Jove Brand is Near Death

by J. A. Crawford

  I left for Fresno before sunrise on Friday. It would get me to the convention center early, but if I waited any longer, commuter traffic would make me late. My level of celebrity didn’t merit a second pass if my booth was empty on the first. I couldn’t afford to miss a single fan. Convention appearances barely covered my health insurance, much less legal coverage.

  I didn’t really have fans, not in the traditional sense. My presence was a curiosity, a quirky detail in the story of what you did last weekend. The tenth photo in the Facebook album labeled Conventions 2016. People hated hipsters, but they paid my bills⎯may the god none of them believed in bless them. Who knew a guy could scrape by on irony?

  Four hours of driving and I didn’t so much as turn on the radio. Instead I spent the whole time devising a plan to prove my innocence. The results weren’t encouraging. There were things that made me appear less guilty, like trying to save Sir Collin. But that could also be explained as a guy who lost his temper in the heat of the moment trying to save his own skin after waking to what he had done.

  Despite my tough talking at Stern, everything I knew about the criminal justice system came straight from the screen, including the expression the criminal justice system. Now I was on my way to being one of those stories ripped from the headlines.

  Three broadcast vans trailed me north, and why not? They could write off the mileage, and what if they hit the jackpot and I made for Tijuana? I dreaded what was waiting for me at the convention center. My appearance schedule was posted at JoveBrandFan.com.

  My badge got me access to guest parking. No way the showrunners would pull me. Conventions were all about attendance. They were our modern sideshows, except instead of the Wolf-boy and the Bearded Lady, there was the Guy Who Was in That One Thing and The Lady from the Magazine You Found in the Woods. If a peek at the One Jove Brand Who Murdered Another Jove Brand got warm bodies through door, so be it.

  After a check to make sure there was nothing in my car I minded losing, I shouldered my merch and headed for my table. Everyone was setting up, which gave them an excuse not to make eye contact. Though I had broken bread with most of the other guests, my loaf had gone moldy.

  Yuen was already at our table when I got there. My former co-star was now my convention partner. Like me, Yuen was cast solely on appearance. Slap a goatee and top bun on Bruce Lee and you’d have the villain of Near Death. My once archenemy was now my closest friend. Shared experience has that kind of power.

  When Yuen saw me, he raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t kill me, man. I’m just a poor boy from Kowloon making my way in the world.”

  The hoarseness of Yuen’s voice undercut his wide-eyed innocence. It wasn’t the result of aging. He’d had a musical lilt once, before he met me.

  “Shut up,” I told him, tossing my bags on table.

  Yuen kept his hands up. “Better not make you mad. I got four kids. Maybe more. Your sister, she got any good-looking dark-haired sons?”

  I sorted the eight by tens into piles. “I don’t have a sister, you know that.”

  “Damn man. Your mom, she really takes care of herself.”

  I laughed against my will, which made Yuen grin, which made me laugh more. With a mug like his, you couldn’t blame him, no matter how much he deserved it.

  “The cops give you a work release?”

  “Time off for good behavior,” I replied. As I lifted the table skirt to cache my bags, Yuen put a hand on my shoulder. My eyes were drawn to the ragged scar below his Adam’s apple—a line leading to a puncture reminiscent of a sunflower. Eighteen years and I still couldn’t look at him without feeling a fresh stab of guilt.

  Yuen bent down to meet my eyes. “I know you’re innocent.”

  “Yeah?” was all the reply I could manage. The tension inside me felt like a bolt wrenched past stripping. It had steadily tightened from the night Sir Collin was killed, ratcheting a helplessness I hadn’t experienced since Near Death hit the internet. That someone believed I wasn’t a killer brought overwhelming relief.

  Yuen gave a dismissive wave. “The shit people say to you at these things and you haven’t killed any of them.”

  “The weekend is yet to begin,” I grumbled.

  We hung the banner together. While Yuen hooked up the TV/DVD combo, I gave the spread a last once-over.

  “There’s a print missing.”

  “Is there?” Yuen ducked down to check under the table. “Guess I forgot a stack at home.”

