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But this time, the main character of his dream was claiming to exist. Claiming to have the exact background he’d given it, in the pilot. And this time, he’d created the show himself. He wasn’t just writing somebody else’s creative vision.

Something he’d created had awakened him and was telling him exactly what it wanted him to write. It was
telling him exactly how the Mercenary should blind an opponent with gouging knuckles; move for move, in vicious, colorized detail. And though he was half-convinced he was asleep, dreaming the whole thing, when he awoke in the morning, the fourth script was done.

I
loved Eddy. I know everyone here did.”

Alan looked down at notes; couldn’t keep his mind straight without them. The pain would rush in, start to rise. Erica and Alan’s father, Burt, were sitting together with Jordan, several network Scuds, and an immaculately dressed Andy Singer who’d cancelled a workout with his private trainer to make it.

When Jordan spotted Andy climbing out of the network limo, sad little face creped perfectly, buffed nails catching the gloomy sky, he told Alan that Andy was there to network. And to show Alan he cared, even though, Jordan assured him, he didn’t.

Eddy seemed asleep.

Over in the buffed mahogany box Alan had bought, hands folded, skin fluffed by the mortuary. Alan sensed
Eddy was listening to every word. Probably checking for grammatical imprecisions.

For Alan, it all felt disturbingly like his mother’s funeral. He could remember it so well, though it was a lifetime ago. He could close his eyes and still see a sunny day shrouded by bowed heads; confused children. A ceremony of abandonment.

“He gave me my start as a writer. He took time to care.”

He’d loved one of Eddy’s old CBS action series, written a spec script while still at Cornell and mailed it to Eddy’s production offices in Hollywood, instantly regretting the boldness. But to his stunned reaction, Eddy’s assistant had passed it on and Eddy had detected an arresting voice somewhere in the amateur soup of plot and dialogue. He wrote back to Alan with a systematic autopsy of the work, told him he had some talent, and encouraged him to try again. It was all Alan needed.

He began to write constantly, sending one script after another to Eddy, out in California.

After two years and the completion of his twentieth spec, Eddy told him it was time to consider coming out to the citrus bedlam and giving it a try for real. He’d even offered to let Alan stay in his guest house in Bel Air until he got on his feet. Alan had been floored by the generosity and ended up working on one of Eddy’s later ABC series “Rogues.”

He came to adore Eddy and the bottomless top hat of his mind. He was a scarred and difficult man who immobilized others with napalm moods; jarring candor. But working with Eddy got people Emmys as much as colitis, and Alan always saw past the exacting armor. Maybe it was
because Eddy was a bit like Alan’s own father, Burt. Maybe it was because Eddy was like Alan himself. A version that said what it thought, rather than finding the right fabric to cover it.

“… when I first met him, to tell you the truth, he scared the living hell out of me.”

Sweet smiles. Hands taking hands.

“He was … intimidating. Tall, strong.” Alan was looking at Eddy, speaking directly to him. The body was frail, like a dead child’s.

“… when he looked at you, he saw what was inside … who you were.”

A poignant still.

“When I met him, I was new to writing and insecure. I don’t think I was ready to be looked at.”

“After a few thousand bad scripts, I … finally felt like I earned it. Eddy looking me in the eye … it’s one of my proudest possessions.”

A wind came up and the weeping crowd looked up at trembling leaves; soft castanets. As if Eddy whispered greeting. Everyone seemed to feel it.

Alan looked at swaying treetops. The wind was blowing harder; moaning. Squirrels scrambled up trunks and across limbs, scared. On the many folding chairs, black clothing fluttered; sad sails. Faces seemed unnerved by the incoming storm and bodies huddled closer. Drops of rain fell. Alan grinned a little, held palms up.

“Bet you anything this was his idea. He hated funerals.”

A bit of laughter; human music. It sounded happy and alive, roving past inscribed stone; indexed death.

“You know, the truth is, I wouldn’t have become a
writer if I’d never met Eddy. Whatever talent I have, I have because he showed me what to do …”

He looked over at the body, as raindrops began to run down Eddy’s face like tears. He seemed for a moment, truly alive; understanding all these friends and family had come to say goodbye. To wish him a safe journey. To let him know how much they loved him.

Alan looked at the sky, the leaking clouds.

