Steven Bochco Read Online Free Page B

about to confront Axelrod, either, particularly in front of Axelrod’s development executive, a young, attractive woman named Lainie Ginsberg.
    After several moments of strained amenities, while the assistant fetches Evian for everyone, Axelrod gets to it. “So. What’d you think of the script?”
    Bobby now commences, predictably, to shoot himself in the foot. He tells Axelrod that the premise of the movie is bullshit and that the audience will be offended by the fact that this old guy is seducing his young stepdaughter. In the alternative, Bobby suggests the notion of turning the story into a less complicated emotional landscape by having the love interest be his dead wife’s somewhat younger sister.
    Now, even I know that’s a terrible idea, and I represent the guy. But the real dynamic in the room has nothing to do with Bobby’s ideas about Axelrod’s script, good or bad. It has to do with the fact that Axelrod is fucking his wife. Bobby knows it—hell, Lainie Ginsberg probably knows it—and even though Axelrod doesn’t know for sure whether Bobby knows it, off the hostile vibe emanating from Bobby, he suspects it. So, without being totally disrespectful (for obvious reasons), Axelrod, as nicely as he can, pisses all over Bobby’s idea, saying maybe we’ll get together on some other project some time, I’m a big fan of your work, blah blah blah.
    Of course, what Bobby probably
hears
is
I’m fucking your wife, you impotent third-rate hack. Now get the hell out of my office so I can laugh my ass off behind your back.
    At the door, Lainie Ginsberg offers Bobby her hand, telling him she’s also a longtime admirer of his oeuvre. Bobby wants to say, Stick my oeuvre up your tight little Jewish ass, but instead he gives her a phony smile and beats it out of there.
    About now, you’re probably asking yourself why Bobby didn’t just smack this guy in the mouth. I can’t answer that one. Maybe he was afraid to alienate a guy everyone knows is gonna wind up running a studio within five years. Or maybe he was just so ashamed that he didn’t want anyone to know his wife was screwing around behind his back with a movie producer who wouldn’t even give him a lousy rewrite.
    Whatever the case, when Bobby gets home, the first thing Vee says, as casually as she can, is, “How was your meeting?”
    â€œThe meeting was swell,” Bobby says. “I asked him does he like fucking you from behind so he can watch his dick go in and out, or does he prefer being on the bottom so he can watch your tits bounce up and down?”
    Vee hauls off and smacks Bobby in the face so hard it sounds like a gunshot. And from that point on, it’s all over but the shouting. Bobby calls her a cheating cunt. Vee calls Bobby a loser—an impotent boozer who can’t write his way out of a wineglass. He says he oughta throw her off the deck in back of the house (from where, by the way, you can see the HOLLYWOOD sign).
    â€œDid you ever stop to ask yourself whose fault it is I’m having an affair?” Vee yells. “Can you remember the last time we went out for a meal together without having a fight? Or the last time you kissed me, or made love to me without me having to beg? Can you even remember the last time you were sober? Because I can’t, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and I was so lonely I would’ve fucked the pool man if we had one!”
    â€œWell if you’re so goddamn miserable,” Bobby screams, “why don’t you just pack up your shit and get the fuck out of my house,” which is sort of like closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted, as she’s already throwing stuff in an overnight bag, saying she should’ve left him months ago.
    The sight of her actually packing suddenly breaks Bobby’s heart, and all the fight goes out of him. “Come on, Vee, don’t go,