Popcorn

the core of Wayne ’s argument. ‘So you shot the popcorn seller because he was an asshole? Not, and this is an important point, because you’d just seen a movie full of death and destruction?’

Wayne sounded almost weary. ‘Bruce, like I say, you are taking all this far too literally. Does anybody shoot a popcorn seller in Ordinary Americans?’

‘I don’t believe so.’

‘You don’t believe damn right. Fiftyseven people get shot in Ordinary Americans, did you know that?’

‘I knew it was a lot.’

‘ Wayne counted them,’ Scout said proudly.

‘Well, of course I counted them, honey pie, or how would I know? They don’t put it up on the titles do they? Like, um, that damn film you liked, Marrying and Dying or something – there was some faggot in a kilt who should have died a whole lot earlier as far as I’m concerned, like before the damn film started.’

‘Four Weddings and a Funeral.’

‘That’s right. Well, Bruce here did not call his movie FiftySeven Murders, Plus People Taking Drugs and Screwing Each Other, did he?’

‘I guess not, honey.’

‘Then don’t talk dumb in front of the American people. I counted who got shot in your movie, Bruce. Cops got shot, drug dealers got shot, pregnant teenage girls got shot, an old lady got one straight through the colostomy bag – man, that was a great scene, Bruce. How do you think up that stuff?’ Wayne turned to the camera to explain his enthusiasm. ‘There’s a shootout, right? And this sweet little old lady takes a stray and guess what, man? It goes through her colostomy bag, and do you know what she says? She says, “Shit.” That’s all, just “Shit.” I mean, man, is that a good line or what? Everyone in the movie house just cracks up. Pardon my language but it was in the movie and Bruce here did get an Oscar for it, so I guess it’s art.’

‘I’m glad you liked it,’ Bruce said woodenly.

‘I sure did, but what I’m saying is, no popcorn seller got shot.’

Bruce was getting irritated. ‘So what’s your point? I thought you were claiming diminished responsibility on account of my influence over you. Isn’t that what all this is about?’

‘Who was the guy who rang the bell and the dogs dribbled? Pancake or whatever. I saw a thing about him on Timewatch.’

‘I think you mean Pavlov,’ said Bruce.

‘That’s right, Pavlov. Well, you ain’t no Pavlov, Bruce, and we ain’t no dribbling dogs. There ain’t nothing specific here. I am talking generally. I’m saying that you make killing cool.’

Bruce leapt at the point. So far his heroic battle had not been going quite as splendidly as he’d hoped. He had allowed himself to be sidetracked. He had to regain the initiative.

‘No, Wayne. I make going to the movies cool. Let me put it plainly. You are sick,’ He addressed the camera directly. ‘These two people are sick. They have erred from the acceptable norm. They have diseased and unbalanced minds. Did I unbalance them? Certainly not. Did society? I doubt it. No, they are simply sick. There have always been murderers and sadists. Long before there was TV and movies, people got killed and raped. Now-’

Bruce was on a roll, winding up to utterly discredit these sad nobodies with the massive force of his intellectual power. Unfortunately, Wayne interrupted him.

‘Tell me something, Bruce. I’ve always wanted to know, do you get a hardon when you make that stuff?’ He said this with a wink at the camera. ‘I’ll bet you do, boy, ‘cos I admit it just thrills me. What’s more, I look round the movie theatre and I can see all the other guys and they’re just loving it too. Every one of them is just itching to haul out a gun and blast away. Of course, they don’t do it, but I can see them licking their lips and wishing, just the same.’

‘That’s the point, Wayne, nobody does anything.’ Bruce was slightly shaken. He wanted to keep the debate on what Wayne did, not on what he himself did. ‘It’s just a story.’

‘It ain’t no story,’ Scout protested. ‘First time I saw Ordinary Americans, I said to Wayne to tell me when the blood and gore happened so I could close my eyes. I guess I had my eyes closed just about the whole picture.’

‘That’s right,’ Wayne agreed. ‘Ain’t no room for a story in your pictures, Bruce. A story is like… um… so the dude kills the dude because of, like, this reason and that reason, and afterwards he goes away and does some other stuff. A story is, well a story – stuff happens. Showing the dude killing the dude, in slow mo’, now, that’s a fantasy.’

Bruce knew this was madness, nonsense. He made movies. These two killed people. There was no connection, and yet somehow he could not nail the debate down. It was slipping away.

‘To sane people, it’s a diversion,’ Bruce said. ‘It’s an entertainment, perhaps not a very edifying one, but an entertainment none the less. It’s only a fantasy to people who are sick in the head like you and your girlfriend here.’

‘So we’re sick, are we?’

Wayne shifted his gun on his lap but Bruce was determined to press the point. ‘You’re sicker than a rabid dog.’

From behind the couch in the back of Bill’s picture Velvet cried out in anguish. ‘Daddy, be careful. Don’t make him angry.’

In the control truck they cheered. They loved it when the cute little girl chipped in. Now that was television.

‘Sneak a closeup on the daughter,’ the producer whispered into his microphone, but Bill ignored him. As far as Bill was concerned, Wayne was producing the show by the authority of the gun he had on his lap.

Bruce attempted to reassure his daughter. ‘He isn’t going to kill you, honey. We’re on live TV. He’s pleading for his life.’

‘If I’m sick, Bruce, and you said I was,’ Wayne said, ‘what does that make you?

‘Excuse me?’

‘Well, don’t your movies exploit my sickness? Don’t you use the terrible, sick, mental condition that afflicts psychopaths like me, just to give people a thrill? You never saw no Aids or cancer movie where the sick people were the bad guys, did you? But that’s the way it is in your movies. You want to know what I am, Bruce? I am the exploitably ill.’

Things were beginning to go horribly wrong. The question seemed to be getting more complex. Bruce had set out to shoot down gloriously a fatuous contention, but his target was moving, putting up smokescreens.

‘Perhaps you’re suggesting that you committed your crimes as a protest against my treatment of psychotics as a class?’

It was a weak response. Bruce knew that this was not what Wayne had suggested at all. He was trying to buy time with smart comments, in order to collect his thoughts.

‘I don’t know what I’m suggesting,’ Wayne replied, ‘except I’m suggesting that it ain’t only the criminals who create a culture of violence.’

‘It’s only the criminals who commit the crimes. Violent people create a violent society.’ This was the point Bruce wanted to make. He needed to stick with that and not allow himself to be diverted. ‘It is violent people who create a violent society,’ he repeated, firmly and loudly.

‘Are you sure?’ Scout suddenly shouted. ‘Are you absolutely sure about that? Are you one hundred per cent absolutely sure that no matter how many times you show a sexy murder to a rock and roll soundtrack you have no effect on the people who watch? Because if there’s even one shred of doubt in your mind, then what right have you to make your movies?’

‘I am an artist. I can not ask myself that question.’ Bruce regretted it the moment he’d said it. It was true, but that wasn’t the point. He knew that claims of intellectual immunity would be unlikely to impress in the heartlands.

‘Why? Why can’t you? If you won’t take responsibility for your actions, why should we take responsibility for ours?’

Damnation, where did this bitch suddenly learn to talk?