Naked Savages

NAKED SAVAGES

By

Dale M. Brumfield

HJH Media Richmond, Virginia

Copyright © 2019 by Dale M. Brumfield

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, real places, languages or cultures are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, events and places are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual places, events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission except brief passages for review purposes.

HJH Media

Richmond, Virginia

For media inquiries please email [email protected]

Cover design and illustration by Hunter Brumfield.

Naked Savages/ Dale M. Brumfield -- 1st ed. 2019

ISBN-13: 978-0-578-44055-2 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-578-44057-6 (electronic)

By Dale M. Brumfield

Memoir

Three Buck Naked Commodes: and 18 More Tales from a Small Town

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Remnants: A Novel about God, Insurance and Quality Floorcoverings

Trapped Under the Pack-Ice (eBook)

Bad Day at the Amusement Park (eBook)

Standers

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Richmond Independent Press: A History of the Underground Zine Scene

Independent Press in D.C. and Virginia: An Underground History

Virginia State Penitentiary: A Notorious History

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Richmond Macabre

Richmond Macabre II

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Complex systems tend to oppose their own intended function.

-variation on LeChatelier’s Principle,

as proposed by John Gall in

Systemantics (Pocket Books, 1975)

PROLOGUE

I just had the remote – now where the hell did it go?"

Lying in bed, Wallace Carswell clutched his tightening chest and grimaced while he leaned and frantically felt around the floor by the bed. He had muted Ronald Reagan droning about his upcoming re-election chances before changing the channel and dropping the remote. After briefly closing his eyes, he opened them to see actors Michael J. Fox and Madonna seriously and silently discussing something on a show called Entertainment Tonight while a crawl at the bottom of the screen announced Hollywood and Screen Actors Guild uniting behind Japanese/American collaboration to help save vanishing Ethiopian tribe. The scroll sent him on a scurry to un-mute – the television break of a lifetime was unfolding right in front of him and he couldn’t goddamn hear it.

Beside him, Mary was sleepy and unconcerned. I don’t know Boo Boo, you dropped it after bitching about Reagan …

He leaned way over and fumbled around on the floor. Dropped it where, Mary? For Christ’s … Spotting a corner of it almost under the bed, Wallace scooped it up, quickly pointed it at the television and restored the volume. It was too late – the segment was over; Fox and Madonna were gone, and the blonde host was talking about yet another seventies metalhead going into rehab for cocaine addiction.

Though disappointed, Wallace managed a brief smile as a somewhat familiar lightning bolt shot from his chest down his left arm. He moaned softly, with some concern but more with a curious sense of satisfaction. His documentary project just got a healthy dose of good national buzz, and the first frame had yet to be shot.

Wallace looked up from his bed in the hotel room that served temporarily as his office (while his regular office building was being fumigated) and saw the low setting sun glinting a dull orange off the fading Sunset Boulevard buildings far off in the background. He took a drag on his high-tar British cigarette that made him feel like a Tinseltown big shot then looked down in a bemused combination of lust and irritation at the beautiful nude woman lying beside his sadly out-of-shape 62-year-old body.

Mary Semper was a bit of a slippery parasite but a damn gorgeous one. Wallace walked into a relationship with her wary it was a tightrope – he of course reveled in her sexual appetites, and her attention was a much-needed boost to his self-confidence, but he knew the real reason she hooked up with him was to enter the film business in more serious behind-the-scene roles with his somewhat modest film production company in the hopes of either taking them all up a notch or (as he suspected) jumping to Paramount or MGM.

Despite putting her on payroll, Mary was a hobby, not a career. Reliance Film Group, Inc. survived, even flourished sometimes, but never made millionaires. He simply had no jobs for her, despite his ambiguous promises to the contrary.

Unfortunately, he inadvertently muddied their already sloppy and opaque relationship even more yesterday, when she overheard him on the phone speaking of an upcoming documentary that he was producing in an eastern African no-man’s-land in Ethiopia between the Eritrean border and the Red Sea called the Danakil Desert. Now she wouldn’t leave him the hell alone about it, needling him for a production management position. Then, in his clumsy attempts to downplay the project, he complicated the situation even more by trying to sidetrack her with the empty promise of another job – a much better and higher profile job – that was just around the corner.

