Reality boulevard, p.36
Reality Boulevard, page 36
“You a dad, X-Ray. I seen your boy,” Maisie said.
X-Ray smiled for the first time since they arrived. “Yeah,” he answered. “My Darryl. My li’l man. He gonna be three next week.”
“These mothers, they all had their own li’l man too. ’Cept now they don’t.”
Maisie nodded at the SOS moms. The mothers held up the photos of their sons as babies or young children.
“Your little boy so innocent now, ain’t he, X-Ray? You bringing him home Disney movies to watch, little toy cars to play with. He climbs on your lap and just loves you so much. You put him to bed, and smell his sweet child smell and kiss his warm little head.” She paused, changed her tone. “Now, you picture that same little boy shot through the stomach, shot through the head. He ice-cold now, bleeding to death before your eyes. ’Cause that’s what we see, X-Ray. Every time we close our eyes. We don’t see the grown-up man, selling drugs, up to no good, making the messed-up choices you all making. We just see those little boys. Forever, we’ll see our little boys. And for what did we lose them? For what? We lost our little boys ’cause of nothing. Because you all think your lives is that cheap. Well, we are your mothers. We gave you those lives. And they are not cheap to us.”
Early Sunday morning, when the crew arrived at Maisie’s house, she told them the rumored shootout never happened.
“That’s amazing, Maisie. You stopped it.”
“No,” her face was drawn and serious. “Just stalled it. For a time. But I’ll take that. I’ll give thanks to God for that. One more day some mother’s boy’ll be alive. And one more day might turn into two. And then three. We just got to stay out there.”
They filmed Maisie, Odessa, Donna and her boys at their church. After the minister’s sermon, Maisie addressed the congregation. As a public speaker, Maisie wasn’t fiery or charismatic – she was low key, sincere and riveting, just the way she’d been in X-Ray’s apartment. Finally, the crew followed Maisie and Willie the fireman as they spoke to a youth group about education, gangs, and life choices.
“What’ll happen to all of this now?” Odessa asked them, as Eric and Vern packed up the van to leave.
“We take it home, we edit it, and we submit it to Dr. Eckland. If she likes it and her organization gives us funds, then we’ll let you know the progress of the final film.”
“I sure hope Mama ends up on TV,” Donna said. “My boys would get a kick out of seeing their granny all famous like that.”
After sharing heartfelt goodbyes with Maisie and her family, they had three hours left to kill before the flight back to LA. Eric suggested a detour by way of Graceland. As they roamed The King’s palace of plenty and questionable taste, Hunter reflected on Elvis, the kid who had come from nothing, but whose talent had lifted him to heights so dizzying that 33 years after his death, his home had become the world’s kitschiest shrine. Descending into the television room with its six-inch deep shag carpet and triple monitors mounted on the wall so Elvis could always watch his NFL, she thought about Ella, Wayne, and the other main ‘characters’ of The Candidate. Did they have any idea what transcendent fame could do a person? Was this relentless hunger for attention a natural human impulse, or a strain of infectious disease? Elvis had morphed from a shy, polite young man who only wanted to play his music and make his mama happy, to a delusional, paranoid drug addict. She thought about Ian, now a brand name and a star in his own right. It was so nice to be miles away from all that, to be with humble, authentic people like Maisie and her family, whose focus was on the here and now and not on scanning the horizon for a fickle spotlight.
At the end of the tour, Hunter wandered into the Meditation Gardens, where the Presley family members were buried. Three well-upholstered ladies, mid- to late-middle-age, were sitting on a bench overlooking the gravestones, rocking back and forth, holding each other and weeping. The chorus of a classic Greek tragedy, which, Hunter supposed, Elvis’s life had been: the promise, the hubris, the inevitable fall from grace. These women who had never known Elvis personally seemed as devastated as if he had been a relative; as if they were the SOS mothers who had needlessly lost their sons. That is the thing about fame, she supposed, that keeps misguided mortals endlessly chasing it. If you play your cards right and make it as big as Elvis, you might get an inner city hospital named after you. You can even die ingloriously on a toilet seat and still have three strangers in 14XL polyester keening for you, long after your ashes turn to ashes, your dust to dust.
