Dead Stars (65 page)

CLEAN

[Bud]

The Art of Fiction, Part Three

Bud's

hip surgery didn't go well. An infection required another procedure. A few weeks later, he got pneumonia. He probably picked it up in the hospital. The doctor said, “It happens. We don't like it when it does, but it does.”

The narcotics constipated him. He'd never been one to examine his own shit, but fitfully peered into the bowl after each eely expulsion. They were usually curled neatly at the very bottom, guilty dogs avoiding their master's gaze.

Around the time he started to convalesce, Dolly shed her fear of falling. A week after his surgery, she did something she hadn't been able to in a number of years—walked down the two short flights of stairs to Bud's bedroom, unassisted.

Everyone remarked on her high spirits. She began taking outside walks. The caregivers noticed a lilt in her step, a sprightliness. Marta said it was almost as if he took the fall for her, & Dolly's fears along with it.

. . .

As Tolkin had suggested, Bud tried to find comedy in the story of the drowned girl. He played around with the idea of a mermaid but so far nothing gelled. He even netflixed
Splash
to see if it would give him any ideas. He only watched for a little while—it was more fun to chase Daryl Hannah all over the Internet instead. Bud's habit had grown; he was up to three percocets an hour. He was supposed to use the nebulizer a half-dozen times a day, but never did. Twice at most.

. . .

This year's Guggenheim grant winners were listed in a full page of
The New York Times
. He always wondered how they were chosen. The Foundation's website said there was a “Committee of Selection” that consulted with distinguished scholars and artists for guidance in awarding applicants. Among the committee were Toni Morrison, Patti Smith, Steve Martin, Fran Lebowitz, David Simon, Joyce Carol Oates, & James Franco.

. . .

He watched some of
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
. One of the wives had just moved, and someone asked her where. She said, “Bel-Air.” “Where were you living before?” asked the friend. “Bel-Air,” said the wife.

. . .

Michael's New Zealand movie,
Misericord
, had a Facebook page. It already had a release date. One of the producers was known as the old guy who liked to blog as a way of reaching out to fans; he loved live-streaming Twitter “orgies.” In the last one he participated in, someone asked about a rumor that the director and star were at each other's throats during the shoot. The producer said the rumor was “Internet horseshit.”

Misericord . . .

Odd title. Intriguing word, though. Bud Googled.

 

1) an apartment in a monastery where certain relaxations of the monastic rule are allowed, especially those involving food and drink, to accommodate infirm monks; 2) a shelf, or “mercy seat,” on the underside of a hinged seat in a choir stall against which a standing chorister could lean, during lengthy services (often inscribed with scatological graffiti); 3) a dagger used to administer the mercy stroke to a seriously wounded knight.

 

Jesus.
Infirm monks . . . secret apartments for DaVinci Code-type bacchanalias . . . hidden, porn-carved “mercy” seats . . . a medieval dirk for
coup de grâces . . .
the word was an entire book—say, by Eco or Borges—a novel in itself! In just four syllables and 10 measly letters, it managed to evoke more feeling, more subtlety, more narrative (three acts, ending with a killing!) than Bud would ever be able to conjure in five pages, or 50, or 500.

He lay flat on his back awash in depression, murdered by the word as surely as a knight by a dagger. Only trouble being, it didn't put him out of his
misery
.

. . .

Bud was bored and stoned.

Marta picked him up the Forbes Top-Earning Dead Celebrity issue. You had to earn at least $6 million for the year to qualify. Michael Jackson was still riding high.

Tolkin called to cheer him up. He said he went with Brando to the Westside Pavilion to watch a movie by a director whom the kid was interested in. It was in 3D. Michael said that when you walked out, you threw your glasses in a recycling bin that said KEEP 3D GREEN. Michael said it was the best, most insane slogan ever.

. . .

He got an email from one of David Simon's assistants, asking for an update on his contact information.