There was no way Wallace was going to place Mary on the Ethiopian documentary. Her take-charge, micromanaging style would not be a good fit on a multi-cultural, Ethiopian-financed, Japanese-directed project that had suddenly drawn the attention of a handful of Hollywood elites and had to be handled with much delicacy. Mary was a hard worker, for sure, but she had little respect for job titles and defined boundaries. He knew especially that the project’s mysterious Ethiopian financial backer, as well as the Tokyo-based film team already signed on to make the film, would never allow the involvement of a pushy, take-charge American woman on their pet project, in any managing capacity especially. Sexist? Sure – but that was the nature of the business.

This documentary project had miraculously fallen into Wallace’s lap. His partner, a penny-pinching bean counter named Marvin Waltz, stumbled upon a Tokyo film team that had their original American producer pull out of an impending collaborative project while under investigation by the CIA for accepting bribes from a shadowy group of Eritrean liberationists who had been censured by the UN for human rights violations. Wallace was initially hesitant to sign the Japanese, but they insisted they had this no-fail project, documenting the historical mistreatment of an indigenous Ethiopian culture and people that was sure to be completely annihilated in a projected famine-induced civil war.

Wallace realized that the film would make good money, but even better it would portray him as a selfless humanitarian – a distinction he sorely needed after a misstep two years earlier from which he was still recovering that unfairly pegged him as an old school stereotype. The Japanese even had majority funding secured via their previous producer through that Ethiopian magnate, which certainly sweetened the deal. Wallace’s involvement was largely ornamental, more to exploit his plentiful distribution contacts and label the project as an American/Japanese/Ethiopian collaboration, with a potential big payoff and almost no risk. Taking Marvin’s advice, he accepted the project.

Then, a miracle occurred: just after accepting the project, news began circulating that musician Bob Geldof was interested in organizing a rock super-group to raise money for a nearby part of that deprived region. Leeching onto and riding the publicity behind Band Aid, and with Geldof’s canvassing of musicians and heavy-hitting celebrities at fund-raisers, it suddenly looked like Wallace Carswell’s gamble could pay off in an unexpected and most spectacular way.

As if suddenly realizing Wallace was thinking of her, Mary stretched, smiled and ran her finger down the railroad trestle in the center of her partner’s almost hairless chest. It’s about time you revealed my surprise, Boo Boo, she said, post-coital sleep still fogging her mouth, You promised.

Wallace tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. Please, Mary, can’t we just lie here and not talk about work? He went out of his way to portray the documentary to her as just another insignificant distribution job – not the millionaire-maker he prayed it would be.

You need to calm down, Mary more ordered than cooed, a little agitated, walking two fingers up the rippled scar to her bedmate’s lips. Marvin said you were so preoccupied lately with this mysterious African project, so you either have to tell me what it is, or …

Marvin has a big mouth, Wallace snorted, an acidic knot rising in his throat. He briefly looked at the nightstand between the Tylenol and Xanax for his antacid. There was no way he was putting Mary on the project – the Ethiopian and the Japanese would surely reject both of them – but he had to offer her something, and soon; he couldn’t keep stringing her along, she was driving him nuts.

He thought fast. But, well – the thing is, Mary – the surprise is I have a DP job for you. But you have to keep it a secret for now.

Mary sat up in bed, her face first quizzical then opening into a broad smile. I’m on a shoot? Seriously! Who’s directing? What do the financials look like?

Wallace clutched his chest and tried to roll away. He only had two other films in early development, and one lousy script in turnaround. Christ, he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut around her. Projects were few and far between in this crap Reagan economy, and he hated mixing work and play – it never ended well. He was terrible around women, why did he always blab around her? Why was the prospect of being with her so damn appealing he turned into such a prattling lunatic?

He suddenly had an idea – not a good one, but at least a half-baked appeasing notion. He took a final drag on his cigarette before grinding it out in an already overflowing ashtray on the nightstand. There was an anvil on his chest.

