“Oh, my God!” O’Connor cries, lost in the actor’s keening. “The pills!”
“YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”
Fumbling in haste, O’Connor blunders out of his canvas chair and onto his knees beside the dead-faced, pin-eyed screaming actor. His nervous fingers chase the three red capsules around the silver tray like an overeager puppy snuffling after ants on the sidewalk. He manages to capture all three, fold them into his palm.
“YYYYYYYYYYY—”
O’Connor clutches the back of Pine’s neck with one hand, shoves the capsules with his other hand down into that black and red straining screaming maw, reaches for the waterglass.
“Y! Y! Y! Y! Y!”
O’Connor pours water into that mouth; some bubbles out again, over the actor’s chin and down onto his pale blue terry-cloth robe, but some stays, oozing past the screams and down the gullet.
“Y-ng! Y-ng! Y-ng! Y-ng! ngngngngngngngngngngng...”
O’Connor, still kneeling, still holding the waterglass — now half empty — sits back on his heels and watches. The noises from the actor’s mouth lessen, become arrhythmic, more like burps or hiccups or dry leaves. O’Connor, his brow furrowed with guilt and fellow-feeling, says, “Mr. Pine? Jack?”
The actor grows silent. Then, all at once, he shudders all over his body, as though reacting to some strong explosion deep within. After an instant of rigidity, he begins to tremble, as though freezing cold, and a look of terror crosses his face. Folding his shoulders in defensively toward his ears, he brings his knees up to his chin and wraps his arms around his legs. The look of terror increases, becomes a rigid stare into the deepest pit, and in a small, cracking, weak, tremulous voice the actor says, “That— That— That— That can— That can... hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” O’Connor tells him, with utter sincerity, and risks touching the actor on the arm. “I’m really sorry. I forgot the time.”
Pine still stares at nothing, his head twitching from time to time. He seems to be talking mostly to himself. “That can—” he says, and trembles, and says, “hurt. Oh, boy. That can hurt. Oh. Hurt.”
“Sorry. Really.” O’Connor gets up off his knees and resumes his old position in the chair, reclaiming his pen and notebook from where he’d dropped them on the slate in that moment of panic. His expression still worried, he watches the actor’s slow recovery.
Pine, crouched over his upraised knees, rubs his arms obsessively. His breathing, which had been quick and strained, grows more level, more even. He turns his head slowly, looks at O’Connor as though he can actually see him, then looks away again, at whatever it is he sees at the farthest range of infinity. “I don’t like that part,” he says, in a half whisper. “Not that part.”
“I am sorry,” O’Connor says. What else is there to say?
The actor lifts his head, looking out and up, over the trees of his compound. The sky fills his eyes. He says, “I saw a girl...”
Flashback 23
There’s a party going on, in a house up in Big Sur. Big, rough-hewn log house cantilevered out over the cliff. Big, comfortable, big-roomed house full of Indian rugs and Mexican pottery and all kinds of dope. Big counterculture house with state-of-the-art stereo inside Shaker reproduction cabinets. Would you believe two platinum albums were recorded in this house? Of course, you would.
Buddy had business up here, a little shmooze here and there. Somebody has to take care of the business end, make sure the IRS doesn’t get everything. And he could take care of what had to be taken care of, and still kick back and party along the way. So he brought Jack. Jack doesn’t get out of the compound much, doesn’t do much of anything much, is not at all keeping himself in trim. Not at all.
Jack fell asleep. Early in the party, sun barely overhead, people grooving in the big room cantilevered out over the cliff, with the wall of plate-glass windows showing the whole fucking ocean, man, you can almost fucking see Australia out there. And pine trees down both sides, furring the face of the cliff.
And Jack fell asleep. On a backless couch down at the end of the room, the foot of the couch against the big window, and that’s where Jack fell asleep, his back against the glass, head against the glass, mouth hanging open, eyes closed, hands limp, nothing behind his poor befuddled head but the glass and the air and the sea and Australia. Just out of sight over there, beyond the glistening horizon.
The loud party noises — people yelling their conversations over the stereo sound of a not-yet-released new soft-rock album — did not wake Jack but seemed to soothe him, comfort him, convince him he was not alone, he was safe to slumber. But the first scream troubled his sleep, made him frown, made his mouth half close in protest.
The second scream dragged his eyes open. A blur of movement met him, a blur of sound blanketed his ears, and then voices became distinct, full of panic.
“She’s freaked!”
“It’s a bad trip!”
“Hold her, for Christ’s sake!”
And the girl’s voice, screaming, “Get away! Get away!”
Jack turned his wondering head and, along the line of windows, past the milling mob, he could see her, a skinny naked girl of fifteen or sixteen, ribs standing out below her breasts, face distorted, keeping a circle clear around herself by swinging a record jacket back and forth in wide swaths. She screamed and screamed, foam on her lips, and the people around her ducked and dodged, trying to reach her, trying to calm her, trying to get her under somebody’s control.
Jack watched, and then somebody made a lunge for the girl, knocking the record jacket out of her hand. Her scream got louder, more shrill, and she spun about, eluding all those groping arms, and ran straight ahead, full speed through the window.
Jack turned his head, his cheek against the cool glass, and watched her go, in a long arc, out away from the building, high over the sea and the cliff, the shattered glass flying with her, gleaming like diamonds in the sun, the girl a skinny, wild-haired white spider flailing through the air, her scream filling the sky and rolling like Juggernaut through Jack’s brain.
She fell so slowly, like a death in an arty Japanese movie, arcing out and down and out and down, the hard jewels of glass tumbling with her, and Jack watched her go, and saw the great bruised sea rise up for her, and he died. He breathed, he heard the sounds in the room, he saw the sunlight gleaming, he felt the glass warm against his cheek, but he died. The sea sucked the girl in, and he was dead.
Through the pandemonium of the room, Buddy shoved his way to Jack’s side, grabbing him roughly by the elbow, saying urgently in his ear, “Dad! Get your shit together, dammit! We gotta get outa here!”
“Wendy,” Jack whispered. His terror was so severe he couldn’t move. He whispered, “Did you see her? Wendy?”
Buddy grabbed Jack’s jaw in a tight and painful grip, turning Jack’s face up toward his own hot angry glare. “Listen to me, you fucking asshole,” Buddy said, low and fast, below the chaotic noises that had now overtaken the room behind him, but clear and ringing in Jack’s ears. “I still need you,” Buddy rasped, giving Jack’s jaw a hard shake. “You do not freak out on me. You do not get found in this house where some underage cunt offed herself. You get up on your feet and you walk with me out of this house. You do it now.”