Chapter 8

While on the way to his big script meeting with the Super Jesus team at CAA, Isaac was tripping balls, metaphorically speaking. This was too much success too fast. He was lightheaded, so it felt good to be strapped down by a seat belt while Seth snaked Isaac’s car through traffic on Olympic Blvd. It relaxed Isaac to be physically restrained. He was craving safety, specifically the safety of his old routine, the time before he wrote a screenplay. Instead of a high-pressure interview, he’d rather binge-watch whatever the pop culture flavor of the week was and be the small spoon to his waifu body pillow. How nice would that be? He’d like to ask her for some advice right now. Where was Captain Flapjacks? Should he take a lump sum payment for his script or get points on the backend? How often should he be washing her? Everything was a mess.

Isaac was glad to have Seth providing backup for this meeting. He needed someone to share this experience with him to prove it was real because all Isaac had been relying on so far for evidence was pinching himself, and he wasn’t waking up. Finally, his arms couldn’t take any more bruising. If happiness was only real when shared, well, so was reality.

The constant coincidences were stacking up to such a degree that they made Isaac queasy and suspicious, but Seth wasn’t helping in this regard. Seth had a history of his own at the CAA plaza. (The Century City Park Plaza garage was where Seth ran his old counterfeit parking validation ring. The key to the whole operation was owning a legit thermal printer and obtaining the proper bar code sequences. Still, the secret to his sauce was in the economies of scale, as the Century City Plaza garage had no equal in the city in terms of grandiosity, as the Century City Plaza garage was one of the seven wonders of LA, the largest subterranean structure west of the Mississippi.) It’s why Seth was willing to drive Isaac to Century City, home of the talent agency and Fox studios, who produced Super Jesus. Seth hoped a trip down memory lane would distract himself from the Amber alert girl he abandoned.

Isaac would have been lost without Seth. The June Gloom wasn’t content with only covering the coast today. Its haze filled the entirety of the LA basin and even spilled over the Hollywood Hills. If Isaac were in the valley, he would have seen the bone-white fog reaching over the ridgetop and down into the canyons like a hand rising up from inside a coffin. The fog was so dense Isaac couldn’t see the street signs as they passed them. Typically not a problem with GPS, but construction from the Metro’s purple line extension created an obstacle course of detours and one-way streets. Sparkling red road flares lit their way as Seth pressed forward with confidence.

Isaac’s stomach dropped when Seth whipped around a turn and bounced the car down a steep ramp. They were descending into the mouth of the giant garage. Outside the visitor’s gate at the bottom of the ramp, a guard stopped their car to ask where they were going and if they could pop their trunk for a security search. Seth spoke for Isaac’s car and consented. After being cleared for entry, the machine attached to the gate growled at them as it spat out a parking ticket. “How I’ve missed that sound,” Seth sighed wistfully, reminiscing about his glory days like an old quarterback at his high school’s homecoming. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked, referring to the garage. Light a sightseeing tour guide, he gestured broadly to the red and green parking assists glowing like Christmas lights overhead and pointed out the helpful amenities like a car wash service and valet. “This is the biggest subterranean building this side of the Mississippi. 170,000 cubic yards of Cemex cement. Did you know this is the garage from the car chase in Into the Night?”

“Into the Night?”

“Ever see it?”

“No,” Isaac said through gritted teeth, grabbing onto his armrest to bolster himself against the g’s pulling on him as they corkscrewed down five levels of parking floors.

“Underrated LA movie, but I guess you’d have to be really down bad to know it,” Seth said, trying to sell Isaac on it. “It’s an absurdist noir starring Jeff Goldblum as a cuck.”

“What the fuck?” Isaac’s head was spinning.

“If these walls could talk.” Seth pulled into a parking space and led Isaac up through the building to his meeting, a journey that took two elevator rides, three escalators, and a temporary security badge from the guard at the concierge desk. Seth didn’t make it for the last leg of the trip, however. He preferred not to arouse suspicions and forego the access badge in case his name was still rattling around the security system. He wished Isaac luck as the last set of elevator doors closed on him. After that, Isaac was on his own.

Isaac stood across from a perky receptionist when the elevator doors opened again. She told him that Mr. Lennox would be with him momentarily and that he was free to help himself to a CBD spritzer, keto cookie, or the house service chinchilla to pet if he had any anxiety. Isaac chose the cookie. He munched on it with regret. He should have picked the service chinchilla.

Isaac didn’t know what to expect. Mr. Lennox, Super Jesus’s head producer, had a reputation. White and wealthy, he had the privilege of being labeled as an “eccentric,” whereas anyone else would be considered a “nut job.” Isaac wondered how Dr. Rousseau knew Mr. Lennox. Was it from his Hawaii 5-0 days, or could he be a fellow patient?

