by Bruce Wagner
Could be that ZH was just a homie, an early aficionado of The Office, a Spamalot freak, mobbed up with Eddie Izzard, Billie Connelly, Sacha Cohen, and Eric Idle. A Spinal Tapper.
Fattie.
Fat fatiscent Fatimite.
Hogwart.
Digitally rendered museum-addition ski-jumped Iraqi cunt.
Larry King was a salacious, cartoony comfort—all Beavis and Butt-Head sharp bones, wisecracks, and chicken soup. Joan knew why she had a soft spot for him: she’d projected onto him the dad she never knew. Occasionally, she caught herself thinking: Wouldn’t it be bizarre if Larry King turned out to be my father?
Lately though he was getting a mite ghoulish; maybe it was age. She had saved a bunch of his shows on TiVo and was finally scrolling through them. The 1st she lit on was about a pretty blonde whose face got mauled by a cougar. Joan deleted it after about 20 seconds. The next one featured Dr Phil’s sister-in-law. She’d been driving along when someone threw a can of sulfuric acid from an overpass; it broke the windshield and dripped on her. They showed pictures from the hospital, her face all burnt. Dr Phil’s wife’s sister! Totally surreal! The 3rd Larry was about a black woman down in Texas whose boyfriend killed her mom then turned around and shot her face off. The ex was swathed in bandages—all you could see was one eye. Joan almost laughed out loud: Larry really had a Phantom of the Opera thing goin on! But the 4th show really creeped her out. Some white chick got murdered in the Village and Larry was hosting the boyfriend and the victim’s mother. He whipped through the interview by rote, bored and antsy, you could almost see his wheels turning (Why the fuck are they on? I should’ve booked Tammi Menendez again), holding back like a borscht bowl vampire—his guests nothing but long necks awaiting the fang—before rushing in, a white cell plasma TV Weegee in suspenders. Joan thought it so weird that people agreed to go on talkers just because someone they loved had been murdered or brutally taken from them. Even Susan Saint James! Monologuing about her little boy (angel with de-iced wings), and how she couldn’t bear to touch his clothes! Pornographic sharefests were the New Dignity.
She deleted the Larrys and switched to the 24 hour Health Channel. It was right at the beginning of one of those Medical Incredibles, a segment about a woman in her early 30s with a one-in-a-million reaction to a common antibiotic. Within 12 hours of taking a bitsy pill, she’d “sloughed” 100% of her skin. As Mom and friends spoke on voiceover, there were shots of her in a medically induced coma, patented cellophane-like sheets of bioengineered dermis made from shark cartilage and cow tendons stapled to her body as a protective sheath. Joan couldn’t believe what she was seeing; she felt like Liv Ullmann in Persona, cowering in front of the psych ward TV watching a monk set himself on fire. Toward the end of the hour, her doctor said that around Christmas there was a ray of hope—a tiny patch of skin began to “recolonize.” The woman made her dramatic camera debut at the end. She was kind of Goth, kind of Echo Parky, a little overweight but eerily luminous, as if lit by a Tim Burton lantern she’d swallowed. She visited the ICU, hugging everyone who had taken care of her. She told the camera that her skin was now like a baby’s, tissue thin, and she had to walk under a parasol for the next few years when out in the sun. The doctors said she wouldn’t begin to wrinkle until she was in her late 60s, and that was when Joan lost it.
How exquisite.
She cried and cried and cried.
X.
Ray
HE left the hospital.
Ray’s lawyer sent a Town Car. The old man was nonplussed, but Big Gulp ate it up from the backseat. She looked lovely. She wore a turquoise sari, hair in dark plaits. BG had a goofy, toothy grin; if the city wound up giving him a little money, maybe he’d have em straightened.
