I was dreaming of love in all its splendor and perfection when the phone rang. Reaching up out of my ardor I knocked the receiver off its cradle (I'm speaking literally, too, because my mattress is right on the floor), and it fell from the night stand onto my pillow. I said something into it and a man's voice started rapping in an unctuously Big Shot way. My mind was ready to shut down when I realized that the voice was talking about buying one of my stories to make into a movie.
I looked outside. It was another beautiful day in Austin, Texas, and since it was 1:15 in the afternoon I could get up without feeling like a slave to the Protestant Work Ethic. The voice asked me if I had a figure in mind for the film rights to my story, and without hesitation I said "One thousand dollars."
I heard him swallow. When he started talking again, it was without the Big Shot oil. "This isn't for national TV, you understand, we're a local station and operate on a limited budget."
" 'Limited budget' is redundant," I said.
We dickered for about ten minutes and finally agreed on five hundred dollars, which was exactly ten times the amount I had received for First Serial Rights from the literary magazine that printed my story.
Three days later I received a Purchase Agreement in the mail from a television station claiming to be the most creative voice in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The letter with it told of the station's plan to produce a series of original dramas from the heartland of Texas, etc., but I didn't pay much attention to it, figuring it was TV hype. I threw a copy of the Agreement in my desk, signed the original and sent it back. Within two weeks I received a check in the amount of $500 and was ecstatic.
I cashed it immediately, bought a magnum of champagne, invited a lady friend over, and spent the next twelve hours trying to see how many times I could show her how a torpedo works.
I hadn't given a thought to the basis for my good fortune-the story. It was titled "The Lollipop Epoch" and had been published a couple of years ago in Eclipsed Planet, an obscure lit mag that has since gone the way of so many noble efforts in the world of commerce. One of the editors told me that EP was "of modest circulation"-and he wasn't being modest. A resounding silence followed publication of "The Lollipop Epoch," which was what I expected; after all, the story was about a young girl who confronts a basic reality that marks the end of "the lollipop epoch" of her life. I never liked the title much, but it was fitting because the girl loved lollipops and gave them up at the end of the story where she had reached a turning point in her life.
So much for symbolism.
I'll be the first to tell you the story wasn't great, but I had adorned it with some nice writing, I thought, and created a really vivid and memorable if not immortal little girl. (Actually I had done a first draft about a boy, but that didn't satisfy me, so I tried a girl and the story seemed to work better. I'm telling you this so that you won't get the idea that I have some insight into little girls, because I don't-in fact, I don't even know why. Lewis Carroll I'm not.)
Two weeks after I had cashed the check and one week after the money was gone I got another call from the television executive in Dallas, who this time wanted to know if I'd consider coming up there and working on a "treatment" of my story for them. I was thinking that to become solvent I would consider anything short of the burning of flesh or the drawing of blood, but I told him in a nonchalant drawl that we could explore the possibility if he wanted to rustle some bills for me. Then he went into his local station routine again, but this time made the mistake of trying to appeal to me on the basis of art.
We settled on a salary of $300 a week plus all my expenses (including my ongoing ones in Austin as well as my living expenses in Dallas). I would have done it for less if he hadn't pulled that art ploy on me. Can you imagine a television executive talking about art? I'd like to see his paycheck.
So I went to Dallas, rented a very nice hotel apartment near the station, and started working for the Three Stooges.
I call them that because they reminded me of Larry, Moe, and Curly, but they took themselves very seriously-I don't know how, but they did. The executive who had arranged for my services was named Jaspers, but to me he was Larry: he had no hair on the top of his head but a lot over his ears that always looked frizzled, as though he'd just gotten out of bed after a restless night. His title was Executive Director.
I also had two other Directors (it appeared that I would be the directee), one a Director of Production and the other a Creative Director, which got my vote for the silliest title at the station. This so-called Creative Director was named Fleet, and I suspected that he had previously been employed as a demolition expert. Fleet had thick black hair that was straight and kept falling in his face. He was intensely energetic and I could tell he got his intensity and energy from amphetamines. He was Moe on speed.
