Dumb, I thought. Clarence is too far ahead. You?ll never catch up!!
48
Fritz was waiting with Maggie in Projection Room 10. ?Where you been?? he cried. ?Guess what? Now we got no
It was good to talk something silly, inane, ridiculous, a madness to cure my growing madness. God, I thought, films are like making love to gargoyles. You wake to find yourself clutched to the spine of a marble nightmare and think: What am I
And all done by freaks in projection rooms raving about characters who never lived.
So, how fine now to hide here with Fritz and Maggie, shouting nonsense, playing fools.
But the nonsense didn?t help.
At four-thirty I excused myself to run to the Men?s. There in the vomitorium I lost the color in my cheeks. The vomitorium. That?s what all writers call restrooms after they?ve heard their producer?s great ideas.
I tried to get the color back in my face by scrubbing with soap and water. I bent over the washbasin for five minutes, letting my sadness and alarm rush down the drain. After one last session of dry heaves, I washed up again, and staggered back to face Maggie and Fritz, thankful for the dim projection room.
?You!? said Fritz. ?Change one scene and you screw up the rest. I showed your last last supper to Manny at noon. Now, because of your goddamn high-quality finale, he says, against his better nature, we got to reshoot some up-front stuff, or the film looks like a dead snake with a live tail. He wouldn?t tell you this himself; he sounded like he was eating his own entrails for lunch, or your tripes en casserole. He called you words I don?t use, but finally said put the bastard to work on scenes nine, fourteen, nineteen, twenty-five, and thirty. Hopscotch rewrites and re-shoots. If we reshoot every other scene, we might fool people into thinking we got one half-ass fine film.?
I felt the old warm color flushing my face.
?That?s a big job for a new writer!? I exclaimed. ?The time element!?
?All in the next three days! We?ve held the cast. I?m calling Alcoholics Anonymous to dog J. C. for seventy-two hours now that we know where he hides??
I stared, quietly, but could not tell them I had scared J. C. off the lot.
?Seems I?m responsible for a lot of bad this week,? I finally said.
?Sisyphus, stay!? Fritz leaned to clap his hands on my shoulders. ?Till I get you a bigger rock to push up the goddamn hill. You?re not Jewish; don?t
?You sure Manny wants me on this??
?He?d rather tie you between two horses and fire off a gun, but that?s life. Hate a little. Then hate a lot.?
?What about
?Since when?? Fritz was on his feet.
?Since half an hour ago.?
?But he can?t do that without??
?Right. Roy. And Roy?s gone. And I?m supposed to find him. And the studio is being shut for forty-eight hours to rebuild, repaint what doesn?t need repainting.?
?Jerks. Dumb asses. Nobody tells me anything. Well, we don?t need the stupid studio. We can rewrite Jesus from my house.?
The phone rang. Fritz all but strangled it in his fist, then shoved it at me.
It was a call from Aimee Semple McPherson?s Angelus Temple.
?I beg your pardon, sir,? said a barely restrained woman?s voice. ?But do you happen to know a man who calls himself J. C.??
?J. C.??
Fritz grabbed the phone. I grabbed it back. We shared the earpiece:
?Claims to be the Ghost of Christ reborn and newly repentant??
?Let me have that!? cried another voice, a man?s. ?Reverend Kempo here! You know this dreadful anti-Christ? We would have called the police but if the papers found that Jesus had been thrown out of our church, well! You have thirty minutes to come save this miscreant from God?s wrath!
I let the phone drop.
?Christ,? I moaned to Fritz, ?is resurrected.?
49
My taxi drove up in front of the Angelus Temple just as the last stragglers from a few late Bible classes were leaving through a multitude of doors.
Reverend Kempo was out front, wringing his rusty hands and walking as if a stick of dynamite was up his backside.
?Thank God!? he cried, rushing forward. He stopped, suddenly fearful. ?You
?J. C.??
