Page 68 - The Myth and the Moment

Evening

Nate; I can do it well, I can bring you up-to-date on what’s selling.
You can put whatever message you want in your dialogue; you see, it
doesn’t matter anymore. Nobody cares what’s being said, just so it
advances the plot. Sex, politics, religion: no big deal! Come out of the
closet, Nate; get on the gravy train!”
And there, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have the symptoms
of blind ambition: nothing but visions of sugarplums dance in his
head, so he presumes everyone else is waltzing in the same sort of
high-calorie cranial ballroom. Or is he trying to buy my silence,
holding The Myth hostage against my joining his herd of hacks and
hopefuls? Crap. That is just too Dickensian.
“Yes, yes, think it over, Nate. I know it would be a change from
the limited life-style you’ve grown accustomed to over the years.”
“I’m not thinking it over, Phil. I’m thinking it is over. You’ve got it
backwards. You’re the one who’s got to make a change, give up your
bad habit—just temporarily, of course. I’m not on a crusade to save
you from the corruption of show business. What I’m writing now is
my crusade; but it’s not for the salvation of you or anybody else.”
“Now you’re being mysterious as well as pigheaded, Nate. What
am I supposed to make of that remark?”
Oh, Christ. The last person in the world I’d want to explain this to.
But nothing to lose. Last barrel in the shotgun. Ready. Aim. Plop.
“All right, Phil. I’ll tell you what to make of it. I don’t suppose
you’ve had a chance to go through the file. And even if you had, you
wouldn’t have a clue. Do you know what a testament is?”
“Like a will? You lost your will?”
“It is the means by which the living dispose of their property after
their death. A way of transmitting one’s intentions beyond one’s
lifetime. Not a denial of mortality, but a tidying up of the remaining
estate.”
“Now, really, Nate. You ought to know the law about holographic
wills. Just write another one, and the fact that it has a later date will
make it valid, and any others invalid. Boy, we had a lot of good stuff
come out of that Howard Hughes affair. All of a sudden wills were a
hot dramatic device. Anyway, Nate, unless you get cracking on some
new works, you won’t have much to leave posterity, anyway. I can get
you contracts with built-in tax-deferred, tax-sheltered, tax-denying
income and royalty-generating escalation clauses covering all markets

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