Alan took a drink of water.
“Are we?” he asked. “I thought we were talking about what interests people. I can’t be held accountable for that. I can only be accountable for myself and.…”
He stopped in midthought.
The audience was watching him. He couldn’t make a joke. It didn’t feel right. He was in his head. His thoughts. In a place that felt sharp and dangerous.
“… and I don’t know … maybe when I write, I’m in a kind of lightless place. Primitive people do a rain dance, don’t they? Maybe when I write, I’m doing a light dance.” He was speaking quietly; truthfully. “Maybe I’m just trying to get some light.”
Richard Frank cleared his throat. Puffed his pipe.
“So, buy a lamp,” he said.
The audience loved it and at that second, though Alan smiled, he hated him. Hated his smug face and his supercilious eye contact. Hated his stale thoughts and his ugly little gnawed fingers and the way he never created anything in his life that was original. How he simply walked through other people’s art galleries with his fucking scissors.
It wasn’t the joke. The joke was easy and Alan might have made it too if the setup were reversed.
What he despised, was the way Richard Frank sat there and made fucking, imperious pronouncements, sniffing for something to criticize like a bloodhound. Guys like Richard Frank were a dime a dozen and it offended Alan how this smug little fuck was trying to hurt his series.
“And has it occurred to you, that maybe you write this grotesque horror to get revenge? Pay back all those people who hurt you, betrayed you?” Madeline Marx was looking right at him.
“No,” said Alan, masking his thoughts.
He thought for a moment. Returned to Richard Frank’s incendiary claptrap. “Anyway, I don’t think art can be considered instructive. If it is, then we better start looking at the religious art in all the museums of the world. The violence there is as brutal as anything I’m doing on my show. It’s just my images move.”
The professor stared at him.
“And your audience is made up, worldwide, of maybe a billion people. A billion people don’t look at a painting.”
Alan just looked at her, still felt loathing for Richard Frank. He decided to save the moment, instead of telling her she was a homely bore and needed to get laid decent for one hour in her life instead of spending her whole life bitching and looking like Robert Gulp.
“Look,” said Alan, glaring at Richard Frank, “there’s a lot of ritualistic killing going on all over the country, right now due to gangs on drugs, and satanism and skinheads and lunkheads and who the hell knows what else. Things are a mess, everywhere you look. S and Ls are going under like they swallowed too many depth charges. Angst is everywhere. Did the show do it?”
He stared at the audience.
“Was it me who did it?”
And the director cued them into a commercial.
preemption
Yeah?” Asleep. Two-thirteen A.M. Bart beside him, chasing dream cats.
“Alan?”
Alan falling back asleep.
“You don’t know me. I saw you on that talk show today. You were funny.”
“… who are you? What do you want?” Listening to surf ice sand. Bart groan.
“My name is Seth. You seemed upset on the show. Is everything all right?”
“Seth?” Searching blank thought. Stopping at a dim scribble. “You wrote the book that psychic gave me. Mind Potentials.” Slurred exhaustion. “Bizarre shit …”
Seth laughed a little. Voice faraway. Where the hell was he calling from?
“Alan, if you ever need me …”
“… what are you talking about?”
“I can’t tell you yet. You’ll know.”
He told Alan to finish the book. That would be the perfect time for them to meet. Told him to have a good sleep. Then, he hung up.
perks
The Harley did a subwoofer prowl down Sunset. Corea had been stopped for no helmet but the cop let it go; took an autograph.
Nobodys in cars. Headlights flashbulbing his face. Voices yelling his name; following, quickly lost. Doomed leeches. He’d been in another argument with his acting coach tonight. Fuck it … didn’t need classes. He was Barek. Always was; forever. Let the nobodys, in their glossed monotony, go nowhere; perfect the dead contents.
The coach was bullshit.
When Corea got pissed and pushed him down and kicked him, the coach didn’t even seem believable. Just stared up with clichéd hurt, all his fucking vacu-form nobodys circling the fallen idol. Corea spit on him, told him how much he made, how the guy made nothing. How many people watched him, how nobody watched this fucking loser.