The Director of Production was a thick, round-faced man who kept his gray hair clipped so close to his scalp that he might as well have been bald. His name was Freude and he seemed to think everyone owed him respect, though I could never figure out why. He disliked me at once, probably sensing that we were natural enemies.
We had meetings every Monday morning, which I thought was a good idea: do the worst part first, then the rest of the week wouldn't seem so bad. The Stooges had, I discovered, never considered an attitude such as mine in their scheduling, which told me something about the location of their heads.
Our first meeting was rather bland. They all told me how much they liked "The Lollipop Epoch" and how happy they were to have the author working on the video treatment. I asked if perhaps we could use another word, because I had an aunt under "treatment" and it didn't appear that she would ever get well.
"What would you call it?" Curly asked with chilly hauteur. He was a man without a sense of humor.
"Why not call it a film script-isn't that what you want?"
"What we want," Curly said in an unmistakable employer-to-employee voice, "aside from avoiding useless semantic squabbles, is first of all an outline of the general thrust and mood of your projected...script-as it exists apart from the story."
"You see," Larry added, "we start with ideas and work toward fleshing out the broader dimensions as we go along."
"That's right," Moe chimed in, anxious to work his jaws over some words instead of just grinding them. "We need your ideas first so that we can guide you better as you develop the, ah, script."
They all loved the word we.
Then Curly said something about the story being a concept they liked, and they wanted me to go from there, not merely translate it for a different medium, but use it as a base from which to create a viable television vehicle, which has not only a different set of requirements from those governing the short story, but also different types of limitations, strictures that are unique... .
He ran that sentence full speed for another minute, until I got lost in his syntax but finally caught on: they didn't think my story was right for TV and they wanted me to write one that was, using the same character and setting. And they all wanted a hand in it: this was to be a script written under what I call the "gang-bang method." Maybe treatment was the right word after all.
They gave me an office to work in, smaller than I would have chosen, of course, but it had an imitation leather couch and a window that allowed me to view a huge elm tree right outside. I liked that; I could lie on the couch and look at the tree-and I spent many hours doing just that. I never had to type a final draft of anything, since they had a secretary, Maggie-with-the-magic-fingers, to do all the script typing for me. I wanted to take Maggie home with me to see what else she had that might be magic, but it was no go. I liked her.
I spent the next three days working out what I thought would fill an hour of TV time, that is, about forty-five minutes of script. I gave it to Maggie-with-the-magic-fingers on Thursday afternoon and then treated myself to a long weekend.
At the meeting on Monday morning, the Trio told me they thought the idea I had worked out in detail was choice, really fine, a dynamite job! I felt like holding my jewels because I knew a kick was coming. "However," Moe said-and my scrotum contracted-"it's just a bit too sophisticated for TV, we think perhaps a bit too subtle. We'd like a script with less nuance."
"Less nuance," I murmured.
"Yes," Curly said. "We don't want to leave the audience wondering, do we?"
"Why not?" I said. "At least the viewers would have something to think about."
"Ambiguity is not a viable quality," Larry added. "Keep in mind you're not writing for the same audience as you were before."
I told them I didn't think they were any longer interested in my story, that what they wanted was a comic book for television. Curly thought that for a writer I had a distinctly abrasive way of expressing myself. I started to say it was called telling the truth, which always offends someone, but I knew that would rub him the wrong way, so I just clucked my tongue and tried to look apologetic.
"We like the idea of a young girl's awakening perceptions," Moe said. "Keep the concept, but desubtleize it."
I cringed, but agreed to do what they wanted.
I spent two days writing an obvious script that an eight-year-old could understand. It was Wednesday noon and as far as I was concerned my week's work was done, so I gave it to Maggie and took off.
