High Concept by David Bischoff

It's hard to pin down the career of Dave Bischoff. He's been a professional writer for more than sixteen years, and he's written so many stories and books I have no clue as to their number other than to say they are legion and that they cover practically every genre, including young adult and film novelizations. He has two new upcoming novels (with John DeChancie) from New American Library concerning the exploits of a character named Doctor Dimension, and he is also doing a Star Trek novel for Pocket Books. He's also been one of my closest friends for twenty years; but that hasn't made it any easier for him to get a story into Borderlands. I think I rejected four or five of his submissions before buying the following tale. Dave lives in Eugene, Oregon, but he used to live in Los Angeles. After you read "High Concept" you might better understand why he deserted that place of freeways and power-lunches.

I was dry.

I was blocked.

I was a successful Hollywood writer, a world of riches at my command, and I just couldn't come up with two right words to rub together on my word processor.

After a few weeks of this burnt-out hell, Jim Hampton told me about the Church.

▼

"So, how's it pumping?" said my tennis partner on this splendid L.A. day, sky only slightly smeared with smog.

"Not well," I replied.

"Still running on empty?"

"I'm not even running any more. I think the motor's dead. I've never been blocked so long before."

"A week longer than last time I asked." Jim Hampton took a towel from his bag and wiped the sweat off his face. He replaced the towel and pulled out a tube of number 15 Sun Block, rubbed some in his right hand and carefully re-applied it to his face. He looked up from his seat on the bench out at the tennis court. "Happens to us all."

Which was his usual answer.

Only this time as he hopped to his feet, adjusting his sunglasses for the next set of their tennis game, sweeping a practice swipe with his racquet, Jim continued. "Tell you what, Don? Buy me a drink after the game, I might have something that could help."

As I served the ball, I wondered what the guy meant. A job? As an executive producer for the hit show, The Hit Squad, Jim Hampton could certainly throw a few scripts my way. Hell, he could cut some guy off "at story"—rework it to his satisfaction with the help of his staff of producers and story editors and then toss me a beat sheet I could write the teleplay for in my sleep.

Problem was, A: I was way past The Hit Squad in my career and taking such a job would be a black mark on my record, even if I put a pseudonym on it.

B: I still don't think I could write.

Beneath the L.A. summer sun, sucking in far too much pollution for my good, whacking the ball back and forth, sweat trickling into my eyes, I thought about the Mill out here and how I'd run afoul of it.

I'd come out here with a few novels under my belt and ten years teaching at a midwestern college. I'd gotten an option on one of the novels, an espionage thriller, to get me going. My agent got me a draft of the movie screenplay and while the project landed in development hell, that screenplay showed me and lots of people that I could handle the form. Sales to television gave me the actual confidence of seeing my work produced and led to a couple of movie scripts that paid me a lot of money and put me in the fast lane. The wife I'd come out with found her true self and a new lover in a Self-Actualization program at Esalen. She moved up to Marin County with a hefty divorce settlement. I found a new woman who gave up an unpromising career as an actress to give birth to three children. She had a taste for expensive landscaping and lavish interior decorating and demanded a second home in Arizona 'to get away from the craziness here.'

That, along with my own taste in high-tech gadgets and sports cars pretty much ate up the income.

Trouble is, you set yourself up out here in La-La land thinking the income is going to be the same each year, you set yourself up for a serious fall. I'd gotten so used to writing scripts that I'd lost the knack for writing regular prose fiction and the money was so far inferior, anyway, I couldn't afford the time and effort involved in writing it.

Nor did constant jobs mean I wasn't prey to misfortune and surprise. Studio executives change, producers change, stars and directors bail out of projects. It's a crazy living. And don't let anyone tell you that it isn't just an industry here, either, a mill churning the stuff out. Churning it out in a convoluted, weird way, true—turning out not only product, but ceaseless variations of the same product to suit various committee whims and moods. I'd hooked up expecting fame, money, glamour and a materialistically high quality of life. What I ended up was trapped. I had to keep stoking the engines of Hell.

Stoking it with ideas, high concepts, characters, endless pages of script copy that only a few people would ever read and would probably get changed, if it even made it to the wide screen or the altar of the Nielsen God.

And the ideas, the pages weren't coming. The characters came out stillborn. And the concepts weren't anywhere near high; they were barely low.

Which was why I was damned interested in hearing what Jim had to say.

At the club bar later, I worked on a Gatorade over ice while he sipped a lime and soda. (It would be bad form to have the martini I really wanted—drinking and snorting away your woes in this town was strictly out.) He analyzed the mistakes I'd made in our hour's worth of tennis, then guided me over to an unusually dark booth in the back of the bar for that chat he'd promised.

"About five years ago, I was in the same soup you are now."

Jim's forty-three years old, but he's taken the time to keep himself in shape and nature has given him greying hair rather than bald spots, so he still looks great. That would have made him only a year younger than I was now when he was in that 'same soup'.

