“I'm sorry,'' O'Connor tells him, with utter sincerity, and risks touching the actor on the arm. “I'm really sorry. I forgot the time.''
Pine still stares at nothing, his head twitching from time to time. He seems to be talking mostly to himself. “That can—" he says, and trembles, and says, “hurt. Oh, boy. That can hurt. Oh. Hurt ."
“Sorry. Really." O'Connor gets up off his knees and resumes his old position in the chair, reclaiming his pen and notebook from where he'd dropped them on the slate in that moment of panic. His expression still worried, he watches the actor's slow recovery.
Pine, crouched over his upraised knees, rubs his arms obsessively. His breathing, which had been quick and strained, grows more level, more even. He turns his head slowly, looks at O'Connor as though he can actually see him, then looks away again, at whatever it is he sees at the farthest range of infinity. “I don't like that part," he says, in a half whisper. “Not that part."
“I am sorry," O'Connor says. What else is there to say?
The actor lifts his head, looking out and up, over the trees of his compound. The sky fills his eyes. He says, “I saw a girl . . ."
FLASHBACK 23
There’s a party going on, in a house up in Big Sur. Big, rough-hewn log house cantilevered out over the cliff. Big, comfortable, big-roomed house full of Indian rugs and Mexican pottery and all kinds of dope. Big counterculture house with state-of-the-art stereo inside Shaker reproduction cabinets. Would you believe two platinum albums were recorded in this house? Of course you would.
Buddy had business up here, a little shmooze here and there. Somebody has to take care of the business end, make sure the IRS doesn't get everything. And he could take care of what had to be taken care of, and still kick back and party along the way. So he brought Jack. Jack doesn't get out of the compound much, doesn't do much of anything much, is not at all keeping himself in trim. Not at all
Jack fell asleep. Early in the party, sun barely overhead, people grooving in the big room cantilevered out over the cliff, with the wall of plate-glass windows showing the whole fucking ocean, man, you can almost fucking see
Australia out there. And pine trees down both sides, furring the face of the cliff.
And Jack fell asleep, On a backless couch down at the end of the room, the foot of the couch against the big window, and that's where Jack fell asleep, his back against the glass, head against the glass, mouth hanging open, eyes closed, hands limp, nothing behind his poor befuddled head but the glass and the air and the sea and Australia. Just out of sight over there, beyond the glistening horizon.
The loud party noises—people yelling their conversations over the stereo sound of a not-yet-released new soft-rock album—did not wake Jack but seemed to soothe him, comfort him, convince him he was not alone, he was safe to slumber. But the first scream troubled his sleep, made him frown, made his mouth half close in protest.
The second scream dragged his eyes open. A blur of movement met him, a blur of sound blanketed his ears, and then voices became distinct, full of panic.
"She's freaked!"
"It's a bad trip!"
"Hold her, for Christ's sake!"
And the girl's voice, screaming, “Get away! Get away!”
Jack turned his wondering head and, along the line of windows, past the milling mob, he could see her, a skinny naked girl of fifteen or sixteen, ribs standing out below her breasts, face distorted, keeping a circle clear around herself by swinging a record jacket back and forth in wide swaths. She screamed and screamed, foam on her lips, and the people around her ducked and dodged, trying to reach her, trying to calm her, trying to get her under somebody's control.
Jack watched, and then somebody made a lunge for the girl, knocking the record jacket out of her hand. Her scream got louder, more shrill, and she spun about, eluding all those groping arms, and ran straight ahead, full speed through the window.
Jack turned his head, his cheek against the cool glass, and watched her go, in a long arc, out away from the building, high over the sea and the cliff, the shattered glass flying with her, gleaming like diamonds in the sun, the girl a skinny, wild-haired white spider flailing through the air, her scream filling the sky and rolling like Juggernaut through Jack's brain.
