Adventures on the Small Screen*

Fame is a fickle mistress. Fifteen minutes after that moment you thought she only had bedroom eyes for you, she’s flinging woo at another punter.

In the ‘90s I arrived in Sydney with one goal: to become a famous scriptwriter. With a dog-eared suitcase and a copy of William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade tied together by string, I stepped off an Ansett flight from Perth and spent half my savings on a taxi to Kings Cross.

Cracking open my hostel room’s sash window, I peered down into an alley to admire colourful locals thoughtfully sharing a hypodermic needle.

Sneering at me, one character revealed a lack of dental hygiene rarely sighted outside a chimpanzee enclosure. “What the duck (I may have misheard) are youse lookin’ at, runt?” The insult, perhaps another misunderstanding on my part, seemed harsh given I stood six feet and a quarter inch in my Dunlop Volleys.

“Carry on, mate,” I called while struggling to push the window shut. I discovered later the only people in Sydney who called you “mate” were the police: “Put your hands on the bonnet, mate, and assume the position.”

Stretching out on a lumpy mattress which exuded the faint aroma of performing seals, I reached for Goldman’s opus. My bookmark – a faded black-and-white photo – fell out. The camera had captured my big sister Peta and I holding hands, with me kitted out in a schoolboy-sized pea coat on presumably Perth’s only cold day of the year. It was a talisman. Good luck lay just around the corner. Actually, Madame Fifi’s Palais de Hop lay just around the corner.   

That evening I stood outside Fifi’s. Hey Big Spender was being beaten into submission by a live (up to a point) band. The bouncer, looking me up and down as if I’d broken wind, demanded an entry fee. I explained that, in WA, entertainment venues were simply happy to see you. Grasping my jacket’s lapels, he lifted me off the footpath. “Well, here you can duck off!” Two thoughts: should I get my hearing checked and would the stitching hold?

Inside the club and $5 lighter in the kick, I ordered a Reschs DA. After two sips I asked the barmaid, who must’ve been chilly in that see-through crop top, if she’d accidentally served me a schooner of dishwater. Her reaction wasn’t as solicitous as I’d hoped.

Fighting a gag reflex, I took another pull of the beer and watched the first act take the stage to give what appeared to be a history lesson. Two women of indeterminate age (although I’d charitably determine: their early 40s) began recreating scenes from the Third Reich, that’s if SS officers had worn peek-a-boo bras, black latex corsetry and thigh-high jack boots. To give them their due, and enthusiastic patrons did just that by thrusting folding money into the lasses’ knickers, the writhing performers were keen to test the strength of the holding screws on their poles.

Back in my room, with the dresser pushed against the door, I reminded myself of what William Goldman had written: “Nobody knows anything...... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work.” But my breakthrough would be different. It’d be on Australian TV. There, everyone knew everything.

Light from an outdoor neon sign, reflecting in the room’s mirror, spelled out a-l-o-C – a-c-o-C. Smiling at the thought of my first scriptwriting meeting the following day, I drifted into a sleep only occasionally broken by screams and sirens.

Al Bundy Productions in Artarmon was tucked inside a dull office building that’d seen better days. Those days being circa 1960. Next store was a motel whose architect had possibly once dined in a Spanish restaurant. Both dominated a stretch of Pacific Highway noted for small businesses which closed within a month of opening.

A receptionist watched me enter the office foyer before standing, picking up a copy of Woman’s Day and heading to the Ladies. Waiting, I sat on a leatherette bench admiring upsized portraits of Bundy’s soap opera stars lining the walls. More money had been spent on teeth whitening than talent.

A door bounced open. A tall cove in a paisley shirt, tight trousers and a tighter pout sniffed: “You’re late.”

“Actually I was on time but your receptionist has, literally, pissed off.”

“What? You were waiting to be formally announced? This isn’t a Jane Austen novel. Real scriptwriters walk right in.”

Head writer Clint Barber had an office with faux timber walls, a melamine desk and an uninterrupted view of a brick wall. Leaning back in his chair, he expelled a heady mix of Aramis, Alpine cigarettes and smugness. “So, you’re the hack from Dunbuggeringup?”

“Perth.”

“Same, same … the point is: journalists rarely cut it in showbiz. If you hadn’t schmoozed Al Bundy during that interview for The West Australian, banging on about your scripting talent, you’d still be sitting on some beach spitting out sand blown by the Fremantle Nurse.”

“The Fremantle Doctor. It …”

“On the bright side, you won’t be wasting my time for long. I assume you’ve watched Sons and Lovers.” 

“No need, I’m a big fan of D. H. Lawrence. His nuanced ...”

“Is he the drunk who wrote Number 96 and Skippy? No matter. Bundy’s Sons and Lovers is a TV soap about the real Australian suburbia: dry retching, dry humping and, for the wealthy few, dry cleaning. It’s stripped four nights a week on Nine. We need writers with a gift for stopping TV viewers reaching for the remote. You’re starting on dialogue. We give you an episode’s outline; you punch out the dialogue. Can you manage it or would you like to catch the next camel train back West?”

I screwed my baseball cap in my hands. “Wow, Clint, how can I ever thank you?”

“By coming back tomorrow with a final draft.” Leaning forward, he lit a cigarette with a Bic lighter, blew peppermint-scented smoke towards my face and said: “Off you go, Orson Welles.”

At seven o’clock, alone with a boxy TV set in the hostel’s communal lounge, I switched to Nine. Thirty one minutes later, with hands shaking, I was standing at Fifi’s bar ordering a Reschs with a Reschs chaser.

