Lost Shows
Lee Goldberg
I collect old TV series. The cliché about guys like me is that we are morbidly obese, have bad skin, never get laid, and live in our mother’s basement, surrounded by DVDs and videotapes, jerking off to that famous poster of Farrah Fawcett. There’s a lot of truth to that, but thankfully none of it applies to me. I’m physically fit, enjoy as much sex as I’d like, and I have a nice, secluded home of my own with a state-of-the-art theater capable of screening shows in any format. I do have that poster of Farrah Fawcett, signed by her and framed on my bedroom wall, but so far I’ve resisted the urge to jerk off in front of it.
As a collector, I’m only interested in lost shows, scripted series that lasted only an episode or two or, better yet, were produced but never aired. For example, back in 1963, Robert Taylor and George Segal starred in a series called 330 Independence Avenue about special agents for the department of health. Four episodes were shot for NBC and were never broadcast. I have them.
To find these rarities, I go to The Talent, the actors, writers or directors who made the lost shows. They are the ones who are the most likely to have the film or video that I’m looking for, or know where it might be, if it even still exists. But that’s not the only reason I go to them. My collection wouldn’t be complete without someone to tell me the stories nobody else knows about the shows nobody remembers.
Some collectors go to autograph shows or the back alleys of the internet to find what they want. I go to the Motion Picture and Television Hospital and Country Home in Woodland Hills, California. A lot of elderly actors, writers, directors, production designers and other industry people live there and those who don’t will stop by to see their primary care physician for check-ups and referrals.
Years ago, before they put a wall around the property and added a guard gate, I would wander the grounds looking for talent, or I’d sit on a bench at the hospital’s front entrance and wait to see who’d show up. Julius Harris, the big black actor who played the hook-handed bad guy in the James Bond film Live and Let Die, spent his days on a bench there, greeting visitors, until he dropped dead. Now his name is etched on the bench. It’s his final credit.
These days I go to the shopping center that’s across the street from the MPTV Home. I’ll get there around 11 a.m. and find a seat on the patio that’s shared by Starbucks, Subway, and a pizza joint. It gives me a good view of The Talent wandering over from the home, or taking the golf-cart shuttle, to do their shopping. I once saw an ancient actor, who’d primarily played priests, rabbis and popes on TV, come doddering out of the CVS with a big box of Depends and a pack of ribbed condoms in the basket of his walker. I’m not sure whether he was eternally hopeful or tragically nostalgic.
∗ ∗ ∗
It was almost 12:30, and I was at my usual outdoor table, finishing an over-priced cup of Starbucks coffee, when a BMW exited the MPTV property, cut straight across Mulholland, and drove into the shopping center. The car parked in the handicapped spot in front of the patio and a woman in a halter-top and skinny jeans got out of the driver’s side. I guessed she was in her thirties, but it was hard to be sure. She’d been under the knife too many times. Her face and body had a lot of sharp angles and no curves. She reminded me of one of those rock’em-sock’em robots I had as a kid, only with breasts. I know I’m dating myself with that reference, but I’m a guy who does a lot of his living in our cultural past.
She marched around to the passenger side of the car, wrestled a folding walker out of the back seat, and set it up while the old man in the front passenger seat rolled down the window, opened his door, and used the windowsill for support as he tried to stand. That’s when I got a good look at his sunken face, the chapped lips around his piano-key teeth, and the scattered tufts of grey hair poking out like weeds on his age-spotted head.
I instantly recognized him. He was Buddy Dinino, a character actor who’d guest-starred in hundreds of TV shows, from Gunsmoke to Diagnosis Murder, over a career that had spanned fifty years. He’d started out playing the angry young man, bucking authority, before getting typecast as a bad guy. He showed up in every series Quinn Martin, Aaron Spelling, and Stephen J. Cannell ever produced until they died and took his career with them.
