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“Jake: I was serious. Read this and call me.”
A. White

A
lan’s Porsche howled-up Pacific Coast Highway; a Kraut missile. The CD player blistered Stevie Ray’s heat-seek blues. It was nine-fifteen. He’d just left seeing Eddy at Cedars and felt awful; sad, lost.

The 928S skimmed alongside burnt-orange surf, roaring for Malibu, and he tried hard not to think about the hospital visit. The mangled emotions that had fallen from a thousand-story building, sitting with Eddy, trying to let him know he was loved.

Alan tried instead to think of Bart’s hairy
Tyrannosaurus rex
smile. His happy, black wiggle when Alan came in the front door. Bart’s dreamy look when the two would hammock on the balcony, together, overlooking the warm sea, swinging slowly.

He shot past where Sunset Boulevard punched its fist into Pacific Coast Highway and couldn’t get the evening
out of his head. Every thought drew him back to the Lysol gloom of the huge hospital. The lima-green surgical slippers everywhere. Knife-leprechauns walking around, exhausted, speaking to haunted families in quiet reassurances, green slippers like blood snowshoes.

Alan hated the visits. Hated seeing Eddy that way. Hated the echoey scent of broken bodies moving up in the checkout line. His agent, Jordan, had told him he didn’t mind hospitals, even liked them. Thought of them as “hi-tech greenhouses, tilling the flesh and watering bulbs of good health. Like human rhododendron.”

Alan told him he was certifiable. But then Jordan had problems; his own, plus 10 percent of everybody else’s.

The visits were always difficult. Unsettling,
Dr. Strange-love
realities with Eddy telling Alan about the world, while his own was shrinking to a pinprick.

But tonight it had been especially troubling. Alan had walked nervously down the carpeted hall in the cancer ward, toward Eddy’s room, on the third floor. He felt the wetness of the carnations coming through the waxy tissue, onto his hand. He’d been glared at by hairy orderlies who were wheeling some miserable wretch along the hall, on a gurney. The blanched face was sunken and rivered with fat, silky veins that looked as if they tied the meatless head to the pillow; ropes steadying an old ship.

The guy looked like he had about a minute left and had pivoted his head to look at Alan as they’d coasted him by. He’d winked, as if sharing a lewd gag with a fellow perv, then struggled a bit against the canvas belts that pinned him at the chest, waist, and legs. Indicated for the orderlies
to stop. He’d coughed and Alan stopped to spend a moment with him.

“I’m not here for my health, y’know. I’m here because they
need me.”
Then he’d glared angrily. “Okay?!”

Alan nodded. Trying to be calm, not upset him.

The old man had bared decayed teeth, spit at him. Alan pulled back and the old man hissed. “… you’re in much deeper than you think, asshole. You went too far this time.”

The orderlies had quickly rolled him away. But he looked back at Alan, forcing his neck at an angle that looked broken. He grinned a dead-man smile.

“I wouldn’t want to be you, asshole. You’re a”—then he said the word that had chilled Alan—“fuckin
monster.
How did you get out?” He grinned ugly again, then went white as milk. Looked horrified. And he was gone, around a corner, like a sick rumor.

It had disturbed Alan a lot. He’d realized to a dying old man, everybody probably looked like monsters. That they could live, and he couldn’t, made
them
the hideous. The deformed. But still, the way he’d said “monster” … it had reminded Alan of how Mimi had said it. Even the way she’d looked. The deadness in her eyes when she said it. The same deadness in the man’s eyes.

At least Alan had felt that.

But the day had been too long, too stressful. And visits to Cedars were always hard; painful.

One night, on the way home from visiting Eddy, Alan thought somebody was in the back seat of the Porsche, waiting to kill him. Another time, he thought he’d heard his dead mother, Dee, beckon to him from one of the
hospital rooms to the side of Eddy’s. He thought he’d heard her say she was cold and afraid where she was and would Alan please come and get her, take her where she could be safe; warm.

But he figured it was bound to happen when a mind like his was under pressure. Run a hundred-million-dollar submarine too deep and the weight of all that water compressed it into a doorknob. What the fuck did he expect? There was a lot going on. No wonder he was upset; seeing meaning in things. Susceptible to empty detail.