“Have you seen Sons and Lovers?” I asked the barmaid.

“I’m not keen on D. H. Lawrence,” she replied, lifting her shoulders back and her chest up. “I’m more a Graham Greene kinda gal.”

“Quite,” I said, finishing the first glass. “But the excuse for entertainment I watched tonight will snuff out the last creative embers of life in your soul.”

“My tip: improve your chat-up lines,” she said, turning away.

 

The hands on my watch crawled towards midnight. A sheet of pristine paper was rolled into my portable Remington.

The episode’s storyline was plausible enough. A light aircraft carrying four of the show’s more sexually active characters had crash-landed in a paddock of an abandoned sheep/cattle/check-what-the-hell-they-herd-in-that-area station outside Broken Hill (or Katoomba, depending on budgetary constraints). With a storm closing in and with barely enough food and barely enough strategically-torn clothing, the four must spend the night in an empty farmhouse. Empty save for two beds and a ghost.

The outline read:

FADE IN.

INT. CREEPY FARMHOUSE. DUSK.

Mikey, Roxy, Chikka and Babe enter. Mikey flicks a light switch. Nothing. The only sound is the wind signalling the coming storm. Babe hugs herself for warmth. Chikka opens the door of a rusty fridge and leaps backwards at what he sees. Roxy goes into a cobwebbed bathroom and begins unbuttoning her ripped blouse. Looking into a cracked mirror, she sights a ghostly shape looming behind her.

With two fingers, I began tapping:

ROXY

Screams.

 

Four-thirty p.m. Pacific Highway, Artarmon. Flipping my script’s pages, Clint Barber paused, lit a fresh cigarette off the stub of his old one and sighed: “Jesus wept.”

“Well?” I asked.

“I’ve never read anything like it.” He checked his watch, swore and punched the intercom button on his desk. “I’ve just received a late script. Get it to the rehearsal room stat. We’re almost out of time.”

“So, you’re going to use it?”

“Yes,” he said, massaging his temples with his fingertips. Strangely, I seemed to hear another “duck”.

 

Weeks later, a watery local beer in hand, I watched in primetime as Mikey, Roxy, Chikka and Babe mouthed my dialogue. At the close, the speeding credits even spelt my name correctly. The angst of that night and day in my room giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a cooked turkey of a TV show had been worth it. So I thought.

I never heard from Barber or Bundy again. The following month, a new, less-than-likeable character in Sons and Lovers was named after me. Fame of sorts. Then the series was cancelled.

* Based on a true story. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

 # # #

Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN

 

Give the Devil His Due

Frankly, I had a devil of a time getting accepted for the new reality TV series. Finally, after the auditions, I found myself in a makeup suite getting what I deserved – a full body wax, a fake tan (I chose “burnt mahogany”) and teeth whitening so dazzling my smile could be seen from the Moon.

A magazine advertisement initially lured me in: “How’d you like to sleep with strangers for money?”

 I was puzzled. The copywriter appeared to be alluding to – what’s that word again? Oh, yes – prostitution. Naïve little me. The advertiser’s logo (No Shame Productions) should’ve set the scene. Whoring? Sure, but only by its most priggish definition. The producers were laying (pun intended) on tropical island accommodation, brand name booze and industrial grade prophylactics. Plus a chance for limited fame while dating, if that’s the euphemism, social fireflies in a show stripped like the cast across four nights a week.

 With the perkiness of a Carry On movie script, the advert teased potential contestants: “You’re invited to Devil’s Island. In this Eden, you’ll be tempted by very succulent apples. Underwear is optional but we’d recommend a fig leaf in the moist jungle. Tingling surprises await you in paradise.”

Was one of them Gonorrhea? I wondered.

 After I’d handed my new PR adviser the ad, he suddenly froze. Immediately I assumed that like most publicity people he couldn’t read. In fact, he’d inhaled shreds of loose tobacco from the cap of his cigar. After he’d spat them into his pocket square, he’d recovered enough to embrace me. “Eureka, bubala!” he’d shouted, which surprised me since he was neither ancient Greek nor Jewish.

Twenty-four hours later, we were in an airline VIP lounge, Queensland bound. Normally I’d have flown myself but the flack was keen to give me a more modern image.

Just before he tipped his head back to drain another glass of the lounge’s complimentary domestic sparkling wine, he sighed: “Those giant leather-like wings which suddenly sprout from your shoulder blades, the gleaming horns rising up from your forehead and, let’s face it, the fiery but bloodshot eyes are putting the punters off. To get your numbers up and attract the less evil amongst humanity, you need to be more approachable. This TV show will humanise you.”

My Devil’s Island audition was held in a Gold Coast industrial park warehouse. The PR guy waited outside in a chauffeured limo, buffing his nails. “I’d hate to see you being humiliated,” he said.

Inside the warehouse, three men and a woman sat behind a wide desk. As I walked in, no one looked up. “Take your pants off,” said one of the men.

Reaching for my belt buckle, I said: “Spoiler alert. I don’t kiss on the first date.”

The woman raised her head, squinted at me and shuddered. “I’ve just had lunch. I’d like to keep it down, so keep your pants up.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I said.

“I’m missing seeing my $28 chorizo, corn and avocado salad again.” She gave another squint. “Name?”

“Lucifer O’Beelzebub. My friends call me ‘Lucky’.”

“Not after this program airs,” she said. Plucking a silver toothpick from her purse, she began digging between her lateral and central incisors to free some embedded dry-cured pork sausage.

Their first question was predictable. Hobbies? I thought of replying “Stealing the souls of the dead” but I went with “Pressing dried wildflowers into poetry books.”

