Sacred Monster

Lude

O’Connor looks at Jack Pine’s closed eyes. They’ve been closed for some time, down beneath his palely gleaming forehead. When they first went to half-mast, and then all the way shut, O’Connor was worried, expecting the actor to pass out again, but in some ways, he’s been more coherent since the hatches were battened, speaking with a kind of pathetic vivacity about his religious period, moving right along in sensible sentences, almost totally free of non requiter and silence.

Until now. A silence has now arrived and is lengthening. O’Connor wants the star to tell the story himself, all the irrelevant stuff just as much as the stuff that has a bearing on the case, so he’s been giving the fellow his head, letting him ramble on. But silence doesn’t help, doesn’t explain what happened here last night. At last, O’Connor leans forward, softly says, “Mr. Pine? You’re at the ranch. The Reverend Cornbraker is a fake.”

A long low sigh escapes the actor’s lips. In equal and opposite reaction, he settles back and to the left, listing slightly, like a ship suffering a small hole below the water line.

“Mr. Pine?”

His voice slurring, sleepy, hoarse, Jack murmurs, “I was happy, then... on the ranch... with God.” And he folds over and down onto the slate, on his left side, curled into fetal position.

“Shit!” O’Connor says, and looks around, wishing there was somebody else to take over this duty. It’s like pulling teeth, for Christ’s sake. “Mr. Pine?” he says, then louder, calling, “Mr. Pine? Mr. Pine?”

No reaction. The actor’s breathing seems shallower, more ragged. His forehead seems even paler and gleams less. Beginning to feel concern, O’Connor looks toward the house, calling, “Hoskins!”

And that faithful servant appears at once, moving at an ungainly but rapid trot from the house, holding up in one hand a hypodermic needle. When he arrives, he nods at O’Connor. “You called,” he says.

“You see,” O’Connor says, gesturing at the unconscious actor.

“Yes,” Hoskins says, nodding. “I thought it might be time for dire measures.”

Dropping to one knee beside his recumbent employer, Hoskins deftly pulls up the unconscious man’s pale blue terry-cloth robe, revealing a buttock as high and round and pale and vulnerable as that sleeping forehead. With practiced economy, Hoskins jabs the hypodermic needle into that buttock.

“George!” exclaims Jack, in his sleep, in playful mock surprise, as his limbs quiver and are still.

Steadily, Hoskins depresses the plunger. Steadily, the clear fluid in the syringe flows into Jack Pine’s bum. Withdrawing the needle, Hoskins restores the robe to its former position and rises, saying, “He’ll be right as rain in no time now, sir.”

“For how long?” O’Connor asks. The pages of notes inexorably filling his notebook seem — at least at this stage — mostly useless, with no more than hints and faint clues as to what led to the dreadful finish last night in this house. Nevertheless, this still seems to O’Connor the best way to get at the truth, unless it’s going to take forever. “How long can I have him?” O’Connor asks. “How long can he operate at all?”

“Hard to say,” Hoskins says, studying the fallen actor. He shrugs, his manner brisk. “Call when needed,” he suggests, and strides away again toward the house, empty syringe held high.

O’Connor, remaining in his canvas chair, leans toward the unconscious man. Was that movement just now, or merely the play of light and shadow as a small cloud crossed the sun? “Mr. Pine?” O’Connor calls. “Mr. Pine?”

“I left my homework on the bus,” comes the murmured answer.

“Mr. Pine! Dammit, wake up!”

Jack Pine twitches, all over his body, then rolls out flat onto his back, eyes wide open, staring upward, drawing the pale ashiness of the summer sky deep into those eyes, so that they seem ancient and blind, consumed with gray fire. “It all goes back,” he croaks, in a voice that echoes as though emerging from the deepest pit of Hell, “it all goes back — I remember—”

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...

“No!”

I roll over onto my face, nose rooting deep into the cool hard slate; pain is good, it distracts, it drives the thoughts away. Reaching down and back behind myself, I grab handfuls of terry-cloth robe, pull it up over my head, hiding from the sky and the past and everything. Cool air soothes my bare behind, where one spot tickles and stings; a mosquito must have got me while I was napping. (Good, an irrelevant thought. Keep ‘em coming, for Christ’s sake!)