Buddy wore a loose-fitting track suit, which was ironic, since he had trouble just getting to his feet from the car.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” the woman said, in a tone of voice that not only conveyed her frustration, but also the cosmic unfairness she was forced to endure each day. She grabbed him under the arms, lifted him up with ease, and placed him behind the walker. “Can’t you do anything for yourself? Now you’ve aggravated my sciatica. I’ve got a shooting pain from my ass to my toes.”
“I could’ve stayed in the car.”
“So you can shit on my leather seats again? The hell with that.”
Buddy hobbled along slowly, leaning heavily on his walker, toward the nearest table. “It wasn’t my fault that time, Dora. You said you’d be gone for five minutes. You were in the nail salon for an hour.”
“It’s always about you. How about thinking about someone else for a change?” Dora pointed a finger at a table. “Stay here while I get us lunch.”
He lowered himself into a chair. “I’m not hungry.”
“There you go. Me, me, me. Did it occur to you that I might be hungry? That I have needs? Of course not. You think that taking you to your doctor’s appointment is the highlight of my day. I could have been on my Peloton.”
Dora shook her head and marched past me into the Subway. Buddy slouched in a chair, the walker in front of him, and picked idly at one of the many scabs on his arms. His skin was dry, taut, and almost translucent.
He’d nearly become a star back in 1975. He was cast as the lead in Pete McShane, a TV series about a Vietnam vet, physically and mentally scarred by the war, who becomes an unlicensed PI and struggles to fit back into a society that would rather forget him. Four and a half episodes were produced before CBS got cold feet and canceled the show without even airing it. Instead they put on Switch, starring Robert Wagner as a conman and Eddie Albert as a retired cop who team up as private eyes. Buddy guest-starred in an episode as a Vietnam vet who kills hookers. I always wondered if that was an intentional fuck-you from CBS.
I picked up my empty coffee cup and approached him.
“Mr. Dinino? I’m sorry to disturb you, but I had to say hello. I’m a huge fan.”
Buddy looked up at me, baffled. “You know me?”
I often get that reaction. Nobody ever recognizes The Talent that I’m interested in.
“Of course I do. I’ve seen everything you’ve ever done, except Pete McShane, of course. I’d love to see that show.”
Buddy shook his head. “The only TV you can see that on is mine.”
My pulse instantly jacked up. I tried to keep my voice steady, nonchalant. “So you have the show?”
Buddy looked past me and his eyes widened in fear. “Give me something to sign, quick.”
All I had was my cup, so I handed it to him, then reached into my coat pocket and gave him a pen. That’s when I sensed the woman coming up behind me.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dora snapped.
I turned, and gave Dora my most winning smile. She gripped the top of a Subway bag in her fist and glared at Buddy, who was writing on my cup with a shaky hand. I wondered if his shaking was palsy or fear.
“Giving a fan an autograph,” he said.
“You don’t work for free.”
“It’s an autograph.”
“It’s work.” Dora faced me and held out her hand, palm up. “That will be twenty bucks.”
Her demand startled me. “What?”
“That’s what Buddy charges for an autograph, or did you think you could just take advantage of a crippled, senile, incontinent old man?”
Buddy winced with shame when Dora said “incontinent” and she saw it, too, and that sparked a wicked little gleam in her eyes. It made me want to punch her in the stomach. But instead I reached into the pocket of my slacks, took out my Louis Vuitton wallet, and handed her a crisp twenty dollar bill.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Now you do.” She shoved the bill into her pocket, grabbed Buddy roughly by the forearm, and lifted him to his feet. “Let’s go.”
She practically dragged Buddy and his walker back to the car. I picked up the cup and pen that he’d left behind on the bench. There was an inscription on the cup. Two words written in light, quivering cursive:
Help me.
While Dora loaded Buddy and his walker into her BMW, I walked casually out to my comfortable and dependable Toyota Camry and got inside. I jotted her license plate number on the cup, started my engine, and waited for her to pull out.
And then I followed her.
