Chapter
Seven
i.
"Initially, this segment of the show
was to feature clips from the films of Vargas and Souiel. While reminding our audience that formal
charges have been lodged against neither of these men, let us vary from the
scheduled program and welcome to the stage noted physicist Doctor Norman
Bergtraum, Professor Emeritus at Folgers University. Doctor Bergtraum."
The announcer, a notorious film director
(notorious not only because his films have been so graphic, but because his
homage to other directors so often took the form of imitation), having proven
he can also be an expressive reader of cue cards, claps politely and
disappears.
The guest speaker is greeted with confused
murmurs and scattered clapping by the more automatic members of the
audience. He materializes in deepening
shades through enormous filters of shifting acrylic and stops center stage
before a podium nearly as tall as he, leaning his mouth against what appears to
be a slender silver garden hose hypnotized in mid-air. He distrustfully spills a greeting into
it.
"How d'you do."
A slender youngster, standing beside him
like a giant, bends the mike downward so that he need not lecture on
tiptoe. She dances to the wings like a
silk handkerchief in the wind to applause from her growing group of fans among
the audience.
Dr. Bergtraum smiles in her direction and
turns to the audience. Further speech
reveals he rolls his r's and pulls his vowels.
"If I can not begin to expr-r-ress my soopr-r-rise at this chance
to speak to so gr-r-reat an assemblage of people about so singularly loo-rid a
matter as this it is because, to be pear-fectly fr-r-rank, if someone had said
but five days back that I would even be attending these pr-r-roceedings, I
would have called him with conviction, mad.
My home is in the lab-a-tory, not in the spotlight. Yet my pr-r-resence here, despite my
misgivings, is not without r-r-reason."
He coughs in falsetto, turns to his next page of notes and
proceeds. "Two days ago an
unyoosual hypothesis was br-r-rung to my attention. Unyoosual, do I say? Yes,
for it could be discerned thr-r-rough a simple appleecation of Physics and
giometr-r-rics and I have, thr-r-rough my computations, discovered
so."
When he turns to the next page in the
loose-leaf binder the audience grows restless.
"I dr-r-rew gr-r-raphs fom ser-r-ries
of stills, akchoo-al mooving pictcha fr-r-rames fom the film, Fr-r-riends,
where a young girl, ah." Lifting
his glasses, he squints and falters.
"Diane Haydee?" Louder
members of the audience assist him.
"Yes?" he asks, encouraged by participation. "Heyday? Excuse my notes. Diane
Haydee, Heyday." He promptly
corrects himself while raising his voice to silence the disobedient
listeners. "I am speaking of the
scene when she pools a young man; this boy is Kevin Vargas. He is the boy in the film. Specifically, she pools an umbr-r-rella
which was in the tight gr-r-rip . . .."
He fists his hand. The audience
murmurs as boos swell like a tidal wave.
He scolds, "Yes, I said pools.
Ladies, gentlemen, please. There
can be no error as this diagr-r-ram, a computer animation, demonstr-r-rates
please. The scr-r-reen." Cawing softens as the houselights dim and
eyes are diverted to the left. Dr.
Bergtraum narrates as the images pass silently by.
"Fir-r-rst, see the film at its
pr-r-roper speed."
They vie for the umbrella and, in a matter
of seconds, Diane lies, chest up, on the plank floor. As the images interact,
Bergtraum urges, "Observe."
Kevin leans forward violently; Diane writhes like a specimen pinned
alive to a cork board. A spotlight
returns to Bergtraum.
"I was sent a videotape of this film
and fom it plotted points on each still of the pr-r-revious scene, minimalizing
the figures to what looked like star constellations evolving over a billion
years. But please." He raises a hand, this time to stop
himself. "I pr-r-rogrammed these
white dots on a terminal which also served as my pictcha scr-r-reen and the
inf-a-mation was stored in the memory of ISAAC, the br-r-rain center at Folgers
where I confirmed what alr-r-ready I perceived was so. Here is the computer animation that came
back to me. See for yourself."
Eyes are again redirected left.
"Fig-ya 'A,' above, weighs a mere
forty-five kilos while pr-r-ressure exerted was measured -- " The mike picks up sounds of shuffled
papers. "-- thirty six kilos, a
twenty-eight kilo incr-r-rement, as much as five g's gr-r-reater than the fawce
fom natural gr-r-ravitational pool fom this height of only thr-r-ree feet." He looks around, accusing, "So somebody
was doing something. Where does the
additional weight or-r-riginate? Not
fom fig-ya 'A' for muscles around his upp-a tawso and shold-a are limp and
shins show no stiffness nor momentum."
(Arrows blink on and off on the graph superimposed over the still of the
film.) "Momentum is minused;
balance, upset. The pool centers here,
in the shoulders and tightened elbows of fig-ya 'B' below. Watch now gr-r-raph and film in
unison."
The moving dots liquify. Diane's hands seem to be the eye of a
whirlpool with Kevin's frame wrinkling to the flow like a pointilist rag
floating in an emptying bathtub suddenly sucked into the unplugged drain. The audience, as a whole, gasps at the
spectacular effect worthy of a planetarium's demonstration of the end of the
universe.
The image fades as the screen rises and
light gradually returns to the stage and auditorium. Bergtraum, wasting no time, is asking, "Why was there so
fatal a move taken? Was she acting
purely on impulse, unaware of the vuln-able place inches below the r-r-rib
cage? And to the question of special
effects, I leave to others more skilled in this area for, though I have looked
closely, I can not r-r-reassure that this was innocent tr-r-rick photogr-r-raphy." He gravely shakes his head. "All I have to off-a is fom what is
given. I say, base your interp-a-tation
on that." He nods with the stern
satisfaction of an English professor who has just concluded the definitive
explanation of an obscure poem. "Bee-faw I take leave of you millions, I add that only
pr-r-rosecutas will define what cha-ges should be pr-r-ressed, but my view is
that there was a gr-r-reat deal of negligence due to lack of adult sup-a-vision
under which this gr-r-ruesome calamity would most surely have been
pr-r-revented." He looks into the
camera and points scoldingly at parents throughout the world. "Childr-r-ren should not be allowed to
play in this way. Thank you."
He walks briskly off the stage and into
the wings.
"Thank you, Dr. Bergtraum, for your
liberal analysis, and a special thank you to Folgers University for sparing him
and their impressive facilities."
Charles Rayovac, who earlier heralded Dr.
Bergtraum, has miraculously reappeared, much to the credit of the stage
direction, to further announce, "And now, without further ado, we present
this special Pyramid to Louis Souiel and Kevin Vargas for their meritorious
achievements and developments in cinematic expression, and for the pioneering
of the 'floating stage line.'
A voice from beyond booms through the
auditorium. "Accepting the award
for Mr. Vargas is . . .." A
spotlight floods a figure sprinting down the wide left aisle. "No, wait. It's Kevin Vargas."
Ooos, ahs and cool applause greet them as
they climb to the stage. Souiel's
weight has been effectively contained in a silk three-piece suit. His gaze is godly. Kevin, sopping, appears even more lost than he would have had he
missed the physicist's explanation.
Certain extrasensory members of the audience, following with their eyes
as he walks to the podium, discover that with their second sight they can
actually receive signals of a little black cloud hanging over his head,
thundering and raining upon him.
As Vargas and Souiel take their place
before the podium a steadycam cameraman weaves around them to demonstrate their
achievement to home viewers.
John had been half-watching earlier
portions of the show and, although he was pleasantly diverted, the striking
faces of the announcers and recipients led back to his facing the facts of his
own life, drawing him toward definitive action. His divided attention magnetically conjoined at the mention of
the Vargas/Souiel award. He was aware
of Kevin's absence when the camera failed to spot him in the audience. Now, with this audacious surprise
appearance, John's concentration intensifies to the sharpness where he can also
see a little black cloud hovering over the TV screen as he stares at its
scanning ray in his lonely motel room.
So, thinks he. It's as if the heat of the moment made up for years of
premeditation. He's actually getting
away with this. He has his own
misery-laden storm cloud to separate him from the human race.
Vargas politely accepts the small silver
shape from the polite girl next to Charles Rayovac as a puddle widens on the
mirror finished black floor beneath him.
He shakes Charles' hand and turns to the mikes saying, "Thank
you. Thank you. I had to swim to get here." For all the water exuding from his body, his
throat is dry. He croaks, "I don't
know what to say except thanks, I. I,
I, I, I'm wet. And not even to
demonstrate a point I find I'm all wet."
His eyes are dismal caves but his smile is winning. The audience quivers with laughs. From them he finds warmth and encouragement
to continue in this nervous manner but, in turning to his collaborator, he is
face to face with a wall, entrapping him in fearful solitude. He cover the mike and says, "Are you
thirsty? I'm so thirsty." Souiel remains dignified, unperturbed and
unsupportive.