It gave him the idea to update his iPhone addressbook. He was surprised to find his father still in there. Bud kept his old cellphone number, forgetting that he edited the rest, in case he was ever back east and wanted to visit:

. . .

He had a nice conversation with Keira Thompson, head of development at Ooh Baby. She was glad to hear Bud was leaning in the comedy direction on the problematic Biggie project, and happy to be brought into his confidence. He even shared about having some conversations with Tolkin about it. No harm.

He'd read a few articles about the Brainards online, and become curious about the source of their wealth. When they finished with the business side, Bud kind of circled the topic. Keira wasn't skittish about it at all. She said the dad was a genius who found a way to patent “concepts.”

“Brando said one of the big things his father came up with was the idea of asking people for the last four digits of their social. Prior to that, people were reluctant to give their whole number over the phone. It made them feel vulnerable. The consequence was that merchants and banks lost billions of dollars a year in sales because people refused to verify. Most of this was before the Internet, Paypal and eBay and what have you, now people give all kinds of personal information to their computers, I know
I
do. Anyway, Brando said his dad told the banks (and
they
told the merchants) to have the person on the phone just ask the consumer for the
last four digits—
psychologically, that made all the difference. People didn't hesitate to ID themselves anymore. He still gets
royalties
off that idea! And there was
another
weird benefit. Brando said the
cumulative time saved
by having people repeat
four numbers instead of twelve
was like HUGE
—
like, at the end of the year it added up to hundreds of thousands of man hours. So they saved all those
salaries
too! The ones they would have had to pay to have more people working the phones.”

. . .

Bud unobtrusively recuperated in his very own apartment for infirm monks. Marta did heroic double duty, performing all the functions of an LVN. If the pain was particularly bad, he wasn't shy about using the bedpan. His door had no lock—no way to control the comings and goings of a sleepless, nomadic mother.

One night he awakened from a sedative-induced sleep to Dolly giving him a sponge bath.

“Once you pass 80, it's time to go,” she said,
in media res
. He was too groggy to question the surreal scene. “The people who get sick, refuse treatment, then die a few days later—those are the ones who got it right.”

“Mom . . . what are you doing?”

“
Sponging
you. What does it
look
like I'm doing? What a
chin
you have! And what
handsome shoulders
. I look at you and see your
father
. You know what kept us together? The
sex
. The
sex
was all we had. You know, you're handsome. You're handsome and you
know
it.
Everybody
knows it—they say, ‘Here he comes! Here comes Handsome Bud Wiggins!'”

. . .

He put down the novel—alas, the courage to say he was done.

He'd been working on it for years. Finally, he could freely admit he had absolutely nothing to show for it. He used to fantasize about being a literary man, but the literary era was over. When he was a boy, the scene was vibrant. Mailer stabbed his wife and duked it out with Vidal, Capote was a sacred monster, Styron a nasty drunk, Cheever a nasty drunken fag. Now there were only aging wonderboys like Do-Gooder Eggers, Vegemitey Mouse Foer, & Franzen, the King Rat who preened about spreading Big Brain's ashes in some bandana republic before snitching off his BFF's minuscule frauds of reportage. In one of those phoney
New Yorker
tell-alls masquerading as
elegant meditations
, he diddled himself—with precious, casually
trenchant
reflections on Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson & the Novel; on islands & isolation; on the special agonies of bestselling literary men, and the
very
special agony of loving his Hideous Friend—before getting to the cumshot of
how much I loved and invested in him and how much he betrayed me and his wife
. Bud thought it would have been far more interesting if Franzen had fucked the widow, which the essay actually wound up doing. It was a bitchy, addled
Psychology Today-
level treatise that literally posited that D. Footnote Wallace hanged himself as a career move! “In a sense, the story of my friendship with him is simply that I loved a person who was mentally ill.” Bud said outloud,
Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
As Fran Lebowitz might jest, “If you think you can write
Saint Genet
but you aren't Sartre—
don't even try
.”

How many copies did
Freedom
sell, anyway?

