by Brian Hodge
He sees the Count pondering how much honesty is too much. Then the tiny, knowing smile flits past again, a wraith between old comrades.
"I employ various palliatives. I'll tell you the absolute truth: Mostly it is an affectation, something to occupy my hands. Human habits–vices, for that matter–go a long way toward putting my customers at ease when I am closing negotiations."
"Now you're thinking like a merchant," says Blank Frank. "No royalty left in you?"
"A figurehead gig." The Count frowns. "Over whom, my good friend, would I hold illimitable dominion? Rock stars. Thrill junkies,, Corporate monsters. No percentage in flaunting your lineage there. No. I occupy my time much as a fashion designer does. I concentrate on next season's line. I brought cocaine out of its Vin Mariani limbo and helped repopularize it in the Eighties. Then crank, then crack, then ice. Designer dope. You've heard of Ecstasy. You haven't heard of Chrome yet. Or Amp. But you will."
Suddenly a loud booming rattles the big main door, as though the entire DEA is hazarding a spot raid. Blank Frank and the Count are both twisted around in surprise. Blank Frank catches a glimpse of the enormous Browning Hi-Power holstered in the Count's left armpit.
It's probably just for the image, Blank Frank reminds himself.
The commotion sounds as though some absolute lunatic is kicking the door and baying at the moon. Blank Frank hurries over, his pulse relaxing as his pace quickens.
It has to be Larry.
"Gah-DAMN it's peachy to see ya, ya big dead dimwit!" Larry is a foot shorter than Blank Frank. Nonetheless, he bounds in, pounces, and suffocates his amigo in a big wolfy bear hug.
Larry is almost too much to take in with a single pair of eyes.
His skintight red Spandex tights are festooned with spangles and fringe that snake, at knee level, into golden cowboy boots. Glittering spurs on the boots. An embossed belt buckle the size of the grille on a Rolls. Larry is into ornaments, including a feathered earring with a skull of sterling, about a hundred metalzoid bracelets, and a three-finger rap ring of slush-cast 24K that spells out AWOO. His massive, pumped chest fairly bursts from a bright silver Daytona racing jacket, snapped at the waist but not zippered, so the world can see his collarless muscle tee in neon scarlet, featuring his caricature in yellow. Fiery letters on the shirt scream about THE REAL WOLF MAN. Larry is wearing his Ray-Bans at night and jingles a lot whenever he walks.
"Where's old Bat Man? Yo! I see you skulking in the dark!" Larry whacks Blank Frank on the bicep, then lopes to catch the Count. With the Count, it is always a normal handshake–dry, firm, businesslike. "Off thy bunnage, fang-dude; the party has arriiiived!!"
"Nothing like having a real celebrity in our midst," says Blank Frank. "But jeez–what the hell is this 'Real' Wolf Man crap?"
Larry grimaces as if from a gas pain, showing teeth. "A slight little ole matter of copyrights, trademarks, eminent domain…and some fuckstick who registered himself with the World Wrestling Federation as 'The Wolfman.' Turns out to be a guy I bit, my ownself, a couple of decades ago. So I have to be 'The Real.' We did a tag-team thing, last Wrestlemania. But we can't think of a good team name."
"Runts of the Litter," opines the Count. Droll.
"Hellpups," says Blank Frank.
"Fuck ya both extremely much." Larry grins his trademark grin. Still showing teeth. He snaps off his shades and scans Un/Dead. "What's to quaff in this pit? Hell, what town is this, anywho?"
"On tour?" Blank Frank plays host.
"Yep. Gotta kick Jake the Snake's ass in Atlanta next Friday. Gonna strangle him with Damien, if the python'll put up with it. Wouldn't want to hurt him for real but might have ole Jake pissing blood for a day, if you know what I mean."
Blank Frank grins; he knows what Larry means. He makes a fist with his left hand, then squeezes his left wrist tightly with his right hand. "Vise Grip him."
Larry is the inventor of the Vise Grip, second only to the Sleeper Hold in wrestling infamy. The Vise Grip has done Blank Frank a few favors with rowdies in the past. Larry owns the move, and is entitled to wax proud.
"I mean pissing pure blood!" Larry enthuses.
