Cat's Pajamas (11 page)

Duke depressed the Eject lever. The cassette carriage rose from the recorder console and presented
The Conqueror
to the dying actor.

“Maybe you'll get your aura next week,” I said. I took a toke, approached Duke, and squeezed his arm. “Never say die, sir. Let's come back on Monday.”

“We lost in Vietnam.” Duke pulled the cassette free of the machine. He removed his bandana, mushed it together, and coughed into the folds. “Nixon signed a SALT agreement with the Russians.” Again he coughed. “The Air Force Academy is admitting women. The phone company is hiring flits. Peanut Head”—he gasped—“is bringing the draft dodgers”—and gasped—“home.”

Duke lurched toward me, tipped his invisible Stetson, and, still gripping the cassette, collapsed on the carpet.

Inhaler at the ready, Sweeney bounded across the room. Falling to his knees, he wrapped his arms around the supine superstar and told Kieran to apply the plastic mask to Duke's nose and mouth. It was a familiar tableau—we had just seen it on the screen: Bortai cradling the wounded Temujin as she comes to understand that this particular egomaniacal sociopathic warlord is a real catch. (“He has suffered much,” says Bortai to her servant. And the servant, who knows subtext when she hears it, responds, “Deny not the heart.”) Kieran handled the oxygen rig with supreme competence, and in a matter of seconds the mask was in place and Duke had stopped gasping.

“You want another shot of whiskey?” I asked, kneeling beside Duke.

“No thanks.” He pressed the cassette into my hands and forced himself into a sitting position. “I know when I'm licked, Egghead,” he rasped. “It's not my America any more.”

“You aren't licked,” I said.

“You must have faith,” said Kieran.

Sweeney proffered an analgesic pill. Duke swallowed it dry. “I've got plenty of faith,” he said. “I've got faith running out my ears. It's strength I'm lacking, raw animal strength, so I figured I should hoard it for Egghead.”

“For me?” I said.

“I projected all my quantum vibrations onto Hunlun,” he said.

“You mean… you augmented Ms. Rappaport's shield?” Kieran bent low, joining our pietà.

“Augmented?” said Duke. “Let's talk plain, Doc—I made it
happen.
I threw that bubble around old Hunlun like Grant took Richmond. I blocked that radiation till Hell wouldn't have it again.” He set a large, sweating hand on my shoulder. “The Big C conquered John Wayne a long time ago, but you've still got a fighting chance, Egghead.”

“Duke, I'm speechless,” I said.

“I've never bent the space-time continuum for anybody before, but I'm glad I did it in your case,” said Duke.

“I'm touched to the core,” I said.

“Why does the aura make you angry?” he asked.

It took me several seconds to formulate an answer in my head, and as I started to speak the words, Duke coughed again, closed his eyes, and fainted dead away.

Before the day was over Sweeney got Duke admitted to the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center, where they gave the old cowboy all the morphine and Jack Daniels he wanted. A week later Duke received open-heart surgery, and by the end of the month he was back home in L.A., attended around the clock by his wife, his children, and, of course, his faithful nurse.

The Big C accomplished its final assault on June 11, 1979, stealing the last breath from John Wayne as he lay abed in the UCLA Medical Center.

Duke always wanted his epitaph to read
FEO, FUERTE Y FORMAL,
but I've never visited his grave, so I don't know what's on the stone.
Feo, Fuerte y Formal:
“Ugly, Strong, and Dignified”—a fair summary of that box-office giant, but I would have preferred either the characteristic self-knowledge of
There's More to That Movie Than My Damn Conservative Attitude
or else the intentional sexual innuendo of the eulogy he wrote for himself while drinking scotch during the
Chisum
wrap party:
He Saw, He Conquered, He Came.

Hunlun's aura still angers me. Kinetotherapy still makes me see red. “If Kieran Morella is on to something,” I told Stuart, “then the universe is far more absurd than I could possibly have imagined.”

A Japanese city has been reduced to radioactive embers? No problem. We can fix that with happy thoughts. The Castle Bravo H-bomb test has condemned a dozen Asian fisherman to death by leukemia? Don't worry. Just pluck the quantum strings, tune in the cosmos, and the pennies will trickle down from heaven.

“The miracle is the crudest trick in God's repertoire,” I told Stuart. “God should be ashamed of himself for inventing the miracle.”

Next Tuesday I'm going to the polls and casting my vote for Bill Clinton: not exactly a liberal but probably electable. (Anything to deprive that airhead plutocrat George Bush of a second term.) The day after that, my eighty-first birthday will be upon me. Evidently I'm going to live forever.

“Don't count on it,” Stuart warned me.

“I won't,” I said.

