Bruce Wagner - Memorial

“You know what, Maurie? Maybe you should split. I got a headache.”

“Yeah. I’ll split. I don’t like to be around old women.”

“Right! I’m an old woman. Now go buy flowers for all your close personal friends at FNF. Flowers and K-Y.”

“You gonna sue these people, Chess? Cause that is about the most fucked-up thing you can do. Karmically.”

“Oh, are we Hindu now, Maurie? Did you convert?”

“I’ve been there, that’s all. I’ve sued and been sued and it’s a motherfucker. Turns you upside down and sucks your life force. But hey: what do I know? Go for it. Get Tom Mesereau on the phone. I’m the guy who sued Home Depot after I tripped over a rubber hose in the gardening department. Took 3 years and you know what I got? 22K —60 % of which went to lawyers and taxes. By the time it was over, I was popping benzos like Altoids and my self-esteem was in the shitter. But go for it.” He scuttled toward the door then turned, theatrically. “Know what I think, Chess?”

“Tell me, Maurice.”

“I think you should do some yoga and call it a day.” He paused. “I can seriously get you on staff at Frights. I told you, I talked to them. It’s done.”

“They throwing me a bone, Maurie? Are you the bag man? What is this, a pity fuck? Or are they running scared?”

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes.

“I think they’re running scared.”

“Man, this thing has really twisted you! I don’t know who’s whispering in your ear, my friend, but this is not going to end with you sipping daiquiris on your own tropical island. I’ll tell you how this is going to end: with your body healing way before your head does. Cause it’s a self-perpetuating thing — the more paranoid you get, the more ‘pain’ you’re gonna be in. It’s all about pride, Chester. Ego. Is your ego so fucking fragile that you couldn’t take a little practical joke? Couldn’t laugh at yourself and have a good time? Be on television, with a steady fucking job and a new car? Healthcare? And maybe a girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend? What does that mean?”

“I think you need to get laid.”

“Get the fuck out, Maurie.”

“You need a little kundalini, bud. Channel your energy elsewhere. You need a chick to fuck, not a lawyer. News Flash: the lawyers are gonna be fucking you. Or didn’t you know that.”

“Sayonara,” said Chess, now standing.

“If you think you’re gonna win the lawsuit lottery and hump Kellie Pickler, cool. Knock yourself out. Be the Payback Poster Boy. But remember: chicks dig guys with jobs. Chicks dig guys with jobs and new cars who don’t sit around their apartment smoking weed and popping pills like Lenny Bruce, building their case against the world.”

“Fuck you!”

“I get it,” said Maurie, backing down. He was halfway out the door now. “That’s cool. Namaste, Chester,” he said snidely. “Namaste. Gassho. Call me when the swelling goes down — of your ego. In the meantime, try not to leave any severed fingers in the chili at Wendy’s. Though there’s big money in that too, if you don’t get caught.”

THAT night, Chess watched a tsunami doc on MTV. Surfers and real MDs went over to help. Their T-shirts said MALARIA SUCKS. Rock songs played during amputations, to hold the attention of the demographic.

He switched the channel: another Big Wave Anni show, with the same recycled shots of killer tides engulfing the infamous hotel pool. (Some guy really must have got rich off that footage.) There was a segment on these nerdy bureaucrats in Hawaii who kept saying they wanted to warn people but didn’t know how. One of them said they probably could have if they’d been able to find phone numbers of the embassies. Chess thought that was sort of funny and disarming. The pinhead suddenly gets a “miraculous” call in the middle of the night, “a real lifesaver,” from the State Department — and then he thinks to ask, Can you give me the numbers of the embassies? By the time he starts his round of wake-ups, it’s too late. Not that it wouldn’t have been anyway. The documentary was pretty engaging but they eventually ran out of stuff to say and it got crazy. People began theorizing about 50-story waves being generated by simple landslides or how a volcano blowing its top in the Canary Islands could basically wipe out Manhattan. The nerdwatchers said the chances were “slim” but such events were “imminent.” Basically, the whole Pacific coast, from Vancouver to San Diego, could be wiped out as well. Each time, the size of potential waves grew: from 100 to 200 to even 300 feet. Why didn’t they just say the waves would be a mile fucking high? You’d have to be in a goddam 747 to be safe. They kept cutting back to this butched-up pseudoseismoscientist dyke saying, “It could happen anytime. It could happen… today.”

Right. About the same odds as you going down on Anne Hathaway. You fucking whitehaired diesel. Weasel diesel crock.

Chess swigged down Percocet and Soma with a diet Dr Pepper. He flipped to a series on AMC called Film Fakers. The premise was a bunch of unknown actors cast in lead roles in genre films (there’d been a similar thing a few seasons back starring people who got famous on reality shows), the reveal being that everything was bogus, from script to director to crew. An extended, low-rent version of Punk’d, except with unfamous people. Kinda funny.

He lit a joint. Maurie’s words stung and Chess wondered if he was being a poor sport. Maybe the pain was in his head. But how could that be? In grade school, he was “a whiner.” Even his kid sister called him that. No, this was different. It wasn’t an ego thing — he’d been injured for real. Take these Film Fakers kids: they were all young, desperate, aspiring actors, and however pathetic it turned out, happy to have the exposure. Whereas Chess was a grown man, just like Remar said, fighting the good fight against getting older, struggling to pay bills and join the union. No, fuck that — fuck Maurie Levin and his manipulative bullshit. Fuck your bosom buddy madres at Friday Night Frights. I’ll sue the shit out of em and slap a suit on your kinky-haired ass if I have to, Superjew! Fraud and misrepresentation. Emotional fuckin distress. You blew it sky-high today, Rabbi! Comin over here runnin your namaste mouth. Try to buy me off with your chicks-like-

guys-with-jobs-and-new-car-smell fucking horseshit. Chicks like chicks with dicks! he thought, laughing out loud. I’ll fuck your pimped-out hippie girlfriend too.

SHE dropped by again, and gave him a New Age bookstore pamphlet about Ganesh, her father’s patron.

Laxmi said that years ago her dad broke his back and finally had something called spinal fusion, where they screw a metal rod in your spine. The surgery was done in New Delhi. Chess thought she was sharing the anecdote to make him feel better — as if whatever was wrong with him would never be that bad. Her heart was in the right place. Her pussy too. But I wouldn’t know.

After she left, he went online. He was stoned and curious. Fusion stuff was all over the place. The technology had recently been in the news because the doctor who invented it won a patent suit against some manufacturing company for infringement. He was going to get a settlement of one-point-