Rage
"3"
“Holy fuck, Brian. This is amazing.” Justin looked up at him. “Are they serious?”
Brian actually smiled at that. “That was about what I thought, but it seems that they’re ready to pay you ladies for your idea.”
“This is an actual contract—it’s not even an proposal, it’s an actual honest to shit contract with money and all that stuff spelled out.”
“Legal looked it over and they think, at least at first glance anyway,
that’s it’s legit.” Well, as legit as
They were at the loft, waiting for Michael to show up to have his chance to read the fax that had come in a couple of hours ago at Vanguard. Justin, for possibly the first time in his life wasn’t hungry—too excited to eat and Brian was expecting some major sex later to use up some of the energy he was building up—Hell, it as the least he could do to help the boy.
“OK, they’re offering us having major input into the development of a TV series, live action, probably on one of the cable channels. It will shoot a pilot episode in about six months and the backing is already in place for that. We don’t have casting approval, but we can sit in on all auditions and will have an equal vote. We don’t have director approval, but we will meet any candidates and will have input. We work on the pilot script and I’m the Art Director and will decide the overall look of the series. We own twenty-five percent and get paid for the positions that we’re listed on in the credits.” Justin was just shaking his head. “Shit, Brian, this is incredible.”
Brian came back down from where he was changing his clothes in the bedroom. His suit was gone, bare feet, jeans and wife beater in place.
“They want you and Michael in
“Why
“They are. George and John live just north of SB in a little town called Ojai. It’s up on the coast. It’s supposed to be pretty nice.” He got them each a beer. “They prefer to work out of his home when they can.”
“God, Brian—this is so fucking incredible.”
“They said that you two can stay in a guest house he has behind the main house so there won’t be any hotel expenses. They want to fly you out there next week.”
Justin stopped and looked at Brian. “I have a final next week.”
Brian came over to him by the couch, wrapping an arm around his shoulders from behind and kissing his ear. “You just went to the head of the class, you twat.”
“…Do you really think they’ll let me out? I mean it’s a final and, well, you know…It’s…”
“Justin, Jesus. You’re a second year student who has just been offered a decent contract based on your talent. Fucking PIFA will be using you as their poster boy for Christ’s sake.”
“…You think it will be alright?”
Brian gave him a look, not deigning to answer the obvious, just kissing him on the forehead.
“OK, I guess—does Michael know yet?”
Brian had his jacket in one hand, Justin’s in the other. “He’ll find out when we meet him and Ben for dinner. C’mon.”
They walked into Liberty Diner, taking one of the booths.
“THIS is where we’re eating? Brian, Jesus—I practically eat every meal here, I was hoping for a change.”
Brian looked up from the menu. “If you whine I won’t show you the fax. I swear to God, Mikey, life’s too fucking short to deal with it.” He was wearing his glare. He meant it.
“Sorry, but I was hoping for something like maybe Chinese or Italian or something…”
“Mikey.” The look hadn’t wavered.
“Brian, I hate it when you do that.”
“Michael…do you want me to show you the offer or not?”
“Of course I want you to show me the fucking offer.” He was whining again. And starting to pout. It wasn’t attractive.
Ben and Justin were both beginning to lose their straight faces. It was like watching a cat play with a mouse. There was less than no question who would win this particular game of sparring.
Just then Debbie walked over with her pad in hand. “What can I get for you guys?”
Just in jumped in, always hungry. “Bacon cheese burger, fries, coke—double meat on the burger.”
“You don’t get enough at home? You’re ordering more?” She glanced at Brian, smirking.
Ben went with a salad, Brian with roast chicken and Michael with an omelets—“Ben thinks I eat too much red meat.” That settled, he looked at Brian again who was obviously doing his best to draw this out. “Well, asshole?”
“George and John want you both to sign to a development deal, you’ll have creative input and will assist in the writing. Justin is being listed as Art Director and you’ll both have some say in casting. The pilot hopes to start filming in three months then they’ll shop it around. You’re both supposed to fly out to George’s place this weekend so you can start talking on Monday. He’ll put you up at his place.”
“What’s our cut?”
“Twenty-five percent to split between you, plus salary. Legal looked over the primarily contracts and they’re fine.”
Ben asked Brian, “Will you be going out to the Coast, too?”
“I hadn’t planned to, I’m swamped here and what they’re doing really isn’t my area. We could probably arrange a couple of conference calls to go over whatever needs reviewing and they both know they can call either me or Bob in Legal if they have questions.”
“Are you sure that they’ll be alright out there without someone along?”
Brian shrugged slightly. “Rage is their invention, they know it better than anyone else. They should be able to stand up for themselves if something comes up and they know they have us here as backup if there’s a problem.”
Justin was nodding agreement. “How long are we going to be out there?”
