He was still seated between my ferns, watching me for a reaction. “It’s a bit different in tone than Burt and Deborah kissing in the surf as waves lap over them, yes.”
I shook the pages at him and said, “Lanny doesn’t find her? How can you end it with him not finding her? And why would you leave him on… does he jump?”
Larry sprang to his feet. “Does hejump?!Is that your big concern? The clue is there, Ned. It’s not that hard.”
Neither the shifting of my feet on the floor nor the drumming of my fingertips on my desk brought clarity. I must have shifted and drummed for a full minute. “I must be an idiot…Tell me.”
Larry remained standing beside the ferns, arms crossed. “No. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not smart enough to be my agent.”
“Please.”
He shook his head in frustration. “Close your eyes and think of ABBA.”
“ABBA?”
“Yes. What was their big hit?”
“ ‘Dancing Queen’?”
“And it became…?”
“Um… ‘Dancing’s Wrong.’”
“Exactly.” He tapped his skull as he said this.
“I’m not following you.”
Larry slumped his shoulders as if he’d lost all confidence in me. “Ned, Ned, Ned. The dark-skinned guy gyrating on the ground is MC Deluxe, doing the break dance. And since Lanny knew that the zealots had banned all dancing—they went hardest after disco, remember?— he would realize that MC was communicating that he, MC, was also a poser.”
At last I sat back in my chair and nodded. “And so…”
“And so Lanny recognizes that he’s really not alone in the world.”
I leaned toward him, anxious as a kid asking Daddy if Spider-Man ever dies. “And then he climbs down from the twenty-story high-rise?!”
Larry extended his arms in a gesture of “you got it” and walked to my desk. “In the sequel, he and DJ Ned and MC are on the run again… out west, barreling through Arizona in a hippie van. Well, the passenger side is now painted in hip-hop art, at the insistence of MC. Oh, and they now have a dog, a big Lab.”
“Dillen?”
“You got it.”
Spider-Man lives! Yes, yes! “I’ll sleep soo much better tonight.”
Larry smiled a most exaggerated smile. “I’m so pleased. Wanna know what their license plate says on the van?”
“Tell me.”
“MRVNSKS.”
Perhaps this craziness explained the heightened interest from the producers. I had no idea what drove them to hate one project and love the next. But they seemed to move in herds, those slick-haired decision-makers, and they continued to behave like anxious Ebayers in the final seconds of bidding.
I was about to share the latest bids with Larry when my cell phone rang. “Mind if I take this call?” I asked, motioning Larry to sit in my guest chair. “I think it’s my wife.”
“Sure,” he said, perusing the papers on my desk as he sat. “Go ahead.”
I leaned back in my chair and held the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Ned, it’s Angie.” She sounded breathless. “I just finished Larry’s ending, and it’s all tied to the ABBA song. Lanny knows about ‘dancing’s wrong,’ and so he’d surely climb down and embrace MC and Ned when he realized he still had friends.” She sighed into the phone as if relieved. “My bet is that Larry will write a sequel.” Maybe I should let Angie be the agent, and I’ll organize the protests.
“Yes, honey. We’re discussing those very things right now. He’s here in my office.”
“He’s with you?”
“Yep. Been here for hours.”
“Well then, tell him I think he’s done a wonderful job of presenting Miranda as a god… a kind of idol worship if you will. And showing how DJ Ned’s own idol was music. And tell Larry if his story gets published I’ll set up a booksigning for him at Barnes and Noble. My friend Margie works there in community relations. Oh, and invite Larry to share his theological thoughts with Pastor White.”
From burger deliverer to the homeless, to booksigning arranger, this was the woman I married—and still loved.
I held my hand over the mouthpiece. “Larry, Angie wants you to explain your theology to our pastor.”
He thought this over for a moment, nodded slowly. “Perhaps one weekday morning the two of them can meet me at Starbucks.”
I repeated his request to Angie, listened to her reply, then put my hand back over the receiver. “Angie says you should anticipate some light debate.”
