Nothing But a Star

by Jeremy Reed

Dorian: I can’t look at this, it’s terrible. It’s as though Basil’s face is now staring out of mine. I can’t take the blood.

  Henry: You’ve got to ask yourself, who is this, and learn to love that person if it’s you. You and Basil are linked by the most intimate bond of all, murder. As for me, I don’t have to love myself. I’ve enough powerful friends that self-love is a luxury rather than a necessity; the police won’t come near me.

  Scene Fifteen

  Dorian Gray and Henry Wotton, both with copies of the Evening Standard, sit in the corner of a low-lit bar with a blue lamp drizzling light on the table.

  Henry: Body parts? It sounds like a used car ad: police terminology combined with the paper’s inept style. It’s like mixing hair dye and tequila into a bad shade of piss-orange.

  Dorian: They’re going to get me, Henry, and you’re an accomplice.

  Henry: Not so fast. Your apportioning of guilt isn’t mine. What if I turned you in? How would that alter the balance?

  Dorian: Don’t try that on me. We’ve both got to leave the country. You’re guiltier than I am. My crime was accidental, yours intentional.

  Henry: Tell me, then, how you kill a man with an empty gun? Do you really think anyone will believe you, given that you say you had Basil crawling across the floor?

  Dorian: But you believed me. At least that’s what you told me at the time.

  Henry: At the time, I might have said something like that, or you might have heard it that way. In any case, I don’t now. I’ve reconstructed events for my benefit and not for yours.

  Dorian: You want to save your own skin and you call that love?

  Henry: I don’t call it love; my feelings have changed about you.

  Dorian: You’re so self-absorbed you don’t know what love is. I’ve wasted my looks and time on you. If I’m arrested you’re going down too.

  Henry: I wouldn’t be so sure. I’ve got my networks, and you’ve got yours, let’s see who’s the smartest.

  Dorian: Why are you doing this, just when we should be helping each other?

  Henry: Have you never wondered why the law leaves me alone to pursue my profession as an operative? You should think on it.

  Dorian: Because of your vaunted social networks.

  Henry: Because I supply the government with sensitive information about tax dodges, fraud, fat cat bonuses, corporate scams etc., and get paid by both sides. It’s what they call two for the price of one.

  Dorian: Yes, you’re so smart, aren’t you? But I’ll burst your bubble, you wait and see.

  Henry: Vindictiveness amongst criminals is like your empty gun, very dangerous.

  Dorian: You’ve got zero emotion; you’re like a phone-hacker into people’s lives, and it’s about time I changed my passcode.

  Henry: And you’re like snakebite for which there’s no cure.

  Dorian: You’ll pay for this, you wait and see, you duplicitous shit.

  (Henry Wotton gets up to go to the toilet and Dorian Gray furtively spikes his drink.)

  Henry (returning, takes a slug or two of his drink and smiles): You can tell the police what you like. I’m protected, and you’ll simply incriminate yourself.

  Dorian: You’re always in control, aren’t you? Your intellect prevents you from feeling.

  Henry (finishing his drink): Rather like your looks that stop anyone from ever really knowing who you are.

  Dorian: Well, in the next hour there’s a big surprise coming to you. I’ve spiked your drink with liquid LSD, about the equivalent of 300 micrograms or six doses.

  Henry: You’ve done what, you little shit?

  Dorian: There’s no lethal dose of the drug, don’t worry, you’re not going to die; but you’re in for a journey that will hopefully free your personality up.

  Henry: You’re joking, aren’t you; you haven’t really spiked my drink?

  Dorian: Of course I have. I want you to discover who you really are when you lose control.

  Henry: You’re as evil as I thought. I’m getting out of this place and back home.

  Dorian: I’d get a friend over if I was you. Why don’t you call Jane?

  Henry: You’ve made up my mind for me about what I’m going to do with you.

  Dorian: Tell me before the drug kicks in.

