I’m Losing You

by Bruce Wagner

  You won’t believe this. Laura and I had dinner with Dana Delany and we were talking about how we want to write this book on all the kinky massages we’ve ever had. I tell them about the time that girl Gina walked in on us—do you remember? Gina Tolk? With the Sheryl Crow mouth and the white trash New Age vibe? How she used to pull out this big frog paperweight and sit it between my tits like some crystal succuba? So Laura brings up the thing about me being impersonated (she heard about it from Jennifer Jason—they both see Calliope Krohn-Markowitz, the shrink who was attacked) and suddenly Laura goes Oh my God! She says Calliope has a glass menagerie of paperweights she keeps in the office and Laura’s favorite one—the frog—was stolen by the girl who assaulted her! We screamed. (It seems a few weeks after the attack, Laura asked where the paperweight was and Calliope told her what had happened.) So Dana says we have to call, like, now. We leave a message for Calliope and she phones us back in twenty minutes. I describe the masseuse physically and the shrink says it sounds like her so we actually call the police, on a conference! Me and Dana and Laura and Calliope and the LAPD! Isn’t this fantastic? Make a great script: The Women meets The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. You know, if they arrest her, she just might slander us on Court TV. “And what did you see when you entered the room, Ms. Tolk?” “Why, the screenwriter—Ms. Grosseck—eating the shaved holes of the director—Ms. Pargita Snow…” “And where were they positioned, Ms. Tolk?” “The holes?” “The ladies.” “Why, on the bloodstained futon, counselor.” “Objection!” “And what was the condition of the futon, Ms. Tolk?” “Objection, Your Honor! The futon has been described!” “Overruled! Answer the question, Ms. Tolk…” “Could you please repeat—” “What was the condition of the futon?” “Objection!” “The futon!” “Why, it was—” “Suh-STAINED!”

  Gina Tolk

  In these moments, I think ruefully of my sister, Wanda, and how she suffered at the hands of the man who was (and had never shirked from claiming to be) our Father. Wanda and I played out our roles: the casually heartbreaking children of Charles Laughton’s masterful Night of the Hunter—spectral yet corporal. But that is another movie entire and another magical saga too, riven with tears and with blood. For in *** The THIEF of ENERGY Book Two it will be revealed that Wanda was I and I was Wanda; and that I drowned her to save myself. This is the story I had cogently wished to unfurl within the confines of a professional, i.e., Dr Calliope K-M, plaintiff. But I will tell it alone, without help—this is as it should be. Perhaps there is time now. It may stand as a eulogy for a little girl lost at a tender age, too tender to be sanctioned. For you see, Wanda is a part of me I could not revive under any sort of gentle ministrations—the part that succumbed to the bountiful travesties committed upon her by the putative Father who is long dead. Mariel has told me I will meet him soon on another plane in Time and Wanda will thus be vanquished. Mariel has discussed the ‘kidnapping’ in evenhanded tones, applauding me for my sanity-saving ruse, her knowing Voice joined by others whom I have rubbed; their energetic Mass has let it be known. The Voices are deafening and fruition is near.

  I left some personal things with Jabba for fear they would be confiscated—the paperweight long since buried. I could not let them have it. I predict thirty days of hospitalization maximal before imprisonment on theft charges, ect. As I am giving my best ‘nutcase’ show this will be an indomitable time (and has already been) to recoup energies squandered in the meaningless dance with Society’s snitching celebrity goons. To think Laura and Dana had to do with my demise is a cruel, mesmeric twist worthy of a future literary gambit—I will try to begin its saga, as I have kept my fat Pilot ‘Explorer’ pen and delicate leather notebook, a talisman purchased at Barneys New York the day of the Assault.

