Almost Almost Famous

by Paul D. Marks

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be
careful about what we pretend to be. --Kurt Vonnegut

It all started out simply enough. My friend Jackie and I were having Guacamole Dinners at El Coyote. Jackie was reading a crumpled Variety someone had left in the booth.

"Mintz Murdered Mayhem Ensues" the headline read. Now in Variety-ese one might think this meant that Mintz murdered 'em at the box office. Not this time.

"'Barry Mintz, super agent at FAT, Fine Artists and Talent, one of the major chic boutique Hollywood agencies, was murdered last night,'" Jackie read breathlessly. "Round up the usual suspects."

"Who would that be?," I said, taking a bite of my enhanced enchilada. "The director he screwed out of a three picture deal at Paramount 'cause he asked Mintz not to smoke on his set? The actress on the verge of her breakthrough to name-above-the-title star who wouldn't screw him to get ahead and is now back to waiting tables at Nate 'n' Al's? The writer whose script he said was no good, then amazingly an almost word for word screenplay turned up in the hands of one of Mintz' clients? Or just about anyone else in Hollywood he ever had contact with – like me?"

"You're so cynical."

"Mintz got what he deserved."

"Maybe so. But do you have to be a jerk to make it in this biz or does the biz turn you into one?" she said.

"What would you do to make it?"

"You mean, would I sleep with someone?"

"Yeah." I guess that's what got the wheels turning in my mind. Who could I sleep with? Who would sleep with me? But maybe there was something else I could do.

When I first started in this business I didn't know who I was, so I decided to be who I wanted to be. I thought I might be a grizzled Iraq vet or a motheaten detective down on his moths. Maybe a gangster or former drug runner, someone who's just gotten out of the Federal Witness Protection Program. A sort of latter day Gatsby, without the mansion. I didn't know what would sell in Hollywood , but whatever it was, that's what I wanted to be. What I decided on was grizzled screenwriter, a celluloid Hemingway.

What I am is a writer, and not a bad one, but I wanted to be a writer with a past. Something romantic, like Bogart's Rick in Casablanca . Sure, on the surface he ran a saloon in the middle of the desert, but he had run guns to the anti-fascists in Ethiopia , had opposed the Nazis in Paris . You knew from the beginning of the movie that he wouldn't sit by while Major Strasser ravaged the lovely Ingrid/Ilsa and her husband. Unfortunately, most of the children running the studios had never seen Casablanca and They didn't care about my past, real or imagined. They had no pasts – They were too young – why should I? Besides, who would I run guns to? I'd certainly want to be on the right side, the Hollywood side, the side that would endear me to the Movers and Shakers and get one of my scripts sold, perhaps even made. Something that would make me stand out from the crowd, from that pile of scripts on Their desks with the titles written in heavy black marker on the spine. Millions are written, some are sold, few actually get produced.

The trail that leads to Hollywood is tortuous and long, unless you have your entry visa –connections. Major Strasser waits at every turn, ready to do you in, send you back to the occupied U.S. , through Los Angeles and Van Nuys, north of Oxnard and east of the state line, back to the concentration camp of real life. Here in Hollywood , mythical state of mind that it is, the lucky ones obtain their entry visas through money or sex or friends of the family, sometimes even luck and talent. But the rest of us wait on the fringes, and wait and wait.

I was desperate. No one returned my calls. Scripts were piling up on my own desk – scripts I'd written that no one even wanted to take a look at. But They just loved to read and even produce semi-literate scripts from cons and ex-cons or the gang banger who'd reformed and could tell it like it is. Made Them feel relevant I guess.

I wanted to jump to the front of the line. I could have been born into it, but my genes were wrong, as were my jeans. Or I could have sent myself to Steven Spielberg in a cake, but my personal dimensions were wrong. Those methods of getting a break wouldn't work for me.

I knew what I had to do. Barry Mintz' murder was all over the local news, the lead story, before terrorism, ahead of the economy. It had sex. It had violence. It had legs .

It had a confessed murderer: Me.

