Selling Out (5 page)

Mellis had no doubt sent another of his minions to pick up the visiting writer. Perry was a little peeved and was mentally searching for some sharp comment when he realized the man wearing the camouflage shirt and trousers and the combat boots, as well as a black beret and silver wraparound glasses, was not one of Mellis's subordinates after all. It was Archer Mellis himself.

“Welcome to L.A.,” the young executive said, giving Perry a brisk cuff on the arm, then leading him toward the door.

“Thanks. I didn't recognize you. Without your suit.”

“That's right, we've only met in New York. Out here I wear my working clothes.”

“Ah,” said Perry, wondering apprehensively if they were on their way to overthrow the network or just have a meeting there. He would not have been surprised if Mellis had led him to a waiting Russian tank, or at least a World War II armored halftrack, but his host opened the door for him to a sleek, low-slung vehicle that reminded him of the Batmobile.

Perry squeezed himself into it as well as he could, feeling as relaxed and comfortable as if he were about to be shot out of a cannon. Mellis, though taller than Perry, seemed to have trained his long limbs to slip easily into the seemingly awkward if not impossible position, and his arms and legs moved effortlessly into the proper places, as if they were the appendages of a praying mantis. He shifted the car into gear, sped from the driveway with a screech of rubber, and slammed a tape into the deck.

“You into reggae?” he asked, as a stereophonic system that would have broken any champagne glass blasted out a sultry, tropical rhythm. In his overall pain, Perry was at least thankful that the sound negated any need or possibility for even small talk, much less extended conversation.

There was also little opportunity at the Polo Lounge, since Mellis was almost constantly on his feet, making the rounds of friends and acquaintances at the tables, keeping up a rapid-fire chatter with others who stopped by when he was back at his own table, gobbling hotcakes, eggs, and sausage with the gusto of a kid at summer camp. Perry kept his head low and managed to get down most of a bowl of cold cereal. He remembered Margo's advice and was hardly tempted by the omelettes, but also avoided the fresh fruit because it was papaya today and the name itself sounded entirely too exotic for his condition. The cereal seemed to settle all right in his stomach, and that gave him hope that he would live through the day, if he didn't have to undergo any great exertions of mind, body, or emotion.

“You ready to knock 'em dead?” Archer asked as they roared toward network headquarters in his sleek sports car. The sound of the powerful engine throbbed in Perry's head, but at least Mellis had removed the reggae tape from the deck, which was some relief.

“I just got a little jet lag, I guess,” Perry said, managing a feeble smile. “Otherwise I think I'm OK.”

“Terrific!” Archer exclaimed, shoving in a new tape. “We really want to blitz 'em!”

“Oh? I didn't think this meeting was so important,” Perry said with a wince.

“This is the biggie! This is when we sell 'em on it!”

Suddenly Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was exploding in Perry's eardrums.

“You said you sold it to the guy in New York!” Perry shouted over the music.

“I did—now we have to sell it to his West Coast people.”

Perry bolted upright, knocking his head against the bubble top of the sports car.

“For God sake, man—you told me this meeting was just a formality!”

“In an hour, it will be. They're going to love it.”

Perry forgot the pain in his head. He wondered if he had enough strength to strangle this madman.

“What if they don't?” he bellowed. “What if they don't like it at all, and you've dragged me and Jane all the way out here for nothing, and I've told everyone I'm getting paid to write a television script?”

“Speaking of the script,” Mellis said calmly, “have you worked out any more of a plot?”

“No! I thought that's what you and I were going to do—together! I was waiting till we both sat down to work it out!”

“Terrific! Let's go at it right now.”

“Can't we wait till after this meeting?”

“
Amigo
, that's what the meeting's
about
.”

“Holy Mother of God.”

