Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  Then it hit.

  The urn, guided by all sorts of good-girl forces, indeed hit. It hit Kirby right in the groin. Smack dab in the groin. Bang on target – in the groin. No Road Runner-delivered anvil, this. The non-cartoonish reality was a brutally undeniable wake-up which, truth to tell, brought with it a closure to what was potentially a horrendous train-wreck of a situation. For Jana, that is, and perhaps Butterbugs. That it ended badly for its perpetrators was simple evidence there are unseen energies in this world, and granted, those energies are often derided as being largely negative in their connotations.

  But here, this time, goodness had a chance to triumph.

  A hog-wallow screech, rivaling, and finally outdoing Jana’s cry of the soul, now made the night yet more lurid with abrasive sound waves. Predictably urgent, the collision of iron and flesh (and internal blood) rendered Kirby inactive except for flailing and howling.

  Inevitably, any witnesses might have asked, which was worse: swallowing bleach, or getting an urn dropped on your crotch? For Butterbugs and Jana (not to mention those fine siege-breakers, the resourceful Pepper and the ingenious Prairie), perhaps that question could be saved for later reviews.

  Then everybody who wasn’t incapacitated got busy and did exceptional service in tying up all the loose ends. Butterbugs immediately aided in Jana’s return to modesty, while she herself dialed 911. Pepper and Prairie descended to the ground floor and welcomed the two guests back into the lodge.

  In due course a chopper appeared on the horizon with FrenzStrong shine-down lights. Cops took reports, and the two handcuffed criminals were hauled off – Bakyan with terrible base burns in his mouth and Kirby with a significantly-impacted genital set. Whoosh, and they were gone.

  Another cop chopper appeared, to evacuate the attempted rape victim. All preparations were made for a hasty departure.

  In the hubbub and turbo-noise of the blades whirling, Jana only had time for a quick appreciative ‘thanks’ glance in Pepper’s direction – no more.

  As for Butterbugs, it was naturally assumed by all that he would accompany Jana, to see the whole affair through.

  ‘We’re outa here, Butterbugs,’ Jana yelled, as he hustled her out to the chopper. Everyone was waiting. ‘Let’s go!’

  After she was safely loaded, he started to withdraw.

  ‘Let’s go, Butterbugs!’

  The helicopterian tumult was pressing in from every angle.

  ‘I’m not going back,’ he announced.

  ‘You what?? What? Oh, hell! After all this?’

  ‘I’m staying on. I belong here. Especially after all this.’

  ‘People,’ interjected Chopper Pilot Melstone, ‘We’ve got to lift off, now.’

  ‘You heard the man. So get in – please – movie star and rescuer!’

  Jana thought her star might respond to being treated like a real-life hero.

  ‘NOW!’ repeated Melstone.

  ‘I tell you, I’m giving up pictures. I’m staying here. I’m staying on.’

  ‘Butterbugs.’ A voice came from directly behind him, marvelously strong in the midst of the roaring wind. It was Pepper.

  He spun about. She was a vision of loveliness, with her hair blowing all around, with lips anxiously parted, and eyes as soulful as the first moment he had seen them, in quieter times.

  ‘Pepper! You came!’

  ‘I did. To see you off. And now, you must go.’

  Butterbugs was thunderstruck.

  ‘Go??’

  ‘It is right that you accompany your director, after what has happened tonight. She needs your comfort and support. You must see it through.’

  ‘But Pepper, we are on the verge of knowing each other. This time, this, this situation, has brought us together. Do you not feel –’

  ‘I do. I tell you, I do. I feel it. Like no other feeling. Ever.’

  ‘We must talk.’

  ‘We will talk. But right now, you must see Jana through, to complete safety.’

  How could he argue further?

  ‘Then I will go. And we will talk.’

  He was able to pause only a fleeting moment before all stops were pulled out. Or almost all.

  ‘I think I love you. That is the truth in front of us now. I think I love you, Pepper.’

  ‘Oh, Butterbugs! That is the wonder I had hoped for! I can say the same, and I will, except: I know I love you. I love you!’

