Sweet Dreams

~ ~ ~

Howard’s report on the human condition, when it finally appears, is a remarkably balanced and perceptive document. He resolutely refuses to give way to the temptation to blame the local inhabitants for their problems. He points out that many of the characteristics of man which outsiders find distasteful reflect genuine local needs and aspirations.

He recognizes that there is a real divergence of expert opinion between those who believe that men are happy because they are miserable, and those who believe that men are miserable because they are happy; and wisely arrives at a synthesis of both views.

He cautions against any hasty attempts at imposing reform from outside, warning that they would be very likely to upset the delicate social and economic balance which society has achieved — to cause unemployment among the medical profession, for instance, and to weaken the funeral as one of the main bonds of family life.

He recommends improving the quality of life by gradually weaning people away from unhealthy indoor forms of death, such as heart disease, and offering more facilities for dying traditional outward-looking deaths in the fresh air. To this end he urges the setting up of carefully landscaped mountains and waterless deserts in the main centres of population, and their stocking with carnivorous animals and poisonous reptiles.

The first two printings of the report sell out before publication, and there is fierce competition for the paperback rights. The reviews are marvellous, and Howard gets a call from Bill Mishkin, of Bill Mishkin Productions.

“Howard Baker,” says Bill Mishkin, “I want to make this thing. It’s as simple as that.”

Bill Mishkin has an office on the fifty-fourth floor of the RCA building. The hills outside the city are remote and blue behind his head as he leans back in his chair, shirt sleeves rolled up, collar and tie loosened. He is younger than Howard expected, with crisp curly hair, full smooth cheeks which are just about to smile at his own jokes, but never quite do, and thick horn-rimmed spectacles through which his magnified eyes watch carefully to estimate audience reaction. The office is littered with scripts.

“Howard,” he says, “I think this is far and away the subtlest, most exciting … zaniest … most realizable, wittiest, sexiest… most lovable White Paper that I have ever set eyes on.”

“Well …,” says Howard politely.

“I love McKechnie. You know who McKechnie reminds me of? Raskolnikov. Only McKechnie’s more subtle. I love the idea of lions and tigers in the middle of London. Like we’re in Bond Street. Suddenly … rrrrrrr! And there’s a man-eating tiger bounding out of the Westbury Hotel! You have a very visual imagination, do you know that, Howard?”

“Well …,” objects Howard modestly.

“No, you really do. And the mangrove swamps? There’s this guy walking down Piccadilly, when suddenly — woomph! He’s gone! Help! — schloomp, schloomp, schloomp — he’s fallen into a mangrove swamp! Howard, you and I share the same sense of humour.”

“Well …,” says Howard tactfully.

“We’re really going to have a ball together on this one. Because the thing is this, Howard. I want you to write the script.”

“Well …,” agrees Howard cautiously.

“Because you’re the only one who can do it, Howard. You understand these people. And it’s practically a script already. Because I don’t want to change anything. I want to realize exactly what you have envisioned.”

“Well …,” says Howard gratefully.

“Did you by any chance get to see New Canaan, Connecticut, between March 1 and April 14 last year? No? Because that was mine. I made that. That would have given you some idea of the way I work. I also did one or two of those hijackings over Nevada — but that wouldn’t have interested you. That was a different style of production altogether.

“I wish you’d seen New Canaan, Connecticut, March 1 to April 14…. Excuse me one minute. Stella, before Howard leaves, will you fix for him to fly to New Canaan for a few days last spring …?”

“Well …,” considers Howard.

“Because I know you’ll appreciate that. No violence. No unnecessary screwing. Just a lot of real people doing real things. A black family moves in — the neighbors bake them a cake. This young guy has an automobile accident — they take him to the hospital — his wife breaks down and cries. That kind of thing. There are some really wacky scenes at the PTA meeting that you’d love. And the colour’s just fantastic….”

“Well …,” objects Howard.

“But this report of yours, Howard. Two years ago we couldn’t have made this. The industry wasn’t mature enough. But now the message is getting through. This is the kind of thing that people want to see. They’re sick of big war spectaculars. They want a little idealism, a little love. The bankers realize they’ve bombed with the blockbusters. They’re ready to back our judgment now, Howard — my judgment, your judgment.”

“Well …,” accepts Howard graciously.

“This is a go project, Howard. Together we’ll build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.”

“For the option,” Howard explains to Felicity, walking up and down the terrace, frowning seriously, with the setting sun flashing in a thousand windows of the city behind him, “they’re paying … 30,000.00.

“They pay that anyway, whatever happens. Then, if we go ahead with the script, they pay, for the treatment … 50,000.00, then for the first draft … 120,000.00, and for the second draft another … 120,000.00, making in all, for the script … 290,000.00. Then if we actually go ahead and build the New Jerusalem, they have to take up the full rights, which would amount to … 2,000,000,000.00.“

Felicity gazes at him, trying to take it in. “2,000,000,000.00?” she repeats.

