Steve Erickson - Zeroville

In the evenings Vikar takes the bus to the Vista, the theater at the fork of Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards where he saw his first movie upon arriving in Los Angeles. More than sixty years before, the Babylon set for D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance was built on this spot, so monumental that it could be seen for miles around. Vikar catches revival screenings of Scarlet Street, Forty Guns, Humoresque with John Garfield as a concert violinist and Joan Crawford as the woman who loves him. In Written on the Wind , the Four Aces croon a love theme over a drunken Robert Stack careening his roadster through town, haunted by the conviction he’s sterile, as nymphomaniacal Dorothy Malone sits in a mansion stroking the small gold replica of an oil derrick.

42.

Vikar buys a small black-and-white television that he carries home on the bus. He even buys a radio. On the television he watches old movies and the news. Asian jungles aflame, a spaceship on the way to the moon malfunctioning, a very famous rock band breaking up … when four students are shot by soldiers on a Midwestern campus, it reminds Vikar of his father, and he turns the news off. Amid the rest of the music on the radio, occasionally he hears something beautiful.

Now I’m ready to feel your hand

And lose my heart on the burning sand

Now I want to be your dog

He’s only been living in the Hollywood Hills six or seven weeks when one night around 12:30, as he’s in bed about to fall asleep, he hears the footsteps of someone on the stairs outside that lead to his door.

43.

Vikar gets up from bed, unplugs the radio, glides into the dark of the kitchen and waits behind the door.

The knob turns slowly back and forth. From now on I should remember to lock the door . When the door opens and someone steps through it, Vikar smashes the radio on the intruder’s head.

I like that song about the dog, he thinks, the unconscious burglar at his feet.

44.

Vikar ties the burglar to a chair and calls the police. He sits on the couch waiting, wondering if the movie-star chief will come. The black man with a large afro slumps in the chair.

Still waiting twenty minutes later, Vikar turns on the television to a Bette Davis movie. Paul Henreid puts two cigarettes in his mouth and lights them both, handing one to Davis.

45.

The burglar comes to. He gazes around, disoriented; it’s a moment before he realizes he’s bound to a chair.

“I called the police,” Vikar tells him. The burglar just grunts. “What are you breaking into my house for?”

The burglar doesn’t answer at first. Vikar stares at his hair. The burglar finally says, “What are you staring at?”

“Your hair.”

“You’re staring at my hair?” the burglar says, nodding at Vikar’s head. “You want to see some strange shit maybe you should look in the mirror sometime.” He studies the ropes around his chest and squirms, grumbling to himself. “Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in the terrace scene from George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun tattooed on this white motherfucker’s head, and he’s staring at my hair.”

46.

Vikar sits up on the couch. “That’s right,” he says. “It is Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift from A Place in the Sun .”

“Yeah, I know that, fool,” the burglar looks back at him, “isn’t that what I just said?”

“Most people believe it’s Natalie Wood and James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause .”

“ Rebel Without a Cause ?” the burglar says in disbelief. “Well, my fresco-crowned, tinsel-towned friend, you’re hanging with a distinctly uncultured class of folks if they don’t know James Dean from Montgomery Clift.” He settles in the chair and stares at the television.

“He died five years ago,” Vikar says.

“What?” says the burglar.

“Montgomery Clift died five years ago.” It was seven months after Vikar saw his first movie. He read Clift’s obituary in the newspaper and saw A Place in the Sun at a revival house in Philadelphia, one of half a dozen people in the theater. “He was forty-five.”

“Hmpf,” says the burglar.

“I’m in the Movie Capital of the World,” Vikar says, “and nobody knows anything about the movies.”

Fixed on the TV, the burglar mutters, “I’ll tell you one thing, Dean wasn’t in Clift’s class as any actor. I’ll tell you that.”

“All anyone talks about in this city is music.”

“Best thing that little fag did was smear that faggy little Porsche Spyder of his clean across the highway. But of course he went and stole all Clift’s thunder when he did that …” The burglar squirms more in the chair. “Clift was a homo too,” he allows, “he just didn’t have the good sense to die in his car accident. Fucked up his face — would have been better off dying.”

“It’s horrible.”

“What?”

“The music.”

“White hippie bullshit.”

“A lot of it is about illicit narcotics.”

“I’m not into that hippie jive bullshit,” says the burglar. “Well, Sly is a hippie, but he’s a brother. ‘I Want to Take You Higher.’”

“That sounds like it’s about illicit narcotics.”

“Bebop man, myself. Bird, Mingus, Miles. In a Silent Way . Some of the old cats too. Ben Webster. Johnny Hodges.”

“I heard a good song about a dog,” says Vikar. “Right before I smashed my radio on your head.”

“I don’t want to hear about any song like that.”

“Sorry about the rope. The police will be here soon.”

The burglar shrugs. “No rush on my account.”

“You weren’t going to kill me and write ‘pig’ on the door in my blood, were you?”

“Are you being funny, jackass?” the burglar glares at Vikar. “Don’t you read the papers? That was some fucked-up white hippies did that business, no matter how hard they tried to pin it on black folks.”

A silence falls between the two men as they wait for the police. For about ten minutes they watch Bette Davis on TV.

47.

The burglar says, “Here’s the scene. I love this part. The looks on their faces when she goes from being the frump to the fox. Or as foxy as Bette got, anyway.”

“ Now, Voyager ,” says Vikar.

“Yeah, I know it’s Now, Voyager , man. You think I don’t know that? The apotheosis of the forties studio system’s so-called ‘women’s picture’? Like I don’t know it’s Now, Voyager .”

“I like the music in Now, Voyager . The music in Now, Voyager and the song about the dog.”

“I told you I don’t want to hear about any song like that.”

“John Garfield playing the violin when he walks into the sea in Humoresque , I like that as well.”

“Joan Crawford walks into the sea in Humoresque ,” says the bound burglar.

Vikar says, “Are you sure?”

“Course I’m sure.”

“I saw it not long ago.”

“Well, you didn’t see it very well.”

“I believe it was Joan Garfield who walks into the sea. I mean John.”

“You can’t even keep your Joans and Johns straight. Why would John Garfield walk into the sea? How is John Garfield going to play the violin if he walks into the sea? You ever seen anybody trying to play the violin while walking into the sea?”

“He could. He could play the violin while walking into the sea.”

“No, man,” the burglar shakes his head.

Vikar says, “I guess I’m not sure, to be honest.”

“It’s Joan Crawford who walks into the sea, take my word for it.”