Plastic Jesus

by Poppy Z. Brite

  “That's the sentence that makes the rest of the crap worthwhile,” Seth told Peyton, pointing to the page in the magazine. “That's the kind of thing that can change people's thinking. If it's going to be all about celebrity worship, we have to take advantage of that."

  Peyton noticed that Seth was cutting back on the drugs, sometimes going a day or more without doing a line of heroin and almost giving up the LSD altogether. The spate of nasty reader mail Newsweek published in its next issue didn't faze him. Nor did reports from the Bible Belt that Kydds records and paraphernalia were being banned on radio, returned by stores, and thrown onto enormous bonfires organized by fundamentalist church groups. It was a heady time when nothing seemed to matter much, until the telegram arrived from London.

  WHY NOT CONSULT US BEFORE GOING PUBLIC? WE SUPPORTED YOU IN THIS, NOW YOU ABANDON US. SUPPOSED TO BE IN STUDIO BUT HALF OUR BAND IS MISSING. MAYBE KYDDS ARE NO LONGER A VIABLE REALITY. MARK AND DENNIS.

  Peyton's first reaction was guilt. For the first time in the history of the Kydds, he had failed to acknowledge the democracy of the band, creating a situation that couldn't be finessed or smoothed over. He knew they should have warned Mark and Dennis that they were going public, but it had been such a spur-of-the-moment, gut-reaction thing that he honestly hadn't thought of it. He knew that he and Seth should be back in London by now, back in the studio recording the next album, but they had become so happy in New York that they hadn't wanted to deal with the idea of going home.

  The next week, they flew back to London to see whether the mess could be dealt with. But Seth refused to admit any wrong, and soon he wasn't speaking to Mark and Dennis at all. Instead he returned to bed, redoubled his drug use, and swore that he would never again be known as a Kydd.

  Peyton was left to meet with Mark, Dennis, and various representatives of the record company. They had never hired a new manager after Harold died, and even if they had, Peyton doubted if any manager could have helped much. He pulled out diplomatic stops he'd never known he had, but nothing seemed to matter. Eventually he came to believe that Mark and Dennis’ resentment was a visceral matter that had little to do with business or even music.

  “It's all very well for you two,” Mark summed up during one bitter argument. “When fans think of the Kydds, they think of you. You'll be able to go off and do whatever you like. We'll just be a washed-up rhythm section who are probably a couple of queers."

  “Why would you care so much if people thought that?” Peyton asked, realizing only after he spoke that Seth had posed much the same question to him two years ago. But Mark could not explain, and Dennis didn't care to try either. Probably they didn't even know.

  Slowly, amidst countless disputes that pretended to be about money but were really about something much sadder, the band was dissolved. It remained Peyton's only real regret from that time: if the Kydds could not have gone on forever, he wished they might have been allowed to die a decent death instead of an ugly and protracted lynching.

  As soon as it was done, he and Seth returned to New York. They both knew they would never live in England again.

  * * * *

  They stayed in Greenwich Village for a year, until wanderlust seized them again. Their tours of Europe with the Kydds had been much like their first trip to New York: except for Seth's trip to Amsterdam with Harold, they hadn't seen much save the insides of hotels and stadia. Now they would see it all. As well, there was a rumor Seth had heard and wanted to investigate: in Holland, though the ceremony was not legally binding elsewhere, there was a renegade excommunicated priest who would marry two people of the same sex. It turned out to be true, and handily enough, the ex-priest also ran one of Amsterdam's newly legal cannabis coffeeshops.

  “That was the kiss heard round the world,” said Peyton afterward. The ceremony in the coffeeshop was private, with a small enclave of friends that conspicuously did not include Mark and Dennis, but reporters gathered outside to snap pictures as they emerged. The photo most printed, of course, was of Seth and Peyton kissing on the stone steps of the three-hundred-year-old building; the most prevalent headline, “THEY DO!"

  Not content to honeymoon, they began recording a new album in a Paris studio. They would never really have a proper band again—they would always be just Grealy and Masters, with whatever session players they needed for the few instruments they couldn't play between them. It had been too painful losing the Kydds. They didn't ever want to break up another band.

