The room was white. Jack Rourke did not paint it white. It had been white when he moved into the apartment on Sunset Boulevard in 1987, white because the previous tenant, a screenwriter named Marty who had written two mediocre sitcoms and one ambitious film that had flopped, had painted it white during his tenure because white was easy to sell, white was neutral, white was a blank canvas that a buyer could imagine their own life in, and Jack, who had been hired as a fixer for a mid-level studio executive named Leonard Voss, had not objected to the white because white was fine and fine was what Jack did, fine was his profession, fine was his skill, and fine was the word that had carried him from being a former screenwriter who had written one film that had been criticized for being too ambitious to being a fixer who made problems go fine, who made actors fine, who made directors fine, who made scripts fine, who made everything fine, everything acceptable, everything workable, everything that did not need to be perfect because perfect was not the goal, fine was the goal and fine was harder to achieve than perfect because perfect was an ideal and fine was a compromise and Jack Rourke was a master of the reasonable compromise. The first compromise was small. It was about the white room. Leonard Voss came to the apartment on a Tuesday in March to discuss a situation, a situation involving an actor named Derek Mills who had thrown a chair at a producer during a script reading and needed to be fine, and Leonard had told Jack to handle it, and Jack had come to the apartment to prepare it for the meeting with Derek because the meeting needed to happen somewhere neutral and the white room was neutral and Leonard had said white is good and Jack had said white is fine and the first compromise was accepting white as fine when it was not fine, because the white was stark and clinical and it made Derek Mills uncomfortable, and Jack had noticed this discomfort and had not addressed it, had not said to Leonard or to himself that the white room was a problem, had only noted it and filed it away and proceeded with the meeting and the meeting had been fine, Derek had been fine, the chair-throwing incident had been resolved fine, and the first compromise was accepted without comment because it was small and the outcome was fine and fine was the measure and the white room had been fine and the compromise had been reasonable and reasonable was the standard and the standard was fine and fine was reasonable and reasonable was fine and the words had begun to lose their meaning in Jack mouth and in Leonard's and in everyone in the studio system that measured success by the absence of scandal rather than the presence of excellence and the absence of problems rather than the presence of vision and the absence of conflict rather than the presence of truth and the white room was an absence, an absence of color and an absence of warmth and an absence of humanity and an absence of the kind of space where a troubled man like Derek Mills could feel fine, but the absence had not been commented on because commenting on absence required acknowledging that something was missing and acknowledging that something was missing was not fine and not fine was not reasonable and reasonable was the standard and the standard was fine and the first compromise was the white room being acceptable when it was not and Jack had accepted it and the acceptance was the compromise and the compromise was reasonable and the reasonableness was the first step and the first step was always small and the small step was never noticed because it was small and the second compromise was larger and it was about Derek. Derek Mills was twenty-six years old and talented and unstable and the studio owned his contract and Leonard Voss wanted Jack to make Derek fine without damaging the investment, and Jack had agreed to a treatment plan, a plan that involved Derek being hospitalized for a week at a facility in Malibu, a facility that Leonard had recommended, a facility that was fine, that was reputable, that was reasonable, and Jack had signed the paperwork and the compromise was reasonable because it was for Derek's own good and everyone agreed that it was for Derek's good and the good was the justification and the justification was reasonable and the reasonableness was the second compromise and the second compromise was accepting a facility that Jack had not investigated, had not visited, had not verified, had only accepted on Leonard's recommendation because Leonard was the executive and Jack was the fixer and the fixer did not investigate the executive's recommendations, the fixer implemented them and made them fine and the implementation was fine and Derek had been fine at the facility and the chair-throwing had not recurred and the third compromise was about the script. The script was Jack's old life, a script he had written five years ago before he had become a fixer, a script about a man in a white room who saw insects and danced and crushed them and the script had been criticized for being too ambitious, too strange, too unlike anything that audiences wanted, and Leonard had laughed when Jack had shown it to him and said this is why you are a fixer now and fixers do not write scripts, fixers make other people scripts fine, and Jack had accepted this as truth and had not written another script and the third compromise was accepting that he would not write again, that the screenwriter in him had been replaced by the fixer, that the voice that had wanted to tell the story of a man in a white room who saw luminous creatures and danced and crushed them had been replaced by the voice that told actors and directors and producers that everything was fine and fine was acceptable and acceptable was reasonable and reasonable was the measure and the measure had replaced the voice and the replacement was the third compromise and the compromise was reasonable because it paid the bills and it was what Jack was good at and being good at something was a reason to continue doing it and the continuation was reasonable and the reasonableness was the third step and the step was accepted and the acceptance was the compromise and the fourth compromise was about the insects. The insects appeared in the white room in the fourth week of Jack being a fixer, in May 1987, small luminous insects that crawled across the white walls and moved in patterns and glowed with a light that came from within and were red and green and shifted through the entire spectrum and Jack saw them and he did not tell Leonard and he did not tell anyone and the fourth compromise was silence, the silence of a man who saw something and did not report it because reporting it would require explaining it and explaining it would require believing in it and believing in it would require a conversation that Jack was not ready to have, so the fourth compromise was silence and the silence was reasonable because the insects were small and they were on the walls and they were not hurting anyone and they were not a problem and problems were what Jack solved and the insects were not a problem so they were not something to solve and the non-problem was the fourth