  Henry: I don’t give away my methods without being paid. Remember, I’m a professional, Dorian.

  Dorian: You’ll think differently after a night on acid.

  Henry: And you and I—we’ll love each other to the end.

  Scene Sixteen—Later that night

  Dorian Gray sits in his apartment drinking and smoking a joint. He picks up his phone.

  Dorian: I’ve been waiting over an hour. Where is the escort I booked? Wait… He’s outside. Cool.

  [To the intercom] Come in, Tom, it’s the first floor.

  Tom (appearing at the door): Hi, I’m Tom from Men4Rent.

  Dorian: Sit down and have a drink. There’s most things on the table, vodka, gin, whiskey, mixers: help yourself.

  Tom: I’ll have a vodka and orange. The agency tells me you don’t want sex, just a chat-buddy. If you change your mind you can pay by credit card.

  Dorian: Thanks. I’ve drunk too much for sex; but I have a very specific request.

  Tom: What’s that? I’m used to most sort of safe-sex fantasies.

  Dorian: Probably not this one. It involves shooting a painting.

  Tom: What exactly do you mean?

  Dorian: It’s a particularly disturbing painting. I want to see what happens if you shoot it with this gun.

  Tom: What do you imagine will happen? Is this some sort of black magic?

  Dorian: You could call it that—removing a hex.

  Tom: If I’m going to do fantasy sex you’ll have to pay the agency first. Anyhow, I don’t want to use a handgun.

  Dorian: Of course I’ll pay; only I don’t want to watch. I can’t look at the painting. It was done by a friend of mine using contaminated paint.

  Tom: Can I take a look at it first?

  Dorian: It’s under the red velvet drape. Prepare to be shocked, though, and I mean it. You’ll see why I want it blown apart.

  Tom (lifts up the drape): Man, it’s disgusting. And the thing’s bleeding. Who did this? It looks like you carved up by a surgeon.

  Dorian: I can’t even look at it, even to dispose of it. It was done by a psychotic friend.

  Tom: I don’t want anything to do with this, mate. I’m not firing bullets into this mess for you. I’ve done most things, but I draw the line at this. Why don’t you burn it?

  Dorian: I was warned by the artist that if I destroyed it I’d die.

  Tom: He sounds like a psycho. Tell him to come and collect it.

  Dorian: We lost touch after his last breakdown.

  Tom: This is between the two of you. I’m not getting involved with firearms. The bullet might go through the wall into the next flat.

  Dorian: I’ll give you a thousand in cash to do it.

  Tom: I’ve told you, I’m not getting involved. I’m here as a buddy.

  Dorian: What about five grand cash? I’ve got the money here in the flat.

  Tom: Look, I’m not shifting. I’m here to chat or go. The agency would fire me for being involved with guns.

  Dorian: Nobody will ever know, and you’ll be five grand richer.

  Tom: Look, the money’s tempting, but I’m not fingerprinting your gun. For all I know you may have killed someone with it and want to incriminate me.

  Dorian: I’ll give you one thing, you’re smart. What made you think of that?

  Tom: As an escort you meet all sorts of dodgy people into crime and scams. I don’t need to know about your private life. I’m here on a job. OK?

  Dorian: Cool. Have another drink. Don’t go. I’m paying for your time.

  Tom: Are you sure you don’t want anything extra?

  Dorian (picking up the gun): I could shoot you if I want, but the gun’s empty.

  Tom: Don’t play game
s with me. I know it’s loaded; you just asked me to shoot it. I think you need serious help.

  Dorian: All right, I’ll shoot the portrait, and you’ll have to explain to the police how your client ended up murdered.

  Tom: I’ve met some weirdos in my time, but you beat the lot. What drugs are you doing?

  (Dorian walks over to the painting with the gun levelled in his hand.)

  Dorian: I’ll ask you one more time if you’ll do it, otherwise I will.