All three men were unimpressed. “You’re going to have to butch it up, big boy,” said one. “What say we write down: ‘Wrestles wildlife’?”

“Now you mention it, I recall the Emperor Vespasian giving me the thumbs up in the Colosseum after I’d dismembered a lion with my teeth.”

“The Colosseum? The one at Caesars Palace Las Vegas?”.

I held back an urge to reach across the desk and tear his heart from his chest. But, to be fair, they weren’t auditioning me for Mastermind. “The very one,” I replied.

After 30 minutes of questions ranging from current STDs to sexual preferences (“Everyone in this room looks good to me,” I reassured them, prompting the woman to throw up a little in her mouth) I made it through to the next round.

Round #2 questions included: “Can you take criticism?”

“I only respect the opinions of the people I respect.”

“We’ll put that down as a ‘No’,” said the woman.

A week later I was flown to the Whitsundays on what I thought was Con Air. Fortunately, the other passengers turned out to contestants too. Who knew neck tattoos were the dernier cri amongst Australia’s jeunesse dorée?

With limited foliage on the sun-seared island, the producers had opted to bring in stands of moping palm trees to encircle our makeshift camp. The island’s few other pieces of greenery held cameras running live feeds into a control room with an adjacent makeup suite, all crammed into an air-conditioned Nissen hut. The hut also featured a septic tank. Crew only. The contestants’ “toilet option” was a short shovel and a squat behind a clump of scrawny melaleucas.

I’d pictured Versace bathrobes, fine soaps and 24x7 bar staff preferably wearing pants (the only thing I want popped into my Negroni is an orange peel garnish). The reality of reality TV was less of a fairytale: narrow camp beds, the sponsor’s warm rum in flagons, and cold showers from a rainwater tank with a seagull’s carcass floating on the surface.

To the seagull’s credit it was more animated than the show’s host, Tab Porter – a former actor whose career peaked on the superbly-scripted ‘80s TV soapie, Sons and Daughters. Stitched together by the A-to-Z of plastic surgery (from Abdominoplasty to Zero-Work-Without-Prepayment), Tab was proof that walking and talking at the same time was an overrated skill. Moving made his scars stretch.

The program’s premiere at 7.30pm was live to air, revealing scenes of we 12 contestants splashing each other in the shallows of the island’s main beach, romping, giggling and trying not to step on the venomous stonefish lying motionless on the ocean floor.

So as not to startle the viewers, I’d tucked my tail into the back of a pair of candy pink board shorts. My cloven hooves were covered by Crocs clogs. My new tan, the result of body paint being smeared on by squeamish staff, gleamed as I strolled out of the water.

The lighting crew had lit the beach like the night trots. My body threw three shadows across the sand when I reached Tab who was standing rigidly on his driftwood master-of-ceremonies stage. He smelt slightly of one part rum to three parts cola.

“And here’s our first contestant, Lucifer O,” Tab shouted in the general direction of Camera One. “His hobbies include fighting lions barehanded in Las Vegas.”

Turning, I gave the camera lens a 6,000 Lumens LED smile. “My friends call me …”

“Moving on,” interrupted Tab. “Luc, how’d you like to choose one of the lovely lady contestants for your First Night Date?”

The word “lovely” threw me. I studied the half dozen women arrayed along the shoreline, ankle deep in seawater. None were strangers to the potential of collagen-enhanced lips to attract either spawning trout or men eager to kiss inflated wine cask bladders. And, metres away, stood those very men, currently out of camerashot but still preening for an imaginary audience. Drawn from society’s leper colony professions – advertising, marketing, property development, journalism and search engine optimisation – the men didn’t appear to be the types a woman would give up her virginity for. Admittedly, that particular gift was unlikely to be an option for these female contestants.

Pointing to a tall, golden-haired woman on the far end of the lineup, I attempted to be gallant. “She’s Botticelli’s Venus come to life, of course minus the scallop shell and …”.”

“Wrong,” said Tab, peering at the teleprompter. “She’s Marilyn M. Come over here, sweetie.”

Pausing to sneer at him before slipping on a pair of slingback high heels, Marilyn then tottered across the fine sand, finally reaching Tab and myself after only two stumbles. Brushing the sand out of her hair, she gave me a look I imagined she kept in reserve for males unlikely to cut the mustard.

“You’re a perfect match,” declared Tab. “Marilyn meet Luc, the only thing small about him is his talk. And Luc, you won’t be surprised to hear your date tonight is a glamour model. Why don’t you two sneak off somewhere private?”

Alone except for a cameraman, soundman, assistant director, production runner and makeup artist, we settled on part of the set resembling a beach bar.

Apparently torn between fleeing for her life and staying in camerashot, she leant forward. “Is that a forked tongue?” 

“It’s very à la mode where I come from.”

In reality, I pictured a long, lonely night ahead. Nevertheless, I edged closer: “What do you model, Plaster of Paris?”

 # # #

Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN

Dear John is Here to Help

DEAR JOHN: I’m a virgin when it comes to writing to newspaper advice columnists but not in other ways, if you’re with me. Once a worldly-wise woman with a dab of Passioné by Lenthéric behind each knee, I now spend my time at an ironing board in the kitchen giving my husband’s collars blasts of steam from a Sunbeam Alpha (pro tip: ensure the temperature is above the two dot [••] setting). Between hisses, I picture myself on a Hyannis Port sand dune near the Kennedy compound or browsing the walk-in cheese room at Fourth Village Providore. Anywhere but here. I’m in a rut and, Dear John, you could be my saviour. What sensible and sensitive tips do you have?

