Dead Stars (59 page)

“Sure. Anytime.”

“Because now I'm thinking the river can be in an
amusement park.
Like a Pirates of the Caribbean ride . . .”

“Ha! That's good!”

Bud felt a flush of excitement, that feeling of worthiness, that he & Michael were peers in the same trade.

“And if you fall off the ride, you enter this other world—”

“It's great, Bud. It's like Miyazaki.
Spirited Away 
. . .”

He made a mental note to watch the masterful animated film; he'd never gotten around to seeing it.

“Michael,
thank
you! I mean, thank you for
everything.
”

“We're writers, Bud. That's what writers do, we talk to each other. We steal from each other. You'd do the same for me.”

Bud's eyes drifted to the half-eaten croissant on his friend's plate.

“Can I tear off a piece of that? All I want is a tiny bite.”

“I'm all done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go for it.”

“You're sure you don't mind?”

CLEAN

[Gwen]

How to Fix A Fatal Error

After

the Courage Ball, Telma couldn't stop throwing up. Gwen took her to the doctor and he started an IV because she was dehydrated. They put her in one of the examination rooms, & Gwen sat with her as she slept.

At home, she was listless. She stayed in bed, skyping with Biggie. She wouldn't talk to or even text or email anyone else. A messenger came to pick up a letter but Telma told her mom she didn't have any letter. When Khloé Kardashian was told there wasn't, she thought there must be some miscommunication. She got Gwen's number from Tiff Koster & called to ask what was happening. Gwen told Khloé her daughter had been sick, and would need to take a raincheck. Khloé asked if she could say a quick hello but when Gwen told Telma who was on the line her daughter said to
please tell her I'm asleep
. A bouquet of flowers was delivered later that day, from all the Kardashians. Written on the envelope was
to Telma, from Kris
. Telma never opened it.

. . .

On the day everything was to be settled, Gwen and Phoebe talked on the phone. The meeting was just after lunch. This time there would be no doctors, only lawyers from opposing sides.

“What did your attorney say?”

“That I shouldn't be there. That I should just stay home & let him handle it. That he'd call from the meeting if he needed to talk to me.”

“And so?”

“Ain't gonna happen. I'll be there, with bells on.”

“And you're going to talk to her after?”

“As soon as it's done.”

“Sure you don't want me to be there?”

Gwen nodded. “I'll be OK. This is something I need to do for her,
and
for me. I need to have the courage she's had all this time. And Telma needs to see
me
being strong.”

“Well . . . call me. After. OK, hon?”

Without warning, they cried together, a brief downpour through the wire—
to the limit, to the wall—
a summer storm. They still managed to get a few laughs off before hanging up.

On her way to Century City, Gwen went upstairs to give her daughter a kiss. Telma sat up in bed asleep, the computer on her lap, one stilled hand on the keyboard.

Gwen looked at the screen and saw what she assumed to be Biggie's bedroom. She startled when he lumbered in from off-camera & sat down at his desk. (Gwen ducked out of frame.) She watched from afar; he was engrossed online while Telma slept. It was so obvious that the two were calmed by each other's presence. There was something so sad and so sweet about it. Gwen stroked Telma's cheek with the back of her hand, then kissed her brow; Biggie's gaze subtly shifted in time to see it. At this moment—
just this moment
—Telma was an innocent, but the age of innocence was coming to a close. A new age and new time would soon begin. Gwen prayed for the strength to face it.

She prayed for them both.

EXPLICIT

[Mt Olympus mixtape]

Animal House

Rikki

had his cock in Montana Fishburne's ass & was
grateful
to Jerzy for giving him the Viagra because he was so loaded he'd never have been able to get it up
plus
he thought he'd be too shy or somehow
disturbed
to be fucking in front of people, he'd never done that before & wasn't sure his dick would even work in that type of situation
plus
he was never in a
gangbang
either. The tailend of that
If
poem he memorized for school got stuck in his head “. . . and which is more, you'll be a man, my son!”

To every season, turn turn turn the fuck
OVER.

The weed had something
in
it; or maybe the
meth
, he
heard
&
SAW
things, nothing too heavy. It wasn't all bad but it wasn't all good, which more or less described the experience of plugging Montana Fishburne's shit chute.
Plus
knowing Ree was up
stairs
was another bit of a hard-off . . . not cause he worried she might come down, which she
wouldn't
, it was just the just
knowing
of it—that she was up there—that was weird. But
everything
was effin weird today.

. . .

Jerzy went over his booty from the Hilton
honeyshot!
s.