John's motel television catches none of
Kevin's shifting mood. All he hears is
appreciative laughter from the audience which batters his brain, causing him to
yell from within, I must break through that shield separating him from mankind. They're all trying to protect him but he
won't be safe from me. He's so
impregnable up there in that twenty-fifth floor suite in the clouds but I'll
get to him.
John remembers his tour of Dieledon from
the air and the spoken lines, "Five from the roof on the left-hand
corner." He switches off the TV to
heed that invitation, missing Souiel's inventive gesture.
Souiel has a way of looking out into the
valley of people as if he is doing them a big favor, one he will not soon let
them forget. Kevin is upset because
Souiel is clearly ignoring him in front of the world. He cheerily cackles, "Better late than never,"
referring to the award. His voice
cracks. Embarrassed, he feels Souiel
think him a fool. He offers a
greeting. "Hi, Lou. How are you?"
While awaiting the conclusion of Kevin's
thank you, Souiel had begun conversing with Mr. Rayovac, with whom he has much,
stylistically, in common. Interrupted,
he turns to Kevin and automatically replies, "Fine." Belabored, he adds, "How are you?"
"Wet," he gags.
Since Souiel's throat is also dry, he
reaches into his jacket for a flask which he opens, pouring liquid from it into
his cap. He hands it to Kevin while
raising the flask and says, "Cheers."
"Thanks. Will this make me dry?"
He sways drunkenly.
He taps Kevin's throat and says,
"It's a toast . . .." He
smirks over the idea that while they are up here they should poison themselves,
adding, ". . . to the Pyramids."
The idea is sufficiently outrageous to
also cross Kevin's mind, except that he believes Souiel is serious. He smells the liquid and speaks a flippant
aside to the mike. "Odorless,
colorless." His tone grows
ominous. "Poisonous. Should I drink it? Is that the right thing
to do? I'd like to see a show of hands."
The audience gasps in apprehension and
confusion. Charles Rayovac backs away
in awe. The awards girl, hitherto
unrecognized by Kevin, steps forward and takes both men by the shoulder while
enunciating into the mike, "Boys, boys.
Later. This is not the time or
the place."
They freeze at being upstaged, gazing
sheepishly into her mindless stare as she guides them off the stage to immense
applause. As members of the audience
rise to their feet in appreciation of her saving the show, she turns away from
them and whispers into Kevin's ear.
Souiel watches jealously.
"And I didn't save you for
nothing. I'm Diane's sister. Catch you later." She flutters away to continue her duties.
Kevin cringes and turns to Souiel, saying
with a sickly smile, "Oh, these menials.
Always trying to draw attention to themselves."
She leaves them in the wings from which
they silently watch the show in progress.
No one bothers them. Presenters
and stage crew, too busy and preoccupied to take notice, whoosh around them. After another few awards are presented, a
production number follows, during which Sarro walks over to them and says,
"Here. Look what the last
announcer gave me. You forgot
these." He gives them their
Pyramids and guides them to their seats.
ii.
Kevin does not get to see Philip again
until after the awards during the party that follows in the Beledon lobby. Kevin is still wearing the same evening
suit, deciding the wet look is in.
Crystal is with him, pressing the question, "But given the chance
would you have drank it?"
"Given the excitement and spirit of
the moment, yes. Of course, I probably
would have dropped dead instantly. We
both would have. He should have just offered
some sleeping potion for knocking out elephants so we could have awoke later to
see it on the news. Especially
interesting would have been the improvised camera work resulting from us
suddenly sprawled on the floor."
"Oh well, next time," says Crystal
with an unlikely air. "What
exactly was he offering you?"
"I don't know. Perhaps we'll ask him later when he's less
busy."
Souiel is against a curtained wall near
the bar. A dense semicircle of people
enclose him as he makes a point. The
Souielists, who are close by, are pale in conviction next to their mentor.
"When you recognize the shade of
difference between making likely the unlikely and making the unlikely likely,
only then will you begin to respond to the full impact of that man's work. I've been out of touch these several years
but I'll never forgot how that was the crux of why I felt so good watching his
films." Effective gesticulating
accompanies his words.
"But it's the same thing, only
vice/versa," says a desperate voice in the crowd.
"But only when you realize that the
order is what establishes the priorities will you recognize the precision in
what I'm saying. Most directors of
fantasy make the unlikely likely and then make it happen; but he first makes
the unlikely happen and then makes it likely."
Crystal, able to hear the discussion from
several yards away, says, "It'll be hard to disturb that
conversation."
A lad near Souiel screams in exasperation,
"I don't think it ever becomes likely.
It's completely unlikely!"
Kevin has spotted Philip talking with
someone at the corner of the ballroom near Souiel and his entourage. "Crystal, a report, if you please, on
the droopy-eyed fellow next to my travelling companion."
"That's J. T. McGuilty,
adventurer. He brought back
Souiel."
"Excuse me, please." He nods to Crystal and approaches them head
on with a greeting.
"Hello, Mr. McGuilty, is it? Pleasure.
I hope Philip thanked you for your hospitality that night on the
Peninsula." He adds with slight
reprimand, "Did you, Philip?"
"Of course," he answers with
customary irritation.
Mr. McGuilty's memory is suavely unclear
on this issue. "When?" he
innocently asks, then remembers without help.
"Oh yes. Certainly it was
nothing. And you're Kevin Vargas. Philip has told me all about you. Congratulations on tonight." He speaks with the sincere cordiality of a
legend in his own time. He asks,
"Tell me, what ever are you up to?"
Kevin decides this person is excellently
insincere to the point of the untouchables and admires him for it. "I can't say," he replies. "Is the Peopleview article on the
stands yet? They interviewed me before
we left and after I've read it I'll be better equipped to answer."
McGuilty says, "I haven't read
it," as if it is doubtful he will.
Peter Robbins is on hand to acknowledge
the article. "Kevin, you haven't
even seen it? You're on the cover! and
the article tells all about you."
His smile is full of newly released secrets. "I never knew you were so bizarre." He edges Kevin away from Philip and J. T.
and continues with hushed excitement.
"And now this with Philip."
As an afterthought, he adds, "And that awful news about Friends. You're in all the headlines. You have a checkered past. I love it.
Tell me," and he wants the truth.
"Are you two happy together? because, though he's pretty, I'm
surprised he's your type."
"It may have been just a holiday
romance."
"Oh," he drones and then
continues with renewed enthusiasm.
"You look stunning in that wet suit. I love how it clings."
"Yes, I loathe dry
clothing." He itches the seat of
his pants. He confronts Peter with a
question. "Peter, you say you like
my appearance, demonstrating a sensibility for the ridiculous, yet you wouldn't
do my number for the Dieledon Experience.
Why?"
"Kevin," he explains without a
hint of malice. "It just wasn't
for me. You meant it to be ironic,
sarcastic, or satirical or something and I'm too sincere, especially when
performing."
"Oh," he says flatly.
More enthusiasm: "Did I tell you?
Sarro has a gig lined up for me in October. I'm playing the Beledon.
That's why I'm here tonight. I'm
so excited. It's big, but I have the
plans to match. It will be my crowning
achievement."
"That's terrific," Kevin's tone
a pale reflection of Peter's.
"What'll you be up to 'til then?"
"Recording, vacationing. How about yourself?"
He says honestly, "I don't
know."
Peter's forehead shows deep concern. "Kevin, your life."
"What about it?"
"It's probably still in danger. Not everybody will be satisfied that you
were pulled."
"Are you?"
"Of course. It's perfectly obvious."
"Not to me," he murmurs.
Robbins adds, to clarify his position,
"Only I certainly didn't think it was real. No one in their right mind wants to get killed. Only the threat is, or can be, well, you
know." He looks sure that Kevin
understands.
Kevin finishes the sentence. "Arousing. Very."
So Peter asks, "So what happened
there? Why did she do it?"
"I don't know. I thought I did it." He is preoccupied with looking around. "Are there any girls here, like Lynn? I mean, where is she?"
Robbins senses the delicacy of the matter,
feels sorry for Kevin and glances off for someone else to talk with.
Kevin speaks as if to himself, "So my
short range goal for the next month is to avoid attempts on my life. Great." He nods with passive acceptance.
"Kevin, don't joke about
it." He whispers, "Even your
collaborator, whom you went through such pains to bring back, may, in the
future, have some, shall we say, less voluntary plans for your demise."
"Souiel?" Kevin is incredulous.
Souiel is still cornered in the distance
saying, "No, no, no. It's short
and clipped, like this: Ma, ma,
ma."
Robbins nods. "Look at the man.
He's out of his mind."
"No, he's not. He's teaching that pretty girl how to talk
with his imaginary farmyard friends."
"You can't ignore what he tried to do
tonight."
Kevin tries to be more serious. "Yes.
You're quite right."
"If you're interested, I have the
number of a good bodyguard who protected me while I was down south."
