Dispersion: Book Two of the Recursion Event Saga

by Brian J. Walton

“Jim’s never been in a relationship for more than six months.” I say. “He’s got all the classic symptoms of a workaholic. So you have two choices. Either get to work on renovating him, or cut him loose.”

  I see her eyes widen and can tell that she is taken aback by my honesty. She nods and looks away. “Thanks, that helps.”

  I give her a sympathetic smile. “See you around.”

  Vance and Aleisha are standing next to Vance’s motorcycle, the streetlights casting an amber pool around them, accentuated by the drifting fog. I lift my hand, intending to say goodnight, but let it drop.

  Walking down the alley next to the bar, I follow it back to a set of stairs leading down to the beach. This late at night, cars, tourists, surfers and locals alike have all fled. I reach the edge of the water and pause, breathing in, tasting the salt on my tongue, and hearing the seagull cries and the roar of the surf. The moon is high in the sky, shining like a beacon through the haze-filled air. Beyond it, scattered stars twinkle dimly against the slate-grey expanse. I turn, continuing down the beach toward home.

  “Claymore!”

  Vance is hurrying down the stairs toward me, Aleisha a few steps behind him. Vance waves for me to stop. “Ellis, hold up!”

  “I didn’t want to disturb your moment.”

  Vance pauses, looking surprised. “What? Oh—we were actually talking about you, Ellis.”

  “Me? Why?” My voice sounds stupid to my own ears.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says, his voice soft.

  I turn to Aleisha for clarification.

  “It’s about your story,” She says. There’s an edge to her voice I don’t like.

  I shake my head. “I made it up. I swear to god and all things holy, that was the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever concocted, and I’ve concocted some real piles of shit.”

  “Come on, Ellis. You said that when you were eight you disappeared for a whole with no memory of what happened during that time. I could call up your parents right now and find out if you were telling the truth. So, no, I don't think you made it up."

  I shrug. “If you say so.”

  Vance steps forward. “Listen, is there anything from your story you left out?”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Did you,” he hesitates, looking around the beach.

  Aleisha makes an exasperated noise. She grabs my arm and leans forward, whispering into my ear, her breath on my face. “Did you go anywhere?”

  Something drops from my cerebral cortex down my throat and into the depths of my bowels. I have memories of endless tests, a never-ending parade of doctors and therapists. They had all repeated the same thing. What you believe you saw wasn’t real. You didn’t travel anywhere. That is classic disassociation. You are repressing, Ellis. Blocking out the true memories with something else. Some fantasy.

  A shudder runs through my body that has nothing to do with the chill in the air.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  Vance grabs my shoulder. “I’ve experienced missing time as well,” he says. “But when it happens to me, I go somewhere.”

  I pull away, narrowing my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Let us show you,” he says.

  “Show me what?” I ask.

  Vance and Aleisha share a glance.

  “There’s this girl,” Vance says. “ Let’s just say that when you meet her, everything will change. We can take you to her tonight.”

  A laugh and shake my head. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “Do it as a favor.”

  I step back. “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow. I have to be up early.”

  “Tomorrow then.” He says. “Meet me at Camton University near the old Psych building. 7pm. Don’t be late.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Promise me you’ll come,” he says.

  “Fine,” I say with a wave of my hand.

  Vance nods. He and Aleisha turn, moving up the beach toward the street. I watch him fade into the darkness, feeling as if my feet have sunk down into the sand and the earth itself is holding me in place. After minutes that seem like hours, I manage to take a step, and then another. My breathing returns to normal. Has Vance lost his mind? Whatever this is, it must be a joke.

  I gaze up at the sky, the waves, and the glow of the city. The world isn’t something that ceases to function at random intervals. It is solid, measurable, and steady. Vance is fucking with me. That’s all.

  I laugh to myself, making my way still a little unsteadily up the beach and through the winding streets to the small bungalow I share with the insufferable and soon-to-be-single Jim Gardner.