"Writer's block?"

"Uh huh. And I could ill afford it, let me tell you."

"Yeah. My own reserves are about tapped."

Maybe he was going to offer a loan. Maybe I was going to take it.

"But you still got some... for an investment?"

"An investment? Hey, Don, how am I going to afford an investment when I've got to pay my nut and necessary luxuries and all that's coming in are tiny residual checks?" I think a little bit of my despair leaked into my sentence; the word 'residual' squeaked.

He shook his head. "No. I'm talking about an investment in your writing ability. Your inspirational fecundity. An investment in you."

"Sounds like a sales pitch."

"I get no money out of this," he said, looking a little hurt. "And I'm risking a lot for a tennis buddy." He turned and sipped at his drink, looking slightly peeved.

I let it hang in the air for a couple moments, but not for too long. No, I was far too desperate. Bankruptcy would not only kill my credit rating, it would kill my career. It's a pool of sharks out here and since sharks have to swim to live, sharks that aren't moving are considered dead sharks and promptly allowed to sink into the sludge.

"You say you were blocked and this... this investment finally helped you?"

He nodded. "Yes. And you know that I've got other projects going besides The Hit Squad. I write plenty. Don't you ever wonder how I get time to play tennis with a loser like you?"

I laughed. He smiled. The bridge was mended.

"Okay. I guess I could come up with a few bucks. Do I get to see what I'm investing in?"

"What are you doing tomorrow night?"

Tomorrow night was Thursday night, which was traditionally Extra Writing Night. Since I wasn't writing, I wasn't doing anything.

I told him.

"Good. Come with me."

"What is this. Some kind of writer's seminar?"

"Uh, uh." He finished his soda and lime. "It's the Church."

▼

The place was a large house in the Hollywood Hills. I hesitate to say mansion. It was just a big old house that probably belonged to some director, producer or actor back in the thirties. I didn't get a tourists history either; we just drove up there in Don's Jaguar at eight thirty.

"I faxed them your background and credits," he said after a jokey warm-up, rehashing the days gossip as he pulled off Franklin to head up a canyon road. "They called back with a tentative approval. Did you bring a check?"

"Yeah."

"How much is this going to cost me?"

"For tonight's session, it'll be a thousand dollars."

"Just for tonight?" I said, being philosophical. A thousand bucks wasn't going to kill me financially. A writer's block would.

"If it doesn't work for you, all you do is sign a paper swearing secrecy about the Church and you get the money back. Fair enough."

"One session's going to do it for me?"

"If one session doesn't, two won't."

As the beautiful green car purred up the grade, I shrugged. "Sounds just fine to me, Jim. And Jim... thanks."

He smiled, but I thought I saw a touch of grimness at the corners of his mouth.

"Sure," he said. "But remember, guy... I'm doing this because I know you need it."

"Yes, sure. I appreciate that."

I wasn't sure what he meant.

Jim found the place way up in the hills and it was situated on a nice chunk of land, with a horseshoe driveway. Don stuck an identification card in a slot in a machine. The heavy gate slid open, and we drove up the driveway. Jim pulled his Jag up onto the curb, parked, and we got out.

The lights of the Los Angeles basin glittered like cheap jewelry. The chill of night had come on, and I was glad I'd worn my black silk sport jacket. The scent of sage from the hills melded pleasantly with the smell of the flower beds surrounding this old house. With barely a word, Jim guided me around the side of the house, along a path lit by small electric lights. "Church is held in the back," was all he said in way of explanation.

I didn't ask any questions. Jim is either extremely talkative or totally mum, and while I usually fill in the dead air during his silent phases, somehow now didn't seem the time for verbosity.

Along the side of the path, a man was sitting in the shadows. He asked for our names and we gave them. I suddenly had an unusual sense of dread. The man in the darkness radiated some kind of menace wholly alien to the usual L.A. casual. I shuddered a little bit as a flashlight was shone into our faces.

"Don's new, then," said the man.

"That's right."

The flashlight got directed onto a clipboard. Papers rustled. I got the glimpse of the butt of a gun.

"Okay. Everything's in order, Mr. Hampton. Have a good evening."

We walked on, me with a bit a shudder.

The narrow path opened up into a large backyard. There was the de rigueur Hollywood Hills kidney-shaped pool of course, but beyond it was what seemed to be an old gymnasium. A red light shown above a closed door. We walked along a path edged with hedge and lights. Jim knocked on the door. It opened. A tall, powerfully built man examined us carefully and then beckoned to another. A shorter man came up. He looked like an agent, dressed in a shiny Armani suit, his blond hair slicked back, his eyes glittering, his mouth filled with flashing teeth.

"Hello, Jim," he said. "This would be Mr. Edwards then. Hello, Don. I've admired your work over the years." I got a firm lingering handshake. "I'm Michael. I'm glad you've chosen to try our little group. I think you'll receive a great deal of... inspiration from our little service."