"Thanks. I'll call for details if it becomes necessary."
A little old couple, known in the movie
industry for designing creatures the world forgot, takes this lull in the
conversation to ask Mr. Robbins for his autograph.
Kevin asks, taking Peter's empty glass,
"Do you want another drink? I'm
going to try for another drink."
Robbins says, "No thank you,
Kevin. See you later." He turns to the couple to say, "My
pleasure. Who's it for?"
"Us.
We love your music. Your album,
Magic . . .." Momentarily
speechless, the woman continues, "For us it will always mean that first
cozy night we spent up north by the fireplace."
Souiel's pretty listener is taken from him
by her equally pretty boy friend.
However, another girl, not pretty but sleekly clad in a tight corset,
whispers heavily into his ear, "Oh Souiel, to hear you speak gets me
wet."
He is embarrassed and flattered and drinks
whiskey from another larger pocket flask.
Then they converse.
Lamont walks by and slips a plastic
'baggie' of red pills into Souiel's jacket.
Sarro, who has been standing close by to watch over Souiel, sees this
and urges Lamont to the wall where they lean, side to side.
"What did you give him?" Sarro asks.
"Nothing. Don't worry. They're only
quaaludes. He hasn't slept in
days. These'll bring him down."
"I thought you were through with
dealing, Lamont."
"He was begging me for
them." Lamont knows best is
implicit in his voice. "He hates
it here. The least we can do is make it
bearable for him."
"He has me worried with these suicide
threats. Next time the police will come
and, on top of everything, they'll charge him with drug possession. Take back the pills."
Lamont interrupts Souiel's talk with the
girl just as her nipples were about to spill from her corset. "You hear that? He's worried about you."
Sarro would rather Lamont have removed the
pills than open the discussion, but he explains to Souiel, "It would be
disappointing were you to throw your life and freedom away. Remember the plans we discussed in my
office. I look forward to helping you
with them, so," he jokingly adds with encouragement, "Stay
alive."
Souiel takes a swig of whiskey and says
defiantly, "Sure, I'll stay alive if you keep me alive."
"What's bothering you,
Souiel?" There is disappointment
in his voice.
He answers with self-righteousness. "Everyone seems to think it was okay
for Diane to die for art, so maybe I'll follow in her footsteps."
Sarro shakes his head. "Don't waste your life on a
gesture."
Kevin wanders with his latest drink by two
suntanned critics whom he hears speak.
"It's yet another year where interest
in an incident during the ceremony will outweigh interest in the choice of
winners."
"I move that the girl handing out the
awards be tonight's guest of honor. I
love the way she moves. She was the
star of the show."
"I second the motion. That handiwork of hers saved the day."
"I can't fathom why those so called
innovators are here partying and she's not."
"I should think they'd be spending
this night with the D. A."
"When you're where they are you're a
cut above the rest, no matter how much it is denied."
"There must have been payoffs."
Kevin is amazed to be hearing these
flagrancies against him since he is standing conspicuously with no one else to
talk to. "Excuse me," he
says, pausing for a breath. "But
just what are you insinuating?"
Prestige as a critic makes him bold. "You killed that girl, Vargas."
"Okay. Granted you think that; what are you, as a fellow human
bean" (He emphasizes the bing! in bean.), "going to do about
it?"
The two of them back away as the shorter
one says, "We don't carry out sentence.
We only reach the verdict."
Marie walks toward Crystal. A large blotch on the front of her blue and
pink chiffon dress is a shade darker than the rest. "I think Philip's changed," she says, looking about
with horror.
Crystal watches McGuilty kissing Philip
hard on the mouth. Philip tenses and
shivers, teeth chattering. The deeply
red mouth stretched across his angular pale face looks luscious. "I'm still cold. Brrr," he says. McGuilty warmly kisses him again. They laugh.
Crystal recalls the orange velour shirt
and designer jeans from Sarro's meeting, though now they are wet. He tells Marie, "That's McGuilty, a
travelling man. He does pretty much
what he pleases."
"You'd expect it from that type, but
Philip," she cries, unable to mention their activity. "How could he? Better I never saw him again than to see him
like this." Her face clearly reads
disgust. "Where is Souiel. I must speak with him. He said he'd be here."
Crystal spins her around, points her in
the right direction and sets her loose.
She tries gallantly to defer Souiel's attention from a newly gathering
flock of admirers. Her difficulty makes
her love him more.
Two girls know of Crystal's work. They compliment his sets, ask of his latest
efforts, then tell of themselves. Kevin
sees this, still with no one to talk to, and nonchalantly wanders over to
engage the nearest girl in separate conversation.
"A lot of weather we've been
having," he says as an opener.
"I see a lot of it on you."
"Isn't the rain something?"
"Not at all." She usually makes light of what others find
incredible. "It's April. We must have showers for May's flowers." She grins.
Kevin begs to differ. "Don't you think it's gone past the
saturation point?"
"Oh really, it takes so little to
cripple the people of this city."
"Oh.
Do you live here, work here, or both?"
This small but well-spoken lady then
embarks on an offhanded summary of her expanding career as a museum
curator. Kevin concentrates less on content
and more, enviously, on the fluidity with which words pour from her lips. Gradually, she feels his dull gaze and asks,
"You often go into depression, don't you?"
"I'm moody."
"I've told you about myself. What about you?"
"Hm."
"But I recognize you. My God, you're Kevin Vargas. I wrote to my congressman about you. What have you been up to, Mr. Vargas?"
Kevin decides hers is the most popular
question of the evening and seeks to develop a witty answer. He says, "I'm busy exploring the truth
in the statement, there is nothing worth doing."
"And what have you
discovered." Her attention has
focused on him.
He seeks to suck her into his complacent
frame of mind. "Nothing is worth
doing," he says as though it is an event.
She leans forward to confide, "I
couldn't disagree with you more."
She easily turns to her girl friend since they are roommates.
Kevin confides in Crystal who, though
paces away, readily listens. "I
feel so lost in this progressive world."
He asks out of insecurity.
"Where's my dear wife? Did
she leave me?"
"She's at the hotel." Crystal returns to Kevin's side.
"Why isn't she here? How could she miss the social event of the
season?"
Crystal shrugs. "I doubt she guessed you were coming. We'd given you up for permanently
absent."
Marie has returned from her walk around
Souiel. She has gained a drink. Kevin, noticing her blotched dress, says,
"She has obviously given her husband a welcome home hug."
Crystal says loud enough for Marie to
hear, "Lynn and Marie had a rather bad time with the reporters on
Saturday, and it was all your fault."
Kevin stretches his neck and straightens
his moist tie as if it had just received a compliment.
Marie joins in. "Not only that, we were almost molested in the park."
Kevin's eyes glitter with the news as if
congratulations are in order.
Crystal explains, "All the hidden
recesses and crevices in Affe Park are flooding, so the apes are getting forced
from their caves."
"What apes?" Kevin is genuinely interested. "The ones in the zoo?"
"The smarter ones no longer live in
the zoo."
"That's progress. Why isn't Lynn here tonight?" He directs the question to Marie. He has no other topic with which to make conversation.
"She's too tired." She adds enviously, "She spent the
night with Souiel." She blushes
and clarifies, "I was in the room, too, only I fell asleep. She and he were up all night laughing. She
thought he was a scream. I
didn't." She looks down at the
floor and says, "I felt sorry for him, the poor man." She looks at Kevin as if he is to blame,
then concludes. "And then I drank
too much and it made me sleepy and I fell asleep."
Crystal has a pleasant topic for the three
of them to share. "I hear he
bought a new sports car."
Marie has something to say on that
issue. "I was the first to have a
ride. Lynn didn't want to go. It's beautiful. All shiny red and comfortable."
"I'll bet it's a Porsche," says
Kevin, knowing he is right.
They are standing by a grand staircase leading
to the upper mezzanine. Philip,
sneezing and chattering like a jagged spirit, passes by with McGuilty. Ignorant of being watched, the two men climb
the stairs and get lost in the shadows.
"First thing you must do is get off these wet clothes," says
McGuilty, pulling off Philip's shirt.
All talk of the Porsche is quashed as
Marie and Kevin follow with their eyes in disbelief at the gall of this man,
until the figures of he and Philip disappear behind a mirrored supporting
beam.
Kevin finds McGuilty strikingly
attractive, travelling the world on missions under assumed personae, socially
involved but in control, master of his fate.
Under the circumstances, he wishes he were Philip. He also wants to be taken. He is like Philip in other ways as
well. When he seeks to further the
comparison, he realizes that he, too, is freezing. He turns to expressionless Crystal and pathetic Marie and says,
"I must be crazy standing here all wet.
I'm going. Good night."
iii.
Marie does not need a brick to fall on her
head. Reuniting with Philip at this
party and finding him so evasive and cold, and the aloof way he stood there and
took it while she hugged him; hearing him make fun of her pretty new dress to a
stranger, and then walking right past her up the stairs with that horrid
existential character: she knows what this all means, that he is lost to
her. She must turn elsewhere to bestow
her boundless love and affection.
