“No,” said Jon.
“I’ll have some,” I said.
Zutnick hit the intercom button. “Rose? Rose, my dear … one coffee, please …” He looked at me, “Cream and sugar?”
“Black.”
“Black. Thank you, Rose … Now, gentlemen …”
“Where’s Friedman?” Jon asked.
“Mr. Friedman has given me full instructions. Now …”
“Where’s your plug?” Jon asked.
“Plug?”
“For this …” Jon pulled the towel away revealing the Black and Decker.
“Please, Mr. Pinchot …”
“Where’s the plug? Never mind, I see it …”
Jon walked over and plugged the Black and Decker into the wall.
“You must understand,” said Zutnick, “that if I had known you were going to bring that instrument I would have arranged to turn off the electricity.”
“That’s all right,” said Jon.
“There’s no need for that instrument,” said Zutnick.
“I hope not. It’s just … in case …”
Rose entered with my coffee. Jon pressed the button on the Black and Decker. The blade sprang into action and began to hum.
Rose nervously tilted the coffee cup just a bit … just enough to spill a touch of it on her dress. It was a nice red dress and Rose, a heavy girl, filled it nicely.
“Wow! That scared me!”
“I’m sorry,” Jon said, “I was just … testing …”
“Who gets the coffee?”
“I do,” I told her, “thank you.”
Rose brought the coffee over to me. I needed it.
Rose exited, giving us a worried look over her shoulder.
“Both Mr. Friedman and Mr. Fischman have expressed dismay at your present state of mind …”
“Cut the shit, Zutnick! Either I get the release or the first piece of my flesh will be deposited … there!”
Jon tapped the center of Zutnick’s desk with the end of the Black and Decker.
“Now, Mr. Pinchot, there is no need …”
“THERE IS A NEED! AND YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME! I WANT THAT RELEASE! NOW!”
Zutnick looked at me. “How is your coffee, Mr. Chinaski?”
Jon squeezed the trigger of the Black and Decker and held up his left hand, little finger extended. He waved the Black and Decker about as the blade furiously worked away.
“NOW!”
“VERY WELL!” yelled Zutnick.
Jon took his finger off the trigger.
Zutnick opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out two legalsized sheets of paper. He slid them toward Jon. Jon walked over, picked them up, sat back down, began reading.
“Mr. Zutnick,” I asked, “can I have another cup of coffee?”
Zutnick glared at me, hit the intercom.
“Another cup of coffee, Rose. Black …”
“Like in Black and Decker,” I said.
“Mr. Chinaski, that isn’t funny.”
Jon continued to read.
My coffee arrived.
“Thank you, Rose …”
Jon continued to read as we waited. The Black and Decker lay across his lap.
Then Jon said, “No, this won’t do …”
“WHAT?” said Zutnick. “THAT IS A COMPLETE RELEASE!”
“All of clause ‘e’ must be deleted. It contains too many ambiguities.”
“May I see those papers?” asked Zutnick.
“Certainly …”
Jon placed them on the blade of the Black and Decker and passed them over to Zutnick. Zutnick took them off the blade with some disgust. He began reading clause ‘e.’
“I see nothing wrong here …”
“Delete it …”
“Do you really intend to cut off one of your fingers?”
“Yes. I may even cut off one of yours.”
“Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?”
“Consider this: I have nothing to lose here. Only you have.”
“A contract signed under these conditions can be considered invalid.”
“You are making me sick, Zutnick! Eliminate clause ‘e’ or my finger goes! NOW!”
Jon hit the button. The Black and Decker sprang into action again. Jon Pinchot stuck out his little finger, left hand.
“STOP!” screamed Zutnick.
Jon stopped.
Zutnick was on the intercom. “ROSE! I need you …”
Rose entered. “More coffee for the gentleman?”
“No, Rose. I want this entire contract revised and run out again, but eliminate clause ‘e,’ then return it to me.”
“Yes, Mr. Zutnick.”
We all just sat a while then.
Then Zutnick said, “You can unplug that thing now.”
“Not yet,” said Jon. “Not until everything is finalized …”
“Do you really have another producer for this thing?”
“Of course …”
“Do you mind telling me who?”
“Of course not. Hal Edleman. Friedman knows that.”
Zutnick blinked. Edleman was money. He knew the name.
“I’ve read the screenplay. It seems very … crude … to me.”
“Have you read any other of Mr. Chinaski’s works?” Jon asked.
“No. But my daughter has. She read his book of stories, Cesspool Dreams.”
“And?”
“She hated it.”
Rose was back with the new contract. She handed it to Zutnick. Zutnick gave it a glance, stood up and walked it over to Jon.
Jon reread the whole thing.
“Very well.”
He walked it over to the desk, bent over, signed it. Zutnick signed for Friedman and Fischman. It was done. One copy each.
Then Zutnick laughed. He looked relieved.
“The practice of law gets stranger all the time....”