Isaac’s mind wandered, and his eyes fell to the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall across from him. Super Jesus was on and playing the famous Rio Grande scene where Super Jesus, or El Coyote as he was known to those who patrolled the river’s northern bank, led migrants to salvation and U.S. citizenship. The water was turbulent, but the rapids calmed as soon as Super Jesus raised a hand to them.

The scene was beautiful. Isaac admired the lush cinematography and the way the DP got the dimples on the water’s surface to hold and refract the moonshine. (Isaac had always thought the movie’s cinematography was critically underappreciated. The truth was that all aspects of the film were spellbinding, everything from Daniel Ortega’s performance as the titular character to the soaring score from John Williams.) The movie worked its magic on Isaac. He was mesmerized as 24 frames per second of the movie’s climax were beamed directly into his brain. Even though he had watched this 1,000 times before, his adrenaline rose as he waited for the migrants and Super Jesus to clash with the band of ICE agents on the other side of the river, led by Captain America.

“Isaac!” the receptionist shouted at him repeatedly until she could break the movie’s hold on him.

“One minute!” Isaac shouted back, “I love this part.” Captain America was about to jump onto his shield and surf down the river towards Super Jesus, leading to a mano y mano duel that A.O. Scott of the New York Times described as “epic” in his pull-quote posted to Rotten Tomatoes.

“Mr. Lennox is waiting,” the receptionist smiled, turning off the TV remotely from her desk. “Down the hall. Second door to your left.”

Isaac followed her instructions and discovered an office the size of his apartment. The ultra-modern design of black, white, and chrome made Isaac afraid to touch anything, worried he’d cut himself on the Sharper Image design. There was a panoramic window behind Mr. Lennox’s desk, but Isaac had to imagine the view because the June Gloom outside was still making everything as murky as the fog of war in a real-time strategy game.

“Welcome.” Mr. Lennox’s wrinkled hand instructed Isaac to sit in the chair before him. The room’s only earth tone was provided by his stretched skin, darkened by frequent trips to Palm Springs.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I love what you got, kid,” Mr. Lennox waved Isaac’s Super Jesus 3 script at him. “My people tell me there’s some real gold in here. So what’s your secret?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac admitted.

“Humility, I see. You’re one of those, huh? I hate that in a person, especially in writers. A good writer should have a proper God complex.” Mr. Lennox smiled, and his veneers were as white as his hair.

“...”

“All the best ones do. And why not? With all those little worlds you create, all those little characters you manipulate. That’s what makes writers powerful. And your script, I’ve been told, has power. If you allow me, a non-writer, to tread on your territory and make a metaphor, I’ve always imagined that writers are really computer coders in disguise. Right? You feed some words into the audience’s brain and if your words are in the right sequence with the right do-loops and if-then statements, then — beep-beep-boop-boop-poop — something comes out the other side, whether that’s love, laughter, excitement, or whatever else the writer wants to draw out from their audience.”

“...”

“Was that a good metaphor? The coding thing? It’s part of a pitch I’m working on to secure some angel investments from Silicon Valley for my next picture. I want to speak their language, so to speak, whether C++ or otherwise, but I wanted to test it out on you first to see how you’d swallow it. How’d it go down?”

“Easy, sir.”

“No gagging?”

“No gagging at all, sir.”

“Excellent. No bullshitting. I’m a little envious of that power called writing. People think producers like me have all the power, but it’s fake. I’m just some pencil pusher. You’re the true puppet masters. You ever think about how you could write, ‘I fucked my maternal grandma with a rusty chainsaw,’ and then whoever reads it, through no fault of their own, now has to think about fucking their grandma with a rusty chainsaw? They didn’t want to picture it. They probably never thought they would ever imagine their maternal grandmother getting fucked by a rusty chainsaw, their blue hair shaking to the vibrations of the chainsaw motor, but there they are — the reader — against their will, imagining themselves fucking their maternal grandma with a rusty chainsaw all because they read some words on a page. Am I right? Of course, I’m right! What position do you think they imagine fucking their grandma in when they read something like that? Doggy? Missionary? Who’s to say? I bet you could learn a lot about a person by how they answer that question. How would you fuck your grandmother?”

“...”

“God bless the WGA! Only they can take the most important part of a movie, the story, and negotiate a fee of 2% of our production budget. Like you can swap directors in and out or actors in and out, and you’ll still have the same movie, more or less, but you can’t swap a script out. It’s the only essential part of a movie, and yet we spend more money on SweetGreens lunches over the course of production than the screenwriter. Isn’t that a riot?”

“...”

“You got a good poker face, kid. Am I right that you’re someone who plays his cards pretty close to the vest? Yeah? So let me show you some of mine then in a show of good faith. I want you to come work for me as a writer.”

“...you do?” Isaac stuttered because he had to take the time to pick up his mouth from the floor.

