The Ravine (23 page)

So when I heard Jimmy scream, “More right!” and Milligan assert, “You’re whacked,” I just continued walking, because all was as it should be (or just
was).
But then I heard Ed Milligan say, “You know, these people have
feelings.”
I stumbled a bit, raced out to the makeup trailer, indulged myself in the very teenage activity of feeling up Bellamy.

At some point in the afternoon I ventured back to the set, where I spied Milligan and Jimmy Yu sitting in a corner, talking quietly, their foreheads almost touching. I grabbed some food from the crafts table and wandered close enough to overhear Milligan say, “Vanity of vanities, Jimbo. All is vanity.”

“Van-nitty,” repeated Yu, as though he was willing to add this new word to his vocabulary.

“Yeah, yeah, because, check this out, what profit hath a man of all his labour under the sun? Because, like, one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. Get it? This is all so, so …
ephemeral.”

Jimmy Yu nodded and attempted to repeat the word “ephemeral,” although I am unable to transcribe this utterance.

Well, it could be that after all these pages (there’s at least a couple hundred scattered about my gloomy basement bachelor) I’ve finally learned something about novel-writing, because I am not going to follow this particular narrative thread to its end just yet. (At any rate, I have wobbling plates to attend to.) For now I will only tell you that Milligan continued to read the Bible. He became a born-again Christian. He appeared on Rainie van der Glick’s radio show and proclaimed himself so, which caused the ratings of
Padre
to plummet. My, my, people are strange. Mind you, he continued to ingest huge quantities of drugs, which, in combination with his own self-hatred and twisted emotional palette, led him to a very strange place.

And he gleefully took me along.

I’m going to spin another plate here, with your kind indulgence, a plate off toward stage left, and tell you that earlier this evening I entered Birds of a Feather and sat down at a little table near the back. Amy presented herself quite a while thereafter, having left me to stew in my own juices (an apt metaphor) for fifteen or twenty minutes. She pointed a finger, as though trying to place me. “The regular?”

“No, uh, half the regular. Just the beer portion, please. Amy.”

“Your bro’ isn’t here tonight, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, I know. He has plans and preparations to make. We’re going on a road trip.”

“Huh.” She didn’t ask where we were going; in fact, she enunciated that single syllable with such manifest lack of interest that I inferred I was never to bring up the subject of my trip, or travel in general, again. So it was quickly on to Plan B. “So … I read
Barchester Towers.”

“Really.”

“Really.” Not really. I’d read maybe two hundred pages and scanned the Coles Notes.

“I’ll get your beer.” And then Amy was gone.

This wasn’t going well; indeed, the whole notion was misbegotten, and I’m sure many of you find it off-putting. There’s no getting around the fact that I was a few years older than her—more than a few—hey, let’s face it, I was an old goat, a bleating ungulate. But, um, maybe we as a society should be a little less sanctimonious as regards the workings of the human heart, and those who are condemnatory should book tickets for the
Jerry Springer Show
, where anyone can hurl stones at the slack-jawed sinners.

Okay, all right, perhaps a little too sensitive there.

Amy returned with my beer. “So…?”

“So?”

“So, what did you think
of Barchester Towers?”

“Well, um … the names were weird.”

“Eh?”

“Mr. Quiverful. Omicron Pie. These are like teevee names.”

Amy placed her salver on the tabletop, slipped into the seat across from me. “Teevee names? What’s that all about?”

“Oh, well, in these litigious times, you can’t use real,
realistic
names on television. I couldn’t call someone, I don’t know, Jack Winston, because Clearances would come back and say that there’s a guy in Akron, Ohio, named Jack Winston, and he’s in the same business or whatever, and he could enjoin production of the show, so
you have to change the name. You have to come up with a name that nobody has. Omicron Pie is good.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

Really? Was it? Or was Amy just being polite, in which case, why? Maybe I hadn’t lost too much ground that evening with Rainie.

“Yeah, I remember you saying you worked in television.
Padre
, right? With the star that—”

“That’s the one.”

“So … what’s your favourite teevee show?”

“My—? Oh, gosh. Don’t you have to—?” I gestured at the bar’s patrons; they didn’t seem to total more than about seven people.

“No, I’m good for a few minutes.”

“Well, then, I’ll answer unequivocally.
The Twilight Zone.”

“Yeah! Great show. I’ll tell you what my favourite episode is, ‘A World of His Own.’”

“You’re not old enough to have a favourite
Twilight Zone
episode.”

“I’m probably not as young as you think I am. And anyway, you can rent all the seasons, you know, at the video store. I like old things. Old movies, old television shows, old novels.”

“So ‘A World of His Own.’”

“About the writer who talks into the tape recorder, right, the Dictaphone, and everything he describes becomes real. And then to destroy whatever it is, he just has to throw the tape into the fire.”

“It’s a good one, all right. His wife catches him with some blonde, and he tells her about the magic Dictaphone. She doesn’t believe him, so he throws the tape about the blonde into the fire and she disappears.”

“Then he takes out this tape that describes his wife, and it ends up in the fire—”

“Uh-huh, but remorse gets the better of him, so he gets on the
Dictaphone and starts describing his wife, and then he has second thoughts—”

“And starts describing the blonde again. I like little twists like that.”

“I should point out, though, that the teleplay was by Richard Matheson. It’s not a Rod Serling script.”

“Uh-huh. And that’s important?”

“Well, kind of. I don’t know. What’s your doctoral thesis about?”

“I’m calling it
The Power and the Glory; Heterodoxy in the Novels of Anthony Trollope.
It’s about the conflict between spiritualism and social status in the clergy.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s what
Padre
was about, too. Except
Padre
was a pile of shit.”

“That guy was cute, though.”

“Yeah, he was cute.”

