All I know is a cheque for seventy seven thousand five hundred dollars is due me right now on opening night.’
‘Kid you’re going to be lucky to be able to walk away from sudden catastrophe. I never heard boos bigger or the hisses more prolonged. The show’s a fucking flop. And you can forget the seventy seven thou.’ ‘You son of a bitch. You better believe I’m fucking forgetting nothing. Holy shit. I might have known.’
‘Hey I don’t mind what you say about me but watch kiddo what you say about my mother. I’m just telling you. The critics have torn the show to shreds kid. I won’t bore you with the gruesomeness of the disastrous details. So I’m making you an offer.’
‘An offer for what. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m selling.’ ‘The film and ancillary rights kid. I hear you bought out Sunningdale so by my calculation that’s you holding seventy percent of the film rights.’
‘I got investors Joe who get nearly half.’
‘So you walk away with slightly more than half. They could be the only thing to salvage down the line on the basis of a come back tour. The papers are all here in front of me in my deserted office this second and I have just come from a famous restaurant whose lousy name I won’t ever mention again in my life where they practically refused to serve me food and the customers nearly stood up to boo me out of the place.’
‘Hey come on Joe, who in New York would even waste that much emotional energy even to boo you producing a flop. Who you kidding.’ ‘Well I’m not kidding kiddo when I tell you that as soon as the first review anybody saw came out I was in two seconds flat left standing totally alone at the opening night party. On my stop watch it took thirty seconds to empty two hundred and fifty people out of the apartment with everybody trying to put on their coats and get out one door. Let me tell you they preferred broken shoulders and putting on the wrong fucking coat to staying there aside from two ladies scratching each other’s eyes out over an imitation chinchilla. The hostess even grabbed the god damn drink I was drinking out of my hand, poured it into a flower pot, said it was better used to benefit the plant and told me the party was over. You want me to continue kid.’
‘Jesus. Is every review bad.’
‘Well a couple of suburban out of town rags thought it was crass and vulgar enough to recommend to their friends to see so that anybody who saw it could do their friends a favour and tell them to stay away.’
‘Holy shit, I don’t believe it. This could backlash and ruin business here in London. It could close us.’
‘It sure could kid, it sure could, sad as that is true. But listen kid. No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for a friend. And I’m kid doing better than that. I’m laying down my money. So keep your toupee on. Be philosophical about these things. Broadway is always a crap throw. We opened tonight, we let them see it. They saw it and so they all said phooey. Which we got to accept. But deep down kid I believe in this show. I’ll keep some of the cast, give it a little artistic brushing up and start out fresh again somewhere that no one’s heard of. And where no one’s heard of us. Like Kalamazoo, or Chattanooga. And we slowly build up confidence again.’
‘The fucking boondocks Joe, will give the cast confidence to quickly commit suicide.’
‘Hey kid I got two shows already now out in the boondocks doing sold out business. In eighteen months or a couple of years I will build back this production’s London prestige which it just lost tonight in New York.’
‘Jesus Joe you got three other shows there running at capacity. I got one, only one, that my whole life hangs on.’
‘Look kid it’s a good show. But you know as well as I do that these smart wise guy stupid dumb critics out of habit say phooey to five out of six shows. And the public listens.’
‘Jesus Joe, you’re sounding just like Al Duke. Phooey was his favourite word. Wait I got to think. Jesus. This is really bad. Waking up to this like this. The fucking ultimate disaster.’
‘It’s the fucking penultimate kid. Tomorrow night it closes.’
‘Jesus it’s that bad and you mean you’re keeping it open another night.’
‘Yeah, my mother with her two nurses came all the way from St Louis in on the train, seventy six years old. She’s right now in a very nice suite in the Waldorf. I said no mom to the poor sweet dear when she said she was for opening night. I said mom that’s too much for your nerves and your bowel complaint. She said Joe I got better nerves than you which took me constipated through concentration camp. I said I believe you mom. But please let me keep you out of the crush and hysteria of first night. So I’m keeping the show open and giving one last special performance just for my mother to see. I already built her a mausoleum where both of us together are one day going to be.’
