Parody of a Screenplay
There’s an old expression, “If you can’t beat them, join them”.
It never much appealed to me. Sounds a wee bit too compromising. Some, perhaps, may consider this a shortcoming of mine, but I’ve never been particularly conciliatory by nature. I’m competitive. A nasty word these days but, there it is. I enjoy beating them, whoever ‘them’ are. And if, after putting forth my best effort, it becomes obvious that beating them is not in the cards then I simply fold my hand and walk away from the table.
Joining them has always been out of the question.
Recently, however, a certain dilemma has presented itself wherein it seems to me that the only way to beat them is to join them. For a long time now I have been growing more and more exasperated with the publishing business’s bias in favor of books that demonstrate a potential for being made into movies. I don’t write those kinds of books. Nor, for the most part, do I read them. The authors I enjoy and respect never produced anything with the intention of it being picked up by some slick Hollywood agent and made into a film. Of course, the authors to whom I refer have been dead for a quite awhile. Some of their works have been made into films and ‘film’ is an apt way of describing the end result. Books are meant to have a multi-dimensional depth of character and style. They have a holding weight; a substance. Good books are not film, damn it!
Unfortunately, as it is, many writers are no longer purely inspired to write good books. They are commonly obsessed with the ulterior motive of having their works made into movies. In fact, for a great number of these writers, having their works made into movies would seem to be a primary motive. I can’t exactly explain why this state of affairs chafes my sensibilities as it does but, then again, if it weren’t for my sensibilities being chafed every so often I don’t suppose I would have become a writer in the first place. So hip-hip-hooray for chafed sensibilities!
Anyway, this is the situation wherein I find myself confronting the aforementioned dilemma—Sitting at a poker table with three other gentlemen of the quill. The cards have been dealt, the money is on the table, we’ve all made our draws and I’m leaning back in my chair looking at a handful of nothing—no marquis value whatsoever.
Actually, it isn’t a handful of nothing. I’ve got five cards just like everybody else. The problem is that there is no apparent relationship between any of my cards. They’re all orphans. No two cards bear the same number. No two cards are even in sequence with each other. Five little bastards—that’s what I’m holding.
Now, for the sake of perpetuating this metaphorical scenario we will assume that my associates are all holding far superior poker hands than my sorry self. They have straights and flushes and full houses of royalty. Aside from the impending loss of capital, this predicament would not normally have bothered me. I’ve never been much of a poker player—don’t really care for the game. Solitaire suits me just fine. Nevertheless, here I am. Do I fold, suffer my losses like a good sport and walk away from the table? Or do I …do I what?
Bluff like a son-of-a-bitch—that’s what I do.
We all take turns raising the stakes. Nobody folds. So I say, “Listen fellas, I’m out of money and I know this is going to sound crazy but, how much more would I have to raise the pot in order to bluff, I mean, entice you all to fold?”
Appropriately enough, the three of them look at me as if I am crazy.
“You out of money, you say?” asks one of them. He’s a real well groomed character. Mid to late fifties, slicked back hair, used to be a lawyer. Always seems to be decked out in dark gray trousers, open-neck white shirt, navy-blue blazer and a breast-pocket kerchief that matches his socks. After most of his clients ended up in jail he decided a career change was the way to go and now he writes detective novels. Like everyone of that ilk during the past half century he orgasms at the fantasy of being favorably compared to Raymond Chandler. Poor Raymond, were he still alive, would positively wilt in shame at the preposterous pretenders to his throne. In any case, the navy-blue blazer sold the screenplay rights to one of his books last month and has been unbearably smug ever since.
“Yes,” came my reply, “I did say I was out of money.”
“Well, in that case,” said the next guy, “you’d be plain shit out of luck if one of us opted to raise the stakes again, wouldn’t you be?” This character is an ex-Marine, Vietnam veteran who has been living in Thailand for the past fifteen years writing supposedly historical based war novels, which are also supposedly based upon his personal experiences as a Special Forces warrior in that conflict. He’s fifty or so, still wears combat boots, a camouflage style bandana tight across a close shorn scalp, baggy camouflage pants and one of a strikingly similar variety of t-shirts with Welcome to Cambodia printed on the front and a skull & crossbones with Beware of Landmines on the back. According to a brief Bangkok Post entry the other day, this guy is in serious negotiations with a Hollywood producer to have his second book made into a movie. Rumor has it that a big name macho action star, who shall remain nameless here, is slated for the lead role.