Chapter 23: Victimless Crime
One by one, Sophie Warner, Ian Rand, Betsey Biddle from Business Affairs and a cadre of studio attorneys filed through the metal detector in the LA County jail, picking up their keys, cell phones and laptops on the other side of the barrier. A yawning guard in an ill-fitting uniform led them down a hallway and ushered them all into a small, windowless cubicle. On the other side of a rectangular metal table sat a smiling man in a Brooks Brothers suit – Adrian Mannon’s attorney. After a short introduction, everyone crowded around the table in uncomfortable silence.
Ian finally broke it. “Well, Sophie, I reckon you’re the first network executive on record to have a development meeting inside the LA County jail.”
Birdlike Betsey from Business Affairs uttered a bleating, awkward squawk.
A few more minutes of dead air and the jangling of keys signaled the opening of the cubicle door. Another guard entered the room – this one gym-buffed and glowering - escorting a brooding young man in an orange prison jumpsuit. Adrian Mammon locked eyes with Sophie and nodded enigmatically.
“Okay,” said the guard. “Knock on the door when you’re done.”
The civilians watched, mesmerized, as Adrian lowered himself into the last chair, the one next to his attorney. Ian noticed that all the women in the room leaned forward slightly, magnetically drawn to the new arrival’s dark eyes and slightly surly face. Ian suddenly felt invisible – a sensation with which he was decidedly unfamiliar. He couldn’t remember a single time in his life when, in a room full of women, he hadn’t been the sole center of attention.
“Adrian,” Sophie said, with a proprietary intimacy. “How you doing? You hanging in there?”
Adrian nodded calmly. “It’s not the Chateau Marmont, but it’ll do,” he said.
All the women in the room giggled. Ian shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Good,” said Sophie, waving a hand toward the others in the room. “You and your attorney have already met with the Prime Network legal team. This is Betsey Biddle, Head of Business Affairs and the most important person here today, Ian Rand.”
“Of course,” Adrian responded, fixing Ian in his gaze. “I’m a great admirer. I saw you in person at a Television Academy event just a few months ago. I’ve learned quite a bit about the business from studying you.”
Ian didn’t know what to make of this comment. This kid was a criminal, a con artist and dangerous thief, a person who made his living on heinous lies and deception, on exploiting innocent young people’s obsession with fame and celebrity. Here was Adrian Mammon commanding the full attention of the room as if he, not the great Ian Rand were the media power player. Close up, Adrian exuded a James Dean-level of mystery and magnetism. Sophie had been right on the money though, he thought grudgingly, when she’d said he was made for television.
“You and I and your attorney talked about a lot of things in our last meeting,” Sophie said. “And with the formidable power of Prime Network and the General Electronics Company’s legal team behind us, I’m confident that we can extricate you from your current situation. We’re hoping to have you out of here in no more than a couple of days. After this meeting, Betsey and the network legal team will work with him to get everything squared away with your television contract.”
“The reason I brought Ian here today,” Sophie continued, “is so we can start to hammer out what a reality series starring you and your team might look like, and how we can fast-track it to air.”
“Then, here I am. At your service.” His eyes burned into Ian’s once again. “An open book.”
“Ian?” Sophie said. “What do you imagine for Adrian?”
Looking directly at Adrian made Ian feel even more uncomfortable. He tipped back in his chair and deliberately looked up at the ceiling, pretending to be deep in thought. “Sophie told me about what went down with her daughter – I mean, that is, what you’re in here for now. But what is it, exactly, that you do, that would be something we could follow in a reality show, week after week?”