∗ ∗ ∗
Dora led me about five miles north to a sun-bleached Canoga Park neighborhood of little low-slung stucco-box homes on a pot-holed street with cracked sidewalks and overgrown trees. The cookie-cutter homes were mass-produced in the 1950s and had ranch-style façades with birdhouses built into the pointed eaves above their garages. I’m sure lots of people have lived in those homes, but not a single bird.
Dora parked in the driveway of the worst-kept home on the street. The front yard was dry, hard dirt. The house’s weather-beaten, wooden façade was cracked and peeling and the stucco everywhere else looked like it had been painted with a coat of piss. A black tarp was stretched over part of the roof and a loose corner flapped in the breeze. The windows were barred and the front door was behind an iron-mesh screen. The security precautions struck me as ridiculous, given the condition of the house. What thief would hit that dump?
I parked mid-block, jotted down the address on the coffee cup and watched what happened.
Dora got the walker out of the car, opened the front passenger door for Buddy, then trudged up to the house to unlock the front screen and the door behind it. Buddy wasn’t moving fast enough, so she marched back to the BMW, grabbed him with one hand and the walker with the other, and dragged them both into the house. She came out a moment later and slammed the front door behind her. And then she did something unusual. She locked the front door and the screen door from the outside, as if there was nobody home. That’s when I realized the bars weren’t there to keep anybody out.
They were there to keep Buddy in.
She backed out of the driveway and sped off.
I was right behind her.
∗ ∗ ∗
Dora drove a few miles west to a 1990s-era, Spanish-Colonial tract home in West Hills that overlooked Valley Circle Boulevard and another tract home community on the opposite ridge. There was a Mercedes, Audi, Porsche or a BMW in every driveway. There must have been a rule in the CC&Rs that required residents to own and display German cars.
She got out of her car and was greeted at the front door of the house by a guy who had to be twenty years younger and two inches shorter than her. He wore a tank-top and gym shorts to show off the muscles he’d built up to compensate for his puny height and, perhaps, other physical shortcomings. He kissed her, slapped her granite ass, and they went inside. He probably went straight to the freezer to put ice on his sore hand to keep it from swelling.
I jotted down their address and drove back to my office.
∗ ∗ ∗
I own a small three-person accounting and business management firm in Calabasas, in an office building about a block away from the MPTV Home, which is one reason why I can spend so much time stalking the place. Most of my clients are in the entertainment industry in some form or another. We do their taxes, pay their bills, and when they die, we often handle the financial affairs for their estates. I know all about the residuals and retirement benefits provided by the trade unions and guilds. Buddy Dinino had a couple hundred acting credits and was certainly fully vested in his pension plan. He had to be making enough money each month from residuals, his pension and social security to afford a better place to live than the dump in Canoga Park.
Between my contacts at SAG, AFTRA and Actors Equity, and my membership in several background-check websites, it only took me an hour to learn the details of Buddy Dinino’s situation.
Dora was the daughter of Buddy’s third wife, a former Vegas stripper, who was killed ten years ago in a car accident that left him with a broken hip, broken collar bone, and a perforated kidney. That’s when Buddy, who had no children of his own, gave his step-daughter Dora power-of-attorney to handle his affairs.
The home in West Hills and the BMW were both in Buddy’s name. All of his residuals and pension benefits went directly to Dora, who controlled his bank accounts and had repeatedly refinanced Buddy’s house to withdraw the equity.
The munchkin with muscles was Floyd Dettmer, a self-proclaimed “personal trainer to the stars,” who owned the Canoga Park home and was renting it to Buddy for three times the market value. Floyd had been arrested a few years earlier for assaulting a previous girlfriend but the charges were dropped.
Buddy was obviously the couple’s ATM machine and he’d keep giving them cash even after he was dead. It was a sweet deal for them, but not so great for Buddy.
Fortunately for him, he had Pete McShane.
I prepared and printed out the necessary paperwork, grabbed my notary kit, and drove out to Canoga Park.
