Rudolph Wurlitzer - Slow Fade

CUT TO FATHER AND SON. . with Jim walking toward the family boathouse across a manicured lawn like a putting green while Pete Rankin is rowed to shore from his forty-eight-foot sloop. Stepping carefully onto the dock, P.R., as he is also known, is a prototype Captain of Industry: white-haired, barrel-chested, cold blue eyes, patrician nose; and yet on second glance there is something frail about him, frightened even, his voice hesitant, his eyes unfocused, distant They walk into the boathouse where Pete pours them a drink from a pitcher of already mixed martinis waiting in the well-appointed bar. .

THE INTERIOR of the boathouse reflects as much if not more of the family tradition, at least from the male side of the lineage, than does the baronial nineteenth-century manor house that can be seen through a window, high on a hill overlooking the lake. Two single racing sculls lie neatly in their racks, oars crisscrossed above them. Handcrafted oak furniture, massive and imperial, stands before the stone fireplace, pictures of old Yale rowing teams over the mantel. . “I talked to the Indian ambassador by phone a few hours ago,” Pete begins. “He still says that they haven’t been able to turn anything up, that there isn’t all that much one can do when someone disappears over there.”. . “I still want to go,” Jim says. . “It’s foolish,” his father says. “We’ve hired top men. Professionals, and they’ll have a better chance of finding her than you or any other amateur.”. . “I don’t think so.”. . “How can you, in all conscience, say that?” The father is on the edge of anger but cannot, will not allow himself that emotion. . “Because I know her,” Jim says. . “At least wait until the board meeting, a month more won’t make that much of a difference. I need you here if we’re going to keep control of the firm.”. . “She might need me there if she needs to keep control of her life.”. . “Romantic rubbish,” the father says stiffly. “She’s probably off having an affair with someone and the mail got delayed. She’s never been known for keeping in touch.”. . “I hope you’re right but I’m still going to go.”. . “And you’re taking Lacey?”. . “She’s my wife. She goes where I go.” The father pushes his son to the precipice. “When you come back you’ll have to face a few decisions.”. . Then without a word, he leaves the boathouse and Jim watches him through the window as he walks up the long hill to the main house. . and then we CUT TO INDIA. .

THAT WAS the first installment that was read, first by Evelyn as she sat by the empty pool of the Hotel Ambassador in Durango, Mexico, then later that night by her again, reading the pages to Wesley as he lay face down on the bed of their suite in a blue silk robe, a cold towel over the back of his head.

“At least he didn’t make them from Boston or New York,” Wesley said, having listened to most of it.

Evelyn placed the pages on the bedside table and stretched out next to him. She was almost the same height and she was naked except for a black T-shirt with Mountain Gold stenciled across the chest in gold letters. Raising one slender yet muscled leg in a right angle to the bed she let it slowly come to rest over the back of his thigh, noticing through the silk robe how shrunken and hollow his buttocks had become. She still desired him sometimes although they rarely made love, and when they did it was nearly always the same: lying on his back, his head propped up by a pillow, he would watch her as she slowly seduced his tired cock into arousal. Often he would be soft at first and she would hold him with both hands, licking and sucking and placing him up between her strong pointed breasts and as he grew hard she would rise up and settle over him, letting him slowly enter into her, making an offering of control as she waited, barely moving, until he swelled even and she could begin to move. Rather than reach out for her own pleasure, she would curl back toward him and fold into herself as he softly directed her, whispering and touching her and finally having her lean away from him so that he could watch her ass and because he loved her dark broad back and the strength in her neck and shoulders and it was sometimes then that he remembered why he had married her.

Only now there was no response from underneath the towel or silk robe.

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” she said. “Sloppy and weird because it’s so intense, but it seems like a story.”

“It isn’t good or bad. It isn’t anything.”

She could feel a coiled tension leaking out of him, like the red message light on the phone that had been blinking on and off for the past hour, and she moved off the bed and slipped into a pair of white slacks and shirt.

“You started it, didn’t you?” she asked. “I mean with that strange man, A.D. Ballou. Pulling him into a project with Walker.”

“I didn’t start it,” he said abruptly. “It came oozing up like the snout of some swamp animal. I simply lassoed the opportunity.”

“I don’t understand why you’re drawn to him, to people like A.D. Ballou.”

“Because he still believes in change, no matter what the price. It’s the American way, in case you haven’t noticed. Besides, Walker needs a connection to that kind of malignant hustle to get back on his feet, to find the courage to tell me his tale. The boy is off his feed, and I don’t want him looking to me for nourishment. That way we’d both go hungry.”

“Maybe that’s true about Walker. I wouldn’t know what he needs. But didn’t you believe in change when you married me?”

“Not really. I was more attracted to your romantic belief that you could change through me. I found it touching and painfully nostalgic. It made me want to protect you, to expose you to change but not the illusion of it.”

“And now?”

“Now you’re looking to change again. At my expense. For protecting you too well.”

He stood up and, letting the towel drop to the floor, went into the sitting room.

He didn’t recognize the two men sitting stiffly on the couch. One wore a mottled array of buckskin and furs, an otter cap pulled over the top of his gaunt face, a long jagged scar across his cheek. The other man was older, with a twisted white beard and baggy pants held up by rope suspenders.

“You asked to see us about a wardrobe check,” the older man said.

“What scene?” Wesley asked.

“In the saloon where we ask Pancho Villa if he’ll hire us as mercenaries.”

“What happens?” Wesley asked, pouring himself a shot of tequila.

“Pancho Villa shoots Hank,” Scarface said. “After we tell him our credentials and ask where we can get laid.”

“Why does Hank get shot?”

“Pancho Villa tells me that I’ve lost my courage,” Hank said. “He says that I’m too old and cynical to be of any use and he just pulls out his pistol and shoots me.”

Wesley took the script from the older man and looked at the pages where his lines were underlined in red. He tore out the pages and handed the script back.

“I think we’ll just go out to the set and shoot the fucking thing,” he said.

“You mean shoot the scene now?” Hank said.

“Right now. On the set,” Wesley said and walked into the bedroom.

“I want to get it over with,” he said to Evelyn.

“Get what over with?” she asked, thinking that he meant get himself over with.

“The film. The whole thing. Are you ready to hit the road?”

“Where to?”

“Who cares where to,” he said angrily. “Are you ready to hit the road?”

“Wesley, ever since I’ve known you we’ve been on the road.”

“Well, do you want to get off the road?”