by Todd Grimson
“Do you ever hear anybody talk about this new drug called Stairway to Heaven?” he asked as they went in the front door. When she said yes, he said, ‘Td like to try that.” Lisa decided it was a request. The interior was impressive, but she hardly noticed. She was wondering if he was going to try to get her to stay.
She stood, jacket still on, looking at his oversized TV and enormous, luxurious couch. His relative shyness had reassured her about him, and the fact that he was sensitive enough not to push it made her want to do it—not really out of desire for Jules in particular, just a generalized will to have sex.
Lisa pressed the button on the remote control, knowing that by doing so she was making a decision. When Girl, 10, Murders Boys came on—he’d rewound it, there it was—it all became inevitable. Besides, for some reason she didn’t want to go home to her apartment tonight.
She clicked out the videocassette and put in another, a French horror film she’d heard of but never seen. Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face), directed by Georges Franju, 1959.
Jules put the scripts down on the glass-topped table and said, “Want to watch that? It’s a classic.”
“I’ve heard of it,” she said.
He gestured toward the couch. Lisa took off her leather jacket, shivering for just a second, then remembering the samples from the place in Bel Air, in an inner pocket… she got them out while he was pouring brandy, and the black-and-white film was beginning, a woman driving in the night.
“If you want to get stoned,” Lisa offered, “this is a new Swiss synthetic endorphin … I have some samples, I almost forgot.”
“Are you going to take one?”
“Yeah.”
Pretty soon they were more relaxed. The brandy tasted great, it occupied Lisa as they sat together, leaning against each other, on the comfortable couch. The lights were low. Some of the stuff in the film, Lisa didn’t want to see. Usually she could be clinical, but right now she shut her eyes when she thought something gross was about to occur.
Slowly, gradually, her shoes came off, then Jules was reaching up into the waistband of her tights. Like a blind man. She accommodated him, raising her buttocks so that the tights could come off.
At the end of the film, her thighs on his shoulders, she opened her eyes and saw a cloud of white doves upon the screen, flying up from the evil scientist’s daughter, who had no face. Her back to the camera, dressed in white, she took off her mask, and the puissance was rendered kinky. Lisa didn’t make an exaggerated noise, but her voice was heard, certain muscles clenched as she felt a vast liquid warmth that spread and gave her an immense sensation from her belly outward through her limbs. The feeling passed but left a residue in her musculature, her bones. Then Jules was lying up beside her, he kissed her and she tasted herself, her juices, she let him kiss her, as a sign of appreciation she squeezed him in her arms. It would have been OK but she was satisfied enough when he showed no inclination to want to fuck, thus avoiding the delicate condom issue, fine with her. He had not once touched her breasts, and she was still wearing her short black dress.
“Call me in two weeks or so and let me knew if you have any ideas for the script,” he said in a drowsy murmur before falling asleep. Lisa was reassured. She slept for an hour or two, but when she woke up to use the bathroom and heard birds singing, though it was still dark, she decided to drive home. She collected herself and was alert enough as she left (the gate swung open automatically when she reached it), but once she was actually driving through the night, she yawned until tears came to her eyes. It was good to finally reach home and be with her cat. The piano vine hadn’t grown much more. Her bed seemed safer now. Caz arranged himself against her thighs, under the sheet. She left on the light.
EIGHTEEN
Daphne Stern said she wanted it to have a classical element, not classical music exactly but a timeless feeling, upscale, perfection, a stillness that would draw attention, cut through the clutter; Lisa said, “I understand.”
Thirty seconds. The model was already picked out. Daphne passed over the portfolio. OK, yeah. Afterward Lisa called her brother, wondering if he’d be home in his different time zone, however (besides playing and listening to music) he spent his time. He traveled a lot with his girlfriend, a dancer who was trying to put together a multimedia show. (Which meant, as always, slides.)
Track answered the phone. “Yeah?”