"That's what I'm here for," I said. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a religious man."

"Religion can be very beautiful," he said. "Especially if it's practical." Smile. Glint of eye. I recognized him now. He was an agent. A sub-agent for a large agency. I'd seen his picture in the trades. I didn't remember his last name, though. Not that it mattered. To tell the truth, I was a trifle bit intimidated by the interior of the old gymnasium into which we'd walked.

"Come and let me show you gentlemen to your seats," he said. "Oh, but first... There's a little trifle we should deal with."

I looked at him, baffled, but Jim nudged me. "The money, guy."

"Oh. Right?" How could I have forgotten? This was Hollywood. 'The money' was paramount. I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out the check. I'd had to tap what I called my 'Vegas fund'—money set aside for frivolous conspicuous tossing-away—but this, I figured, was gambling as much as anything. Michael took it, examined it quickly and then slid it into an envelope in an inside breast pocket of the Armani.

"This way, gentlemen, if you please."

As he led us further into the room, I realized that low music was being piped into the room: a wash of New Agey synthesizers.

The reason why I was feeling more than a little odd was because of the way the room was set-up. It really was a church... But most certainly the strangest church I'd ever seen. For one thing, there were pews. Ten rows of finished oak benches complete with an aisle, just as you might find them in your normal corner Presbyterian church. An odd thing to see inside an old gym behind a Hollywood Hills mansion, certainly, but even stranger were the other accoutrements of religious ceremony surrounding it, Christian, non-Christian and miscellaneous oddments quite beyond the pale.

In front of the pews there was an altar and on this altar was a large statue of a fat man in a polo shirt and thick glasses with a huge cigar dangling out of his mouth. He was sitting in full lotus position. On one knee sat a doll of Marilyn Monroe. On the other was an old fashioned Olympia manual typewriter. Strewn at his feet were old scripts.

"Who the hell is that supposed to be?" I whispered.

"A representation of an old fashioned Hollywood mogul," said Jim. "The Church is not without its sense of humor."

"Nor its sense of the bizarre."

There were large candles, of course, and there was incense smoking out of burners that could have come from Nepal or some other mystic land, and there was stained glass windows and icons. But as I looked closely, the icons were of modern folk, often as not wearing glasses. Don caught me gawking. "Founding members of the church," he explained.

As I looked around, eyes adjusting to the dimness, unable to prevent myself from rubber-necking, I began to notice that I recognized some of the forty or so people who sat in the pews. And they weren't all simply WGA members, either. There were producers for TV shows, movie producers... and a few studio executives too. They weren't talking either, which was unusual in schmooze-town. They were either staring straight ahead at the altar or staring down at their laps—both positions appearing to be some kind of meditation.

"Hey," I said to Jim, pointing at a man off to the side of us, who looked a lot like the guy who had just received fourth place in a recent Premiere magazine ranking of the most powerful people in Hollywood. "Isn't that—"

"Shhh!" said Jim emphatically. "Yes, it is. Now you have to be quiet for awhile."

Typical of me. I hadn't been inside a church for a very long time, and I'd forgotten the sense of propriety you were supposed to have in one. Although until I actually shut up, I didn't really even have the sense of this place as being any place actually religious. It was just pure Hollywood mondo to me. But then, when I sat for a while sniffing the incense and listening to the electronic droning and the incredible silence of people who usually yakked away when they were together, I indeed got a sense of the numinous, the oddly spiritual. And it was a vaguely troubling experience, because there was a terrible uneasiness about it all as well.

Abruptly, though, the music segued into a processional. A fanfare of synthesizer trumpets, a whooshing of sampled wind, as though signifying something spiritual gushing over the assemblage.

Then, down the aisle, there walked seven people in robes, cowled. Six wore black. The seventh and final, wore white. The six blacks split up and moved to take their places, three to either side of the 'Hollywood Buddha' as I had come to call it.

The music stopped, and the quiet that dropped onto the scene was unearthly.

I could not help but shiver.

The last, the white one, stood in the very center. He ceremoniously bowed to the blasphemous 'Buddha'. Then he carefully and slowly lit the candles surrounding the altar. The scented burning tallow and wicks cast their own odor through the cavernous room. Everything was so still, I fancied I heard the flapping of bats in the dark rafters. The man in the white robes bowed again, this time to the congregation. Then he took off his sandals, rearranged his robes, then carefully and reverently settled his posterior onto the pillow.

He pulled his cowl back, and revealed a mild-looking man, his blond hair looking as though it had just been freshly snipped and coiffed at a Beverly Hills salon.

"Hi!" he said.

"Hi!" greeted the congregation.

"I was having breakfast today at Ciro's with Michael Ovitz, and I had absolutely nothing to talk about to him. So I'm thinking, here I am at a meeting with one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and I haven't got a thing to pitch!"