compromise and the compromise was reasonable and the reasonableness was the fourth step and the step was accepted and the acceptance was the silence and the silence was the compromise and the fifth compromise was about the dance. Jack had never danced, never in his life, and then one evening in the white room, surrounded by the luminous insects that he had not reported, he had begun to move, and the movement had become a dance, and the dance had been without steps and without music and without purpose and it had been his body moving in response to the patterns of the insects, and the dance had felt real and the insects had felt real and the white room had felt like a space between worlds and the fifth compromise was dancing in a room that belonged to the studio and that Leonard used for meetings and that was white because white was fine and fine was the standard and the standard was reasonable and the reasonableness was the fifth compromise and the compromise was reasonable because the dance had been at night when nobody was there and the white room had been empty and the dancing had been quiet and the quiet dancing in an empty white room was not a problem and the non-problem was the fifth compromise and the compromise was reasonable and the reasonableness was the fifth step and the step had been accepted and the acceptance was the dance and the dance was the compromise and the sixth compromise was about the crushing. At the height of the dance, when the insects had been a blinding storm of color and light and Jack had been covered in luminous creatures that he had not reported and had danced with in an empty white room at night, he had reached up and grabbed a handful of insects from his chest and pressed them against his body with all his strength and the insects had screamed with light and flared blindingly bright and then dissolved and Jack had grabbed more and crushed them all watching their light die one by one and the sixth compromise was destruction, the destruction of something that had felt real and beautiful and alive because Jack did not know what else to do with it, did not know how to report it, did not know how to keep it, did not know how to integrate it into the life of a fixer who made things fine and fine was the absence of problems and the insects had been a problem that Jack had not solved and the unsolved problem had been crushed and the crushing was the sixth compromise and the compromise was reasonable because the insects were gone after the crushing and gone was fine and fine was acceptable and acceptable was reasonable and the reasonableness was the sixth step and the step had been accepted and the acceptance was the crushing and the crushing was the compromise and the seventh and final compromise was about the morning after. The morning after the dance and the crushing, Leonard Voss had come to the white room and found Jack sitting on the edge of the room on a chair that had not been there the day before, sitting on the edge of the white room with clean hands and empty eyes and the white walls were still white and the insects were gone and Leonard had asked what happened and Jack had said nothing and Leonard had accepted nothing as an answer because nothing was fine and fine was acceptable and acceptable was reasonable and the seventh compromise was nothing, the nothing that Jack had said in response to Leonard's question, the nothing that contained the dance and the insects and the crushing and the silence and the white room and the reasonable compromises that had accumulated from small to large and from large to catastrophic and from catastrophic to nothing and nothing was the final compromise and the final compromise was reasonable because nothing required no explanation and no explanation was the hallmark of a good fixer and Jack was a good fixer and good was fine and fine was acceptable and acceptable was reasonable and the reasonableness of the seventh compromise was the accumulation of all six previous compromises and the accumulation was not noticed because each compromise had been small and each had been reasonable and each had been accepted without comment and the accumulation was a man who had seen insects and danced and crushed them and said nothing and the nothing was the result and the result was fine and fine was the measure and the measure had replaced the voice and the voice had been the screenwriter who had wanted to tell the story of a man in a white room and the story had been told anyway, not in a script but in a life, not in words but in compromises, not in ambition but in reasonableness, not in excellence but in fine, and the life was the story and the story was reasonable and the reasonableness was the end and the end was fine and fine was the white room and the white room was the insects and the insects were the dance and the dance was the crushing and the crushing was the nothing and the nothing was Jack Rourke sitting on a chair in a white room on Sunset Boulevard in 1987 and being a fixer and having been a screenwriter and having stopped writing and having started fixing and having made everything fine and fine being the most reasonable and devastating thing a person could do, to make everything fine and lose everything that was not fine in the process, to accumulate seven compromises that were each reasonable and together were catastrophic, to see something beautiful and not report it and dance with it and crush it and say nothing and the nothing was the final compromise and the final compromise was the accumulation of the reasonable and the reasonable was the slow erosion of the voice that had wanted to write the story of a man in a white room and the erosion was not dramatic and it was not a moment of suddenly turning bad, it was seven small steps, seven reasonable compromises, each one acceptable in isolation and together devastating and the devastation was fine and fine was the measure and the measure had replaced the story and the story had replaced nothing and nothing had replaced everything and everything had been a white room and insects and a dance and crushing and nothing and Jack had been the man in the white room and the story he had written five years ago had been his own story and he had not recognized it as his own story because recognizing it would have required seeing the insects and reporting them and dancing with them and keeping them instead of crushing them and integrating them into a life that was not fine but was real and real was not reasonable and reasonable was fine and fine was the erosion and the erosion was the seven compromises and the compromises were reasonable and the reasonableness was the devastation and the devastation was fine and fine was Jack Rourke in the white room on Sunset Boulevard in 1987 and the reasonable compromises were complete and the erosion was complete and the voice was gone and the insects were gone and the dance was gone and the crushing was gone and the nothing was complete and the nothing was fine and fine was the end and the end was the white room and the white room was the story and the story was the compromises and the compromises were reasonable and the reasonableness was the end and the end was Jack and the end was fine.