by Jim Carrey
“Christ, Jim, we’ve done so well together,” he said, surveying the Hummingbird grounds. “Look at all we’ve built. A lot of people think you’re crazy right now.”
They’re scared, thought Carrey, ashes flurrying down on his forearms. Of me. Of the business. Their own loss of power.
“You’ve angered the gods, Jim,” said Al. “Phillip Morris. The Mickey and Minnie cakes. The fucking girl. We’ve got ourselves a real cock-up.”
Gerry Carcharias was dialed into the meeting from the Amalfi Coast, and—just as Carrey was about to demand how Al knew about Helena—Carcharias’s voice came crackling through the speakerphone, saying, “Jim! It’s Gerry. We want to talk about how we can help you. You know people are still very hot on you over here at CAA. Wink and Al are doing one heckuva job and…”
Carrey’s interior went riptide, his own raw survival instincts rushing against a fading flow of Mao’s paranoia, and against them both a sensation of drowning as he struggled to recall how the old Jim would have managed this situation, then a horrible panic as he realized he didn’t know. And that he didn’t know other things either. Religion, according to Mao, was just a drug fed to the masses. That had seemed a valid point when he read it in character. Did Jim now agree? Had he lost God in the mix? Or had the holy father walked out on the performance? As Wink’s and Al’s lips moved, he searched frantically for pieces of memory that might define him—
I remember riding a two-wheel bike at the age of three in Aurora, Ontario, pedaling down the street to all the neighbors’ amazement.
I hated cauliflower as a kid, it made me gag but not anymore.
I got spanked a lot. “If he gets out of hand, just hit him,” they’d say.
My parents told everyone, “Feel free to beat him if you need to,” joking but not really, anyone who looked after me was allowed.
My aunt Janet used an old piece of Hot Wheels track—
Eleven years old getting drunk every weekend down on all fours puking into a bucket while giving my brother, John, and his friends a half-conscious thumbs-up, waking up naked the next morning on the cement floor of Marty Capra’s rec room; they’d all stripped off my clothes as a joke—
Sneaking into the drive-in movie theater at thirteen to watch The Exorcist.
Winning the Halton County Speech Contest, my father in the front row, cheering so loudly the top plate of his dentures fell to the bottom of his mouth and, and—
My sister Pat inviting me to eat the cake batter she’s mixing, but really it’s wallpaper paste and I gag on it, our laughter—
Losing my virginity age fifteen to a skinny blond girl who was twenty-five while Styx’s Grand Illusion played on the Panasonic in quadraphonic sound and—
The flow of memory gave way to a torrent of impulses.
Run into the canyon.
Shit my pants, see how long it takes them to notice.
Break Al’s fat little finger—which was now pointed at Carrey’s chest, the churlish man saying, “People once loved you, Jim.”
“Loved?”
Al had been raised in the tony suburb of Scarsdale, New York, the only son of Al Spielman Sr., a pioneering heart surgeon whose favor he had always sought but never received. He’d graduated from Columbia, his father’s alma mater, with high honors, then gone into politics, working as a Carter White House staffer during the Camp David Accords, a promising career ended when he bought three grams of heroin from an undercover D.C. police officer. Family connections spared him jail time, but his political life was over. He fled west in 1983, at first trying his hand at stand-up comedy, then, in failure, becoming a manager, modeling himself after the great Bernie Brillstein, building a stable of talent that would lift him to the highest echelons of Los Angeles society.
“The guys at the Riviera think you’re nuts.”
Carrey clenched his jaw, imagining Al slandering him at the snobby Brentwood golf club.
“And so do some guys in China.”
“China…?” Carrey, hands now tingling, sensed not just a plot but an imminent boom lowering. Did they know about Mao? Had Georgie told them?
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“We’re quite sure you do.”
“We know all about Mao!” blurted Wink. “Jig’s up, Jimbo!”
“Kaufman swore me to secrecy.”
“Kaufman!” spat Al. “Kaufman was getting played the whole time. There was never any billionaire in Taipei. His whole reality was fabricated by the state! They had him from the get-go.”
