I would love seeing my old friends and talking to them about Babaji and his message, but you know I can’t come to California. My own son loves money so much that he might try to have me arrested!
You should pray to Babaji now that your heart will be healed and your eyes “opened.”
Om Shiva
Your mother
FROM: Sean Makin
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your “Blog”
Your fear of arrest is a sure sign of an unevolved soul. What does prison matter if your thoughts are with Babaji? You should come to California. I’ll pick you up in your very own car.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll post this correspondence on my “blog,” as you call it. Perhaps my faithful audience of lurkers and trolls will help to persuade you to come back to the States.
Mavis Ho,
Your son
Comments (58)
FROM: MaddHaxx
Wow Makin no wonder you’re so fucked up!
FROM: Krumble
Mavis Ho LMAO!
FROM: DIEgo
Whining about the money really does go on too long. Just sayin’.
FROM: Coldplay
You both such losers ha ha
FROM: Coopz
Yeah Mom come to California! You’ll be right at home with the stupid Liberal Democrats and the other wackos!
FROM: Jacky D-Cup
This is an excellent blog. If you would like to meet girls or see my @@EXCITING PHOTOS@@ please click this link.
FROM: Charlotte
You shouldn’t mock your mother like this. It’s trashy behavior.
FROM: Krumble
OM SHIVA COME TO CALIFORNIA MOM!!!!!
FROM: Trishula
I’m sure your mother does nothing but pray for you. Your treatment of her is bad enough, but your mockery of Babaji is beyond forgiveness. YOU WILL BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.
FROM: Sean
Oh yeah, Trishula, I’m really tremblin’ now. You see, whenever people threaten me on the Internet I just quake in my bunny slippers. I’m sure you’re the biggest Babaji badass that ever hid from the world in your mother’s basement.
I spit on you, and I shit on your God. Go pray to Mavis Ho or something, lame-ass.
FROM: MaddHaxx
Damn, ppl, Celebretty Pitfighter here is calling a throwdown!
FROM: Trishula
As Our Lord destroyed the Tripura, so shall I destroy you.
FROM: Coopz
Careful Sean, you’ll get a rattlesnake in your mailbox!
FROM: Sean
I’m sure Trishula is like a total terrorist—NOT!
INT. ARENA—NIGHT
Whoooo. The animal sound reaches me in the ring and sends a blazing rocket up my spine. I’m back in the ring, and I’m trying to catch my breath because my heart is thundering 140 beats per minute, and the match hasn’t even started yet. There’s so much bloodlust and testosterone in the air that I can barely think at all.
Des Andor looks at me from across the ring. He’s completely expressionless and I can’t tell if he means to keep our agreement or not.
Whoooo. The crowd roars its craving for destruction. I feel the urge to punch, to smash, to kick. A barely rational part of my mind hopes that Des isn’t responding to this the way I am.
I lose the first round. I’ll have to keep reminding myself that.
Our surprise handicaps were delivered in the dressing rooms. Each of us was given a sixteen-ounce boxing glove to lace onto one hand. This makes grappling techniques more difficult, and grappling is at least half our training.
Because Des won a majority of contests in the preceding weeks, he got his glove on his right hand, which will let him hit harder with his power hand. My glove is on my left.
The referee calls us over and tells us to fight fair. I can barely hear him over the crowd’s roar. I touch gloves with Des and then retire to my side of the ring.
We’re asked if we’re ready. I hear nothing, and can only see the referee’s mouth moving. I nod.
“Let’s rock the world!” This time I hear him. The referee punches the air.
I restrain an adrenaline-fueled impulse to charge across the ring, and instead I approach cautiously. Des is taking his time as well. We look at each other across the tops of our gloves. His expression is still blank.
Then his hand lashes out, and I catch it on my glove, and the fight is on.