* * *

I had been at the party the night Mintz was killed. Me. One of the few A-list Hollywood parties I was able to get into, tagging-along with a friend from film school. Maybe I'd had too much to drink 'cause I'd mouthed off to Mintz. He'd had a pile of my scripts for months, hadn't read them. Probably didn't even know where they were.

I wanted to be a famous screenwriter. An Oscar winner. A People's Choice fave at ten to one. I figured if I confessed to a murder I hadn't done I'd get noticed. People would know my name. People would buy scripts. I could take my parents to see my name on the Silver Screen in Westwood or Hollywood or the Motion Picture Academy Theatre with two larger-than-life golden Oscars guarding the screen. So I drove to the police and confessed. I felt elated driving to the West L.A. police station. Almost high and almost famous. I had been at Barry's last party. I had said some nasty things to him. They'd be sure to believe me. My name would get in the papers. Hollywood would come calling. But I hadn't done it, so I'd be out and about in a short time. Notorious. Famous. A screenwriter with a past.

* * *

I'd like to say that going to jail was a surreal experience; it wasn't. In fact, it was all too real. However, in some respects, it was just like in the movies. I was fingerprinted and booked. They took my picture. I hoped it would turn out better than my driver's license photo. After all, if this was the shot that would appear in the papers and make me famous I wanted it to be a good one, with favorable key lighting and flattering backlighting. I sure as hell didn't want the Nick Nolte mug shot look.

"Stand behind the yellow line," said the cop. I did as told. Per his instructions, I took off all my clothes so the cops could get a better view. They made me bend over and smile from both ends, checking to make sure I wasn't hiding any contraband, or smuggling illegal aliens in. "Turn your pockets inside out and hand the contents to the booking officer." I wasn't wearing clothes. I didn't have any pockets. When I pointed this out to the officer he glared and elbowed me in the ribs, and pointed to my pants hanging over a nearby chair.

The booking officer sat behind a glassed-in counter several miles across the yellow line. Holding my pants, I emptied my pockets, wallet, loose change, keys, and started to lean over the yellow line. The officer on my side of the line elbowed me in the ribs again. He grinned, "Stay on your side of the line."

"Sign," the booking officer said, holding up a pen. I had to do another balancing act to reach the pen and sign the paper on the counter. If the yellow line had been the edge of a cliff, I would have been a goner. I was beginning to think I was a goner anyway. Maybe I had made a mistake? But I decided to tough it out, at least for a while, see if I might get some publicity out of it. I saw my name in lights or at least under the writer credits of a big Hollywood movie.

And this was just like a movie and I was the star. I was halfway there already, almost almost famous.

I wanted to ask about my lawyer, but I had known enough of the elbow and decided to wait. While waiting to be interrogated, I was thrown into a large holding cell with several other men. I think they were men, they probably were at one point. Now they were carcasses hung on skeletons. Dejected. Depressed. Degraded. Normally a murder suspect such as myself would have found himself in better circumstances, a more secure cell with only one or two roommates, but things being what they are, the economy, everyone dying to get into jail and all the overcrowding that causes, they put me in with the drunks, forgers, frauders, etc. Only the really big and famous criminals got private cells, people like Kiefer Sutherland and Paris Hilton, Christian Slater – with a slate of real-life crimes to his credit – who could afford to rent their own cells at the jail of their choosing, continental breakfast included.

The holding cell was a large, dirty affair – schmutzy in Hollywood-ese. Men were passed out in the corners, vomit dribbling from their mouths and covering their shirts. Others milled around. The toilet was jammed with toilet paper...and other stuff. It gave off a lovely aroma. Mixed in with the vomit it made you long for the good old days when the outhouse was out.

A medium built man with a stylish do and very fashionable soul patch came over to me. "What'chu in for?"

"Murder."

He grinned approvingly. "Freeway shooter myself."

Great, I thought, someone I could relate to.

"Kinda makes us brothers," he said, proffering a tallowy hand for me to shake. I did. I didn't want to think what the consequences of not doing so would be or for him to think that I was a typical Hollywood snob. "Why'd you do it?"

"Publicity."

Another approving grin. We were becoming fast friends.

"You?" I said.

"It was Monday. I don't like Mondays. Never have."

That's as good a reason as any, I thought, and looked for a way out. There wasn't one.

