That’s right.’
‘Now I don’t think that’s convincing dramatically, John.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it suggests to the audience that he’s stronger than I am.’
‘That’s right. I mean, he’s only twenty and you’re — you’re a mature man.’
‘But I know that kid you’ve been testing. He’s a punk! I could rip him to fucking pieces with my bare hands!’
‘But people won’t know you could do that, Lorne. They’ll think he won because he’s forty years younger than you are.’
‘Ah! I get it. You think just because I’m not as young as he is, he’s stronger than I am. Crap!’
7 don’t think that, Lorne. But everyone else will.’
‘Okay, okay. I’m a reasonable man. We’ll do it this way. And, yeah, I want this whole scene in the nude, we’re all nude, that’s definite. I won’t sacrifice that, that idea. Now. I’m fucking Caduta, right? And I mean really fucking her. The woman’s in — Wait. No. This is Butch. I just fucked Caduta, now I’m fucking Butch, right? And I mean really fucking her. The woman’s in tears, right out of control. She’s hysterical, John. Then this young actor walks in—he’s nude too — for the showdown. And I spring out of bed, naked as I am, and I just start to tear him to fucking pieces. I’m damn near killing the guy when Butch, in the nude, starts shouting, “Lorne! Lorne, baby! Honey, what are you doing! Stop, sweetheart, please stop!” And I realize I been — that the animal in me, because, John, it’s a terrible world we’re living in, John, it’s a really crazy, awful… world. So Butch and Caduta lead me away. I’m damn near in tears on account of what I’ve done to the guy. Then this youngpunk comes up behind me and hits me on the head with a car-tool. John? What do you say.’
‘Lorne? We’ll see.’
‘No. No! You’ll see. Yes you will!’
Crack.
I replaced the receiver and stared at my lap. On it lay a cellophaned wallet of Guyland press handouts — this was where I’d scribbled his number. Running my eye down the page I saw that Lorne had, in his time, on stage or screen, interpreted the roles of Genghis Kan, Al Capone, Marco Polo, Huckleberry Finn, Charlemagne, Paul Revere, Erasmus, Wyatt Earp, Voltaire, Sky Masterson, Einstein, Jack Kennedy, Rembrandt, Babe Ruth, Oliver Cromwell, Amerigo Vespucci, Zorro, Darwin, Sitting Bull, Freud, Napoleon, Spiderman, Macbeth, Melville, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Methuselah, Mozart, Merlin, Marx, Mars, Moses and Jesus Christ. I didn’t have the lowdown on every last one of these guys but presumably they were all bigshots. Perhaps, then, it wasn’t so surprising that Lorne had one or two funny ideas about himself.
Oh, what a long day. Dah! what a day. You know what the time is, my time? Four o’clock in the afternoon. Hey, if you were here now, sister mother daughter lover (niece, auntie, granny), maybe we could talk a bit and cuddle down together—nothing dirty. Only spoons. Maybe you’d let me rest my great face in the gentle bracket between the wings of your shoulderblades. That’s all I have in mind, believe me. I know you for a pure creature. You don’t drink or smoke or screw around that much, I’ll bet. Am I wrong? That is what I love in you … Now the way I figured it I had six realistic options. I could sack out right away, with some scotch and a few Serafim. I could go back to the Happy Isles and see what little Moby was up to. I could call Doris Arthur. I could catch a live sex show around the corner, in bleeding Seventh Avenue. I could go out and get drunk. I could stay in and get drunk.
In the end I stayed in and got drunk. The trouble was, I did all the other things first. Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It’s passing, yet I’m the one who is doing all the moving. I’m not the station, I’m not the stop: I’m the train. I’m the train.