Boy, I could identify with that! I looked around, and I could see the looks of terror and sympathy trembling over people's faces.

"Thank God he wanted to talk to me about something!"

Nervous laughter.

"But I thought to myself, in these troubled and troubling times in our profession, how lucky I was to know that we have our Church. And I thanked the spirits of our Founders that we have this solace once a month. And in particular I thanked them that this Thursday night was a service."

"Praise the Founders!" said the congregation, their voices firm and almost chant-like around me. I noticed that Jim blended his voice in with the rest quite emphatically. I was wondering if we were going to have to sing hymns sometime during the service. I really couldn't carry a tune very well, but if it helped my writing, then I'd be happy to stand on my head.

"Welcome to the Church of the Sublime Inspiration!" said the priest, beaming. "Welcome to both new members and old. Our secret society has been meeting for many years now. We have preserved our anonymity these years and we know that we shall continue to do so because of our bonds of flesh and spirit. Let us remember that although at times our lives are very secular, this order is ultimately of a very sacred nature. Ours is the burden of helping to forge the stories, the characters, the themes that inspire and ignite the hopes and dreams of our culture. Our nation, indeed the whole world depends upon us not only for the entertainment that makes their lives less humdrum, but also the dreams that spark their futures and the values of their children."

"Amen!" intoned the assembled. "A-MEN!"

I found myself joining in. A lapsed Methodist, I at least knew that word.

The ceremonies proceeded. None of which made a whole lot of sense to me. There was more chanting in foreign languages. More lighting of candles. Different music wafted from the speakers and at one point an old film projector in a dim part of the gymnasium suddenly came alive, showing clips from classic movies. Similarly, in another corner, an old television set zapped on with a re-run of I Love Lucy.

The service seemed to consist of a hodge-podge of liturgies and verses from different religions and different sects. The English that was used and the verses from the King James Bible seemed to concern aspects of creativity, virility and fecundity. Lots of seeds were sown, and lots of baskets hopped off mystical inner lights. Nonetheless, for some reason the use of verses from the Bible I was familiar with comforted me somewhat. This wasn't, it would seem, any kind of pact with the Devil—not that I believed in the Devil. I was a pure agnostic, with little thought of God for very long. Nonetheless, if the God of Inspiration was around and He had a little cult in the Hollywood Hills, who was I to refuse to drink from His heady cup?

Especially when I'd paid a thousand bucks to do so!

Speaking of which, I thought... When do the lightbulbs start lighting up above my head?

Jim probably noticed that I was getting kind of antsy. "It's coming along. Don't worry."

"What's coming along?" I couldn't help but whisper.

He looked at me with an expression I'd never seen in a TV producer's face before: solemnity.

"Communion," he said.

▼

Actually, what the Hollywood priest called it was 'the L.A. Eucharist'.

One by one, we lined up in front of the altar.

"What's going on?" I asked Don.

"Simple. You do what they tell you to do. You eat and drink what they give you. Just like Mass. You've been to Mass?"

"I've been to Communion."

"There you go!"

An usher came up and tapped our row. Our turn to go down and kneel at the altar. The dirge-like synthesizers from the speakers began to sound like that song 'Hooray for Hollywood' slowed down to a drone. A curious feeling of dread and despair seized me and for a moment I felt frozen to the hard wood of the pew. It wasn't just a sensation of leaping into the Unknown that bothered me, although I'd been feeling that to various degrees the whole trip here, the whole strange service.

No, it was a sudden surge of deja vu, the feeling of vertigo I first felt, moving to Los Angeles to attempt a scripting career. The almost supernatural uncertainty, the mysterious buzzwords, the sweeping insincerity, the vacillations of producers and networks, the sensation of being chewed up, digested and shitted out by mammoth egos prowling beneath the sunny skies and smog for prey.

I'd forgotten those sensations. I'd joined the drooling pack. And now, oddly enough, deprived of the central device that keeps the hungry hungering, the searching was overwhelmed with a sense of wrongness. I don't know if I actually felt evil up there at that altar any more than I ever felt it, toiling in these dark mills of TV and Film Babylon. All I know was that there wasn't a trace of good, and the vacuum seemed to suck out whatever courage I'd packed with me.

"What's wrong?" asked Jim.

"Can't."

"Huh?"

"I can't go up there. I can't do it."

"What? Are you crazy? You paid the thousand dollars!"

"They can keep it. There's something wrong up there."

The others filed up, pretending not to notice the commotion we were creating. Don sat down. He took a breath, sighed it out, put a hand on my shoulder. "That's okay, buddy. That's okay. Yeah, I guess it is a little weird, huh? I'm remembering it was for me, too. Yes, I do recall that I had second thoughts. But I did it, you know. And there's really nothing to it. Look where I am now! I'm successful. Monstrously successful. The American Dream? Hell, I've got more than the American Dream. I've got a great life. But you want it, babes... You want that life and the creativity that brings it, you've got to worship at the altar, you got to drink the cup, you got to eat the offering... That's the way it is out here, babes, and that's the way it's always been, even before the Church started up." He tapped me on the shoulder and cocked a thumb toward the proceedings below. "Jim, you've worshipped at that altar before. You just don't know it."