There was a payphone in the cell with which I could make my phone call. The only problem was when the jailers emptied my pockets they took all my money. No one had bothered to tell me that I would need my own money to make a call from the phone. Who could I call anyway? I didn't want to embarrass my parents, they would get that soon enough.

A soiled list of bailbondsmen was tacked on the wall next to the phone. I tried calling the operator and making a collect call. The bondsman wouldn't accept.

"Can I charge this call to my home phone?" I asked the operator.

"You're in jail," she said with a verbal smirk and hung up. The phone company had the phones hooked up so that they knew where the calls were coming from and they knew better than to let people in jail charge calls to other phones.

My freeway shooter friend sidled up to me. I was eyeing the condom vending machine and thinking the worst, but he loaned me a quarter. You see, there is good in everyone. He jingled his pockets, pulled out the quarter and handed it to me. Thanking him, I slipped the coin into the phone and dialed Jackie. She would know who to call, have a lawyer's name at the ready. She knew everything about everything.

"Hello," the small voice on the other end said. It was Jackie's four year old daughter, Selena. At least it wasn't the answering machine.

"Hi Selena, this is Larry Masocher. Is your mommy home?"

"Hello Larry Mashed Potatoes," she said in her squeaky little pinhead voice.

"Can you please go get your mommy?"

"She's not here. She's hiding," she giggled. It was so cute.

Isn't it wonderful when your friends have their kids answer the phone or leave their oh-so-cute messages on their answering machines? No matter what I said I couldn't get that adorable little ragamuffin to get her mommy.

"Tell your mommy I called," I said in desperation, as I heard Jackie in the background asking her cuter-than-cute daughter who was on the phone.

"I will Larry Mashed Potatoes."

"Tell her I'm in hell." I don't think she heard my last comment, but even if she did it was probably time for her learn a new vocabulary word.

The ceiling lights were covered with yellowing plastic that gave the room a sallow, gloomy cast, as if just being inside the jail wasn't bad enough. Plain, beige concrete walls closed in on me – where's the tasteful Martha Stewart jailhouse wallpaper? No comfortable cots here. No TV. Nothing. I wondered who the decorator was. I wondered if the Beverly Hills jail was any nicer. I wondered if I'd ever get out of there.

* * *

Had I made a mistake? I kept telling myself it was too early to tell. It would still work out. The publicity would come. In the meantime, I longed for my warm bed at home and Snowflake, my teddy bear when I was three. Falling asleep, I dreamt I was in...jail. Waking up, I was still there. It wasn't just a bad dream. And Snowflake was nowhere in sight.

I knew this wasn't prison, only jail. I hadn't been convicted, let alone sentenced and on top of it all I was innocent. It was all a prank. But for now it didn't matter because, as our breakfast of stale bread and moldy cheese sandwiches was being served – making school cafeteria food look gourmet – a large, angry-looking sergeant called my name, handcuffed me, led me into the hall and escorted me down the corridor to a private room. I was ready for the third degree, the glaring light shining in my face, four or five detectives in fedoras eyeballing me and slapping me with rubber truncheons.

"I hope you had a good night's sleep," said the man who introduced himself as Lieutenant Babirusa, flaring his nostrils as he spoke. They sat me in a hardbacked chair while three detectives – all very nattily dressed from The Men's Wearhouse no doubt – hovered around. The beefy uniformed sergeant, who had retrieved me from the holding cell, stood guard outside the door in case I tried to escape to unoccupied territory.

I thought of a lot of clever things to say, but decided against it. I nodded.

"Why'd you do it?" No foreplay here. I wondered if he was like that in bed with his wife. Is that why so many cops get divorced – lack of foreplay? "Why'd you murder Barry Mintz?"

"I didn't do it." That was part of my original strategy, to confess and get some notoriety, and then claim I hadn't done it...since I hadn't. "How come I can never get a cop to come when I call him and here you are all breathing down my neck?" Jailhouse insouciance, pretty cool, huh?

