The Bones (12 page)

"Okay . . . and . . ." This is Pam. Encouraging, but let's-get-on-with-it.

"My life and high times, and by the way, I think I smell a title." Saying it again:
"My Life and High Times.
I like it." Frank turns to his minder. "Bobby?"

"It's good," Robert reflexively replies. He may be a mogulossus, a giant in the industry if not in physical stature, but in
this situation he's Charlie McCarthy to Frank's Edgar Bergen, or Lester to Frank's Willie Tyler, depending on your frame of
reference or race.

"So I play me, you know . . . if Ralph Fiennes isn't available." The self-deprecation always works. Frank hesitates to use
it since in his case it's so transparently inauthentic, but he has work to do here so the trick is dutifully hauled out of
the bag.

"Do you have a job? In the show, I mean."

What fool whose name is not Pam Penner has had the impudence to ask a question? Could it be Jason, the padless underling?

Frank shoots Jason a look that could fry a duck at fifty paces, but realizing he's not in a club and can't eviscerate this
wearer of pretend Prada and feed him to the guppy family silently swimming in the bowl on Pam's desk, he quickly covers it
with a smile. Jason, however, does not miss the withering beam shone on him and silently, if impotently, vows to do what he
can to sabotage Frank.

"I'm the Bones, babe.
That's
my job."

"So you're a comedian?" Jason innocently asks, leaning forward. Robert looks over at him, dreading what the young fashion
victim is about to say. "Didn't Charlie Fleishman already do that show?" At the invoking of Charlie Fleishman's name, Frank
looks toward Jason like a falcon eyeing a small rodent. Robert readies himself to pull Frank off the kid, but Frank has it
under control.

"He didn't do this show because he isn't me, okay, babe? Now just listen. I'll tell you when I want to do a double act." Equally
chastened and resentful, Jason eases back into his chair. Frank turns back to Pam. "So, I'm me, okay?"

"That could work, but who else is in it?" Pam keeping things on track.

"I'm just out of rehab where the court remanded me after I had a few pops one day and hit a nine iron—"

"You're a golfer?" Jason asks. Robert wishes he would dematerialize, having no idea how long Frank can keep from murdering
him.

"Into a guy's windshield," Frank clarifies. "After a fender bender. The judge gives me a choice, you know, rehab or jail.
So I play cards for twenty-eight days at some Lazy Acres Burnout Clinic—this is just backstory, by the way, we don't see me
in rehab, been there,
boring!
—then I move back into my house and my manager moves in with me, you know, like a zookeeper. And by the way, it's a fictional
one, not Robert."

"I don't get to act?" This from Robert, unable to resist an opportunity to not be amusing.

"Your job's to count the money, babe."

"I think he'd develop repetitive stress syndrome," Pam Penner weighs in, everyone a comedian, and Robert's chuckle is drowned
out by Jason's obsequious braying.

Frank continues, not wanting to fall under his train of thought. "But I'm sick of comedy; I am not a happy woman in the comedy
business so I start a band because I fuckin' rock. Did I mention that to you kids?"

This last fillip being rhetorical.

"I
was
a comic but now I'm rockin'. My band needs original music because the Bones can't be in a cover band, I mean, what am I gonna
play, weddings? Like I'm gonna stand up there and sing 'Celebrate' while some fat chick cuts the cake?" Frank is steamroiling
now, paying no attention to the possibility that the plump Penner might take exception to the fat-chick/cake allusion. "So
I have to write songs. And the show,
My Life and High Times,
Tuesdays at nine on the Lynx Network, is about how I get the material that becomes the songs. I go to the store; I get a song.
I buy some shoes; I get a song. I go on a date—"

"You get a song." Jason again. Frank is starting to wonder if he is baiting him.

"I saw you with that band a few years ago." Pam tells him this in a way that suggests she liked it.

"Killer Bones." Frank name-checking his tenuous place in rock 'n' roll history.

"I loved the Dylan-at-the-dentist bit."

"I was actually at a dinner party with someone who was dating Dylan's dentist," Robert says, contributing again. Frank wishes
he'd shut the hell up so they could get out of there. "You would have thought he was famous, you know, the dentist! This woman
was acting like she was dating a famous person."

"I did that bit for Dylan one night and he nearly swallowed his harmonica," Frank relates, easing Robert back out of the spotlight
and letting the people in the room know exactly who it is he is able to hang out with. "He'd do the show if I asked him."

"What show?" The annoying Jason again.

"The one I'm pitching, babe." Trying not to stab this kid with a pen.

