A bar in midtown Manhattan. A weekday afternoon. Bright sun comes through the window. The bar is empty except for MICKY, a dysfunctional man, who sips a martini and says the following to the audience....

MICKY     Today was good not a good day. Some days everything conspires to nail you to the wall. Days like this remind me how fucked-up everybody, including me, is and why I am forced to take the drugs I do in order to just hold my place on this side of hell. And it is hell we are in, take my word for it. Writing is hell. Getting through the day is like hell. Dealing. The responsibilities of adulthood? --that's total hell.

     First of all, Ramone did not--once again and true to form--come through with the stuff. This kid is such a bonehead fuck-up it defies description. You tell someone to be somewhere at a particular time, you'd think they could remember or at least do something even remotely human. But not goddam Ramone. Little Dominican shit held me up for two hours and I'm waiting in Tompkins Sq. Park which is the land that time and everybody else just forgot--and I'm sitting there surrounded by the absolute lowest scum that ever walked.(pause) Junkies, man!

     So, when I finally realize that Ramone is a dead issue I go up to see Nora who really ladles out the abuse in mega-bytes. I tell you, somebody decided that agents were going to be the beasts and the gatekeepers. It's a goddam conspiracy.

     You know what Nora's story is now? She's telling me that I've got to "cool it"; that I've got to "pay more attention to the screenplay". Nonsense. What do they expect!

     "I have the Tri-Star people interested", she says.

     Interested? She's telling me "interested".... ? Then she says: "But they won't buy without adjusting the ending".

     "What's wrong with it?" I ask, as if I didn't know.

     "They don't like the fact that the two kids die in the end--and separately" This is outrageous", I'm telling her. "This is the end. If they want to deal they have to put their nuts on the table, otherwise, no deal."

     Then she goes into one of her interminable monologues festooned with patronizing dogma about how business is business, business is money, movies are business, movies are money, money is money and people--people are shit! And I'm saying to myself: "Is this what a person has to go through to sacrifice all of his humanity? They can put a man on the moon but they can't find an easy way to destroy a man's dignity?"

     So, do I have an option? No. Do I have a step deal? No. Do I have the pitifully shrunken stones between my legs....? YES! Yes I do! And even they are useless now because Tri-Star is stalling for a project for Michael J. Fox or Arnold Schwarzenegger-Meets-Smashing Pumpkins directed by Joel Schumacher or some such crap.

     So, she calmed me down and told me to wait and to think about changing some of the sicker stuff in the property, that's all. That's all. It is hell isn't it? Or it'll do until the real thing comes along. Meanwhile, Vanity Fair wants me to schlep out to Long Island to do a piece on Alfonse D'Amato and I think: this might be fun, I haven't got enough corruption to deal with in my life, why not consult with a fucking genius. Maybe I could learn something. I go the 22nd. So, when I get home there's a message from Ramone. I swear this kid has the brain of a ripe grape. He cannot learn. He has lost all capacity for learning. He is fossilized in the present. The Petrified Junkie....it's a mini-series...

     So I listen to the message and it's obvious he's fucked up because it takes him seven calls to get the whole thing on my tape. So, what happened was....the jerk-off says that the man was around and that Juan never showed up and that Theo wasn't there and Angel and every other junkie on the lower east side is suddenly going to--to--Easthampton? for what?--a Whale Watch?--and I'm stuck trying to move 20 G's of pure Ecuadorian that I ain't even fucking got.

     You with me so far?...Good

     OK, so while I'm rolling Ramone's message who should call at that exact moment--The Prince of Darkness himself, Tommy C. And now I feel the wrath of the Gods on my pathetic ass. This guy-- It's as if he knew when I knew....that sort of thing? These guys are what they are because they've got this street telepathy-- Like animals in the jungle their senses are so well developed they KNOW. They just feel it; sense it. They just know.

     So he smells the sweat dripping from my balls and I , like a schmuck , pick up the call, and all he says is....this guy is so fucking cool. I gotta do that book on him....all he says is....and I'm like waiting for Mephistopheles or something....all he says is: "So?". Real gentle and calm like--"....So?...." Like he was reading from Joan Didion.      "....So?...." It was beautiful. Better than Dial-a-Fuck.

     So I'm having this out-of-body-experience and I realize how totally beautiful this guy is. I gotta do that book. I pitched it to Nora twice and both times she sat there looking at me like I just dropped from Neptune and says: "You wanna do a tie-in about the lowest scum heroine dealer in New York and then hire him as a technical consultant?" She's all shocked and I say: "Sure. We'll tie it into the book--you know--'Confessions of a Scag Man' or some such nonsense. And we'll get Nicholson! And Al Pacino will return as The Godfather Part IV with Johnny Depp as his son----no, no, no---we'll get Luke Perry and the 90210 kids as The Sixth Family, but they're all autistic gay junkies and die of aids!" You gotta have a disease, right?

     She sits there looking at me, realizing what a threat I am to society, and says:...."Now that's commercial!"

     We had a good laugh. Nora's OK.

     So anyway there I am hanging on the phone by my dick with Tommy C. doing his breathing act on the other end and it was probably just a moment, but it felt like a lifetime, man. And I'm just dying. I feel myself dying. I go through the Vortex and come back as pure energy.

     I see the light, I see the people, the dead uncles, my dogs, Coltrane....everything. And I try to take a deep breath, and I rattle my voice and tell him the story of Ramone and how I'm sorry. And he listens. And he waits. And then....he sighs! Sighs like a dying man as if he's mirroring my impending death in those few moments.

     I mean, this is a man with maybe an eighth-grade education but he has this unbelievably intuitive gift for the living metaphor? The dramatic moment? And he says, in the same tone of voice, in the exact same way:

     "....So?...."

     Now I'm finished. I mean with just two words this guy has stuck the ice-pick in the medulla and then what does he do? He gives it just the littlest, eeniest, bittiest, little twist....and I'm finished. It's over. He wins and I'm dead.

     So, anyway, he says he'll let me ride for awhile but not to wear it out, his people like to deal quickly and for the quantities we're talking about, this is no way to do business.

     So I agree, and I hang up the phone and let out a sigh of relief that's like shooting Thai smack directly into your brain. These are good people. If you just deal honestly with them they'll treat you like a human being. Otherwise you're fucked. Just fucked in your tracks. Nowhere-to-run-nowhere-to-hide fucked. Nobody wants a bullet in the
eye.

     So now I feel better.

     Then Nora calls back and says that now Fine Line and Hemdale both want to see the screenplay and--they like the sick stuff! And I'm very gracious. I know how to handle these things. But inside I'm going: "They understand! Somebody really understands!" And I may be in hell but I'm not on fucking Pluto.

     So now I feel much, much better. Y'know. Sometimes....I tell you....You can't get to the end of the day without going through the fiery hole. You may get singed. Some people freak out. Some just vaporize. But the good ones, you and me, we brush off the burnt hair, rub on a little salve and we punch right back in.

     He sips his martini

     END

copyright: 1994 by Joe Gilford