Jon unplugged the Black and Decker. Zutnick walked to a small cabinet on the wall, opened it, pulled out a bottle, 3 glasses. He sat them on his desk, poured around.
“To the deal, gentlemen …”
“To the deal …” said Jon.
“To the deal,” the writer chimed in.
We drank them down. It was brandy. And we had the movie again.
I walked Jon to his car. He threw the Black and Decker into the back seat, then climbed into the front.
“Jon,” I asked from the sidewalk, “can I try you with the big question?”
“Sure.”
“You can tell me the truth about the Black and Decker. It will never get further than this. Were you really going to do it?”
“Of course …”
“But the other parts to follow? The other pieces. Were you going to do that?”
“Of course. Once you begin such a thing there is no stopping.”
“You’ve got guts, my man …”
“It is nothing. Now I am hungry.”
“Can I buy you breakfast?”
“Well, all right … I know just the place … Get into your car and follow me …”
“All right.”
I followed Jon through Hollywood, the light and the shadows of Alfred Hitchcock, Laurel and Hardy, Clark Gable, Gloria Swanson, Mickey Mouse and Humphrey Bogart, falling all around us.
—HOLLYWOOD
trashcan lives
the wind blows hard tonight
and it’s a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle
of red.
it’s when you’re on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything.
this is the way a democracy
works:
you get what you can,
try to keep that
and add to it
if possible.
this is t
he way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.
we just forget
ours.
in either case
it’s a hard
cold
wind.
The shooting was to start in Culver City. The bar was there and the hotel with my room. The next part of the shooting was to be done in the Alvarado Street district, where the apartment of the female lead was located.
Then there was a bar to be used near 6th Street and Vermont. But the first shots were to be in Culver City.
Jon took us up to see the hotel. It looked authentic. The barflies lived there. The bar was downstairs. We stood and looked at it.
“How do you like it?” Jon asked.
“It’s great. But I’ve lived in worse places.”
“I know,” said Sarah, “I’ve seen them.”
Then we walked up to the room.
“Here it is. Look familiar?”
It was painted grey as so many of those places were. The torn shades. The table and the chair. The refrigerator thick with coats of dirt. And the poor sagging bed.
“It’s perfect, Jon. It’s the room.”
I was a little sad that I wasn’t young and doing it all over again, drinking and fighting and playing with words. When you’re young you can really take a battering. Food didn’t matter. What mattered was drinking and sitting at the machine. I must have been crazy but there are many kinds of crazy and some are quite delightful. I starved so that I could have time to write. That just isn’t done much anymore. Looking at that table I saw myself sitting there again. I’d been crazy and I knew it and I didn’t care.
“Let’s go down and check the bar again …”
We went down. The barflies who were to be in the movie were sitting there. They were drinking.
“Come on, Sarah, let’s grab a stool. See you later, Jon …”
The bartender introduced us to the barflies. There was Big Monster and Little Monster, The Creeper, Buffo, Doghead, Lady Lila, Free-stroke, Clara and others.
Sarah asked The Creeper what he was drinking. “It looks good,” she said.
“This is a Cape Cod, cranberry juice and vodka.”
“I’ll have a Cape Cod,” Sarah told the barkeep, Cowboy Cal.
“Vodka seven,” I told the Cowboy.
We had a few. Big Monster told me a story about how they had all got in a fight with the cops. Quite interesting. And I knew by the way he told it that it was the truth.
Then there was lunch call for the actors and crew. The barflies just stayed in there.
“We’d better eat,” said Sarah.
We went out behind and to the east of the hotel. A large bench was set up. The extras, technicians, hands and so forth were already eating. The food looked good. Jon met us out there. We got our servings at the wagon and followed Jon down to the end of the table. As we walked along, Jon paused. There was a man eating by himself. Jon introduced us.
“This is Lance Edwards …”
Edwards gave a slight nod and went back to his steak.
We sat down at the end of the table. Edwards was one of the co-producers.
“This Edwards acts like a prick,” I said.
“Oh,” said Jon, “he’s very bashful. He’s one of the guys that Friedman was trying to get rid of.”
“Maybe Friedman was right.”
“Hank,” said Sarah, “you don’t even know the man.”
I was working at my beer.
“Eat your food,” said Sarah.
Sarah was going to add ten years to my life, for better or worse.
“We are going to shoot a scene with Jack in the room. You ought to come watch it.”
“After we finish eating we’re going back to the bar. When you’re ready to shoot, have somebody come get us.”
“All right,” said Jon.
After we ate we walked around the other side of the hotel, checking it out. Jon was with us. There were several trailers parked along the street. We saw Jack’s Rolls-Royce. And next to it was a large silver trailer. There was a sign on the door: JACK BLEDSOE.
“Look,” said Jon, “he has a periscope sticking out of the roof so he can see who’s coming …”
“Jesus …”
“Listen, I’ve got to set things up …”
“All right … See you …”
Funny thing about Jon. His French accent was slipping away as he spoke only English here in America. It was a little sad.
