“Um …” Ben looked at some of the papers and pictures sticking out of the folder. He chuckled and tried to save face. “Why are headshots still in black and white? This is the 1980s not the 1880s, right? Anybody … know … why?”
“You. Incompetent. Idiot.” Ben spat as he waited at the bus stop outside the studio gates. He put his head between his knees and rocked on the bench like a man on the verge of a breakdown, muttering a stream of insults to himself.
“I have to assume you’re talking to yourself, but either way you’re being very rude to one of us,” said a voice. Ben looked up, startled to see someone else on the bench with him. He was an old man, old enough that his face, his eyes, and what was left of his hair were all the same faded color. He wore a dark blue suit that must have fit his body once, but now hung around him in folds with his thin wrists poking out of the cuffs like the sticks of a scarecrow.
“Ah, sorry. Talking to myself.”
“What, they didn’t buy your movie pitch?” The man asked with a wry grin.
“Even worse: they did,” Ben admitted miserably.
The man laughed and shook his head in sympathy, slapping against his thigh a trifold advertisement he clutched in his hand. Ben saw that it was for an exhibition of some old movies starring a bumbling detective. He knew the titles immediately.
“Hey, I love those old …” Ben began to say, and then his head snapped up, shock and delight shining on his face. “You’re Solomon Miscavige!”
The man’s eyes grew suddenly cold, his mouth a brief underline. He nodded once, curtly. In his excitement, Ben ignored the obvious signs that the man was now closed for business. He barreled on, describing how his grandfather used to spend hours telling Ben about all his favorite old movies, the stars of the day, the stories that had charmed and delighted him. Even before he’d seen a movie screen, the boy had understood and appreciated the art of it.
Gradually, Ben realized that he was babbling and getting nothing back. He self-consciously pulled himself back into the mundane. “So, just a day at the studio, huh?”
Begrudgingly, the old man’s face softened again, twitching several times before he replied. “I was here on behalf of my grandson, calling in a favor to one of the few people who remembers me.”
“What?” Ben exclaimed, incredulous. “A big star like you?”
Solomon sighed. “Yes, a very big star. It’s nice to know I have enough pull in this town to secure a studio job in the mail room. And the kid thinks he’s made it, that he’s on his way.” He waved his fingers through the air as if gesturing to some future possibility, or maybe just to fan away an empty dream. “And who knows, maybe he is …”
The old man lapsed into silence again, and after a minute Ben gave a nod toward the trifold in his hand. “So, you’re going to see your movie?”
The young man watched the play of emotions, an argument the old man had with himself that carried back and forth until a vicious defeat left him to finally, painfully nod.
The bus pulled up just as Ben grinned in spite of himself. His excitement flared again, cavalier and impolite. “Great! I’d love to join you.”
The film was one Ben had seen before, but on a television with busted rabbit ears in the middle of his grandfather’s sun-drenched living room. Now here he was in the dark embrace of a proper theater, sitting next to the star himself, who in a few moments and four decades ago was about to bluster onto the scene of a crime and make several delightfully ridiculous pronouncements.
As that moment grew near, Ben felt a palpable tension coming from the man beside him, and looked over to see Solomon grimacing miserably in the flickering light of the screen. He was shaking and beads of sweat stood out on the dome of his forehead as though he was gripped by the flu. Ben was about to ask him if he needed to leave when, on the screen, the young Solomon Miscavige strolled through the open door in a trench coat and fedora.
When he turned his attention back to the old man, he found him flushed and grinning unabashedly at the sight of his dashing young doppelganger. In that smile, Ben saw the young man superimposed over the old, basking in his victories and swelling with pride. And in that moment, Ben Mackey’s stupid, awful day became a good one. Suddenly he felt some hope for his future in Hollywood, which wasn’t, after all, such a terrible place.
Solomon’s good mood carried through to their goodbye outside the theater, where he generously offered his phone number without prompting, and told Ben to call if he wanted to talk about the “perils of outrageous success.”
