Steve Erickson - Zeroville

48.

Watching more of Now, Voyager , the burglar continues, “Garfield’s violin parts in Humoresque were by Isaac Stern, though Franz Waxman did the score.” The burglar nods at the TV. “The music for Now, Voyager here is by Max Steiner. Waxman and Steiner were both of the German/Austrian persuasion but Waxman came over right before the War while Steiner was here earlier. Waxman also scored your Place in the Sun ,” nodding at Vikar’s head, “copped himself an Oscar for it, while Steiner composed the music for that racist Gone With the Wind jive. Maybe if Steiner had Hitler on his ass like Waxman, he’d have had a different outlook on things.”

“I don’t believe Gone With the Wind is a very good movie.”

“So aren’t you enlightened,” the burglar says. He lapses into silence. “Bette didn’t dig it one bit,” he says after a moment.

“ Gone With the Wind ?”

“Steiner’s score for Now, Voyager. She actually bitched to Jack Warner it was upstaging her performance.”

“Really?”

“Tried to get the music dropped, that’s a stone fact.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you’re hearing it, aren’t you? So they must have used it, right? Got to be the only time in the history of the movies that one of the biggest stars of all time lost a creative power struggle to the composer,” the burglar laughs. “Steiner wound up getting his Oscar for it, while Bette lost hers that year to Greer Garson — so that must have really fried Bette’s ass. It’s a complete Puccini rip but that’s the thing about the movies. If the music was just a little better, it wouldn’t be as good, you hear what I’m saying?”

“No.”

“I mean that’s the whole thing about the movies,” says the burglar. “Bigger than the sum of the parts and all that? If the parts are too good, the whole is somehow less. I mean, you can’t have, you know, Trane doing the score for Now, Voyager. ”

“Trane.”

“I mean, if he had been around then, which of course he wasn’t. But if he was, what would Coltrane sound like on Now, Voyager ? Wouldn’t be the same, would have been too good. You hear what I’m saying?”

“What movies did he score?”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know Trane. What did he score?”

The burglar stares at Vikar evenly. “You’re trying to vex me now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you got me tied up here and shit, but that’s cold, trying to vex me that way.”

“I’m not trying to vex you.”

“Man,” the burglar closes his eyes, wincing, “what did you say you hit me with?”

“My radio.” Vikar says, “Your hair probably saved your life.”

“Don’t start in on the hair, O.K.?” The burglar tries to shake his thoughts clear. Turning his attention back to the TV, he says, “ Now, Voyager was directed by Irving Rapper after Bette got Michael Curtiz thrown off, so dig it,” he laughs, “she could kick Curtiz’s ass but not Max Steiner’s. Course, next picture Curtiz did was Casablanca , so he didn’t do too badly. Rapper here did Glass Menagerie later and has a new movie out right now.”

Vikar says, “The director of Now, Voyager has a movie out now?”

“In theaters as we speak.”

“He must be a hundred years old.”

“Well, he’s not a hundred, but he’s up there.”

“What is the movie he has out now?”

“ The Christine Jorgensen Story .”

“Who?”

“ The Christine Jorgensen Story .”

“Who’s Christine Jorgensen?”

“Christine Jorgensen is Christine Jorgensen.”

“Is that a real person?”

“Course it’s a real person. It’s The Christine Jorgensen Story . Have you ever heard of The So-and-So Story that wasn’t about a real person?”

“Perhaps.”

“No, not perhaps,” the burglar says in exasperation, “you’ve got some peculiar notions, even for a white boy. If it’s got The at the beginning and Story at the end, then it’s a real person. Is The Adventures of Robin Hood called The Robin Hood Story ? Is Gone With the Wind called The Scarlett ‘White Racist Bitch’ O’Hara Story ?”

“So who’s Christine Jorgensen?”

“Cat who became a lady, jack.”

“What?”

“This cat who became a lady.”

Vikar says grimly, “You mean one of those men who wears women’s clothes.”

“No, son. I mean one of those men who becomes a woman.”

Vikar’s mind races frantically. “What do you mean becomes a woman?”

“I mean he gets his dick cut off. I can’t explain the whole thing surgically—”

“Oh, mother.”

“—it’s sort of out of my area of expertise. But they cut off the dick and balls and—”

“Oh, mother!”

The burglar shrugs. “—just tuck the rest up inside. Make a pussy out of it somehow …”

“Stop.”

“I’m just trying to expl—”

Vikar leaps from the couch. “Stop.”

49.

He looms over the bound man. Alarm flickers across the burglar’s eyes.

“Yeah, solid, man,” the burglar says as calmly as possible, “we’re cool.” Vikar sways where he stands. “I’m just trying to update you,” the other man says, as calmly as possible, “on the oeuvre of our boy Irving Rapper here, who directed Now, Voyager which, with all due allowances to Humoresque , may or may not be the apotheosis of the forties ‘women’s picture.’”

Vikar relaxes a bit.

“We’re mellow now, right?” the other man says. Vikar sits back down on the couch. For a moment they don’t say anything. “Dig it,” the burglar finally goes on, “Rapper’s last movie before The Christine Jorgensen Story was about Pontius Pilate. So Rapper’s tripping on some extremely intense weirdness or maybe those are just the gigs he’s getting.”

“Was it called The Pontius Pilate Story ?”

“No, it wasn’t called The Pontius Pilate Story. I didn’t mean every story about a true person is called that.”

“Pontius Pilate was the great Child killer, the descendent of Abraham as God’s greatest instrument.”

“Uh,” the burglar says, “O.K.” He watches the movie for a while.

Vikar says, “Why would that man do that?”

“What?”

“Make himself into a woman.”

“Now, do we want to have this conversation or not?”

“I just wonder why.”

“Cause a bit ago you had some volatile shit going on. So are we going to have this conversation? Because if we are, you have to decide.”

“Just why. Not how.”

“Check it out,” the burglar wearily shakes his head, “who would you rather be,” to Now, Voyager on the TV, “Bette Davis or Paul Henreid?”

“Paul Henreid,” Vikar answers.

“No, man, negatory. You wouldn’t. I don’t believe you. Not a cat as seriously into the cinematic aesthetic as yourself. I’m not talking about real life or faggy shit here, I’m talking about the movies . Dig it, Paul Henreid not only lights Bette’s cigarette, he gets it going for her too.” The burglar laughs. “The movies, man! Shit that would be downright silly in real life, in the movies it’s the most out of sight thing ever. Lighting two cigarettes at once! For years after, women were always stopping Henreid in the street asking him to do that. No, man, if you were in Now, Voyager , you definitely would rather be Bette Davis.”

“Paul Henreid is in Casablanca .”