Dead Stars

by Bruce Wagner

  So he wrapped the 2 faces—for in the end it was true, G-d/Janus had 2 faces because “3 is 2, 2 is 1, & 1 is none”—he wrapped them in blankets & headed out. (Again the difficulty in leaving, but external forces already working on his behalf, taking him by the hand.) He tucked them away in the van then climbed in & dro-blunted. KJ’d too, a booty bump, + Purple Lil Kim’d. Then carefully, mindfully, sacredly, he rolled across town to Harry’s.

  (1st to Harry’s, then to the Gagosian—that was the plan.)

  . . .

  Harry wasn’t sure who to call, the police or the paramedics.

  Jerzy was grim, grimy, ½dressed. Hair matted. Breath like chlorine. He did not look remotely familiar with the concept or passive activity of sleep. For the moment, Harry believed doing nothing—just listening, paying attention—was the best approach.

  “Do you know what these are?”

  He held up the blankets he’d carried in under each arm.

  “No,” said Harry. “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Yes—& you might be the only one. I was bringing em over to Gagosian but now I think maybe you should just sit with them a while. Only you.”

  “Okay, happy to. Are they photographs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Celebrities?”

  “Celebrity, singular. Plural but singular. The ultimate celebrity.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “G-d. Janus.”

  “They’re pictures of God?”

  Harry remained calm, drawing on his vast experience of watching hostage-negotiators in movies & television shows.

  “Of Janus, the 2-headed G-d. Man must invoke Him first, as He is the initiator of human life.”

  Jerzy propped them against a wall then sat down. Suddenly he looked confounded & grey. Harry thought: this is the part in the movie where I press the button under the desk to activate the silent alarm.

  Harry stood & said, “Let’s see what you brought.”

  (Be proactive.)

  Without glancing at his friend & employer, Jerzy nodded. When he looked like he was going to pass out, Harry transferred him to the floor. Harry’s impulse to call 911 was coldly overruled by a quickly growing curiosity.

  He began to undo the string around one of the blankets. Jerzy came to long enough to stop him, ordering which direction the pictures should face for maximum viewing impact.

  “Be careful.”

  “Careful of what?”

  “Be humble. If you’re humble—”

  The blankets were off. Because he’d done what Jerzy told him to, only the back of the frames were visible; the images faced the wall.

  “OK?” said Harry, seeking permission to continue.

  “OK. You can turn them.”

  The front of each panel was bare, except for a large boutonniere of thick photographic paper stuck to it, & folded in on itself, origami-like. Jerzy nodded out/mouthbreathed whilst Harry went to work unpacking the papery excrescence. Finally 2 enormous images blossomed from each canvas, lying flat—at least 10 × 10 apiece. There was only room to lean them against opposing walls.

  Harry stood back.

  Too abstract—he couldn’t make anything out. Except for in the center of each photo was fused a smaller, unadulterated, recognizable photo. Harry took a closer look . . .

  How strange! The images grafted onto the very solar plexus of both blowups seemed to be—no, they were—those of the telltale panty-sliver of a traditional (blue chip) honeyshot! beaver. The clarity & tautness, the drama of silk hose, the moment of automobiliac egress suspended in Time, the delicate, classical composition drawing one’s eyes toward the single Great Eye of all creation—hallmarks of Jerzy’s craft & best work.

  But as for the abstractions that surrounded the 2 honeyshots!––––––

  “I don’t quite . . . understand. I can’t see . . .”

  “Can’t you?” said Jerzy.

  The unexpected voice, the presence of it, startled him. Jerzy held some glossy heaps (more folded paper) in his hand. He reached out, offering them to Harry. Jerzy’s arm shook: it was scarlet, flecked, bruised by whole brown cities of needlemarks.

