You Don't Know About Me

by Brian Meehl

  “An old copper mine,” he said. “And it’s filled with the ghosts of miners.”

  “That’s the cast of our un-movie,” Momi added.

  I blinked in confusion. “A bunch of ghosts?”

  “Absolutely,” Nico said. “There’s no better anti action hero than a dead one.” He held some kind of meter up to the sun.

  I didn’t like the sound of a movie about dead people. It reminded me of movies Mom used to tell me about. People kidnapped kids and murdered them on film; “snuff movies” she called them. Maybe I’d have to make my escape sooner than later. I looked to see if the bike was still on the porch where I’d left it. It was gone. Fear knifed through me. Maybe they knew I’d snuck back to Homedale. I tried to stay cool. “So, in the movie, I’m supposed to be dead?”

  “That’s right,” Momi said. “You’re the ghost of a miner.”

  “What does a ghost miner do?”

  Nico jumped in. “An antiaction sequence!”

  “What’s that?”

  “The heart of an un-movie!”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “It’s very simple,” he explained. “An un-movie is the opposite of a blockbuster. Instead of a shoot-’em-up action sequence every ten minutes jam-packed with special effects, an un-movie has an antiaction sequence every ten minutes jam-packed with special defects.”

  I couldn’t tell if I was just confused, or if they’d put something in the banana muffins. “What are special defects?”

  Momi turned to Nico. “I told you he’d need a quickie in un-moviemaking one-oh-one.”

  “Fine,” he told her. “You go get started on his costume and makeup while I wipe the blank expression off his face.”

  She started toward the main building as Nico turned to me with gleaming eyes. “Herr Director will show you exactly what he means.” He held up his hands, making a rectangle with his thumbs and forefingers. “Don’t move or speak.”

  I didn’t.

  “A close-up of your face, held for several minutes. That’s an antiaction sequence.”

  “So it’s like a photograph.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Ah-ah, you just broke the first rule of antiaction sequences: you opened your mouth. And no, a held shot of a face is never still. There’s always something going on, something moving in the great landscape of the human facade. That’s what moment-making is all about.” My face must’ve scrunched, because he said, “See! That was a moment: confusion!” He dropped his hands. “Okay, here’s a better example. At Burning Man, when you looked into Spring’s eyes and kissed her—”

  “You saw that?”

  He two-fingered his eyes. “Wachpanne Papa sees everything. Just before you kissed her, when you faced off, did you see all sorts of fascinating stuff in her face and eyes?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Bingo!” He snapped his fingers. “That’s an antiaction sequence.”

  “Even when we kissed?”

  “No, that’s different. That’s action. There’s never any action in an antiaction sequence.”

  “So what is there, just a face?”

  “Yep.”

  “Isn’t that boring?”

  “Not when a face is firing off tiny moments right and left. It’s jam-packed with special defects.”

  “But if it’s a happy moment, like when I kissed Spring, why call it a special defect?”

  “Because, Billy, every moment in life, good or bad, every feeling that tweaks the human visage, good or bad, takes us one step closer to the ultimate special defect: death.”

  I tried not to let my face give away how he was creeping me out with his talk about death and dead miners.

  Nico threw an arm around my shoulder. I tensed. He led me toward the big building Momi had gone into. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand. Besides, actors do their best work when they’re underinformed. If their brains are stuffed with ideas it clogs the emotional plumbing from the heart to the face. So, go inside, get into costume and makeup, and I’ll set up the camera for your antiaction sequence.”

  I pointed up to the platform. “What’s that camera for?”

  “For a long shot later. But first we do your close-up.”

  45

  The Bullet Hole

  I went into the building. It was a big room with worktables, rusty machines, and old mining equipment. Huge wrenches, drill bits, and saws made the place look like a torture chamber for giants.

