Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  “My life. I can’t live it for you or anybody else. It belongs to me.”

  “No one’s asking you, Charlie. If I wanted to marry you I wouldn’t put up with Bev or Lilly or Kendra or any of the others. I’m fine with the whole free lifestyle thing, okay? I mean. I’m here aren’t I?”

  “I always thought you were a big champion of marriage,” said Hollis, deciding that he either needed to participate in the conversation or get up and leave. The gal behind the counter was banging an aluminum cup against the espresso machine, which hocked and slurped and hissed at the growing line of customers like a feral cat.

  “Oh I was. I was about as brainwashed as they come. And then one day I just, you know, woke up. Well, I had a little colon cancer scare and then I woke up. And I realized that I was pretending to live my life. I was serving a wife and five children and a religion and a community rather than myself. I spent all of my time chasing after this imaginary person I was supposed to be and chasing after money just to keep from going out of my mind. And time was just running out of me like so much blood into the street and down the gutter. So I said fuck it and left all of that behind. I dropped all of the pretension. I let go of all the good intentions and I just did whatever was true to my nature, which was to be an absolute, unapologetic bastard.”

  “You got that right,” said Elena laughing.

  “You think you women are any less morally bankrupt? Any less venal and selfish by nature? Any less promiscuous? You aren’t. You’re human just like us. Just like me and Hollis over there. But that’s no failing. It’s the pretending otherwise that is the great failing. We are flawed to the core, my dear. I’m just being honest about it.”

  “He likes to revel in his own baseness,” said Elena.

  Charles shrugged dramatically. What you see is what you get, said his shoulders.

  “How’s the school?” Hollis asked him, the words tumbling out onto the table before he realized what he was saying. The dark, frantic birds pecking at his larynx with their bills. It was easily the last thing he wanted to talk about. And yet…

  “School?”

  “The Academy. Vanguard.”

  “Oh, that went the way of Alice and the kids. I sold it to a couple of do-gooders from Denver. I’m no longer involved. Admissions are down I hear. Not my problem. That reminds me… how is… oh… shit… what’s his name?”

  The question was sudden and all too casual. Hollis felt the lump of humiliation cut loose, separating itself from some long forgotten crevice in his spleen and floating like an acrid bubble of oil up into his throat. Too many beats had passed before he found his voice and, when he did, that voice was an overcompensating confession of shame.

  “David? Oh. He’s good. He’s great. Great.”

  “What’s he up to after all these years?”

  “Oh, he’s teaching.”

  “Teaching. College?”

  “HmmHmm…”

  “Professor Johns. Well, you must be proud.”

  “Yep. MmmHmm.”

  “What school? Here in Ohio?”

  “Oh, no, no. Out in California. Colleges coming out of their ears out there.”

  “Well, good for him. He’s a smart one, Elena. A damn smart kid. A real star. Doesn’t take any shit. Speaks his mind. Thinks for himself. One of the best I ever saw.”

  Hollis stared dumbfounded, the words I did not build this school for the likes of David still ringing in his head after all of these years. Charles gave a soft laugh.

  “And Hollis here wants to punch me in the mouth because I kicked that fine young man – that rising star – right outta my school.” The words jolted Hollis out of his paralysis and he covered with a wryly enigmatic smile.

  “You kicked him out?” asked Elena. “For what?”

  “Aww, hell. For following his true nature. For livin’ his life just like I’m doing now. If I could do it over again I’d’ve done different. That boy was just bein’ a young man. I know that, Hollis.” He nodded in Hollis’ direction, showing his palms. “He was doing exactly what I should have expected of him or any other boy. No big deal. All boys want pussy and they’ll lie, cheat and steal to get it. That’s all there is to it.”

  “So, you …” started Elena. But Charles wasn’t done.

  “But I was caught up in the whole good Christian, upstanding member of the community, protector of moral values, what would other people think, what would your wife think sort of thing. What would Jesus think? What would your mother think? What would my baby brother Quentin think? Enforcing those nature-denying rules.”