∗ ∗ ∗
I walked along the side of Floyd’s house toward the backyard. The windows were in lousy shape, their wood frames peeling and cracked. The bars could probably be opened from the inside without much effort. But Buddy was in no shape to make the effort, or to climb out, and had nowhere to go even if he could. Dora was legally in charge of his life.
The backyard was all dirt and weeds. There was a single chaise longue, the sun-cracked cushion covered with rat droppings. An oasis.
I could hear voices from a television. The sliding glass door to the family room was open behind iron bars. I walked over and looked inside. Buddy was sitting in an old, vinyl recliner, his walker in front of him, watching Garage Sale Mysteries on Hallmark. I felt like I was looking at an animal in a zoo exhibit: Old character actor in his natural habitat.
“Hello, Buddy,” I said softly.
He jerked in his seat and twisted around to face me. “Who are you?”
“Your biggest fan. We met this afternoon. I paid twenty dollars for an autographed cup.”
Buddy leaned forward, held his hand like a visor over his eyes, and squinted at me. He recognized me now. “You almost gave me a heart attack, though that might’ve been a blessing. What are you doing here?”
“I read your inscription and I’m ready to help.”
Buddy shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that. Forget it. Go away. There’s nothing you can do for me.”
“I can free you from Dora and Floyd and give you your life back.”
He gripped his walker, and pulled himself up to his feet. “What do you know about them?”
“I know your entire situation.”
“And you can get me out of it?”
“I can. I’m a certified public accountant.”
Buddy hobbled over to the bars and studied me. “Then you know I can’t pay you anything. I don’t have any control over my money.”
“I don’t want your money, Buddy.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Pete McShane.”
“It was a great show, way ahead of its time.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“CBS wanted to water it down, make it another fucking Mannix, a do-gooder schmuck in a sport-coat, something they could air after Cannon. I wouldn’t do it. It was like asking me to cut off my balls. So they killed it and I was blacklisted forever as a series lead. But I have no regrets. What did Mike Connors do after Mannix? Jack shit, that’s what. Couldn’t get a decent part. Why? Because eunuchs can’t act, though supposedly they can sing pretty good.”
“Do you have any episodes?”
“I have them all, even the one we were in middle of shooting when those spineless cowards shut us down. They’re in a couple of cardboard boxes in the garage with the rest of my worthless shit.”
I tried to maintain my cool and keep the excitement out of my voice. “What format are they in?”
“Sixteen millimeter film and ¾ inch cassettes, not that there’s a goddamn machine around you can play them on anymore.”
I had one. And a 16 millimeter projector. And the equipment to transfer the episodes to any existing format. I just hoped the film and videos hadn’t rotted. It was a gamble I was willing to make.
“Here’s the deal, Buddy. I’ll get you free of Dora forever. In return, I want you to screen the episodes with me. You have to promise to answer all of my questions and to share every detail you can remember about the experience of making the series.”
“Are you writing a book or something?”
“No, I’m just a collector.”
He hesitated. “Will I ever get to see the show again?”
“It’s your show, Buddy. I’ll just be holding it for safekeeping. You can see it as often as you like.”
He thought about it for a minute and held his hand out to me between the bars. “Okay, we have a deal.”
“I’ll need more than a handshake.” I opened my briefcase and took out the paperwork for him to sign. “You need to sign these papers.”
“What for?”
“To give me your power-of-attorney.”
Buddy laughed. “You’re wasting your time. The vultures have already picked all the meat from this bag of bones. There’s nothing left for you. You chose the wrong old fart to swindle.”
He turned his back to me and started to hobble to his recliner.
“I told you, I’m only interested in Pete McShane. The power-of-attorney is the first necessary step in setting you free.” He gave me the finger. I was going to lose him and the show. “Okay, let’s say it is a scam. Look at the shithole you’re in, Buddy. Could things really get any worse for you? Isn’t it worth the risk just to screw over Dora and shrimp boat?”