“The point of my query,” said I, “was to see what the chances might be of borrowing a sufficient supply of circulating medium from you gentlemen in order to beat…”
“In order for you to beat us at our own game, in other words,” chipped in the third guy.
“I’m not sure those would have been my words,” said I.
“No, I don’t suppose they would have been either”, said he. Now this gentleman is a journalist—that is, if you’re willing to concede that in this day and age it’s possible to be both a gentleman and a journalist. (Let’s just leave that as a moot point for the time being.) He likes to wear blue jeans, canvas gym shoes, a brown leather belt with a brass buckle, dark colored long sleeve shirts, paisley suspenders and his long sandy hair in a ponytail. The one element of his ensemble that has always roused my curiosity is the brown leather belt with the brass buckle. Actually I’m overstating the case here. It’s really incidental that the belt is of brown leather with a brass buckle. What confuses me is why the hell a guy in suspenders would also feel compelled to wear a belt at all. It seems to me that generally respected sartorial custom dictates that you either wear one or the other. To wear both smacks of a rather dandified pretentiousness. Well, like I said, he’s a journalist. Come to think of it, the guy also attended law school at some joint in Los Angeles so, god knows, he could have turned out to be a lot less presentable.
“So, if one of you guys decide to raise the stakes, I guess I’m out, huh?”
“’fraid so,” said the belt and suspenders. “This just ain’t your game, is it? What a pity.”
That, “What a pity” remark rankled. Son-of-a-bitch is an assistant bureau chief in Bangkok for a major U.S. news service. He likes to think of himself as a hard-boiled investigative journalist but, for the most part, he whips off soft-boiled feature stories about such things as the few remaining old coconut wood houses on Koh Samui and the new craze of parasailing in Pattaya. Of course, that isn’t entirely his fault. There simply isn’t a place for hard-boiled investigative journalism in Thailand. The power brokers here wouldn’t tolerate it—and, that’s about the only thing they don’t tolerate. It’s interesting that after you‘ve lived in Thailand for a few years you begin to realize that tolerance is not necessarily a virtue. A good argument could be made that tolerance is this country’s major vice.
Belt and suspenders has also got the movie bug. He’s collaborated on three screenplays. One of them was actually made into a movie—an action thriller about drug smugglers and warlords, women of easy virtue and men of no virtue. The thought of collaborating on a screenplay turns my stomach. Since when has writing become a team sport? I ask myself this question every so often and the answer always comes back the same…since the advent of the movie industry, you idiot! (I hate calling myself an idiot, honestly I do.)
The guy in the camouflage garb tossed a five hundred-baht note into the pot, looked at me and said, “Adios amigo.”
“Yeah, beat it,” said the other two. “Go back to your hovel and scribble some more of that stageless funny stuff you’re so universally unknown for.”
Truth is, they didn’t both really make that identical declaration in unison. One said one thing and the other said another thing but, for the sake of brevity, I just condensed the basic tenor of both remarks into a joint statement and let it go at that. I mean, why waste words if you don’t have to? It’s like the guy in some movie I vaguely remember who said, “Why waste bullets if you don’t have to?”
I had seven in the clip and one in the chamber.
Moments later I walked away from the table with four in the clip, one in the chamber and a fat wad of baht notes in my pocket.
Amazing how simple it was. No doubt the so-called element of surprise helped. It was one of those rare occasions when I wasn’t wearing my shirt tucked in. The guys might have suspected something was amiss about that, but they apparently did not. All these years in Asia and I still wear my shirts tucked in and am absolutely hopeless with chopsticks. I have friends back in Chicago who could probably perform microsurgery with chopsticks and the closest they’ve ever been to Asia is a Chinese restaurant on Clark Street. It’s embarrassing. Especially their condescending smirks when I ask for a knife and fork. (I’m making a mental note right now to seriously re-evaluate why I classify some of these people as friends.)
Anyway, the tucked out shirt worked very well to conceal the tucked in semi-automatic pistol. I’d have preferred more time to appraise the ghastly shock in their eyes as the gun became a visual entity. The ex-Marine concerned me, though. He’d been in combat so I figured it wouldn’t take long for him to react. He received the first bullet—just above his left eyebrow. The camouflage bandana bulged sharply on the top of his head with the same effect, in his case, as I imagine an original idea might have had.
