For legal reasons, let us call it Universal Continental Global Mega Pictures Amalgamated.
Or UCGMPA.
Pronounced, I believe, by dropping a filing cabinet down an elevator shaft.
The check was for a modest amount.
So modest, in fact, that when I opened the envelope, my wallet looked at it and said, “Let’s not make this awkward.”
The gross amount suggested I had once written something for television.
The net amount suggested several strangers had later gathered around the check with teaspoons.
The check itself looked as though it had survived a medieval siege.
There were deductions.
Taxes.
Withholding categories apparently created during the Byzantine Empire.
One line item may have funded a retired assistant vice-chairman of procedural envelopes.
Another appeared connected to something called “legacy media stabilization,” which sounded less like accounting and more like a NATO operation.
There were initials beside other initials.
Subcategories beneath categories.
Percentages connected to percentages.
At one point I became concerned the accounting department might begin charging me oxygen handling fees.
Somewhere in California, a man I never met may now own a modest fishing boat because I once rewrote page twelve of a detective pilot in 1989.
By the time the deductions ended, the envelope contained enough money to lease a medium-sized grape.
Where were these people when I was facing blank pages?
Where were they when a scene would not work?
Where were they when a producer said, “Could the murder be funnier?”
I do not remember any of them standing beside me in the dark hours of creation offering coffee, encouragement, or a plausible second-act turn.
The strange thing about residuals is that they often arrive decades after the optimism that created them.
Writers spend years alone in rooms making imaginary people talk so real people can later deduct processing fees from the effort.
And yet there they were now.
Present at the harvest.
Absent at the plowing.
This struck me as unfair.
Possibly criminal.
Certainly impolite.
Residual accounting resembles piranhas discovering an injured accordion player in the Amazon.
So I decided to take action.
I went to the corporate headquarters of Universal Continental Global Mega Pictures Amalgamated and hid in the office of the president.
This was not easy.
Modern executives have very clean offices.
No useful closets.
No towering bookcases.
No heavy drapes behind which a wronged writer can conceal himself while clutching a residual statement and muttering about justice.
Eventually, I squeezed behind a tasteful sculpture that appeared to represent either artistic freedom or a tax shelter.
At precisely ten o’clock, the president entered.
He was a calm man in an expensive suit.
The kind of man who could fire six hundred people and still make it sound like wellness programming.
I stepped out from behind the sculpture.
“Good morning,” I said.
To his credit, he did not scream.
Presidents of large corporations are trained not to scream unless shareholders are present.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“A writer,” I said.
He blinked.
“Security?”
“Not yet,” I said. “First, justice.”
I placed my residual statement on his desk.
He examined it with the expression of a man being shown a parking receipt from 1998.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Congratulations?”
“You have been paid.”
“I have been nibbled.”
He folded his hands.
“Mr. Summers, deductions are a normal part of the entertainment business.”
“So are disappointment, bad lunches, and executives saying ‘circle back,’ but that does not make them holy.”
He smiled the way a shark might smile if sharks took accounting courses.
“You must understand,” he said, “many departments are involved in processing residual payments.”
“Were any of them involved in writing the script?”
“No.”
“Did any of them stare at a blank page until their soul began making a high-pitched noise?”
“Unlikely.”
“Did any of them wake up at three in the morning because they finally realized the second scene should be first?”
“I cannot speak to that.”
“Then why are they all standing between me and my money?”
The president leaned back.
“Because without a proper deduction structure, creative people might become financially buoyant.”
“Financially buoyant?”
“Dangerously so.”
“My net check was forty-two dollars.”
“Exactly. Balanced.”
I took a deep breath.
“Sir, I believe this company is guilty of evil bookkeeping.”
He did not flinch.
“Evil is a strong word.”
“So is bookkeeping.”
He studied me carefully.
“Mr. Summers, residuals are complicated.”
