founded in 1748. Harald Lander came to be Artistic Director in 1932 and was really great. He was truly, really great,” said von Sommerberg.

  “He was really something,” added Lena “He saw Astrid dance here, in California, when he visited in the ‘20s. She left to dance ‘The Widow in the Mirror.’ It is said she was his inspiration to write ‘Etudes.” And so, you see, it is a movie about much more than your friend’s grandmother. She can be important to the story, too. There are so many fragments.”

  .

  Lena and Tres walked along the Venice boardwalk, wide-eyed and smiling; the director pointing his oversized lens at musclebound men, at times with Lena posing with, or hanging from one, or more, of the men. They walked in front of Larry and me, filming a man in a saffron body suit as he contorted himself before the silent crowd. Tap-tap-tapping to our side led us past a man sitting at a folding wooden typing stand, with a manual portable, advertising “Finished Letters: $5/pg.” Across from the for-hire-correspondent were three women, in brown matching uniforms, singing Andrews Sisters’ tunes. A brunette in a scant bikini handed me a postcard . On the card was an incredibly hot woman wearing something triple-XXX you might also see on the July 4th holiday and pointing: “PharmaGreen Wants You!” I handed the card back and kept walking.

  I drew close alongside Larry, slowing so we fell increasingly out of earshot of the Danes.

  “Just an idea,” I said, “but your money would probably allow you to buy your way into the movie they’re making.”

  “Why would I want to be in their movie?”

  “No, for your grandmother?”

  “From everything I see,” said Larry, “I can’t imagine her wanting to be in it, either.”

  “No,” I said, as the Danes turned, their faces lit up like kids, and approached us.

  “This is really amazing,” said von Sommerberg. “Really amazing. It’s too bad Astrid didn’t wind up here. This would be the perfect place to shoot a movie.”

  “It’s a fantastic place to shoot a movie,” came a voice from behind the director.

  Von Sommerberg turned back around and, with the camera back on his shoulder, perhaps his peripheral vision was blocked, as the camera bumped into a hulking man on a bicycle, nearly toppling both, save for exceptional riding by each.

  “Oh my God,” said Lena. “It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

  “Put dat down! You’re gonna hurt someone,” said California’s former Governor, to Tres. “Say, is dat a microphone in your pants or are you just pleased to see me?” Schwarzenegger said to Lena. “What’tar you shoo-teeng?”

  “Feature-length dogme story for the European market,” said von Sommerberg.

  “I thought the Dogme95 is dead,” said Schwarzenegger. “Even von Trier and Vinterberg have moved on.”

  The director circled Schwarzenegger, who smiled into the camera while continuing to flirt with Lena, asking if she wanted to feel his bicep.

  “Larry,” I said, in a hushed voice, “these two have no money. With a small business investment representing only a portion of what you’ve won, you could at once become their principal investor and dictate the film they make.”

  Thirty feet away, von Sommerberg photographed his producer running her hands over Arnold Schwarzenegger’s arm, as he flexed and smiled to her.

  “It�
��s a thought, I suppose,” said Larry.

  Chapter Ten

  Fishing for Help

  A cat, with a small fish hanging from its mouth, ran past Larry and I, as we walked slowly along the Belmont Pier, its concrete a gray that matched the morning haze. Asian and Hispanic families stood watch over poles that did not twitch. The cat, no longer carrying a fish, walked past families, staking out a spot near several plastic five-gallon buckets.

  “I don’t want a lot of people,” said Larry.

  “We can do this several different ways,” I said. “People can work directly under your employ, or you can pay me to be your representative and I can contract with a firm, or with individual talent,”

  “That sounds confusing,” said Larry. “I just want people – the same people – who do what I tell ‘em and don’t make me think up stupid questions and when I explain things, it isn’t over and over.” Larry leaned onto the north-facing railing of the pier, shaggy curls waggling in all directions, unkempt animation against his dull expression and the backdrop of a grand luxury liner, a beachfront of high-rise residential buildings and a working port.