She fell so slowly, like a death in an arty Japanese movie, arcing out and down and out and down, the hard jewels of glass tumbling with her, and Jack watched her go, and saw the great bruised sea rise up for her, and he died. He breathed, he heard the sounds in the room, he saw the sunlight gleaming, he felt the glass warm against his cheek, but he died. The sea sucked the girl in, and he was dead.
Through the pandemonium of the room, Buddy shoved his way to Jack's side, grabbing him roughly by the elbow, saying urgently in his ear, “Dad! Get your shit together, dammit! We gotta get outa here!"
“Wendy," Jack whispered. His terror was so severe he couldn't move. He whispered, “Did you see her? Wendy?"
Buddy grabbed Jack's jaw in a tight and painful grip, turning Jack's face up toward his own hot angry glare. “Listen to me, you fucking asshole," Buddy said, low and fast, below the chaotic noises that had now overtaken the room behind him, but clear and ringing in Jack's ears. “I still need you," Buddy rasped, giving Jack's jaw a hard shake. “You do not freak out on me. You do not get found in this house where some underage cunt offed herself. You get up on your feet and you walk with me out of this house. You do it now."
“Buddy, Buddy," Jack said, brimming with gratitude, his eyes filling with tears, “where would I be without my Buddy? You're my oldest friend in all the world, do you know that?"
“Up, shit-for-brains," Buddy ordered him, and released Jack's jaw to grab his hand instead and twist his thumb painfully backward. “On your fucking feet”
“You’ll save me, Buddy," Jack said, beginning to cry, struggling to rise from the couch, making it at last to the vertical, tottering there. “You'll save me, Buddy Buddy. You always save me, you always do.”
“March,” Buddy told him, twisting his thumb.
“It was Wendy,” Jack whispered, shivering with dread, and the two old friends made their way out of that room and away from that party.
35
I'm so cold. I hurt all over. My thumb hurts, too, but that's something else. My jaw hurts, too, but that's something else. It's just that I'm so cold. Since I died, I'm cold a lot.
“What?" I say. Michael O'Connor has said something, but I was too cold to hear him.
So he repeats it. “Why did you call that girl Wendy?"
Wendy? What have I been saying? Something must have gone wrong, my balance isn't right, I'm not paying attention. This cannot be. I must be on guard, always on guard, and especially on guard with the media. Oh, my, yes. “Wendy?" I say, casually, lifting my head, thinking back. “That was the poor girl's name, I suppose."
“It was your first girl's name, too," he says.
Oh, damn you, Michael, you do have a memory between those ears, don't you? I smile at him. “Lots of Wendys in this old world," I say. “Anyway, it got covered up that we were there. Me and two other guys with . . . names."
“I don't remember anything about it," O'Connor says.
“You wouldn't," I assure him. “When a property is as valuable as I am, a lot of very serious professional people see to it that nothing happens to lower that value. I am not a person anymore, you know, Michael, no, sir, not me. I am a property. A valuable property. A whole lot of people would be shit outa luck if anything happened to this property. So nothing does."
"Well, some things do," O'Connor suggests. "Some things did, anyway; you told me about them."
"But not anymore." I look around, at my domain. "I stay here now, mostly, since that time up at Big Sur. I make one picture a year now, that's all. I don't need to do any more; I don't need the money. I just have to do the one to keep myself current, part of the scene. Grandstanders, now, that's what I do. I don't, you know, act anymore. I could if I wanted, I still could, but
it's hard, it's too hard, and who needs it? They don't pay their money to see me become somebody, not anymore. They pay to see me be me. An idealized them. I do clenched-jawline stuff a lot. I pick properties with speeches in them." I glower at Michael O'Connor: "You don't love me. You never loved me. You never loved anybody. You don't know how to love."
This speech seems to make O'Connor uncomfortable. He says, "But what about the talent? The gift?"
"Among my souvenirs."
"Well . . . what do you do with the rest of your time?" he asks. "The nine or ten months a year when you're not making a movie."
"I stay home," I say, smiling at the thought. "Right here. Anything I need, they bring me. I'm safe here." I smile at Michael, from my safety.