-          Abby, Marrickville, NSW

DEAR ABBY: Pull yourself together, I’ve got my own problems. How’d you like to sit here each day shovelling out an Inbox clogged with self-pitying, mewling correspondence from overly needy people? If you’re looking for a saviour, try your nearest Cross. Frankly, your carping is adding to an already difficult time.

This morning, after a fibre-intensive breakfast of All Bran Original sprinkled with Metamucil – the combination gives an orange-flavoured kickstart to your interior plumbing you won’t regret provided when you go out you’ve got a handy map showing public toilets – I found myself in Aisle 11 of Woolworths. There’s something immensely depressing about playing dodgem cars with shopping trollies propelled by demented shoppers who’re either kitted out for the Virus Apocalypse or, worse, who’re unaware of social distancing norms and insist on frotting as you bend over for competitively priced products on lower shelves. That’s provided there are any products. Today there were no loo rolls. Again.

I’m not asking bovine, stampeding customers to grasp the theory of supply-side economics, simply to understand the concept of supply and demand. The former can’t keep up with the latter if you’re stashing multiple packs of Sorbent Hypo Allergenic Toilet Tissue under the loose floorboards in your spare room. Even the recycled toilet paper had gone. Not literally recycled, which might prove confronting for the hygiene faddists who’d also made off with the Glen 20, but that uncomfortable and presumably planet-saving blend of radiata pine chips and sandpaper with brand names like iCare. Sure.

Once back in the main shopping centre, I held my breath for the three-fold benefit of avoiding inhaling a certain virus as well as the odour of Chemist Warehouse discount colognes and the smug stench swirling around shoppers whose trollies held 3-ply, botty-pampering delights, valuable beyond the dreams of Croesus.

To steel myself for the horror of facing moaning missives such as yours, Abby, I took out a second mortgage to purchase a coffee as bitter as the barista who concocted it. At least at McDonald’s the franchisees do you the courtesy of not even pretending the beverages are: (i) drinkable just because they’re squirted out of a $16,000 La Marzocco Linea Classic & Linea PB machine; (ii) meant for anything other than taking away the taste of other products on sale. Macca’s new Cheesy range, for starters. From the photo you so thoughtfully attached to your email and which I immediately deleted (although not before zooming in on your hair. Abby, you can’t make the most of yourself without a good conditioner) you look like a woman who’s no stranger to the delights of the Golden Arches’ Loose Change menu. With the Cheesy offerings, one bite into the deep-fried Olympic discus of processed – I’m going to say – ‘mozzarella’ squished between bun halves, and your childhood hopes and dreams of one day leading a rich, fulfilling life will explode as you (note: trigger-warning metaphor upcoming) step on a landmine of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

But enough about you. On my way home, I noticed the Health Department was boosting the stocks of marquee leasers by erecting another pop-up drive-thru COVID-19 testing site. Frankly it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money when Macca’s, KFC et al have much-frequented drive-thrus. Here’s a chance to upsize the Governmental approach. Surely even those thousands of Flat Earthers with their tinfoil hats and antennas made of wire coathangers who refuse to be tested – fearing nursing staff (aka alien lizard creatures encased in human skin) are using swabs to ram 5G-enhanced microchips into patients’ sinus cavities – will comply if the spotty teen handing them a dinner box of encrusted chicken privates then leans across and, through the car window, forcefully prods a cotton wool bud on a 150 millimetre-long stick up their nasal passage?

However, if Solyent Green-style products, chips (non-micro) and chilli goop don’t lure the Conspirati to testing venues, then Governments will need to sharpen their comms. It’s no use prattling on about us all being in this together when it’s obvious that society’s privileged are having a very good pandemic, thank you very much, and will sail through, emerging relaxed and with better tans. The less privileged will stagger out the other end of the crisis, broke and broken. Alas, it was ever so. As we slouch towards The Future what do you think, Abby, of a Government message stating 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.'?

But who’s interested in my views on optimising global health strategies? They don’t resonate with the haute bourgeoisie who think just because they pay for a newspaper subscription and have my email address that they can badger me about trifles. Only yesterday, a citizen of some godforsaken parish such as Mosman or Rose Bay was bleating about the price of a panini at a local boatshed café. Here am I with my sanity barely held together with Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin and Focalin. Should I care if an aioli and pesto-smeared foreign bread is on a menu at $25?

To ward off the worrywarts perhaps I should brick up my front door and … no, wait, let’s refine that concept: brick up others’ front doors. Sydneysiders should be on alert. If they twitch the curtains one day and spot a gent of a certain age plodding down the street with a wheelbarrow stacked with burnt clay bricks plus cement, hydrated lime, sand and water then they’ll know who it is. On third thoughts, that won’t stop people who plan to pester me having access to Gmail and the Internet. Unless, of course, they’re with Telstra. Please, don’t start me.

Back to your email. I see you’re in Marrickville. A good suburb for a witness protection program. Who goes there? I haven’t visited for years. I recall that last time I was standing on the main drag’s footpath attempting to shove a freshly-assembled gyros, possibly spelt ‘yeeros’, into my mouth before an unkempt sans-culottes exuding a startling aroma of stale tobacco and fresh urine, attempted to touch me up for a few coins to fund his cosmopolitan lifestyle. I failed.

My problem is that I have kind eyes. Vagabonds and other mendicants take me for a softie. They’re right, Abby. That’s why I’m in the Advice Column business.

