Invisible Monsters Remix

Chapter 30

ou won’t catch Manus bowing down, making himself a slave to the golden calf of total accuracy. You, who are always trying to get everything “right,” he could teach you a thing or ten. For example: don’t be in such an all-fired hurry to get everything wrapped up.

Witness how Manus recounts the story of his all-time favorite movie: Billy Zane is riding a boat with Dolores Claiborne. Also aboard are Kate Winslet and that demented kid from Gilbert Grape. The lavish interiors are spectacular, but the exteriors make the boat look a little computer-generated—genuinely video-gamey—not that you could do much better. The boat, itself, wow, this boat is gigantic, plowing through the North Atlantic, escorted by leaping porpoises, but most of what you’ll notice is how much air pollution it generates. It’s as if the entire reason for this trip is to draw a fat line of coal smoke between Southampton and Ellis Island. Inside the grand salon, Billy Zane gives Kate Winslet a big blue diamond and slugs her in the chops. The kid from Gilbert Grape draws a naked picture of her boobs. This, this is just not Kate Winslet’s day! Finally, an iceberg takes a bite out of the boat’s hull, well below the waterline. It’s exactly like Jaws but in slow motion and with ice. This grand metaphor—it’s sinking fast. As the boat stands straight up in the water, panic ensues. This gesture mimics, strangely, the moment Kate Winslet stood on her tiptoes, ballerina-style, and fell down drunk. To save two thousand Irish people from drowning, Kate shoots Billy Zane and stuffs his corpse in the leak. Nobody sees that coming. At this point there’s still three days to kill before anyone will see the Statue of Liberty; most of the actors are playing a card game called “bridge.” Hereabouts, usually Manus gets up to use the bathroom or microwave a snack. When he comes back to watch, the boat is swarming with vampires. Sometimes Manus channel-surfs, splicing in the better parts of other films. Martians blast the boat with death rays. Charleton Heston tries to rescue Ava Gardner but is washed away to a martyr’s offscreen death. The kid from Gilbert Grape dies every time—BUT NEVER SOON ENOUGH.

As far as Manus is concerned, Bill Paxton should’ve made Aliens II and quit while he was ahead. Instead, Paxton finds the naked drawing of Kate Winslet locked in an underwater safe. This is not what he wanted. He wanted the big blue diamond that a littering old woman doesn’t think to recycle. She simply heaves it into the ocean, where human beings throw all their Styrofoam cups and used diapers. Bankrupt, Bill Paxton smiles at a skinny blond girl.

That …that’s the wonderful freedom you had when you were six years old, before you caved in to logic. You had authority but you forgot it. There is no truth. Not really. There’s only the best truth.

The happy ending is that, time and time again, Manus falls asleep.