The Bones (21 page)

"I just talked to Robert," Harvey tells him in the raspy tones of his native Newark, N. J., whose gray streets he abandoned
for sunnier dimes during the Johnson presidency. "He says you're gonna be great. Hey, you better be." Harvey follows this
statement with a nervous laugh intended to show he is only kidding but has the opposite effect of revealing the truth, that
he isn't kidding at all.

"Everything's going to be terrible, Harvey. Right before we shoot, I'm going to get so high that I'll come out and bone the
walrus. It'll be breakthrough television. That's what Pam Penner said you wanted."

Harvey smiles indulgently, picturing Frank carnally engaged with the creature the Lynx Network intends to market to the families
of America via a lucrative deal with a world-famous hamburger chain. "We just want the Bones to be as good as the Bones can
be."

"I'm with you, Harvey. It's all about the Bones."

"Frank, I need to talk to you," Harvey says casually, trying to imitate the subtly threatening tone he's seen in so many Mafia
movies. "Over there"—motioning to the empty bleachers that will be bursting with giddy anticipation in a few hours.

Harvey walks behind the bleachers followed by Frank, who is wondering whether he still looks high. Reaching a spot sufficiently
private, Harvey stops and turns to the jittery comedian.

"I don't usually come to tapings, much less to rehearsals, so you're probably wondering what the hell I'm doing here."

"Who can resist free food?"

Not bothering to laugh, Harvey locks eyes with Frank.

"I know you haven't exactly been Mr. Clean in the past. I've seen your act with the drug references and all that shit, and,
hey, Bones, let me tell you, I'm no puritan myself, okay? I'm not preaching here. Back in the day I did so much blow I had
to get my left nostril cauterized, all right? So I'm not coming at you all high and mighty, Mr. Network Heavy Guy, who's laying
some kind of morality thing on you because this is not about morality, Frank. Let me be very clear, okay? It's not about morality.
It's about money. Lynx has a lot of dough riding on this project. We think the show could be very successful, and with this
facockta
walrus, who knows? The sky's the limit! You see where I'm going with this?"

"Is it some kind of pep talk?"

"Sort of, but not exactly. What I'm asking, Frank, is for you to give me your word that you're gonna stay clean through this
process. Let's get the show on, let's get the good numbers, and when the whole thing is over, you can buy a house in Colombia
and snort up the whole fuckin' country for all I care, okay? When we're in syndication, you can take the city of Bogotá and
shove it up your fuckin' nose. But right now, you gotta be a good boy." Harvey stops and once again looks into Frank's eyes,
attempting to discern if any of this has registered. "Will you give me your word?"

"You really had your nostril cauterized?"

"It was very hush-hush. No one knew I had a problem except my second wife, who, God bless her, waited until I straightened
out before she divorced me. Can I have your word?"

"And you've been a good boy?"

"Sober almost sixteen years,
kineahora.
Frank, I want you to promise you won't screw me, okay, because I take this kind of thing personally. You come through for
me and I'll come through for you," Harvey says with the assurance of a man who can change the lives of others with the stroke
of a computer key. "You don't come through, you'll wake up with a horse's head in your bed." Here he laughs hollowly. "I'm
kidding!"

"I promise."

"Alright," Harvey growls, smiling like an alligator. Then he subtly brushes some of the flakes from his disintegrating forehead
off his shoulder and walks away.

Lloyd sits in his office, looking at his watch. It's almost six in the afternoon and he has spent the last few hours with
a legal pad on his lap making the characters who populate
Happy Endings
more likable, per the instructions he's been given. It is busywork in the truest sense since he knows no matter what he does,
the television audience is not going to embrace Bart Pimento as a transplanted New Yorker, operating a Las Vegas massage parlor
serving bons mots and hand jobs to the locals, for more than a few episodes, at which point the network will mercifully yank
the show, letting Lloyd off the hook. He gathers himself up, walks out of the office, and sees Tai Chi seated at her computer
desolately staring into space.

