For the Love of Money (49 page)

“What statement are you trying to make with
that
color?” I asked Susan out of curiosity.

“That we're
hot
chicks here to take care of business, man.”

I laughed at her.

“So, we drive in together in my car and leave yours parked out here?” I asked.

“Yeah, let's show some solidarity,” she answered, moving quickly to my passenger's side. I hadn't told Susan any of my plans of execution to get the role, but I had
plenty.

“Well, here we go again,” she said. “And this time, we'll be ready to shoot for a three-film deal if they're offering us enough money.”

I hadn't even been thinking about the money, just about getting the part
and tailoring the script to meet my needs, but that was what agents were for, the money talk.

I asked, “How much do you think we could get for a three-film deal?”

“Actually, I was thinking about negotiating some kind of an elevator clause, starting at two to four million for the first film, and rising at least two million for each additional film, depending on the box office gross for each
prior
film.”

I did my calculations and came up with a minimum of twelve million dollars for three films, but it could end up being
more.

I looked at Susan and asked, “You really think we can
ask
for that much so soon?”

She gave me this long lingering smile. “
That,
my dear, depends on
you,
and a million other things at the box office,” she added with a chuckle. “However,
Led Astray
did twenty-eight million, which earns
you
a check of one point four million and some change, from the five percent gross that we negotiated on the first deal. That check should arrive at the office any day now.”

I thought about that and said, “Shit! We're about to roll in some
serious
money, Susan.”

“You better believe it,” my girl said.

I responded, “Twenty-eight million ain't bad for a movie that released in less than a thousand theaters. We almost made
four times
our budget. You think they'll give us ten percent gross now?” I asked Susan.

She grinned. “That's what we still want,” she answered. “That's why a lot of the studios don't like to give up those gross points, because if it pays off for the talent, they know that you're going to want more of the same. And we do,” she commented with a laugh.

Ten percent gross sounded damn good to me. Ten percent of a blockbuster movie, pulling in a hundred million dollars, equaled ten million dollars
after
my initial payoff. That sounded like gravy over the potatoes and rice,but first we had to get more theater releases for my films. Distribution was a real bitch, especially for black movies! However, Latino and Asian films were not doing
half
as well as black films were.

I thought about all of that and nodded my head before starting up my engine. “Well, let's go do it then,” I told my girl. I was determined to move my way up in the industry.

We drove up to the security gate and gave our names and who we were there to see before we drove in amongst the cars of the people who made deals with the stars.

We parked in the visitors' section and headed right into the luxurious
office building to make sure that we were there on time at eleven o'clock sharp. The office building had three levels and was full of open light for the many plants and small palm trees. It was like an inside safari. We were really moving up the ladder.

“Can I help you?” we were asked by a sister receptionist.

I gave her that black people nod and a smile. She smiled back at me and kept it cool.

Susan said, “We have an eleven o'clock meeting with The Don,” and smiled herself.

“Your names please?”

“Susan Raskin and Tracy Ellison Grant.”

The sister smiled even wider and made the call. “Susan and Tracy are here.” She buzzed us into his office. “By the way, Tracy,” she added before I left, “I loved
Led Astray.
”

“Thank you,” I told her. I guess she didn't want to
assume
who I was before she praised my work. That was smart, because stars have
huge
egos, and they damn sure don't like having their names
or
their work confused with that of others.

We walked into the office of The Don, who was dressed in all white and still talking on the telephone. He looked up as we were walking in.

“Ah, I have to take a meeting right now, so I'll get back to you after lunch. Okay? Ciao.”

I had to read him as fast as I could to see how to play him. So far he seemed supercool, so I planned to be cool myself.

Susan said, “Don, this is Tracy Ellison Grant,” and left me alone. She knew that I knew how to work it. An introduction was all that I needed.

He stood up and took my hand lightly in his. “Is this your rendition of the character?” he asked me of my outfit. He was moving faster than what I had planned.

I said, “You know, there are a lot of different weapons that a girl could hide in an outfit like this, but I still look normal, almost like a sweet-and-sour thing going on. It's definitely attractive to a man who's looking for a good time.”

Don smiled and said, “Yeah, I can see that. Have a seat.”

Susan and I sat down in the tall, comfortable brown leather chairs that flanked his huge desk. He sat down behind his desk, with his chair evenly spaced between us.

“So, what do you think about the script?” he asked me.

Perfect question. The Don was straight to the point. I guess he had a
busy day ahead of him, but I had practiced myself silly with the pitch, so it was no problem with me; the sooner the better.

I said, “You know, I don't see this character as a woman who doesn't talk much.I mean, what are we trying to do here, create a female Clint Eastwood?”

He chuckled, but I had no time to waste, so I kept going with it.

“If anything, a woman who doesn't talk much would send all kinds of alarms to a man,” I told him. “Talkative women are easy, right? Everyone knows that. Or everyone
assumes.
So we give her an advantage of playing the easy, talk-to-anyone-about-anything role, and then her violence will catch the audience
and
the bad guys totally by surprise.”

He nodded, in deep thought about it.

“And this hand-to-hand combat thing will be a
real
turnoff for the mostly male audience that we're going to attract with this movie,” I added. I slapped my black sandal on his desk to illustrate my point. “I could slide a couple of thin black knives in these straps, and you would hardly notice them.” I stood up and undid the thick black leather belt that held up my baggy denim shorts. “Inside of
these
big things, I could hide up to four guns. I could have one in the front, one in the back, and two on the sides, but one gun on the right hip would do just fine, preferably nickel-plated. And who knows what I could do with this big-ass black leather belt in my hand.

