POTATO MOON, Part 55: “The Pitch Meeting” by The Other David Mack

potato_moonHollywood film producer Marty Cowen slapped Bela’s script onto his desk like a dead fish onto a newspaper. He breathed a tired sigh and massaged his eyeballs with his thumb and forefinger, in a futile bid to exorcise his stupidity-inspired migraine.

“Let me get this straight,” he said to the borderline-illiterate emo-Goth sitting on the other side of his desk. “You’re just giving up on the whole ‘One Onion Ring’ story arc? Now? And veering off on some kind of lame, YA-romance subplot when you oughtta be setting up your act-three resolution?”

Bela shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the way she might on a hot summer day when her underwear got all scrunched up. “I’m just writing it the way it happened,” she protested.

“I understand that, doll, but you’re all over the map with this screenplay. It’s not even formatted like a script. It reads like some kind of sick experiment in free verse.”

Tearing up at the producer’s merciless criticism, Bela cried out, “Edwood said it would be more authentic that way!”

“Yeah, well Edwood doesn’t have to try to find a director for this narrative abortion.” He started flipping through the cards in an old-fashioned Rolodex. “Four thousand script doctors in L.A., and they’re all too busy to polish this turd.” He shot a reproachful glare at his vulnerable young waif of a visitor. “You do realize the bullfighting flashback sequence alone’ll cost more than our entire budget for this crapfest. A period piece? In Paris? You’re killing me, sweetheart, I swear to the Potato of Great Power, or whatever the hëll its name was.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Bela said, her doelike eyes misting with something that she was pretty sure felt like genuine emotion—after all her years with Edwood, she wasn’t really sure how to convey any feeling beyond melancholy longing. “But Jakob and Edwood and all the others trusted me to tell their story to the world. I owe it to them to make sure it’s told just like it happened.”

Cowen shook his head and shattered her hopes with a broken laugh of naked derision. “Yeah, right. I wonder what’ll get our distribution yanked first: the pedophilic arranged marriage between a werewolf and an eight-year-old girl played by Megan Fox, the suggestion of pre-teen incest, or the cease-and-desist order Stephen Colbert’s lawyers are drafting even as we speak.”

“But other than that, you like it, right?”

He chuckled ruefully. “Darling, this story has more false starts than a man with erectile dysfunction, and more dead ends than a zombie pørņø flick.” Thumbing through the stack of pages on his desk, he asked, “Is the rest of this thing even going anywhere?”

“Yes,” Bela said, affecting her most petulant sulk.

“Really?” He held up a seemingly random page. “Do we find out why the hëll El Piñata—”

“Patata.”

“Whatever. Do we find out why he keeps shouting ‘Santora’?”

“Yes.”

Another page held up like a literary sacrifice. “Does this whole Fig-and-Woeisme detour actually tie into the main narrative at some point?”

“Yes,” Bela insisted, only partly lying.

Eyeing her suspiciously, Cowen asked, “And the One Onion Ring story arc? You’ll tie that up before you type ‘Fade Out’?”

“I promise,” Bela promised.

“All right, then,” the producer said. “I’m counting on you to deliver one hëll of a climax.”

“Don’t worry,” Bela said. “The story ends with a bang.”

Cowen unzipped his trousers. “I wasn’t talking about your script.”

She picked up the unread pages. “Let me just tell you what happened next with Fig and Woeisme,” she blurted, diving back into the muddy waters of her sorrow-sodden tale…

5 comments on “POTATO MOON, Part 55: “The Pitch Meeting” by The Other David Mack

  1. Did Potato Moon just break the fourth wall or the fifth wall? Awesome digression there, anyway.

      1. I think I saw it too! Very strange. The zombies weren’t interested in brains but they sure liked head.

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