"Ecch," says the Count. "Please."
"Sorry, oh cloakless one. Hey! Remember that brewery, made about three commercials with the Beer Wolf before that campaign croaked and ate dirt? That was me!"
Blank Frank hoists his Blind Hermit. "Here's to the Beer Wolf, then. Long may he howl."
"Frost," says the Count.
"Fuckin A." Larry downs his entire mugful of draft in one slam-dunk. He belches, wipes foam from his mouth and lets go with a lupine yeehah.
The Count dabs his lips with a cocktail napkin.
Blank Frank watches Larry do his thing and a stiff chaser of memory quenches his brain. That snout, the bicuspids, and those beady, ball-bearing eyes will always give Larry away. His eyebrows run together; that was supposed to be a classic clue in the good old days. Otherwise, Larry is not so hirsute. In human form, at least. The hair on his forearms is very fine tan down. Pumping iron and beating up people for a living has bulked out his shoulders. He usually wears his shirts open-necked. T-shirts, he tears the throats out. He is all piston-muscles and zero flab. He is able to squeeze a full beer can in one fist and pop the top with a gunshot bang. His hands are callused and wily. The pentagram on his right palm is barely visible. It has faded, like Blank Frank's tattoo.
"Cool," Larry says of the Count's crucifix.
"Aren't you wearing a touch as well?" The Count points at Larry's skull earring. "Or is it the light?"
Larry's fingers touch the silver. "Yeah. Guilty. Guess we haven't had to fret that movieland spunk for quite apiece, now."
"I had fun." Blank Frank exhibits his tat. "It was good."
"Goood," Larry and the Count say together, funning their friend.
All three envision the tiny plane in growly flight, circling a black and white world, forever.
"How long have you had that?" Larry is already on his second mug, foaming at the mouth.
Blank Frank's pupils widen, filling with his skin illustration. He does not remember.
"At least forty years ago," says the Count. "They'd changed the logo by the time he'd committed to getting the tattoo."
"Maybe that was why I did it." Blank Frank is still a bit lost. He touches the tattoo as though it will lead to a swirl dissolve and an expository flashback.
"Hey, we saved that fuckin studio from bankruptcy." Larry bristles. "Us and A&C."
"They were shown the door, too." To this day, the Count is understandably piqued about the copyright snafu involving the use of his image. He sees his face everywhere, and does not rate compensation. This abrades his business instinct for the jugular. He understands too well why there must be a Real Wolf Man. "Bud and Lou and you and me and the big guy all went out with the dishwater of the Second World War."
"I was at Lou's funeral," says Larry. "You were lurking in the Carpathians." He turned to Blank Frank. "And you didn't even know about it."
"I loved Lou," says Blank Frank. "Did I ever tell you the story of how I popped him by accident on the set of–"
"Yes." The Count and Larry speak in unison. This breaks the tension of remembrance tainted by the unfeeling court intrigue of studios. Recall the people, not the things.
Blank Frank tries to remember some of the others. He returns to the bar to rinse his glass. The plasma globe zizzes and snaps calmly, a manmade tempest inside clear glass.
"I heard ole Ace got himself a job at the Museum of Natural History." Larry refers to Ace Bandage; he has nicknames like this for everybody.
"The Prince," the Count corrects, "still guards the Princess. She's on display in the Egyptology section. The Prince cut a deal with museum security. He prowls the graveyard shift; guards the bone rooms. They've got him on a diet of synthetic of tana leaves. It calmed him down. Like methadone."
"A night watchman gig," says Larry, obviously thinking of the low pay scale. But what in hell wou
ld the Prince need human coin for, anyway? "Hard to picture."
"Try looking in a mirror, yourself," says the Count.
Larry blows a raspberry. "Jealous."
It is very easy for Blank Frank to visualize the Prince, gliding through the silent, cavernous corridors in the wee hours. The museum is, after all, just one giant tomb.
Larry is fairly certain ole Fish Face–another nickname –escaped from a mad scientist in San Francisco and butterfly-stroked south, probably to wind up in bayou country. He and Larry had shared a solid mammal-to-amphibian simpatico. He and Larry had been the most physically violent of the old crew. Larry still entertains the notion of talking his scaly pal into doing a bout for pay-per-view. He has never been able to work out the logistics of a steel fish tank match, however.