No, no, one thing at a time, he grunted as he picked up and shook an empty Jim Beam bottle then laid it back on the floor. I’ll get Marvin to fax your project over. Mind you, it’s all very preliminary, still in fund-raising. I was going to tell you when the details got firmed up. In the meantime, why don’t you go shower so we can go get pancakes down at the Toddle House. We’ll talk more about it then.

Mary grabbed Wallace’s face with both hands and planted a sloppy kiss on his lips before she hopped out of bed and strode nude and confident into the bathroom. I knew you’d come through, Boo-Boo! I can’t wait to hear about it!

Once the door closed and the shower started Wallace thought for a minute before he picked up the bedside phone and punched a number. On the fourth ring a gruff voice picked up.

Marvin, it’s me, Wallace whispered coarsely, watching the bathroom door. Did you have that high-dollar VCR recording while Fox and Madonna were both talking about that tribe on Entertainment Tonight a minute ago? … No? Damn, what’d you even buy it for? Michael J. Fox. The actor. I don’t know, I couldn’t hear a fucking thing. Well, trust me they were. Yea. When is Kanayama’s crew scheduled to start filming anyway? When? June 7th?

Wallace clutched his chest and moaned as he looked up at his embarrassing and sparsely-filled planning wall calendar over his desk. It was just that damn sausage roll, he continued. Yes, they’re prescription, and I take them every day. Listen I’ve decided to send a second unit in a week earlier to do the landscapes and scenery … the Danakil … I know it’s a change of plan, but they’ll be in and out before Kanayama and his guys even show up … change can sometimes be good, Marvin, sometimes you gotta think on your … how would I know? You’re the fucking genius accountant find a way! Pay them all scale, or better get their Ethiopian investor, what’s his name? What? … Haile-Selassie? … Seriously? Get him to bankroll them. He’s so fucking concerned and apparently he’s sitting on a mountain of salt mining cash, it won’t break him. Hell, we got to strike now. People – important and influential people – are starting to talk about Ethiopia, the famine and that tribe, and I gotta find something for Mary to do. This solves all of my problems.

Wallace tapped out another cigarette and lit it, the phone cradled under his chin. As another knot of reflux shot up his esophagus, he choked it back down and glanced at the bathroom. The shower was still running.

I’ll leave strict instructions with Mary for them to leave the people the hell alone under penalty of death. Call Kanayama and tell him that a second unit is going in a week early, then his people can do all the heavy lifting once they get there.

What? Because I’m the producer, that’s why … then they can just get over it. This has to be perfect – if this project saves that tribe we can get an office downtown, Marvin. Especially if Geldof’s project comes together, but we gotta beat Geldof to the punch.

Wallace listened to Marvin’s question and thought for a second. … somebody cheap. Hell, a high school student could … you know what, Tom Desmond’s been busting my chops for two years for a directing job. I know he’ll work for almost nothing. Put his name on the cover page as a reminder, I’ll throw him that bone … no, he didn’t die on the Cavett show … he had plastic surgery on his face, you can hardly tell … it’s second unit stuff, even he can’t fuck up shooting pictures of rocks and sand.

Wallace gasped in pain and grabbed his left arm, letting the receiver fall on the bed. He slowly picked it up and placed it back to his ear. … I’m here … fax me over the main project and a dollar figure and I’ll pull a second unit outline from it tomorrow. Run a preliminary cost by this Lord God Haile-Selassie. This is a win-win.

Wallace paused. … Stop it, Marvin, stop it, you won’t have to do shit, he continued after another short pause. Christ, they’re going to the armpit of the world – no phones, no fax, no mail, no nothing. Just a radio for safety and medical emergencies. A million degrees in the shade. They film scenery and sunsets for a week, come back suntanned, no one will even know they left. We put Desmond and Mary in charge and forget about it, just get a budget approved. And find a way to keep Madonna on TV talking about those villagers, her mouth is money in the bank.

His chest pain easing, Wallace hung up the phone and fell back on the bed. Inside the bathroom the water turned off.

