The Death Scene Artist

by Andrew Wilmot

  I know what you’ll do next, though. You’ll try to get me on the basis of a threat. You’ll call up your crack team of lawyers, if you have one, and they’ll advise you to come after me with another cease and desist order – on formal letterhead this time – on the grounds that I’m attacking you and your client’s character. It won’t work, though – you struck first, Ezra, and you’d do well to remember that. Until you fired that warning fax across my bow I’d left your name out of this. But go ahead and give me your best shot. I’m not afraid of you or D____. You see, that’s the beautiful thing about dying – that whole “fear” thing starts to take a back seat to everything else.

  Was that the “sensitive information” you threatened in your last email to make public? That you absolutely could not have acquired through legal means? That I’m dying? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. No threats. Not here. Not between us pals. We’re better than that, aren’t we? What I want to know is, what was your play? A vote of no confidence? Please, pay no attention, ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, to the vulgar, delusional ramblings of a has-been who never was. Just another poor soul unlucky in love, and in life, doing their part to drag down a good, honest, hard-working silhouette of a dead man.

  Ezra, you fool. That’s my ace in the hole. It’s true: I’m dying. I’ve got a sick mind and an even sicker heart. Trembling bowels, pathetic, whimpering lungs and an appendix that wants to vacate my toxic interior. Oh, and a tumour growing over the left side of my brain like a cartoon storm cloud that follows me everywhere I go. That’s the big one, I suppose. It’s the malignant fucking tent the rest of the shit huddles beneath to keep warm.

  Right now, Ezra, I’ve got the best of both worlds working in my favour: nothing to hide, and nothing to lose.

  * * *

  ††

  I’ve been working on this entry for two days now. But whenever I sit down at my computer to write I start to feel sick again. Last week, fittingly enough, was the anniversary of Dad’s death. He’s been gone half my life, and now, when I wake up in agonizing pain in the middle of the night, clutching both sides of my head and dry heaving myself to exhaustion, it’s almost like he never left at all. It’s like he gave me one last gift – one thing he could be sure I’d have to wear like he did. Now when I put on one of the few sleeves I still have that’s in one piece, even the smallest are too spacious for what little is left on my bones and I’m forced, too often for my liking, to see the rejected framework of what lies beneath. The hipless, breastless, shapeless shell of a never was or would be.

  You know the fuckiest punchline of them all? It’s this thing I learned back when I was in therapy in high school, about my anorexic eating habits. It’s about control – about taking hold of at least one facet of your life, when all else seems as if it’s spiralling out of control, and making it yours. Making your body a thing that you control, and not the other way around. Whenever I’ve been at a lower, more dangerous weight, it’s been because the world around me seemed like something I couldn’t touch. Now I’ve got this godforsaken cancer eating away at my brain and body, doing the work of the eating disorder for me, and I can’t keep anything down to save my life. The one fucking thing I felt like I had any control over and I don’t even have that anymore.

  But I still have this story.

  While Dad’s been gone now sixteen years, it’s only been about a year and a half since Mom died. I’d been ignoring Louise’s calls for some time – since the last time she and I talked and the conversation, once more, dipped into my dating history. She’d said I’d been living in a dream world. It stung more than I was willing to admit. She tried periodically to get hold of me after that, giving up after a couple of weeks of no response. However, two days after meeting Ezra for the first time, while I was sitting in a Barnes & Noble tapping my pen against a blank notebook page, Louise called again. This time she left a message on my voice mail, immediately following with a text: Listen. Please. It’s important. I was about to play the message when I spied a woman in her mid-thirties coming around the end of the aisle, her fingers tripping across book spines on the shelf in front of her – Palahniuk to Priest – as she searched for something she thought would be worth the investment. She looked Mediterranean; she had dark olive skin and long black hair, very fine, that extended several inches past her shoulder blades. She was wearing a cropped black T-shirt of a band I’d never heard of. The skin around her waist was taut, stretched across a muscular midsection. It was perfect in its almost impossibly firm appearance, and was exactly what I needed to finish a partially completed design that had been draped for weeks over the small table in my kitchenette. You would have loved it, D____; I was stitching a dead ringer for your You Can’t Go Home Again co-star, the one you stepped in front of a bullet for during the opening credits. At the time I thought it’d be all kinds of romantic.

  Upon seeing that woman, I forgot all about Louise and her message. I closed my still-empty notepad and stood up from my seat, slipping quietly down an adjacent aisle from which I could watch as my target gave up her search for something interesting to read and headed instead for the exit. I followed.

  Louise called again the very next day, while I was busy fitting my newly acquired skin swatch into the existing pattern, getting ready to stitch it all together and complete the new sleeve. I contemplated letting it go to voice mail, but decided on the last ring to pick up.

  “You self-centred motherfucker,” she said before I’d even had a chance to speak.

  “Hello to you, too, sunshine.”

  “I’ve had your back all these years, I’ve been there for you through literally everything – even when Mom and Dad weren’t – and this is how you repay me? I said it was important, M_____. I said it was important and still you bailed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, just then remembering her text from the previous day. “I got distracted.”

