Authors: Seth Greenland
The Bones
Praise for The Bones
"Witty, sharp and surprisingly engaging . . . It takes a fairly manic imagination to come up with an animatronic walrus in
the first place, and it takes real talent—and something like compassion—to get the reader to care about the guy who's riding
it . . . Greenland has serious skills."
—
Washington Post
"Here's a novel to unite America."—
Baltimore Sun
"Greenland's touch recalls Carl Hiassen: eviscerating; yet strangely tender."—
Village Voice
"A fun romp with some simple lessons about taking risks and unmasking your pain."—
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Greenland is chucklably witty in dozens of passages, alive to verbal music, rhythmically gifted, and exceedingly knowing
in skewering his fellow show folk."—
Seattle Weekly
"Greenland's wickedness and his pungent observations render the familiar fresh and entertaining . . . tart, amusing . . .
quite gratifying."
—
New York Newsday
"The relationship between Frank and Lloyd is one of the book's finest surprises; sometimes idol and idolater, sometimes bitter
enemies, sometimes partners in crime—literally—their bond is always fresh, always interesting, and never what would you expect."—
Daily Californian
"An on-point spoof that validates everything you thought was ridiculous about L.A."—
Black Book
"A darkly funny tale set at the corner of Hollywood and Whine . . . Seth Greenland will probably earn a new legion of admirers,
even among the Hollywood types he has skewered with such perfect pitch."—
Buffalo
News
"The Bones
is a genuine, unabashedly old-school Hollywood romp, with enough insider references to keep even the cagiest entertainment
aficionado clawing the carpet. The novel evokes the classic glitzoid rough-and-tumbles of Nathanael West and the great Terry
Southern. Like West and Southern, the author packs a weird genius for finding the single most lamentable detail in any scene.
Greenland owns the rare—and for a reader, profound—ability to suffuse his most disturbing evocations with love for the very
show business tropes he loathes the most."—
-Jerry Stahl, author of I,
Fatty and Permanent Midnight
"Greenland's showbiz evisceration is so cynical, it makes
Curb Your Enthusiasm
seem like Barney."—
Philadelphia Inquirer
"A pitch-perfect setup of Hollywood's endemic self-importance . . . brilliantly acid narrative . . . the book's pace is fast,
furious and fun . . . the pace of this raucous thrill ride never slackens."—
Publishers
Weekly
(starred review)
"Greenland takes readers on an entertaining, behind-the-scenes tour of sitcoms and their socially maladroit, dyspeptic creators."—
Booklist
"The Bones
overflows with a wicked wit, gallows humor, heavy ache, and a survivor's perspective on an industry that can kill its creators'
souls while tickling audiences' funny bones."—
Pages
The Bones
A Novel
Seth Greenland
BLOOMSBURY
For Susan
Copyright © 2005 by Seth Greenland
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission from
the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews. For information address
Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers
All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products
made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes
conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Greenland, Seth.
The bones : a novel / Seth Greenland.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-59691-987-7
1. Comedians—Fiction. 2. Comedy programs—Fiction. 3. Television
authorship—Fiction. 4. Self-destructive behavior—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R3952B66 2005
813'.54—dc22
2004016084
First published in the United States by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2005
This paperback edition published in 2006
13579108642
Typeset by Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed in the United States of America
by Quebecor World Fairfield
CONTENT
Frank Bones is pissing on the world.
From the fifth-floor window of the Elysium Theatre dressing room in downtown Cleveland, his eyes, bloodshot behind dark glasses,
follow the stream of urine as it arcs gracefully and splashes five stories down where it lands in the backseat of a red convertible.
Pleased with his aim, he lifts the bottle of tequila he's holding and takes a celebratory swig.
He's dressed head to toe in black, not having received the fashionista fatwa proclaiming its obsolescence, junior high school
girls wearing all black these days. Tight black jeans, black belt with small silver buckle, black silk long-sleeved shirt,
the whole ensemble saying I'm forty-four years old but I rock all night. Not rock literally, since Frank isn't a musician,
but rock in the sense that he can still have lots of sex with multiple partners and no day gig.
