Pandora's Closet

LOINCLOTH by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta

All alone in the props warehouse on the back lot of Duro Studios, he made his case to Shirley in his mind, rehashing the argument they had had the night before. This time, though, he was bold and articulate, and he easily convinced her.

Walter Groves opened another one of the big crates and tore out the packing straw mixed with Styrofoam peanuts. “Not exciting enough for you, huh? You don’t feel fireworks? I’m too sedate-not a man’s man? Think about it, Shirley. Women say they want nice guys, the shy and sensitive type, men who are sweet and remember birthdays and anniversaries. Isn’t that what you told me you needed-someone just like me? You’ve always despised hypocrites. But what do you do? You fall for a bad boy, someone with tattoos and a heavy smoking habit, someone who can’t keep a job for more than a month, someone like that last jerk you dated, who treated you rough and left you out in the cold.

“But I loved you. I treated you with respect, drove you to visit your grandmother in the hospital, and fixed your computer when the hard drive crashed. I got out of bed when you called at three in the morning and came to your apartment just to hold you because you had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep. I gave you flowers, dinners by candlelight, and love notes-not to mention the best six months of my life. ‘Someday, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon’ ”-he pictured himself as Bogart in Casablanca -“you’ll realize what you threw away. But I won’t be waiting. I’m a good man, and I deserve a wonderful woman who values me for who I am, who appreciates my dedication, and wants a nice, normal life. Go ahead. Have your shallow, exciting fling with Mr. James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. I’ll find someone sincere who wants Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Scattering straw and packing material, he pulled a long plastic elephant tusk out of the prop box. The faux ivory was sharp at one end and painted with “native symbols.” He glanced at the label on the box: JUNGO’S REVENGE. After marking the name of the film on his clipboard, he listed the stored items beneath the title. He sighed.

If only he could have come up with just the right answers last night, maybe Shirley wouldn’t have dumped him. If only he could have been tough like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, confident like Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, or romantic like Dermot Mulroney in The Wedding Date. Instead, he had squirmed, speechless with shock, his lower lip trembling as if he were Stan Laurel caught in an embarrassing failure. Walter had made no heartfelt appeals or snappy comebacks; those would have been as much fiction as a script for any Duro Studios production.

Shirley had grabbed her stuff-along with some of his, though he hadn’t had the presence of mind to mention it-and stormed out of the apartment.

Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. That’s who she reminded him of.

The large black walkie-talkie at his hip crackled, and even through the static of the poor-quality unit, he heard the lovely musical speech of Desiree Drea. Her voice never failed to make his heart skip a beat, then go back and skip it all over again. “Walter? Mr. Carmichael wants to know how you’re coming with the props. He needs me to type up the inventory.”

“I… um… I-” He looked down at the box, searching for words, and seized upon the letters stenciled to the crate. “I’m just now up to Jungo’s Revenge. I’ve finished about half of the work.”

As Desiree responded, he could hear the producer’s voice bellowing in the background. “Jungo! It’s all worthless crap. Trash it.”

The secretary softened the message as she relayed it. “Mr. Carmichael suggests that it’s of no value, so please put it in the Dumpster.”

“And tell him he damn well better stay until he finishes,” the voice in the background growled. “We need that building tomorrow to start shooting Horror in the Prop Warehouse.”

“Tell him I’ll do what needs to be done,” Walter said, then clicked off the walkie-talkie, though he would gladly have chatted with Desiree for hours. He didn’t have anything better to do that evening than work, anyway. He was very conscientious and would finish the job.

Chris Carmichael-producer of low-budget knock-off movies. The Jungo ape-man series, a bad Tarzan knock-off, had skated just a little too close to Tarzan’s copyright line. The threatened legal action had caused the films to flop, even though they went direct to video. Walter had seen one of them and thought that the movies were bad enough to have flopped all on their own, without any legal difficulties to help them along. If anything, the publicity had boosted the sales.

He pulled out the other plastic elephant tusk, then some ugly looking tribal masks, three rubber cobras, and a giant plastic insect as big as his palm that was labeled DEADLY TSETSE FLY. Walter shook his head. He had to agree about the worthlessness of these props. There wouldn’t be any collector interested in even giving them shelf space. If there had been enough fans to generate a few collectors, the Jungo franchise might never have disappeared.

