Steve Erickson - Zeroville

50.

Then Vikar finds this entry.

49.

o. k. i cant tell ANYONE about this. last night i dreamed about, i think it was hell, i mean the real hell (if there is a real hell) everythings hot & burning & i could hear people kind of screaming/moaning, Then this satanic kind of guy, i guess the devil maybe, hes putting this weird pitchfork inside this womans various places & theres this kind of industrial sound, machines in the background. like in the other dreams none of these people seem to have anything to do w/ me, the woman isnt me, it would almost be better if it were — am i a PERV or something? this doesnt seem like any kind of fantasy i ever have, wouldnt i know that? This is somebody elses fantasy, whats it doing in MY dream

48.

Now, before Zazi returns, Vikar reads the rest of the dream journal. i write these down when i wake & by the next afternoon i dont remember anything about them at all, they’ve vanished from my memory & all i know is what I’ve written. even reading the dreams over, i don’t remember them

47.

another religious sort of dream last night, a convent? in the middle of the mountains high on a cliff, theres this one crazy nun trying to push another out of a tall tower & winds up falling off herself — down down down

46.

another steeple dream, no crazy nuns but this private-eye guy, in love w/ this girl hes following who thinks shes like this reincarnated chick, then she jumps off this old mission steeple & he thinks shes dead, then he meets another girl who reminds him of the FIRST & theres more but the main thing is the private-eye is just really VERY FUCKED UP

45.

in this bordertown this really fat horrible cop in this sleazy hotel stands over this blonde w/ pointed boobs, shes drugged or something, hes pulling gloves onto his fat fingers

44.

that Bogart guy from the flick i saw w/ Vik lives in this little cottage in love w/ this chick, hes a writer or something & flies off the handle like he could kill anyone any minute & the cops think maybe he has & the chick begins to wonder because every now & then the writer gets nuts/violent (reminds me of Vik)

43.

this beautiful dark woman in sunglasses, so beautiful shes not even real looking sitting in a rowboat on a lake watching w/o emotion this kid drowning in the water just a few feet from her, hes calling out to her to save him but she just watches

42.

on a stone bridge crossing a moat outside a castle or maybe its just a big estate, this hot blonde holding this scythe & its got blood on it, shes wearing a black cape & completely nude underneath. she’s pretty hot i must admit

41.

is it the middle ages or something? this sadistic prince guy & this fucked-up masquerade ball going on inside the castle walls while everyone outside is dying

40.

guy w/ blood smeared all over him, hes just killed everyone to save this prostitute whos like my age, he looks kind of punk w/ mohawk & army jacket—

39.

this maze-like apt complex of the future where this private-eye wanders trying to find this dark woman, i don’t understand what language theyre speaking —

38.

THE MOST FUCKED UP ONE OF ALL & i remember all of it in vivid detail & DONT WANT TO REMEMBER ANY OF IT. this asian model goes to this art gallery showing these bondage photos shes posed for & sees this blind guy running his hands over this sculpture of her, she runs away feeling like his hands are actually on her & then goes to get this massage & hes the masseur & says I have eyes in my fingers & drugs & kidnaps her, takes her to this warehouse place full of huge sculptures of naked women, bodies, body parts & the model is trying to get away from this ASSHOLE, climbing up & down huge thighs, huge boobs, on the walls are eyes, noses, mouths, arms, legs. he sculpts a statue of her & she becomes blind too then she fucks him because shes trying to escape, then she becomes not just the model but the art itself & this fucker is cutting off her arms, I have eyes in my fingers he keeps saying, WHY AM I HAVING THIS DREAM

37.

i think i must be going insane

36.

Vikar goes downstairs to the house’s bottom level, into his film library with the moviola. He unpacks from the bags he bought at the small market on Sunset three quarts of Stoli and a quart of tonic, then begins pulling movies from his shelves. He doesn’t have them all. He doesn’t have Taxi Driver or Mosumura’s Môjuu , about the blind sculptor, and he doesn’t need Nightdreams or The Passion of Joan of Arc . But he does have Powell’s Black Narcissus , Hitchcock’s Vertigo , Welles’ Touch of Evil , Ray’s In a Lonely Place , Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven , Rollin’s Fascination , Corman’s Masque of the Red Death , and Godard’s Alphaville , in which private-eye Eddie Constantine cries, “This isn’t Alphaville, this is Zeroville!”

35.

He no longer has to pore over the celluloid. Having found the frame in the same place in the silent film and the porn film, now he knows where to look. Now it doesn’t take more than half an hour to find the frames. After he’s gone over these movies he begins pulling out others, old and new, near and far-flung, celebrated and obscure.

34.

Sometimes from exhaustion Vikar collapses where he stands, waking himself when he hits the floor, pulling another reel from the shelves around him.

Where is Zazi? Has she fled, as she receives nocturnal bulletins from the subconscious of film, dreaming one scene after another from movies she’s never heard of, let alone seen? Did Vikar loom above her with an exacto-knife, sacrificing her to the pursuit of a divine secret? From the radio of her upstairs bedroom comes the soundtrack of a new Los Angeles noir, without hours or latitudes — Ornette Coleman’s “Virgin Beauty,” X’s “Unheard Music,” Duke Ellington’s “Transbluency,” strange female chants from Tuva, the movie scores of Soledad Palladin lesbian-vampire movies.

33.

Soon film unspools from one level of the house to the next. It’s fixed to the walls, draped in strips, hanging from the rafters like webs. Vikar viciously chops up film as though the frame he’s looking for is hidden not only from him but from the film itself, in its own flesh. Isn’t this flesh his to cut as he chooses? To flop right profiles with lefts as he chooses, and left profiles with rights, to reverse the utopian and anarchic ends of the boulevard? Down through the history of movies, what Auteur has invaded every movie ever made in order to leave him a sign, each of which grows closer and clearer with every extrication and every enlargement? Little pieces of black celluloid litter the floor like granite, up and down the stairs. He runs his hands along the trail of enlarged stills: I have eyes in my

32.

fingers , and in every film he examines he finds it, and from every film he extricates the single frame; though he doesn’t know it, he’s become the medium of Film Id. He enlarges the frames and assembles them until their own film is complete, an altogether different film that draws closer and

31.

closer to the horizontal rock, its open chasm, the white writing and the figure lying across the top, until he’s so close as to be able to reach out and