I looked in his eyes, and I knew, instinctively, he was right. Somehow, the fear left me—and I found myself standing up and walking down that aisle to join the assembled partakers of the mysterious communion.

The actual wine wasn't all that mysterious. In truth, I almost laughed as I knelt down beside Don. In front of us where champagne glasses and the priest was merely walking along, filling up the people's glasses.

"Sip," he intoned, when he was through. "Sip in the name of Mulholland, in the name of Doheny, in the name of Rodeo Drive." Somberly.

I sipped. Dom Perignon. Excellent.

"Now, the most sacred of the Offerings. Take what is given, eat—and enjoy High Concepts!" The last two words were uttered with total reverence. "Lights," he whispered as he lifted a bell-shaped lid from a tray. "Camera! Action!" He picked the tray up and began to serve its contents. "Eat this in the remembrance of great dialogue. Swallow this that the plot points may shine. Take this and chew, that thy character arcs may spark! Digest, in the name of Foster's sunglasses, the Sun and the Holy High Concept!"

On a silver tray, nestled just so amongst doilies, were what appeared to be hors d'oeuvres. Round white crackers, each spread with a neat mound of pate that looked like chopped chicken liver.

My stomach gurgled. I realized that I was hungry.

When the priest passed, I took one of the crackers. Just as the cracker was at my lips, I paused. This was it, something told me. Take this step and you can never go back.

My stomach gurgled again. I could feel saliva in my mouth. The Eucharist smelled really good. It smelled of onions and mayonnaise.

I popped it in my mouth.

I chewed.

It tasted even better than it smelled, like a high quality beef with character. I chewed it and I swallowed it and then, taking the lead from the others, I washed it down with first rate champagne. You'd have to figure, only the best in Hollywood!

One of the less mannered members of the kneeling pronounced his opinion on the subject, belching loudly. No laughter, no 'pardon me's.'

We filed back and took our seats.

As I sat there listening to the final intonations, to tell the truth, I felt absolutely nothing. I was totally confused. I hadn't the foggiest of what had just happened. Was this some weird ritual that used ceremony and spiritual 'mysteries' to unlock the secret navigation to the paths of inner creativity—or were there hidden cameras behind the wall, with some TV host about to trot out, giggling, and announce that it was a practical joke of the most obnoxious sort?

The benediction was read:

"Get thee forth to propagate imagination and entertainment throughout the focal point of this beautiful city, and thus through the entire world!"

I sighed. Hell, all I wanted to do was write!

There was no socializing after the affair. Nobody seemed to want to talk. The people simply shuffled off back to their parked cars.

Don bought me a fresh-brewed Stout at a favorite hangout of ours, Gorky's, to celebrate my initiation. I confessed I felt no different. He just laughed.

I bought some magazines at the corner newsstand, in expectation of my usual bout of insomnia.

But when I got home I felt quite exhausted.

"Out on the town, hmmm?" said my wife, watching Jay Leno and working on her nails.

"Just a late meeting with Don. Project," I said, truthfully enough, sliding into the sheets beside her and grabbing my pillow.

I was asleep almost immediately, and I had no dreams worth writing about.

▼

The next day, I woke up with an idea.

I sat down and started writing a treatment for a pilot for a television series about a city fire department. My father had been a fireman in a city, so I knew a lot about it. I'd had vague notions of doing something along those lines for years, but nothing ever jelled.

Now it was just pouring out.

So much so, that I stopped in the middle of the treatment and said, "Hell, why not?"

I poured a cup of coffee, black, started up a new file on the old computer and jumped right in with both feet.

I wrote straight through the weekend. I was a total demon, tap tap tapping away like a man possessed. My wife was so thrilled that something was coming out, she took it upon herself to fix coffee for me and bring in lunch and dinner.

By Monday, not only had I written an original TV script ('spec script' in the industry parlay) but I also had a complete proposal and 'bible' for a possible series spin-off.

I printed it out, got it copied and foldered and then drove personally to my agent. To the objections of his assistant, I walked straight in and tossed it on his desk.

"Read it and then get back to me!" I said, doubtless fairly glowing with effulgence.

I was going to take the rest of the day off to celebrate, but when I got back and started talking about taking my wife out for dinner, I started getting antsy. I had this positively wonderful idea for a movie.

Two weeks later, Fires Above was written and in my agent's hands.

"It's working!" I said, amazed and admitting it to Jim Hampton after a session of tennis.

"Good," he said, "you can buy the Gatorade today." He grinned. "And then you can rewrite this script a guy turned in the other day."

