Porno

Unfinished novel. I wanted to talk about sexuality and religion, but I realized that I didn't have anything to drive the plot. It was all just sort of happening. Even the main character is confused. Lord knows I am.



Imagine your perfect Sunday.
The sky is a dark wool blanket that wraps the silent suburbia in it's rough folds and fibers. The grass is dark and wet with the dew. Cats prowl the gutters and alleyways, playing their games and gambits. Birds sit on branches and power lines with their wings pulled over their faces. Summer is here, but not fully yet. The sun brings a relished warmth and light, extending the days and making the unused pools of winter time into impromptu watering holes of parties and summer love. The light is still that sweet yellow of spring, not yet the hazy orange July or the dull red of August and September.
As the sun rises, the day of rest finds each dreamer caught up in the Utopian splendor of the subconscious.
Joe is dreaming of his mother, who peels his oranges for him and comes to everyone of his soccer games.
The sun is up and the flowers open their faces to receive his shining countenance. The land stirs lightly. Dogs grunt and slumber, while the body temperature of the sleeping master begins it's to rise from its lowest point. In all things, the circadian clock is turned over and the sand of another day drifts to the wood to lay against the glass. Heat creeps from the the east, over the hills and mesas, into the patchwork of civilization. It roams down the alleyways and over the bird-laden power cables. It steals over the chilled pools and back yard grills. Solar ovens begin to heat and solar panels light homes and office buildings. The dead A/C units for three million people shudder to life.
Pete is dreaming he can fly. He jumps from house to house in great leaps until finally he is airborne and soaring above the clouds. The wind blows in his face and he races the birds across the orange-red mountains to the north.
This Sunday is a long time coming. Boys and girls lay curled in sleeping bags inside tents pitched in their back yards. Some drooling softly into their pillows. Some awake and listening to the sounds of their friends dreaming. Some wishing that every day could be this morning; could be this peace and stillness; this fullness of heart and soul.
Older boys, in denim and cotton, wake fully dressed on couches or floors. Wake on their own front doorsteps, their heads hammering nightmarishly. Wake up naked next to a beautiful older girl and for a moment, some, feel an overwhelming sense of marvel and joy at their provident fortune. They relish the blissful expression of their lovers face and give all glory to God who provides them with serendipity. They feel a twinge of the scale and impact of their actions and their intimacy and feel no condemnation, only inexpressible love and blessing. These would-be fathers, these young men latent in predestined greatness. These New-Mothers, these creators and founders of the future. These women whose lives will be wrought in bold font upon the face of history; they wake with zeal for the portents of the future. They see in much larger scales than the men they lie with. They see themselves as heralds and leaders of the greater humanity. A humanity built, not upon the bodies of the weak, but atop the shoulders of the strong.
Christina dreams in abstractions and vagueries. She doesn't know what might of occurred and, upon waking, cannot remember where she was or who she was with. But as she drifts up through the storms and seas of her subconscious mind, she is blessed with a feeling of utmost happiness and joy. Like remembering the first time you tasted sweetness. Like your first kiss.
Light floods through every door and window. It finds its way under curtains and through cracked boards. It pools and fills each dark room, photons acting upon the rest of matter in their strange multifaceted manner. This light which as races the ninety-three million miles from the sun feels no fatigue as it passes through the tents and trees. It continues to race, finding each man, woman, and child. It lathers them with its touch and feeds their bones.
Eyes begin to bat, and minds to rise from the deep rest of rapid eye movement. Each person stumbles up from the theater of their own minds into the light of reality.
Rob is stumbling through the mental projection of his own home. He wanders through the living room and the kitchen to the hall. The hall is dark and all of the doors are closed. He goes slowly to the first door. He can see light frequenting from under the doorway, and, with his hand on the door, he perceives the room to be bright and white and empty. His hands slides of the door and plants against the next. This room is dark and fetid. Hot and steamy like a jungle. Filled with all manner of things wild and unkempt. He knows that these two rooms are his, one as much as the other, but that they do not effect him, but he effects them. He chooses whether or not to enter.
His hand lifts once more and he follows it to the next door. His hand grasps the handle and he hesitates before turning it. The room opens and a stench billows out. He is engulfed, not in nausea, but in a greater sense of utter repulsion. He can only manage a single glance into the crypt. He sees a plan room with blue walls. A body lays on the bed between pink silk sheets. The form is elegant and full. The repulsion overcomes him and he closes the door as the long legs shift under the smoothness of the bedspread and the figure begins to turn to him.
