The Temporary Title

The fourth eccentric novel

By Heff Munson

August 20, 2012-

January 22, 2013

Chapters

Ned Numeral
The New Marilyn and the New Bogart
The People Who Make Things Happen
Holding Court in the Food Court
The Chapters Start Getting Longer
The Small Groups
Time Passes
Meanwhile
The Badly-Written Murder Mystery
A Contrived Opening
The First Opening Was Better
Requiem
Howdy-do
The Next Chapter
More Meandering Ruminations
So Kill Somebody, Already
The Other Side Of Town
Speculation
Investigation
Interrogation
Elimination
Something ending in “ation”
What Now?
Another Next Chapter
Chapter Twenty-Five
Atlas Shrugged
Shakespearimental Theatre
Lunchrooms and Lockers
The Next Exciting Chapter
We’re All Individuals, Unfortunately
Let’s Try An Adventure
No, Really, An Adventure
Oh, Well, This Will Have To Do
Rewards
AuthentiCity
Stroke It Like Steinbeck
Back to the Temporary Title
Now That Everyone’s Comfortable
A Contrived Solution
Didja Guess It? Huh? Didja?
Things Happen!
Are We Really Going Back To The Temporary Title This Time?
The Formula
Variations
Maybe A Song Will Help
How To Write A Sausage
Literary Jail
The Stars
The Road to Nowhere
Memory Lane
Memory Lane Part Two
Memory Lane Part Three
Memory Lane Part Four
Memory Lane Part Five
Something Else
4,000 Words to Go
Plays on Plays part 1
Plays on Plays part 2
Plays on Plays part 3
The Wishing Well
Choose Ned’s Adventure

62. The Movie

63. Epilogue

64. Afterword

65. Here We Go Again

66. Yeah, Well, You Know

Ned Numeral

Ned Numeral was an accountant. He didn’t much care for his name, but he was used to it. His parents had been impressed by a Stan Freberg comedy sketch in which one of the characters had been called “Ned Numeral”, so that was the name they gave their only child. This was a bit unusual because the family name was not Numeral, or anything close to it, but, as mentioned previously, they had been impressed. Very impressed. Almost certainly too much impressed.

But little Ned Numeral’s name had caused him to be guided into math classes from an early age, and so he developed a certain facility with numbers, if only through the familiarity that comes through sheer repetition. His name had also led him into his profession, and, ultimately, to his identity, so he accepted his situation, for at least he had one.

His cousin, Nihilist Nothingness, had not fared so well.

Ned Numeral was of an uninteresting height. He was somewhat less than six feet tall, but not short enough to be interesting, either. His hair was a sort of nondescript color, and his facial features seemed to have been assembled from remainders. People who met him invariably got his name wrong when they remembered it at all, even when they were trying to sell him things. He was not ugly enough to be memorable, but, when co-workers described his looks as being “average”, their manner suggested that they were being charitable.

Other, trendier accountants described him as a cipher.

The women with whom he occasionally dealt would tell him that, somewhere, there was bound to be some hypothetical nice girl who would find him interesting, but no-one could ever cite any specific names, and absolutely no-one was ever an actual interested party.

Ned had a Day Job as an Accounting Clerk. He made enough money to get by, living in a one-room apartment in a second-rate suburb. He had a twelve-year-old car that he had owned for two years. He had managed to save a little money, mostly because the money he saved was never enough to spend on anything substantial. He had tried a brief vacation once, but he couldn’t afford to go very far or to participate in anything special, so he wound up walking around in a slightly different city watching everyone else doing their regular jobs for a few days. After this, he concluded that there must be a better way to use his spare time.

That was how he wound up spending his evenings and weekends helping out at The Temporary Title.

The New Marilyn and The New Bogart

The physical location of The Temporary Title was difficult to describe. Certainly it was not an imposing place, at least not on most days. A lot of the time, it seemed to consist of someone’s dining room table. At other times, it was someone’s living room. It could also be the outdoor patio of a very inexpensive restaurant, or the food court of a shopping mall. The occasional abandoned warehouse, rock quarry or public park were other manifestations.

Ned’s job at The Temporary Title consisted of keeping the financial records of an institution that had practically no money.

The staff at The Temporary Title consisted of people who had other day jobs that provided them with a livelihood, but which bore little or no resemblance to their functions at The Temporary Title.

Some of the actors were waiters, and some of the actresses were waitresses, and some of the actors were paid interns, but they were paid interns at some other place, and some of the actresses were unpaid interns, but they were unpaid interns at some other place, and they had indulgent parents who were growing less and less indulgent as time went by, and some had nervous parents who believed that time wasted at The Temporary Title was less dangerous than time spent partying. Some of the actresses wanted to be called actors, and some of the actors wanted to be called actresses, partly to prove their versatility, and partly to get even with the actresses who wanted to be called actors. Then the Property Mastersuggested that he should also be called an actor, just to demonstrate how silly the whole semantic argument was.