Buddy stopped, looked over his shoulder at me, and gave me the same, cocky smile that he’d flashed to E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed fifty years ago in his TV premiere in an episode of The Defenders.
“Where do I sign?”
∗ ∗ ∗
When I want sex, I put on a wedding ring and go to a nice hotel near an airport or office park. I get a room, then go to the bar, order a drink, and check my email. Indifference is the key. I rarely make the first move. I don’t have to. I’m a prime catch for traveling business women of a certain age who are interested in a hook-up but aren’t comfortable with dating apps. I have photos of some teenage kids and golden retrievers on my phone that I use as bait.
A few hours after Buddy signed the papers, and I notarized and submitted them to SAG, AFTRA, Actors Equity and his bank, I was at the bar at the Burbank Airport Marriott, scrolling through the photos on my phone, sipping a martini and eating the salted nuts. I wanted to celebrate.
A blonde woman in her forties sat two stools over, nursing a glass of white wine, when one of my photos caught her eye.
“Are those your kids?” she asked.
“Yes, Dick and Sally,” and our conversation naturally evolved from there, following a predictable script I could have written word-for-word before I got there.
She had kids, too, and she moved to the stool next to mine to show me photos of her two girls. They looked like her, but full of the youth and hope that she no longer possessed. But she’d kept her figure. Her name was Carole and she warmed up to me fast because I listened more than I talked and maintained eye contact. She was in logistics, lived in Louisville, and traveled a lot, helping companies figure out how to get stuff from here to there. Carole was on her second glass of wine when she asked me my occupation.
“I am in the furniture business. In fact, I deal mainly with hotels. You’d be surprised by all the subtle and meaningful ways that hotel furniture is different from what you’d find in your own bedroom.”
“Like what?”
“It’s hard to explain. It would be easier to show you.”
Now she had a decision to make.
Carole took a sip of her wine and thought about me.
I’m clean-cut, have a warm smile, and a vague sadness in my eyes. It suggests that I’m a complex man with some secret pain who needs comforting, which appeals to her mothering instinct. I’ve also presumably been married for eighteen years, which means I know where to find and operate a clitoris, but I’m probably frustrated and eager for some erotic adventure, which appeals to her desire for a good fuck. Which is all I’m likely to want out of this encounter, too. After all, I have a spouse and kids to get home to, just like she does.
I’m safe.
She turned and gave me a smile. “I’d like that.”
∗ ∗ ∗
The sex was warm and satisfying for both of us. At 1 a.m., she gave me a good-bye kiss and went back to her room. I checked out of the hotel a few minutes after that and drove to West Hills. I was limber and totally relaxed.
Thank you, Carole.
I parked on Valley Circle, put on gloves, slipped on a small backpack, and climbed up one of the concrete swales that checker-boarded the hillside below Dora’s house. She didn’t have cameras but I was sure that many of her neighbors did.
I scaled her low, wrought-iron fence, and crossed her backyard to the house. She had tropical landscaping, an infinity pool and Jacuzzi, a firepit table, and an outdoor barbecue island with a marble countertop and a refrigerator. It must have been a wonderful place to relax and entertain.
The kitchen had a sliding glass door that opened to the backyard. Fortunately for me, Dora had one of those basic alarm system that are triggered when a door or window are opened. No motion detectors, infrared lasers, pressure pads or vicious dogs.
I took a slim-Jim out of my backpack and ran the flat edge slowly along the seam between the sliding glass door and the jam until I felt the slight, magnetic tug from the alarm sensor. I duct-taped the slim-Jim in place so it would remain against the sensor when the sliding glass door was opened. The latches on sliding glass door are simple, usually keyless, and notoriously easy to pop open, which I did with the deft use of a paint spackle tool. It’s amazing what you can learn on Google and YouTube.
Once I was in the kitchen, I took a hammer out of my backpack, a bottle of chloroform and a rag. I soaked the rag with chloroform, then I took the rag in one hand and the hammer in the other and walked quietly down the hall to the master bedroom.
