Wag the Dog (17 page)

³¹
On September 2, 1944, George Bush's plane was hit by antiaircraft fire while making a bombing run over Chichi Jima, about 150 miles north of the better-known Iwo Jima. Pilots made every effort to ditch at sea. Japanese POW camps were reputed to be terrible places. The one on Chichi Jima was run by a Major Matoba. After the war he was reported to have cut up prisoners and fed the pieces to other prisoners. With his plane on fire, Bush managed to get out over water, where he jumped. He landed in the ocean without major injury. He found his life raft—though without water or paddles. He was rescued several hours later by submarine.

³²
According to U.S. Army records, Hartman, a draftee, served one year in the Army, not the Marines. He never rose above private. He did receive a medical discharge. However, his previous boss, Allen Ross, had been a Marine pilot in Korea. Ross spoke of it often, and had a collection of military aviation books and memorabilia in the office. The story Hartman tells here, while similar to the president's, is virtually identical to Allen Ross's.

³³
The use of Halcion is controversial. Many, like the president's doctor, consider it totally safe.

Benjamin J. Stein, identified as a lawyer, writer, actor, and ex-speechwriter for President Nixon, said this in an op-ed piece in the
New York Times,
1/22/92: “. . . Halcion is the most terrifying drug I have ever used and its effects are incalculably more frightening when they are at work on the president. I have been taking prescription tranquilizers since 1966. I have used almost every kind imaginable . . . but Halcion . . . is in a class by itself for mind-altering side effects. It is not just a classic sedative which basically just slows things down. No, benzodiazepenes are described by Halcion's maker, the Upjohn Company, as ‘anxiolytics,' meaning they cut the anxiety in your brain.

“When Halcion hits you, it's as if an angel of the Lord appears in your bedroom and tells you that nothing is important, that what you were worried about is happening on Mars and that Nirvana, Lethe, and the warm arms of mother are all waiting for you.”

T
HE EVENT OF
the season is the bar mitzvah of David Hartman, Jr.,
³⁴
son of David Hartman, head of RepCo, the most powerful, most ruthless, most important agent in Hollywood. A select list of 250 are invited. Twenty of them are friends of the thirteen-year-old boy. The rest are people in the industry. It is
the
most sought-after invitation, it defines who is who, it is the ultimate A-list.

The cost of the catering, as released to the press, is substantially over $100,000. The cost of the party is hard to calculate. Entertainment is supposed to include performances by Michael Jackson and Bobby and several people I have never heard of. These people will not charge for their services and may, or may not, provide their backup musicians, roadies, mixers, special-effects personnel, light-and-laser shows as part of their homage.

One of the themes of the party—at least for the kids—is Ninja. There is some talk that this is tastelessly self-serving. Hartman is a student of kendo, the Japanese art of sword fighting. His sensei, or teacher, is a Japanese swordsman named Sakuro Juzo. It is common gossip that Hartman's devotion to kendo is part of his rivalry with Michael Ovitz. Ovitz is devoted
to aikido, a martial art invented in the forties, also in Japan. Hartman whenever he discusses martial arts, points out that kendo, the way of the sword, contains the real teachings of Bushido, the way of the samurai, and that all the movements of aikido are actually based on—that is, derivative of—movements developed for the sword.

Hartman is the prime mover behind a movie called
American Ninja,
which stars Sakuro Juzo as a Japanese Ninja master with a group of youthful American disciples who engage in virtually supernatural acts of derring-do in the service of truth, justice, and the American way. Hartman personally pitched it to David Geffen, describing it as
Batman
combined with
The Mod Squad
for the nineties, containing the spiritual and competitive values we should learn from the East.

Again, this is partly ascribed to his rivalry with Mike Ovitz,
³⁵
who is credited with making a movie star out of his sensei, aikido instructor Steven Seagal.

Japan bashers and paranoids have accused Hartman of having more sinister motives than competition with a rival agent. That he is actually in the service of Japanese masters, who desire to create a new mythology, an illusion of Japanese-American cooperation but with a Japanese as the sensei of the Americans, now become the students. To the Japanese, in whose culture all relationships are hierarchical, this is a powerful statement indeed. Hartman's motives are, of course, described as financial. This film and his sponsorship of Sakuro Juzo will establish him as a friend of the Japanese and they will therefore use him as point man,
advisor, and deal broker as they buy up America, a position so lucrative it makes mere movie packaging look like spit.

Sakuro and his top students, several of whom have been flown over from Japan, will give a kendo demonstration. All the stuntmen from the film will be present. There will be lessons for children of all ages in how to become invisible, how to infiltrate Oriental castles, how to kill in complete silence, and other things that thrill thirteen-year-old boys.

Food will be both American and Japanese. Sushi chefs have been flown over from Japan. They specialize in serving live sushi, currently the hottest food trend in Tokyo. Included on the menu is puffer fish, also flown over, live, a fish which if not correctly prepared will cause paralysis and death. Serving it in America is illegal.

The party will be filmed in 35-mm, utilizing seven cameras. Marty Scorsese will direct. Vilmos Zsigmond will be the director of photography. This is both serious and something of an in-joke since Hartman's first media experience is reported to have been producing bar mitzvah movies.