"Sure," I said, with a confidence I would have never had before. I knew that with the notes I'd get from Jim's story editors, I'd be able to handle the assignment, no problem. The job would pay the mortgage this month and leave me some money left over.

Somehow, I don't know how, that service I had been to not only jump-started my creativity. It charged me with more ideas, more writing power than I'd ever had before.

I was thrilled. It had worked. That was all I needed to know.

▼

The television series sold.

The movie sold.

Before I knew it, I not only had more work than I'd ever had before, I had the willingness and ableness to produce it all. Ideas poured from me willy-nilly; words simply flew at the word-processor. Scenes would thunder into my head whole and complete. Sometimes it was like taking dictation from God. Inspiration, after all, meant 'the breath of God'.

But it wasn't from God.

I found that out soon enough.

One morning, about two months from the time I knelt at the altar, I sat down, coffee cup full, happy as a clam to once again churn forth the words. I sat there for a minute, flexing my fingers and waiting for the ideas to burgeon. I typed out a couple of words, hoping meaning would follow.

But no meaning came.

An hour later, I was staring at those same two words. Absolutely nothing . I started yanking the words out. Two hours later, I had a page and a half and I was absolutely wrung out.

I called Jim Hampton. He was in a meeting, his secretary said. Could he call me back?

You bet he could!

When he finally called me back, late in the afternoon, I was in a panic. I told him why.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," he said. "The benefits of a service last a limited amount of time. You've burned yours up quicker than most. I was going to mention that some tennis afternoon soon. Didn't think it would happen this quickly."

"Well, what do I have to do? Go to another service?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow's Thursday. Let's go!"

"No. There won't be another service until next Thursday, Don. I'm afraid you're going to have to wait."

"But you'll take me, won't you?"

"Sure. I'm about due myself anyway. Only, this time, don't blow it all out, okay?"

I sweated out the week, getting behind on work but getting some input in by reading and watching films and TV shows.

The service this time cost ten thousand dollars, but the money was flowing in, so I could easily afford it. Also, when I got to the church, I actually had to join, signing all sorts of papers that I didn't read fully. Maybe I should have read them more carefully, I don't know. Hell, I was used to my agent reading my contracts for me. But as I sat there at that desk, looking over at the altar where that precious stuff was about to be served, it wasn't just my mouth that was salivating. My entire mind seemed to be running over with drool.

▼

A year passed.

I took the Hollywood communion twelve more times in that period, and enjoyed success like I'd never experienced it before. The movie was in production, I had two television series in the works, three pilots and any incidental scriptings or rewrites I cared to take on. I felt so charged with energy I even started writing my dream book... The one that was supposed to show my true brilliance as a writer... If not the great American novel, then something merely that had some art, some taste, some representation of my true feeling, my true soul.

For some reason, however, it just didn't come.

And what I did write seemed as empty of soul as my scripts.

Nonetheless, I wrote those facile scripts like a demon, not slowing down, taking each and every communion available, even though they'd gone up to twenty thousand dollars each. Hell, I thought, with what I'm making these days I'm paying my agent more than that!

Then, about a year and three months after my knees first bent at that altar, I got a call from Jim Hampton.

"Hey. When are we going to play tennis for Christ sakes?"

"As soon as you finish that movie project! You know that! I'm available."

We both laughed. But I felt a little tension in his voice. "Uhm, you know, Don... I told you to go easy on those communions."

"Shit, I got the money. I love 'em. I'm getting positively religious. I'm starting to figure out what it all means. It's kind of Jungian, isn't it? I mean, the whole ceremony!"

"I guess so. Lots of stuff in it and—"

"And somehow, going through it all—well it taps at the well springs. Plumbing the old depth psychology, right? Hypnosis! Psychiatric hocus-pocus!"

"Partially, Don. Actually, there's something more involved."

"Really? What? I'm all ears?"

"Some other time. Right now, you have to take a meeting."

"Sounds fun, fellow, but I'm kind of scripted up."

"No, this isn't that kind of meeting, Don."

"Well, what kind of meeting are we talking then, Jim?" I said, some of my impatience doubtless creeping into my voice.

"It's the meeting you promised to take when you signed those papers last year, Don." He said it tonelessly. Toneless with Jim meant serious. "You know, if you didn't go to so many of those services, you could have put this off for a long time. I didn't have my meeting until three years after my first communion."

"Hmm? Okay, okay. Sounds fine to me," I said. "Where do I have to be?"

"One of the organizers of the Church is Harry Pilgrim."

"Right. Of Rock and Pilgrim Talent Agency."

"That's right. Next Tuesday at 11 A.M. sharp." Pause. "Uhm... Don... You did read the papers you signed."

"Yeah, sure. I mean, I scanned them. What was I supposed to do... have my lawyer look at them? You know how desperate I was for that dose of whatever they were handing out."

"Yeah, right," he said in a faint voice. "Well, I'll get back to you when we can play tennis."

"Right. Your people will call my people."

"Yeah, whatever. Good luck, Don."