"How's the book coming?" Lloyd asks, schadenfreude leaking out of his ears.

"I'm completely stuck."

"Could you put these changes in?" he asks, handing her the legal pad. "Pam wants to see them tonight."

Tai Chi accepts the pages with a sigh and places them on her desk. "Lloyd, would you mind if I ask you a career question?"

Well,
he thinks,
I'm totally unqualified to answer one given my own has been a combination of luck and ass-kissing,
but he says, "Sure, go ahead."

"If the show gets picked up, do you think maybe I could write a script? I know it's presumptuous and everything but . . ."

"I thought you wanted to be a novelist."

"I read my book from beginning to end last night except for the last chapter, the one I haven't been able to write? And I
think I know why I've been stuck."

"Why?"

"Because it sucks big, fat moose cock."

"Really?" This is good news.

"I may not be cut out to write fiction."

"Not everyone is, Tai Chi."

"But I know I can write TV."

"Talk to me when the show gets picked up."

Lloyd leaves the office with a spring in his step, there being nothing like someone else's failure to buoy the secretly unconfident
disposition. While Lloyd may be enjoying Tai Chi's difficulties, he knows they are not enough. In fact, they are completely
irrelevant unless he can begin his own long-planned opus soon. If only he could arrive at a subject, something he can hold
to the light and render in prose that will ring, pop, fizz; coalesce into a shimmering, sparkling new music guaranteed to
render the author's previous forty-odd years a dim memory; a bog from which he will burst forth, born anew, and into the consciousness
of all who cherish the literary arts.

As he walks out of the building into the soft, chemical San Fernando Valley twilight, he remembers
Kirkuk
is due to start shooting in about half an hour. Were he to go over there now, he could probably find Frank in his dressing
room. Lloyd had felt guilty about not helping out when Frank came to him in his hour of need, concerned perhaps he was making
excuses and really only wanted to lord over Frank that he, Lloyd, was no longer beneath him on the tree; was holding his own
in the jungle very successfully; could say, simply, no. Lloyd understands there is some truth in this, but still a lingering
remorse tugs, compelling him, if not to apologize, then to show the flag on the set, letting Frank know he is concerned with
his welfare and wishes him all good things. Not concerned enough to actually do anything, but concerned nonetheless. Yet what
would that accomplish, going over there for a schmooze fest as if nothing has passed between them? Frank had all but pulled
a gun on him this morning. He hadn't pointed it at Lloyd exactly, but the effect had been the same. It was not an act that
boded well for future intercourse.

Perhaps Frank has spent the day brooding about the unsatisfying trajectory of his career. Maybe he was going through a lifelong
catalog of indignities that had culminated in his having to sign on to
Kirkuk
and the failure of one Lloyd Melnick to help him elevate the quality of the endeavor. He could shoot Lloyd in his surgically
reconstructed knee, Irish Republican Army—style, effectively ending Frank's own eccentric career, or he could put a bullet
right through Lloyd's envious heart, thereby ending both their careers. Neither possibility was good for Lloyd.

Frank is a live wire, no doubt about that; unpredictable, evanescent, and not a little dangerous.

Maybe I shouldn't go over there and wish him good luck. Maybe I should just wish him well from a distance.

Lloyd gets in his Saab, turns on the engine, and drives off the lot, leaving Frank to sink or swim without the Melnick imprimatur.

Later that evening,
Kirkuk
is committed to tape in front of a live audience thrilled to be in a television studio. Frank, effectively chastened by Harvey
Gornish, withstands the pull of the crack pipe and makes it through the evening without succumbing to its smoldering song.
Unleashed before a crowd of spectators hungering to be entertained, Honey blossoms in new and charming ways, a bright jonquil
peeking through a dusting of snow on a spring morning. The audience adores her sexy, vulnerable, slightly distracted take
on Borak and laughs merrily whenever she hits a punch line. Her new breasts, encased in a plunging fake-sealskin halter top
personally selected by Harvey Gornish, have the precise effect Honey had prayed for when she'd submitted herself to the artful
scalpel of Dr. Nasrut Singh. And the walrus performs with nary a malfunction. The crowd laughs with the rhythm of the script
and applauds heartily even when the APPLAUSE sign isn't flashing, so thrilled are they to be in the presence of television
actors. Robert, effusive in his praise to Frank, assures him the role of Kirkuk is going to add years to his professional
life.