Ned Numeral did not ask to be called an actor, or an actress, or even a property master. The life experience brought about by his given name had led him to accept his identity.

There was no shortage of identities at The Temporary Title, but they were somewhat misleading. For example, one particular actress had the identity of The New Marilyn Monroe. All of her press releases referred to her as The New Marilyn Monroe, and her business cards identified her as The New Marilyn Monroe, and even her driver’s license identified her as The New Marilyn Monroe. She allowed her associates at The Temporary Title a certain degree of informality, so they just called her “New Marilyn”.

New Marilyn bore little resemblance to the actual Marilyn Monroe. Unlike the original, New Marilyn was a natural blonde, and she was taller and had a more athletic build. In still photographs taken from a distance, New Marilyn looked striking, even beautiful. Closer shots showed that her face resembled that of a mannequin, technically flawless but devoid of thought or emotion. Some who had seen her acting auditions had described her as being wooden. Others who had seen her acting auditions had described her as being mechanical. The most astute observers simply declared that they had never seen her act. Still, she had a sense of polite, rational calm that made her pleasant company during the many meetings that took place at The Temporary Title, wherever it happened to be. Furthermore, she was compliant and cooperative, and she gradually revealed a peculiar kind of versatility: she was equally stiff and unconvincing in every imaginable situation.

The New Bogart was less charismatic than his namesake. He was a little stockier, and his features were broader. But he possessed the same kind of world-weariness as his famous counterpart, and he wore a similar battered trench-coat. He never referred to himself as “The New Bogart”, and his driver’s license had expired, so there was no verifying his legal identity. He just answered to the name of “Eddie”, and that was that.

The People Who Make Things Happen

“Dialogue!” said the Property Master.

The Property Master was truly one of The People Who Make Things Happen, for he was the first one at the meeting to break the narrative stream by actually uttering a word of dialogue.

The action received a warm round of applause.

“Yeah, well, you know,” said the Property Master. “I just figured that, what the hell, we’re three chapters in, and it was time for something to happen.”

The Silent Comic simply shrugged.

“I’ll tell you something else that’s going to happen,” said the Concept Artist. “I’m gonna walk right off this project.”

“Why is that?” said The Fellow Who Facilitates Conversation But Seems To Have No Other Actual Function.

“The assignments I’m getting are impossible,” said the Concept Artist. “I mean, here’s an example: ‘These were the questions that arose as a new paragraph began. They raced through the mind. Well, some of them raced, others were feeling all tuckered out, and just strolled partway through the mind before sitting down in the cool green grass of a nearby metaphor.’ How am I supposed to draw a picture of that?”

“You could try multimedia,” suggested the Property Master. “You could use computer graphics to animate little question marks running around wearing little orange sneakers. Then some of them could go sit in some computer-generated cool green grass – make that slightly bluish green grass, waving a little as if the wind were blowing, to make it look cool – and have the grass include a little golf flag, but with no actual hole, and maybe a couple of big chess pieces and bowling pins standing around so that it looked like a golf green but was probably something else; that would be your metaphor. For the mind, you could start with your wide shot being the interior of an x-ray of an otherwise empty human skull.”

“Say, that’s not bad,” said the Concept Artist. “You really are one of The People Who Make Things Happen.”

Holding Court in the Food Court

On this particular occasion, the location of The Temporary Title was in the food court in the basement of a large shopping mall. This meant that there was plenty of room, so the meeting was well-attended. The ready availability of inexpensive snacks didn’t hurt, either.

“Let us now hear The Treasurer’s Report”, said the Author, who was a great fan of Robert Benchley.

This remark was greeted with the usual indifferent silence from all present, most of whom were sadly unfamiliar with the work of Robert Benchley.

“Very well,” said the Author, “Let us now hear the Financial Report from Mister Ned Numeral.”

This was also greeted with the usual indifferent silence from all present, most of whom were well-acquainted with the work of Ned Numeral. Only this time, Ned Numeral stood up and spoke.

“As you may recall from our previous meetings,” he began, ”I have decided to eliminate the review of the budget, since we have none to speak of. Revenues and expenses have been holding steady at zero, which means that a wide variety of percentage-based analyses are possible. However, these would be unproductive. Therefore, I have implemented a new method of tracking our progress. Since we have no paid positions as such, we will divide future profits based on the accumulation of service points. At such time as the completed project produces any profits, those profits will be distributed based upon the percentage of service points accumulated by each participant.”