“Listen, I need some music. Send me a variety, but basically kind of beautiful tone-colors, lush—it’s for a perfume commercial. You’ll get paid.”
“I fucking better. How long, what, thirty seconds?”
“Exactly.”
“FedEx?”
“Yeah.”
A pause, and then he said, loud busy atonal string quartet music in the background, “So how have you been?”
“Not too bad. Things are crazy, but I might direct L.A. Ripper II.”
“What’s that?”
“What does it sound like? It’s an important opportunity. I could probably get you for the soundtrack.”
“I don’t know if I’d want my name on something like that.”
“Call yourself Joe Blow. Don’t be a shit.”
“OK, you’re right, it’s an important opportunity. Mother and Andrea will be proud.”
“Fuck them. I’m in a hurry, Track, I’ve got to catch a plane. Send me some music.”
“Perfume commercial … OK, I’ll rack my brain. How are you getting along with Christine?”
“Don’t dog me, Track.”
Adrian Gee was going to take care of Casimir for the weekend. Adrian loved cats, and Caz had stayed with him before, getting along reasonably well with the house Russian Blue.
Oriole was driving them to the airport. It was Friday, the flight was scheduled to depart at two o’clock. They would return early Sunday. In the car, Lisa sat in the backseat with her bag, sleepy, from time to time closing her eyes and leaning her head back.
On the plane, Lisa took out the script for Ripper II and was surprised to see, after Jules had so disparaged it, that he was the only author listed on the cover.
She remembered when she and Christine had been roommates for a while in New York, subletting an apartment on the Upper West Side. One time, when they had been out walking together on the endless path straight up through the center of Riverside Park, for some reason they had hugged, they were happy about their film or something, anyway then they had held hands for a little while as they walked along. Some teenage guys had noticed them and walked toward them, calling them lezzies and queers, all you need is a good fuck, stuff like that, and it had been humiliating and infuriating to turn and see them, it was broad daylight and there were other people around, but it felt like there was some danger of, if not actual rape, then of simple assault. The three guys all looked tough, they could have beaten up the two young women in about one minute flat and then just walked away.
The assholes had felt the fear vibrations and dug it, Lisa and Christine walked on and away, the boys stayed behind to play basketball or deal drugs or something, but the incident had made a big impression at the time.
Now, airborne, Christine said after a while, “It seems like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Lisa said a bit helplessly.
“I know Adrian’s worried about you, and I know you said you were going to do something to Lou … and then you managed to pick up Jules Brandenberg.”
“I went to this guy,” Lisa began, thinking that there was no reason not to talk about it, “I wanted to get revenge on Lou. So we put a spell on him. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, if he’s gonna die or what, but it’s happening … the bad thing is, some stuff is happening to me too. I’m not sure what Boro wants, but I don’t trust him, he might do anything.”
“I heard about Lou’s son. Adrian said he’s been in therapy for years, he’s got a real sick thing about his mom. I don’t see how that was caused by any spell.”
�
��I know how it sounds. It’s not over, though. Boro’s taking his time.”
“It sounds like he really bowled you over.” Christine’s tone was solicitous, inevitably patronizing, but Lisa didn’t blame her for this. She hadn’t expected Christine to understand.
At the Sea-Tac Airport, they were met by two women and a man from the film committee. Raelyn, Shawn, and Andrew. Raelyn and Shawn were lesbians. Raelyn kept looking at Lisa, she seemed to be coming on to her. Andrew was straight, one of those types to whom avant-garde art is a kind of religion. Nothing could ever be too far out or too neo-dada kindergarten for him. It was a crowded car. Raelyn’s thigh pressed against Lisa’s.
The skies were gray, the temperature was much lower than it had been in Los Angeles. Lisa, who had consciously decided to be sullen and unforthcoming, was worried about getting a cold.
Once in the city, the guests were checked into what seemed like a fairly inexpensive hotel and then were taken to a Vietnamese restaurant.