  She kissed him then, fully, with a conviction that matched her words:

  ‘Oh, my dear lover!’

  He returned everything she gave him just then, with his compliments, and their equality was all around them.

  ‘Pepper! Pepper! I love you too! I know it, I knew it! Oh, Pepper-love! The first moment I saw you! You knew it, too!’

  ‘I did! I did!’

  They kissed again with passions boosted by the surrounding cyclone, as well as the perceived impatience of the crew and Jana, who looked upon them without malice, but with a sort of exhaustion that went well beyond near-rape. It also marked a desire’s defeat, for here, directly in front of her, was a scene she could neither stage nor edit.

  ‘I am a director,’ she thought to herself. ‘And a helpless one.’

  ‘People!’ repeated Chopper Pilot Melstone, ‘I’m afraid we really must go now.’

  He knew of the star he now addressed, and gave him every possible opportunity to play out his poignant scene with all courtesy (‘Just like in one of his pictures!’ he would crow to his colleagues later), but if they didn’t take off right now, fuel supply records after the mission’s conclusion would be an embarrassing point of compromise to the county, movie star people or no.

  ‘Then, I depart,’ said Butterbugs, letting up from his kiss for a moment before re-engaging. ‘My love also to that little Prairie of yours, sweet-teen lovely!’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes!’ Pepper cried.

  ‘And I depart in pure love, for that is what I can give and feel, at last!’

  ‘Go now,’ she replied, with held-back tears. ‘And return! Truly, we will meet again.’

  Reluctantly, Deputy Sheriff Dan Merrick gently dared to touch the star on his shoulders, as a signal that the urgency of departure was now very real, and approaching a red line of criticalness.

  Butterbugs complied, and his eyes never left Pepper’s until she was compelled to retreat beyond the danger zone of the blades. Butterbugs almost burst out of the craft – to ensure her safe passage back to the lodge, if nothing else. But stout Merrick strapped him in, directly opposite Jana, who could no longer bear the scene, and looked only down.

  Pepper was now indeed safe, though still enveloped in the helicopter hurricane. Prairie ran up to her, and the two held each other fast, waving, blowing kisses, and shedding tears that instantly dried where they trailed.

  The moon was setting. There wasn’t much time. Kegtown, their destination, was at least fifty air miles away. The takeoff was a dusty spectacle, and both Ps tarried long in the yard, watching the airship until the curvature of the earth, the bane of all farewells, allowed it no longer.

  Wordless, they finally repaired back to their lodge, which was, aside from the busted window and the few bottles littered about, returned to its characteristic serenity.

  Before she followed Pepper up the steps of Jana’s disgrace, Prairie Browne remembered something. Her favorite cast iron urn was around here somewhere. It was part of the lodge’s original equipment. It had served as a cigar receiver by the front door for decades, and had been hauled up to Prairie’s bedroom because she liked its baroque shape.

  There it was, tilted in the cloven ground, like a Pompeian relic. She trotted over, brushed it off, inspected it for damage, found none, then had an idea. She fetched the bottle of bleach that was not far away, its contents still relatively intact, as its drinker had elected not to continue to imbibe its offerings.

  Always practically-minded, Prairie doused the urn with the pure bleach, scrubbed it to satisfaction with sticks and
ponderosa pine needles, dried it with her special utility rag that she always carried (but was pleased to discard, now that it had done its ultimate job of cleansing), picked up the fairly heavy pot with a teeny grunt, regarded it in the post-moon glow, and gave a giggle of delight before moving up the steps, through the door, and further yet, on up the stairs to her room.

  In the weeks that followed, Butterbugs made repeated attempts to link with Pepper. Or even to locate her. He could accomplish neither. There was no explanation. He hired a team to investigate. Even with GPS methods, the lodge’s exact whereabouts could not be ascertained. The log from Butterbugs’ own location chip revealed nothing. There was a gap in the record. Nor could these lacks in data be invalidated. Topmost techies were speechless.

