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“Cleo.”

Well … what could you say? What could you actually
call it?
It sure wasn’t no comedy, Jack. But try to tell that to the rating’s points that were hugging that sucker like a beam of golden light.

There wasn’t a writer in town who could stand to even watch the teaser. But they all wanted to write for it. Resids, kids. That show was going to ride into the sunset
like Mighty Mouse, with a hundred zeroes between his furry little legs. Even if some guy got cut off at story and the script got finished in-house, he knew he’d pull down endless checks from syndie bread; foreign, domestic. Eventually the fucking Solar System would be bouncing “Cleo” into black holes. Even subfungi life-forms would sit around eating Doritos, watching.

And Andy with his Shirley Temple hair, lame jokes, and vapid taste was responsible. Some said he’d disfigured the cosmic order. After all, “Cleo” was his “baby.” His “concept.” His guiding hand was there, every excruciating inch of the way.

It was hard to decide which made one ulcerate more, the part about a castrating hag and her defiant cat Mr. Pink Nose, or the part about how the two insinuated themselves into the life of her merry, brain-dead son-in-law who resembled a more masculine Pat Sajak.

“Dad” was trying to raise two daughters after his wife left him for some gonk Richard Belzer somehow got talked into playing, to much publicized regret. That’s when “Dad’s” former mother-in-law, the sarcastic, festering horror, Cleo, had decided to drop in and help him get along, with her agonizing homilies and fat, grotesque cat.

Mr. Pink Nose had become quite the tasteless phenomenon after Andy suggested the hateful creature be given an opportunity to take a leak on someone in each week’s episode. As the laugh track shrieked, the editors would cut to a close-up of Mr. Pink Nose’s furry face. Then, as the sound of feline urine trickled hilariously, Mr. Pink Nose would make his trademark hiss.

America was in love.

But there was more. The character of Cleo’s grand-daughter,
Poppy-Sue, was especially odious and the producers had attempted to recruit her endlessly overused line of dialogue, “I’ve never seen a butt with legs,” into mainstream vernacular. T-shirts, pull-string dolls, posters of people with butts where their heads would normally be. This was whoring at an epic level, and by any decent measure, a total nightmare.

To say the show was widely despised would be putting you up for a Humanitas. It sucked. The lines were indescribably unfunny. The plots embarrassing. The actors couldn’t’ve gotten work in claymation. The theme song, as rendered by accordion, snare drum and strip-show cymbal plus some unnerving guy from a beer hall singing, was twenty-five seconds of sheer agony.

How could Andy live with himself? Creating that kind of Alzheimer drivel; airing it every week.

And he was rich!

“Cleo” was a prospering corporation. It wasn’t a show. It was U.S. Steel with sets and punch lines.

And this twenty-five-year-old Flintstone vitamin was behind the whole thing. He’d been on the covers of
Vanity Fair
and
Newsweek
And the network loved him like they loved few persons or things in the universe. He had brought great riches to their barren souls. He had brought a smile to their disheartened faces. And last but not least, he’d helped them gross an extra eighty million in fiscal ’92.

And he could barely write his name.

They’d yanked him out of MGM when he was a reader for a big Italian producer and given him a shot because he’d discovered some good properties for the Italian guy and made several purely accidental moves that resulted in mushroom profits for Metro during an otherwise bad year.

So, they give him an office and he picks a couple more properties that switch swill to box office and it’s another promotion. This time right into the sagging TV division. Then, he hits a homerun with lips. Movie of the Week. Three nuns out in the desert with an escaped-conrapist-psycho: “Sisters and Brother.”

Bad doesn’t cover it.

Reviewers are in pale stupors they hate it so much. Even the Catholic Church decries it. The Pope was rumored to have switched over to “Who’s the Boss?” Cardinals are calling the dreckish extravaganza “an abuse of human values as well as fundamental tenets.” Angry telegrams are beyond earth math. Hallmark doesn’t make cards for this level of outrage.

And the goddamn show
cleans
up.

Forty-two share. Even though he couldn’t figure out how to work a book of matches, Andy had invented fire.

“So, what do you have for me?” Andy gestured in fast little circles with his right hand, its nails chewed to gross nubs. “I haven’t seen you for a while. Geez, you do some episodes for Bochco and all of a sudden I can’t get a call once in awhile?”