Honey returns to her dressing room after the late-night party on the set where, as her new colleagues looked on, she listened
to toasts from Orson Dubinsky, Pam Penner, and Harvey Gornish, lauding her untapped talents as a comedienne and welcoming
her into the big tent of mainstream show business. It would have been pleasing if Frank had made a toast as well, but perhaps
that was too much to ask. Now she closes the door behind her, shrugs off the faux-wolverine coat, letting it drop to the floor,
and slumps in a chair in front of the mirror. Then she notices an envelope sitting on the counter in front of her. Curious,
she picks it up and opens it, removing a note.

Dear Wolverine Lady,

I hope your taping went well. When can I see yourfake fur again? Call me on my cell phone, 310-769-4329.

Yours, Bart

To say Honey feels a frisson run through her entire body would be understating the matter considerably, so thrilled is she
to be the recipient of this missive and the object of what it implies. A movie star, albeit one who hasn't had a hit lately,
is taking an interest in her at a time when she and Frank are in flux, their relationship reordering itself in the wake of
Kirkuk,
swaying, tilting, and settling in the manner of a house after an earthquake, looking the same on the surface but with an invisible
adjustment having occurred in the foundation.

If the show were to go, Honey could well become a star, the subject of magazine articles and puff pieces on television entertainment
shows, invited to premieres and awards extravaganzas as a person in her own right rather than as an accoutrement, a glittering
bauble on the arm of someone more successful. Certainly, Honey would owe her ascent to Frank, but once she had arrived in
the popular consciousness, her course would be irreversible since fame, like time, cannot be undone. Were the show to flatline,
she would return to her status as Frank's concubine, someone who couldn't navigate the tortured path to Parnassus. With her
future in abeyance, Honey reads the note again, smiling, then neatly folds it and gently places it in a side pocket of her
purse.

Frank is quiet on the ride home from the taping. He watches Honey out of the corner of his eye, sees her looking out the window
as they come over Laurel Canyon and head down Crescent Heights. Since the incident in Cleveland, Frank has enjoyed performing
less each passing year. Audiences would respond to drug jokes or dick jokes; anything slightly more esoteric flying directly
over their heads, and the process of making this mass of human Wheatena react has begun to alternately bore and enrage him,
depending on his energy level.

But tonight felt good. Not because of the material, obviously, although the material was excellent, or even because of the
laughs it generated. What was buoying him was something implied by the presence of cameras, network executives, and a bleacherful
of mall-walking tourists who had been given the opportunity to be present at the creation of what they were told could be
a piece of broadcast history—refuge. Insecurity was the coin of the realm in Frank's world, and if by some miracle
Kirkuk
actually worked, Frank could banish it to the furthest reaches of memory, a deposed tyrant never to be feared again. He had
resisted the idea of this show for all the reasons you have seen, but when he was actually on the set in front of the crowd,
saying the lines without his head exploding, he realized, yes, he could be an Eskimo on a television show, yes, he could show
up and do it again, and, yes, he could cash the checks they would send him again and again and again. As Frank made a right
onto Beverly Boulevard, he felt a level of comfort both surprising and palliative.

He could compromise.

Chapter 11

Lloyd awakens the next morning feeling more chipper than usual, probably because it only took one shot of NyQuil to get him
to sleep the previous evening. He looks at the bedside clock—6:37, somewhere in the neighborhood of half an hour before Dustin
would awaken and begin to recite his litany of post-toddler demands. Stacy is still sleeping, the copy of
Architectural Digest
she was reading last night resting on the bedspread. Today is moving day and Lloyd wants to get out of there quickly, but
as long as Stacy is not yet awake and giving orders, he knows he can relax for a few minutes.

