Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (36 page)

“Yes, sir. In the greenroom, sir. Awaiting your presence, sir!”

Thor said.

“Very well. That’ll be all, soldier,” J.T. said. Thor’s face dropped and she looked at the dead squirrel.

“It was a . . . bad joke. I’m sorry.”

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They headed back to the stage, but along the way, J.T. and

Ash maneuvered out of Thor’s wing-tip turbulence and quickly

headed for the cleaner air of the greenroom, where the cast awaited J.T.’s arrival.

J.T. opened the door to the greenroom and witnessed all of the

regular cast members, the Buddies in
I Love My Urban Buddies,
raising their hands as if in some kind of vote. Devon was leading the poll.

Janice turned and saw J.T., who nearly fell to his knees.

“Janice—your hair—it’s no longer . . . blonde. You’re a bru-

nette.”

“So? I was hired for my talent, not my looks.”

“Janice? Did you clear this with . . . the studio? The network?

The Pooleys?”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you play the sexy
blonde
in the show,” J.T.

said.

“I think that if anyone has a problem with what I’ve done, then I will call the Screen Actors Guild and complain of discrimination.

Maybe even sexual harassment,” Janice said.

“Sexual harassment? Who sexually harassed you?”

“Marcus,” Janice said.

“I thought you were sleeping with Marcus,” Rocky said.

“I wouldn’t fuck Marcus Pooley with somebody else’s dick,”

Betty ding-donged in.

“Oh fuck!” Devon howled, falling to the floor in hysterics.

“That was
sooo
righteous.”

“Fuck you,” Janice said as she slapped playfully at Devon, who

was still rolling around on the floor.

Helena rose. Suddenly the other actors were quiet. She had an

extremely powerful presence. “Can we get on with this?”

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When no one responded, Helena walked past J.T. without

looking at him and left the room.

J.T. ignored Helena’s exit. “Janice. This is none of my business and I’m nothing more than a guest director, but if we had hired you . . . let’s say it was me . . . let’s say I hired you as an actor because of something that I had in my mind, and one of those things was blonde hair. Wouldn’t you have to agree that being an actor, a skilled, trained professional, that if I didn’t think you could interpret the part as well with brown hair, I might ask you to wear a blonde wig? Do you understand what I’m getting at? Your hair?

Your wardrobe? Your shoes? You are an actor? You embody a char-

acter? Or do you simply love making trouble?”

“That’s not fair, J.T. I like my new hair.”

“So do I,” Devon Driver said from the floor (making sure the

words began in his diaphragm).

“Fuck the hair!” Rocky yelled at his compatriots, then took

a swig of liquid Vicodin. Then chewed a handful of Oxycontin.

“Fuck! Let’s get it on!”

The five cast members still in the room agreed, and converged

on J.T. like killer bees beginning to swarm around an unsuspecting picnicker.

“We all have something to say to you, J.T.,” Betty said. Then she looked around for help.

“You know that speech you gave us on the first day of rehearsal?”

Janice asked J.T.

“You mean, way back on . . . Tuesday? Two whole days ago? Ba-

sically, the last time I saw any of you, except for Kirk?”

Kirk gave J.T. the thumbs-up.
What the hell does that mean?

J.T. thought.

Rocky now looked insanely furious and ready to kill—literally

psychotic. Rocky had a checkered past, all obsessively recorded in the media. He had a history of coming in and out of rehab facilities so often that there were jokes about his using the Betty Ford Clinic 2 6 0

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as his mailing address. Rocky had all the symptoms of what J.T.

called
Post-Depart-em Depression
. The illness always flared up after a celebrity
departed
from a high-profile show. It was triggered by being in the public spotlight on a daily basis (and loving it; yet saying you
despised
it!) and

then suddenly becoming

yesterday’s news. Once the

The Hollywood Dictionary

magazines, the talk shows,

POST-DEPART-EM DEPRESSION:

and the tabloids stopped

(1) See security footage at Hol-

giving the celebrity public-

lywood 7-Elevens. (2) Read the

ity, the celebrity would go

tabloids. On any day. (3) Or

through a horrible bout of

don’t. Please . . .

depression, longing for the

attention they used to at-

tract, then do whatever it took to get back in the spotlight and keep the publicity machine rolling: doing drugs, getting a DUI, holding up a 7-Eleven, shoplifting, becoming hunger-striker an-orexic, even attempting suicide.

