Sacred Monster

Flashback 26

The east parlor by night, in the glow of its table lamps, was a warm and gentle room, cozy and comforting and good. Now, on the table where Dr. Ovoid had spread his samples, there stood a large Limoges plate bearing two parallel white lines of powder. Jack bent over this table, his back to the doorway, where Buddy stood watching him. One end of a straw was stuck into Jack’s nostril. His head moved from left to right across the plate, using the straw to vacuum up one of the two lines. Then he turned and looked at Buddy, his expression dulled, but with terror showing through.

Buddy smiled, with his new face. “Go ahead, Dad,” he said, still sounding like Buddy. “Get it on.”

Still sounding like Buddy. But not looking like Buddy. Looking like Jack. The doctors in Brazil had taken that similarity of feature and bone structure, had combined that with their own high skills and techniques, and had turned Buddy into a new Jack.

A better Jack. A healthier Jack, thinner and trimmer. A Jack who might have come into existence in the normal way, except that the original had led his body down other avenues. But here he was, as he might have been.

Jack turned away from that cold-eyed other self. He inhaled the second line, and behind him Buddy stepped further into the room. Jack remained bent over the table, staring at the bare plate, trying to see himself in it, trying to see the real self reflected in the plate, but seeing nothing.

Buddy’s old voice said, “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Jack tried a quick grin at the plate, but the feeling of it on his face was so terrible he stopped at once. He said, “It means I’m temporarily insane.”

“It means, Dad,” Buddy said, “you’re permanently retired.”

Slowly Jack turned, losing his balance briefly, pressing his hand to the smooth warm surface of the table. Fearfully he looked at Buddy — that face! — and said, “Buddy, what have you done?”

“You can see what I’ve done,” Buddy said, gesturing at his new face. “The question is, what am I going to do now? Can you guess?”

“No,” Jack said.

“Sure you can,” Buddy told him, grinning Jack’s famous crooked grin. “You just don’t want to. Because you know what I’m going to do is take your place.”

“You’re crazy!” Jack yelled. “You can’t take my place! You can’t possibly take my place!”

Buddy shook his — Jack’s — head. “An eight-by-ten glossy photograph could come damn near taking your place,” he said, “the way you’ve been recently. Don’t worry about me making it work, Dad, this has been very carefully thought out.”

“You’ll never get away with it!” Jack cried. “People will know!”

“People?” Buddy asked. “What people?”

“Irwin! My agent, Irwin! You think you can fool him?”

“He’s in on it,” Buddy told him. “Your accountant, Sol, is in on it.”

Appalled, Jack staggered back against the table. “I don’t believe you.”

Buddy was inexorable. “A whole lot of people make their living off you, Dad,” he said, “and you’re putting all of our livelihoods at risk. Something had to be done.”

With a mad laugh, breaking into falsetto, Jack cried, “You don’t sound like me!”

Buddy smiled — Jack’s smile! When he spoke, his sound and intonations were very like Jack’s; not perfect, but a very good imitation, about on a par with a nightclub mimic. “I’ve been seeing a voice coach,” said this new manner. “We aren’t there yet, but we’ll make it.” With his own original voice, Buddy added, “And just to make things easier, next month you’re going into Cedars of Lebanon for an adenoid operation. We’ve already made the reservation. Don’t worry, you’ll be on the celeb eighth floor.” Reverting to the Jack imitation, he said, “Somehow, your voice will never be exactly the same again. But you’ll carry on. The public will be proud of you.”

“I don’t believe this,” Jack said, staring at the pattern in the carpet. “A conspiracy.”

“Too much money involved, Dad,” the new face said in the new voice. “This was the only solution.”

“But—” Jack squinted at Buddy as though that new face were a glaring searchlight, difficult to look at. “What happens to me?” he demanded, trying to sound tough but with the terror peeking through.

“You become a bigger star than ever,” the Buddy/Jack said.

“No, dammit,” the original Jack cried, fear so distorting his face that he looked less like himself. “You know what I mean!” Slapping his chest, he cried, “Me! This me!”

Buddy/Jack chuckled. “Dr. Ovoid has a nice sanitarium up the coast—”

“He’s in it, too? My doctor?”

“He’ll make you feel good every day for the rest of your life,” Buddy/Jack said. “You won’t mind at all. It’s the way you want to live anyway.”

“You—” Jack moved from side to side, his feet shuffling on the intricately designed carpet. “You’ve taken everything,” he said. “My lighter, my money, my sweaters, my car. My wives.”

“I never did get into Lorraine,” Buddy/Jack said, with a little grin. “My one great regret.”

“And now,” Jack said, moving, shuffling, staring, “now you want my life.”

His true contempt showing through fully at last, Buddy/Jack said, “I’m a much better you than you could ever be.”

A stink of truth in that statement twisted Jack’s features, made him turn away, stagger across the room, toward the broad white mantelpiece. But then he changed, he found his equilibrium and his selfhood, he fought back. Spinning around, triumphant, aggressive, he pointed at the poor mannequin, the second-rate Buddy/Jack, and shouted, “You don’t have my talent!”

Buddy/Jack’s Jack-mouth twisted in scorn. “You don’t have your talent,” he said, “not anymore. You haven’t had it for five years. You used to be an actor, one of the best, but now you’re just a star turn. You go in front of the camera, you do your Jack Pine number, all the little schticks and tics, the shoulder movements and the grins, all those bits of business you developed over the years to take the place of working on the character. You do all that shit, and you come off. That I can do.”

Oscar stood on the mantle. The golden statuette, the highest award an actor can receive, the acknowledgement of excellence from his peers. Jack spun about, grabbed up Oscar, held him like a flaming torch aloft, and cried, “Then why do I have this?”

Buddy/Jack chuckled; a Jack schtick. “In honor of your farewell performance,” he said.

“Nooo!!” Jack screamed, and rushed forward, Oscar raised high above his head.

I stare in horror at O’Connor, seeing those fragmentary memories, disbelieving them. “I couldn’t!” I cry. “Not with Oscar!”

O’Connor reaches behind him and brings out an object. “Do you recognize this, Mr. Pine?” he asked.

It is Oscar. He is beaten and battered and bloodstained. His head is bent down onto his chest as though he’s dead.

And now the memory comes clear: myself, manic, laughing, striking downward over and over at that creature in the middle of the carpet. And I can hear myself screaming, “My face? Not my face, you don’t take my face!” And beating and beating at that face which will never be me, never, never.

And stopping. Panting, gleefully grinning, staring down at him, saying, “Now you don’t look like me.” And it is true. He doesn’t look like me anymore. In fact, he doesn’t look much like anybody anymore.

“Oh, God,” I say now, in the sunlight, and cover my eyes, not wanting to see poor Oscar there. “I killed him,” I say.

“Yes,” O’Connor said. “Buddy Pal is dead.”

“Oh, him,” I say, distracted. “I meant Oscar.” I look at O’Connor, trying not to see poor Oscar. “But Buddy really is dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” O’Connor says. “And after you killed him...”