“That’s right,” says Howard casually … “2,000,000,000.00.”

“I suppose it’s all right,” says Felicity, “if you say it quickly … 2,000,000,000.00”

“Oh,” says Howard … “2,000,000,000.00 isn’t all that much, as these things go. After all … 2,000,000,000.00 when you think about it, is … 0.00 compared to the budget for the whole production, which will probably run out about … 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00.”

Bill Mishkin flies out to Rome. Bill Saltman, the director, flies in from Miami. He calls Howard as soon as he arrives — but Howard has flown out to the Bahamas, for a conference with Bill Mishkin, who is stopping over on his way to Caracas. But it turns out that Bill Mishkin has had to change his plans, and go to New York instead to get a haircut. So Howard flies out from the Bahamas just as Bill Saltman flies in.

Eventually Howard and Bill Saltman meet back home, two blocks away from the RCA building; but in Howard’s case with a great sense of velocity from his journeyings.

Bill Saltman has rented a large apartment with no windows, Second Empire furnishings, and gunsmiths’ production drawings of antique firearms arranged in tasteful clusters on the walls. He is a melancholy man, much older than Mishkin, with pouched drooping eyes that have seen civilizations fall and currencies collapse. He sits in a Second Empire armchair, a curling pipe in one side of his mouth, the other side opening and closing every few moments, like a fish breaking the surface, to let the smoke out, and listens expressionlessly while Howard explains his ideas for the script. Howard moves about the room, sitting on various chairs, gesturing.

“What I’m aiming at,” says Howard, “is not some kind of thing where everybody is, you know, just sort of happy and sort of contented sort of thing all the time….”

The phone rings.

“Who did you say?” says Bill into the phone in a teasing voice, without taking the pipe out of his mouth, and looking blankly at Howard as he talks, as somewhere to rest his eyes. “Biba? That’s a very pretty name. Did you think that up yourself …? No, I’m kidding, Biba…. You know what, Biba? I don’t know who you are and I can’t understand what you’re trying to tell me, but you have a very beautiful telephone voice, and I believe you have saved my life…. No, I mean that, Biba, because I am sitting here totally alone, going slowly out of my mind. I have influenza and pains in my stomach. I’m dying, Biba. What is this terrible place …? Of course I’d love you to stop by, Biba…. Bless you, Biba, bless you. An old man’s blessing on your head.“

He puts the phone down.

“Go on,” he says to Howard.

“I’m sorry,” says Howard. “I didn’t know you were ill.”

Bill Saltman lifts his shoulders very slightly.

“It’s the pills,” he says. “The green-and-white pills I was prescribed in Athens. They don’t go with the red pills I got in Miami. Go on.”

“Well,” says Howard, “I think the thing we want to avoid at all costs — I mean, I really feel quite strongly about this — is setting up some kind of Utopia — some kind of oversimplified Arcadia which wouldn’t stretch the imagination of the …”

The phone rings.

“Is this Jane?” says Bill Saltman. “Oh, Gayle … You waited in the bar till midnight …? Honey, I’m sorry. I had to go to Tangier. Then I had to go to Miami. Then I had to go to Hawaii. Then I just felt so tired I thought I’d have an early night. Well, come by around six, Gayle — I’m in a meeting for the next two three hours.”

He turns back to Howard.

“So …?”

“So what I think we’ve got to do,” says Howard, “is to set up a society where everyone has enough sort of … contentment… to be sort of contented, but not so much that they can’t see that all this sort of contentment is sort of blinding them to the possibility of becoming sort of more contented in a sort of kind of deeper sort of …”

The doorbell rings. It’s Biba. She is ridiculously young and pretty, and flustered to find two of them.

“Excuse me, Howard,” says Bill. “Could you look back at five, say? I have a conference at six, but we could get in one hour’s work, at any rate. I think we should make a serious effort to get some progress on this thing.”

Howard can’t help laughing to himself as he goes down in the lift. What a world he’s got himself into now! Bill Saltman is a fantastic character — the kind of quirky, tiresome man who actually gets extraordinary things done; the kind of man who is so implausible as the director of the New Jerusalem that you feel he really might just possibly bring it off.

Howard strolls up Sixth Avenue in the afternoon sunlight. How far he has come since the days in Harry Fischer’s office above the tobacconist’s, with the cosy office jokes and the lunch-time beers in the pub! Now he is in a world where it’s nothing to fly to the Bahamas for a conference — and for a conference that’s probably not even going to be in the Bahamas; a world where very high-class girls ring up uninvited and try to make you feel at home.

His life has a vertiginous sense of development and purpose.