  Harry took them from him, uncrumpling a printout from Wikipedia, plus two shiny pages torn from a magazine. Some of the wiki passages had been highlighted:

  As a god of motion Janus looks after passages, causes the startings of actions, presides on all beginnings and since movement and change are bivalent, he has a double nature, symbolised in his two headed image.[23] He has under his tutelage the stepping in and out of the door of homes,[24] Because of his initial nature he was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another , the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. while Janus is Iunonius Juno is Ianualis as she favours delivery, women’s physiological cycle and opens doors.[11 3]

  Now Harry saw, but still could not apprehend.

  (Yet there was great skill&beauty in what Jerzy had done.)

  But what could it all mean?

  “I can’t–––––––”

  “Those pictures,” said Jerzy, helping out his friend, “are of G-d, taken as He stepped from his golden carriage. As you can see, there are 2 of Him: His name is Janus & He has 2 faces. We privileged few bore witness as He arrived for His merciful works.”

  Jerzy closed his eyes in exhaustion.

  Harry dialed 911.

  & while the sirens grew louder, the maestro of THE HONEYSHOT! tried to fathom what kind of madness had led his star pupil to see the face of God in a mantis & a hummingbird.

  CLEAN

  [Bud]

  The Art of Fiction, Part Three

  Bud’s

  hip surgery didn’t go well. An infection required another procedure. A few weeks later, he got pneumonia. He probably picked it up in the hospital. The doctor said, “It happens. We don’t like it when it does, but it does.”

  The narcotics constipated him. He’d never been one to examine his own shit, but fitfully peered into the bowl after each eely expulsion. They were usually curled neatly at the very bottom, guilty dogs avoiding their master’s gaze.

  Around the time he started to convalesce, Dolly shed her fear of falling. A week after his surgery, she did something she hadn’t been able to in a number of years—walked down the two short flights of stairs to Bud’s bedroom, unassisted.

  Everyone remarked on her high spirits. She began taking outside walks. The caregivers noticed a lilt in her step, a sprightliness. Marta said it was almost as if he took the fall for her, & Dolly’s fears along with it.

  . . .

  As Tolkin had suggested, Bud tried to find comedy in the story of the drowned girl. He played around with the idea of a mermaid but so far nothing gelled. He even netflixed Splash to see if it would give him any ideas. He only watched for a little while—it was more fun to chase Daryl Hannah all over the Internet instead. Bud’s habit had grown; he was up to three percocets an hour. He was supposed to use the nebulizer a half-dozen times a day, but never did. Twice at most.

  . . .

  This year’s Guggenheim grant winners were listed in a full page of The New York Times. He always wondered how they were chosen. The Foundation’s website said there was a “Committee of Selection” that consulted with distinguished scholars and artists for guidance in awarding applicants. Among the committee were Toni Morrison, Patti Smith, Steve Martin, Fran Lebowitz, David Simon, Joyce Carol Oates, & James Franco.

  . . .

  He watched some of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. One of the wives had just moved, and someone asked her where. She said, “Bel-Air.” “Where were you living before?” asked the friend. “Bel-Air,” said the wife.

  . . .

  Michael’s New Zealand movie, Misericord, had a Facebook page. It already had
a release date. One of the producers was known as the old guy who liked to blog as a way of reaching out to fans; he loved live-streaming Twitter “orgies.” In the last one he participated in, someone asked about a rumor that the director and star were at each other’s throats during the shoot. The producer said the rumor was “Internet horseshit.”

  Misericord . . .

  Odd title. Intriguing word, though. Bud Googled.

  1) an apartment in a monastery where certain relaxations of the monastic rule are allowed, especially those involving food and drink, to accommodate infirm monks; 2) a shelf, or “mercy seat,” on the underside of a hinged seat in a choir stall against which a standing chorister could lean, during lengthy services (often inscribed with scatological graffiti); 3) a dagger used to administer the mercy stroke to a seriously wounded knight.

  Jesus. Infirm monks . . . secret apartments for DaVinci Code-type bacchanalias . . . hidden, porn-carved “mercy” seats . . . a medieval dirk for coup de grâces . . . the word was an entire book—say, by Eco or Borges—a novel in itself! In just four syllables and 10 measly letters, it managed to evoke more feeling, more subtlety, more narrative (three acts, ending with a killing!) than Bud would ever be able to conjure in five pages, or 50, or 500.