When I arrived at the meeting on Monday morning, Curly made it clear that I was on salary and therefore would be expected to keep the same working hours as all other employees. I told him that the creative person can't work in a straitjacket, that he needs freedom to renew the energy and refill the well (I didn't tell him I was filling it with Old Granddad 114 Barrel Proof-for which he was paying).
Curly objected to my image of the straitjacket as well as my idea of freedom, then pointed out that the Creative Director managed to work steady hours, a fact that he obviously thought disproved my argument but that I thought was a non sequitur. "We want you to be available," he said at last.
"For what?"
"In a dynamic setting such as this," Moe said, "you never know what's going to happen."
What, I wondered, could he possibly be thinking of? Heart attack? Power failure? I was a writer, not a doctor or even an electrician. I couldn't imagine what I might be needed for-a quick line of dialogue? Perhaps a prepositional phrase with the word gnathonic in it? Within a few minutes I understood that they were resentful of my liberty and that I would have to play their game if I wanted to continue receiving their largesse.
Naturally they wanted a rewrite, so I knocked out another draft that was absolutely simplistic, and by Wednesday noon had again finished my work. This time, however, I put the script in my briefcase and left the office, informing Maggie that I would be in the broadcast studio if anyone needed a gerund real quick. Then I walked down to Studio A where a live noontime show was being shot. I got to talking to one of the makeup girls and asked her if she'd like to share a joint with me.
Her name was Holly and she'd very much like that, so I took her to lunch. We smoked a number as I drove to a chichi restaurant about a mile away. It took twenty minutes to get there. We had an excellent lunch-cracked crab and a really nice Pouilly-Fumé. The tab came to $60.38 and I added a $10 tip, got a receipt, and doddled out with a happy Holly on my arm.
We did another J on; the way back to the station, and arrived stoned to oblivion. I don't know what Holly did but I went back to my office and went to sleep, telling Maggie that I was going into Deep Concentration and mustn't be disturbed.
I spent the next two days romancing Holly so that she would spend the weekend with me. Everything went fine; we had a vibrant weekend.
Then, as always happens, Monday came.
"We feel that $70 lunches are not only irresponsible," Curly said, "but a flagrant abuse of your expense account."
Instead of arguing that far from being irresponsible the lunch had been quite nourishing, I explained that I took a woman to lunch because I was having a problem with the female character in the script and I very much needed feedback and an opinion from the opposite sex. Certainly I would have gone to a less expensive restaurant, I said, had I been more familiar with Dallas-and so on for about five minutes or however long it took me to unravel nine yards of pure bullshit.
They chewed on me some more, but I didn't care; they were paying for it. I tried to look contrite, which was hard because inside I was giggling. Nevertheless, from then on I was crafty about my expenses (they didn't mind being soaked, I figured, they just didn't want it to be obvious-they didn't like straightforward reality).
One day I asked the Creative Director how he did it, because I was trying to find a way to slip a few grams of coke into the budget.
"You mean drugs?" he said. "You can't do that."
"I know where I can score Dexamyl by the gross," I answered, "at a good price."
"Well, why didn't you say so? Come into my office and we'll work something out."
The guy was more creative than I had thought.
At the next meeting, Curly in particular was dissatisfied with my script. Moe and Larry took their cues from him, of course, so it was three against one-although Moe went easiest of all. The general complaint was that I had gotten away from the concept.
Of course the reason I had gotten away from it was that I kept trying to give them what they said they wanted.
"This girl has got to capture the audience," Curly said, then decided that she should fall victim to some illness. "A great device for getting viewer sympathy," they all agreed. "After all, it happens to everybody, right? It's relatable."
I made a comment about it being extraneous to the plot, rather than organic.
"We don't want anything serious," Curly said, ignoring my remark. At least I thought he was ignoring it. "No leukemia or tuberculosis, nothing depressing."
"Nothing really sick," I said, thinking about AIDS.