  “Quentin is your brother?” Hollis blurted. Charles nodded. “So then you two…”

  “What, exactly did he do?” Asked Elena, cutting him off in a low voice, leaning forward and looking from Charles to Hollis.

  “Aww…nothing really. Caught him in the bathroom with Katie, you know, doin’ what comes naturally.” Charles gave a slow swat at an imaginary fly; a gesture Hollis knew was for his benefit. No big deal. Bygones.

  “Katie? Your Katie?”

  “Yeah. My Katie.”

  “Oh.” Elena said, making a regretful grimace at Hollis. Hollis did not hold her glance. He turned his newly laminated club membership identification card over and over in the hand that was not staunching the trickle of blood from his head. The photo was crooked and over-exposed. It made him look old. The character in his features had been scoured off of his face by the light, leaving an expression of abject resignation, as if frozen at a moment of inevitability.

  “Donnie did nothing wrong,” said Charles. “Donnie?”

  “David,” corrected Elena, rolling her eyes at Hollis.

  “David, right. David was being David. Katie was being Katie. True to their nature. And Ol’ Charlie was being Charlie.” He snorted and shook his head. “Truth is, and this is just me being honest about things, he caught me banging the daughter of a contractor working on the renovation project.”

  Elena gasps and hits at him. Charles Compson laughs and cringes.

  “I’m just … you know me doll, I don’t lie about things. Not anymore.”

  “I don’t care! You can be so crude. I’m sorry Hollis.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll survive,” said Hollis overselling a nonchalant shrug.

  “Yeah, so when Alice caught Donnie in the little girls room …” Charles looked at Hollis with an expression that might have been sheepishness but wasn’t. “Well let’s just say I wasn’t really looking for reasons to cut the kid a break and keep him around.”

  “Charlie! That’s awful!” Elena looks genuinely offended.

  “Yeah. Poor kid. He got the shitty end of that stick. I’m telling you, marriage and religion will warp your sense of morality. If I hadn’t been so intent on pretending to be such a good person, I would have been a much better person. What can I say? We are who we are.”

  “How old were they?” Elena asked.

  Charles looked up at the ceiling for an answer.

  “Awww… your boy was… was, what Hollis, fifteen? Sixteen?” Hollis gave a barely perceptible nod, saying nothing. “Katie was, oh, fourteen, I’d say. Thirteen, fourteen.”

  Elena looked awkwardly down at her hands, ceding the floor to a silence that no one knew how to fill. Charles gave Hollis a wink.

  “Water under the bridge, right old friend? Hell, probably did the kid a favor by getting him out of that goddamn place. He’s better off. He’s a professor for Chrissakes. And, hey,” Charles winked rakishly, “it’s not like Donnie didn’t take a paw at my girl, right? Am I right Hollis?”

  Hollis nodded. “You’re always right, Charlie. Always were.”

  “I deserve that. I’ll take that.” Charles stood up with a clap of his hands, indicating that he was about through reminiscing. “We are who we are. It’s right there in the Bible. Original sin and all of that?”

  Elena laughs. “Bible’s not gonna help you now, Charlie.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m done with the Good Book anyway. I�
�m a disciple of Henry Miller now. You ever read him, Hollis?”

  Hollis smiled. Shook his head.

  “The silver tongue of depravity. I memorized this bit out of Tropic of Cancer that I used to like to recite to my baby brother Quentin whenever he started preaching at me.”

  “Oh, Charlie, not….”

  “Yeah, Elena’s heard it. Quiet down, now. It goes, let’s see… I have found… No, wait… I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a lion, I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.”

  “Hyena,” says Elena.

  “No, no. Lion. It’s a lion.”

  “You’re wrong, but I’m not arguing with you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It shut Quentin up every time. Sanctimonious prick.”

  “Charlie, stop.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Guess I got the last word when I corrupted his child bride.” He looked up at Elena with mocking remorse and then at Hollis. “We are who we are. Fuck the rest and all who would judge us for it. Am I right? Shit, look who I’m talkin’ to. This man’s always had life by the balls.”

