Lullaby Town

cuffs rolled over his forearms. The forearms were thin. It was a style and a look that had faded away in the mid- seventies, but if you were the King of Adventure, I guess you could dress any way you wanted. The King yelled, 'Stop the tape! I don't want to see this crap! Jesus H. Christ, are you people out of your minds?!'

Peter Alan Nelsen was yelling at a neatly dressed woman and a man with a face like a rabbit's who were standing near a 30-inch Mitsubishi television. The man was scrabbling at a videotape machine, trying to eject a cassette, but his fingers weren't doing a good job and the woman had to help him.

Donnie ran forward, rubbing at his hair. 'Peter, Peter, what's going on? Hey, there's a problem here, that's what I'm for!'

The woman at the big Mitsubishi said, 'We showed him a tape of work by the new production designer. He liked it fine until I told him that the designer had worked in television.'

Peter made a loud, moaning sound, then jumped off the desk, raced forward, grabbed the tape from the rabbit-faced man, and threw it out the window. When Peter rushed toward them, the man jerked back but the woman didn't. Peter yelled, 'His quality is all wrong! Don't you people understand texture? Don't you understand image density? Tee-vee is small. Movies are large. I make movies, not television!'

Donnie spread his hands, like how could they do this. 'Jesus, Peter, I'm sorry. I can't believe they'd waste your time with a TV guy. What can I do to make it right?' I think he was trying to show me how to make Peter happy.

Peter screamed, 'You can kiss my ass on Hollywood Boulevard, you wanna make it right!' Peter didn't look any happier to me, but Donnie was the expert.

The neatly dressed woman said, 'You're out of your fucking mind.' Then she turned and stalked out, dragging the rabbit-faced man with her. When they passed, I hummed a little bit of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' Pat Kyle gave me an elbow.

Donnie gave the big smile, telling everybody that he and his old pal Peter were in solid on this one. 'No, hey, Pete-man, I mean it.' Pete-man. 'You want a new production designer, you got one. I mean, we're making film here, am I right?'

Peter Alan Nelsen screamed, 'Shit!' as loud as he could, stalked back to the Harley-Davidson, and kicked it over. Hard. There were gouges in the floor where it had fallen before. The blond woman waited until Peter was through, then went over and righted it, her cut muscles straining against the weight. Peter paid no attention. He stood in the center of the floor, breathing hard, hands down at his sides like there was a terrible anger bubbling within him that he didn't know if he could control, but he would give it a game try. Drama. I said, 'I'm Elvis Cole. Is there a problem you want to discuss with me, or should I leave now during the intermission?'

Donnie Brewster said, 'Oh, shit,' and made more of the how-to-keep-Peter-happy hand moves. 'Hey, what a kidder, huh, Pete-man? This guy is the private cop we were talking about. He's-'

Peter said, 'I heard him,' and came toward me. He put out his hand and we shook. He squeezed harder than he had to and stood closer than you stand to someone you don't know. 'I'm sorry you had to see this,' he said. 'These guys give me the weight of making a major motion picture, then do everything they can to screw me up. It gets a little crazy.'

'Sure.'

He jerked his head toward the woman. 'That's Dani.' He gestured toward the two guys. 'That's Nick and that's T.J. They work for me.' Nick was the guy in the Stunts Unlimited T-shirt. T.J. had the eelskin boots. Each of them outweighed him by maybe sixty pounds.

Peter said, 'You see my movies?'

'I saw Chainsaw and Hard Point.'

'What did you think?'

'Pretty good. Chainsaw reminded me of The Searchers.''

He smiled a little bit at that and nodded. 'I was a twenty-six-year-old film-school flunk-out when I made Chainsaw. I didn't know my ass from a hole in the round and I ripped off The Searchers every way I could.'

Donnie looked up from where he had gone to a phone. 'We were talking about Chainsaw before we came over. A dynamite film. Just dynamite. Tremendous gross.'

Peter went to the candy machine, slammed it with the heel of his hand, pulled a lever, and got a bag of M amp;M peanuts without putting in money. He tore open the bag with his teeth, dropped the paper on the floor, and poured half the bag of candy into his mouth. He didn't offer to share. Dani drifted over and picked up the paper.

Peter went to the big marble desk and sat on it, cross-legged. 'You look about my age. How old are you?'

'Thirty-eight.'

'I'm thirty-nine. We talked to some cop who said you were in the Nam. That true?' He leaned forward and said the Nam like they do on television, full of excitement and appeal and unreality. The way Bart Simpson would say it.

'Uh-huh.'

He slurped up more of the M amp;M's. 'The cop said you racked ass over there and got a fistful of medals.'

'What do cops know?'

'I tried to join up, but they wouldn't take me. I got this bone thing in my hips.' He was looking at a poster of John Wayne in Blood Alley. It showed the Duke firing a machine gun at some Commies. More shoulders than hips. 'The Nickster was in the Nam, too.' The Nickster.

The Nickster nodded. 'Airmobile.'

Peter said, 'Man, I wanted airmobile bad. Ride the skies. Ace a few Cong. I wasn't so old, I'd'a signed up for Saudi.'

The Nickster said, 'You woulda been a natural, buddy. I'd'a rather had you than half the turds in my unit.'

T.J. said, 'Fuckin' A.'

Peter nodded, regretting the lost opportunity to ride the friendly skies of Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

Donnie put down the phone and turned back to us, making the big smile and the there's-no-problem-here hand gestures. 'Hey, Pete-man, you wanted that TV putz off the picture, he's yesterday. Gone. A memory. So tell me what you wanna do about a production designer? We've gotta make a decision and start building the rest of the sets.'

Peter said, 'Forget about it, Donnie. I'm into something now.'

Donnie's face pinched and he looked nervous. 'But, hey, Peter. We got a movie to make, man. We gotta get with it. These things won't wait.'

Peter didn't look at him. 'Donnie?'

'Yeah, Pete-man?'

Peter spit a chewed M amp;M at him. It hit Donnie's right pants leg, hung there a second, then fell. It left a green smear. 'Hit the road.'

Pat Kyle made a hissing sound. Donnie's face went white and his body stiffened as if the M amp;M had been a turd pie, and for just a moment, his face was clenched and hard and angry. Then, a little bit at a time, the anger was stored away as if little men inside of Donnie were disassembling it block by block. When enough of the blocks were gone, the little men built a smile. It wasn't a very good smile, but the little men were probably tired from all the overtime they put in. Donnie said, 'Sure, Pete-man. Whatever you say. I'll call later. Hey, I'm really sorry you got stuck with those TV clips.' His voice was tight. Trainee in the voice-box crew, no doubt.

Donnie Brewster turned and walked out without looking at me or at Pat Kyle or at Nick or T.J. or Dani. Peter poured the rest of the M amp;Ms into his mouth, crumpled the wrapper, then laid a hook shot toward a square wastebasket and missed. Dani picked it up.

The Nickster made a whiny voice. 'Sure, Pete-man, whatever you say.'

Peter and T.J. and the Nickster laughed. Dani didn't.