He stairs at the closed door. He no longer feels any sort of sickness or aching. Lucidity has crept into his dreaming mind and, with it, the strong daylight that presses against his eyelids. He knows he is not long for this dream. As he stands, it is impressed upon him that he must see what is in the last room. He believes that all his hopes reside in the room at the end of the hall. He moves to it, but the handle dances away from the hand. The hallway is extending as Max begins to run and stumble towards the final door. He prone form lays in the real world, and its legs twitch. A spigot begins to turn and morning light begins to pour in through the crack of his eyelids. It destroys the kitchen and the living room. It tears the hallway behind him as he extends towards the doorway. His hand caresses the doorknob and the door cracks open. Dream light extends out to him from the doorway and he sees a silhouette of a woman sitting on a bed, her face in her hands. He smells from it all the sweetness and wonder of life, as his eyes flutter open.
This day, this perfect Sunday, belongs to even the least of these.
Nothing can stop the beauty and glory as it marches across the cardinal points. No man or woman can halt the sun in the sky or stop the leaves from turning green. In the great order and ordination of things, we are recipients of this days blessings. And nothing we can do can change that.
Not even Max's porno.
2
Six weeks earlier.
Max sat in church. While the preacher sermonized, he stared up at the high arches and stained glass of the sanctuary. While the pulpit showered down ruminations on the ideas present in todays culture, as viewed through the teaching of the Bible, Max sat and thought. It was not that Max was disinterested or bored with the curriculum at hand, his mind simply wandered. Here and there he would pitch back into the story or bullet point. But each new train of ideas present created another within ever grasping hand of his own soul. He sat and thought about his parents, sitting beside him on the row, their clothes so neat; their hair lacquered to a shining brilliance.
His father wore a light gray suit with a pale blue tie. His shirt was whited and his collar was clean. His mustache was trimmed ever so subtly along the ridge of his upper lip. The rust that was his beard the night before had been reduced completely outlining the strong jaw line and cleft chin. That days bulletin, pale blue like his tie, sat folded neatly in his lap. He did not scribble notes like the high schooler spattered about the pews. He removed himself from any nuance of naivete and sat like a gargoyle of the utmost patience and logic. During the part of the service dedicated to the sermon, Max's father sat rigid in his seat, looking neither at his wife nor his children. Max often wondered what it must be like for the pastor. To have a man such as this, a man made of stone, his face carved into piercing concentration.
His mother, in a sort of color coordinated way, complemented and completed the picture his father sought to imply. She sat with her legs crossed under her short solid blue skirt with matching practical open toed heels. These had little straps that criss crossed about her foot and gave the impression of a practical expense. He hands were folded over lap in a way that might lead one to imagine her to wear gray gloves and a large dark hat and existent in a period wholly different from that in which she occupied. Both of them, it could be said, would fit in with all encompassing ease into the sort of life recorded in the 30's and 40's. They were holdouts of an era comprised of gentlemen and ladies. Although they both were much younger, neither seemed to fit the part of history they were most involved in and influenced by. They did not seem children of the 60's or teenagers of the 70's. That gave no sign and bore no witness to the psychosis of the 80's or rage of the 90's. One might imagine them to be so amazingly out of place in these periods that one wonders if they ever existed then at all. If perhaps they had taken to hiding in a bomb shelter during an air raid over London and been somehow preserved until emerging in the 00's.
Be that as it may, their children, apart from being superiorly obedient and loving, were like the other children of the lost years after Y2K.
Max's sister, Natasha, was a model of young women nowadays. An heir to the double standard of our generation. A generation of children whose parents not only kick them out, but keep them home. She was slim and well dress, one might venture she still is; as the events of this story to not directly relate or effect her life. She acts more as a catalyst and dramatic observer to the protagonist. But we love her, nonetheless.
Max considered all of these small details and much larger ones as well, as his mind swelled and shrunk to fill the space in the sanctuary and the world at large. He considered his sister's application to a number of moderately priced, but altogether profitable, teaching centers in the state and outside of it. She was newly freed from the bondage of university and was seeking, at their parents and benefactors request, to establish her career through continuing her education.
It was for this reason, that Max was attending community college in the fall. Max understood that his parents were trying to save money after the costly education provided to his sibling. Secretly, however, he believed that his parents had large looming doubts about his ability to complete the full four years of collegiate learning. This was never said, to a large degree, but Max perceived it through his through conversation he had had with them, wherein they suggested he try the local junior college.
