Bowling with the Stars

X!   X!   X!

"Another strike! Nice shot, Harry."

Harry picked up a bowling ball from the ball return and polished it. "It's time for Act Two, Finkie."

"What do you mean, Act Two?"

"In Act One I play this confused guy who sells belts and you play the schmuck who grovels to his Uncle Hershie for his shitty old job back."

"And what's Act Two? L.A.?"

"Why wait till L.A.? Carpe the day."

Harry plucked a twelve pounder from the ball return and bowled...

II         I

"Shit, a split."

His next ball spun and curved down the alley between the pins as if it had a mind of its own. Harry groaned.

"Fucking right, Harry. Let's make it happen now." Finkie approached the ball return and grabbed a fourteen pounder. He fired it down the lane, knocking down nine pins. He nailed the last pin with his second shot.

\ !   \ !   \ !

"A spare! Baby!"

"We're sizzling, baby! Act Two begins now, here in this bowling alley where we open as Hollywood movie producers," Harry said while studying the scoreboard. He was up by twenty points and merrily on his way towards decimating Finkie again.

"So what's the name of our production company?"

"I dunno, it doesn't matter yet."

"It does to me. Let's call it Finkenstar Productions, a name to remember!"

"Finkenstar? Fucken Finkenstar? Sounds like a retarded horror movie - Finkenstar...I'm thinking a name that begins with Star, like...Starbud Entertainment...Stars plus buddies."

"With your name first? Who makes you the boss?"

"Of what, Finkie? This is a bullshit story. We're not really movie producers, at least not yet, we just play them."

"So basically we're impostors, fakes."

"Theoretically. But everyone's fake in Hollywood in one way or another. Look at this from this angle; we're in training for the real thing."

"So this will be our story from now on?"

"Just for people who don't already know us, because...we're from L.A."

Finkie scoped out the bowling alley: The tattooed grease-monkeys bowling in the alley to the right, the doughy big-assed lesbians to the left, hollering and high-fiving in their XXL plaid  flannel shirts. Gord, the emaciated cross-eyed attendant at the bowling-shoes counter picking his nicotine-stained teeth with a Mr. Midas business card; an appointment next Monday at 2:30 pm is scrawled and smudged on the back. Gord's shit-box burps, farts and coughs even more than he does. A scene befitting a weepy country & western song playing on an AM car radio, on a desolate rain-slicked road in an industrial park, two in the morning...And the band's playin" somethin' by Tammy Wynette...Finkie shrugged his shoulders and whined, "One thing though. Why the fuck are we hanging out in a loser bowling alley?"

"Because we like to bowl and we like to slum it. It's the hip thing to do now in L.A." Harry's next shot spun and curved its way down the alley. Another strike!

X!   X!   X!

"Nice shot, Harry...But if we're Hollywood movie producers, why the fuck are we in Montreal?"

Harry slowly waved his outstretched arm around the alley as if he was atop a mountain peak showing the promised land to his people. "We are...scouting for locations...because...because it's cheaper to film here."

"What's the budget?"

"Thirty-five...no, forty million."

"And what's the movie about in case someone asks?"

Harry furrowed his brow in deep thought and rubbed his chin. "It's a story about...about a small-time coke smuggler...who, who fronts as a boot manufacturer."

"Uncle Hershie? He'll fucken kill us if he finds out. That will be our last story. We're dead."

"Don't worry, we won't mention his name...We can call his character...Horny Lorney. I like the idea of a creepy porn-obsessed drug dealer with thick glasses, greasy hair and a Fu Manchu  mustache called Horny Lorney."

"Yeah, but we gotta change the boot factory part. I don't want to fuck around with Hershie, he's fucken psycho. Legend has it that he killed a dude in Morocco."

"Okay, screw that idea. Anyhow we're comedy writers. We're making a comedy."

"How about an Eddie Murphy project! I love Eddie Murphy."

"I once did too, but now he sucks. I'd rather work with Bill Murray. I can identify with him."

"Yeah, Bill Murray's cool, but how do we know him?"

"From our bowling league, duh."

"And?"

"And we bowl with him Wednesday nights, so Bill's like a friend."

"Bill Murray could do that. He says no to most projects, but he has this thing about popping into real lives out of nowhere. He's just crashed parties with regular people all over the place. Or he'll see some people hanging out late at night in a bar or restaurant and join them. We could even say that happened to us, say one night while we were eating pizza at a bowling lane. He read the first page of my script and bought it on site."

"Why do you get to be the writer? I thought we were a team."

"We are, I'm the writer, you're the director and we both produce. We're multi-talented."

"So how much did we get paid for the script?"

"We? I wrote the script, I get the money. You direct the movie for scale. I mean you have no credits if someone checks. But let's not get bogged down with too many details. Remember this is all bullshit anyways. According to my cousin, Joey Prager, the undisputed king of bullshitters, "You gotta keep it simple, keep it vague. And if anyone asks any questions, just tell them it's confidential." And Joey knows what he's talking about. He bullshitted his way into a million-dollar-a-year job on Wall Street with a degree in Industrial Agriculture from MacDonald College. The guy's never told the truth in his whole life. He used to go around telling everyone his mother gave him necking lessons."

"Wasn't that true?"

"Yeah, but his story about starring in a porno flick in Amsterdam was bullshit."

"I always thought you made up that story to get back at him for stealing your girlfriend."

"I did, but the story was bullshit. That's my point."

"Why are you now modeling your life-strategy on a pathological liar like your cousin Joey...although you're not far behind."

"Because bullshit is the only thing that's real anymore! It's the glue that binds the world together. What's Hollywood but one big illusion? The truth is relative, Finkie. Just go ask anyone who's made it. To quote my late Uncle Saul, a wonderful man who made a fortune selling salt that you could eat or use to melt the ice on your driveway during winter, "The more you're full of shit, the more people believe you.""

"You're so full of shit, Harry."

"That's why you believe in me."

"No I don't, but I think this strategy will work...Remember the story I told you about nailing Marvin's big sister, Tracey?"

"Yeah..."

"It was total bullshit."

"No shit! How'd you get her panties, the pair you used to pass around for us to sniff?"

Finkie hung his head in shame. "My sister's."

"And the...uh...authentic scent?"

"Dipped it in a can of tuna."

"Siiick, man! I love it.Together we make an unbeatable team!"

"I think so too, Harry...So what's this movie about? We should at least know something about it."

"Just say it's a comedy about bowling. Don't say anything else other than, 'It's confidential.'"

"Confidential. I like that."

"And when we talk, we say baby a lot. The show biz guys are always, baby this, baby that. Trust me, it's the magic word."

Finkie pointed to an orange ball in the ball return. "I've been eyeing that ten pound baby all night." He plunged his fingers into the holes of the ball but frantically yanked them out in disgust and panic. Finkie dropped the ball on the floor; it almost crushed his right foot. Pungent glops of a mucky brown gloop were smeared all over his dripping fingers. "Ahhhhhhhhh!!!" Finkie howled while sprinting towards the bathroom.

Harry thought it was the perfect opening for Act Two.