The Rushes

Chapter Two

Natale, Richard - The Rushes [Avidbook, MM, Contemporary, Romantic Comedy/Drama, New/Young Adult] Chapter Two

With a personality as unruly as his person, Carson’s boss, Zach Corrigan (aka “the beast”), was a large, rumpled man who some speculated might be suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Carson had a better answer: “Zach is a performance artist specializing in mood swings.”

Zach admitted to thirty-eight. He was actually forty-six. Carson knew this because, as his first assistant, he’d helped Zach renew his passport and driver’s license. Zach’s self-image was that of a rakish hipster, dashing and edgy. Everyone else viewed him as a borderline slob. Zach had a heavy beard but shaved only twice a week, probably on the same days he bathed; and with all his accumulated wealth, he had yet to invest in a comb or a steam iron. His Saville Row custom tailored suits were perpetually rumpled; his club tie always c****d to one side; his shirt tucked half-in/half-out. All his socks had holes in the big toe and the last time his shoes had been shined was by the manufacturer. His attentive, patient wife, Mila, had long ago given up on trying to bring order to his sartorial chaos. She chose to pick her battles and fight only those she had a chance of winning.

Though rabidly driven and tireless, Zach was also a devoted family man. Unlike most Hollywood producers, he wouldn’t even think of cheating on his wife despite the constant stream of come-ons from sacrificial lamb ingénues. Moreover, he never missed one of his children’s soccer matches, graduations or dance recitals, even if it meant being late to a business meeting or an important political fundraiser he was chairing.

Zach’s preferred means of communication consisted of an infinite variety of snorts and harrumphs, and he freely emitted unsightly noises from all his bodily orifices. He didn’t seem to care if other people were present, even celebrities, most of whom claimed they found the impromptu explosions charming. That’s how badly they wanted to be in business with Zach Corrigan, whose films had won seventeen Oscars to date and been nominated for forty-two.

Zach was as intuitive as he was stubborn and as kind as he was unforgiving. At times, he could be charming and riotously funny and during those interludes, he would have the entire conference room rolling on the floor. At most other meetings, however, his loyal subjects sat in quiet terror, expecting Zach to pull the pin from a grenade at any moment and lob it directly at them. They had long ago given up trying to predict when and if he would detonate, and he seemed to relish keeping them off balance.

Carson idolized and feared Zach. Every day, he learned something new from him about the movie business. His employer was dedicated and knowledgeable about his profession, and up on every aspect of inner-workings. And like most obsessive individuals, he was mercurial. Carson could never be quite certain which Zach would bolt through the door each morning, swinging his scuffed-up Hermes leather satchel like he was about to pitch it out the window. He might just as easily appear with his arms full of coffee containers and pastries for the entire office, or walk up to an employee’s desk and stand perfectly still – a signal that the subordinate had five minutes to clear out. And by five minutes, he meant three hundred seconds, not three hundred and one.

The dismissed workers, who were usually guilty of some infraction, rarely sued for wrongful termination since, if they hoped to work in the industry, they would inevitably cross paths with Zach again. If they went quietly, he eventually forgave; if they cost him litigation or buy-out costs, he never forgot.

Each morning, no later than seven a.m., as Carson slid behind the wheel of his VW bug and drove to work, he prayed that he would still be employed by the end of another twelve-hour-plus day. Currently in his second year as Zach’s first assistant, he was flirting with the record held by Peter Farley who, after being hired away by another production company, had gone on to produce a major superhero franchise and recently purchased his own island in the south Pacific.

The day Peter quit, Zach disowned him but later reconsidered when his former assistant offered to help fund one of Timbuktu’s shakier projects. It was the least Farley could do. Absent the opportunity to be overworked and humbled by Zach – and absorb a great deal of insider information, and amass an enviable digital Rolodex – he might be selling used cars in the South Bay.

Hot and cold. Freezing and boiling. That was Zach; though so far, he seemed only lukewarm about Carson, who had attempted everything in his considerable arsenal to cajole and impress his boss. “Do you think it’s because I’m gay?” Carson had asked Jamie once.

“Could be,” Jamie said. “But the man is a major supporter of at least twelve gay rights organizations,” Jamie replied.

“That means nothing. It’s simply Hollywood-style philanthropy P.R.., like supporting the United Farm Workers or the United n***o College Fund and bristling if a Latino or an African-American moves into the neighborhood. I am the only gay person in the office except for Amy Bennett, and lesbians don’t really count as far as straight men are concerned. They all think they have a shot once she tires of fake prosthetics and begins looking for the real thing. Zach could be the kind of liberal who champions gays in the abstract, but is reviled by the sight of two men kissing.”

“It’s not the kissing part that makes them uncomfortable,” Jamie scoffed. “It’s the images of what follows that disturbs them.”

“Don’t be coy,” Carson scoffed. “What you mean is ‘butt shaming’. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s their problem. It’s not as if every time I see a man and a woman kiss, I think of them going at it.”

“But if the guy’s hot, you do imagine him having s*x with you,” Jamie stressed.

“What are you, the thought police?” Carson retorted.

Now that they were both employed in the entertainment industry, Carson and Jamie had become acutely aware of the institutionalized misogyny, racism and homophobia behind its progressive façade. The token scattering of women, LGBTs, and people of color in powerful positions, only underlined the entrenched old boys’ school mentality.

Or “‘Animal House’ without the togas,” as Carson succinctly described it.

If not as blatant as in decades past, the fact remained that a great deal of business was still conducted by straight, white men on the golf course, on intra-family vacations in Hawaii or the Caribbean, and on weekend gambling and strip club visits to Vegas. In the office, sexist, racist, anti-gay jokes were now subtler and couched in sarcasm or irony (“Broke Butt Mounted” for “Brokeback Mountain,” or “Period Piece,” for any female-driven comedy or drama.)

