by Todd Grimson
“That’s cold, Boro,” Lisa said, scared but also feeling he was kidding, not sure. If he was as old as he was supposed to be—and this had occurred to her before—his ideas about women were probably completely fucked up. Virgin or madonna versus whore, with nothing in between.
He laughed. This was fun for him. He liked her, as he had said. Lisa didn’t think this would stop him from seeing her killed; aesthetically, it would make it better for him. She was safe right now, this moment, but she wasn’t safe.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“What do you think I want?”
“You’re just fucking with me.”
“I’m not. I’m helping you achieve what you seek. What about Manoa, City of Gold?”
“You toy with me. Like these tattoos.”
“You don’t like them? OK, I can make them fade away, no problem. Remember, though, it’s very important they’re in exactly the same place. You decide.”
Lisa kept her mouth shut. That shit about being found murdered in a hotel room wasn’t funny to her. She didn’t know what he meant about the tattoos.
She was tired. It was time to find Christine. Her red top felt sweaty and funky; she pushed her hair out of her eyes, and Boro touched her again, rubbing her back for a moment, as if she were an animal he had tamed.
“That way leads out,” he said. “Ariel! Ariel will take you. Are you going to go see Casablanca’s fight?”
Lisa nodded. “What does he do for you, that you’re helping him?” She sounded different, indifferent, and Boro responded without his usual bullshit; Ariel listened too.
“Miguel was supposed to bring an innocent boy. This kid he brings us is a hustler—he sells his ass to Anglos in cars. He’s pretty, but he’s all done. He ain’t going nowhere, you understand what I mean? He’s on the pipe. So what do you think of this? Will the magic be strong enough, or did Miguel fuck it up?”
Lisa didn’t know, so she didn’t reply. She said, “In a sacrifice, does something always have to die?”
Boro sounded weary, impatient with her tone. “Death is all around. Something is born, created, something has to die. You will see,” he said, and turned and walked away.
Ariel Mendoza … Lisa did not understand what he was getting out of his role. Ten-year-old girls? Usually she sort of liked him, maybe just because he was polite, but at the moment she was inclined to think badly of everyone here … therefore she was anxious about Christine and could not help probably frowning at Ariel as he showed her the way through the weird halls, which seemed a maze.
Wanda and Christine were in the upstairs room across from each other, each wearing a blindfold of black cloth, doing a kind of slow, symmetrical dance, one and then the other seeming to slightly take the lead, most of it was with the arms, as one’s right arm rose gracefully the other’s right arm went up too, then they did an intricate, hyperspeed pattern thing, like kung fu, that was so fast it was shocking they stayed in synch. Christine was stripped down to her lacy white underwear, her mouth moving, almost forming syllables of private, transfigured delight. There was a black band around one upper arm and a necklace with an amulet around her neck. Wanda was completely nude, somehow clothed by her tattoos, bracelets, and rings. No pubic hair. Rings down there too. The lights blinked down almost to dark and came up white with a memory of ultraviolet to blue. There was a large boa constrictor in the room; it flicked its tongue. White birds fluttered in a cage.
Then, simultaneously, Wanda and Christine clapped their hands sharply and, grinning, removed the blindfolds.
Christine told Lisa she was staying for a few days. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said willfully. “I’m in my right mind. Let’s not argue about it, OK? You’re in it a fuck of a lot deeper than I’ll ever be.”
“Here,” Wanda offered, writing a number on a piece of torn blue paper. “You can call her every day.”
Lisa took Christine aside, said in a low, urgent voice, “Are you fucking crazy? Christine, have you lost your fucking mind? C’mon, let’s go. You can always visit if you think it’s so interesting. Don’t do this.”
Christine jerked away angrily and said, “You always want to know everything first. Lisa’s the star, everybody else is a sidekick in your movie—well, not me, not anymore. I want to find out something for myself. That’s it. Now leave me alone.”
