“This is the story. This is the one. This story is gonna suck
you in, this story is gonna suckerpunch you. Coldcock you. Knock you out cold. Like
ice cream cold. This story is going to steal your wallet and bang your
girlfriend from behind.”
Guzzleman sat up. “Too far.”
Bader nodded. “I did, I did take it too far. I apologize for
the wallet remark. But’s it’s still a great story.”
Guzzleman had a feeling it was going to be hot garbage.
Still, he leaned back in his orthopedic chair, the custom
cushion molded to his rollercoaster spine, the soft of the motorized roller
working deep-tissue on his back. He lowered his
belt under his gut and let his belly hang free. Outside the sun went
behind a cloud. And stayed there.
“Okay… hit me.”
It was just the two men in the office, dim now, Guzzleman
behind his desk, Bader on the ergonomic chair facing.
“A guy is out there. Somewhere. In the wilderness, the
arctic wilderness. Like Alaska- you understand Alaska. He’s out there, and this
guy is hiking, and maybe he’s got a big bushy mountain man beard, and for some
reason he trips and falls or something, and he comes face to face with this
furious wolverine. And the wolverine is growling, and he’s looking at the guy
with a raw hunger, a bloodlust…”
Bader, a small man in track pants, stood up and bared his
teeth at Guzzleman, his voice a low moan of animal menace.
Guzzleman: “Don’t do that.”
“Okay,” said Bader, sitting back down. “So the guy runs- he
runs from the beast, and the beast chases him and they run and run and run- and
the wolverine is snarling and screeching, and he chases our guy at least a half a
block or two… and they’re both exhausted from the chase, and they both stop to rest,
just to catch their breath. And then comes the avalanche.”
“Let me guess…” Guzzleman put his hand to his belly and rubbed. “The
guy gets buried in the avalanche and the wolverine digs him out.”
Bader shook his head, grinning. “Nope. The wolverine gets
buried in the avalanche and the guy has to dig him out. It’s a switcheroo! The
wolverine is so grateful he lets the guy domesticate him and make him his pet.
The whole story gets a ton of media coverage- like from the PETA people and other
assholes like those people? And the guy winds up with a ton of reward money.
Well we find out his lifelong dream had always been to buy a pizzeria, so he
does! Now the guy owns a pet wolverine and runs his own pizza parlor. That’s
our pilot. The adventures practically write themselves!”
“What do you call it?”
“Wolverine Pizza. And it’s kind of a subtle play on words
because that’s the name of the pizza parlor additionally. In the story.”
“The restaurant was called Wolverine Pizza before he met the wolverine?”
“God, no. He renames the place Wolverine Pizza. In honor of
the wolverine.”
Guzzleman’s head bobbed, considering. He sunk his bare feet
into the office carpet. “What kind of adventures do they have?”
“Anything!” Bader said, “They solve crimes, they bring pizza
to shut-ins… in one episode they meet the Governor.”
“Do you have anything else?”
“You don’t like Wolverine Pizza?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Okay, okay…” Bader scrolled his finger down his tablet
computer. “The ideas have just been coming so fast these days- I have so many
good ones. It’s like a spigot of imagination- you know like one of those
spigots you can’t turn off?”
Guzzleman took a peanut butter cup from the jar on his desk,
unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth.
“Oh wait! Okay! Here we go! This is the story that’s gonna
overload your powerhouse. I call it Midnight Hour. It’s about this group of
insomniacs, and they just can’t fall asleep.”
“I figured as much.”
“So these people- they come from all walks of life- they
roam the city all night until they finally all meet up with each other. Then
they decide to form a club. An insomniacs club called Midnight Hour- that’s
where the title of the show comes from. And every episode takes place at night.”
Guzzleman, chewing chocolate, was too drunk to nod.
“So these, these insomniacs… they pool some dollars and they
raise some funds, and they buy themselves an all-night laundromat, and you know
what the action is like at those places.”
“Homeless people sleeping in tepid puddles of their own
sick?”
“Mmmm no sick, it’s more like a meeting place, like a bar or a club or
the singles scene or even better- a home away from home? Like a library or a
furniture store? You have people coming in at all hours, worried about stains
and static cling and maybe they’re re-evaluating their career choices and
romantic relationships and the Midnight Hour Gang gets involved, they help
people out, do good deeds, they help a wheelchair man learn how to play
baseball so he can teach it to his son and give the kid good values…”
“How are they gonna teach a wheelchair guy how to play
baseball? At midnight?”