“By the way,” I told him, “I know you noticed my pink panties, Don. Do you like what you see?”

He leaned back in his chair and broke out laughing. Susan laughed at my performance herself.

“And my hair? Oh, I could stick all kinds of surprises up in a bun or in a ponytail. And don't let the size of a weapon fool you either,” I said. “Because if you stick them in the right places, they can hurt
really
bad.”

“So, she's like a Ninja woman now?” Don asked me.

I shook my head. “Ninjas are too secretive. Alexis is just a tough bitch from the streets of Chicago, but I wouldn't use any flashbacks to explain her. That just slows down a good movie. Let the audience make up their
own
stories about her past.”

Don said, “Wait a minute;
Alexis
from
Chicago
?” He was intrigued by the change of the script, but he was definitely not sold on it.
Yet!

“You damn right!” I responded in character. “This is the year
2000!
If a honey brown girl named Alexis from Chi-Town can get the job done with confident authority, then who needs a damn Jill?” I smiled and got sweet on him. “But I can understand if you still don't want to use me, baby. You got
the blonde and blue eyes on your mind. That's fine, I just figured you might want to fuck something else for a change.”

Don was beside himself with laughter. He was obviously blown away. “Oh my God!” he said. He looked at Susan for an explanation to my method, but all that she could do was shrug her shoulders and smile. She had no idea what I had planned, she just knew that it would be good.

“So, what other changes would you make?” Don asked me.

I stopped the acting and went into business mode. “I could have a full script of changes ready for you by next Monday.”

He nodded. “You're a hyphen, right, an actor-writer?”

I smiled and corrected him. “Writer-actor. I wrote for a year and a half for
Conditions of Mentality.
We specialized in psychological stories that
moved.
So
Road Kill
is right up my alley.”

“Would you, ah, be wanting screenplay credit?”

I looked at my girl Susan. That was
her
job.

She smiled and said, “Of course.”

Don shook his head and grinned. He said, “Well, my
writer-director
is just going to
love
this.” He was being sarcastic of course. No one liked their creations being messed with. He joked and said, “How about just calling it
Alexis
?”

Susan's eyes popped as wide as a pie, but I declined the idea.

“That would be too much. We want to introduce them to the character first, and when and
if
it does well enough for a sequel, we can call it
Alexis
on the next deal.”

I put my belt back on and proceeded to toot my own horn a bit. I said, “By the way, after reading the script a few more times, your guy seems more like a
director-writer
to me.”

Don said, “And you really think you can pull this off?” He wanted my assurance.

I asked, “Do you have a hard-on behind that desk right now, or at
least
on your mind?”

He laughed again. “Are you sure you don't want to do a comedy instead. You're hilarious!”

I told him, “One flick at a time, Don. Now as soon as you call us up on this role, I can begin toning up my arms and legs and taking lessons to kick ass.”

He looked me over and said, “I see. Well, you're tall enough to be a threat to a man, and you're crafty.
Very
crafty.”

“Well, thank you,” I told him. “That's how
all
women vigilantes have to be. This is a
man's
world, right?” I asked him with a smile.

Susan got in
her
last words before we left. “We'll talk about the figures,”
she told him. “And my Uncle Eddie
loved
your production of
The Gypsy Lover.
He said it was
splendid.
”

Don looked and said, “Oh yeah? Well, tell Edward I said hi, wouldja?”

“Sure.”

When we walked out, I mocked Susan and said, “Uncle Eddie, hunh?”

She grinned and shook her head. “I
hated
to do that, but I had to protect you somehow. I felt desperate.”

“Why?” I asked her. “You didn't think that I did a good job to convince him?”

“Oh, you did a
hell
of a job.
Too
good! That's why I became so nervous,” my girl admitted. “You gave him a lot of new ideas before signing, so now we
have
to get you that role, or they'll figure out a way to use your ideas with someone else. Then I'll have to find a way to take them to court about it, and it would just create a big mess.”

I laughed at the idea. Susan sounded borderline paranoid. Call me cocky, but I figured that the role would be signed and sealed as soon as I turned in the revised script on Monday morning. They may not have agreed to everything, but they
would
agree that my vision would enhance the picture
threefold.

As we climbed back into the car, I said, “I wanted that role, Susan,” and started up my engine.

Susan laughed on our way out and said, “Well, you got it now. I'll make
sure
of that, and I'll be going for the
jugular
with the money.”

“You do that,” I told her. “So, where to now? You have a busy schedule today?”

“No, I'm free until this afternoon, and I'm hungry. Let's do lunch.”

I smiled and asked, “Did your uncle really like that
Gypsy Lover
film?”

Susan smiled back at me. “Actually he did, but I wanted to
save
that line for a rainy day.”

“So, I must have made it rain in there, hunh?” I asked her.

She answered. “Yeah, but you always seem to make it rain, or shine, or
something.
That's just your way with things: the Tracy Ellison Grant mystique.”

I never wrote a line
in my life
strictly
to get paid.

I did it as expressions
of all of the beautiful
sides
of me.

And maybe I will never
even
publish
my poetry.

But if I ever do,
I guarantee
that it won't come
cheaply.

Nevertheless,
is the price you pay
for creativity
the only thing that people see?

Validated
success, that
torturous
irony.

Copyright © 1998 by Tracy Ellison