The door opens and Lou Nova, the guy promoting tonight's show, steps into the small room. Frank turns to Lou, lurching a little,
the tequila evening out in his stomach. Adjusts his gyroscope and straightens his back. Tilts focus from the promoter's gut,
barely contained by his too snug satin tour jacket, up to his pudgy, middle-aged face with its attempt-at-hipster stubble
to his thinning hair pulled back into a short, greasy ponytail. Taking in the whole picture. Frank's voice rumbles up from
his insides, over his tongue, and through his lips, from which it emerges in full snark.
"Guy's gonna regret leaving his top down."
Frank doesn't want to be in Cleveland, backstage at the Elysium Theatre with this man he hopes he'll never see again. He wants
to be back in Los Angeles at his West Hollywood bungalow, in bed, under the covers, alone. Well, not alone, exactly. He'd
enjoy the company of a bottle of tequila, like the one he is holding right now in Cleveland, the one making the ordeal his
road life has become bearable. "Frank, five minutes," says Lou.
Frank looks out the window, feeling the humid June air fat in the room. To Lou:
"All the cars in the parking lot are Japanese. Why is that?"
"Maybe you wanna drink some coffee."
"Don't need coffee. It's showtime."
Lou shrugs, inebriated performers nothing new. He grabs Frank by the arm and steers him out of the dressing room into the
hallway. Frank takes a billfold from his pocket, peels off an oily five and hands it to Lou as the two of them move toward
the stage.
"Camel filters, Lou. I'm trying to lower the nicotine intake. Kind of on a health kick."
"You remember your set?"
Frank, pointing to his head, nods sagely. "It's all right here."
The Elysium Theatre: vaudeville to jazz to rock to punk to hip-hop. Seats two thousand people when the balcony's open and
they don't drop a curtain behind row RR. Tonight, maybe eight hundred ticket buyers in the place. Frank and Lou stand at the
side of the stage. The audience hums in the background, anticipating an evening of mirth with America's number one bad-boy
comedian.
"You okay, Frank?"
No response, he's concentrating. Over the PA comes the voice of someone who sounds like the Bible: "Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Frank Bones!"
"They're waiting." Lou gesticulates toward the stage, Frank's commitments, his life.
"How's my hair look?"
Not waiting for an answer, Frank, talking to everyone like they're an audience, all questions rhetorical, strolls onstage.
The spotlight hits him like a truck, slams through his dark glasses, his already shrunken pupils contracting to a degree barely
measurable by precise optical equipment. Big applause, which Frank does not acknowledge. Not that he doesn't appreciate it,
he's just preoccupied. Steps to the mic. Takes it off the stand. Hoods his eyes with his hand.
His opening line—
Lou, where are those Camel filters?
They laugh because they're supposed to. Paid $25.50 to $45.50, plus a handling charge, to be here and this guy's a comic so
they laugh. Even though Frank is dead serious, the nicotine craving baying at the moon. Frank looks over at Lou, who shrugs,
thinking he's joking, being a comedian. Annoyed, Frank turns to the audience.
Good evening, Detroit.
Someone shouts, "You're in Cleveland!"
Not if I can help it.
Frank's comeback is received with laughter and jocular booing. He squints into the electric sun searing his eyes from the
balcony. Moves to the right, as if that will get him away. The beam follows him, an escapee scuttling along the prison wall.
Could you turn up the light, please? I feel like I'm lying on an operating table and a thousand doctors are getting ready
to boost my kidney.
He waits. The crowd shifts. The light is adjusted slightly.
That's better. Now it just feels like I'm having LASIK surgery. How is everybody tonight?
The audience members, knowing their part in the ritual, join their voices to create a swell of approval for this man, this
avatar, this comedy deity beamed in from Los Angeles to make them forget their troubles—come on, get happy for the next hour.
Frank peers at them through the wall of lights, sees fat people stuffed into too tight T-shirts, bad skin, trowel-applied
makeup, big hair, bad hair, awful facial hair, dreadful clothes, porcine faces rank with pent-up frustrations exacerbated
by dead-end jobs, looking up at him in smiling anticipation, all desperately in need of release. He feels sick. Surges forward.
The show must flow on.
