by Bruce Wagner
When his father first bought him the car, Donny took Serena for a ride. She sat in the back and he chauffeured her to Linney’s, the deli on south Beverly Drive. When they got back home, she sat and wept. “You’re all I have now, Donny.” It would be years before he learned what she meant.
Eric watched like a naturalist as Quinn began fucking faster. The agent conjured his mother, sitting in back, staring past them; a coliseum-sized roar as Serena was torn from the prow, a whirligig Ursula taking her place, with Tiffany in tow—mascara of dirt and tears, firecracker eyes. Donny jacked himself, hand crushed by Quinn’s hard belly, Eric slowly pulling his own gummy head at the agent’s crown like a deep sea geiger; Bernie and Calliope before him, agent close to puking now, two-step funhouse vertigo, father’s B horror trailers—entrailers—blood hammering, hilarious vaudeville pneumatic sucking of Donny’s asshole; Katherine, love of his life. Donny beside her on the Laurel Canyon bed, Quinn fucking both like a piston, cold Thai on the counter, forgiving her beloved, forgiving him everything, never a bigger love, never bigger than theirs, never could be, staring at each other, Bonnie and Clyde just before the bullets but senses dead, no Pop poetics, Donny holding back the tears, awareness searching like a snail’s antennae for something to hold on to, something to hold him down, to ground him, he found it, the crazed wet smacking of the vinyl seat and the painful button at the small of his back kept him conscious. Then the beauty of the hood ornament glimpsed through mouth fog carried him over….
As soon as it was done, he could join his mother—wasn’t he all that she had?—under the house.
On weekends, Les put in time at the Venice free clinic. The Medical Board asked for two hundred hours; the six months he spent there revitalized him. He felt like a real doctor again.
Obie remained paralyzed and there was no improvement in her speech. Still, he understood her better than anyone. He painstakingly assembled something of a secret language, until one day he gained fluent trespass to the sandcastle’s sodden, crumbly rooms. Visitors and nurses alike marveled, though sometimes Obie’s requests, as channeled through Dr. Trott, were filigreed enough to elicit unspoken derision. The day she asked him to kill her, he immediately called Calliope. The psychiatrist warned of the consequences, legal and moral. Until he was able to separate Oberon from his mother, she said, his motives would be tainted. Luckily, Big Star pulled out of her depression—or seemed to, anyway. She stopped bringing it up.
He had a week of vivid dreams.
Most began at the Children with AIDS benefit but ended with the doctor on Sunset, standing over the familiar corpse. (The impingement of the carnival seemed to signal an end to the haunting of Les Trott.) At the pre-succubus open-air gala, the Duke of Dermis wandered through Big Star–manned booths, searching for Obie. The strange thing was, only civilians used a language Les could understand. Television actors spoke pidgin English unless they were cultural icons, which rendered them practically incomprehensible. Big Stars spoke “Catalan,” or its dream version—beyond translation. It was actually with relief that Les would find himself erased from that scene and propped in the middle of Sunset near the pink hotel, its refurbished, too-perfect grandeur and Disney World pastels suitable dressing for all manner of night terrors. As usual, the body lay ahead and relief turned to apprehension. Teeth shattered against curb and the demon seized upon him like always, fastening the cadaver to his back. Again, the instructions he’d heard time and again: burial before dawn in the yard of a house which of course, turned out to be his own. Les broke ground with the shovel, but this time was allowed to complete his chores before awakening. The body slid off him like a bangle into the grave.
It was Obie.
He floated up through inky waters, startled by his own sobs, his bed a set of dice, and then a lily pad. He was ravenous. He wolfed steak and eggs and began planning a cruise through the Suez to Safaga, on to Bombay and Colombo, Phuket and Penang, Kuala Lumpur. The Seychelles—the lagoons and atolls of the Indian Ocean, trade winds of an equatorial sky: Aldabra, Cosmoledo, Astove, Assumption. He’d invite a young man he met at the clinic. Thirty thousand apiece for Cunard’s “Owner’s Suite,” but Les could afford it. Calliope would think it a smashing idea.
Friday, the doctor was over-booked. He shot a lot of collagen and pimples, soothed a lot of Big Star egos. He worked late and went to a premiere. He came home around eleven, showered and threw himself into bed. It was only minutes before sleep that Les realized he hadn’t thought of her the entire day—not once. The feeling of the nightmare came back, but instead of fear he was suffused by a corny, esoteric nostalgia. He knew he’d never have that dream again.