There are some flurries that go nowhere, and we kick a few times, and then Des wades in with a series of body shots, and I know he’s holding to our agreement, because he’s not striking for the head at all. I take some hits and dance away. Des’s hands are still low and I could jab him in the face easily, but I refrain.
More flurries, more body shots. My floating ribs creak from the power of Des’s hits. I get in a few punches myself, and throw some kicks that I know aren’t going to do any damage. Des gets in a good shin kick against my thigh. We do some ineffectual grappling. He keeps carrying his guard low, and I could paste him over and over again, but I don’t. I can taste my own sweat mingled with the plastic taste of my mouthpiece.
The body blows have me gasping for air by the time the two-minute round ends. I go to my corner and take a rest on the stool while Master Pak tells me to hit him, for God’s sake. “His head is wide open!” I nod as if I have every intention of following his advice.
Then the bell rings and I go up to scratch. Des is carrying his guard low again, so I aim some shots for his head, but I fire from outside proper range and the punches go nowhere, or hit him only lightly. He throws a series of wild punches that miss. Then, as I backpedal, he shoots forward right into me, his arms going around me.
I sprawl backward to oppose his weight and to keep him from throwing me down. His head rams into my right armpit. It takes a few seconds before I realize that he’s giving me an opening.
I snake my right hand down between his left arm and his neck, and then I draw the forearm across his throat. Des turns his head so I don’t accidentally crush his windpipe as I awkwardly grab my right wrist with the heavy glove on my left hand. Then I tighten my grip and lean back slightly to draw the guillotine across the front of his throat.
He stands it for maybe three seconds before tapping me on the shoulder in a sign of submission. I release the hold and throw my hands out, and the referee grabs one hand and holds it over my head.
Awhooooo. The crowd bays its pleasure. A pair of battered old suitcases fly into the ring.
Luggage. Oh boy.
Des gives me a hug, pounds my back, mutters “Thanks” in my ear. I shake the hand of Master Pak, who opens the gate and rushes into the ring to give me a hug. His grin is bigger than mine. Then we all have to quiet down for the ring announcer to make the formal announcement—“Thirty-eight seconds into the second round, by submission”—after which I get another hug from Des and then make the trip back to the locker room past a wild crowd of enthusiasts. The men with the blue beer bellies and the weird alien heads are there, and a crowd of people wave suitcases over their heads.
It’s a lot better taking this walk as the winner. And I consider myself a winner, even though the fight was fixed…after all, I was the one who fixed it. I saw the opportunity, and I crafted the victory for myself.
I’m already thinking about the next fight. I know it will be against Lenny Castro.
Des wanted to go to Rome. I wonder what Lenny wants?
INT. SEAN’S CONDO—DAY
Once a motion picture is greenlighted, things happen fast. I sign the contract and the next three and a half weeks are a rush of makeup tests, wardrobe fittings, and more tests to see how I and the wardrobe look to the camera. In my spare time I do a lot of sweating with the free weights and on the treadmill, because I want to get in the best shape I can be—not necessarily for reasons of vanity, but because I’m in nearly every scene and I’m going to need a lot of stamina, and I may not have a chance to do any working out once shooting begins. A series of script revisions ar
e hand-delivered to my condo by one of Dagmar’s assistants, a security specialist named Richard.
Richard is about my age, olive-skinned and dark-haired. When he shows up at my door he’s dressed in a black tee, black cords, and white Converse sneaks. His only concession to style is a Girard-Perregaux chronograph perched on one wrist. He’s dressed like this practically every time I see him, as if it’s a uniform, and whenever we speak he retains a courteous, attentive seriousness that reminds me of Spanish hidalgos, or whatever they were called, the guys who conquered Latin America while being too proud to be anything but stoic and courtly.
The first thing Richard does is start to go over my condo for bugs or hidden cameras. He has a little handset with dials and a screen, and he’s waving it over my living room walls and furniture. He tells me he’ll be doing this every week or so.
“When news of this project gets out, you could find yourself under siege,” he says.