“It was a mindfuck, Jim,” said Wink, winking. “They have everything. Including a treatment now guaranteed to never see the light of day. An abomination opening with a dying Mao and a long shot of forty million starving peasants, suffering, miserable, poor, sacrificed people who”—he was red-faced now—“would lose us the entire Asian market! You’ve gone crazy, you know that?”
“That’s what everyone’s saying,” said Al.
The suggestion that Carrey was somehow insane had long been used as a tool of manipulation by his handlers.
The touching of this wound enraged him now.
“I need you guys to go.”
“Let’s all just settle down,” said Gerry Carcharias. “Let’s do a deal. Eh, Jim? Like old times. We let this whole episode go. Pave it over, make it a speed bump. And then you, as a favor to us, you take all the passion, all the fearlessness, all the unflinching artistry that you brought to the character of Mao. And you bring that to the possibly even-more-challenging character of Morris Simmons.”
“Who’s Morris Simmons?”
“He’s your ticket back into the American heart,” said Al. “He’s the lead of Hungry Hungry Hippos in Digital 3D.”
* * *
—
It would be a massively budgeted, heavily digitized summer spectacle, and more: the start of a franchise based on a beloved 1980s tabletop game in which small children imitated an animal feeding frenzy. CAA’s data scientists had declared it a surefire juggernaut, their research suggesting deep affinities awaiting monetization across all demographics. Several A-listers had lobbied to star, but data from the vital five-to-ten age bracket had argued strongly for Jim Carrey, soon to be reintroduced to America as a winning father figure through a massive marketing campaign.
“Read him those Kenny Lonergan pages.”
“Don’t read to me like I’m some fucking child.”
“Hear us out,” sighed Al.
Working under his pen name, Mitch Branchwater, the acclaimed playwright Kenneth Lonergan had produced a three-page treatment, which Wink Mingus now pulled from the front pocket of his cabana shirt. He cleared his throat and began—
“Meet MORRIS SIMMONS, forty-eight, Chicago advertising executive. Proud resident of the upscale suburb of ROSEDALE. He is fired from his ad agency after losing its biggest account, THE MERIWETHER COMPANY, makers of ‘Satellites, Latrines and All Inbetweens.’ If no place for Morris at Meriwether, no place for Morris in world. BIG PROBLEM.”
Most of Carrey, still ready to die for his art, fantasized leveling Wink with a blow to the head. A smaller, somewhat needier part marveled at Wink and Al’s very professionalism, their coordination, and was tempted by this promised restoration to his former commercial heights. This was enough to sedate him as Al opened his own copy of the treatment, continuing:
“Each morning MORRIS pretends to go to work but really drives to a neighboring town, MECKLENVILLE. Spends days hiding in Mecklenville Public Library, reading children’s books, the books his mother once read him. One day finds a book called INTO HIPPOPOTOMA. Can’t put it down! Tries to check it out. But librarian says it’s not a library book. She doesn’t know where it’s from. So it’s his. STRANGE. One day driving home finds OLDER MAN (think Sam Jackson) in three-piece suit. Just standing by his mailbox. Guy has a letter, gives it to Morri
s, says: ‘Tell me, Morris: Do you remember how to dream?’ Morris asks how he knows his name but guy vanishes into SWIRLING RAINBOW. Morris being watched by NOSY NEIGHBOR (heavyset) from whose perspective he’s been talking to THIN AIR. Neighbor’s face says: Guy’s gone totally crazy! Morris opens letter, written in MAGICAL RAINBOW INK, saying he’s won a safari to LAND OF HIPPOPOTOMA. Same place he’s been reading about in MYSTERIOUS LIBRARY BOOK.”
“What a curious coincidence,” said Al.
“I’m already hooked,” said Gerry Carcharias.
“At night,” continued Wink, “he reads to his children ZACK and MOLLY, from Into Hippopotoma. It tells the story of Hippopotoma’s founding by THE HIPPO QUEEN (think Dame Helen Mirren), who rules benevolently over the hippos. Morris tells kids he’s gonna travel to Hippopotoma and meet all these AMAZING CARTOON ANIMALS…”
As they spoke, Carrey felt Mao growing ever smaller inside of him, felt the demon grip loosening as his mind flashed to a YouTube clip he’d seen of the dead Mao in his crystal coffin, the spinning axis of history become a grisly souvenir.