Although Lloyd had been pleased to hear of Tai Chi's troubles with her book, his own inability to seize on a topic was beginning
to disturb him. He was aware of the pitfall of first-time novelists writing auto-biographically, how that was a ripe cliché,
and while forgivable in someone with no life experience, it would not be looked upon indulgently in a man of Lloyd's mileage.
But how, exactly, were those miles accrued? Down what colorful highways and byways had the Melnick caravan motored? On what
medians and exit ramps had the seeds for his nascent fictional universe been planted? Lloyd had a theory that while half the
world was recovering from unhappy childhoods, the other half was recovering from happy ones since, having been raised in functional
homes, they were less able to cope with the disappointments, betrayals, and regrets of the typical adult existence. Since
Lloyd claimed membership in the second group, that eliminated his prosaic childhood as a subject. He did have an aunt in Queens
who had been plagued by psychotic episodes and spent time in an institution, but Lloyd had no interest in writing about how
a Forest Hills housewife negotiated the descent from neurosis into psychosis and didn't want his cousins angry with him for
revealing family secrets about their mother.

His college years were the typical smorgasbord of movies, television, and attempted sex leavened with the occasional class
or term paper, all of which led to a degree of no particular distinction. His addiction to newsprint had delivered him to
the world of journalism, and although he had written pieces on subjects as diverse as television psychics, the scenery you
could see from the trains of the New York subway system, and fetish clubs, none of them called out to him as a subject for
a book he wanted to write. When he met his future wife, he found himself easing into the rhythms of a bourgeois relationship,
and feeling like a private in an army where Stacy held the rank of general, he knew he had no fresh insights in that area.

Almost twenty-five minutes pass before Lloyd realizes if he wants to leave before the movers get there, he'd better get going.
Rising from the bed as quietly as possible so as not to wake Stacy, he heads into the bathroom and silently brushes his teeth.
Padding back into the bedroom, he opens the top drawer of his dresser to pull out his clothes for the day. It's empty.
That's strange,
he thinks.
Maybe Stacy already did some packing.
Pulls open the next drawer. Empty. Then the next one. Same thing.

"Stacy, honey?" Lloyd says, trying not to let the strain show in his voice.

"Hmm?" Stacy roils over on her side and opens her eyes. "What?" Groggily.

"Where are my clothes?"

"I was going to tell you last night but I forgot," she says, the sleep working its way out of her voice.

"Going to tell me what?" Now the strain has arrived at the station.

"I took them all down to Goodwill and gave them away."

"All of my clothes?"

"Pretty much."

"You gave them away?"

"To the Goodwill. They're a charity. We get a tax deduction."

"I don't care if we get a tax deduction, Stacy!" Lloyd says, a vein in his forehead beginning to bulge. He's trying not to
scream. "How could you give my clothes away?"

"You weren't going to do it."

Lloyd stands there in his IDAHO shirt and sweatpants, both of which Stacy would have tossed out had Lloyd not had the unintentional
foresight to fold them neatly and tuck them under his pillow where she didn't think to look, glaring at her with the stupefied
yet impotent rage familiar to all men who know that beating their wife is not a viable option.

"I bought you some stuff to wear today. It's hanging in the closet," she informs him as she throws off the covers and gets
out of bed, heading to the bathroom, where she closes the door behind her in a way intended to bring the exchange to an end.
But Lloyd's not done. After fuming alone in the room for a moment, he pounds on the bathroom door.

"What?" Muffled, from within.

"Open the door!"

Stacy dutifully complies, and as the door swings open, Lloyd sees her energetically brushing her teeth.

"How the fuck could you throw out my clothes?" Lloyd rarely uses profanity with Stacy and her shock seems genuine.

"Let's talk about this tonight," she says, rinsing. "The movers are going to be here any minute. And watch your language,
Mr. Salty Sailor. Dustin could walk in."