  “You got distracted?”

  “You’re repeating what I said. Again. You do this quite a bit.”

  “Well fuck you, here’s something new: Mom’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Yesterday. You know, when I fucking called you the first fucking time.”

  “How? What happened?”

  “Oh, now you care?”

  “Louise,” I said, calm as I could manage, “stop. I’m asking. I care.”

  She huffed loudly. I waited in silence for more than half a minute. “I get it, you know,” she said, starting up again. “Why you left. I never doubted for a second your reasons. But just because you’ve got this great and complicated new life in LA doesn’t mean we stopped existing up here.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so pissed,” I said, suddenly frustrated that she was taking her anger out on me. “Mom never wanted me around. Why does it matter whether I was there or not?”

  “Because I need help with this, okay? You ever think maybe that things haven’t been so great up here? She barely left the house after Dad died. Just took her pills and shut the blinds and that was it. You needed to go, and I get that, I do, and I don’t begrudge you that. But I couldn’t. I was stuck here looking after her, because there wasn’t anybody else. I changed her, and washed her, and … and now she’s gone. Heart attack in the middle of the night.”

  “Well ding-dong, then – move on with your life.”

  Louise fell silent again. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. You’re not the least bit upset by this, are you?”

  “Should I be? She didn’t want me, Lou. She wanted you. She made that perfectly clear every time she glossed over all your fuck-ups and sob stories while mine were ripe for retelling to anyone who’d listen.”

  Which was always how it had been. Dad might’ve been the one to really voice his disappointment in me, but Mom never disagreed with him. She never once came to my defence. She cared to the extent that she could – she sought help when she saw that I
was sliding weight-wise – but it was never free; there was always an emotional surcharge to her actions, a debt I would need to pay. Like when I had to listen to her on the drive back from the doctor’s office, saying, “You’ve put me through so much, do you not see that? Do you not get it? Is this all a game to you?” That was her favourite phrase. She brought it out all the time, like when shit went down with the yearbook committee: “Is this all a game to you? These are people you’re hurting, M_____!”

  I’d not lived up to either of their expectations, that much was clear. And when Dad was gone, when it was just Mom, I was there to remind her all the more of what she’d lost.

  “Yeah, and now I get to do all the final arrangements,” Louise snapped.

  “Well, you did get the better grades.”

  “For fuck’s sake, M_____.”

  “Why are you making this such a big deal? Just shove her in a pine box and send her out to sea.”

  “Fuck you!” she screamed. She was crying – I could hear the glass in her voice spiderwebbing from the centre out. I tried to think of something to say, some last-minute barb I could stick her with, to tell her to get her shit together and get on with living the life she wanted to live – that it wasn’t my problem she felt some ridiculous lingering obligation to a woman who’d never treated me as anything more than an obstacle – but she hung up on me.

  It’s a strange thing, smart phones. You just push a button and the other person disappears. There’s no heightened emotion from slamming down the receiver, no loud smash as it’s thrown up against a wall. The other end just goes dead, cuts to black and you’re done.

  * * *

  ††

  Louise Farris (1972–2012) was a kind and loving sister who grew up to be a doormat. And a bit of a snob. And fuck your business yoga pants. She is survived by her boyfriend, Mark, who continues to smile and nod and pretend like he matters.

  Also, please don’t throw out my movie box.

  22. E-X-P-L-O-D-E.

  Posted: 03/21/2014

  ex•plode /ik splod/ (-plod•ed, -plod•ing, -plodes) v 1. vti BLOW UP OR BURST to blow up or burst with a sudden release of chemical or nuclear energy and a loud noise, or cause something to blow up or burst in this way 2. vti BURST OR SHATTER to burst like a bomb or shatter into many pieces, or cause something to do this 3. vi EXPRESS EMOTION to give vent to an emotion, suddenly or violently 4. vi INCREASE DRAMATICALLY to increase suddenly in extent or severity in an uncontrolled way 5. vi PRODUCE VIVID DISPLAY to produce a vivid, often sudden display of light or colour 6. vi APPEAR SUDDENLY to appear, start or move suddenly and forcefully. To become a star. To be somebody.

  It’s what they use to describe that improbable scenario of unexpected stardom: He or she exploded onto the scene; so-and-so was walking their dog one day, or taking their kid to school, or waiting tables at IHOP, when the right pair of eyes passed over them at the exact perfect time. Suddenly they were whisked away by the steady hand of a strapping, young, late-twenties European import with proto-’80s sensibilities and an unhealthy admiration for the works of Stanley Kubrick or Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola. You’re gonna be a star, they’d parrot. Name in lights, Oscars out the ass, all your dreams and desires come true.

  Except it never happened like that. Not really.