  It was a touching but futile gesture. The missing print was a still taken from a scene that was currently getting over seventy thousand hits an hour. And Yuen didn’t do these shows for fun. He really did have four kids.

  “Put them out,” I said.

  Yuen grinned from ear to ear as he uncovered a box. “I ordered a triple run. These are going to flip like flapjacks.”

  The print in question was landscape style. I’m on the left as Jove Brand, in my salmon blazer sans tie—a casualty of the zipline fight. The red slash across my forehead and down my cheek is a souvenir of General Moon Tzu’s bladed hemline. My tattered shirt provided a clear view of my sculpted midsection.

  Yuen as General Moon-Tzu was on the right, resplendent in his silver Mandarin robe. He was dramatically exhaling as the edge of my left hand caught him square on the Adam’s apple. Blood bloomed from his eye sockets like twin poppies.

  The composition wasn’t bad and we looked great. Static and silent, the shot could pass for a real Jove Brand film. It was Near Death, summarized in a single photo.

  With my primary ensemble currently bagged in police lockup, I was forced to rely on my backup costume. You never knew when you were going to get someone on your clothes. I got into wardrobe, buttoning up the baby-blue shirt and knotting that awful tie before slipping on my signature salmon jacket. My Brand skin on, I shook my muscles out as if I were bracing for a punch.

  The rank odor of microwaved fish invaded my space. Yuen was already cracking the Tupperware. I watched him shovel down shrimp and inhale sticky rice. “How you can eat so much and never break one thirty-five?”

  “I burn it off dancing like no one is watching,” Yuen replied.

  Yuen made sure the volume was muted before hitting play. Neither of us possessed the level of masochism it took to listen to Near Death on a loop for three days. It was cringe-worthy imagining what Kit Calabria went through in a Hong Kong editing booth, scrambling to transmute a lead balloon into a golden parachute.

  Near Death opened with the passing of my predecessor. The Brand before me had filmed his exit during the production of A Beautiful Disaster, his final film. What was another twenty million on top of the most expensive—adjusted for inflation—Brand film to date? Tacking that polished sequence on the front of Near Death was like having Yo-Yo Ma open for a high-school marching band. Those ten minutes cost more than the ninety that followed them.

  The film proper opens with my trial sequence. Every new Brand has one in their debut, an action set piece that ends with a journeyman agent being promoted to Royal Gamesman and adopting the alias of Jove Brand. In Near Death, my trial sequence consisted solely of me doing endless kata while a stuntman ran out of the shadows and into one of my feet every ten seconds.

  Tender, head of WARDEN—Brand’s secret section—in his one-scene appearance, watched the somehow-already-edited sequence on his product-placed laptop. Pausing the video on a close-up of my screaming face, he said, “He’ll have to do.”

  Truer words were never spoken.

  In Near Death, Jove Brand and Tender didn’t ever appear in the same shot, one of many unique occurrences in the nineteen-film series. We weren’t even in the same country. According to JoveBrandFan.com, Walter Morris was watching a rugby game on that laptop.

  It had been fifteen years since Sir Collin’s debut and a Brand film with a trial sequence. Fan expectations on the next one were sky-high, considering the fight sequences in Raid the Roof, Niles Endsworth’s indie breakout role. With a shoestri
ng budget in a country an ocean from OSHA, Niles did all his own stunts, including the parkour. The scene where the fire escape collapsed was real. Niles’s right pinky was now permanently crooked from grabbing the window ledge that saved his life. But Raid the Roof came out of nowhere, and Niles Endsworth with it, absent online fanfare. His Brand’s trial sequence would air in the clickbait era, which meant it would be the first to face the speculators, the leakers, and the trolls.

  I pitied the poor bastard.

  Security cracked the doors and the tide was unleashed. Even way in the back, we could hear the rumbling wave of excitement. We didn’t expect to see action for a few hours. Our table sat in a distant corner, past the vendors, feature booths, and actual stars. The bulk of our traffic usually came on Sunday, when the weekend-pass holders explored every nook and cranny in search of things to do.