“Look, motherfucker,” Rocky Brook said, his body trembling

like a junkie’s, “we don’t like to be told
what to do
. Get it? We know our characters. We know how they think. We know how they move.

We don’t need some has-been director coming in here telling us,

‘Move here,’ or ‘This is funny if you try this’—we don’t
need
you, man! We don’t want you here! We’ll sit on the fucking couches and we’ll move when the fuck we want to move! Do you get that? Do I have to spell it out to you?!” Rocky was now out of control—even for a drug addict. He began to punch things like an amateur boxer; taking wild roundhouse swings at empty soda cans, small lamps—

things that wouldn’t hurt.

Kirk stepped in front of Rocky. “Whoa, man,” he said. “This

guy is on our side. He goes to bat for the actors, man. Be cool.”

The cast went quiet.
Wow,
J.T. thought
. That was really nice.

How do I say thank you?
J.T. was thinking out loud, yet again.

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“You don’t have to say thank you, J.T.,” Kirk said softly. “You’ve really saved my butt. I should be saying thank you to you.”

If only there’d been time for J.T. to make something of this

momentous change of pace.

A small knock came from the door, followed by Thor sticking

her cropped-blonde head into the greenroom.

“Excuse me, sir, but we’re back from lunch and—”

“Well,
we’re
not back from fucking lunch, okay?!” Rocky shouted, and threw a magazine at the door.

Thor closed the door to protect herself, then reopened it

slightly to give J.T. one last bit of information. “And sir,” she tried to speak as quickly as she could, “Helena has gone home. She said she was emotionally distraught.”

“‘Emotionally distraught’?!” J.T. finally lost his temper.

“Sir—I’m just the messenger. Please don’t kill me,” Thor said,

looking oddly defenseless. The insanity of it all was starting to overwhelm J.T.

“Sir,” she said, “and this isn’t for ‘publication,’ but her girlfriend is moving out. She went home, crying hysterically, trying to stop her. I mean—I wasn’t trying to stop her, sir. She was going home, trying to stop her girlfriend. From moving out. Sir. Just wanted you to know, sir,” Thor said.

“Thank you, Thor. Now I know.”

“We’ll all be waiting out here for you and the cast to get

started. We’re slightly behind, you know—”

Thor was cut off as J.T. lost control. “‘Slightly behind’?! We

shoot this fucking show tomorrow and we have a page-one rewrite which I’m sure no one in this room has read and you’re telling me we’re slightly behind? We’re fucking
four days
behind!”

“Just the messenger, sir,” Thor said, and closed the door.

J.T. turned around and looked at the cast of
I Love My Urban
Buddies
. He looked at each of their faces. He tried to decipher any hint of normalcy; humanity; benevolence. He couldn’t find any

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emotion or personality trait that he recognized, except on Kirk’s face.

“J.T.,” Janice spoke up, “we all took a vote and we’ve decided

not to come out to rehearsal until the network renegotiates our contract.” And all of the other Buddies nodded and made gestures or noises of approval.

“Um,” J.T. was trying to formulate a sentence, “don’t you think that’s a little premature? This is only your second year . . .” J.T. was lost. Again.

“It wasn’t
a little premature
for Kirk!” Rocky said with resentment.

“Fuckin’ A,” Devon added.

“Take a look at this!” Janice said as she thrust a
TV Guide
into J.T.’s face.

The cast of
I Love My Urban Buddies
was on the cover. Smiling.

The caption: “The Only Hit in a Dismal Season. Again.”

“It’s a fucking advanced copy! Only our second season but our

third
TV Guide
cover!” Rocky Brook said, still shaking. He found his backpack and took out a brand-new bottle of liquid Vicodin, didn’t even bother to turn his back, and chugged.