Andy stared, nodding with amusement. Alan nodded back, smiling. Andy’s minions, lined on the couch, nodded equal amusement; intestinally blocked Kewpies. They were there to round out the meeting and served no identifiable purpose; full grown people, living complex lives in L.A., sitting pleasantly in this room, exuding nothingness for a living.

“I’ve got something in mind for an hour show. Not really cop genre. But it’s action,” began Alan, seated on the rattan Kreiss chair before Andy’s huge, glass desk. The desk was so big, it resembled a sliding glass door, supported by thick travertine legs. Designer stuff. And Andy looked right at home behind it. The frizzy-headed video sultan, lost in the immense regality of his own success, surrounded by plants that looked like they came from a designer jungle.

Everything was right. Like a perfect alibi.

“What’s the direction?” asked one of the Kewpies, a good-looking black woman, never changing expression or tone of voice. Her blazer looked just like Andy’s, her pants silky and balloonish.

Andy glared discreetly at the assistant. Don’t steal my fire, was the look. Don’t ask my questions. The assistant crossed arms, self-consciously. Andy’s sulky glare was
enough to bring on jitters. It’s why his office was called the Nut-Cracker Suite.

“I think what Diane means,” interpreted Andy, “is … we’re all intrigued.”

All nodded, looking intrigued.

“It’s the story of the return of the real individual,” said Alan. “The individual who can fight for himself.” He took a dramatic pause. “The kind we don’t have anymore. The kind we all want to be.”

Andy stared at him. Lit a cigarette. Silence.

“His name is A. E. Barek. A mercenary. That’s the name of the show I’d like to sell you guys: ‘The Mercenary.’ ” Alan knew it by heart. “He’s say thirty, thirty-five. Handsome. Powerful. Smart. Hero in small wars. Big ones. Gulf time, whatever. Comes home from one to a situation that has no use for him. Wife remarried. Parents and kids don’t understand him. He’s angry. Alone …”

Andy snuffed out his cigarette.

“What’s this angry guy’s franchise, Alan?” He held up a soft hand, palm forward. “Sorry to interrupt but that’s essential this season. Character pilots aren’t happening for us. People can rent
Driving Miss Angst.
We gotta give them a lasarium show … for a price.”

“Affiliates,” explained one of the other Kewpies, nodding at Alan as if having just explained the theory of relativity.

“Well, like I say, he’s a mercenary,” answered Alan. “A gun for hire.”

Andy sighed and it made Alan nervous. Guys like Andy spoke in elliptical Morse code: enigmatic semi-nods
and
hmm
sounds, when assembled in proper sequence, forming messages of rejection.

“Well, of course so much hinges on how it’s written, Alan. Everyone in this room knows your talent.” He shrugged a little. “But frankly, the thing doesn’t really feel …” he struggled, “it feels, I don’t know,” he made a put-off, just-watched-a-cat-run-over face. “It feels … passé. Nobody’s watching that delayed stress, Viet Nam stuff much anymore. I mean, sure, if Oliver Stone wants to develop
Platoon
into a goddamn variety show, I could give him thirteen guaranteed.”

There were scattered chuckles. The Kewpie beside Alan indicated a desire to talk. Andy nodded.

“Just thought I’d mention Carsey-Werner is doing a pilot about a gay soldier division.”

“Yeah, I know, ‘Pinks,’ ” said Andy, uninterested.

“It does have a military backdrop.”

Andy acknowledged the information, returned his stare to Alan.

“Anyway, Alan, you know I hate to tinkle on anybody’s parade but … I mean, look, I pride myself on being one of the few people in this town who’ll green light in the room and I gotta tell you, it doesn’t make me crazy.”

That’s because you’re already crazy, thought Alan. He smiled at Andy. “Can’t have that, can we?”

Andy was amused. You could tell because one side of his mouth rose a tiny bit and he spun slowly in his Roche-Bobois chair to face an infinite view to the ocean, far above L.A. congestion and swelter. Sort of like God.

Then, he turned back. Then, he said: “Funny.”

No actual laughter. Just, “Funny.” That’s how you knew you’d amused Andy Singer. He told you.

“I left out one thing,” Alan added, quietly, knowing the effect his tone of voice had. “I think I know how we can make this thing the biggest hit on the air.”

Andy stared like he’d heard this rap many times in his illustrious five-minute career. “Yeah?” he asked, politely, hoping he was wrong.