As if alarmed at the terminology, Larry sat up straight in his chair. “I can handle light debate, just nothing heavy. Okay? I’m exhausted from using up my creative energy on this ending.”
Angie’s next comment sent me further into feelings of inadequacy. “Ned, there’s also some kind of hellish theme running through this story. I think Larry is trying to show us his own version of it. But he never goes to church or reads a Bible, so this is the best he can do.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Then I rubbed my chin and cocked my head to the side. “Hold on for me, honey, I need to ask Larry something.”
Again I held my hand over the receiver. “Larry, besides the music thing, what other themes did you insert?”
“Spiritual themes, of course.”
“Please expound.”
He spoke to the window. “You have to consider the color of Castro’s hot tub, the month of August in Hotlanta, the red M&M’s, Cuba, Killian’s Red, the sizzling tarmacs, and pushing red buttons, not to mention the very low price of gas. Oh, and if you put the first two letters of Lanny’s last name with the first letter of Miranda’s last name, you get—” He paused and pointed at his head. “Go ahead, you’re a smart guy.”
Hooch, Timms. I suppose Larry would tell you that after a few stunned seconds my eyes grew wide with recognition. “This thing is your own take on hell?”
He removed one of his Italian shoes and rubbed his foot atop the corner of my desk. “Correctomundo,” he said to his little toe. “And of course, Marvin is—”
“Satan himself.” Yes, I got something right!
“That is, if you believe in such a being.”
“Well, do you?”
He picked lint from his sock and put his shoe back on. “I’m not sure… but he makes for an interesting character.”
While I ended the call with my wife and offered to pick up dinner—this was a Tuesday, remember—Larry stood and tried to read some notes on my desk.
I hung up with Angie, stood, and put my hand over a stack of papers. “You’ve been thinking about the afterlife, obviously.”
Larry nodded. “My therapist says I think about it way too much.”
“You think about hell too much? Or heaven?”
“Both. I mean, the potential existence of both. But I’m not so sure that the whole burning fire thing is how it goes. I mean, what if people like the zealots aren’t even aware that they’re in hell, but instead they think they’re still trying to earn God’s favor, and it just goes on and on until the entire planet is one huge, orbiting cheese-ball?”
I couldn’t resist. “Hmmm… My Big Fat Orbiting Cheeseball?”
Larry’s eyes widened. “Great title for the sequel, Ned. Jot that on a Post-it note for me.”
I did, and handed him the note. “If all this cheese alarms you, why don’t you wander into some church and ask a few questions?”
He thought on this for all of two seconds. “Too stuffy. And besides, you’ve never invited me. No way would I go alone and risk getting smothered by the thumpers. I hear there are tons of thumpers here in Atlanta.”
I had no reply;I was too preoccupied with my status in the agent world. I had the potential to be the first agent to sell a project that fit into the genre ofNon-Christian’s comic allegory of hell, disguised as apocalyptic spoof.
“Sorry,” I said to him, “my mind wandered. You were saying something about the thumpers?”
> Larry stuffed the Post-it note into his shirt pocket and turned to look out my window at the traffic. “What I was saying was that I avoid ‘em. I would have asked you a few of my spiritual questions, but you’re kinda like Ned Neutral, from what I can tell. You know, somewhere in the middle.”
I possessed neither the learning nor the guts to share with Larry any knowledge about the afterlife. Embarrassing, considering whom I was married to. Being a once-a-monther who rarely paid attention, I suppose I was a fine example of neutrality.
He kept twisting his neck and trying to read my papers upsidedown. “So, when are you gonna tell me the numbers from L.A.?”
I set my cell on the desk and motioned for him to sit again. “Help yourself to my guest chair, Mr. Hutch. You’ll want to be seated for this.”
Larry sprawled in the chair, put his hands behind his head, and scrunched his eyes in anticipation. “I just looooove Agent Orange.”