Since that self-righteous pervert, John,
stole their money (Wait until Philip finds out, she snickers. He'd better find someone with money. He's not as free as he thinks.), she has
nothing to invest but her love. Forced
to transfer this remaining fund from Philip, she turns to Souiel as the next
most likely receptacle. He is rich. She will not need money with him. All those oglers surrounding him are only
curious. Actually, he has no one, for
inherent in his garrulity is the refusal to open himself to anyone. She recognized this yesterday in the way he
spoke with Lynn. They exchanged ideas
and opinions, but in the end he sought to alienate her. Obviously, he is filled with guilt and self
loathing, and Marie sees herself as the one to break through his shield and
save him, give him worth, and show him the way. She says to herself, when all around adds up to zero, I'll be
there.
It would fail abysmally were she to expose
her heart to him here, where her sensitive mesh of feeling would get gnarled
with the flippant interruptions of the party.
She needs more intimate surroundings where she can open herself and he
can not help but succumb. She will go
hide in his new car and wait for him; and there she will reveal her love.
She concludes this thought at the finish
of another drink, plants her glass in a sand ashtray and takes the elevator
down to the garage. The garage
attendant is occupied by the T.V., despite its snowy reception. She removes her heels and stealthily sneaks
away from the elevator before the lethargic man turns to see who has gotten
off. He thinks, another pressed garage
by mistake.
She tiptoes to the unique red car and
slips through its open front window, wedging herself in the sweet smelling back
seat where she promptly falls asleep.
Prior to leaving the ball, Kevin visits
the bathroom, a black and white hall wherein he finds Souiel taking refuge from
the party. The bathroom's attendant is
performing a perfunctory service, handing Souiel a paper towel.
Souiel, drying his scalp, lowers the towel
away from his eyes and sees Kevin standing before him like a recurring
hallucination.
"Hi, Lou. What happened to Lynn?"
Kevin's arms are contorted into his ribs; his legs are turned in at the
knees. He swerves to keep his balance.
Souiel says, "I don't know. Can you believe some girl before whispered
in my ear that I made her wet?"
"That's nothing. The awards girl whispered in my ear that she
was Diane's sister."
"Did you get her number?"
"She said she'd call. How about you? Did you get her number?"
"The wet one? Why should I?" He looks away from the scrawny figure and
finds himself locked, together with his collaborator, in the same rectangular
frame.
"Because you made her that way."
Changing the subject, he asks,
"Don't you find it refreshing to get out now and again?" Kevin looks into the mirror and thinks it
reflects the state in which he and Souiel belong, together.
"Yes." He specifies, "I have to get out of here," although he
remains stationary. Since he returned
to Dieledon, he has been on a diet, his only nourishments being pills and
whiskey. He takes another swig. Snorting, he rolls his shoulders into
action, about to leave, but Kevin asks, "Did Diane ever mention a
sister?"
"I never heard of one, but if she
does, you're in trouble."
"So are you."
Souiel shakes his head in indifference and
pulls a clenched hand from his side pocket.
"What's that there?"
"Quaaludes. Want some?" His hand
slowly opens to reveal a pool of red.
At that moment, a tall thin man pauses by them before the mirror and
downs a few pills himself before rejoining the party. Others feed their noses and snort. To accommodate a six thousand seat theatre, the men's lavatory is
the size of a subway station.
"Just one for me, thanx," says
Kevin, pliably. After moments of
consideration, he arbitrarily selects a capsule from the bunch. Souiel gathers a cluster in one hand and
slips the rest back into his pocket.
Kevin asks with concern, "Why are you
taking so many? You shouldn't."
For that, Souiel adds another pill to the
bunch. "You should, to
relax," he recommends, noting Kevin's deflated looking suit barely
supported by his tensed form. Ignorant
that cups are supplied by the attendant, he reaches into his jacket.
Kevin, also forgetting about cups, is
about to drink a handful of water over the sink.
"I have something to wash this
down," offers Souiel. Vaguely
recollecting their encounter during the awards, he smiles at Kevin and decides
to play along for a second time.
When the pewter of the small flask catches
the light, Kevin sees visions of skull and crossbones. The tap water slips through his fingers as
Souiel commands, "This is better."
They both stare directly ahead, observing one another through the
mirror. Kevin turns and studies the
quivering flask cap, which Souiel offers with an eye contact expression as
somber as death itself.
Kevin is struck by the revelation that the
postman always rings twice. He had not
planned on suicide this evening but, never having planned a thing in his life
and, given the spirit of the moment which he interprets as gravely serious, he
chooses the affirmative action. He
accepts the cap, thinking, I have no argument to the contrary; I probably
deserve it; it saves assassins the glory of killing me; my best friend is doing
it; and, it's all one. He looks at the
lone quaalude in the palm of his hand, compares it with Souiel's plenty, and
shrugs, "I suppose this makes the going easier."
Around them are men bristling by like
butterflies, moving like blurs as if at another, faster speed. They stop at the mirror for inspection and a
well-placed splash of cologne, avoiding Kevin and Souiel like support
beams.
Souiel says, "If you've never taken
them before, then one should be enough."
He adds with a vague, noncommittal smile, "They lighten the
fall." He raises his flask. "I propose a toast to those who have
surrendered and sacrificed themselves for art." He busily dispenses the pills, one at a time, into his mouth.
Kevin raises the cap, twitches a frown and
adds, "To us."
They swallow their doses, observed only by
the bathroom attendant who sits in reverent silence by his tray of unearned
bills.
As Kevin awaits his own demise, sight and
sound intensify, even as smell, taste and touch recede in waves into
numbness. The charged party noises worm
into his brain in encoded indecipherable pulses. His eyes are as rigid as a hand-held camera (without a gyroscope
to smooth the jar of footsteps) as he dollies through the crowded hall staring
straight ahead, not comprehending the suspicious remarks he is generating,
aware only of entire figures, mushy blobs and shadows of indefinite substance
no longer broken into constituent parts of hairs, eyes, mouths, noses, ears,
breasts, waists and legs. This limited
perception accompanies the obliteration from his mind of the most regrettable
action of his life: intentionally drinking poison. The words of a familiar voice grow intelligible.
"How are you planning to get
back?" The blob gathers shape and
identity. It is Sarro.
"Back where?" asks Kevin who
sees himself as already too far gone.
"If it's to the Clairol, then you're
in luck because I've offered Crystal a lift; or would you rather swim back the
way you came? We're leaving now."
Kevin awaits the transformation from life
to death in silence, wondering if it will be noticeable. He is without sensation in both arms and
legs. He looks down for a consoling
glance at his feet and sees death crawling up his ankles.
Sarro is impatient with Kevin's
introspection which he considers a drunken stupor. "If you'd rather stay, perhaps you can hop a ride with
Souiel. He bought a new car."
In the back of his mind, Kevin is angry at
Sarro for turning so lovely a boy as Philip into a spy, but Sarro, who is
quicker, has the next word.
"You know, your latest thought on
life came as a disappointment to a friend of mine." He quotes, "'There is nothing in life
worth doing.' What made you say that?"
"I upset her?" He is incredulous, recalling not phasing
that girl a bit.
"Well," Sarro admits. "No.
Me, though. I was upset after
she told me. Can you look me straight
in the eyes and say you still feel that way?"
He taps under his nose, "I've never
felt differently," and sneezes.
"Gesundheit. Then why should I bother with
you?" He disgustedly waves his
hand. "Your collaborator's been
spewing that same defeatist crap since he got back. Perhaps it's in everyone's mind but what good is it? After all I've done for you, too." He shakes his head. "Who got his old friend, Norman
Bergtraum, flown in for the awards; and who got Souiel back so you could face
your crisis together; and who spent valuable time controlling this
mess?" He prods Kevin for the
answer.
"You," he whispers.
"What?"
He speaks up. "You. You did it
all." Any anger he had toward
Sarro is gone. "Thank you."
That was all Sarro needed to hear. "You're welcome." His voice settles. "I've tried to understand what it's been like for you with
that poor girl's death stifled in the back of your mind. It must have been paralyzing for you
both. Ever since we met I felt your
separateness was the result of some awful, exclusive secret. And then, at last, when enough people
commented on that scene, I realized that was it; and I was actually grateful to
know because, until you faced it, how else could you go beyond it? At last, there is nothing to preoccupy you
except the present." He holds
Kevin still and speaks directly at him.
"Try feeling the intensity of living now." His eyes expand. "That's the greatest gift man can give to his fellow man,
the awareness of being alive. Excuse
me."
Man and wife, both executive members of
the Beledon board of directors, stand beside Sarro. They congratulate him on a well-orchestrated awards ceremony and
comment on the building's renovation, noting the exact duplication of Beledon's
carpeting of yesteryear. Sarro raises
the subject of basketball, for the man is also coach of the Maxwell House
basketball team.
