Memorial

XI.Chester

CHESTER and Laxmi were on their way to the empty clinic to meet with the landlord about renting it for the shoot. Maurie was the one who suggested she keep his friend company, and Chess was glad. He was out-of-control attracted to her and had the feeling Maurie knew it. Chess thought, Maybe he’s being kind or maybe he’s just perving.

Laxmi was around 27. Her hippie parents were divorced and her dad lived in Pune. He was a failed Jewish poet who’d hung with Ginsberg during the latter’s early 60s Benares sojourns; a pretty boy, almost a generation younger than the Beat Buddha, and Laxmi said that she was never able to confirm if “they’d gotten it on.” He headed a big company now, the usual software collective — he was “way ahead of the outsourcing curve,” she said — having lived in India on and off for 40 years. Even though he was a successful businessman, he was a “renunciate, in his own way.” Chess asked what that meant and she said her father was a sanyasi, that he meditated and that Ganesh was “his personal adviser.” (It all sounded seriously fucked up, but Chess was entranced. He knew about Ganesh from storybooks Mom used to read from but Laxmi made the elephant-headed god sound like some mobster-guru.) Laxmi’s father was rich but never gave her money, instead offering to pay her way any time she wanted to come to Pune, something she planned to take him up on one day. She said her name had been given her because Laxmi was the goddess of good fortune. “Meaning, money. Dad is a Jew to his teeth.” She said she would rather have been named Padma (her supposed middlename), which meant lotus, and asked Chess if he’d ever read something called the Lotus Sutra. He shook his head. “ ‘Suppose there was a wealthy man,’ ” she began to quote, “ ‘who had a magnificent house. This house was old, and ramshackle as well. The halls, though vast, were in precarious, perilous condition…’ ”

She fell silent, unable to recall what once she had so fiercely, and without comprehension, committed to memory.

WHEN they got to Alhambra, it was dusk. Maurie’s car was at the end of the cul-de-sac. A handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard stuck to the front door said GO AROUND BACK. Laxmi and Chess strolled to the alley entrance. Rusty barrels overflowing with medical detritus swarmed with flies.

“I don’t know where the guy is,” called Maurie, from inside.

Chess and Laxmi stepped into the ruined building.

“What time was he supposed to be here?”

“About now.”

“Shit, it’s really trashed,” said Chess, looking around. “What were they shooting, a satanic ritual training video? Too small, anyway. It stinks. What was this, an animal hospital?”

“Yeah. Supposedly the guy went nuts or something.”

“Huh?”

“As in ‘apeshit.’”

“What guy?”

“A veterinarian. Caught his wife with someone he worked with and, like, killed her, then killed the kid. Bashed their heads in with a fucking ball-peen hammer.”

“Oh my God,” said Laxmi. “I think we should split.”

“Are you serious?” asked Chester.

Maurie nodded. “I don’t think they ever found the guy.”

Chester shrugged, like he wasn’t in the mood for any of Maurie’s campfire bullshit. “It’s too small,” he said. “Plus it’s righteously fucked up. It’s a health hazard.”

“Let’s go see the other rooms. I mean, we’re here. I was in traffic for 2 goddam hours.”

“This is like a horror film,” said Chess. “This is like Saw.”

They laughed uneasily.

It grew darker as they went farther into the honeycomb of shambled rooms, each saturated in bad odors — like someone had set animal fat on fire. Laxmi said maybe it wasn’t safe and to be careful not to touch anything. There were dirty syringes and rolls of stained cotton gauze underfoot. Chester said how crazy it was that someone was showing the place as a location before it had been cleaned — he wondered aloud if what they were seeing were props or not, but then Maurie said the clinic had been scouted but never actually used. Whuh? Chess was acting more macho than usual because of Laxmi. Maurie made a few lame jokes then shouted, “Look at this!”

A dead dog had been nailed to a door, like a wolfish Christ.

Laxmi screamed and began to run then screamed again as she plowed into the arms of a gaunt, grizzled, wild-haired man in a bloody green surgical gown. He had a big gun. He asked why they were “trespassing” and when Chess began to explain, Maurie quickly motioned to let him do the talking. They weren’t trespassing, said Maurie, they were scouting locations for a TV show, and had an appointment to meet someone. The man kept saying they were trespassing and Maurie started shaking and said he was sorry if there was a misunderstanding and they’d leave right away. If he “would let us.” The guy suddenly asked if Maurie had slept with his wife. No, said Maurie, of course not, I don’t even know your wife — but Chess could tell that his friend’s panicked posturing came out snarkier than Maurie would have liked. Then he began to insist that Maurie “looked just like the dude” who slept with his wife and “molested” his children. Maurie laughed nervously, trying to deflect as his eyes futilely darted for an exit strategy.