“Mr. Pine? Mr. Pine?”

I thrash with my ankles in protest, wanting no one to be here, wanting to be called from nowhere, wanting oblivion, dear sweet oblivion, dear God oblivion.

“It’s me, Mr. Pine,” the maddening voice says. “Michael O’Connor.”

I stop kicking with my ankles, stop stubbing my toes against the patio slate. I lift my head, wearing the terry-cloth robe around my face like a pale blue monk’s cowl. I gaze away across my gray-green lawn beneath the gray-blue sky, past my gray-white house. I become thoughtful. “Michael O’Connor,” I say, judiciously, hefting the name, contemplating it. “A good name,” I decide. “Very solid. I’d like to be Michael O’Connor for a while. Several days. Drive a Volvo.” I twist around to look past my pale blue cowl and my pale blue shoulder and my pale white ass at this person named Michael O’Connor, whoever or whatever else he might be. I see a neat dull man, nondescript, and yet somehow familiar. Am I going to be expected to remember something? Ignoring that idea, I say, “Do you drive a Volvo?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “no. A Saab.”

“Damn,” I say. “Wrong again.” Then I become more aware of that gleaming ass of mine, down there beyond my blue shoulder. I’m naked in front of this guy! A wind must have come up, blown my robe up over me while I was deep in contemplation of, of, of something or other.

I pull the robe back down over myself, roll over, continue the robe adjustments for some little while, and at last sit up, barely even noticing how easy it is to sit up. I must be in better shape than I thought. I look at Michael O’Connor, a neat and self-contained man, if drab, seated with knees together, pen in right hand, some sort of memo pad on his lap. He looks familiar, in a kind of a way. Memory stirs. (Not that memory. This memory.) I say, “Aren’t you the guy I was talking to the other day?”

“Just now,” O’Connor tells me. “Right here. We’ve been talking right here.”

“I thought you were the guy,” I say, smiling with easy familiarity, covering a certain embarrassment. “Remind me,” I say, “fill me in. Insurance?”

“Actually,” O’Connor says, with a charming diffidence, “I wanted to know about Buddy Pal. You were telling me your life story.”

Then it comes rushing back. (That doesn’t. This does.) I slap my forehead, I wave my arms around, I kick my legs, I do every silent-movie how-dumb-I-am move I can remember. I say, “The interview! Of course!” Then, confidentially, man to man, bringing him aboard, making him a member of the team, I say, “Pal, you gotta forgive me on this. My schedule’s very complex. I’m just off a picture, you know, the Gone with the Wind remake, and I just...” I wave hands.

“I understand,” O’Connor says. Sympathetic guy. I could get along with this fella.

I open my heart to him even more. “I was straight for weeks, Mike, and then — Is it Mike or Michael?”

“Usually Michael,” he says.

I might have guessed. There’s something prissy about this guy, uptight, not loose and relaxed. Well, anyway, let’s befriend him just the same. “I was straight a long time, Michael,” I say, “and then something happened, upset me, I fell—...”

“What was that, Mr. Pine? What upset you?”

“Doesn’t matter, Michael,” I tell him, waving it away with a carefree hand. “That’s ancient history. That’s archives, Michael. The point is, I wasted myself. I’d been taking a taste here, a hit there, a pop somewhere else, you know what I mean? Maintaining. That’s my idea of being on the dope wagon, Michael, maintaining that nice balance, that easy lope through life.” And I wonder, am I using his name too often? Do I risk moving beyond manly camaraderie to starrish condescension? Best back off; keep on the good side of the press, that’s the name of the game. “Where were we?” I ask him. “Did I tell you about Marcia, my first wife?”

“Yes, sir,” he says.

“Pow!” I tell him, taking a poke at the air. “Right in the kisser, you know?”

“You were at the ranch,” he reminds me. “Buddy Pal had just told you the Reverend Cornbraker was a con man.”

“And child molester,” I say. “Oh, yeah. Things got kind of grim at the ranch around then. Meantime, life wasn’t so hot down at the beach, either.”