  February 12

  I awake, tangled in my thin, sweat-soaked blanket with one leg dangling off the edge of my couch. I crack open my eyes and the morning sun burns holes in my corneas. Rolling over, I let out a preternatural moan. Why again did I fall asleep on this shitty furniture when I have a slightly less shitty bed only ten feet away in my bedroom? I eye the half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker still nestled in the crook of my arm. Right…

  I peer over at Jim’s room, but his door hangs ajar. He must be at work. My muscles aching, I lift myself off the couch. The clock on the wall reads a 10:13 A.M.

  I sit up and am immediately assaulted by both my frontal and parietal lobes in a coordinated effort to vacate my skull. This will require an immediate remedy.

  Still carrying the whiskey, I stumble into the kitchen. I open the fridge and pull a carton of eggs—Jim's eggs—from the refrigerator. Two shots of whiskey with a raw egg stirred into it and a splash of orange juice for good measure: a Screwdriver Breakfast, and it has beaten back many powerful hangovers in my day.

  I tip back the cocktail and gulp it down. My senses slowly return to normal, the blinding sunlight reduced to a manageable luminosity.

  I pad back into the living room, still nursing my drink, and sink onto the couch.

  What happened last night?

  You told them the story.

  Shit, what story?

  That story, you idiot. The story you've told no one since, well, it happened.

  Fuck me…

  Yeah. That sounds about right.

  It doesn't matter how much Vance thinks he knows about what I went through; he didn’t go through it himself.

  I pick up my drink, finishing it in a single gulp. I pad back toward the kitchen but stop at the phone. We keep a pad of paper on a small table below the phone. Jim’s cramped handwriting is unmistakable.

  Your agent called

  And following that is a single word.

  Rent?

  Shit and double shit. The rent money I can’t help him with right now. And the agent would be Barry Mendelsohn, Hollywood hit-maker extraordinaire. He must have finished reading my script over the weekend and called first thing this morning. That he already wants to talk about it is either very good or very bad. Based on the quality of the pages I handed him, I know it’s most likely the latter.

  Jim left too early this morning to get a phone call from Barry, so the message is from yesterday. That means it's been sixteen or more hours since Barry called. He probably thinks I'm ignoring him.

  I pick up the phone, take in a breath, and dial.

  The Cabana Cafe at the Beverly Hills Hotel is awash with Angeleno decadence. Three-piece suits and two-piece bikinis. Sun tan lotion and cigarette smoke. Snatches of conversation. “Oh hellooo, darling,” and “have you seen the film yet?.” I have glimpses of Dunaway and Redford, Shelley and Brenner. Hard alcohol and brightly colored cocktails are ordered at light speed. “Bloody Mary, Mimosa, and a Whiskey, neat, the eighteen if you have it.” Someone’s second cousin, fresh from Idaho, stares doe-eyed at an agent, and he’s saying, “have you ever thought about being in a picture?” And she flips her hair with a laugh, “Oh have I?” But his lecherous grin betrays it all. And just like that, with one smile, the hopes and dreams of another aspi
ring star are left shattered as quickly as they are born. All while Stormy Weather is played tenderly by a Juilliard trained musician in a cheap Tuxedo.

  “Ellis, where’d you go?” Barry Mendelsohn shakes his head at me across a plate of Eggs Benedict with the house-made hollandaise sauce and potatoes dusted in rosemary.

  I grip my coffee as a lifeline against my lingering hangover. I had been drifting off, but why?

  Vance’s cryptic words come back to me.

  There’s this girl . . . When you meet her, everything will change.

  It had the tone of a rehearsed line. Like he’d said it before. But that hadn’t stopped it from worming its way inside my consciousness. “Sorry,” I reply. “Distracted by the scenery. What were you saying?”

  “When Bob Carr came to me looking for his next project, he said, ‘Who’s your wunderkind, Barry? Who’s going to give me the next Gomorrah’s Winter?’ I was happy to say to him, ‘have you heard of Ellis Claymore? Of course you haven’t. Because he is the next big thing. He’s you, two years ago. Read his script, give him a chance, and you can guarantee your second film will be as big as the first. Bigger, even.’ So why then, after I said all that, after I put my fucking neck on the line, do you give me this steaming pile of human defecation!”

  He throws the pages across the table at me.

  “Barry, you said he wanted ‘the next Gomorrah’s Winter.’ That’s what I gave you.

