“Forty,” I say. “Maybe we can talk.”
He snaps and throws an M&M at me. It hits my nose. “You fucker. You left me in the desert, in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I could have died.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“Maybe we can talk?” He pours M&M’s into this mouth. “Maybe you can go fuck yourself.”
“Did you call the cops?”
“None of your business,” he says.
“Look,” I say. “Obviously, we’re both upset.”
He is exasperated. “Did you seriously just say that we both have reason to be upset?”
“Just hold on.”
“Look, psycho, I know you’re from a broken home and I know you came here with no friends and no family and no nothing, but my God, Professor, you are not a fucking retard.”
“Don’t use that word, Forty.”
“You’re right,” he says. “Professors graduate from college. They work at colleges. You never even went to college.”
I seethe. Forty eats another M&M. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Number one rule of Hollywood,” he says. “Shit I learned when I was an intern at CAA for two weeks.” Only Forty would have a two-week-long internship. “Don’t burn bridges.”
“Just tell me what you want.”
“I want you to listen,” he says. “You can’t burn bridges because LA is not like a hospital. The fucker mopping up this floor, he’s not gonna be operating on you next month. It doesn’t work that way. In this business, people get places and you don’t know how they got there but they get there. And then the guy wiping the floor, he’s running the studio.”
I hate it when he has a point. “Forty, they’re all gonna be back any minute,” I say. “What do you want?
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” he says. Roosevelt. “A white fluffy dog but my mom is allergic. That’s where the title of Boots and Puppies really comes from. We had this puppy for like a minute, and we loved the shit out her. We named her Boots and Mom made us get rid of her because Mom was allergic. Fucking broke Love’s heart.”
Liars lie and I can’t betray Love and families do this. Each person gets to invent a history, a version of the injustices, the pets, the names. I will never know the Quinns the way Milo does, Milo who is probably sitting in a Quinn sandwich right now. “What are you trying to say?” I ask.
“That I’m a fucking grown-up,” he says. “A hot shit screenwriter and I’m my own person making my own bucks so I’m getting a dog. And you know what I’m gonna call that fucking dog?”
I know what he’s going to call the fucking dog and I don’t want to say it out loud. But I think of my child. This is what parents do. They sacrifice. “You’re calling it Professor,” I say.
He nods. “Professor,” he repeats. “Prof for short. Here’s the deal, Prof. You are gonna write what I tell you to write, when I tell you to write it.”
“Forty—”
He talks through me. “You are gonna churn out shit like you’re the guy in Misery fucking chained to the bed by the fat chick,” he says. “You will write and I will earn and if you ever even so much as think about telling my sister what we’re doing, you fucking dog, I will put your ass in prison so fast you won’t know what hit you.” He barks at me, as if he’s the dog, and he’s too fucked up from pills and Veuve to keep his analogies straight. “And you will be fucking loyal or I will kick your ass. I own you now. The end.”
I try to breathe. Forty throws another M&M at me.
“I said, did you hear me?” he asks.
I look at him. “You expect me to believe you’re not going to the cops?”
“I hate cops,” he says. “It’s tedious and there are so many questions and lawyers.”
“You could have died out there and you want to work with me? You expect me to believe that?” I shake my head. “Forty, here’s what I expect. I expect to walk out of this room and get clocked and come to in an hour tied up in some fucking basement.”
He grins. “There it is,” he says. “That imagination.”
“I left you in the desert,” I say. “So don’t fucking tell me we’re gonna be business partners.”
“You’re not a good killer,” he says. “Obviously. But you’re a hell of a good writer.” The sick fuck eats more M&M’s and proceeds to tell me that I’m worth more alive than dead. “Look,” he says. “I don’t care about any of this shit. I don’t care about getting sick and getting better and I don’t care about getting married and having kids and getting healthy.” He breaks. Choking. He’s back. “All I care about is gold. I want an Oscar. I’ve wanted one my whole fucking life. You can’t buy ’em, I mean, not technically. And I sure as hell didn’t come close to getting one for the last fifteen years and now you, motherfucker, you’re gonna get me my Oscar.”
And he goes back to his Cosbys. He really doesn’t care about Love, about any of the Hallmark human joys we’re programmed to want, family and holidays, joy. He knows what I am, what I did. And he would still allow me to fuck his sister, but then, his sister knows about me too and still she wants me and of course she does. Of course he does. “I’d fuck Denise,” he says. And of course he would. Twins. And my child shares his genetic coding and this is why we have war, because no gene pool is perfect.
A nursing assistant barges in to take Forty’s vitals and she is cheery and pretty and she thinks it’s so amazing how Forty has such a big and loving family. “I wish everyone could have what you guys have,” she says. “It’s so sad when people are here and they don’t have anybody.”
“You know what I’d like to do?” Forty asks.
The nurse cuffs him. Blood pressure. Not real cuffs. I wish. “What’s that?” she chirps.
“I’d like for you, when you have time, to take all of these flowers and all of these balloons and disperse them to all the people on this floor who have no family around.”
She looks at me. “Could you just die?” she asks. “This family is the best, right? If they’re not bringing in sushi for us then they’re showering the whole floor with flowers.” She puts a thermometer in Forty’s mouth. “I hate to say this, but I wish you could stay with us forever.”
“Me too,” I say.
Forty looks at me. The nurse says he has no temperature and he’ll be out of here in a jiffy and Love and Milo and Dottie and Ray return and the party continues. Forty reminds his mother about their plan for me and she says that they want to start a book club at the Pantries. “You’ll choose one book a month to spotlight,” she says. “We can even use you in the signage.”
Love squeezes my hand. “I love this idea,” she says. “Don’t you love this?”
“I love it,” Forty says. “Dad, do you love it?”
Ray nods. “Professor Joe,” he says and now the Quinns are debating what the first book should be and Love elbows me and says it should be The Easter Parade and I cringe and I should not have told her that detail about Amy. I do not want her referencing Amy, ever. Forty says it should be Misery and Ray thinks that’s a good idea and Dottie only ever saw the movie and Milo says the book and movie are both great and this is my life now. Or it is until Forty’s memory miraculously comes back. He could do that to me at any moment, turn me in, take it all away. And I can’t kill him, not now that Love knows what I am, not when she could suspect me. He’s my new mug of piss, alive and well and wiping his nose. Love may have forgiven me for everything else, but she would never forgive me for hurting her brother. Professor Joe would be a terrible moniker for a serial killer.