Thank You and Good Night

by Ray Succre

  There was an attempt at cordiality. Emery was not so sad when talking over the goodness of his friend’s life, so long as he could keep this going. The wake became a place of chatter, and Emery tried to strike up a conversation, at one point, with the uncle, as many had attempted that day. Emery approached and, after a brief greeting, mentioned the shared career he and Larry had fostered together. The point was to introduce Larry’s great success, to describe for this unavailable family member the lengths to which one might be proud of Larry, and how far Larry had come, what he had accomplished. Perhaps the uncle would take this news back home, tell any other family members, and let it be known that Larry had been a young man for whom they might take pride. The uncle, however, made his resolve quite clear with a grunt and lack of eye-contact: Leave me alone.

  And so Larry Belmont, the imaginative and unique writer of dark tales, who had survived an imaginative and uniquely dark childhood, and who then had an equally surprising, twist-ending of a funeral, after an imaginative and darkly unique death, was buried before all present. He had a closed casket, per Helen’s request. Anyone would have made the same request. Helen spoke much with friends, but did not speak in an official capacity at the funeral, owing to her nervousness and grief. She stayed always near Beth or Calvin, and spoke to Emery much, seeing the friends as more the relatives of Larry than those other present.

  She talked about Larry’s appearance, the nightmare that the past two years had fostered in her. Larry had died at the young age of thirty-eight, and his ninety-year old appearance had horrified her. She felt incredibly guilty for trying to stay away from him in the last weeks, for keeping to herself in the living room and attempting to visit what she referred to as Larry’s room as little as she could. This had been his study, which they had converted into a makeshift sick room. She had fed her husband, of course, and cleaned him, and there were moments when she entered the room in the middle of the night and watched him sleep, praying that some sort of relief might come, either in remission or, in her quieter thoughts, passing.

  Beth knew that Helen would need her friends for a time after the funeral, to help her go on and re-acquaint her with the world. Larry’s illness had become all Helen thought about, and she was now widowed with those thoughts. It had scarred her deep in as a thing could. Emery understood this. His nightmares about the war still continued to eat at him in the late hours, and would likely never abate. Helen’s troubles were only over in one sense. The brunt of the emotional shocks she had been subjected to would only continue to reach out for her. The funeral and wake were but signposts, large ones, in the map of a particular life’s sorrow, and these were the only elements of Larry’s passing by which she would have company. Emery and Beth kept near to her, and promised one another they would continue to do this in the months to come. Beth was keeping herself together and remaining a support beam for Helen during the trying funeral, but had a definite view on the matter of Larry’s relatives.

  “I can’t stand to look at them. I wish someone would chase them out,” Beth said.

  Calvin Moffat had grown close to Larry over the past few years, and they had been loose acquaintances before The Other Side had even been pitched. They had shared the same agent for the past seven years.

  Calvin’s character at the funeral seemed greatly troubled, but not so much in the usual way of funeral thoughts and somber occasion. He seemed more confused than grief-stricken. Perhaps Calvin Moffat was having difficulty understanding what had happened to Larry. The disease that took the younger writer’s life was certainly one for building bafflement and grief. Calvin spoke little and tended to keep close to Emery. He did not have the look of a man who had recently lost a good friend, but rather, the look of a man who had just learned that he, himself, was dying.

  Emery knew that Calvin and Larry had been collaborating on a screenplay for Universal, and that both of them had formed a sort-of work-friendship. Even on The Other Side, they had proven quite apt at looking out for one another and relating rumors of jobs and general television news. They had been cohorts, really, and having that severed was difficult for Calvin on a variety of levels, the worst of which was surely grief at having lost a close friend. Moffat had no wife to come home to, and no one to which he might relate his troubles. He was, by his own preference (and somewhat embellished), a lone gun. Emery needed to spend time with the man soon.

  Calvin had planned to speak at the funeral, but after hearing some of the stories Jones Nutts had offered, felt his own speech was nonsense. What light anecdote could follow such a bizarre and rampantly surreal summary of a life? It had not only taken the wind from Calvin’s sails, but troubled him greatly. His occasional glances at Emery and brief sparks of their conversation, more statements than talk, were not for comfort, but in disbelief. Calvin could not process the information he had received. It baffled about in his brain like an equation he was neither able to solve nor remove from his head. He had the look of a man who had recently been haunted and might lose quite a bit of sleep over it. Orson Banry spoke, shortly, and gave a kind and excellent synopsis of the original and talented man that had been Larry Belmont. When first out of the military, Larry had been so eager, and contacted Banry as a fan. What Banry had at first thought to be advising a young writer had quickly become a fellowship, and Larry had been invited into the Orange Grove writing group, which had been somewhat exclusive.