He may have fallen ass-backwards into a great humanitarian project but he really wanted a true moneymaker. For 25 years his company Reliance Film Group had produced and distributed cookie-cutter theatrical and made-for-TV dramas, straight-to-video sci-fi thrillers and even gay and straight pornos that produced modest profits or broke even at best. He careered financially in 1964 with a film noir potboiler titled Knock Knock, Who’s Dead, prompting Hollywood Reporter to describe him simply as a new up and coming studio. Despite the faint praise, good and some great (but not spectacular) projects materialized.

In 1981 he thought he had a break-out winner when he acquired sole American and European distribution rights to a feature made in the Soviet Union called Scream Your Guts Out. It was a film about two hideously deformed men who kidnapped, graphically tortured and murdered teenagers at an abandoned amusement park who, in defiance of Hollywood standards and practices, went unpunished.

The trouble started almost immediately when the film received a kiss of box office death X rating. Reading the report and without even viewing the film, Carswell personally lobbied the ratings board to change the X to an R, which they eventually did after the director – some 26-year-old Russian kid Wallace never heard of – cut 135 instances of the F-word.

Questionable word of mouth and no advance critical reviews dramatically limited the number of theater chains willing to screen Scream Your Guts Out, so it opened in only 67 mostly independent theaters on a mid-February Tuesday in Kansas, Nebraska and the Oklahoma panhandle.

That public relations disaster was pulled from almost every theater within days. Even most of the scattered masochists who actually paid to see it walked out before the third act. A front page Kansas City Star-Tribune article described reports of degenerates caught masturbating in a few of the near-empty theaters during the more explicit torture scenes; a story that provoked a half-hearted Republican-led senate inquiry into the sorry state of Hollywood standards and the efficacy of the MPAA ratings board – an investigation no one in the film industry welcomed.

Rapidly becoming an industry pariah, Wallace actually considered hiring Tom Desmond to re-cut the godawful movie to atone for the misstep after receiving a letter from him announcing his return to the film industry after a long absence. But honestly he had forgotten about him.

Wallace generated another ton of bad press in late 1982 when it was revealed during the Senate hearings that he asked the young Russian director to only delete the fucks but leave the torture and murders intact for the sake of the R rating. An unrated VHS version got no rental traction because Erols and Hollywood Video stores banned it, but it eventually found an audience with maximum-security prisoners and Liberian warlords. The notoriety caused Reliance to enjoy a brief spike in rentals of their older films but by early 1984 that interest was fading.

After about ten minutes of calm a screaming rocket roared through Wallace’s chest. Fumbling for the phone he suddenly froze as the fax machine on the desk beside the bathroom door rang once and pages started appearing in the tray. Afarkil Documentary, stated the cover page, Main Project Outline. Top Secret.

Just below the title in sloppy handwriting Marvin had written, Tom Desmond to direct? Money approved per GH-S. –MW.

The bathroom door opened in a sauna-like cloud and Mary emerged, wrapped in a fluffy white robe, looking like a Venus with her hair up in a towel and smelling like steamed lavender. Seeing the fax pages spitting from the machine she walked barefoot over to them, never noticing Wallace flat and colorless on the bed. She picked up the curled pages and saw Marvin’s note.

Tom Desmond to direct? she muttered. Didn’t he die on television? She then briefly flipped through the pages and then realizing what she was holding her face lit up in delight.

Holy shit this is the African documentary! She turned to Wallace. You’re putting me on your African documentary? Seriously? Boo Boo that’s the ...

She paused and looked closely at the unresponsive Wallace. He appeared not to be breathing, and his eyes were open and staring vacantly at nothing. His cigarette had already burned a small hole through the bedspread. The dropped phone receiver beeped impotently on the floor.

Boo Boo?

CHAPTER ONE

It was already called the cruelest place on earth by National Geographic before Tom Desmond’s team even showed up.

The Danakil Depression – in the northeast Ethiopian Afar triangle – was the lowest-lying and hottest basin of the Danakil Desert, and universally recognized for its vicious, almost impossible living conditions. The depression was almost 100 feet below sea level, the temperature averaged around 115 degrees Fahrenheit, May through September, and there was almost no fresh water.