‘Hey come on, you think I’m going to believe all this load of shit this hour of the fucking morning over here. No pun meant on your mother.’
‘I love my mother. She’s a dear person.’
‘Fucking hell Joe. That’s great your concern for your mother to see the show. A nice lady I’m sure.’
‘That’s right. She’s all I got left in the world. Except for a brother who’s a dentist mixed up in so many law suits from his patients that I’m having to help him pay some of his lawyers’ bills.’
‘Jesus don’t bring dentists and lawyers into the conversation. It’s just that I don’t get it. No American mother even out of a god forsaken St Louis wants to see a bomb. And nobody especially you is going to lose one extra cent he doesn’t have to on a flop. And no one is giving two cents for any fucking cinematographic ancillary rights. The only thing wrong here Joe is why you are.’
‘What do you mean why.’
‘You know fucking why. I want to know why you want suddenly a bigger piece of the film rights to a disaster. And nobody, and especially not you is ready to fork out eighty five thousand bucks which could earn interest at two and a half percent above the prime rate somewhere. And especially not fork it out to me in the vague hope to build back prestige for a big fucking expensive extravagance that has just laid an egg. And for which now the film rights are not even worth the dust that’s going to collect on the contracts I got lying in my office for this show. That’s why the why.’
‘Kid, calm down. You’re hysterical. And hey by the way my mother’s Austrian, born in Vienna. And her Wiener schnitzel and apple strudel are wonderful. And holy shit kid this is a long expensive phone call but it’s worth at least telling you you should take some kind of pill for your paranoia. They got beautiful recent chemical inventions.’
‘My paranoia Joe has more than fucking once saved my fucking life and I ain’t taking no pill for it made out of any recent chemical invention.’
‘Do I have to say the numbers again. For one last time I will if I have to. Seventy five thousand United States dollars. New and crisp cash in a bundle. I want full cinematographic rights. Are you listening. I’ll take the risk on a future tour.’
‘I’m listening Joe. And ten thousand just fell off the price.’
‘That’s because of the cost of wear and tear on my nerves kid. You throw in your London share of the film rights.’
‘Throw.’
‘Yeah throw, kid.’
‘I’ll throw up my guts first, Joe.’
‘So you don’t want seventy five thou. Well don’t say I didn’t try, kid. The tour’s dead as of now and I’ll salvage what I can. Some amateur outfit wants to buy the sets.’
‘Jesus fucking christ. I never should have sold you this show in the first place. When you even underpaid for it.’
‘Don’t be a bad loser kid. By the way, that friend of yours Freddie Joy. A fresh rose is on her grave each day. Why did a beautiful girl like that behave the stubborn way she did. I hope you weren’t the influence kid.’
‘Don’t you fucking well bring up that girl’s name to me Joe. As if I was the fucking cause of her death.’
‘Nobody said anything kid. Nothing. She was just one of the most beautiful gi
rls of all time. She was even fun to be with. That’s all. And I’m glad you gave her my number.’
‘I’m hanging up this fucking phone.’
