Bruce Wagner - The Chrysanthemum Palace

Such was the cheap stuff Emmy dreams were made of.

The next morning, I drove to the Margaret Herrick Library over on La Cienega.

I’d been there before to poke around, chasing story ideas that never panned out. It was a clean, well-funded place, somehow connected to the Academy. The cool, classical hush of its interiors reminded me of the Huntington in Pasadena. I filled out the form and a few minutes later an officious clerk returned with a folder of clippings, production notes, stills, and related ephemera.

Son of Author Michelet Drowns

(Italy) The 12-year-old son of Pulitzer Prize — winning novelist Jack Michelet drowned Monday during the shooting of a film off the coast of Capri. Jeremy Michelet was missing for several hours from his father’s yacht, The Soft Sea Horse, which was being used as a location for a movie based on one of his books. The body was found later that day by a fisherman. The production of The Death of a Translator, starring Alain Delon and Sophia Loren, has been suspended for a week. Mr. Michelet wrote the screenplay.

There were photos from the press kit — Jack with the director, Jack with Sophia, Jack with Alain — but nothing of the boys.

I closed my eyes and set the stage, remembering what Thad once told me: reflexively supplanting Jeremy’s face with that of Leif Farragon’s, I imagined the twins in the water… saw the boy sinking, and Thad saying nothing for the longest time. It must have been dreamlike, as if nothing had happened… yet everything had, everything and nothing all at once! Life and death, past and future, each canceling out the other — precisely how I’d felt (in far lesser degrees) upon learning Roosevelt Chandler was no longer of this world. Suddenly, lugubrious manila file in hand, I felt like a coward for being able to walk away from the scene of the crime (his monologue about the killer from Chrysanthemum came back to mind) and stay away so many years. But Thad was left to simmer and boil, forever connected by tissue and bone to his overthrown, ambivalent beloved. And the worst was yet to come: soon to be ruled against by that monstrous Neptune, and sentenced by Mom, in absentia, before eternal banishment to the suppurative Hades of Migraine…

“SO, WHAT DO YOU THINKabout hiring Thad?”

“For what?”

“To write one of the books. You know—‘Prodigal Son.’ ”

“What are you, his agent?” said Perry, sardonically. “He needs one, by the way. Miriam’s a nice person, but a little quaint. What the fuck do you care, anyway? We get drones for that — it’s practically a software program. Why is he even interested? I mean, are they serious? Is it supposed to be ‘camp’? Because I’m tellin’ you, it ain’t. Much rather see him do the movie. Anyway, we can’t pay anything to write that crap. It’s fifteen grand. Maybe. He’d get more spending a day at a Starwatch convention.”

“Dad, can I tell you a secret?” His ears pricked up. “But this is… something you cannot talk about. With anyone. ”

“What is it?”

I told him about the IRS trouble and the $10 million proviso of Jack’s will.

“Jesus,” said Perry, taking a deep breath. “That’s astonishing! My God. All right — let me think about this.” He nodded, stroking his chin. I was really glad that he “got” it; I knew I had him. “OK. I’m inclined to do it. Jesus — that’s like something out of one of his father’s books! Boy oh boy. Nasty. ” He laughed but not in a way that was cruel. “Nasty, nasty, nasty! All right, let me mull this over, Bertram. But I’m predisposed. And don’t discuss it — not yet. You know, you should get a fucking commission if he pulls this off! Which, by the way, I very much doubt is possible. Because I have to tell you: only one or two of those titles ever made the list that I know of, maybe only one.” I told him he was wrong about that. “The Times? The New York Times? And that’s the stipulation? Holy shit. Well, that must have been a while back, when the show was at its peak. We’re talking paperback list — hardcover, forget. The series isn’t so popular anymore. In fact, we might phase it out entirely.”

Watching him, I knew he already saw himself in the index of some future Michelet biography: Krohn, Perry Needham, generosity of.

“You know, I’m worried about your friend.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re going to be his patron, maybe you should look after him a bit.”

“In what way?”

“I got a call. From Sherry Evans. Clea has a nasty bruise on her jaw. Did you know about this?”

“No.”

“She said she fell in the bathroom.”

The comment had big quotes around it.

“When?”

“She called about an hour ago.”

“Who’s Sherry Evans?”

“A makeup gal. She was concerned and didn’t know who to tell.”

(He’d inadvertently exposed a lover.)

“I’ll talk to Clea,” I said.

My heart was racing.

“Maybe you should talk to him. ”

He walked to his desk and retrieved a book.

“Did I show you this?”

It was a copy of The Soft Sea Horse.

He held open the title page to display Thad’s dedication.

a Perry Menopausal, con mucho cariño…

“E le morte stagioni”

Ever Thine,

♥

Thaddeus (Leapin’) Leopardi

“Do you know what it means?” I felt like an ass but nothing else came to mind.

“Not a clue. But you’ll handle him — I mean, you’re gonna be his padrone, right?”

A sense of panic and betrayal gripped me as soon as I left my father’s house.

I frantically called the studio but Clea was in the middle of a scene. The A.D. intuited my concerns and assured she was “totally OK.” I asked about Thad and he said, “Seems completely fine.” (Like a candy striper reassuring a distraught relative.) I would have driven directly over if not for the big meeting at HBO, though it probably was better I didn’t. If Perry’s allegations were true — that Thad struck Clea, stoned or stone-cold sober — I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control my temper. I didn’t enjoy the feeling. I never liked the out-of-control thing.

I went to Century City with some agents from CAA and my dad’s old friend, Dan Fauci. When Dan was head of Paramount Television he made something like ninety pilots. Now he had a development deal, with an office on the lot. He had graciously played “rabbi” on Holmby Hills, overseeing my work on the outline; although by now I’d written an extensive précis, Dan said it was important “not to leave anything behind” after the pitch. No written material. But it was key to have done your homework so that any questions from the network could be finessed.

The meeting went well, or well enough — hard to gauge because it was the first I’d taken in my spanking-new role of all-seeing all-knowing writer-creator. I felt a little heady: you could see how guys like David Kelley or David Chase or David Milch (pick a David, any David) got hooked. No one brought up my father and that showed some class. But Perry was no David — he was demographically over-the-hill.

On the way out, a young exec sidled up to say he was a big fan of Starwatch.

“Clea Fremantle came in last week to pitch a show,” he said.