  Momi handed me a pair of ratty overalls, a grimy under-shirt, and some holey boots. I took my backpack behind a screen of hanging ropes and pulleys and changed clothes. Before I stuffed my cargo shorts in my backpack, I took my Leatherman and put it in the overalls’ chest pocket. If the antiaction sequence got too weird I’d be ready for some anti-antiaction. I also pulled out the Huck chapter with my father’s card on it and stuffed it in the overalls. No way could I lose that.

  Momi put me in a swivel chair in front of a mirror. There was a bunch of makeup on the table, and she started wiping some pale stuff on my face. “I don’t get what’s so awesome about a movie version of a photo album,” I said.

  She took a brush, dipped it in gray stuff, and painted shadows on my face. “Everyone on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean thought it was a piece of crap when they were making it, but it turned out to be a huge hit.”

  I wanted to say how it was probably filled with fighting-pirate sequences, but getting into an argument would only slow her down and raise the chance of Ruah finding Dogleg Canyon before I got back to town.

  She picked a nickel-sized piece of rubber up off the makeup table. It was shaped like a crater. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A bullet hole. It goes on your forehead.”

  “Do I have to wear it?”

  “Yes, you do.” She wiped glue on the back of it. “You’re a ghost and we need to know what killed you.” She stuck the bullet hole on my forehead. “If it’s going to creep you out seeing it in the mirror I’ll turn you around.” She dipped a brush in red makeup.

  I didn’t want to watch what would probably look like Momi doing brain surgery on me. “Yeah, turn me around.” She did and began working on the bullet hole. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but when there’s a bullet hole in the middle of your forehead you want to know how it got there. “Who killed me?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “That’s the fun of an un-movie. We shoot your long close-up first, then we’ll fill in the story of who you were later.”

  “How are you gonna do that if I never open my mouth?”

  “It’ll all be done in voice-over. Every little moment your face gives us on film will be our guide to who you were, how you got killed, and how you ended up at the mine.”

  “You mean I got killed before I got to the mine?”

  “All the miners did.”

  “That makes no sense. What good are a bunch of dead miners?”

  “That’s the mystery each miner’s antiaction sequence will reveal to the audience.”

  This movie was sounding like weird squared. “So what’s the big mystery?”

  “I don’t want to ruin the ending.”

  “If I’m in the movie shouldn’t I know it?”

  “Okay, but don’t you dare tell Nico I told you.”

  “I promise.”

  She kept working on my bullet hole. “The couple who runs the mine—”

  “Are they dead too?”

  “No, they’re the only ones alive. Nico and I play them.”

  “Why do you get to be alive and everyone else has to be dead?”

  “Would you let me tell the story?”

  “Okay.”

  “The couple—Nico and me—are powerful psychics. We’re really good at séances and communicating with the dead. And from the dead we learn a secret, a secret about gravity. Now, everyone knows that gravity is the invisible glue that holds the universe together. But what Nico and I learn from the dea
d is where gravity comes from.”

  “Where does it come from?”

  “From dark matter. Just as the sun makes heat and light, the dark matter woven all through the universe makes gravity. Without dark matter the world would fly off in all directions. But dark matter is invisible to the living. All we can sense is what it makes: gravity.”

  As wacky as it sounded, and as much as I wanted to get out of there, I was into what she was saying. I mean, that’s what mountain biking is all about: working out your own personal relationship with gravity. “Okay,” I said, “the dead know about the thing that makes gravity, dark matter. Got it.”

  “Right, they can see it, touch it, and even collect it. So the psychic couple starts recruiting ghosts of the dead, and bringing them to this canyon to mine dark matter. They call it Dark Matter Mine.”

  “But why do they want to collect dark matter?”

  “Because if you can gather dark matter, you can experiment with the thing it makes: gravity. And if you can control gravity, you can make a major weapon.”

  “What weapon?”

  “A gravity bomb.”

  “What would you do with that?”