Wink was saying, “Morris’s wife, DANI, finds out he was fired. Confronts and emasculates him, forcing him on JOURNEY. He does what OLD MAN told him. Says, ‘Hippos! Hippos! Hippos!’ Then a SWIRLING RAINBOW takes him to Hippopotoma, world of digitally animated JUNGLE ANIMALS terrorized by HYENA QUEEN (think Tilda Swinton) who STEALS THEIR WATER depriving them of FISH AND CROPS and threatening their sacred mango grove, home of THE GOLDEN MANGO.”
Jim’s head fell into his hands, rolling gently there as Al continued, “Morris uses his ADVERTISING SKILLS to unite animals against HYENA QUEEN. They regain courage. He regains faith in self. Things go wrong. Then right. Then really wrong. Then really right. Morris Simmons has saved Hippopotoma! Sees picture of his wife. Returns home with briefcase full of GOLDEN MANGOES and FOUR SMILING BABY HIPPOS.”
Al’s voice went dreamy. “What happens to those babies?”
“We watch them grow up,” said Wink. “Summer after summer.”
“Billion-dollar franchise,” said Gerry Carcharias. “Summer after summer.”
“Lanny Lonstein is directing,” said Al. “He’s the millennial George Lucas. Guy’s a digital DeMille and you’re lucky he’s a fan. He grew up with you, wants to make you great again. Burger King’s on board for a special sand—”
Carrey was gone far inside himself. Eyes closed—
He is twelve, coming home from school with his saxophone. His father, who had his own orchestra long before, jumps up from the couch, takes the instrument, starts playing a slow and sexy version of the 1920s standard “Bye Bye Blackbird,” his favorite song. Jim’s mother walks up to him, speaking only with a smile. She holds up her hands as if to say, Would you like to dance?
He puts his hands in hers, they start spinning around the room to the alto’s whispered tones, the pair of them singing as they move, hands in hands, “No one here to love or understand me. Oh what hard luck stories they all hand me. Make my bed and light the lights, I’ll be home late tonight. Blackbird, bye bye…”
His eyes water as he’s pulled back to the patio where Wink says—
“Your lifestyle burns through cash. This Helena San Vicente thing. Maybe she’s cool, but maybe she’s not. I think you know where this is leading.”
“Stop.”
“Somewhere so dark they need a zillion miles of neon just to light it.”
“Please,” pleaded Carrey. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Vegas,” said Al. “It’s happened to better men than you.”
Carrey wilted in the patio chair, missing the memory of his mother.
“The Mirage comes with a contract. Ten shows a week. You need the money, you got no choice but to take it.”
“People aren’t there to see you, they’re just in town.”
“You’re living in a condo, all your neighbors knocking on your door for selfies ’cause you’re still famous, you just can’t afford a place with a fence.”
“I said stop it.”
“Empty sex with call girls. They say you’re special, no need for a condom. Bang! Palimony out the wazoo! Bankruptcy courts put you on allowance. You’re eating meals out of Styrofoam containers from five-dollar buffets. You owe the mob money, but you lost your last cash to a sad game of keno.”
“They beat you with baseball bats.”
“You end up in a hole in the desert.”
“Jesus!”
“There’s no other way forward, Jim,” said Al. “You’re upsetting TPG.”
“TPG? Who’s TPG?”
“The Texas Pacific Group.”
“TPG owns CAA.”
“Like SLP with WME.”
“Or UTA and PSP.”
“GMO! DOA! TMI! ESP! PCP! DVD! ICU! Heeheeeheee!!!”
Jim devolved from acronymic eruption into mad pagan laughter, head beyond spinning, grinding, trying to process the unprocessable as desert winds blew heavy ash across the yard.
Then a screeching pitch pierced his skull; it felt like tinnitus but raised by orders of magnitude, undulating, blaring. He wondered if he was the victim of a microwave weapon as, to his eyes, Wink and Al went distant in their patio chairs, like Spielberg had suddenly racked focus on the scene. “My agents are supposed to be working for me!” Carrey ragingly concluded.
“Think of it as a partnership, Jim,” said Gerry Carcharias. “The star feeds the system, the system feeds the star.”