I'm not feeling too good myself. You know why? Because black people are really steamed and they're steamed because whitey
is always ripping them off. The stereotype is the reverse, you know, it's the black guy in the Kangol hat running down the
street with the television set he's just looted
—
but it's not true.
Elvis stole rock 'n'
roll from black people but Elvis gets the credit. He gets the statues. He gets Elvis soap and Elvis shampoo. The guy steals
rock 'n'
roll from black people, OD's on fried peanut-butter sandwiches, then dies facedown on the bathroom floor in a pool of his
own vomit and the white man
—
that's us, ladies and gentlemen, guys and gals
—
the white man puts him on a postage stamp!
They like where that one went, laughing as they arrive at the destination.
I say that as the poster child for Acquired White Guilt Syndrome, which I've been suffering from since the 1960s. I'm thinking
about having a telethon. Everyone in the business is going to have to perform so pretty much everyone's . .
.
And here Frank's brain blips, trips, skips a beat. He narrows his eyes, trying to remember where he is. What are all these
people doing in my living room? he wonders. Then he recalls, maintaining equanimity.
You ever lick an Elvis stamp? Tastes like Vicodin.
Big laugh, drug references cheap and dependable.
I
want to be a postage stamp. I want the whole world licking my ass.
Most of the audience follows Frank, already forgetting he dropped a thought in midsentence, left it hanging, twisting like
a seventeenth-century felon on a creaky gibbet. They're relating to the Elvis material but feeling slightly ambivalent about
the white guilt premise; this being a crowd of paychecks who work too hard to worry about what Elvis did or didn't help himself
to at the smorgasbord of African-American culture. But there's one guy, there's always one, who's taking exception to Frank's
surprisingly lucid train of thought. He's in his thirties, a Chicago Black Hawks hockey jersey draped over narrow nonhockey
shoulders.
"Elvis didn't steal it!"
He's the Heckler. Too much alcohol and now he wants to be part of the show, make his friends laugh, hunt a story for the office
or the factory floor, Frank Bones paid attention to me.
Frank thinking, Christ on a cracker, just let me get through my set.
I work alone, pal.
Wanting to go easy, not eviscerate him like a fat bass, flesh on one side of the dock, bones, as it were, on the other. But
the guy won't leave it.
"Take back what you said!"
Or what?
Rising to the challenge, the atavistic comedy urge to destroy kicking in.
You're gonna come up here and instruct me on the finer points of Elvis's many diverse musical influences?
The trap laid, the fish biting, the cotton high.
"I'll come up there and kick your ass."
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Raising the ante.
Turn on the houselights.
After a moment the lights come on and Frank stares into the crowd.
What death-wish motherfucker said that?
The guy stands up as audience members jeer him. He's four red-white-and-blue cans of Pabst tall boys into the evening, and
his friends, at once mortified and titillated, egg him on.
"I did, Bones. You ain't shit." Said with a laugh, not angry, the guy just drunk, having fun.
With what he imagines to be great savoir faire, the kind that comes from being truly and righteously stoned, Frank produces
a revolver from his pocket—yes, a sidearm, a gun, a gat—and aims cool cylindrical metal at Hockey Jersey. The crowd isn't
sure if this is a joke, some surrealist attempt to carry them to new and more dangerous heights of amusement, Duchamp with
a microphone, Comedian Descending a Staircase. Some think it's part of the show, Frank testing the limits again. A man in
seat
GG
108, manager of a Foot Locker store in Parma, begins to experience heart palpitations.
You know the only thing I hate more than Elvis? And I'm talking about the post—Ann-Margret period 'cause everything he did
until then was cool even if he stole it from the brothers . . . the only thing I hate more than fat, bloated, Nixon-hugging,
white rhinestone jumpsuit Elvis are his fuckin' fans.
Hockey Jersey can't contain himself and the Pabsts are talking. "You're gonna wish you hadn't said that!"
Really?
Frank squeezes the trigger, firing the gun into the ceiling, once, twice, three times; plaster flakes and falls like dry,
lead-encrusted snow from the sky as everyone dives for cover under the seats, their fear mixed with old chewing gum.
Frank is a lot harder to book after that.