Charlie Huston - The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

He sat through it. All one hundred and seventy-nine minutes of it. Sat through every tired cough and forced laugh from the audience, sat through the round of relieved applause as the credits rolled. Sat through the entirety of its mediocrity, and saw it as a movie guilty of the ultimate crime: forget-tability It wasn't even bad enough to be remembered for the incompetence brought to bear. Nor, after all the years and near-misses gone by, were the expectations, or the budget, high enough for it to be held out as a great flop. He sat in the theater, enduring the shoulder pats and congratulations of various sucker fish of the movie business. And I sat in the seat next to him the whole while.

The climax Mom missed by fleeing north was to come the following morning when L.L.'s agent informed him that his name could not be removed from the credits. An Alan Smithee Film would never grace the opening titles. So he began making a bonfire of every bit of movie memorabilia, every treasured celluloid print, stacks of laser disks, collected and bound editions of every screenplay in which his talent had played a roll, and his SWG membership card, and proceeded to burn down half the house, nearly sending an inferno through the canyon and over the entire range of the Hollywood Hills.

The next day after L.L.'s lawyer got him out on bail for his arson charges, I was enrolled in private school, gifted with a collection of the Great Western Works of Literature, and received my first in a lifelong series of lectures praising the professional educator and condemning popular culture in all its forms.

But never condemning the movies. Which, to tell by their eradication from L.L.'s conversation, were an advancement in entertainment that had never existed at all.

I followed him out to the parking lot, to his current SL, the latest in a line of annual acquisitions. That residual money for the years of hackery still rolling in.

– L.L.

He dropped the books on the back seat of the open-top car, adding them to the small library jumbled there, and turned to me.

– What? What can I do for you that I have not already done? Having seeded you and nourished you and clothed you and educated you, what more is there that I can do at this late date?

I looked at the purple veins in his nose. The swollen feet stuffed into chef's clogs, the spindly legs sticking from the shorts, the sweat-stained fishing hat that covered the melanoma scars on his bald head. I thought about reminding him of a few details from our life. And then not seeing him again for another two years.

Instead I thought about the dead man's stain soaking through the carpet, maggot trails leading away from motor oil blood and greasy tallow.

I pointed at the car.

– I could use a ride.

He started to raise a pointing finger, and stopped.

– Yes. A ride.

He opened the driver side door.

– Get in then.

I walked around the car and got in and he drove to the parking lot exit and waited for a couple pedestrians on the sidewalk, and I saw him looking down at the pier, at the merry-go-round. He rubbed his mouth, opened it, closed it.

Leaving me to hear what he'd said many times, over twenty years gone down, in this same place.

There, on the pier, the merry-go-round Paul Newman runs in The Sting. Do you want to ride it?

• • •

In front of the apartment L.L. reached into the backseat and knocked through the books until he found the copy of Anna Karenina he'd abused me with at the bar, and flipped through the pages as I got out of the car.

He closed it and held it out.

– Take this.

– I've read it.

He leaned across the seat and shoved the book into my chest.

– Read it again. It will help keep you from getting any more ignorant than you have already become.

– Well, when you put it that way.

I took the book.

– Thanks.

He put the car in gear.

– Don't thank me. Just read the damn book.

And he was off, tires breaking traction as he squealed away, nearly running over my feet.

I watched him careen around the corner, almost killing a man pushing a bicycle hung with plastic bags filled with empty bottles and cans.

– I'd say it was good to see you, L.L., but I'd be so fucking lying.

– I love Anna Karenina.

I looked at Dot, still on my couch, still in Chev's Misfits T, but now appareled with low-rider jeans, several textbooks scattered around her.

– What the fuck are you doing here?

– Studying. What's your favorite part? Mine's when they tour Europe together.

I walked to Chev's bedroom door and looked inside, finding the usual piles of dirty clothes, overflowing ashtrays, Cramps and Black Flag and Hot Rod magazine posters, and liberally sex-stained sheets. But no Chev.

– What I meant by my question was, what the fuck are you doing here?

She reached under her shirt and scratched at the nipple Chev had pierced.

– I'm taking summer term so I can graduate in three years and they cram like five months of work into like five weeks and I have to study for like three tests and my sister is having her sweet sixteen at the house and she's been watching those shows about those huge birthday parties girls throw and she's doing a theme that's supposed to be Studio 54 but it looks like it's going to be more like Adult Film Stars of the Future and the place is infuckingsane because she's being an utter and total rag and I have to have quiet so I can pass fucking developmental psychology which is totally kicking my ass.

I put a hand to my forehead.

– But what the fuck are you doing here}

She picked up her notebook and tapped a pen with a fuzzy purple ball at the end against the lecture outline neatly printed on the open page.

– Chev said it was cool.

– Chev's not the only one who lives here.

She doodled a little kitty face.

– He said if you were a dick I should remind you that he's the only one paying rent right now.

I dropped the book at her feet.

– Fuck you. Have a book.

She picked it up with one hand, scratching her nipple again with the other.

– Cool! Thanks.

I walked to the kitchen, pointing at her chest.

– And don't do that, it'll get infected and your nipple will fall off and the rich, shallow and handsome afterbirth you're destined to marry will reject you and you'll end up a crack whore.

I opened the fridge and looked at the shelves stuffed with groceries; fresh, organic, very healthy groceries.

– What the fuck?

She settled into the couch, opening the Tolstoy in her lap.

– I took some of the money you left this morning and went shopping.

I closed the door and looked at her.

– Chev is going to shit when he sees food in here that didn't come from the Arby's or the In-N-Out.

She flipped pages.

– No he's not. He likes me a lot. He said so.

I took a package of tofu from the fridge.

– He say that before or after you bought this?

She flipped more pages.

– Doesn't matter. He likes me. I can tell.

– He likes to fuck you.

She looked up from the book.

– Well, duh! I'm a great lay.

I put the tofu back in the fridge and looked for something I could actually eat.

– How would you know, you been fucking yourself lately?

– Hey!

I took my head out of the fridge and looked at her.

– What, did I say something to offend?

She shook her head.

– Fuck no. I just wondered, if I get the book, do I also get this?

She held the book up, showing me the sheaf of hundreds hidden in the pages.

I walked over and looked at the money, tucked into the scene where Levin discovers the joys of physical labor.