Lovecraft Ezine Mega-Issue 4 Rev1

by Price, Robert M.

  Still no response. Why won't he speak? If he's got some problem, I can't figure it.

  "Anyway, no pills, just the one stabilizer I brought with me, Doc Sennet approved. I could use red wine, though. My last tango in Paris, they had all the vin rouge a girl could want."

  Aster's gold glitter limousine, an absurdly opulent converted hearse, idles outside a 5th arrondissement late bar.

  The chauffeur returns, hands me a bottle already uncorked.

  As the limo pulls away, the sun roof retracts. Night sky feels dangerous, like it might pull me out of here, lift me away. Black stars shimmer against perilous depth.

  The world spins fast, too much to absorb.

  Trying to mellow, I lean back, sip wine from the bottle.

  Paris. No midnight traffic, just palpable antiquity and whispers of suicide poets. Each inhalation carries fragments of disintegrating statues, dust from crumbling mausolea. Tourists find this evocative. People like Aster pay fortunes to mingle among blowing spirits, monuments to saints, museums for dead artists. Statues of Balzac, Voltaire. The dead hang on, refuse to let go. They inhabit every room, linger around corners. Like my memories.

  Who needs reminders they're dying? Maybe people who've already lived enough don't mind the specter looming. That trembling curtain, threatening to drop.

  Not me. Nine out of ten shrinks agree, that's my whole fucking problem. Unwillingness to accept reality.

  Bullshit. I've got too much unfinished business. Addictions set me back, plus a few bad decisions. Just need to stay clean and work, finish projects, rack up credits. Some comeback recognition, maybe a nomination.

  The clock spins, spins. There's still time.

  I lean forward, shout, "Which hotel?"

  I'm hoping not the Ritz. Too fussy, and they know me. Jesus, I do not feel like being recognized.

  The chauffeur turns, grants a quarter profile glimpse through glass.

  Will he answer?

  Again, nothing. His face seems unreal, like a porcelain mask. The merest hint of eye creases. Smooth, too pale. Frozen, incapable of expressing emotion.

  It's a look I've seen too often in the mirror.

  Traffic drops away. We turn into a district I don't recognize. Gilt perimeter walls reflect golden light, transmuting the midnight scene into sunset.

  Gates swing open. We pass through the barrier wall, like a castle carved into the heart of Paris. Otherworldly, extravagant, like a slightly more tactful Las Vegas. Not French, not American, more a liminal fantasyland, all lit fountains, luminous canals. Statues loom, seeming alive.

  The car stops, my door opens. Light spills in, reveals large pearls scattered underfoot on the limousine floor. My hand goes to my throat. The pearls, not mine, roll minimally in unison, as if the car were still in motion.

  I step out, Charlie about to explore Wonkaland, or Dorothy verging on colorful Oz.

  Guarding the entry ramp of pale yellow brick are two upright mummies sealed in glass, bandages unwrapped and dangling, desiccated forms preserved with gold powder which glistens under spotlights.

  I follow the chauffeur inside. An impressive exhibition of curiosities line the foyer, and the many halls diverge from the center. Bizarrely obscure memorabilia, fabulous costumes and props anyone would recognize. Nic Cage's snakeskin jacket from Wild at Heart, Lecter's restraint mask from Silence of the Lambs. Rosebud. Yoda. A man-sized Gojira.

  Jesus, Dorothy's ruby slippers.

  Even by Hollywood standards, it's a statement of determined excess.

  The foyer's central fountain lacks the showstopper quality of the rest, yet it's the fountain that transfixes me. The sparkle of the water under piercing lights, like weightless diamonds. So brilliant. Fragile. Water falls, keeps falling, never damaged or diminished. An endless cycle of bright, undying renewal. The world drops away. I don't mind being alone.

  Everything's quiet, all but this falling water. I guess the chauffeur must've gone, then I look up, find him there across the mist, watching protectively. That face, that pale mask, betrays nothing. I keep thinking he'll excuse himself, leave me alone. He doesn't move.

  Is this piercing sharpness just a matter of the light? Maybe this isn't water, but some dazzling liquid designed specially for illuminated fountains.

  More likely it's my bent perception. An artifact of a mind's ruined chemistry.