. . . a veritable motherlode, a motherdaughterload, motherdaughtershootyourload. All the stinkle ladies nearest & dearest to Harry's abnormal
signified & represented, or should he say
presented,
as in young pussycat baboonettes: Hailee, Chloë, Elle. He'd tell Harry to pony up 15K for the lot, & Harry'd give it to him too, because Jerzy had dared in drug-besotted boldness to fuck with the
Hailee
honeypot
,
dared to photoshop a tampon string, perfect & undetectable in its digi-fakery, reflecting the unutterably ineffable influence of the darkside of the moon.
That
would be the tipping point, & allow J to demonstrate his Trojan Magnumnimity by offering it at a
rate
, just 150 yards
 . . .

Dirty Harry would no doubt Sinatra-serenade his thanks:

 

. . . got the world on a string, sittin on a rainbow———

 

In the midst of his photocumshot labors, the crotchety crotcherazzo found himself on the horniness of a dillemmawatson.

After sliding out of a hybrid SUV, a little girl approached him at the Hilton while Jerzy was in the thick of it, the fur was starting to fly, somewhere between Elle & Chloë. The kid strode right up and said
Hi!
like she was family then reminded him how they'd met a few months ago outside of Sur, she was that
gleek
with the funny old/young look hanging around waiting for
gleesters to come in & out while Mom was across the street shopping. The naggy kid chastised him
again
about not being on Facebook then said all would be forgiven if he took her pic, which he did, causing a bit of rubbernecking amongst tourists congregated on the other side of the glass inside the lobby of the hotel. The fuss—that she seemed to be “someone” (which of course she was, but only in
KancerWorld
, & not yet in the
rest
of the world, where she of course
would
be, soon enough (was just what the little gal wanted, & he'd been happy to oblige).

What she didn't know was that he'd already memorialized her, his m.o. being to machinegunfire
anyone
stepping from the back of a car, shoot now, look later. As he sorted everything from that night for his boss, he came across some pix of the gleek arriving at the gala with her mom . . . the tried&tru
stepping out
shots, and the little gleek did not disappoint. She was an unknown, & usually Jerzy threw some civvie stinkweed into Harry's snatch batch to sweeten the punch. Giftbag swagger jagger. Upskirt warmer-uppers. Twatcherazzi twizzle sticks. But
this
time, he destroyed all of the illicit images of the gleek, even those she asked him to take on the sidewalk. It just felt like the right thing to do.

He pulled on the glass dick & coughed out the smoke, & when he was finally able he said outloud “You're a good man Charlie Brown.”

. . .

Harry's problemo was one thing,
THE PROBLEM
was another.

Jerzy turned over
THE PROBLEM
in his head,
THE PROBLEM
being: How to see the face of God? At least he'd identified it, which had taken a lot of luck & hardwork. The answer was out there like the xxx-files once said. Jerzy wanted to see the face of G-d—
NOT
the false American Idols before him
not Hov, not I-Veen, not Puppetmathers (making them smaller & smaller in his
), but the face of The Eternal.

But one thing haunted him:

What if he was allowed to see the face of G-d & did so, righteous & transcendent, w/o realizing it was the
WRONG
G-d?

The hummingbird & the mantis held the answer.

After careful meth odical scrutiny & further accumulation of much crack plaque Jerzy unpacked the disturbing parable of bird & insect. (He called it parable because in so doing it placed mantis & hummingbird outside of Time. It was easier to consider them if they resided in a place outside Time, in parable form.) G-d said to an as-yet-formless thing: Give me your Soul, your Spirit, your Energy, & I will make you into that
magnificat
of Mystery: blurry venerated magnificence called Hummingbird. All who see you will know I touched you, that you did know me & saw my face, & that I did favor you. In you I shall be forever immanent. And the 1st formless thing said, “I accept & do praise you, forever & ever.” & G-d said to another as-yet-formless thing: Give me your Soul, your Spirit, your Energy, & I will make you into that
magnificat
of Mystery: patient, aloof, anomalous gladiator, that vatic king called Mantis. All who see you will know I touched you, that you did know me & saw my face, & that I did favor you. In you I shall be immanent. And the 2nd formless thing said, “I accept, & do praise you, forever and ever.” And upon assuming those forms he had bestowed like raiments they wondered when they would be allowed to see His face. But until then, they happily did go about their new lives, fulfilling their natures & natural destinies.