  She studied my forehead, then dipped her brush in another makeup tin. “You could do wonderful things. If two countries went to war, you could drop gravity bombs on both sides. Everything would get super heavy and, under the force of greater gravity, everyone would go into slow motion. It would be the ultimate peacekeeping force. Or if a tsunami was about to slam into India, you could hit the tidal wave with a gravity bomb, slow it down to nothing, and sink it in the ocean before it killed millions.”

  I had to admit, I was getting into their movie. I mean, if you could throw gravity grenades during a bike run, you could throw everything into slow motion. It would be as good as mountain biking on the moon. “Is that how the movie ends? They turn their gravity bombs into weapons for peace and good?”

  “Of course not,” she said with a frown. “An un-movie has to have an antiaction ending.”

  “What’s that?”

  She gave me a hard look. Her eyes narrowed. “You absolutely swear you won’t tell Nico I told you?”

  I raised my right hand. “On the Bible.”

  She went back to my bullet hole. “In their effort to create a weapon that will do only good, the psychics realize that all they’ve done is create another weapon of mass disruption that tinkers with the way the universe works. They realize they’re playing God. So, in the last long close-up, they drop a gravity bomb on themselves. They go into slow-motion antiaction. The audience can’t tell if they’re alive or in suspended animation.”

  “Are they? Alive, I mean?”

  “That’s for the audience to guess”—she gave me a sly smile—“and then find out in the sequel, Dark Matter Mine Two.”

  She swiveled my chair to face the mirror. I stared at the hole in my head. The edges were puffed up with blood and torn skin. In the middle, there were bits of broken white bone and purplish gray brain sticking out. If I hadn’t known what she was doing to me, and she whipped me around without telling me I had a bullet hole in my head, I would’ve dropped dead from shock.

  46

  The Shoot

  We went back outside. Nico made a big deal about the fantastic job Momi had done, making me look like a corpse. As long as no one tried to make me into a real one, I was cool. He led me over to a big camera on a tripod. He put me in front of it, moved me around, and adjusted the camera until the light hit me just right. He asked if I was ready for my antiaction sequence.

  “I guess so,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just be Billy Allbright.”

  “You mean with a bullet hole in my head.”

  “To a ghost, that hole’s as trivial as a pimple. The important thing is not to speak. We’ll fill in all your thoughts later.”

  “Depending on what my face does.”

  “Excellent! You’re getting the hang of antiacting. Some say ‘Less is more.’ We say ‘Nothing is more!’ ” His face disappeared behind the camera. “Ready?”

  “Sure.”

  “Camera,” he said. The camera began to click and whir like it needed oil. He raised a hand—“And”—he chopped the air—“antiaction.” His face reappeared. “If either of us says something or does something, don’t try to react; trust your face. It’ll give us all the special defects we need.”

  I felt my mouth start to smile. I clamped down on it. It wasn’t right for a ghost with a bullet in his head to smile.

  Nico must’ve seen it. “It’s okay to smile,” he said. “Anything goes but speech or big movement.”

  I tried to just listen to the camera and feel the sun on my face. Then the bullet hole began to itch. I wanted to reach up and scratch it. That almost made me laugh. I thought about wrinkling my forehead to scratch it, but then it would be really hysterical if my forehead wrinkle undid the glue and the bullet hole fell off. That did it. I had to grin.

  “Excellent,” Nico said, “you’re doing great.”

  After that he totally switched gears. He started talking about when they called my mom on the phone. He told me about how upset she was. About how she threatened them if anything happened to me. And about how she ended up crying and praying for God to smite Nico dead if he lifted a finger against me.

  I knew what they were doing, trying to get reactions out of me, trying to get special defects. And I’m sure they were getting plenty, including the time I glared at the camera and prayed for God to punish them for being liars, cheats, thieves, and blackmailers.

  It’s so weird how the Almighty answers your prayers sometimes. Most of the time it’s like voice mail. You leave your message and wait for Him to get back to you. This time was a first. It was like God worked at a Chinese take-out place, picked up the phone, and said, Hey, what’s it gonna be?