‘Hang up kid, it’s your funeral. But any time you feel like detouring from the fast lane to the crematorium, ring me. The money is waiting for the next eighteen hours only. And by the way kid Al Duke was in the audience, a nice sweet young girl with him. He was so enthusiastic with his applause that he totally knocked his toupee off. So long kid.’ Schultz putting down the bedside phone. Clanking on its cradle. Black darkness. Again coming into my life. When I thought a dozen times these past weeks I was already from disease dead and fallen down into the abyss. To join Freddie Joy wherever that lovely creature’s soul has gone. And now the very moment my health starts coming back and my balls are beginning to once more tingle with life, a new fucking abyss is yawning, the biggest yet. Holy cow, Rabbi here I am thinking of buying a motor yacht sitting a dozen people in the dining room and now I’ll be lucky to sit two people in a leaky fucking row boat with busted oars stranded up shit’s creek. Plus already a true reincarnation. Al. And it’s got to be that no fucking Louella is with him. Because if she is I’ll sue that overpriced detective I have following that god damn carpenter to watch him every night go up into tax dodgers’ towers. And just like Al to blow his gaskets again killing himself trying to clap and cheer his head off so he can save his sinking investment in the show. And Louella was even ringing up only three weeks ago with me with a raging fever and she purring down the phone hinting again at how she would enjoy the sun on my yacht. Which from this moment can’t even be a mythical dream anymore. And fuck a duck. She was at the same time cooking the carpenter my favourite pasta to eat with one of Al’s best wop wines. She even told me which wine. Go fuck your carpenter I said. Fucking women. Turn the charm on. Till they get something they want. Then they turn it off into sulking hostility till they next want something. Even at his Lordship’s and it wasn’t even during a recess, the whores were using his Lordship’s laundry room to wash their own personal fucking clothes. And now. Can’t bear the thought of it, jesus Freddie Joy. Why didn’t the fuck I do something. We could have teamed up together. We understood each other. I never hassled her, she never hassled me. Even with guys propositioning her every five seconds, she could be straight as an arrow. All she had to do was let a little water wash over her face. Unlike every other fucking woman who thinks that after she uses a new cream on her skin or takes beauty lessons that the world is going to dawn in eternal bliss with dumb slobs buying diamonds and ready to drop to their hands and knees panting crawling in their direction. Freddie Joy wherever she went had to always in her friendly manner kick guys in the face away. And christ I don’t know whether I’m crying for me or Freddie Joy but I can’t stop my fucking tears. Her whole body, her whole whole body with all its soft gorgeous magic, will all be mouldered away to nothing by now. With the silhouette of Manhattan on the horizon. She’s just one among all those thousands and thousands of gravestones. That you see there sticking up on the little hills just off the highway coming from the airport into New York. Makes me shiver in horror. Her legs, O christ her legs. How you could never figure out with all the hundreds you see how hers could be that so much more perfectly beautiful. Out of all the legs I’ve ever seen hers were like no legs that ever lived. Now they don’t hold her up anymore. Or carry her dancing across the stage. Forget me not she said. And I keep remembering. She said please let me Sigmund sit beside you on Broadway opening night and hold your hand. Holy fuck I can’t stop weeping. Why now Rabbi. Should my mouth go dry and a pain with the dull ache of doom go screaming up my rectum. That word used to be a joke growing up. Rectum, no it damn near killed him. And there’s nothing funny now abandoned here a month in this bed half dead with not even the energy to prosecute those fucking tailors over my torn testicles. In debt nearly a quarter of a fucking million to the bank for Binky’s piece of the show. The fucking guy’s psychic. Knows how and when to get out. Now I could have no show. And instead have three legal actions in action. Correct that. Four. I’m suing a fucking Sunday rag for what they said. Plus now I’ll lose if a paternity and rape suit combined is brought against me. I’m going to order breakfast. Wake up Jorricks.
But holy shit momma meo what if he and Dangerous Daniel are up to something together. Even though Jorricks is a fucking saint, even saints have sex lives. The other night I heard suspiciously disturbing noises going on downstairs. Just as well that when I got up to investigate and creeped half way there I nearly keeled over. And had to crawl the last steps back to bed.
‘Jorricks.’
‘Yes. Who’s this. Who’s this.’
‘It’s me. Sorry. At this time of the morning. But would you mind bringing up breakfast.’
‘Very good sir. The usual sir.’
‘Yeah Jorricks the usual.’