Crystal, having concluded his good-byes,
approaches, dressed to go. He tightens
the belt around his trench coat.
Sarro exchanges farewells and leads Kevin
through the main exit awning where his car awaits.
Crystal offers to drive. The hissing rain has him yelling to be
heard.
"Good idea," Sarro yells back,
walking around, eager to resume his conversation with Kevin.
The three men sit in the front, Kevin, in
the middle, looking tortured. The
windshield wipers wap back and forth with annoyance. "We're in a submarine," says Crystal.
Sarro feels Kevin squirm. "Are you all right?"
He is sure that he feels the poison eating
into his stomach. "Yes," he
says heroically, "I'm fine."
Sarro sympathizes. "You look like you're in pain,
Kevin. Admittedly, the truth is often
painful. It will probably get worse,
too, in the weeks ahead, but at least it'll be the pain of living, instead of
the former dull throb of existing. What
you're feeling is the softer, more vulnerable part of you edging out of its
shell where for years it's been contracted in fear -- afraid of being wounded
again. As it is expanding again, it
probably hurts, but if you permit it, it will raise you to heights you've only
imagined you've imagined. I'm telling you,
Kevin. You can come through this
experience stronger than ever."
They watch as an ocean falls from the
sky. Sarro acknowledges it. "What weather. It's all one. A storm this ferocious has been forming for years. Now, when it's loosed upon the world, what
else can we do but let it run its course?
In the same way, you also had a black cloud festering over
you." He pauses with inspiration. "It festered like a wound that sealed
without being cleaned. You tried to
hide it but it blackened and swelled.
No matter how painful the remedy, the wound had to be cut open again
before it consumed you entirely."
The fear of death gnaws at Kevin's insides
along with the gastric digestive juices ulcerating his otherwise empty
stomach. Where will he go? What will he do? How much longer can he procrastinate and still be saved?
Taking his cue from Kevin's silence, Sarro
continues, "Why do I help you?
Because, no matter how you prevent it, I believe in you. Through your films, I recognized in you and
Souiel both the need and talent for meaningful self-expression. Society, as a whole, does little to help its
artists. I, the individual, am here to
check its neglect. Now, I don't
consider myself an artist. I can only
hope to participate in the conservation of artists, and I'm in the position to
help you. Consider my other recent
project, saving the Beledon, a landmark building, which up until last year was
marked for demolition. Confidentially,
the satisfaction I receive there, which is sizeable, pales when compared with
the satisfaction from saving my fellow man."
Crystal Glances at Sarro to show his
encouragement. He is feeling mellow, as
he drives to the tune of Sarro's voice.
"On our first meeting, which we both
owe to Crystal, I sensed your creative drive, so I did my best to first remove
you from the world; not Crystal's apartment, but literally the urban pavement
with its hostile growing conditions, where it's crowded and everything there
tries to choke and gnarl growth. I
tried to transplant you into a green house where you were free to flower
whatever audacious sprouts you wished.
Despite the healthy environment, thrived something of the outside world
concealed within you. Some diseased
remnant of your past was stunting your growth, despite my efforts. There was still the final, painful step, the
lancing of the secret that sizzled like --" He pauses with inspiration.
"-- like a poison in your stomach.
But how could I act until I knew it was there, killing you? If only you could have told me, we could
have dealt with it sooner, and perhaps less painfully, but you did not. Why, Kevin, why?"
At the rate Sarro was going it was only a
matter of moments before metaphor matched circumstance to force Kevin crying to
admit, "My stomach! There's not
much time. The poison. Souiel's poison!" His eyes are moist with fear; his mouth is
blubbering. He blurts with a screech,
"I drank it in the bathroom!"
He rolls into a fetal ball crying, "Eheh. Eheh."
Crystal takes the next right, detouring to
Saint Dymphna's where drinking black liquid makes Kevin regurgitate the
emptiness in his stomach. The nurses
perversely greet his isolated complaint with welcome relief from treating
victims of flooding and other problems arising out of the rain. Tests on the half pint of vomit recovered
detect traces of quaaludes, Souiel's poison being water.
iv.
Souiel decides he should have eaten
something today. As he moves about the bathroom
there is a volatile equilibrium splashing against the inner walls of his skull
which he attributes to hunger. He looks
into the mirror where he and Kevin stood together only moments ago and imagines
that behind them are not urinals and stalls.
Rather, he envisions a surreal flat terrain, a barren mine field, a land
where they both used to play and into which Kevin has returned. Souiel considers that field an escape from
responsible thinking, whereby one retreats into sensuous stagnation, spastically
moving only out of either fear or frustration.
He thinks:
That's where I put them. I rigged the mines and dropped him and Diane
there where they could taunt and pull at each other like two warrior birds in a
cock fight. One survives, the other is
destroyed. The winner waits calmly
until another contender of perhaps greater prowess is dropped into the
arena.
Souiel continues to watch at a safe
distance, betting against himself, his camera preserving every writhing move
they make. Again, one wins, for the
other, due to clumsiness forced by the constant fight, miscalculates, trips and
explodes on a booby trap. Souiel's eyes
widen with love and arousal. He adores
the victor while relating to the loser.
But he wants no further part in this game. He sees it all around and personally dreads
walking through that competitive world.
He is far too large, awkward and insecure. He fears "losing" to an exquisite extreme, like someone
who becomes more ticklish from the dread of being tickled. Instead of returning to the party, he heads
directly for his car where Marie awaits, snoozing.
In discussing consequences of withheld
information being revealed, Sarro neglected the possibility that retaliation,
swift and merciless, will come not from city officials, or any other organized
instrument of justice, nor from Diane's relatives or friends, but from a mere
viewer coerced into becoming a murder accomplice through passive
voyeurism. When Sarro, helped by
Crystal, walks a dazed Vargas into the Clairol an hour before dawn, he fails to
heed the warning of such a man.
They stop at the registration desk for the
room key. The night clerk recognizes
Kevin's name and says, "An unidentified gentleman has called several times
from long distance. He doesn't leave
his name. He's just interested in
knowing whether you arrived safely back in your room."
"Well don't give him my
name!" Kevin is puzzled.
The clerk clarifies pedantically,
"No. He already knows your both
name and your room number. He just
wants to know that you got back okay.
He sounds concerned."
The switch board buzzes. A red light blinks. "This is him again." He connects the line and says, "Yes,
hello? Yes, safe and sound."
Sarro whispers, "Ask who it is."
The clerk does so, listens and presses
hold. "His name is John. You saw him last week at Cafe
Arnold's."
Kevin guesses, "Maybe it was that
nice waiter."
Crystal says, "It's not. It's that guy who bought our plane. He still owes us money. I'll speak to him."
"Oh.
That insulting bastard. Let me
have it."
Sarro advises, "Kevin, don't speak to
anyone now. Tell him to call back in
the morning."
The clerk ignores Sarro and hands the
phone to Kevin, saying, "Here.
Tell him you're okay."
Crystal, suspecting a vested interest,
leans over the counter and spies a work book for a legal scholastic aptitude
test and a stop watch by the phone.
Kevin grips the receiver as if he is the
only person to take care of the matter.
"Hello, John?"
"Kevin Vargas?"
"Yeah. What is it, John?"
"Kevin Vargas." He gulps for air. "In the morning they'll be taking you out with the
garbage."
He drops the receiver as if it has turned
snake. "Ueh!" he
shivers. Upon regaining himself, he
finds that the party on the other end has hung up and his friends are wondering
what upset him. He springs into
command. "I want guards in front
of my room and my wife moved down the hall where she'll be safe."
Crystal and Sarro keep him on his feet by
gripping his armpits.
The clerk wants these people out of here
so he can resume his studies. He
quickly checks and says, "We were booked solid but, as it happens, a
single checked out earlier when the rain stopped. Here are the keys."
Crystal asks Kevin, "Tell us, what's
the matter?"
"That guy's a nut. What if he's registered here?"
The clerk says, "That call was from a
long distance."
Sarro wants to conclude matters and go to
bed. "Notify security of the
threats." To Kevin he says,
"You're safe here, Kevin. Call me
tomorrow. Good night, Crystal. You did a great job on the show. Kevin, don't answer any more calls."
"Dr. Sarro," says Kevin. "Thanks again. I'm sorry about putting you through all this
trouble."
He is tired but he says, "I don't mind
if you learned something from it."
Kevin smiles thinly with
introspection. "I think I
did."
Crystal says, "I guess we should call
it a night. Are you coming?"
"Yeah." Kevin turns back to the clerk. "Hold that room just in case. Good night."
"Tell you what. Here.
Take the key."
Kevin does so. The clerk turns his head back into his LSAT work book, hoping
that preparing will get him a higher mark to get into a better school so that
he may eventually become a clerk of the law.
