Douglas Coupland - Miss Wyoming

«You didn't lose it, John,» said Ivan, «you gave it away. »

«To the IRS. That's not me giving. That's them taking.»

«Is that the Chrysler down there?» asked the tall cop.

«That's it,» John said, his stomach turning to slime as he remembered the shrine still in the back seat. «There's a — oh fuck. You'll see.»

The four walked down the hill, the police clicking into almost paramilitary action as they discovered the shrine in the back. One called HQ requesting something technical immediately. The other blocked John from the car.

«Am I under arrest? Do you have a warrant?» John asked.

«No. And we don't have to go through that if you agree.»

«John, it's my property,» said Ivan. «Go right ahead, guys.» He looked in the back seat. The white towel around his neck dropped onto the gravel driveway and he didn't pick it up. «John-O, there's a goddam Susan Colgate parade float in the back seat of the car — you made this?»

«Did you make the shrine in the back seat?» the cop asked.

«No. I bought it from the kid at West Side Video. I think it's one of those campy queer things.»

At this point Doris came out of the house, cloaked in shawls, her bunned gray hair a porcupine of flyaway hairs. «Oh Christ — it's my mother.»

«Morning, darlings. Oh my — the fuzz.»

«The fuzz ?» said John.

«I'm merely trying to be contemporary, darling. Officers — has there been a crime?»

There was mild confusion. A police photographer and forensics expert went over to the car. Ivan went back up to his treadmill and John phoned Adam Norwitz. «What the fuck is going on, Adam?»

«Susan's gone AWOL. She had a sixA .M. makeup call for a Showtime Channel kiddy movie and she didn't show up. So the producer phones and screams at me, and I go racing from my gym straight to her house and the doors are all open. There's nobody there, but her car's still out front. The coffeepot was still on, but the coffee was like tar, like it'd been on for twenty-four hours. So I called the cops. You tell me what's going on. I nearly had to donate my left nut to science to get her that stupid part on Showtime, and she fucks it up.»

«Compassion, Adam.»

«Yeah, right. Is she doing a project with you? Is she jumping into a bigger pond now — no more time for the little fish?»

«How can you make this woman's disappearance about you, Adam?»

«Spare me the melodrama.»

«Did you call the hospitals or anything?»

«That's the cops' job.»

Adam knew nothing. The police knew next to nothing. John refused to panic. Susan could be out on a tequila jag or maybe she was whipping one of those creepy Brit directors with birch fronds. She's not that type, he thought. He sucked in a breath, then phoned Ryan to buy the script.

Their first flop was a love story: The Other Side of Hate. Nothing about it came easily. To begin with, Angus, in the final depressing stretch of prostate cancer, told him the title was wrong. «John, “hate” is a downer word, and it doesn't matter if you make Citizen Kane, a title like The Other Side of Hate is box office poison from the word go.»

Doris had other concerns. «A love story? You, darling? Just keep making things that go bang and you'll be hunky-dory.»

«You don't think I can do a love story?»

«That's not it, darling. Love stories need to be made by …»

«Yes?»

«Oh, I have put my foot in it, haven't I?»

«Love stories need to be made by … ?»

«They need to be made by somebody who's actually been in love, darling, and I think I'd better have something very bubbly very quickly.» Over the years Doris's life had devolved into a pleasant timeless succession of sunny days, clay modeling, bursts of watercolor enthusiasm, gossip with a small clique of «card fiends,» and a well-worn path between her front door and the Liquor Barn a few miles away. John saw her twice a week and she remained a close confidante.

«I've been in love before.»

«With whom ?»

«With …»

«Really, darling, it's okay, and doubtless you'll one day find some lucky young starlet who'll sweep you right off your feet. And until then, keep blowing things up in Technicolor.»

«Technicolor? I think I hear Bing Crosby ringing the doorbell.»

But John wondered why he hadn't fallen in love. He'd been in lust and in like countless times, but not something that made him feel like a part of something bigger. The energy from his filmmaking — as well as filmmaking's rewards, the delirium of excess — it all conspired to mask this one simple hole in his life.

It seemed to John that people in love stopped having the personality they had before love arrived. They morphed into generic «in-love units.» John saw both love and long-term relationships as booby traps that would not only strip him of his identity but would take out the will to continue moving on.

But then again, to find somebody who'd be his partner on the ride — someone to push him further. That's what he'd held out for. And as the years went on, the holding out got sadder and more solitary. He began to hang out with people younger than he as older friends drifted away. But even then he sensed the younger crew were contemptuous — That fucked-up old wank who can't even get himself a girlfriend. He lives in a house like a nuclear breeder facility. Sure, he has hits, but he always takes his mom to the premieres.

Ivan was less doubtful than Doris about the fate of The Other Side of Hate, but during the production cycle he was sidetracked by an onslaught of collapsing real estate deals in Riverside County, and wasn't able to assign himself fully to his usual preproduction grind of rewrites, casting changes, and cleaning up John's well-intended messes. The director and the lead actress discovered they were sleeping with the same script girl and subsequently refused to listen to each other. The male lead tested positive for HIV two weeks before shooting and arrived on the set with a new and medicated personality greatly at odds with the cavalier froth demanded by the thirteenth and final script rewrite. The grimness continued through the dailies, through the storm that bulldozed a third of the Big Bear location set and through John's initiation into the world of crystal meth on the eleventh day of shooting.

After a profoundly dismal test screening in Woodland Hills, Melody said to John, «John, I know you meant well by this film, but if you want to do the right thing, go out and buy a can of glue and stick it onto the back of the negative and sell the whole thing as packing tape.»

«Mel!»

«Johnny, don't be a retard. It's crap. Burn it.»

«But it's tender — lovely …»

«Please. Don't even put it on video. Don't even dub it into Urdu. Burn it.»

Angus died shortly thereafter and Doris came unglued. They hadn't been lovers for decades, but he'd been her good friend. She lapsed into a cloudy fugue. Ivan inherited the estate and Doris stayed in the house.

The Other Side of Hate was released after John ignored what proved to be sound advice from Melody. The film was violently thrashed by media organs with the glee of vultures who have long awaited the giant's first fall. It died on opening weekend, taking in just under 300K, close to the amount John spent on under-the-counter pharmaceuticals in any given year. There were the inevitable industry backlash rumors that the golden days of Equator Films were over. Some viewed the film as a burp, others a death cry. John and Ivan were unable to rustle up even the faintest, most vaguely kind word from a 200-watt radio station in the middle of Iowa. («Slightly amusing!» KDXM, La Grange, Iowa.) Nothing was salvageable.