“I love you, Ed … wherever you are, keep them in line till we get there.”

Alan wiped tears, stepped down, and joined the line of bereaved who waited to walk by the damp coffin and bid farewell. Several spoke to him and said how they’d liked what he said. He didn’t hear them say how thin they thought he looked. How exhausted. Someone said they’d heard he’d been nervous and overworked. Another said he was sick. No one really questioned it.

Andy Singer left directly after the eulogy.

“He was a genius …” was all Andy could manage, before floating away in the limo, to get to a lunch with Howie Mandel.

Eddy’s widow was at the casket, talking to Eddy, and Alan waited. She and Alan had spent many days and nights together in the last year, in Eddy’s room at Cedars, listening to priceless hours close weak eyes; never wake again.

Sometimes, after they’d both read to Eddy and he’d finally drifted off, she’d sweetly thank Alan again for taking care of everything. When there was no money, no more insurance. Only sorrow and doubt.

“It was a beautiful eulogy,” she said to Alan, after kissing Eddy’s cheek and being led to a waiting car. Alan
loved her and worried what the months ahead would bring. She was so old, so dedicated to Eddy. So lost and childlike without him. Alan swore to himself he’d see to everything she needed.

He was next in line.

He leaned over the rain-spotted casket and stared numbly at the shiny skin and the reddish lips that tried to mimic blood; life. The hair was dyed, immaculately parted. He looked young; rewound twenty years by the ironing and glazes.

Rain fell and Alan wiped Eddy’s face with a handkerchief. The skin felt hard and artificial and Alan soaked up the rain drops that gathered beneath Eddy’s eyes.

“I love you …,” he whispered.

And as the others waited, Alan began to scream.

He grabbed strickenly onto the casket’s open edge and it teetered, rocking Eddy. It fell under Alan’s weight and Eddy’s body dropped out, white suit soaking in mud. Alan went pale and as mortuary workers replaced the body in its casket, he kept swearing the corpse had spoken to him; that the eyes had opened and Eddy had looked right at him. Alan was helped away by his father, Erica and Jordan.

The mortuary explained rain had loosened the epoxy, causing the eyes to open. But no one could explain the voice Alan said he’d heard. Most just said he was so overcome by the loss, he’d imagined the whole thing.

Wishing and hoping. Missing his mentor.

That night, as Alan tried to sleep, listening to restless tide stirring like adrenal fluid, he could still hear Eddy’s voice. The lifeless rasp, the little grin of dead teeth staring
up at him from his satin bed. Amused and warning, breath full of preserving chemicals.

“You went too far,” he had said. Then, he told Alan to make it stop. Exactly what the old man at the hospital had said when Alan had visited Eddy.

Word for word.

A
lan leaned on Erica and wept.

His life flashed, like a precognitive REM warning; a keyhole glimpse of a lifeless form slumped somewhere in his thoughts. A sense nothing good could come from new days. Only tragedy, despair; as if hearing one’s body bleeding deep within, where it’s black and life seeps away without witness.

The limo did a plush crawl through Forest Lawn and Erica stroked his head.

“I know …” she whispered.

It was an unexpected bridging and he held her more tightly, at home in her arms, the heat of her skin.

“I haven’t cried … since my mom.”

Her soft hands touched his face, covered his eyes. She
pulled him to her blouse, unbuttoned the front. Cradled his head against her breasts.

“Eddy loved you. He’ll always love you,” she whispered and Alan clung to her more, as the long car was swallowed in rain.

A
lan? Jordan. What’re you doing?”

“I just had lunch delivered and I’m writing. What do you want, Jordan? In midthought here.”

“Just take a second. Wanna run something by you. If it’s not for you, no problem.”

Alan made a go-ahead sound and chewed salad he’d had brought from Granita, up the road, across from the Malibu Colony. The sky looked like it was coming down with something. He needed a script to put into preproduction in two days and had nothing. The three freelancers who’d delivered needed heavy re-writes and Marty was going nuts. Lauren was trying to keep him out of her hair and Alan knew the only answer was to just stay home, away from all the phones and blast one out. It fixed everything.

“Look, the agency just signed one of those ‘Pimp and Tearduct’ couples who do a cable Bible show and—”

“Jordan, could you hurry this up.”

