Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (25 page)

of the only places where road rage could swell in the driver of a hybrid.

J.T. thought about the

children who were going to

The Hollywood Dictionary

be on the set. He thought

PRESHOOT:
(1) When scenes

about being a child actor on

are shot that cannot be accom-

a set. He thought about be-

plished in front of an audience

ing a child actor once the

on Friday night because of ex-

sets were gone.

pense, time, danger, or fear. (2)

Fucking kid actors! Has-

The easing of the workload for

beens before graduating from

Friday night. (3) Less to memo-

high school. Fuck, they’re all

rize for Friday night.

doomed. They might never

come close to the happiness

1 7 8

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

they felt when they were ten fucking years old. A fifteen-year-old
shouldn’t experience the panic of a midlife crisis.

J.T. was stopped at a red light next to a black Lincoln Naviga-

tor. The driver startled him: “You talkin’ to me?”

“Wha?” J.T. still hadn’t realized that his habit of thinking out loud was becoming a danger to him rather than a mere nuisance.

“I
said,
you talkin’ to me?” the man asked again.

“Um, no, Mr. DeNiro. I was just thinking—
Wow,
I am such a fan . . . !”

The light turned green and Robert DeNiro and all the other

drivers surged forward into the Hollywood morning, leaving be-

hind the director, who was pedaling as fast as he could.

J.T. got on the lot. Not without a long look for his pass in the security computer, of course, and not without a body search.

Once in the production office, J.T. said to no one in particular,

“I’m going down to the set school to talk to the kids. Get ’em ready for today’s shoot, just in case anybody needs me.”

“Why would anybody need you?” asked the voice of Thing

Five.

I wonder where Robert DeNiro was going, and why couldn’t he
take me with him.

J.T. knew he would find the child actors in the set schoolroom, which was a satellite dressing room—basically a small double-wide with air-conditioning pumped into the ovenlike tin box. He knocked on the schoolroom door, and thought he just might have

heard a nervous voice tell him to come in.

When he opened the door, J.T. saw all of the kids for this epi-

sode at different desks doing their work. Their highlighted scripts were next to their math and science books. A few looked up; one or two recognized him, and soon the room was buzzing:
What’s
the director doing in here?

R o b b y

B e n s o n

1 7 9

“Good morning!” J.T. said to them. “Mr. Thacker, right?” he

asked the balding, fiftyish man at the corner desk who was apparently the on-set teacher. “Okay if I run through the program for the day with my actors?”

Leo Thacker nodded, so J.T. launched into the briefing. As he

spoke, Mr. Thacker was very fidgety. He kept getting up, pacing the side of the room, and peeking out of the schoolroom window. He

had a sheen of sweat on his forehead. His underarms were already completely wet, and the collar of his buttoned shirt was soaked.

His chest was pushing his old-fashioned vest back and forth in a pumping motion—hyperventilating, J.T. suspected.

“Excuse me, sir?” J.T. addressed the set schoolteacher, who

seemed unusually troubled. J.T. could not have directed Leo

Thacker to play
desperation
and
fear
better than he was playing it in real life. Something was

wrong.

The Hollywood Dictionary

“Mr. Thacker?” J.T. tried

ON-SET TEACHER:
Often little

again.

more than a highly paid babysit -

“Hum?” Leo Thacker

ter.

said, startled.

“Are you feeling ill?”

“Me? Ill? No. I’m fine.

Just fine,” Mr. Thacker lied.

J.T. made a mental note:
Not a good liar.
He watched as Leo Thacker used his forefingers to nervously scrape his thumbs. Both thumbs were raw—bleeding, in fact.

“Okay, kids,” J.T. said, keeping his voice low and calm, “you’re needed on the set. Follow me, please.”

If Mr. Thacker registered that it was a little strange for the children to be called this early, he didn’t show it. He allowed J.T. to escort the children to the set, where J.T. left them in the charge of one of his grips. Then he quickly headed back to the production office. He started at a quick walk that turned into a jog, and 1 8 0

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

then, as his mind went to places only a writer-director would go, he started sprinting.