  “If you want a team that you hire and we all work directly for you, then we should fix a sum for an annual budget, and I will hire based against that,” I said. “We can probably start off with two or three other people... a tax person, an investment advisor, at minimum, and a person to make sure it all keeps running.”

  “That’s Lori.”

  “Oh no,” I said quickly.

  “No, she would keep things running,” said Larry.

  The cat, with another fish, ran past us hugging the rail, as a small child bumped into me, chasing it. “Fuck!” I said, as the child careened off my leg and continued running.

  “C’mon,” said Larry. “There’s kids around here.”

  .

  “Why do I have to be part of your team?’ Lori asked Larry, as each lay on a wooden lounger in his courtyard. Lori, her face covered by a folded towel, reached over to the small table separating their loungers and lifted her glass of ice water, with its slice of lemon.

  “You know Lawrence’s failings,” said Larry, “so if he’s about to hire someone who he can’t see their problems, you can give me an alert.”

  Lori leaned up, moved the towel slightly, sipped her water, and set the glass down and returned the towel to cover her face.

  “If Lawrence works in banking and he can’t see someone’s failings, how on earth would I know that someone won’t work out?”

  “Cuz I have no clue about this stuff,” said Larry, “and you were in the army. That means you can tell... about people.”

  “Larry, I appreciate it, but I don’t know if I can actually, really work for you,” said Lori. “I mean, the coffee thing’s done, but they’re not challenging the unemployment, so I have something coming in while I look, and why fuck up a good friendship, you know?”

  “Lori, please,” said Larry. “You’re the one person in the world I can trust. You don’t really have to work, like, in an office kind of thing. I don’t care if you do any work at all but I can’t do this alone. I need someone I can totally rely on to be at my side. I need you on my team, Lori. Please.”

  Lori turned to her side, adjusting the towel so it covered the side of her face, leaving no skin above her neck exposed to the sun. “I don’t know, Bixie. I’ll think about it. I’m kind’a thinkin’ about a lot right now….”

  “Like December?” said Larry.

  “Like going back in.”

  “What? The army?”

  “Thinking about it.”

  “But then you won’t be here. You’ll be off fighting in a war,” said Larry.

  “Bix, I’m burning out on this ‘find myself’’ thing,” said Lori, sipping water, laying back down and readjusting the towel. “At least I know where things stand as an E6. Go to bed; not have to guess or worry.”

  “What about the whole killed thing? And what about December? Don’t’chu like her? And doesn’t she like you?”

  “I haven’t told Dee, okay, so don’t say anything…. Okay? Larry?”

  “Yeh, okay,” said Larry.

  “I don’t want to have to explain something that I’m still thinking out,” said Lori, her body limp on the wooden lounger. “Larry! Promise!”

  “Okay, okay… I promise.”

  .

  When I walked in to the Jack-in-the-Box near the Belmont Pier, Larry awkwardly lifted one hand, as though otherwise I might miss him in the lightly populated fast food joint. As I drew closer to the table, Lori approached from the other side, exiting the restroom.

  “Do you want to order’?” asked Larry. “On me.”

  I hemmed, and while searching for a diplomatic way of saying I hadn’t eaten at Jack-in-the-Box since I was a teenager, Larry stood, took my arm and walked me to the counter, where he ordered a breakfast Jack combo, with coffee, and then turned to me, with the look one reserves to welcome family to their favorite eatery.

  “I…, I...,” I stammered, looking at the menu.

  “It’s a little early, but the churros are good,” Larry said.

  “Coffee,” I blurted out. “A tall coffee.”

  “Large, yes?” asked the middle-aged woman behind the counter. I nodded.

  As Larry picked up his tray, he passed me, doctoring my coffee.

  “Don’t want you to strain yourself, if it’s too early,” he said, heading to the table.

  “Nothing for you?” I asked Lori.

  “I’m training,” she said. “I can’t eat this stuff.”

