Ben Elton - Popcorn

‘There’s no need to go beating up on no little girls, Wayne,’ Scout remarked. ‘It’s beneath you.’

‘This ain’t no little girl, precious pie. Kids’re born old in Hollywood. Why this little slut musta spent more money already in her few short years than your sweet momma woulda earned in fifty lifetimes. She deserves to get slapped around some.’

‘I’ve told you,’ said Bruce, ‘you’ll get nothing from me if you hurt her.’

Wayne lowered his fist slowly. ‘I want you to know, Bruce, that I am minding the wishes of my baby here and not yours. Because I can assure you that you will do whatever I tell you to do, whether I hurt your little girl or not.’

Bruce seized upon the point. ‘And what is it you want me to do?’ He was almost begging. He had to know the worst, deeply fearful of it though he was. Fearful because in truth he had already guessed.

‘I want you to plead on our behalf. I want you to speak up for us and save us from the chair.’

‘Plead on your behalf? You’re crazier than I thought. You really think my word’s going to save you from the punishment you deserve? You’re guilty as Hitler.’

‘Sure we’re guilty, if by that you mean we done all the stuff they say we done, but that ain’t the point, is it? Not these days. These days, no matter how guilty you are, you can still be innocent.’

He had lost them. They all stared at him, all except Scout, who had hold of one of her feet and was inspecting her toenails.

‘For instance,’ Wayne explained, ‘like that spick chick who cut off the guy’s pecker, right? She was guilty for sure, she never denied it. She cut off that of boy’s manhood and threw it out of a car window. Do you see that bitch in prison, huh? Is she breaking rocks in the hot sun? No, I don’t think so, because although she was guilty she was innocent too. In America you can be both.’

Scout looked up from her toenails. ‘That’s right, she done it, but she was innocent and I agree. That bastard beat up on her and he done raped her too. He got his, and I hope she used a rusty knife.’

Wayne winced. ‘Now, Scout, you know that you and me disagree on this issue. Personally, I don’t see as how no woman can get raped by her husband, on account of the fact that he is only taking what’s his anyway. What’s more, I think that any Mexican bitch who cuts the dick off an exUnited States Marine who has served his country should rot in a hole.’

‘She was abused.’

‘If you think a man’s abusing you, honey, you leave him. You do not cut his dick off.’

‘The court agreed with her.’

‘The court was a bunch of lesbians and faggots.’

Scout made a sulky face and returned to her toenails.

‘Yeah, well, whatever,’ Wayne said, ‘we’re getting off the point here. What I’m saying is, right or wrong, the greaseball bitch walked free. She done it, she said she done it, she was glad she done it, but she walked. Guilty but innocent, you see. You can be both in the Land of the Free, always assuming, that is, that you got an excuse.’

‘Are you suggesting’ – Bruce tried to sound firm and intelligent – ‘that there is any excuse for mass murder?’

‘Bruce, there is an excuse for anything and everything in the USA! What about them cops who beat up on the nigger and started a damn riot? They was videoed! You see them doing time? No sir you do not. Remember O.J.? They said he killed his wife. Turned out they’d got the wrong victim. The dead chick wasn’t the victim at all. No way, O.J. was the victim. He was the victim of a racist cop, who incidentally also walked. Nobody gets blamed for anything in this country, nothing is anybody’s fault . So why the Hell should we take the rap for what we done, huh?’

In his mind’s eye, Bruce suddenly saw again the beautiful idiot he had harangued at the Bosom Ball. When had that been? The previous evening? The previous lifetime, more like. Bruce heard once more his own voice rising above the banality and the hypocrisy he’d thought he heard around him: ‘Nothing is anybody’s fault.’

He’d said it himself.

Could Wayne actually be right? Could the bastard get away with it?

‘ Wayne, be serious. You have killed so many people – there can be no excuse for that.’

Wayne smiled, picked up the phone and began to dial. ‘Bruce, you just won the “Best Director” Oscar. I ain’t flattering you when I say that you are currently the most celebrated moviemaker in the world. It ain’t no more than you deserve, mind. You worked hard and you have reaped the rewards… Excuse me.’ He turned to the phone.

On the other end of the line Chiefs Cornell and Murray grabbed their respective receivers and began simultaneously to announce their credentials.

‘Shut up and listen to me,’ they heard Wayne say. ‘We gonna make a statement, y’hear? We gon’ announce our intentions and tell it like it is, OK? Now what we want is a small ENG crew in here, jus’ as soon you can get it together.’

‘Yes, yes, an electronic newsgathering crew, OK,’ said the head of NBC, pleased to be able to answer the questioning look on the police chief’s face.

‘I know what ENG is, else I wouldna asked for it!’ Wayne shouted down the line.

‘Yes, I was just explaining it to-’

‘Shut the fuck up! I am talking here. One more interruption and that’s it, we do our talking with guns, OK? Now, this crew has to be hooked up to all the other stations, you understand? Cable too. We ain’t giving no exclusive here, everybody gets the story. One more thing. The recordist must have a direct feed to the ratings computer. I want to know just how big a TV star I am, minute by minute. Now, if you do this, I give you my word as a freeborn American that, whoever else I decide to kill, the TV people get safe passage. I guarantee they will not be harmed, on account of you are observers, man, we are the action.’

With that Wayne put the phone down and turned to his hostages. ‘Now we wait,’ he said. ‘How ‘bout we all have us a drink?’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about the workings of TV,’ Bruce said, and for one insane moment it crossed his mind that perhaps in some weird way or other this whole thing was a hoax. Maybe Wayne and Scout were not what they seemed, not mass murderers at all, but journalists or students or something, out to prove a point. Was it all an illusion? Brooke had tricked him before. Maybe she hadn’t really been shot. Maybe this whole thing was a setup…?

It was a sad, hopeless thought and it lasted about a quarter of a second. His agent’s blood and tissue still clung to the glasscovered poster on to which they had been propelled by Wayne ’s bullet. Fresh gore was welling up inside Brooke’s mouth, threatening to choke her before she bled to death. Bruce could smell the torn and jagged flesh. There was so much stark, horrifying reality in the room it was a wonder that there was still room for the furniture.

‘How’d I know about TV?’ Wayne explained. ‘Hey, Bruce, everybody knows everything these days. Especially TV. Think about it. Home video shows, community cable channels – real life as it happens. Not a simulation, actual footage. We’re all part of it, man. It’s an electronic democracy. There ain’t no “you” and “us” any more because “us” is in your face every day. Appearing on your game shows. Caught on video, robbing your banks. Confessing our sins on Oprah , ‘‘n’ getting them forgiven on the Inspiration Channel. People are television, man, and you’re asking me how I know how to use it? Well, it sure don’t take a lot of finding out. You know, for a smart man you’re real dumb. Excuse me, I have to speak with the cops.’