  By the end of that summer I’d stopped searching for my own work, for my own chance to explode onto the scene – any scene – and started following D____ across the country. It was handled quietly at first – he’d leave a note or something with the details of the next shoot, smile a “see you later” at me and I’d find my way to him, ready with a selection of sleeves I’d be able to slip into in the heat of the moment. Gradually he started giving me more to go on. He’d photocopy certain pages of the script – his pages – and leave them in an envelope on the pillow next to my head in whatever hotel or motel room we were staying in; he never took me back to his place (if he even had a place), never wanted to come back to mine. I’d remain asleep, or pretend to be sleeping, even if he knew I was really awake. I was getting used to our routine: he’d leave; sometimes I’d cover the bill, sometimes he’d get it; and then I’d go home, or to a gas station bathroom somewhere with my wardrobe to prepare. Then I’d tuck my lengthening hair under a mesh wig cap and strip off all my clothes before pulling out the rolling suitcase I took with me on each of these trips. Inside were several carefully folded garment bags containing individual sleeves, as well as some needles and thread, a handful of cloth rags and a couple of sealed jars of the treatment solution. Once I knew where I was headed next and what I needed in order to fill in the off-script blanks of his life, I would select the appropriate sleeve and lay it out on the nearest flat surface, carefully treat it, stitch whatever threading had come undone or whatever wounds had opened in transit and step inside whoever it was I was supposed to be.

  When we slept together, sometimes the sleeves got so damaged they couldn’t be repaired. Sometimes I pushed things too far, let them go untreated for too long, and they fell apart with him on top of me, grinding both me and what remained of the skin I’d worn that day into the bedspread. The next day I’d make sure to clean up all that I could, to not leave any evidence of our lovemaking for housekeeping to find, for fear of what they might think. I went through more sleeves during this time than at any other. They did their job, though.

  And I was whoever I was supposed to be.

  I was whoever he needed me to be.

  23. What Happens in Vegas …

  Posted: 03/21/2014

  INT: BELLAGIO RESORT & CASINO / PETROSSIAN BAR -- LATE NIGHT

  SARAH (37-year-old White female) squeezes the arm of her companion, BRILL (38-year-old White male). The two of them cozy up to one another on one side of the round table in one of the far corners of the lounge.

  On the other side of the table sit ALEX (44-year-old White male) and his wife, SILVANA (30-year-old White female). They are sitting with a small gap between them, their hands clasped together in the space left on the seat.

  M_____ (V.O.)

  It was September and we were between back-to-back shoots in Las Vegas. You'd taken me out for dinner and drinks on the strip. We were, for the moment, Alex and Silvana Irvine: you, a door-to-door insurance salesman; me, a long-limbed Sicilian-American mix in a pale pink slip with long black-brown hair curled halfway down my back. We were husband and wife on our first vacation in years, coming all the way down from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to see the lights and play some slots.

  SARAH

  (Laughing)

  You guys are a riot! I just can't believe we haven't met before now.

  SILVANA (V.O.)

  That was Sarah. We bumped into her and her husband, Brill, earlier in the evening, while out on the strip, then again, in the lobby of the Bellagio, after we'd finished dinner.

  (Beat)

  They asked if we wanted a drink. You didn't even hesitate before saying yes.

  SILVANA smiles at SARAH on the other side of the table and sips from her MARTINI.

  SILVANA

  It's a pretty big world out there. I bet there are all kinds of people you haven't met yet.

  SARAH shakes her head.

  SARAH

  Oh, don't give me that! I don't want to hear it.

  SARAH wags her index finger at ALEX and SILVANA.

  SARAH (Cont.)

  You two … You're a pair of aces is what you are. This wasn't chance -- I don't believe in all that … that right-place-right-time garbage. This was fate.

  BRILL condescendingly pats SARAH'S thigh.

  BRILL

  (Smiling awkwardly)

  Sarah's a big believer in the universe's grand plan for us all.

  SILVANA (V.O.)

  Listening to Brill was like witnessing a parent trying to explain away their child's eccentricities -- Oh, that rambunctious lunatic
of mine, she says the craziest things.

  (Beat)

  But they were still very much in love with one another. That much was clear, right from the start. They'd been together seven years and each still stared at the other as if they'd been dating for less than a month.

  SARAH turns and slaps BRILL'S wrist.

  SARAH

  Oh, hush up, you.

  SARAH turns back to ALEX and SILVANA.

  SARAH (Cont.)

  Brill doesn't see the beauty in this world. All he sees is fluke and happenstance. Nothing but a world of potential and possibilities. That just … it feels so cold to me.

  ALEX reaches forward, picks up his MARTINI GLASS and twists it by the neck. He stares at the liquid swirling inside.

  ALEX

  But possibilities are a good thing. They give us strength and hope for the future.

  SARAH

  Not the way he sees it. Take us, for example. The way he sees the world, we weren't meant for one another. It was all a factor of timing, location and coincidence.

  ALEX

  Right place …

  SARAH

  (Nodding)

  … Right time.

  SARAH stares across the table at ALEX and taps the side of her nose. She turns to BRILL and scrunches her face at him.

  SILVANA (V.O.)

  Without intending to do so, we'd managed to pull these two into our scene as it was still being written, and neither was the wiser. At first I felt a bit like a fraud or an imposter, like we were tricking these two unsuspecting participants into taking part in something without either one of them knowing what was really going on.