Walter Williams: The Picture Business

“Why fool around with somebody else’s movie,” Heho said, “when you can make your own?”

Pauhe looked at him in surprise. “Yeah?”

“Why not? And hey, listen, I know some people on the distribution end. You make the right product, you could get it put into actual theaters, you know, where you can make real money.”

“You think I can do that?”

Helio clapped him on the shoulder. “You got the talent. Why not? Just don’t use any didged images that someone can sue you for.” And then he winked at Gloria, and went out the door.

Pauhe looked at Gloria. “You think I should do this?”

“I can’t think why you shouldn’t.”

She helped him clean up the trash. When they were done, she turned to Pauhe and said, “Do you mind if I stay here tonight? It’s a long drive home, and I don’t have any dates tomorrow till afternoon.”

“Only if you go off the clock,” Pauhe said.

“You bet,” she said, and began to take off her clothes. Pauhe saw that she was giving him the look she gave when she was working, and for a moment he was confused.

“Is this one, hke, for free?” he asked.

“I only do this for poets,” Gloria said.

After Paulie came floating back to consciousness, he found Gloria in the bathroom. She wore a little kimono she’d taken from her big shoulder bag. She’d taken off the blonde wig, and was brushing her hair.

“Paulie,” she said, “do you mind if I sleep in the spare room tonight?”

Paulie looked at her in surprise. “I got bad breath or something?” he asked.

“No, it’s just that I like to sleep alone. Sex with guys is okay, but when it comes to sleep, I’d rather be by myself. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Whatever,” Paulie said. He felt kind of disappointed.

“But I’ll sleep with you if you want,” Gloria said. “I don’t want to break any of these rules you got.”

“Rules?” Paulie asked. “Like what, rules?”

“Like Everybody can be replaced.”

“Okay.” Paulie conceded that one.

“Like if another outfit pushes, you push back. Like dead people should look like dead people, and you have to remember that people got ribs, and that gangsters are in the hurting business.”

“Those aren’t rules,” Paulie insisted. “They’re the way things are.”

“Whatever. But if the way things are is that girlfriends have to sleep with guys even when they’re not having sex, then I’ll do it.”

“I don’t think there’s anything hard and fast about that,” Paulie said.

But he was still disappointed when she went into the spare room.

Later, Paulie was glad that Gloria wasn’t next to him in bed, because he had a hard time falling asleep. He lay awake for hours and thought about his next project. He realized that all his thinking was on the wrong scale. Instead of just fixing pieces of other people’s movies, he could make his own from scratch. He could use practically any actor—well, practically any dead actor—and tell any story.

The sense of freedom was breathtaking.

He decided to make a movie about how things were.

When Gloria woke, Paulie was already at the DEC. She made some coffee and went into the study to hand him a cup.

“Working on the new thing already?” she asked.

“I’m just sorta throwing ideas together.”

She sat on the seat next to him. “What do you have so far?”

“A story about a guy who has to start over. He gets into trouble with this one outfit, see, and then he has to move to a new area and work with a new outfit. And he has to prove himself to this second outfit before they’ll accept him.”

“How does he prove himself?” Gloria asked.

“Oh.” Paulie shrugged. “He solves their problems for them.”

Gloria left around midmorning to get ready for a date, and Paulie worked on till noon, when he remembered he had an appointment to meet Marcio and burn down someone’s donut shop. As they were splashing the cooking grease around prior to lighting it off, Marcio told him again how much he liked How Gangsters Got Invented, and Pauhe said he was already working on something new. Marcio laughed and asked for two tickets to the premiere.

Afterward, reeking of cinders, they had a few drinks in one of Helio’s bars, then Paulie returned to the mediatron. Burning down the donut shop had given him some ideas.

Someone’s problem, he thought, could get solved in a donut shop. He liked the combination food/hot grease/fire. He liked the contrast of the mundane setting, rotating stools and Formica countertops, with the potential for unique and extraordinary violence.

It was much more original than having someone get killed in an Italian restaurant. Half the gangster movies ever made featured somebody face-down in the marinara. He’d even used it himself in How Gangsters Got Invented.

No one who saw his new movie, he thought with satisfaction, was going to forget the donut shop scene.

Weekends were Gloria’s busy time, so Paulie didn’t see her till Monday. By then Pauhe had roughed out the movie, even dictated little bits of dialogue. Gloria came in and looked over Paulies shoulder at the mediatron.

“How’s it going, sugar?”

“Fine.”

“Anything I can see yet?”

“No. Just httle bits and pieces. I’m trying to get the story first.”

Gloria looked at Paulie’s share from the donut shop arson, bills with rubber bands around them just tossed up on the mediatron console until Pauhe decided what to do with them.

“Know what you’re going to do with your profits yet?” she said.

“Haven’t thought about it,” Pauhe said.

Gloria shd onto Pauhe’s lap, and put an arm around his neck. “Here’s what I’d do,” Gloria said. “I’d release How Gangsters Got Invented on one of the pirate copyright boards on the net, out in Sinjiang or the Dutch Antilles or someplace, and then I’d launder my profits back through there.”

“Huh,” Pauhe said. The idea seemed perfectly plausible.

“The thing is,” Gloria said, “your line of work is profitable but highly speculative, so your investments should be conservative. A nice Fidelity mutual fund or something. You see what I’m saying?”

Paulie nodded. “Yeah, I see.”

Gloria smiled. She kissed his cheek. “Would you like to go to bed? We can talk about investments later.”

“Sure,” Paulie said. He saved his work, then walked to the bedroom with his arm around Gloria.

“One thing before we start,” he said. “Are you my girlfriend?”

She looked at him. “I am if you want me to be.”

“Okay,” Paulie said. ‘You’re my girlfriend, then.”

She leaned close so that their foreheads touched, fiddled restlessly with the lapels of his shirt. “You don’t mind that I’m a hooker?”

“Not if you don’t mind what I do.”

“You don’t want me to quit?”

Paulie thought about it.

“See,” Gloria said into the silence, “I don’t want to break any of those rules you got.”

Paulie couldn’t think of a rule that applied in this situation. “Do what you want,” he said. “Whatever makes you happy.”

“Well,” Gloria said, “it doesn’t exactly make me happy, I mean it’s work, but I’d like to build my portfolio some more before I retire.”

“Fine,” Paulie said.

She nestled up against him. “I’m glad we got that settled.”

As he kissed her, Paulie couldn’t help but think this was just like a scene out of a movie.

He couldn’t work on the new project all the time. He had to do his work for Helio, and every so often fly out of town on an outside contract, and now, thanks to Gloria, he had investments to keep track of.