by Bruce Wagner
He started a “Be quiet!” dance, and she pushed him. Taj grabbed her head and held it fast so they were nose to nose, like player and ref. He made creepy, guttural sounds and Tiffany shook, squealing in terror. He screamed all over the surface of her head as if it were the earth, his cries satellite signals covering land, sea and polar cap. He dug nails into her chest and yelled at the top of his lungs in her ears, making funny kung fu faces as he butted Tiffany’s head and yanked out a slim broomful of hair.
He dialed Zev’s office, pounding her stomach while they had him on hold. “Hello? Are you casting yet for Dead Souls?”
He left her there, receiver propped to bloody mouth and ear.
Rachel Krohn
It was almost midnight when the old woman called.
Someone had died. Could Rachel make it to the chevra the next morning, say, eight-fifteen? The taharah would take an hour, maybe more. Birdie said it was a child and asked if that might be too upsetting. Rachel wasn’t sure. She asked if it was an accident, and Birdie said the girl had been murdered. Was there blood? Birdie didn’t know.
Rachel skimmed a handbook for grievers she’d picked up at the Jewish bookstore. It said mourners should cover mirrors and overturn beds. She turned out the lights and thought of the furnitureless mansion of her father’s memorial park. She drifted to an ocean of bobbing canopy beds, each with wide-eyed child marooned. The beds bellied-up in the water until all that was left were their periscope-legs. She woke up drowning just after three and never got back to sleep.
Ursula Sedgwick
Donny argued with Phylliss and Sara, who were pushing for an ECK memorial, with readings from “The Golden Heart” and “Stranger by the River.”
When his mother died, the rabbi explained how the human being was often compared to a Torah scroll, the parchment equivalent to the body; the divine names written thereon, the soul. The agent thought that beautiful. Serena’s pilgrimage beneath the house had left her filthy, and Donny loved the idea of pious, level-headed strangers ceremonially scrubbing her down—wiping the pages clean—for the Journey. When he suggested the taharah would be a good thing, Ursula didn’t speak. She smiled, grateful he was there at all—that anyone was who could help her Tiffany.
Donny called the rabbi and said Ursula was a Jew, and that is how her daughter was buried.
Rachel Krohn
Rachel was early. The girl’s mother had been there all night with friends while the shomer sat with the body. The police arrested the boyfriend, Birdie said.
She sat on the couch and waited, wondering about the gore. What if the girl had been stabbed or mutilated? Rachel didn’t think she could take that. She pulled a taharah primer from her sack. Some of the rules and regulations ranged from comical to macabre. All severed limbs were supposed to be tossed in the coffin. As blood was considered to be part of the body, it was kosher to be buried in the stained clothes of one’s demise. And if a Jew wanted to be cremated, that was too bad—his wishes could be overruled by something called the Halachah, or Law. Birdie emerged from the back. It was time to begin.
The room was cold. There was a tiled floor with drain and slop sink. Buckets were filled with water and wooden two-by-fours lay stacked on a chair. The girl was on a metal gurney, wrapped in a bag. Another woman was there, around Birdie’s age. She was the “watcher” who sat with the girl through the night, the one who recited prayers and reminded the body of its name “so it would not be confused before God.” They washed their hands and put on gowns. Birdie offered surgical gloves, but Rachel declined; no one else wore them. The bag was removed. Rachel gasped—she was blond and looked like an angel. There was a bluish bump on her forehead and the chest was spotted with bruised whorls. She will never have her period went through her mind, like a mantra to keep her from sinking. A tube had been left in her mouth, and when Birdie tugged, it wouldn’t budge. She took scissors and clipped so it didn’t protrude, closing the lips and cutting the hospital bracelet. They covered the face and pubis with separate cloths, then the whole body with a sheet. Birdie tore pieces from the sheet to be used for the washing.
They tucked the sheet down and washed face and hair, drying afterward but not covering. The body was washed from right arm to shoulder, down torso to legs and then back. The process was repeated from the left side, Birdie washing while Rachel dried. Normally, rainwater or melted snow was required, but in this case they used water from the tap.