  It wasn’t five minutes before we got our first customers—two college-aged guys dressed to the nines in full white tie, one of Jove Brand’s signature costumes. JoveBrandFan.com was correct in reporting that when you signed on to play Jove Brand, you were barred from wearing white tie in any other film. This wasn’t an issue for me. I was in white tie for maybe thirty seconds, and only then because the infamous Brand rights contract demanded it. It was a rental that barely fit. You could make out about four inches of cuff in one shot. Kit had to film me from the waist up to keep my socks from showing.

  “You’re here. Sweet,” the left fan said. He gave our table a polite browse before saying, “We just want a picture.”

  “Buy one or take one⎯ it’s twenty bucks,” Yuen replied. It was only natural he played the bad cop.

  “But buy something and we’ll sign it,” I added.

  Of course, they had to run to the ATM. A gaggle of college girls immediately replaced them, each dressed in a shimmering evening gown.

  “How much for all of us?” the bravest one asked while the others stole glances. I hoped I had resting innocent-face.

  “Four people eighty bucks,” Yuen said, quadrupling our profit without skipping a beat. He never developed a tolerance for our fan base. In his eyes, treating us like a sideshow attraction made them the rubes. Yuen tucked the money away and started around the table, but the girls stopped him.

  “Just Ken. Is that okay?”

  “You’re the boss,” Yuen shrugged. “You want me to take it?”

  “I know my angles,” the pack leader replied, shaking out her hair.

  The girls huddled around me, each of them striking a kung-faux pose. It took six attempts to satisfy the pack leader. They didn’t try to talk to me at all, except one girl, who thanked me over her shoulder as an afterthought. The white-tie guys had been waiting their turn.

  “Just you,” the left one said to me. “Can you do like, a double chop?”

  Yuen caught my expression and answered for me. “No problem.”

  This was a first. I arranged a guy on each side, slightly behind me. Looking intensely at the one on my left, I extended my flattened hand across his neck. To keep them in frame, the right one got more of a forearm. Yuen counted down from three. On one, both guys rolled their eyes back and lolled out their tongues.

  They were thrilled with the result.

  The next customer came before I was back behind the table. I froze when I saw him. He was dressed like Sir Collin in A Gentleman’s Play—full riding gear, cheeks bloodied from his first kill.

  “Chop me, dude,” he said, handing Yuen two twenties. Not-Sir-Collin must have seen the other guys pay.

  I tried to make it light, rolling my eyes while bringing the edge of my hand down on his neck, Captain Kirk-style.

  “No, like, across the front,” Not-Sir-Collin explained, miming as if he were sawing his own head off.

  “Fuck off,” Yuen replied with a tight grin.

  The guy fumed for a minute, checked his phone, then split.

  A couple came looking for a threesome. I put them side by side and chopped them both with the same arm. Yuen cleaned out his Tupperware so we’d have a place to stash the cash. I pulled out my phone and went straight to trending. Nothing. Then I searched by keyword.

  The photos were under #FranchiseKiller.

  Layne Lackey called while I still had my phone in hand. He followed up immediately with a text.

  I’m here. Need to meet. ASAP. 911.

  A line was forming. Yuen and I shared a glance.

  “Proceeds go to the Ken Allen Defense Fund,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

  The last eighteen years had prepared me for this. Near Death turned me into a living, breathing inside joke. Now the whole world was lining up to deliver the punch line. I could let that beat me down, or I could roll with it, but I couldn’t avoid it.

  The time had come to show my chops.

  I chopped Jove Brand in white tie and I chopped Jove Brand in his striped racing suit. I chopped my way through Brand Beauties of every color and gender. I chopped Sir Collin and I chopped General Moon Tzu. I even chopped some nutjob cosplaying as the Black Knight, though I had to admit: his black bodysuit and motorcycle helmet—tinted visor and all—were spot-on. Unlike the bulk of his peers, the Black Knight spent as much time making sure he looked good in the costume as he must have sewing it together.

  But most of all I chopped myself. Ken Allen after Ken Allen came to die, in their baby-blue shirts and salmon jackets. In true mirror-match fashion, we traded chops or crossed arms like dueling swordsmen. I dove in head first, full of enthusiasm, smiling and thanking every last “fan.” I would convince the world I didn’t kill Sir Collin, if I had to do it one person at a time.