FLASHBACK 24
The naked giggling girl ran across the patio, past the pool, around the edge of the rose garden, and off across the rolling lawn. The naked Jack pursued her, gasping, grinning, dropping to his knees from time to time, struggling up again, lumbering on, following that round and muscular behind.
The girl had been told to see to it that Jack got his exercise, so that's what she was doing. When he got too close, she would dart away, laughing slightly, sticking her tongue out at him, wriggling a lot to encourage him. And when he would fall back, when he would seem to lose heart for the chase, she would slow, her looks would become seductive, her movements lewd, and slowly the light would come back into his eyes, his trembling limbs would firm themselves, and he would go on with the chase. Because, as they both knew, the other part of her instruction was that eventually he must catch her.
Out across the lawn she went. The distant high wall, which was topped by broken glass embedded in the cement, was barely visible through the surrounding layers of ornamental brush. Panting, grinning, eyes rolling, arms pumping, Jack followed, weaving from side to side, slowing, struggling, slowing, stopping, falling forward, landing on his face on the lush green lawn.
The girl ran on another few paces, her bright laughter rising toward the blue sky, but then she looked back and saw Jack lying there, face down, and she stopped, turned around, put her small fists on her lovely hips and considered the situation. A ruse? A temporary rest? But he wasn't moving, not at all, so finally she raised her voice and shouted toward the house, “He fell down!"
Immediately, the door in the end of the house beyond the multicar garage, the door leading to the security offices, opened and four young hefty men came trotting out. They all had short, military-style haircuts. All wore gray slacks, white shirts, narrow neutral ties, and beige or gray sports jackets. The four of them came trotting in unison across the lawn toward Jack as the naked girl also walked toward the unconscious man, wondering if her job here was finished now.
The security men reached Jack, flipped him over, checked him for vital signs, discussed the situation briefly with one another, and came to the conclusion this was no more than a normal kind of passing out, requiring no particular medical attention. Therefore, as the girl wandered away to get dressed, each of the four security men picked up one of Jack's limbs and carried him like a firemen's net across the lawn and through the main front door of the house.
Where Buddy was just coming down the main stairs, in a light gray summer suit, accompanied by two servants carrying his matched luggage. Hoskins, at the foot of the stairs to wish Mr. Pal bon voyage, became the hub of all motion, as Buddy and his entourage approached from above and Jack in the grip of his security quartet was borne in from without.
Hoskins gave his first attention to the conscious person, saying, “Enjoy your trip, sir."
His voice and manner grim, his cold eyes on Jack, Buddy said, "Oh, I will, Hoskins, believe me. I will.”
"Yes, sir." Hoskins raised an eyebrow at the right front security man. "Yes?" he asked.
"No sweat," the security man said. "We'll just put him to bed."
"Bed," said the ghost of Jack, and smiled.
The security men made their way up the stairs with their burden. Buddy paused to watch them go, and the servants paused with him, carrying his bags. Jack and the security men reached the top of the stairs and disappeared on down the wide white hall. Buddy looked at Hoskins. He said, "Give Jack a message for me."
"Certainly, sir."
"Tell him," Buddy said, "not to kill himself before I get back."
Hoskins nodded, accepting receipt of the message. Buddy turned about and left, the servants trailing with his bags.
36
"That was six weeks ago," I say, feeling dreamier again. “When Buddy went away."
“And Buddy came home last night," O'Connor says.
This surprises and pleases me, and yet at the same time makes me nervous and scared. But why should I be nervous and scared? Buddy Pal is my oldest friend in all the world. “Gee, did he?" I ask. “Are you sure?"
“You talked with him last night."
“I did?" Wherever I look, there are deep black holes. “I can't remember," I say.
O'Connor leans forward. This is important to him, for some reason. “Try," he says.
I try, but it doesn't help. Sadness, sadness; all I can feel is sadness. I say, “I had a breakdown once, you know. Did I tell you?"