Oh well. Just another meeting, I figured.

And if nothing else, I gave good meeting!

▼

Rock and Pilgrim Talent Agency was on the other side of the hill, in Beverly Hills, on Canon St.

I arrived five minutes early. I was ushered into Harry Pilgrim's office immediately.

Harry Pilgrim was a florid faced, slim man of perhaps fifty years of age who looked much younger. He smiled vividly when he saw me and pumped my hand over his desk. I'd seen him at a couple of the services, but I'd never had occasion to talk to him. Nonetheless, he greeted me as though we were long lost brothers.

"Don! Don, so good to see you!"

I played along. "Good to see you, too."

"Don, I hope we can do some business!"

"Business? I'm always ready to do business, Harry. Isn't everyone in this town?"

"Certainly, certainly. More specifically, I wanted you to meet a new client of mine."

"Don Edwards, this is Harvey Timmons. Harvey, this is Don Edwards, well known Hollywood television and film writer."

Harvey Timmons bounced to his feet, full of enthusiasm and shook my hand, his face unable to hide frank admiration, perhaps awe. "Nice to meet you, sir. I've seen your name on shows, lots, and I've always enjoyed them. You're a consummate pro, sir, and I'm sure there's lots I could learn from you."

He was maybe twenty-five, tops, eagerness shining in his eyes. I felt a little pang. He reminded me of me when I came to Hollywood, still idealistic, still teeming with dreams, the cream of hope still pure and sweet in the milk of my ambition.

"Uh, nice to meet you, Harvey," I said, shaking his hand. I gave the agent a bemused look.

Harry Pilgrim just kept on grinning. "It's my considered opinion, Jim, that Harvey here is one of the hottest new talents in town. He just hasn't hit properly yet. You know how that is."

"You haven't sold anything yet?"

"I came close. Real close. Mr. Pilgrim says it takes patience. Patience and perseverance. Well, whatever it takes, I'll give, sir. I'm absolutely determined to have a career here!"

"Great! It's tough, I'll tell you!"

"Oh, I know. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it, right?"

"Anyway," said Harvey. "I knew you were looking for new, raw talent."

I was? Nonetheless, I kept my face clear of emotion, and played along.

"Oh. Yes. Of course. Always looking for new writers, new talent..." I said. "I guess I should read your stuff, huh?"

The agent tapped a pile of scripts on his desk. "This guy has got some terrific specs, let me tell you!"

"Okay. Well, give me a couple of the best and I'll certainly take a look at them," I said. "Now, was there something else you wanted to talk to me about, Harry?"

"Hmmm?" He looked from Harvey to me and then back again. "Oh yeah." He shifted gears again. "In a minute. Let's finish this here, okay? Main reason I called you down here, Don. Besides that of course..." He gave me a funny look. "Was so you and Harvey here could meet, get these scripts... Hoping of course that you guys might hit it off... Have lunch sometime, huh? Maybe even breakfast!"

Power breakfasts being the 'in' thing these days, of course. "Sure! I mean... Well, I guess I should read the scripts, first."

"If you could read my scripts," said Harvey, genuinely pleased, "well, that would be just fine with me. I don't know how I come across at lunch or breakfast. Maybe I'm boring, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure I'm a good script writer. And I've got lots of ideas where those came from. I could just go on and on, telling you about my script ideas."

A glint lighted in the agent's eye. The gleam of filthy lucre? What else?

"Great, well, I'll certainly look forward to reading them, then." I shook the kid's hand again and he took that as a cue to get lost. Which he did, quite obligingly.

"Okay, so which scripts should I read?" I said, starting to feel a little better. Well, this wasn't so bad, I thought. Do a little reading for the Church. Maybe that was it... Maybe they were thinking about inducting him for some reason, and I was to evaluate his talent. Nothing so hard about that.

"That's the guy," said Harry when he left. "That's your assignment, Don. He's really just perfect. The ultimate candidate?"

"Candidate? What does that have to do with his scripts?" I said.

The agent looked at me, puzzled. "That's not what we're talking about here, my friend." He tapped his temple knowingly. "That's not what we're talking about at all."

"Look, you want to tell me what's going on here? I'm kind of in the dark."

"You've got something to do for the Church, Don. The church has helped you a lot. You know that."

"Yeah. But I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that is I've got to do!"

"I would have thought that Jim Hampton made that clear to you when you joined. I would have thought you were smart enough to figure it out. It's in the service, you know. It's there. And it's in the contract you signed, too. You agreed to 'obey the summons to provide the Services necessary to sustain the offering, in whatsoever manner that shall reveal itself.'"

"You want to stop being obtuse and tell me for God's sake?"

He shrugged. "Okay."

And he did.

▼

When I got home, I poured a stiff drink, belted it and called Jim Hampton. He was out, so his secretary said, but he'd call me back. ASAP.