  For five years they shuttled back and forth between Europe and New York, making music and doing benefit concerts, stopping in England occasionally but never for long. At last, though, the craziness of their time with the Kydds seemed to catch up with them and they needed calm. It wouldn't have been the obvious choice for most people, but for them, calmness and peace of mind were in New York City. They applied for permanent U.S. residence, bought a huge apartment in a Gothic horror of a building on the Upper West Side, and moved in for good.

  ix

  The story had come full circle. Peyton sat curled in Dr. Jonathan Pumphrey's big leather chair, his knees drawn up to his chest. His eyelashes appeared wet, but he had not used any of the Kleenex.

  “And how long ago was that—that you moved to New York?” Jonathan asked.

  “Ten years. You know what we've been doing since then, I suppose. We kept recording for a while, but eventually we felt we'd done all we could in the public eye. We could hear our influence in new music, and that was enough. So we retired."

  “But you never stopped playing music."

  “Oh, God, no. That was as much a part of our lives as making love—well, for us, it was a kind of making love. Seth had gotten really good on the piano and I was doing some classical guitar stuff. We'd even talked about recording again. Just for fun—nothing that was going to change the world."

  “You and Seth already changed it,” Jonathan reminded.

  “Yes, he disliked hearing it, but I think we did. Let me tell you something, though, Dr. Pumphrey: I'd trade it all to have him back again."

  Jonathan could think of no suitable reply to this.

  “I'll leave you soon. I just have one more question for you. I feel soft, asking such a thing, but I honestly don't know any more. Do you think he was ever really happy?"

  “Yes. These past years with you, here in New York, I think he was."

  “Then I want one thing from you."

  “Of course; anything I can do—"

  “This isn't a normal request, Doctor. I told you I didn't know why I'd come here. I was lying. I wanted to meet you, get an idea who you were, and see what you thought about Seth. Then, if it seemed all right, I planned to ask you for one thing. Well, I'm asking. I want you to get me close to Ray Brinker."

  Jonathan opened his mouth, then shut it again. He had no idea what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.

  “I'm Seth's official heir and the executor of his estate. As such, I'm entitled to mount a case against Brinker, aid the prosecution, even sue him for wrongful death if it comes to that. I've already discussed this with my lawyers. I can hire a psychiatrist to examine him for the purpose of determining his mental state. I want to hire you, and I want to go with you when you examine him."

  “Peyton—I—no. This just can't work."

  “Why not?"

  “Well, if it's some kind of vendetta you have in mind, there's no way you could even get a weapon past security—"

  Peyton spread his hands, widened his eyes. “No vendetta. I just want to talk to him. I want to know why."

  “He told the media why. Wasn't that ugly enough? Do you want to hear him say it again?"

  “Yes. I want to hear him say it to me."

  “And the conflict of interest—me examining Blinker after being Seth's therapist for five years—"

  “Could you at least get in?"

  “I don't know. Maybe."

  “If you can, will you take me?"

  Jonathan looked at Peyton. Those big brown
eyes widened further, protesting innocence, seeming to glitter with unshed tears. This man had loved Seth deeply and truly. Of that, Jonathan had no doubt.

  “All right,” he said finally. “If I can get in, I'll take you with me."

  “You can get in. You can examine him tomorrow. It's already arranged. And of course we'll need to discuss your fee.” Peyton named a sum that would pay the rent on Jonathan's midtown office for a year.

  As Peyton let himself out, Jonathan sat with his head in his hands. He felt poleaxed. Every day he passed people living on the street in refrigerator boxes, for Christ's sake; he'd always thought of himself as well off. Now, for the first time, the curtain had been drawn aside and he had seen the smooth machinations of what real money could do.

  * * * *

  It was another weird kind of dissonance for Jonathan, riding across the bridge to Riker's Island in Peyton's limousine. It wasn't a stretch limo or anything, but it was a hell of a lot nicer than any other car Jonathan had ever ridden in. Along for the ride was one of Peyton's lawyers, a pit bull of a man in a merino wool suit.