  The extent of the western outback in which the lodge was allegedly positioned was considerable, and the efforts to establish its existence beyond a shadow of a doubt would have to be attempted. Even the Dango County Sheriff’s Dept. chopper records were consulted, and routes retraced, with dubious results. Plotting invariably led to random locations, with the only significant discoveries being USGS benchmarks.

  Sadly, no matter how hard he tried, Butterbugs couldn’t recall the two localities Prairie had mentioned as the local limits of her geographic knowledge: Nutberry Mountain and Jemmons Draw.

  In any case, an expedition was kitted-and-fitted out, with the exclusive goal of finding the old weathered bench (at least), from which Butterbugs cast his eyes upon the snow-clad Smith-Kems, that legendary night…

  But alas, the expedition, half-starved, demoralized, dogged by bad weather and bad luck, broken down by the incredulous expectations on the part of the photoplay star who had talked them into this fiasco, came back empty-handed.

  [On the plus side, the saga of this glorious failure would serve as a major Butterbugs vehicle, ‘In Search of Non-Existence’ (Kemmendine), which, no doubt, would be a huge success…]

  So, that particular moonlit night, those persons, that locale, were they all the stuff of evanescent, elusive, and embellished legends?

  No man could say, least of all Butterbugs. He refused to indulge in juju technology or mumbo-jumbo assumptions, or tolerate ‘Celestine’ bullshit.

  No, he saw those things. He made those faces. He gazed upon those mountains. He kissed those lips.

  Jana had no comment. On this or any other issue. Dutifully completing ‘In The Years To Come’ (20th-Fox) with a blankness that was intractable, she wound up her operations as a motion picture director and subsequently took holy orders as a nun, at a strictly private convent somewhere in southern Missouri. Or it could’ve been northern Arkansas.

  And, in addition, and also, ‘In The Years’ was a – flop. The first for Butterbugs, at least in the total sense, and because it was, the only other witnesses from that night, Bakyan Keb’s and Kirby Bashkog’s names were still in the credits. The shaft was open for their free-fall into discredit and obscurity. If the picture had been a hit, they would have been carried to redemption, restored in reputation as picture makers, and considered ‘hot’.

  Fortunes always rise when one’s wagon is tied to a blockbuster, be it only by a frayed thread. As things went though, regardless of being hitched to a Butterbugs vehicle, small or large (until now a guarantee as a boost within the Industry), there remained one condition, even with a Butterbugs production. It had to at least be a modest success. If not, ‘You’re OUT, baby. OUT!!!’

  This, their one chance at legitimacy blown, the two Assistant Producers vanished from all recognition. So they sank, not only within their jail cells, but within their late profession, down into deepest obscurity of the infinitely accommodating stewpot of Hollywood’s slops from yesterday’s soup. Besides, they were felons, for crying out loud, branded both physically and mentally, not to mention in terms of reputation. There was no place for them, even in the sleaziest restricted-view-of-the-stage seats in the raunchiest behind-the-pillar rows of the last-string grind house world that Hollywood denies exists, but nevertheless tolerates in order to extract coin from the alley-door mugs who show up every night, to feed upon what is left of low-life audiences’ desires. Their fate thus rested at the very bottom of no-return oblivion.

  [As a postmortem, ‘In The Years’ stood primed to be revived and re-viewed as the masterpiece it was. But not yet awhile. Out of conflict often comes greatness…]

  One full-moon night, not unlike the magic one in question, to which he had sought so strenuously to return, Butterbugs stood on the terrace of his edgy Mulholland pad and regarded the orb over, and out west a ways, in the sky.