The door was ajar. I could hear light snoring and an occasional fart. I peeked inside. Dora and Floyd were both naked in their king-sized bed, the sheets twisted around their waists. He was on his back, snoring. She was on her side, curled in a fetal position, her back to him.
I got onto the bed and straddled Floyd, using my knees to pin down his arms, and I pressed the chloroform-soaked rag against his face.
On TV shows, chloroform instantly knocks a person out. In reality, it takes a few minutes to do the job. Floyd woke up, and started to thrash around a bit, and that disturbed Dora. I let her roll over and get a look at me before I smacked the side of her head with the hammer, breaking her jaw. That put her down again.
Once Floyd was unconscious, I got off of him, wrapped his right hand around the hammer, and repeatedly pounded Dora’s head with it.
The human skull isn’t a watermelon. It’s harder than you think it is. It took a few good whacks before it caved in. It probably would have gone faster if her head was against a hard surface rather than a soft mattress.
I left the hammer in the bed and dragged Floyd to the kitchen. By the way, he was much better endowed than I’d given him credit for.
I draped him over the farmhouse sink, spent a moment admiring the herringbone-tiled backsplash, and took a knife from a cutlery block on the counter. I wrapped his right hand around the handle of the knife, pulled his head back, and slit his throat, careful not to get any blood on myself.
I let his body drop to the marble floor, went out to the backyard, removed the propane tank from under the fire-pit table and brought it back into the kitchen. I turned on every gas jet on the stove, each burner automatically igniting with flame, then I went to the propane tank, opened the valve all the way, gathered my things together and hurried outside.
I closed the sliding glass door, removed the slim-Jim and the duct tape, then dashed across the yard. But as I passed the barbecue, I couldn’t resist an added touch. I backtracked, opened the grill hood, turned on all the gas burners to full-blast, and I ran to the hill, practically sliding on my ass down the swale.
∗ ∗ ∗
I was in my car, driving south on Valley Circle, when the house exploded in two massive, thunderous blasts that felt like an earthquake. It must have looked great, but all I saw was the flash in my rearview mirror.
Oh well, you can’t have everything.
Even so, I thought it was a very pleasant night.
∗ ∗ ∗
The police only took a few days to come to the conclusion that the powerful explosion, which decimated the house, was a “murder-suicide.” I helped advance that theory by contacting the police as soon as I heard about the blast on the news.
I told the detectives that earlier the previous day, at the Subway in Woodland Hills, Buddy and I had informed Dora that her power-of-attorney was revoked. We’d also told her that we intended to pursue a criminal investigation of her mishandling of the estate.
Based on the information I provided, and the evidence at the crime scene, the police believed that Dora went home, told Floyd the bad news, and he went into a rage, beating her to death with a hammer. Distraught in the aftermath, and seeing no way out for himself, Floyd opened up the propane tank, fired up the stove, and then slit his own throat.
It was a reasonable theory and there was no evidence to contradict it. Floyd had a history of violently abusing women. The home alarm wasn’t deactivated or triggered, nothing suspicious showed up on neighborhood security cameras, and if there had been any detectable trace of chloroform in Floyd’s mouth, nose or lungs, it was obliterated when his body was blown apart and burned.
Case closed.
∗ ∗ ∗
I know what you’re thinking. How can he be so cavalier about killing people? Has he done it before?
Yes, of course I have. I’m a serious collector.
∗ ∗ ∗
I picked up Buddy at the Canoga Park house a few days after the blast. I’d kept him there because I wanted the police to see the squalid conditions he was living in. I figured they’d hate Dora and Floyd for it and they’d have zero inclination to investigate further.
I was right.
The first thing I did when I got to the house was load my trunk with the half-dozen cardboard boxes that contained the lost episodes of Pete McShane. Not only did Buddy have the episodes on film and video, he’d also kept the scripts, shooting schedules, and production budgets. As far as I was concerned, those cardboard boxes were treasure chests overflowing with gold.
