Charles Bukowski
HOLLYWOOD
1989
for Barbet Schroeder
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance between the characters and persons living or dead is purely coincidental, etc.
1
A couple of days later Pinchot phoned. He said he wanted to go ahead with the screenplay. We should come down and see him?
So we got the directions and were in the Volks and heading for Marina del Rey. Strange territory.
Then we were down at the harbor, driving past the boats. Most of them were sailboats and people were fiddling about on deck. They were dressed in their special sailing clothes, caps, dark shades. Somehow, most of them had apparently escaped the daily grind of living. They had never been caught up in that grind and never would be. Such were the rewards of the Chosen in the land of the free. After a fashion, those people looked silly to me. And, of course, I wasn’t even in their thoughts.
We turned right, down from the docks and went past streets laid out in alphabetical order, with fancy names. We found the street, turned left, found the number, pulled into the driveway. The sand came right up to us and the ocean was close enough to be seen and far enough away to be safe. The sand seemed cleaner than other sand and the water seemed bluer and the breeze seemed kinder.
“Look,” I said to Sarah, “we have just landed upon the outpost of death. My soul is puking.”
“Will you stop worrying about your soul?” Sarah responded.
No need to lock the Volks. I was the only one who could start it.
We were at the door. I knocked.
It opened to this tall slim delicate type, you smelled artistry all over him. You could see he had been born to Create, to Create grand things, totally unhindered, never bothered by such petty things as toothache, self-doubt, lousy luck. He was one of those who looked like a genius. I looked like a dishwasher so these types always pissed me just a bit.
“We’re here to pick up the dirty laundry,” I said.
“Ignore him,” Sarah interspersed. “Pinchot suggested we come by.”
“Ewe,” said the gentleman, “do come in...”
We followed him and his little rabbit cheeks. He stopped then, at some special edge, he was charming, and he spoke over his left shoulder as if the entire world were listening to his delicate proclamation:
“I go get my VOD-KA now!”
He flashed off into the kitchen.
“Jon mentioned him the other night,” said Sarah. “He is Paul Renoir. He writes operas and is also working in a form known as the Opera-Movie. Very avant-garde.”
“He may be a great man but I don’t want him sucking at my ear lobes.”
“Oh, stop being so defensive! Everybody can’t be like you!”
“I know. That’s their problem.”
“Your greatest strength,” said Sarah, “is that you fear everything.”
“I wish I had said that.”
Paul walked back with his drink. It looked good. There was even a bit of lime in there and he stirred it with a little glass stick. A swizzle. Real class.
“Paul,” I asked, “is there anything else to drink in there?”
“Ewe, sorry,” he said, “please do help yourself!”
I charged into the kitchen right upon the heels of Sarah. There were bottles everywhere. While we were deciding, I cracked a beer.
“We better lay off the hard stuff,” suggested my good lady. “You know how you get when you’re drinking that.”
“Right. Let’s go with the wine.”
I found a corkscrew and got a bottle of fine-looking red.
We each had a good hit. Then we refilled our glasses and walked out. At one time I used to refer to Sarah and me as Zelda and Scott, but that bothered her because she didn’t like the way Zelda had ended up. And I didn’t like what Scott had typed. So, we had abandoned our sense of humor there.
Paul Renoir was at the large picture window checking out the Pacific.
“Jon is late,” he said to the picture window and the ocean, “but he told me to tell you that he will be right along and to please stay.”
“O.K., baby...”
Sarah and I sat down with our drinks. We faced the rabbit cheeks. He faced the sea. He appeared to be musing.
“Chinaski,” he said, “I have read much of your work. It is wild shit. You are very good...”
“Thank you. But we know who is really the best. You’re the best.”
“Ewe,” he said as he continued to face the sea, “it is very very nice of you to...realize that...”
The door opened and a young girl with long black hair walked in without knocking. Next thing we knew she was stretched out up on the back of the sofa, lengthwise, like a cat.
“I’m Popppy,” she said, “with 4 p’s.”
I had a relapse: “We’re Scott and Zelda.”
“Cut the shit!” said Sarah.
I gave our proper names.
Paul turned from the sea.
“Popppy is one of the backers of your screenplay.”
“I haven’t written a word,” I said.
“You will...”
“Would you, please?” I looked at Sarah and held up my empty glass.
Sarah was a good girl. She left with the glass. She knew that if I went in there I would start in on sundry bottles and then start in on my way to being nasty.
I would learn later that another name for Popppy was “The Princess from Brazil.” And for starters she had kicked in ten grand. Not much. But it paid for some of the rent and some of the drinks.
The Princess looked at me from her cat-like position on the back of the couch.
“I’ve read your stuff. You’re very funny.”
“Thank you.”
Then I looked over at Paul. “Hey, baby, did you hear that? I’m fanny!”