The next weekend, another film of his was on the exhibition schedule, so they met at a diner before they went and made an afternoon of it. As they dug into sandwiches and lukewarm fries, Solomon questioned Ben about his childhood in Iowa, and what brought him out to California.
“I guess I just wanted to go where someone might understand the things that excited me—and it might excite them, you know? I mean, I made a free throw in sixth grade basketball that my dad still talks about. Of course I was in a dozen school plays that I actually cared about, but whatever.”
The old man smiled knowingly. “He didn’t find them as memorable?”
Ben nodded. “He did admit that I had remembered a lot of lines. Once.”
“Be careful who you let flatter you out here,” Solomon said gravely. “This town is run by two kinds of men: old men who will never have enough money and young men who are defined by their haircuts and think they’re responsible for all of human culture. You mean nothing to these people. Your dreams mean even less. I had some good friends and partners in this business, for a time. But people get used up quickly here. They burn out and blow away like that.” The man said it with a force that made Ben think he was going to snap his fingers for emphasis, but instead he just stared into space. Ben thought better of interrupting the silence, and eventually the old man drifted back. They finished their lunch with small talk.
Later, in the theater, Ben felt a jolt of glee at the title card, The Case of the Singing Bureau. But when he ventured a sideways glance, he saw the same strange scene play out next to him: in the light of the screen, the man’s grimace turned to an expression of mounting panic. He remained that way, sweating and panting until finally his character, Private Investigator Jack Mason, wandered into the scene with his over-confident swagger. At the sight of his young self, the old man slumped into his seat with obvious relief and even chuckled, shaking his head.
As they watched the escalating shenanigans of the clueless detective and his whip-smart secretary Marcy Grant, Ben kept stealing glances, completely distracted by his companion’s strange behavior. But for the rest of the show, the man seemed only to enjoy himself.
The sun was crouching on the horizon when they exited the theater, both men blinking at the darkening street like disoriented time travelers. They took a taxi back to Solomon’s house, where Ben made the driver wait until the old man had shakily mounted his front steps and closed his front door with a final wave.
They had only gotten a few blocks away when Ben noticed Solomon’s jacket crumpled in the corner of the seat. He asked the driver to turn around, and when they got back to the house he bounded up the steps and gave the door several sharp raps. When a second round of knocking and waiting produced no answer, he tried the doorknob and found it unlocked.
The sunlight was waning but even that didn’t account for the deep shadows inside the house. Every blind and curtain was shut tight, and the few beams of light that shone through gave the room a murky, underwater feeling.
Ben turned a corner into the living room, expecting to see Solomon there. Instead he found a shabbily furnished room, thick with dust. On one side of the room, stretched across a wall and blocking two windows, was a large canvas sheet. Across the room was a medium-sized movie projector, with a folding chair next to it. Resting on the seat of the chair was a gun.
Fingers closed on Ben’s shoulder and he nearly screamed. He spun around to find Solomon, his eyes burning with rage. Eve
n as he started to explain, Ben’s gaze was drawn to the large black wheel in the old man’s pale knobby hands. It was a film reel and written on the side of it in white marker was the title The Case of the Singing Bureau. Across the title was a large X made of two ragged strips of red tape.
The old man found his voice. “Get the hell out of my house!”
Ben brandished the limp jacket like a talisman, and the old man batted it aside. “No privacy … I can’t believe … taking advantage of my generosity!” Solomon advanced on Ben, shouting him back down the hall to the door. Before Ben knew it, he was standing on the porch, hearing the deadbolt snap into place, with a forgotten jacket dangling from his hand.
The space was inside an enormous building the size of an airplane hangar. The ceiling and walls were painted black, and the ground was covered in snaking black cables. In the middle of the room, lit as bright as a summer day, was a set that consisted of one level of a house, bisected and open to cameras and lights. There were windows that looked out onto a giant poster of the outside world. There were doors that opened to nowhere. There were stairs that turned a corner and ended at the ceiling. It looked to Ben like a human ant farm.