Adrian leaned back in his chair, stretching out to his full height. Ian noticed with a shudder that the prisoner was mirroring Ian’s own posture exactly. “What we do isn’t just a way to make a living for us. I call them ‘games’, because that’s what they are: total-immersion, interactive entertainment. Our marks are our toys, and we play with their minds. Every game begins with extensive research – first, on the computer. If you have the talent and the software, it’s surprisingly easy to hack into any laptop, email, cell phone voicemail, Facebook page – all of which gains you insight into what that person wants and what matters most to them. Back in Vegas, I started experimenting with institutional hacking, something that was essential for this last job, getting into the Virginia Lee Corbin servers. Patience is what it’s all about. That’s the hardest thing for my colleagues – the waiting. We often keep our hand in and rehearse our methods on the fly, like, say, in a restaurant or bar, or at a public event. Before we go in, we map everything out. We rehearse our back-stories. When we’re ready to go, it’s like opening night. The big show. The adrenaline is pumping and it’s a total high. We’ve been ninety-eight per cent successful – with one epic fail right before we left Vegas, and this last one, of course – but if it hadn’t been for that Homeland Security prick posing as an art fence, I’d consider this one a win as well.”
“The money. Is it any good?” Ian couldn’t resist asking.
“Sometimes very good, sometimes not so much. We’ve scored enough from the bigger games to be able to live well, move comfortably from place to place and take the time to plan the next gig to perfection. But we don’t do it – well, I can only speak for myself – I don’t do it just for the money any more. For me, it’s more of a calling.”
“With a network budget behind you, resources won’t be a problem in the future,” Sophie interjected.
Ian turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, her unbroken gaze directed at Adrian. Her fascination with him put Ian on edge, but he couldn’t deny that her instincts were dead on. This guy and his cohorts were reality gold in the making. This was what he had been looking for – the fresh meat to throw to the starving masses – the next level of reality television. Real crime – seen through the eyes of the criminals. The rotting of the apple from the perspective of the worm.
“Do you think every week’s episode should be a single con?” Ian asked. “Or more than one in an hour, to keep things moving?”
Adrian looked insulted. “Our games are complex and involve massive amounts of advance planning and strategy. How could you possibly try and squeeze more than one of them into a forty-two-minute hour?”
A 42-minute hour? This guy knew his television, Ian thought.
“If we’re going to cover the particulars of how each con is planned and staged, we’ll need the entire hour,” Sophie said. “I envision this as a procedural reality show but with a bit of a docu-soap flavor as we go behind the scenes into our gang’s private lives.” She put her hand on Adrian’s arm and gazed at him intently. “I think the operation you pulled on my daughter and her friends was just brilliant. Dramatic. Sexy. Can we do something just like that, for the pilot episode?”
Ian stared at Sophie in amazement. She was talking about the crime perpetrated on her daughter as if it had been just another episode in a television show.
“Absolutely,” Adrian said. “But remember, that game took over three months to prepare.”
“You’ll have a full production staff at your disposal,” she reassured him. “As many bodies as you need. That will speed things up.”
“There will be the question of releases,” Betsey from Business Affairs interjected. “And getting permissions from your – uh – your ‘marks’ after the fact. We can always blur faces if someone refuses to sign - ”
“What’s the point, then?” Adrian scoffed. “It’s the marks themselves – who they really are, what they really want, underneath the masks they show to the world – that’s what makes the games work.”
“No blurred faces on this show, if I have anything to say about it!” Sophie said. “If there’s one thing this horrendous experience with my daughter has taught me, there are precious few people who will turn down the chance for a little primetime limelight.” She turned to Mieke. “How long before we can spring these guys out of here, so Ian can get right on creating the pilot?”
Adrian leaned forward, gazing intently at Ian. The two men locked eyes. “You and me.” Adrian whispered. “We were born for this.”
Ian felt a chill pass through him.