According to today's
Times,
the Nevada Test Site, formerly the Nevada Proving Ground, is still open to visitors. They have a webpage now,
www.nv.doe.gov
. The tour features numerous artifacts from the military's attempts to determine what kinds of structures might withstand nuclear blast pressures. You'll see crushed walls of brick and cinder block, pulverized domes fashioned from experimental concrete, a railroad bridge whose I-beams have become strands of steel spaghetti, a bank vault that looks like a sand castle after high tide, and a soaring steel drop-tower intended to cradle an H-bomb that, owing to the 1992 Nuclear Testing Moratorium, was never exploded.

Disney World for Armageddon buffs.

Kieran let me keep the kinetotherapy cassette, but I've never looked at it, even though there's a Betamax somewhere in our closet. I'm afraid those goddamn psychedelic shields will still be there, enswathing my on-screen incarnation. Tomorrow I plan to finally rid myself of the thing. I shall solemnly bear the cassette to the basement and toss it into the furnace, immolating it like the Xanadu work crew burning Charles Foster Kane's sled. Stuart has promised to go with me. He'll make sure I don't lose my nerve.

I simply can't permit the universe to be that absurd. There are certain kinds of cruelty I won't allow God to perform. In the ringing words of Hunlun, “My son, this you cannot do.”

Once again I import the Castle Bravo explosion into my living room. I drink my glass of sherry and study the Rorschachian obscenities.

This time I'm especially struck by the second shot in the mushroom-cloud montage, for within the nodes and curls of this burning Satanic cabbage I perceive a human face. The mouth is wide open. The features are contorted in physical agony and metaphysical dread.

Try this at home. You'll see the face too, I promise you. It's not the face of John Wayne—or Genghis Khan or Davy Crockett or Paul Tibbets or the Virgin Mary or any other person of consequence. The victim you'll see is just another nobody, just another bit-player, another
hibakusha,
eternally trapped on a ribbon of acetate and praying—fervently, oh so fervently—that this will be the last replay.

E
NCIRCLED BY A SPOTLIGHT
, two figures huddle together stage left, each perched on a stepladder. The younger of the pair, TOM MOODY, a diffident but likeable fellow whose appeal lies partly in his awareness of being a nerd, nervously grips the microphone of an unseen tape recorder. He is interviewing EDGAR WEST, alias Dr. Sarcophagus, former host of
Frisson Theater
on a Philadelphia UHF station. Now in his eighties, Edgar has retained the energetic eccentricities that once made him a celebrity.

The interview is occurring in Edgar's frigid apartment. Both men wear gloves, scarves, and knitted watch caps, and throughout the play they periodically blow on their hands and kick their feet against the ladders. At rise, in response to a request from Tom, Edgar launches into his famous Frisson Theater sign-off.

EDGAR: Farewell, fans of fiends! Adios, toasters of ghosts! Au revoir, mavens of noir! And remember this, my friends! Life is full of peasants with torches, but the sequel belongs
to you!

TOM: OOOO, Mr. West, that was perfect!

EDGAR: I did it better in the old days.

TOM: NO, really—I felt a
chill
go up and down my spine.

EDGAR: Of course you felt a chill—it's thirty degrees in here. This morning they finally got around to fixing the furnace, but it'll be an hour before the heat reaches my apartment.

TOM: Oh, I don't mind. I'll pretend I'm in that frigid cavern beneath the castle in
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

EDGAR: I remember when we revived that one. I showed the fans how they could build astonishing new insects out of the dead flies and dried crickets they found behind their hot-water heaters.

TOM: Then there was the time you revived
Werewolf of London
and gave away packets of
marifasa lumina lupina
seeds to the first thousand viewers who sent in postcards.
(nostalgic)
I planted mine in Mom's rose garden. What came up looked suspiciously like dandelions, so she ripped 'em all out.

EDGAR: Your mother is obviously not a botanist, Tom.
(beat)
And the
name
of your august journal is…?

TOM:
Macabre Monsters of the Movies.

EDGAR: Once there were three different fanzines devoted entirely to Dr. Sarcophagus. The
Mortuary Monitor,
the
Pall Bearer,
and… I forget.

TOM: The
Carrion Clarion.
I'd like to begin with—

EDGAR: With the astonishing events of February the 23rd, 1975.

TOM:
(taken aback)
How'd you know?

EDGAR: Yesterday I entertained a reporter from
Frightening Freaks of Filmdom,
and last week I spoke with
Abominable Aberrations of the Silver Screen.
You
all
want to know about February the 23rd.
(entering a reverie)
My ex-wife was the first to arrive in the studio that afternoon, and then came the station manager…

As Edgar reminisces, the spotlight fades, and an eerie luminescence suffuses the stage, revealing the set of Frisson Theater, the sort of low-budget horror-host program that flourished on UHF television during the pre-cable 1970s. The one impressive appointment is a gaudy casket resting on saw-horses. Otherwise, we see only the standard spiderwebs, rubber bats, human skulls, ornate candelabrum, and fake dungeon masonry, plus ERIK THE ORANGUTAN, a tattered stuffed ape reclining on a Victorian couch.