“So, Phil, I should get back to work. It was nice talking to you.”

“Yeah. Listen, I’m going away for a few days, but maybe when I get back, if you have a night off, we could have dinner or something.”

Amy wrote down her number on a napkin, shoved it across the table. “Sounds good. What’s the matter?”

“Huh?”

“You look funny.”

“Well, I’m… I’m just a little bit flabbergasted here.”

“Oh. Good. I’m all for flabbergastation.”

“And I’ve made quite a few dinners, and frozen them, and they’re all labelled, you know, chicken cacciatore or veal scaloppini or whatever.”

“I see. So the children only eat foreign food?”

“Why are you being so snarky?”

“Snarky?
Moi?”

“Toi.”

“Well, it’s just that, you know, I feel this whole situation is bad enough without you treating me as though I were totally incompetent.”

“For one thing, I am only trying to be helpful. For another, you brought this situation upon yourself.”

“I brought upon myself the situation of you larking off to Mexico with your young lover?”

“Yes, you did. And lastly, do you realize that’s probably the only time you ever actually told me what was bothering you?”

“It’s the first time you’ve ever gone on a romantic holiday with your young lover. And do you realize that we never went on a romantic holiday?”

“Whose fault is that?”

“You’re saying it’s my fault?”

“You were always working.”

“I was always working because we always needed money.”

“And you resent me for that.”

“I resent your resentment about the fact that I was always working, yeah.”

“You know what? Maybe we should go talk to a ellor.”

“What was that?”

“We could try to work ou f these issues.”

“Something funny’s going on with my phone.”

“Even if we rema arated.”

“There are strange little blasts of silence.”

“Oh. M ou have another call.”

“Really? What do I do?”

“Put me on hold and answ one.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Hit the talk button again.”

“Okay. Hello? Who is this?”

“It’s still me, doofus supremo. Hit the
talk
button.”

“Hello?”

“Okay. I got a car.”

“Jay?”

“She’s a real beauty. A 1970 Dodge Super Bee. Three-eighty-three magnum, a 727 transmission …”

“What does all that mean?”

“Fucked if I know.”

“Hold on, hold on. Don’t go away. Hello?”

“Yeah, I know. Whoever it is is more important than me. Who is it, anyway? Your girlfriend Rainie?”

“No, um… listen, did you say
even if we remain separated?”

“Uh … I may have.”

“But that would imply our separation is not a done deal.”

“I only meant that seeing a counsellor could only be helpful, even in separation. I certainly didn’t imply there was any chance of reconciliation.”

“Yes, you did, Ronnie.”

“That may have been what you
inferred.”

“You’re seeking refuge in syntax. That’s a good sign.”

“Phil … I’m in love with Kerwin.”

“Is that so?”

“Okay, okay, okay, maybe I’m not in love with Kerwin, but that doesn’t mean that you and I have any sort of a future, except as co-parents.”

“Right.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Okay, babe, I’ve got my little brother on the other line. Or on the same line, whatever, I didn’t even know my phone could do this. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.”

“Bye.”

“Hello?”

“The big thing is this. At some point during the journey—I’m thinking on the return, near Sudbury—the odometer’s going to click over. Nothing but zeroes. Flat line. A brand new beginning.”

“It’s got a hundred thousand miles on it?”

“Almost
three
hundred thou. She’s a trooper.”

“Where did you get this thing?”

“Bought it from a musician friend of mine.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred bucks. A steal.”

“We’re doomed.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it.”

“I’m just worried about, you know, I think this may be a
crime.”

“Trying to reclaim the spiritual integrity of your existence is all of a sudden a crime?”

“I’m afraid it might technically be kidnapping. I mean, I am the girls’ father, but if their mother hasn’t given her explicit approval, especially now that we’re separated—”

“If you want to bail out, bail. You don’t need a reason. Especially not a stupid one.”

“I’m just saying, maybe it’s not a good idea.”

“Oh, it’s a good idea, Phil. It’s
necessary.
All of these things—these things that happened to you, these memories—you’ve just been throwing them into a big pit. Covering them over with dirt. That’s how you been dealing with this shit. But the thing is, it’s all been toxic waste, man. You’ve destroyed the table water.”

“Huh?”

“You know what I mean.”

“The water table?”

“Right. So all the land is now, you know, poison. No healthy crops can grow.”

“Uh-huh. I think you might want to turn that metaphor loose now, Jay.”

“If nothing else, you should want to actually get a couple of details right for your goddam book. I mean, it’s an autobiographical novel, you’d think you’d want to get some authentic memories into it.”

“I’ve got plenty of authentic memories in there.”

“You thought their names were Tom and Tony.”

“That’s what you said they were!”

“Ted and Terry.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter what their names were.”

“Yeah, it does. It matters. Because, Phil, this thing has fucked us up.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Yeah, I know you wouldn’t say that. Because you’re an emotional imbecile, that’s why you wouldn’t say that. But you have fucked up.”

“Look, I may have made a few poor life decisions…”

“Shut up, Phil. I’m not trying to be hard on you. I fucked up every bit as badly. I’m a two-bit fern-bar pianist who can’t play a major seventh without weeping like an infant. Let’s face it, Phil, we both have a warped world view, and what warped it was two grease-balls named Tom and Tony.”

“All right.”

“All right.”

“But I still think their names were Ted and Terry.”

“I’ll see you Monday morning.”

IN THE ARGOT OF FILMMAKING, THE LAST SHOT TAKEN EACH DAY IS
called “the window.” Like much else in that curious world, the reason behind this is unclear. I myself endorse the theory (not that I don’t think it’s fanciful) that the term stems from the fact that at the end of many old romantic movies, when the couple kiss to seal their happy fate, the camera coyly moves away and ends up looking through a window.