All at once, it came to him. He would buy something for Obie before he left, something expensive, a brooch or diamond anklet. She’d love that. He smiled excitedly at the prospect. How fortunate he was, he thought, to be able to make such a kindness. He hugged a downy king-sized pillow and thought about where to shop. He was supposed to be in Santa Barbara tomorrow for a party at the Zemeckises’; the gift could wait till next week. He didn’t want to be compulsive about it—that was the old Les, the Les that needed to be loved, right now, right away, at any cost. Something silky, maybe, or something soft, like those eight-thousand-dollar shahtoosh scarves in vogue with Big Stars these days. Well, he’d think about it; had to be right. Besides, he could always get something on the cruise—that’s what he’d do. She’d miss him so while he was away. Les would have to break it gently, tell her the day before he put to sea. He’d give Edith-Esther exotic postcards with funny little messages from whimsical, imaginary ports of call, to read to her out loud. He’d buy Obie pearls—strands of duty-free black pearls. Docking in Long Beach at trip’s end, he’d limo straight to the hospital. He’d kiss her cheek and say he had a surprise, putting the necklace in her hand, wrapping it around the wrist like a rosary. Edith-Esther would tell everyone “Dr. Les got her those” and no one would doubt his love.
BOOK 2
WOMEN IN FILM
You’ll Never Eat Me During Lunch in This Town Again
by Phylliss Wolfe
Strange-ass developments at hand! Wound up on the red eye to New York with Katherine Grosseck’s inamorata. (You haven’t met her yet, have you Eric? Very talented writer along the Kathy Acker line. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it—Obie Mall used to say that about everything. Poor Obie.) The plane was totally, scarily empty. I drifted to coach at around thirty-two-thousand feet and we worked our way back to Business, tiny bottle by tiny bottle: high-larious! I did my whole “Let Me Entertain You” number and Vidra was laughing non-stop (she’s really “Stocker Vidra” but everyone calls her Veed; can’t quite bring myself to yet). I think I was a little nervous that maybe she was going to slip a finger in my twat so I kept the patter going. Just kidding—we had a great time. Turns out that not only does she write award-winning experimental “fictions”…is there such a thing anymore? I think prose is so endangered, any kind of fiction writing should automatically be called an experiment! Not only does she write but she’s doing a three-month teaching stint in Ohio and she’s a consulting editor at Grove. How she manages to eat pussy with a schedule like that::::::::::where was I? I have the bladder from hell. Bladder transplants are gonna be the new hip thing, just wait. Leaking to the press, ha ha. The long and short of it is, Vidra says I should keep a journal or a whatever—wants to peddle my memoirs! I mean, she’s serious, says Grove would buy it in a heartbeat. We futzed around with titles. I liked Cry Wolfe!—Slouching Toward Sundance but I’m a silly cunt, aren’t I? You know you’ve got the fucking best job in the whole world, Eric. And if you show this to anyone, I’ll hang you by your pierced tits (probably like that, huh). But I really do love you, E. You and the eighty-one T cells you rode in on. (Buh dum bum.) But I wanna tell ya…
Then Vidra came up with the Julia Phillips variation and we died. I mean, I have to do it now, just so I can use the title. (Though maybe the whole reference is already passé?) I’m still
not quite sure what Vidra wants from me. She said, “Just start,” so here I am. Guess it’s my own insecurities…am I supposed to be Jackie Mason or Oscar Wilde? Carrie Fisher? (She’s kinda both)::::::::::I talk into a long silvery Sony microcassette recorder with a brown suede sack—very President’s Analyst, very Jay Sebring. Starting from about fifth grade, I promised myself I’d keep a diary, but never did (call me Anaïs the Ninny)—guess I needed Vidra for a jump-start. Went to Book Soup to get Keats’s letters (on Katherine G’s recommend) but wound up flipping through Dawn Steel’s book instead (for research, okay?)—They Can Kill You…But They Can’t Eat You. It’s like she won the Worst Title lotto. (Maybe I should call my book They Can Kill You…But They’ll Never Eat Me During Lunch—!) There’s a bizarre chapter where Dawn befuddledly wonders why various famous, powerful men would want to befriend her—deeply absurd low-self-esteem weirdness. Like looking at a stiff cock and saying, “I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how shit got on there.” She does answer her own perturbation in the next paragraph, with a power-Zen retort: “By the time I knew, I didn’t care. I already had moved on to Touchstone.”