Just out of camera range, a bar stool holds an elaborate make-up kit, jammed with an assortment of fright wigs, putty noses, latex scars, horned brows, grotesque dentures, and tubes of grease paint. A mirror dangles from a nearby coat rack.

Edgar's ex-wife, RUTH HENDRICKS, thirty-five, bustles about the dungeon set, arranging the tacky props. She is an attractive and generous woman who suffers fools too gladly for her own good. Enter ALBERT MEINSTER, the station manager, early forties, cradling an exquisite porcelain vase. Though fiercely devoted to the bottom line, Albert is someone for whom a diagnosis of boorishness normally suffices to counter any suspicions of corruption.

Ruth acknowledges Albert's presence by picking up Erik the Orangutan and caressing the ape fondly.

RUTH: Remember when we ran
Return of the Ape Man?

ALBERT:
(nodding, disgusted)
Edgar spent twenty minutes expounding on the metaphysical implications of transplanting a man's brain into an ape's body. Our lowest ratings ever.

RUTH: But we received a dozen letters from philosophy students who said they understood Descartes for the first time.

Albert draws close to Ruth.

ALBERT: Might I have a word with you?

RUTH:
(annoyed)
I have to dress the set.

ALBERT: It's about your future.

RUTH:
(impatient)
My future is that we go on the air in ten minutes.

ALBERT: I've thought about it long and hard, and I've decided you'd be the ideal producer for our new cooking show.

RUTH: I don't know anything about food.

ALBERT: Before I convinced you to produce
Frisson Theater,
you didn't know anything about monster movies either.

RUTH:
(cynical)
And in a mere ten years my understanding has become positively… pathological. “Even a man who's pure in heart, and says his prayers at night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright.”

ALBERT: Here's the idea, Ruth—we're going to combine cooking with dancing.
Crockery Rock.
Catchy, eh? It'll probably make Channel 56 the biggest UHF station in Philadelphia.

RUTH: I once dated a man who wanted to create the largest hog wallow in Tuscaloosa.
(indicates vase)
What's this? Are you also launching an antiques show?

ALBERT: A very strange episode. I bought it from a sidewalk vendor on Market Street. Distinguished looking fellow. Well-dressed. Down on his luck, I guess. Mostly he was selling the usual junk—flimsy umbrellas, phony watches, wind-up toys—but then my eye caught what I'm pretty sure, knock on wood, kiss my shamrock, is a genuine
Ming vase!

RUTH: I know even less about antiques than I do about cooking.

ALBERT: He charged me ten dollars, but I'll bet it's worth a
thousand.
Naturally I hoofed it over to Chinatown right away. Two different restaurant owners told me it's quite possibly authentic.

RUTH: Authentic? Then forget about your thousand dollars, Albert. We're talking maybe a quarter of a million!

ALBERT:
(astonished)
Golly.

Ruth animates Erik the Orangutan, working his arms and dubbing his voice.

RUTH: Can I hold it, Mr. Meinster? Can I play with it?

Albert panics, hiding the porcelain vase behind his back.

ALBERT: I've got a second proposition for you, Ruth. An exquisite little Italian place just opened in Chestnut Hill. How about you and me twirl some linguini tonight?

RUTH:
(unenthused)
Sure, Albert. Sounds like fun. But remember…
(Lugosi imitation)
“I never drink… wine.”

ALBERT: We won't talk about Bela Lugosi, only interesting things. The Phillies.
Crockery Rock.
Jeez, Ruth, how did you
stand
being married all those years to a man who was obsessed with
horror films?

RUTH:
(corroborating)
He brought a Bell and Howell Autoload projector along on our honeymoon, plus his 16mm prints of
Dracula's Daughter
and
The Mummy's Ghost.

ALBERT: You should've bailed out then and there.

RUTH:
(defensive) The Mummy's Ghost
is actually a very romantic movie.
(wistful)
There's more to Edgar than you imagine.

ALBERT: So… how did he take the news?

RUTH:
(aghast)
I thought
you
were supposed to tell him.

ALBERT: No,
you
were supposed to tell him.

RUTH: No,
you
were.

ALBERT: No,
you
were.

RUTH:
You
were.

ALBERT:
You
were.

Suddenly the casket lid flies back, and an athletic man vaults from the chamber and lands on the floor, dressed in evening clothes and an Edwardian greatcoat. The new arrival is the same Edgar West we met earlier, only now he's on the spry side of forty. Albert is so startled he nearly drops the porcelain vase.

RUTH: Yikes!

ALBERT: Eeeggaahh!

RUTH: Shame on you, Edgar!

EDGAR:
(closing casket)
What's this big news you're both so eager to tell me?

ALBERT: I'm in dire need of a cup of coffee.