It is the first time Maggie is going to meet with Hartman since they had the lunch she told me about. It is also a major see-and-be-seen event, to which Maggie responds competitively. The preparation process takes several days. Selecting her clothes.
Getting them tailored and retailored. Changing her mind. Getting extra exercise to firm up and slim down the already perfect form. Getting extra sleep to look radiant and rested.

She gets the guest list and goes through it name by name. Then she starts working the phones. She double-checks who is still married, who is freshly divorced, who she can ask about their children and whose children are best not referred to. There are a few names she doesn't know, mostly Japanese from Sony, Matsushita, and Musashi corporations. She finds out about them. Whether they're from Osaka or Tokyo or the country, if they have wives and children with them or left them behind, if they play golf or tennis. She has a terrific memory, but she jots the information down on file cards nonetheless.

With this much activity I am pushed further into the background. I am not even driving her to the party. Limousine service is being provided by the major studios. The party is to begin in the early evening.

I could take the night off as Mrs. Mulligan has done and go somewhere on my own. Part of me wants to go find some whore that looks vaguely like Maggie, the same color hair, cut the same way might be enough, or a torso about the same shape and size.

But I don't. I stay home. I crack open a bottle of bourbon. I sit down and read the copy of Sun Tzu that Kim gave me.

Actually, I have been reading
The Art of War
since Preston Griffith gave me a copy in Saigon in '70. Griff was CIA and an opium smoker. He said that he had had many people killed. Reading Sun Tzu brought him great despair. But he said for someone like me it would bring strength.

It was written sometime between 480 and 221 B.C. It's very Oriental, and the first time you try to read it, it's like trying to get serious about a fortune cookie. “Nature is the dark or light, the cold or hot, and the Systems of time.” Or “Those who are certain to capture what is attacked, attack locations that are not defended.” On top of that, every translation you read is different. So you wonder what he really said. If he said anything.

But we were in Nam. Where we had the firepower, the logistics, the organization, and the money. On paper we even
had the manpower. And we were losing—to General Giap, who read Sun Tzu. And we lost China to Mao Tse-tung, who read Sun Tzu. We got our butt kicked, at least for a while, in Korea, by other generals who read Sun Tzu.

So even if he sounds like Ding Bat Woo, I have to understand that the problem is in my listening, not in his speaking. After I became a sergeant and got my own squad, I began to use what he said as well as I could. It worked. It helped me to save my people and to kill the enemy. When we had a captain who insisted on violating the principles of Sun Tzu, we had great trouble and many of us died.

At first I don't like this translation. In fact, I resent it. Sun Tzu wrote about war. Real war. This book changes
War
to
Strategy
and calls itself the “World's Most Widely Read Manual of Skillful Negotiations and Lasting Influence.” It is aimed at those business people who would like to think that business competition is war, that lawyers and accountants and agents are soldiers in the field, that money is blood, that a neurotic tic is the equivalent of life in a chair in a VA hospital, needing someone to wipe your ass and change the urine tube coming out of your dick. But if I refuse to hear what is said because I am prejudiced, then I am as blind as the men who lead us in Vietnam. So I try to listen as one who is ignorant to one who is wise.

The sentence to which Kim pointed is,
The strategy of positioning evades Reality and confronts through Illusion.
It is in chapter 6, which is called, in this translation, “Illusions and Reality (Using Camouflage).” The standard translation is “Weakness and Strength.” The translator's commentary says, “The idea of creating illusions to obscure reality is a specific tactical maneuver designed to keep the opponent at a constant disadvantage.”

It is a very empty house without Maggie there.

I try to stay sober and come close to succeeding. I go into the screening room and watch Maggie's films on videotape. The bottle comes with me. At some point I doze off. I awaken around 3:00
A.M.
I have to piss and my mouth tastes like death. The house is still empty.

Shortly thereafter a car pulls in. Not the limo. It's Maggie
come home. With a ride or with someone. It's not my place to be waiting up and watching for her. To appear to do so would be—bad strategy. I go upstairs to my room. I leave the door open so I can hear, go across the room and look out the window to see the car they've arrived in. It's a white Ferrari 348 with the top down.

I hear the door. I hear the footsteps. Then the laughter floats up to my room. She sounds high. I can't help but go to the bedroom door and look down. She is somewhat disheveled. I'm like an aged and jealous husband looking at a young and lively wife. Her nipples are distended. Erect and popping out. Is that from the cool air and the ride in the open car? Or is it the man she's with: Jack Cushing, who plays young pilots and soldiers and gunslingers and spends a lot of screen time with his shirt off. His muscles have lots of definition. In his own way, I suppose, he's as good-looking as she is. His eyes are famously blue and Fredo does his hair too.

They're talking about who said what and who did what and reliving the party. But the subtext is what it always is. He wants her and she's not sure. He wants it as soon as possible. She wants to drag out every measure of admiration and ego fulfillment that she can get before she commits. Apparently, Hollywood gossip has not taken Maggie off the A-list. At the party the famous actress-turned-director came on to her so strong that her current girlfriend stalked out of the party early. Someone, I didn't hear who, told Maggie—in front of Melanie Griffith—that she had the most beautiful figure in films. Melanie was furious and shook her tits at whoever it was who spoke. Maggie, telling the story, does a deadly imitation of Melanie.

“Are those really real?” Jack says.

“You bet,” Maggie says. “A hundred percent homegrown organic, no preservatives added.”

“I don't believe you. They're too good. Let me do the touch test,” he says. “You know, these are infallible fingers. They can always tell.”