Kevin cracks open the thick solid door and
slips in as if to keep out as much hallway air as possible; as if the hall and
the room are two different pressures that would equalize given two minutes of
free flow.
Crystal, seeing that Kevin has safely
disappeared into the room, frees the elevator and rides down to his own room on
the other side of the building. He can
not recall ever having seen Kevin in such a frazzled state.
Kevin double locks and chains the door
from the inside. He leans on it and
listens to the darkness. The room hums
with automatically circulated air. From
a distance that sounds miles away is the wail of ambulance and fire engine
sirens. They fade further still. The blackness smells pure and healthy with a
proper medium of humidity and temperature suitable for sleep. He feels safe and alone in his suite. It is good to be back. He switches on a light to illuminate this,
the living room, and plops on the couch.
His digestive system has been cleansed by experts so he feels completely
purged as if he had fasted for days. I
must get my stomach pumped more often, perhaps once a month, he thinks. He licks his lips in apprehension of the
hearty breakfast he plans for the morning: fluffy pancakes with maple syrup,
whipped butter and sausages. His
stomach growls. He would actually
prefer to eat that immediately. Now
that his system is clean, he yearns to dirty it again. How do starving folk sleep? he wonders. Since hunger will have him tossing and
turning, he refrains from entering the bedroom and slipping between the sheets
where he pictures Lynn probably sleeping like a lamb. He chooses to spend the remainder of the night on the couch so as
not to disturb her. The phone rings.
He reaches for it. "Hello?"
"Hello, Kevin? Where are you?"
"Hello. This is the night clerk."
"What," he says angrily,
realizing the call has awakened his wife.
"Why Kevin, you're back."
"Lynn, I'm sorry. I was just speaking to this joker
downstairs. What do you want?" he
asks harshly.
"I'm sorry if I woke anyone up."
"Well you did. Don't you remember me mentioning my sleeping
wife?" He warns, "You better
get your head out of that book, sonny, and concentrate on your present
occupation." He stands with
nervous energy.
"Good-bye," says Lynn with a
yawn.
"Honey, I'm sorry."
The phone clicks. The clerk asks, "Hello?"
"I'm still here," says Kevin,
though he feels faint from rising so suddenly.
"That man called again. Now he's asking if you checked out. I had the police trace the call."
"Oh boy." He sits.
The deadly black wave smoothens over his brain, leaving him
functional. "So where did they
learn?"
"What? Well, he's over eighty miles away. He called from a pay phone on the Font Aspic Airfield."
"That's where I keep my plane."
"The police are notifying the
district commander to send someone over there to investigate."
Kevin is grateful since he is not about to
do anything himself at this time.
"Leave your name with the day man and I'll remember you in my prayers. Seriously, I thank you. Is that room still available, now that my
wife is up?"
"You're both safe where you
are."
"Yeah but I'm Kevin Vargas. Haven't you been reading the papers? Would you like to sleep in the same room
with me?"
The clerk hardly knows what to say. "Well, no."
"Well have it available."
"You have the key. It's there if you need it. Good night."
Lynn startles Kevin. She is standing before him, leaning on the
bedroom door, yawning and breathing, warm from the bed, wearing only a tight
white undershirt that reaches her hips.
He is chilled by her blatant lower nakedness for she inadvertently stirs
memories of Philip's shamelessness, although this is her customary bed attire. She says, "Leave your suit out. I'll have them press it in the morning.
"At least it's not wet any
more."
She welcomes him by asking, "What are
you doing here?"
"I'm sorry." He averts his eyes. "I can leave if you wish."
"No.
The pleasure's mine. I ask for
your sake. It was probably safer where
you were."
"I couldn't bring myself to miss all
the excitement. Of course, I had no
idea it was to be this exciting. Why
are you still here?"
"Outgoing flights have been delayed
or cancelled due to the weather. Then,
when that news broke, it became impossible to go out at all."
"I'm sorry," he says again.
"Marie kept me company a good deal of
the time. She was so sad and hurt over
Philip that I couldn't help but feel better by comparison."
"I'm glad you two hit it off. It's only fitting since I was with her
husband."
"Yes." She sits plop on the floor leaning against the wall,
spread-legged like a wide-eyed rag doll just out of bed with hair all out of
place.
Kevin sits back down on the couch at the far
side of the room, stiff, leaning forward, hands on his knees as if visiting.
Lynn offers her analysis of Marie. "She's basically likeable; she's just
socially clumsy, probably because she tries so hard to be regular. She should just let herself be natural."
Kevin agrees. "By using a pose she covers such instinctive reactions as
those of common sense." He moves
on, "She said you were up all last
night with Souiel."
"It's true. He stopped sleeping, so I kept him company, like in
Insomniac."
"Permanent insomnia is almost
preferable to daily undergoing the trauma of waking."
She is familiar with Kevin's inner clock
concerns. "Yes. He kept me awake. He's a great raconteur. I
didn't expect that from him. Funny how
he came back to Dieledon while you were busy looking for him, almost as if it
were timed."
"It was." He asks, "So you two hit it off?"
"Yeah. We laughed all night.
He's the only one who didn't talk about Friends. Everybody else looked to me for answers. For all I know, you developed the film in a
solution of human blood."
"I'm sorry."
"Will you stop saying that?"
Kevin says sadly, "Somebody else
brought back Souiel. He didn't do it on
his own."
"They should have left him
there," she decides. "In the
back woods he would have taken years to destroy himself, probably through
overeating. In a big city like
Dieledon, everything is a race. It may
only be a matter of days, or even hours, until . . .," she shrugs, fearing
the worst.
Souiel's appraisal of himself, exacerbated
by his change of scene, has led him to the following precept: Turn your back on the past.
The elevator arrives and takes him down to
the sub-level garage where the drowsy attendant fetches his car. As Souiel drives out of the building he
hands the ticket to the cashier and shuts the car window through which Marie
entered. Marie remains securely fit in
the back seat, still unnoticed. If not
for the liquor she consumed, her backbone would have found her snakelike
posture intolerable. However, in her
present condition, not even the slammed car door caused her to stir.
While speeding through the sleek city
streets, Souiel pursues his thoughts at an accelerated rate. The night is still young, for it has only
been ten minutes since he and Kevin parted company in the Beledon
bathroom. The rain has yet to stop.
In searching for future alternatives, he
sifts through his past. Turning a
corner, he decides that returning to Zoli is out. The biggest advantage to his coming to Dieledon has been his
escape from her lascivious mothering.
Now out of her trap, he must move forward, not take two steps backward,
so a renewed friendship with Kevin is also unacceptable. With a swallow of a mouthful of whiskey he
thinks, although we are inextricably tied, we can not help one another. Kevin's problems only heighten my own. His guilt and paranoia always forced him to
fabricate the world into an illusion of his own design, and he has not changed,
as his reaction to the offer of an innocent mouthful of water demonstrated.
In observing their reflection in the
bathroom mirror, Souiel recalled games of provocation which he enjoyed when
younger; but he has grown out of them.
He relinquished his role as God, the creator, director and voyeur. Five years ago he put his camera to rest and
now vows to never again let it blur reality with the heightened inhuman clarity
of godlike truth.
The street pavement glistens with
reflected lights. Enclosed in a
separate world, that of his Porsche, he whooshes into the park along the path
perpendicular to the grave site from which he long ago walked. He sees himself, a derelict, skulking along
the walls, forever haunting that path, pacing like a sentry.
Even through puddles the size of ponds,
the car takes the curves with total assurance, leaning to one side and then the
other to maintain a steady plane. As
additional quaaludes take effect, he yearns for more speed, finding the ride to
be the perfect catalyst for his disparate thoughts.
He recalls the party and how he could not
bring himself to return to it once he had visited the bathroom. Its cynicism was too wicked, with double
entendres and undercurrents of disdain to complex to pinpoint. As did the reporters that gathered at the
Clairol, the celebrities at the party looked upon him as a freak.
Even Lynn, Kevin's gracious wife,
naturally the person with whom he became closest since his return, left him
last night with the feeling that he and she were on different wavelengths, and
from a different mold. She has her own
problems, the biggest being her husband; Souiel has no wish to add to them.
To the other extreme, there are the
Souielists. To them he is accepted
without question or reason. Originally
his dearest friends, time and maturity have degenerated them into crazed
fanatics with power hungry dreams of a brotherhood that, if effectively
organized, would mean aristocratic fascism and an end to the world of art as we
now know it. Their opinions would rule
and he would be their front man, their messiah or Ayatollah. He rejects them as rejects everyone else,
totally.
Still, he is plagued by thoughts of that
repellently voluptuous girl who offered herself to him by sniveling in his ear
that her hole was running, as if he were supposed to wipe it. Some girls are just sick enough to be
aroused by him. He wants no part of
them, either. They are all the same. He might as well go running back to
Zoli. As tall pointy buildings pass him
by, he imagines that girl's corset tightening even more, swelling her bosom
until it explodes. He stops the scene
from becoming too visual, perhaps to think of it again later, when he can
spread out on the bed in his hotel room.