Lisa didn’t know what to do. She hated it. She didn’t trust Wanda at all. Maybe—this was how magical her thinking had become, she thought to herself—maybe there was some kind of a spell.
At Popcorn’s, later, 2 A.M., having collected Caz and some clothes, she sat on the bed (in her own room) while Selwyn, who had been unable to sleep while waiting for her, caressed her thigh like a piece of art he was trying to understand in the land of the blind.
She was sad, and she couldn’t tell him why. Everyone who’d come in contact with the situation had gotten in trouble—she didn’t want to present Boro with anyone new. All she could say to Popcorn was, “I’m coming to grips with the fact that I’m a bad person …” and then, knowing he couldn’t understand, she seized on Boro’s scenario: “Maybe I’m going to end up murdered in a hotel room, cut in pieces, my head on the vanity in front of the mirror … that might be what I’m meant for, sometimes I think I can feel it coming at me like a speeding car.”
“No,” he said, and for some reason she was soothed. She hadn’t wanted to think about it in these terms, but his intelligence reminded her of her dad. In his embrace, the incestuous angle repelled her, which was why she didn’t much like kissing him on the mouth.
“Don’t take it so seriously,” he said in an experienced, philosophical way. She liked hearing it, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course not, unfortunately. He thought he did, though, and pretending to be comforted sort of comforted her, or came close enough. He sat by her in the dark, silently, not moving, until she was asleep.
TWENTY-THREE
It wasn’t hard to figure out that Raelyn was a little more skeptical of Lisa than she had been at first, which was OK. Lisa didn’t really require subservience, it was good that Raelyn—thrown into a situation—had done as well as she had, dealing with the Idea One people, when Lisa had given her so little direction. Raelyn, luckily enough, had been unafraid to run up a transatlantic phone bill asking New York lesbian filmmakers for advice, and that had helped a great deal. Lisa was very pleased with her. Things had changed since Lisa had
been fired from the Ripper sequel. Now the next likely project was the film about Cassandra … though Lisa thought she might experiment, see if she could make it by extraordinary means, like Manoa but somewhat more conscious …. she didn’t know if this was possible or not. In any case, it wasn’t something she intended to try to explain to Raelyn.
So she was vague and mysterious about an awful lot … though she did plan on going to Cannes and hoped Raelyn would come too. What complicated things between them was that Raelyn was still in love with Lisa, it was obvious, and it was also obvious that she (naturally) disapproved of the liaison with Selwyn Popcorn. Though in another sense it was interesting for her to stay at his house. Last night, for instance, he had talked to her and somewhat won her over.
“Someone tried to rape me yesterday,” Lisa said, partly to get through to Raelyn past her jealousy, if that’s what it was, partly just because it was true, the whole incident weighed heavily, even though she’d done no wrong—Duane Moyer had attacked her and deserved to die.
It was said so flatly, though, that Raelyn didn’t know how to respond. She looked at Lisa for a long time, finally gazing away and saying, “If you’d tell me about it… I never know where you’re coming from, what’s really happening. There’s always a subtext that I’m missing.”
“I tell you what I can, or what I think you need to know. My life’s messy.”
“I know that,” Raelyn said. “I’ve been a tiny part of the messiness … you should realize, though, I should tell you, that even though I
’ve had a crush on you, I’ve always known you were straight, I mean it’s obvious, so … I would never purposely add to the messiness. That’s all. I can never tell what you’re thinking, it seems like you’ve got about six million things going on at once. Tell me what happened. Who tried to rape you? Where?”
“In my apartment. A cheap detective, who’d been watching me for a week or two.”
“What happened?”
“I fought him off,” Lisa said. “I was really lucky. I bit him really bad.”
“Did he hit you in the mouth?”
“Yeah, he did.” Lisa smiled at Raelyn’s making a deduction, but also, more powerfully, at the memory of how she’d amazingly ripped his throat with jaguar teeth. “Don’t say anything to Selwyn,” she added, perhaps unnecessarily, and Raelyn said of course not, barely audible, upset. She seemed very young and insecure.