  God’s answer started with the faint sound of an engine behind me. It bounced off the canyon walls. The louder it got, the more alarmed Nico and Momi looked. Their faces were popping with special defects. At first I thought Ruah had busted through the gate with Giff. But then I heard more than one engine. And they were coming fast.

  Nico stared past me with wild eyes. “What the hell?”

  Momi’s hands balled up in fists. “Shit!”

  I turned to look. Around a bend in the canyon came a half-dozen pickups kicking up a cloud of dust. People stood in the beds. Some waved burning torches. When I saw a man in the lead truck—the owner of Kings restaurant—I knew who they were. The wrath of Notus was upon us.

  I turned back, expecting to see the Potlatchers run, but Nico shouted orders. “Don’t move!” he yelled at me. “We’re still shooting! Mo, get up the tower and fire up camera two. We gotta get this!”

  She ran to the tower. The roaring caravan of trucks slid to a stop in front of the two buildings. Nico swung the camera toward the action.

  The restaurant owner thrust his arm at Nico. “You burned down my restaurant!”

  Nico raised his hands. “I’m very sorry about that, King. It was never my intention.”

  A cloud of dust rolled over the trucks. Men jumped out and rushed into the house as King shouted, “Sorry’s not good enough, Potlatcher!”

  “How did you find us?”

  “The FedEx guy delivered!” King jumped out of the truck, and led a gang of guys into the other building.

  Nico flapped his arms. “That’s it, I’m switching to UPS!”

  Things smashed in the house. A barrel chair crashed through the window. A window shattered in the other building as a huge wrench flew through it.

  Nico yelled up to Momi, who was just reaching the top of the platform. “Shoot first, write later, Mo! It’s gonna be the new ending. The first un-movie ends by succumbing to the destruction of action! It’s ironic—it’s tragic—it’s perfect!”

  Smoke and flame mushroomed through the broken windows. I remembered my backpack. I ran toward the building.

 
“Don’t go in there!” Nico yelled.

  As I got to the open door, I ran smack into someone coming out. It was King. He grabbed my overalls, spun me around, and threw me against the wall. His eyes darted over my face. “What happened to you?”

  “Nuthin,” I said. “It’s fake.”

  He squinted at the bullet hole in my forehead. “Maybe so, but what you’re about to get ain’t.”

  “I’m not with them,” I pleaded. “I was biking through town and stopped behind the restaurant. You must’ve seen my bike.”

  His lips curled off his teeth. “Yeah, it’s toast, just like my restaurant.”

  He shoved me off the porch. I stumbled back toward Nico and his camera. I couldn’t believe he was still shooting, like the whole thing was a movie set. Men poured out of the house, along with clouds of smoke.

  King and others came at Nico and me. Nico shouted up to Momi. “Get it all, Mo! The George Lucas Disease strikes again!” King knocked his camera away. Nico shouted “Action!” and dropped to the ground. He curled up in a ball a second before the men began kicking him with their boots.

  The sickening thuds and Nico’s pitiful yelps made me turn away. I saw men come out of the bigger building and head for the tower. They were going for Momi next. Then me. And it didn’t look like their revenge was stopping at an eye for an eye, a fire for a fire. I remembered the knife in my overalls.

  As I tried to dig it out, a flash of white came around the bend in the canyon. At first I thought it was a mirage. But it was real. Giff.

  I ran toward the camper.

  I heard King shout, “The woman’s treed! Jimmy, Thad! Get the kid!”

  I didn’t look back to see who was coming after me. The camper was only thirty yards away when it turned, fish-tailing into a power slide. The passenger door popped open. I jumped in.

  Ruah gave me one look and took off. “Jesus! What happened to you?”

  I saw he was only steering with his good arm, his right one. I gasped for breath. “Tell you later.”

  “Is that the real thing back there or a movie?”

  “The real thing.” I checked the outside mirror. A pickup was coming after us. I pushed out the window for a better look. There were two pickups. “And they’re coming after us.”