Despite ‘Me Too’ and superstars of color, talent agents and managers still spoke as if none of it really mattered in terms of the day to day operations of the business. And it was they who served as the gatekeepers for the industry. Without representation, visibility was almost impossible. Their conversations were sprinkled with terms like “not f**k-worthy” about women, “a little too urban looking” about people of color, and “kind of prissy” about men who didn’t meet their sophomoric standards of masculinity. They excused their attitudes by blaming the ingrained prejudice of “the great American unwashed” or “the demands of the overseas market.” When confronted, they produced data: audience opinion surveys and foreign grosses, to back up their claims. With the exception of a handful of African-American stars (Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson), films with people of color were seen as having limited upside potential outside the U.S. where all the growth in revenue was concentrated. And even then, it was preferable that charismatic African-American stars appear in non-ethnic-specific roles, mostly action films and the occasional broad comedy.

Female driven vehicles faced a similar hurdle, and while the situation had improved domestically, when it came to worldwide distribution, the numbers were not as rosy.

“If Pauline Kael wrote ‘Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang,’ today,” Carson averred, “it would have to be retitled ‘Har, Har, Bang, Bang.’ Raunchy comedies and big-scale action movies with the occasional ‘prestige’ picture thrown in.” Women in these films were often relegated to s*x objects or damsels in distress. And if the occasional hit broke through (an Amy Shumer or Melissa McCarthy vehicle), it was regarded as an anomaly.

LGBT themed stories fared far worse. Only a handful had been produced by the major studios, none without the participation of a major star (again, almost exclusively male and straight) and hardly ever featured a viable romance or a happily-ever-after ending (e.g. “Milk,” “Philadelphia,” “The Imitation Game,”). “It seems that we need to die in the third act in order for straight men to greenlight a project,” Carson once pointed out. General audiences, they argued, seemed either disinterested or averse to positive stories about the lives of gay men and women, and films about their experiences existed mostly as subplots in heterosexual-themed movies or in ultra-low-budget art films that only the target audience ever viewed.

While not as vicious and demeaning as in the past, the Hollywood culture’s attitudes towards gays, women and people of color, came across in subtler – and not so subtle – ways. The younger straight men in Carson’s office felt compelled to fly their hetero flags at full mast at all times, with almost constant allusions to their avowed predilection for c*********s – as if the practice classified them as s****l trailblazers.

At the same time, the men at Timbuktu were wildly threatened by any female employee who had Zach’s ear, especially the president of production, Hilda Ramsay. And the only way they could explain the rise of the office’s sole lesbian exec, Amy Bennett (who had a wife and two children), was that she was conducting a secret affair with the boss. Amy was deemed a ‘lipstick lesbian’, which implied that she swung both ways, they asserted, as if it was a statistically proven fact. That Amy and Hilda had advanced by being twice as smart and politically savvy as any of them, was conveniently overlooked.

Jamie’s experiences in the editing bay were scarcely better. He often overheard the cadre of geeky junior editors railing against metrosexuals, their fashion sense and particularly their fondness for ‘manscaping’. Then they glanced at him accusingly as if daring Jamie to contradict them. He merely flashed a non-committal smile and changed the subject, though he found it curious that they were so adamantly opposed to cultivating their privates yet insisted that their wives and girlfriends be completely waxed. The mention of “bush” made them gag like a cat coughing up a hairball.

Whenever Jamie was at the urinal in the company bathroom, the other guys darted into one of the stalls and locked it, lest Jamie try to sneak a peek or (horrors!) make a pass.

Whether being gay would stand in the way of their own advancement was not a subject on which Carson and Jamie preferred to dwell. Too depressing. Besides, their ultimate goal was to someday make movies together. Working in the industry was merely their conduit, a way to gain valuable experience and cultivate important contacts.

By a stroke of good luck, Carson had been promoted from second to first assistant after only a few months on the job. Most seconds had to put in at least two years before they got a chance to move up to the front desk and then only because their predecessor had advanced or departed for a better position at another company. That is, if they lasted two years. At Timbuktu, heads rolled with regularity; not because Zach was ruthless, but because he recognized that the pool of available talent in Hollywood at any given moment was enormous. Why settle for anyone subpar, when through the process of regular purging, he could assemble a first-rate team?

Evan Burum, Zach’s first assistant when Carson was hired, had made a classic mistake. When Zach left town to visit the production site on one of his films, he graciously passed on his tickets to a charity premiere. At the door, Evan and his date were informed that the tickets were non-transferrable (“And you are clearly not Zach Corrigan,” the greeter said). Instead of leaving quietly, he put up a fuss, going so far as to use the deadly phrase, “Do you know who I am?” To which the greeter replied, “You’re probably an executive assistant, because if you really were someone, I’d recognize you.”

Evan’s biggest miscalculation was assuming that his little tantrum would not get back to Zach (aka “the beast with a thousand eyes”). The following morning, he traipsed into the office and found his belongings at the front desk along with a check for accrued vacation time. Zach didn’t even bother to fire him in person.

Earlier, Zach had phoned Carson and asked him to assume Evan’s duties pro tem. Carson agreed, having already learned to “just do it and don’t ask questions.” After a few weeks sitting at Evan’s former desk and no updates from Zach, he took the initiative of compiling a list of candidates for the top assistant’s position and presented it to him. Without looking up Zach said, “Why? Don’t you like sitting in that chair?”

“Well, yeah, of course I do,” Carson said. Indeed, he was enjoying the enhanced responsibilities and greater access that came with the position. But only an i***t would settle in without Zach’s expressed approval.

“Then leave me alone and go back to work,” Zach said. But as he was about to depart, he added, “You might want to start putting together some names for a new second though.”

“Does that mean I’m your permanent first assistant?” Carson said, seeking clarification and, at the same time, terrified of the answer.