I long for the time when the paparazzi will spend their time hanging out by my front door, when autograph-seekers will dog my footsteps. If Richard actually thinks this might happen, maybe my fortunes are looking up.
Though personally I don’t see it.
“Isn’t this a bit premature?” I say. “It’s not like I’m on anyone’s radar. I’m not important enough to spy on.”
I make a point of not mentioning the man in the SUV who is trying to run me over. If Dagmar decides that I could put the project at risk—say by getting run over halfway through the production—the easiest solution to her problem is to fire me right now. Which she easily can, at this point—no footage has been shot, and there would be no loss.
Richard blows out his cheeks. “Dagmar’s fans,” he says, “are a little extreme.” He digs in a pocket and produces a stick of portable memory marked with a picture of Sailor Moon.
“This is the latest iteration of the script,” he says. “If you try to move the file from its current resting place, you’ll fail. If you try to print it, you’ll fail. And if you lose this little wonder, then I’m going to have to wire a generator to your balls and make you dance.”
He says this with a perfect calm face, looking at me with his mild brown eyes. I think of hidalgos with rapiers, terrorists with knives in the dark.
Jesus. I’m worried about the guy in the SUV with someone like Richard in the room?
“How am I supposed to work with the script,” I say, “if I can’t print it?”
“You’ll get pages eventually,” he says. “This is just to familiarize you with your part in the story.” He looks around my living room. “Do you have a safe somewhere?”
“No.”
“I’ll have one sent over. You can keep the script in it when you’re not around.”
I look at Richard and ask him the same question I asked Dagmar.
“What is this project, anyway?” He ignores my question.
“In the past,” Richard says, “Dagmar’s fans have followed the actors around hoping to find a dropped script. They try to find out when we’re recording video so they can get onto the set and overhear crucial plot developments. They’ve hacked our computers, and they’ve bugged our offices hoping to overhear us discussing important developments in the game.”
“But,” I point out, “this isn’t a game, right? It’s a feature film.”
Richard’s lips quirk. “Our traditional audience may not entirely comprehend the distinction. And in any case, there is a game component that will launch along with Escape to Earth, so you’ll probably get stalked anyway.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” It’s been many years since I’ve had a stalker. Stalkers are how you know you’ve arrived.
“By the way,” Richard says, “congratulations on winning the Celebrity Pitfighter fight.”
“How’d you know I won?” I ask. “That episode hasn’t been broadcast yet.”
He looks at me deadpan. “We’re paying somebody on the Pitfighter team. We don’t want you getting hurt during our production.”
I absorb this. “If you could find out what the handicap’s going to be in my fight with Lenny Castro, that would be very useful.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Richard finishes going over my audio components, then looks at my coffee table.
“It might be a good idea to put the bong in a cabinet,” he says.
“Weed’s legal now,” I remind him. “Nearly.”
“If you leave it out and someone gets a picture of it through the window or something, he could blackmail you into handing over bits of the script.”
“But it’s legal.” I stare at him. “You think they’ll do that?”
He looks thoughtful. “For sure they’d make the threat. Whether or not they carry it out is another matter.”
Richard moves into my kitchen and deploys his scanner. I drift after him.
“How long have you worked for Dagmar?” I ask.
“Originally I worked for AvN Soft, which was Great Big Idea’s parent company. When Great Big Idea got spun off, I went along.” He gives a grin. “Working for Dagmar was a lot more fun.”
“Even the, ah, bombings?” I ask. “The coup?”
“The bombings were sort of before my time,” Richard says. “I got in right at the end.” He is apparently intent on discovering whether someone has bugged the dirty dishes in my sink. “And the coup?” he says. “We were just enablers really. They staged their own coup, we helped them talk to each other.”
“Didn’t Odis Strange’s daughter get killed?”
“Yes. Assassinated.” He turns to me. “We all liked her. She took a bullet meant for Dagmar.”
“Ah.” I feel my mouth go dry. I think about those hidalgos again, a deadly intensity behind the formal politeness.
