Hollywood

by Charles Bukowski

  “But they don’t have the rights, yet...”

  “They claimed that they did. They presented the package: the screenplay, the actors, the budget. For the right to produce the film they were asking 7 million. They were going to buy the rights from us for less after they had made a deal in secret...”

  “Jesus...”

  “We are once again the victim of another bunch of crooks. So that’s out. The Edleman thing is finished. So we are now going to try to get another producer. I didn’t want to bother you with all this but I thought I’d better let you know.”

  “Of course. So, how’s it going?”

  “We get people on the phone. We present it to them on the phone and they all say, ‘Fine, fine, we’ll do it.’ Then when they see the screenplay they say, ‘No.’ The whole town says, ‘No.’ The moment they see the screenplay they say, ‘No.’ Here’s a film with 2 great actors and a budget so low that there is no way this film isn’t going to make money. Yet the whole town says ‘No.’ It’s unheard of.”

  “They don’t like the screenplay,” I said.

  “They don’t like it.”

  “And I don’t like them. I don’t like them at all.”

  “Well, we are going to keep working. There must be some people somewhere that we haven’t tried.”

  “It sounds dark.”

  “Somehow we are going to do this thing.”

  “I like your faith.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “All right...”

  I got back down on the rug and played with the cat. The cat liked to chase this piece of string.

  “The movie’s back to nowhere,” I told Sarah. “Nobody likes the screenplay.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I think it’s better than most of the screenplays I’ve seen but maybe I’m wrong. Mostly I’m sorry for Jon.”

  The cat missed the string but sunk a claw into the top of my hand. The blood came. I walked to the bathroom and doused the wound with hydrogen peroxide. There was my face in the mirror: just an old man who had written a screenplay. Shit. I walked out of there.

  When the horses were running I never got any bad news because I wasn’t home and nobody could find me.

  Well, the track did come around again and I went every day, did all right, came in, as was my wont, ate, watched a bit of TV with Sarah, went upstairs to the wine bottle and the typer. I was working on the poem. There wasn’t much money in the poem but it sure was a big playground to flounder around in.

  Within a couple of weeks after his last phone call there was another from Jon.

  “Everything is hell again,” he said. “We are worse off than ever!”

  “What?”

  “Listen, we found a producer, he said all right, he liked everything, even the screenplay. He told me, ‘AH right, we’ll do it. Bring the papers, I’ll sign them and we’ll get right into production.’ So a time was set for the signing but before I could get over there he phoned me. He said, ‘I can’t do the film.’ Apparently there is a well-known director who claims he has the dramatic rights to all the works about Henry Chinaski. ‘There is nothing I can do,’ he told me. The deal is off.’”

  Henry Chinaski was the name Ihad used for my main character in my various novels. I had used the name again in the screenplay.

  “What is this bullshit?” I asked.

  “It’s not bullshit. You have sold the rights to the Henry Chinaski character.”

  “There’s no truth in this,” I said, “but even if it were true, all we would have to do is to change the name.”

  “No, the contract says that he owns the character no matter what name you use. Forever!”

  “This can’t be true...”

  “I am afraid when you sold your novel Shipping Clerk to the director Hector Blackford, you also sold those dramatic rights.”

  “Yes, I sold the movie rights. It was only 2 thousand dollars. I was starving. It looked like a lot of money to me at the time. Blackford never made a movie out of Shipping Clerk.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It says in the contract that he owns the character forever.”

  “Listen, how did you hear all this?”

  “Well, there’s this lawyer, Fletcher Jaystone. He’s in bed with a lady film editor. They’ve completed their business and the lawyer sees the screenplay on the side table. He reaches over. It’s The Dance of Jim Beam. He flips through it, puts the screenplay back down and says, ‘HENRY CHINASKI! MY CLIENT OWNS THIS GUY! I DREW UP THE CONTRACT MYSELF!’ And right from there the word goes around town. The Dance of Jim Beam is dead. Now nobody will touch it because Blackford and his lawyer own Henry Chinaski.”

  “That’s not true, Jon. I wouldn’t sell these rights into perpetuity for a lousy 2 grand. That wouldn’t make any sense.”

  “But it’s in the contract!”

  “I read the contract before I signed it. I never saw anything like that.”

  “See section VI.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I phoned this lawyer. He is a tough guy. ‘We own Henry Chinaski,’ he told me. ‘I invested 15 thousand of my own money at the time and it was lot of money then. It’s still a lot of money.’ I started to get excited, I started to scream at him. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘don’t talk to me like that. Don’t you talk to me like that.’ I couldn’t get anywhere with him. I don’t know if he wants a lot of money or what but right now Jim Beam is dead, deader than anything around. It’s finished.”

  “Jon, I’ll phone you back.”

  I looked up the contract and checked section VI. To my mind I could see no implied or direct sale of the rights to the character. I read section VI again and again but couldn’t see it.

  I phoned Jon.