Like five fucking million––––––––

I'm done,
he said.

The dream is over . . .

His phone rang.

“Bud?”

“Oh, hi Tolkin.”

“How's the hip, kiddo?”

“On the mend.”

“Listen, I've got some good news.”

“Jesus, Michael, you're like the fuckin tooth fairy, it never stops. I love you, man.”

“Remember the David Simon meeting you took?”

“Sure.
The Wire
guy
.
”

“Right . . . they're going into production—on the Hollywood project. David told me he lifted a section from one of your stories.”

“What stories?”

“What do you mean,
what stories
. From
Force Majeure!
”

“Really? Wouldn't I have heard about that?”

“You're hearing about it
now
. Listen. They're giving you a ‘story by' credit—which is a
good
thing. You'll even get paid for it, which is a
very
good thing. Not a lot, but it's WGA minimum. For shared story credit.”

“Wow. Cool!”

“You know what this means, don't you?”

“Tell me.”

“Remember how he called
The Wire
a novel?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, David's calling the new series a novel too.”

“Okay.”

Bud wasn't following.

“David said that his staff is engaged in writing another
novel
that just so happens to be in the form of a TV series.”

“So?”

“So you don't have to finish your book.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because it's already
happened
.”

“
What
has?”

“Bud, you are now a published novelist! Or
will
be, once your episode airs.”

“For real?” he answered.

He couldn't figure out if Michael was joking. He felt dizzy, and his breath was shallow; he'd need to do a round with the nebulizer once he was off the phone.

“Well, by the
Simon
definition you are—which I suppose is as valid as anyone else's. So, pour yourself a glass of champagne and give yourself a toast. To Bud Wiggins, on the occasion of the publication of his first novel. . . .

“May there be many more to come!”

CLEAN

[Rikki]

Hard Time

He

got 36 months, but would do half that if he kept his nose clean. When Tom-squared got busted for distribution, it was her 3rd strike. She gave him up & pled out. He didn't hold it against her.

The scam was simple. They targeted widows in affluent neighborhoods. T
²
found em on the internet, starting with the hubby obits & working her way back to the wife. She even got their phone numbers & called em up, bogusly wrestling her way into their geriatr. semi-infarcted
s. It blew his mind what she could do. The onlys she had trouble with were old ladies who'd already been tapped by the internet-crying Nigger-ians who pretended they were royalty in need.

T would put on a pantsuit & tap on the door and thank them
so much
for being friend & patron of
The
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
. Of course they'd say you must be mistaken but Rikki would be standing there in one of those purposefully ill-fitting Salv Army–looking sport jackets. When the grieving geezers protested, a bewildered Tom-Tom whipped out proof in the form of a doctored letter
signed by them
in which they had agreed to house Rikki during his peacemaking trip to America.
He came all the way from Sudan!
Tom-Tom's bewilderment would become exasperation & then anger at the ineptness of her organization's volunteeers. “I hate to do it, but some people are going to be fired over this,” she'd say, and by the sad old confused cunt's reaction, she'd know pretty much how well they were going to score.

At this point they'd usually invite them in, it being impolite to keep them afoot on the porch like that. Once settled and properly provided with food & drink, the Double T show-and-tell'd photoshop pics of Rikki with Nelson Mandela; with Jimmy Carter; with Barack & Hillbillary. She even had huge War Child International decals on her attaché, o shit she was
tight
. They took turns raiding the house, at 1st excusing themselves to use the bathroom but over time one of em would simply disappear while the other kept the mourning whore engaged. Before the bust, they fenced about 225K in jewels/gold. Tom-Tom couldn't prove it but was fairly certain it was Cherokee who dropped the dime. She was looking at 7 years; reduced to 3 for ratting out Rikki.

. . .

