Usuality

by Thomas Mueller

  They had met working at the Club Mimzy, Marin and him, where she would painstakingly transform him into a woman every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday for the show. Her breasts sat on her chest like plums, small but firm, and she pressed them against him every chance she got. She had a tight muscular body and an ass about as shapely as a young boy’s, but she had it, a kind of oozing sensuality, and it was all that mattered in bed. Garrett had just moved back from L.A. and was lonely, and Marin liked grinding up against somebody wearing more makeup than she did who wasn’t actually gay. Naturally, they soon found themselves meeting in more intimate locations.

  They didn’t date. Marin alternately referred to it as “hanging out” or “fucking.” Garrett didn’t call it anything at all. She confessed she had a husband just as he was reaching climax inside of her on their third Not Date. She was with a man who didn’t appreciate her, she said. She wanted to leave him, she said. Garrett wasn’t the other man, she said, her husband was, and Garrett knew then that whatever they had between them wasn’t love. But they fucked, and partied, and hardly ever slept, blowing through condoms and low-grade cocaine with equal abandon, never completely satiated, but never quite unsatisfied enough to do anything about it.

  After her divorce was finalized, Marin quit the Club Mimzy and started a new profession: spending her alimony as fast as she could. From day one, life with Marin was life on a precipice, but even life on a precipice could become boring and complacent. These days, things between Garrett and Marin sat somewhere between tepid and yesterday’s erection. Garrett was disinclined to abandon their couplehood, but he knew Marin well enough to understand that same stability wasn’t for her, even stability that included his tacit permission for her to sleep with anybody who wasn’t nailed down.

  Something had to give, but where that left him he had no idea.

  “Fuck,” he said into the empty room.

  Reagan knew she shouldn’t be worried. The only reason to worry was when there was actually the chance that something might succeed. With Garrett there was never that chance, but still she worried. She couldn’t explain it.

  She stared at the tacos in their little cardboard tray on her desk. She knew she should eat, knew she should nourish herself and the baby, tackle the backed-up paperwork on her desk, go to the gym, catch up on a million-and-one other things or just take a night for herself and try to relax, but she couldn’t manage to do any of it.

  Stupid Garrett with his stupid smile and his stupid face. And the stupid fact that being an asshole only made her want him more. She caught herself smiling at how much the thought sounded like something that he would say. She forced herself to eat a bite of taco. He was likely screwing things up at this very moment. He was screwing something, that was for sure. She knew how he was. Deep down she knew, even though she wished that it didn’t have to be that way, that he would somehow magically wake up to the fact that “player” wasn’t a job position, that the sluts he went to bed with didn’t respect him any more than he respected himself. Ego wasn’t the same thing as self-respect. His massive ego didn’t leave any room in his life for somebody who might see past it to all the potential buried underneath. The potential for Success with a capital S, for being kind-hearted, strong, winningly resilient, all of the things he was uncannily good at pretending to be (except in an audition, where it counted).

  It had been far too long. Probably Garrett had simply forgotten to call back. But if things had gone poorly she really ought to do damage control. Michelle Lyon, head of OriCAL Entertainment, was not somebody to make an enemy of, and damage control was best done in person. She made a face, and, shoving away her remaining two tacos untouched, dialed up a taxi.

  VIII: NO LONGER USEFUL

  Not wanting to go downstairs until enough time had passed that he could be certain Marin was gone, Garrett decided to explore.

  A kitchen adjoined the room he’d woken up in. He rummaged in the pristine stainless steel fridge he found there until he came across a beer amid the wine coolers and zero calorie flavored waters. He thought about looking for a pint glass but decided against it. Right then he didn’t trust anything that came in a glass.

  The beer helped the bad taste in his mouth. His stomach growled. Carrying the bottle with him, he left the kitchen and turned down another hallway.

  His nostrils twitched. He smelled cigarette smoke a second before a voice said, “You shouldn’t be awake.”