Albert exits, holding the vase firmly against his chest.

EDGAR: Is it
good
big news or
bad
big news?

RUTH:
(temporizing)
Sooo… what movie are we running this afternoon? I forget.

EDGAR:
The Mummy's Curse.
Stick around, okay, darling? You won't be disappointed. I've got a great bit worked out.

Edgar approaches the make-up kit. During the following exchange, he stares into the dangling mirror and transforms himself into Dr. Sarcophagus—puffy cheeks, protuberant teeth, billowing fright wig: Dr. Caligari's campy cousin.

RUTH: (
a kind of catechism
)
The Mummy's Hand… The Mummy's Tomb…The Mummy's Curse… The Mummy's Ghost
. Ah, so you're showing sequel number three.

EDGAR: (
mock distress
) No, no, no, it's
Hand, Tomb, Ghost, Curse
—don't you know
anything? Hand, Tomb, Ghost, Curse
.

Ruth winces, picks up Erik the Orangutan, and hugs the ape fiercely.

RUTH: Get ready for a kick in the teeth, Edgar. Ever since August our ratings have been slipping, and the advertisers are going through a lot of pain. So Albert decided—

EDGAR:
(launching into routine)
Three tana leaves, brewed into a reanimating fluid during the cycle of the full moon, will keep the Mummy's heart beating. Nine tana leaves will endow Kharis with mobility, dexterity, and libidinous impulses toward the Princess Ananka. Fifteen tana leaves will make him functional enough to run for Congress.

RUTH: SO Albert decided to cancel
Frisson Theater.
Today's broadcast is our last. Next week—

EDGAR: Twenty-one tana leaves enable Kharis to sire his own dynasty and dance like Fred Astaire.

RUTH:
(to Erik the Orangutan)
He's not listening to me.
(ape voice)
He's not listening to you.

EDGAR: Twenty-seven tana leaves, and they'll let him teach Egyptian Studies at Princeton.

RUTH: Next week Albert is replacing us with NCAA basketball.

EDGAR: Thirty-three tana leaves—
(double take)
Basketball?

RUTH: Villanova versus Northeastern.

Having transmuted into Dr. Sarcophagus, Edgar releases a howl of animal anguish and throws himself across the casket. As if responding to a cue, the floor manager, CINDY SMITH, a pert young Temple graduate, strides onto the set wearing headsets and holding a clipboard.

CINDY: You're on in six minutes, Mr. West.

EDGAR: Basketball? Basketball?
Anything
but basketball!

CINDY:
(to Ruth)
Sometimes I think he's better in rehearsals than during the broadcast.

Cindy executes an about-face and marches away. Edgar pushes off from the casket and stands up straight.

EDGAR:
(devastated)
Oh, Ruth, what are we going to
do?

Ruth approaches Edgar and gives him a succinct but heartfelt hug.

RUTH:
I'm
going to produce a stupid cooking show, and
you're… (beat)
I feel completely rotten about this.

EDGAR: Nobody remembers a basketball game two weeks or even two
days
after the broadcast.

RUTH: True.

EDGAR: Whereas
The Bride of Frankenstein
stays with you a lifetime. I could deal with getting blindsided by
Gilligan's Island
reruns, but
basketball…

RUTH: Maybe you could become a special guest host. Tell everybody the point guard is really dribbling a human brain.

EDGAR:
(intrigued)
Do you think they'd go for it?

Ruth scowls and rolls her eyes.

RUTH: There's a good chance Albert can find you a job in marketing.

EDGAR:
(sarcastic)
You two can talk about it during your big dinner date tonight.

Ruth takes Edgar's arm and strokes it affectionately.

RUTH: I'll never be able say “Frisson Theater” again without choking up.

EDGAR:
(attempting stoicism)
It was fun while it lasted.

RUTH: Remember when you needed a vat of epidermis to make a vulture stew for Granny Maleficium's arthritis, and you told the fans to send you some?

EDGAR: By the end of the week, the mail room was jammed with three thousand pounds of toenail clippings.

RUTH: And then we made our big discovery…

EDGAR: There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do with toenail clippings!

RUTH: Well, we did get
one
idea…

Edgar and Ruth point at each other and giggle.

EDGAR: Beanbags for bad children!

Giddy with rapport and nostalgia, Edgar and Ruth start laughing. Albert strides into the studio holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee, the porcelain vase secured under the opposite arm.

ALBERT: You're taking this setback awfully well, Edgar. I'm impressed.

EDGAR:
(pointing)
I'd never want a Ming vase in my house. Those things are such
clichés.
Like Stradivarius violins.

ALBERT: My intention is to
sell
it.

EDGAR: Or Dom Perignon champagne.

ALBERT:
(sarcastic, to Ruth)
The man has his own print of
Revenge of the Zombies,
and suddenly he's snooty about
clichés?