Yoharie (part twenty-one)

Yoharie

Totem-World

(part twenty-one)

“There’s speculation Southey only did it as a kind of meta-joke…not to be inclusive, the way we talk about that now, but just making a puzzle. So one could work out the answer. The few times his publisher issued any communication from him…I say he…”

Trevor looked at Giarma. She shrugged.

“Anyway, it was pretty clear he hates Hollywood. He wouldn’t take money, not any amount, to work on a script. Not that we’re talking about a lot, five figures…it was 1974. So if the creator wouldn’t fix the character one way or the other, no one else had the guts to.”

“But how is it anyone could get the rights, if Southey doesn’t want a movie?”

“Oh, well… You have to take that as a joke, too. It’s sort of legendary he sold the option to Sterling Brodrich.”

Trevor looked at Giarma again.

“Be thankful a woman is sitting with you, listening. Don’t make me guess things.”

“Brodrich did a mish-mash of TV projects…you know, those days…like a variety special with Dolores del Rio that never got aired, some comedy thing that was a knock-off of Laugh-In, and really, profoundly, not funny. He did better with his one cop show…they were gonna slot it into the Mystery Movies, but it was too much like McCloud, so he took it over to ABC.”

Val said, “I never heard of any of that.”

“It’s called Sutter. You can catch some grainy vids on YouTube. Doesn’t matter. I pick up little facts doing research, and I gotta check em out, I write about these things. Serious people, anyway, were after Totem. So Southey let Brodrich have it for three-hundred fourteen dollars. Pi in your eye, right? He knew the movie couldn’t happen, or if Brodrich got it backed, it would end up a cheesy piece of crap. He wanted a cheesy piece of crap. I feel like if I ever wrote a book, same. But things changed by the time your generation came along.”

“What are you, Trevor, like forty?”

“Thirty-five.”

“No.” Val pinkened. “I mean…I meant it the other way. You said my generation.”

“To be fair. It goes back farther than a couple decades. It was a feminist idea, I guess, that the Totem-Maker ought to be a woman.”

At this third look, and because her brother’s embarrassment gave her the crawlies…and because she had to internally smack herself for this, Giarma said: “I’m not in charge of feminism.”

He looked at her with something like pride. Confusing.

22

Yoharie

Yoharie (part twenty-two)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)