It was then I developed the trick of actually transferring myself from the present into the future. I used it all my life. As a child in the asylum I would make myself into a young man with clever bookish friends. I could make myself live in a luxurious apartment and on the sofa of that apartment make love to a passionate, beautiful woman.
During the war on tedious guard or patrol duty I would project myself into the future when I would be on leave to Paris, eating great food and bedding down with luscious whores. Under shellfire I could magically disappear and find myself resting in the woods by a gentle brook, reading a favorite book.
It worked, it really worked. I magically disappeared. And I would remember in later actual time, when I was really doing those great things, I remembered these terrible times and it would seem as if I had escaped them altogether, that I had never suffered. That they were only dreams.
I remember my shock and astonishment when Merlin tells King Arthur to rule without his help because he, Merlin, will be imprisoned in a cave by a young enchantress to whom he has taught all his secrets. Like King Arthur, I asked why. Why would Merlin teach a young girl all his magic simply so he could become her prisoner and why was he so cheerful about sleeping in a cave for a thousand years, knowing the tragic ending of his king? I couldn’t understand it. And yet, as I grew older, I felt that I too might do the same thing. Every great hero, I had learned, must have a weakness, and that would be mine.
I had read many different versions of the King Arthur legend, and in one I had seen a picture of Merlin as a man with a long gray beard wearing a conical dunce like cap spangled with stars and signs of the zodiac. In the shop class of the asylum school I made myself such a hat and wore it around the grounds. I loved that hat. Until one day one of the boys stole it and I never saw it again and I never made another one. I had used that hat to spin magic spells around myself, of the hero that I would become; the adventures I would have, the good deeds I would perform and the happiness I would find. But the hat really wasn’t necessary. The fantasies wove themselves anyway. My life in that asylum seems a dream. I never was there. I was really Merlin as a child of ten. I was a magician, and nothing could ever harm
– -
Janelle was looking at me with a little smile. “You really think you’re Merlin, don’t you?” she said.
“A little bit,” I said.
She smiled again and didn’t say anything. We drank a little wine, and then she said suddenly, “You know, sometimes I’m a little kinky and I'm afraid, really, to be that way with you. Do you know what’s a lot of fun? One of us ties the other up and then makes love to whoever is tied up. How about it? Let me tie you up and then I’ll make love to you and you’ll be helpless. It’s really a great kick.”
I was surprised because we had tried to be kinky before and failed. One thing I knew: Nobody would ever tie me up. So I told her, “OK, I’ll tie you up, but you’re not tying me up.’,
“That’s not fair,” Janelle said. “That’s not fair play.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I said. “Nobody’s tying me up. How do I know when you have me tied up you won’t light matches under my feet or stick a pin in my eye? You’ll be sorry afterward, but that won’t help me.”
“No, you dope. It would be a symbolic bond. I’ll just get a scarf and tie you up. You can break loose anytime you want. It can be like a thread. You’re a writer, you know what ‘symbolic’ means.”
“No,” I said.
She leaned back on the bed, smiling at me very coolly, “And you think you’re Merlin,” she said. “You thought I’d be sympathetic about poor you in the orphanage imagining yourself as Merlin. You’re the toughest son of a bitch I ever met and I just proved it to you. You’d never let any woman put you under a spell or put you in a cave or tie a scarf around your arms. You’re no Merlin, Merlyn.”
I really hadn’t seen that coming, but I had an answer for her, an answer I couldn’t give. That a less skillful enchantress had been before her. I was married, wasn’t I?
– -
The next day I had a meeting with Doran and he told me that negotiations for the new script would take awhile. The new director, Simon Bellfort, was fighting for a bigger percentage. Doran said tentatively, “Would you consider giving up a couple of your points to him?”
“I don’t even want to work on the picture,” I told Doran. ‘That guy Simon is a hack, his buddy Richetti is a fucking born thief. At least Kellino is a great actor to excuse his being an asshole. And that fucking prick Wagon is the prize creep of them all. Just get me off the picture.”
Doran said smoothly, “Your percentage of the picture depends on your getting screenplay credit. That’s in the contract. If you let those guys go on without you, they’ll work it so you won’t get the credit. You’ll have to go to arbitration before the Writers Guild. The studio proposes the credits, and if they don’t give you partial credit, you gotta fight it.”
“Let them try,” I said. “They can’t change it that much.”
Doran said soothingly, “I have an idea. Eddie Lancer is a good friend of yours. I’ll ask to have him assigned to work with you on the script. He’s a savvy guy and he can run interference for you against all those other characters. OK? Trust me this once.”
“OK,” I said. I was tired of the whole business.
Before he left, Doran said, “Why are you pissed off at those guys?”
“Because not one of them gave a shit about Malomar,” I said. “They’re glad he’s dead.” But it wasn’t really true. I hated them because they tried to tell me what to write.
– -
I got back to New York in time to see the Academy Awards presented on television. Valerie and I always watched them every year. And this year I was watching particularly because Janelle had a short, a half hour film, she had made with her friends that had been nominated.
My wife brought out coffee and cookies, and we settled down to watching. She smiled at me and said, “Do you think someday you’ll be there picking up an Oscar?”
“No,” I said. “My picture will be lousy.”
As usual, in the Oscar presentations they got all the small stuff out of the way first, and sure enough, Janelle’s film won the prize as the Best Short Subject and there was her face on the screen. Her face was rosy and pink with happiness and she was sensible enough to make it short and she was guilty enough to make it gracious. She just simply said, “I want to thank the women who made this picture with me, especially Alice De Santis.”
And it brought me back to the day when I knew that Alice loved Janelle more than I ever could.
– -
Janelle had rented a beach house in Malibu for a month, and on weekends I would leave my hotel and spend my Saturday and Sunday with her at the house. Friday night we walked on the beach, and then we sat on the porch, the tiny porch under the Malibu moon and watched the tiny birds, Janelle told me they were sandpipers. They scampered out of the reach of the water whenever the waves came up.
We made love in the bedroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The next day, Saturday, when we were having lunch instead of breakfast, Alice came out to the house. She had breakfast with us, and then she took a rectangular tiny piece of film out of her purse and gave it to Janelle. The piece of film was no more than an inch wide and two inches long.
Janelle asked, “What’s this?”