I pulled the offers from my desk drawer, where I had hidden them. “When I read you these numbers, you’ll be tempted to propose marriage to Agent Orange. But please restrain yourself. I’m spoken for.”
Before I read Larry the four competing offers, I pulled his CD from my computer and tucked it into its case, aware that its contents approached legalism from such an odd angle that I should probably ask him to autograph the thing.
Truth was, I should not have been surprised that Larry had attemped some spiritual tangent of a theme. I mean, even his Aliens Invade Billy Graham Crusade manuscript had contained a remorseful alien. One little green man out of 14 million little green men—at Philips Arena the little fellow had stood in his chair and confessed his desire to take over the world by the time he reached adult height, which in his case was three-feet, one-inch.
Angie and I did tithe generously to the Baptist church in Buckhead, and even made a cash contribution to Victor, who promised to move out from under the 1-85 bridge. After all, fifteen percent of $272,000—an outright buy of the film rights instead of a mere option—was the largest commission check of my career. Thank you, Mylan Weems.
Today, however, Buckhead was a long way away. Today Angie and I had sand in our flip-flops, sunblock on our arms and necks—and hammers in our hands. Wielding similar implements out on the porch and inside the sunroom were Larry, Miranda, my son, Zach, and Miranda’s twenty-four-year-old sister, Carla, who just happened to be from Augusta.
Surprise, surprise.
We had come to Abaco to renovate and to celebrate. But mostly to renovate. On the southwest side of the island sat an old bungalow, a pastel blue two-story tucked among palm trees. It had four small bedrooms, plus a substantial loft with opposing port-hole windows. On the first floor, all doors and windows stayed open, and tropical breezes blew past our sweaty faces and right out the other side. One year after the deal had closed on Larry’s story, and two months after he’d begun writing his next big thing, he was the proud new owner of a Bahamas home in need of repair.
The six of us had been on the island for five days now, helping Larry fix up the abode he had purchased with half of his proceeds from the deal. This was the first home he had ever owned. For the past year he had kept all of his deal monies in a savings account, mostly living off interest and toying with his next manuscript. Then, one day in July, he announced to me via e-mail that he was flying to Abaco to look at real estate, and asked if I would like to go along.
He bought the second place we looked at.
His intention was to rent it out for twenty weeks a year while also using it for, in his own words, “intense writing retreats.”
It was now November. The Saturday of Thanksgiving week, in fact. Larry had bribed us all with promises of roasted island turkey garnished with pineapple—if we would only spend a week here helping him fix up the place. An easy decision for all, to say the least.
Filming for A Pagan’s Nightmare had wrapped in September, and Mylan Weems remained secretive about any edits they had made to the storyline, though Larry said they were few. Larry—asked by Mylan to be a script consultant—had played spectator to several weeks of filming, returning to Atlanta regularly to continue with his twice-a-week therapy sessions.
The gentleman who helped Larry specialized in working with creative people, tapping into childhood traumas and memories, into histories and abuses that might later show up in an artist’s work. Here on the island Larry was more open with the details of his sessions, even though I told him he should probably keep them between himself and his shrink.
“I insist that you know, Ned,” Larry told me as we donned work gloves and stacked decking boards into his yard. “It’ll at least help you understand my work.”
Besides the Sunday school teacher who made him hold a chalkboard eraser in his mouth, other issues surfaced that were beyond my ability to predict: Being raised after age eight by step-parents—churchgoers, both—who often left Larry locked in his room alone. A legalistic neighbor who blared religious music into the streets on weekends while pretending to be a DJ. Getting fired from a construction job by a Bible-thumping boss. A childhood fascination with large boats. A spare bedroom filled nearly floor to ceiling with music CDs. He explained that his one happy memory from his early years was being driven to Cape Canaveral to view launches. His stepdad always rented the same little house in Cocoa Beach.
I pressed too hard only one time, as the two of us were taking a break from building the steps to his deck. “Ya think you use your humor to cover up pain?” I asked.