When the first washing was finished, they cleaned under finger and toenails with toothpicks. That was the most heartbreaking for Rachel, because the girl had painted her nails in different colors. They used polish remover that Birdie got from a metal drawer. Then the two-by-fours were placed under head, shoulders, buttocks and legs. The second washing—“the taharah proper”—began. Three buckets were used this time, and the girl was completely naked, even though Rachel thought the guidebook said that wasn’t supposed to happen. They put a sheet over the body to dry it and the wood was removed. The other woman was ready with the shroud. (“After the taharah is completed,” the book said, “the deceased is dressed in shrouds sewn by the hands of a woman past the age of menopause.”) The sheet was lowered around the girl’s head, and Birdie put a bonnet on her, as well as a piece that went around the face. Rachel helped with a collared, V-neck shirt—“you fuss with it. You have to learn,” Birdie muttered—reaching in to take the little arm and pull. Both arms were brought to the head and manipulated through. The shirt had no buttons and was tied at the top. They slid the legs into the pajama bottoms, pulling them up to the waist. There, the string was twisted nine times, then made into three loops so it looked like the letter shin, which stands for God. Birdie tied strips of shroud just below the knee, and made a bow. The last piece they dressed her in was an overshirt, made the same way the shirt was, only longer. It was easier than before to get the arms through. They brought the wooden box next to her. Inside was a long strip from the shroud; when they lowered the girl in, it ended up around her waist. Birdie repeated the twisting procedure—it seemed like twelve or thirteen twists this time—then made the shin again.
The face covering was pulled down, and Birdie put broken pieces of pottery on the eyes and mouth. When the shroud was replaced, the other woman sprinkled dirt from Jerusalem over pubis, heart and face. The casket was lined with a very large piece of shroud that was then folded over the body, right side first, then left, then bottom and top. They put the lid on the casket and took off their gowns.
“To remove death,” Birdie explained as they washed their hands from a hose in the parking lot. “When you come home from the funeral there’s normally water outside the front door, for washing.” Rachel stood there, numb and exhausted. “What a shame!” Birdie said. “Thank God it was not also a sexual assault.”
That night, Rachel dreamt she stood pallbearer in a stream, guiding a raft into darkness. The chilly waters were deep and she carried a long pole. The little girl lay in her open casket, floating down this river that ran under Westwood. The bier became a barge filled with debris and Rachel climbed aboard, snaking her way past insolent men and passive women, searching for the vanished body. No one would help. Finally, she came to Tovah and a flying wedge of UTA militia.
“The cantor is ready for the second washing,” said her smiling friend.
Severin Welch
Deh-souls! deh-souls! deh-souls!
ev
Turle taub’s
DEH SOULS
“Well? What’s he saying?” Severin bent over the recorder like a crone at a crystal ball.
The Dead Animal Guy hit PLAY, squinting hard. He’d been up to the house before—even to the daughter’s. The Welches were clients from way back, when he worked for Three Strikes. Simon had kept in touch, and was simply delivering a carton of ciggies when he was suddenly drafted into a bit of the old Our Man Flint.
“Tell me! What is he saying? Is it ‘Dead Souls’?”
Simon took in the scanner apparatus, gleaming at the gonzoid anarchy of it
all. “Hey, this is off cellular!”
“Oh to hell with it,” said Severin, exasperated. He shooed at Simon and retreated.
“Rad! You should let my friends post ‘listen-ins’ on the Net. Get the lotus-eaters where they live!”
As Simon rewound, the ancient auditor fast-forwarded to the William Morris façade. He saw the red brick edifice before him; they’d know in an instant if the Gogol property was being developed—by and for whom and how much. But who could Severin ask? Certainly not Dee Bruchner. He thought about Charlie Bennett, the expired Hitchcock collaborator. He’d call the Guild in the morning, see if he could drum up the erstwhile rep. Maybe it’d be someone amenable to—
“Hey, I think I know who that is!” cried Simon.
The old man stumbled over, fairly salivating.
“That’s Zev Turtletaub, on Verde Oak! Around the corner—Ramon Novarro’s old place. I was up there last week.” They listened again. “‘Zev Turtletaub’s Dead Souls’—hear it? Big producer. Did those canine flicks. And might I add, at the time of my housecall, the gentleman had a harem of, shall we say, ‘lovers of the dog.’ He is himself an extremely hairless Homo erectus.”
Severin liked the dog pictures; he’d seen them on cable. His pulse quickened. “Are you sure?”