Raelyn, who had an avid, mobile face, said to Lisa after the spring roll appetizers had arrived, “One thing I’ve never understood. Why did you appear in The L.A. Ripper? It seems inconsistent.”
Lisa shrugged. “I was a warm body,” she said, unable to refrain from sounding superior, snotty even. She had on her leather jacket, a T-shirt featuring the cover for Dread in a Babylon (an old U-Ray album), a photo in which the dread is enveloped in a cloud of ganja smoke, and then her ripped jeans, red cotton tights. No makeup. Raelyn wore a long violet-yellow-and-rose-on-white tie-dyed T-shirt dress. A dark crewcut. She ran her hand against the grain of the short hairs on her head, looking into Lisa’s eyes, unoffended by the brush-off, the gesture succeeding in making Lisa wonder what it would feel like, how silky her short hair might be.
As it developed, not only Girl, 10, Murders Boys was to be on the program, but also, somehow, they had gotten hold of Lisa’s shorter film, A New Asshole, and were very pleased with themselves over the coup.
Lisa inwardly groaned at the news. What had she hoped to express in that film other than flamboyant nihilism? She didn’t know. The best part was when the main character, a black teenager, says, “We vegetabilized the motherfucker,” and then, obscurely, disconnected from anything, “This shit is wrong, man,” and everyone carries on as before, he’s not innocent, he joins in. The message of the visuals was deliberately unwholesome.
Luckily, in the theater, the questions afterward mainly concentrated on Girl, 10, its collective vision of simultaneity, as Lisa slouched near the microphone, her hands in the pockets of the leather jacket, trying to get as deeply inside it as she could. She felt bored and shy but also defiant, looking out at the faces of the audience—more than two hundred, maybe three. She tried to count them at one point.
“Was Yvonne Rainer an influence?”
Christine answered, “No.”
To another question, Christine said, “Well, when you don’t have a lot of money, you have to hope for happy accidents, because you can’t do multiple takes. The mistakes that happen are never the ones you expect.”
Were they consciously seeking to make a feminist film?
They looked at each other, and Lisa said, “No.” She spoke slowly. “If you have your own personal ideology, it’ll probably come through unconsciously, and it’s more effective like that.”
The questioner, an intent rounded woman with rimless glasses and another very short haircut, pressed on, saying, “Karl Popper said that ideology determines what questions are asked … and therefore what answers are possible.”
“We can’t argue with that,” said Christine, and got a laugh.
“What are the differences between the two of you?” asked a young pale guy with spiky dark hair and all-black clothes.
Christine: “We’re very different.” She hesitated, as if about to elaborate.
Lisa put in, “She’s literary and literate, and I’m not.” Again, some laughter at this.
Christine said, “We like a lot of different people. For instance, I like Eric Rohmer and von Trotha, while Nova here likes Chantal Akerman and Near Dark, by Kathryn Bigelow, which I found way too rough.”
“It’s the last great vampire movie,” Lisa said, which again caused some laughter. They thought she was being ironic when she was not. Her delivery probably contributed to the misunderstanding.
More about influences, but not much more, and then some questions about what they were working on next. They looked at each other, and Lisa said, “I might direct L.A. Ripper II” which was again taken as a joke.
NINETEEN
In the shared hotel room, Christine was already undressed and in her bed when Lisa came out of the bathroom, slightly drunk, in her underwear, and Christine remarked, “You don’t have any tan lines. When did you start going to tanning booths?”
“I don’t.”
“Then what? You’ve been hanging out on the nude beach?”
“Yeah.”
“Who with?”
“Daphne Stern. She’s got an allover tan too. We’re hard-core sun worshipers.”
“I guess.” Christine turned off the light.
“Raelyn wants to show me around tomorrow” Lisa said.
“No kidding.”
In the morning, Christine got up first and had showered and gone out for a walk and come back before Lisa arose and took a shower. All she could remember of her dreams was a nude man lying on a couch or something, resting, his body painted completely blue.