"Griffin?" says the Count.
"Who can say?" Blank Frank shrugs. "He could be standing right here and we wouldn't know it unless he started singing 'Nuts in May.'"
"He was a misanthrope," says Larry. "His crazy kid, too. That's what using drugs will get you."
This last is a veiled stab at the Count's calling. The Count expects this from Larry, and stays venomless. The last thing he wants this evening is a conflict over the morality of substance use.
"I dream, sometimes, of those days," says Blank Frank. "Then I see the films again. The dreams are literalized. It's scary."
"Before this century," says the Count, "I never had to worry that anyone would stockpile my past." Of the three, he is the most paranoid where personal privacy is concerned.
"You're a romantic." Larry will only toss an accusation like this in special company. "It was important to a lot of people that we be monsters. You can't deny what's nailed down there in black and white. There was a time when the world needed monsters like that."
They each considered their current occupations, and found that they did indeed still fit into the world.
"Nobody's gonna pester you now," Larry presses on. "Don't bother to revise your past–today, your past is public record, and waiting to contradict you. We did our jobs. How many people become mythologically legendary for just doing their jobs?"
"Mythologically legendary?" mimics the Count. "You'll grow hair on your hands from using all those big words."
"Bite this." Larry offers the unilateral peace symbol.
"No, thank you; I've already dined. But I have brought something for you. For both of you."
Blank Frank and Larry both notice the Count is now speaking as though a big Mitchell camera is grinding away, somewhere just beyond the grasp of sight. He produces a small pair of wrapped gifts, and hands them over.
Larry wastes no time ripping into his. "Weighs a ton."
Nestled in styro popcorn is a wolf's head–savage, streamlined, smiling. The gracile canine neck is socketed.
"It's from the walking stick," says the Count. "All that was left."
"No kidding." Larry's voice grows small for the first time that evening. The wolf's head seems to gain weight in his grasp. Two beats of his powerful heart later, his eyes seem a bit wet.
Blank Frank's gift is much smaller and lighter.
"You were a conundrum," says the Count. He enjoys playing emcee. "So many choices, yet never easy to buy for. Some soil from Transylvania? Water from Loch Ness? A chunk of some appropriate ruined castle?"
What Blank Frank unwraps is a ring. Old gold, worn smooth of its subtler filigree. A small ruby set in the grip of a talon. He holds it to the light.
"As nearly as I could discover, that ring once belonged to a man named Ernst Volmer Klumpf."
"Whoa," says Larry. Weird name.
Blank Frank puzzles it. He holds it toward the Count, like a lens.
"Klumpf died a long time ago," says the Count. "Died and was buried. Then he was disinterred. Then a few of his choicer parts were recycled by a skillful surgeon of our mutual acquaintance."
Blank Frank stops looking so blank.
"In fact, part of Ernst Volmer Klumpf is still walking around today…tending bar for his friends, among other things."
The new expression on Blank Frank's pleases the Count. The ring just barely squeezes onto the big guy's left pinky–his smallest finger.
Larry, to avoid choking up, decides to make noise. Showing off, he vaults the bar top and draws his own refill. "This calls for a toast." He hoists his beer high, slopping the head. "To dead friends. Meaning us."
The Count pops several capsules from an ornate tin and washes them down with the last of his Gangbang. Blank Frank murders his Blind Hermit.
"Don't even think of the bill," says Blank Frank, who knows of the Count's habit of paying for everything. The Count smiles and nods graciously. In his mind, the critical thing is to keep the tab straight. Blank Frank pats the Count on the shoulder, hale and brotherly, since Larry is out of reach. The Count dislikes physical contact but permits this because it is, after all, Blank Frank.
"Shit man, we could make our own comeback sequel, with all the talent in this room," Larry says. "Maybe hookup with some of those new guys. Do a monster rally."
It could happen. They all look significantly at each other. A brief stink of guilt, of culpability, like a sneaky fart in a dimly lit chamber.
Make that dimly-lit torture dungeon, thinks Blank Frank, who never forgets the importance of staying in character.