Lisa leaned back, there by the pool, in her swimsuit, and said, maybe cruelly, “My brother forwarded me this letter from a guy I met down in Brazil. His name’s Tavinho Medeiros. He says he might be coming up here, for some seminar at Southern Cal. I’ll never forget,” she said, smiling, tapping the letter against the glass table, “when he showed up in Bahia, on the beach, after this umbanda ceremony went all wrong. Birds started dropping down dead out of the sky. I’m not kidding. The spell went really bad.”
“You’re pretty superstitious, aren’t you?” Raelyn said, and it seemed like she’d discovered a way to work together and be friends— studying Lisa, affectionate but slightly detached. That was all right.
In order to get Popcorn in the mood to watch Casablanca fight that evening, late in the afternoon Lisa plugged in the videocassette of his last fight.
“What’s this?” Selwyn said, having taken off his tie, looking on with great interest as the zombies carried Duane Moyer into the back room and began tearing him apart, eating the pieces, a handheld-camera-type effect. “Great lighting.”
“Oh, it’s an experimental student thing,” Lisa said, shocked, moving to turn it off.
“Wait. I want to see what happens. It’s really gory. Realistic, too. How did you do that?”
“Somebody’s brother knew an armless and legless guy, and we built him a fake torso, so that we could rip out his guts. Have you seen enough?” she said.
“Yeah. I get the idea. Have you been into boxing for a long time?”
TWENTY-FOUR
“Pain looks great on other people. Isn’t that what they’re for?’” Lisa said, quoting a song lyric to Popcorn, telling him how in New York she used to go to this one theater, Always 6 Kung Fu Hits, with her Walkman on, no subtitles. Animated, she noticed that Rush Fenders was in the crowd, and told Popcorn that Fenders sucked. “All his
fight scenes and stunts are edited, so you can never tell what he really does. That’s low.”
Popcorn liked her when she was this lively. He liked her in the black leather jacket. Christian Manitoba was also here, and the basketball star Dwight Crow. Popcorn had been to a couple of fights many years ago. He didn’t want to date himself, so he didn’t bring them up. The affair with Lisa was beginning to hurt, which was good, it stimulated him, he was having good ideas for his next film, he conceived of it with her—as viewer—in mind. Little subtleties she might get and be amazed by. But he wanted to marry her, and he was already jealous of all the young men who might cross her path. Like her old boyfriend, Code, the rock-and-roller, who had called her up today. He was living with Lauren Devoto, which explained how he’d gotten the number, apparently he was quite a hustler, at least that’s how Lisa seemed to describe him….
The preliminary fights provided some excitement, thrills—Lisa and Popcorn talked to each other throughout, rooting for this guy because of the color of his trunks, against that one because of his attitude and nickname … Popcorn was becoming pretty curious how she happened to know this Miguel Casablanca, but it was the kind of question he would deliberately refrain from asking as long as he could.
Now the parties were in the ring for the main event. The bell rang, and the announcer went into his cadenced spiel. Miguel Casablanca was definitely good-looking, and from the way Lisa’s eyes were shining, Popcorn wondered if she’d fucked him. He had golden skin, even with his mouthpiece in he was handsome, wearing classic white trunks. He had the crowd on his side, a lot of fellow Mexican-Americans who were really into it. Casablanca looked confident and determined, dancing gracefully on his toes, red gloves taped on under the hot lights. His opponent was a formidable young black man, taller, in black trunks, named Rudy “The Hammer” Washington. The referee was Ernie Perez.
So Casablanca started strong, he looked good, he probably won the first three rounds. But then in the fifth round Washington hit him with a tremendous, perfect right hand. Casablanca went down. He covered up and lasted the round, and fought back terrifically in the sixth.
Lisa was excited, going up and down with the emotional highs and lows of the fight along with the crowd. Popcorn thought she was naive.