“I don’t know exactly. I’d think a week or two, something like that.” He was still cutting his chicken. “A lot of this can be done by fax or over a computer once you work out the details, at least for now but you have to understand that if you expect to be involved closely with the TV show or whatever comes out of this, you might have to be out there, at least during filming or preproduction—depending on what actual jobs you take on with it.”
Michael stared at him. “You mean we’d have to move to
“Unless they’re filming somewhere else, you probably would, yes, at least part time.”
Michael had that look again. “Jeez, Brian, I don’t know…”
Christ. Michael.
“That’s up to you, you can sign off and let someone else write the thing.”
“God, I can’t do that—it’s mine...and Justin’s” Shit, he was whining again.
Justin’s leg pressed against Brian’s. “Ben, why don’t you talk this over with him and you two can decide what’s right for you. OK?” Ben just nodded. He knew the score here.
“This is Tuesday. They expect you in Ojai by about Saturday or Sunday. Let me know by tomorrow so Cynthia can make the reservations.”
“What about the contracts?”
“They’ll be finalized when you OK the basics we just went over. I have copies for both of you to look at. Let me know by the end of tomorrow, I’ll fax any corrections to them and the final versions should be here by Friday.”
They were almost finished eating by now, Debbie had been hanging around, trying to catch the drift of their conversation but had been too busy to hear what was really going on. She finally just walked over. “So are you all going to tell me what’s going on here? It looks like treaty negations for the fucking UN or something.”
Michael looked like he was about to take another mouthful of glass.
“There are a couple of producers who want to turn Rage into a TV show.
Justin and I are supposed to fly to
He got up, ready to leave. “Michael! Sit the fuck down and tell me all the hell about it—Jesus, this is great!”
He rolled his eyes in that Michael way he had. “I just did, now will you let me go, please?” He stood up, pushed past her and headed out the door, with a look at Brian and Justin, he followed, contract in hand.
She turned back to Brian who was just sitting there, watching the small family drama. He’d been watching them for years.
“This has your fingerprints all over it. What did you do this time?” She was staring at him, hands on hips.
“I didn’t do a fucking thing other than have a lawyer at work read over the contracts and run the fucking conference calls. Cut me a Goddamned break here.”
“I’ll bet. You stand to gain something here or you wouldn’t be doing this.”
Justin stood up to go, to, putting his jacket on. “Deb, really. Brian has been helping us sort through the offer—he even checked out this guy and his partner and everything. He’s just trying to help.”
Debbie looked doubtful, but slightly mollified. “So why was Michael so upset?”
“He’s upset that we have to go out to
“You mean he might have to move out there?”
Brian knew how the woman felt about that. He spoke quietly to her. “It’ll only be temporary, even if it hits, Deb and the chances are that it won’t be picked up anyway. It’s too far from the mainstream to sell.” He was about to go when he turned back. “He’ll be back in a couple of weeks, tops. Don’t worry.”
She tried to smile at him, but didn’t believe that he was telling the truth.
Out in the car, Justin asked, “Brian? Do you really think it’s too far from the mainstream to sell? They wouldn’t fly us out there if they thought that, they wouldn’t waste the money.”
“What the fuck do I know? I’m in advertising.”
They punched in the door code, walked into the elevator, closed the gate and pushed the buttons. “You’re a good businessman and you know what sells.”
Justin put his key in the door, slid it open.
Brian took off his jacket, hung it over one of the bar chairs. “I think it doesn’t have a chance on a network, but there might be a market on one of the cable stations—HBO or Showtime or something along those lines. Even if it gets picked up there, it’ll have to be on late, after ten or the Bible Belt won’t stand for it.”
Justin seemed deflated. “Well, shit—then what’s the point?”
“The point is that it might pick up a target audience and if it can run for a couple of years you’ll have residuals and might be able to go more mainstream with it.” He started to take off his shirt. “Besides, gay is in now. We’ve become PC.”
Justin still looked disappointed. “You don’t think it will be a success?”
Brian got a couple of beers from the fridge. “I think it’s
a long shot but the worst that can happen is that you learn something and
get a free trip to
The light was blinking on the answering machine. The first message was from Cynthia, telling them that she had gotten them the tickets for Saturday, that they would be flying to LAX then connect to Banta Barbara and that George said that he would meet them at the airport there. They should be at Pittsburgh International by ten AM Saturday and that the reservations were e-tickets and that she would give Brian the confirmation numbers the next day at the office.
Oh, and the contracts had to be faxed back—or any changes would have to be noted, by the next afternoon so that the final contracts could be overnighted for signing.
“Shit, Brian, this is really happening.”
Justin looked like a kid who was just told that he was going to sleep away camp and was scared shitless at the prospect. Brian put his arms around the smaller man, as had become their habit when something was wrong. “You’ll be fine, you’ll knock ‘em dead.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“What’s the problem.”? He pulled back to look at his face.
“I have to room with Michael.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Michael 24/7?”
Brian got a mental picture, all too clearly. “Fuck me.”
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