“You deserve,” he said, “a certain place...”
He flashed toward the kitchen again as Sarah passed him with our refills. She sat down next to me and I had a hit.
The thought then occurred to me that I could just bluff the screenplay and sit around Marina del Rey for months sucking up drinks. Before I could really savor that thought, the door burst open and there was Jon Pinchot.
“Ah, you came by!”
“Ewe,” I said.
“I think I have a backer! All you have to do is write it.”
“It might take a few months.”
“But, of course...”
Then Paul was back. He had a strange pink-looking drink for the Princess.
Pinchot flashed toward the kitchen for one of his own.
It was the first of many meetings which would simply dissolve into bouts of heavy drinking, especially on my part. I found it to be a needed build-up for my confidence as I was really only interested in the poem and the short story. Writing a screenplay seemed to me an ultimately stupid thing to do. But better men than I had been trapped into such a ridiculous act.
Jon Pinchot came out with his drink, sat down.
It became a long night. We talked and talked, about what I was not sure. Finally both Sarah and I had drunk too much to be able to drive back. We were kindly offered a bedroom.
It was in that bedroom, in the dark, as we poured a last good red wine, Sarah asked me, “You going to write a screenplay?”
“Hell no,” I answered.
2
The next call from Jon Pinchot came 3 or 4 days later. He knew Danny Server, the young producer-director who had an entire movie studio down in Venice. Danny was going to lend us his screening room so we could see Pinchot’s documentary, The Laughing Beast, about a black ruler who did it his way with bloody gusto. We were to meet first at Pinchot’s for a few drinks. And so, it was back to Sailboat Lane again....
r /> Jon answered the door and Sarah and I entered. Jon was not alone. A fellow stood there. He had a strange head of hair: it looked white and blond at the same time. The face was pink, going toward red. The eyes were a crazy round blue, very round, very blue. He had the look of a schoolboy about to play a horrible prank. That look, I would learn, never left him. He was likeable right off.
“This is François Racine,” said Jon. “He acts in many of my films, and in others.”
“And in the others, I get paid...” He bowed. “How do you do?”
Jon went for the drinks.
“Please pardon me,” said François, “I will be finished in a moment.”
On the table he had a little roulette wheel, electrically controlled, it was set off whirling with the push of a button. He had stacks of chips and a long sheet of paper full of calculations. There was also a betting board. He placed his chips, pushed the button, said, “It is my Lady with the Spinning Head. I am in love.”
Jon came out with the drinks.
“When François is not actually gambling, he is usually practicing or at least thinking about it.”
The wheel stopped and François raked in his reward.
“I have studied the permutations of the wheel and I have it,” said François, “so no matter where it stops, I have guessed and I win.”
“And his system works,” said Jon, “but when he gets to the casinos he does not always stay with his system.”
“I am often defeated by the Death Wish,” François explained.
“Hank gambles,” said Sarah. “He plays the horses. He’s there every day they run.”
François looked at me. “Ah, the horses! You win?”
“I like to think I do...”
“Ah, we go some day!”
“Sure.”
François went back to his little wheel and we sat with our drinks.
“He has won and lost hundreds of thousands,” Jon told us. “The only time he wants to be an actor is when he is dead broke.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“By the way,” said Jon, “I have talked to the producer Harold Pheasant and he is very interested in the screenplay. He is ready to back it as a movie.”
“Harold Pheasant!” said Sarah. “I’ve heard of him. He’s one of the biggest producers in the business.”
“That’s right,” said Jon.
“But I haven’t written a screenplay,” I countered.
“No matter. He knows your writing. He’s ready.”
“It doesn’t seem plausible.”
“He often works that way and he makes nothing but money.”
Jon went for the bottle.
“Maybe you ought to write a screenplay,” Sarah suggested.
“Look what it did to F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
“You’re not Fitzgerald.”
“No, he gave up drinking. That killed him.”
François was still at his little roulette wheel. Jon came out with the bottle. “We’ll have one more and then we should go.”
“O.K.,” I said.
“Listen, François, are you coming along?” Jon asked. “Oh no, please pardon me, I must do more research here....”
3
It was a nice screening room. Off to one side was a fairly large bar, with bartender. The screening room even came with a projectionist. Danny Server wasn’t about.
There were 7 or 8 people at the bar. I didn’t know who any of them were. I switched to vodka 7’s and Sarah was drinking something purple or green or green-purple. Jon was off setting up the film with the projectionist.
There was a fellow down at the end of the bar, staring at me. He kept it up.
I finally looked at him.
“Just what do you do?” I asked.
He paused a moment, had a drink, looked back:
“I blush to the very toes of my shoes to tell you this, but...I make films.”