There was some hesitation on my part as to which guy to deal with next. Both of them looked pretty damn stunned. Belt and suspenders was the first to make a move so the next shot was his—right in the middle of his forehead. Funny thing about that shot is that it blew his ponytail smack onto the white shirt of the navy-blue blazer fellow. It looked like some kind of bloody dead rodent. The navy-blue blazer really freaked out at that. He started yelling and screaming like a banshee out of hell. I really hate noise. The two gunshots had already made me wish that I’d brought some earplugs. Jesus these things are loud!
“You crazy bastard!” the navy-blue blazer screamed at me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Workin’ on a screenplay,” I said. “Just want to be like you guys.”
Then I shot him in the mouth. That shut him up.
All this occurred in the lobby bar at the J.W. Marriott Hotel on Sukhumvit Road. The place had become a regular haunt of mine during the previous three years. It’s a little oasis of relative calm and sophistication in the midst of the hurly-burly bedlam of Bangkok. They have the best buffet in town, a very competent and congenial staff, a pianist who knows her way around Cole Porter tunes and a nice high tea affaire from three to five every afternoon. I fork out a hundred bucks each year for a ‘gold card’, which entitles me to a fifty percent discount on all my meals plus a few other benefits. It’s a really good deal and I’m at the hotel nearly every day. Most of the staff know me by name and couldn’t be more gracious. I even know many of their names by now.
This scene took place during last Wednesday’s afternoon high tea. I just love the high tea. Cucumber sandwiches, smoked salmon, a variety of cheeses, dim sum, egg rolls, scones, fresh whipped cream and a wide assortment of coffees and teas to choose from. With my ‘gold card’ it’s all you can eat and drink for approximately three dollars. Throw in some well rendered Porter and Kern and Gershwin melodies and I ask you, how you gonna beat that for a pleasant way to spend an afternoon?!
On this particular occasion the pianist stopped cajoling her organ when that ponytail rodent splashed upon the navy-blue blazer’s white shirt. Pity, too, because she was right in the middle of one of my favorite Gershwin tunes—‘Someone to Watch Over Me’. Bad timing on my part, so I made another mental note to alter that bit when I sat down to work on the first draft. You can do those sort of things when you’re a writer. Alter reality…I like that.
The unaltered reality for the next few moments proceeded as follows: Thanin, who is the manager of the lobby bar came over to the table while I was sorting out the various baht notes that had piled up in the pot. I prefer to carry cash that’s been arranged denominationally. It’s a quirk of mine but, well I mean, there’s just so damn much disorder in this world that I try do what I can to sort out the little things. If that makes me a control freak, then, so be it.
I handed Thanin two silver thousand baht notes. He and I have become rather chummy over the past three years.
“Every thing all right here, Khun Mac?”, he asked. The rest of the people in the room were just getting up off the floor by this time…all but three of them, that is.
“Yeah,” I said, “every thing’s hunky-dory. These guys are writers. Their books get made into movies.”
“I recognize them,” he said. “They come in here often to play cards.”
“Right. I’ve met them around town before.”
“I didn’t know you played their game,” said Thanin.
“As a rule, I don’t. But today I figured I’d give it a shot.”
“Never seen it played quite like this before. Heard about it, of course, this being Thailand, you know. But, never seen it.” He slipped the two silver notes into a pocket of his black suit coat.
This being Thailand, I had certainly heard about card games of this sort myself. Like most Asians, Thais loves to gamble. It’s illegal, but the Thai economy thrives on illegal activities. A thin veneer of discretion is all that is required. The thin veneer of discretion in this case was a white cotton napkin covering the cash on the table. I remember a famous game that took place at a secret gambling den in Maenam village on Koh Samui when I was living on the island some five years ago. It was located in one of those few remaining old coconut wood houses that the ponytail wrote a story on. I’m sure the ponytail wasn’t allowed inside. He just took a photograph of the joint and provided a bit of quaint fatuous text about it. The game I’m referring to involved a local Samui lad and five foreigners from Surat Thani. Surat Thani is the provincial capitol town on the mainland of Thailand’s southern peninsula. It’s where you pick up the boat to come to Samui about two hours away. Nevertheless, like island folks around the world, Koh Samui natives consider all outsiders as foreigners and it’s always open season when it comes to taking advantage of them. That, unfortunately, has become more and more true on dear old Koh Samui. In this case, two of the five ‘foreigners’ were police officers on the mainland who apparently decided that instead of exercising their jurisprudence of enforcing the law they’d make some money breaking it. The problem, according to the scuttlebutt that surfaced later, was that the local lad had relieved them of most of their currency three hours into the game. The local lad was also the only one still sober at that point. Well, relatively sober anyway. These gambling dens, at least the ones on Samui, provide free booze to all ‘foreigners’ dumb enough to venture inside. The two police officers started to become belligerent. They accused our local lad of cheating, unholstered their guns and placed them on the table. The situation became very menacing. So menacing, in fact, that the Samui lad emptied his pockets of money, stacked it all neatly in the middle of the table and walked out. One can only imagine that the five ‘foreigners’ were feeling mighty pleased with themselves at that moment. They left all the cash on the table, ordered another bottle of rice whiskey and dealt out the cards for a new game. Whether it was a minute or two minutes later, nobody’s quite sure but, the native son returned.