  “Bob Carr already gave us Gomorrah’s Winter, Ellis. You understand what that means, right? It means he doesn’t really want to do Gomorrah’s Winter Part II. Because if he did, he would call up David fucking Weinbaum, and Weinbaum would fucking write it!”

  “Jesus, Barry.” I mutter.

  Barry leans forward. “Same but different, Ellis. Haven’t you ever heard of same but different before? He doesn’t really want Gomorrah’s Winter again. He wants a hit as big as Gomorrah’s Winter!”

  I grip my coffee. "You said ‘the money’s guaranteed.’ You said ‘write whatever you want!’ So why the hell are you coming back at me with this?”

  “That was last month, Ellis. That was when you were my wunderkind who pitched me a great idea over a reuben at the Kibitz Room. A kid who would make all my hopes and dreams come true. But now we’re here, a month later, and your script is not making my hopes and dreams come true, Ellis. It’s not making anything come true at all.”

  “This is you trying to encourage me?" I lean back, crossing my arms.

  “I’m trying to inspire you.” He puts his hands on the table, palms down, facing me. “I need the kid who made me forget my Reuben, and I fucking love Reubens.” He leans forward, lowering his voice. “I need hopes and dreams. I need gold spun words. I need phrases that will make Ray Brenner weep tears shaped like dollar signs.”

  “We got Ray Brenner for this movie?”

  Barry frowns, leaning back. “Who the hell said that? I never said that.”

  “Whatever,” I say. “Give me a few more weeks and I’ll get it right.”

  Barry shakes his head. “No, no. You were already two weeks late when you gave me,” he waves his hand at the script with a grimace, “this, whatever this is. Meanwhile, Bob Carr is calling me every other hour saying ‘where’s my next picture, Barry. Where is it, Barry?’”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “A week. I want something in a week.”

  “A week?” I splutter.

  “Friday, actually. Bob Carr is having this big shindig over at his place and he wants to read it there.”

  “He wants to read it… at a party?”

  Barry spreads his arms wide. “Don’t ask me how these creative types work. You’re the writer.”

  “Friday isn’t even a week,” I splutter. “That’s only four days!”

  “It’s not even noon. You’ve got four full days, kid. And do I have to remind you that your advance was personally funded by Mr. Carr himself? You have a contractual obligation to deliver what you said you would deliver. If he doesn’t get what he asked for, then I’m worried he will come looking to have his advance returned. Do you understand?”

  My forehead finds the solid wood of the table and then finds it again. I look up once I’ve finished. “Can he do that?”

  Barry leans forward. “Listen carefully to me. Success doesn’t happen in this town unless you have friends, and Bob Carr has some very interesting friends. You ever heard of Eddie Selvin?”

  It takes a moment to register. “You mean the Fixer? I thought he was a myth.”

  Barry shakes his head. “He’s real. And let me tell you something about Eddie Selvin. You may not know this, but Ray Brenner was never supposed to star in Gomorrah’s Winter. He had a contract with MGM and was scheduled to shoot Miss Holloway’s Party.”

  “That piece of garbage?”

  “The same. There was no way to work the schedules out and Jane Shelley insisted that no one else would work as her love interest but Ray. The fact that they’ve been in so many other romantic pictures and then got married. You get it.”

  “They couldn’t reschedule?”

  Barry shakes his head. “Shelley had back-to-back commitment with MGM already and Gomorrah’s Winter needed camera rolling in winter, for obvious reasons. It was a shit storm. That is, until Bob Carr picked up the phone and called Eddie Selvin.”

  I frown. “What did he do?”

  “Mr. Selvin told MGM that he had pictures of Brenner and his assistant being, shall we say, intimate?”

  I shrug. “So?”

  “His male assistant.”

  I frown. “Isn’t Bob Carr gay? Why would he care about that?”

  Barry barks out a laugh. “We’re not talking about Bob Carr. We’re talking about Ray Brenner? Him? Gay? Are you kidding me?”

  It takes me a moment to get the picture. “If Brenner’s gay, then nobody would buy his on-screen relationship with Shelley.”

  “Or their marriage, for that matter. And MGM would have to stop cashing in on one big Shelley and Brenner romance after another. So they cleared Shelley’s schedule, pushed back Miss Holloway’s Party and Bob Carr got his leading man.”