 # # #

 Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN

The Customer

From: Glenn Gazman (glenn@sincerepr.com.au)

To: Reg Quilty (regq@danmulligans.com)

Sent: 21 July at 2:54 PM

Subject: My order

Dear Mr Quilty

I’m a busy man and you, with the hopefully well-deserved title of Manager, Dan Mulligan’s Liquor Barn, will also be busy – so I’ll cut to the chase. But before I do, let me say how refreshing it is to have a man back in charge at my local Dan Mulligan’s after what seemed an eternity with your predecessor Mrs Fitzpatrick lashed to your bottleshop’s mast like Odysseus struggling to avoid hearing her customers’ siren song. She not so much captained a proud vessel as ran a pirate ship that just happened to sell alcohol.

Mrs F was an increasingly inflexible woman over such petty matters as purportedly unpaid accounts. Savvy operators who get jiggy with it see me as an “influencer”. At my semi-regular candlelit suppers, my guests often take a sip of wine and exclaim: “Good God, what the hell is this?” Immediately this offers an opportunity for me to pump Dan Mulligan’s tyres and, at no cost to you, detail the offerings in the Bin Ends container en route to the right-hand cash register. Which reminds me, I’d like to once again complain about the range of snacks arrayed near that register. Presumably some marketing department bunny thought selling biltong (surely against health regulations forbidding flyblown, airdried strips of zebra meat) would give an international bent to the store’s otherwise ho-hum offerings. Frankly, all it does is attract South Africans. Many a time while browsing Mrs Fitzpatrick’s rack, I found shouts of “Hey boet! I had a lekker day today!” deeply depressing.

Now, where was I before you distracted me? Oh, yes, my order. I’m writing to you from a suite in one of Canberra’s better hotels, in fact, from my recent experiences, the only accommodation in town with clean bedsheets. After a tiring day advising ungrateful PR clients, there’s something off-putting about throwing back the sheets to find short black hairs (either from a small man with alopecia or the nether regions of either sex) scattered willy nilly. I’ve taken to packing a portable Crime Scene Investigator ultraviolent light to wave over hotel bedlinen. Any trace of dried bodily fluids has me demanding a new room or at least a decent discount on the room rate. Pro tip, Mr Quilty: if you accept the discount then sleep on the outer edges of the bed.

Obviously being marooned in the nation’s capital with 286 kilometres between my digestive tract and an acceptable restaurant has prompted thoughts of marbled beef matched with that remarkable little Emu Plains Syrah you keep for your shrewder customers. A man with a worldly view such as yourself will immediately spot my casual use of the French word for Shiraz (although “Syrah” does sound disturbingly Middle Eastern unlike “Shiraz” which is obviously Australian in origin). It’s these nuances that, like a Mason’s handshake, give we oenophiles a secret frisson, although entre nous I’m not certain I know what a Mason’s handshake feels like. Occasionally when greeting clients I feel an odd pressure or tickle on my hand but I never know if they’re a Mason or pleading: “You up for a booty call, Glenny?”

Ah, clients, Mr Quilty, they’ll be the death of me – or vice versa. Let me add, lest there be another misunderstanding with the police such as the time I stood in a carpark outside a client’s office and shouted at his window: “I’m going to kill you, you mendacious mother …” that the jibe was in jest.

With me in the publicity business and you in retail, we’ve both seen the best and worst of humanity. In a just world, the corporate frauds I’m forced to pander to and the Moaning Minnies you have to tolerate would be dressed in orange jumpsuits and breaking rocks in a chain gang. Thirsty work.

Speaking of which – my order. Being in Canberra, I’ll need one of your team, this time preferably someone not on parole, to deliver my weekly mixed dozen to my home. Feel free to add in any complimentary bottles you feel will frot my palate. Delivery this evening will be fine. At around six, my cleaners will be wrapping up, so your chap can wait outside until they’re finished then carry the wine into the kitchen (careful with the new benchtops, they’re Silestone). The cleaners are an odd couple. Not a word of English between them so your delivery man should speak loudly and slowly. I call them Kim and Kim. At least one of them has to be named that, am I right?

Let me know how it goes.

Best regards

Glenn Gazman

--------------------

From: Reg Quilty (regq@danmulligans.com)

To: Glenn Gazman (glenn@sincerepr.com.au)

Sent: 22 July at 8:01 AM

Subject: re: My order

Dear Mr Gazman

Now there’s a coincidence. I was scheduled to write to you about your account.

I must admit I didn’t know my former colleague Frances Fitzpatrick very well, but she’d never struck me as a person with a nervous disposition. Nevertheless, in her last three months in this job, Frances developed a facial tic which made it difficult to apply her lipstick straight.

As she stormed out the office door, she flicked me your account file and used a descriptive term … it’s here somewhere … ah, yes. She referred to you as “that prick.”

Nevertheless at Dan Mulligan’s we’re not people to hold grudges no matter how well deserved. Besides, I’m keen to claw back the $2,385.25 you owe our company.

So, despite the accounts team chorusing “Are you insane?”, late yesterday afternoon I dispatched our new delivery man Trevor with your mixed dozen plus a complimentary bottle of limoncello with a difficult to read Use By date.

Trevor reports that when he arrived in near darkness, your front door was open and he could hear voices and stifled laughter. He popped his head through the door and was greeted cheerfully by your cleaners who (i) are Filipino; (ii) speak fluent English. Rosamine and Ernesto were standing in the hall discussing what appeared to be an electronic cucumber which they’d found in the drawer of your bedside table. They invited Trevor to give his opinion as to why a single man would have such a device and what it could be used for. A consensus was quickly reached: the treatment of … and I admit I’ve had to Google the spelling of this word … haemorrhoids. We’re having an office sweep on a range of suggestions, but the smart money is piling in on the original conclusion.

