The Rough Cut

by Douglas Corleone

  Ethan turns to Brody, his face burning red, a large vein in his left temple visibly throbbing. He looks like he’s just been gut-punched again.

  ‘I am on your side, Ethan,’ Church says, with a vehemence usually reserved for closing arguments. ‘Man, I eat, sleep and breathe your case. I smoke, shoot and snort your case. If your case was your sister, I’d be bending her over the—’

  Jesse of the Speaker booms to life. ‘Too far, Nick.’

  ‘Look,’ Church says, shifting gears, ‘what’s important is how this piece of evidence affects your case, and the fact is, it cuts both ways. On the one hand, it means Piper wasn’t the picture of purity Lau would have the jury believe.’ He turns to me with a palm out. ‘Not because of the sex – that would be sexist – but because of whom it was with.’ He turns back to Ethan. ‘It also means that there are other people – plural – that we can point to at trial. It means there will be enough evidence to, at the very least, confuse the hell out of the jury.’

  ‘And on the other hand?’ I ask.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Church says grimly, ‘the prosecution will argue this only gives Ethan an additional motive to kill her.’

  ‘Do you even hear yourself?’ Ethan erupts, his eyes suddenly wet, his hands trembling. ‘My case, the evidence, the jury … none of that means anything to me compared to the accusations you’re making here tonight.’

  Not unkindly, Church says, ‘I’m not making any accusations, Ethan. Science is.’

  Ethan abruptly turns and makes for the door, his chest rising and falling like a balloon full of nitrous.

  ‘Then fuck you, Nick,’ he says, with that disquieting calmness, ‘and fuck science. You’re fired. First thing in the morning I’m requesting a new lawyer.’

  ‘We need to learn everything we can about Nathan Jakes,’ Church said, the moment Ethan was out the door.

  Once again, Jesse’s voice startled the shit out of me, this time because my mind was somewhere else entirely. ‘Already on it, Nick.’

  Church then turned to me and Brody. ‘With Tahoma in Australia, you two are going to have to step up your game.’

  ‘When will Tahoma be back?’ Brody asked.

  ‘Depends on what he finds,’ Church said. Then added, ‘And how many mornings he’s still too sloshed to board an international commercial flight.’

  ‘So what do you want us to do?’

  ‘Go into town in the morning, find out what you can in the legal community about Nate Jakes and his law firm.’

  ‘How do we do that exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘Strike up a conversation with lawyers – it’s not rocket science, Riles.’

  ‘Sorry, counselor, but we’re not private investigators.’

  ‘No, you’re documentarians. It’s literally your job to get people to talk, to extract pertinent information, is it not?’

  Brody appeared uncomfortable. ‘What about everything Ethan just said? What about what the client wants?’

  ‘Fuck what the client wants,’ Church said. ‘It’s not his reputation as a superlawyer that’s on the line in this trial, it’s mine.’

  When we reached Waikiki late that evening, I knew I should go straight up to our apartment, smoke a bowl with Brody, maybe watch a few episodes of You’re the Worst on Hulu. Yet I also knew, from the moment we pulled out of Ko Olina, that I wouldn’t. That I wouldn’t go upstairs at all, that I would instead tell Brody that I needed to go for a drive, maybe visit my friend Wendy over on the windward side of the island, see if she might be willing to perform some of our ever-increasing administrative tasks for a percentage on returns from the movie.

  I knew Brody wouldn’t be happy when I told him.

  But I also knew he wouldn’t object.

  I drove up North Shore. Found Ethan on the side of the road, trudging through a steady rain toward his apartment. I tapped my horn once, twice, until he turned around. With his right forearm shielding his eyes from my headlights, he looked at the Jeep; he looked at me. Then he turned and kept walking.

  Behind me, a much harsher horn sounded, causing my middle finger to instinctively leap out the window. In my rearview was a twenty-something tourist in a rented white Ford Mustang, undoubtedly drunk, with a girl nearly passed out next to him in the passenger seat.