  “Jesus, how could he do that? Are there pictures?”

  Barry shrugs. “Who knows? Who cares? The point is, Bob Carr picked up the phone, called Eddie Selvin, got Ray Brenner in the picture, and was able to present Gomorrah’s Winter to the world.” Barry pauses to stare at me over the top of his mimosa. “He may seem like a twenty-something hot-shot little shit-for-brains flaming queer of a director, but make no mistake, Bob Carr always gets his man.”

  A chill runs down my spine. “I can fix it.”

  “By Friday?” Barry asks.

  “I can write nights.”

  Barry smirks. “That’s just another way of saying you can write drunk.”

  I shrug. “It worked for Hemingway.”

  Barry leans forward. “Write drunk, then. Because you are going to deliver me Hemingway. You hear me, Claymore? Hemingway. That’s what I fucking want.”

  My 1969 Ford Falcon spews poison as I drive down Sunset Boulevard, the windows rolled down to keep the fumes from choking me out. I light up a cigarette. Bob Carr knows Eddie Selvin, and Eddie Selvin has ties to the mob. Great. Just when I thought things were looking up. I finish my cigarette and flick it out the window, reach for another, then pause. In my side mirror, I see a dark gray Lincoln Continental whip into oncoming traffic and speed past two cars to make the light at Sunset and Rodeo.

  I crane my head to watch the car as it swerves back into the lane. “Where’s the fire?” I mutter. Turning back, I nearly miss the brake lights.

  My foot pounds on the brake. I grip the wheel, heart pounding and adrenaline rushing, as my car slides to a stop inches from the car ahead of me. Burnt rubber fills my nostrils as I suck in air.

  The driver’s door opens and a man leans out. “You could’ve hit me, asshole!” he shouts.

  I hold up a hand and notice a slight tremor. Christ, I need t
o pay more attention. But no wonder I’m on edge. There could be mobsters on me right now. The cars ahead of me resume moving, and I work to slow my breathing.

  I turn right onto Santa Monica Boulevard and glance in my rearview mirror to see the gray Lincoln make the turn. The Lincoln speeds up, moving into the oncoming traffic lane to a pass another car. Don’t go home, a dark voice whispers. I grip the wheel, continuing to keep on eye on the car in my side mirror and take a right onto Coldwater Canyon. I lose sight of the car for a moment as I round a bend.

  California Live Oaks, blooming Jacarandas, their leaves a blazing violet, and large gates guarding their million dollar residences stream past as I wind my way into the heart of Beverly Hills. I glance into the mirror again. The car is still there. Coincidence? Unlikely. I've been driving in a circle.

  I turn down Linda Crest drive, then take a quick right onto Beverlycrest drive. The Lincoln is still following. I get a glimpse of two figures. One figure—the driver—is gaunt with beady eyes. The passenger is massive, hairless, mountain of a man. Neither of them look much like LA locals.

  Shit.

  I take one frantic turn after another, all on streets with infuriatingly similar names. Ridgecrest, Hollycrest, Readcrest—is there no originality in this fucking town? I pull into a cul-de-sac and slam on the brakes. Where the hell am I? Glancing back, I see the Lincoln passing behind me. Did its brake lights come on? I shift to reverse and hit the gas. The tires squeal as I whip around the corner and back onto Loma Vista drive—thank god, a street I recognize.

  A car horn goes off and I glance in the rear view mirror again, feeling paranoid. But it’s gone. The Lincoln is nowhere in site.

  I pull over, letting my breathing slow to something resembling normal. My mind drifts back to Barry’s words.

  Make no mistake, Bob Carr always gets his man.

  Could Carr’s goons already be on me? A different sobering thought comes to mind. Maybe they’ve been on me for weeks and I’ve only now noticed.

  I am still shaking when I arrive home. I get out, open the garage door, and park my car inside the narrow space. My bungalow was built on a hill, and a rickety staircase leads up from the carport to the main entrance. I almost don't make it up the creaking steps, my shaking legs threatening to give way at any moment. I stumble through the doorway with only one thing on my mind. I need a drink—no, a dozen drinks—and fast.