From time to time the news cycle offers up an event of such import and complexity that it can only be comprehended through the medium of musical theater. This week resident composer Ben Greenman examines the recent antics of O.J. Simpson and provides a possible motive.

[BEN GREENMAN is on a yacht in the Mediterranean. GAWKER calls. BEN GREENMAN's assistant holds the telephone near his head so he can talk.]

GAWKER
Do you know why we're calling?
It's musical time
Twice every month
You make the news rhyme

BEN GREENMAN
Yeah, well, I'm in a kind of reassessment phase with regard to those musicals.

GAWKER
Maybe there's a bad connection
As you know, we have a contract
We met your price; you signed the deal
That is an accomplished fact.

BEN GREENMAN
I can have my lawyers call you if you like. But the recent behavior of celebrities has been pretty dismal, and not in the right way. It just hasn't sparked any productive thoughts.

GAWKER
Do you like your new Bugatti
Or your Gerald Genta jump hour?
We can and will withhold your fee
That's well within our power.

BEN GREENMAN
I'm mentally tapped for the moment. If it costs me the full amount every month, I'll be sad to see it go, but there's not much I can do. Plus, it's almost Yom Kippur. I'm not especially devout, but I've been wondering if maybe it's wrong to trivialize the news in this way. Who does it help? Isn't Larry Craig in terrible pain like any man with a double life? Isn't Salman Rushdie suffering from his divorce like any man who has lost his wife? Isn't Lindsay Lohan, even, a victim of her fame? Should I be mocking those people? Their priorities have been twisted in some cases, or they've been undone by circumstance, but they're still people. If only there was a target that absolutely deserved all the mockery I could deliver, someone who was utterly unsympathetic.

GAWKER
You've overthinking.
Have you been drinking?
You have exactly seven days
To pass out of this phase.

[BEN GREENMAN hangs up the phone. He stretches out dolorously on his yacht. A few days later he flies to New York City to meet some friends for dinner at Masa. During the meal, he notices that O.J. SIMPSON is also eating at the restaurant. A little while longer, O.J. SIMPSON notices BEN GREENMAN.]

O.J. SIMPSON
Oh my stars
Oh my Lord
My heart has just soared
The joy that I'm feeling
Cannot be ignored
It's Ben Greenman
Sitting right here
It's Ben Greenman
Sitting so near

His musicals have brought me so much pleasure
It's like I'm Mel Fisher and they're sunken treasure
Whenever I read them they make me laugh
If I charted my mirth upon a graph
The line would start at zero and rise high
Perhaps it would reach up to the sky

[BEN GREENMAN continues to eat.]

O.J. SIMPSON
Should I speak to him?
Or should I not?
I don't know
The moment's fraught
I feel like
A schoolgirl
My jumbo-size head is in a whirl

[O.J. SIMPSON screws up his courage and approaches BEN GREENMAN.]

O.J. SIMPSON
Mr. Greenman?
Hi. I'm O.J.
I'm not sure I
Know what to say.

I've read your writing
I love your work
Oh, man, I feel
Like such a jerk.

You wrote a piece
About my confession
I had it framed
It's a prize possession

BEN GREENMAN
I'm glad you laughed
That's what they were for
But I'm not doing
Those things anymore

O.J. SIMPSON
What? I can't breathe.
I feel like I'm choking
It's as if Leslie Nielsen
Left off with joking

In the musical about me that you wrote
There's one rhyming couplet that I love to quote
"Murder! Mayhem! Spousal abuse!
The juice is loose! The juice is loose!"

BEN GREENMAN
You understand that I was damning you as an opportunistic psychopath, right?

O.J. SIMPSON
"Murder! Mayhem! Spousal abuse!
The juice is loose! The juice is loose!"