The mantis was patient, & assumed the position of prayer, whether on wings in flight or at rest upon hillside ground or poised in acquiescence upon leaves dead, or still green. And the mantis heard a Voice say, Come, stand by the sugarwater of this bird feeder, & take care to hide, for that is where you shall see my face. So the mantis took up near-invisible sentry by the sugarwater of bird feeders, wherever he might find them. The hummingbird was patient too, though the G-d saw fit to place upon its tiny quivering shoulder the mantle of impatience, & while impatience appeared to be its nature such was His art in camouflaging the hummingbird's supreme forbearance. The hummingbird heard a Voice too & the Voice said, Follow me to the place where you shall soon see my face, but the Voice was always careful to be a flower away. Still, the faithful thing beat its wings ceaselessly toward It, for that too was its nature, an unending faithfulness to the G-d that gave it form. And the mantis prayed by the bird feeder in monk's simple cloak to see the face that His Maker had promised would manifest, & G-d said to him, You must kill the thing that comes to nourish and feed from this sugar, this water, & the mantis listened blindly, an assassin of His love, & did murder the hummingbird. But in the cruel & unforgiving instant of its kill, the mantis understood he would never see the face of G-d, and that he had killed his sister, the sister who had been promised the same as he; the G-d that had given them both life had taken care to make certain his sister, in her last moments, was fully aware that her brother was going to impale her, that she would die poleaxed by her brother's spiked leg as it hairtriggered from just beneath the very arm that it prayed with, her brother had been ordered by the G-d that made them to kill his sister for sport, & at the same time she realized she too would have done the same, that was her only solace (one which the G-d did not anticipate), that if ordered so she would have massacred her brother in obedience to her G-d, their Maker. & now the mantis was alone, and alone with his revelation. In the horror of his predicament, he cannibalized himself—in merciful mercilessness their G-d had made it his nature to devour other mantises & so devouring itself was both a penitence & a cleansing of Soul and Spirit, thus ending the cycle of betrayal (until He chose for it to begin again, which He always did, out of boredom & for sport). Before the mantis died he cursed such a G-d, & for such heresy his G-d reconstituted him long enough to promise the mantis he would make him into the hummingbird, the mantis' sister, mother & wife, he would make him a flower-hoverer next time, and promised too that before the hour of his impalement & death, his heartbreak at the further revelations of the perfect senselessness & sadism of this our life would be so much more exquisite than the suffering the mantis had last experienced, the G-d saw fit to tell his creation the misery he'd endured before cannibalizing itself would be increased a millionfold—out of G-d's boredom, & for His sport.

Jerzy read that a motto of the Navy Seals is, “3 is 2, 2 is 1, & 1 is none.” What does it mean? That one should never enter a battle alone, without an ally, & one should assume that before victory or even before battle allies will be lost.

You can't do 1 of anything . . . “1 is the loneliest number.” Who sang it? 3 Dog Night. The 3 again: (
A whisper: 1ovine, 2-Hov, 3-Em
) “3 is 2, 2 is 1 & 1 is none.” Listen to Ecclesiastes: “2 are better than 1, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, 1 will lift up the other. But woe to 1 who is alone & falls & does not have another to help. If 2 lie together, they keep warm; but how can 1 keep warm alone? & tho 1 might prevail against another, 2 will withstand 1. A 3-fold cord is not quickly broken.”

(
A whispernet: 1-Suge, 2-Pac, 3-Jerzy
)

Listen to the rhythm of the trimesters:

1, 2 & 3.

The Known, the Unknown, the Unknowable.

He, she, them—the merging.

ICM, CAA, WME.

Listen to the secret language of
the 4th Trimester
.

Listen.

Listen, & you will hear the demiurge, the golem . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . .

Earlier, Bolt told Tom-Tom that someone from production had asked how old Rikki was. He was guessing they might want him to join in the fun. Tom-Tom said
I'm his fucking manager & he aint doin nuthin for FREE. Somebody wants to give him a bj, they're gunna have to PAY, & guess what, they pay
ME.

She told Rikki to find the ID she got made in MacArthur Park for when he was auditioning on that piece of shit movie, just in case Antwone Fisher wanted to hire him but had trouble with him being a minor. Tom-Tom knew they never liked using minors if they could help it cause you always had to provide a teacher, give em nappy breaks, yadda yadda, all this xtra costly dumbshit. When she learned the star of the porno was the one who wanted to confirm that Rikki was legal, Tom-Tom wasn't surprised. Early on, she saw the two hanging out between takes, & it was clear from their body language that they were in the courtship phase so often preceding consensual unprotected double-pen
.