  “There’s nothing in section VI that says anything about handing over the character forever. What kind of sickness is this? Has everybody gone crazy?”

  “No; but that’s what it means.”

  “What means?”

  “Section VI.”

  “Do you have the contract there, Jon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you read me where it states that this guy owns Henry Chinaski.”

  “Well, it infers it.”

  “This is SICK! I don’t even see an inference!”

  “If we have to go to court it will take 3,4,5 years...And meanwhile, Jim Beam will be dead. Nobody will touch it!”

  “IS EVERYBODY IN THIS TOWN THAT FRIGHTENED? THERE IS NOTHING IN SECTION VI THAT STATES ANYTHING IN THE VAGUEST WAY ABOUT SELLING THE CHINASKI CHARACTER TO THESE PEOPLE!”

  “You have signed away the rights to Henry Chinaski forever,” said Jon.

  He was sick too. I hung up.

  I found Hector Blackford’s phone number. It was listed in the phone book as it had always been. I had known Hector since he had come out of filmmaking school at USC. One of his first films had been a documentary about me. It played on PBS one night. The next morning 50 people phoned in and cancelled their subscriptions.

  Hector and I had been drunk together a few times. He had shown some interest in doing Shipping Clerk and he had even handed me a screenplay but it was so badly done that I told him to forget it. Meanwhile, he went his way and I went mine. And he became rich and famous, directing a number of big hits. I played with the poem and forgot about Shipping Clerk.

  The phone rang and he was there.

  “Hector, this is Hank...”

  “Oh, hello Hank. How’s it going?”

  “Not well.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about Jim Beam. There’s a guy going around town who claims you and he own Henry Chinaski. You know him.”

  “Fletcher Jaystone?”

  “Yes. Now, Hector, you know I wouldn’t sell my ass and soul for a lousy 2 thousand bucks.”

  “Fletcher says that you have...”

  “It’s not in section VI.”

  “He says it is.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “
Yes.”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, baby, you’re not going to yank my balls off because of some vague wordage that nobody can understand, are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we’ve got a movie under way and this is going to kill it off forever. Don’t you remember all those nights we got drunk together and talked all that good talk?”

  “Yes, those were good nights.”

  “Then talk to your man and get him off our ass. We only want to inhale and exhale. That’s all.”

  “Hank, I’ll call you back.”

  I sat by the phone and waited. I waited 15 minutes. It rang.

  It was Hector. “All right, Jaystone is going to relent.”

  “Thank you, man, I know you’ve got a good heart. The business hasn’t killed you yet.”

  “Jaystone is going to send you a release, immediately.”

  “Great! Great! Hector, you’re beautiful!”

  “And Hank...”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m still going to make a movie out of Shipping Clerk someday.”

  “All right, baby! Hello to your wife!”

  “Hello to Sarah,” said Hector.

  Nine-tenths of this kind of action is resolved over the telephone; the other tenth is the signing of the papers.

  I phoned Jon.

  “Hector is calling your man Jaystone off. Jaystone is sending a release.”

  “Great! Great! Now we can go ahead! Hector was your buddy, wasn’t he?”

  “Well, I think he’s proved that.”

  “As soon as we get the release I’ll go back to our new producer...By the way, instead of waiting on the mail why don’t I just go to Jaystone’s office and pick up the release?”

  “Sure, phone him and set it up.”

  “Well, we’re back in the movie business,” said Jon.

  “Sure. Maybe we ought to have lunch at Musso’s.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. One-thirty.”

  “See you there,” said Jon.

  “See you,” I answered.

  27

  So there I was sitting around typing up poems and sending them out to the little magazines. For some reason the short story wasn’t arriving on the typer and I didn’t like that but I couldn’t force it, so there I was playing with the poem. It was my release and my feast. Maybe the short story would come back some day. I certainly hoped so. The horses ran, the wine still poured and Sarah did some beautiful work in the garden.

  I didn’t hear from Jon for about a week, then one night the phone rang.

  “You know that new producer we got the release from Blackford for?”

  “Yes, is he ready to go?”

  “He’s backed out. Says he doesn’t want to do the film.”

  “Why?”

  “He said that while he was waiting for the release papers he was offered another property he preferred. A screenplay about twin orphans who become the Doubles Champions of the Tennis World.”

  “Sounds great. Wish I had thought of that.”

  “But there’s some good news too.”

  “Like?”

  “Firepower has decided to go ahead with the movie.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I think they got scared that somebody else was going to do it. I think they smell money there. After all, the budget is pared to the bone. Everybody took a cut. And that was their doing, their artwork. I don’t think they wanted anybody else to benefit from that. Harry Friedman phoned me. ‘I want that god damned movie,’ he said. ‘All right,’ I told him, ‘you’ve got it.’ ‘And if this movie doesn’t make money, I will personally cut off all of your fingers!’”

  “So, it’s on again...?”

  “It’s on again.”

  Then three or four nights later the phone rang. It was Jon.