  Jonathan had to keep his emotions on a tight rein while examining Ray Brinker. The doughy-faced killer neither protested his innocence nor admitted any remorse for his actions. Quite the contrary, he seemed to think he had done humanity a favor. “Nothing wrong with one less fag in the world” was a common refrain. Jonathan emerged from the interview convinced that the man was legally sane and prepared to testify so in court.

  Only then was Peyton allowed into the room. He did not invite Jonathan to stay, nor did he bring his lawyer in; but there were two armed prison guards present, so Peyton would not have been able to injure Brinker even if he had managed to smuggle a weapon past security. But Peyton did not seem inclined to violence. He simply stood before the killer and spoke quietly to him for several minutes as Jonathan and the lawyer watched through two layers of scratched and smeary Plexiglass. The contrast between the two men was striking: Brinker in cuffs and leg irons, prison-grimed, anger wrenching his pudgy body into a strange shape, his face not so much unattractive as unfinished-looking (Jonathan thought the man looked rather like a fetus); Peyton slim and clean and straight-spined, his beauty exaggerated in this place of ugliness, his face calm, almost serene.

  He finished speaking to Brinker, made a little bow, and turned to leave the room. The guards parted for him, and one stopped him to ask for an autograph. The psychiatrist, the lawyer, and the rock star rode home in silence.

  Jonathan was hardly surprised when he saw the headline the next morning: GREALY'S ASSASSIN KILLS SELF IN PRISON. Despite the usual precautions—and, given public sentiment about this case, Jonathan doubted whether there had been many of the usual precautions—Brinker had fashioned his pants into a kind of noose and hanged himself in his cell.

  Jonathan would not have dreamed of telephoning Peyton. But when he received Peyton's call that night, it surprised him little more than the headline had done.

  “Thank you for getting me in,” said Peyton without preamble. “I'm not sure I could have gone on without that."

  “I think you can do just about anything you decide to do,” said Jonathan.

  A short silence, not an angry one. “You may be right,” Peyton said finally. “I'd love to think you are. In this case, anyway, I did what I had to do. Nothing more."

  Jonathan's curiosity overcame his professional reserve. “What in the world did you say to him?"

  “I simply told him that he'd given Seth the thing he wanted most: a martyr's death. He turned Seth into a kind of queer angel. Before, people looked at us and saw a happy couple—and that was good—but now they see a grieving lover and a martyred angel. It will give them courage. It will show them that love is worth dying for. Do you know what the last thing I said to him was, Dr. Pumphrey?"

  “What?"

  “I told him that this was the proof we needed. This was the proof that we really did change the world. And then I thanked him."

  “You thanked him? You thanked him for killing Seth?"

  “Oh, it was difficult to get those words out of my mouth. You've no idea how difficult. But look what happened.

  "It worked."

  The receiver on Peyton's end was replaced with a soft click, and Jonathan was left holding the phone, holding the whole damn story, and wondering just what Seth Grealy had really died for.

  YES, I WOULD The author's afterword to Plastic Jesus

  John Lennon was killed in New York when I was thirteen. I'd been aware of the Beatles before 1980, as if it were possible not to be. But the media coverage of John's death stoked my imagination, and obviously continues to do so today.

  The first piece I published on this subject was the essay “Would You?” which you may have received as a free mini-chapbook if you bought the limited hardcover edition of this book. Though it has seen print before, I think it is a good companion to Plastic Jesus, and goes a long way toward explaining how this longer and more convoluted tale came to be.

  21If you didn't get the mini-chapbook, all you really need (besides love) is to know that I've been obsessed with the Beatles, and particularly John, for quite a long time. After his death, I bought a few records, then bought a few more, and eventually plastered my room with Beatles posters and became a teenage hippie Beatlemaniac—quite an anomaly in a rural North Carolina high school in the early eighties. John was the latest and best in a long line of attitude-driven badasses I admired. He inspired me to start an underground newspaper, reconsider my own political and social beliefs, experiment with drugs (something I'm quite happy with, thanks), and generally become an in-your-face rebel quite a few years earlier then I might have done otherwise.