Near the bottom of the crate he found a rattle, a shrunken head, and another tribal mask, but these props were far superior to the others. They looked handmade, with real wood and bone. The shrunken head had an odd leathery feel that made him wonder if it was real. He shuddered as he took it out of the crate.

It seemed unlikely that Chris Carmichael, a tight-wad with utter contempt for his audiences as well as his employees, would spend money on the genuine articles to use as props. Maybe a prop master had purchased them online or found them in a junk bin somewhere. Beneath the last of the witch doctor items, at the very bottom of the crate, he found a scrap of cloth that made him smile as he pulled it out and brushed off the bits of straw that clung to it.

A leopard-skin loincloth, the only garment Jungo the Ape Man had ever worn in the films-all the better to show off his well-developed physique, of course. Walter tried to remember. According to the story, Jungo had killed a leopard with his bare hands when he was only five years old and had made the loincloth out of its pelt. Apparently, the loincloth had grown along with the boy. Maybe the leopard had been part Spandex… Jungo was probably the type of man Shirley would have fallen for-wild, tanned, brawny, and barely capable of stringing together three-word sentences. Walter groaned at the thought.

Now Desiree was another story entirely. Even on the big studio lot, they often crossed paths. He saw her in the commissary at lunch almost daily-because he timed his lunch hour to match hers. She was strikingly beautiful with her reddish-gold hair, her large blue eyes, her delicate chin, and when she smiled directly at him, as she had done three times now, it made him feel as if someone in the special effects shop had created the most spectacular sunrise ever.

But Walter still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask if he could sit and eat with her. He was a nobody who did odd jobs around the lot for the various producers. Some of them were nice, and some of them were… like Chris Carmichael. The man was Dabney Coleman in 9 to 5, or Bill Murray before his transformation in Scrooged. Carmichael had put in a requisition, and Walter had pulled the card: One man needed to clear prop warehouse. It was really a job for four men and four days, but Carmichael always slashed his budgets to leave more money in his own expense account. Carmichael didn’t even know who Walter Groves was.

But Desiree did. That was all that mattered.

He gazed at the leopard-skin loincloth, hearing Shirley’s words ring in his head. “You aren’t a man’s man. You don’t let yourself go wild.” He sniffed, trying to picture himself in the role she seemed to want him to play. What if Desiree felt the same way? What if all women thought they wanted a nice man but were only attracted to bad boys?

He picked up the witch doctor’s rattle and gave it a playful shake, then put it down by the mask and the shrunken head. Even though she had hurt him, he wasn’t the type either to put a curse on Shirley, or to transform himself for her into a muscular hunk of beefcake like Jungo. He would have needed an awfully large special effects budget to pull that off. Walter held up the leopard-skin loincloth to his waist and considered the fashion statement it would make. It looked ridiculous-even more so in contrast with his work pants and his conservative window-pane plaid shirt.

“If I wore this, what would Desiree think?” Would it convince her that he was a wild man, or would she just think him pale-skinned and scrawny? All alone in the prop warehouse, he had no particular need to hurry up. Carmichael, who never noticed anyone’s hard work, had already said that the props were junk.

Before he could change his mind and think sensibly, Walter unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off. Taking a deep breath, he slipped off his shoes and trousers and tied on the loincloth. He surveyed the effect, looking critically at his skinny chest, thin arms, white skin, and the leopard-skin loincloth. He cast a skeptical glance at the witch doctor mask. “Exactly how did I expect this to bring out the wild man in me?”

Then something happened.

His heart began to pound like drumbeats in his ears. His skin grew hot and his blood hotter. He felt dizzy and then very, very sure of himself. The worries and confusion of his life seemed to float away like soap bubbles on the wind. His attention focused down to a single pinprick. Everything was so clear, so simple. He had worried too much, thought too much, suppressed all of his natural desires. He drew a deep breath, kept inhaling until his chest swelled. Then on impulse, he pounded on his proudly expanded chest. It felt good and right.