“Yeah,” agreed Wink. “The star feeds the system, the system feeds the star.”
Carrey turned to Al seeking explanation, received the same cold assertion:
“The star feeds the system, the system feeds the star.”
“What’s wrong with you guys?”
Frightened by their voided gazes, the feeling of tiny zippers being done and undone all through his skull, he got up and started retreating toward his house.
Wink and Al rose, shuffling mindlessly after him.
“The star feeds the system…”
“Leave me alone!”
His throat went dry. The backyard became a simmering Mojave vista.
“The system feeds the star…”
Forms and figures undulating, Boschian…
“The star feeds the system…”
Wink and Al reaching for him, “The system feeds the star…,” as he fumbled his way inside, then locked the door behind him, their chanting made ghostly by the thermal glass all clouded from dust carried on the devil winds. He wanted only for water, cooling water.
He walked into the kitchen where the flatscreens were playing the local news, the weatherman Dallas Raines with his perfectly chiseled features, blond highlights whispering of teenage love, deep tan singing of weekends on the slopes at Mammoth, a Doppler-reading Dorian Gray, his job having less to do with prediction than assurance. He, like the rest of them, was a storyteller, putting a city of frightened children to bed as, more and more, meteorology described apocalypse.
“We’re up in the nineties all week long. No rain in sight. That’s the good news and the bad news, Los Angeles, because we got these Santa Anas rolling off the desert, and with high temperatures and fire season here you know what that means. You might wanna be hosing down the roofs tonight! And get those emergency bags ready. And now it’s over to Don Chevrier for sports.”
“Don Chevrier?” Carrey searched for where he’d heard this name as the giant flatscreen lost its HD, filling with grainy 1970s color footage of a man in a wide-lapelled plaid sports coat declaring, “Well, folks, the Boston Bruins are the 1970 Stanley Cup Champions as that fellow named Bobby Orr caps an amazing season with a miraculous goal in sudden death overtime.”
He watched the broadcast, spellbound, Derek Sanderson passing the puck to the superhuman Bobby Orr, Carrey’s favorite childhood hockey
hero, who tucked it into the short side of the net, then sailed through the air like a boy in a flying dream. The replay’s slow motion seemed to radiate out from the TV, slowing his heartbeats, his breathing.
The kitchen filled with the familiar smell of frying onions and chuck as his phone began to sing “Bye Bye Blackbird,” a ring he’d never programmed, but couldn’t resist. He picked it up, watched his thumb almost autonomously touch ANSWER.
He raised the haunted device to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jasper!” a familiar voice, effusively friendly, a little loud, a man speaking against his own deaf ear. “You watchin’ the hockey?”
“Hello?”
“What am I always telling you and your brother?”
“Take the body.”
“Take the body! You don’t let a man stand in your crease…”
“Dad—”
“You take ’em out!”
“Dad!”
“Heya gotta good one for ya, two guys walkin’ down the street, one-a them says—”
“No.”
“One-a them says, says, Heywaaa…”
“Dad, no.”
“Says, Heeyyweeeeeeaaaulllaaghh…” now, from the phone, came the old hypomanic squealing that his father would leave on his answering machine after jokes begun predictably, then ended in racing aphasia that left Carrey afraid that genes were prophecy, that they would, in time, deliver him to the same place where his father, Percy, suffered. And where, in this moment, tears streaming down his face, peering through the foyer to see Wink and Al gazing pruriently at him, hot off the sight of a breakdown, it seemed he’d finally arrived.
* * *
—
He smoked a bowl of indica, hoping for calm, nearly finding it.
Coyotes started yipping in the canyons, the animals celebrating a feast, sending a pfnur through his body.
In childhood he and his cousin Tom had played a game called Bloody Mary. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary…,” they’d chanted in the stairwell of his grandmother’s tenement, trying to summon the spirit of a demon. Once, on the third chant a bloodcurdling scream had issued from down below them, sending a chill up his spine, raising the hairs on his head. He’d invented a word to describe the feeling. A pfnur. And what he felt now, against the coyotes’ frenzied howling, was beyond any ordinary pfnur. It made him fear for his own skin. Made him recall how, years before, his daughter, Jane, would come to him at night shaken and afraid, reporting a presence in her bedroom.