Then the door of Jack’s trailer opened. It was Jack.
“Hey, come on in!”
We went up the steps. There was a tv on. A young girl was lying in a bunk watching the tv.
“This is Cleo. I bought her a bike. We ride together.”
There was a fellow sitting at the end.
“This is my brother, Doug …”
I moved toward Doug, did a little shadow boxing in front of him. He didn’t say anything. He just stared. Cool number. Good. I liked cool numbers.
“Got anything to drink?” I asked Jack.
“Sure …”
Jack found some whiskey, poured me a whiskey and water.
“Thanks …”
“You care for some?” he asked Sarah.
“Thanks,” she said, “I don’t like to mix drinks.”
“She’s on Cape Cods,” I said.
“Oh …”
Sarah and I sat down. The whiskey was good.
“I like this place,” I said.
“Stay as long as you like,” said Jack.
“Maybe we’ll stay forever …”
Jack gave me his famous smile.
“Your brother doesn’t say much, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“A cool number.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Jack, you memorized your lines?”
“I never look at my lines until right before the shooting.”
“Great. Well, listen, we’ve got to be going.”
“I know you can do it, Jack,” said Sarah, “we’re glad you got the lead.”
“Thanks …”
Back at the bar the barflies were still there and they didn’t look any drunker. It took a lot to buzz a pro.
Sarah had another Cape Cod. I went back to the Vodka seven.
We drank and there were more stories. I even told one. Maybe an hour went by. Then I looked up and there was Jack standing looking over the swinging doors in the entrance. I could just see his head.
“Hey, Jack,” I yelled, “come on in and have a drink!”
“No, Hank, we’re going to shoot now. Why don’t you come up and watch?”
“Be right there, baby …”
We ordered up another pair of drinks. We were working on them when Jon walked in.
“We’re going to shoot now,” he said.
“All right,” said Sarah.
“All right,” I said.
We finished our drinks and I got a couple of bottles of beer to take with us.
We followed Jon up the stairway and into the room. Cables everywhere. Technicians were moving about.
“I’ll bet they could shoot a movie with about one-third of these fucking people.”
“That’s what Friedman says.”
“Friedman is sometimes right.”
“All right,” said Jon, “we’re just about ready. We’ve had a few dry runs. Now we shoot. You,” he said to me, “stand in this corner. You can watch from here and not be in the scene.”
Sarah moved back there with me.
“SILENCE!” screamed Jon’s assistant director, “WE’RE GETTING READY TO ROLL!”
It became very quiet.
Then from Jon: “CAMERA! ACTION!”
The door to the room opened and Jack Bledsoe weaved in. Shit, it was the young Chinaski! It was me! I felt a tender aching within me. Youth, you son of a bitch, where did you go?
I wanted
to be the young drunk again. I wanted to be Jack Bledsoe. But I was just the old guy in the corner, sucking on a beer.
Bledsoe weaved to the window by the table. He pulled up the tattered shade. He did a little shadow boxing, a smile on his face. Then he sat down at the table, found a pencil and a piece of paper. He sat there a while, then pulled the cork from a wine bottle, had a hit, lit a cigarette. He turned on the radio and lucked into Mozart.
He began writing on that piece of paper with the pencil as the scene faded …
He had it. He had it the way it was, whether it meant anything or not, he had it the way it was.
I walked up to Jack, shook his hand.
“Did I get it?” he asked.
“You got it,” I said …
Down at the bar, the barflies were still at it and they looked about the same.
Sarah went back to her Cape Cods and I went the Vodka seven route. We heard more stories which were very very good. But there was a sadness in the air because after the movie was shot the bar and hotel were going to be torn down to further some commercial purpose. Some of the regulars had lived in the hotel for decades. Others lived in a deserted train station nearby and action was being taken to remove them from there. So it was heavy sad drinking.
Sarah said finally, “We’ve got to get home and feed the cats.”
Drinking could wait.
Hollywood could wait.
The cats could not wait.
I agreed.
We said our goodbyes to the barflies and made it to the car. I wasn’t worried about driving. Something about seeing young Chinaski in that old hotel room had steadied me. Son of a bitch, I had been a hell of a young bull. Really a top-notch fuck-up.
Sarah was worried about the future of the barflies. I didn’t like it either. On the other hand I couldn’t see them sitting around our front room, drinking and telling their stories. Sometimes charm lessens when it gets too close to reality. And how many brothers can you keep?
I drove on in. We got there.
The cats were waiting.
Sarah got down and cleaned their bowls and I opened the cans.
Simplicity, that’s what was needed.
We went upstairs, washed, changed, made ready for bed.
“What are those poor people going to do?” asked Sarah.
“I know. I know …”
Then it was time for sleep. I went downstairs for a last look, came back up. Sarah was asleep. I turned out the light. We slept. Having seen the movie made that afternoon we were now somehow different, we would never think or talk quite the same. We now knew something more but what it was seemed very vague and even perhaps a bit disagreeable.