In the seventh round Rudy Washington knocked Casablanca down again, early enough so that he had two minutes or so to end it. Miguel was bleeding from cuts over both eyes, wobbling, obviously hurt. When he was backed up against the ropes and his mouthpiece flew out, spinning, you knew it was near the end. There was a dreadful look in Rudy’s eyes, like a warrior who was just naturally cruel, a killer … and his right hand snapped like a rattlesnake, landing heavily, like he could murder you with one punch.
Casablanca went down and could not get back up. It was a knockout. Washington stuck his gloved hands straight up into the air, exultant. His trainer lifted him for a moment as he flailed at the night, there under the bright lights.
Popcorn put his arm around Lisa’s shoulders, drawing her to him, but after just a few moments of shocked sorrow she was curious, she wanted to see, to understand what was going on. There were all kinds of people in the ring.
After the official pronouncement of Rudy Washington’s triumph, when the uproar finally seemed to be dying down a little, emotions ebbing, Lisa, shaking her head, said, “Well, Miguel’s fucked. I don’t know what he’s gonna do. He’s really fucked.”
Popcorn was to remember this comment later on. He would try to replay the look on her face, the tone of her voice.
For, later that night, after they’d had sex, both of them aroused, without question, by the fight—and Lisa by having cried, her temperature was raised, he realized this in the most intimate way as they clung to each other, like Romans full of lust after watching the gladiators, it was natural… a phone call came, only a very few people knew the number of his bedroom phone—Larry Planet, who knew about the fight, saying, “Look, I’m sorry to call you so late, but I thought you’d want to know … the boxer you went to see, Casablanca?”
“Yeah?” Lisa had gone to her own room not more than ten minutes ago.
“He committed suicide. He shot himself in the head.”
“Jesus.”
When he broke the news to Lisa, it was like she already knew. At least she didn’t seem to be truly surprised, even though she gasped. The doomy look in her eyes had been there since the end of the fight. No tears now.
“Did you know him well?” Popcorn asked at last, puzzled by her reaction, seeing unaffected honesty as his only route.
“In a way I did, but no, not like you mean.” She brought her cat up to her face, nuzzling his neck as he shut his eyes and purred. “Selwyn … I just want to go to sleep now, with Caz.”
Popcorn nodded and left her alone.
“He had nothing left,” he heard her say tonelessly as he went out into the hall. The remark had been meant for him to hear but not to fully understand. He saw that they were playing a game.
SECTION 25
The sorrow was physical, like an illness. It was complex, composed of feelings not only about Casablanca but also about herself, and about Duane Moyer in some way, even though he’d basically deserved what he’d gotten. The crimes M
iguel had committed in service of his career were abstract to her, she didn’t know how much to believe of what Boro had implied, but she had liked Miguel … and he had shown such wonderful physical grace and heart there in the ring. She could have been his girlfriend, that dead possibility was something else she sentimentally mourned. She was scared. She was trying to gather her wits; if she was careless now, she might literally die.
She was taking a shower, absently scrubbing herself, when she suddenly realized that the suds on her upper arm were turning blue, the psychic tattoos were indeed fading away, rubbing off. Boro had said something to her… that they had to be in the same exact place. She saw this as a problem to be coolly thought through and faced. She dried herself carefully, trying not to rub the towel over any of the areas that had been marked.
Only for a moment did she consider the alternative of just letting them go. If she did that, she would be powerless, and Boro would probably sacrifice her anyway, maybe sooner than planned, out of contempt. Her friends were used to them, she was used to them. She had come to like them. They made manifest her new criminal status—they were now part of her image as the “bad girl” filmmaker, and she knew they turned Popcorn on … she’d been given them free, and now she had to pay for them. It all made sense.
The outlines were still plainly visible, but she needed work done now, today, no fucking around. By tomorrow they might be gone. Boro was playing with her, here she must play along. He would be