This was also also greeted with the usual indifferent silence from all present, although, here and there, scattered about the room, there appeared the occasional glimmer of non-comprehension.

Suddenly a hand shot up. It was the left hand of the Third Stage-Hand.

“The Author recognizes the Third Stage-Hand”, said the Author. “Howdy, Sam.”

“Howdy right back,” replied the other. Not the Author, but the other. You know, the other person being mentioned in the narrative. Oh, very well, it was Sam, the Third Stage-Hand. Are you satisfied?

“I got a question,” said Sam. “Just how do you figure on awarding these service points? I can see the basic idea of saying that the more you do, the more you get, but how do you measure the value of what each person does? I mean, an actor might speak a line of dialogue, and that is probably worth something, but is it worth as much as when I have to haul a truckload of props and scenery clear across town? And what about all the heavy lifting? Especially for me, what with my left hand being all shot up.”

Another hand shot up. It was the right hand of the Concept Artist.

“The Author recognizes the Concept Artist,” said the Author. “Howdy, Ben.”

“Howdy yourself, in sixteen million colors, from Ben The Concept Artist, just to clear up any possible confusion about who is answering,” said Ben, who, as a Concept Artist, knew all about how to work within a narrative. “Sam makes a good point. You’ve probably heard that a picture is worth ten thousand words. Will that be figured into the valuation of the images as compared with the text?”

“A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned,” said another voice.

“The Author recognizes Doctor Benjamin Franklin, Printer, Inventor, Scientist and Statesman,” said the Author. “Damn, Ben, you’re lookin’ good.”

“Thank you,” said Dr. Franklin, “but I am just a man and a brother.”

This last remark was greeted with a respectful ovation.

Just then the Caterer rolled up with lunch.

“Thanks, Jennifer,” said the Author. “Let’s all take a break for lunch.”

This remark was greeted by a louder, more enthusiastic ovation.

The Chapters Start Getting Longer

“So,” said Ned as he thoughtfully munched his sandwich, “Do you really think it will ever be finished?”

“Oh, I think so,” replied the Author. “It looks like you’re about halfway through already. Are you going to eat that slice of pickle?”

“Oh, here,” said Ned, “You’ve been eyeing that bit of pickle ever since I started eating. But I was actually referring to the project, not my sandwich. Do you really think we’ll ever convert the Trilogy of the Trilobite into a movie?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Author. “Lately I’ve been having this terrible nightmare in which it just turns out to be a fourth Eccentric Novel.”

“God forbid,” said the gods, who were looking down in dismay. “Oh, We guess that means Us.”

The Author continued. “Speaking of terrible nightmares, how are you going to answer all those questions about your service-point system? You might not always have Dr. Franklin around to bail you out.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,”replied Ned, “and I have decided to wait until the project is completed and screened before finalizing the valuation system. That will give me a couple of options. For example, when the finished product gets reviewed, we can see which aspect received the most favorable notices: will the critics like the scenery, the costumes, the acting, the music, the dialogue, or the story? Anything that gets favorable attention could be given extra points.”

“That’s a good idea,” said the Author. “That way, there would be a kind of Third-Party Arbiter. But what if the critics don’t like any of it?”

“Then we could survey the audiences,” replied Ned.

“But what if the audiences don’t like any of it either?”

“Then there probably won’t be any profits to divide anyway.”

“You’re a clever accountant, Ned,” said the Author. “And thanks for the pickle.”

The meeting reconvened, but everyone was now feeling a little bit stuffed with lunch, and they were starting to get drowsy and complacent, so the subject of service point valuation did not resurface.

“Let us hear the Business Report,” said the Author.

The Ethical Agent stood up, and everyone gasped aloud in awe. Everyone present had heard of this mythical beast, but few had ever imagined seeing him in person. He was an older, modest-looking man with an earnest, self-effacing attitude, and he wore a neat, clean, but well-worn blue suit that was faded at the elbows and the knees. The fading of the elbows demonstrated that he was a hard worker. The fading at the knees demonstrated that he was humble man. The tidiness and cleanliness of the suit demonstrated his serious approach to his profession, and the sheer age of the suit demonstrated his honesty.

“Hello, everybody,” said the Ethical Agent. “It’s nice to see you all, and I’m grateful for the position of trust which you have given me. For those of you in the back, let me assure you that, yes, it’s really me, the Ethical Agent. It’s been a long time since anyone asked for my services; it seems that everyone these days wants a sharpie who can cut them a bigger piece of the pie than I can give them, so I can assure you that it’s a real pleasure to be given a chance to work again.”