“Hi, Cathy.”
“So you do remember me.”
Ben nodded. “Of course.”
“What are you doing tonight?” Suddenly it felt to Ben like the two of them were very alone. As if all the staff and all the customers knew this moment was coming and had quietly snuck out the front door to wait in the parking lot until it was over.
“I’m not sure,” Ben said. He’d planned to go home. Watch his movie.
“Let’s go out,” Cathy said. She was taking charge. Even Ben’s inexperienced mind was able to glean that much. It felt good and bad at once.
“Okay, sure. When?”
“Anytime.”
“Okay. Where?”
Cathy shrugged. “We close in two hours. Figure it out by then.”
She winked and walked away. Ben saw the black swinging door swallow her up like a dead mother’s tongue and he turned away from it.
Then the kitchen came back to vivid life and Ben wondered when everybody had snuck back in.
“Way to go, tiger,” Jasper said, slapping Ben on the shoulder. “No offense, but I honestly didn’t think you had this in you.”
Ben wasn’t offended. He smiled. He thought of Jim Bradley. The screenwriter was coming back to town for another talk.
He would take Cathy to see him.
* * *
On the way to Samhattan Books, Cathy said:
“I’ve never met someone like you. Here we are, in our forties, and it’s easy to think love has passed us by. You see your friends getting married when you’re not even twenty-five and you hear they’re having kids and suddenly everybody in the world has a family but you. You learn to accept it after a while. I did anyway. Around thirty-three I started saying forget it, I haven’t settled yet and I’m just not going to. But years later…years!…I run into you. It’s incredible. You’re incredible. You’re so kind. So open. So real. And so I wanted to thank you, Ben.”
She put her hand on Ben’s forearm as he drove to the bookstore.
“Thank you for showing up in my life.”
She gave his arm a little squeeze.
“Here it is,” Ben said.
He pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. About a dozen cars were parked near Samhattan Books.
Ben turned to Cathy and said, “I hope he inspires you like he did me.”
Cathy smiled.
“See?” she said. “You’re always thinking of others.”
* * *
Inside, Jim Bradley had already begun talking to the crowd of twenty. He paused for a beat when he saw Ben and Cathy sitting down.
Cathy noted it. She smiled because she knew how much Ben liked this man. Yet, she couldn’t help but wonder at the unease that flickered in Jim Bradley’s eyes. She chalked it up to the screenwriter not remembering Ben’s name. That was fine. He would learn it again today when Ben introduced her following the lecture.
Which Ben did. Or tried to, anyway, but the people were gathered by the table Jim Bradley was signing books at. What books? She wasn’t sure exactly. Looked like the guy had written a “how-to” book about writing films. Ben stood near the table for a while, just kinda staring at the writer.
“That was interesting,” Cathy said. Because it was. The man talked about how it’s silly to wait for inspiration. How what it really takes is getting in front of the typewriter every day and how a little bit every day really adds up. Truth be told, Cathy almost fell asleep at one point. But she could feel the electricity coming from Ben. As if she were in proximity to a dream realized.
She’d thought many times during the lecture how it was time for her to see Ben’s movie.
“I like his approach,” Cathy said. But Ben wasn’t really listening. He was half smiling, still staring at Jim Bradley behind the fold-out table, as the screenwriter made the locals laugh.
“Cathy Bettman?”
Cathy recognized the voice before her last name was spoken. She turned to see her ex-boyfriend Kevin standing behind her in the bookstore.
Her stomach sank a little. But, one of the by-products of meeting a man later in life was that he would end up meeting some ex-boyfriends along the way. She didn’t think Ben would mind. It was a part of life. Part of being forty.
“Kevin,” she said. He looked older. Wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes. A lot of white in his beard. “Are you a Jim Bradley fan?”
It was the first thing she could think to say. Kevin shrugged and half rolled his eyes.
“It was something to do,” he said.
Cathy felt the familiar pang of disappointment. Of course Kevin didn’t get anything out of the lecture. She suddenly wished he wasn’t here.
“What are you doing in Samhattan?” Kevin asked.
“Here to see him speak.”
“Really? You still living in Glover?”
“Yes,” she said. Then she heard a ruckus near the fold-out table.
“Get out of here,” Jim Bradley said. “Please leave the store now.”
Cathy couldn’t totally believe what she was seeing. The writer was talking to Ben. Ben who looked a little pale. A little like a boy who just realized Santa Claus is real, yes, but he doesn’t like you.
A bookstore clerk came over and took Ben by the arm.
“Looks like your friend said something fucked-up,” Kevin said.
Cathy heard the laughter in Kevin’s voice without turning to look at him. And she didn’t look at him again, as she was already walking toward Ben.
“What’s up?” she asked.
Jim Bradley looked to her with pleading in his eyes. Do you know this guy? Can you help please before this gets weirder?
“What happened?”
The clerk began escorting Ben out.
“Jim Bradley—” Ben began. But the writer cut him off.
“Hey, man, I don’t know you. And you don’t just say what you said to someone you don’t know.”