A town full of them.
He passed the motel he’d stayed in. It never happened. Nobodys stayed there. Scavengers; dead ends. Fucking sewage.
He roared up next to the Roxy, let his face change the world. Leather, in legs and nipples, turned; Vogue ghouls. He wanted to know who had drugs. He left with the redhead. Spent the night fucking, beating her up. When he woke, at noon, he took a piss, noticed the towels were bloodstained. Didn’t remember why, didn’t give a shit. Rinsed his face, saw she’d lipsticked her phone number on the mirror, circled in a heart.
Nobodys.
He stared at himself, in the mirror; his chapel. Posed his face, moved in close, stared into his eyes. Grinned. Made a call, had a fourteen-year-old fan sucking him half an hour later.
hero’s fear
Heat and waves.
Doors open, Alan on his bed, half-asleep, in a sweater of humidity. Past midnight as he listens to sea gently wearing down the world. He feels swamp breezes as they blow in, bounce off walls and surfaces, bend around corners; wandering. Touching things. Blowing on them to see what they’ll do.
Something loud falls and Alan sits up. Stares into a sleeping mind. Hears waves. Wind fingering chimes. His heart pounds. Something else falls. He hears footsteps, moving through the house. He stands, moves slowly to see what’s happening.
He won’t use the flashlight: it makes him a target. He stays low, in darkness. Stops before crossing in front of a living-room closet door. Listens. Waits. Is it in there? Hiding? Waiting with its huge butcher knife, to kill him. To jump out. Or grab his ankles, through banister bars, as he goes downstairs to check.
But there’s nothing.
The house is calm. Warm winds blow and the blacks and whites of the lightless rooms are soft, charcoal sketches. He looks. around, sighs, disgusted with himself His fucking “imagination.” He wishes he could get rid of it. He can’t function this way, not knowing if it’s his imagination or his ability to see what others can’t.
Voices at funerals. Screams of the dead; nightmare radio.
He needs to know.
He walks to the spot on the wooden floor where the couple had been killed and looks at it. He wants to feel it, disappear into it. He moves into the ragged circumference. Where the bodies had been nailed down in a helpless pentagram.
He closes his eyes, stands straight, trying to see the murder. He concentrates as hard as he can and waits. To sense something. But nothing comes. He thinks maybe he should create intimacy with the subject he seeks. He strips naked, throwing his clothes outside the horrific perimeter. Then, he closes his eyes, again.
His mind keeps trying to see something; anything. He shakes from the muscle tension and finally sags, furious at himself. He feels exhausted. Stupid. He allows his mind to drift. To twist slowly. His thoughts go blank, in a disturbing meditation. The surf pounds; a dirge.
He sees himself standing at the top of a high black cliff. Looking into a bottomless canyon, filled with something vast that moves and squirms. As he stares, all at once he realizes it is numberless human bodies, some dead, others writhing; a chasm of helpless, naked flesh.
He feels his arms move upward, stretch wide. He gently dives over the edge, keeping eyes open. As he is about to penetrate the surface of b
odies, who reach up to pull him under, he hears it.
A humming blade.
Then, a woman’s scream. Then, a man’s. Alan opens his eyes. Realizes he’s moved from inside the nail-hole perimeter. He watches, horrified, as a man and woman, nailed to the floor, naked, are being tortured. They seem to float in pools of blood and their heads toss from side to side, in agony.
Alan covers his eyes and screams for the image to go away. But it doesn’t. It won’t. It only fades, staying half-substance, like a movie projected on smoke. The image undulates. The mouths pour hideous noises.
“God, no!” Alan screams, as the woman is slashed again by the murderer, who crouches over the couple with his humming knife.
“… no, please!” she shrieks, “… somebody please help us! Please help me! PLEASE!!”
Alan turns his head away, shaking, not wanting to look. He clears his mind, trying to make the ghastly afterimages disappear. But when he looks again, drawn by a grotesque gurgling sound, the murderer is cutting their larynxes. Their eyes bob and they breathe with terrible effort. Blood rapids down their throats and torsos.