There
was
no story. Oh, there was the short story of Perry's that Archer had bought the rights to make into the classiest, and at the same time, most popular series in the annals of television history, but it wasn't a story with a plot, it was simply a slice of life—type sketch, a brief scene from a youthful marriage. The story, “Burden of Innocence,” had been selected from the O. Henry Prize collection two years previously, but its merits were more literary than dramatic, its success resulting from an evocation of mood and atmosphere, an incisive rendering of character, rather than any development of plot. Mellis had frankly explained to Perry that the story and its two appealing young characters in conflict would simply serve as a launching pad for the series, that the hour pilot script would have to be a fully developed dramatization with beginning, middle, and end.

“You mean these network people expect us to tell them the story for the pilot and we don't even have one?” Perry demanded. “Is that what you're telling me?”

“We don't have one
now
, this
mo
ment,” Mellis said imperturbably, “but we aren't even there yet.”

Perry stared at the dashboard, trying to focus, to pull his fragmented mind together. Yet all he could think of was James Bond. Maybe one of the dashboard buttons activated a device that would propel the car's cockpit back to real life, or at least to the right time zone.

“How can we have a meeting about a story if we don't have a story?” Perry asked, vaguely wondering if he was repeating himself. “They'll have to kick us out. I won't blame them.”

Archer yawned.

“No way,” he said. “They're going to be very impressed, meeting a prize-winning author from the East.”

“The
East
? My God. You make it sound like I'm from Baghdad.”

“Tell me, have you had any thoughts about the title?”

Perry blinked, fighting off a sense that the horizon was tilting. He pressed the thumb and fingers of his right hand to his forehead as hard as he could.

“The title?” he asked. “The title is the one thing we
do
have. ‘Burden of Innocence.'
That's
the title.”

“That's the title of the
short story
. I'm talking about the title for
television
.”

“I thought you liked the title.”

“I love it! ‘Burden of Innocence' has a classic ring to it. A real reverberation. Brings to mind the masters—Chekhov, Turgenev. But it doesn't work for television.”

Perry cringed.

“Wait,” he said. “Didn't you
want
something literary? Bring a little class to prime time? Wasn't that the point, sort of?”

“That's not at issue. The point is the title's a downer, in terms of audience gut reaction. ‘Burden' is heavy, weighs you down. It's something to be avoided. People don't want to turn on a show that's going to be a burden.”

Perry forced himself to take a deep breath, instead of screaming. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. It was almost lunchtime at home. In Haviland. He could be sitting at the kitchen table sipping some good hot coffee while Jane warmed up some stew for them, perhaps pulled some fresh-baked bread from the oven. Maybe they'd have a nice glass of red with it, and watch the snow fall outside the window. The wood stove would make things warm and cozy. Instead he was hurtling through some mountains with a jive-ass hustler on the way to try to shuck some unscrupulous television hucksters. This whole thing was a stupid farce, a waste of life's precious moments.

“So what about a title?” Archer asked. “Something sharp, pithy. But true to the story.”

Perry sighed, and opened his eyes. As long as he was trapped in this silly game he might as well be a sport and try to play.

“How about just plain ‘Innocence'? That has some mystery, some romance. Don't you think?”

Mellis lifted his right hand from the wheel and pointed his thumb straight down as they hurtled around a curve.

“Too soft. A real yawn. You'd have to juxtapose it with something opposite, a shocker—like ‘Rape of Innocence.'”

Perry bolted upright in his seat.

“Damn you, Mellis! I'm not having anything to do with some cheap exploitation title!”

His voice boomed over Beethoven's Ninth. The righteous indignation surging through him was making him feel better, giving him strength.

Mellis patted him on the knee, then shifted into low as the car screeched down a new twist in the road.

“Relax,
amigo
. I wasn't suggesting we use that title, I was only trying to illustrate how far you'd have to go to counteract the softness of ‘innocence.'”

“Damn. We not only don't have a plot, we don't even have a title. It's hopeless.”

“Refresh me on the names of the young couple in the story.”

“Jack and Laurie?”