"You confessed," said Babirusa. Oh, yeah, I did, didn't I? His breath was warm and smelled faintly of alcohol. I wanted to ask him to take a breathalyzer test; it started to come out of my mouth, but I held back. Still, a cop with a blood alcohol level of .10 shouldn't be allowed to give the third degree to anyone, except maybe himself. "You were at the party. You had some disdainful words with the deceased, threatening to drown him in the pool."

"That doesn't mean I did it." I was scared, but maybe things do work out for the best; that's what mom always says. Maybe I would get the publicity I so wanted. Maybe They would finally start returning my calls. "Where's my lawyer?" I demanded.

It was just like in the movies and isn't that where I wanted to be? But instead of writing them, I was living one.

* * *

I sat in the jail's visiting room, waiting for my public defender to show. Images of Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden crossed my mind, lawyers who couldn't win a case if they had video of the perp perping and probably should have been public defenders. Perry Mason or the late Johnny Cochran he wouldn't be. I had no money for a lawyer or for bail, but as luck would have it my story had appeared in the Los Angeles Times, newspaper of champions and Hollywood bootlickers. The Agent Terminator they headlined me. Letters to the editor applauded my act of selfless courage in getting rid of the shark, Barry Mintz. And luck was more than a lady tonight. Luck was Preston Bonner, super lawyer. Better known in Los Angeles these days even than Johnnie Cochran before he died.

Bonner was tall and handsome, but none of that mattered to me. I knew I'd be in like Flynn now, except that nobody in Hollywood knew who Flynn was anymore. Oh, my wicked wicked ways and how quickly the mighty fall. But I'd be a famous writer. Uma and Leonardo would break my door down for a look at one of my scripts. Producers would come calling, just like they did with Jack Henry Abbott, the multi-killer that Hollywood and New York had a long-running romance with. They loved his books and wanted to make screenplays of them. The fact that they were illiterate – well, what's new about that? – didn't matter – they were real . Oh, and They got him out of prison – art/artiste you know – and it only took him six weeks to stab someone in the stomach in a fight about using a restaurant bathroom. I guess there's another script in that.

I'd sell my scripts and I would be the next Jack Abbott. And then, since I hadn't actually killed Barry Mintz, I'd live the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Ah, but life is good.

Preston was so important and so powerful he was even able to get me out on bail, which he put up. When I asked him why he took the case:

"I believe in you," he told me. "I know you didn't kill Barry Mintz."

He reaffirmed my faith in mankind and more specifically in lawyers. They weren't all sharks.

* * *

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Preston said to me over breakfast at Trois Cerise . Charlize sat at the next table. Cameron right across from us.

"The bad news."

"Your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon."

Hail Mary and pass the ammunition – what caliber ammo was that, by the way? What the hell was going on? Murder weapon? "The last weapon I touched was my Star Wars laser saber when I was about ten years old." I kept my cool. No one could see what was going on under my Ray-Bans. "What was the murder weapon?"

"Your name's all over the murder weapon. He was weighted down and choked by a bunch of scripts, stuffed in his mouth. Then thrown in the pool and drowned."

The leaded weight of a thousand unsold scripts tugged at my heart. I felt like I was drowning in the pool of life. Still, I knew I was innocent. I didn't have anything to worry about.

"Were any of them my scripts?" I said, with eager anticipation.

Preston smiled. "Your screenplay The Big Something Else was right on top. And your fingerprints are all over it."

Now it was my turn to light up and smile. Barry Mintz had had my script close at hand. Then it dawned on me, maybe this wasn't such good news.

"Okay, what's the good news?"

Preston tapped his iPhone on the table. "Uh, there is no good news. I was hoping you'd forget to bring it up again." He spooned some Improvo Memory Powder into his free range orange juice. "Okay, okay. The good news, Mexico 's only a hundred and thirty-five miles away."

Good thing I like hot sauce, I thought, 'cause I'm sure in it now. "Why'd you take my case, Preston ? I sure can't pay you anything."

"I feel it's my obligation to do pro bono. Life's been good to me."

I told him I was honored to have a lawyer of his stature repping me. Preston handed me the Times. My picture was on page three. Not even the front page, but not bad for an unknown. Of course, my parents were certainly proud of me now. I'd gone to Hollywood to make it in show biz. And made it I had.

