Wm Floggin Buckley - Part 5

[The script of the one-man show about my brief, very unpleasant tenure at Larry Flynt Publications, which I have performed in San Francisco, London, and Madison, Wisconsin.]

The following Monday morning, poor Don Hogarth was the color of the cigarettes he was smoking at an even more frantic rate than usual, even though it was well known that Rupert had a dental appointment that would keep him out of the office most of the morning. It turned out Lu-Ella had unexpectedly come in. According to Elvin from Missouri, "It ain't Lu-Ella herself Don's so a-scared of, but the thought of how her presence is likely to affect ol' Darth Vader.

"You know, right after he was hired, she had a fierce ol' crush on Rupert, but he didn't know she was alive, and she swore to make him regret it the rest of his life. Did you know that her and Hammond got hitched when she was 14? They met right after he opened his first Cuntry Club in Savannah. At the time, she was supporting herself and her two rug rats giving blowjobs at a truck stop. After the hand grenade attack, ol' Ham got himself addicted to painkillers that he shared with her, and she got hooked too. Every few months, she rouses herself long enough to come in and make Rupert miserable."

Rupert summoned me for a conference about "Doomsday". He'd decided the earth wasn't going to broil as a result of the greenhouse effect, but freeze. He apparently still had some nitrous oxide in him or something, though, and was actually reasonably cordial, at least until his secretary came in and said Lu-Ella wanted to see...me!

Her office, situated in the north-western corner of the triangular building, commanded a 240-degree view that might have been spectacular anywhere other than Los Angeles, where all anybody can see 360 days of the year is air pollution. She'd apparently hired Elvis's decorator. There were absolute truckloads of a poor person's idea of a rich person's tchotchkes, Louis XIV furniture, fuchsia velvet wallpaper, and a gigantic oil portrait of herself, in which she looked almost exactly like Raquel Welch, circa 1971, except more beautiful, and with a widow's peak. But the tiny, pallid creature who sat alternately pecking at a salad and flicking ashes from one cigarette into it while another smoldered in the ashtray on her lap looked as much like Raquel Welch as Elvin from Missouri did.

She was alarmingly pale. Her bright red mouth was about the size of a penny. Her tiny ferret eyes didn't twinkle. The largest thing about her seemed to be her pores. She wore enough ruffles and lace to stock many a smaller department store. Scarlett O'Hara Meets the Bodysnatchers.

"My big sister Sylvie tells me you're cute. Is that true? So tell me about your plans for the magazine. And be a big ol' teddy bear and make an appointment for me to get a manicure..."

End of conference, as Mrs. Palmer pitched face forward into her ashes-covered salad.

Sylvie was waiting for me excitedly in my office. "Didn't I tell you that if you treat Sylvie good, good things would start happening for you around here? But you know what? You haven't treated Sylvie so good yet. So me and you are having lunch together tomorrow so we can talk about what the future might hold in store for the two of us."

[Continues tomorrow! Don't miss a single installment!]