“Nothing is ever permanent,” Zach reminded him. “Now bring me a cappuccino and go light on the cinnamon.” Zach drank five to ten cappuccinos a day from his personal top-of-the-line espresso machine and was very particular about the proper ratio of steamed milk to espresso; and what differentiated a dusting of cinnamon from an overdose.

“Sometimes I feel like he promoted me to first assistant for my coffee-making skills,” Carson moaned.

“Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die,” Jamie reminded him.

“Oh yeah?” Carson countered. “Well, how about when you come home tonight, you bite me?”

After settling into his enhanced role, however, Carson almost immediately began to itch for further advancement. Every time he bemoaned his lack of progress, Jamie’s response was the same. “Zach has hung onto you for a year and a half already, which in his universe makes you practically family. Just keep your head down and do your job. It’ll happen.”

Patience, however, had never been one of Carson’s virtues. Like most ambitious young men, he wanted what he wanted and he wanted it immediately. To quote Carrie Fisher, “Instant gratification takes too long.”

While his armor-plated skeleton enabled him to withstand his employer’s erratic behavior, he was not content with the meager bones Zach sometimes threw his way. On occasion, his boss would ask for his detailed opinion on a script – which he had to read and write about on his own time (Jamie proofread and corrected any awkward language). He never commented on Carson’s coverage, though during one meeting, he heard Zach regurgitate a couple of his observations almost verbatim. Even though he didn’t receive credit, Carson was gratified that Zach thought enough of what he’d written to appropriate it.

Another proving ground was his ability to cull replacements for the second assistant position, since they were dismissed on a regular basis for a host of reasons. One young man was let go for having too much hair (Zach’s was thinning rapidly). Another was accused of giving Zach (and subsequently his children) the flu. “Could you make sure the next person has had all his shots?”

“I don’t think it’s legal to check people’s health records,” Carson said.

Zach simply groaned and shooed him away, mumbling something derogatory under his breath.

Hiring a second was a careful balancing act. Carson wanted to offer Zach strong candidates, but at the same time, he feared bringing an Eve Harrington on board. When in doubt, he remembered Jamie’s sage advice: “From what you’ve told me, Zach can smell weakness from a mile away. I would go with the best people you can find. I’m not worried. You’ve always been good at sniffing out rattlesnakes and chopping off their heads.”

“It’s not the snakes I worry about. It’s the worms. They can regenerate.”

Earlier in the year, Zach had celebrated Carson’s birthday by treating him to lunch at Spago in Beverly Hills where Wolfgang Puck prepared a special meal for them. And for Christmas, he’d received a Prada cashmere sweater. He wore it to the office once so Zach would see it, then returned the sweater and put the balance toward a designer suit on sale at Macy’s. “Cashmere in Los Angeles?” he remarked. “Not exactly practical. A Hugo Boss suit on the other hand….”

Those instances of solicitousness, however, paled by comparison to the number of times Zach had called Carson “a second-class cretin, because you’re not even good enough to be first class” and threatened to “fire your sorry ass if you so much as breathe funny for the rest of the day.”

The stress, which sometimes breached Carson’s high tolerance level, had led him to consider stealing a tranq or two from the pharmacy in Zach’s bottom desk drawer. His boss would never know since, like many of the other office execs, he popped pills by the hour.

“Seriously, dude?” Jamie had chided, when Carson mentioned it. “Is that the road you want to head down, sucking pills like they were Altoids?”

“No, no, you’re right,” Carson conceded. “But some days, it’s very tempting.”

*

The opportunity to work for one of the top producers in the industry right out of college was not a matter of happenstance. Carson had been hired on the recommendation of Professor David Mendoza, who had mentored Carson and Jamie at CAL U, and was one of Zach Corrigan’s closest confidantes. The two had met when Mendoza was working on his doctorate in film and interviewed Corrigan for his thesis, which evolved into a published bio about the maverick producer. Zach often showed Mendoza rough cuts of his films and asked for suggestions on how to improve them. Mendoza had keen cinematic instincts and, over the years, Corrigan had repeatedly tried to hire him. He had politely refused.

“I prefer to be on the outside looking in,” Mendoza had said. “I love movies and I know enough about the business that, if I became part of it, I might lose that love.”

Even though one of them was nursing a whopping romantic hangover, Jamie and Carson had hit the ground running in their freshman year. They were finally in an environment where everyone inhaled the same refined celluloid air, where being labeled a film geek was deemed high praise and no movie reference was so arcane that at least ten people in the room didn’t get it. The student body was cleaved in two between those who wanted to be the next Spielberg or Lucas, and those who aspired to be the new generation’s Coen brothers or Woody Allen.

During their years at Cal U and after graduation, Jamie and Carson spent many of their free evenings at Mendoza’s home in Echo Park having dinner, watching movies on his giant TV and talking late into the night. They were joined by a select few fellow students and, for a time, Mendoza’s boyfriend, Chester, until they split up at the end of the boys’ sophomore year.

When Carson and Jamie weren’t watching and studying movies, they were planning projects of their own. Because of their tongue-in-groove working relationship and the almost seventy shorts they had churned out in prep school, they had a slight edge on many of their classmates. Several of them also had filmmaking experience, but individually none could compete with the creative symbiosis between the duo.

Again, Carson was the conceptualist and Jamie the technician, the guy who helped his partner shape and actualize his sometimes overly ambitious or diffuse projects. They consistently brought out the best in each other. And while their collaborations were not strife free, the arguments were always productive. On the rare occasion when their disagreements devolved into shouting matches, one or the other would eventually concede (Carson, more often than not) and later acknowledge the error of his ways.

Mendoza personally supervised a number of their projects and they came to appreciate his ‘third eye’ which never failed to improve the finished product. He was impressed by them from the start, he said, claiming that he found their work to be “very retro.”

“That’s a compliment?” Carson asked, almost alarmed.