Apparently (and, Mr Gazman, I’m simply repeating what I’ve been told) you’d again failed to leave money for your cleaners. Trevor was so moved by Rosamine and Ernesto’s plight that he offered them your mixed dozen and the Italian liqueur.

Such a gesture is against company policy and a sackable offence. However, across the office we all agreed: given your involvement, we’ll make an exception this time. BTW, our lawyers are currently drafting a letter of demand for the $2,385.25. We won’t charge you for last night’s wine.

Cheers

Reg

 # # #

 Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN

Mr Lonely Eyes

Heaven isn’t that heavenly. So many goody two shoes and so intense. You wouldn’t believe how draining it is to listen to St Mark debating theology with Joan of Arc. Ideally, one would speak in Aramaic, the other in a 15^th Century French patois and you’d be spared listening to the endless discussions. But no. English is now the lingua franca in Paradise. Choosing a common language had been a difficult decision for God, and Lord knows he’s judgmental on most matters. Bach and Brahms had lobbied for German but Dietrich and Einstein pointed out Germany had let the team down at least twice in the 20^th Century.

I was restless and, admittedly, lonely. What I needed was a holiday. Or “vacation” as JFK called it. What with his serial skirt chasing and Mafia links, I could only imagine President Kennedy jumped the Pearly Gates queue because he’s a Mick. I’d raised that matter sotto voce with the Buddha – between his reincarnations – but he’d shrugged and whispered back: “Life is unsatisfactory so what’d you expect of Death?”

Alright – a vacation. Plus a chance to meet people who were less shouty. Try making small talk with Moses.

I asked around. Florence Nightingale suggested the Crimea – apparently it was delightful this time of year if you avoided typhoid, cholera, dysentery and the Russian artillery batteries. Abraham Lincoln mentioned Washington D.C. If you liked the Arts, it had quite a vibrant theatre scene. Richard the Lionheart recommended a crusade in the Holy Land but I couldn’t tell if he was being ironic.

Finally, Captain Cook took me aside. Timing was key, he said. He’d visited the Hawaiian Islands twice and everything had been rather jolly. For example, his crew had traded iron nails for sex although Cook doubted the practice was still commonplace. Then he’d gone back to the islands again by which time the locals had discovered the English visitors weren’t gods. His mistake ended in an unseemly squabble in which he’d been stabbed in the neck on a beach. Apparently that took the spark out of his tropical break. Therefore, said Cook, pick a peaceable time such as 1938, sitting nicely between one World War and the next, and just long enough after the Great Depression that restaurant food was passable if unadventurous. This from a man who provisioned his ship with salt beef, salt pork, salted cabbage and, to add variety, salt.

“When you say ‘peaceable’,” I asked, “isn’t ‘38 the year Hitler and Mussolini finally got their own ways with Czechoslovakia and Ethiopia?”

“Neither are here to confirm the dates, so why don’t you choose a sunny location in a land well away from men in polished calf-length boots? Perhaps in the fabled land of America.”

A parchment map showed us that Los Angeles was as far away from the Old World as I would get. So, L.A it would be.

The sun was brighter than I was. I’d only asked for 24 hours on Earth. Feeling the warmth of the Californian sunshine, I realised my mistake. Too late now. Just one day. Fortunately, Charlie Chaplin had given me a Must See list. “You might bump into me,” he’d added. “There’s an existential thought.”

I’d popped into “the present” behind a bus shelter on Wilshire near Westwood Village. A bus drew up, its door sprang open and a driver smiled down at me.

“I’ve no money ...,” I began.

The door closed in my face and off he drove. Welcome to L.A.

I blamed the hellish admin in Heaven. There I was in a well-cut three-button suit, soft collared shirt, silk tie, co-respondent shoes and empty pockets except for a linen handkerchief with the monogrammed initials “J.C”. Nice of Him to lend it. But no dollar bills.

A car seemingly the length of the Boulevard slid to the kerb, almost brushing my semi-brogue toe caps. I smelt him before I heard him. “Well, just look at you! You’re positively glowing.” He was right. We call it the Halo Effect.

The lavender and vanilla aroma of Pour Un Homme by Daltroff hung like mustard gas over what I guessed was a Packard Speedster Eight Boat-tail Roadster Runabout Convertible with top down and driver up for it. Without leaving his seat, he held out a hand with a pinky ring the size of his enlarged pupils. “Brandon Hirschfeld. Agent to the stars.”

Leaning over the passenger door, I took his hand in mine, held it and introduced myself: “Frank.”

Hirschfeld quickly extracted his gripped fingers. “Easy, bud. We’ve only just met and besides I pitch woo strictly at dames. But if you like it the other way, this town can certainly accommodate you.”

I’m being too needy, I told myself. Behave like the Living.

Hirschfeld flicked open the passenger door. “Jump in, Frank. We gotta talk. With your angel face and lonely eyes and my talent to light the blue touchpaper under careers, this could be your lucky day.”

“Could?”

Hirschfeld pressed the accelerator. The Packard’s slipstream dragged the word across the car boot. Frank was going to Hollywood.

The brakes were eventually applied on North Vine outside a single-storey building with a Spanish Mission façade festooned with Brown Derby restaurant branding. Flipping the keys to a valet parking attendant, Hirschfeld draped a linen jacket over his shoulders and led me by the elbow into the high-ceilinged interior featuring leather-lined booths, white jacketed waiters and the smacking sound of arses being kissed.

A menu magically popped into my hand and then disappeared. Hirschfeld handed it back to the waiter. “Frank’s having the Cobb salad, if he has a chance to eat. It’s time to work the room.”