Oh, E, am I trying too hard? Maybe I shouldn’t even be doing this::::::::::Hate the sound of my voice, I sound like a man—worse! An angry man::::::::::Calliope thinks it’s a good way to examine my so-called life. Still can’t believe I see a shrink named Calliope…wasn’t there, like, at least one friend everyone had when they were growing up who had an out-of-control alcoholic mom named Calliope? Reminds me of a toga’d Carol Lynley-haired bimbo from one of those ancient Star Treks—no! Yvette Mimieux in The Time Machine—no! Anne Francis in Forbidden Planet. Lyre-toters! Deep-space airheads! You know, where the action always takes place on some drugged-out, asexual trans-stellar Pompeii. Uh…was I trashing my shrink? A sure sign I’ve run out of things to say. (Stop me before I shrill again—ugh. Call the pun police.) Calliope’s husband’s a shrink too, you knew that, didn’t you, E? Only he doesn’t have a funny name. They work out of this perfect little Laura Ashley Cape Cod guest house in Brentwood. It’s like that old movie with Robert Young, Enchanted Cottage…or maybe it isn’t but who gives a fuck. Gotta get those film references in there, sez Vidra. I’m always afraid Calliope’s gonna dump me on the husband—Mitch’s psychiatric specialty being the “below-the-line” personality. Am I not heartless? Funny if I met a guy that way (if I met a guy any way)—I mean, while we were waiting to see our shrinks. Good premise for a bad one-act::::::::::Tell you one thing: Dawn Steel would not do a remake of Pasolini’s Teorema. She’s too smart for that…. But fuck all if it doesn’t seem my ten-year dream is finally on a fast track in this grand New Year. Would still kill for Jane Campion (I BRAKE FOR BERTOLUCCI), but Saul says she’s booked for like six years. (He actually suggested Amy Heckerling.) I remain adamantine about having a woman at the helm (that’s Chayevskyspeak—remember Bill Holden saying that in Network? Can’t remember what he was adamantine about; maybe falling onto the edges of coffee tables). Oh! and Saul said he saw Jodie Foster at the Medavoys’ and mentioned Teorema—we’re using that as a temp title because we actually had legal with The Stranger and The Visitor, neither of which I was crazed about; I promised Grosseck dinner at Ginza Sushiko if she came up with something groovy—the Jode Girl wasn’t familiar but seemed intrigued when Saul synopsized (Saul synopsizing is a scary thought). Worth a follow-up, so I’ll call. Jodeth and I go way back, as in Way Back Machine. Saul pitched her as diractress: not sure she has the helming chops but could wow as the Stranger—if she’d just stop being Jodie…. Meanwhile (back at the L.A. Farm), Shelby’s sneaking the script to M, though I’m not sure she’s right; our girl’s got to have Terry Stamp’s slick menace. Jennifer Jason is, as always, a judgment call…somehow I’m bored—though Katherine’s obsessed. JJ seems wan, non? Art-house outré? E, I think we need to have a casting bull session with some of your mean faggot friends, OK? Saul is pushing L but L’s not stately enough, she’s sexy but it’s dizzy, off-kilter sexy—and so young. Sigh, shiver, yawn. Woe is me::::::::::Out of all the dentists in the world, why oh why did Oberon Mall have to go see that one. So horrible! Donny told me he thought it was weird that I went to the hospital but fuck him::::::::::Think I’m going on a three-week fast—Vidra’s gonna walk me through it. She said it’s amazing, after a week you’re like high the whole::::::::::Lunch at the Ivy with Shelby, who’s casting Teorema. One of the women she works with had a little boy over the holidays, born blind. The mom’s my age—forty-three. Oh God! It almost extinguishes any hope I have. Every day I have to face the possibility, the growing reality, that I will go to my grave childless. In that very real sense, my films have become my children. If I sound pretentious or maudlin, then just kill me—but don’t eat me…at least never during lunch in this town again! My only wish for the New Year is that Teorema has big blue eyes, a fat pink butt and an ear-splitting yelp when it slides out the chute. By the way, E—where the hell am I staying in Park City? Do you know?