“I’ve been thinking,” says Bill Saltman when Howard returns at five o’clock. He is smoking his curly pipe still, but is now wearing only a Turkish bathrobe and Persian slippers. There is no sign of Biba. A stuffiness lingers in the air — an overbreathed smell. He turns on the air-conditioner. The stale smell is replaced by a dank smell.

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought,” he says slowly, chewing on the pipe, and smoothing the glossy black hair above the drooping face. “I think I know where we’ve gone wrong. The thing is this, Howard. You’ve told me a lot about your ideas, and I’ve enjoyed sitting here listening to them. But tell me one thing, Howard. What’s the story?”

“The story?” says Howard. He jumps up from the day-bed on which he has just sat down. “Well …”

Bill Saltman holds up his hand.

“Just a moment, Howard. Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to take a shower. I’m awfully sticky.”

He disappears. Howard sinks back onto the day-bed. The story? He’s never thought about it like that. A story … But this might be a good way to look at it — not as something static, but as a scenario, a sequence of events, a developing situation, something existing in a temporal dimension! He goes to the Chinese desk, and takes a sheet of paper out of the Mexican paper-rack.

Bill Saltman’s head appears round the door, with fingers of wet hair hanging over his leathery brown forehead.

“So what’s the story, Howard?” he demands.

“I’m just writing it.”

“Tell it me. I’ve left my reading glasses in Bangkok some place.”

“Well,” says Howard, jumping up, and beginning to walk up and down, “it’s the story of this society, where everyone begins to get more and more aware of its real nature, and …”

“In two words, Howard. I’m standing here with water running off me.”

“Well, people begin to make a structural analysis….”

“Hold it. I’ll put some clothes on.”

When he comes back he is wearing a shirt and a pair of socks held up by suspenders.

“I’ll tell you what a story is, Howard,” he says. “A story is when something happens. A story is when someone’s trying to do something, and someone’s trying to stop him. So, wham, there’s a fight on.”

“Yes, well …”

“A story is when this McTavish you have in the book — we’ll have to change that name, by the way — they’ll never believe it — they’ll arrest you….”

“It’s McKechnie.”

“That’s worse. A story is when McTavish wants to build a better world for everyone — just like you have it in the book, I don’t want to change anything — and the local hoods jump on him. Or his wife, even — she turns against him. How about that, Howard? His wife, his own wife! That could be good. ‘Oh God, Mary!’ says McPherson. ‘O God, Mary!’ — his voice is breaking with emotion — ‘Oh God, Mary, I don’t want our kids to grow up in a world like this, with man an enemy to man, and cats crawling all over the books, in a cold-water walk-up behind the subway depot. I want a decent world where a man can stand on his own two feet, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.’ ”

“Yes, well …”

“Listen, Howard. And Mary says, ‘Don’t make trouble, Lester! You’ll lose your job! Haven’t we always been happy together the way we are? You testify before the Commission tomorrow and I take the kids and go home to Mother in Milwaukee!’ Now, that’s a story, Howard!”

“But isn’t this going to lead to violence, and, and …”

The doorbell rings.

“Let her in, Howard, while I put my pants on. I’ll see you tomorrow, at twelve o’clock, and maybe we can get in an hour’s work before lunch.”

So this is how it’s going to be, thinks Howard, as he rides down in the lift again. An exhilarating struggle between the abstraction and intellectuality of his concept, and the strong vulgarity, the earthy vigour, of Bill Saltman’s. This is the way things are created! How in-turned and etiolated and overeducated Harry Fischer’s design team seems now! It was only too appropriate that they were designing inert masses of rock with their noses in the air, and snow on them.

Gayle was pretty, too.

“But Bill Mishkin,” shouts Howard, “said specifically that it doesn’t have to be all sex and violence.”

Shouting is one of the useful skills he is learning. This is several days later.

“Bill Mishkin,” says Bill Saltman, “is a simple Russian boy from way out in the sticks who went through law school and inherited a couple of million from his uncle in the garment trade and couldn’t add two and two together and get more than four.”

“Bill Mishkin’s just made New Canaan, Connecticut, March 1 to April 14, without so much as a single shooting, beating, or naked buttock from one end to the other! Just whites being nice to blacks, and parents smoking a little sympathetic pot with their kids!”

“Right! So who’s ever seen it? Who’s ever heard of it? New Canaan, Connecticut, March 1 to April 14, has just sunk like a stone, disappeared without trace!”

“Look, I’m not arguing about the rapes. I see we need those. I admit that. And the burning alive bits, and the flagellation, and the cannibalism. All I’m saying is that we’ll overdo it if we have the …”

The phone rings.

“Hello?” says Bill. “Oh no, not again! But this is the third time she’s escaped! What are the guards for …?”

He puts his hand over the mouthpiece.

“It’s family business,” he says to Howard. “Could you come back at about ten o’clock tonight …?”