In the car, he only has room to plan ahead.
He must forge for himself a new artistic path,
alone, without support. Meanwhile, his
creative process is frozen without love, and there can be none for a man
involved in the murder of one of his fellow creatures. Little does he sense the existence of
someone as irrationally emotional and morally deficient as Marie. He needs the security, dependency and
resigned acceptance that comes with her love, and she is willing to supply it.
Souiel is no nihilist at heart. Never would he intentionally bring about his
own demise, but his actions are compulsive and irrational. He does what he feels. Continuing to drive along the harbor, past
the gloom of caved-in warehouses and tall ships, he finds solace in increased
speed, not realizing that his need stems from the slowing effect of the whiskey
and quaaludes.
v.
In the Clairol Hotel Room 2437, several
hours after Souiel and Marie are dead, Lynn is chirping like a bird at the
sight of dawn. "I never laughed so
much." She sings, "Ha ha
ha. He's a naturally funny character,
just what I needed to get my mind off the reporters and the weather. He's misanthropic but so physical in
expressing it." She is seated
cross-legged on the bed, rubbing her heal into her crotch. The first glow of dawn is penetrating
through the sheer curtains. "And
attractive," she adds, leaning forward girlishly, grabbing her toes with
her fingers.
Kevin is lying on top of the bed covers,
still wearing his white shirt and black pants.
The clothes are soft and comfortable.
Perhaps they will serve as pajamas.
He hears Lynn quip, "Overweight people can be so expressive, don't
you think?"
"I'm glad you were diverted," he
says pleasantly. "He has a gift
but, did you notice? After the
laughing, where were you left? And what
was there to do about it?"
"How profound for this time of
night! I was left feeling just as you
say. He drains you with his humor and
then leaves you to face your emptiness alone or to acknowledge him as your
master and be filled up with him. I
know because you like to pull the same stunt, so I wasn't affected, but Marie
underwent a transfusion; so it seemed by her constant 'casual' inquiries into
his activities. Was she at the awards
party?"
"Yes, lil'dahlink, she was."
She moans. He rises from the dead to watch.
She asks, "And tell me, dear Vargas, for whom all relationships are
clinging weights abandoning a sinking ship," she glares back at him. "What happened when she rejoined her
Philip, if indeed you even had the nerve to bring him there?"
"I did and, there, abetted not by me,
he blew that relationship to smithereens.
He ran off with another man."
"Leaving her to Souiel," she
adds, radiating sex.
"In theory, yes." He lies back down, restless with wolf's
hunger but exhausted. "Well, good
night."
"Good night." Lynn does not appear to be ready for sleep.
The sports car is engineered to such a
high standard of road performance that every twitch of apprehension and
uncertainty of its driver is magnified by its tightly exact response.
Marie's drunken sleep is made jittery by
the ride but her fraying nerves are soothed, as if by creamy ointment, with the
unconscious sense of Souiel's nearness.
As she squirms, she vividly dreams of awakening to offer herself to him
as proof of her love. They embrace to
sob teardrops, each on the other's shoulder.
The car outlines the river for several
miles as the road becomes marked with arrows and exit signs offering a choice
of highways. Souiel yearns for the wide
open straightness of the farthest reaching route where he can open up his
engine and the lines dividing the lanes will run rapidly beside him and he will
go and go like a run-on sentence. Only
when he twitches awake does he realize he is falling asleep. His head is keeling from one side to the
other like a spinning gyroscope. If it
leans too far, it bops back up, steadying itself like a spinning top does after
grazing an obstruction. His every third
thought is of sleep. Every other train
of thought leads him to sleep. Though
he is out of practice, his driving is instinctive and only suffers when he
shuts his eyes.
The entrance ramp leading onto the
cross-county highway gradually rises in a borderless spiral curve. The rain has transformed the surrounding
valley into swamp land. The uphill ramp
curves menacingly and from out of the mist appears a great black garbage truck
chugging ahead. Neither lights nor
reflectors grace its entire obstructive shape and its empty blackness is as
startlingly dimensionless as a black hole.
Souiel slows drastically to adjust to its crawling pace. His sudden use of brake knocks Marie against
the hard back of his seat. The jolt
startles him but he is distracted when into the car enters an alarming odor
smelling of fish, rancid butter, cabbage and rotting flesh. The narrow ramp, at five miles an hour,
seems endless. Slowing down is
withdrawal enough, but it is no escape from the vile truck. Filth particles continue to seep through the
vents so Souiel switches the defroster to recirculate.
It is the undeniable reality of a stench
that forces Marie to her senses and out of her happy dream of being awake. Her stomach unsettles so she fumbles between
the bucket seats for a switch to open the back windows. The sun roof hums open instead. Ahah! says the smell, finding an alternate
path into the car, stinking more pungently than before.
Souiel, already on the side of the road,
is startled by the rain falling in. He
turns around wondering, what is that thing in the back, a genie blown in with
the smell? No longer following the
ramp's tightening curve, he eases into the marshy lowlands as Marie helplessly
says, "Please . . .." She
dreads having upset him, not meaning to lose control of her plan. As he loses the road, she leans over his
seat to embrace him.
The car neither crashes nor rattles but
rather sloshes into softness, whereupon it begins to sink.
"Oh," says Marie, settled. "Oh," she realizes with
alarm. "We've got to get out of
here!"
Souiel is silently mourning the
incapacitation of his new car. It
refuses to move any more. He throws his
arm over the steering wheel to rest.
Marie pushes open the door. Mud creeps over the carpeting. She steps outside, losing her high-healed
shoes to the liquified land swallowing them as it slurps at her stockings. She urges Souiel to follow her. She pulls him from the sinking car. He leans on her like dead weight as she
trudges toward the solid safety of the highway pavement, which looms before
them as a raised ridge of moving lights as cars glide along it in a straight,
unreachable path.
Marie's burden is great because Souiel is
not trying at all. He almost slides
away as she says, "Not in the mud.
You'll ruin your suit. Hold on
to me!"
Darkness descends as the mud envelops the
Porsche's tungsten headlights. Only
glimmers of light reflected on its red roof are visible. The rain falls incessantly, beating down
upon them. The lightening takes flash
pictures of their agonizing stroll.
Souiel collapses to his knees. Marie yells, "No!" as she struggles
to lift him. "You can do it if you
want."
He apologizes. "Sorry. I took
something. Let me go." His eyes shut. His face is without tension.
"Oh no! But you can surmount it."
Through a superhuman act of strength, she stands him up. "You can't stay here. You'll sink right under." Her ankles are covered already. She dislodges them from the clutches of the
ground to step elsewhere, where they can begin sinking anew. Souiel leans back like a stubborn mule.
"Come on!" she says.
"No.
Leave me alone.
"Soo-eel, please. Whatever you took will only take effect if
you give up and let it, and you can't do that!
Follow me. I won't leave
you. I love you. Can't you feel it? It's burning inside me.
Feel my love, Soo-eel. Open your
heart and let me in." She pounds
on his massive chest.
"Oh." He tilts backwards. She
whirls around to catch him. He says,
"I feel it," collapsing, impressing her into the mud, submerging all
but her white legs which flail out from under her skirt, as they are forcibly
separated by the back of Souiel's enormous, exhausted body.
Minutes later, he exhales deeply,
sputtering like a beached whale and rolls over to rest, face down, in the mud.
Dawn approaches. Lynn, seated on the bed in a lotus knot, is talkative. "You missed another good T.V. program,
a report on male sexuality: Here and
Then It's Gone."
Although Kevin is exhausted, a gentle
floating into sleep is impossible with his empty stomach and stuffed head. The trail threatens to be long and bumpy at
best till he arrives at the cliff where he can take the leap and fall to
sleep. "How was it?" he asks
as he rolls over onto his back and plays dead.
"I can't say. I didn't watch it. I didn't even watch the awards.
I slept through the evening since I had been up all night with your
friend, Souiel." She crawls toward
him and straddles herself around his chest, her arms folded judiciously.
"That was the night you spent in
hysterics."
"That's right. Like we used to do," she says, knocking
his chest in reprimand. She asks,
"What about you? How did you make
out on your trip?"
His eyelids tighten shut. "I don't want to talk about it,"
he mumbles.
"Why not?"
He blinks up at her with unfocused eyes
while restraining a boyishly mischievous smile aged only by fatigue. With a rush of inspiration, he slips from
under her and jumps off the bed, bumping into walls, searching the drawers for
his tape recorder. He has decided to
confess in order to quiet Lynn and punctuate a period on this babble and,
perhaps, on their relationship. He
finds the recorder, unwraps and inserts a blank cassette into it, squeezing it
on. Lynn freezes in outrage.