  (Dorian takes the drape off the painting, confronts it and shoots himself in the head. Tom runs over to the mashed body, and looks up at the painting, which has turned into a beautiful blond-haired youth.)

  Scene Seventeen

  A bare prison visiting room, with two wooden chairs and a table: Oscar Wilde wearing an astrakhan coat badged with a large diamante brooch sits in handcuffs facing Henry Wotton. He has his cell number, C22, stamped on his sleeve.

  Henry: So tell me, Oscar, who was Dorian Gray, and how did he contribute to your ruin and imprisonment?

  Oscar (he leans forward and rests his handcuffed wrists on the table): Dorian was a blond boy I saw standing on the railings at Piccadilly one foggy October afternoon. I was so thrown by his looks I didn’t dare approach him, and when I went back, ten minutes later, he’d gone. I searched every bar and café in the West End for weeks and months, but couldn’t find him anywhere.

  Henry: So Dorian wasn’t as people tend to think, the fictional recreation of the good-looking friend you had at the time of writing the book, John Gray?

  Oscar: Bits and pieces of people I knew at the time, of course, got into the writing. That’s how you create memorable characters.

  Henry: So it was a boy you saw by chance in the crowd that triggered the process?

  Oscar: Yes, and it was my repeated search for him that took me into trawling the underworld; starting with this fascination, I quickly grew addicted to lowlife.

  Henry: Was his real name Dorian Gray?

  Oscar: The boys there assured me it was the name he used. He was apparently only there for a week, and got picked up soon after I saw him. Clearly, he and I weren’t intended to meet.

  Henry: So am I right in thinking the novel was a compensation for loss?

  Oscar: Yes, I’d rather have had the person than written the book.

  Henry: It’s a fact, isn’t it, that the nature of creativity substitutes imagination for reality, as a part of a learning curve?

  Oscar: I was always heading for prison though, and the novel was the added incentive, or leverage, the authorities needed to nail me.

  Henry: I assume it was your openness that had them pick on you?

  Oscar: The problem was, naturally, that the police and I were attracted to the same people in the same places.

  Henry: That’s inevitable. Only they’re the unwanted party. And the more unwanted they are, the more they need to make arrests.

  Oscar: Quite. In a way, they’re jealous match-makers, or sometimes home-wreckers. Anyway, it was while I was first in Holloway prison awaiting trial that I met someone who knew Dorian Gray. Dorian had exposed him and put him inside, as some sort of revenge. It was, in fact, the person who’d picked him up that afternoon, minutes after my leaving.

  Henry: And your novel—or at least the most controversial passages—was read out in court as evidence against you.

  Oscar: Yes. So you see, sighting Dorian accidentally that day, and going in search of him at the St James’ bar and the Alhambra, indirectly ruined me. My fixation, turning into a novel, by some weird landed me inside.

  Henry: But I’m sure you wouldn’t have it any other way? The nature of experience is that you have to know it, good or bad, to learn and move on.

  Oscar: Everything I’ve suffered was worth it for that one look on a damp foggy day at Piccadilly Circus. That moment changed my life forever.

  Henry: There’s a moment, I’m sure, in everyone’s life, when this happens, although most people won’t be aware it’s occurred.

  Oscar: My problem was that for the right reasons I made the wrong people aware of Dorian’s characteristics.

  Henry: But doesn’t everyone deep down connect with Dorian’s fear of losing his looks through ageing, and have the same capacity inside for self-destruction?

  Oscar: It’s true that whatever we most fear invariably happens. Our fears and desires are linked. You see, I lived out the imaginary life I created for Dorian, because I couldn’t have him. It was my downfall.

  Henry: Tell me, do you think the system would do it to you all over again—set you up and cage you?

  Oscar: Yes, of course, nothing ever changes. I’m sorry, but visiting time’s almost over and I must go back to my cell.