  Stop. I'm clean, can finally claim that achievement.

  Not quite feeling it.

  "I want to sleep," I say, unsure who I mean to tell.

  "No." A voice behind surprises me. "Time for work."

  Finally the chauffeur speaks?

  I spin. Not the chauffeur.

  "Welcome to my home." Aster grins as if my presence delights him, then closes the gap between us. He runs his hands all over me, wherever he finds bare skin - shoulders, arms, hands, even my face. He's wearing eyeliner, a hint of blue eye shadow. Glossy lips.

  All the notions I have about the man standing before me come from magazine articles and gossip. I've never met Leer Aster, or don't remember if I have. Everybody knows his look. Always silver suits over rubber S&M shirts, spiky hair prematurely white. The man's barely older than me, late forties. He lived on food stamps, working as a night watchman, while he scraped together his surrealist Seuss-meets-Cronenberg debut, Flowers in the Shuttermaze. Uncompromising and darkly perverse, it lit up Cannes and cemented his reputation.

  Next, he took his swing at the Hollywood mainstream -- megabudget, A-list cast -- and despite pressure to succeed, expectations he'd fail, The Spectre of Memory topped 2008's box office. Wowed critics, blew everyone's minds. In lieu of salary, Aster took points. Variety put his take at $190 million.

  Since then, everyone with an opinion, which in Hollywood means everyone, tried guessing: What will Leer Aster do next?

  Return underground, self-finance a DV-shot guerrilla production with a small cast of unknowns?

  Or swear everyone -- from execs to catering, from D-girls to talent -- to the airtight secrecy necessary to shoot Hollywood's first completely covert, leak-free big budget tentpole picture?

  Nobody really knows.

  I know he's got me in mind. That lovely note, all praise and poetry, sent at a time when nobody would touch me. His resources, his reputation. Aster can do any project he wants.

  He wants me.

  We're in France, so of course I kiss both cheeks. "I shouldn't impose on your home. Perhaps a hotel?"

  "You'll have the place to yourself," Aster assures me. "I'm never home until production wraps. I'm only here now to take you to the studio."

  "Work, now? It's the middle of the night. I'm game as anyone, dear, but I've been traveling days."

  "You imagined sleep?" he asks.

  I smile, striving for lighthearted charm. "Sleep, yes. It's something I try to do most nights."

  Aster leans in, grinning perversely. "Fatigue puts one in duress. Discomfort weakens restraint."

  "Restraints can be fun, used correctly." I'm not sure what I'm saying. Defaulting to flirtation? Despite this smile, I'm determined to kill this idea of working straightaway. I really am bleary-eyed, stale from flying.

  "The unique mood of my films, my special trick, let me tell you: It's shattering control." He smiles, not at me, and claps his hands forcefully as if declaring a scene's end. "If you need espresso, the chauffeur will provide. Now, to work."

  I follow.

  Wide open darkness. How broad is the universe? Boundaries too distant recede into invisibility, lose any function as limits. Walls should hold us in, prevent wandering off to infinity. Everybody needs tethers to prevent that inevitable drift.

  I follow Aster into the void, alone, the chauffeur left outside with the car.

  What does Aster have in store? Somehow he gets away, disappears. I'm left dangling.

  A moment, a flash of indecision. Panic.

  POP! A loud, amplified emission from an unseen public address speaker.

  "Is she ready?" The voice
echoes, accented and slurred. Not Aster’s, but a strange masculine voice.

  If this is the soundstage, they can't possibly be ready to shoot. No lights, no cameras. Just emptiness.

  As if reading my thoughts, Aster speaks, somewhere near me in the dark.

  "Filming is ended."

  A yellow light flicks on, illuminates this outsized madman striding toward me in exaggerated haste. Cinema's great eccentrics -- Jodorowsky, Lynch, Almodovar -- they have nothing on Aster. The manipulations, the groping hands. Obscure proclamations shouted from strawberry-frosted lips.

  Filming, ended. Must be a joke.

  Look around, consider what I've seen. No sets. None of the machinery of filmmaking.

  Leer Aster has no intention of shooting me.

  He draws me nearer a pair of shed-like boxes, unfinished wood, like Swedish saunas. The larger, a glass-fronted control room, contains sound recording gear. Opposite stands a smaller vocal isolation booth with a tiny viewport.