  I stuck my head out the window of the Jeep. ‘This is Hawaii, asshole. No honk, no hurry.’ Then added: ‘Cocksucker.’ No idea why I threw that in but it seemed to work. Well, that or he might have seen Ethan standing at the passenger side of my Jeep, staring him down. We’d never know which one of us put a fright in him, but the important thing was the motherfucker backed down.

  Ethan climbed into my Jeep.

  We drove in silence, and without really thinking about it (probably because I’d already thought about it a lot), I steered us in the direction of Kaena Point.

  When we reached the unpaved road, I put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and took us over the surface of Mars. This time, though, when the road stopped, so did I. I steered the Jeep to the right so that we faced the dark sea, and put the transmission in park.

  I switched off the headlights, then the ignition, leaving us in pitch-blackness.

  We continued to sit in absolute silence. Not the kind of awkward silence we’d left back at Church’s suite. This was a comfortable silence, an intimate quiet, the kind of moment words can only kill. Which was why I was so disheartened when, seconds later, Ethan was the first to speak. There was beer on his breath; he’d been walking home from a bar.

  ‘Know why Nate’s DNA found its way into a law enforcement database to begin with? Because while we were at UH, we got arrested for fighting some locals – a fight I started. An ounce of shrooms I’d been carrying found their way onto the pavement during the brawl. Nate didn’t even hesitate. He yelled out, “They’re mine, officer. My little brother knew nothing about them.”’ Ethan gazed out the window at the black horizon. ‘Whether they believed him or just had respect for what he did, the police cut me loose right then. Nate got booked for possession with intent.’

  ‘He did time?’ I asked.

  ‘His lawyer pled the charges down to a misdemeanor. He ended up with a suspended sentence. But the conviction gave him all kinds of hell when it came time to pass the Character and Fitness part of his bar application. His license was delayed for months. He had to borrow money to pay another lawyer who specializes in attorney ethics cases. Had to sit through too many hearings to count. For most of those months, none of us thought he’d ever be admitted. Nate, too. He was sure he’d spent three years in law school and six months studying for the bar for nothing.’ Ethan paused, added, ‘Well, nothing but a quarter million dollars of student loan debt.’

  ‘Can I be honest with you, Ethan? I think Church is right; you need to listen to your head not your heart when there’s this much on the line. View this strictly through the prism of your case. You don’t need to personally come to any conclusions about whether your brother slept with Piper. We just need to decide how we’re going to present the evidence in a light most favorable to you.’

  ‘Nate’s my brother, Riley.’

  ‘Nate’s not on trial here. You are. And it’s not for an ounce of psychedelic mushrooms. It’s for your life.’

  His eyes filled again. ‘I feel so trapped, Riley.’

  ‘You are trapped, Ethan. You’re on an island and wearing an ankle bracelet. Any more trapped and Buffalo Bill is probably lowering a bottle of lotion to you in a bucket.’

  Ethan smiled, and it was easy to envisage girls in short shorts and bikini tops swooning at one of his gigs as he crooned the lyrics to ‘American Pie’ or ‘Brown-eyed Girl’. Fleetingly, I wondered if I’d ever have the chance to see him play live.

  The rain fell harder, making beautiful music on my hard top, sounds I could listen to forever. As I listened, it suddenly occurred to me that I’d picked up an accused killer by the side of the highway and driven him to a dark, isolated spot – intentionally.

  �
��Should we just Thelma & Louise it right into the ocean?’ I joked.

  He laughed, a real laugh, nothing like the phony mercy chuckles I received from my shrink.

  He took my hands in his, gently, yet with an unmistakable power, a force I instantly identified as the capacity to decide life and death. Reflected in those big blue eyes was my fate. I just couldn’t see it yet.

  Then his lips were on mine, his strong hand beneath my shirt. I had thought that in this situation, if ever it arose, I would think only of Brody and Piper and how awful I was for betraying them both. But once I was out of my shorts and on top of him and he was inside me, I forgot about everything; I forgot about everyone.