“Only if you believe that the old Hollywood, where many commercial films also had artistic merit, is preferable to today’s bifurcation of schlocky mega-blockbusters and insular art house movies. What’s amazing is how you’ve unconsciously incorporated ideas from the great filmmakers,” Mendoza continued.

“I’m still hearing derivative,” Carson argued.

“Yeah, I’m not saying that we’re completely original,” Jamie added, “I mean who is? But our movies are very personal, for better or worse.”

“Look,” Mendoza explained, “all filmmakers borrow from the past. It’s how you filter it through your own sensibilities that makes the difference. And I see moments in your work that are very Carson and others that scream Jamie.”

“So I guess we’re pretty good,” Carson said, buoyed by Mendoza’s praise.

“Let’s not get our award acceptance speeches ready just yet,” Mendoza said. “What I meant was that, as a team, you have great potential. You’re both talented individually, and if you can manage to continue working together without killing each other, you might someday create magic.”

*

With graduation looming, Carson and Jamie began to scrounge around for work. Even if they planned to eventually make films together, Mendoza encouraged them to get some hands-on experience in the business. “It’ll give you exposure to all the players so that when you strike out on your own, you’ll have good insider knowledge.”

Despite his placatory demeanor, or perhaps because of it, Jamie was the first to land a job, an assistant position at a post-production house. Several months later, he segued to a junior editing gig at the company. Not the end of the rainbow for sure, but at least he wasn’t doing temp work or getting people coffee and taking their dogs to the vet.

Carson went on several entry-level interviews and lost out on every single one to men and women with far more experience. “Looks like the closest I’m going to get to the movie business is measuring Ben Affleck’s inseam at Saks,” he grumbled.

“You only graduated two months ago, relax,” Jamie said.

“Easy for you to say. You already have a job,” Carson shot back.

“A job, which as you kindly pointed out, is way beneath me and probably a total dead end,” he reminded Carson.

“Why do you listen to anything I say? I certainly don’t,” he observed. “Enough. Let’s go out tonight and find a couple of guys to rape.”

“Or vice versa,” Jamie teased. Though his heart continued to beat only for Owen, he welcomed the occasional mindless distraction.

*

Carson was in bed, engaging in consensual molestation when his phone lit up. Noticing Mendoza’s name on the caller ID, he immediately lost interest in his s*x partner. “Hullo,” he said, lifting the phone to his ear, which earned him the stink-eye from the young man fondling him.

“Carson, did I catch you at a bad time?” David asked.

“No, not at all,” he said. He put his hand over the phone. “Sorry. I have to take this,” he told the young man who scowled, jumped out of bed and started pulling on his clothes. “Just my luck. Another ADHD victim,” he said before storming out the door.

Carson merely shrugged and locked it behind him as he continued the conversation. “What’s up, professor?”

“David,” he corrected him. “Do you think you might be interested in working for Zach Corrigan?”

“Are you kidding? I’d cut off my left nut just to shine his shoes.”

“Well, I don’t think surgery will be necessary,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m asking because I had dinner with Zach tonight and he mentioned that he needs a new second assistant. I told him I might know somebody.”

“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” Carson said.

“Carson, it’s ten o’clock at night,” Mendoza reminded him. “I’ll talk to him in the morning and set up a meeting for you.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much Professor Mendoza,” Carson said.

“David, please” he repeated. “I’m no longer your teacher. And don’t thank me just yet. But I do think he’d be lucky to have you.”

Carson was pacing the living room and pretending to interview himself when Jamie got home from the movies. After deciding he wasn’t in the mood for a hook up, he went to see “American Hustle,” again, this time to study the editing and music cues.

“Who are you talking to?” Jamie asked, and Carson scowled at him. In his mind, he’d been dazzling Zach Corrigan with his wit and confidence and Jamie was rudely interrupting. He told Jamie about Mendoza’s phone call and the potential interview. “Do you think I have a chance?” he asked, his composure rattled by a sudden case of the jitters.

“Well, David and Zach are pretty close. With his recommendation I’d say the job is yours to lose.”

“That was so nice of him and so unexpected,” Carson said.

“Yes, it was nice, but hardly unexpected,” Jamie said. “He’s been our cheerleader for the past four years. And…”

“And what?” Carson asked.

“And he’s…he’s uh…he’s in love with you,” Jamie spit out.

“You’re delusional,” Carson screamed. “He is not.”

“Pahlease. If he could eat you with his eyes, he would have swallowed and digested you by now,” Jamie retorted. “You can’t possibly be that obtuse.”

“Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s interested in me.”

“Except that he is,” Jamie insisted. “Though I’m not sure why. He could have almost anyone he wants. He’s smart and low-key and has oldfashioned matinee idol looks, kind of like a cross between Tyrone Power and Fernando Lamas.”

“Yeah, I guess he’s good looking. And you know I’m crazy about him, just not in that way. He’s not my type. Besides, he’s old.”

“Your type is ‘breathing',” Jamie reminded him. “And the man’s thirty-one.”

Carson gasped. “Oh my god, you don’t think he’ll expect me to sleep with him just because he recommended me for this job?”

“If you offered, I don’t think he’d turn you down. But that’s not why he did it. I’m pretty sure he believes in you. In both of us. He’s one of the good guys, Carson, and whether you get this job or not, you should keep him as a friend.”

“Yes, yes, of course, that goes without saying,” Carson said, sounding distracted. Jamie could tell he’d already tuned him out and moved on to other concerns – such as the prospect of working for a mini-mogul like Zach Corrigan. “Come, help me pick out my outfit for the interview.”

“But I’m beat,” Jamie said.

“Stop thinking of yourself for once,” Carson snapped.

