Flicker (62 page)

“Oh? I didn't realize.”

“Yes. He thought you might be of some help to us. Or rather to Simon.”

“What sort of help?”

“We will speak of this later. After the screening.”

“We're going to see a movie?”

“Simon's latest, yes. Didn't Mr. Sharkey tell you? We would like to have your opinion.”

“And will we have the chance to talk to Simon?”

“Of course. He wants very much to meet you. He is also a great admirer of Max Von Kastell. You will have much to talk about, I'm sure. Simon, unfortunately, must avoid the sunlight. His eyes, you know. We will join him at the studio when he is ready for us.”

Nodding toward the pool, I remarked, “Your school in Zurich was somewhat more … austere.”

Brother Justin gave me a toothy smile. “One makes adaptions to local custom. Zurich is the home of Zwingli. California is the home of Woody Woodpecker. Actually, this is not the school. The campus is about two miles in that direction. This is our guest house and production facility. Simon's stamping ground, so to speak. We try to maintain some distinction between the two. I believe you would find the school itself rather more reserved. Here, we meet the people Simon is involved with in his work. Movie people, performers …”

“Simon is involved with Bobby Pox?”

“Indeed,” Brother Justin announced with obvious pride. “Mr. Pox has done the music for Simon's films. He and his friends are also here for the screening.”

There was an outburst from the pool. One of the girls—the one
sans
bathing suit—hauled herself out of the water, screaming, “Screw you, Humper! You tryin' to drown me? Screw you!” She ran to Bobby Pox, wrapped herself in a towel, and cuddled up under his arm, complaining. “You see him tryin' to eat me under water? Whatta pervert!”

Looking not at all apologetic, Brother Justin offered an indulgent nod and smile. “The young people these days … so libertine, so
outspoken. They are, however, Simon's main audience. What is one to do?”

I didn't know how to put the question delicately. “Don't you find Simon's films rather … extreme, especially for a young audience?”

Brother Justin sighed. “I'm sure I needn't tell you, Professor Gates, it is an extreme age. Young people cannot be shielded from this fact. In truth, they seem better adapted to the prevailing moral condition than many of the rest of us. They are able to tolerate stronger stimulation.”

“Even to crave it,” Sister Helena added.

“And you see fit to encourage that?”

As if it were a law of nature, Sister Helena stated, “Art must reflect its times.”

There was a truckload of aesthetic issues I might have raised at that point, but I reminded myself that I'd come to learn, not to argue. “Would I be right in believing that Simon is the first director your church has trained since Max Castle?”

“The first in many years,” Brother Justin answered. “There were a few others of Kastell's generation, less prominent than he. Since then, direction has not been our main focus.”

“I gathered from Dr. Byx that the church's experience with Max Castle was unsatisfactory. That's why you stopped training directors.”

“There is some truth in that. But it is not the whole story. As you well understand, direction is a matter of artistry. And how difficult it is to teach artistry. So much a matter of fashion. We wish to make certain our pupils will find employment. So we have stayed close to the more marketable skills.”

“Is that really your only interest—finding jobs for your pupils?”

“What else?” he asked. He smiled pleasantly, but I could sense an intense curiosity behind the grin.

“You might want to use the motion pictures to teach some of the principles of your faith.”

Brother Justin and Sister Helena exchanged a bewildered look. “But what might those be?” Brother Justin asked.

“Well, I don't know that much about your church … I couldn't say.”

Brother Justin gave an amused shrug. “How could that possibly be done, in any case? Do you believe the producers, the studios would permit us to do such a thing? Can you imagine Elizabeth Taylor,
Marlon Brando delivering a sermon in the midst of one of their movies?” He chuckled. Sister Helena echoed his little laugh.

“No, I didn't mean anything like that.”

“But what, then?” He spread his hands before him as if sincerely pleading for an answer.

“You understand, Professor,” Sister Helena interjected, “that our pupils—with the exception of Simon, who is uniquely gifted—work on film in a purely technical capacity. This gives them very little influence over the content of the work they do.”

“Well, yes, that's true,” I admitted, not wanting to press the point in the face of their denial.