Pam, ever the conscientious sheepdog, keeps the herd from roaming too far afield. "So you play yourself but you're a musician,
and the show's about where you get your material?"

"Basically." Frank's done.

"It's good," Pam assures them, without a great deal of enthusiasm. Clearly, she will not be buying it in the room.

"There are three places on your schedule it could work," Robert says, trying to connect the dots so a picture resembling a
deal can be discerned.

"Frank, did you ever read the
Kirkuk
script?" Pam says. "We think Orson Dubinsky did a really good job and he's out of his mind, which I think you would relate
to." Orson Dubinsky was the creative force behind
Kirkuk
and his whole antic arctic world, its writer/producer/ auteur. No one was confusing him with Phil Sheldon, although the Lynx
people were hoping his semicoherent effusions masked actual talent.

"With all due respect, I can't work with a talking walrus."

"Because . . .?" If Jason says one more word, Frank is going to render him a stain on the fabric. Robert sees he'd better
earn his fee and rushes to Jason's rescue.

"Because Frank feels his persona is better suited to other things."

"Like
My Life and High Times."
Frank reminding them.

"Okay. Good to know," Pam says as she pushes herself out of her chair and stands, indicating the supplicants are free to leave.
Jason and Jessica Puck rise as one.

"Is it really the walrus?" Jason asks again, incredulous.

"Harvey likes the Walrus," Pam explains. "He thinks the merchandising potential is through the roof."

"Frank and a walrus, personally, I'm not seeing it," Robert explains, denying Frank the opportunity to further disembowel
the script.

Good-to-meet-yous all around, and the pitchers jet leaving Pam and the Development Twins to ponder Frank's future in television.

***

"How'd you think it went?" Frank casually inquires as they wait for their cars at the valet stand on the Lynx lot. Robert
has just closed his cell phone after calling the office to check in. "I thought she might buy it in the room."

"I was hoping that would happen," Robert says. Frank looks over as if waiting for him to explain why it didn't. "You absolutely
refuse to do
Kirkukr

This is not what Frank wants to hear. "Don't ask me that again."

"Okay, fine."

"I'm not kidding."

"Relax."

"I'm fuckin' relaxed, Bobby," Frank says, ignoring the current condition of his sphincter, which could crack a walnut.

"It went okay, not great. She may buy it, she may not." Robert Hyler silent for a moment, a diver standing on a high platform
preparing to leap. "Listen, Frank, if they pass on
My Life and High Times,
you need to think about the other thing."

"What did I just say?"

"Not to mention it."

"And?"

"I mentioned it."

"Because . . ."

"Reality, Frank."

"Reality? You mean that thing for people who can't handle their drugs?" Frank instantly wishes he hadn't referenced the hippieish
button he'd noticed in the late 1960s, but Robert is upsetting him, his normally agile mind suddenly sclerotic and cliché-plagued.

"You want a career in TV, then you have to play by a certain set of rules, which there's no getting around. These guys"—here
he points in the direction of Pam's office—"right now they control the ball, the field, the whole enchilada. If you want to
keep touring and playing clubs and having that kind of career, then go with God, you'll always make a living. But if you want
to take a bite out of the enchilada, and I say this as your friend, you'll talk to the fuckin' walrus. And by the way, I read
the script. The walrus is in what, like one scene?"

Frank hears this and almost feels his body mass decreasing. However much bluff and bluster compose the Bones public persona,
the fact remains that his services are not much in demand lately, and at tax time come April this truth is going to be hard
to escape. Nonetheless, he screws himself up for another sally.

"There's what, four other networks? Why don't we pitch it around town if Lynx passes?"

Robert pauses momentarily, as if weighing the potential effect of the words he is about to utter. Ready, set—

"None of them want to be in business with you."

This piece of unwelcome intelligence has the effect of a full-throttle blow to Frank's solar plexus, and he instantly has
a gloomy vision of himself at sixty, squinting through bifocals as he drives a rental car between gigs in Asheville and Raleigh-Durham,
Hello, North Carolina.

"Since Cleveland, it's been an uphill battle," Robert continues, referring to Frank's spectacularly unfortunate behavior back
in Ohio. "And it's been nearly five years now. Lynx is desperate. They want edge and they know that's your stock-in-trade,
so they'll take a chance on you. But right now no one else will."

The valet arrives with a red Hummer. Robert tips the former Sandinista and hoists himself into the vehicle looking as if he
were about to stage an amphibious assault on the nearest Pottery Barn.