“No. Love is complicated. Death is complicated. Explaining streaming royalties to a dead accountant with a Ouija board is complicated. This is theft wearing reading glasses.”
He sighed.
“We prefer to think of it as legacy revenue management.”
“You prefer to think of a raccoon as a woodland consultant. That does not mean it should manage my pension.”
For the first time, his expression changed.
He looked mildly wounded.
Corporate presidents do not enjoy metaphor.
It makes it harder to bill people.
“Mr. Summers,” he said, “you came into this office uninvited.”
“Writers are seldom invited anywhere until someone needs a rewrite.”
“You have made your point.”
“Good.”
“And I assure you, we take all creative concerns seriously.”
This is what powerful men say when they are mentally calling security.
I gathered up my residual statement.
“I intend to sue this company for evil bookkeeping.”
“On what grounds?”
“Moral arithmetic.”
He nodded gravely.
“Our legal department will enjoy that.”
I walked to the door with dignity.
Unfortunately, dignity is difficult when you have been hiding behind sculpture.
Still, I left as well as I could.
Then curiosity overcame me.
I paused outside the door and listened.
The president pressed a button.
“Miss Deveraux,” he said, “please come in.”
A moment later, his secretary entered.
She had the brisk intelligence of a woman who had spent twenty years watching powerful men confuse wealth with wisdom.
“You heard some of that?” he asked.
“Most of it.”
“And?”
There was a pause.
“Honestly, sir, he made some valid points.”
I smiled.
At last.
Recognition.
Justice.
Humanity.
Then the president said, “Bill him.”
My smile froze.
“For what?” Miss Deveraux asked.
“Unauthorized Executive Consultation.”
“Is that a category?”
“It is now.”
“How much?”
“Start modestly. We don’t want to seem punitive.”
“Of course not.”
“Make it a monthly recurring charge.”
“For how long?”
“Until the end of the copyright term.”
Then he paused.
“Also, Miss Deveraux, my right shoe has come untied, and with my bad back, I cannot reach it. Would you mind?”
“My pleasure,” she said.
There was another pause.
Then Miss Deveraux said, “Should I include the hallway listening surcharge?”
“Absolutely.”
“Emotional disruption fee, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Residual statement handling recovery?”
“Good thinking.”
“Creative grievance processing?”
“Monthly.”
“Moral arithmetic review?”
“Quarterly.”
“Sculpture concealment damage assessment?”
“Annual.”
“But he didn’t damage the sculpture.”
“That is why it is an assessment.”
I stood outside the door gripping the wall.
It is one thing to be robbed.
It is quite another to hear the robbery being itemized.
A week later, I received another envelope from Universal Continental Global Mega Pictures Amalgamated.
Inside was a statement.
It showed my latest residual.
It also showed my new recurring charges.
Unauthorized Executive Consultation Fee.
Hallway Listening Surcharge.
Corporate Time Recovery.
Legacy Anger Management Processing.
Residual Emotional Containment.
Administrative Hurt Feelings Offset.
Writer Contact Stabilization.
When the smoke cleared, I owed them eleven dollars and eighty-two cents.
This was impressive.
They had taken a residual check, processed it, deducted from it, taxed it, fee’d it, folded it in half, boiled it gently, and converted it into a debt.
I called the company immediately.
A recorded voice answered:
“Thank you for calling Universal Continental Global Mega Pictures Amalgamated. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line while we calculate the cost of this conversation.”
I hung up.
Three days later, I received a bill for hanging up.
That was when I realized the truth.
I had not been paid a residual.
I had been invited into a relationship.
One of those modern relationships where only one side knows it exists and the other side charges a monthly maintenance fee.
I suspect when I die, several organizations will continue deducting money from my residuals on behalf of people not yet born.
Somewhere in Hollywood there may now exist a small administrative department devoted entirely to nibbling elderly writers to death.
I picture them in ergonomic chairs beneath fluorescent lights.
Quietly feeding.
`