THEY met barely a year ago on the Santa Monica pier. Early morning, chilly weekday. He’d gone there to fish just like he used to decades ago, when his marriage was in trouble. She stood on the far end, staring off. He thought she was a jumper. He struck up a conversation—he was so old, he figured that would be the only reason she’d talk because she looked shy and skittish by nature. (It took months before she showed her ballbusting side.) They spoke of fish. She used to sell it, she said, at market in Calcutta. He couldn’t make the words out very well. Thick accent; low, furtive tones. Something about mustard seeds and how she’d worked as a nanny. How she wound up doing the same thing for the “CG”—the Indians liked their acronyms—the consul general in San Francisco. It was tortuous but he finally understood: she took care of some kind of ambassador’s kids. Ran away. Didn’t explain further. Ray (at 1st she thought his name was Raj) asked if she was a “wanted woman” but he didn’t think she got the joke, which probably wasn’t so funny and was even maybe true, and that she might have misinterpreted his comment as lurid. She said she had to go and he told her he’d be there the next day, same time. He hadn’t planned on saying it, nor the subsequent possibility of her reappearing, and as the words came out he suddenly half dreaded the thought of getting up early and driving all the way from Industry (where he’d just moved after pulling up stakes in Mar Vista) for nothing. But lo and behold, she showed up 25 hours later, wearing the same clothes as before. She looked hungry. “I don’t feel like fishing,” he said. “Let’s get some breakfast.” After some of that trademark headbobbling and balking, she finally agreed.
When they got to the car she became hesitant. She saw the Friar and was afraid. Ray said the dog was fine and opened the door to let him pee, introducing Ghulpa as he wagged his tail and ignored her, and she patted his head, all the time with that nervous, tooth-packed grin. He put the dog back and suggested they walk to McDonald’s. (He was going to take her to Norm’s but that was 7 blocks away and Mickey D’s was just around the corner.) They had thin coffee and McBreakfasts and didn’t say much because he wanted her to feel at ease. Not that there was a whole lot to chat about. It was mostly subterranean.
He learned that she’d never married. Ghulpa looked around 42 but as Ray got older he had become a poor judge of age, especially a lady’s. He told her he married only once, a lifetime ago, with 2 kids he no longer knew. That puzzled her; how could that happen? He shook his head, saying he didn’t think he’d been “ready” to have a family. (It sounded cavalier though he didn’t mean it to.) He added that his wife was a “ballbuster” then thought, Now why did I say that? Ghulpa didn’t know the phrase and he laughed, relieved. He would choose his words more carefully now because he wanted to court her, not as a sexual being, but as a man in the September of his years who wanted a companion, a female companion, this female companion, dropped before him like a swarthy outmoded mermaid, without the baggage of a culture that he had exhausted and had exhausted him in return.
“I do regret not knowing them. The children.”
Now something in her seemed relieved; that he’d taken her question seriously, and considered it, like a serious man. Ray saw how sorrow wasn’t foreign to her and drew comfort from her demeanor during his confessions. They both exhaled.
“I wonder about that every day—wonder how I let that…But you get to be my age and there’s a lot of water under the bridge you can’t quite explain.” He wondered if she knew what he meant. He’d muffed it anyway. “I guess as time goes by and you get closer to your Maker, you become all right with it. You don’t have much choice. You try to forgive and be forgiven. Jesus, I sound like a fundamentalist. You pray for that. To live and let live. You try to let go of things too.” The platitudes somehow felt right. Longitudes and platitudes. “You feel pretty bad but with time you become all right with it, and all right with God. At least you hope you do.”
Ghulpa smiled, lips closed over buckteeth to disarming coy effect, because she saw the 2 of them were alike—in some ways.
“How old are you?”
“A man never tells.”
“60?”
“Well now I wish!”
His heart fairly fluttered, and that had been a while.
“58?”
>
Ray’s eyes twinkled at the sweet con. There was an innocence about her that was inviolate.
“You’re good, Ghulpa. You’re very good. And you’re a helluva nice lady.”
Pleased as punch, he was.
WHEN the Town Car pulled up to the apartment complex, the ancient landlord stood there holding a bouquet of 7-Eleven–bought flowers, because she liked the tenant in 203B, and knew that soon the City of Industry would be giving him booty with which he might be generous.
XI.
Chester
CHESTER and Laxmi were on their way to the empty clinic to meet with the landlord about renting it for the shoot. Maurie was the one who suggested she keep his friend company, and Chess was glad. He was out-of-control attracted to her and had the feeling Maurie knew it. Chess thought, Maybe he’s being kind or maybe he’s just perving.