Jordan started talking faster.

“Okay, well … cut to the chase … they’re pulling in like a hundred million a year in blue-hair phone calls and just finished building a theme park based on Noah’s ark, called Love Land.”

“Uh-huh … and?”

“Much bigger than Jim and Tammy but same basic coo-beg vibe. Theme park confiscates your life savings in exchange for salvation and some water rides.”

“So … what’s the question?”

“HBO wants to develop a vehicle for them and they’d love to meet with you on your take.”

“My take? Jordan, I don’t have a take. If they want a vehicle, how ’bout just running them over with a fucking tank?” He was biting into a scampi that sat like a big, dead, pink comma on his plate.

“Totally agree. So, it’s a pass?”

“Jordan …”

“We could get you a very favorable back-end definition. My thought was, you could write something like this in your sleep.”

“I don’t have time to sleep.”

“What page you on?”

“I don’t know … one?”

“Good trend. Talk later. Everything else is okay? I hear Corea is being impossible on the set.”

Corea was blowjobbing on stardom and trying to fuck every woman who worked on the set, including guest stars. He was asking more and more for multiple takes on every shot to “refine his performance” and bitched about scripts, demanding rewrites. America loved him. Alan
couldn’t stand him. The show couldn’t operate smoothly with ego problems. It was becoming a major headache.

“Fucker wants pussy and an Emmy … what else is new?” Jordan upshifted. “Everything else is good?”

Before Alan could answer, Jordan suddenly sounded like he was at gunpoint. “Alan, can we pick it up later, I got Arnold on four … I’ll get back.”

There was a dial tone. Alan stared at the phone. It was glaring at him. He took it off the hook, stared out at sky that looked like dead skin and started thinking about page two.

A
voice; graveyard leaves.

“Alan …?”

Faraway.

“Where are you …?”

“QE II. Middle of the Atlantic. Fitting, don’t you think?” No answer. “It’s very wet outside this boat. Must be an ocean or something, do you suppose?” Words slurring. “Didn’t think I’d find you home on New Year’s. Don’t you have anything to celebrate?”

“It runs in the family.”

She began to describe the weather. The water. The sky. Nothing; a gallows of words, despair. “Interesting don’t you think, sweetheart?”

“What’s that, Mom …?” He was keeping his voice down. Bouquets of fireworks rose in sky. Boarding school
students laughed; Heineken zoo voices. His roommate snowballed the window, a soft grenade.

“Nothing. I lost my thought.” A new entry code. “So … how’s everything? Are you dating? How’s school, how’s your writing, grades, health, am I prying?”

He smiled. Bowed his head, unhappily. “I’m fine.”

The ship-to-shore hissed; a closed garage filling with car exhaust.

“Must be late, Mom. You should get some sleep.”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve given it up. I don’t like the waking-up part …”

“… too many unexpected twists?”

She made a sound of happy agreement and he could see her staring into black sea. Her world in eclipse.

“Big boat?” Conversation.

“Titanic.”

They both chuckled a bit and he fought an album of child’s images. Closed eyes to forget, but couldn’t. He watched himself going into his parents’ room, when he was seven. Hopping up onto the bed with his mother. Listening to snow strike glass together. Watching Cary Grant movies on TV, loving his mannered perfection. Eating M&M’s. Hours had raced; faded. Until the marriage went bad. Until hours got long and black, when days died, one after another.

“I met a very insipid man at dinner. Some kind of intellectual, according to him.” A bleeding silence. “We strolled the deck and he explained the genesis of shuffleboard.”

“Sounds riveting.”

“He should have gone into riveting.”

He could see her struggling cheer; the upturned discipline of it.

“Heard from your father?”

It was a trap. “Mom … did you take this trip alone?”

“What are you saying? Are you afraid I’m going to do myself in?” The amusement was ceremonial; propped-up. “Just because I’m feeling … a bit at sea.” A swallow. “I think that was a good one. Was that a good one?” He told her it was and she told him to remember that distraught states were a part of the family DAN.

“DNA.”

Her voice posed; a coy lean. “Of course, DNA. What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know. What were you thinking?” He became serious. Trying to find her behind the chatty foliage. He hated when she drank. But she was so sick; it had to be irresistible.