“Dr. Byx tells me,” Brother Justin continued, “that you were surprised to learn that our pupils had once worked upon the films of the Ritz Brothers and Shirley Temple. Now, frankly, Professor Gates, can you imagine the Ritz Brothers associated with a religious teaching?“

They were beginning to make me feel foolish for raising the matter. I tried to think of a way to change the subject when Sharkey came to my rescue.

“Hey, Jonny, you gotta meet the maestro here,” he said, pulling at my elbow. “Wait'll you hear. Bobby's doing the music for Dunkle's new flick.” He announced the fact as if it were the cultural event of the century.

“So I've just heard,” I told him. I turned and edged my chair in Bobby Pox's direction, trying to look impressed and interested. “I know I've heard your group,” I lied. Unable to think of how else to begin, I asked, “Let's see … it's called …”

Pox gave me no answer, only his standard bored-stiff glare. Sharkey reminded me. “The Stinks. Stinks for Extinction. They're the ultimate.”

Bobby Pox frowned at Sharkey. “More than ultimate.
Pen
-ultimate.”

I wondered if I should correct the misusage, but decided not to. Pox might consider it hostile.

“That's Heavy Metal, isn't it?” I was trying another feeble feeler, but saw at once I was only revealing my ignorance.

The half-naked girl under Pox's arm made a sour face. “Bobby, he way past that shit.” When she spoke, I saw that her front upper teeth had been filed into stilettolike fangs. Like Pox, she also had scars
tattooed across her cheeks. And emerging from her left nostril there was a tattoo of something like a worm curling down toward her mouth. With one strip of stringy orange hair, stretched across her stubbly scalp, she was without a doubt the ugliest human specimen I'd ever seen.

Sharkey interpreted the meaning of her response for me. “These things change fast. Heavy Metal's big now, sure. But Bobby's into the next thing coming up. Which is Morb Culture.”

“Morb? That's postpunk?” I asked.

Pox finally spoke up, answering impatiently. “Shee-it, man, we're postapocalyptic.”

I looked back, puzzled. “But how can you be …”

“Because on account we're lookin' back at the world from the other side of it. Which is, to wit, we're startin' from total racial suicide.”

The girl creature beside him giggled approval. “See, see?” she said. “Real lethal, yum, hum. Tell him ‘bout fanny cycler.”

“Yeah, sure,” Pox went on. “See, that's the evolutionary psychorhythmics of the total cosmos. The sixties, the seventies, you raise hell, you kick ass, you give a shit. But what we're gettin' into is the fanny cycler. When you got that comin' down on you, that's absolute depletion.”

“The fanny cycler …?” I asked.

Decker intervened to rectify the phrase.
“Fin de siècle.
You see, Punk, Heavy Metal … these are highly energized styles, appropriate to the mid-century. They rejected the past and the present as part of their protest. But Morb is rejecting the future as well.”

“Which would seem to leave … nothing,” I observed.

“Fuckin' right,” Pox agreed with an arrogant sniff. Loosening up now that he'd found me reasonably respectful, he lay back in his chair, ready to hold forth, a man of ambitious vision. “See, you take a group like, specifistically, the Crucifugs. You know them?”

I didn't, but I said I did.

“The Crucifugs are into balls-out Satanism. Blasphemy, ritual sacrifice, Antichrist, all like that. Which is okay. Which is where the scene is at as of the on-line moment. But, see, they're still fightin'. Because like they got a cause. You got a cause, you wanna win, you wanna survive. Now the Morb stance is as to wit: Why bother? I mean, fuck it, you live, you die, you eat, you get eaten, what's the difference? Like extinction, why fight it,
comprendo?”

“Just have big fun,” said the girl under his arm. “Eat 'em up, eat
'em up. Yum. We the last generation.” And she gave a wicked little snicker.

Was I supposed to be agreeing with this dismal line of thought? I nodded, as if engaged by the subject. And then realized I honestly was! This was, after all, part of Simon Dunkle's world and, in some way I didn't yet grasp, part of Max Castle's as well. “Whose idea was Morb?” I asked Pox. “Yours or Simon's?”

“I'd say it was intermutual. See, the time was ripe, this being the bi-lemillion and all comin' up, it was like
ipso facto.”