Conversely, he had applied and been accepted. His parents threw a small family get together to celebrate this and his high school graduation. During this party, his sister had withdrawn him to a corner and handed him a coke.
He smelled the coke, which had already been opened.
What's in this, he asked.
I don't know, whiskey I think, she replied.
He sipped at it and looked around.
I got in to San Diego, she said.
He snorted, a fount of cool soda and hot alcohol streaming from his nose and over his cupped hand. He shook the soda off and wiped his face with a napkin.
Have you told Mom and Dad?
Not yet.
Are you worried about them paying for it or something?
No, I just enjoy being the only person who knows.
She looked at him.
Except for you, of course. It's like a super power. This is my mild mannered alter ego, but in here. She pointed to her temple.
In here, I have a secret.
He looked at her and took another sip of the coke.
Okay, that's enough, you still have to schmooze with the relatives. They are shelling out mad college money.
She took the beverage from him and smiled. He returned the smile genuinely and watched her saunter away.
This was part of it, they would agree later. That moment of risk. The small bit of drinking at a public affair. The secret of doing something illegal in public, in a crowded room. That feeling of being a small private protest in a nest of the community and culture.
But more than this, Max latched onto the super power of secrets; and to a larger extent, the belief that people can be clever enough to do as they like. To eat a hamburger in a den of lions.
Even bearing this in mind, it is impossible to properly justify the thought that leapt into Max's reasoning while he sat in a pew, fourteen minutes into a pronunciation on humanities need for compassion; wedged carefully between the two contributors to his creation. Later, he himself could not conduct himself to the source of his flash of madness. For it seemed to him that the entire project restored itself before him and he saw the minutiae of each of the steps. But as to one admiring the smoke instead of the fire, he could not bring himself to properly examine the ethical and theological repercussions of his momentary inspiration.
To this day, his parents hope it isn't genetic.
3
Tina? Max called.
Tina was leaning in what could be called a courtyard in front of what could be called the church. She wore a pastel yellow skirt and a light blue top. I look like a sunflower, she thought that morning. Watching Max trounce across cement steps and vault hedges, she didn't feel like a sunflower. She had either lost all feeling or she had evaporated into air or some unknowable element. Hydrogen, she thought. She decided this as hydrogen was so light that it could conceivably float out into space without a proper atmosphere. Then again, she rumored, so could I.
Max was still, in this moment, struck heavily although he held altogether without the notion of addressing the line of thinking with Tina. Not Tina, thought he; she is sweet and good and other things like that.
And as he saw her, with a backdrop of pink roses, her skirt lifting slightly about her knees, he did not think her capable of harm. Men, one supposes, fancy themselves the deadly ones.
Hullo, Tina spoke, once Max had properly crossed the distance. They stood next to one another in a companionable friendship. He was beside her looking away, while she stood beside him looking toward.
How are you t'day Tina?
I'm quite alright. Rather excited about high school being over and done with.
Max turned to her. He looked into her eyes for a moment before examining the footpath.
Oh yeah? It's pretty awesome. You, uh, goin' away for college?
Yeah yeah, she replied. I got into Portland.
Wow! Max felt his heart sink. Sadness at the loss of a friend, but also at his meager meal of junior college in comparison with the banquet of learning she would be attending.
It was then the urge resurfaced. Max sought helplessly to command it, given their setting and the general nature of their friendship. How can one ask such a thing?
Thus it went unsaid.
They talked of schools and vacations. Agreed that they should spend some time given the shortening of time before Tina's departure to northern climates.
It was with these talks and carefree laughs that Max buried the idea. He buried down deep and concluded that he was generally a good and upright fellow, doomed to wear the suit of his father, but a smart enough chap to accept it. But a mind is a fickle fruit, and when an apple seed is buried in intelligent soil, revelation is only a matter of time.
Upon entering the beginning acting class, Max seated himself in the tertiary row. He flipped through the syllabus he had printed that morning and watched the class trickle in. There was a large fellow with broad shoulders who trotted through the door. He wore a blue tank top and carried a duffel bag. Two girls with dark hair followed after him, these taking their seat just down from Max's. The big guy sat in the back. He was joined by a very small guy wearing a gray t-shirt with matching sneakers. Max turned to his textbook for a moment. He stopped looking it over when he perceived some anomaly in air. The noise in the room had dropped out for a moment, but some tension lingered in its quivering absence. Max put his hand on the desk and turned to look at the other students. Each was a silent statue of wonder.