Without saying another word, Lloyd turns around and goes into his closet, where he sees a new pair of Banana Republic khakis
and a Polo golf shirt. He angrily pulls them on and walks out of the room while Stacy is still performing her morning ablutions.
In the hallway outside the bedroom he passes the sleepy Dustin, who is on his way to his parents' room.

"I want breakfast," he announces, a miniature advertisement for mandatory charm school.

"Mommy's going to fix your breakfast today, pal. Go ask her," Lloyd tells his son as he walks down the stairs. "And check
your drawers. Make sure she didn't throw out all your favorite clothes."

Less than thirty seconds later, Lloyd is in the car and out of the driveway. It's not even 7:20 and he is almost trembling
with rage. Doing some breathing exercises he remembers from a Lamaze class, he manages to de-intensify the internal burner
to the point where he no longer feels like letting loose an earsplitting shriek. Having accomplished that, he briefly thinks
about checking into a hotel, before realizing he hasn't bothered to pack any clothes. Then he remembers he has no clothes
to pack since the ones he had are now at Goodwill, and unbridled rage consumes him once again. His anger continues to ebb
and flow as he drives to Farmer's Market to have breakfast. He knows eggs, coffee, and the
Los Angeles Times
sports section will be a balm to his tortured soul.

Lloyd is seated in a booth in DuPar's a little later dipping a piece of rye bread in an egg yolk and considering his options.
Clearly, what Stacy has done is beyond the pale. Yes, she's a runaway train, as evidenced by the house they are about to occupy,
a move she has engineered against Lloyd's feeble protestations. Like the stock market, his wife was not something he was going
to control. That much was clear. But until now, she has let Lloyd be Lloyd. Apparently, that approach is no longer operative.

Stacy wants to sculpt him, mold the clay of Melnick into something more to her liking. Lloyd had noticed that same quality
in many of his friends' wives, but none has taken it so far as giving their husband's entire wardrobe away to Goodwill. He
wonders if he can live with her under these circumstances. Was he willing to face a divorce? Certainly, he can afford one
at this point. Write a big check, give the Brentwood château to her (after never even having lived in it!), and that would
be that. Yes, she would get custody of Dustin, but Lloyd could see the boy on Wednesdays and alternate weekends, which wouldn't
be much of a hardship since he hadn't noticed they had much in common at this point anyway.

That left dating. Did Lloyd want to be out there as a guy in his forties with a little paunch and a receding hairline in a
world full of younger women whose beau ideal was not Melnickian? The fatness of his wallet with its excrescence of cash and
the myriad life choices it made possible would certainly smooth his way in that area, but the prospect was nonetheless unsettling.
Lloyd in a bar? Lloyd in a club? Lloyd holding a bottle of beer in a sweaty hand as he attempts to chat up a woman who wasn't
born when the Beatles broke up? It was not a happy image, but at least it didn't include Stacy.

Lloyd is turning this over in his mind as he drives from Farmer's Market over Laurel Canyon and down into the Valley toward
his office. He realizes he has never ascertained the status of Tai Chi's personal life. He hadn't noticed a ring, other than
the one in her nose. Was there a Mr. Tai Chi? If there was, she was certainly discreet about it. He makes a mental note to
subtly determine where and with whom she slept.
Oh, yes,
he thinks, walking past her empty desk since, even with his breakfast stop, he was getting in early,
this new life could be a good life.

Glancing at his watch, Lloyd sees it's only 9:37. The day's rehearsal doesn't begin until one o'clock so he plans to spend
the morning alternately tinkering with the script and trolling his memory bank for something that will inspire him to put
pen to paper other than the gentle curve of Tai Chi's bottom in the miniskirt she was wearing yesterday.

Walking into his office, Lloyd is greeted by the sight of a young man seated on his couch with skin so shiny Lloyd suspects
he could see himself in the man's cheeks, which, upon closer examination, reveal a restrained use of blush. He has dyed-blond
hair, cut in the mod style popular in England circa 1964, and wears a tightly fitting pale green suit with an open-collared
mauve shirt and little black boots. The legs are crossed thigh over knee and the torso leans forward in happy anticipation.
The general effect is one of fabulousness.