Ben was past Cathy now. Before following him out, she stepped to the fold-out table and said, “You’re an asshole. He came here to see you.”
Jim Bradley shook his head. Cathy didn’t want to admit it, but he had the unmistakable look of someone who was in the right.
She hurried to the exit, where Ben already was.
Outside, standing on the strip mall sidewalk, she asked him what happened.
“Not much,” Ben said. “Let’s go home.”
Cathy thought of Kevin in the store. Kevin who no doubt was now talking to Jim Bradley about how weird Ben seemed. No doubt ripping her, too.
“Ben Evans,” Cathy said. Then she said the first thing that came to mind, the only thing that made sense to her then, a way to prove to him that he was loved despite being rejected by someone he’d admired. “Ben Evans, if this is going to go anywhere, I’ll have to meet your parents.”
Ben stopped walking to the car. He turned to her and held her eyes a beat.
“I got a better idea,” he said. He smiled then. A warm, genuine smile that had Cathy believing he was feeling good again. That she had done the very thing all partners want so desperately to do: she had stopped him from feeling bad.
“Oh yeah?” she asked.
Ben took her by the hand.
“I’ll show you the movie I made with them.”
* * *
The drive home was wonderful. Ben felt great. He hardly thought of the scene at Samhattan Books at all. Felt more like something that happened a few years ago. More than that. A middle school snafu. They were going to his house to watch his movie. He thought of Hugh and how much Hugh liked it.
At the 7-Eleven, he got chips, flavored water, and wine. Cathy liked those things. He asked her if she was excited and she said sure she was. Ben was, too.
In the driveway at home, he got out and went straight to the d
oor. Almost there, he looked back and saw her carrying the wine bottle by the neck.
“Are they expecting us?” Cathy asked.
But the question was lost in the clatter of Ben opening the screen door and stepping into the house.
Cathy followed him in.
* * *
Immediately her mood changed.
It was the smell of the place. It wasn’t like standing downwind when your dog took a shit in the yard. It was more like when the rain broke up a pile someone had forgotten to pick up.
A bad smell from a little while ago.
“Oh,” she said, unable to stop herself from covering her nose and mouth with her open hand.
“The movie’s in here,” Ben said.
Cathy looked to the staircase before following Ben to the living room. It didn’t sound like anybody else was home. Didn’t he say he lived with his parents? Didn’t he say they were a little older? Needed his help around the house?
It smelled like Ben needed a little help around the house.
When she entered the living room, he was already on one knee, fingering a knob on the VCR on top of the TV. She saw a flash of a shot, a yard through a window maybe, before he hit stop and rewound it.
She looked over her shoulder to a kitchen doorway. She thought there might be cleaning supplies in there. Should she go get some? Should she help out with this smell?
“Take the easy chair,” Ben said. “It’s good luck.”
It didn’t feel like the right time. Of course it didn’t. Here she’d gotten Ben to forget the weird scene at the bookstore and now what? She was going to tell him his house stunk like a wet graveyard?
“Okay,” she said. She gave the chair a quick swipe to remove some crumbs and sat down.
The tape was done rewinding.
“Okay,” Ben said. He was facing the TV, a finger on the VCR. “I hope you like my movie.”
* * *
For Ben it felt like the first time. Maybe it was because he was seeing it through the eyes of someone who was seeing it for the first time. That made sense. He’d heard of things like that before.
Cathy said something. About the makeup? Asked him who made this. Is that what she said? He wasn’t sure. Sounded like she was asking who made his mother!
Ben answered as best he could. Told Cathy how great his mother and father were throughout. Wanted to tell her how much work the first fourteen minutes or so took. That was the stuff of legend. When one scene of a movie took a lot longer than the rest of it.
By the time his father was on-screen, Ben was positively overwhelmed. Here he was, showing Cathy the movie! And there was Father with the mustache Ben had painted above his lip. He wished he’d stood his dead father up a little more erect. The way he was leaning wasn’t great “composition.”
No matter.
Cathy asked something else. Sounded like she asked when his mother and father were going to be in the movie. Ben didn’t respond to that one. Obviously she couldn’t have asked that. There were a lot of things she asked that she couldn’t have asked. At one point he looked over to her and saw she was looking back at him. This made Ben feel bad. He looked back to the screen and wanted to tell her to do the same but he’d read about people being overbearing when they show their own art and how you were supposed to let people “come to the movie” at their own pace.
Cathy was asking more questions. Sounded like she was getting serious. Ben didn’t mind. He would love to talk about the movie all day and night. But would she watch it all first?
“This part,” Ben said. It wasn’t an answer. He just particularly loved the part where he’d stood his mother and father up in the kitchen and talked for both of them. He’d done a really good job here. The only problem was the edit, perhaps, and how, if you caught it, you’d see his father begin to fall to the right. Ben had to pick his father back up that day, the day they filmed, but he thought he’d done a better job of getting rid of the beginning of that fall. Still, the last word of his mother’s sentence landed right as his father began to move, so…Ben guessed it was an artistic decision. He thought he’d made the right one.