  I called Jeremy and asked for a loan and he went off on me. It was well worth it—I received energy over phone, such was his outburst. ‘You took my wife’s jewels, you krazy cunt,’ ect. This, all he could muster, he is a TV hack, lest we forget. He yelped about pressing charges (a slight slur from the stroke but he is no Chris Reeve: he is completely capacitated). We both know there is no way he ever will—I have too much to tell. I am wiling away the time working on my set piece, a sitcom earmarked for CBS, Sybil’s Place, based on the life of society matron Sybil Brand, whose name graces the women’s jail. I hope it will not be confused with Cybill and, too, hope to get clearance from Mrs Brand herself once I am transferred to the jail-house. She seems to be a generous lady and I am counting on her benevolence in this matter; she clearly enjoys giving those incarcerated a leg up. Sybil’s Place will be exempt of the high camp, rough-hewn edges of your usual female prison soaps and, too, will bridge the world of high society within which Mrs Brand has always traveled so effortlessly. (I read in the Beverly Hills Courier that she is ninety-something and hope she doesn’t succumb before giving her legal/energetic blessings.) The show as conceived is a winner and I am prepared for the usual uphill battle and ultimate vindication on all fronts. It is a show for Dream Works or perhaps Brillstein-Grey, the Jews behind the Larry Sanders success.

  This is truly the time of the ‘event horizon,’ part and parcel of the Black Hole concept—the ‘event horizon’ being the rim of such like a waterfall drop—the exact point where life and matter, all energy, is sucked in and Time, with a capital T, ceases. That is where my energy is now. Willing and joining with the cessation of all Time.

  Energy on the ward is good. I am rubbing some girls here (non-sexual) to acquire vestigial strength for court and psychiatric appearances; too, for sleepfulness, waking vigilance, ect. There are a few pregnant ones and I seek them out for their double energy—getting to them before they become too big and muster out to Sick Bay (I am the starship healer). I must draw energy for the next Great Battle—that against Carsey/Werner and/or the perpetrators of The X-Files. Mr Chris Carter and family will sonn be in my web

  Sara Radisson

  Hell and bejesus, it took a while but we are finally Minnesota-bound. We have a first-class sleeper car with a jiggly bed and our very own shower and toitie. I cannot tell you what it’s like to be rocked asleep by the clickety-cluck-clacking, with you, the Quiet Storm, in my arms (you, the I of my storm.) We awaken at the witching hour and stare out the looking-glass window at the silvery world. Then it’s dawn and because I give Max the porterman twenty dollars a day, he is very good to us and brings hot tea and helps with baby’s things. Max serves lunch and dinner in our room, unless we choose to take it in the white linen’d dining car, with its perfectly polite passengers and their ambient, holy Middle American mur-mur-talk, the glass dome like some kind of church—isn’t that right, Samovar? That’s what we call you when you have on the furry hat Grandma sent. Boy, is she gonna be glad to see you!

  Most of the Dining Car People don’t even know where we stay: they must think we fall asleep somewhere in the cruddy, high-backed seats with the riff-raff—if they knew how pampered we were, they’d be so jealous (sad thing is, most of the bedroom suites are empty because they’re so expensive)…. After we’re fat and sassy from our grub, we stroll below and find the door to our floating room. We lock it behind us, then nestle in for the night and Maxwell brings hot chocolate if we want. Aren’t we the luckiest people in the whole World Wide Web? Don’t you ever let anyone tell you anything else. You are my sunshine and my dreams, my heavy-lidded night-blooming orchid, all I ever wanted, all I ever need, and I made you long ago: you’re positively antediluvian, and younger than springtime too.

  I ordered you with those damn infinity coupons, I did I did—sight unseen.

  BOOK 3

  A GUIDE TO THE CLASSICS

  Zev Turtletaub

  The black steward kneeled and stroked the drowsy superstar. “She’s the best. Aren’t you, Mimsy? Aren’t you the best.”

  Mimsy lay on her seat without a yap while Zev Turtletaub got sixty pages of the Reavey translation of Dead Souls under his cinched Kieselstein-Cord belt. The trim, hairless producer loved this character Chic
hikov: a con man, replete with idiosyncratic servant and driver, traveling from town to town buying up serfs—“souls”—expired ones, that is, from well-off farmers and gentry still forced to pay census on their dead. But why? Because if Chichikov acquired enough names (so went his reasoning), he could approximate a wealthy landowner, a “man of a thousand or more souls.” Or something like that. If his motives weren’t quite clear, neither were Don Quixote’s. Zev was convinced there was a movie in it, an AIDS opera that would make Philadelphia look like the HBO cartoon it was.