  “All right if I come over? There is something we must talk about.”

  “Sure, Jon...”

  Thirty minutes later he was at the door. The bottle and the glasses waited on the coffeetable.

  “Come on in, Jon...”

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  “Acting class.”

  “Oh...”

  Jon walked around and found his favorite seat near the fireplace. I filled his glass.

  “AH right, tell me.”

  “Well, we are all set to start shooting, the schedule is set. Then Francine Bowers, she’s in Boston, she falls ill. There must be an operation. She won’t be ready for two weeks...”

  “What happens?”

  “We shoot around her. We shoot Jack Bledsoe, everything else. We will shoot her last. We get set to shoot the first scene with Jack and he refuses!”

  “Why?”

  “He demands a Rolls-Royce convertible to bring him to the set before he will do any acting.”

  “How the hell can he do that?”

  “It’s in his contract. We find him one. No good. It’s the wrong color. We shoot some scenes without Jack or Francine. Then we find the right color Rolls convertible and Jack is back and ready to go to work.”

  I refill the drinks.

  “He I wants you down there watching him,” said Jon.

  “What? Doesn’t he know that I have to go to the racetrack?”

  “He says that they don’t run every day.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Listen, Hank, he wants you to write a scene just for him.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “He wants to do a scene in front of a mirror, he wants to say something in front of a mirror. Maybe a poem...”

  “That could ruin everything, Jon.”

  “These actors can be very difficult. If they get unhappy in the beginning, they can kill the whole film.”

  Here I go, I thought, selling my ass down the river...

  “All right,” I said, “I’ll write a poem in the mirror.”

  “Also, Francine wants a scene where she can show off her legs. She has great legs, you know.”

  “All right, I’ll write in a leg scene...”

  “Thank you. You know, you have another payment coming. You were supposed to get it when the shooting started but Firepower has held off paying us. But we’ll get it and when we do you’ll be paid.”

  “All right, Jon.”

  “I wish you’d come down and see the bar and the hotel where we’re shooting. We’re using real barflies, you know. They live in that hotel. You’ll like them.”

  “We’ll be down there Monday...”

  “I had some other little problems with Jack...”

  “Like?”

  “He wanted to get a tan, wear a little fedora and a pigtail...”

  “I don’t believe that...”

  “It’s true. It took me hours to talk him out of it. And look what he wanted to wear in the movie!”

  Jon reached down into his briefcase and pulled out a pair of dark shades. He put them on. They were huge. And the frame was shaped into green plastic palm trees.

  “Is this guy crazy?” I asked. “There isn’t a man in the state of California who’d wear those things.”

  “I told him that. He insisted that he be allowed to wear the glasses somewhere in the movie, if only for a moment. ‘OTHERWISE,’ he screamed at me, ‘YOU’LL BE TAKING MY BALLS AWAY!’ “

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t want to take his balls away. I’ll figure out a scene somewhere where he can put the glasses on.”

  “You’ll get this stuff to me as soon as you write it?”

  “I’ll do it tonight.”

  I poured another round of drinks.

  “How’s François?”

  “You know that 60 thousand he got behind on that practice roulette wheel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he worked his way out of that. He’s now six thousand ahead and a much happier man.”

  “Good.”

  Three things a man needed: faith, practice, and luck.

&nbs
p; 28

  The shooting was to start in Culver City. The bar was there and the hotel with my room. The next part of the shooting was to be done in the Alvarado Street district, where the apartment of the female lead was located.

  Then there was a bar to be used near 6th Street and Vermont. But the first shots were to be in Culver City.

  Jon took us up to see the hotel. It looked authentic. The barflies lived there. The bar was downstairs. We stood and looked at it.

  “How do you like it?” Jon asked.

  “It’s great. But I’ve lived in worse places.”

  “I know,” said Sarah, “I’ve seen them.”

  Then we walked up to the room.

  “Here it is. Look familiar?”

  It was painted grey as so many of those places were. The torn shades. The table and the chair. The refrigerator thick with coats of dirt. And the poor sagging bed.

  “It’s perfect, Jon. It’s the room.”

  I was a little sad that I wasn’t young and doing it all over again, drinking and fighting and playing with words. When you’re young you can really take a battering. Food didn’t matter. What mattered was drinking and sitting at the machine. I must have been crazy but there are many kinds of crazy and some are quite delightful. I starved so that I could have time to write. That just isn’t done much anymore.

  Looking at that table I saw myself sitting there again. I’d been crazy and I knew it and I didn’t care.

  “Let’s go down and check the bar again...”

  We went down. The barflies who were to be in the movie were sitting there. They were drinking.

  “Come on, Sarah, let’s grab a stool. See you later, Jon...”

  The bartender introduced us to the barflies. There was Big Monster and Little Monster, The Creeper, Buffo, Doghead, Lady Lila, Freestroke, Clara and others.

  Sarah asked The Creeper what he was drinking. “It looks good,” she said.