Sight Unseen
Letters to My Firstborn
by Sara Radisson-Stein
My darling Samson…
I wanted to put down in words how much I love you. I’m so glad we gave you that name—you’ll need all your strength in this terrible, wonderful life. I’m sitting beside you as I write; the faintest of light falls on your marzipan cheeks. You’re the sweetest plum, and sleep so soundly; still, I’m afraid the scratching of my pen will wake you. Perfect boy! I stare into your eyes any chance I get—to become familiar with them, to make friends so there’s no fear, no estrangement. You won’t need them, to know me—you feel me within as I felt you all these months. One of those monsters said I was “in denial.” People should go to prison for using that phrase. This Adult Child Monster—she’s infertile, that’s all she ever shares at the meetings—wondered how I could say you were a perfect baby. She wants me to hang my head and weep so we can all be losers together and guzzle Prozac with our Starbucks Frappuccino. But you’re perfect as could be, perfect as you wanted. If you had no ears, would you be “less” than normal, “more” normal than a blind boy? Who makes the rules, Samson? We do, that’s who.
Shelby came to see you today and cried ‘cause you’re so beauteous. I told her I wanted to work, needed to work on something wondrous. I’ll blow a fuse if I have to go back to Warner Bros.—I’ve had it with Blue Matrix and “Vorbalid” cattle calls, the well-oiled casting machine that chews up sad English actors, and others who had no right leaving the New York stage. (Well, Hassan was an exception, but Hassan would be a star even if the DeBeers commercial was the only thing he’d ever done.) Teorema is such an interesting project! It’s my time now, time to get off the TV treadmill—it’s been a grand office party but I stayed too long and began to hate myself a little the last few years (till there was you. There were bells…). But don’t let Daddy hear that, Mama’s just having a kvetch. You won’t tell him, will you, little Boy Blue? One day, I’ll be a producer. That’s why I want to pick Phylliss Wolfe’s brain—what an interesting lady. The real deal. She’s got style to burn and rots of crass (as our Chinese friends might say). Well look at you, you’re smiling! Did you like that? Was that a funny joke Mama made? Are you the smilin’ Chinaman? Or is it something you ate?
…warm winds dancing leaves around the pool and Jeremy’s worried I’m not sleeping enough. I always awaken just after four, long hangover from the earthquake; guess that makes you one heck of an aftershock. There: I’ve changed you and kissed you and turned off the lamp…do wish you could see the moon throw its pastel spotlight on your dad like he was the dead-drunk ringmaster of Beddy-Bye Circus. Hurry, hurry, step right up, see the silvery chest hairs where you nestle your buddhahead. You know, if I put my ear to your (Buddhist) temple, methinks I can hear the bones grow.
You’re asleep now. You know, you look like something God threw together for a booth at eternity’s science fair. I’ll risk kissing your dark lids…they tremble like abandoned nests. You stir
and suckle (that’s okay—I shake and bake). O Samson, my Samson, of what do you dream? Surely it’s not that you had eyes, that much I know.
Then I won’t dream it either.
*** The Thief of Energy
\\\\\Portrait of a Masseuse//////////
by Gina Tolk
…after rubbing Donny Ribkin, I took a stroll on the Via Rodeo and made purchase of several cigars at Davidoff’s of Geneva; Helen Hunt was there and I told her how much I enjoyed her work. Afterward, the woman showed me a humidor at a cost of thousands—I demurred. I will give the stogies to the agent on my next appointment. Donny Ribkin’s hard-on is full-blown now before I even begin; he is in my web. The first time I rubbed him it was the night before his mother was entombed. I could feel the residue of her on him like blue smokey tentacles, pulling him into the Earth. The raccoons saw her energy and came close. Donny said they were her friends—they were loaded with her energetic droppings, which they gleaned from foodstuffs she left for them on the patio. I like his energy; it’s orange in hue and looks like kelp—or sleepy eels—floating on the surface of a pinkish coral reef. (Agents have good energy that they generally misuse.)
Bought a red leather daybook from Francis Orr and have started to write again. Mustn’t forget I have always written and consider myself a Writer by definition above all else. Perhaps (I don’t think I am deluded, at least not in this case) my story may eventually be deemed fit enough to film by the likes of a Gus Van Sant, a Jane Campion or a Tim Robbins. My saga does resemble a latter-day Shampoo, with elements perhaps shying toward Polanski, or so I am told. (I’m compelled to note I am writing with a stunning, rather bulbous Cartier silver pen ‘appropriated’ from a client with a vast collection. There is a blue jewel of some sort on its non-writing end, I believe called a Cabachon. They don’t make this particular one anymore, or so I am told, and I noticed coincidentally that in Francis Orr’s glass display case, one was there among the paperweights at the price of twelve hundred and seventy-five dollars. I would say I definitely got a deal!)
