We reached the cross and J. C. searched in back and snorted a bitter laugh of relief, pulling out a sack that made liquid sounds.
Christs blood in a brown bag in an unmarked bottle. What has the ceremony come to? He drank, and drank again. What do I do now? Climb up, nail myself, and wait for them?
Them?!
God, boy, its a matter of time! Then Im spiked through the wrists, hung by my ballistics! Clarence is dead! How?
Smothered under his photographs. J. C. stiffened. Who says?
I saw, J. C., but told no one. He knew something and was killed. What do you know!?
Nothing! J. C. shook his head terribly. No!
Clarence, outside the Brown Derby two nights ago, recognized a man. The man raised his fists! Clarence ran! Why?
Dont try to find out! said J. C. Lay off. I dont want you dragged down with me. Theres nothing I can do now but wait J. C.s voice broke. With Clarence killed, it wont be long before they think I put him up to going to the Brown Derby
Did you!?
And me? I thought. Did you write to ask me to be there, too!?
Who was it, J. C. They, who is they?! People are dying all over the place. My friend Roy, too, maybe!
Roy? J. C. paused, furtively. Dead? Hes lucky. Hiding? No use! Theyll get him. Like me. I knew too much for years.
How far back? Why?
I might be dead, too. Ive stumbled on something but Im damned if I know what. Roy stumbled on something and hes dead or on the run. My God, someone has killed Clarence because he stumbled on something. Its a matter of time before they figure, What the hell, maybe I know Clarence too well, and kill me, to be sure. Damn it, J. C., Mannys shutting the studio for two days. To clean up, repaint.
God, no. Its for Roy! Think! Tens of thousands of dollars out the window to find one crazy goof whose only crime was living ten million years back, who ran amok with one clay beast and has a price on his head. Why is Roy so important? Why, like Clarence, does he have to die? You. The other night. You said you were high up on Calvary. You saw the wall, the ladder, the body on the ladder. Could you see the face of that body?
It was too far away. J. C.s voice shook.
Did you see the face of the man who put the body on the ladder? It was dark
Was it the Beast? The what?
The man with the melted pink wax face and the fleshed-over right eye and the awful mouth? Did he shove that fake body up the ladder to scare the studio, scare you, scare me, and blackmail everyone somehow for some reason? If I must die, J. C., why cant I know why? Name the Beast, J. C.
And really get you dead? No!
A truck veered around the studio backlot corner. It ran by Calvary,
throwing dust, blowing its horn. Watch out, idiot! I yelled. The truck dusted off.
And J. C. with it.
A man thirty years older than I, running fast. Grotesque! J. C. a-gallop, robes flapping in the dusty wind, as if to take off, fly, shouting gibberish to the skies.
Dont go to Clarences! I almost shouted.
Dumb, I thought. Clarence is too far ahead. Youll never catch up!!
Fritz was waiting with Maggie in Projection Room 10. Where you been? he cried. Guess what? Now we got no middle for the film!
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 doing here? Telling lies, pulling faces. To make a film that twenty million people run to or away from.
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 didnt help.
At four-thirty I excused myself to run to the Mens. There in the vomitorium I lost the color in my cheeks. The vomitorium. Thats what all writers call restrooms after theyve heard their producers 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 wouldnt 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 dont 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.
Thats a big job for a new writer! I exclaimed. The time element!
All in the next three days! Weve held the cast. Im 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 Im 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. Youre not Jewish; dont try for guilt. He thrust pages at me. Write, rewrite. Re-rewrite!
You sure Manny wants me on this?
Hed rather tie you between two horses and fire off a gun, but thats life. Hate a little. Then hate a lot.
What about The Dead Ride Fast? He wants me back on that! Since when? Fritz was on his feet.
Since half an hour ago. But he cant do that without
Right. Roy. And Roys gone. And Im supposed to find him. And the studio is being shut for forty-eight hours to rebuild, repaint what doesnt need repainting.
Jerks. Dumb asses. Nobody tells me anything. Well, we dont 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 McPhersons Angelus Temple.
I beg your pardon, sir, said a barely restrained womans 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 mans. 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 Gods wrath! And mine!
I let the phone drop.
Christ, I moaned to Fritz, is resurrected.
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 are the young friend of that creature in there, yes?
J. C.?
J. C.! What a criminal abomination! Yes, J. C.! Im his friend.
What a pity. Quickly, now!
And he elbow-carried me in and down the aisle of the main auditorium. It was deserted. From on high came the soft sound of feathers, a flight of angel wings. Someone was testing the sound system with various heavenly murmurs.
Where is? I stopped.
For there, center stage, on the bright twenty-four-karat throne of God, sat J. C.
He sat rigidly, eyes looking straight out through the walls of the church, his hands placed, palms up, on either armrest.
J. C. I trotted down the aisle and stopped again.
For there was fresh blood dripping from each of the cicatrices on his exposed wrists.
Isnt he awful? That terrible man! Out! cried the Reverend behind me. Is this a Christian church? I said.
How dare you ask!
Dont you think, at a moment like this, I wondered, that Christ himself might show mercy?
Mercy!? cried the Reverend. He broke into our service, yelling, I am the true Christ! I fear for my life. Gangway! He ran to the stage to display his wounds. He might as well have exposed himself. Forgive? There was shock and almost a riot. Our congregation may never come back. If they tell, if the newspapers call, you see? He has made us a laughing stock. Your friend!
My friend but my voice lacked luster as I climbed up to stand by the ham Shakespearean actor.
J. C., I called, as across an abyss.
J. C.s eyes, fixed on eternity, blinked, refocused. Oh, hello, junior, he said. Whats going on?
Going on?! I cried. Youve just made yourself one helluva mess!
Oh, no, no! J. C. suddenly saw where he was and held up his hands. He stared as
