Over, Around, and Through, Your Highness

DINING ALONE AT the Ivy, in Beverly Hills, renders a suit mighty vulnerable, especially if you happen to be one canonized with sufficient juice to green-light a project. That’s why when the waiter motored over and whispered that the blond little amuse-bouche whose ear I was planning to blow into over gumbo had phoned with an onset of the rams I ordered a quick salad and submerged my visage protectively behind a copy of The Hollywood Reporter. Scarcely had I melded into an article about Universal dickering for the film rights to Mourning Becomes Electra on Ice when I became aware of a hyphenate-shaped nuage adumbrating my roll basket. Glancing up, I came vis-à-vis with the corpulent scrivener slash director whom I dimly recognized as Hugh Forcemeat, a weaver of thirty-five-millimeter hallucinations that our studio had taken a flyer with several years ago, when we hired him to punch up Psychotic Zombies of the Moon, our sequel to Buddenbrooks. More lately, I knew, he’d devolved to the B-list, thanks to a series of screenplays that resulted in product shipped directly to Forest Lawn. Now he existed exclusively via a scholarship good for four Benjamins every Tuesday, which he could siphon simply by answering the questions “Did you work last week? Did you look for work?”

“Just the man I wanna see,” he said, swimming into the vacant space at my booth like a cuttlefish.

“If it’s about the all-midget remake of Shane, our production plate’s a little full,” I said, recalling a treatment recently folded into a taco shell and smuggled past security with some Mexican takeout.

“No, no.” He waved me off. “What I’m here to pitch is a fail-safe little afflatus absolutely guaranteed to rack up box-office numerals measurable only through the Hubble telescope. I was going to produce it myself at Sundance as an indie for forty thousand bucks, but I figured for another sixty-eight million I could do it union.”

Mindful, as a Hollywood executive, that a megahit allowed to slip through the fingers could result in a severance package consisting exclusively of a single crystal of anthracite, I granted Forcemeat a moment to spin his contrivance.

“What’s the greatest love story of the twentieth century?” he asked, his eyes ablaze and so bloodshot they cast a pink glow on my sweater.

“There’s so many,” I suggested. “Anything from Scott and Zelda to Joe D. and Marilyn. Also JFK and Jackie, not to mention Bonnie and Clyde.”

“May I just throw in the Duke and Duchess of Windsor?” he asked, commandeering my Perrier to down two pills of the size used to dope thoroughbreds.

“Jackpot!” I yelped. Here was an idea that not only had Oscar written all over it but could rescue the studio from the Biblical flood of ruby ink irritating our ledgers from epics like Father Simeon’s Drool Cup and Brother Sebastian’s Jowls. “I see Edward VIII smitten,” I enthused. “The agonizing decision of whether or not to give up the throne for an American divorcée. Is his duty to his countrymen or to his heart?” Ordering a napkin with a contract on it that the Ivy keeps for just such spontaneous brainchildren, I fumbled for my Montblanc. “I have the copy line,” I squealed. “Get this: ‘Cupid Versus the Crown.’”

“Except we’re going to leave all that stuff out,” Forcemeat said, loosening the cap on some organic nostrum he toted and swigging it. “But don’t worry, boychik, that’s not the real kernel of the story.” He groped for a few guacamole-stained notes in his pants pocket. “I’ve fabricated some twists and patter limning a narrative that won’t step on the toes of the other moguls who actually own the rights and would no doubt respond with what my lawyer, Nolan Contendere, says is a slam-dunk legal action.”

“Twists? Patter?” I bleated.

“Lamp this,” Forcemeat said, thrusting his presentation into my hands.

I peeked down and read:

Fade in: A huge mansion in Belgravia. Its lavish appointments suggest breeding and refinement. The grand marble staircase hung with tapestries, the priceless Aubusson carpets, the collection of Tang- and Sung-dynasty vases give the place a cozy, lived-in look. We are in the pied-à-terre of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Camera dollies forward to find the Duchess bent over the stove, recipe in hand, sautéing some money. The Duke is resting in the study, having just been measured by his tailor for a vicuña umbrella.

Duchess: Oh, darling, isn’t our life perfection? Ever since you gave two weeks’ notice as head honcho of Wales, resulting in our scandalous nuptials, it’s been an endless cycle of yachting, foxhunting, and dinner engagements. By the way, if Hitler calls, tell him he can find those party favors he liked at Harrods.