Laxmi was around 27. Her hippie parents were divorced and her dad lived in Pune. He was a failed Jewish poet who’d hung with Ginsberg during the latter’s early 60s Benares sojourns; a pretty boy, almost a generation younger than the Beat Buddha, and Laxmi said that she was never able to confirm if “they’d gotten it on.” He headed a big company now, the usual software collective—he was “way ahead of the outsourcing curve,” she said—having lived in India on and off for 40 years. Even though he was a successful businessman, he was a “renunciate, in his own way.” Chess asked what that meant and she said her father was a sanyasi, that he meditated and that Ganesh was “his personal adviser.” (It all sounded seriously fucked up, but Chess was entranced. He knew about Ganesh from storybooks Mom used to read from but Laxmi made the elephant-headed god sound like some mobster-guru.) Laxmi’s father was rich but never gave her money, instead offering to pay her way any time she wanted to come to Pune, something she planned to take him up on one day. She said her name had been given her because Laxmi was the goddess of good fortune. “Meaning, money. Dad is a Jew to his teeth.” She said she would rather have been named Padma (her supposed middlename), which meant lotus, and asked Chess if he’d ever read something called the Lotus Sutra. He shook his head. “ ‘Suppose there was a wealthy man,’ ” she began to quote, “ ‘who had a magnificent house. This house was old, and ramshackle as well. The halls, though vast, were in precarious, perilous condition…’ ”
She fell silent, unable to recall what once she had so fiercely, and without comprehension, committed to memory.
WHEN they got to Alhambra, it was dusk. Maurie’s car was at the end of the cul-de-sac. A handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard stuck to the front door said GO AROUND BACK. Laxmi and Chess strolled to the alley entrance. Rusty barrels overflowing with medical detritus swarmed with flies.
“I don’t know where the guy is,” called Maurie, from inside.
Chess and Laxmi stepped into the ruined building.
“What time was he supposed to be here?”
“About now.”
“Shit, it’s really trashed,” said Chess, looking around. “What were they shooting, a satanic ritual training video? Too small, anyway. It stinks. What was this, an animal hospital?”
“Yeah. Supposedly the guy went nuts or something.”
“Huh?”
“As in ‘apeshit.’”
“What guy?”
“A veterinarian. Caught his wife with someone he worked with and, like, killed her, then killed the kid. Bashed their heads in with a fucking ball-peen hammer.”
“Oh my God,” said Laxmi. “I think we should split.”
“Are you serious?” asked Chester.
Maurie nodded. “I don’t think they ever found the guy.”
Chester shrugged, like he wasn’t in the mood for any of Maurie’s campfire bullshit. “It’s too small,” he said. “Plus it’s righteously fucked up. It’s a health hazard.”
“Let’s go see the other rooms. I mean, we’re here. I was in traffic for 2 goddam hours.”
“This is like a horror film,” said Chess. “This is like Saw.”
They laughed uneasily.
It grew darker as they went farther into the honeycomb of shambled rooms, each saturated in bad odors—like someone had set animal fat on fire. Laxmi said maybe it wasn’t safe and to be careful not to touch anything. There were dirty syringes and rolls of stained cotton gauze underfoot. Chester said how crazy it was that someone was showing the place as a location before it had been cleaned—he wondered aloud if what they were seeing were props or not, but then Maurie said the clinic had been scouted but never actually used. Whuh? Chess was acting more macho than usual because of Laxmi. Maurie made a few lame jokes then shouted, “Look at this!”
A dead dog had been nailed to a door, like a wolfish Christ.
Laxmi screamed and began to run then screamed again as she plowed into the arms of a gaunt, grizzled, wild-haired man in a bloody green surgical gown. He had a big gun. He asked why they were “trespassing” and when Chess began to explain, Maurie quickly motioned to let him do the talking. They weren’t trespassing, said Maurie, they were scouting locations for a TV show, and had an appointment to meet someone. The man kept saying they were trespassing and Maurie started shaking and said he was sorry if there was a misunderstanding and they’d leave right away. If he “would let us.” The guy suddenly asked if Maurie had slept with his wife. No, said Maurie, of course not, I don’t even know your wife—but Chess could tell that his friend’s panicked posturing came out snarkier than Maurie would have liked. Then he began to insist that Maurie “looked just like the dude” who slept with his wife and “molested” his children. Maurie laughed nervously, trying to deflect as his eyes futilely darted for an exit strategy.