His father was a jailbird who left when he was a baby, and now Rikki had done the same to his own. The irony wasn't lost on him. His parents visited and it pained him to see the look of anguish on Dawn's face. He thought long&hard about it and told Jim he would understand if they wanted to sever parental rights. “No,” said Jim. “I appreciate your sensitivity in the matter, but there's not a child on Earth who deserves that to happen to him once, let alone twice.”

They brought Nikki to see him. It was just like some of the A&E docs where the family brings babies or toddlers to visit the incarcerated dad. He felt something in him shift. Maybe he'd go to school & become a drug counselor when he got out. (That was what Reeyonna wanted to be, if she couldn't make it as a medical examiner.) He'd talk to Dr Phil about that when he got out. The bottomline was, he wanted to step up to the plate, like the judge said. Handle himself like a man, not a punk. He remembered everything that judge told him. Being arrested like that made an amazing day into one of the worst in his life. Second to ReeRee dying of course.

He was determined. He
would
change.

Fake it til you make it.

. . .

Rikki had a cellphone in his cell.
A cell in the cell hahahaha.
They were easy to get from trustees or guards if you had the money. His parents always kept his account topped off at $200. For snacks & cigs & shampoo and shit.

The reception was shitty but sometimes you could actually go online. He got a Lana Del Rey youtube & jacked but didn't want to come. He'd jack a while then try to get a pornsite then fail and go back to his Lana jack. After 5 or 6 tries, he got on & pulled down his pants & put his hand on the gluegun. He was in the lower bunk but his cellie was out exercising or whatever.

One of his faves,
http://behindthecastingcouch.com
 . . . it was hard to hear the dialogue but they were pretty much all the same. He never saw one with a pregnant girl before, & he jacked a few minutes before realizing with a shock that it was Reeyonna.

He hit
PAUSE
.

Reeyonna was so freaked about money, much more than him, probably he thought because of the grudge deal she had going with her mom for cheating her out of her shit. Ree was more practical than him too, & ahead in the nesting dept. Rikki knew how much she wanted to be independent, & the motherfucking casting motherfucker
played
on that. It was irrational, but he suddenly got angry with himself for never having told her about the shammy site; if he had, she'd never have fallen for it. But why would he? He never even thought about it. She probably went down there around the time Tom-Tom the cuntsnitch was pressuring them to pay rent. He remembered her coming home one day looking fucked up, & how she stayed in bed a bunch of days & wouldn't tell him what was wrong. He thought he remembered her being worried she was bleeding a little from her pussy too, not a heavy flow, not too worried, but still. But then it stopped. That would have been right around then.

He hit
PAUSE
again and watched Reeyonna blow the piece of shit motherfucker. Man, this shit was
sad.
Rikki closed his eyes and shook his head. If a year ago someone told him he'd be in jail looking at porn on a contraband cellphone & the porn would be his dead pregnant fiancée giving some sorry-lookin motherfucker head, he'd have fucking laughed. Now he was cryin.

When he opened his eyes, ReeRee was on the desk on her back, being hardfucked. The cam was right in front of her face & she winced as she got pounded. The phone crashed/he lost the signal. Too much of a hassle to get online again. He didn't have it in him to even try. Besides, she wasn't going anywhere. She'd be getting fucked by that lying scumbag forever, until the end of the world, until the end of time.

He lay back on the cot, & couldn't stop his brain from playing the fucked-up images over and over in his head. Prisoners were shouting. Some had conversations, cell to cell. Some were selling wolf tickets, some for real. Others sang, or talkshouted but to themselves. Rikki replayed the ambulance ride in his head. He tried to remember the last words she said to him, but couldn't. He flashed on that scene in the hospital room when he 1st saw her dead. And that dress, she was in that dress, which now that he thought about it was fuckin
weird.
Fuckin ReeRee's mom, what a sick bitch. Criminal motherfucker. Basically, she turned her daughter out. Took her $$$ & made her waddle into that fucking
“casting office”
——— then
oh
fuck

suddenly started beating faster, seeing her in mind's eye splayed across that desk

& he takes himself

in hand