Duke (glumly): Umm. Sure.

Duchess: Hey, what is it with you lately, Blue Eyes? You’ve been awash in melancholy for days. Don’t tell me you’ve never completely gotten over the end of truffle season?

Duke (tapping a cigarette gravely on his emerald-encrusted case): I was at my club the other morning fressing up some beluga when for some reason I happened to notice the members’ neckties. The knots that in the past had always seemed quite adequate to me suddenly, for some strange reason, appeared—how shall I put it—rather meagre. I tried to check the bespoke paisley I had on, to see if my own knot was as insubstantial and irrationally laced as theirs, but no matter how far I thrust my chin into my chest my nose obstructed the view. Distraught, I bolted to the mirror, looked between the points of my collar, and realized that my life was a sham.

Duchess: But, Edward, the four-in-hand has been the choice of English gentlemen since Hector was a pup. If I’m not mistaken, directions for its proper making are included in the Magna Carta.

Duke: Suddenly the room began to spin. I broke into a sweat and tore off my necktie, whereupon two gentlemen lifted me up by the arms and deposited me on the curb, as the dining room has a strict dress code.

Duchess: Hmm. Now that you mention it, I believe Adler, an associate of Freud’s, speaks of the panic that some men experience when the under strand of the necktie hangs down longer than the wider outer strand. He links it to fear of castration.

Duke (muttering): I must develop a new knot. Something fuller and more symmetrical. Euclid—must study Euclid …

I looked up from Forcemeat’s little inspiration and, divining where his premise was heading, began to experience a slight stiffening in my spine not unlike the sensation one gets from a dart tipped with curare.

“I see by the dazed expression on your face that you’re hooked,” he said, fixing me with the febrile intensity one sees in photos of the Mahdi. Jamming page 2 into my hand, he exhorted me on.

Cut to months later: A montage of the Duke at work fashioning a variety of knots but without success. The Duchess, trying to busy herself, is practicing the Watusi from a dance diagram laid on the floor.

Duke: I’m lost! I’m lost! For a while I thought the problem resided in the fabric, and so I cast aside all my silk and knit neckwear and had a few ties custom-made of vulcanized rubber. But when I wore one the knot was so bulbous that Jessica Mitford thought I had a goitre. I even employed a group of Portuguese fishermen who hand-weave nets to fashion something for me, but their cravat proved insufficiently stylish, although while strolling by the Thames I did manage to catch four salmon.

Duchess: Albert Einstein phoned and said he could try to show you how to make a bow tie, but since you have limited background in quantum mechanics it probably would not come out. He suggested you try a clip-on, and said that learning to use it would be simpler, especially with your skill in sailing.

Duke: Doesn’t he know my religion forbids that? If I were to wear a clip-on I couldn’t be buried in a Christian cemetery.

Lowering the text, my hypothalamus engulfed by a tsunami of melatonin, I sensed it was time to disengage. Snapping for the check, I began to bail. “I’m a little late,” I offered. “A family of four is being embalmed on one of our reality shows, and I have to check their makeup.”

Forcemeat pleaded that I skim ahead to his climax, which he modestly likened to the last act of King Lear.

“It’s a year later,” he babbled, blocking my egress and grasping my lapels. “The Duke, excavating in Alexandria, comes upon a fragment of papyrus by Isosceles, which gives him a clue to the shape of the knot he’s been seeking. Later, at the Duke’s club, his hoity-toity chums are giving him the business. ‘This lump,’ says one, pointing to Edward’s tie. ‘This humongous triangle, this Windsor knot—’ He gives a big wink, and the joint goes up for grabs, guffawing, except for one member, who’s moved and writes a strong defense of the Duke’s tie. Of course, it is Bertrand Russell. P.S. I already spoke to Leo DiCaprio about the role of Lord Russell, and he loves the idea, provided we can shoot the whole picture at Caesars Palace. And now we fade to black—”

It was at this point that I, too, faded to black. While unconscious, I was told afterward, two men in spotless white appeared, bearing extensive psychiatric credentials and lepidopterology trapping equipment, and bundled Forcemeat into a waiting van. Green-lighting a project like that would have led to too many questions, like: Did you work this week? Did you look for work?