They stared at the doorway which held in its frame the figure of a girl. She was coming out of the brightness of day into the dark florescent classroom. Max was struck but could not think of what. It was as if he had looked into a diamond and tried to choose a facet from which the beauty stemmed. For the diamond is just a glimmering stone; as this girl was just a diamond. She had toes and fingers as any other and her ears grew just has her mother and grandmother's had. She was possessed with all the features we discount as right and good and true in women. Even some stones sparkle and glimmer. But she entered the room with some unknowable quality of grace and unfathomable art of sex, that immediately stilled the persons within.
Max could feel his heart begin to beat, as if it had never truly done so before. As if it had but feigned the art before today.
It was then the idea blossomed from the dewy ground and drew in the light of morning. All that period, he was swept up by it, his concentration lost in the Interzone that belies the man's psyche.
But here again, he struggled. He could fine no equal representation for this counter-cultural notion. He was a rational, logical person who could not bring himself to unearth his plans and schemes before a stranger. What he needed, was an irrational person.
Max needed Joe America.
Joe Merrick was a tall, dark, and handsome in all the ways that were useful. In a time other then the one he lived in, he might have been described a relation to the divine. His father truly must have been one of the pantheon to have produced a child modeled in such perfection.
It was this half born who offered Max a ride one day after school.
Max's parents were in the process of producing a mode of transportation to their son. They had made quiet suggestions, with admirable intent, that after this first semester of college, he seek employment. They had hopes that he might become self sustainable in the years to come, but the situation left Max with the choice between walking the four miles the campus or bicycling. He chose the faster of the two, although each situation afforded him the same heat and exertion. He was inevitable trapped like an ant under the magnified rays of the sun. Each day, in the morning, he would push the pedals up and down the four miles to school. This he didn't mind, it was rather quiet in his neighborhood. But once out on the main streets, he felt chagrined in the pure, chill morning air. After school, he employed the same route, only this time under the afternoon sun. His sweat dripped and his neck and arms burned.
It was a week or so after the class started that he found himself removing his ear bud and looking up at the tinted windows of a blue car. The window slunk into its sheath, to display Joe, squinting at Max from the driver's seat.
Would you like a ride? Joe asked.
Max leaned towards the car. The skin of his arms and face caught the sweet tendrils of freon chilled air from the open window.
Seriously? Max inquired.
Joe nodded and lifted his books into the back seat. Max was about to ask something when the trunk popped open.
Just throw her in back, said Joe.
Max did as he was bid, finding a stretch of bungee cord to complete the transaction. As he fell into the seat and began to cool his hot face, he turned to Joe.
Thanks dude, I live down on Hunt.
Joe nodded and slipped silver framed reflective sunglass onto his nose. He swung smoothly out into traffic.
What do you think of the class then? Joe asked.
Max was adjusting each of the vents in the car, apply them to his face and legs. He shrugged.
It's alright, isn't it? I mean, I like Shakespeare well enough.
Twelfth Night is a good one. How far are you in it?
Max felt himself tense, wondering if this larger stronger, alpha male specimen was planning to ask for homework favors.
Max had special experience with just such “friends”. During his teenage school years, he had shared a class with a mutual acquaintance. The boy was a nice enough guy. Friendly for chatting in the hallway, but just as much a braggart as any other in Max's class, including himself. For a man does not seem a friend if he has only one side. Max, himself, was a deviant as much as a scholar, as any man may admit. Which is why he shared with the boy, providing him with study papers and notes. This continued until, under too much stress and fearing the prosecution of the administrator, Max broke it off. The friendship, as much as it may be called so, also disintegrated without the mutual lawbreaking.
I actually haven't started it yet, Max lied.
Really? Should read it, it's fantastic.
Max looked out the window. He wanted to turn some music on, but Joe seemed bent on conversation. Max believed it to be an establishment of social ranking, but he would later learn that Joe was nothing if not relational.
Something on your mind? Joe asked. His sincerity struck Max.
Nah man, just mulling things over.
Rough day or something?
Max turned back to look at Joe. Joe was clean. His car was clean. Even his glasses were clean. How can anyone ever think to attempt something unethical or immoral when the world seems so Utopian. Men and women in the peak of health. The streets swept clean by the dust and the sand and sun.
Joe right? What's the worst thing you've ever done? Max asked.
Without even turning his head, Joe replied:
Murder.
Max was struck and would have begun to stammer a reply, but Joe began to laugh. Max quit his fears and slump back into the seat. He leaned his head back and smiled.
Why? Joe asked. Are you planning a train robbery?