*

David Mendoza did indeed harbor romantic yearnings for Carson, though after graduation the person he grew closer to was Jamie. Their personalities were similar, both men tending to be low-key and taciturn by nature. And besides sharing common interests, they both enjoyed outdoor activities – tennis, hiking, skiing. Some weekends they trekked the trails in the hills around L.A. and the Angeles National Forest, then in winter they hit the slopes at Mammoth. Carson always made excuses, but neither was fooled. The treadmill was his idea of extreme sports.

“If I’m going to fracture a limb it will be from bedroom gymnastics, thank you very much,” he told Jamie who had recently sprained an ankle on the tennis court.

David and Jamie might even have found a path to something deeper and more meaningful had their affections not been preempted. Work permitting, Carson joined them for movie evenings and the occasional weekend brunch, where the main topics were films and ‘the business’. The conversations were stimulating and thought-provoking and David absorbed his former students’ impressions and observations as part of what he regarded as his “continuing education.”

In Carson’s absence, David and Jamie’s friendship grew to the point that they felt comfortable enough to confide their unrequited longings. One evening, at Casita del Campo, a favorite local Mexican eatery, his internal censor loosened by “kick-ass” margaritas, David fessed up to his feelings for Carson, which he said had only intensified over the years and were, by now, “seriously messing with my head.” Though Jamie was fully aware that David was smitten with Carson, he was taken aback by the intensity of his emotions. It flew in the face of his unflappable professorial demeanor.

“Don’t get me wrong, Carson’s definitely wound too tight,” David said. “But even when it’s misdirected, his energy is infectious. I can’t help but feel that behind his cocky façade is someone who craves closeness as much as the rest of us.”

Jamie concurred. Carson had a vulnerable side, but only Jamie had ever seen it and then rarely. Still, Carson was unfailingly loyal and Jamie admitted that, wound too tight or not, he’d be lost without him. “But please don’t ever tell him I said so,” Jamie added, almost as an aside. “He’d get all up in my grill for being mushy. He hates mushy.”

“I’m sure he does,” David said. “Carson prefers to see himself as a hunter/gatherer rather than a nurturer. He doesn’t understand that he can be both.”

“Absolutely,” Jamie agreed. “He’s always on the prowl, whether it’s for men, for his career, or simply a good bargain at Nordstrom’s. These days, more and more, it’s about work. Except for the occasional sleepover with our upstairs neighbor, he’s put his libido on hold.”

“The movie business encourages and rewards that kind of single-mindedness.” David sighed. “They like to lure in vibrant young people and suck them dry, which explains the high burnout rate. I just hope he hasn’t lost sight of his objectives.”

“We still have a pact to make movies together someday and we sometimes bat around ideas in our spare time, but it’s difficult getting him to focus. Right now, he’s obsessed with moving up in the hierarchy in Timbuktu or, failing that, making a jump to another company. He’s getting very antsy. He’s convinced that Zach doesn’t appreciate him.”

“Okay, I’m going to tell you something, but you must promise not to repeat it,” David said.

Over dinner with Zach a few weeks earlier, David had discreetly worked Carson into the conversation. “Zach seemed pleased with his performance, and unless I’m totally off base, at some point he’ll ask Carson to prove himself. Am I foolish to think that this is just between us?”

“Don’t worry,” Jamie assured him. “I’d like to tell him if just to shut him up. But if I do, he might shortcircuit and blow his chances.”

“Okay, enough about my boring schoolboy crush. Let’s talk about your boring schoolboy crush,” David said.

“Oh, you mean the gone but not forgotten Owen?” Jamie grimaced. “I wish I could explain this hold he has on me. I mean, the affair lasted only a few weeks and it was almost six years ago. I doubt I’ll ever see him again and even if I did, nothing could come of it. But I’m stuck in this romantic time warp. Well, you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah that old, ‘the heart wants what it wants’ bull hockey,” David said as he gulped down the rest of his margarita.

“Hey there, pardner, slow down,” Jamie said.

“I live around the corner. You’re the one who has to drive home,” he said. “So, tell me, does this ever happen to you? Do you see this Owen guy everywhere you look – except that it’s never him?”

“I could deny it, but what would be the point? You’re lucky. At least you get to hang out with the real Carson from time to time.”

“Yeah, because that’s very healthy,” David said, rolling his eyes.

“But it means you have a chance, even a ghost of one,” Jamie said. “My feelings for Owen are like a chronic disease; something you learn to live with but never completely shake. I sleep with other men while all the while wondering why they aren’t Owen.”

“Okay,” David said, “you win. You’re way more pathetic than I.”

And they were both tipsy enough to find that funny.

But Jamie wasn’t through just yet. Recently, his father had invited him to the house for Easter, his first olive branch since marrying Meredith, five years earlier. Jamie had yet to meet Desmond’s new wife. He had not been invited to their wedding. “You do understand why it would be awkward?” his father had asked rhetorically.

Since then, Jamie and his dad occasionally got together for dinner and he conceded that Desmond was at least making an effort to bridge their differences. While he wasn’t exactly accepting of his son’s sexuality, he was no longer openly condemning either, though he made it clear that his wife remained steadfastly opposed, which made his invitation to Easter dinner all the more surprising.

Jamie accepted, he told David, mainly as a conciliatory gesture. But Carson wasn’t buying. “You’re going because you think Owen might be there.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Jamie protested. “Dad said he’s out of town on a business trip. But Jemima (Jamie’s older sister) will be there with her husband. Oh, and Owen’s fiancée.”

“You little s**t,” Carson yelled. “You’re going there to check out the competition.”

“Hardly,” Jamie countered. “He’s marrying her.”

“Yeah, I heard. Lance told me.”

“Oh god, I almost forgot. Is that still going on?” Jamie asked. He preferred not to think of Owen in the arms of another man.

“Until a few weeks ago when Owen dumped him. Lance didn’t elaborate.”

“Why have you kept this from me?”

“Because I refuse to be part of your weird ‘Vertigo’ trip. Do you think for one second that I haven’t noticed that every guy you drag home is a pale carbon copy of Owen?”

