Sacred Monster

Flashback 12

The hot Mexican sun beat down on an old Mexican village: adobe walls, brown earth street, flat bleaching light. Jack, dressed in dirty black pants, black leather jacket, and white shirt buttoned to the collar, stalked cautiously along next to the wall, a six-inch bowie knife held at the ready in his hand, out in front of him, swaying like a snake to left and right. All at once a small Mexican boy, barefoot, in ragged shirt and pants, came whistling around the corner into Jack’s path, paying attention to nothing. Seeing the knife, seeing Jack, he let out a bloodcurdling shriek and, as Jack lunged uselessly at him with the knife, the boy scrambled back around the corner and out of sight. Jack straightened, lowering the knife, and leaned his free hand wearily against the wall.

“Okay, Jack,” came the amplified voice of the director. “Very nice. But the kid came in a little late.”

The kid came back around the corner of the false wall in this false mockup of a corner of a Mexican town out of Juarez, and frowned irritably in the direction of the director and all the technicians and the black hulks of the machines, haloed by the powerful lights assisting the sun. Out of character, it could be seen that the kid was a kid, but not a Mexican. With the impatience of the professional surrounded by amateurs, he said, “Who the heck’s supposed to cue me around here? I finally went when I saw the guy’s shadow.”

The guy — that is, Jack — took no part in the ensuing discussion. He seemed muted, deadened. After a minute, when not given any further directions, he simply turned away on his own, knife hand dangling at his side, and plodded back to his starting position. As he did so, he glanced without interest toward the crew and equipment and stopped dead.

Buddy. In among it all, the camera, boom, sound equipment, lighting, grips, technicians, makeup man, script girl, stills photographer, visitors to the set, the whole shifting population of the village that lives just behind the camera, down there in the midst of them all stood Buddy. Jack’s vision contracted; it was as though his sight had irised into a tight circle surrounded by black the way they used to point at information in silent movies. There was Buddy, in the circle of the iris, and all the rest of the world was black.

A tiny, tentative, sheepish, hesitant smile touched Buddy’s lips. A tiny, tentative, sheepish little wave of his hand barely reached as high as his waist.

Jack gazed across the dusty tan intervening space. People in the other world were talking, moving around, living their lives; he was aware of none of it. He saw only Buddy. The left side of his upper lip lifted, curling back, showing a moist glint of tooth. Slowly, deep in his throat, a snarl began. It flowed from his mouth, growing, louder. All at once, Jack raised the bowie knife above his head, bellowed like an enraged bull, and leaped across that intervening space directly at his oldest friend in all the world.

People in that other world screamed and fled. Buddy, in this world, stared in horror at that knife but stayed rooted to the spot. Jack launched himself at Buddy like a tiger, the knife flashing in the sun, slashing down across Buddy’s chest.

Buddy screamed. He recoiled, falling back a step, putting up his hands in a vain attempt to defend himself. Jack slashed with the knife, his arm raising and lowering, again and again, the blade gleaming and gleaming, until finally Buddy managed to push him away and back out of range, staggering, shocked, outraged. “Ow!” Buddy cried. “That hurts!”

Jack, out of breath, stood spraddle-legged in the dust where Buddy had pushed him, the knife hanging from his hand at his side. Face dulled again, he gazed bleakly at Buddy and panted like a dog on a summer day.

Meanwhile, Buddy was realizing he hadn’t been cut. Looking down at himself, seeing no blood, seeing his clothes intact and not cut to ribbons, he stared in wonder and then pointed at the knife, saying, “What is that?”

A number of crew members, finally getting over their first shock, had now run forward to grasp the unresisting Jack by the arms and shoulders and waist. One of these men unbent Jack’s unprotesting fingers and removed the knife from his grip. Holding it up, showing it to Buddy, he bent the blade back and forth, showing its resilience. “Rubber,” he said.

“Well, it hurts,” Buddy said, no longer frightened, beginning to be both embarrassed and aggrieved. Rubbing his arms and chest, he said, “I’m gonna be all over bruises.”

The crew members turned the now-catatonic Jack and began to lead him away toward his dressing trailer. Buddy looked up, saw Jack leaving, and put out his hand, calling, “Stop! Wait! Let him go.”

The group of men holding Jack stopped and turned around so Jack was facing Buddy again, but they didn’t let him go. Stepping forward, speaking loudly enough for everyone present to hear him, Buddy said, “It’s all right, it really is. I deserved that. I won’t tell you what I did to this fine man, but I deserved even more than a rubber knife. I destroyed the finest friendship a man ever had.”