“It’s him, I’m telling you, Zev Turtletaub. His Siamese got stuck in the wall: a very large and may I hasten to add messy problemo. A two-hundred-dollar job. Mimsy! That’s the name of the mutt. Lotta people went to see those. I told him when I left that the next movie he makes should be more like Casper, only about the ghost of someone’s pet who gets stuck in a wall—starring Jim Carrey as the Dead Pet Detective. But instead of Casper, you call it Fluffy! I do not think he was thrilled.”
Severin called the L.A. Times research line and requested they send anything on Zev Turtletaub that mentioned Dead Souls. The Xeroxes came in the mail a few days later; Lavinia enlarged them for his bad eyes. The old man feasted on photos of this bald quarry. Friend or foe?
The “Calendar” profile numbered Dead Souls (“based on the Russian classic”) among the Turtletaub Company’s active slate. A number of projects were tied to Paramount and Severin found that of note. A few days after he received the clippings, Lavinia read an item over the phone from the Times “Hot Properties” section. It detailed Turtletaub’s recent purchase of the former Novarro estate from actress Diane Keaton. The house was a Lloyd Wright jewel he’d bought “as a lark” while awaiting renovations on a home in Bel Air. Just last year, she read, the producer paid seven-point-two million for a Montecito villa adjacent to the Robert Zemeckises’.
The Dead Pet Detective slipped him the Verde Oak address and phone. Severin gave him a twenty for his trouble.
“Mr. Turtletaub?”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Severin Welch.” He was nervous as hell and barely got the words out. “I’m a writer—”
“How did you get this number?”
“An old client of Dee Bruchner…”
“Dee Bruchner gave you this number?”
“Yes. Because I understand you’re at the Morris agency now—”
“I’m surprised. I don’t generally enjoy receiving calls at my home from people I don’t know.”
“It’s about Dead Souls.”
“And you say Dee Bruchner gave you this number.”
“I have been working on that script twenty years, sir!”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Severin Welch, Esquire. May I inquire of you, sir, are you using the script from the Paramount vaults?”
“What?—”
“All I am asking from you and Mrs. Lansing-Friedkin—”
Turtletaub laughed gutturally.
“All I am asking is that my labors be acknowledged as seed work. As the inception. I do not have a lawyer, sir, nor do I intend to engage one; I’m not overly fond of the breed. You don’t have a worry on that account. I merely ask that you consider the revisions I have painstakingly entered, with much attention to colloquial verisimilitude, over the last sixty-five-odd months. I am not seeking sole credit, sir, meaning that if another writer has already been contracted, there is no reason for him to be perturbed—writers are, easily so: I know, as I am one myself. If another has been engaged, more power to him! If we could just meet, sir, you might bring me up to date—”
“Who the fuck is this? Burnham? Burnham, is that—?”
“This is Severin Welch, sir, as I have said.”
A long pause. Then, without levity: “I said who the fuck is this!”
“It’s Homo erectus, you chrome-domed doggie-dick cock-sucker!” shouted the tense old man in a fit of rheumy inspiration. “I already told you my name, sir, three times! I am the original writer of the adaptation of Dead So—”
Zev Turtletaub hung up.
Stepping jauntily from the house, Severin carried Souls script and trusty Uniden cordless, for comfort—its range a mere fifteen hundred yards, yet how could he leave it behind? He might have jumped in a cab, but his own locomotion felt revolutionary. Bracing: Verde Oak, Verde Oak, baker’s man, bake me a cake as fast you can—pounding the pavement, hitting his stride, humming hap hap happy talk inanities. By the lights of Frères Thomas, chez Turtletaub was under two miles…luck, if you ‘ve ever been a lady to begin with left! left! left right left! Must concentrate on objective. Must take Turtletaub Hill—HUMP! two-three-four HUMP! two-three-four trudge. trudge. trudge. trudge. Company—ho! trudge trudge trudge trudge. Criminy…ho! What the hell, the houseman could drive him back. Have pity on an old man. Here we go, then: brisk, breezy downhill gait. Then he got lost. Asked directions from gardeners and sundry housewife types, proffering slip of paper with Via Verde venue—at which they stared grinning fixedly, illiterates. Cretins. Homo Cretinus Erectus. A toot! A toot! He blows eight to the bar (in boogie rhythm)—knew he was near because the Thomas Bros. told him so. Murphy’s Law for you. Yowza yowza yowza. The gig is up. The Gig Young is up. Not such a bad walk, a walk like this. Astonished to have been the fool on the hill for so long—fifteen years, excluding one emergency outing for gallstones, Diantha hauling him in the T-bird, drugged like a cat on its way to the vet. Jesus God he’d ruined that woman with his mad quarantine, mucked up her golden years but good—
huh? Severin heard digital chirp of phone, the a-pealing ting in his ear. He smiled with a start then looked around past curtains of exhaust-flecked ivy, storm drains and driveways, astigmat’s eyes jump window to window to focus the locus—ring now clear as day. From whence it came? Ah! From him! Severin Welch! And he knew…shimmying off backpack, shoulder blades like crows’ wings, disgorging Uniden and punching TALK—out of range! How cruel! Sobbing bitterly, like a child, a senile drama queen, how cruel to call me now, when you know I’m out of range!