Well, he didn't. I kept on calling him, and by the time I got to him at his home that evening, on his private office line, the one he'd forgotten I had, I'd had a few more drinks, so I got straight to the subject.

"What the hell have you gotten me into?" I demanded.

Silence on the other end. But at least he didn't hang up, like he might have.

"Like I said, I thought I'd have time to explain." LA confidential, mano a mano style. I'd heard it before. Sorry about that guy. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

"What do you think I am? I'm not going to do it!"

"Okay. I understand. But you know, they won't."

"I'll pay the fine."

"There's no fine. The penalty is Coventry. Ostracism. None of the Church members will work with you again. Now, that's not all of this town by any means, but it's a significant portion. And I don't have to remind you that this is a small town."

"And I suppose that means you too."

"I'm bound by the oath I made."

"Dammit, why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought there was a chance you might not take the communion. And I knew how much you needed it. I was watching out for you, believe it or not. It's for the best... You'll get used to it. It's not that hard, believe me."

"Well, I'm not going to do it!" I said.

"Fine. That's your option." The voice was stiff and reserved now. "However, do remember... They'll never let you take communion again."

"How could I... I ever take it again... How can you... Knowing..."

"Easy," he said. "People out here have been taking it for a long, long time... Whether or not they're in the Church. Goodbye, Don. Let's put the tennis business in your court now, hmmm? Call me sometime."

He hung up.

I got another drink.

▼

You've seen the experiment.

You teach a bunch of planaria, those cross-eyed worms, to remember to do a trick. Go fetch food, or to hit a certain button so as not to get shocked. Something nice and scientific like that. Then you take those planaria, grind them up alive, and quickly feed them to other planaria.

Bingo. The planaria who've just eaten their brethren know the trick.

Transfer RNA. Memory.

Some tribes in South America and Africa and the South Seas would eat their enemies to obtain their power.

Specially treated grey matter, preserving the genetic structure, the mapping of neurons and synapses that will surge the old electrochemicals in the dance of creation that creates ideas and all the attendant blaze of stories and scripts. Combined with depth psychology, ritual and, yes, perhaps some of that old 'black magic', it created a powerful drug, galvanizing the arthritic typing fingers of burnt-out but greedy Hollywood writers.

And then, too, there was the sacrificial element. Every little bit of significance helped.

That was what was on the cracker, of course. That was the 'meat' of the matter. I hadn't realized it (or had I, subconsciously) but what I was wolfing down so greedily all those services were nothing less than the neural pate of promising young writers, ferreted out by agents like Harry Pilgrim and then offered up in a grill for the crackers of the Church's insatiable hunger.

Profile. Young, eager writer... in from Kickbutt, Iowa, to make his mark on the world. Not a whole lot of background, but a hell of a future. I probably hadn't had the talent to have even been considered. Usually I thought that the worst that could happen to these talents were drugs, alcohol, blah blah blah—the usual Hollywood shmear.

Now I knew that something more evil awaited them... Getting served upon on a cracker with champagne.

And those bastards wanted me to take care of their 'new' mark.

No way, I thought.

Uh uh.

▼

I was dry.

All I had on my screen was blank space and WordPerfect page parameters.

Less than a week after the meeting with Harry Pilgrim and Harvey Timmons, I wasn't just dry, either. A couple of my deals had fallen through, and another was teetering shakily.

The night before last, I'd been impotent with my wife, something that had never happened before. A little sidelight of 'withdrawal' from communion? Maybe. Maybe it was just total terror.

I didn't have a single new idea, and the old ideas were sticking in my throat like dead bugs in a Roach Motel.

I sat in my office, out over the canyon, and terror slowly moved through my guts.

It wasn't just the money, though God knows that was the major part. You get used to money, you get used to the privileged lifestyle it buys, it's damned hard to move backwards. The numbers get into your bloodstream, your sinews; get wrapped up into your ganglia and into your equations of achievement and self-worth. When you consider just how little in comparison it really takes to just survive in lower circumstances, it makes you realize you've got a needle in your head, pumping in those druggy numbers.

But it wasn't just the money.

Failure is not a welcome thing in this town. You're like a leper, you get stuck in metaphorical colonies and people laugh at you when your nose drops off in your soup.

A day later, still cemented in writer's block, brain screaming for communion worse than any junkie's brain ever screamed for heroin, I sat in my office and looked out into the unusually stormy Los Angeles sky.

Rain was trickling down the window, like watery bars.

▼

"Hello?"

"Harvey? Harvey Timmons?"

"Yes."

"Don Edwards here."

A wonderful profile, Pilgrim had said. No girlfriend. Lives in a cheap hotel in Hollywood. He's from North Dakota. Not a whole lot of family.

"Oh... Mr. Edwards... Great! I mean, good to hear from you."

"Yeah, Harvey. I read your scripts."

"Yes?"

"Let's take a meeting. Get to know each other." Pause. Breath. "I think I can use you."