Steve Erickson - Zeroville

The three are motionless, there in plain sight on Santa Monica Boulevard for everyone to see and no one to bother about. It’s dark, but headlights rip across them, with nothing said until finally, from behind the stranger’s mask, Vikar and Zazi hear “Damn! Place in the Sun !” and the stranger pulls the mask off.

133.

Even in daylight Vikar isn’t sure he would have recognized him, but of course the other man recognizes Vikar. “ Place in the Sun ,” he says again, “it’s me.”

“ The Christine Jorgensen Story ,” Vikar says, pointing at the man, and then, when he sees the look on the man’s face, “I’m just vexing you. My Darling Clementine. Now, Voyager .”

132.

The burglar laughs, “Yeah, you are vexing me. Christine Jorgensen Story , shit. Remember that?”

“It’s been—”

“—five, six years?”

“Ten,” Vikar says, “eleven.”

“No! Well, yeah, maybe. Anyway, let’s not go into that whole Christine Jorgensen thing.”

“Your hair is shorter.”

“Yeah, and you’re still a stone freak,” the burglar says, waving his gun at Vikar’s head, “so we won’t go into the hair either, or the way you hit me that night and tied up my ass.”

“You stole my television.”

“I did,” the burglar says, “what can I say? No point denying it — it didn’t get up and walk away by itself, did it?”

“No.”

“Who’s the little girl?”

“She’s fourteen. She’s …”

“A niece,” Zazi says.

“Dig the nose ring. Say, what are you walking around here for, anyway?” the burglar says. “It’s dangerous to be walking around a place like this. You could get dusted.”

“Yes,” Vikar says, looking at the gun.

“What? Oh, yeah,” the burglar looks at the gun too and laughs, “well, like I’m tellin’ ya.”

131.

Vikar says, “Perhaps you shouldn’t use a gun around kids.”

It’s difficult to hear over the roar of the traffic. “Now, see,” the burglar says, “I’ve given that some thought.” Sometimes when a car passes on Santa Monica Boulevard, someone inside turns to look. “On the face of things,” the burglar continues, “it would seem as you say. But the way I figure it, if I rob someone who has a kid, they’re less likely to try and get all Dirty Harry on me, you hear what I’m saying? It keeps things cool when there’s a kid.”

“So what you’re telling us,” Zazi says, “is that it’s for their own good that you rob people with kids.”

“Now, darling, I hear you taking a tone with me,” the burglar says, “but that’s exactly what I’m telling you. Chalk it up as one of life’s little paradoxes. You still living in the same place?”

“No,” Vikar says, “I moved.” He says, “I’m not going to tell you where or you’ll come rob it.”

“There you go, son,” the burglar laughs, “you’re probably right. Seen any movies lately?”

“We just saw Casablanca . Zazi had never seen it.”

“Wow, seeing Casablanca for the first time, imagine that. One of the fundaments of a cinematic education there, little girl. Round up the usual suspects. I came for the waters. I was misinformed. I stick my neck out for nobody. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I’m shocked, shocked that there’s gambling going on. Here’s looking at you. We’ll always have Paris. Play it, Sam, you played it for her, now you can play it for me.”

“Someday you’ll understand that,” Zazi says.

“Huh?”

“Another line from the movie.”

“I don’t remember that one. Who said that? You sure you have the right picture? Check it out,” the burglar says to Zazi, his words sometimes lost in the sound of the freeway, “my man Bogart, he was a whole different cat than anyone had seen in movies up to that point. Cagney was complicated but Bogart was neurotic . You don’t get from Gable to Brando without going through Bogart, you hear what I’m saying?”

“I know where Gable and Bogart are buried,” Vikar says, then, remembering Jayne Mansfield, “at least I believe I do. When Gable killed a man in an auto accident, the studio got someone else to take the fall.”

“Course,” says the burglar, “everyone now knows they had no idea at the time they were making any kind of classic. When it got the Oscar, everyone was shocked — figured the Oscar folks dropped the ball, like they were slumming or something to give it to something they thought was barely better than a B-picture. As it turns out, other than maybe Lawrence of Arabia that was the only time the Oscars did get it right, except they should have laid one on my man Humphrey while they were at it.”

“He was nominated for an Oscar,” Zazi says.

“But he didn’t get it, little girl.”

“No. He was nominated.” She points at Vikar. Vikar didn’t know she knew.

“Who?” The burglar looks at Vikar, stunned.

“It wasn’t for best actor,” says Vikar.

“What was it for?”

“Editing,” says Zazi.

Vikar says, “I didn’t win.”

“Man, are you shitting me? You were nominated for an Oscar?” The burglar stomps his feet with excitement. “I’ve never known anyone who was nominated for an Oscar! Put it there!” He changes gun hands and puts out the free hand and Vikar slaps it. “For what movie?”

“It was called Your Pale Blue Eyes .”

“Yeah, I saw that picture. Didn’t understand a goddamned thing about it. But then I’ve never been nominated for an Oscar, so fuck me, right? What won?”

“Uh,” thinks Vikar.

“ The Deer Hunter ,” says Zazi. Vikar looks at her.

“Oh, well, that was the big picture that year, jack,” says the burglar. “You weren’t going to win against that.”

“I’m certain you’re right.”

“So you’re working in movies now?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“You didn’t work on The Shining , did you?”

“No.”

“You see The Shining ?”

“I don’t understand comedies.”

“You’re getting vexatious on me again, right? Don’t answer, I don’t even want to know. That Shining movie scared the shit out of me. What have you seen lately? I mean besides the golden oldies like Casablanca .”

“ The Elephant Man .”

“I don’t want to see any movie like that, man.”

“I believe it’s a very good movie.”

“I’m sure it’s fine entertainment. I’m sure it’s a mother-fucking peak in the topography of cinematic history, but I’m not seeing any movie like that. Hard enough being born a black man in this world without seeing movies about people born elephants.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“You see Scorsese’s new one?”

“No.”

“Oh, man,” says the burglar, who starts walking in circles there on the sidewalk as though the very thought has thrown him into a tailspin, “well, you got to see that one, that’s all I can say. It’s like Tosca wrote an opera about boxing or something. Check it out, what you got here is the confusion of white folks thinking they’re all civilized and shit — arias playing overhead — while the real white thang , which is beating the shit out of folks, by which I mean white folks reaching down into their souls for what they really are, you hear what I’m saying? compared to what they want to be? which is the ferocious animal thing De Niro is because that’s what white America needs, its raging bulls trying to keep the black panther down both in and out of the ring if you can feature that … anyway, what I’m getting at … uh … and De Niro! Watch out! He’s White American Death in our time, jack, until he gets the shit beat out of him by Sugar Ray, who’s a brother, of course … so you got the whole white terror of black power, you got that whole white American jive up against the anti-jive, white America just too fucking mixed up, can’t work out whether to embrace the myth or anti-myth—”