  The man was wearing a dark-colored ski mask and a lightweight windbreaker zipped all the way up to his chin. He had on leather gloves and was holding a shiny silver lighter in one hand along with his cigarette. He raised the smoke to his mouth and sucked on it, and in the glow Garrett could see that a thick mass of facial hair sprouted out from the mask around his mouth.

  “What’s with the mask?”

  “Lower your voice,” hissed the man.

  It was the first time Garrett had heard him speak, but he recognized him nonetheless.

  “I know you, you’re Bill Silverman.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are too.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m wearing a mask.”

  The man who claimed not to be Bill Silverman despite the fact his mask did little to disguise his distinctive beard, glanced down the hallway behind them.

  “Who’s back there?”

  “Nobody. You need to leave. You’re trespassing.”

  The statement was preposterous. Garrett yawned. “I wasn’t trespassing, I was sleeping. Why are you still here? What’s up with the mask?”

  “For Chrissake, would you whisper?”

  Bill Silverman looked over his shoulder again.

  “I’ll whisper if you admit you’re really Bill Silverman.”

  “C’mere,” he said. Silverman grabbed Garrett by the arm, pulling him down the hallway and back to the kitchen, through the sitting room, and down another hallway that Garrett recognized as leading to the balcony he had been brought to earlier.

  Stopping by the doors to the outside, Silverman rounded on Garrett. He slipped the lighter into his pants and pulled a large sleek phone from his windbreaker.

  “Here’s the deal, Asshole. May I call you Asshole?” He held up his phone. “I’m here to collect insurance. You’re here as insurance. You go your way, I go mine, and there won’t be any need for things to get unpleasant.” He put the phone away.

  “You shouldn’t smoke if you don’t want anybody to know you’re here.”

  “Fuck you, I smoke when I’m nervous.” Silverman took out a money clip. He peeled off two hundreds and shoved them at Garrett.

  “What were you taking pictures of?”

  “Nothing that concerns you. Scram. Here’s a double C-note to keep your mouth shut.”

  “You said it was insurance.” said Garrett, taking the money. “That means blackmail. I’m not stupid. This is the president of OriCAL Entertainment’s penthouse, so I assume you mean to blackmail her. But why? She told you that your script was done deal.”

  “You can’t possibly be that naive. This is Hollywood we’re talking about. Enough with the questions. We need to get out of here before she gets up.”

  “What, did you drug her too?”

  “I didn’t drug you. She did.”

  Garrett frowned. “Then why should I go? If I’m still supposed to be asleep, that means you’re the one who’s not supposed to be here.”

  Silverman said nothing.

  “Let me see your phone,” said Garrett, pressing the advantage.

  “Like hell.”

  “I’m onto you.”

  Silverman scoffed. “Sure you are. I heard about that pathetic date you and Jade went on. You were useless then and you were useless earlier when it only meant delivering balloons and a telegram. You’re clueless. Just take the money and forget you were ever here. In fact,” he snatched the two hundreds out of Garrett’s hand, “give me back my money for being such a fuckup.”

  Garrett was undaunted. He put one hand into
his pocket. “There were two other people still here when I started feeling woozy, I remember that much. Michelle and that director’s assistant, me, and, what did you do, hide in a closet or something? Michelle and that girl, Char, I saw them together before I passed out. I got roofied for some reason other than them wanting to get into my pants. The only reason anybody would drug me if they didn’t want into my pants was to make somebody think they wanted into my pants.”

  “What? No. You’re an idiot. That makes no sense.”

  “But I’m right.”

  Silverman’s sour expression told Garrett he’d nailed it.

  “And if you’re taking pictures,” Garrett continued, “I’d be willing to bet you’re taking pictures of the only two other people that are here. So, what, she’s gay? Michelle Lyon? That’s her big secret?”

  Silverman groaned. “How do you even make a leap like that?”

  Garrett shrugged. “She drugged me and didn’t have sex with me. Of course she’s gay.”

  Silverman stared at Garrett like maybe if he concentrated hard enough the actor would spontaneously combust.