  Lori’s swims. During our marriage, it was the pool Lori would insist be part of any apartment we looked at. After a succession of small apartment that meant hundreds of laps under watchful but hidden eyes, Lori moved to the Belmont Olympic Pool, and, increasingly, to the Pacific. As our marriage grew more dim, the length of her swims grew. I got the message of where I fit into things when Lori recounted, after one morning’s swim, how a pair of dolphins had swam alongside her for much of that day’s swim, and that she extended her swim by half-an-hour, as the two dolphins were so forward and affectionate that she felt it had been the most passionate, fulfilling, soulful experience of her life.

  Larry ate a fried hash brown stick, as I outlined the skills he would want in a team. If we were lucky, I said, we would find two people who possessed the litany of traits and skills needed.

  “Where will they work?” asked Larry.

  “What do you mean, where…?”

  “Like, am I gonna rent some office building? And would I get to go in, too, whenever I want?”

  “Larry, this is why I say you have to let me oversee this process,” I said, exasperated.

  “No,” said Lori, instantly drawing Larry’ full attention. “If he wants to be involved in any decision, you have to make that happen. This is his money. It has to be his experience.”

  Larry looked at both of us and raised his two index fingers, perhaps signaling something, or perhaps only due to his body at times moving independently of his mind. “Lori knows my thinking. Lawrence, you know the whole banking thing. But since Lori is smarter than me on life stuff, if someone has to sign things along with you, Lawrence, I want it to be her. Two signatures on everything; you, plus either me or her.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “that is an important part of all this…. Signature control. I would prefer that, uh, that we not... work together.”

  “Oh,” Lori said swiftly, “that is my preference, too.”

  “That’s fine,” said Larry. “So now you have two more people to find. Don’t bother screening. Lori and I will sit in on the interviews.”

  As Larry ate another hash brown stick, his cell phone rang. “Hello? What? Who is this? I don’t know you,” said Larry. “Look, what? No, I’m not going to give you money. Hello?” There was a long silence at the table after Larry put his phone down.

  “Lawrence, can I hand my phone over, too?” Larry said, picking up a hash brown st
ick, looking at it, limp and oily in his fingers, before dropping it onto his tray. “People’re calling me and I want someone else to tell them no. It’s stressing me out.” He unpopped the lid from his coffee and added another sugar and stirred. “It’d just he easier if I could hand everything over to someone who can handle it, you know?”

  “Just the phone? or... mail and bills?”

  “You know,” said Larry. “Just all of it.”

  .

  Lori lay on her stomach on the lounger, as Larry, seated upright, surfed on his tablet. “December says she bought a gift for you,” said Larry. Lori groaned. “She’s asking if you’re around.”

  “Don’t tell her I’m here,” said Lori, “She’ll just come over,”

  “That wouldn’t be so bad,” said Larry.

  “You’re not the one she’s needy about,” said Lori.

  “She likes you,” said Larry. “You know how many guys would kill to be in your shoes?” Larry typed. “She says it’s an official army thing, the gift.”

  Lori smiled. “She can have ‘em all. I just want one – boy, girl, I don’t care – but someone who’s not needy…, no more like Lawrence, ugh.”

  .

  “Miss Atkins, this is Larry,” I said, showing the potential tax attorney to a chair.

  Larry unwrapped a breakfast Jack sandwich and took a bite.

  “Thank you for coming, Miss Atkins, to... .for this….”

  “Please, it’s Emily,” she said, sitting easily. “But it’s not Atkins. It’s Kashabara. Very nice to meet you,” she said, offering her hand to Larry. “Your family is quite famous.”

  “Google doesn’t include that they’re all bastards,” said Larry, a dab of egg yolk on his chin. “Except my grandmother. She’s not.”

  “Okay,” said the attorney.

  “Right,” I said. “Miss Atkins....”

  “Please, Emily, or Ms. Kashabara,” she said. “Really not sure where you’re getting ‘Atkins.’ “

  I looked down at my notes. I had Atkins written several times and no where saw Kashabara. “Miss… um… She appears, on paper, to be an ideal candidate on tax issues of sudden capital inflow and long-term derivative income,” I said, as Larry looked on, with a dull expression.