“You’ve never even met him so how would you know?” Jamie countered. “Besides, Owen is still very much alive.”

“Not for you he isn’t. I half expect you to go out and buy the same outfits he used to wear and force your tricks to put them on before you have sex.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Jamie said. “Now I’m getting excited.”

When Carson gasped, he added, “I’m kidding.” Which he was – kind of.

Jamie eventually conceded that maybe, just maybe, he was curious about Owen’s betrothed, though he was caught off guard when she answered the door.

“You must be Jamie,” the bubbly young woman chirped, relieving him of his flowers and a bottle of champagne. “I’m Darleen, so nice to meet you.” She walked ahead of him into the living room and gushed to Desmond, “You didn’t tell me your son was such a cutie pie.”

Jamie disliked her on sight. She was tall and blandly pretty, like a girlfriend you’d order from an online catalog hawking traditional and unthreateningly attractive women.

“Runs in the family,” Desmond joked.

“Amen to that,” Darleen said, followed by another precious titter.

Desmond greeted his son with a pro forma, ‘manly’ handshake. “Come, I want to introduce you to Meredith,” he said, guiding him toward the kitchen where his wife was preparing a ham.

“Well here he is, my boy,” Desmond said. Meredith looked up and nodded curtly and went back to forcing cloves into the ham’s outer layers.

“How do you do,” Jamie said. “You have a lovely home.”

Oh great. Now I sound like a stock character in a gay-awakening TV movie-of-the-week.

The house did have an undeniably retro vibe, he thought, a diorama of idealized heterosexual bliss; and so did Meredith, who was plain looking and square shouldered; nowhere near as comely as his mother, Greta. She sported a shellacked hairdo and paisley print dress that, like her surroundings, harkened back to another era. What did his father see in her apart from the religious kinship, he wondered? But such were the mysteries of attraction.

“So when are Jemima and Grayson due?” he asked and the couple’s faces fell. “Your sister and I had words this morning,” Meredith said, the sides of her mouth turning down. “She’s decided to stay home. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all the leftover ham,” she griped, continuing to jam the cloves into the skin like she was plugging up a dike.

“Jamie, can I get you a drink?” Desmond asked, sounding eager to redirect the conversation. Jamie nodded. His first dose of Meredith had been quite bracing and he fretted that an entire afternoon with her might expose him to lethal levels of toxicity.

When they were summoned to their assigned seats, Darleen led the table in saying grace. She extended a hand to Jamie and there seemed to be only one polite response, so he accepted. Throughout the meal, Jamie studied Darleen (who named their kids Darleen anymore?) trying to imagine her with Owen. Other than needing a beard while he continued to troll for guys, she seemed ill-suited as a mate. (And it wasn’t just his jealousy talking). She was pleasant enough but in that annoyingly subservient manner. She contributed little to the conversation and when she spoke, it was usually to express agreement.

Meredith was also subdued throughout the dinner, probably because she was vainly trying to conceal her pique at Jemima. Jamie planned to phone his sister on the way home and get the real poop. Jemima had already mentioned that she had little use for Meredith and her “browbeaten son” and he’d had to force himself not to inquire further. His sister was fairly astute. One slip-up and she would do the math.

His mother already knew about the affair with Owen. After he returned from that life-changing summer at camp, Greta had immediately seen through his evasions. He made her swear never to tell anyone, not Jemima and especially not his father. The only other person who knew was Carson’s mother, Jessica. In the aftermath of their marital fiascos, encouraged by their inseparable sons, the two women had become good friends. They referred to themselves as “divorce-war widows.”

The one valuable nugget Jamie took away from the otherwise tense Easter dinner was that Darleen was “chaste” (Meredith’s epithet), confirming his suspicion that Owen played exclusively for the other team. If he’d undergone quack therapy to disabuse himself of those yearnings, it had been a complete failure.

“Duh,” was Carson’s reply.

“I know. I just can’t help but feel sorry for Owen, and even for Darlene.”

“Do not allow yourself to get sucked into Owen’s tiresome soap opera,” Carson said. “It’s not your problem. You have your own life, and a pretty good one at that, if you would just go out and live it.”

David Mendoza’s assessment was no less bracing. “And tell me why you still pine for a man who deliberately deceives his fiancée, his family and himself?

“Harsh, David,” Jamie said.

“Am I?” David replied.

“Aw, gee,” Jamie whined. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I am your friend. So is Carson. But on this subject, we’re of the same mind.”

“Yeah, because you’re one to talk,” Jamie lashed out.

“Two wrongs…” David began.

Jamie ordered another margarita and when David tried to dissuade him, he snapped, “I’m getting snockered tonight and sleeping on your sofa. Now leave me be.”

*

Over the course of the following year, the landscape of Jamie’s professional life evolved radically. His boss, Jeb Kantrowitz, was offered the opportunity to cut an independent movie, a leap he’d been attempting for the better part of a decade. His and Jamie’s working relationship had improved steadily. While Jeb’s criticisms were still maddeningly opaque, Jamie had begun to pick up on telltale hints and, by now, he could usually figure out what he wanted.

His intuitiveness paid off. For the new assignment, Jeb was hiring two assistant editors, his first choice being a longtime friend with similar movie ambitions. The second, surprisingly, was Jamie.

While he had less editing experience than many of his co-workers, Jeb said he’d selected him for his talent and initiative. When word got out that Jamie had been offered the job, his peers turned various shades of green. He let their envy roll off his back until one of his co-workers had the cheek to ask, “What’d you do, suck his d**k?”

“I didn’t have to,” Jamie quipped, “because he likes my work. But if you think it’ll change his mind, I’ll tell him you’re interested.”

Jamie was, in his own quiet way, elated by the prospect of working on a feature film less than three years after graduation. The transition came with a built-in risk factor, however. While his current job was unchallenging, the video production house where he worked, provided him with year-round employment and benefits. The independent feature was only a twelve-week assignment after which he would be gainfully unemployed.