BEN GREENMAN
Anyway, I think I'm done with the musicals for a while. They seem to be vessels of pain. They take people who have humiliated themselves and make sport of them. The only way I'd do another one is if a celebrity, preferably a crazy one, did something that didn't cause any actual pain but demonstrated intense arrogance and moral blindness. Like if, say, Phil Spector did one of those "Fire in the Hole" pranks. You know what I'm talking about? When kids order soda in a fast-food drive-thru and then toss it back into the window?

O.J. SIMPSON
That's comical, I will admit
But I can't even smile
The news that you're retiring
Will have me downcast for a while
I can't even tell you
How miserable I feel
I'm sorry to have bothered you.
Please enjoy your meal.

[O.J. goes away. Over the next few days, as he is golfing, opening nightclubs, and searching for the real killer, he thinks about what BEN GREENMAN said.]

O.J. SIMPSON
The world needs doggerel based on the news
I know what I'll do: I'll serve as his muse
I need a plan
I need a plan
I need to inspire
That wonderful man

[O.J. comes up with an idea. Having long heard rumors that his sports memorabilia, which has been stolen from him, is being sold on the gray market, he decides to set up an informal sting to nab one of the memorabilia dealers.]

O.J. SIMPSON
I'll be steady
I won't falter
I'll lay this offering
At Ben Greenman's altar

[O.J. travels to Las Vegas with a team of accomplices. He goes to the casino hotel, locates the memorabilia dealer, and bursts into the man's hotel room.]

O.J. SIMPSON
This is a sting

MAN
Please stop pointing that thing

O.J. SIMPSON
Motherfucker, you think you can
Steal my shit and sell it?
I'm in charge of this tale
And you won't live to tell it.

MAN
O.J., please, stay calm
Maintain your aplomb

O.J. SIMPSON
I'll kill ya
I'll kill ya
Give me back my memorabilia

MAN
O.J., look, don't shout
What's this all about?

O.J. SIMPSON
I always thought you were a straight shooter
I'll shut your ass down like a laptop computer

[O.J. SIMPSON is arrested for the break-in.]

O.J. SIMPSON
Go ahead and arrest me
You'll never best me
I run cause I can
I'm the gingerbread man
You'll never catch me
You've met your match, see

The yards I gained: two thousand three
The charge I face: armed robbery
Before you put me in the pen
Please call Ben, oh, please call Ben

Tell him it's me and I hope he feels better
Tell him it's all one gigantic fan letter

[BEN GREENMAN is at his ski lodge in Ischgl. There is a phone call. It is not the Las Vegas Police Department. It is GAWKER.]

GAWKER
Do you still have the blahs and blues?
You should go and turn on the news.

[BEN GREENMAN's assistant turns on the TV. BEN GREENMAN sees a report about O.J. SIMPSON's robbery arrest.]

BEN GREENMAN
I was sure I'd never feel again
The spark of inspiration
And yet, it's there, right here, right now
What a strange sensation

[BEN GREENMAN sits down at his vintage Brenner Coronet desk and begins to write a musical. It opens with O.J. SIMPSON arriving in Las Vegas for his meeting with a sports memorabilia dealer.]

CHARACTER O.J.
Where is room 1301?

CHARACTER CLERK
Excuse me, sir: is that a gun?

[The musical is finished in just four days. Fragments from O.J. and Me! The Musical is published on GAWKER, and two months later it opens in a small Off-Broadway theatre. It remains there for six months; the actor playing O.J. receives an Obie nomination. The next year, it moves to Broadway. Box office numbers are tremendous. BEN GREENMAN donates 80 percent of his profits to the Goldman family. Ten percent, he keeps. The other ten percent, he sends to O.J. SIMPSON. The check is returned to him along with a note that says, "I cannot accept this, il miglior fabbro. Yours in eternal rage, O.J." The "O" has a smiley face drawn inside of it.]

Ben Greenman is an editor at the New Yorker and the author of several books of fiction. His latest book, A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both, was recently published.

Previously: Fragments from "Larry! The Muscial"

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