  Charles Compson III gave a wry smile and stuck out his hand. Hollis rose and shook it. He could not have guessed his own expression. He hoped it conveyed a sense of wisdom transcending any residual emotion about the past, perhaps a benevolent condescension or a suppressed irritation at the utter irrelevance of the entire conversation.

  “Let’s blow, girlie,” he said, squeezing Elena’s shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you. Hollis, you look like a million bucks, my friend.”

  “Nice meeting you Hollis.” She stood and looked at him. “Hope that head gets better.” She reached out and touched the top of his forehead with her fingertips, smiling at him sadly with her large brown eyes.

  He thanked her and nodded again to Charles, who threw his arm around the woman that had so enthralled Hollis at the pool. He watched them walk out the door and past the large windows that looked out over the club parking lot. They stopped at a little red number. Elena climbed in and put the top down. Charles Compson leaned in, one hand on the edge of the windshield. Elena opened her mouth to receive him, cupping her hand around the back of his head. And they might have been twenty-two.

  Hollis felt a warm trickle begin to navigate the white thicket across his scalp. He stood at the window and blotted and watched them neck.

  Fuck the rest and all who would judge us for it, he thought.

  CHAPTER 40 – Tilly

  Dear Ms. Johns:

  It is with particular disappointment that I send you this letter, formally terminating the Agency Services Agreement between you and Chenowith, Taylor & Reid. As you may recall, Section 13.4.3 of that agreement authorizes this firm, at its discretion, to withdraw from all representational obligations upon thirty-days advance written notice. You should consider this letter such notice.

  I trust that the reasons for CTR’s withdrawal will come as no particular surprise. I certainly do not feel compelled to recite them here. It should suffice to note that you have left us with considerable doubt as to your willingness to approach our relationship with the level of candor, honesty and professionalism that we require of all of our clients. Notwithstanding my specific efforts to impress upon you the mutual obligations entailed in an exclusive agency relationship such as that which you have enjoyed with CTR, you have continued to act as your own agent in negotiating contracts for current projects without any consultation with me, Simon Hunter or anyone else at CTR. I am sure you will understand and agree that we cannot continue to work for and advise you – or to pretend to work for and advise you – under such conditions.

  I remind you that CTR will enforce the terms of the Agency Services Agreement, including collection of fees earned, or otherwise owed, in connection with all contracts signed, and media appearances made by you incident to such contracts, from the date you executed the CTR Agency Services Agreement up through the thirtieth day following the date of this letter. Such contracts include, but are not necessarily limited to, those signed in connection with Pryce Point and The Lion Tree. Simon Hunter will be in contact periodically and as necessary to ensure that your on-going obligations to CTR are fully satisfied. Failure to cooperate in any respect will necessitate legal action, an expensive and time-consuming distraction we would all do well to avoid.

  In the meantime, Tilly, while I am immensely disappointed in this turn of events, I do wish you the best of luck in your career. Your current choices notwithstanding, I hope you continue to move forward and upward.

  Yours, Milton A. Chenowith

  He was right, of course. The letter had not been a surprise. From the moment, just before three in the morning, that I began dialing Blair Gaines’ number to tell him that I wanted the part of Ivanova, I knew that I would need to be looking for a new agent.

  I could have made an effort to salvage the relationship. I could have told them about my decision, rather than letting them hear about it from other sources. I could have insisted that Blair and Brightleaf Studios negotiate a new deal with Chenowith, Taylor & Reid, exacting another pound of flesh as a precondition to my involvement in The Lion Tree after the inconvenience of having to audition twice and for having to juggle my career around the uncertainty of the project. Milton might have forgiven my impulsiveness as long as, in the end, I had let CTR do the talking and squeeze another penny or two out of Blair. That, in any event, would have been preferable to what I actually did, which was to meet Blair Gaines for a martini and agree without any resistance that no changes to the initial agreement I had signed were necessary.