  He lay flat on his back awash in depression, murdered by the word as surely as a knight by a dagger. Only trouble being, it didn’t put him out of his misery.

  . . .

  Bud was bored and stoned.

  Marta picked him up the Forbes Top-Earning Dead Celebrity issue. You had to earn at least $6 million for the year to qualify. Michael Jackson was still riding high.

  Tolkin called to cheer him up. He said he went with Brando to the Westside Pavilion to watch a movie by a director whom the kid was interested in. It was in 3D. Michael said that when you walked out, you threw your glasses in a recycling bin that said KEEP 3D GREEN. Michael said it was the best, most insane slogan ever.

  . . .

  He got an email from one of David Simon’s assistants, asking for an update on his contact information.

  It gave him the idea to update his iPhone addressbook. He was surprised to find his father still in there. Bud kept his old cellphone number, forgetting that he edited the rest, in case he was ever back east and wanted to visit:

  . . .

  He had a nice conversation with Keira Thompson, head of development at Ooh Baby. She was glad to hear Bud was leaning in the comedy direction on the problematic Biggie project, and happy to be brought into his confidence. He even shared about having some conversations with Tolkin about it. No harm.

  He’d read a few articles about the Brainards online, and become curious about the source of their wealth. When they finished with the business side, Bud kind of circled the topic. Keira wasn’t skittish about it at all. She said the dad was a genius who found a way to patent “concepts.”

  “Brando said one of the big things his father came up with was the idea of asking people for the last four digits of their social. Prior to that, people were reluctant to give their whole number over the phone. It made them feel vulnerable. The consequence was that merchants and banks lost billions of dollars a year in sales because people refused to verify. Most of this was before the Internet, Paypal and eBay and what have you, now people give all kinds of personal information to their computers, I know I do. Anyway, Brando said his dad told the banks (and they told the merchants) to have the person on the phone just ask the consumer for the last four digits—psychologically, that made all the difference. People didn’t hesitate to ID themselves anymore. He still gets royalties off that idea! And there was another weird benefit. Brando said the cumulative time saved by having people repeat four numbers instead of twelve was like HUGE—like, at the end of the year it added up to hundreds of thousands of man hours. So they saved all those salaries too! The ones they would have had to pay to have more people working the phones.”

  . . .

  Bud unobtrusively recuperated in his very own apartment for infirm monks. Marta did heroic double duty, performing all the functions of an LVN. If the pain was particularly bad, he wasn’t shy about using the bedpan. His door had no lock—no way to control the comings and goings of a sleepless, nomadic mother.

  One night he awakened from a sedative-induced sleep to Dolly giving him a sponge bath.

  “Once you pass 80, it’s time to go,” she said, in media res. He was too groggy to question the surreal scene. “The people who get sick, refuse treatment, then die a few days later—those are the ones who got it right.”

  “Mom . . . what are you doing?”

  “Sponging you. What does it look like I’m doing? What a chin you have! And what handsome shoulders. I look at you and see your father. You know what kept us together? The sex. The sex was all we had. You know, you’re handsome. You’re handsome and you know it. Everybody knows it—they say, ‘Here he comes! Here comes Handsome Bud Wiggins!’”

  . . .

  He put down the novel—alas, the courage to say he was done.