  LYRICS

  Limehouse Blues—(Dorian)

  The fog’s soupy upriver

  in shivery wet November

  there’s a ship’s light like red neon

  at puffy Limehouse Basin

  and I’m there at a crack den

  where I smoke Chinese opium

  and sip at hallucinations

  like scrolling red dragons

  I’ve got the Limehouse Basin blues

  I never lose what I’ve done wrong

  with a pipe and the trash I choose

  I’m living inside this song

  The room’s sticky with gangsters

  Mobsters, hustlers and lowlife,

  and the drug promotes killers

  with a handgun or a knife.

  It’s the bad side, the East End

  where sailors tend to pack,

  there’s a circus bear on the prowl

  someone’s been on its track.

  I’ve got the Limehouse Basin blues

  I never lose what I’ve done wrong

  with a pipe and the trash I choose

  I’m living inside this song.

  There’s a guy in the corner I know

  James Vane, he’s looking for me.

  his sister’s reported missing

  he’s got a psycho mentality.

  The drug comes up, but it’s scary

  having Jimmy stare me down

  in his blue Peabody jacket

  in this lawless part of town.

  I’ve got the Limehouse Basin blues,

  with a Chinaman on the floor

  with a pipe and the trash I choose

  Jimmy’s standing across the door.

  In my altered state trance,

  I chance getting out alive

  Jimmy’s there like wallpaper.

  in this fugitive dive,

  There’s a guy with a scar,

  from gang war somewhere east

  and another so cut up

  he’s been mauled by a beast.

  I’ve got the Limehouse Basin blues

  the shame of what I’ve done wrong,

  the denial and all the blame

  that finds me singing this song.

  I’ll kill him to get out alive

  live with his blood on my hands

  it’s only the sick portrait

  that ever understands.

  I feed it like a vampire

  its red eyes demand more

  Jimmy Vane’s my next victim

  on this Limehouse crack floor

  I’ve got the Limehouse Basin blues

  I never lose what I’ve done wrong

  with a pipe and the trash I choose

  I’m living inside this song.

  Sling City—(Henry Wotton)

  You’ve got looks, I’ve the money,

  Honey, it’s an affair.

  your blond hair’s a gold halo

  of sunlight over Mayfair,

  but I’ve got sweet poison

  like venom in a vein

  more volatile than arsenic

  an unstoppable strain.

  I’m a sling city square mile debonair

  slicker a bandit in Shoreditch,

  a sleazy financial investor

  married
to a Sloany bitch

  a dykish alligator.

  You’ve got charm and conceit

  I’ve deceit and the cash

  to buy trash off the street

  and degrade it to ash.

  I’m your avatar Dorian

  a squirt of green venom

  like snakebite in a vein

  an unstoppable strain

  I’m a sling city square mile greaser

  I learnt it from jackal Blair

  he’s the man who blew up the world

  in a bloody illegal war

  and now he’s wanted everywhere

  If I incite you to kill

  it’s Hallward you’ll do

  for the thrill of it, honey,

  and the sweet corruption too

  when you look at the portrait

  it’s like you’ve got Aids

  you grow younger each day

  while the picture degrades.

  I’m cool as cryonics

  and can stitch you up good

  bad blood attracts bad

  it’s like a shared mood

  I’ve the intros to ruin

  with powders and pain

  and a slow-burn snake venom

  an unstoppable strain.

  I’m a sling city square mile code-breaker

  a hacker with a grin

  I’m in the criminal sector

  drenched in cocktails and gin

  with arms dealers and spin

  Mister Gray, I’ve your number,

  but I’m also your friend

  if you think I’ve just started

  then wait for the end

  I’ve the intros to ruin

  with powders and pain

  and a slow-burn snake venom

  an unstoppable strain.

  I’m a sling city square mile fraudster

  a hedge funder with a gun

  I’m a mafia mobster

  my name’s Henry Wotton

  and I’ll slay you for fun

  Black Honey

  I wanna be like Alice Diamond

  a female shoplifter

  a smash and grab raider