He stayed close to a wall and kept out of the way, trying not to be noticed.
“Hey,” a man called from a dozen feet away. He had to repeat himself a few times, hissing in Ben’s direction, until Ben realized the man was talking to him. Ben pointed at himself and the man nodded, grinning and waving him over.
The man was also standing by the wall, accompanied by two identical dogs. One he was grooming and periodically handing treats. The other lay on a blanket nearby, unmoving except for its eyebrows, which it waggled up and down with slight interest every time a person hurried past.
“Hey,” the man repeated, offering Ben a firm handshake. “You’re the writer, aintcha? I’m Rico, animal handler. I thought you might enjoy meeting Rebecca.” He indicated the dog he was grooming. Ben didn’t know much about dogs but he knew their expressions usually meant the exact opposite of human ones. This dog was smiling at him.
“Rebecca?”
“Yeah, well really they’re both playing Rebecca. This lady here is named Wanda and she’ll be Rebecca in all the action scenes. That one is Princess, and she’s better at dialogue.”
Ben looked from one dog to the other. “What makes that dog better at … dialogue?”
“She’s very patient for treats. She knows she’ll get more later if she can focus and hold for the shot. The talking effect will be added later.”
Ben nodded, then said, “You know, Rebecca was actually supposed to be a woman. A human woman. She and Craig are best friends and she ends up saving him at the end.”
“Oh.” Rico gave a puzzled smile.
Ben nodded, then noticed the aluminum rack standing against the wall a few feet away. Hanging from it were a half-dozen outfits, one silver and futuristic, one pink and ringed by a tutu, one looking like business attire complete with a foreshortened tie stitched down the front of a faux-shirt and suit. All of the outfits had four leg holes and a slit in the back for a tail.
“Are these Rebecca’s … outfits?” Ben squinted as if he was succumbing to a migraine.
Rico brightened. “Yeah! Seems the men upstairs were worried the movie wouldn’t be toyetic enough. That’s a new word they love throwing around: TOYETIC. So, they ordered these nifty outfits and added a couple of scenes to, you know, justify the action figures.”
Ben swayed on his feet and laughed a hollow, barking laugh. “Guess you could use a third dog, huh? Fashion dog?”
“Sure.” Rico gave a polite smile.
One dog then the other turned to look at Ben. They both raised their eyebrows and stared until he turned and quietly left the set.
Ben called whenever he got the chance, whenever he thought of it. He called more than he should have, but Solomon wouldn’t answer. When he was sitting in his dingy apartment, trying to write, wondering how long he should wait, asking his roommate to turn down his music again, he called Solomon. When he was finished tying his tie in the mirror, wearing his only suit and ready for a meeting where his agent would inform him of exciting new developments in the movie that vaguely resembled his script, he called Solomon. When he was eating an enormous salad because he got a good deal on produce, chewing endlessly on a mouthful of lettuce, he called Solomon.
“Hello? Will you help?” Solomon’s voice was immediately too loud in his ear.
Startled, Ben choked on his lettuce.
“Hello please help will you help?” Solomon was slurring his words and for a moment Ben thought he might be drunk.
In the background was music, too loud and crackling like a television with the volume turned up all the way. There was a constant eardrum-itching hum.
Finally Ben managed to swallow his food. He had tossed his salad bowl in the sink and was already at the stretched limit of the phone cord, grabbing his key ring and stuffing his feet into his shoes. “Solomon? Solomon, are you okay? What do you need?”
“No, Marjorie.” The old man whispered. And then, much louder, “Marjorieeeee, please.”
There was a rasping exhale, like a sob, and then the sound of a gunshot punched through the receiver. The phone crackled senselessly on the carpet, and Ben was out the door.