  "Only this remains." Aster guides me, right hand across my lower back, left grasping my nearer forearm.

  Through the window of the control room I see a wide mixing board, walls hung with rolled microphone cables, tall stacks of rack-mounted electronics. Some glow with the warmth of vacuum tubes, others with digital LED displays. Against the wall, an ancient Moviola editing table, spooled with 1" mag tape and 16mm film. This isn't pro-level Hollywood gear. Reminds me of the experiments and student projects I worked on back in the ‘80s, before my break.

  Memory rushes back to one early project. I stop myself. Don't want to recall.

  "Sound!" Aster shouts. "Get out here."

  A narrow figure stands behind the mixer's eerie glow, thin face hidden behind oversized bug-eye glasses with white frames. The mantis-like man gropes his way out of the booth, moves vaguely in my direction.

  Aster tells me, "Sound, he's another of my secret weapons."

  I take a few steps toward this man Sound, meaning to shake his hand. He continues stiff-legged past me, as if I'm not even there. For an instant this registers as a snub, intentional, then I understand. His dark lenses, the maneuvering by touch.

  Sound is blind.

  I turn, glide up next to him, and take his elbow. He jumps. I close my hand over his. There's a quiver in his next inhalation.

  "I'm Lily Vaun." At least for a moment, back in control.

  Aster pushes me into the booth, prods my body into the narrow space, muttering oblique instructions. Apparently I'm to do overdubs, voice work for a picture already shot. I've seen no script.

  On the tiny screen, unedited rough footage runs, snippets lacking any kind of continuity. A young woman is featured, a different type from myself. Pixie-blonde hair, like Jean Seberg fifty years ago, when she stormed the screen in Breathless.

  I turn to Aster. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

  Her mouth moves in soundless closeup. A blur of hair, or skin texture in macro. Lips move, responding to another actor I'm not seeing. They give me only this woman, no reactions, no wide shots. Even her, I haven't seen clearly.

  "What I desire is your guts," Aster says. "Raw emotion, the real spice. Kick the audience in the heart."

  "There's too much missing." I feel unsettled, insecure. "These aren't scenes, just flashes. Who is she?"

  Sound leans in, adjusts my microphone by touch, then returns to his booth.

  "You've gone deep." Aster runs hands along my arms, then grips my shoulders. "You've lived it. Now, for film."

  The footage stops. All lights die except in the booth.

  I'm helpless. Where's the Lily Vaun confidence? I wait alone in the closed booth. No sound.

  Yellow light flickers in the control room. Are they watching footage on the Moviola? Hot tungsten, celluloid and dust. I can smell it from here, the heat of the lamp, the ozone burn. The old way.

  It's crazy, what Aster suggests. Part of me believes. Nothing but my voice, the microphone, and fear in my gut. I have to dig out what I can. Manage my nerves, and get ready. Try to bleed.

  I'm beyond exhausted, flat on my back in bed. Who knows if I even accomplished anything? Just confused myself, frustrated my director. He's still at the studio, working.

  I should want to sleep. Keep obsessing on this one thing.

  I'm alone here. For the first time I can remember, real solitude.

  So long, shut away, surrounded by a flock of loons. No silence. Too many cracked-bulbs, shrieking away the night.

  Quiet.

  When was the last time I slept behind a door not locked from outside? Nobody screaming. No obligation to bear witness to some neighbor's agony. If anyone's crying tonight, it'll be me. Nerves rattle like chattering teeth. Sanity teeters on a blade's edge, ready to cut. Will I slip?

  No. Just rest. Lie motionless.

  It's coming. See it coming, feel it rise? A wave hits me full on. Pounds me down, buffets, washes over, presses me down.

  Memories.

  Isn't this what I wanted, to get back to living? So much time wasted, pining for release. Nights obsessing on getting out, on freedom. Why do we lust for money, more than love or sex? Because money buys freedom. Freedom like this, to lie trembling in anger, in fear, unable to sleep. Wealth, fame, isn't that what everyone wants? That's power. Imperviousness to No. The right to live without rules.

  And all I can think, since I got out?

  Someone please tell me what to do.