He raced past Topanga Beach, rolled down windows, giving his hair a ride. He still couldn’t get it out of his head that that old guy was some kid’s dad. Some mother’s son. The larger progression hit him. Just like it usually did every time he’d said goodbye to Eddy. Quietly took a last look at his dying friend after tucking him in and kissing him gently on the forehead.

The facts of pain. The unnegotiable truth of hurt. He lost track of it sometimes. Then, some inconsequential asterisk on the reality paragraph would remind him. Maybe it was passing a motorcycle accident and seeing a red form pried off chain-link by cops in bloody uniforms.

Or some horrible item in the news that forced you to read it twice, despite its cruelty, its impossibility. The human race could get very real, very fast. Sometimes Alan thought working in television could make you forget where the lines of reality started and ended. Where you came from.

Where you didn’t want to go.

He’d been home an hour when he and Bart wandered in from the deck, hungry. It was a bit after ten and the two sat on the kitchen floor, sharing a bowl of pesto
tortellini Alan warmed in the microwave. Bart dug a gourmand muzzle into his personalized bowl, tongue a single, pink chopstick.

He stared up at Alan with moody brown eyes and Alan nodded. “Okay. I hear you.” He stood, grabbed a Kirin from the fridge, and poured half in Bart’s bowl, the rest in his own glass.

“Gotta check my messages, bud. I’ll ask if anybody called you. Okay?”

It was okay with Bart.

Alan hit the Panasonic autodialer and the little Disney-flea-beeps sang a three-second overture. He stuck it on speakerphone and settled in on the floor with Bart, cross-legged.

“Hello, Mr. White’s residence? May I help you?” It was a new voice. A little bored, a little interested. Intelligent. Like just maybe it knew what the hell was coming down.

“Yeah, hello … this is Mr. White. Uh … anybody, you know …” The Kirin was scraping paint off his skull.

“Call?”

“Call. Right.” He was exhausted. Even Bart sensed it, wagging a counselor’s tail.

“I’ll check.” He heard paper shifting, as if she was making an origami crow. “By the way, Mr. White. I just wanted to say hi. My name is Kimmy.”

Kimmy.
It’s what people named their mice.

“Yeah, hi. How’re you doin’?”

“Well, it’s my first night. But pretty good considering. Mind if I ask you kind of a personal question?”

He sipped more beer, felt things scaling his stomach walls. “Depends …”

“Well, if I’m not mistaken, you did that sitcom ‘Stacked Plates’ couple of seasons ago, didn’t you?” She cleared her throat. “Those waitresses with the big tits?”

Yeah, that was me, he thought.

“Don’t remember.” His head felt crooked.

“Oh, you’d remember something like that. My sister says it was probably just displaced anger toward women. She’s sort of a gender analyst. But not a dog or a lesbian or anything. But I thought the show was funny. You were producer or something?”

Yeah.

“No … listen, my messages?”

“Right. Well, let’s see … Jordan called at eight-fifteen. Said the network was showing signs of budging but not to count on anything. He’ll call you in the morning. Wow. Sounds provocative.”

Alan was starting to find her mildly irritating.

“That it?”

“Hold on … I’m getting there. Your business manager Ed called at seven-forty. A bunch of foreign-run residuals came in. Said to call him in the morning. Gonna be a busy morning, I guess, huh?”

“Yeah. Anything else?”

“Your mechanic called, said to bring the Porsche in on Monday. He’s booked through the week. Summer. Whole world is overheating.”

Thank you, Carl Sagan.

“And a last one from Erica at ten-ten. Said just to say she was thinking about you. Call her back no matter how late. Sounds like a sweet person.”

Alan said nothing, staring at his foot, half-asleep.

“Is she?”

“Sorry?” He was getting drunk.

“A sweet person. Is Erica a sweet person?”

Ask her three ex-husbands, thought Alan. One tried to shoot her, one tried to destroy her life, one burrowed into Scientology and became obsessed with John Travolta and hidden meanings in the meaningless. She was a nice girl who seemed to trigger exaggerated reactions in guys, other than himself. Alan asked her about it once and she told him she was baffled; she gave men all the room in the world. She swore she did nothing to drive her husbands to lunatic behavior. But it just kept happening.

It was somehow suspect.

“Yeah … she’s great. I mean, it’s not like we’re married or something. Sure … she’s great.” God, he was telling his life story to a girl who folded paper birds.

Bart wanted more beer.