  For a few moments just before coming, I even forgot about my film.

  In the editing room, I imagine the camera on us that night, fantasize of how we might have looked to an outside observer. I’m not tearing myself up for remembering, as I did in the days immediately following that evening, because I’ve finally come to the realization that you can experience both shame and excitement in the same breath. Hell, with sex, it’s almost inevitable.

  The return drive to Waikiki was bliss. But once I missed my exit, I started wondering what else I might have overlooked in my oblivious euphoria. Did I smell of him? Were there any stains I couldn’t explain away? Any scratches or bite marks?

  ‘Where were you tonight?’ were the first words I heard when I stepped inside our apartment.

  ‘I told you.’ But I blanked on what I’d told him.

  ‘Come on, Rye, I called Wendy.’

  My eyes went to the television, where onscreen Marissa and I were electronically frozen on the terrace at Church’s suite.

  Brody raised the remote and hit PLAY.

  ‘ … picked a more reasonable goal,’ I was saying, ‘like maybe putting the first man on Jupiter.’

  Marissa chuckled, then her face became cold. ‘What were you doing at Breakers last night?’

  Onscreen, a stupid look washed over my face, a deer between two sets of headlights.

  ‘Ethan told you?’

  ‘Nick and I saw the surveillance footage this morning before the arraignment.’

  ‘Shit.’

  She said, ‘You do realize that if prosecutors can demonstrate you had a relationship with the defendant outside of attorney–client, they can call you to testify, don’t you? That they can … ’

  ‘I don’t need to see the rest of this, Brody. I was there.’

  ‘Just another few seconds,’ he said.

  ‘ … when you’re called to testify, Riley? Are you going to sink Nick’s client, or are you going to perjure yourself and risk prison?’

  ‘I won’t see him like that again.’

  Brody paused the footage.

  Brody hadn’t been in the habit of watching the dailies, so I hadn’t given much thought to editing my conversation with Marissa, if the camera had captured it at all. There would be time, I thought, plenty of time. I figured Brody wouldn’t view any of the footage until we were well into post.

  ‘You’re making a big deal out of nothing,’ I said.

  His eyes were already wet. ‘Then why didn’t you tell me you were there last night? Why did you lie to me about this evening?’

  ‘Because I knew you’d blow this all out of proportion.’

  ‘No, you don’t get to do that, Rye. You can’t say you lied because you were worried about some hypothetical reaction you dreamed up for me – that’s bullshit.’

  ‘But true.’

  ‘Did you fuck him?’

  ‘Are you serious right now?’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘No, I didn’t touch him. I wouldn’t. I met him for the movie, Brody. Our movie.’

  ‘Now it’s ours, huh?’

  ‘We know nothing about him. I was hoping, after a few beers, he’d open up a little.’

  ‘And he was hoping you’d open up a little.’

  I smacked his coarse left cheek, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

  ‘If I learn who he is,’ I shouted, ‘I can better direct the film. I can make certain we capture the most poignant moments – shots revealing his character that we would have otherwise missed.’

  ‘So,’ Brody said, calming, ‘if it’s for the film, anything goes, right?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘Why did you say at the end of your conversation with Marissa that you wouldn’t see him again “like that”?’

  ‘Socially.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Believe whatever the hell you want.’

  I turned and stomped toward the door.

  ‘Is our relationship permanent, Rye, or are you just in it until the movie gets made?’

  I opened the door. Now my eyes were wet. ‘I could find another cameraman, Brody. That’s not why I’m with you.’

  ‘Be fair to me, Rye,’ he said, as I stood in the doorway. ‘Is there something between you and Ethan?’

  I wanted to walk out without another word, wanted to say ‘asked and answered’, wanted to walk back inside and take his face in my hands and assure him that he was the only man that I loved, the only man I ever would love.