I helped Buddy into the front seat of my car, stowed his walker in the back, and we drove away.
“I’ve got no place to live,” Buddy said. “My house blew up and Floyd’s family is evicting me.”
“Don’t worry about that. You can stay with me as long as you’d like. I’ve got a nice room prepared for you with a private bath.”
He gave me a sneaky, sideways glance. “Hell of a thing that happened to Dora and Floyd.”
I wondered if that was his roundabout way of asking if I’d killed them. I was tempted to answer the implied question, but instead I said: “Yes, it is.”
“Almost makes me believe in God.”
“Almost? What’s holding you back?”
“If there was a God, Pete McShane would’ve been a big hit, I would have moved from TV to movies and had Steve McQueen’s life, before he got that basketball-sized tumor in his gut and died on a butcher’s block in Mexico trying to get it cut out.”
Buddy had a point.
∗ ∗ ∗
I live in a sprawling, one-story ranch house on a large property that’s nestled deep in a secluded canyon in the Santa Monica mountains. It’s hard to tell from the front just how large the house is. I drove along the crushed-gravel motor court to the front door, where we were met by Guillermo, an illegal immigrant in his fifties from Mexico, who helps me maintain the property. That’s not really his name, but that’s what I call him because he reminds me so much of Jimmy Kimmel’s sidekick. Sometimes, to amuse myself, I also call him Rochester, which is another reference that dates me.
I popped the trunk and waved Guillermo over. “Can you please take these boxes to the projection booth?”
Guillermo nodded and I went to the other side of the car, got out Buddy’s walker, and gently helped him up out of his seat.
“Quite a spread you’ve got here,” Buddy said as he got his footing.
“It’s my Southfork.”
“I did a Dallas. I made a pass at Barbara Bel Geddes and Jim Davis slugged me. Damn near took my jaw off.”
“Did you make the pass on or off-screen?”
“Both,” Buddy said with a grin. “What is it with you and old TV?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll bet it has a lot to do with my father.”
“Always does.”
Guillermo started lugging the boxes into the house and we followed him inside. Buddy moved slowly, but that was fine. We weren’t in any hurry.
“He used to edit those TV listing magazines that were stuck into the weekend editions of local newspapers,” I said. “They had titles like TV Week, TV Times, that kind of thing.”
“I remember. Used to dream of seeing my picture on the cover.”
“We had no control over that part of it or you would have been. Anyway, he worked out of this tiny office in Van Nuys. I helped him prepare the programming grids for each issue in each individual market. This was before computers, so it was a real chore. Lots of graph paper and index cards. Every city had a different schedule. I kept track of every show, every air date. I really got into it. But the company he worked for got bought out, he was fired, and that was the end.”
“What did he do after that?”
“Drove his car into a tree at seventy-five miles per hour,” I said. “I still have every issue we published. I’ve kept them since I was a kid.”
“I’m not surprised.”
I led him through the front door into the foyer, which is impressive, not in the sense that’s grand, but because it opens out to a big, inviting living room with a view of a pond surrounded by old, well-groomed shade trees. The interior design is Contemporary Rustic Farmhouse. Lots of leather and wood and rugs. It looks like a page out of a Ralph Lauren home-furnishing catalog, minus the hunting trophies, because it is. That’s true of the whole house.
“Would you like to see your room?”
“Sure.”
I led him down one of the two hallways off the foyer. The original owner of the house had four kids, and the west wing was for them, but I’d renovated and expanded it over the years. I opened the door to the second guest room and beckoned him inside. He navigated his walker through the doorway.
The bed was huge, with a thick comforter and lots of pillows, and a little wooden step ladder to help him get inside. It was very inviting. It even made me want to take a nap. There was a flat screen TV on the wall and a stone fireplace that worked, but was mostly for show. The open door to the bathroom revealed a walk-in shower with a rain-head and a wide, built-in seat with handles on the wall to make it easy to get up and down.