The man opened fire and Maurie’s chest lit up in red blotches as he reeled backward. Laxmi screamed, running to Chess, who stood protectively between her and the meth’d up maniac.

“Shit motherfucker, you shot my friend!”

“Oh my God!” said Laxmi. “He’s going to kill us!”

“You raped my wife, didn’t you?” said the gap-toothed killer, his wrath now turned upon Chester, who couldn’t process what was happening.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin about, man!”

“Just like that dog I nailed to the door! That dog touched my little girl too — see what I did to it? That dog was a lurcher. Ever heard of a lurcher? Them is gypsy dogs. They’re bred for stealth, stamina, and speed. 2 can bring down a deer. Know what the farmers do if they catch em? Cut their tails off. Cain’t walk without their tails!”

“I don’t fucking know what you’re — oh Jesus oh God oh shit oh Jesus…”

“You mo-lested my little girl! How ya think that feels, dude? As a dad? Are you a dad?”

“No, man…”

“You ain’t a dad, you a fag. That’s why I had to kill her — that’s why I had to kill em both! Cause I couldn’t let em walk the earth with that shame on em. Couldn’t let em live, without protectin em from ridicule. You are one sick madre, dude! Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy it when you were with my wife and little girl?”

“Man, stop! Just fucking stop! I don’t know your wife, and neither does my friend! And you fucking killed him!”

“Ah’m gonna nail you to the wall, bitch! Cause you a goddam child molestin faggot lurcher—”

Maurie groaned. “Help me. Help me…”

He began to twitch grotesquely, as if in seizure. Chess kneeled beside his friend.

“He’s still alive! We gotta call 911, man! Just get the fuck away and let me call 911! We’ll say it was an accident, just run the fuck away and let us get help!”

The madman fixed him with that bizarre Deliverance hillbilly grin.

“You cain’t help him now. Step aside! I’m gonna do the girl the way you done my wife!”

Laxmi let out a bloodcurdling bellowshriek.

“You. Keep. Away!” said Chess, standing ramrod straight. “Keep away from her!” The goddess of good fortune clung to his waist from behind as the madman moved closer. “I said stand down! Stand the fuck away! I’ll stay — but let her go! You let her go!”

He ogled the couple, lasciviously stroking his chin. He slowly raised the gun. “Are you freaked out?”

Chess braced himself to be shot.

“I said: Are you freaked out?”

“Yes!” said the traumatized warrior, lips trembling in shock and fear. “Now just let her—”

“Well, you shouldn’t be. Cause you’re on Friday Night Frights!”

Chess was cornered. He tensed, gave out a deafening war cry, then bolted backward with superhuman strength into a wall of glass bricks. But the wall did not give. His pants were soaked in urine.

A bunch of men suddenly poured into the room; Chess thought they were the police. Everything was in slo-mo. Why did I move back instead of forward? I was trying to make a hole for us to escape. Why hasn’t he shot—one of the men had a camera on his shoulder — they were all dressed in civilian clothes. Were they undercover? What was happening?

The madman threw down the gun and gleefully shouted. “The TV show! Friday Night Frights!”

Now he spoke without the twang. He was an actor.

Maurie stood up, melodramatically dusting himself off as the camera recorded his miraculous recovery. Laxmi, who bolted when Chess smashed into the wall, reentered, looking baleful and faintly agonized. She tried to smile at the probing lens.

“Are you OK?” she said to Chess, maternally.

Chess stutter-strobed his head like a dog just out of water, as if to throw off everything that had happened.

“See?” said Maurie, pointing to the red ragged splotches on his polo shirt. “They’re squibs! Like The Wild Bunch! Bonnie and Clyde! Pulp Fiction!”

“It’s a TV show, man,” said someone in civvies. He carried a clipboard and had a small black box attached to his belt. They were all wired for sound.

“Friday Night Frights.”

“Whoa,” said Chess, wincing a smile. He still couldn’t put it together but the name sounded familiar: Friday Night Frights. It was a joke, though — he knew that much. He turned to Maurie. “You piece of shit.”

All laughed heartily.

Everything was being filmed.

“Your friend set you up!” said the clipboard man.

“C’mere,” said Maurie. “Gimme a hug.”

The 2 friends embraced and a relieved Laxmi joined them as the crew laughed and hooted and patted Chess on the back like he was way cool for having aced a reality show rite of passage.