Ben opened his eyes groggily, woken by a chorus of electronic beeps and the sound of peeling tape. Solomon was sitting up in his hospital bed, talking to a young man with slicked-back hair and a thick gold chain over his T-shirt. The boy kept peeling up the tape securing the IV in the old man’s arm, then trying to smooth it down again.
“Now it’s too tight.” Solomon snapped at him. “And my skin’s all pinched over here, just leave it alone.” The young man threw up his hands and muttered while the old man picked at the tape himself, though it seemed a great effort just to reach across his own chest.
Ben’s back gave several loud pops when he rose from the chair, and both men looked at him, startled.
“Benjamin!” Solomon exclaimed, giving him a wan smile. “Benjamin, this is my grandson Donny. Donny, this is my good friend Benjamin.”
“Friend.” Ben smiled. “Yeah, we’re friends.”
As he shook Donny’s hand, the younger man lifted his chin and tried to convey meaning through his grip. “Friend, huh? And you, uh, found him? Brought him in? Just happened to come over, right when he was having a heart attack?”
Solomon waved his hand, dispelling the cloud of machismo. “Stop with the third degree. I phoned him for help and he came right over.”
“Well actually, I called …” Ben started, then stopped. “Right, he did call me.”
Solomon patted Ben’s arm affectionately and then told Donny to give him the list of items he wanted from home. Ben looked at the list: several specific outfits, a biography of Patton, a book of crossword puzzles from the bathroom, his toothbrush and toothpaste, his razor and shaving cream.
“C’mon, Pops, I can do it,” Donny complained. “Let this guy go be wherever he needs to be.”
“No,” Solomon warned, his voice firm and imperious. “I trust him not to snoop around and start claiming my belongings before I even kick the bucket.”
Donny sneered and clutched his chest dramatically. “Pops, you’re breakin’ my heart here.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Solomon grimaced and made a shooing motion with his hand. Ben took his leave, gladly.
Ben entered Solomon’s house slowly, as though he were afraid of interrupting the carefully laid silence and dust. This was his third time in the house, but his first with the old man’s consent. With a specific mission from the man himself, even. Still, he moved through the hallways and rooms haltingly, feeling decidedly unwelcome.
He only glanced into the living room, where he’d found his friend collapsed next to the projector, in the grip of a heart attack and barely conscious. The gun was still on the floor and sunlight shone through three bullet holes in the makeshift movie screen.
&
nbsp; The large zippered duffel bag was in the hall closet where Solomon had said it would be. Ben punched the inside of it until it was the right shape, then began searching the house and filling it with items from the list.
The bedroom was as shuttered and murky as the rest of the house, but it smelled strongly of old man and chemicals. To Ben it wasn’t unpleasant; it was the smell of afternoons at his grandfather’s house, watching movies. He opened the closet door expecting to find clothes, and instead found shelves of large movie reels. He took down a couple, feeling the heft of the tightly bundled plates, and reading the titles scrawled on the side. All of Solomon’s movies were there, lined up chronologically. And someone had x-ed out each title with two crossed strips of red tape.
With his curiosity finally surpassing his discomfort, Ben set down the bag and picked up several reels in a stack. He took them straight to the living room, set them on the metal folding chair, and switched on the projector. The film already spooled in the projector started to play again, the black-and-white image filling the stretched canvas from wall to wall, save for three white bullet holes.
The scene was of a small office: a tall file cabinet bulging with file folders, a desk littered with coffee-stained papers, and two empty chairs. Ben stared in confusion as the shot held. Nobody entered the room. If not for the jaunty score and the scratches on the film, not to mention the sound of the reels spinning near his elbow, he would’ve thought the projector was somehow stuck.
Then he noticed, in the way something is invisible until suddenly it’s not, a darker shape in the shadow of the desk. It was the edge of a shoe, lying on its side. Only the shoe was visible, so either it was lying there discarded or there was a body behind the desk, just out of sight.
Monsters, Movies & Mayhem Page 30