When she came out of the bathroom and was starting to get dressed, Christine, looking up from reading a magazine, asked, “When did you get that tattoo?”
It wasn’t either of the ones on her arms, which still wouldn’t wash off. No, this was on her left buttock, a finely executed, vivid red heart with a dagger through it. Lisa could only glimpse a portion of it by looking back and down over her shoulder. To really appreciate it, she had to look at herself in a mirror.
It was hard for Christine to accept that Lisa didn’t know, that Boro must have done it from afar.
“You think I’ve gone out of my mind,” Lisa said, dressed now, still stunned, horrified at being so violated, finally starting to cry, big hot tears rolling down her cheeks. Christine hugged her and tried to reassure her, and Lisa didn’t cry very long. Soon she had retreated into an unseeing daze, broken only by stony-eyed minutes in which she still seemed to be studying something far away. She was frightened, and felt whipped. Christine took care of her and sheltered her, so that Raelyn, when she came by, went away thinking the two were inseparable.
At some point in the afternoon they went for a walk, and Lisa sat in a green, grassy park by a lake and watched a blue jay take a bath in a big puddle; she watched it until it flew away into a tree. She was inconsolable.
TWENTY
By the time they got back to L.A. on Sunday, Lisa was feeling a little better, having decided to confront Boro and try to call off whatever he had put in motion. If he could give her a psychic tattoo, there was a chance he could also take it back.
She did tell Christine more details, including the part about how she had drawn an X on Wendy Right… who might by now be dead.
Christine’s theory was that Boro had hypnotized her or given her drugs, tattooed her, and then she’d forgotten. The rest was merely bizarre, if suggestive, coincidence.
When they reached her address on Fairfax, Lisa hurriedly said goodbye, kissing Christine on the cheek and rushing off, carrying her bag—Oriole and Christine waited to drive off until she was inside the front door.
As she waited for the elevator, checking through her mail, she thought of Raelyn just for a moment, because she’d seemed full of spunk, the kind of fierceness you had when you were only twenty-one … it seemed like Raelyn might have been a good person to go with her when she went out to Boro’s, it would be nice to have some backup, a bodyguard or just a psychological ally. Now that she was back in L.A., she regretted not having done something crazy. If she’d gone to bed with Rael
yn, she wondered, how different would she feel now, and would such an experience have meant she was weak or strong?
It was too bad Code was the way he was. That odd comment of his the other day, about getting married if they both reached thirty and were still fooling around … he could be sentimental, but he induced it in himself as a kind of a drug. His will was not to be trusted. Whenever he made a decision, he was sorry later, buyer’s remorse, he inevitably felt an attraction for the next Crayola color out of the box.
Her apartment had a different, empty atmosphere without Casimir. She opened the door to the veranda to let in the breeze. The vine with red blossoms now nearly reached the floor, winding down two of the piano legs. She looked under the raised lid, making sure there wasn’t anything new there, an unpleasant insect or piece of meat. There was nothing but the flourishing vine, growing without water or soil.
The phone rang, and instead of letting her machine take it, Lisa moved quickly to pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Lisa, it’s Lou. Will you talk to me?”
“What do you want?” she said, sitting down, curious but sounding suspicious, wanting to hear what he had to say but thinking that to seem innocent, she should play hard to get.
“Please talk to me, Lisa. I know you must despise me, and you’re right, but … please … we were friends, at least, and I don’t know who to turn to … I need to tell someone about what’s going on, I feel like I’m going crazy. My tennis buddies, the men I’m friends with through my work—you know how it is, as soon as they smell blood in the water…”
“They’d eat you alive,” finished Lisa, and then said, with a big, complicated sigh that did not mean what Lou thought it did, “You set me up when you gave me that number.”
“I gave you a connection.”
“Yeah, to fuck myself. That showed what you really thought of me. Apiece of ass.”