Slowly Jack lifted his head. Slowly his eyes focused on Buddy, seeing him through a haze of despair. Slowly Buddy’s words made their way into his brain.

Buddy stepped forward, closer to his old friend. The group holding Jack released him and faded away. Speaking more softly, Buddy said, “Nobody’s ever had a finer friend than I had in Jack Pine.”

Buddy’s eyes locked on Jack’s. Jack’s eyes locked on Buddy’s. Buddy said, with simple intensity, “I would have laid down my life for you, Dad, and I know you would have done the same for me.”

Over behind the sound equipment, a fella with a guitar began softly to play a lonesome tune. With unembellished frankness, Buddy said, “We go back a long ways together, Jack Pine, a long ways. To the very beginning.”

Jack raised his head, sunlight refracting from the despair in his eyes. Speaking from a throat as dry and dusty as the ground they stood on, he said, “That doesn’t matter anymore, Buddy. Nothing matters anymore, not what anybody knows, not what anybody did. None of it matters, Buddy.”

“You’re right, Jack Pine,” Buddy said. “In one careless, thoughtless moment of selfishness, I threw it all away. I didn’t deserve your friendship, Jack Pine. I never did.”

His passion spent, wanting nothing but to be alone in his trailer with his personal silence and darkness, Jack shook his head and made a vague gesture and said, “Oh, sure you did, Buddy. You deserved my friendship, sure you did. Lots of times.”

“Never, Jack Pine,” Buddy said. “Never.”

Jack Pine was an actor. How could he help but get caught up in the mood of the scene? How could he help but begin to feel the emotion of the scene? How could he help but say, “You know what I owe you, Buddy Pal. You know, more than anyone else. I owe you my life, Buddy Pal. I owe you everything I have. You saved me back there when...”

screams, screaming, engine roars, flashing lights in red and white reflecting from the bumper chrome, slicking on the heaving trunk of the car, madness, danger, movement, peril, speed...

“Nnn-ahhh-ah!”

“Jack Pine!”

“Buddy Pal! Buddy Pal!” Back from terror, Jack stared in dread at his oldest friend. “You know, Buddy Pal!” he cried. “I owe you everything. Do you know what I mean?”

“But not that, Jack,” Buddy insisted, shaking his head. “Not to take that from you, Jack Pine. What I did in your bed was unforgivable, I know it was. I know you can never forgive me, and I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven.”

“But I do forgive you, Buddy,” Jack said, raising hands that trembled.

“You can’t, Jack, you can’t.”

“I can, Buddy,” Jack said, a crazed and holy smile forming on his lips. “I can, and I do, and I will, and you can’t stop me. I forgive you!”

“Jack! Jack!”

“I forgive you, Buddy Pal! I forgive you!”

“Oh, Jack! Jack!”

Jack pulled Buddy into his arms. Tightly they embraced, eyes squeezed shut, faces buried in each other’s shoulders. A collective sigh rose from the semicircle of assembled spectators. Strong men were seen to wipe away a tear. Women were seen thoughtfully to lick a lip. The guitar music flowed its mournful message. Then the applause started, slight at first, but growing, mingling with the guitar.

Jack and Buddy reared back so they could see each other, but still held tightly to each other’s arms. Both men were crying for happiness. The applause continued, and beneath it Buddy said, his voice throbbing with sincerity, “But the most important person to forgive, Jack Pine, is your little Marcia.”

Weeping, tears and makeup commingling on his face, Jack shook his head. “Buddy, Buddy,” he said, “you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“She needs you, Jack Pine,” Buddy told him. “Your little Marcia needs you.”

“Oh, no, she doesn’t,” Jack said, his voice hardening.

“Oh, yes, she does,” Buddy said. “She’s going to have your baby.”

I wipe away a tear. Then I taste it. It tastes like the sea. I think I like the sea better than I like swimming pools. I think I don’t like swimming pools the way I used to. I smile sadly — I feel myself doing it, smiling sadly — I smile sadly at the interviewer and I say, “That was the last time Buddy and I ever fought about anything.”

He seems surprised. As though challenging me, he says, “The last time?”

But it’s the truth, the simple truth. All truth is simple. “The last time,” I say.

“And Marcia Callahan was pregnant with your first child at that time?”

Less simple. “The blood test was inconclusive,” I say. “But when Buddy brought me the news, what could I do? I went back to the nasty bitch. And you know the first thing I said to her?”

“What was that?”