ev’ry body’s been KNOW ing
to a wedding they’re GO ing
and for weeks they’ve been SEW ing
turned and marched up the hill in long, uneasy lope
ev’ry SUSIE and SAL!
stridulations louder until as if by yelping flames surrounded, he fell down on his march
the bells are ring! in! for me and my
bloodying his bony self, Souls script splayed on asphalt, hand clutching prop-like Uniden to chest
they’re con gre gay! TING!
FOR ME AND MY GAL!
THE! PAR! SON’S! WAY! TING! FOR ME AND
pinned in the road like a bug by the knitting needle of a sky-high heart attack collections man.
Missing the Call.
Perry Needham Howe
It was a drizzly Saturday and he sent his wife to Aida Thibiant for some all-day exfoliatory pampering. As for Perry, he was on his way to San Diego with Tovah Bruchner.
The resolute agent had a new client. Arnold Eberhardt owned an animation house that churned out sarcastic, offbeat cable cartoons along with regular-fare programming for kids. He was a railroad enthusiast who enjoyed rentin
g a few private cars from Amtrak—a coastal no-brainer that got friends and families to Balboa Park around noon. A little low-key first-class fun. The all-aboard crowd was techie and un-Hollywood; Perry didn’t know anyone, and that was always easier on the nerves. The couples played poker on the way down, using Sweet’n Low packets for chips.
Perry and Tovah sat in the dome car lookout with their screwdrivers. He was talking about one of the watches he’d boned up on—it could tell you exactly where the sun would rise or set on the horizon—when a man from another table spoke up.
“The Ulysse Nardin. Friend of mine has one.”
Perry was pleasantly taken aback. “You’re kidding. I never thought I’d hear anyone but a dealer pronounce that name.”
“I’m a bit of a fanatic—or was. Be careful!” he admonished, with a laugh. “That stuff’s crack for the wrist. Though I have to tell you most people consider those Nardins a bit tacky.”
Jeremy Stein was the creator of Palos Verdes, a nighttime soap that was starting to smell like a hit. When he introduced himself, Tovah smiled the infernal, knowing way agents do, as if to say “Don’t fight it—you’re done for. Soon you’ll be mine.” The corner of his mouth subtly drooped, and Perry remembered some controversy surrounding the name. He’d have to wait for Tovah to enlighten.
“I just signed Arnold,” said Tovah, suggestively. Again, the cocky devil-woman grin.
“Yes, I know. He’s the best. We went to college together.” He turned to Perry. “If you’re interested, I can put you in touch with a guy who gets unbeatable prices—forty percent off at minimum, and I’ve seen him go high as sixty. Crichton’s a customer; buys himself one whenever he finishes a project, as a little reward.”
“I’ve been looking at grande complications,” Perry said. “Did you ever have one?”
He shook his head matter-of-factly. “Never. I know Geena just got one for Renny. I should tell you, if you wear the things, they’re gonna wind up in the shop. They’re like Ferraris that way. Renny’s had his in four times—he’s a very active guy! It’s important to know a watchmaker, that’s why Berto’s so great. He’s the guy I was telling you about. I made the mistake of sending one of my Pateks to Geneva for a repair. Here it comes, eleven months later! Berto usually has a three-week turnaround.”