Complicating matters was an oncoming famine and an explosive political crisis raging through Ethiopia, including a civil war against Eritrean and Tigrayan insurgents conducted by Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia’s President, which further isolated this area. Even worse, the desert was regularly patrolled by renegade Ethiopian militia and Oromo marauders, who killed on sight. No one could have picked a worse place, a worse political and cultural climate, nor a worse time of year to make a movie.

Director Tom Desmond and Production Manager Mary Semper stood on a single-lane baked macadam road that dead-ended in the center of a Quonset hut compound that had been used by a United Nations peacekeeping force and weather station in the 1970s, strategically located between Lake Karum to the south and the abandoned settlement of Dalol about an hour to the north.

They had traveled by jostling bus almost twenty hours from Addis Ababa along the sometimes-paved Assab road before getting dropped off after Desmond unexpectedly forked over fifty dollars each to their nine Kalashnikov-armed escorts, provided to them by their main benefactor, the salt mining tycoon Mr. Gabriel Haile-Selassie.

The topography of the Danakil could not have been off half a bubble for hundreds of miles. This area was a gray, salty, nondescript desert, made dazzling white by the blinding, roasting sun. Only scattered patches of scrub, a stand of Baobab trees a few clicks to the south and a few other gnarled trees of unknown species broke the immediate horizon, where cliffs and odd rock formations loomed like squat, fat-bottomed ghosts. Desmond thought there were mountains to the north, even volcanos nearby, but a hazy scan with his binoculars revealed nothing. He actually had no idea how far away they were, or if he even looked in the right direction.

Mary told him on the bumpy flight from London’s Heathrow to Addis Ababa, then on the horrific bus ride to the depression with the armed militants, that they landed in this particular basin almost at the peak of the summer, when the outrageous heat seemingly burned straight through clothing. Desmond did not need to be told that – after just a few minutes he felt as if he were cooking in the middle of a giant wok, with the sun reflecting off all sides, concentrating on him, Mary and the compound like a magnifying glass on Japanese beetles.

This is a harsh and unforgiving environment, he announced as he squinted into the distance. It was a catch-phrase that he adopted as his own and was considering copyrighting.

Harsh and unforgiving, yeah I heard you the first time, Mary muttered.

As Desmond and Mary walked quickly back from their scouting excursion toward some shade in the compound they kept an eye on the hardscrabble road that wound into its center. The rest of the crew was arriving any minute, and they were anxious to get them to work. The sun did not set until after 8:00 p.m., so there remained several hours of daylight to plan and possibly scout some good establishing shots.

Mary had been in charge of hiring the crew. She told Desmond that two were Reliance Film regulars, a couple she knew from previous jobs and the rest came from a union directory. She also told Desmond she quite frankly was surprised to hear he was directing, as she knew of his previous movies, but like most assumed he had died, since he pretty much disappeared after a legendary taping of an unaired Dick Cavett Show episode in 1971.

While Desmond bemoaned the unpleasant working conditions, he was nonetheless thankful he had finally snagged a directing job after a lost decade of substance abuse, nameless motel rooms, dead-end retail jobs, disability and various forms of rehab that seemed to segue one into another. This was his life since 1971, wondering why he couldn’t find the work he really wanted and felt he richly deserved.

According to Mary, Mr. Carswell’s accountant partner Marvin Waltz sent them and her hand-picked crew to the Danakil to make a documentary about an indigenous nomadic tribe that once numbered in the thousands but apparently was now reduced down to only a handful of members, due to a convoluted variety of environmental and political reasons he had tried to memorize on the trip. He had been brought on board at the last minute and still had a lot of catching up to do. He found it odd that his job description was so undefined, but was eager nonetheless to put his personal stamp on the project.

As he and Mary walked quickly back to escape the boiling sun and dry wind, Desmond had time once again to reflect on the unfortunate circumstances that brought him to a most regrettable point in his career. He after all, had fourteen years to reflect on the disasters of 1970 and ‘71.

