Robert Ferrigno - Scavenger hunt

"The opening shot is of our hero in prison, staring at a letter," said Walsh, pacing, sketching the scene with his hands. "He hasn't opened it. He's almost afraid to open it. He just lies there on the lower bunk, tracing the feminine handwriting of the address with the tip of his finger. It's night, the cell lit only by the dim security light overhead. We can hear his cellie snoring, and the usual noises in the background, men crying in their sleep, somebody grunting out push-ups, but our guy is in a world of his own. He's waited all day for this moment. He takes a tentative sniff of the envelope and closes his eyes, savoring the memory. Then, very slowly, very carefully, he slides his pinkie under the envelope flap, and we hear the sound of paper tearing on the soundtrack. Fadeout." Walsh glanced at Jimmy, trying to gauge his reaction.

Jimmy looked back at him. Walsh had his complete attention.

"Flashback to our hero before he was in prison-a young filmmaker, so fucking hot, the sidewalk smokes under his feet. Studio executives are calling him, putting the calls in themselves, and the women-the pussy comes out of the woodwork when you're famous. You could be Quasimodo, and they'd still want to fuck you, and it definitely goes to our hero's head, but he keeps working harder than ever, burning the candle at both ends, taking a blowtorch to it, scared that he's going to wake up one morning and be back pulling Kotex out of clogged toilets. His second film is much more ambitious-instead of a million-dollar budget, it's slated at seventy million, and he's got real actors to work with this time, and a real crew, and gofers bringing him espresso.

"Then one day, right out of the blue, he meets her. The girl. Every good story has to have a girl, and here she is, smart and funny and so beautiful, the kind of girl he's jacked off to his whole life. Only one problem-she's married. She's signed a till-death-do-us-part contract with a powerful man, a dangerous man. But our hero doesn't care, he's used to getting what he wants, and what he wants is her. And because this is a Hollywood story, the girl feels the same way about him. Love, Jimmy, the real thing, ocean deep and mountain high, the kind you risk your first-class life for, the kind you have to grab for when you see it, because it may never come again. That kind of love."

Walsh sat down, their knees almost touching. "If this was a real pitch meeting, Jimmy, you'd ask me on what page do they fuck, and I'd say, without even looking at my notes, I'd say page fourteen, and you'd like that, because the audience doesn't like to wait more than fourteen minutes to see the hero and the girl fuck. You've got to feed the beast, Jimmy, and fuck they do, our hero and the good wife- that's what he calls her, their private joke. They scorch the sheets, our hero and the good wife, they tear each other apart and put themselves back together again, and what they have is so sweet, it's worth every lie, every excuse, every broken promise." He squeezed Jimmy's leg. "It's worth the risk. And it is a risk. For her. For him."

Jimmy was hooked.

"Our hero has made enemies on the ride to the top. Boy wonders are easy targets, and our hero, he's left himself open. He's a little afraid of the husband, if truth be told, but that only makes the loving sweeter, and besides, our hero is clever-his scripts are intricate, devious thrillers, full of twists and reversals. He's a man who knows how to get away with anything. Our hero gets off on the danger, but the wife, the good wife, is more… practical. She backs off a little bit. Not much. It's not over, she assures him, she just needs a little room, a little space, because she's having a hard time faking it at home, and she's worried that the husband is going to wise up-and maybe, just maybe, she needs a break from the boy wonder."

They were so close that Jimmy could count the broken blood vessels in the whites of Walsh's eyes.

"The little break turns into a week, and then another," said Walsh, his face shiny with sweat, "and our hero is dying inside. He leaves messages on her machine, their private call-me code, two short beeps and one long, but she doesn't respond, and he's getting mad now, angry at her for leaving him hanging, angry at himself for missing her. One afternoon he's sitting on the back porch of his beach house, working on the shooting script. This second movie, Hammerlock, is weeks behind schedule, and the suits are getting jumpy, and though he would never admit it, he is too. All those stolen afternoons with the wife have come with a price, and there's rumbling in the trades, anonymous, of course, that our hero is a one-hit wonder.

"So this particular day, he's sitting out in the hot sun, when who should appear but a beautiful girl in a pink bikini. Her name is Heather, a gorgeous blonde who has stepped on a piece of broken glass and cut her foot. Blood on the sand. Can you see it? Our hero is a creature of images, and the sight of the lovely Heather with blood dripping off the sole of her foot-you should have been there, tough guy. You should have been there instead of me.

"The director invites her in to clean up while he gets bandages. It's not a bad cut, but it hurts, and the pain in her face arouses him more than it should. The blonde has no idea who he is. She's young, nineteen she tells him, a college girl majoring in nothing in particular. She sees his two Oscars on the mantelpiece and asks him where he bought them, and she's serious. She lies back on the floor, her foot in his lap while he cleans the wound, blowing on her toes when he applies the antiseptic, and her eyes go right through him. She goes back to the beach for her blanket and towel and coconut suntan oil, and when she comes back, our hero has a couple lines of coke waiting, and one thing leads to another, and he's aware of the good wife, knows that he's cheating on her, but she's cheating on him with her husband, and then the college girl shrugs off her bikini, and that's all, Jimmy, that is all."

Jimmy saw Walsh fight off the shakes, but he made no move to help him.

"Our hero and Heather spend the afternoon fucking and doing coke and fucking some more. He's making up for lost time now, and he's switched to smoking heroin, the better to take the edge off, my dear, the better to push away the image of the good wife." Walsh balled his hands so tightly, his knuckles were white. "No smack for the girl though. She was curious, but he wouldn't give her any, not even a taste. He was a stone junkie, but he knew enough not to let her get started. He didn't want that on his conscience." He looked at Jimmy. "That counts for something, doesn't it?"

Jimmy nodded.

"Well sir, they fuck all afternoon, and into the evening, and the last thing our hero remembers is nodding off with his face against her soft skin. When he wakes up-when he wakes, he's on his feet, sleepwalking, and this big policeman is holding on to him, saying, What have you done, buddy? Our hero can barely hear the cop, his attention focused on the blonde lying at his feet with her head caved in, that soft skin ruined, and one of his Oscars is beside her, slick with blood. The policeman keeps repeating, What have you done, buddy? and our hero… he doesn't know what to say.

"The trial doesn't take long. It's not that kind of movie. The hero's team of five-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorneys suggest that he paint Heather Grimm as a coke whore, a desperate Lolita eager to fuck her way into the movies who attacked him when he put her off. Instead, our hero takes the DA's plea bargain. He's an arrogant bastard, but he remembers what Heather's face used to look like, he remembers her laugh."

"He knows that any jury in their right mind is going to hand him a life-without-parole ticket," said Jimmy. "He knows with the plea bargain and good behavior he can walk in seven. What about the good wife? What does she do?"