Decker corrected. “Bi-millennium. The year 2000.”

“Yeah, like that,” Pox went on. “Dunk and me, we just kicked into the same vibration simul-ten-atiously. Dunk's been scopin' out the rock scene right along. And where I was at, methodologically, was you couldn't do pure Morb without goin' on film. So that's where we synergized, him and me.”

“Explain that,” I said. “What does film give you?”

“Well, hell,” Pox answered as if it should be obvious, “we already pushed theatrics as far as it can go. There's only so much you can do on a stage without crashin' your ass or gettin' busted. I mean, fuck, you do castration or arson on stage, you're limited. People see you're fakin'. And if you're not, hey, lookit crazy old Iggy Pop. That son of a bitch is takin' self-immolation to the max. You know what happened to that dumb fucker last time he jumped into the audience like he does? Somebody tried to bite his pecker off.”

Sharkey, always prompt to put the relevant question, piped up to ask, “Who was it tried? Male or female?”

“You ever seen his audience? Who could tell the difference? Anyway, s'pose somebody did eat his dick. How many times can he do that gig? But with film, you do it once and you do it good. And the whole world gets in on it up close. Rape, dismemberment, whatever, you got the intimacy factor, you got the replay factor, you got the actuality factor.”

“Actuality?”

“Yeah. Like
real.
On film, you can make it real.”

Confusion was compounding painfully in my mind. “But film isn't ‘real,' ” I protested. “I mean, well, yes, it's ‘real' as a work of art. But it's … composed, constructed. The way all art is.” People were staring at me blankly on all sides. For God's sake, how basic did I have to make this? “Look, film is …
film.
Luelluloid.”

“Acetate, actually,” Sharkey volunteered.

“All right, acetate. You know what I mean. It isn't flesh, blood… .”

“Well, what you put
on
film is real,” Pox insisted, as if he were making the most self-evident point in the world. “I mean, it
can
be real. Which is to wit the beauty part. Because, if you handle yourself right, the law can't tell whether you're fakin' or what the fuck. How they gonna know? You can get away with anything.”

“They did
me
in the flick,” the vampire-toothed lady at Pox's side put in.

“Did
you?”

“Bang-bang. Whole tribe.” She tittered. “I was the star.”

I didn't even want to imagine what she might mean. “What flick was this?” I asked.

“What we gonna see. Hey, it was the real thing, man. There was even blood.” She emitted a proud little smirk.

Pox gave her an affectionate hug, leaning over to bite her ear—hard. “Slutty bleeds real good.”

Slutty. That was the she-monster's name. And why not?

I passed Sharkey an urgently inquisitive glance. How seriously was I to take all this? Sharkey grinned back gleefully, a man in his element. “It's no holds barred, kiddo. These dudes are into wraparound reality. You heard of MTV?”

At the time, I hadn't. Rock video was still in its infancy, working its way through small production studios around Los Angeles. Briefly, Sharkey, in his role of ambassador to the world of adolescent inanity, described the genre to me, displaying his usual enthusiasm for its most extreme effects: heavy-duty sex, aggressive obscenity, mindless violence. When he had finished, I hazarded to comment that nothing he told me sounded quite like my idea of film art. “Isn't this just a kind of promotional gimmick for the record industry?”

“To a degree, that's true,” Decker joined in to agree. “The record companies are bankrolling MTV. But what actually gets put on film—that they leave up to the producers, who have a pretty accurate idea of what their audience wants.”

“Rape, dismemberment, all like that,” I added, echoing Bobby Pox.

Only Decker detected the sarcasm, acknowledging it with no more than a slightly embarrassed laugh. “Often enough, yes. In some form. Though not necessarily quite so cinema verité as I gather Slutty's experience may have been.”

This left me puzzled. “Do you mean Simon is making films to promote rock music?”

“No, no, no,” Decker replied. “Simon's into his own thing. His own themes, his own imagery. Film before music. But he has found Bobby here and others quite compatible with his vision.”

“Epic,” Pox chimed in. “Dunk is givin' us epic MTV. He's gonna be the Cecil Beedee Mill of rock video.”