  The morning surge petered out into the dead zone before people got off work. Friday was usually our slow day, but here it was, only half over, and we had made more than four thousand dollars. We had also created enough buzz that attendees were detouring our way to see what the hubbub was all about. Most people passed by whispering, but one group lingered. There were four of them, three men and one woman, dressed in pseudo-tactical gear and sporting masks.

  Real-life superheroes. In essence, a trumped-up citizens’ patrol. It wasn’t a new idea. New York had the Guardian Angels back in the seventies. They turned their backs to our table and started streaming, the leader pointing over his shoulder now and then.

  “You know these guys?” I asked Yuen.

  “Nope.” He dug out his program to do some research. “They call themselves Street Justice. Have a scheduled self-defense demo on stage C. Says here they have ten black belts between the four of them.”

  “Well sure. They need them to hang all those holsters.” Most of the loops on their tactical gear were empty. These jokers were a prime example why pepper spray and Tasers weren’t allowed inside. Still, they didn’t pat you down in Fresno.

  “Tomorrow we’re charging fifty,” Yuen said. He took out expenses before handing me a wad of ATM-fresh bills. It was better to keep the cash in your pocket at these things.

  “My half is bigger,” I said.

  “My donation to the Ken Allen Defense Fund.”

  I evened the sheaves out. “And here’s my contribution to the Children of Yuen Hung College Fund. If they throw me in prison, this side gig is going away.”

  Yuen tried to wave me off. “You can sign stuff from prison. Plus, when you die behind bars, Near Death memorabilia is going to shoot through the roof. I’m looking forward to my fat book deal.”

  Yuen had to refuse three times, but on the fourth pass I got him to take the weight off me.

  “You lead, Ken,” he said. “I’ll try not to step on your toes.”

  It was our little inside joke. My two qualifications for the part of Jove Brand were the looks and the moves. Every absurd, over-the-top fight scene in Near Death was hatched in my immature, tasteless mind. The closest thing Yuen had to any training was being a salsa dancer on a cruise ship.

  It showed when we fought in Near Death. Mostly Yuen stood there, pretending to get hit while I strung together ludi
crous combinations of punches and kicks. Layne Lackey counted once. Moon-Tzu takes fifty-seven hits to Brand’s nine. I sold each of those nine hard, spinning through the air and crashing into walls in response to Yuen’s suspiciously graceful blows.

  “I thought for sure the networks would have film crews here,” I said.

  “That’s because you aren’t savvy, baby,” Yuen replied. “The showrunners lock them out, then sell them their house footage for six figures easy.”

  “Tell me we didn’t sign a waiver.”

  Yuen grinned. “All part of the rental agreement, my naive sidekick.”

  “Wonderful.” I checked my phone, fingers crossed #FranciseKiller. wasn’t trending, and found a dozen missed calls and texts, all from Layne Lackey. The last read: VIP cafe. I know what happened. I have proof.

  When I showed it to Yuen, he said, “He’s full of it. Layne is going to the Hell of Fruitless Gossip.”

  “That a real place?”

  Yuen rested a hand on his chin. “Rumor has it.”

  No one stopped me on my journey to the lounge reserved for convention guests, though some troll lurking in the crowd shouted, “Killer Brand!” when he saw me. The Black Knight was coming out of the lounge as I approached. He was in character, striding through the crowd like he expected it to part for him, which it did. Layne sure got to him fast. No such thing as too much content for JoveBrandFan.com. And the Black Knight was Layne’s type.

  I jogged to catch the door before it closed. The room was empty, except for Layne Lackey, who was crumpled against the far wall with a hand down his pants. I was halfway to him when I processed what I was seeing.

  Layne Lackey’s throat had been crushed. His discolored neck was rapidly swelling.

  “Hold on!” I yelled at Lackey. The closest thing to a knife on the complimentary refreshment table was a bagel slicer. I didn’t think to bring one. Let one guy with a collapsed airway die, shame on you. Let a second, shame on me.