“Jack and Laurie. Mmm. Let's see. Laurie and Jack. No. Doesn't work. Tell me, how would you describe the subtext of your story?”

“The what?”

“The subtext. What's going on underneath. What's really causing that argument Jack and Laurie are having.”

“Oh, well, it's still the first year of their marriage. Like they say, ‘the first year's the hardest.'”

“I love it,” said Mellis.

“What?”

“That's our title. ‘The First Year's the Hardest.'”

“For God sake, that's a cliche! As old as the hills.”

“As a title, it's new. It's fresh. It kind of winks at you, lets you in on a little secret. Dramatic irony, really—the audience knowing more than the characters.
Amigo
, it has everything.”

“‘The First Year's the Hardest,'” Perry said slowly, rolling it a bit in his mouth. It felt awkward. Still, it wasn't gross. It could be worse. After all, this was television.

“I guess I don't mind it that much,” he sighed.

“It's a winner,” said Archer Mellis as they came down out of the hills. “Trust me.”

The awful moment was upon them.

Archer had prolonged it as long as possible by building up Perry's credentials as a “quality” writer, and praising his intrepid character as proved by his coming out for this meeting all the way from Vermont, making it seem as if the journey had been made by dogsled and wagon train.

Finally, the network people had politely posed the inevitable question.

They knew of course all about Perry's prize-winning story and its wonderful, warm qualities, the appealing young characters, the compelling atmosphere, the whole ball of wax.

Now they wanted to know the plot.

Perry pretended he wasn't in the room.

He looked out the window and waited to hear whatever spur-of-the-moment cock-and-bull story Mellis came up with. To ease his own sense of acute embarrassment, Perry reminded himself as he gazed into the blank blue morning that this whole thing would later make a marvelous story for some faculty cocktail party back at Haviland. He must remember every word and nuance, not only of Mellis's improvised phony sales pitch, but of the acid response from the network people whose time had been so uselessly wasted. The whole thing would probably make Mellis
persona non grata
at the network, and perhaps even bring a quick end to his meteoric career.

But there was only silence.

Perry could sense the anticipation from the network people, who had been more than courteous through this whole sham, but who could surely not be expected to carry on the pretense without even a response to their specific and perfectly reasonable question.

Was Mellis trying to purposely insult them?

Had the young executive cracked under the strain and fallen into a coma or trance? Perry could stand it no longer, and cautiously shifted his glance to Archer Mellis.

The youthful hope of Paragon TV was intently scraping something from the bottom of one of his combat boots with an elaborate Swiss Army knife. With a final twist, he seemed to pry loose the offending substance, then he held it up and squinted at it, and shook his head with a wry smile.

“Bubble gum,” he said. “Double Bubble, unless I miss my guess.”

He stood up, took a few steps toward a wastebasket, and casually tossed in the congealed bit of gum, as the three network people looked on with evident sympathy and fascination. Mellis sat back down and held the Swiss Army knife in front of his eyes, closing and then opening again various of its myriad blades and hooks and screwlike appendages.

Then he spoke.

His voice was pitched low, almost a whisper, so that Perry as well as the network people had to lean toward him to hear his words. If anyone had been watching him without being able to hear, they would have assumed he was giving instructions in the use and care of the marvelous knife. This effect seemed to make his statement about the TV pilot all the more dramatic.

“We are not going to bore you by laying out the bare bones of a plot. The ideal young married couple squabbles over in-laws. Jack flips out when Laurie wants to postpone pregnancy till she finishes law school. Any one of a thousand hacks could pitch you those standard story lines and then grind them out like sausages. We are offering something unique. Character. Style. The shock of recognition. We are offering the texture and quality that have made Perry Moss a proven, prize-winning writer of American fiction, translated into the medium of television. We are not offering pap. We are offering you a challenge, daring you to be different by being the best. All I am going to tell you about our project is the title. Either you will get it or you won't.”