  Today I have John's cartoony little self-portrait tattooed on my left bicep. People have wondered aloud whether I will get sick of it, but in twenty years I've never gotten sick of the Beatles, and so far it's only been comforting to have him around, even if he is just a few lines of black ink under the skin of my arm. More to the point, I have always believed the world would be a better place today if John and Paul had been lovers. Yes, I know they weren't gay. That has nothing to do with it. This is a fantasy.

  A couple of years ago, Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press asked to publish a chapbook of my work. I didn't have anything new of sufficient length, but I had long been interested in publishing my untitled 1987 novella that eventually grew into Lost Souls. I didn't think it was a great work of literature, but I believed fans of the novel would be interested to see the genesis of the story and how it had evolved. Bill said OK, and this became The Seed of Lost Souls, illustrated to perfection by Dame Darcy of Meatcake comics fame. I enjoyed the whole experience so much that when Bill asked me to do another book, this one a ten-to fifteen-thousand word piece of original fiction, I said yes.

  At that time, I'd been working on my fifth novel for about a year and getting increasingly frustrated with it. There were some things I loved about it, but there were a lot of things I hated about it. When I threw out all the things I hated—entire characters, subplots, decades—I realized that this particular story might work better as a novella. In fact, it might be perfect for that second Subterranean book. Gradually, the would-be fifth novel turned into the novella Plastic Jesus.

  People love to ask writers where we get our ideas, but they don't seem to like it if the answer is too obvious. I've heard it said that my novel Exquisite Corpse is “nothing more than a blow-by-blow retelling of Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes.” (Funny, I must have missed the news of Dahmer hooking up with another serial killer.) And Dahmer isn't even beloved by millions of people around the world.

  I know there are a lot of Beatles nuts out there, and I figure a few of them will probably read this story, and some percentage of those will be pissed off by it. I can't help that. All I can say is that they are no more your Beatles than mine, and what I have created from the experience of listening to them is no less valid than the joy they've given you. If you just didn't like Plastic Jes
us, fine, but I don't want to hear mutterings about how I have “desecrated” the Beatles’ legacy. This idea is ridiculous for two reasons: (A) My story is a gnat compared to the herd of elephants that is the Beatles’ legacy; (B) The Beatles always spoke out against prejudice, and if you think the homosexuality in this story desecrates their memory somehow, then your heart has been touched by something that they were never about.

  I always get my ideas from the events and personalities of “real life.” Some of these—the Lovecraft-like narrator of my story “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood;” Andrew Compton and Jay Byrne of Exquisite Corpse; Seth Grealy and Peyton Masters—remain recognizable through the veil of fiction. To those who consider this a failure of imagination, I confess that, by your definition, my entire body of work constitutes a failure of imagination; these are just the examples where you were able to recognize it. No, you can't get a refund, but if it bothers you, you can always stop buying my books.

  To the rest of you—those who realize that all fiction is only “real life” twisted and reshaped by the mind of a writer—I offer no excuses; only the statement that, as with every other story I've published, I had no choice. I had to write it. I couldn't move on to anything else until I did. And it is finally the story I wanted to tell, and I have told it as well as I could.

  * * * *

  For information, unconditional love, and other things related to the writing and publication of Plastic Jesus, I'd like to thank Adam Alexander, Leslie Sternbergh Alexander, Marieke Bermon, Connie B. Brite, Ramsey and Jenny Campbell, Christopher DeBarr, David Ferguson (the Japan/acid/screaming scene was his idea and contains much of his language), Mary Fleener, Kaz, Linda Marotta, Nerve Magazine, William K. Schafer, Eddie Schoenfeld, Peter Straub, Richard Tuinstra, and Wolf. And a special thank-you to my agent, Richard Curtis, for understanding the form this story had to take, even though he might well have preferred it to become that elusive fifth novel.