Tom Desmond was Hollywood’s most promising young film director in the 1960s after making two very profitable and critically-acclaimed feature films in a row. Then, an uncompleted third film landed him injured in a hospital, made him the subject of numerous criminal and civil lawsuits, then jobless and untouchable. This led to a cascading series of even more disastrous events that eventually left him an unemployed junkie living in a truck stop.

But then, in the late 1970s, he began straightening out his life and clawing his way back into the Hollywood food chain. Now here he was in 1984, back in the director’s chair. It had been a long, torturous road for sure.

The films he had directed back then were still fresh and brand new in his mind: the scripts, the talent, production, every edit, it was all there. His quirky 1966 horror thriller, King Size Peggy, was acknowledged as the best film of the decade for a first-time director. Then in 1968, his surreal comedy, Normal Paul, garnered two academy award nominations for best screenplay and best cinematography.

And before his life and career crashed he had all the trappings that accompanied a burgeoning 1960-era movie-making career: a trophy wife, a beautiful home, two expensive cars, pricey clothes, designer drugs – not to mention the steady stream of invitations to non-descript film festivals in exotic beach-front locales, automatic seats in Hollywood’s best restaurants and the constant attention of mealy-mouthed toadies, eager to cater to his every whim.

Desmond managed a smile as he recollected the pitch for his psychosexual horror film, King Size Peggy. It was about a reclusive small town child kidnapper who started seeing an 8-foot tall woman with a plastic head hanging around and protecting the town’s children from him. It was a hard sell due to the objectionable subject matter, the point of view and the unorthodox title, but a producer at Culver City Films – riding a wave of mid-sixties art-house movies – finally relented, denoting the film a tax write-off and raising an insulting $1.3 million for a script Desmond budgeted at $5 million. Pissed but eager to show ‘em all, Desmond brought it in for just under $1 million on December 30 to get the write-off, with cash left over to market and promote.

Adeptly handling the unpleasant plot and objectionable characters with remarkable sensitivity, the film was a surprising hit, with critics favorably comparing it to the 1931 Fritz Lang film M and the 1942 Jacques Tourneur classic, Cat People. King Size Peggy eventually made $13 million stateside and an astonishing $21 million in Europe and Japan, placing it a comfortable number 9 on 1966’s highest grossing films. Not too shabby for a first-time director who flunked out of Chicago Film School (then avoided going to Vietnam because of a 4-F classification due to a lingering case of childhood depression).

How his artsy-fartsy professors hated him! Their dry ponderings on abstract film theory were almost always drowned out by his strident insistence on commercial potential. Feature filmmaking, according to him, was about profit margin. Even a cheap, poorly-made film was a success in his eyes if it was profitable

Desmond! The same skeptical producer exclaimed with a smile when King Size Peggy recouped a substantial chunk of its production costs on opening weekend, the best Labor Day opening in four years. Loved the film!

Desmond looked again at where the clay road blurred into the horizon. No sign of the crew yet. Mary told him Mr. Carswell had challenged them to make a documentary that would be seen by two million people, a challenge he readily accepted before in a fit of bravado upped the ante to five million.

Maybe I should consider sunscreen, he mumbled out loud, rubbing sand out of his eyes. He felt sand in every orifice since arriving the day before.

Desmond followed up the success of King Size Peggy in early 1968 by again tapping the psychological horror genre, this time turning it upside down into a black comedy titled Normal Paul. The film was an instant hit with both the anti-war and drug crowd, who viewed it as a metaphor for America’s role in the Vietnam War, and the cold war clingers, who saw it as a metaphor with America’s relationship with the Soviet Union.

Shot in four weeks, and taking place almost exclusively inside a seedy motel room, the main character, a delusional bank auditor named Paul, became convinced someone else was living in his room when he wasn’t there. Finding what he believed were clues, and becoming more and more paranoid, he started concocting schemes to catch the person – each more outrageous than the last, going so far as to hire and seal a homeless man inside the heating ducts to catch the interloper, with surprising (and horrifying) results. At the conclusion, audiences were left unsure if there really was an interloper or if Paul imagined the whole episode, but that murkiness drove