“STOP IT!” Alan yells. He moves to the murderer, yells it again. But the man is freckled with blood and doesn’t hear. Alan realizes it’s because it’s something that’s already happened. Something expired; years old. There is nothing he can do. It is a chilling, time-space loop, doomed to repeat endlessly.
It will just keep replaying. It is stuck here. What happened will stay forever. A helpless couple nailed to the floor, being murdered, only Alan can see.
He becomes sick to his stomach, can’t watch. Screams, again, as the couple’s faces contort, eyes pleading.
“STOP IT!” his hands cover his ears. He is screaming, though he knows it is absurd; pointless. The tape-loop will stop when it is finished. Then, start anew.
But something is wrong.
The murderer looks up from his red-work and stares into Alan’s eyes. He rises to a standing position. Smiles a torturer’s mouth. He holds up the humming knife, covered with bits of flesh. The couple is screaming, but with cut larynxes make no sound. They don’t notice Alan or the murderer who starts after him, knife held high.
Alan runs to the staircase, slipping on wood floor. As he turns to go down the stairs, he feels the humming blade slice his hand and looks up to see the murderer grinning.
Alan tries to open the front door, one flight down. It won’t budge. Finally, it yanks wide and there is a brick wall blocking his escape. Blood weeps instead of wet mortar. He pounds against the rough brick, tears his hands. Runs down the stairs, into the bathroom. Slams the door, locks it. Waits. Sees himself in the mirror, terrified, skin white. His hand is bleeding. He runs water on it. As he wraps it in a towel, the door is kicked down.
The murderer holds up the humming blade. Alan’s insides twist. He knows he’s going insane; mind attacking him. There’s no way he can be chased by a man executed years ago. He’s become hysterical and run and cut his hand somehow. There is no one with him. The couple is dead, the murderer is dead. It’s a dream.
Alan stands. Shakes. Tells the murderer to go away. Screams it. Over and over. The man, covered with the couple’s blood, grins. He grabs Alan, by the hair, slits his throat and shoves his face into the toilet. Alan is held under the cool water, and begins to breathe in, through slashed throat, not wanting to live; trying to kill himself. Knowing he can’t. Knowing it’s a dark hallucination. A sick re-creation his subconscious tricks him with. He takes deep breaths. Pink water fills his lungs.
He blacks out.
• • •
Alan awakened, at nine-forty, the next morning.
He covered his eyes, managed to get to his knees. Could see the top half of his head in the mirror, as he rose. Eyes puffy and red, hair a mess.
He stumbled upstairs, found the banister covered with nicks, the living room sofa slashed apart. He went to the front door, opened it, finding a beautiful day. He stared at bees and flowers, slowly sat, cross-legged and began to cry; exhausted. Afraid.
That night, he had a quiet dinner by himself at McDonald’s and bought a thick throwrug at a big mall. He brought the rug home and quickly tossed it down, using it to cover the spot where the slaughter had happened. To hold a pillow over its face.
Suffocate the memory, in the floor.
villain nears
Alan, he’s doing it again.” It was Lauren. She had Marty on hold. “And guess who’d love to talk to you? Bye-eeee …”
Alan took the call. Marty was hoarse from yelling. “He’s killing us down here.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Been in his dressing room all morning. Won’t come out unless we change the whole script. Wants a new director, new co-star, new guest stars, new composer, new makeup … I’m barely kidding … do you want to hear this?”
Alan sighed. “I’ll come over. Where are you guys?”
“San Pedro. We’re set up in the hull of a freighter.”
“You’re still in San Pedro?!” Alan picked up the shooting schedule. Four scenes were boarded to be shot today. Five setups each. To get the coverage would fill the day until eight, even with a fast crew. And he had the fastest around.
“Marty, you guys should be at the bridge by now.”
“Corea won’t budge.”
“Called his agent?”
“Agent is behind it, Alan. He wants to renegotiate. He’s holding us up … I’m positive. I can feel it. He denies it. But it’s bullshit.”