He returned cradling a sawed off double barreled shotgun which, according to an explanation offered to the local police, he had, hitherto, only used for target practice in his backyard. Apparently he had a very large backyard and, it’s only speculation on my part, but I reckon the size of his targets must have been somewhat similar to that of, oh say, an elephant. As it was, he only needed two shots to send all five of the card players on the way to their next reincarnation. That greatly impressed the folks of Maenam village to the point that for a few days following the episode there was talk of holding a parade in the young man’s honor. By then, however, he was locked up over on the mainland. If I remember correctly, he was released three years later into the custody of the Koh Samui constabulary to whom he had acquired hero-status and is now back home in Maenam. Everyone in the village was happy with the outcome aside from, possibly, a stray elephant or two.
Thanin suggested that I absent myself from the remaining festivities of the high tea because he felt that in a very short time the lobby bar would be crawling with uniformed members of Bangkok’s finest. He assured me that he and the rest of the staff would certainly not claim to have witnessed any untoward behavior on my part. Nevertheless, he feared that given the smoking gun under my belt and the huge wad of money in my pocket the police might start asking some incriminating questions. There was also, of course, no guarantee that several of the other bar patrons wouldn’t point an accusatory finger at me. I agreed with him completely, made my exit and hailed a taxi on Sukhumvit road.
It seemed to me that the most judicious course of action to proceed upon was to return to my room at the Top Inn, pack my meager belongings and get the hell out of town. Common sense alone would have made it plain that the police, sooner rather than later, were sure to be tracking me down. Too many people knew me at the lobby bar and some of them were well aware of my residence at the Top Inn.
Goddamn Bangkok! It’s a city of ten million people with a small town mentality. Everybody knows your business, especially if you’re a white guy.
I told the taxi driver to take me to the Top Inn. He turned around and looked at me like I was some dumb tourist. Pointing over my shoulder he said the Top Inn was one block that way. Jesus these taxi drivers piss me off sometimes! Of course I knew where the Top Inn was. And, to get there in this taxi was going to require a completely circuitous route covering a distance of about three miles. But, damn it, I was in the midst of a crime-thriller. Suppose some Mr. or Mrs. conscientious, law-abiding citizen had decided to follow me from the lobby bar and noticed the direction I was heading in the taxi. By definition, that would have ruled out most Thais or ex-pat residents but, you never know, there could have been some fathead from Cedar Rapids, Iowa lurking about the premises. My intention was to introduce an element of misdirection into the scenario.
The taxi driver was a wee bit slow in providing the necessary cooperation so I pulled out my gun, leveled the barrel straight between his eyes and said “Top Inn”.
He became remarkably cooperative after that.
Achieving speeds of up to eighty miles an hour, he took the left turn from Sukhumvit to Wireless Road on two tires, ran through half a dozen red lights, sideswiped several other vehicles, forced a motorcycle into a fried noodle stall near Lumpini Park and nearly ran down a mother and her two year old child who was wearing a pair of those annoying squeaky toddler shoes that seem to be the fashion these days. I mean, honestly, don’t children make enough noise as it is? Why do their parents have to outfit them with shoes that squeak, for christsake!
As the taxi made its third consecutive left turn, this one off of Asoke Road and back onto Sukhumvit, the driver seemed as if he was racing down the final straightaway at the Indy 500. We took the checkered flag right in front of the Top Inn. I included a sizeable tip with the fare, patted him on the shoulder and walked into the lobby. After informing the girlfriend of the hotel’s namesake that I would be checking out very shortly, I hopped into the elevator. (That’s right, by the way, the owner of the hotel is named ‘Top’. Don’t ask me how they come up with these names.)
Within fifteen minutes I’d showered, packed, checked out and was on my way to Hua Lamphong train station. Passing the Marriott Hotel in route, I noticed five or six police vehicles parked around the main entrance to the lobby. Well, I said to myself, your career as a screenwriter is underway.