“We’re household names. See our faces? Why should everyone

make money off of our faces and we get left behind in the dirt?”

Betty asked indignantly.

“Betty,” J.T. began, “how much do you make a week?”

There was silence. Everyone was afraid to tell anyone else what they made, even though in theory they were all supposed to be making the same—what they call

“Favored Nations” in Holly-

wood.

The Hollywood Dictionary

“Do you make forty,

FAVORED NATIONS:
“I get what

fifty grand a week?” J.T.

you get—only a lot more, but

asked.

don’t tell.”

“What does that matter?

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We’re still all underpaid,” Devon Driver finally got off the floor and protested.

“You are underpaid?” J.T. asked with a straight face. “I see. By whose standards? I mean I have neighbors who don’t make in a

year what you guys make in a week. And you don’t even work all

week. You put in a few hours of rehearsal and go to Las Vegas and return whenever the fuck you want and with whatever hair color

you wish and then you hold everyone hostage because
TV Guide
puts your faces on the cover? Does anyone see the insanity in all of this? Am I the only one?”

The Buddies erupted in protest, giving their reasons why they

were underpaid and underappreciated. J.T. zoned out. He looked

at them, stared at them, but all he could do was think about the remarkable pros he had worked with over his forty-year career, and he couldn’t help but wonder what they might think of this ridiculous mutiny.

George Burns. What a man,
J.T. thought.
What a work ethic.

This would’ve killed him if he hadn’t already been dead
. J.T. kept thinking.
Paul Newman. Joanne Woodward. Hal Holbrook. Ossie
Davis. Why is Ossie Davis dead? Mel Gibson. Why can’t he be dead?

A stream of names flooded J.T.’s consciousness: people he was so proud to have worked with, directed, been directed by, shared the stage with. And what would all the young actors J.T. had worked with—how would they feel as spectators of this greed-fest? All

of them, like . . . well, like . . . J.T.’s sentimental journey into righteousness came to a quick end. He could only think of the old

pros. Not a single name of an actor under the age of fifty came to mind.
Rod Steiger—dead. Why?! Okay—how ’bout Morgan Free-man, Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds, Danny Glover, Maximilian

Schell.
J.T. started to feel the aches and pains of being old and sitting in an awkward position, pretending to listen
. Jack Lemmon
is dead,
he thought.
Crap! How come he’s dead and these
Buddies
aren’t? Crap, crap, crap!

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“Crap? You think it’s crap?” Rocky, now slightly subdued by

his Vicodin and not so rocky, finally got J.T.’s attention. “So that’s why we’re striking. We’re household names and we want our due.

We want the money that should be coming to us. We want what is

fair
! We want it now; we’ve got ’em over a barrel!” He started getting woozy, and had to sit himself down.

“We want, we want, we want—” J.T. said, then stopped. He

looked at these young brats and knew they were holding all of the cards . . . at this particular moment. There was nothing J.T. could do except go to the Pooleys and explain why they weren’t working today.
Maybe, just maybe, by tomorrow everyone will get what they
want and what is owed to them and they can actually put in an honest day’s work,
he thought.

J.T. got up and left the room. Just before he closed the door

behind him, he heard Devon Driver say, “See? I told you it would work!” J.T. opened the door again, stuck his head inside the greenroom, and smiled. “You’re a punk,” he told Devon. “I feel for you. I feel for all of you.” Then he closed the door and walked away.

J.T. didn’t really know where to go first. He had to tell the

Pooleys but he also had to make sure that his crew wasn’t dis-

missed and paid for only half a day, so he headed onto the floor of the set. Everyone was staring at him. Some just shook their heads.

“What?” J.T. asked. “Did I miss something?”

Larry, from Sound, walked over to J.T. and patted him on the

back. Doc came up to J.T. and hugged him. J.T. had no idea what was going on.

“We heard everything,” Larry finally said.

“What do you mean, you heard everything?” J.T. asked.

“Well,” Larry said with a shit-eating grin, “I put a wireless mic on Kirk this morning when we were all waiting around. I wanted