He didn’t have to worry about the prop inventory or about Shirley. She had made a bad choice, and she was gone. He no longer needed to think of her. Outside the sun was bright. He was a man, and Desiree was a woman. Everything else was extraneous, a distraction. He was a hunter, and he knew his quarry. A real man relied on his instincts to tell him what to do.

He let out a warbling call, broadcasting a defiant challenge to anyone who might get in his way. Barefoot, he sprinted like a cheetah out of the prop warehouse and onto the lot. He had seen where Desiree worked. He knew where to find Chris Carmichael’s trailer. His vision tunneled down to that one focus.

He streaked past the people working on various films. Someone made a cat-call, but most of the crews ignored him. Employees at Duro Studios were accustomed to seeing axe-murderers, Martians, barbarians, and monsters of all kinds.

Chris Carmichael’s headquarters were in a dingy, gray-walled trailer on the far end of the east lot. The success of a producer’s films earned him clout in the studios, and Carmichael ’s track record had earned him this unobtrusive trailer and one secretary.

Desiree.

Walter yanked open the door and leaped in. He hadn’t decided what to say or do next, but an ape-man took matters one step at a time. He reacted to situations, without planning in excruciating detail beforehand. Instead of startling Desiree at her keyboard and the producer on the phone, he blundered into a shocking scene that would have made his hackles rise if he’d had any. Carmichael stood with both hands planted on his desk, crouched like a predator ready to spring. Desiree shielded herself on the other side of the desk, trying to keep it, with its empty coffee mugs, framed pictures, and jumbled stacks of scripts, between herself and Carmichael.

He leered at her, moved to the left, and she shifted in the other direction. She was flushed and nervous. “Please, Mr. Carmichael. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Of course you are,” he said. “If you didn’t want to break into pictures, why would you work in a place like this? I can make you an extra in my next feature, Horror in the Prop Warehouse. Ten-second screen time minimum, but there’s a price. You have to give me something.” Now he circled to the right and she moved in the opposite direction.

“Please, don’t do this. I don’t want to file a complaint, but I’ll call Security if I have to.”

“You do that, and you’ll never work in this town again.”

Before she could reply, Walter let out a bestial roar. He wasn’t sure exactly what happened. Seeing red, he acted on instinct and charged forward. He grabbed the producer by the back of his clean white collar, yanked him away from the desk, and spun him around. As he spluttered, Walter the ape-man landed a powerful roundhouse punch on his chin and knocked him backward into the chair he reserved for visiting actors.

Startled, Desiree gasped, but Walter was already on the move. He bounded over the desk, slipped an arm around her waist, and crashed through the screen of the trailer’s open window, carrying his woman with him. The rest was a blur.

When he could think straight again-after the witch doctor’s spell, or whatever it was wore off-he found himself on the rooftop of one of the back lot sets, sitting next to Desiree, his lips pressed against hers. With a start, he drew back. Her hair was rumpled, her cheeks flushed, and she wore an expression of surprise and amusement. “That was a bit unorthodox, Walter,” she said, “but you were amazing. You saved me when I needed it most.”

“What have I done?” Walter glanced down at the loincloth, flexed his sore knuckles, and knew with absolute certainty that he would soon die from embarrassment. He was sitting half-naked on a roof at work and had just made a complete fool of himself in front of a woman he had a genuine crush on. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He scuttled backward, stood to look for a ladder or stairs, and quickly found an exit. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Mr. Carmichael’s going to get me fired, for sure.”

“Who, Chris? He has no clue who you are,” she said. “Anyway, I’m going to hand in my own resignation. I’ve had enough of that man.”

“I… I need to put something decent on. I can’t understand what got into me.” He felt his cheeks burning. His legs wobbled, and his knees threatened to knock together. Some ape-man!

Before Desiree could say anything more, he bolted, cringing at the thought that someone else might see him this way-that Desiree had seen him. He was sure Jungo never had days like this.

