"Don't threaten me!"
How strange and evil it must have looked to anyone watching. A fortyish man stabbing his finger and yelling at a little fat girl in a blue sweat suit in a parking lot in Somewhere, New Jersey.
"I'm not threatening, I'm telling you the truth. They'll die. I have no control over it." Her voice was a real plea.
"What do you control?"
"Nothing till you finish the film. Then you'll see."
I wanted to say something more, but what? We watched each other a bit longer like two fighters in a Mexican standoff; then I got back into the car. "I'm going to Browns Mills. Do you want to come?"
She shook her head.
I nodded mine and, from out of nowhere, smiled. "This would've made a good scene in a film, wouldn't it?"
"I'm not going there again. I asked him to take me out there so I could see it for myself. Browns Mills was where he grew up. That was the summer he saw the dead people and met his first girlfriend." She made a bitchy face. "Kitty Wheeler. Such a little asshole! He didn't need me anymore after that."
"Not until he started making the Midnights."
"Only the last one." She rubbed her belly and looked at it. "None of this would've happened if he'd listened to me! Go out there and look for yourself! It's just a dumb town!"
She turned around and ran very fast away across the parking lot; like children when recess is over who are afraid if they don't run they'll be late for class.
Getting out of the car in New York ten hours later, I felt like the Tin Man of Oz before Dorothy found the oil can. After I paid and was walking away, one of the men called and told me I forgot my postcards. I went back for them: – postcards of Browns Mills, New Jersey. I got nothing else from my trip there. Pinsleepe was right – if only Strayhorn and I had listened to her in the first place.
three
"It was my favorite hour –
Midnight – that perfect hour when
struggling day has been completely devoured,
its tail disappearing down the throat of night"
1
An out-of-work actor is approached by the devil.
"If you come with me, I'll make you the greatest star that ever was. Handsomer than Clark Gable, sexier than Paul Newman –"
"Yeah, yeah," the actor says. "But what do I have to do to get all that?"
"Give me your soul. And the soul of your mother, your father, your wife, your children, your brothers and sisters, and your grandparents."
"Okay,"says the actor, "but what's the catch?"
Nice joke. Matthew Portland told it to me not long before a car fell on his head. Nice joke, but it doesn't work that way. They don't ask you if you want more, they ask if you want to put what you've already got to better use.
Weber and the others can say what they want, but the first Midnight was a very good film. The others weren't, I admit it, but that first one did the job. I asked people for months what scared them before I put a word down on paper. You can't imagine how boring most people's fears are: I don't want to die, I don't want to get sick, I don't want to lose what I have.
Midnight came out as well as it did because at the time I had one great idea, no idea of how to write a movie, but nothing to lose by trying. Some people create best when they're sure, others when they're not.
Weber thinks the chain of events went like this: I was a walking basket case due in equal parts to failure and doing killer drugs with my girlfriend. Luckily I met Venasque the shaman and he saved me. Returned from the brink, I was able to clear my summa cum laude head and begin work on the project that ultimately made me famous.
Sounds like a testimony at Alcoholics Anonymous. Or the way we all wish life would work. "Let us all now bow our heads and pray God lets life make sense from here on out."
That's one of the first things Venasque taught me. We were sitting out on the patio feeding Big Top, his bull terrier, sour-cream-and-chive potato chips.
"He doesn't like barbecue ones. Or nacho. The pig eats anything, like me. But not Big. He's the chip connoisseur, aren't you?"
The old white dog lifted its head and looked at Venasque, then lowered it again to the big spread of chips in front of him.
"No, you got it all wrong, Phil. What's that word, 'teleology'? Screw teleology. People don't want things to make sense. Know why? Because if they did we'd all be in trouble. You drive too fast down the street because it feels good or you're in a hurry. If things made sense, a cop'd stop you and give you a ticket. But what happens when a cop does stop you? You get angry. That's not fair! Sure, it's fair. It also makes sense. If life made sense we'd all either behave ourselves a hell of a lot better or be walking around scared for all the bad things we do every day.
"We want things to make sense only when it's to our advantage. Otherwise, it's interesting not knowing what's coming next. Maybe you'll get heads, maybe tails. People do wrong things and get away with them. The wrong people get their necks broken. Would you prefer it if only the good people got rewarded? How often are you good? How often do you deserve the good you get?" He put his hand deep into the crinkly green-and-yellow bag and brought out more chips. The pig was drowsing a few feet away. The dog was slowly and delicately eating his pile.
"What you told me doesn't help."
He was about to eat a chip but stopped it an inch from his mouth and said, "You didn't ask for help. You asked me to tell you some of your future."
"What can I do?"
"First, stop worrying about what's going to happen to you. There's a long time before it comes. In the meantime you're going to be famous. Isn't that what you've been wanting?"
He didn't tell me about Pinsleepe or that I'd kill myself, although I'm sure he knew. Venasque knew everything but gave you only what he thought you needed.
"Wouldn't you rather have an interesting life than a fair one?"
"I don't know. Not if it's going to be as short as you said."
"Bullshit, Phil! Don't make me angry. You're talking about time, I'm talking about quality. I heard a very funny line in a health food restaurant the other day. Two old guys were sitting near me drinking carrot soup. Is that disgusting? Carrot soup? Who on earth thought that nightmare up? Anyway, one says to the other, 'Steve, if you drink this soup for a hundred years you'll live a long time.' That made me laugh, but later I thought about it different. You probably would live longer if you drank carrot soup and took naps. Notice I said 'probably.'" He shoved a load of deadly potato chips into his mouth and smiled around their crunch. "But some people learn more from chips. You learn how good bad things taste, what guilt feels like. . . . Eat a few of these delicious sins and you really learn how disgusting carrot soup is. Perspective! You learn perspective. The only thing you learn drinking carrot soup is how to get used to it."
"What are you telling me?"
"I'm telling you to eat the chips and learn from them."
"I should write this horror film?"
"Definitely. It sounds interesting. You're enthusiastic. It'll teach you about evil. It'll teach you evil doesn't make sense either but is still interesting."
He held the bag out and shook it for me to take some. We both smiled at the gesture.
"What about good? Shouldn't I be learning what that is?"
"Why? Good doesn't interest you. You're the one who likes reading about trips to Hell and looking at Bosch's pictures. How come no madonnas or Last Suppers?