He clears his throat. "I have something to say about Philip,"
he says, barely restraining a smile as he struggles with his equilibrium. He returns to the bed and cautiously
announces, "Well, I think what I would very much, if I may, like to
discuss at this late hour, is something I think you should know about what's
been going on between Philip and me in the spare time during our travels. How can I put this? We've been relieving ourselves through
physical contact. We've come all over
each other. It's incredible. I love it.
I wish I could transmit the ultimate pleasure he has given me, from me
to you. If I only could."
Contracting, Lynn's mouth shapes a
soundless, helpless why? pointing at the tape deck.
Pained at possibly having upset her, he
less flippantly adds, "This has affected me emotionally. I want to preserve the moment it is
revealed. This is the unadulterated
truth; not a husband's softened prefabrication for his wife, but the harsh
reality of the eternal, unalterable past which, perhaps I'm weakening and
warping through tactlessness, fumbling and ludicrous presentation, but this is
it. It's this volatile substance I've
been keeping down inside me. It remains
liquid till I blurt it out into the cold world where it freezes, shaped by the
words I used to tell it. Now, if I were
tactful, I'd have poured it out slowly, into a pleasing and carefully smoothed
shape. Neither endowed with that
self-discipline, nor do I advocate it, I've taken the truth like it's a bucket
of water, and I emptied it out the window into sub-zero temperature. But what the fuck, it's all the same,
right? Here, take it. Have the truth."
She has run into the bathroom by this
time. He hears the shower turned on
full force. "Truth is best!"
he yells, shutting off the recorder to follow her, very pleased at having preserved
his truth improv.
He confronts her. She speaks under the shower noise in a
controlled monotone. "Was that a
surprise? as if I'm not well aware that when you talk of someone it's predictable
what you want to do with them."
Her tone gets discursive.
"And he was responsive. I
can just see you rubbing your spine into the ground in the height of ecstasy,
like you were receiving an immaculate conception, while he rammed it up your
ass. Who do you watch more, him or
yourself in his arms? Sure you can
fuck, but can you kiss on the mouth?"
Softer still, she adds, "You really must tell me all the details,
but not on tape. What goes on between
us doesn't get put on the market. I
suppose if you had a movie camera or video camera, you'd have rigged them as
well. The Height of Creativity: The
Release of Feeling. Just think. You could have edited it to suit your ego
and turned it into your long awaited latest opus. How easy, too. Instant
Drama. Go ahead. If you want to go back in there and tell it
to the tape recorder, fine, but I'm not playing along. Find some other frustrated exhibitionist for
that part. I'm your wife. When you want to tell me, tell
me." She jabs him in the chest and
returns to the bedroom, opening the blinds to bathe in the dawn and observe the
mist rising off the park.
"You're right." He joins her, rubbing his ribs. "Forget the tape recorder. I turned it off. Sorry. I just wanted to
preserve an emotional state, that's all.
I'm telling you mainly in case I caught any diseases. I understand you not wanting to spend
another minute with me so I got us separate rooms. You can move down the hall.
Here are the keys."
"Bullshit, you . . .," she
whispers, checking the tape deck. It is
convincingly still. "Oh. I'm not moving down the hall." She turns back to the window and its view.
"I can be big about this," he
declares. "I'll move down the
hall. But if someone busts down the
door and releases a spray of bullets," he sings, "don't blame
me."
Preoccupied, she assures him. "I won't. And as for that business with Philip, I think he's kept you out
of trouble."
He shakes his head. "Okay.
Let them kill us; let's go to bed.
I'm exhausted."
Lynn offers her shoulder on which he
leans. She adds in the tone of a
football coach encouraging the team, "And let's really try to get some
rest." She crawls into bed after
him and pulls his fingers between her legs where it is moist and soft like
cutlets.
"Lynn," he blurts, pulling his
hand away. "Those stories in the
paper about that murder are true."
"But she's alive in the next
scene. I like that scene. 'Til then you'd been treating each other as
objects. The more you talk, the closer
you become, and you lose your objectivity, so to speak. It's a very believable scene."
"Thank you, but so what? We filmed it first. Although each scene has a ring of truth,
it's an overall false film because the order's wrong. The fact is, following that happy ending, I kill her." His face is hard as stone.
"That you took it upon yourself to
perform so decisive an act seems to me unbelievable. You're passive, Kevin.
Everything has had to happen for you.
Even when we fuck you just stand around watching it happen. She must have done it herself."
"You just don't know the real
me. I'm a psychopath. I got us separate rooms for your sake."
"Why this campaign for separate
rooms? I don't know what your Diane
friend may have wanted, but I know myself and I want to live."
Scratching his head, he decides, "So
do I. I thought I committed suicide
earlier this evening and I was so mad.
We all die, so why should I go out of my way for it?" Staring at the ceiling, he lies on his back.
"Kevin." She watches his eyes and calculatingly
whispers in his ear, "If ever I want to die, you'll be the one to kill
me." Finding his hand she returns
it to her thighs.
He feels the hidden flesh with new
understating, realizing how glad he is to see her, and how interested he is in
getting to know her better and better.
He says, "Thank you for being here with me."
"You may as well thank the
weather. If not for the rain I'd have
gone days ago, perhaps to never see you again."
He decisively says, "We're leaving
Dieledon today, together. Enough of big
cities and the spotlight. I'll be glad
when we're back home in our mansion overlooking the sea. I'll put up the heat, we'll take off our
clothes and to the sounds of waves crashing against the cliffs I'll explore
your deepest corners." He rolls
over, onto her.
Rays of light catch her eyes. Squinting, she says, "And look. I can see the sun rising over the
park."
He sighs.
"Yes, Lynn. Not only is it
daybreak, but the storm is over. 'Scuse
me while I draw the blinds."
Rolling over again, he falls off the bed, stumbling to the window with a
starved glaze over his eyes.
The city air, filtered by the rain, is
thin and pure. No longer do buildings
seem stuck, wedged or rammed into the atmosphere. Instead, they look like two dimensional cutouts pasted on the
sky. The rising sun is drying the few
lingering clouds.
A small aircraft, a single engine pipercub
with a prop on its nose, flying low over Affe Park, is pulling at trees. John, its pilot, has decided to return it to
one of its original owners, no small test of aim, and he is faced with moments
of uncertainty as to his exact destination.
He prefers not to trust something so fallible as memory for so precise a
job. He recalls on his previous ride
being told it was five from the roof on the left corner, but how can he be sure
such information is accurate? The
slightest error in approximation will mean death for innocent hotel
guests. As he checks the windows in its
vicinity to see if it looks distinguishable, he notices a flicker on the pane
as a shade is drawn. He accepts that as
a sign that Kevin is in there, restless with anxiety at this early hour of the
morning. He decides to go for it,
intending to bail out at the last instant.
John has searched his soul and has found
little there of value. He is a man of whims
with no tangible ambition, no wife, no children and no religion. Nor has he learned to build on his innate
talents, of which he seems to have many, as his varied hobbies attest. Nor does he have a career, any more. His failing upholstery business, inherited
from his father, was abandoned in mid-swing with this trip to Dieledon. Prior to leaving, he mulled over plans,
spreading thoughts so thin that they snapped and he was left surrounded by
shreds of himself. He would sit and
watch scenes on his TV, thanks to his video recorder, a machine which lent him
easy access to his wildest fantasies as filmed and performed by others. The scenes, chosen for their violently
erotic nature, made his life vicarious, and action became pent up in his
mind. He muscles became flabby. It was about time he did something for his
satisfaction, and for the benefit of humanity as well. To aim and abandon the plane will be a
worthy challenge of split second timing, but maybe he does humanity a double
service by staying where he sits. Will
he be hurt if he ejects? Does his
parachute have room enough to spread?
He regrets not having done better research on the matter of the chances
for his own survival but, as the window draws near, there is hardly time. While it grows, he pictures the future
collision. Impact at a velocity over
150 miles per hour will tear off the wings at the roots, taking with them the
fuel in their feathery flutter to the ground.
The spinning propeller will instantly splay, wrapping itself around the
engine cowl. Hot oil from the motor
will spurt in all directions, lubricating the passage to the cul-de-sac where
lies Kevin, smashed and obliterated.
Although Kevin and Lynn want the same
thing, they can not seem to get it from each other. She is resting on top of him saying, " Come on. No more squeezing out our insides. I don't want to risk popped blood vessels to
get you to come. Go in and out. Get it?"
"Yeah," he says to her hips
which sway in emphasis. "Do
it," he encourages.
She stops grinding and rolls over so that
he is on top of her. She says, "You do it. Come on. Fuck me. Understand?
In and out."
Cinder, brick and glass implode as the
plane enters the room. Chips of
fiberglass crinkle off its steel frame as it accordions. The impact against the granite wall produces
an awesome crack that runs rapidly down that side of the building.
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