"What do you want?" Preston said.

"I want justice!" I shouted. Robert Downey eyed me from the corner of his eye. Christian Slater checked his shoulder holster. Lindsay Lohan checked her trigger foot at the door. Aaron Sorkin looked up from his mushroom soup, eyes glazed. P Diddy showed the pistol beneath his jacket – it was bigger than Christian's.

"What do you really want?" he said, after he'd finished laughing.

"I want to be famous."

He smirked. It was a smirk of recognition.

"After all," I said, "Everybody's entitled to their fifteen minutes. Why shouldn't I get mine?"

* * *

Whatever possessed me to confess to Barry Mintz' murder? Why couldn't I have done something clever, like my friend James, who feigned a drinking and drug problem and went down to Promises rehab in Malibu and met more stars than there are in heaven. Now he's writing and directing and rich and famous and driving a Porsche and living in Brentwood in O.J.'s old house, and won't take my calls. Oh God, why couldn't I have done something smart like that?

* * *

The noose was tightening. My fingerprints were on the scripts, but of course why shouldn't they be – I had written them. But even Preston couldn't make that defense fly, especially when witness after witness came forward to say they'd heard me threaten Mintz at the party. Preston danced and feigned. He tried to get the case dismissed. The judge nearly laughed him out of the courtroom. This wasn't Boston Legal , Law and Order or even Judge Judy . This wasn't Perry Mason ; nobody was going to pull any magical mushroom rabbits out of a hat here with the evidence that would set me free. Matlock where the hell are you? Jessica Fletcher come solve my case.

Guilty!

I was going to be wearing a pin striped suit, only the stripes would be wide and going from side to side instead of up and down. And the color selection was limited to black and white.

I was lucky I didn't get the death penalty.

* * *

If character develops through action – via the choices the character makes – I had made mine. I had made my bed, now sleeping dogs with fleas got to lie in it with me. I had buttered my bread on both sides, now Wolfgang Puck was eating it. I had planted the seeds and my free range chickens had come home to roost. I had my cake and now it was being shoved down my throat – but I never did understand why, if one had cake, they couldn't eat it too. I was sitting in the prison rec room, you know chess, checkers, shivs, reading The Hollywood Reporter – every well stocked California prison library carries it, gotta keep up on your wheels and deals – when I read about Preston Bonner cutting a deal with Eddie Buzzz. Eddie had been one of Barry Mintz' biggest clients, a triple threat writer-director-actor. And it all started to come together in my mind. It was truly a Matlock Moment.

"Wait a minute," I said, as the Klieg lights turned on in my head.

Charlie, my freeway shooter friend, who had ended up in the same prison as me, looked at me, stroking his soul patch in a most suggestive way. I smiled. Coy, but not suggestive. He smiled back and walked away. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

If Mintz was out of the way, Eddie would have to find a new agent...or maybe a lawyer to rep him. A lawyer like Preston Bonner. But Bonner needed a patsy. And there I was, ready-made, pre-packaged, shrink wrapped and ready to go, looking for my fifteen minutes and copping to a crime I didn't do to get it. Sure Preston wanted to defend me. To see me fry. I couldn't have cooked up a better plot if I had written it myself. If you saw it in a Hollywood movie you wouldn't have believed it.

Pretty clever. I wish the movies They made were as clever. Now I had fodder for a new script. Be careful what you wish for, someone said. I certainly got what I wanted: I was the grizzled con with a story to tell.

* * *

Yeah, I got it all right. But when I wrote my prison pic in jail and sent it off They said prison pictures were out. Prisoners were out. Try something else. Hey, I'm either ahead of the curve or behind it, but always behind the eight ball it seems.

I did get a lot of publicity, even if nobody bought my scripts. But maybe they'll buy my life story. Maybe I'll be on A&E's Biography TM , right up there with Beethoven and DaVinci. Madame Curie and Scott Baio. And Jack Henry Abbott, because on Biography TM everybody's equally significant. Or maybe I'd end up on Top Ten Dumb Criminals along with Danny Bonaduce and Tonya Harding.

And then I won't be almost almost famous, I'll be really famous and jail won't be so bad.