Larry’s response was just what I deserved. He tossed his paper cup into the trash pile and said, “Ned, you’re an agent, not some psychoanalytical psychology person.”
I didn’t ask any more personal questions during our time on the island. Whatever had messed with Larry’s head was either dealt with, or repressed behind his newfound career, his comely girlfriend, and his island hospitality. My guess was that it was dealt with. Regardless, his sharing of his past helped me deal with my present.
Prior to the sale of his work, I had looked at Larry through the lens of profit, and he likely looked at me in the same manner. He and his creativity were a commodity to be sold for my gain. I had paid almost zero attention to the man himself. Here on the island I had learned that he was as flawed as I was, and whether or not he ended up with Miranda and had his own family, I made sure that he knew he had full access to mine.
I pulled a deck board from the stack and said, “Christmas is at my place this year, Lar.”
He whopped a nail into place, then another. “I’ll be there, Nedster.”
By late afternoon he’d climbed atop a ladder in his kitchen, installing crown molding with an artist’s gusto. Angie stood below in the role of helper, handing up each piece, Larry accepting them one after another while sneaking glances at Miranda. She was sitting on the floor painting a rocking chair aqua blue, pausing between strokes to flirt with him.
“I can’t believe I’m dating a screenwriter,” she’d say.
“Aw, hush.”
Zach toiled happily with Carla on another chair, so I joined Miranda in helping paint the last two. Both young women sported tie-dye shirts, denim shorts, and old leather sandals, though Carla wore her hair much longer, grown out to the small of her back. The four of us worked on our knees, scooting around the floor atop newspaper.
I painted one rocker arm as Miranda did the other, and I could not resist the urge to find out what she knew about Larry’s story.
“He’s told you the plot by now?” I asked in a lowered voice.
She glanced into the kitchen at Larry and wiped a drop of aqua blue from her arm. “All I know is that there’s some kind of search for a girl by the main character, and that he has a bit of a problem with some religious people.”
“You could say that,” Zach offered.
“Yes,” said Carla, turning away to hide her face, “you could say that.”
Miranda quickly rolled a hand towel into a whip and popped her sister on the behind. “You�
��ve read the story, too?”
Carla nodded and started on the underside of a chair.
Miranda shook the hair out of her eyes and glared accusingly at each of us. We all wore serious faces, concentrating on our work.
“How come everybody but me gets to read the story?” she asked.
I removed my glasses and wiped them as casually as possible. “It’s a bit evil in places, Miranda. So perhaps Larry just wanted to keep you from having any nightmares.”
She looked around again at everyone hard at work, hesitated a moment, and said, “Oh… how sweet.”
More amusing to me, however, was watching Larry and Angie get along.
I think Larry saw that Angie could appreciate his effort—wacked as it was—to show that many non-believers give thought to the afterlife. To her credit, she only tried once to thump, er, convert him.
She did this while discussing with him her idea for bathroom wallpaper. Samples were laid out all over the kitchen and against the walls.
Angie recommended the Last Supper scene.
Larry climbed up four rungs of the ladder and chose sunken treasure beneath a deep blue sea.
And this—just a small disagreement on décor—is what caused their differing views to pop up and debate.
Angie held her preferred sample in both hands and stood facing Larry from across the kitchen. “Larry, I just thought that I should tell you that hell is lonely and totally absent of fun. The only thing you got right in your story was the heat.”
Larry tried to humor his way out of the conversation. He came down off the ladder, grabbed his sunken treasure sample, and spoke from behind it. “Oh, yeah? And how do you know the M&M’s aren’t red? Who’s come back and told you for sure? Hmmm?”
“If there are any M&M’s, they’ll melt. So will the sage green Xterra, the ridiculous billboards, Castro’s yacht, and Fence-Straddler AM.”
Larry paused, still attempting to hide behind his sample and his humor. “But what if subtropical moisture was pulled in by a hurricane and cooled things off?”
Angie shook her wallpaper sample and stomped her foot. “There is no sub-tropical moisture in hell, Larry.”
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