Blank Frank thinks about sequels. About how studios had once jerked their marionette strings, compelling them to come lurching back for more, again and again, adding monsters when the brew ran weak, until they had all been bled dry of revenue potential and dumped at a bus stop to commence the long deathwatch that had made them nostalgia.
It was like living death, in its way.
And these gatherings, year upon year, had become sequels in their own right.
The realization is depressing. It sort of breaks the back of the evening for Blank Frank. He stands friendly and remains as chatty as he ever gets. But the emotion has soured.
Larry chugs so much that he has grown a touch bombed. The Count's chemicals intermix and buzz; he seems to sink into the depths of his coat, his chin ever-closer to the butt of the gun he carries. Larry drinks deep, then howls. The Count plugs one ear with a finger on his free hand. "I wish he wouldn't do that," he says in a proscenium-arch sotto voce that indicates his annoyance is mostly token.
When Larry tries to hurdle the bar again, moving exaggeratedly as he almost always does, he manages to plant his big wrestler's elbow right into the glass on Blank Frank's framed movie poster. It dents inward with a sharp crack, cobwebbing into a snap puzzle of fracture curves. Larry swears, instantly chagrined. Then, lamely, he offers to pay for the damage.
The Count, not unexpectedly, counter-offers to buy the poster, now that it's damaged.
Blank Frank shakes his massive square head at both of his friends. So many years, among them. "It's just glass. I can replace it. It wouldn't be the first time."
The thought that he has done this before depresses him further. He sees the reflection of his face, divided into staggered components in the broken glass, and past that, the lurid illustration. Him then. Him now.
Blank Frank touches his face as though it is someone else's. His fingernails have always been black. Now they are merely fashionable.
Larry remains embarrassed about the accidental damage and the Count begins spot-checking his Rolex every five minutes or so, as though he is pressing the envelope on an urgent appointment. Something has spoiled the whole mood of their reunion, and Blank Frank is angry that he can't quite pinpoint the cause. When he is angry, his temper froths quickly.
The Count is the first to rise. Decorum is all. Larry tries one more time to apologize. Blank Frank stays cordial, but is overpowered by the sudden strong need to get them the hell out of Un/Dead.
The Count bows stiffly. His limo manifests precisely on schedule. Larry gives Blank Frank a hug. His arms can reach all the way 'round.
"Au revoir," says the Count.
"Stay dangerous," says Larry.
Blank Frank closes and locks the service door. He monitors, via the tiny security window, the silent, gliding departure of the Count's limousine, the fading of Larry's spangles into the night.
Still half an hour till opening. The action at Un/Dead doesn't really crank until midnight anyway, so there's very little chance that some bystander will get hurt.
Blank Frank bumps up the volume and taps his club boot. A eulogy with a beat. He loves Larry and the Count in his massive, broad, uncompromisingly loyal way, and hopes they will understand his actions. He hopes that his two closest friends are perceptive enough, in the years to come, to know that he is not crazy.
Not crazy, and certainly not a monster.
While the music plays, he fetches two economy-sized plastic bottles of lantern kerosene, which he ploshes liberally around the bar, saturating the old wood trim. Arsonists call such flammable liquids "accelerator."
In the scripts, it was always an overturned lantern, or a flung torch from a mob of villagers, that touched off the conclusive inferno. Mansions, mad labs, even stone fortresses not only burned, but blew up, eliminating all phyla of menacing monsters until they were needed anew.
Dark threads snake through the tiny warrior braid at the base of Blank Frank's skull. All those Blind Hermits, don't you know.
The purple electricity arcs to meet his finger and trails after it by-ally. He unplugs the plasma globe and cradles it beneath one giant forearm.
The movie poster, he leaves hanging in its violated frame.
He snaps the sulphur match with a black thumbnail. Ignition craters and blackens the head, eating it with a sharp hiss. Un/Dead's PA throbs to the bass line of "D.O.A." Phosphorus tinges the unmoving air. The match fires orange to yellow to steady blue-white. Its flamepoint reflects from Blank Frank's large black pupils. He can see himself, as if by candlelight, fragmented by broken picture glass. The past. In his grasp is the plasma globe, unblemished, pristine, awaiting a new charge of energy. The future.