Shoulders were squeezed, air was kissed and handshakes as flabby as the owners were delivered. Avoiding the movie stars dotted around the room – over there, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, a little closer, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland – Hirschfeld fluttered between David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn and Victor Fleming. “Ignore those deadbeat actors,” he hissed to me. “They’re competitors. Only schmooze studio heads and directors.”

Hirschfeld did a final round before dropping back in our booth and stabbing his fork at the Roquefort in my salad. “I’ve spoken with Vic Fleming. Can you throw open a window in your diary at three today?”

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I …”

“Great. I like my clients to be flexible. Your audition is on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot. Vic’s shooting a little tale called ‘The Wizard of Oz’. You’re up for the role of Tin Man. Fortunately, the actor who’d got the part – Buddy Ebsen – is highly allergic to the aluminum dust used in the character’s make-up, so you’re in. Unless the dust kills you.”

It didn’t but the other actors did. I’d struggled through two lines of dialogue and an itching face when the verdicts came in. “Too young,” said Ray “Scarecrow” Bolger. “Too smooth,” said Bert “Cowardly Lion” Lahr. “So handsome,” said Judy Garland. The latter comment did it.

“I warned you to stay clear of actors,” said Hirschfeld.

“It’s a movie. How could I avoid act… ?”

“Don’t get so defensive, bubbeleh. Just because you made one mistake doesn’t mean I’m giving up on you. Yet. We’re on our way to see a wannabe director named John Huston. He plans to helm a private eye caper called ‘The Maltese Falcon’ but he’s getting push back from Warner Brothers. Your fresh face – although it looks a little raw and dusty – could get him over the line with the studio.”

Tall, well dressed, Huston was standing on a sound stage on the Burbank studio lot. Pulling a slim cigar from a leather case, he thought about Hirschfeld’s suggestion. “No. We’re a year or more away from shooting.”

A gold Dunhill lighter materialised in Hirschfeld’s hand. He held the flame beneath Huston’s cigar tip. “Even Bogart had to be discovered. This kid could make your picture.”

“Only because it’s you,” said Huston, signaling to the crew. “We’re trying some mood lighting effects. Fred can be the stand-in.”

“Frank,” I said.

“Close enough,” cut in Hirschfeld.

On the film set, the detective agency’s name – Spade and Archer  –  was stenciled on an office window facing a painted backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge. “Lower the Venetian blinds,” called Huston. “And you, Fred, stay still. Lights!”

Standing there, trying to appear thoughtful, I heard a technician swear: “He’s throwing no shadow.” 

Huston’s voice came out of the darkness. “Get it right. It’s not as if he’s a ghost.”

“Actually,” I interrupted, “there’s something you should know.”

Five minutes later, the Packard was streaking down West Riverside Drive. A cigarette holder gripped between his teeth, the wind pulling at the jacket on his shoulders, Hirschfeld’s voice was muffled: “Every actor needs something to differentiate them and, boy, your’s is a doozy. Next stop: 20^th Century Fox.”

“But, but … I’m due back soon.”

Hirschfeld tilted his chin skywards. “Pshaw! This is showbiz. Heaven can wait.”

# # #

 Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN

The Price

Slippery from the previous night’s monsoonal downpour, Lan Kwai Fong was a tangle of interlocking alleys smelling of wok-fried sesame oil or stale cat urine, perhaps both. Brushing aside a ragged upstart in a coolie hat who tried to panhandle me, I reached Lee’s Restaurant just as a shower of what I hoped was rainwater sprinkled over my hair.

Sandwiched like a dowdy spinster between a neon-lit tattoo parlour and a newly-opened Swinging ‘60s sex toys shop, the restaurant appeared uncomfortable in the louche setting.

With my reputation in the Colony, I’d expected Lee’s staff to kowtow. Instead, a snaggle-toothed youth in a stained singlet appeared from the kitchen and jerked his thumb towards a backroom. A hand-lettered sign was pinned to the door by a dagger with a fleur-de-lis motif handle. The sign read “Privates”, possibly a misspelling, possibly not. 

The aroma of HK$5 cigars mingled with even cheaper aftershave seeped from the room. Inside, a Samurai sword from the Japanese Occupation hung directly behind the only table. Evenly spaced around it, three wastrels in suits concentrated on their bowls of Lee’s Famous Upside Down Fish Soup, so named because that’s how the prime ingredient was usually found floating in the restaurant’s tank.

Instinctively, I touched the Saturday Night Special in its holster beneath my jacket. It gave cold comfort. Westerners, or as locals would sneer: “Gweilo”, the trio were mixed in height, physique and sartorial choices but all looked as if they’d soap the wedding ring off their dead grandmother’s finger.

With a flimflam artist’s confidence, a black-suited man at the table gestured for me to sit before he resumed slurping. His sole piece of jewellery was a fake Longines watch hanging a little too loosely from a hairy wrist. With the shoulders of a Turkish wrestler, the bedroom eyes of Cary Grant and the dining manners of Henry VIII, he devoured the meal while, to his left, a gaunt party picked at pale flesh in a bowl. The sleeves of that one’s suit, bedecked with the wide pinstripes favoured by the male cast of Guys and Dolls, dipped occasionally into the broth.

The third cove had careful hair and beard and an equally careful way of studying the food pinched between his chopsticks. “Is this shellfish?” he asked.

His accent made me feel for the gun again. A South African. Suddenly, Mr Pinstripes poked a lump in his bowl while whispering “vis?”, Afrikaans for fish. Another one. I was about to push back my chair and leave when Mr Black Suit thrust his bowl aside.

