The Partnership

Finkie's plan revived Harry, gave him purpose. Now working for the Belt King was just a means to an end, it lost its relevance, it didn't matter. Harry even stopped skimming the cash. So what? It was just money and Harry had socked away plenty.

Meanwhile Harry's role within Shugar Belt expanded when Alvy assigned him the major accounts in Montreal. Not that Harry cared anymore, about the business, about working for Alvy. It all seemed so absurd, so ridiculous, to expend all that energy on something as marginal as belts. Stupid-fucking-strips-of-leather-or-textiles-that-hold-up-your-pants.

What legacy could a legend in the belt world ever hope to leave? Who remembered the inventor of the reversible belt, or the innovator who eliminated stitching with the turned edge, or the commercial genius who made fashion belts accessible to the masses hungry for mid-section couture, when he developed a a revolutionary new material for belts -- recycled leather blended with paper -- and named it bonded leather? Watershed milestones in the history of the belt and yet the visionaries who redefined the modern belt never achieved due recognition for their towering achievements, only indifference from the millions of the Great Unwashed whose lives were enriched from wearing low-priced fashion belts.

Great writers however, went down in history, became cultural benchmarks of eras. Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway. Literary giants won Nobel prizes, became immortal, eternally relevant. And while that may not necessarily apply to television writers, they at least became rich and that was enough for Harry. Writing his Feldman spec script was all that mattered.

But working with Finkie three times a week tested the limits of Harry's patience.  It meant listening to Finkie's rants about:

Uncle Hershie the asshole, whose boot company was really a front for a cocaine smuggling operation.

His father doing time in a South Carolina prison, framed for his master role in an eight million dollar telemarketing scam.

His brother's ex-wife, the insane hippy, who after losing custody of her kids, kidnapped them, fled to whereabouts unknown and went underground.

Why bother making shit up when nothing could compare to a Finkelstein family memoir?


Meanwhile the writing sessions always ended the same when Harry's debilitating migraines called it a night.

It also didn't help matters that Finkie couldn't write a lick. He may have seen every Feldman episode a few times, read every Feldman script he could lay his hands on and known everything that a script needed to have in order to work, but his ideas, which he'd for fight tooth-and-nail, were...oh man...

"Let's give Gary gonorrhea."

"Let's end the scene with Herb farting."

"Let's make Herb and Crabtree gay lovers."

No, no and no.

The only reason Harry kept their partnership alive was because somehow, someway their Feldman spec script about Gary and Herb dating identical twins was actually getting written.

            TERRI

Do I detect a bit of discomfort?

Does it bother you that Herb is

Dating an exact replica of your

girlfriend?

            GARY

Bother me? It should be illegal.

            TERRI

Gary Feldman. I can’t believe you’d

begrudge your best friend a little

ray of sunlight into the black hole

of his existence.

            GARY

Terri, I believe in The Bill of Rights.

I believe that all men are created equal

in the eyes of God. But if Herb Pulaski
is dating my girlfriend’s twin sister, 
than Armageddon must be right around the 
corner.

          

            TERRI

(SMIRKING) Oh, I get it. If you’re

dating twins, by definition, Herb

is doing as well as you. And that

bugs you.

            GARY

(LEANING ACROSS THE TABLE) If Herb

and Jill make it, Herb will have

effectively seen my girl naked. It’s an

invasion of my privacy. He’s breaking

the unwritten code among men.

            TERRI

I thought the unwritten code among

men was, “No eye contact in public

urinals.” Besides, this is George we’re

talking about. He’ll blow it within a week.

            GARY

What if this time the gods smile
on Herb? He’s due, you know.

            TERRI

C'mon, the gods have more sense than
that. (MOCK SERIOUS) But what if he 

made a pact with the devil?

           GARY

(DEAD SERIOUS, CONSIDERING THE
POSSIBILITIES) Yeah, what if?

CUT TO:

END OD ACT l: