Эд Макбейн - Last Summer

The end of the film was a masterpiece. Even the New York critics said it wrapped up the entire story and gave added meaning and dimension to everything that had preceded it. You have to remember that the film was about illusion and reality and alienation, and you have to remember that everything in this man’s life was false, except the spying. The spying was illusory and unreal, yes, but it was not false. That is to say, he was really taking pictures of submarines, and he was really passing these pictures on to the enemy, and he was really receiving money for this undercover activity, even though the money was nowhere near what he earned as a television actor. There was a sense throughout, right up to the end, of a basic truthfulness to this dirty work: however filthy and horrible and double-crossing it may have been, it was at least down to earth and honest. And then came the zinger, wow, it zipped in there like a lightning bolt, it actually sent chills up my spine. This man — now hold onto your hats — this man didn’t even know he was a spy! That’s right! He’d been brainwashed to believe his cover occupation, and he didn’t have the faintest inkling that he was passing secrets to the enemy! Why, if you had tortured him and hung him by his thumbs he would not have been able to tell you he was a spy, because all he knew was that he was a television actor. So the point was triumphantly made that even in this very dirty business of spying, there was no involvement. In short, there was no involvement anywhere. That was the end of the picture, and it was a very exciting picture. Sandy let us feel her up all the way through it.

It started during the scene at the movie studio out in the Valley, where the actor who is a spy is portraying the nightclub owner and is in the dancer’s dressing room, where she is wearing only a robe. Sandy was sitting between us, her right hand in David’s, her left hand in mine. She suddenly gave a slight startled gasp and tightened her hand on mine. I thought she was responding to what was happening on the screen, because the actor portraying the nightclub owner was at that moment lowering the dancer’s robe to her waist, her back to the audience, of course. I squeezed Sandy’s hand and glanced at her and saw that she had turned to whisper something to David, who now shook his head. Sandy giggled. I looked back at the screen and was startled to discover that the actress playing the dancer had turned to face the camera with her breasts fully exposed. I wondered for a moment why an actress would allow this, and then I remembered that Sandy had done exactly the same thing for me in the forest, and then, suddenly, she squeezed my hand again and brought it swiftly to her breast.

On the screen, the actor and the dancer were kissing, he was brushing her hair away from her ear, his hand came up to fondle her breast, the camera showed him caressing her. Sandy clasped her hands in her lap, sitting very still, watching the screen, the dancer’s lips parting, filling the screen now, the actor’s mouth joining hers, and it was then that I realized David’s hand was under her sweater. I dropped my own hand to her waist, remembering she had not allowed me to do this to her when we were alone together in the forest, found the bottom edge of her sweater, and eased my hand under it and up over her ribs to her bra. On the screen, the director yelled “Cut!” to illustrate the alienation. Sandy crossed her legs, and I looked down at the short skirt and wanted to put my hand on her thigh, but was afraid to. I glanced sidewards at David, hoping he would do it first. The actor walked off the set and took a Coke handed to him by one of the grips or somebody, and then went straight off the sound stage and out onto the studio lot where the sunshine was bright and cowboy extras smoked against the sides of buildings painted gray. A tall blond girl carrying a clipboard came out of one of the studio cottages and smiled at the actor, who waved at her as he got into his red T-bird. He looked up at the sky, a white California sky, squinting, and then revved the engine. Sandy uncrossed her legs, and leaned toward David, and then leaned back toward me. She did not look at either of us. Her eyes were on the motion picture screen.

The Santa Monica hills were brown, and roadside signs warned that this was a Fire Area. The hero drove through it with his eyes squinted, smoking a cigarette, squealing around every curve in the freeway. He drove up onto a wide avenue identified as Sunset Boulevard, continued driving onto Sunset Strip and then pulled into a hamburger joint where a redheaded carhop in a short skirt and boots came over to take his order. I looked at Sandy’s legs again. I kept wishing that the hero of the movie would find another girl and undress her. He found another girl soon enough: there were girls sprinkled everywhere through the picture. When he pulled in for gas, in fact, I expected the station attendant to be a tall brunette in skin-tight slacks, but she wasn’t. The next girl didn’t appear until the hero went to his evening dramatics group someplace on Wilshire Boulevard, I believe it was, and she was an aspiring actress of about seventeen, just a little older than Sandy, with breasts very much like Sandy’s when they were finally revealed in a scene outdoors under the eucalyptus trees where she and the actor wrestled playfully for a while until he stripped her down naked, she giggling all the while and Sandy’s nipple growing hard. I began to feel terribly grubby about what we were doing because the theater was very brightly lighted for a little hick theater, and I was certain everyone knew exactly what was going on. Once, when my fingers brushed David’s, I smiled and then idiotically thought I had laughed aloud, and quickly looked over my shoulder to make certain no one was watching us. The interesting thing about it all was that the people on the screen were actually doing much more than we were in our seats, which possibly was the point of the film, after all: our hang-up with illusion, our put-down of reality. In other words, was the play-acting on the screen more exciting than what was really going on with Sandy? I don’t think I actually wondered that at the time, in fact I’m sure I didn’t. I was too caught up in what was happening, you see, too thoroughly bombarded by images flashing in beautiful color sequence before my eyes, the two young starlets in the bedroom with the hero, the baby writhing in fever downstairs, Sandy’s smooth brown legs crossing and recrossing, the now familiar feel of her breast, the awareness of my own immense masculinity, and the further knowledge of our secret, the secret we three shared, we could do this, she would allow us to do this.

On the way to the ferry slip, we talked about the film. The street bordering the bay was silent and dark. Most of the business district was built inland, of course, and as a result there never was too much action along the bay front. But this was still comparatively early on a Saturday night, and you didn’t expect the sidewalks to be pulled in right after dinner. It was sort of eerie. Here we were in the midst of what was supposed to be civilization, but the only sign of life came from a fisherman’s bar spilling orange and blue neon into the street up ahead.

“He wasn’t involved with any of them,” David said, “that was the point. None of the people in that picture ever really touched each other.”

“There was something very phony about that picture,” Sandy said. “I mean, if the point was that all that running around and fooling around was so unattractive, then why did the director make it so exciting?”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” I said.

“On the other hand,” Sandy said, “maybe the excitement had nothing to do with the movie.”