By the time he got home, Walter was consumed with guilt. He felt flustered, exposed, and too embarrassed for words. He couldn’t believe what he had done, prancing around the lot in nothing more than a loincloth, crashing into the producer’s trailer offices. He had punched out Chris Carmichael! Then, after jumping through a window with Desiree, he had somehow whisked her off to a rooftop and kissed her! He was the very definition of the word “mortified.” To make matters worse, Walter had gotten dressed again, called in a friend to finish clearing out the warehouse, then slunk off the lot, taking Jungo’s loincloth with him. He could justify this, since Carmichael had made it clear that the props could be thrown into a dumpster.

He sat miserably in his empty apartment-without Shirley-and wondered how he could possibly make it up to Desiree. He didn’t much care about Chris Carmichael. The man was a cad, but Walter himself had stolen a kiss from Desiree, practically ravished her! Considering the power the loincloth had worked on him, he could easily have gotten carried away. In the process of saving Desiree, he had proved that he was no better than that jerk of a producer.

And Walter had just left her stranded there, on the roof of the movie set. No, no, that wasn’t Walter Groves. That wasn’t who he really was. Though he wanted nothing more than to crawl under a rock, he knew what he had to do for the sake of honor. He had to go find Desiree and beg her forgiveness.

For a long time he stood in the shower under a pounding stream of hot water, rehearsing what to say until he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. Every moment he avoided her was another moment she could think terrible things about him. He dried his hair, dabbed on some aftershave, and put on his best dress slacks, a clean shirt, and a striped blue necktie. This was going to be a formal apology, and he wanted to look his best. Pulling on his nicest, though rarely worn, sport jacket, he rolled up Jungo’s loincloth and stuffed it into the pocket. Though it didn’t make any sense, he would try to tell Desiree what had happened, explain how the magic had changed him somehow into a wild man, someone he wouldn’t normally be.

After dialing information, then searching on the Internet, he tracked down a local street address for D. Drea. He knew it had to be her. Gathering his resolve, he marched out to go face her. He didn’t need the crutch of a loincloth or some imaginary witch doctor’s spells to give him courage to do the right thing. He would do this himself.

On the way to her apartment, he didn’t let himself think, forcing himself onward before the shame could make him turn back. He had to be like Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone, not Rick Moranis in Little Shop of Horrors. Nothing should disrupt the apology. Leaving his cell phone in the car, he walked to the door of her apartment, raised his hand to knock, then hesitated. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He really should have brought flowers and a card. Why not go to a store now, buy them, and then come back?

He heard shouts coming from the other side of the door, followed by a scream-Desiree’s scream!

He froze in terror. What should he do? Desiree was in trouble. Maybe he should run back outside, get his cell phone and call 911. He could bring the police here, or, better yet, pound on her neighbors’ doors and find someone who was big and strong. She screamed again, and Walter knew there could be only one solution. He tried the knob, found the door unlocked, and barged in. He found Chris Carmichael already there, reeking of cheap cologne and bourbon.

“Leave me alone,” Desiree said. She held a lamp in one hand, brandishing it like a club.

Carmichael let out an evil chuckle. “Now that you no longer work for me, we can have any sort of relationship I want. There are no ethical problems.”

She raised the lamp higher. Walter stepped forward, outraged but quailing at the idea of a fight. When Desiree saw him, her eyes lit up.

Carmichael turned.

Walter blurted, “Hey, what-what’s going on here?” He wished he could hide or, at the very least, run back out of the apartment and return to do a second take of the scene. He needed to be a tough guy, like Dirty Harry in Sudden Impact-“Go ahead, make my day”-and the best he could come up with was a Don Knotts-worthy “Hey, what’s going on here?” He groaned.

Carmichael recognized him, and his eyes grew stormy. Ignoring Desiree for the moment, the larger man lurched toward Walter, grabbed him by the shirt, yanked his tie, and drew Walter closer to him. “You’re that little freak that sucker-punched me in my office, aren’t you? Where’s the spotted underwear?”

“I-I-I don’t need it.”

“You’ll need an ambulance is what you’ll need.”

Indiana Jones would have done something different. He would have punched the villain, starting an all-out brawl, but as Carmichael lifted him and twisted his tie, he could only make a small “meep” sound.

