Hell's Half Acre (9 page)

Miller tells me to sit down. He doesn’t sound like he’s asking.

I take a sip of whiskey and suddenly feel strange, almost happy. This place smells of Dr. Moreau’s island and there may be much mischief in store for me, but I don’t care. Miller is an excellent host and I like it here. I am wary of telling him so, however, and I have to remind myself who he is and what he did to Jude. I have to steel myself against his charm. The house feels empty but for the reptiles and ourselves. The house has been utterly silent since we entered but now I imagine that I hear music, the soft lament of a solitary cello. The same few notes over and over, stretched and groaning. They stop and start, as if there is someone practicing upstairs. It’s a mournful tune and the only explanation for this sort of thing is that my brain is full of poison. I sink into the chair across from Miller and put my feet up.

He smiles at me and promptly the cello resumes, urgent now.

Okay, I say. Do I hear music? Or am I fucking nuts.

The cello stops. Miller lights a cigarette.

Beethoven, he says. Piano Trio number 4, in D Major. The love song for Anna Marie.

Who is playing, though?

I don’t hear anything, he says. Perhaps you’re nuts.

Uh huh. Give me a cigarette, please?

Miller pushes a pack of Dunhills across the glass table. I light one and we blow smoke and stare at each other. I wait for the cello to resume but it never does. The player is self-conscious, maybe. He heard us talking about him.

I feel like I’ve seen you before, says Miller.

I have that kind of face.

It’s a good face, he says. Not too handsome, but interesting.

Thanks, I guess.

Miller leans forward, pours two fingers of whiskey into my glass.

Have you ever tried acting? he says.

The whiskey burns my tongue. I light another cigarette, vaguely uneasy. Miller smiles at me and I wait for him to tell me what I’m thinking. But he doesn’t.

I can become someone else, I say. If that’s what you mean.

Interesting, he says. I’m talking about regular drama, however.

Only as a child, I say. In the fourth grade I had a non-speaking role in
Great Expectations
. I was beggar number nine. And one Christmas I was an anonymous shepherd in the nativity scene.

Miller laughs.

Why do you ask?

I’m interested in making a film, says Miller.

I am a thousand miles from home and once in a while I have to remind myself that I have no home. This is California and on any given Thursday there could be a nuclear sunset. And it’s earthquake country. The earth could come apart beneath my feet, any day now. Jude is waiting for me in a hotel room but I am prepared for the possibility that she may not be there when I return.

I won’t like it.

But I will sit down on the bed and take off my shoes. I will breathe the recycled air that may or may not smell of her hair. I will read the newspaper and smoke a few cigarettes and eventually I might take a nap. There will be no one to hear me if I speak in my sleep.

What sort of film? I say.

I finish off my bourbon and consider shooting Miller.

Do you know anything about snuff films? he says.

Urban legend, I say. But probably true.

Why do you say that?

Anything you can imagine is probably true. And the worst you can imagine is probably worth money.

How philosophical, he says.

Fuck you. People tend to kill people. And they do it every twenty-nine seconds. In the time it takes me to smoke this cigarette, eleven people will be murdered in this country.

Where do you get these statistics?

I make them up.

Excellent, he says. What else?

Everything is on videotape. Vacations, weddings, birthdays, dogs and cats doing tricks. Every time you go to a cash machine or mail a letter or purchase a quart of milk, you’re on tape. If you get murdered, you’re probably on tape and somebody somewhere on the Internet is going to masturbate while watching it. Reality is in the business of killing off fiction.

I like you, says Miller.

Okay.

There is a brief silence. Miller picks up a remote control and aims it at what I thought was a giant mirror on the wall behind me. The mirror flickers to life, a television. He mutes the sound and flips through the channels until he finds a baseball game, the Mariners and A’s.

Why do you ask? I say.

Because I want to make one, he says.

A snuff film?

Yes.

I take the gun out of my jacket pocket and point it at him, politely.

Take off your fucking ring, I say.

Why?

I’m leaving now. And I need proof that I killed you.

Art, he says. It’s going to be a quality piece of film, a masterpiece of blood porn. Literary, mysterious. The kind of thing you can screen at Sundance.

Mysterious? I say.

Miller smiles richly. That’s the beauty of it, the suspense factor. Because I have not yet finished the script, the victim will be uncertain until the end. It could turn out to be me or you. Or someone else. Perhaps an innocent will die. It will be called
The Velvet.