"Got any ideas?" they asked me.
"How about mononucleosis?"
Larry and Curly looked at me the way a cotton farmer might look at a boll weevil, but Moe said, "Too long, we need something shorter."
I didn't know whether he meant a shorter word or an illness of shorter duration. "We'll send you a Merck Manual," they said. "You can pick something."
I went back to my office and for the next day or so had a romp batting out a totally trivialized piece of dreck that was a travesty of my original story. Then I spent the rest of the week coked to the eyeballs and wandered around the studios.
I was even a guest once on the noontime show (a last-minute substitution for a well-known minister who had been arrested for sexual misconduct at his home for boys), and answered a lot of vapid questions such as "How did you become a writer?"
When I said "By putting pen to paper," my questioner blanched, so I began to elaborate, giving out relatively factual information that could be of no possible value to anyone, but that pleased the insipid hostess. I soon tired of playing it straight and ended by saying that Herman Melville was my great-grandfather on my mother's side, "so writing comes naturally to me."
I was thinking about telling her-and all the brain-dead viewers in vidiotland-that I was the illegitimate son of Jack Kerouac and Carson McCullers when she asked if I really thought writing talent could be inherited. "Absolutely," I said, winging it all the way. "It's like money: if your parents don't have it, they can't give it to you."
The analogy didn't seem convincing, she said, and asked me to explain why new writers are always springing from the earth, so to speak, with no literary heritage whatsoever.
"That's because in the past a lot of people who were born writers didn't get a chance to write because they had to pick fruit, or shine shoes, or work in coal mines. The capitalist system has destroyed more creative people than all the purges in hist-"
"Another question I'm sure our audience would like answered," the hostess broke in, twitching a bit, "is about your work habits. Do you have any techniques to get you started?"
"None whatever. I just write when it hits me. However, I do have some habits you might find interesting..."
I had a good time. The hostess, however, was damn near apoplectic by the time the program was over and made some rash threats against my person and promised to get me fired to boot. The audience response, I soon learned, wasn't much better: a lot of people called wanting to know how to spell the name of "that red Commie pinko" so that they could add it to their list of known subversives, but most of the callers wanted to know why a minister who ran a home for boys talked so much about writing.
Anyway, to get to the end of this adventure, the Trio liked my travesty and couldn't see my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek.
The Creative Director suggested a Kristy McNichol type to play the lead.
"What type is that?" I had to ask. "Who is Kristy McNichol?"
"She was the young dark-haired girl on 'Family'. Kind of a tomboy. You've never seen her?"
"I don't watch television," I said without thinking.
The room went silent, and the Trio looked at me as though I had just announced my intent to kidnap and rape all their children, regardless of age, sex, or attractiveness.
"Not at all?" Larry asked.
The cat was, as they say, out of the bag-and he was crapping on the carpet.
My time was up anyway.
I spent a total of seven weeks in the Big D, for which the station paid me $2,100 in salary plus slightly more than that amount in "expenses." I returned home with nearly $2,000 in my pocket and a feeling that my time had been well spent. I asked Larry to let me know when the show (as I had come to think of it) went on the air so that I could watch it. I figured that ought to be good for a laugh. The working title was now "The Goodbye Summer" because titles with "goodbye" or "summer" in them were usually winners.
I never heard from him again. Moe called last week, wanting me to put him in touch with a dealer in pharmaceuticals, and I asked about the program.
"We shelved it," he said. "We tried, but it just wasn't a viable project, and Mr. Freude said he was tired of throwing good money after bad."
I was pleased that my "treatment" never went on the tube-especially when I re-read the contract and discovered that all rights revert to me.
I can hardly wait for Hollywood to call.
Ben Satterfield has published fiction, poetry, drama, reviews, rants and commentary in all kinds of periodicals. He was last in SOTT with "The Naked Facts" (Summer 1990).
For other stories by Ben Satterfield, click here.
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