Holy cow. Five past four. And he’s ready to go. There’s got to be hope. When the Ambassador across the street sends me flowers every day. Grins at me when I wave back out the window. And no wonder. It must be fucking wonderful to be a Muslim, the lucky son of a bitch with a harem with masks on all their faces so you don’t have to see any dirty looks. And they know who’s boss. And just supply pleasure. While my wife in her twisted embittered revenge issues some new fucking writ. And Rabbi, jesus, such news as this I’ve got in the middle of the night. That I should now need developing a big hole in the head. Everything I held back for Broadway in order to make a killing of beautiful sweetness. And now ugly and sour I got killed. And have to go running for my life. Joe Jewels’s mother loose out of her mausoleum he built for her and her two nurses sitting alone in the middle of an empty theatre. Correct that. No, not alone. The fucking unbelievable Al Duke alive and living is sitting right behind them in an orange sweater under an oxygen tent with probably electronic gadgets keeping his gaskets going while he’s pulling his prick trying to get a hard on. In order to harass some innocent young girl he’s snowballed with his big international celebrity act. And to her gasps in admiration, ready to beat his chest only he might put his electronic gadgets out of action. Holy shit Rabbi, please tell me all this is still the hysterical hallucination of fever. Because my life is nose diving into a tail spin out of control from high up when I was, even in bed here, carefree happy and nearly on the verge of contentment going bumpitibump over a bunch of clouds with brand new silver linings. Till long distance over my confidential telephone comes the announcement of the end of my life. Jesus they give prizes out to fool the fucking public into thinking something deserved to win. And I didn’t win any prizes because I gave the public what it deserved to love. Spent my guts to make a hit. With everybody hindering, nobody helping. I could be a next to nobody now. And back in delirium with worry. A virgin whorer with her Dutch cap off fucks me free of charge and I eternally pay for paternity. Suddenly my life it’s like it’s inside an isolated log cabin with a grizzly bear trying to break in. O god. At four a.m. I got to do something with my brain. Sigmund listen, do something with your crown of thorns you think you’re wearing on your head, take them off and put them somewhere for someone else to sit on. Fight Sigmund fight. Get up to battle, and don’t let them do this to you. Holy shit Rabbi they’ve already done it. Ah but Sigmund still don’t let them do it.
Touche
Rabbi
Touche
22
‘Good morning sir, I have breakfast. You were asleep again earlier when I brought it and I didn’t want to wake you. And did we have a nice sleep.’
‘A nightmare Jorricks. A total and unbelievable nightmare. What time is it.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that sir. It’s twelve noon.’
‘O my god. I got to go.’
‘I thought I had better wait till I heard you were up. The papers sir. The post. And some rather new marvellous honey. I’d like to know what you think of this tiny bit of pate de foie gras. It’s sixty four Fahrenheit out. A record for this time of year. A nice sunny aftern
oon is anticipated. Rain towards evening from the west. Temperature is expected to fall.’
‘Thanks Jorricks. For everything. Just pour me a cup of coffee and put the tray on the dressing table.’
‘Daniel will collect the shopping sir and is polishing the car and changing the oil and doing a tune up.’
‘O christ tell him not to. That car’s for white gloved specialists who wear face masks when they’re even changing a tyre.’
‘He claims he’s quite marvellous at mechanics sir.’
‘Yeah, well I’ll believe that when he hasn’t got bloody screws left over or lost like he did last time he did something. And the stuff he took off and out of the car he couldn’t put back again.’
‘Well I thought seeing it’s a nice day that you might like a drive. Daniel looks awfully smart in his grey chauffeur’s uniform sir.’
‘Holy christ Jorricks, he went up on the kerb and flattened a parking meter yesterday. And the two ladies’ car he hit last week from behind. Their lawyer’s letter is right there about the backlash dislocation they’re claiming they got in their necks. Just let him take care of the pigeons and guard this place. Are the pigeons all right.’
‘The pigeons are cooing sir. And Daniel will be awfully disappointed sir if he can’t drive you sir.’
‘Jesus Jorricks OK. But he only gets one last chance. Right now it’s life and death battle stations. The show on Broadway has bombed. Critics tore it to shreds.’
‘O dear me sir.’
‘Holy shit Jorricks are you OK.’
‘Just a little unsteady sir. That news has come as rather a shock.’
‘I’m leaving for the office.’
‘But sir, do you think you should.’
‘No Jorricks, I don’t think I should, but I got to. I’ll just catch this quick cup of coffee and bite of croissant.’
‘I’ll lay out clothes for you sir. And do drink your grapefruit juice and let me at least put some breakfast down in the car for you. O dear that’s the front door. Excuse me sir.’