Big Sexy Hollywood Story

I’m nineteen. Spent my life working on a farm. Took a girl out on a Friday night. Saw a movie. His Girl Friday. Clark Gable. I knew I had to leave this shithole.

I’m on a bus. Headed for LA. I got six-pack abs and blue eyes and I want a piece of what Gable has got. Didn’t kiss my girl goodbye. Didn’t have the guts.

Get off the bus. I’m surrounded by palm trees and girls in bikinis. A newspaper hits me in the face. I open it. An audition for a big movie. Two blocks away.

I make it just in time. No one is in the lobby but me. I sit for two minutes. Long enough for someone to walk by me and tell me I’ll never make it in this town. I think about the farm.

Some guy calls me in. Three people are in the room. I tell them my name. They ask me what monologue I would be doing. I don’t have one. I tell a story about my father waking up at four AM to start his day. How he would kiss my mother on the forehead.

They stop me. Give me a five-picture deal with Paramount. Five million dollars up front. Cool.

I head to my new LA house. Ten bedrooms. Don’t know which to choose. I’m alone. I choose the master bedroom. Makes sense.

My phone rings. I pick it up. My agent’s on the other line.

Get your ass to the lot. They want you in The Godfather.

I shower. Call a limo to the Paramount lot. What a grind.

I get there. Head of the studio tells me I’m getting looked at for Michael Corleone. But wait. I got competition. Al Pacino. He’s big-time. I’ve been in LA for thirty minutes. I’m cooked.

His phone rings. Bad news: Al Pacino was helping a woman across the street and got hit by multiple cars. Dead before he hit the ground. The head of the studio throws me the script and tells me to learn my lines. I get back in my limo and head home.

I finish the script before I get back to the house. Good, not great. I call the studio.

“I don’t want any men other than myself in this movie. Brando. Caan. Duvall. Get them the fuck out of there. This is a movie for women.”

I give them a list of names.

“Streep. Goldberg. Davis. Also, take out the violence. All the conflict in this movie can be avoided if everyone talks it out.” Now that Pacino is dead I’m the main guy in this town, so they feel my weight. I don’t know if I’m making the right call, but this business is about feeling.

I was wrong. The movie made no sense. The violence was important. The movie ended up being twenty-eight minutes long.  My deal with Paramount is torn up. I’m thinking about the farm again. Woe is me.

I take a breath. I jot some things down. I look down at the paper after I’m done writing. It’s the first draft of the screenplay Star Wars. Seems fine. I call my agent. I tell him I wrote Star Wars. He says he’ll run it up the flagpole, but he doesn’t think anyone will bite.

Someone bites. I get 200 million dollars for the script. Phew. Things are looking up.

They say wait. You gotta direct.

Direct? Fine. There’s always some kind of catch in this town.

I show up to the lot. First day. Producers give me notes.

Luke can’t say no to Obi Wan Kenobi. He has to leave his planet and do other stuff. I say “No.” The movie is about farming. It’s my life, but in space.

They don’t bite. I’m kicked off the set. I go see the movie a year later. They were right. He had to leave. People don’t want to hear about some kid on a farm. I’m torn up. I try to blow my brains out. I miss.

Close call. I cool off. I write and executive produce Dallas for thirteen years. I do coke and sell coke and start a gang that likes to do all those things, too. The guy in the lobby was right, I’ll never make it in this town.

I get caught selling cocaine and being in a gang. I go to jail. Life. Before I get to my cell on the first day inside, I’ve had sex with a bunch of guys and I am the top dog in prison. But I just want to sleep.

I get a call. Two kids are on the phone. Hollywood types. I laugh. Hollywood is never through with you. The two kids want to write my story. Farm boy turned drug kingpin.

I got a better one. How about two kids from South Boston. One of them has a therapist he doesn’t like but then he ends up liking him. Also, math.

They bite. I don’t know how the movie does, but every month I get a little cash put on my account. Helps me buy toilet paper to wipe my ass.

I run prison, but I am rotting as a person. Really sad stuff. I try to hang myself but my bunkmate never sleeps. Keeps catching me in the act. We hug and cry and I never get any closer to kicking the bucket.

Twenty-one years later, my cell door slides open. I’m free to go.

Why? Bunch of Hollywood types got together to spring me out. Said I was wrongly convicted. I wasn’t, but I know when to keep my mouth shut in this town.

Limo picks me up. I get in. Good drive. Driver is nice. Black guy. I say to him, “Imagine if I was black and you were white.”

Boom. Lighting from above. I jot some things down, and, yeah.

Green Book.