At the production office, J.T. was greeted as if he had leprosy.

“Um, hello? The director is in the office,” he called out in a sing-songy tone. But he was pointedly ignored.

“God-fucking-dammit-what-does-a-director-have-to-do-to-

get-some-attention-around-here?!”

That got the attention of the particularly beautiful Thing Six.

“May I help you?” she asked.

After a cleansing breath, J.T. responded, “Yes. Please. My name is J.T. Baker.”

Now he could be ignored for a reason. “J.T. Baker” meant the

same thing to this beautiful young lady as it did to everyone else in the office:
Do not engage this director in any conversation whatsoever
.

“I’m directing your show,” J.T. said.

She took the bait. “Oh, it’s not
my
show! It’s the Pooleys’ show,”

she said.

Very well trained,
J.T. thought. “Yes . . . um, I need to ask someone about the schoolteacher. The schoolteacher, Leo Thacker, who is taking care of the minors on the show?”

Thing Six looked around in a silent plea for someone, anyone,

to help her out. But the one thing the staff members were good at was ignoring people.

She was saved by Billy, the transportation captain, who was

just coming out of an office.

“J.T.? What’s up?”

J.T. motioned Billy to come closer. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “That schoolteacher, Leo Thacker—something’s not right. I can . . . sense it.” J.T. felt slightly foolish admitting it.

“Funny you should mention that skinny fuck,” Billy said, never

one to be subtle. “Someone called this morning and asked if he

was on the lot. They didn’t leave a name, wouldn’t say who they was or nuthin’. It was just about an hour ago.”

R o b b y

B e n s o n

1 8 1

At that precise moment, the world of art merged into the

world of reality with a wily, natural absence of sophistication. If it had been a ten o’clock one-hour TV drama, it would’ve been

handled with more flair or it would’ve been canceled. As it was, J.T. only noticed how unremarkably it began once it had begun to unfold. It was all so . . . ordinary.

A man dressed in a blue suit with pant legs that were cuffed an inch too short, revealing white socks and well-worn shoes, came into the production office.
Someone get this man to Wardrobe,
J.T. thought.

“Who’s in charge here?” the man asked. No one spoke up.

“Well,” J.T. finally said, “I’m the director, so that definitely would
not
be me.”

“Oh. Sitcom, huh?” he said.

“You got it,” J.T. said, immediately liking this man who had a

sense of irony.

J.T. looked out the production office windows and saw four

black sedans speeding past the office on their way to the stage . . .

past the stage . . . to the schoolroom.

“FBI,” the man stated, showing his badge.

Marcus Pooley chose that moment to come bounding down

the stairs
.
“What’s with all the tension?” he asked eagerly.

He was in early.
Must’ve been kicked out of the house by Stephanie,
J.T. thought.
What a fucking buffoon
.

“Who are
you
?” the man with the badge asked Marcus.

“Who the fuck are
you
?” Marcus Pooley replied.

“He’s such a fuckin’ jerk,” Billy whispered into J.T.’s ear.

“I’m FBI Agent Tiffy,” the man with the highwaters said. “Now

I’ll ask again: who are you?”

“I’m Marcus Pooley, the Creator and Showrunner of the num-

ber one sitcom—excuse me—the number one
show
on television,
I Love My Urban Buddies
. And you are in
my
production office.

What the hell do you want? Wait—did you say your name is FBI

Agent . . . Tiffy?” Marcus began to giggle.

1 8 2

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“Do you have a man working for you by the name of Leo

Thacker?” the federal agent asked.

“Oh no—not again,” Marcus Pooley blurted.

Now J.T. was truly alarmed. “What is going on? That man was

just with the children!”

Marcus’s face darkened. “Oh, don’t go getting all heroic and

gallant on me. Jesus, gimme a fucking break! I can’t believe this.

Leo gave me his word!”

“Can someone explain?” J.T. asked in what he hoped was a

controlled voice.