“You put him down,” Desiree cried, and Walter’s heart lurched. She was actually defending him!

Carmichael laughed again. “You can’t even save yourself. How do you expect to help this mouse?” He pushed Walter up against the wall, clenched his fist, and drew back his arm, as if cocking a shotgun.

Walter was sure his head would go straight through the drywall. “Wait. Wait, please.” He swallowed and drew a deep breath. “If you’re going to do this, let me face it like a man. I… I’d like to use the rest-room, please.”

Carmichael blinked, then gave him a knowing smile. “Oh, afraid you’re going to wet yourself, eh?” He let Walter slump to the floor. “Sure. Why not? Desiree and I were just enjoying an intimate conversation. We can wait.”

He glared at her, and she sat down on the sofa, not sure what to do. Walter scurried into the bathroom and closed the door, his mind spinning. Maybe Desiree kept a gun in the bathroom, perhaps taped behind the toilet tank, like in Godfather. But he found nothing there, and a quick search of the drawers and the medicine cabinet revealed no other weapons he could use to save the day.

He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and his fingers brushed a patch of sleek fur. The loincloth. It was his only chance.

Walter burst out of the bathroom wearing nothing but the scrap of leopard-skin. Barefoot and barechested. His mind filled with the thoughts of a hunter. Testosterone and adrenaline pumped through his veins, and he let out a wild yell, pounding on his chest. His hair was a mess, his eyes on fire. Seeing his enemy, the producer, he lunged toward him like a hungry lion attacking a springbok. Walter felt total confidence and did not hesitate.

Chris Carmichael, who used his position of perceived power to intimidate people, faltered. When he saw Walter leap toward him, he suddenly reconsidered what he’d been about to do.

Walter let out another roar. His lungs seemed to have twice their normal capacity. “My woman!”

Carmichael had probably never been challenged before. A producer, even a bad producer of second-rate movies, could boss people around in Hollywood. But Walter the ape-man, wearing nothing but his loincloth in Desiree’s apartment, had no doubt that he himself was king of the jungle. Carmichael turned, took several steps in retreat, then paused. Through his hunter-focused gaze, Walter watched his prey, preparing to throw himself on the man if he made a move in the wrong direction.

Desiree decided for both men, though. As Carmichael started to turn back, she lifted her lamp, and smashed it on his head. He crumpled to the carpet like King Kong falling off the Empire State Building. The rush in Walter’s mind drained away, and he found himself standing naked in Desiree’s apartment, except for the ape-man’s loincloth. He shivered, and goose bumps appeared on his arms. “What did I do this time?” he said, looking down at the producer with dismay.

But Desiree was close to him. Very close and very beautiful. “You protected me, Walter. You saved me.” She slid her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. “You’re my hero.”

It was not the magic of the loincloth that made his heart start pounding again. “You-you don’t mind?” he asked in surprise.

“I’ll show you how much I mind in just a minute.” She stepped away and looked down at the unconscious Carmichael. “But first, help me take out the garbage. We’ll put him in the hall and call the police.” Walter and Desiree rolled the man like a skid row drunk into the apartment hallway.

Desiree closed the door, locked it, and turned to face him. Suddenly he felt as if he were the prey and she the hungry lioness.

He gulped. “I’m really a nice guy most of the time. But I can be bad, if I need to be.”

“Walter, I like that you’re a nice guy. It’s the first thing I noticed about you, even from a distance. You may not have known I was watching, but I’ve seen you hold doors for other people, help them carry things when their arms were full, lend them lunch money, listen to what they say. Most of the time, that’s exactly what women want. It’s what I want. But women are… complex creatures. So once in a while we also like a bit of a wild man. You seem like the best of both worlds to me.”

“You may never be safe,” he pointed out. “What if Mr. Carmichael comes back? I don’t think he’ll leave you alone.”

With a lovely smile, she led him to the couch and sat him down. “In that case, maybe you’ll just have to stay here to protect me.”

There was a stirring in the loincloth, and he felt very self-conscious. “Maybe I should get dressed in real clothes.”

“No, Walter. You stay just the way you are.” Desiree leaned over to kiss him.