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Idol Week 12
Topic: MacGuffin

A SIMPLE CUP OF COFFEE

Steve Albertson stood in line, patiently waiting to order his coffee, reading a letter. “Another rejection,” he thought, his head down and his shoulders sagging. “Maybe they’re right . . . maybe it’s time to move on -- 300 cable channels, and I still can’t sell a script.”

The line at the Black and White Bar and Grille was moving slowly, but then it always did. The B & W didn’t sell booze, just coffee, and the only food available was overpriced and under-sugared. The air at the B & W was heavy with irony and light on intelligent conversation.

Steve preferred a mug of black coffee served at a diner by a guy named Joe, with a doughnut or maybe some pie, but the B & W showed classic black and white movies on the café’s many screens, so Steve was willing to put up with the rest.

“I wish I could write like those old timers,” he thought. His reverie was interrupted by the barista taking his order. Her name, according to her tag, was Star.

“Coffee, black, no sugar, no cream.”

Star made a face. “What kind of coffee?”

“The black kind,” said Steve. “Make it strong.” Joe would know. This kid didn’t have a clue.

Steve placed his order and sat down at a table with a good view of the main screen to watch a Hitchcock movie. He overheard patronizing remarks about Hitchcock from some film students and tuned out the rest.

He pulled a script out of his briefcase. It was from his agent.

Steve was transitioning into a new career, or repurposing old skills, or whatever else they called it these days. He was out of work, getting desperate, and script writing was all he knew. Once he’d been successful at it, with several movies and TV shows to his credit, but that was years ago and the residuals were getting thin. Now he was willing to work as the most anonymous writer in the industry – a script doctor. Unloved, underpaid, and uncredited – and that was his future?

Star finally brought him his coffee; taking a sip, he turned his attention from “Notorious” to the script. “This is a test,” his agent had said, “to see if you’ve got what it takes to be a script doctor. Do a good job with it, and I can get you more work.”

The script was the infamous “Wishes.” It was for a truly awful television series about people who get their wishes granted and the wrecks their lives become. It had been kicking around Hollywood for years, a concept so bad no one could make it work. It was the kiss of death. His agent was telling him it was time to find other work.

“Perhaps I can get Star’s job,” he thought with a shudder.

No one who had worked on “Wishes” had ever been heard from again in Hollywood, although Quentin Tarantino was supposedly writing for Lithuania State Television.

Steve opened the script. “It starts when you least expect it” was all it said.

“What is this . . . .” He didn’t get to finish his thought. Suddenly, Steve was blinded by a brilliant light from its pages. When it stopped, Steve had disappeared, leaving only the script and a cup of bad coffee. If anyone had been paying attention to the TV screens, however, they would have noticed that Cary Grant was no longer starring in “Notorious.”

Steve pulls up to the curb of the hotel in an expensive car, the beach in the background, Roy Webb’s violins playing urgently in the soundtrack. He looks dapper in a well-tailored suit with Ingrid Bergman sitting next to him. Once they get up to the room, she pulls off her long black gloves and they walk to the balcony overlooking the ocean.

They embrace, with a closeup of their faces, their lips barely touching, one brief kiss, then another. The dialogue doesn’t matter, only the longing. They move back inside and Steve picks up the room phone to check for messages, Ingrid’s hand draped on his shoulder.

“This is a very strange love affair,” says Ingrid, as they kiss briefly again. “Why?” asks Steve. “Maybe the fact that you don’t love me,” replies Ingrid. “When I don’t love you, I’ll let you know,” he says, followed by the briefest of kisses. They kiss again. Her face never strays far from Steve’s.

But Steve must leave on business. As he leaves Ingrid behind, their desire . . . .

“Cut!” yells Hitchcock. “Who are you? Where’s Cary Grant? Get me Security!”

A strong light floods the set of “Notorious.” As Steve disappears, he sees the look on Ingrid’s face. He knows she will never forget him.

Steve suddenly found himself back at the B & W, his coffee gone and Cary Grant kissing Ingrid Bergman, who seems a lot more interested in it than when Steve was her lover. “Wishes” was still on his table.

“What the hell just happened?” thought Steve. He ordered another cup of coffee to steady his nerves.

While waiting for his coffee, he opened the script again as the closing credits for “Notorious” ran. This time, it said only “Did you learn anything?”

“What do you mean?” Steve said to the script.

The script didn’t answer. Up on the twelve television screens, “To Have and Have Not” started. The light flashed again and Steve replaced Humphry Bogart.

A much-too-young Lauren Bacall is sitting on his lap and kissing him. “What’d you do that for?” asks Steve.

“I was wondering if I’d like it,” replies Lauren.

“What’s the decision?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know yet,” says Lauren, as she kisses Steve again, longer.

“It’s even better when you help,” Lauren breathes, heading for the door. “You sure you won’t change your mind about this?” Lauren is holding a fist full of money.

“Mm huh.”

“This belongs to me and so do my lips. I don’t see any difference.”

“Well, I do.”

“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle.”

As she opens the door to leave, Lauren turns back and faces Steve.

“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and . . . blow.”

“Where’s Bogart?” yells Howard Hawks. “Who’s this clown? He’s ruining the scene!”

A brilliant light startles everyone, and Steve is gone.

All Steve could do back at his table was whistle, long and low. His face was white and his hands were shaking, but he managed to open the script again. “Learn anything this time, idiot?” appeared in large, bold letters.

“What the #@&! was I supposed to learn?” said Steve, who was promptly blinded by the light again.

Steve bounced from movie to movie. Sometimes he was the leading man, sometimes a comic sidekick, and other times the villain. Once in a while he spotted other writers who had been given “Wishes,” including Tarantino, who was a stable hand in “High Noon.”

Every time he re-appeared at the B & W, the script would ask him the same question, the letters getting larger and the language more abusive.

Once Steve grew accustomed to his predicament, he began to pay attention. He began to notice the pacing of scenes, the construction of dialog, how to build romantic tension, and all the nuances that went into a successful movie, things that he had known but had forgotten in his long descent into failure. Eventually, he started answering the script’s question, explaining what he had noticed from the most recent movie.

Finally, after a stint as Bogart in “Casablanca,” Steve had an idea for a movie. Sure, it was about a serial killer, but so was “Silence of the Lambs.”

When the script asked, “What have you learned?” Steve was able to pitch his idea. It was about Detective Steve Larson, his gorgeous sidekick, Officer Crystal Jones, and the Copycat Killer, who patterned his gruesome murders after those found in famous books. It was dark and moody, with snappy dialog, steamy sex scenes, plenty of twists, an evil twin, and an ending that set up a sequel. Best of all, it was filmed in black and white to give it a French auteur feel.

“It can’t miss!” said Steve. “If you’d stop dropping me into movies, I can write it.” He hadn’t felt this excited in years.

The script was blank. Slowly, words began to appear. “Is that it? Is that all you’ve learned? What a waste!”

There was a last blast of light, and Steve disappeared. On the B & W’s screens, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was playing, but Gregory Peck was still Atticus Finch and Steve was nowhere to be found.

Eventually, Star got curious about the script abandoned on the table and opened it. “It starts when you least expect it” was all she read. If the customers had been paying attention, they would have noticed that Scout had been re-cast and she was now 23 years old with blond hair and a nose ring.

Star enjoyed being in the movies. She was last seen replacing Marylin Monroe in “Some Like It Hot.” Steve’s agent never got “Wishes” back. It was rumored to be in Woody Allen’s possession. Later, she sent out a press release -- Steve was in Lithuania working on a project with Tarantino and was not expected to return soon.