Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

“Jerzy”—it came out unbidden. “Do you think we can put our heads together?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call you Jerzy?”

“It’s Jerry.”

“I thought it was Jerzy.”

“Not to you.”

“OK. I didn’t mean to call you the wrong thing.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I just think we need to be kind of a team here. Because I think Jerilynn” (she only reverted because of what he just said. She was completely prepared to say Reeyonna ) “is a little out of control. If it weren’t for the baby, it’d be different. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here. Though I’m very glad that we are.”

“Sure, Jacquie.”

His gaze was askew. He seemed to be grinning at something over her shoulder, as if an assassin just walked in — the one he’d hired to come from behind & slit her throat. He had already excused himself from the table three times, twice to the bathroom, & once to get the phone he supposedly left in the car even though it was visible in his pocket as he excused himself. She had no clue who this man was or where he’d come from, something aberrant in the Professor’s seed. She fantasized about being that timid, withdrawn Ocalan girl climbing into a time machine, brought forward to this time, this now , her time machine guide pointing to the tweaky stinkweed deadskinned bum & saying

That. That. That is what your baby will grow up to be.

“Rikki’s parents said she could stay with them.”

“Uh, I don’t really think she wants to do that.”

“But why? Why doesn’t she?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

“She won’t speak to me. She hangs up when I call.”

“What can I say.”

Neither of them made even a pretense of eating their food. Jacquie tap-tapped the tabletop. His thighs momentarily slowed, as if to acknowledge whatever message was being imparted by her table-tapping tom tom . He threw that smug, knowing sado-smile at her tippy-tapping fingers, which made her stop.

“Do you know what all this is about, Jerzy?Jerry? Has Reeyonna talked to you about it? Has Jerilynn talked to you?”

She was starting to lose it with the double names & the double bullshit.

“A little.”

“What did she say?”

“You spent a bunch of money that was supposed to be hers?”

“Which isn’t true. Not that a little thing like that matters! There never was any money, Jerry, and none promised . Whatever money I made from my work—& believe me , it wasn’t a lot— whatever money I made was for the household . It was for rent and clothes and necessities . For you and your sister. Because Ronny wasn’t exactly, your stepfather was frugal , he never went above & beyond what the court told him to pay, which was an absurd amount. $550, something like that.” She stared down at the table at her own fingers, which weren’t tapping anymore, they were just laying there. “O what’s the use? What’s the use, there’s just no point. Your sister has this conviction in her head — and she’s stubborn— and there’s just no way to make her see anything different.”

Some fake eating and pushing around of food (Jerzy) and some rattatattapping/tomtom macoute (Jacquie).

Jacquie shrugged, & threw in the towel.

“At this point, your sister can think what she wants to think. I don’t have any control over that. If she wants to make me into the wicked witch, there’s nothing I can do. But I am concerned about her taking care of herself. Because if she’s not taking care of herself, she’s not taking care of the baby. Is she going to the doctor? Do you know if she’s been to see a doctor?”

“I think Rikki takes her to the free clinic. In Venice.”

“Well that’s nice to hear, that’s very good to hear, thank you. Because she’s got to be doing some kind of neonatal care. Because that’s important. I just want my daughter to have a happy healthy baby & be healthy in the process.”

“Right.”

The waitress came along & refilled Jerzy’s tea.

“So how are things going?”

Jacquie was surprised he asked.

“As well as can be. With diminished income and a fugitive daughter. And a son I never see.”

“You’re seeing me now.”

“Yes. I’m seeing you now.”

“So. Nuthin goin on with the career?” (That creepshow grin again.) “Any gallery shows coming up?”

She knew he knew that she didn’t. Please help me God to be gracious. “No, but there’s something I’ve just started to work on that I’m excited about. There’s definitely something there, I’m just not sure what it is yet.”

“Cool.”

She felt like an ass for oversharing.

“And how are things with you?”

“Same old same old. Workin hard, hardly workin.”

“Do you talk to your dad?”

“We kinda had a blow-out when I was in New York.”

She heard about that from her ex & had zero desire to hear junior’s side of the story.

“Still doing paparazzi work?”

“Yup,” he said. “Still a proud papa .”

“I saw a 60 Minutes . Is it true about some of these people making small fortunes off a single picture?”

These people. Like saying: So what do they exorbitantly pay these days for scraping dogshit off the sidewalk?

“Yup. The folks you work for take most of it, but you can do all right. Depends on getting that honeyshot .”

“What’s a honeyshot?”

“A paparazzi term,” he said, goofing on her a little. “For a shot you know you can get at least 5,000 for.”