The man opened fire and Maurie’s chest lit up in red blotches as he reeled backward. Laxmi screamed, running to Chess, who stood protectively between her and the meth’d up maniac.
“Shit motherfucker, you shot my friend!”
“Oh my God!” said Laxmi. “He’s going to kill us!”
“You raped my wife, didn’t you?” said the gap-toothed killer, his wrath now turned upon Chester, who couldn’t process what was happening.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin about, man!”
“Just like that dog I nailed to the door! That dog touched my little girl too—see what I did to it? That dog was a lurcher. Ever heard of a lurcher? Them is gypsy dogs. They’re bred for stealth, stamina, and speed. 2 can bring down a deer. Know what the farmers do if they catch em? Cut their tails off. Cain’t walk without their tails!”
“I don’t fucking know what you’re—oh Jesus oh God oh shit oh Jesus…”
“You mo-lested my little girl! How ya think that feels, dude? As a dad? Are you a dad?”
“No, man…”
“You ain’t a dad, you a fag. That’s why I had to kill her—that’s why I had to kill em both! Cause I couldn’t let em walk the earth with that shame on em. Couldn’t let em live, without protectin em from ridicule. You are one sick madre, dude! Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy it when you were with my wife and little girl?”
“Man, stop! Just fucking stop! I don’t know your wife, and neither does my friend! And you fucking killed him!”
“Ah’m gonna nail you to the wall, bitch! Cause you a goddam child molestin faggot lurcher—”
Maurie groaned. “Help me. Help me…”
He began to twitch grotesquely, as if in seizure. Chess kneeled beside his friend.
“He’s still alive! We gotta call 911, man! Just get the fuck away and let me call 911! We’ll say it was an accident, just run the fuck away and let us get help!”
The madman fixed him with that bizarre Deliverance hillbilly grin.
“You cain’t help him now. Step aside! I’m gonna do the girl the way you done my wife!”
Laxmi let out a bloodcurdling bellowshriek.
“You. Keep. Away!” said Chess, standing ramrod straight. “Keep away from her!” The goddess of good fortune clung to his waist from behind as the madman moved closer. “I said stand
down! Stand the fuck away! I’ll stay—but let her go! You let her go!”
He ogled the couple, lasciviously stroking his chin. He slowly raised the gun. “Are you freaked out?”
Chess braced himself to be shot.
“I said: Are you freaked out?”
“Yes!” said the traumatized warrior, lips trembling in shock and fear. “Now just let her—”
“Well, you shouldn’t be. Cause you’re on Friday Night Frights!”
Chess was cornered. He tensed, gave out a deafening war cry, then bolted backward with superhuman strength into a wall of glass bricks. But the wall did not give. His pants were soaked in urine.
A bunch of men suddenly poured into the room; Chess thought they were the police. Everything was in slo-mo. Why did I move back instead of forward? I was trying to make a hole for us to escape. Why hasn’t he shot—one of the men had a camera on his shoulder—they were all dressed in civilian clothes. Were they undercover? What was happening?
The madman threw down the gun and gleefully shouted. “The TV show! Friday Night Frights!”
Now he spoke without the twang. He was an actor.
Maurie stood up, melodramatically dusting himself off as the camera recorded his miraculous recovery. Laxmi, who bolted when Chess smashed into the wall, reentered, looking baleful and faintly agonized. She tried to smile at the probing lens.
“Are you OK?” she said to Chess, maternally.
Chess stutter-strobed his head like a dog just out of water, as if to throw off everything that had happened.
“See?” said Maurie, pointing to the red ragged splotches on his polo shirt. “They’re squibs! Like The Wild Bunch! Bonnie and Clyde! Pulp Fiction!”
“It’s a TV show, man,” said someone in civvies. He carried a clipboard and had a small black box attached to his belt. They were all wired for sound.
“Friday Night Frights.”
“Whoa,” said Chess, wincing a smile. He still couldn’t put it together but the name sounded familiar: Friday Night Frights. It was a joke, though—he knew that much. He turned to Maurie. “You piece of shit.”