  But the truth was that the prospect of salvaging my relationship with CTR seemed too expensive. It would have required an obeisance to Milton Chenowith, a man who had pledged to treat me as he would his own daughter.

  He had every reason not to trust me. I had lied to him about the second audition. Not because my motivations were complicated and my mind was confused as I had suggested to Milton and Simon and as I had even allowed myself to believe. The truth was that I had lied to Milton because, through no fault of his own, he was an unwitting archetype and a surrogate. My agent, as it turned out, was also an agent of sorts for my father. They had never met or spoken, but they occupied the same space in my head. After years of retrospection, I concluded that seeking Milton’s approval, or even his advice, entailed a kind of metaphoric death; a surrendering of my own will. In that paternal way of his, Milton had made the mistake of communicating his disapproval. For Blair. For Angus. For The Lion Tree. That disapproval, that judgment, and all of the bad choices and moral failings on which it was based, defined me. Milton’s disapproval of the film pushed me toward The Lion Tree almost as much as Angus Mann’s disapproval of me pulled me in. Of course, the irony was that, far from protecting my own will, I was ceding its authority to nearly everyone who had a strong opinion.

  Milton’s letter arrived, appropriately enough, on the day that I was scheduled to meet with the principals of The Lion Tree for a work session with the new script. Perhaps because the letter was foremost in my mind that day, I remember little about the actual meeting. I do remember that the session was conducted in the largest of the Brightleaf Studio conference rooms around an enormous ovate table made of rosewood with inlays of dark green granite in the shape of leaves and vines strewn across its surface.

  I was late to the meeting. I remember looking at the faces around the table and being shocked that there were only two of them that I recognized: Blair Gaines, who sat at one end of the table, and Angus Mann, who sat at the other end.

  I sat in the only empty chair, at the exact midpoint of the table, before a bound copy of the screenplay, a blank notepad, pens, two bottles of water and a pre-printed paper nameplate. The nameplate read Col. Elena Ivanova.

  Conversati
on stopped as I made my apology and took my seat. Blair introduced me to the others, real name followed by character name, each of whom in turn nodded or raised a hand.

  “And down there at the end is Angus,” said Blair. “Not much of an actor, if you ask me, but he’s had a bit of a role in the script.”

  The others laughed at the understatement. Angus looked up – in the sense of rotating his eyes in their sockets – from fiddling with his pen. His lips tightened perceptibly from within the plush of his short, silvery beard, in a way that I knew was his best effort at a smile.

  “Angus,” I said with a polite nod. “I won’t be making a habit of being late.”

  “Now, now, Matilda,” he said. “Don’t go changing your habits on my account. If everyone tried to monkey up their habits, I’d never know who anyone was.”

  More laughter, the others bearing witness to a playful banter that they each assumed had developed between the writer and the only survivor of the great cast massacre. We had a history, Angus and Blair and I. The three of us were the camp counselors, with all of our secrets and inside jokes at which the new arrivals could only guess and wonder. I laughed along, pretending to be oblivious to the irritation and contempt that I heard, like a dog whistle, in Angus’ tone.

  The session resumed. We read through the scenes in order with Blair breaking in incessantly to provide a directorial context, unconsciously connecting his thumbs and forefingers into a mock viewfinder to focus his thoughts.

  As might be expected, the session was heavily weighted on my exchanges with the man seated directly across from me, Stewart Glenn, the new Lieutenant Alan Miller. Stewart sat in stark contrast to Casey Travern, his lean, glossy, dark-eyed predecessor. He had sandy hair, Atlantian eyes and an open, slightly doughy face, that would certainly miss out on Casey Travern’s disproportionately adolescent demographic. For all appearances, Lieutenant Miller had metamorphosed from someone who looked as though he might have some expertise in the sexual arts and who also might be capable of serial murder, to someone for whom sexual expertise and violence seemed equally implausible. The emotional calculation and potential menace implied by the precision of Casey’s face had been replaced with an undeniable sweetness and the innocence of good intentions. I recall liking Stewart instantly. He was every bit Casey’s equal as an actor, with half the pretension and twice the intellect.