  So much yearning, striving. To climb over bosses, taxmen, voting members of the board. Fucking executives with their notes. Sacrifice everything to get free. Then what?

  This terror.

  I want a drink. I want pills. Not Doc Sennet's mellow ones. Fun, jazzy pills. Something to light me up.

  Anything but lying here, facing myself. Straight, no chaser.

  I wobble out of bed, find myself meandering down unknown halls. This enormous house, all statues and sculptures, memorabilia under spotlights. I'm a bleary-eyed kid shut overnight in the museum. It occurs to me that maybe Aster left staff behind. That'd be great, meet his old footman, me wearing just this sheer T-shirt. He could snap an iPhone pic, sell it to the highest bidder, and there's my ass on TMZ.

  Another corner, another dim hallway. The hall widens to an alcove, centering around a headless statue. A stone figure in yellow robes of real fabric, trailing to the ground. I step high to avoid tripping in the accumulated yellow fabric, which fills the hallway in tangles. I squeeze along the wall, press onward.

  Just a dead end. A panel made of some reflective pale gold metal, like the shield Perseus used to gaze upon Medusa. No doorway. In its center, the three-fingered insignia, vaguely triangular. Aster's sign, from his letter, and the chauffeur's airport sign.

  I search for seams, thinking some latch must be hidden. Some way to open this wall. What's Aster hiding?

  The gold wall seems immovable, merely decorative, like a shrine or monument. Finally I give up, begin to drift away, and hear a voice behind. A woman, on the other side of the metal wall.

  "Lily," she cries.

  Did I really hear my name? So tired, can't be sure. My heart pounds, like a nightmare revelation.

  I hurry back, past the enrobed figure. Despite lacking a head, it seems to watch me. The way it stands, scrutinizing, reminds me of the chauffeur.

  I wind back to a more comfortable part of the house. Less museum, more home. Passage to the kitchen. Industrial range, walk-in freezer. Glass door refrigerator.

  This isn't snooping. Just look without touching. Don't open anything.

  Would if I could.

  No, just wandering, observing. Thinking of wine, even beer. No, I won't drink. Just obsessing. Is it something I should be officially not thinking about? Probably.

  Maybe if I know there's nothing here, I can stop thinking about it. Maybe sleep.

  Of course, I could always go out, buy my own. We're still in the city. I don't have any local currency, whatever that is now. Francs, Euros? I could find a shop, offer
to pay triple in dollars. They'd recognize me. Six years I haven't been onscreen, but my train-wreck life kept me on magazine covers. Probably in France, too. They like their films, the French. Isn't Depardieu Mayor of Paris or something?

  Behind the glass, a row of clear bottles chilling, like champagne. Clear glass, liquid contents brilliant gold.

  I swing open the door. Curious. Not planning to drink. I reach.

  Remember what happens if you get started. That last crack-up, pretty unglamorous. Hysterical days, raving tears, finally found wandering, drunk and pill-wasted in the hills above Mulholland. Barefoot, mostly naked. So much blood, the cops who found me thought I'd been shot.

  How does life go so badly wrong, when almost everything is right? Just the downside, maybe, to being someone who doesn't believe in No. Sure, I'm not great at respecting limits. I get that.

  I need someone to apply the brakes for me. Long hours, pressure, endless vodka tonics. Abundant chemicals, prescription and otherwise, all to avoid a reckoning. A ruined heart, the gangrenous death that never heals. Before success, when all ahead was upside. Nobody knew my name.

  I fell hard, so hard. My own fault I walked away.

  Tried so many ways to salve the pain. A million A-list beaux, names like Brad and Jack, Bruce and Robert Junior.

  I should've taken better care. You would've given me strength to survive, whatever fallout. Me and another girl. Would my career have risen like it did? Probably not. I could've handled it. Riding high from Amber, we could've weathered it together.

  How did I convince myself to stay away?

  I fall back into bed, afraid what I might do, where the memories might lead. Adrift, too much feeling.

  What scares me most is I'll stop fearing the edge. That next time, I'll just keep walking.

  I keep exiting the booth, requesting direction. I'm trying to act my way into something I can't see, don't feel. It's hard to overdub blind, to envision reality from only hints.

  "Show us your desire," Aster commands. "Moaning, kissing. Let passion boil out of you."