An easy choice as far as Jamie was concerned, though his decision proved not to be so final after all. Shortly after the final edit was delivered, the production house offered to take him back. A few months later, when he quit to work on Jeb’s second feature however, the ties were severed for good. All for the best, Jamie figured, since his fellow editors were lying in wait to sabotage him. They’d taken revenge on co-workers for much less: inexplicably corrupted hard drives, a week’s worth of edits mysteriously erased.

His next opportunity proved to be sheer luck. Diego Rubio, one of his college schoolmates, had Kickstarted and Indie GoGo’d his way into his first directing assignment, and he asked Jamie if he might be interested in cutting the film. Diego was a brash bulldog of a man who compensated for what he lacked in talent with unbridled aggressiveness. Even Carson, who was no wallflower, had very little use for his abrasive style, though both he and Jamie conceded that Diego possessed a knack for interesting, off–beat concepts.

The problem was his follow through. Diego usually failed to develop his clever ideas to their fullest potential. The bi-lingual script, “Venus Needs Chicas,” was no exception. The gentle comedy centered on a misbegotten young Latina who thinks she’s found true love when she is courted by a dashing foreigner. She mistakenly believes the man to be Venetian when, in fact, he is a Venutian who has been sent to earth to cross-breed with humans and start a new race. The initial romance sequences were hilarious but the second act dragged and the third flirted with incoherence.

For Jamie, the quality of the project didn’t matter as much as securing his first solo feature credit. It might be years before he got another shot. And perhaps Diego would be inspired during production and make the changes necessary to salvage the story. “Stranger things have happened,” he told Carson, “Look at ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Tootsie’,” he said. “Tons of rewriting and reshaping but all that mattered in the end was the finished product.”

Carson was skeptical. “And Diego was on neither project. Look, I’m not telling you what to do…”

“Since when?” Jamie teased.

“…but if I was you,” he continued, without taking a breath, “I would be brutally honest with that little porker and pressure him into rewriting that hot mess of a third act.”

“I’ve already mentioned a couple of fixes,” Jamie confessed.

“Of course you have, because unlike Diego you have talent seeping from your pores,” Carson said. “Another thing, make sure he keeps to the shooting schedule or you’ll end up with nothing to edit.”

Diego said he was “stoked” to have Jamie on board. “I told you back in school that someday we’d work together,” he crowed. “I hope I’m not making a mistake hiring you.”

Jamie let the callous remark slide and thanked Diego for giving him the break. He also slipped in a few additional suggestions on how to improve the nonsensical denouement. One of Diego’s strengths was recognizing a better idea when he heard it and he followed through on Jamie’s recommendations.

The shoot was chaotic and the footage Diego delivered required all of Jamie’s skills to make it cohere into a convincing narrative. “Venus Needs Chicas,” debuted at South by Southwest to tepid critical response. Jamie thought the reviews were too kind by half. Nonetheless, he was gratified when a couple of the critics singled out his contribution for praise.

For a few days he floated on cloud nine. Then he remembered that, again, he was unemployed.

*

Carson’s daily routine at Timbuktu Productions chugged along with deadening predictability. If Zach asked him to whip up another frothy cappuccino, Carson feared that instead of sprinkling cinnamon on it, he might substitute arsenic. He followed up on every prospective job opening for which he might be qualified and sat through a few promising interviews. But sadly, no offers. The loss that really stung was a junior creative gig at Parterre Productions, which he lost to Lance, his friend from down the hall and Owen’s erstwhile squeeze.

In light of his best friend’s recent upward trajectory, Carson worried that, for the first time in his life, his mojo had deserted him. His body visibly twitched when he was sitting at his desk with nothing more creative to do than keep Zach’s chaotic life in order.

And then, imperceptibly at first, his situation changed. He landed on the short list for a position at Sweet Talk Films, a family-oriented production company. Not exactly his idea of nirvana, but an upward move nonetheless. A year or two working on G and PG-rated fare and he’d be in position for a more suitable gig.

The opening had come to his attention via Jamie who’d recently landed an agent. While he waited for another feature to materialize, the agent managed to get him several cable TV editing jobs, one of them being a film for the Hallmark Channel produced by Sweet Talk Films. It was a routine assignment, but at least it paid the bills.

When Jamie got wind of the opening at Sweet Talk, he immediately alerted Carson, who was among the first applicants. Mindful of how insane Zach became when he suspected one of his people was casting his net, Carson insisted on a “Deep Throat” meeting on a Saturday afternoon with Sweet Talk’s head of production at a shopping mall deep in the Valley where no one who was anyone in the business would be caught dead. The production chief laughed when he heard the request, but said he understood completely. “I wouldn’t want to pick up Variety and read about you being skinned alive by Zach at a ritual ceremony outside his summer house on Carbon Beach,” the man joked.

“Good one,” Carson said, offering up a “professional” laugh. (A “professional” laugh in Hollywood is hollow merriment which substitutes volume for actual mirth).

The initial interview went well as did the second and third. For the next two weeks, Carson waited. The position was now down to him and one other person. With each passing day, he became increasingly terrified that Zach might find out. If gay people have gaydar, Zach seemed to possess an uncanny sixth sense about which one of his employees was being courted by a rival.

When Carson was anxious, he got sloppy. The first time, when he tripped bringing Zach his morning cappuccino, he was reprimanded and forced to get down on his knees and mop up the spill. The second faux pas was even more serious. One morning, he allowed a phone call from George Clooney to ring through to voice mail. Zach didn’t say a word. He merely eyed Carson with the intensity of a human laser, returned to his office and slammed the door.