“Have you ever gotten one?”

“My specialty,” he said, trés insouciant .

MoMA paid the bill & they walked to the lot. She asked which one was his ride. He pointed to the gnarly van ( Honeyshot Central USA ).

She took a sealed envelope from her wallet.

“I’d be very grateful if you’d give it to Jerilynn.”

Obvious from the heft that it was bread.

“Should I say it’s from you?”

“No. Well — you can . I guess. Yeah, well why don’t you. It doesn’t really matter. She took some things from me, some very valuable things, but I still want her to know…”

Jacquie broke it off, her eyes tearing.

“That’s really nice. Of you.”

He put his hand on her arm for a moment; she smiled at the small tenderness. She got into her car & he stood there until she rolled down her window. His voice grew low & different; intimate, strangely focused, out of alignment, compelling.

“You know Ashton Kutcher? From 2½ Men ?”

“Uh huh.”

“Who’s supposedly no longer with his old lady?”

He lost her there.

“Have you heard him talk about the apocalypse?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“He talks about it on the Internet. Tho it’s hard to find now; someone did a lot of scrubbing. & you know what kind of resources that takes… I think the original interview’s in some kind of outdoor mag. You should google it. He talks all about how he’s stockpiling food & water, building up his body.”

“O my god, are you serious?”

She was glad he was engaging her conversationally, no matter how off the wall. Listening instead of talking relaxed her.

“For real. And that he’s totally prepared to move his family — he and Moore-Willis are still totally together — to higher ground whenever it goes down.”

“Really?”

“Don’t believe everything you hear. They’ll be together forever, you can’t break your vows, not when you’ve been married by the Puppetmather. So Ashton gave that interview— one interview— about the coming Wars, & that was it. Not a single word after . I mean, Ashton Kutcher was saying this shit, not Gary Busey or Michael Lohan! Not even Mel Gibson… my point being it should have been huge . The guy’s still in the Twitter Top 10, probably hanging on by his teeth, Taylor Swift, the mudsharkardashians they can really hold their mud! — Obama, Rihanna (all Puppetmather loyalists I might add), fucking Shakira pardon my language is higher on twitter than Ashton, still that’s 8 million people or whatever, right? But nope : nuthin. Silencio! Ask yourself why. Next thing you know, Ashton & Demi are all about sex trafficking, the new spokescouple for saving little girls from pimps. They’re all over it. Suddenly they have this passion , which is funny cause he inseminated those girls, Rumer 1st then Tallulah & Scout, to protect them from the black hooligans who will dominate the 1st segment of the Wars. To protect with the elixir of his blood — the 3rd horse of the Apocalypse. Suddenly they’re all about child trafficking, a topic with that rare quality of being able to captivate and bore the shit out of a person at the same time. You can’t even be cynical because you’re just not going to pay attention long enough. Which is how it was engineered. You hear child sex trafficking and part of you checks out, you say Huh? O — yeah yeah, right, yadda yadda, uh huh, good activism on ya Ashton & Demi. . like out of nowhere this became their pet cause, and here’s the question to posit: Do you really think that was their decision? To suddenly be the impassioned spokespersons for child sex trafficking? Well I don’t. Because none of these people — from Katy Perry to Suri Cruise to Gotye on down— none of these people do anything without being told, they don’t even shit in their Totos pardon my language unless the Puppetmathers gives em a heads up. The whole trafficking thing was brilliant (who do you think came up with it? EeYo-Veen & M 2, um, duh), its goal being to deflect attention from Ashton’s prematurely delivered eschatology because everything he said was true but wasn’t meant to be heard just yet. Ashton marches to his own drum which M 2actually likes, but this time he got in just a bit of hot water because he shot his mouth off before getting the heads-up, jus kinda went ahead & did his own thing & said what he said, the text of which Puppet-M approved but not the timing . So the Puppetmather reigned him in. But it all blew over, don’t believe everything you hear, Ashton remains a beloved mascot, loyal court jester & perennial of the Plantation. Tho be assured the time will come when EeYo-Veen will say, Do it, Ash. You go girl, do it NOW! TALK about it, good on ya. There was a happy ending after all because they were relieved: I’m talking Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Bezos , Jada Pinkett , the Olsen/Russiangoogle twins, I’m talking Sean John, Jay-Z, Gwyneth, Anne Hathaway , the Widow Jobs, everyone at youngmoneycashmoney . . the attention span of the public ain even short anymore, it don’t exist . People can’t be bothered, the Puppetmather counts on that, plus he wisely planted the seed that Ashton was colossally punk ’ing himself.”