He grinned at Max, turning on his blinker and getting into the left turn lane.
Max sighed.
I've had this idea, for awhile now. But I'm a good person. My family are good people. Not to seem overly superior or anything. We are just good and friendly and generally manageable.
How so?
Max sat forward and motions with his hands.
The best way for me to describe it is, we are people you would trust with your money.
Joe turned left. Keep going.
Well, for example, my father is a CPA. He handles mostly audits, numbers and figures. The government trusts him to evaluate how companies spend their money. My mother works in a bank, as a manager, but for years and years she was a teller. She literally handled everyones money. People trusted her with their paychecks and with their life savings.
So what about you?
I'm the same. I fit the type. People see me and they think I'm responsible and level headed. They think I'm a young republican or captain of the debate team. They picture my parents scolding me for getting B+'s instead of A's.
But you're not that person?
Max lipped his lips and watched the blocks recede. A whirlwind blew in his mind and he counted the blocks left. What the hell, he thought.
Maybe I am. Maybe people feel that I can be trusted, that I am responsible. Maybe I am all those things. But am I normal? Do I want for myself the ideals of my parent's generation? No. I don't want the nuclear family. A dog and a chain link fence. Tiles in the kitchen, hardwood in the den, carpet in the bedrooms. These are nostalgic leftovers from a forgotten people. They are the idealogical equivalent of a typewriter. I want my philosophical laptop.
What do you want? Really then?
I want to make a movie.
4
You want to what!?
Tina says.
She's holding a chilled chocolate coffee beverage and for a moment Max is aghast that she will release it to topple over the floor. It would splash onto her already ratty sneakers, blemishing her smooth legs. But instead she continues to grip the plastic drink container, her grip tenuous but sure atop the sweating plastic.
Max shakes his head and looks down at his hands. He hears he sit down and looks over. She is sipping tentatively at the cocoa flavored caffeine.
C'mon Tina, it isn't that bad. Besides, it will probably never happen anyways.
Well, as long as the entertainment is purely hypothetical, I guess we can set morality aside as well.
Max sighs heavily. Under the table, his legs begin to bounce with the nervous energy.
What did this Joe guys say?
When I told him? He just said “Cool man, give me a call if you're serious.”
No way.
Yeah, he said that he was interested in doing something like that.
Did he say why?
Not really, but I assume it's because he's mentally unhinged.
Ungrateful whelp!
Not so. Even madmen can be accused of mild kindness at times. Even murderers can grow roses. Besides, I think he thought I was joking.
Tina looked at him. Her stare was appraising, but she could not menace him with it. She was in fact, mirthful at the idea of Max propagating his idea to a strange classmate. The dynamics of the accidental confession interested her.
Are you going to call him? She asked.
What? Maybe. I don't know.
Max reclined his chair.
It's kind of a big issue, don't you think? I can't just DO it, y'know? It would be immoral. Imagine if my parents found out! I would be dead. I would be less than dead. My parents would mail me to Vancouver to live with my uncle.
Really? That wouldn't be so bad, would it?
I hate snow, Tina. There's no way I could live in Vancouver. I would take Seattle or Portland.
Portland is nice. I loved it up there when we toured the school.
I just don't think I could deal with the cold.
You get used to it, trust me. It's an excuse to dress really awesome.
C'mon, your supposed to be convincing me to do the right thing here.
What can I say? You already know all the answers right? Don't do it because you are objectifying women. Don't do it because it's vulgar. Don't do it because your parents will murder you and bury you in the backyard. Are you convinced. Are not going to do it now?
I'm still thinking.
Exactly. As with everything in this world, I can't force you to do anything one way or another. If I can be honest, I would say I saw this coming.
Really? Thanks.
You're welcome.
I was being sarcastic.
I know, I chose to ignore it. Because I've seen you with your family. Because I've seen you and your sister. Because I've known you for a while and there's been a bee in your bonnet so long it's started a hive.
Maybe this is just something I'm going through, y'know? Maybe I just feel like doing something crazy because I'm legally an adult.
Maybe. I don't know. I just see you stuck here in town while everyones leaving. I can tell that means something to you Max.
It's not like I resent my parents. I get the money worries. I get that I should get a job and all that. It's just that sometimes these things seem unfair.
Tina nodded.
I'm not saying that you should do this. I can't condone it or veto it. We just have to hope you'll do what's right.
They both faced each other across the table. Max looked down and Tina watched his face. She felt like touching his hair.