Richard turns away, frowns at my kitchen door, and makes adjustments to his scanner. He walks to the door, reaches up, and touches a bolt that’s been screwed into the wall near the door.
“It’s okay,” he says. “The laser reflected off it as if it were a lens.”
“There’s a laser?”
He points to an aperture on his little box. “Built to reflect off camera lenses.” He opens my refrigerator door and scans the contents. “You know,” he says, “if that six-pack of Amstel disappears between now and my next visit, I won’t have to report to Dagmar that you’re in breach of contract.”
“Oh, please,” I say. “This is ridiculous.”
He looks at me. “You signed the contract, right?”
I sigh. “I’m not an actual alcoholic, you know.” I figure I’m going to get tired of pointing this out.
He shrugs. “Guess you get to prove that.”
Richard checks my dining nook and my downstairs bathroom, then heads upstairs to the bedroom and the master bath. Discouraged, I trudge after him.
“Did you have to take the pledge, too?” I ask. “Or is it just me?”
“All that’s between you and Dagmar,” he says. He waves his scanner over the door leading to the balcony.
“But she lets you drink.”
“I don’t drink much.” He smiles to himself. “But she puts up with Helmuth, and so far as I can tell he parties every night.”
The name tickles something in memory. “Helmuth?” I ask.
“Helmuth von Moltke. He’s our head programmer.”
Memories float to the surface, then focus. “Blond?” I say. “Dresses well? Goes to all the clubs?”
“That would be Helmuth. You know him?”
“We’ve met.”
I’ve been in the club scene. I started when I was maybe fifteen, and my girlfriends, who were over twenty-one, got me in the door—and then my celebrity would get them into the VIP rooms. Sometimes the clubs would ask me to be their guest DJ, and they drew a good crowd.
I’ve clubbed intermittently since then, often in hopes of being seen by someone who might give me a job. Sometimes I can’t afford the scene at all. And sometimes the guy on the door won’t let me in�
�and once I’m in, I don’t get in the VIP rooms. I don’t enjoy being in bars where, even if you have money, your money isn’t good enough, because you aren’t good enough.
The gatekeepers on the door have social antennae more acute than even the most experienced tabloid reporter’s. They know exactly who is important enough to drink a vodka tonic in the same room as Alex Skarsgård and Taylor Momsen.
Richard looks at me. “Helmuth hasn’t mentioned that he knows you.”
“He might not remember me,” I say. “Or he might remember me, but not know I’m the same actor you people hired.”
“I’ll ask him.” He clears my closet of eavesdroppers.
“Say,” I say, “about this alcohol thing. Can I just give you fifty bucks, and you forget anything you saw here?”
He turns to me again, and again I feel the Spanish swordsman behind the polite façade.
“It’s my own place,” I say. “I don’t drink on set, and I won’t drink in public.”
He narrows his eyes. “You know,” he says, “you’re utterly failing to convince me you don’t have a drinking problem.”
“It’s Dagmar who has the problem,” I say.
He considers this, then speaks. “Dagmar’s father was an alcoholic,” he says. “She doesn’t like drunks much. And she’s pregnant, and that makes her nervous and a little paranoid and overprotective of her…project…and of course there’s a lot riding on this. So if you make her life easier, you’ll make it more pleasant for everybody, yourself included.”
I savor the sour taste of capitulation on my tongue. I am getting very tired of having absolutely nothing to bargain with.
“Fine,” I say. “I’m all for keeping things…pleasant.”
A short while later I watch him from the terrace as he leaves the condo and gets into his red Mitsubishi. Until he drives away, the neat, precise, black-clad figure is the only moving figure on the block, and then it’s the urban desert again.
I wonder how long he’s been in love with Dagmar. I wonder if Dagmar knows.
I decide it’s time I read the script. But first, I go to the fridge for a beer.
THE SAME—ONE HOUR LATER
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