Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

As he passed the Beverly Hilton and ascended the luxurious ramp of Wilshire that divided the country club, the producer felt a surge of youth. His gait was steady and sure — the Bernard S. Ribkin Walk-a-thon was in full swing. He could go on forever. Like Creep - show’s Ted Danson, he saw his body buried in the sand outside Edie’s house and laughed aloud. She’d laugh too, she’d have to — and forgive. Laughter was three-quarters of the way. That’s what he would do then: outrageous showmanship would save the day. He’d have to dig after dark, so as not to be discovered…chortling again at the image of those algae-blistered, stringy-haired zombies, an homage to his Undead if ever there was one. He’d send King a fan letter, thanking him for the tip of the hat.

At Beverly Glen, he was barely winded. Bernie thought about stopping in the Village for a cappuccino. No — he’d keep going until he reached the terrace of greensward that overhung Pacific Coast Highway. Watch the tourists before setting out to the Colony. There was a camera obscura over by the pier. Maybe he’d have a look.

And if Edie wouldn’t have him, he’d walk straight to Santa Barbara, on to Pismo Beach and Morro Bay…Hearst Castle. He’d never been. Scale the cliffs of Big Sur to Henry Miller’s cabin — Carmel, Salinas, Cannery Row. He felt the pull of Baghdad by the Bay: he would treat himself to a gourmet box lunch smack in the middle of the Golden Gate. By then his legs would be like salty pistons, unstoppable. He’d about-face in Marin and march all the way back down, to Baja or wherever the hell his fabulous old feet would take him.

He’d walk and he’d walk and nothing could stop him — nothing — because he was Bernard S. Ribkin and he was undead.

Troy Copra

Moe Trusskopf said he wanted the thing as “out there” as possible. Even Dreyfuss threw his two cents in: what Moe should do was a “triple-X Medea .” The manager loved that.

Troy boned up on Euripides and wrote a quickie variation. It was kind of fun — one more anecdote for the next installment of Skin Trade . For our heroine, Quinn engaged a five-foot, two-hundred-pound chick who’d do anything, even fuck the Mimsy double (christened “Rimsy”), a furry-dicked compulsive copulator. A real pro, that one. As a bonus, the fat lady—“Zanzibar”—had just dropped a kid, so she could really squirt. Troy made Moe pay through the nose for that. For old times’ sake, Sir Lancelot had a walk-on in the role of Johnny Depth, but wouldn’t participate in any sex acts. Moe practically had to blackmail him to show some basket.

In Troy’s rendition, Medea is married to the blond-haired Jason, a dentist-surfer with a hirsute crack known far and wide as the Golden Fleece (his scant bikini, the Golden Floss). He moves Medea/Zanzibar, Rimsy and their skinhead kids — the ever-resourceful Quinn “discovered” a set of nineteen-year-old twins at Plummer Park — to Hollywood to seek his fortune drilling celebrity molars. As fate has it, Jason falls in love with the first patient in for a cleaning, the famous producer Zevvy Girdleshtup. The boy who played Zev was a find, a buff albino whom they dressed in one of the producer’s wiggier signature Gaultier leathers. Jason and Zevvy were joined in marriage and, as a “traditional Greek welcome to the bride,” Rimsy, after having his way with the love-starved Medea, attempted sodomy upon His Girdleshtup with failed albeit jackhammer gusto. Meanwhile, Medea plotted her revenge, giving suck to the twins as she schemed, one on each teat, whilst the boys shook each other’s martinis (real-life-brothers, to boot). Even Quinn was amazed.

Kiv dropped by during the shoot, looking beautiful. She was starting to show. She spent her days buying clothes for Jodie — that was the baby’s name, after Jodie Foster, Pantheon queen.

She watched him direct the last scene, where Medea learns of her betrayal. There was no sex in it at all — Troy’s last laugh on his employers. Kiv studied her love while he advised the actors, denuding their campy gestures and intonations, honing and paring, excising innuendo. This was the man who would soon direct marvelous movies, movies belonging to the world. Could no one else see? Inside the bubble of this drafty gray soundstage, focused and unbroken, burning bright, Troy made the best of the demonic hand he’d been dealt and for a moment, like a ghost schooner, this ship of fools lifted to the black starry realm.

Zanzibar, obese, lactating, borderline psychotic that she was, gave vent to a brassy, eerily moving rage that Troy sculpted with painstaking love. The crew fell silent — Kiv knew they had transcended this travesty, this gutter — human drama unfolding without cumbrance. There were no borders. This searing mystery wrought from language and emotion, unexpected majesty wrenched from horror, was Troy’s doing, Troy’s gift, the gift of her fiancé, father of her child. Kiv was so proud — pulling swatches of Kleenex from the box at craft service, holding them to her eyes like warm compresses. The tears rolled down her cheeks, stinging her lips. She wanted to go someplace far away for their honeymoon, maybe Cannes. She loved reading about the festival in Variety . She would sit on the terrace of the Hotel du Cap and answer their questions. I am here with my husband , she would tell them… the director Troy Copra .

She heard “Action” and quietly slipped to the stage to join him.

Chet Stoddard

Chet went to Circuit City and bought himself one of those little satellite dishes — a gift to himself. He surfed until he got to T3. The screen read:

THE FOXXXY CHANNEL — ADULT MOVIES ALL DAY — THEATER 10

Rating: NR

Cost: $ 6.99

(plus applicable taxes)

Started at: 4:30 AM

Time Left: 3:15:26

(Press ENTER to purchase program)

(Otherwise change channel)

When the show came on, a number of things were happening. A hostess was interviewing a comedian called the Jokeman. At the same time, half-nude girls struck lascivious poses on ratty motel-yellow couches; folks at home could dial a nine hundred number to access live on-camera “one-on-ones” with favorites. The robonymphos pouted, preened and gyrated on the electronic auction block, tweaking nipples with red-lacquered pincers, working tongues like the village idiot in a Monty Python sketch. It was amazing to Chet that this could be someone’s idea of a hard-on. The medley format was surreal: in a Frankenstein-stitched decathlon of carnival burlesque, the Jokeman ran his crude shtick while hopped-up, underworld yeomanettes, in varied states of bullshit arousal, feigned “mirth.”

The camera discovered the girl at the end of the couch, and Chet got a start: it was his daughter, JABBA flashed on-screen in orange neon letters, like a game show’s secret clue. She winked at the camera, crowing, “Jabba Dabba do!”

The last time he saw Molly was Thanksgiving Day, a few years back. She was on bail for possession and soliciting. He took her to the Sepulveda Velvet Turtle for turkey and all the trimmings. After, they saw Lavinia at the Mount Olympus place — what a mistake. She was sixty pounds overweight, housebound with a stress fracture. Molly nodded out in her old room while Chet endured the ex’s diatribes and sophistic recriminations. It was two hours before they got out of there. He dropped Molly at a motel somewhere on La Brea.

The sweaty Jokeman stood before the camera like a boxer in a cheap interactive game. “A wife goes to her husband and says, ‘I don’t have any tits. I want you to buy me some tits.’ The husband says, ‘We can’t afford it.’ Wife starts crying. ‘ I want you to buy me tits! ’ Husband says, ‘Tell you what. Here’s what you do. Get some toilet paper and rub it between your chest, okay?’ Wife says, ‘What’ll that do?’ And the husband says, ‘Well, it sure worked on your ass !’”