Jarett Kobek - Only Americans Burn in Hell

The films had changed.

The glamor and the glitz were gone. Most movies were parables about American foreign policy and had an intended audience of bloodthirsty men.

That’s why he was at Wonder Woman .

He saw everything that played the Vista.

When Wonder Woman finished simulating genocide, Francis Fuller went to the lobby and thought about using the bathroom.

There was a line of young men who needed to urinate. Fuller was too old to be pushed about in the queue. He decided to wait until the bathroom was empty.

And it was while he waited that he saw the two most astonishing women.

They were dressed a bit like Diana, the hero of Wonder Woman , but instead of wearing bondage-themed body armor, they were wearing animal pelts. Real fur!

And they were so muscular.

But not at all.

And so femme.

And yet not.

He couldn’t determine their ages. Were they very old?

Or were they very young?

Francis Fuller couldn’t help himself.

He had to talk to them.

The conversation turned into Francis Fuller giving Celia and Rose Byrne a ride in his vintage Jaguar. He drove them to his house on Glendower Avenue.

Celia and Rose Byrne ended up in Francis Fuller’s living room, where, because of effective sewage management, only one person had ever voided their bowels.

The house was high enough on the hill that Celia and Rose could look through Fuller’s picture window and see the whole of the city.

It was infinite lines of car headlights, the north–south avenues intersecting with the east–west boulevards, a fathomless grid of industrial pollution and greenhouse gases.

“We are in a new world,” said Celia to Rose Byrne.

“It is much worse than on our television,” said Rose Byrne.

“One does not expect much,” said Celia. “But one maintains hope. The mortals I have known in my life have been pleasant enough. How can they have created such a nightmare?”

“The human condition, my dears,” said Francis Fuller as he came from his kitchen, holding a tray with three cups of black Darjeeling tea.

There were many things that Francis Fuller couldn’t imagine.

He’d spent most of his professional life making films about supranatural entities and now he had brought supranatural entities into his own home.

And he had no idea.

Fuller couldn’t imagine the level of danger implicit in the women’s presence.

If Wonder Woman was a genocide simulator, then Rose Byrne was genocide.

Other than individuals in the military arm of the United States of America and former Presidents of the United States of America, she’d killed more human beings than anyone on Earth.

They sat in Fuller’s living room, drinking his tea.

Celia looked at the décor.

It was shabby old furniture surrounded by vintage framed movie posters, all of which were advertisements for 1940s AD films produced at RKO by Val Lewton.

Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie , The Leopard Man , The Seventh Victim , and Isle of the Dead .

“You have a wonderful eye,” Francis Fuller said to Celia. “Not many people pay attention.”

“My queen is a rare being,” said Rose Byrne.

“I’ve known some rare queens,” said Francis Fuller. “They’re all dead now. Except Ken Anger. I heard he was still down on Hollywood Boulevard, you know, screaming at anyone who’ll pretend he’s interesting. The last time I saw him was at Curtis Harrington’s funeral. Poor Curtis, he and Ken had a thing back in the ’40s. The funeral was ghastly. Ken was even worse than usual and spent the whole time heckling anyone stupid enough to speak from the podium. He made a whole show over Curtis’s body, kissing the corpse. But that’s Hollywood. It’s always been like this.”

Like most readers of this book, Celia and Rose Byrne had absolutely no idea what Francis Fuller was talking about.

“There’s something I have wondered,” asked Celia. “How do people hear the stories that they put into films and plays?”

“Hear them?” asked Francis Fuller.

“Yes,” said Celia. “How did the actors in Wonder Woman hear about Diana and her island and her journey into the world and her queen mother?”

“Honey,” said Francis Fuller, “that answer is too long. We live in the era of the mega-franchise.”

“But where did the story come from?” asked Rose Byrne.

“Comic books,” said Francis Fuller. “These days, all of the movies come from the funny papers.”

Celia and Rose Byrne had never seen comic books, which were cheap little periodicals that contained American power fantasies.

But Fern had brought home many a newspaper and the women of Fairy Island had pored over them, paying especial attention to the comic strips that arrived printed in full color in the Sunday editions.

“You mean that the story of Diana came from Krazy Kat ?” asked Celia. “Or Blondie ?”

Krazy Kat was an old newspaper comic strip about a cat struck with love for a mouse that liked throwing bricks at the cat’s head. The cat was named Krazy. The mouse was named Ignatz.

Blondie was an old newspaper comic strip about a Jazz Age flapper who married a man with an insatiable appetite for sandwiches. The flapper was named Blondie. The husband was named Dagwood.

Celia had seen both strips in the early 1940s, when Fern had brought home copies of the New York Journal-American .

“Something like that,” said Francis Fuller. “Recycled old pap. That’s what the flickers are these days. When I was in the business, things were different.”

“You made films?” asked Rose Byrne.

The doorbell rang.

Francis Fuller jumped up. His octogenarian bones buckled under the sudden thrust of his mass.

Fuller answered the front door, which was in a foyer off the living room.

Standing on his doorstep was Adam Leroux.

Leroux was Fuller’s makeshift assistant.

He was twenty-eight years old.

Leroux had first shown up in Fuller’s life after Leroux sent an email asking about Handspun Roses . A correspondence ensued, wherein many topics about old Hollywood were discussed. This led to Fuller’s discovery that Leroux lived in Los Feliz. An invitation was extended for Leroux to visit Fuller’s home.

When Leroux arrived for the first time, Fuller was delighted.

The young man was so handsome and butch.

Fuller was fascinated by the short story of Leroux’s life, which had included a few military years in Iraq, where Leroux, who was poor, had shot Muslims at the behest of rich people.

For his part, Leroux was drunk on proximity to someone who’d directed films and known people like Anaïs Nin, James Whale, Susan Sontag, Dorothy Dean, and Orson Welles.

It wasn’t long before Leroux was coming over every day and helping Fuller with his memoir.

They were a Hollywood odd couple of the Twenty-First Century AD.

The old man, decaying in his earth-tone suits, and his young assistant, body covered in tattoos, head pierced with metal, dressed in black T-shirts and jeans.

“Adam,” said Fuller. “You’ll never believe who’s here.”

Fuller brought Leroux into the living room.

Leroux had a sixth sense.

He’d killed enough Muslims, and had enough Muslims try to kill him, that he knew when he was in danger. One look at Rose Byrne, broadsword dangling against her exposed thigh, and he understood that he was staring at death.

Leroux had a seventh sense.

He was a Hollywood assistant with no future who’d attached himself like a barnacle to an old ship. Fuller was his one shot.

Leroux had an almost preternatural sensitivity to moments when his hold on the old man was threatened.