  Garrett’s eyes widened. “Really? I’m right? That’s what all this is about, that she’s gay? Who even cares about that anymore, in this town especially.”

  “Well, she cares.”

  “She’s already a multimillionaire. Being gay just makes you more interesting in Hollywood. What’s the deal?”

  “How should I know? She cares because she does, alright? Jesus, why don’t you ask her? Then see if you ever work again. You ever hear of the casting couch?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, this isn’t it. But you got fucked all the same.”

  “I think I’d be able to tell,” said Garrett.

  “Not literally, dumbass. Fucked metaphorically.” Silverman laughed. “You still don’t you get it, do you? You’re nobody. You’re not special. This is just what she does. She invites over random guys, knocks them out with a cocktail, and lets them leave thinking they’ve just had the time of their lives. They can’t remember it afterward, and no macho prick like you would ever own up to that. Fucking narcissists. You believe that you rocked her world, while in reality she’s busy licking her girlfriend’s carpet cleaner than the showroom floor at a vacuum convention. She has somebody escort you out after you wake up, then you go and leak your war stories to the press and it’s made-to-order smoke and mirrors. Everybody thinks they already know her big secret, that she sucks like a Hoover, and nobody digs any further. For whatever reason this is worth it to her. Maybe Mommy and Daddy are fundamentalist nuts. Maybe she hates herself for loving twat and thinks God, or Muhammad, or whoever-the-hell is up there can only see who walks out her front door and not who’s in her bed. Or maybe she just wants everybody to mind their own damn business. Which is what you should have done.” Silverman stuffed the loose bills and money clip back into his pocket. Then, from his coat, he pulled a tiny automatic pistol. “I didn’t want to do this. I told you just to leave, to forget all about this. But no. You had to step all over your dick, and mine too.” He worked the slide on the pistol. “Violence is unimaginative, but sometimes one cannot live the Creative Life without it.” He opened the door to the balcony. “Outside, go.”

  IX: AND THE OSCAR GOES TO…

  There was nothing else he could do. Garrett pushed the door open. The air outside had cooled off considerably. He thought about the telegram sailing over the railing and imagined himself in its place, beginning the terminally long fall to the pavement below. The thought reminded him of Assistant Stick-Up-Her-Butt’s onion breath. He hoped for Michelle Lyon’s sake her partner had chewed some gum first.

  He stopped in the doorway and turned. “How did you find out about all of this anyway?”

  Silverman looked smugly out from behind his mask. “Industry rumor,” he explained. “I reached out to some people. Which isn’t to say it didn’t take a lot of digging to unearth this little gem. But there’s dirt on anybody if you just keep looking.”

  “So you didn’t trust in the quality of your own writing? Understandable.”

  “Fuck you. I trust my writing implicitly. I trust Jade’s writing implicitly. But if I trusted extenuating circumstances even half as much I’d be a fool. Hence the twenty-two caliber foresight. Hey, that’s a good line. Thanks for that.”

  “So now you’re going to kill me to make sure your blackmail scheme isn’t found out?”

  Silverman looked smug again. “It doesn’t matter if Michelle Lyon knows. I want her to know. I’ve got the advantage. The Bulge, that’s what it’s called in the old gangster pictures. The sooner she knows what I hold over her, the sooner we can put this behind us and begin a productive working relationship. She’ll take her lumps, she won’t call the cops. She drugs men for sex. Not sex with them, but still. No way she’d risk that coming back on her. She’s in too deep. I have every confidence we’ll arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement. I’m not going to kill you,” he told Garrett. “I just don’t want you pushing up my timetable. So I’m going to lock you outside and be on my way. Besides, I don’t like you very much. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching you squirm.”

  Garrett sipped his beer. “Sounds like you’ve accounted for everything. Bet you even emailed a backup of the photos to yourself.”

  Silverman’s smile faded. “I didn’t exactly plan on you being awake, did I? But all good plans account for shit going wrong.”