“Welcome, I’m Leonardo Duffy – my many friends call me ‘L.D’. This (pointing to Mr Pinstripes) is Slade Cravings and you’ll have heard of Adonis Van Graan, ja?”

With manicured nails, Van Graan flicked the underside of his beard: “I’m in advertising.”

I stifled an urge to make the Sign of the Cross, but this time I did inch my chair away.

Pulling out a monogrammed leather wallet, Duffy produced a well-used business card: Leonardo Duffy, Chairman, Global Imports PLC. A Pedder Street address and local phone number sat next to a crossed-fingered logo.

As I attempted to put the card in my pocket, Duffy took it and slipped it back in his wallet.

“I specialise in shipping the finest Cuban cigars into Hong Kong and Macau,” he said. He held a half-smoked stick towards me. The band above the cigar’s chewed end was boldly printed in red and gold.

I leant closer. “Havana is misspelt. There shouldn’t be an ‘r’ on the end.”

“We’ll correct it on the next print run,” cut in Cravings. The soup dripping from his sleeve created a small puddle on the table next to a Mahjong dice. He looked like a county cricketer gone to seed. The yellow tinge around his pupils indicated he was no stranger to the pleasure of the opium pipe.

“My reputation proceeds me, of course,” I said.

Cravings and Van Graan shook their heads. Duffy sighed. “Let me introduce Fruity O’Flanagan, the Colony’s most expensive private detective.”

“And the best,” I added. “Half the fee in advance plus a modest 17% markup on disbursements.”

“We’ll come to that,” said Duffy. “First, here’s the job. Find our longtime accountant who fleeced us of 50 large – American not Hong Kong dollars – and dump her and her sidekick in the Harbour.”

“Can they swim?” I asked.

Van Graan’s lips slid back over almost perfect teeth. “The question is academic. You’ll have dealt with them.”

As I sprung to my feet, the back of my chair hit the floor. “What do you take me for?”

Duffy held up a calming hand. “We’ll double your fee.”

“Tell me more.”

Ten minutes later, after dropping a few foreign coins into the palm of the still babbling coolie outside Lee’s, I leant back in the rickshaw trundling me towards Central Ferry Pier No 7 and called encouragingly to the consumptive pulling the vehicle: “Chop, chop! No waste-y      time-y.”

The Telegraph, the Colony’s main English-language rag, took up the basement of a decaying Kowloon Side building. I had two editorial contacts there – neither had drawn a sober breath since the Siege of Chongqing. When I arrived they were gloomily considering the bottoms of empty glasses. The taller of the two, Stan Valet, a painfully thin grifter with a narrow-brim black fedora tipped over one eye, had his feet on his desk, a heel placed either side of his Olivetti. The other, Jim McArran, with a quick temper, quicker fists and a tattoo of Hemingway (or Marilyn Monroe, it was hard to tell – it’d been a bargain-priced tattooist) on his forearm, was balling up copy paper and tossing it towards a wire basket.

I placed a fifth of whisky next to Valet’s right shoe.

McArran missed the bin. “You want something, eh, Fruity?”

“Jim, if you don’t want that drink, I …”

Snatching the bottle from the desk, McArran pulled out the cork with his teeth.

Valet attempted to sit up. “Did I ever tell you I slept with Leonard Cohen’s …” he began, before sliding to the floor.

Hiring these two was a risk but I needed to move quickly before the Triads beat me to the stolen loot. I gave the pair the brief: help me find the missing accountant Madeleine Dubois and her accomplice Mary Carberry, and receive a cut of Duffy’s pie. I didn’t mention the body-dumping business. Even journalists have standards and they’d want a bigger slice.

The hunt took 12 hours. By late evening I was standing outside a gin joint in Wan Chai. Through the open shutters came the sound of a Chinese zither torturing a New Orleans jazz standard. The bouncer, wearing a Mandarin-collared golden shirt matching the colour of his remaining incisor, gave a stiff bow. “Fùnyìhng, Mr Fruity.”

Perched on bar stools, Madeleine and Mary were sheathed in shimmering silk cheongsams. With the indulgent face of a Loreto Sisters Mother Superior, Madeleine held a lighted taper to the tip of a Sobranie that a shaky Mary was attempting to keep still. I waited for them to topple over but both were made of sterner stuff, and that stuff appeared to be 99% Plymouth Gin and 1% Noilly Prat.

“Nǐ hǎo, ladies.”

They turned, looking at me as if I was going in and order of focus. Attempting to introduce myself, I stopped as Madeleine waved away the need. “Fruity O’Flanagan. Who else would wear a white linen suit after sunset?”

Unsteadily, the pair climbed down from their stools and tottered on stilettos to a corner booth. Patting the banquette, Mary called: “Get us another round, Fruity, then get your fat arse over here.”

In the booth’s candlelight, both women could be mistaken for being 21. Admittedly, the single candle threw off a dim glow.

“You’ve been naughty, my dears. L.D would like his money back.”

Madeleine lit a long-stemmed pipe. I doubted it was Davidoff tobacco. “You’d have saved a lot of time if you’d just stopped to talk to our coolie outside Lee’s. He was trying to pass on our offer. Every man in a tropical weight suit has a price.”

The thump of my fist on the table made their glasses jump. The tabletop’s stickiness made it difficult for me to lift my fist back up. “What do you take me for?”

This time it was Madeleine holding up a calming hand. “We’ll quadruple whatever L.D is paying you.”

“Tell me more.”

 # # #

Note: Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2020 GREG FLYNN