  Even in first class, pets were prohibited from lolligagging outside their pissy plastic enclosures. Yet this was the famous star of Jabber and Jabberwocky, the just-opened Mimsy and upcoming fast-track sequel, All Mimsy—the cabin being only a quarter full, an exception had been made.

  “You’re so tired, aren’t you, Mimsy-girl?” The steward massaged the skin of the languid superstar’s neck, bunching it up then letting go. “Mimsy-girl looks so so tired.”

  The phlegmatic pooch had indeed overexerted himself at Mimsy’s New York premiere. As if to mitigate a stressful itinerary, he’d shacked with Zev in the producer’s capacious hotel apartment. Mimsy loved the Carlyle. Life being what it was, there came a hitch: the studio jet was down and they had to fly back commercial. Bit of a bore.

  On the way to the airport, Zev got the bug to hit the legendary Gotham Book Mart. He was greeted by a tidy tree farm of authors he’d never heard of, and that was surprising, because if Zev wasn’t a great reader (didn’t have the time), he definitely considered himself au courant. He scanned the major Reviews from cover to cover, and the lit rags too—he loved the ones with poisonous intramural letter exchanges the most. There were droves of people at the Turtletaub Company whose only job was to ferret out writers before they were hot, textual soldiers who did nothing but read galleys and talk to book agents all day long. Still, there was nothing like going through the stacks and sniffing out quarry oneself. Example: a short while after whizzing past the pale cashier, Zev purchased the thirteen-volume Ecco Press edition of Chekhov’s short stories, arranging for them to be FedExed to L.A.—within five days, each tale would be “covered,” i.e., broken down re: plot, characters, updatability. Like a high-brow predator, Zev stood at the register, flipping through titles—Roberto Calasso, Cormac McCarthy reissue, Penguin Henry Green—then grabbed a volume his sister had always pushed on him…Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls.

  “Anything I can get you, Mr. Turtletaub?”

  Your mouth around my dick came to mind but the producer asked for cookies instead; he loved the warm doughy meltiness of a front cabin chocolate chip. The steward had a rock-hard bubble ass—no Princess Tiny Meat was he, of that much Zev was certain.

  A month ago, the important passenger chanced across an article in a magazine that had seized his imagination, worrying it ever since. It was about a service that arranged for persons with AIDS to get cash advances on their life insurance. It seems that within the HIV community, brokering this kind of deal had become somewhat of a cottage industry, a vulturine shadowland of the quick and the dead that Zev Turtletaub instantly saw as the stuff of potentially great drama. A towering character already floated at the edge of his mind, a dead zone Music Man, a millennium Willy Loman, and the more he dipped his beak in Gogol’s fountain, the harder it came into focus: that character was Chichikov. Who could do such an epic theme justice? A LaGravenese or a Zaillian—he’d go after talent first. Zev would talk to Alec Baldwin. Tell him this was Academy Award time, Elmer Gantry meets Inferno. It was big, it was very big, Zev could feel it. The man who threw a Jack Russell terrier into a troika of projected half-a-billion-dollar-grossing comedies would soon be known for something else, entering his middle period with a classy, unexpected Schindler’s List–like crossover coup. The beautiful part being the template was there in his hands, pages lightly smeared with fuscous-fingered bile—Dead Souls. The stage was being set for the perfect zeitgeist melodrama, a work of high, elegiac art that wouldn’t be afraid to make money, the frisson being that Gogol was public domain. The rights wouldn’t cost dime one.

  He winced at the thought of his sister; she’d call his vision hubris and hate him for his efforts. Aubrey Anne was pretentious that way. He remembered when she came to the house a few years ago and Douglas fixed them a wonderful lunch by the pool. Aubrey spewed patented zingers and made diggy little looks, then announced she had AIDS, just like that. The producer felt spiteful and disconnected. He couldn’t wait for her to leave.

  Locking himself in the restroom, he vomited on the descent—a septic torrent of cookies, hot fudge and shrimp, scotch and filet mignon, salad and steamed veggies, potatoes au gratin and a dozen bags of peanuts so sweet they had made him shiver.