They were both thinking the same thing. Alan finally said it.
“We can’t re-cast. It’ll kill us. People love this guy.”
“I don’t,” said Marty, exhausted.
“Okay. I’ll be down. Don’t even bother talking to him. I’ll handle it. Just cool out. See you in about half an hour. I’ll get a helicopter.”
Alan clicked off, buzzed Lauren.
“I want you to check into Corea’s background for me. See if you can find anything that’ll make it easier to deal with him.”
“Like someone who knows him?”
“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. Whatever. His Mom. Dad. Cult leader. We need some clue how to get along with him. Get him to act reasonable.”
“I’ll start with his wife.”
“Start with his wife.” He knew he sounded tense.
“Big problems?”
“Yeah. Listen, I need a helicopter.”
Alan crumpled a Coke can. His whole morning was ruined. His production schedule was useless, a day lost.
Goddamn, fucking actors …
transition two
zzzxxxx … Li. .t
Breeth . . xxzzz
… strogrrr.……. xxxxxxxxx
… mt. suun. snn. Sun
alve …
… here
mt. mtmtmtmtmtmt
slp. slep-sleep. gt stroger
xxxxxxxxxx … e
m … e
feedback
The Long Beach Formula One Charity Race was one of those televised testicle-rodeos aired to raise money for children without heads. But it was really just another excuse for a bunch of celebs to drive fast and prove they weren’t fags.
Teeth you’d seen on top-ten shows leaned over open hoods, in driving suits, staring at massive engines, sycophant crews at hand. They were unshaven and made banter conspicuously absent of wit, now that they were without scripted lines. Tight skirts were everywhere scoping famous dick; trolling.
Jordan talked Alan into going, saying the “Seinfeld” people were going to be there and wanted to “meet him.” Alan didn’t believe a word, but figured driving in a race would be a good excuse to get away from the show for a day; change longitude. Feiffer agreed to sponsor a car for the show, and Alan drove down from Malibu before dawn to do test laps for a nine A.M. flag.
At eight forty-five, he walked across the bustling track, a roped-off section of Long Beach road. Stealth photographers who whored to the Enquirer or US cruised with
scammed passes and snapped Alan as he joked with the crowd that camped out all night to get a good spot. He grabbed a doughnut, walked to his car, and welcomed the “Entertainment Tonight” mannequins who swarmed his car, right after they’d interviewed Lorenzo Lamas, who’d glared and mumbled midway into another divorce.
As Alan climbed in, E.T. fired questions and laughed at his clever answers about how he wasn’t nervous in the slightest. Engines were tuned, three-foot-wide tires tightened. Exhaust fumes wreathed everything, Woody Harrelson kidded around with Harry Hamlin and flashbulbs morgued their dimples.
No one noticed the woman.
She was in her early forties, dressed in a pink sweater and moved past busy crews. She seemed undistracted by the head-bleed engines and hectic crowds and didn’t look at anyone. She carried a big cup of coffee and moved directly to Alan, though no one in his crew knew who she was. She looked into his eyes, without expression.
“Are you Alan White?”
He nodded, putting on leather gloves, smiling for Mary Hart.
“You created ‘The Mercenary’?”
He nodded and the “Entertainment Tonight” cameras caught it all, moving from her face to his. It would be the perfect way to start their on-location piece. A kiss for the warrior, before sending him into fuel-injected battle. But as the camera zoomed in on her face, her features began to tremble; grow ugly.
“You son of a bitch!” she hissed, before throwing the hot coffee in his face, causing him to cry out in pain.
“What the hell are you doing?!” He was yelling, wriggling out of the car’s kayak opening. A crew member got him a towel. Another grabbed her and she struggled.
“What’s the problem, here?” asked Mary Hart.
The woman spit at Alan. Mouth stretching furiously. “He wrote it! What I just did … he wrote it! It was on his vulgar show and the boy next door did it to my little girl!” She was screaming. “She’s in the hospital! He wrote it!”
Alan could feel blisters rising on his eyelids. Everything was out of focus.
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