Free Blue Movie by Terry Southern Page B

the happy darkies bring in the crop—‘Yessuh, ah can tell a field nigra from a house nigra as fah as ah can see him!’ Daughter flips out, goes to Morocco, fucks every spade in sight.”
    “Beautiful,” said Tony, “beautiful.” He dropped his bag abruptly and collapsed on the couch. “Man, those chicks wiped me out. . . . Gimme some Scotch, will you, Sidney . . . whatta town— wow.”
    Big Sid beamed as he moved to the bar, on tiptoe, almost clucking like a mother hen protective of the brood—because now it was happening, the magic had started, the weird creative thing, the Great Mystery . . . one minute, no story—the next, a smash-fucking hit! God was in his heaven and all was right in Sid Krassman’s world.

4
    W ORKING STRAIGHT THROUGH three days and nights—aided by the judicious use of vitamin B-12 injections, stoutly laced with speedy amphetamine—Boris and Tony were able to come up with a script, or at least enough of one to show to the departments concerned: Art (for the sets and the props), Wardrobe (for the costumes), and Casting (for the extras), and for them, in turn, to submit an estimate of the cost. In this way, eventually, would the film’s above-the-line budget be determined—“above-the-line” meaning the cost not counting the actors.
    The budget breakdown and a rough schedule were most important to Sid, because he was still wheeling and dealing in getting the money together—although with Angela Sterling committed to the picture, this was largely academic, simply a matter of accepting the best proposition. He was talking to the Coast about ten times a day—very often with Les Harrison, whose overwhelming anxiety these days was an imminent meeting with Dad and the New York stockholders, at which time he would have to divulge the fact that their principal asset, Angela Sterling, was making a film in which they had no participation—especially awkward since the chairmanship had been virtually given to him as a result of his “absolute personal assurance” to the board that Metropolitan Pictures had her exclusively.
    “Well, for Chrissake, Sid,” he kept shouting on the phone, “at least tell me what the picture’s about! I can’t ask for a million and a half if I don’t know what the picture’s about! What the hell’s it about, Sid!?!”
    “Well, I’ll tell you, Les,” said Sid, sounding very serious, “I’d say it’s about . . . oh, let’s see, I’d say it’s about, er, uh, ninety minutes! Haw-haw-haw! How does that grab you, Les?”
    “You son of a bitch! Have you forgotten that Dad gave you your first goddamn job?!?”
    This caused Sid to go wide-eyed with indignation. He began pounding the desk and shouting. “Job!?! Job!?! You mean he gave me the first shit-end of the stick I ever got, that’s the job he gave me! He beat me for two-and-a-half points of gross, that’s what he did! The old bastard is still making money off Sid Krassman!” Having put this last notion actually into words seemed to give it a reality it might not otherwise have had, and Sid was overcome by the sheer monstrosity of it. “He’s . . . he’s a criminal,” he stammered, then recovered, shouting again, “and you can both go fuck yourself!” And he slammed down the phone, just as Boris came in. “Can you imagine the nerve of that rat prick Les?” he demanded, pointing at the phone, “telling me old man Harrison give me my first job! When the fact is he stole my two and a half percent of the gross!”
    Boris lay down on the couch. “Poor Sid,” he sighed, “always living in the past.”
    “I told him to go fuck himself, B., I swear to God I did.”
    Boris rested the back of one hand over his closed eyes. “You did, huh?”
    “Beach Ball,” Sid reminisced, “cost four-ten, grossed six million. I’d be a rich man if it wasn’t for that old cocksucker.”
    “I want to use Arabella for the lez,” said Boris. “Can you get her?”
    “Huh?”
    “The picture, Sidney,”