Oh, fuck you, I say. You’ve been talking to Jude.

Miller picks up the remote control and my eyes go to the television, where the Oakland game rolls silently. Ichiro has just stolen third base for the Mariners and the cameras cut away to the crowd for reaction shots. The fans are not pleased. They boo and hiss. They bang drums. There is a close-up of a bearded man with a massive naked belly and a plastic jug of beer sloshing in each hand, dancing like a drunken god. The camera zooms on his face, then cuts to a luxury box where the fans are a bit more sedate. Miller pushes a button and the picture goes to slow-motion. And there is a lingering shot of MacDonald Cody, senator and tapped to be president one day, sitting next to a small blond-haired boy with the same dark eyes. The boy looks to be about five years old. He laughs and claps his hands with the kind of glee that most adults can barely remember and now someone who sits outside the frame leans over and gently touches his hair. The shot widens and I see that the man who touched the kid’s hair is Miller.

Motherfucker, I say. This is a tape?

Sort of a home movie, says Miller. His voice has slipped into that narcotic tone.

What the hell does that mean?

Miller presses another button, freezing the tape. The kid with dark eyes stares out at me. He is no longer smiling and like his eyes, his lips are dark and just slightly too big for his face and now they are pressed together and he looks very serious, almost somber. He looks sleepy.

Beautiful kid, isn’t he? says Miller. Those eyes could break your heart.

Yeah, I say. He looks just like his father.

I suppose you recognize him? says Miller.

MacDonald Cody, I say. The senator.

Miller stares at the TV, then looks at me.

But you’ve met him, am I right? He says.

Turn it off, I say.

Look at the kid, he says. The camera loves him.

I’m gone, I say. I’m fucking gone. It was a real thrill to meet you and everything.

Look at the kid, he says. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, would you?

Fuck you, I say.

Whatever you say.

I stand up and Miller lazily tells me to hang on a minute. He tugs at the big ruby ring, but it won’t come off. He slips his finger into his mouth and sucks on it for a moment. The ring slips off easily and Miller offers it to me, red and wet as a bloody eye. I hesitate, trembling. The gun still in my hand, forgotten. I should just put a bullet
in his skull. I should. I should. I should. I should put the motherfucker to sleep forever and maybe Jude and I could rest easy tonight. But I have never killed anyone, outside my dreams. It’s not an easy thing to shoot a man who has done nothing but talk to you, a man who sits in a leather armchair smiling. Miller smiles at me and I take the ring from him. I drop it into my pocket and now it occurs to me that I need cash for cigarettes and the train back to San Francisco. I hit Miller up for fifty dollars and he gives it to me without a word.

T
HERE ARE FOUR CHAMBERS IN THE HEART
, four rooms. I stumble through the house of Miller and my chest is full of terrible echoes.

Through the kitchen and a woman is there. Blue jeans and a white tank-top. Pale blond hair, wispy. She stands with her back to me, staring into the open refrigerator. Her shoulders are narrow and bare and I don’t want to frighten her.

Excuse me, I say.

The woman turns around, slow. Honey brown eyes with dark circles. Thin lips, silent and moving. As if she is whispering to herself. Or praying.

I thought I heard voices, she says. She shrugs. I wondered if we had company.

Exhale. Sorry if I startled you, I say.

Molly, she says. My name is Molly Jones.

Phineas, I say.

Her lips begin to move again and I think of Franny Glass. Her mouth silent and ever moving to form the words Jesus Christ have mercy on me in not quite perfect time with her heartbeat as she slowly
came to pieces in a snotty restaurant while the ivy league boyfriend yawned and explained that Flaubert was ultimately a mediocre talent because he had no testicles. Franny Glass was my first love. Hopeless and somehow appropriate that at the age of sixteen I was in love with a fictional woman.

Your lips are moving, I say.

Oh, she says. I’m sorry.

Prayer?

It’s a short monologue that I’m having trouble with.

What do you mean?

I’m sort of an actor, she says. I’m a theater major at Berkeley.

And the monologue?

I’m playing May in a production of
Fool for Love
, she says.

Sam Shepard, I say.

Do you know the play?

Hell, it’s the story of my life. Do you want to practice on me?

Molly smiles, takes a breath.