  “I was talking to him one afternoon,” Banry said, “oh, it was a sunny day in ‘52, and I mentioned our relationship using the word wizard to describe myself, something he had called me a few times in the past. A joke between us. I somewhat considered Larry a kind of apprentice. So there we were, in my study. Smoking and beer. And when I said wizard he stared at me and put his hand up, you know, ‘stop right there’, and with irritation, he said, ‘Knock it off, Orson. We’re peers now, you ass’. He was right, of course, and thankfully saw fit to inform me of my error.” Banry spoke with mirth and finished quickly. He was quite upset but hid some of this, as was preferred in the society of a funeral.

  Several days prior, Helen had asked Emery to speak, and he had agreed to do so. Emery had prepared a thing that he might say for a funeral, but more a thing that would serve as a goodbye to a dear friend. As with Calvin Moffat however, what Emery had written no longer felt so relevant. He stood before the gathering of friends and loved ones, the people Larry had escaped from and the people he had run to, and Emery kept only the end of the speech, beginning openly and with a straight approach. He improvised until he found a place to enter.

  “I think it’s fair to say there was much about our good friend we did not know, and many aspects of his life, especially his early life, that might have been kept secret for specific, and… well, for understandable reasons. I won’t, and neither should any of you, resent or trouble over why he kept these things private. You would have done that. So would I. That we were allowed to know these things now, after his passing, is really a good indication as to how much Larry trusted us. He kept his secrets because he didn’t want to change the way we looked at him, or felt about him. That he wanted us to know these things now, after his passing, shows that he always wanted us to know, just not while he might see our looks at him change. Self preservation. That’s all, and I think we can all understand it, because that’s something we all have in us. A lot of it, in fact. And I think Larry may have done more preserving of his self than just about anyone I’ve ever known.”

  CUT TO:

  EMERY ASHER is giving his eulogy for LARRY. We see the viewing table and casket behind him, off left. As he continues speaking, we see the casket’s lid budge (EMERY ASHER continues giving his eulogy during this scene). Atop the viewing table, the lid of the casket opens slowly and we see a LITTLE GIRL (around 7-years old in a summery dress, but a girl who still looks quite boyish) trying to get out. She awkwardly climbs out of the casket. After climbing down, her feet finally on the floor, she leaves the casket lid open. Turning to the funeral’s participan
ts, the LITTLE GIRL leans back against the casket and table it rests on. Nonchalant, she lights a cigarette and begins smoking, one foot crossed over the other and leaning back, listening in on the funereal speech.

  We CUT TO EMERY ASHER again, still giving his improvised eulogy. We can see the LITTLE GIRL behind and off his left, smoking and listening. She seems a little bored.

  CUT TO:

  “The things we’ve heard today about Larry… this is a young man that fought for his identity harder than most of us can understand. Harder than I ever fought in a trench, and harder than even his struggle to become a writer. Most of us know who we are, and a lot of that begins in childhood. It’s shaped by our parents and our friends, usually with the mode of helping us to fit in and understand our role. But it doesn’t sound as if Larry had those things in his favor, and he had to make some mind-boggling decisions about who he was at an age when most of us were still writing our letters to Santa Claus.”

  “I am honored to have been his friend. You see, I loved Larry much, and I think we all did, and do, and he’ll always have a great seat in our hearts. Front row, certainly. And knowing these things about his youth only strengthen my respect and admiration for him. I’m certain many of you will feel the same way. I think it’s... important to know that his early life, which is eclipsed only by the sad fashion he left this world, is something… it’s something so personal that we can’t help but remember him in the strongest way. I think that’s why he arranged us to hear these things today. To remember him well, to hold him in our hearts. And we most certainly will, won’t we? His disheartening past, his fiery career, his greatness and well-meaning, and even the way he went at the end... I think he has very well orchestrated that no one here will ever, ever forget Larry Belmont.”

  There was a little laughter then, with a solitary few claps from the back of the funeral parlor that caught on, beginning a short round of light applause, something by which Emery was upset. Applause did not belong at a funeral. He slowed for a moment, out of place. The claps had caused him to remember he was a writer, and this brought him a spark of disgust for himself. A funeral was no place to do well. He was not, of course, but the feeling was there: Performance. He hated it. Emery decided to finish his impromptu speech by cutting to the end, a portion he had, indeed, written in the previous week. It was short and contained a quote.

  “He was one of the most talented and loyal people I have ever known, and he developed his gift as both a professional and a wild-man. Let me say that while I am sorely remiss to have lost such a great friend to his inevitable end, I am thankful that this end came, and the fashion in which it happened is one I will celebrate as being merciful. Larry’s passing, to me, will always be a compassionate finale to a wondrous life. Nothing changes that. Nothing at all.”

  A raised eyebrow from the uncle caused Emery to falter. He scanned about the room and saw Calvin looking distraught and deeply puzzled, still caught in the glare of what he had heard in the previous hour. Jones scratched at his temple and wore the glaze of noncommittal. The brother’s job of being present and telling what there was to tell had been accomplished. There was only a small amount of loss in him for his little brother, it seemed. As Emery built in thought, he stuttered across the eyes of Helen. She was weeping quietly to herself in the front row, accompanied by her dismayed mother, and staring at the casket in which her husband had been set. Emery quickly averted and found Beth. Her nod caused his heart to start again.