  He’d been working on it for years. Finally, he could freely admit he had absolutely nothing to show for it. He used to fantasize about being a literary man, but the literary era was over. When he was a boy, the scene was vibrant. Mailer stabbed his wife and duked it out with Vidal, Capote was a sacred monster, Styron a nasty drunk, Cheever a nasty drunken fag. Now there were only aging wonderboys like Do-Gooder Eggers, Vegemitey Mouse Foer, & Franzen, the King Rat who preened about spreading Big Brain’s ashes in some bandana republic before snitching off his BFF’s minuscule frauds of reportage. In one of those phoney New Yorker tell-alls masquerading as elegant meditations, he diddled himself—with precious, casually trenchant reflections on Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson & the Novel; on islands & isolation; on the special agonies of bestselling literary men, and the very special agony of loving his Hideous Friend—before getting to the cumshot of how much I loved and invested in him and how much he betrayed me and his wife. Bud thought it would have been far more interesting if Franzen had fucked the widow, which the essay actually wound up doing. It was a bitchy, addled Psychology Today-level treatise that literally posited that D. Footnote Wallace hanged himself as a career move! “In a sense, the story of my friendship with him is simply that I loved a person who was mentally ill.” Bud said outloud, Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? As Fran Lebowitz might jest, “If you think you can write Saint Genet but you aren’t Sartre—don’t even try.”

  How many copies did Freedom sell, anyway?

  Like five fucking million––––––––

  I’m done, he said.

  The dream is over . . .

  His phone rang.

  “Bud?”

  “Oh, hi Tolkin.”

  “How’s the hip, kiddo?”

  “On the mend.”

  “Listen, I’ve got some good news.”

  “Jesus, Michael, you’re like the fuckin tooth fairy, it never stops. I love you, man.”

  “Remember the David Simon meeting you took?”

  “Sure. The Wire guy.”

  “Right . . . they’re going into production—on the Hollywood project. David told me he lifted a section from one of your stories.”

  “What stories?”

  “What do you mean, what stories. From Force Majeure!”

  “Really? Wouldn’t I have heard about that?”

  “You’re hearing about it now. Listen. They’re giving you a ‘story by’ credit—which is a good thing. You’ll even get paid for it, which is a very good thing. Not a lot, but it’s WGA minimum. For shared story credit.”

  “Wow. Cool!”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Remember how he called The Wire a novel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, David’s calling the new series a novel too.”

  “Okay.”

  Bud wasn’t following.

  “David said that his staff is eng
aged in writing another novel that just so happens to be in the form of a TV series.”

  “So?”

  “So you don’t have to finish your book.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because it’s already happened.”

  “What has?”

  “Bud, you are now a published novelist! Or will be, once your episode airs.”

  “For real?” he answered.

  He couldn’t figure out if Michael was joking. He felt dizzy, and his breath was shallow; he’d need to do a round with the nebulizer once he was off the phone.

  “Well, by the Simon definition you are—which I suppose is as valid as anyone else’s. So, pour yourself a glass of champagne and give yourself a toast. To Bud Wiggins, on the occasion of the publication of his first novel. . . .

  “May there be many more to come!”

  CLEAN

  [Rikki]

  Hard Time

  He

  got 36 months, but would do half that if he kept his nose clean. When Tom-squared got busted for distribution, it was her 3rd strike. She gave him up & pled out. He didn’t hold it against her.

  The scam was simple. They targeted widows in affluent neighborhoods. T2 found em on the internet, starting with the hubby obits & working her way back to the wife. She even got their phone numbers & called em up, bogusly wrestling her way into their geriatr. semi-infarcted s. It blew his mind what she could do. The onlys she had trouble with were old ladies who’d already been tapped by the internet-crying Nigger-ians who pretended they were royalty in need.

  T would put on a pantsuit & tap on the door and thank them so much for being friend & patron of The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. Of course they’d say you must be mistaken but Rikki would be standing there in one of those purposefully ill-fitting Salv Army–looking sport jackets. When the grieving geezers protested, a bewildered Tom-Tom whipped out proof in the form of a doctored letter signed by them in which they had agreed to house Rikki during his peacemaking trip to America. He came all the way from Sudan! Tom-Tom’s bewilderment would become exasperation & then anger at the ineptness of her organization’s volunteeers. “I hate to do it, but some people are going to be fired over this,” she’d say, and by the sad old confused cunt’s reaction, she’d know pretty much how well they were going to score.