“I can spot a diamond in the rough when I see it.” Mr. Lennox tapped his raw eyeball to prove his point without flinching or blinking. “You got talent. I get that you’re new, but you come with Dr. Rousseau’s highest recommendation, and I’m willing to try anything. Anything! A room full of monkeys could produce Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. You ever hear that one? I want to find out. Are you better than a monkey, son?”

“One monkey or a roomful?”

“Kid’s got jokes!” Mr. Lennox said,” I’m going to have to keep you away from Chuck Lorre. So what do you say?”

“...” Isaac thought about the offer he couldn’t refuse. On the one hand, he needed the job. On the other, Isaac was not a screenwriter. How long would he be able to keep up the charade? But he had the support of Dr. Rousseau. He knew what Isaac could and could not do and chose to recommend his services to Mr. Lennox anyway. Suddenly, Isaac understood. This job offer was another opportunity for Isaac to live the Save the Cat way. He remembered the beat sheet from the book [See: Appendix B] and immediately knew in his heart that if those beats could map out a movie, they could also serve to map out his life. It made sense. If his save the cat moment was saving a cat, then why couldn’t he stick to the script? (No pun intended.) Perhaps accepting this job was his big Break into Act II of his detective story/hero’s journey. There was no question that if Isaac began working at Fox studios as a screenwriter, he’d be leaving his old world behind and entering a new one. This had to be his way forward. Even now, at this very moment, he was taking part in the beat sheet. Considering Mr. Lennox’s offer was his moment of Debate. But that moment was now over. “So what will I be working on? The re-shoots? Am I taking over Irving Hodges’s spot?”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Mr. Lennox replied.

“He’s dead?” Isaac’s voice squeaked.

“Dead to me anyway! We don’t need him anymore. Irving cracked that nut before he cracked up. The script is locked and loaded.”

“Can I read it?”

“If you did, I’d have to kill you.” Mr. Lennox was not smiling anymore. “You’ll be working on the third movie, of course,” he said. “Finish your script.”

“Absolutely. But how will I know what to write if I can’t see how the second one ends?”

“Don’t worry about it. What you’ve got is perfect, and I don’t want to mess with your magic. If you want to know the truth, I’ve already got some other writers working on the third movie, 23 of them, in fact, not counting my stable of monkeys. Like I said, writers are cheap. I like to throw them against the wall and see what sticks.”

“Sure. Makes sense.”

“Great. Tell me something.” There was a glint in Mr. Lennox’s eye.

“Anything.”

“What happens to the girl in your script? The one with the blonde hair.”

“Margot Robbie?”

Mr. Lennox’s smile returned. “Yes, tell me what happens to Margot Robbie.”

Isaac froze, his guess as good as Mr. Lennox’s. “I’ll tell you after I sign my contract.”

Mr. Lennox nodded his head, game recognizing game. “ I see you’re smarter than you look. I’ll have Liz draw up the papers. The terms are non-negotiable, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Liz!” Mr. Lennox directed his scream through the office door.

Isaac yelped when he recognized Liz as she hustled into the office and took her place at Mr. Lennox’s side. Isaac’s head was spinning. She was the same woman who greeted him at Super Jesus’s front door.

“Hi.” Liz approached Isaac and extended her hand professionally to him, treating him with none of the dismissiveness she showed him in Beverly Hills.

Before Isaac could choke out his surprise, Mr. Lennox interrupted them. “Excellent! I can tell that this marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship between you two. You see, Liz is a producer for me and what she does is produce results. Get it? There’s nothing she can’t handle, you included.”

“Understood.”

“That’s a threat,” Mr. Lennox clarified. “I know how your breed is.”

“My breed?”

“Writers. I want you to know that we don’t tolerate writer’s block on this project. So don’t try to run that bullshit up my flag pole.”

“Got it, sir. Nothing up your flag pole.”

“Perfect. I’ve got my eye on you. I’ll see you around the lot tomorrow.”

“You will never see him on the lot,” Liz whispered to Isaac as she led him out of Mr. Lennox’s office and into a small, private meeting room across the hall. A pen and a mountain of legal documents were there waiting for him. He signed his name without so much as glancing at the fine print. It wouldn’t have mattered. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and you don’t read the terms of service on your newest software update.

Once the ink was dry, the universe didn’t wait long to reward Isaac’s leap of faith. He saw the sign. Either that, or he was hallucinating again. While waiting for the elevator to take him back to the lobby, Isaac looked out the window and saw the midday sun had burned off the morning fog. Let there be light! That’s when a revelation struck Isaac. Now that the clouds had cleared, he immediately recognized this view. But how? He had never been here before.

It was from his dream.

The dream that wasn’t a dream at all. Below Isaac was the same triangle-shaped office park featured in the opening lines of his Super Jesus script. And when his eyes scanned upward, he could see the same twin towers. Like in his dream, they stood at two of the triangle’s points. The third point was formed by the building he stood in now.

Isaac grew scared. Reflexively, he put a hand over his neck to protect himself from vampires. They felt closer now than ever.