  “Uh, I’d… I’d like to offer a quote from Shakespeare, a writer that Larry and I discussed many times while more than excitably drunk and certainly full of ourselves, um, which many of you know we were often. It’s from the soliloquy and goes like this: ‘To die. To Sleep. No more. And by a sleep we say to end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.’ Now, that quote is naturally well known, but it’s true in this situation, and if he could hear it, I think he would find it apt. Even more apt, now, since having learned more about Larry’s youth today, I can say with confidence he had more than the usual share of heartache, and I believe Larry definitely had out his thousand shocks, and then some. The thing is…”

  Emery swallowed, his throat a baking pipe of weeds and itch. He had gone off-track. He just wanted to say more for Larry. After clearing his throat, he simply wandered aloud in his thoughts.

  “...to tell you the truth… well, this is no usual man. Not at all. He bore through all of these troubles, and he did it on his own, and then with the help of his loving wife, Helen, and later, with his friends, and- he did it with so much life. It’s inspiring and he was a hell of a man. I truly and deeply admire him. Just for a moment, I want to bid my good friend farewell, and thank the fates for my having been able to know him. For even a short time.”

  Emery turned his head and indicated the casket. There were no more words that would suffice, save the simplest.

  “So long, Larry. It’s over and you handled it perfectly.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Winter was inaugurated through damp limbs and a cold disposition, but beneath the clouds and deadened feel, a few warm winds could still come. Thanksgiving had been a slow and quiet event, owing to the circumstance of Belmont’s passing and the unavailability of work, but in the following week, something positive finally began to happen. Emery had been contracted to write three short scripts, a half-hour each, that were to be placed in a row with a wraparound introduction and then aired on NBC as a one-time television movie. This project began immediately, and by Spring, the project was ready to be filmed.

  The art of the television movie was no stranger to the airwaves, and Moffat had recently had some success with one, but it was the first time Emery had taken part in something longer than an hour for television. As with The Other Side, a show that had undoubtedly paved the way for this particular project, he was to narrate and host the movie. The design was to use four appearances, one to introduce the first tale, another two to introduce the following tales, and a final closer monologue for all of them. There would be three different directors, one for each tale. The wrap-around would be shot by one of them, as well.

  The film had a structure and shell that Emery had developed, something that might give an able-bodied presence to his past work, while reaching into a slightly new area as working theme: A museum. Rather than introduce his new tales as coming from the other side, or some such place, he now would exhibit an actual picture-frame that held an image from each story, something from the set or a frame from the opening. He would act as a curator to these tales, beginning with small exhibits that gave a short representation of what was to come. It wasn’t wholly original, but functioned well and had those elements of his previous work people had come to expect. He hoped it would please all concerned, though had become a bit gun-shy about appearing on camera. Some of the negative things said after The Passing of the Hand had been said directly to him, in person, because he was recognizable. Acting before a camera, after these personal encounters, and after having done so many commercials, now bothered him. He was only going before the cameras again because the contract for his television movie hinged upon his agreeing to do so.

  He knew he had become a servant to demographic, one that now concocted his frames and subjects with those mannerisms to which the public seemed most receptive. It was a standard evolution in one’s art: You splashed into being with a certain thing, and then were expected to repeat that thing, with occasional forays into other notions and formats, but overall, your public splash needed to be harked back on every so often. A few artists could surpass this and move into other territory, but Emery did not seem to be one of those lucky souls. He needed to follow his name and reputation, rather than to let these things follow him, for a time. The conceits and themes in his work were still his own, but he would now cater the details a bit, give the public something they were known to appreciate, at the outset. The younger Emery might have found this to be too unsteady a compromise, but that younger
Emery had not been accustomed to failure. Negativity and the repugnance of being unwanted, or even forgotten entirely, was the sort of burdensome creature that resided always beside one’s soft throat, and it terrified him.

  The early portion of Spring was shot away by cameras. His creative control of the film kept him quite busy, yet even without recent practice, he found himself far less exhausted than he would have first surmised. This was not to last, however. He could write and appear on camera, but producing was what drained him most. Being a producer could overwhelm him quickly, and this exhaustion came on suddenly, hindering his writing and acting. He continued however, managing changes and keeping his rifle loaded, moving forward even when uncertain. It was a good project and paid well; he could rest when it was completed.

  CUT TO:

  We see EMERY in jeans and a t-shirt from the side in medium shot, standing on a set. He’s holding several papers in his left hand and looking downstage. He steps forward, off the small shooting set, toward a very large camera. There is no one around. He is alone. We see him reach the camera and press his face into the lens.

  C.U. FROM SIDE: EMERY and the camera lens. His mouth and nose are hidden by the rubber lens skirt. We can hear Emery whispering something to the machine. We draw closer until we can hear what is being said in this odd moment.

  EMERY: