Sid.
“And had a three-million-dollar budget?” Boris continued. “How do you think it would look then?” he insisted of the girl.
She glanced from one to the other, wondering if they weren’t surely putting her on.
“Well, gosh, I don’t know,” she admitted. “. . .I mean, you’d actually show . . . you know, show his thing—I mean, going in and out and everything, like in the ones we saw?”
“Yes, do you think that could be beautiful?”
The darling girl seemed to gulp slightly. “Well, gosh, I . . . I really . . .”
“Or to put it another way,” interjected gross Sid, “would you be interested in the role?”
“Wait a minute, Sid,” said Boris, “I’m not saying that you can’t use inserts there—I mean, in the close-ups, on the . . . on the cock, where you show, uh, penetration . . . I’m not saying you can’t use doubles there. I mean, it’s something I haven’t thought through yet.”
The girl, obviously sympathetic to anything either of them might suggest, was troubled. “But how could you get the film . . . well, you know, how could you get it shown anywhere . . . I mean, it’s against the law, isn’t it, a film like that?”
“Aw well, you’re missing the point, baby,” said Sid brusquely, “I mean that’s the whole idea, to spend three million dollars on a film and then never show it. Don’t you think that’s sort of cute?”
“Well, gosh . . .”
She was at a loss to continue, but reprieve came with the lurching arrival of matinee idol Rex McGuire, whacked out of his skull. He was half crying and half laughing; and while it is unlikely that he was actually wearing makeup at this hour, his face was so strangely tan that the two separate streams of tears seemed to be etching furrows down each cheek. In any case, it was a grand job of weeping, thesp-wise.
“Hi guys,” he said in the sepulchral tones of the New York stage; there was almost no discernible connection between his drunkenness and his voice control as he stumbled slightly then leaned over to support himself on one arm against the rail of the terrace.
“Hey, you know what that bastard Rat Prick Harrison just said? Go on, guess what he just said.”
“That you were pissed?” hazarded Sid.
Penny Pilgrim twittered nervously, thinking what a daring thing to say to Rex McGuire, but the latter was quite impervious. “Well, you know this thing we’re doing, it was supposed to be a three-way co-production —I mean, me and him and the director were supposed to have an equal say about everything. Democratic, right? Handshake deal, right? Good faith, right? Right. Okay, so Rat Prick Les has got this little cunt he wants to use in the picture—tests her, she’s lousy, he still wants to use her. So we argue back and forth, I don’t want her, Allen don’t want her, but he still wants her. Finally we say to him, ‘Sorry, Les, but, well, it looks like the vote is two to one against you.’ And he just smiles and shakes his head. ‘No, boys,’ he says, ‘it isn’t two to one . . . it’s one to nothing. ’ So now we’re going to use this lousy little cunt, and it’s going to fuck up the whole picture! How do you like that for a dirty rat-prick trick?!?”
Sid shook his head solemnly. “Gower Street is paved with the bones of guys who thought it was two to one against the Rat Prick.”
“What’s the girl’s name,” Penny wanted to know, “the girl who did get the part?”
“Name?” Rex howled like a wounded Lear. “She has no name! Her name is Lousy Little Cunt, that’ s her name! That is actually her name! Incredible, isn’t it? I mean how is that going to look in lights?” He turned, facing the rest of the terrace, and moved his outstretched arm in a dramatic sweep to define an imaginary marquee. “Night Song,” he intoned gravely, “starring Rex McGuire and Lousy Little Cunt!”
“Maybe she’ll get top billing,” said Sid.
“That’s right!” yelled Rex with hysterical glee,
Maggie Ryan, Blushing Books