  ‘Moon! Sole remaining witness to my wonders that night! An entreaty awaits you down here. Reveal, reveal to me your kept secret! You alone know who you shone down upon that night. It was she who praised you with great and fulsome praise, and brought me to her love. I think of it every hour of every day. You were there! I saw you! You cannot have done anything but smile, knowing there was such a chance for such a perfect link between two people unknown to each other, and for it to exist down here on this pathetic and flawed planet. You were the ceiling lamp under which we – my lover and I – could look at each other and recognize what we could be to each other. And since then, I have been denied a return, a chance to live that love, a chance, like so many in this world, to at least have some access to an avenue that leads toward making my life meaningful. Can you not now reveal to me where my love lives? Where she might be? Is she all right? Is she aware? Does she – even exist? No answer? No? You still shine, but you are silent. As ever. As you should be. Why should my request even be acknowledged? What you see from up there makes my life as meaningless as I know it now to be. For, how can I live without the love I found under your watch, which I know does exist? No? It does not? Then, perhaps, neither should I. Neither should I…’

  He then cast his gaze downward, and it paused on the railing-less edge of the terrace, beyond which lay the striking abyss that impressed so many visitors with its stark and bold awfulness.

  Perhaps it was time for him to go over it. Over the edge, for he was being pushed there by this relentless vacuum in his life, the tearing-apart over what was not, but what should be, because he had held it in his arms, lived it. He had been there, and now, without it, the experience revoked, he felt emptied of purpose, so strong was the love he’d felt. He had put his whole life force upon its fruition. So going over that edge, that was an answer, especially from the clean-lined view here, above it. Rash, maybe, but really quite sensible, as continuing a life in a corner sans love did not appeal, even with a success-laden career in which world-wide impacts had been already made.

  It would be swift, and certainly fatal, as the drop may not be that far, but the dangerous objects awaiting below would not allow for survival past a few painful seconds. He had had many such thrills in his acting career. This would be yet another.

  A running start would be appropriate, for the momentum should be dedicated, and now, while the notion was hot, his motivation for self-destruction was most activated, so he started to jog in place, and then moved forward.

  But because of the moon’s muted though persistent illumination, which made even the gridded lights on the plains far below so uncharacteristically dimmed down, every detail on the terrace stood out with clear definition and dimension.

  This was especially true of a new, guest feature that chanced to appear on the thin horizontal line that divided earth and sky. It was off to the left of his presumed runway, and displayed an arresting contrast of dark silhouette against the lunar-washed atmosphere behind.

  She was Heatherette. She was just standing there.

  75.

  The Aghori

  ‘Butterbugs,’ came a confident monotone. ‘O Butterbugs. Good even. Settle thy studies. Pay heed in my direction. Will you, now? For I need a response. I have a question for you. Before you test your survival chances in doing your own stunts, I was wondering, are you interested in a script that is different from all ot
hers?’

  She was Heatherette, wrapped in night-tide velvet, like a Columbia Pictures statuette placed on the extreme limits of his terrace’s parallel. Only she held no torch aloft, only an idea. Self-destruction is final, as far as we know; a lousy picture isn’t – as far as we know.

  He ceased his built-up jogging. The abyss waited, impatiently. And here was Heatherette the Illusive, at a moment of import, with an intriguing, intellectually stimulating prospect that seemed more important than the triviality of his own demise.

  He may have been a lovesick romantic, three quarters in love with cop-out death, but the premise of a script leading into a new challenge made him cut the crap and listen to the high concept.

  ‘Speak,’ he said, then added, ‘Muse…’

  More attractive than any muse could be, and a better babe than Athena probably was (both having grey eyes), Heatherette let fall her principal robe, which suddenly formed the rusticated top of any pediment she might stand upon at this moment. Thus was her diaphanous presence more definitively shown, featuring a sheer sort of nightie thing, probably dandelion yellow, but, in this light, it was immaterial. Her beautiful curves were brilliantly showcased on this exclusive stage for the star to witness, and it would be his choice as to whether they were a worthy distraction from his own tiresome tripe concerning taking his own life, just because baby didn’t get his rattle to play with at exactly the right time for baby to be perfectly pacified by what baby thought was the most important requirement in the universe.

  The power of the muse then kicked in.

  ‘Butterbugs,’ she whispered, while activating her feminine movements… which brought any tableau that had any appeal in winning a weak male over – to life. ‘Wait awhile. Pay heed to what I say, for this is not a dream, though it be dreamlike. I am no apparition, but perhaps I can be, for a time.’