I was to find out he was Wenner Zergog, the noted German filmmaker. He was kind of crazy, off the end of the stick as they say, always taking insane chances with his own life and everybody else’s.
“You ought to get into something worthwhile,” I told him.
“I know,” he answered, “but I don’t know how to do anything else.”
Then Jon was there.
“Come on, it’s about to start...”
Sarah and I followed him into the screening room. Some of the others at the bar came along, including Wenner and his lady companion. We seated ourselves and Jon told us, “That was Wen-ner Zergog at the bar. Last week he and his wife had a pistol fight, they emptied their guns at each other, hitting nothing...”
“I hope his aim in his films is better...”
“Oh, it is.”
The room darkened and The Laughing Beast spread across the screen.
Lido Mamin was a large man, in size and ambition, but his country was poor and small. With the big countries he played his cards both Left and Right, bargaining and counter-bargaining with both factions for money, food, weapons. But, actually, he wanted to rule the world. He was a bloody bastard with a marvelous sense of humor. He realized that, basically, all life was worthless, except his. Anybody the least suspect in his country was quickly murdered and dumped into the river. There were so many bodies floating in the river that the crocodiles became bloated and could eat no more.
Lido Mamin loved the camera. Pinchot had had Mamin stage a council meeting for the camera. His underlings sat before him trembling as Mamin asked questions, made statements of policy. He grinned continually, showing huge yellow teeth. When he wasn’t killing somebody or ordering somebody killed, he was fucking. He had a dozen or more wives and more children than he could remember.
At times, during the council meeting, he stopped smiling, his face became the Will of God, he could do anything, and might. He could sense the fear of his cohorts and he delighted in and used that fear.
The council meeting ended without anybody getting murdered. “ Then he called a meeting of all the doctors in the country. He assembled them at the main hospital, in the huge operating room, and they sat in the seats that circled above and Mamin stood down there in the center and spoke to them.
“You are doctors but you are nothing unless I tell you that you are something. You think you know certain things but this is an illusion. You are only trained in one small area. Let that training be useful to our country and not to yourselves. We live in a world where only the final survivors will be proven right. I will tell you how to use your surgical tools and your lives. Please do not be foolish and go against my wishes. I do not wish to waste your education and your skill. You must always remember that you know only what you have been taught. I know more than what is taught. You will always do as I suggest, I want to make this VERY CLEAR. Do you understand me?”
There was silence.
“Please,” continued Mamin, “is there anybody who wishes to counter what I have just said?”
Further silence.
Mamin was a doll, a monstrous doll, and in a way you could like his gross and terrible style—as long as you didn’t have to view the actual killings and torturings.
Next, for the camera, Lido Mamin showed off his Air Force. Only he didn’t have an Air Force. Not yet. But he had the aviators and the uniforms.
“This,” Lido Mamin said, “is our Air Force.”
The first aviator came running down a long row of boards. He ran very swiftly. Then when he reached the end of the runway of boards he leaped into the air and flapped his arms. Then landed.
Then the next aviator came running along. Repeat.
Next aviator.
Next.
There must have been 14 or 15 aviators. As each one leaped he gave a little yell and upon each face there was laughter and elation. It was very strange after you got the feeling of it: for each was laughing at how ridiculous it was, yet each believed.
After the last take-off and landing, Mamin faced the camera.
“As foo
lish as this must look, it is very important. What we do not have in actuality, we are ready for in spirit. Someday we will have our Air Force. Meanwhile, we do not sulk in shadows of unbelief. Thank you very much.”
Then there were some interior shots of the torture chambers. Nobody in them. But there was dung. Chains. Blood on the walls.
“This,” said Lido Mamin, “is where the traitors and the liars finally tell the truth.”
The final scene was of Mamin in a huge garden with many body-guards, with all his wives and all his children. The children didn’t smile or jump about. They faced the camera silently as did the bodyguards. All the wives smiled, some of them holding babies. Lido Mamin smiled, showing his big yellow teeth. He looked very likeable, maybe even loveable.
The final shot was of the river of fat crocodiles. They just floated, vastly overweight and listless, eyes just rolling a bit as the bodies drifted by. Finis.
It was a fascinating documentary and I was happy to tell Pinchot as much.
“Yes,” he answered, “I like strange men. That is why I have come to find you.”
“I am very honored,” I said, “to be one with Lido Mamin.”
“It’s true,” he said, and then we left to go back to his place.
4
When we returned, François Racine was intent over his little spinning roulette wheel. He had evidently drunk a great deal of wine. His face was quite flushed and he had a large stack of chips in front of him. A huge ash was about to drop off the end of his cigar. It fell to the table.
“I have won one million, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars...”
The little ball stopped at a number. François raked in the chips:
“That’s enough...I mustn’t be greedy.”
We walked to the front room, sat down. Jon went for the wine and the glasses.