Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“Incomplete,” says Holliday, making a note in his little book.

“Incomplete,” A-bort agrees, marking his little book.

“How about quarter where Beyoncé sits on my face,” Sykes says.

“Fucking never,” Holliday says, not missing a beat.

“In a million years,” A-bort adds, similarly deadpan. Sykes is saying hell yes he’ll take those odds as Albert snaps his cell phone shut.

“All right, guys, it looks like Hilary Swank is officially interested.”

Whanh, whoa, who ? “Hilary Swank a bitch, ” Lodis sputters. “Why she talking to us?”

“Bee- cause, ” Albert answers, punching it, knowing the rise this will get from Bravo, “she wants to play him, ” and he points at Billy. Bravo erupts in hoots and cheers.

“Wait. Wait a second.” Billy is laughing along with everyone else, but he’s troubled too, already he senses the potential here for humiliation on a global scale. “If she’s a girl then I don’t see how—”

“Actually,” Albert says, “she’s floating the idea of playing Billy and Dime. We’d fold both parts into one role and she’d play that as the lead.”

More hoots, this time directed at Dime, who merely nods as if well satisfied. “I still don’t see…” Billy murmurs.

“Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she can’t do it,” Albert tells them. “Meg Ryan was the lead in that chopper flick, the one she did with Denzel a couple years ago. Or she could play it as a guy, hell, Hilary won a goddamn Oscar playing a guy. Well, playing a girl playing a guy, but whatever. The point is she’s not just another pretty face.”

Others who Albert is in talks with: Oliver Stone, Brian Grazer, Mark Wahlberg, George Clooney. It is a heroic tale, not without tragedy. A tale of heroism ennobled by tragedy. Movies about Iraq have “underperformed” at the box office, and that’s a problem, according to Albert, but not Bravo’s problem. The war might be up to its ass in moral ambiguity, but Bravo’s triumph busts through all that. The Bravo story is a rescue story, with all the potent psychology of the rescue plot. People respond deeply to such stories, Albert has told them. Everyone worries, everyone feels at least a little bit doomed basically all the time, even the richest, most successful, most secure among us live in perpetually anxious states of barely hanging on. Desperation’s just part of being human, so when relief comes in whatever form, as knights in shining armor, say, or digitized eagles swooping down on the flaming slopes of Mordor, or the U.S. cavalry charging out of yonder blue, that’s a powerful trigger in the human psyche. Validation, redemption, life snatched from the jaws of death, all very powerful stuff. Powerful. “What you guys did out there,” Albert has assured them, “that’s the happiest possible result of the human condition. It gives us hope, we’re allowed to feel hopeful about our lives. There’s not a person on the planet who wouldn’t pay to see that movie.”

Albert is in his late fifties, a big-boned, fleshy man with an unruly cloud of mostly gray hair and thick, wiry hedgerows of midlength sideburns. He wears black-frame glasses with round lenses. He chews gum. His hands are large and knuckly, and dark clumps of jungle growth sprout from his ears. Today he’s wearing a white dress shirt with the collar open, a navy blazer with a lining of brilliant scarlet, a black cashmere overcoat and cashmere scarf, and sleek, dainty loafers that appear to be made of pliable chocolate bars. This crossfire of dishevelment and suavity provides no end of fascination for Billy, and from it he infers a worldliness that could eat Bravo for breakfast and swallow the bones. This is a man who direct-dials the likes of Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones and whose movies have featured such money stars as Ben Affleck, Cameron Diaz, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, two of the four Baldwin brothers and so on, all of whom unfortunately have prior commitments or aren’t interested in a profile-leveling ensemble piece.

“We’re gonna Platoon it,” Albert says on his next phone call. “Ensemble plus star, hell yes it works. Hilary’s extremely interested.”

The Bravos listen for a minute. Ho’Wood talk. It is its own tribal dialect, rich in tonal permutations of put-down, bitch-slap, call-out, and gaff.

“No way. I’d rather sleep with Mother Teresa than make a movie with that guy.”

Bravo smirks.

“Oh sure. Like having an enema when you’ve got a catheter shoved up your cock.”

The Bravos’ eyes bug out, they chortle snot through their noses.

“ Only one battle? Larry, come on, Black Hawk Down was only one battle. Look, I know it’s a war movie, but I need a director who can bring some human empathy to the story.”

Pause.

“Enemas I can handle, it’s the catheter I can’t take.”

More nasal chortles. Lodis would fall off his seat if he wasn’t strapped in.

“Listen, Larry, we’re talking two days. My boys ship out in two days and access becomes extremely problematic after that. Unless your lawyers feel like parachuting into a war zone.”

“Hooo-kay,” Crack resumes, rattling the paper. “Will Drew Henson throw an interception — yes, minus a hundred and twenty, versus no, plus a hundred and five.”

“Yes,” Holliday says.

“No,” says A-bort.

“Will Beyoncé show me her tits while sitting on my face,” Sykes offers, then starts singing in a screechy black-girl falsetto, I need a soldjah, soldjah, need me a soldjah soldjah boy…

“Quiet,” Dime woofs, “Albert’s on the phone,” which the rest of the Bravos take as their cue to scream at Sykes. Shut up, fuckhead, Albert’s on the phone! Quiet, shitbag, Albert’s trying to talk! Meanwhile an SUV has drawn even in the next lane, and women, actual females, are hanging out the windows and yelling at the Hummer, college girls, maybe a couple of years older, and they are fine prime examples of that buxom talent pool of all-American booty that runs amok every night on reality TV.

“Hey,” they cry as traffic crawls along, “roll down your windows! Hey you, whoever you are, got any Grey Poupon? Woooo-hoooo, go Cowboys! Roll down your window!”

Oh Lord, beauties they are and amped as all fuck, bellowing, whipping their hair around like proud war banners, they are the girls gone wild of Bravo’s fondest dreams. Sykes and A-bort futz with the windows on that side and are roundly cursed for their incompetence, then they realize the damn things have been childproofed and everybody screams toward the front, finally the driver flips a switch and the windows go down and you can just see those girls deflate. Oh, soldiers. Jarheads, they’re probably thinking, because it’s all the same to them. Not rock stars, not highly paid professional athletes, nobody from the movies or the tabloid-worthy world, just grunts riding on some millionaire’s dime, some lame support-the-troops charity case. Bravo tries, but the girls are just being polite now. We’re famous! A-bort cries. They’re gonna make a movie about us! The girls smile, nod, look up and down the freeway as if scouting better prospects. Sykes flops his entire torso out the window and yells, “Hell yes I’m drunk baby and I’m married too! But I’ll still love you ugly in the morning!” This gets the girls laughing and for a moment there’s hope, but Billy can see the light already dimming in their eyes.

He sits back and pulls out his cell; they were probably never serious anyway. Ten hut! reads the text from his sister Kathryn,

keep it in yr holster kid

Then from Pete, his other sister’s roughneck husband,