Ben Elton: Popcorn

‘No, that’s OK. It’s fine,’ said the girl.

‘OK,’ said the maid. ‘I just give you fresh towels.’

‘We don’t want no towels.’

‘OK.’ There was a pause. ‘You want soap?’

No.

‘OK.’ Again a pause. ‘How about some sachet coffee and milks? Or maybe you got plenty.’

‘Yeah, we got plenty. We don’t want nuthin.’

‘OK, that’s fine. Thank you.’

The man, whose every muscle had been taut and every vein pumped full, relaxed a little.

But then the small voice came again. ‘So I just check minibar, please.’

Suddenly the door of the chalet burst open and the maid found herself confronted by a furious and stark-naked man. She would scarcely have been more taken aback if she had known that behind the cover of the doorframe he was holding two automatic weapons.

‘No fuckin’ disturbo, comprende? We fuckin’ honeymoono. We make amoro like Speedy fuckin’ Gonzalez, OK?’

He slammed the door and returned to the bed. His girlfriend was not pleased. ‘There was no call to-’

‘I am trying to watch TV here!’

She knew she must not cross him further, and slumped into a sulk instead.

Bruce was still holding forth on the television. ‘You can’t ban a movie because you don’t like it. Today it’s sex and violence that get banned, tomorrow who knows? Homosexuality? Blacks? Jews?’

Oliver and Dale shifted uneasily in their seats. Words like ‘blacks’ and ‘Jews’ were not really Coffee Time words.

‘I’ve heard a lot said these past weeks about the Mall Murderers,’ Bruce continued, ‘so let’s talk about them. I made a move about two sick maniacs, and to and behold we got two real sick maniacs out there. Hey, what d’you know? Put two and two together and it’s my fault ! I am responsible. Oh yeah ! Weren’t there any maniacs before I made my movie? Weren’t there any sickos and psychos around before movies were even invented ? Did Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper get in a time machine and come forward in time to see my picture? Did they think, “Hey, great idea! When I get back to my own era I’ll start murdering people”?’

‘But you can’t deny-’ Dale began in a brave attempt to stop the flow. It was useless: this was a subject on which Bruce felt strongly.

‘We are scapegoats! This nation is facing a lawand-order crisis of cataclysmic proportions and someone must be blamed. The politicians don’t want to take the heat, so who gets it? Us, the entertainers, the artists. Well, I’ve got news for you. Artists don’t create society, they reflect it. And it you don’t like that, don’t change us, change society.’

Oliver threw to another ad break, and in the motel room the naked man got himself another beer.

‘Well, you gotta accept,’ he said, knocking the top off a Budweiser with the butt of his Smith amp; Wesson, ‘the guy has a point.’

‘I think he sounds like a jerk,’ his girlfriend replied grumpily.

‘Hey, everybody’s a jerk, baby, one way or another. Cain’t hold that against a man. One thing’s for damn sure. Bruce Delamitri makes the best fuckin’ movies in the world, and if they don’t give him that Oscar I for one will be extremely pissed.’

There was another knock at the door.

‘Please,’ the maid said, ‘I must just check the minibar. Sorry.’

The man got up off the bed. ‘I’ll handle this, honey.’

‘Tell me about him,’ the policewoman said.

‘I just used to sit there looking at him,’ the young girl said, ‘just thinking he is the coolest, most beautiful guy that ever was. Better than everything. You could take Elvis and Clint Eastwood and James Dean… and I don’t know… all those other cool guys, and mix ‘em up, and you wouldn’t get no one half as cool as him.’

In the other interview room, Bruce was responding to a similar enquiry. ‘You have to understand that he was a psychotic monster,’ he told his interrogator. ‘Do you hear me? A monster, the devil… a monster.’

‘I stand here on legs of fire.’

It was after eleven on the morning after the Oscars, and the police had left Bruce alone for almost two hours. They had given him some breakfast, which he had surprised himself by eating, and since then he had been sitting drinking cold coffee (institutional blend) and watching himself on the various morning news shows. He did not watch Coffee Time : that would have been too much to bear. He could just imagine how happy Oliver and Dale would be to see him brought so low after the mugging he had given them the day before. What crocodile tears they would shed over his bloodied remains. No, that he could not watch, although he found no better comfort on any of the numerous other channels that were covering his story.

Over and over again he accepted his Oscar. On ABC and CBS and NBC. On Fox and CNN and about a million other cable channels, there he was, grinning like the idiot he had proved himself to be.

‘I stand here on legs of fire.’

Legs of fire? Horrible. Ugly, mawkish, inept, meaningless.

They loved it.

‘I want to thank you.’ Of course he did. ‘Each and every person in this room. Each and every person in this industry. You nourished me and helped me to touch the stars. Helped me be better than I had any right to be. Better than the best – which is what you all are. What can I say?’

Here Bruce’s voice began to crack slightly, and over a billion people had wondered whether he was going to cry. He didn’t. Even though he had turned into the creature of the mob, he was not so far possessed by them as actually to blub on cue.

‘I am humble,’ he lied, ‘humble and small… but also proud and big, big in heart, big in love, big in head’ (for one eerie moment it had seemed as if an unheardof moment of veracity was about to intrude on the proceedings. ‘Did he just say “big in head”?’ the glittering throng were about to ask themselves. But Bruce had merely stopped midword in order to gulp down his emotions) ‘big in headstrong dedication to being the best artist I know how,’ he continued, ‘the best American human being I can be, and to improving my oneonone relationship with God. Thank you, America. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this great industry. Because this is a great industry, a great American industry full of wonderful people. People whose extraordinary, awesome, monumental, towering, Heavensent talent has made me the artist I am. You are the wind beneath my wings and I flap for you. God bless you all. God bless America. God bless the world as well. Thank you.’

Bruce watched himself on the television screen and felt ill. He actually gagged at the horror of it. A tide of nausea welled up inside him, as if an airbag had gone off and was pushing the contents of his stomach up his neck. He swallowed hard, and his throat burnt with gastric acids. How sick could a man feel? Very. He’d been awake for such a long time, and his policeissue breakfast sat uneasily on top of the fifteenhourold soup of party canapés and booze he’d consumed in his previous life.

How could he have made such a dreadful speech? No wonder bitter gall was surging up his gullet. It was the acrid taste of shame. After all, the man on the screen holding the golden statuette represented Bruce at his zenith: this was how he would be remembered in his moment of glory.

1 stand here on legs of fire!

The sound of sirens jerked Bruce out of his reverie. There were police cars on the TV now. The same footage of his home being surrounded by the forces of justice that had been playing endlessly all morning. There again was his garden, full of cops. His drive, full of cops. His roof, covered in cops. How many cops could swarm round one house? All the cops in Los Angeles, it seemed to Bruce. And TV people. TV people everywhere. In his flower beds, outside his four garages, milling round his pool.