“Leo Thacker has prior convictions for selling child pornogra-

phy on the Internet. We have information that his operation has grown from distribution to the actual production of child pornog-raphy. And we also know someone tipped him off and he knows

we’re right on his . . . butt.”

“Wait—no—wait—” J.T. kept looking from the FBI agent to

Marcus Pooley and back.

Marcus threw up his hands, all innocence. “Hey, don’t

blame me. All the mothers signed off on it. They knew Leo’s

past. They understand that in America we give people a second

chance.”

J.T. stared at him. “A child pornographer . . . is the on-set

schoolroom teacher? Is that what you’re telling me?” he demand-

ed.

“I don’t have to tell you shit, J.T. You’re just the fucking guest people-mover,” Marcus Pooley laughed.

“These are
my
kids,” J.T. said.

“What is it with you? Why do you think that everything is
you,
you, yours
?”

“Because, whether I’m a hack, a people-mover, or fucking

Fellini, I’m the
director,
and in matters like this, the buck stops somewhere. And that somewhere is me. Someone has to take responsibility. And that is my job when I come in to work. No one R o b b y

B e n s o n

1 8 3

under me gets hurt, and that includes
being taught by a child pornographer
!” It was official. J.T. was finally losing his infamous temper.

“Oh, fuck you, J.T.,” Marcus said, as if that settled it.

J.T. wouldn’t let that go unchallenged. But he filed it away because he didn’t want to waste another second on Marcus Pooley’s playground tactics.
This one,
J.T. thought,
will come back to haunt
the pig
. How, where, and in what form would later be determined.

But he would
get his
.

“Follow me. I’ll take you to where Leo Thacker is,” J.T. said to the agent.

“Oh, fuck all of you!” Marcus yelled as the two men, followed

by Billy, started out of the production office. “You’re overreacting! This is ridiculous!” He kept yelling even after the men had left the office. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. That’s what this is. Dumb!” He looked around to see Thing Six, Thing Five, and the other office staffers staring at him.

“What? So I saved a few bucks by hiring this guy. Think of it as good karma. I gave the perv a second chance.”

No one said a word.

“Okay then.” Marcus tried a new tactic. “Think of it as more

money in the till and better holiday gifts for all of you. Maybe an
I
Love My Urban Buddies
sweatshirt. Huh? How’s that sound?”

This seemed to be a reasonable proposition. The office

workers went back to their jobs. Satisfied, Marcus Pooley ran

out to catch up with the others, who had nearly reached the

little schoolroom.

It now did look to J.T. like something out of a movie. A bad movie.

A dozen or so FBI agents had surrounded the double-wide. They

were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, which as far as J.T.

could tell meant wearing identical blue suits and sunglasses. No 1 8 4

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

one was actually trying to stay out of sight.

Note to self,
J.T. thought:
If ever shooting a scene where FBI
agents surround a building, don’t make it look like this
. To J.T., who was always seeing life through a movie camera, it looked phony.

But fuck, it’s not
.

“He’s in there,” an agent said, running up to Agent Tiffy, re-

porting everything he knew.

“Is he alone?” Agent Tiffy asked his clone.

“Yes.”

Agent Tiffy gestured to the other agents, silently waving them

forward. J.T. wasn’t sure whether that meant him, too. “Um, are we in the way? Is there something we should do?” he asked.

“No! Just shut up and stay where you are!” Tiffy paused. “Have

you got insurance?”

“Funny you should ask that, because—”

“Come on, guys!” Marcus Pooley’s voice arrived, followed

shortly by the man himself. He was running down the studio’s exterior mock-up of a New York street, yelling all the way. “He’s just an old perv! Don’t you think you’re making a lot out of nothing? I mean, why the big production number?”

“Keep your voice
down
!” J.T. ordered him reflexively.

“Yeah!” Tiffy agreed.

“He’s got a gun!” an agent stage-whispered to Agent Tiffy. “A

sawed-off shotgun!”

“He’s got a fucking gun?” Marcus Pooley squealed, suddenly