Soon she would go to the cantor, to save her soul. She didn’t care what it took. She would corner him, talk to him, make him touch her. He had a wife but that meant nothing. She would ask him to sing — to her alone. She would tell him that spices rode on his voice and that he should stop putting grease in his hair. She would say she was lost in the Rub al Khali and would he please take her arm lest she be swallowed by the dunes.
Simon decided to wait a few weeks before calling Calliope to apologize. They’d been through this type of blow-up before. The bad part was, this time he needed rent money.
He came up with a great idea for a Blue Matrix episode. Simon would call it “Heart of Arknes,” Arknes being the name of the Vorbalidian navigator’s long-lost mother, a fierce warrioress who died in a tribal feud when Fista — Hassan DeVore — was a boy. His idea was to bring her back as a hologram, the computer-simulated virtual images of dead loved ones made available to lonesome crew members on request. Fista “checks her out” at the library but begins having doubts; the ectype seems too real. What if it’s more than just a hologram? Fista starts seeing Mom everywhere — on the bridge, the engine room, infirmary — this time wearing nurse’s whites; that time, ensign’s blues. Fista fears for his sanity. After a violent outburst, the Captain throws him in the brig to cool off. Only one person believes him: Statler, the Malclovian hermaphrodite and ship’s cook.
He fantasized about success. After all, his story idea was sound and there was personal entrée — not only was a Matrix producer a former client, but the series’ star was emotionally dependent on his mother. Simon surmised that psychologically, on all kinds of weird Freudian levels, Hassan DeVore would be dying to please Calliope by doing her son this favor, even if the whole business might appall her. He would have to keep his mother from finding out until after the fact, until the thing was on the air, if that was possible. He’d make sure to inform Hassan that secrecy must be maintained, this was an adventure, a “gift” to her from the two of them. Simon ached to be another Harlan Ellison — or Dean Koontz. He read in People that Koontz had a full-time staff whose sole function was to keep track of worldwide royalties. Things would be different once Calliope saw the In Style photo spread of Simon at his Santa Ynez ranch, romping with Arknes 1 and Arknes 2, his purebred Rhodesian ridgebacks. He’d make sure the guards turned her away at the gate if she didn’t call first. Mitch the fame-slave would kiss Simon’s ass so deep they’d need the Jaws of Life to pry him out. No estoy problemo! Simon would still go on dead animal treasure hunts, for the sake of photo op and keeping his hand in. It’d be good press to show the Emmy-winning oddball under a house, doin’ what came naturally. Harlan typed short stories in bookstore windows; Andy Kaufman bused tables; Larry Hagman wore chicken suits to his own black-tie galas. Why shouldn’t Simon Krohn man the maggot brigade? The Pet Sematary pinup would even keep the scurvy Datsun pickup — that’s right, leave it right there in the garage between the Corniche and the Cobra. He might eventually buy an exterminating business, that would be the coup d’éclat. A profitable one, at that.
The phone rang. Serena wanted him to come to the house again. He reflexively began the sixty-five-dollars-just-to-say-hello spiel but stopped himself. She had pots of money; that made it easier. She was lonely, that’s all. He’d make a token inspection, then sit awhile, like a volunteer at a hospice.
When he got there, it was late afternoon. Simon hung back in the entryway. The regressed old woman sat on the living room couch while a doctor gathered up his medical bag. “If the spasms return, I want you to call.” Serena nodded meekly. The nurse stood by the piano watching, vaguely aroused, vaguely punitive. “You’ll promise to call then, Serena?”
She bowed her head contritely. “Thank you, Dr. Stanken.”
“You know, this business of being brave is for the birds. And I know Donny has encouraged you to use the phone. Serena?” He squatted before her, staring into her drifting, blepharotic eyes. “You need never suffer from pain again — not so long as I am here to help. Do you understand?”
“Thank you,” she mumbled, mouth pursing involuntarily in the wake of the gentle scolding. Stuart Stanken took his bag and said goodbye. They were suddenly face to face in the front hall.
“I–I’m the Dead Animal Guy,” he whispered. Nothing else came to mind.
“I’m the pain guy. Nice to meet you.” The doctor smiled, sailing out.
The nurse swooped on Simon officiously. “You’ll have to go — Mrs. Ribkin isn’t feeling well.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“I don’t think she really needed you.”
“I’ll just take a quick look under the house and be on my way.”
“This nonsense—if I had known she called—”
“Juana? Is that the young man?” Simon muttered “Baby Jane” under his breath as the nurse turned back to the living room, steeling herself. He followed her in. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
“You should be going to bed now. You’ll be passing out from what Doctor gave you.”
“I want to sit on the terrace.”
“You should be lying down.”
“I want to sit on the terrace, goddammit!”
Outside, they propped her on a chaise, and Simon tucked a Ralph Lauren throw around. His knees acted as a hedge to keep her from falling.
“Can you smell it?”
“I smell skunk, but it’s far away.”
“Poor raccoons — it’s their mama, I know it. How awful!”
“How long have you been sick?”
“Awhile. But I’m just about done.”
Something stirred on the hill.
“I could take another look. I mean, under the house.”
Serena coughed, and he asked if she needed water. She waved him away. “I heard a marvelous joke. Farfina told me, she’s the night nurse. Stupendous gal.” She pointed toward the house with a hitch-hiker’s thumb and coughed some more. “This one — Juana — is a Nazi.”
“I’m not excessively fond of the ladies in white myself. They’re all Nurse Ratcheds.”
The old woman was fading. He morfed her face into younger versions of itself, to pass the time. Serena coughed, bad one this time, eyes opening wide in an alarm of pain. She fidgeted and the blanket fell. Simon helped her cover up.
“There’s a man, he’s dying. His wife and him don’t get along too well, physically — haven’t done anything for years. He knows he’s not going to make it through the night. He tells her that, and asks for sex. She turns him down. He says, ‘How can you do this to me?’ The wife says, ‘I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I worked all day.’ He’s shocked, of course — like they all are. And he says, ‘But I’m dying! How could you be so tired that you couldn’t give me sex on my last night on earth?’ She looks at him and says, ‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to get up in the morning’!”
She laughed and coughed and Juana gathered her away.
He was in his office at ICM, thinking about Katherine and her lover. Phylliss Wolfe had told him about as much as he could stomach. Well, his ex could have done far worse than Stocker Vidra, tribadic film critic, book editor and part-time novella-ist: Katherine might just as easily have wound up in the arms of some agent-turned-successful-producer. This way, there was less exposure. Less embarrassment for him. Better a récherchée clitterateur than some art-house director in the thralldom of a freak crossover hit. Better some dyke of Academe than a lawyer-turned-screenwriter. Lawyers-turned-writers were the worst.