Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

He found himself on the freeway, heading downtown. He got off on San Pedro and there was a woman with a sign: GOd BLeSS. She had a little girl with her. Donny pulled over and gave her a twenty. The woman was pretty and had all her teeth. He asked what had happened and she said she was working for an insurance company. Her employers were hit hard by the quake and had to let her go; people were still dining out on the fucking earthquake. Donny wondered what the real story was, as if a simpler truth lay hidden behind the insipid lie — as if being jobless and alone with a kid wasn’t enough to make you destitute.

Her name was Ursula, and Tiffany was her daughter. He asked if they wanted to get something to eat. She thanked him but declined. He could probably get her to say yes, but what was the get-off? What would he do with them? They probably had the virus — she’d cozily left that one off the verbal résumé. So big deal. Donny figured he wouldn’t have to touch her. For thirty dollars cash money she’d suck him off with the kid watching, gratis. Or do the God thing. That could be fun — rent her a place in Toluca Lake right now , stock it with cutlery, soaps, mops, candles, all that Smart & Final Iris crap, Trader Joe’s cheese, thrift-store bean bags, fifties dinette set, water bed, aquarium for the kid, wardrobe and lingerie, give her the old Bernie-bought Impala, the whole schmear . Do the impossible in just a few hours. Ensconce them in a super-clean utility apartment on Barrington somewhere and pay the rent a fucking year in advance. How much for the whole package? Ten grand? Twelve? That was shit. When it’s done, lay five K on her and disappear, like some saint. Let six months go by, then drop in to see what’s what. What else could he do with her? More immediate. Clean her up. Get her to the doc for a little Private Door dusting, douching and delousing. Have her tested. If she’s negative, go the whole Pygmalion hog: Dr. Les’s magical mystery collagen tonic, creams and unguents and Retin A, plucking and waxing — shave the pussy and storm the blackheads. Shopping at Trashy Lingerie, gallery-hopping at Bergamot Station, Planet Hollywood with the kid. Get Tiffany into a private school. A fourth grader’s tuition at Crossroads was only eleven thou. Be fun having a kid out there in the world, one you never needed to see, who worshiped and was terrified of you, like some miniature Manchurian Candidate.

Donny passed her a business card. He said he could find her work cleaning houses. She plucked a book from her knapsack, a two-thousand-page tome called The Book of Urantia . “Urantia means Earth,” she said. “Our planet’s only one among many, you know.” Donny said he would hereby call her Ursula Major. She smiled and gave him the book, as a gift. He took it, forcing on her a hundred-dollar bill. The homeless woman got weepy and kissed his cheek. Tonight, they’d stay in a Best Western instead of God knew where.

He read Katherine’s draft of Teorema in bed then scanned The Book of Urantia . He flipped through its elegant, tissue-thin pages until he found a passage to read aloud:

For almost one hundred and fifty million years after the Melchizedek bestowal of Michael, all went well in the universe of Nebadon, when trouble began to brew in system II of constellation 37. This trouble involved a misunderstanding by a Lanonandek Son, a System Sovereign, which had been adjudicated by the Constellation Fathers and approved by the Faithful of Days, the Paradise counselor to that constellation, but the protesting System Sovereign was not fully reconciled to the verdict ….

The agent drifted off, rising like a kite toward interplanetary zones.

It was easy getting onto the Sony lot. At the Thalberg Building gate, security was focused on cars, not pedestrians. There was only one guard on duty. Just to be safe, the Dead Animal Guy waited for him to become embroiled in the usual drive-on snafu, then strode right in. Wasn’t this the same studio someone drove a flaming truck into a few years back? Simon remembered that in the news; happened around the same time those guards were shot over at Universal. Bad week for showbiz. But maybe trespassing wasn’t so easy — maybe his furry netherworld shenanigans, veteran wayfarer that he was, had imbued him with a debonair invisibility. He imagined himself in a tux, the Dead Pet Society’s mystic Double-Oh Seven.

Simon thought of looking up his sister, Rachel. According to Calliope, big sissy now worked for Perry Needham Howe, the guy raking millions off that syndicated cop show. Howe had offices somewhere on the lot — probably even knew the Blue Matrix boys. At a certain level of moneymaking, everyone knew everyone.

He decided to head for safe ground: the company store. He bought a Blue Matrix sweatshirt and the cashier told him which stage to go to — asking a guard could have invited trouble. The sparkling backlot had a ritzy Deco theme. He passed a whole block of buildings with wharf-related façades, imaginary fish importers and the like. Rolls-Royces, Hum-Vees and Range Rovers threaded the posh alley-like streets. People drove around in golf carts, as in studio days of yore.

A red ambulance light flashing at the Stage Six door meant they were shooting inside. Simon waited with a small group. When the light went off, they entered the cavernous darkness through gunmetal doors. A girl with a walkie intercepted him.

“May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Hassan.”

The girl was listening to voices in her headphones. She said a few words to the walkie that referred to some humdrum crisis.

“You are—”

“Simon Krohn. Hassan’s a family friend.”

She held the walkie to her mouth, waiting for an audio runway to clear. Finally, she abandoned her efforts and waved him in.

The bridge of the U.S.S. Demeter rose before him like the flagship of an exterminating angel. The legendary players were frozen in grandeur between takes, a tableau vivant for Simon’s delectation. There was Captain Trent Wildwood, with his shock of blond hair and vermilion tunic; the tapir-like Commander Stroth, clacking fingertips poised at ellipsoid console; Lt. Livingston T. Cloud, witty diplomat in residence, a hundred-year-old being encased within the body of a pre-adolescent boy. Someone yelled Take five! and the crew scurried while the actors exhaled, awakening somnambulists.

Simon rounded the set. Before him stretched an aboriginal landscape of lava rock and sand that he recognized as the Fellcrum Outback, sacred burial- and battleground of Vorbalidian gladiators. Grips raised giant blue screens on its periphery. The budding teleplaywright was about to ask directions to Hassan’s dressing room when he saw the imposing figure of the Chief Navigator heading toward him. His face wore the characteristic calcium plating of the Vorbalid race, a dignified mosaic of features that made him resemble a cubist prelate. Mr. DeVore smoked a long thin cigarette and seemed oblivious; he had the judicious, wistful mien of an actor making serious money, at last.

“Hassan?” The shaled head swiveled. “It’s Simon — Krohn.”

The Vorbalid brooded and blinked, cracking a smile. “Well, hello!”

“I hope you don’t mind my dropping by.”

“Well — I’m not sure!”

The smile became a froggy grimace. The actor began to loudly hum, as if preparing for song.

“Scott Sagabond is a friend.”

“Who?”

“Scott Sagabond, one of the producers.”

“He’s not with the show. Left last year.”