"Lloyd Melnick?" The voice is breathy, a little high.

"Yeah?"

"I'm your personal shopper!" He says this with a brio you would associate with an announcement like "You're our one millionth
customer" or "You've just won the lottery," something to be prefaced by "Congratulations!" Lloyd's mouth must have dropped
open because a moment later the man says, "Don't worry. We'll have fun! My name's `

"I don't need a personal shopper," Lloyd assures him with understandable pique, given recent events.

"That isn't what Stacy said," the personal shopper tells him, invoking Stacy's name in a way that suggests to Lloyd she confided
in this guy in a wholly inappropriate way. And how did he get on the lot? Stacy and Tai Chi must be in cahoots again. Lloyd
resolves to fire his conniving assistant this afternoon, never mind that it will end all possibility of his ever seeing her
naked.

"Look, my wife threw out all my clothes yesterday without asking me so I'm not inclined to get involved in anything she set
up right now, okay? Don't take it personally." Lloyd sits down at his desk and pretends to busy himself while he waits for
Kevin to leave. Two minutes later, Kevin is still standing there.

"I can wait," the shiny-faced personal shopper says.

"Kevin, really, no offense, but I'm not going shopping with a guy."

"Too gay?" Kevin asks campily.

"Something like that."

"I've already been paid."

"Then have a party," Lloyd says with finality, going back to trying to appear occupied.

After several more minutes of this to and fro, during which Kevin earns Lloyd's trust by laughingly referring to Stacy as
a "controlling bitch," it is decided that since Lloyd's clothes are probably on their way to some place like Burundi by now
and he must eventually buy replacements, the two of them will spend the morning trying to rebuild the wardrobe Stacy so heartlessly
discarded. Lloyd further concludes that because he may be dating in the near future, perhaps a subtle refurbishing of the
exterior with an eye toward attracting the young and the willing wouldn't be a bad thing.

So this odd pairing gets in Lloyd's car and drives back over the hill to Melrose Avenue, where an effort will be made to render
Lloyd's presentation more contemporary. But after half an hour of Lloyd telling Kevin every item he's suggesting will make
him feel like a male version of Cher, the personal shopper throws his hands up and capitulates. The two of them spend the
next couple of hours and several thousand dollars walking up and down Melrose, assembling the equivalent of Lloyd's former
wardrobe, only in far more expensive fabrics. Freshly, if selfconsciously, togged, he returns to his office with shopping
bags full of silk T-shirts and baggy linen pants, comforted by the knowledge that after this stuff is given a few cycles through
the washing machine he'll look his old shabby self.

At one o'clock he heads to the stage, where he spends the remainder of the day alternately watching Andy Stanley (who Lloyd
now realizes buys his clothes in many of the same places he himself was shopping this morning) put the cast through their
paces and brooding over the best course of action to take regarding his duplicitous wife. Now that he has replenished his
wardrobe, a supply trip to Rite Aid will render him hotel-ready should he decide to make that statement, the one saying, "Stacy,
you may have done some things to piss me off in the past, but this time you crossed the line."

After Andy tells the adequate cast they've been brilliant and he'll see them in the morning, he and Lloyd confer for a few
moments going over whether Lloyd's changes have sufficiently addressed the likability issue. Andy informs Lloyd he finds everyone
satisfactorily likable now, and so work for the day is declared done.

"By the way," Andy says as they're walking out of the studio, "I like what you're wearing."

Lloyd gets in his Saab and wheels off the lot without a specific plan. He could go to the Château Marmont and watch the Eurotrash
drift in and out, or he could head to the Four Seasons and hang out by the pool gazing at the out-of-town actresses visiting
Los Angeles to promote their projects. Or he could drive to the desert and get a bungalow at La Quinta, maybe play a little
tennis under the desert sky. Anything to make Stacy feel a fraction of the powerlessness he suffered upon realizing the contents
of his drawers and closet had been preemptively retired.