"What's with the Hummer? I thought your wife was pro-ozone-layer," Frank remarks as nonchalantly as possible, trying to show
his stomach hasn't dropped six inches as a result of the bomb Robert has just detonated.

"I have it out for a test-drive. I couldn't resist. Don't tell her, she'll divorce me." Robert turns the key in the ignition,
and as the motor of the massive machine roars to life, he turns back to Frank. "Think about
Kirkuk,
okay?"

Robert drives off and Frank notices his back hurts where Candi Wyatt's cat had used it for a scratch pole; realizes over four
hours have passed since he's taken a Vicodin. He quickly remedies that and makes a mental note to replace the pills he's borrowed
from Honey.

A Saab comes driving past.

Behind the wheel of the Saab, Lloyd Melnick, talking on his cell phone and saying good-bye to Pam Penner, looks at Frank,
briefly moves his foot from the gas to the brake, and waits to see if Frank notices him. Observing Frank looking in another
direction, Lloyd does not put pressure on the brake. He doesn't want to risk Frank's opprobrium and there is nothing to be
gained today by saying hello. Lloyd glances into his rearview mirror as the parking valet pulls Frank's car up and, for a
moment, regrets not stopping because he thinks he could have made Frank laugh by relating the phone conversation he just had.

It had gone like this:

"Lloyd, it's Pam. I don't want to be pushy, but I'm curious if you're working on an idea you'd throw yourself in front of
a herd of elephants to do."

"Maybe one or two elephants but not an entire herd."

"Okay, then listen to this. I don't need to tell you how competitive the environment in our business is right now, so we need
to do television that's going to cut through the clutter, okay?"

"I was thinking the same thing."

"Good. Then we're nearly on the same page already. I want you to consider this and you don't have to answer me right away.
How do you feel about doing a show set in a massage parlor?"

"A massage parlor?"

"In Las Vegas. And I already have the title—are you ready?
Happy Endings.
What do you think?"

"Happy Endings?"

"You know, when the girl finishes up—"

"No, no . . . I get it."

"Lloyd, I'm sensing some hesitancy in your voice. I want to be clear about something. We don't want to do a sleazy show. It
won't be a sleazy massage parlor. It'll be a place where everyone knows your name. You know, friendly."

"A massage parlor where everyone knows my name?"

"Not
yours
as in Lloyd Melnick's, but
yours
like it's welcoming."

"A friendly massage parlor?"

"It's very cutting-edge and I know we can build it around a star. What do you think?"

"I want to get back to you."

"It'll be breakthrough television."

Until that phone conversation, the past week had gone relatively well for Lloyd. His psychiatrist, Dr. Tepper, after a brief
telephone consultation, updated Lloyd's Paxil prescription, which returned him to his normal state of manageable despair.
He had spent his days at the office generating hackneyed ideas for television shows, but he knew that when the time came,
so strong was the
Fleishman Show
mojo, he could take whatever dross he had concocted around to the various networks and stimulate a bidding war simply by showing
up. That Lloyd was sanguine regarding this complete abdication of creative responsibility was clear testament to the efficacy
of the Paxil. Feeling duly under control and empowered, he had called the LAX Gun Club and booked a lesson. This is where
he is now headed.

Five minutes later he's driving west on Ventura preparing to make a left on Coldwater Canyon. He had cogitated on Pam Penner's
notion and quickly determined he would not allow his talent to be besmirched in so ludicrous a fashion. Now he's thinking
about the meeting he has to go to after his lesson where he will listen to Stacy discuss final stage modifications on their
Brentwood palazzo with the builder. The mid-afternoon traffic is moving as Lloyd eases the Saab to a stop at a red light.
He glances at a copy of the
Los Angeles Times
sports section lying on his passenger seat. The Lakers defeated the Dallas Mavericks the previous evening. Before his eyes
can find the score, Lloyd is thrown backward by the sudden impact of a rear-end collision, which inflates the air bag in the
steering wheel, pinning him against the seat as he bounces forward. The adrenaline released by the ramming causes him to stiffen,
and as soon as he realizes he isn't dead, he is seething about having to take the car to the shop and deal with the insurance
company of whatever pinhead smashed into him. Were it not for the Paxil, Lloyd would be flying out of the car looking to wreak
havoc on whoever had caused the accident (only to flee in the other direction if it was someone he couldn't take), but as
he is under the influence of this salutary smoother-of-rough-edges, he squeezes out from behind the air bag and emerges to
survey the damage loaded for squirrel rather than bear.