  “Yeah,” nodded Garrett. “Pretty slick. Except that you forgot one small detail.”

  Silverman snorted. “And what’s that?”

  “The dyke with the Oscar.”

  The makeshift golden bludgeon hit the writer in the back of his head. He staggered forward. The gun in his hand discharged and a spiderwebbed hole appeared in the glass door beside Garrett’s hand. He dropped his beer in surprise but managed to catch Silverman in his arms and stop the writer’s forward fall before the man’s dead weight sent them both to the ground. He carefully lowered the unconscious man into a pool of spilled beer. Bending over Silverman, he fiddled for a moment before getting back to his feet.

  He came up holding Silverman’s tiny automatic in one hand and surveyed the scene before him. Char—Assistant Stick-Up-Her-Butt—was still standing just inside the door where she had snuck up behind Silverman. She was naked save for the Academy Award statuette in her hand. Garrett noticed a tattoo on the inside of her left thigh of a naked woman lounging in a martini glass, legs spread. Underneath it read the words: She doesn’t love you, it’s just your turn.

  For her part, Assistant Stick-Up-Her-Butt looked from the crumpled form of Silverman on the ground to the gun in Garrett’s hand and then levelly met his gaze, not intimidated in the slightest.

  “Dyke with the Oscar?” she asked. “I ought to shove this statue so far up your non-PC ass your eyes cross.”

  Michelle Lyon had come up beside Char. She had a pale cream-colored sheet wrapped modestly around herself. Garrett thought she looked like a skinny Greek goddess with sleep in her eyes and disheveled hair. Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her despite the way (according to Silverman) she had been intending to take advantage him.

  “I do sing in the shower,” said Garrett.

  Michelle Lyon looked at the gun in his hand but said nothing.

  “You asked,” said Garrett. “Earlier. If I sing in the shower. I do.”

  “Oh,” she said finally. “Yes, that’s right. There must be some flaw in the plumbing.”

  Garrett was crestfallen. The way she had phrased it left no room for him to believe she actually enjoyed his voice.

  Char gestured with the golden statue toward Garrett’s appropriated gun. “What do you plan on doing with that?”

  He turned the weapon sideways in his palm and studied it. It looked like a toy, but it had put a hole in solid glass and could have just as easily put a hole into one of them. Still could, in fact.

&nbs
p; “Am I free to go?”

  Char rolled her eyes. “You’re the one with the gun, genius.”

  Michelle Lyon put a hand on the woman’s arm. “There are a few things we need to get straight. You got drunk,” she informed Garrett coolly. “We were kind enough to let you sleep it off. Speculate, mention to anybody that anything else happened here, and you will discover what it feels like to be flayed alive by an unending swarm of lawyers.”

  “I don’t suppose doing this will win me any new friends.”

  Michelle Lyon smiled at him, but it was an empty smile, not one of burgeoning friendship. “You have my gratitude,” she said, and her tone told him exactly how little that gratitude would be worth.

  “What about Silverman?”

  Michelle Lyon smiled. “I expect I’ll have to put him under contract after he sleeps this off. That odious man and his partner just penned the script to OriCAL’s next summer blockbuster.” Michelle Lyon locked eyes with him. “But you are lower than dog shit to me. If you ever so much as breathe a word of any of this, life as you know it will be over.”

  Char backed away from the door and put an arm around her...girlfriend? Garrett didn’t know what they were. “Girlfriend” would imply that they went out on dates together. They treated men like objects, drugged them, had trysts, and generally played by their own rules, but dating? He wasn’t certain that so normal a word as “girlfriend” applied.

  He wondered why she was taking such great pains to keep her sexual preferences a secret. It didn’t make any sense. He hated to see people so ashamed or insecure about something that they felt they needed to keep it a secret. But persecution didn’t automatically make the persecuted a good person, and so far Michelle Lyon’s actions were doing nothing to engender sympathy.

  “You know,” he said, “if you didn’t try so hard to hide who you really were, nobody would have anything to blackmail you with.”