For the rest of the day, Carson waited for Zach to exact retribution. He deliberately kept his head down when his boss stormed into the office after lunch with murder in his eyes. But Zach brushed right past his desk and came to rest in front of Damian Pierce, a razor-sharp junior production executive and one of Zach’s favored disciples whom he was grooming for bigger and better.

From the smoke coming out of his nose, Carson anticipated homicide or at least voluntary manslaughter. Instead Zach merely continued snorting, his chest rising and falling. Damien’s own breathing turned shallow and he turned a whiter shade of pale. Quietly, he began to fumble through his desk drawers, retrieving a few essential items, which he deposited into the Gucci leather briefcase Zach had bought him for Christmas. Then he backed his chair away from the desk, got up and walked out of the office on tiptoe. No goodbyes, no apologies.

The entire office gaped in horrified amazement as Damien vanished, almost without a trace. No one seemed to have a clue as to what sin he’d committed, though a week later Variety announced his appointment to a senior position at Warner Bros. Carson feared that, as the person in closest contact with Zach, he would bear the brunt of his anger for the rest of the day, week, or month; or however long it took for Zach to work the betrayal through his system.

Zach picked up a bound sheaf of papers from Damien’s desk and walked over to Carson. His first thought was, “Oh no, he’s going to throw them at me.” But Zach just stood over him panting until Carson was completely unnerved.

Then, plop. The bound script crashed onto his desk.

“Read it,” Zach ordered. “Give me your thoughts. Then set up a preliminary meeting with the writer.”

Carson nodded and raised his eyes to see Zach’s face descending in slow motion. He laid a paternal kiss on Carson’s forehead. “Don’t f**k this up.”

The screenplay Zach had given him was not just any run-of-the-mill project. The production execs had been buzzing about “Bayou Nocturne” since it first arrived. When Carson asked if he might take a look at the script, he was informed, “Sorry. No one gets to read it without Zach’s permission.” Except for the title, Carson had no idea what the script was about except that it had a “hip-hop sensibility.”

Now, Zach was asking him to initiate a possible acquisition – all of it on his own time, of course. Carson spent most of the night reading and rereading the script which, in a nutshell, was an interracial Romeo and Juliet romance set in New Orleans against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina. It was dense and moody and moving. The novice screenwriter, Clete Golliver, was clearly someone to watch.

After setting his alarm and taking a two-hour power nap, he typed up his notes and commentary, then woke up Jamie and asked him to proof them. “I’m not sure what I’m reading here,” he grumbled, as he tried to read the coverage through sleepencrusted eyes.

“I’d show you the script, but then I’d have to kill you,” Carson said.

“Thanks just the same, but I’m saving my eyes for my own work. By the way, shouldn’t you be getting ready?” He pointed at the clock on his nightstand. It was five to seven.

“Oh my god, my first big break and I may blow it by getting my ass fired,” Carson squealed. “How do I smell?” he asked, lifting his pit toward Jamie.

“A little ripe, but not in a bad way,” Jamie said with a smirk.

Carson doused himself with cologne and hurriedly donned his office attire, brushed his teeth and was out the door in ten minutes flat. Clutching the proofed document, a cup of instant coffee and a pop tart, he raced down the steps to the garage.

In spite of his compromised mental state, he managed to deliver a cogent presentation to Zach right before lunch. He didn’t interrupt Carson once, which he took as a good sign. As he was wrapping up, Zach started biting his right thumb and Carson smiled. The nervous tic was familiar to anyone who worked at Timbuktu, and it signified approval.

Never one to shower an employee with praise (unless he was kissing up or inveigling), Zach held up his hand and signaled for Carson to stop talking. “I’ve heard enough,” he said and scribbled comments on the coverage in bright red ink like a teacher grading a test. “Set up an exploratory meeting with this Clete fellow and pass on my notes.”

“What if he wants to get together on a workday?” Carson asked. It just slipped out and there was no taking it back. Oh, if only he’d gotten another hour’s sleep.

“When did you start working for me? Yesterday?” Zach snarled. “You know what to do. Now get out of my office.” Carson had come so close to pitching a perfect game only to blow it in the bottom of the ninth with an unearned base on balls.

Fortunately, the rest of day was quiet. Except for a couple of cappuccino runs and a trip to the pharmacy for med refills, Carson had several hours to himself. Fortified by several cups of execrable office coffee – no one, but no one was allowed to drink Zach’s special blend, not even celebrities and big wheels – he phoned the temp agency and put them on notice. “I need either that guy Tommy or the girl, Josie. Zach won’t accept anyone else,” he told the woman he regularly dealt with at the agency.

The next call was to Clete Golliver’s agent to arrange a meeting. The assistant put him on hold for a few minutes. Clete was available at ten the following morning, she said.

“Do you think he can make it at 12:45?” Carson asked. Zach had a standing lunch reservation down the street at Bouchon at exactly 12:30 and normally didn’t return until two. The temp would field any calls in the meantime and interrupt him with anything that was urgent. “I think that’ll work,” the assistant replied.

The adrenaline rush ended the moment he walked into the apartment that evening at half past eight and collapsed onto the bed fully dressed. He awoke to a screaming alarm at six a.m. Twenty minutes on the treadmill, dry cereal out of the box and, at long last, a shower. He took extra care with his toilette that morning before donning his Hugo Boss navy blue suit. Didn’t matter if he was late. He’d hired a temp for the entire day, that Tommy boy, who was more than competent. Darryl, the second assistant, couldn’t be trusted to make popcorn.

After putting out a couple of brushfires in the morning, he told Myra the receptionist, “When Mr. Golliver arrives, would you send him directly to the conference room?”

“Good luck,” Myra said. The well-wish put a little bounce in his step. He entered the conference room, sat down, placed his notes neatly in front of him and folded his hands. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths until he felt reasonably centered.

A few minutes later, Clete Golliver poked his head into the room. “You must be Carson,” he said as he entered.

The moment he stepped inside, Carson was a goner.