those in the industry.
Eventually, I was no longer satisfied to work only one side of the camera and asked for other production responsibilities. The overworked crews were happy for the assistance; I would help set up the lighting equipment while asking the cameramen how they knew where the shadows would fall. I would watch how the directors set the scene and, by this point, I had performed often enough that I could occasionally make a good suggestion. If the producer ran into a problem-an actress canceling at the last moment or a camera breaking down-I had enough friends in the industry that after a few quick calls, I could often solve it.
Before long, I branched into the role of writer, as much as one can claim to write a porn film. The writer can establish a situation, but when it comes to the action, he can only write SEX SCENE HERE. Different performers do different things: some refuse to do anal, some refuse to do girl-on-girl, and so forth, and because you’re never really sure in advance which performer is going to do which scene, you can’t get too specific. Final decisions are always made on the set.
Despite a coke habit that grew so severe giant white mosquitoes came for early morning visits, I was not an unintelligent young man. I was aware of the financial advantages of porn-no matter the economy, there’s always a market-but there was more to it than this. I liked to write and act, and viewed my work to be a satisfaction of my artistic urges at least as much as it was a matter of commerce. After directing a few films, I figured out that the real money wasn’t in acting in someone else’s films but in getting others to act in
At times, I found this to be a better way to introduce myself than as a pornographer.
Naturally I wasn’t the only victim in the burn unit. Sufferers came and went. Some finished their treatments and moved on, while others died. To illustrate: one patient was Thйrиse, a completely precious child with blond hair and sapphire eyes.
To look at Thйrиse, you wouldn’t have even known that she’d been burned, because she wore her destruction inside. Thйrиse had experienced an allergic reaction-not unlike a chemical fire in her lungs-to antibiotics administered to alleviate asthma attacks. I overheard one doctor explain it to an intern: “For her, it was like taking a big gulp of Agent Orange.”
Thйrиse’s mother, wearing a dark green gown that marked her as a visitor, brought in many overflowing arrangements of plastic flowers. (Real flowers, which carry bacteria by the million, could be agents of our death.) The mother was devout and always telling the little girl that each earthly occurrence was a part of God’s Grand Design. “We can’t know why things happen, only that God has a tremendous plan for each of us. His reasons are just, though we might not be able to understand them.” Personally, I believe it’s a poor idea to tell a seven-year- old girl that God’s tremendous plan is to incinerate her lungs.
Howard was another patient in the ward. He’d been burned long before I arrived, in a house fire after his Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother fell asleep with a lit cigarette between her fingers. She didn’t survive but he did, and now he was working diligently on every aspect of his rehabilitation. He used the walkers, he arm-curled his small silver dumbbells, and he walked ten steps one day and twelve the next. He beamed with each achievement, constantly telling me that he would “beat this thing” and “get his life back.” These proclamations only intensified after his fiancйe informed him that they’d no longer be getting married.
When he was discharged, Howard’s entire family and a dozen friends (including the ex-fiancйe) came to the burn unit to celebrate. They brought a cake and everyone told him how great he looked and how proud they were. Howard talked about this being “the first day of the rest of his life.” It was a big fucking show, even the way they dramatically packed up his stuff. Howard shuffled over to my bed and took my good hand. “I told you I’d beat this thing. I told you. You can do it, too!” He winked in an effort to inspire me but, because of the skin contracture around his eyes, it only made me think of a housefly struggling to get out of a toilet bowl.
As he exited the room, his mother and father on each side of him, he didn’t turn around to take a final look at the burn ward that had been his home for so many months; I could tell he was determined never to look back.
It is, I suppose, a heartwarming story of human triumph: determination, the love of family and friends, and positive thinking! But, really, who was he kidding? Howard’s ex-fiancйe was rightfully gone-who would (could) love a goblin? Would he ever have sex again? Would he go through life with his parents holding his arms to balance him as if he were forever two years old? Where, I ask, is the victory in that?
Howard had worked much harder than I intended to. I’d listened to him talk about how he was going to get better. I’d listened to everyone say how good he looked when, in fact, he looked like the monster that any sane person would cross the street to avoid. I wanted to scream when he took my hand, because even I didn’t want to be touched by him. He disgusted me, this thing, my brother.
My reaction had little to do with him, really; it sprang from the realization that no matter what I did, I would never be the same. I could exercise every day, I could endure a thousand surgeries, and I’d still be a blister of a human being. There is no cure for what I am.
The worse realization: even if I could have gone back to what I’d been before the accident, how much better would that have been? Yes, I’d been handsome. Yes, I’d had money and a career but (let’s not mince words) I’d been a coke-addled pornographer. I was told that my friends, who had laughed at my jokes when I was sharing drugs at the side of my pool, came to visit while I was in my coma-but each looked at me for less than a minute before walking out, never to return. One glance was enough to convince them that our days of sniffing at spoons were finished forever.
After I woke, the only person who made a real effort was Candee Kisses, a sweet girl who ended up in porn only because the universe is an unjust place. At seventeen, she had become tired of her stepfather raping her; she was willing to do anything to get out from under him. So she did. She should’ve been living on a farm somewhere, married to a hardworking guy named Jack or Paul or Bill, instead of making her living by sucking cock in front of the camera.
Candee came a few times, bringing little gifts and trying to cheer me up by telling me how fortunate I was to still be alive, but mostly she just cried. Maybe it was because of how I looked; more likely, it was because of her own life. After three visits, I made her swear that she wouldn’t come back. She kept her promise. Now here’s the funny thing: I knew her for over five years, I had sex with her, and I had heard her stories about her stepfather, but I didn’t know her real name. Perhaps there are just some things you leave behind when you choose a new life.
When Howard and his parents disappeared through the burn ward door, I lost my veil of control. My chest started to lurch as anger and self-pity all came up like vomit, and my damaged throat allowed my breaths to be expelled only as long reedy gasps.
Then the girl Thйrиse came to me. It was an incredible, torturous effort for her, and with each suck of air, I could hear her lungs rattle. She was exhausted by the time she reached my bed. She crawled up onto it and took my hand. Not my unburned right hand but my ravaged left one with its finger and a half missing, and she held it as if it were normal. It hurt so much to be touched there and, although I was thankful for the touch despite the pain, I implored her to get away.
“No,” she answered.
My chest was still jumping involuntarily. “Can’t you see what I am?”
“Yes,” she replied. “You’re just like me.”
Her large blue eyes, radiant through the pain, never left my damaged face.
“Leave,” I commanded.
She said she needed to rest a bit before she returned to her own bed, before adding, “You’re beautiful in God’s eyes, you know.”
Her eyes closed and I watched her face as exhaustion pulled her into sleep. Then my own eyes drifted shut, momentarily.