Alan stated the idea, plain as day. “We play the violence for real and we do frontal nudity. Sex, four-letter words … whole bit.”

The little sultan didn’t flinch.

“I mean, guys, let’s face fucking facts. Your audience is down fifty percent. Cable and cassettes are taking too big a bite. Not to mention whatever Diller’s litter is planning next over at FOX to kick you around, and four labor strikes in three years. Craft unions, DGA, SAG, WGA. You guys lost, what? Fifty million? Seventy-five?”

The room was listening.

“Your programming can’t compete. People wanna see more. See what they wanna see. And what the networks are programming ain’t it.”

Andy was amused again. But he wanted to hear more.

“You gotta understand where people are at today. Out there.” Alan pointed through the huge window. “On the street.”

Andy steepled chewed fingers. “And what are they saying?” He got up, walked to the window. Didn’t turn to face the room.

“That they’re on a yawn drip feed with the network schedule.” There were tiny snickers. “But really … that they’re scared to death to leave their houses because
crime on the street has gotten so bad.” He was speaking to Andy’s back. “Gangs. Drive-bys. Crack. Fucking psychotics every two blocks, looking to slice’n dice you ’cause they don’t like the color of your Reeboks, or ’cause your Rolex ticks too loud. How about acquitted cops with little temper problems and big batons. How about the fucking riots?”

Andy stared into nowhere. “And your show?”

“My show, ‘The Mercenary,’ entertains the hell out of them with enough action and blood to compete with Segal, Norris, Schwarzenegger. They don’t have to rent
Die Hard
7, ’cause they can watch better every week. My guy doesn’t take shit, doesn’t take prisoners, and this show is gonna get ’em outta the theaters and VCR rental joints, back in front of the goddamn set where they belong.”

Alan moved eyes from face to face. Andy’s buzzer sounded and he turned from the window.

“Hold all calls.”

Andy stared at Alan, saying nothing; mind lining up crosshairs. “Alan … I gotta tell you, I don’t know, man. You’re making some real good points and all that and what you’re talking about might—I stress
might
—pull an audience away from our competition.” Andy sounded sincere for the first time in the last ten minutes. “But we haven’t got a chance with the direction you wanna take. I mean, we aren’t doing features. You’re talking Joel Silver time. FCC would close us down.”

“Let them sue you. Tie ’em up in court for ten years waiting for a trial. If the affiliates are happy, you’re making money. I’d rather be in litigation than broke, wouldn’t you?” Alan stared out the window, again. “Andy, I’ve seen the annual reports on your profits. You guys need something
other than a Jim Brooks syndication package. Getting grim.”

Andy said nothing. The Kewpie who looked like a nose in clothes cleared his throat; offered wisdom.

“He’s right, Andy. Last year was a … fall-off.”

Andy didn’t glare. No repudiatory sulk. No arrogant pout. No power-tripping sarcasm. No argument of any kind. He knew it was the truth. The network was hanging by a finger. So were the other two networks. Maybe FOX, too, with or without Bart Simpson. Cable had cut off everybody’s balls and left them to slowly bleed to death, ratings pooling; a hemorrhaging attention span.

They needed something.

All the programmers talked about it among trusted advisers and friends. It was time to start taking huge risks. Blow the lid. Stop firing rubber bullets. Something that would hit like a fucking Amtrak crashing through your forehead at three in the morning and didn’t cost a fortune. And if the sponsors didn’t like it, get new ones. Besides, thought Alan, all
Variety
ever talked about was the sponsors moving to off-network. They had no fucking loyalty. They had abandoned the networks, forcing them to unravel the whole mess.

How many were leaving?

Enough to wipe the chalk right off the scheduling board. Millions of dollars invested in pilot episodes. Presentations. Holding deals with stars. Staged readings. Preproduction costs. Postproduction costs. You-name-it-it-costs-something costs. It wasn’t home movies they were discussing here. It was enough money to run a country.

And the awareness of that made Andy’s face a tight drumhead; tension stretching his features flat. He tapped
half-digested nails against the desk. It was impossible to imagine what might be coursing through that strangely empty mind. The Kewpies shifted restlessly. Alan said nothing, swallowed by his big chair. Andy liked all the silence. It gave him the leisure seconds to formulate his closing thoughts. Which were most often identical to his opening thoughts.