Buddy went to the bedroom window and parted the shade to see what was outside. His room overlooked the colorful flower garden and the little creek that ran through it. Everything was in bloom and the creek had a nice soothing burble as the water rolled over the rocks. Guillermo did good work. When Buddy turned back to me, there was a big smile on his face.
“This is the Ritz compared to how I’ve been living,” Buddy said. “I may never leave.”
That was nice of him to say. “Would you like to rest for a bit? Or would you like to see the screening room?”
“Give me the grand tour.”
I led him back to the foyer and into the other long hallway, which led to a set of ornate double doors. “This house once belonged to a TV producer who basically ran his studio from here. He built the original screening room at the end of the hall to watch dailies and rough cuts. I thought this would be the perfect place to exhibit my collection.”
I swept my hand to indicate the lighted, built-in display cases that lined the paneled walls on either side of us. Buddy’s attention had been focused on our destination, the double doors, and he hadn’t noticed the walls. Now he did.
He froze and I saw the flash of fear in his eyes.
“Are those . . . urns?”
∗ ∗ ∗
This is always the tricky part.
“Yes, they are.” I said it as gently as I could. I didn’t want him to have a heart attack. I knew from past experience that it was a real possibility.
Each shelf contained an identical urn, each labeled with a brass plaque inscribed with the name of the lost series, the number of episodes aired or unaired, the year of production, and the name of the deceased. There were forty-two urns in alphabetical order and room for many more.
I pointed to the first one. “This is Adams of Eagle Lake. They only made two episodes in 1975 and I have them both.”
Buddy pointed at the urn. “And that guy.”
“The producer. He never stopped believing in the series.” I noticed that Buddy had gone pale. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any danger and you’re not a prisoner. You’re free to go any time you’d like. But I’m hoping you’ll stay with us.”
“As part of your home mausoleum?”
I smiled, in an effort to reassure him, but also because I know how creepy it seemed. I’d been through this forty-two times before. “This is only part of my collection. Let me show you the rest. I think you’ve worked with some of them.”
I cracked open one of the double doors to the screening room, releasing the low hum of conversation from inside, and motioned for him to take a peek. He approached cautiously, leaned on his walker, and looked inside.
The windowless room was inclined toward a huge movie screen and was furnished with twenty-five reclining theater seats, half of which were occupied by elderly men and women, all of them Talent. Writers, directors, actors and editors.
“I did an episode of The Magician directed by that guy in the wheelchair. Can’t remember his name. I thought he’d died years ago.” Buddy turned back to me. “Why are they here?”
I closed the door. “This is where they live now.”
He shook his head, confused. I didn’t blame him, it was a lot to take in. “I don’t understand. What exactly do you collect?”
“I told you, lost TV shows.”
Buddy tipped his head toward the theater. “But those aren’t shows. Those are people.”
“And without those people, The Talent, shows are just meaningless images. It’s not enough for me to simply watch the episodes. That’s fleeting and superficial. Anybody can have that. I want to have the history and the memories, to know what it felt like to make the show, only to have it broadcast for an instant or never be seen at all. I want to know what it means to be the last person who remembers and cherishes it. When I have all that, then I truly own the show.”
“The way I do with Pete McShane.”
“The way they did with their shows,” I said, gesturing to the display cases. “The way I do now that those people are gone. If I don’t, who will?”
I thought it was a very compelling argument.
Buddy looked back at urns, at all the lost shows and the people who’d never let go of them. He was free to leave, but the fine print in the irrevocable power-of-attorney that he’d signed said I got to keep him and his assets when he died. Buddy was beginning to understand that now without having to read the contract. But it’s always better if they think they are making the decision themselves.
He gave me a little, accepting nod and sighed. “So what happens now?”
“We’re all eager to see Pete McShane.” I held open the door to the screening room for him. “What do you say?”
Buddy smiled and hobbled into the theater, where he was greeted with rousing applause.
∗ ∗ ∗
Seven months later, I had a new urn in my collection.