  Instead, I said, ‘Sure,’ as sarcastically as I could, ‘because there’s nothing I need more right now than another guy, with questionable talent and grandiose dreams, leeching off me.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  I like to come first. And in Brody’s life, I do. My theory is that, without a single sane or competent parent, Brody learned to live from books, TV and movies, and men tend to treat women better in fiction than they do in real life. Sure, he has his quirks – like having to fall asleep to Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits – but I’ve learned to love those oddities nearly as much as I do him. With his intellectual curiosity, his childlike fascination with all things human, his adoration of the arts, Brody challenges me in ways I never thought possible. He’s my bestest buddy, the one person I want to spend every day with; it’s as simple as that. Which is why I finally said yes.

  ‘You accepted his proposal,’ Dr Farrockh says with an inscrutable expression, as though I’ve just informed her I’d decided on pizza tonight.

  I smile, a gesture I know she’ll mirror regardless how she feels. ‘Yeah,’ I tell her, ‘I’m ready, and he’s everything I ever wanted. A guy who’s smart, sexy, sensitive. I think I was trying to sabotage myself by waiting so long to accept.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ she says, and as sincere as she sounds, I don’t trust the sentiment. ‘So how have you felt since you said yes?’

  ‘Relieved,’ I say.

  ‘Because you don’t have the burden of having to make the decision anymore?’

  ‘Happy,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve felt happy since I said yes.’

  She doesn’t challenge my change in answer; she never does.

  ‘The relief,’ I say, ‘is more over the documentary. It’s evolving faster than I ever expected. And it’s even better than I anticipated after the trial.’

  ‘How does Brody feel about the movie?’

  ‘He loves it. He thinks we’re going to field multiple offers.’

  ‘So he’s been more optimistic than usual,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah, for the first time since I met him, he seems truly content.’

  ‘And hopeful?’

  ‘Yeah, he talks more about the future, about our future, both personally and professionally. The other day he expressed how fulfilling it will be to one day hear someone say he’s done well for himself, without following it up with the word “considering”.’

  ‘So he’s raising the bar for himself?’

  I absently lift my left shoulder and lose myself in the forest green carpet. ‘Back in New York, Brody had this recurring dream where he’s a pedestrian stranded on a concrete island, with cars speeding in all directions. The traffic lights are malfunctioning, so he can’t go forward or back, left or right.’ I pause. ‘It was maddening, he said, would tear him to pieces eve
n the next day. But he hasn’t had that dream in months now, at least not since we moved to the islands.’

  ‘So you’ll be staying here in Hawaii then?’

  I sigh. ‘We haven’t really settled on the where.’

  ‘But he wants to remain in the islands?’

  ‘From all indications,’ I concede.

  ‘But you think he’ll go along with whatever you decide?’

  ‘To be honest, yeah. He’s my opposite in that sense. He’s a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.’

  ‘And you’re the boss?’

  ‘No, no. Not in the way my father was. My father was one of those assholes with a sign in his office that read, “Rule Number One: The boss is always right. Rule Number Two: If the boss is wrong, see Rule Number One.”’

  ‘What would your sign say? Quickly.’

  ‘“Like it or leave it.”’

  ‘How is that so different from your father’s type of authoritarianism?’

  ‘Because I don’t force anyone into anything. Brody always has a choice.’

  ‘But his choice is either to go along with you, or to lose you. My way or the highway, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, no. I’m just not articulating this right.’

  ‘So you and he will have an equal voice in determining where you spend the early years of your marriage?’

  ‘I think we’ll be able to reach a compromise.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to move back east, though, right?’

  ‘Well, that’s where his mother is.’

  ‘So you’ve ruled out returning to New York?’

  ‘Not necessarily. We haven’t really ruled anything out.’

  ‘You haven’t ruled out Portland then?’

  ‘No, Portland I’ve ruled out. I can’t go back there. Not now, not ever.’

  ‘Too complicated?’

  I don’t say anything but I know my lip is trembling, my eyes watering. Dr Farrockh hands me the box of Kleenex sitting ready on her desk.

  Wiping my eyes, I say, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever said this aloud, but sometimes I think my parents’ accident wasn’t an accident at all.’

  ‘No?’