“Oh, you know… stadiums have lights. But they do more than
that: they reunite lost pets with their owners- and vice versa- they help old
people set their microwave clocks, they bake cookies for disaster victims, they
go on job interviews with people to boost their confidence…”
“Job interviews in the middle of the night?”
“And there’s gonna be a lot of laughs in this one too-
tender laughs that make you think… tender but soft to the touch… firm, with
just a little bit of the squishiness. Al dente.”
“The whole thing sounds kinda soggy… do you have anything
else?”
“You don’t like Midnight Hour?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Bader stared hard at the solitaire game sitting on his
tablet, tilting it so Guzzleman couldn’t see. He moved the Queen of Hearts on
top of the Suicide King. “Oh, here’s another great one: The Magnificent Mother.”
“The Magnificent Mother?”
“The Magnificent Mother. It’s about a woman named Terlissa,
and her ovaries get blasted with gamma rays during a gynecology appointment
gone wrong- naturally her fallopian tubes go supernatural, and every week
starts off with Terlissa nine months pregnant and giving birth to a new baby. But
here’s the twist: it’s a super baby. Because of the radiation? The baby grows
from infancy to age 21 in the course of five days, so each week is a
heart-bursting, tear-jerking, gut-busting chuckle-fest where Terlissa has to
raise the kid, teach him to walk & read & drive a car and cook a pot
roast… every week ends with a very sweet moment as she says goodbye to them
& sends them out to face life alone.”
“I hate it.”
“Also she’s being chased by aliens with laserbeams who want
to liquefy her for some reason.”
“No. No. I don’t like it. You need to start thinking real.
Honest. Powerful. With tits.”
“Old People Go Fast. We put hidden cameras in the hallways
and cafeterias of nursing homes and then play them back at double high-speed to
the music of Guns ‘N Roses. Like “Welcome To The Jungle” and stuff.”
“Why?”
“Zero Gravity Fun Time. Slow-motion shots of things that are
funny flying in zero gravity. You know like a glass of orange juice or a
harmonica.”
“We can't send a rocket into orbit for a TV show. That would be madness.”
“Jenny & The Hyena! The Egg Begley Jr Show! Toaster Vs.
Microwave!”
“Now you’re just getting crazy. I think we should-”
“Eat Meat You Vegan Asshole! Zoomar & The Porky Girl! Senator
Chimpanzee! The Tomorrow People!”
“The Tomorrow People?”
“They’re exactly like you and me, just a day early.”
Guzzleman sat forward. “I don’t think this is going to work,
Bader.”
Bader fell back in his chair, collapse in defeat. Guzzleman
stood up and walk the carpet.
“Times are tough in this industry: shitty ideas don’t sell
like they used to. Hell, good ideas don’t sell like they used to. The money
toilet has stopped flowing. The dollar is fragmented… it’s shattered… binary. We
used to have to hire assistants to carry our wallets for us because they were
so heavy… today we mine & scrounge for virtual half-pennies. The T-shirts
make more than the movies, the movies make less than the apps. The apps don’t
make anything. Art is dead, fun is over… the dream has been drumpt. And then
there’s my personal life…”
Guzzleman looked out the window, the manicured grass of the
studio office park, rolling over acres of hills. An actor was slipping gold
caps on his teeth to play a rap artist in his newest music video.
“I’m seeing a therapist because I’m afraid my wife loves me.
She does this thing where she makes me pancakes. My daughter’s a lesbian &
my son is a gay- or maybe it’s the other way around. My doctor diagnosed me
with black testicle, my friends have been fitting me for a coffin, and the upstairs
butler thinks I’m spoiled and self-indulgent. I don’t even enjoy molesting the
Mexican cleaning lady anymore. Not that that stops me. There’s no purpose to
any of this. Any of us. No spark. No meaning. Unless you have something I can use, I’m
afraid I’m gonna have to end this meeting right here. I need to masturbate and
eat cheeseburgers.”
Bader exhaled, defeated. He stood up, tuck his tablet under
his arm and headed for the door. Just before he left he stopped, turning to Guzzleman
with nothing to lose.
“I also sell cocaine.” Bader pulled a freezer bag of
Bolivian flake from his jacket the size of a small watermelon. He dropped it on
Guzzleman’s desk, where it landed with a gentle puff of white coca smoke.
Guzzleman’s eyes were fixed on the bag. He stared for a long moment before turning his gaze to Bader and reaching for his wallet.
“Can you break a million?”