  It was raining in L.A. The steward draped the coat on his shoulders and Zev slipped him a card. Gogol and Mimsy tucked in armpits, he nodded suavely at his fellow passengers—Katie Couric, Brian Dennehy and the agent Donny Ribkin among them—and debarked. The driver waited at the gate. He took Zev’s Il Bisonte bag and walked eight paces ahead. Down the escalator and through the tube, Aubrey Anne nagged at him. A brainy type, she’d always been mad about the Russians. He could see her scrunched on the sofa, see the covers of the books with their yellow college USED stickers, her four-eyed face buried in Lermontov, The Idiot, Turgenev—and another one that stuck in his mind: This Fierce and Beautiful World. He loved that title but never remembered who wrote it. Oblomov? Maybe. One of his soldiers would find out.

  Troy Capra

  (Kiv Giraux lies on a blanket, sunbathing. The lawn is green, the sky powder-blue. She is topless. Troy interviews her from OFF-CAMERA. While they talk, his lens drifts languidly over the anatomy: legs, tummy, breasts, smile. Zooming in, dallying. No abrupt movements…casual and conversational. A supered title: THE FOXXXY NETWORK’S STARSHOT #10—XXX-FILE GIRLS. The short, popular segments, dubbed “Starshot Skinscapes,” usually run between feature films on the twenty-four-hour Adult Channel but lately have been airing in MTV-like blocs of five. They have an informal, documentary feel, brainchild of Troy Capra. The fresh, improvisational style and home-movie look have made them a hit with viewers)

  Tell us about yourself.

  (smiles, deep breath) Okay. My name is Kiv.

  Kiv. That’s unusual. Very pretty.

  Thank you.

  Where from?

  Vancouver.

  Beautiful place. Lots of television production up there now.

  Maybe I should go back!

  We don’t want to lose you just yet. That’s close to Seattle, isn’t it?

  Vancouver? Uh huh.

  Home of the Grunge.

  That’s right. Kurt Cobain and many others.

  Lotta rain up there.

  I’m a rain person.

  Tell us how you got into the adult-film business, Kiv.

  I was working as a dancer—in fact, I still do, between auditions. It’s something I enjoy.

  Bet you’re pretty good.

  I think I’m fair. Until a few months ago, I’d never even seen one—an X-movie. Then I started going out with someone—

  An actor?

  He was an agent.

  Uh oh. Name?

  …that shall remain anonymous! (laughs) He had a satellite dish—

  Still seeing him?

  No! It didn’t work out.

  Not a big enough dish, huh.

  (smiles) That’s partly true.

  Most agents have that problem.

  And how would you know? (laughs) He was actually very nice. For a while there, anyway!

  You were saying…

  Well, he subscribed to some of the satellite channels that show adult films, soft-core. You don’t really see very much.

  Uh huh. And you liked watching these Disney-type—

  (laughs) I wouldn’t say they were quite Disney. But everything was pretty much left to the imagination—in that sense, they were actually very erotic. And very well done.

  Ma
ke mine medium rare, thank you. Now, is that the Spice Channel? (Kiv nods) And when you and your friend watched this, was that kinda like foreplay?

  It did get us in the mood. But then he showed me the other channels—

  The FoXXXy Network…

  And they showed everything.

  Oops! Rear-entry time.

  Right—yes—everything. I was amazed. They showed home videos, too. People who got it on and sent in tapes.

  That’s hot.

  Suddenly, it was like…the whole world is into adult filmmaking.

  The whole world is watching! Remember that? Welcome to the kinky Global Village. Tell us more about the home videos.

  Some were really sort of gross but some were very hot. Because you’d see couples that you usually don’t see, in professional productions. Petite girls with these really big guys—

  Big in what way?

  Tall. (laughs) It’s more real, because that’s what life is like—not everyone has these perfectly matching bodies.

  You said petite girls. You mean, chest-wise?

  Petite in general. Like, little Koreans—and white girls too—with these big, hairy guys.

  That’s attractive.

  (laughs) It was real. They were like “the couples next door”—people didn’t care how they looked and I thought that was great.