“Well, that’s good. Is she pretty?”

“Pretty?”

“Yeah, you know … sexy? Don’t men like that?” She was lowering her voice like a neckline.

Alan looked off, smiling. Christ, she was coming on to him. It was weird. And after the Hard Day’s Night he’d been sucked through, it felt good.

“What’s your name again?”

She told him. He said it a few times to her, using his nicest voice. After a minute, she told him he sounded sad and if he wanted, she could come over after she got off and keep him company.

“I work out a lot and I give great back massages. Do you like blondes or brunettes?”

Alan couldn’t recall the difference but managed some answer that made her laugh and told her where he
lived. She said she’d definitely be there. Asked if he were serious with Erica. He said it was more the other way around and Kimmy made a happy, cat-toy noise.

“I really admire your talent,” she said. “And that isn’t coming from some naive place. I’m taking the David Berg comedy writing class at the
Fade-In Scriptwriters’ Academy.
Have you heard of him? He’s really an exceptional instructor.”

Berg was the biggest hack in the business, thought Alan, now lying sideways on the floor with Bart, cradling the ambitious voice that was charming him; saying the perfect words it hoped would open Ali Baba’s cave.

He stared closely at a hole in the wood floor that looked like it had been made by a nail. A blemish of darker grain under his feeling fingertip seemed like a sleeping bloodstain; death rust. He could faintly hear an electric knife humming, screaming voices.

“So anyway, what do you look like, Alan? I’m medium height and everyone says I have a great figure. I grew up back East? You know, one of those ‘so what do you wanna do?’ towns?”

When she got to the part about a spec feature script she’d like him to read and produce, Alan told her maybe they should make it some other time, managed to get off pleasantly, and stumbled out onto the deck to get some fresh air. He sagged in his hammock with Bart, staring out at the slow, sweeping tide as it rolled and foamed, making its way toward land. He began to unbutton his shirt, after tossing off shoes and hearing one slide off the deck into water. But he never finished and his sleeping form lolled in salt mist under moonlight.

His dreams were violent and bloody.

The Mercenary was knifing someone’s chest open, and just as the blade seamed upward, about to carve out the throat, Alan jerked awake. He scared Bart, asleep between his legs, head in Alan’s lap; a whiskered anvil.

The two went inside but Alan couldn’t fall asleep.

He kept the light on, holding onto Bart as waves crashed like angry beasts, pounding down his world.

“I
got my first ulcer when I was fourteen. It felt like a helicopter crashed inside me.”

Throat cleared. Fingers of both hands welded together. Separating; a tearing zipper.

“My father’s a director. Stage. Very famous. Great guy. Brilliant. Brain a little bigger than his heart. But … lots of talent. I’m a writer.”

A Cessna divebombs outside; Pearl Harbor noises. A gardener trims, five stories down.

“My mother?”

Face put on pause. Reverse. Stopping at a year.

“I don’t know. She was very kind. An actress. Her emotions … I don’t know … mix was too rich, maybe. She was on antidepressants. Used to paint when she’d be at home recovering at the beach house we had in Sag
Harbor. That’s back East. I’m good with directions if you ever need a map or anything. Is it okay to make jokes?”

A meerschaum pumping smoke signals; comfort.

“Nothing really to say about my sister. Pretty normal stuff. We fought, we got along. Sometimes we still talk. I don’t know.”

Feeling in a womb.

“I was married. Maybe it was a mistake. The divorce, I mean. But I wanted a big career. I started getting into a lot of success thinking. My ex-wife, her name is Cynthia. I guess I didn’t say that.”

Confession lingering. An impression in fresh, wet thought.

“I think my ambition scared her. I got married when I was twenty-three. Divorced three years later.”

Discomfort.

“I was reading a lot of books about how to make things happen. Make dreams come true, manifest the extraordinary … that kind of thing. Bothered her. She thought I should stick with more concrete approaches. I told her concrete was for sinking dead bodies.”

Restless, percussive mannerisms.

“We never had children or anything. I wasn’t ready. I’m still not. I don’t understand them. To me, they’re one step up from clay. It’s weird. She married some fucking gauze-head named Dave who leads self-realization workshops. Guess she was getting revenge.”

Dark shrug.

“My writing is my contribution. My creation of life, I guess you could say. Is that bullshit? Can you test for bullshit? I’m strong on the essay part.”