Before the ink was dry on the deal, Sophie met with Prime’s public relations department to draft a press release for the next morning’s trades:
Ian Rand and Prime Networks take Reality TV to a Daring New Level with Young Cons: Real-life Procedural Crime Starring Real Criminals
Young Cons will follow the planning and execution of diabolical confidence crimes conceived by three real criminals – a ‘reverse Mod Squad’ of attractive, charismatic hackers and con artists. Every week, we’ll see how the team investigates and stalks their victims, then spins them into their web of deception. Once the crime is complete, the victims will have their money and valuables returned, but not before they learn exactly how our ‘Young Cons’ gained intimate access into their homes, lives, and most private inner yearnings.
Prime’s Senior Executive Vice President of Programming, Sophie Warner, and the legendary Ian Rand of RandWorld Productions, developed the project jointly. Prime secured exclusive worldwide rights in all media to the lives of the trio of criminals and all their exploits.
“When the concept for this project first crossed my desk, and after meeting these three telegenic kids in person, I knew that this was the kind of cutting-edge reality programming the new Prime network could get behind,” said Warner. “Of course, the first person I thought of to develop this daring idea was Ian Rand.”
“Reality TV has been good to me, but the old formats are getting tired,” Rand said. “Everything on the air today seems to be a rip-off of FantasyLand or Fat Farm, or another tired season of Survivor or American Idol. Audiences don’t need another America’s top this or that, another Real Housewives, or another dating or makeover show. I think Sophie Warner and I have struck the rarest of gold with these three kids. They are the celebrities of the future. They’re a portent of the next generation of reality television, taking us to the darkest realms of human nature in the most thrilling, visceral way.”
Warner wants the new series on the air by next fall and Rand plans to shoot the pilot episode within the next eight weeks. In addition to his long running hits Fantasyland, Fat Farm and Blow Out, Rand has another Prime Network series currently airing. The Candidate, which follows a state Assembly race in Texas, premiered two weeks ago to solid ratings and unusually positive critical reviews.
“Not to bite the hand that’s feeding us at the moment,” said Allison, closing the Variety in front of her, “but Ian’s show about criminals. The definition of bad taste? Or the sickest thing you’ve ever heard?”
Hunter looked down at her hands. “I don’t know much about it.”
“This is the guy you’re dating, Hunter. Think he’ll invite his criminal pals over to the house for dinner some night?”
It was ten o’clock at night and the two of them sat in an empty edit bay in the RandWorld post-production building on Santa Monica Boulevard. After Dusty snagged the job of scoring a small industrial film, he’d been forced to commandeer Allison’s home editing system. To finish the Maisie Herring edit, Hunter had begged Ian to lend them his facility. Marty Maltzman had also generously offered a hand, donating all the never-used footage of Maisie and Levon from Lights and Sirens’ final weeks of production. Technically, Prime Network was a co-owner of the footage, but since they never even knew it existed, Hunter and Allison just needed all the significant participants to sign new legal releases. An enthusiastic Odessa Herring Williams had taken care of that from her end.
“This place makes me hinky,” Allison had said during her first long night at RandWorld Post. “These bays are just too luxurious. I feel like I’m working in a high-roller suite in Vegas.”
“That’s the point. The editors never want to go home,” Hunter said.
The piece was coming together beautifully. It wasn’t as shocking or dramatic as the wife burning or the sweatshop footage, but in terms of storytelling, it was far more emotional and nuanced. The moment in the hospital where Levon tells his mother he’s sorry was the lynchpin. Allison ended the scene on an extreme close-up of Maisie’s tearful face, and then faded to black. After a beat, she faded up again, on a matching close-up of Maisie. For a moment, the viewer wonders if it’s a continuation of the same scene. Instead of cutting back to Levon, however, Allison revealed the makeshift memorial in the park. It was devastating. Tonight, they were working on the confrontation between Maisie, X-Ray and his boys, using flashbacks to the Redhats incursion into Elvis Presley Memorial to play up their volatility and danger.
