Sacred Monster

Lude Continued

O’Connor watches Jack Pine’s dreamy eyes, dreamy smile. Will the man ever get down to it, get to the point? But the closer he comes to present time, of course, the harder it becomes to keep him moving. “There’s no place like home,” O’Connor says, repeating the actor’s last words in an effort to get him in motion again.

“Ohhhh, yes.” Those dreamy eyes find O’Connor’s eyes and gaze into them. “I’m safe here,” says that dreamy voice.

“The world’s left outside.”

“Yeeessss.” The eyes are filling with color, becoming less dreamy. “It’s very nice here, very restful,” and the voice gets stronger, the words faster, “after a hard day at the studio.” The voice is going up in pitch, the eyes are pinholes in a decaying face, the words are coming faster and faster: “I can warm my flank, create a cause by the crater of the Susanna sometimewhenthesoonsunsomesoonsunsooooooOOOOOO—!!”

“Oh, my God!” O’Connor cries, lost in the actor’s keening. “The pills!”

“YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”

Fumbling in haste, O’Connor blunders out of his canvas chair and onto his knees beside the dead-faced, pin-eyed screaming actor. His nervous fingers chase the three red capsules around the silver tray like an overeager puppy snuffling after ants on the sidewalk. He manages to capture all three, fold them into his palm.

“YYYYYYYYYYY—”

O’Connor clutches the back of Pine’s neck with one hand, shoves the capsules with his other hand down into that black and red straining screaming maw, reaches for the waterglass.

“Y! Y! Y! Y! Y!”

O’Connor pours water into that mouth; some bubbles out again, over the actor’s chin and down onto his pale blue terry-cloth robe, but some stays, oozing past the screams and down the gullet.

“Y-ng! Y-ng! Y-ng! Y-ng! ngngngngngngngngngngng...”

O’Connor, still kneeling, still holding the waterglass — now half empty — sits back on his heels and watches. The noises from the actor’s mouth lessen, become arrhythmic, more like burps or hiccups or dry leaves. O’Connor, his brow furrowed with guilt and fellow-feeling, says, “Mr. Pine? Jack?”

The actor grows silent. Then, all at once, he shudders all over his body, as though reacting to some strong explosion deep within. After an instant of rigidity, he begins to tremble, as though freezing cold, and a look of terror crosses his face. Folding his shoulders in defensively toward his ears, he brings his knees up to his chin and wraps his arms around his legs. The look of terror increases, becomes a rigid stare into the deepest pit, and in a small, cracking, weak, tremulous voice the actor says, “That— That— That— That can— That can... hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” O’Connor tells him, with utter sincerity, and risks touching the actor on the arm. “I’m really sorry. I forgot the time.”

Pine still stares at nothing, his head twitching from time to time. He seems to be talking mostly to himself. “That can—” he says, and trembles, and says, “hurt. Oh, boy. That can hurt. Oh. Hurt.”

“Sorry. Really.” O’Connor gets up off his knees and resumes his old position in the chair, reclaiming his pen and notebook from where he’d dropped them on the slate in that moment of panic. His expression still worried, he watches the actor’s slow recovery.

Pine, crouched over his upraised knees, rubs his arms obsessively. His breathing, which had been quick and strained, grows more level, more even. He turns his head slowly, looks at O’Connor as though he can actually see him, then looks away again, at whatever it is he sees at the farthest range of infinity. “I don’t like that part,” he says, in a half whisper. “Not that part.”

“I am sorry,” O’Connor says. What else is there to say?

The actor lifts his head, looking out and up, over the trees of his compound. The sky fills his eyes. He says, “I saw a girl...”