I don’t understand my feelings, she says softly. Her face goes pale, as if she’s banished the blood from her skin. I really don’t, she says. I just don’t understand how I could hate you so much after so much time. How… No matter how much I’d like to not hate you, I hate you even more. It grows. All I see is a picture of you. Of you and her. I don’t even know if the picture is real anymore. I don’t even care. It’s make believe. It invades my head. The two of you. And this picture stings even more than if I’d actually seen you with her. It cuts me. It cuts me so deep. I will never get over it, never. And I can’t get rid of the picture. It just comes, uninvited. Like a little uninvited torture. And I blame you for this torture. I blame you.

I stare at her. I feel hot, almost guilty. Molly shrugs and her face
returns to normal. I’m having trouble with the tone, she says. How did it sound to you?

Very cold. A little psychotic.

I know, she says. It needs to be more vulnerable.

Heartbroken and weary, I say.

Molly bites her lip, thinking. Yes.

Think of your mother, I say.

What do you know about my mother?

I shrug. Mothers. They are often heartbroken, weary.

She nods, staring. Do you want a sandwich?

A sandwich?

Yes. I was going to make a tomato sandwich.

Okay.

You have a gun in your hand, she says.

What?

Is that a prop, she says. Or is it real?

Uh. I believe it’s real.

I am so fucking stupid. I know that. The gun hangs at my thigh. I slip it into my jacket pocket and mutter an aborted apology. Molly shrugs and turns back to the fridge. She takes out mayonnaise and a brick of white cheese, then leans over the sink to get a red tomato from the windowsill. She opens a drawer and takes out a long sharp knife.

Echoes, footsteps. Miller is nowhere to be seen.

Molly wears scuffed brown cowboy boots. I look around. The kitchen is not so cold and frightening as before. The lights are different and I never noticed the tomatoes in the window.

It’s okay, she says. But would you mind leaving the gun on the island, where I can see it?

I hesitate, watching her slice the tomato on a round wooden cutting
board.

Please, she says. Humor me.

I take out the Walther and remove the clip, then place the gun on the bright steel surface between us. I am tempted to give it a spin, to see who the gun favors.

Thank you, she says.

Oh. You’re welcome.

Long pretty hands, unpainted nails.

Molly cuts the sandwich in half and wipes off the knife. Takes two red paper napkins from a drawer and gives me half the sandwich. White sourdough bread, red tomato that drips onto my fingers and white cheese. Molly leans against the island while she eats, holding the sandwich in two hands.

I realize how hungry I am.

John refuses to get barstools, she says. He thinks they reveal a profound lack of taste.

I nod, dumbly. Molly takes small, fierce bites of bread and tomato. She murmurs softly as she swallows. I contemplate the aesthetic of barstools. I watch the muscles in her throat ripple.

The corner of your mouth, I say. You have a bit of mayonnaise there.

She touches the red napkin to her lips and says thank you.

I should be going.

No, she says. Don’t go.

The soft flash of honey eyes. That monologue got to me, the way her lips moved. It tore me up. I tell myself to be careful.

Miller is your husband? I say.

Molly frowns. Did he tell you that?

I stare at her and realize she has likely not read Miller’s script.

He has gotten so weird, she says. I can barely talk to him.

Yeah. He seems a little preoccupied with…baseball.

You’re going to work on the film with us? she says.

I don’t know, I say. I haven’t decided.

You have a beautiful face, she says. Your cheekbones would look good in black and white.

Have you read the script? I say.

Molly sighs. Only bits and pieces. John is very secretive with it.

I’m sure he is.

Molly has finished her sandwich and now she takes out a red and white pack of gum and pulls one stick out. She offers it to me and I shake my head. She slowly peels away the cellophane and folds the stick into her mouth. I reach for the gun between us and at the same time her hand drifts down and brushes mine. She is reaching to touch the gun, to touch my hand. I don’t know which. But her touch is soft and maddening, the touch of someone in a dream soon forgotten. Then she pulls her hand away and her face is slightly red. The blood comes and goes in her face. Molly is sensitive to barometric pressure. I put the gun away and hesitate, then offer her my empty hand. Molly doesn’t smile. Her lips come apart and I can see her teeth. Now she takes my hand and I feel her pulse with the tip of my middle finger and this is not what anyone would call a handshake because our hands are not moving but holding each other and our skin is the same temperature and after a long silence one of us lets go.