Cathy’s voice was getting higher. At some point Ben thought maybe she’d gotten up and was in the kitchen? Maybe she wanted to see where certain scenes were shot? That was cool. That idea. But when he looked back at her, he saw Cathy standing next to the easy chair, looking to the ceiling.
Ben watched the movie. He heard something like pleading in Cathy’s voice. Like she wanted an answer to her question. But Ben wasn’t going to go into the meaning of the film until it was over. So he watched. And watched. Ignoring the rest of the world, all the world that surrounded the square of the TV. Even when he saw Cathy was no longer in the room. Even when he thought he heard creaking upstairs. Where was Cathy? Had she gone upstairs? Why? And had she come back down? He figured she was standing behind the couch. Maybe she had been the whole time. Why would she be interested in his mother and father upstairs? Whatever it was, it was okay. People had to come to the movie at their own pace.
When he heard the front door open and close (quiet, like someone was trying to be quiet), boy did it work perfectly with the movie. He wished he’d added a sound just like it. It was incredible the things you noticed when you watched a movie so many times. Even one you made yourself.
A similar thing occurred a little later. The unmistakable sound of a siren grew louder and louder. Ben wished he’d added the sound to the movie. Had he actually? When did he add this? He wasn’t sure. But boy did it work. His dead mother was looking out her bedroom window, head cocked to the left, her face done up with a lot of makeup that Ben had put a lot of care into. And the siren? It absolutely added to the feel of a city. It suggested an entire world was going on outside the story of the made-up woman on the screen.
Cathy hadn’t asked a question in a long time and Ben only looked to the empty easy chair once more as he heard the front door again, a door he just did not remember overdubbing. Must be real? Really happening? Either way, it went so well with the movie. The scene where Mother and Father stood in the very living room Ben sat in now, as the strings fastened to the bolts in the ceiling held them erect and standing and as Ben spoke for them both. He heard the creaking of the front door opening and clapped his hands for how perfect it was.
Because, as the door opened, his mother (Ben) said,
It’s windy out there, Ben Sr.!
And his father (Ben) responded with,
Strong enough to blow the house down, dear! Strong enough to blow the whole dream apart!
Someone said, “Mr. Evans? Are you in there?”
And Ben clapped again because it was just so perfect. The audio, the visuals, Mother and Father.
And the voices, too. Getting louder. Like they were coming up the front hall to the very room he sat in.
“I’m right here!” he said.
That’s how real it was. That’s how good a job he did.
That’s how good the movie was. So realistic that when he felt hands upon his shoulders, he thought, Oh, Mom, oh, Dad, we did it. And it’s the doing that matters!
A film for the ages.
Made by Ben himself.
A Ben Evans film.
THE FACE IS A MASK
Christopher Golden
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you’re going to burn it?” Massarsky asked. “It’s a lot of money to shell out for something you’re planning to set on fire.”
The younger man, Timothy Ridley, perched on the edge of the worn, burgundy leather sofa as if he might make a run for it. He swirled the ice in his glass of pomegranate juice but never seemed to take so much as a sip.
“You know the story behind the mask?” Ridley asked.
Massarsky leaned back in his chair, its matching leather crinkling loudly. “You think I’d have bought the thing if I didn’t know t
he story? Its ‘provenance,’ as collectors say?”
Ridley nodded. “I’ve heard about your collection.”
“You say that like you’ve got something sour in your mouth, Mr. Ridley. You come here and tell me you want to buy an item from my collection, tell me you intend to burn it, and then you talk to me like you feel dirty even being in my house.”
This last part troubled him most deeply. James Massarsky had worked tirelessly with designers and contractors to get this house built. He had spent decades in the film business, first kissing ass and then making sure everyone else had to kiss his, and goddamn if he didn’t deserve this house. A man’s home was his castle and he had built one worthy of its king. Seven bedrooms, sprawling lawns, central house with two wings and two cottages on the property. Now here comes Ridley, wanting to buy the mask from Chapel of Darkness but acting like Massarsky is somehow beneath him.
“I’m sorry,” Ridley said. “I just…this isn’t a pleasant errand for me.”
Massarsky wanted to punch him in the throat. “I’ve tried to make you comfortable because you’re a guest in my home. If you find it so unpleasant—”
“No, wait,” Ridley said as Massarsky began to rise. “I’m not explaining this well.”
“That’s for sure.” Massarsky settled back into his chair. “Tell me again how you ended up calling me. How did you even know I owned the mask?”
“A friend of my family’s came to your Christmas party last year—”
“This friend have a name?”
“I’d rather not say. Particularly as you don’t seem very happy about it,” Ridley admitted. “But apparently she told my mother that the mask was in your collection, and that you said it gave you the creeps and you were thinking you might sell it one day. My mother asked me to track down your number. I called you, and here I am.”
Massarsky sipped his scotch. “You an actor? Writer?”
“I’m a history teacher in San Diego,” Ridley said. “My mother was an actress. Her name is Athena Ridley.”
Final Cuts Page 25