“You didn't tell me," O'Connor says, “but I do know. It was after Miriam Croft died."
Oh, I can feel that, live it again, those terrible moments in the back of the limousine, rushing across Connecticut. She was making such noises. I wanted her to stop making those awful noises, and then she did, and that was worse. “Miriam!” I screamed, trying to reach her, reach her, pull her back. “Miriam, don't die! Don't die! Not you, too!”
O'Connor's voice brings me back. He says, "Why did Miriam's death upset you so much? Why did it give you a nervous breakdown, so bad that after the funeral you had to be hospitalized for five months? The doctors told you you weren't to blame for her death, so what was there about it that affected you so strongly?"
"I don't know," I say. The nervousness is getting stronger. I don't want to talk anymore, I don't want to be interviewed anymore, I don't like the way this is going, I don't like any part of it. "I don't know," I say, "I don't know, I don't know."
"Could it be, Mr. Pine," O'Connor asks me, leaning over those huge gray knees of his, that nothing face pressing toward me, "could it be that it reminded you of something earlier in your life? Some other event, involving a woman, and death, and the backseat of a car?"
Rattled, my jaw trembling, I manage to say, "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"I think you do."
"No! I'm Jack Pine! I'm the movie star! I live here in this house and they take care of me! That's all there is! That's all there is!"
"Let's go back, Mr. Pine," O'Connor tells me, "to the very first time, your very first sexual experience with a woman."
Shaking my head, shaking my fists, I say, "I don't want to.
"You were so excited, you lost control," O'Connor says. "Do you remember telling me that? It was like an explosion, you said."
I cover my eyes with my hands, but still I can see. My whole body can see it now.
FLASHBACK 1A
Jack, sixteen years old, reared up over the waiting Wendy in the backseat of the car. His feet drummed against the door she'd just made him slam, switching out the light above his head. Wildeyed, staring in the dark, his nose filled with a suffocating musk, he trembled all over, his body moving in rapid disorganized jerks. "I can't—" he cried, his voice breaking back to childish falsetto, "It's so— You're so—"
"Get with it, willya?" Wendy demanded, half laughing, teasing, poking at his chest with sharp-knuckled fingers. "Come on”
Jack's arms flailed around. He beat himself on the head in his mad struggle to get control of himself. The Buddy- facade he'd come in here with had failed him and fled. Grabbing Wendy's shoulders in his fists, clutching tight, he yanked her this way and that, gibbering in frenzy, shaking her like Raggedy Ann.
"Jesus!" Wendy cried. "Watch it! Hey, the window c
rank! Look out, you're—What are you—Gahhh/"
Jack shook and thrust with rhythmic mania, flinging the two of them about so that the car rocked on its springs, and down the road Buddy grinned to himself at the sound of it. But every time Jack lifted Wendy's body now, though in the darkness and in his own frenzy he didn't notice, her head merely flopped, back and forth on her shoulders.
“Yes!" Jack cried. “Yes! Yes” And he collapsed atop her, gasping, shuddering all over, spent.
Slowly, at long last, he lifted himself again onto his elbows, perspiration glinting on his brow and his neck. “Wendy," he said, low and hoarse and still winded, “Wendy, I'll never forget you, I'll never—"
He stopped. He stared. His eyes bulged with horror. His scream filled the car like knives.
37
I break things. I break things.”
My lips are loose and blubbery, my eyes are crushed grapes, strings of foul seaweed hang down in my throat, my head is a cavern full of crows, every nerve and sinew in my entire body is untied and aching and trembling. I am like the body of someone who has been electrocuted. This is what it feels like afterward, after the lightning has filled your body and done its work. "Punish me!” I cry. "Punish me!"
I stare from my bleeding eyes and O'Connor is there, still there, always there. He's plagued me my entire life long. "But you can't punish me,” I tell him. "I'm a property. I'm too valuable to punish. Nobody can touch me. "
"Buddy helped you that night, didn't he?” O'Connor asks.
Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 Page 14