I don't want to say anything overly cliché, here, but you know you can't screw up God's plan. I'm sure God would want you to deal with this issue. Embrace whatever this is rather than repress it. You can't just bottle it up and let it die. You can't be the type of person who just ignores everything wrong in the world. You can't breath with your head buried in the sand.
Hey Joe?
Yeah, this is me. Max?
Yeah hey, I was wondering if you would want to hang out and chat about...
The Movie?
Yeah...
Sure man. I'll meet you at the coffee shop on Val Vista and Baseline.
Cool man, I'll be there in a...while.
No worries. See you then.
Max stared at the phone, now emptied of the voice of Joe Merrick. He was so anxious it trembled. The illuminated keys blurred and the antenna wobbled. The timer on the lights clicked them off, but Max kept staring at the phone.
What am I doing? He thought.
He stared at the phone. Issuing a shrill staccato of notes, it burst to life. The face illuminated. Max didn't even look at the caller ID. He felt sure it was Joe coming to his senses. A supernatural sign had given Max a chance to halt the downhill tumble he was surely beginning.
Hey Joe?
Hey Max? Tina said.
T? What's up?
Not much, I was just kind of feeling remiss about the advice I had given you and I wanted to say...
Tina?
I just want to do the right thing and tell you not to do it. I mean, maybe we can channel these energies into something else. You could play a sport or take up skydiving.
Tina?
I just don't want to see you ruin your life.
Tina, I need a favor.
As Max lay down to sleep that night, he felt as if his body was running in different directions. Each moment erupted in emotions and memories. Individual pieces of the his day were like snapshots. They were projected before him out of order but utterly cohesive. Each time the picture scattered, it was renewed. He could see it now. His body was tense and his head was rushing. He sought sleep and closed his eyes. As they closed, he gave up trying to examine the pieces. With them closed, he could not restrain the entirety of her image.
In the coffee house, he sat beside Tina and faced Joe. Tina was tense beside him. Her lips were turned upward to Joe. Tina recognized him immediately. He was in a local band, Eschatology, who had played at her junior formal.
You're Joe America right? She asked.
He laughed, leaning in closer.
No way, he said. You know me?
You played my high school!
That's incredible. We didn't suck did we?
No no, you guys had so much energy. You tore that gym a new one.
Well I'm glad you had a good time. We didn't play so many shows that went well.
He bit the inside of his lip. He looked around. Tina didn't want to lose the conversation.
Do you still play? She asked.
Yeah! Actually. Mostly solo stuff, but I got a show coming up soon.
Where at?
It's a house party, but it should still be pretty clandestine. The bands old drummer is coming back to help me out and everything.
Well you should let me know, I would totally check it out.
No worries, I'll find you online and give it you the deets.
Max could feel the dialogue diminishing. He watched Joe lean back in his chair and glance towards the door. Max could feel the impending nature of the look.
Is there a fourth? He asked.
Joe turned back to him. He slipped a straw into his mouth and began to chew on it.
Yeah, a friend of ours from class.
Really? Did you tell them about what we are doing here?
Not yet, I figured you'd explain it. Oh speak of the devil.
They turned their collective attentions to the doorway. None of them seemed to notice Max's eyes glaze over or his face turn catatonic. His jaw went slack and his hands went numb.
The blond goddess, wrought from the same legend as Joe America. For Max, her existence was a myth or some divine fiction. She was the unattainable Andromeda. She was Aphrodite in sneakers.
Her effect was so powerful upon Max that he began to truly believe his life was in mortal peril. At each consideration, he felt his death was diving on silken wings to meet him. If he were to look away. If he were to continue to look. If she were to come and sit down with them. If he were even to address her. Like a dandelion, he would dissolve and be carried on the whisper of the wind, her visage to haunt the seedlings of his soul.
This is my friend, Jane; said Joe.
5
And what shall I do in Illyria?
Sometimes, when people who are normally, or better said, generally, sane, law-abiding members of the bourgeoisie; they feel a sever since of unreality or perhaps duality upon waking from a restless sleep filled with fevered dreams. They thrust themselves into the waking world and laugh at the things they dreamt they did during the night.
Else the Puck a liar call.
It was with this somnambulist reasoning, Max awoke to the pristine ennui of his bedroom decor. For a beatific moment, he was shouldered by an erroneous belief in the imaginary nature of the day preceding this. Then he opened his laptop.
He found a message in his email from one 'j.america'.
And what shall I do in Illyria?
Hey Max. I think things went really well last night. I talked to Jane and she seemed intrigued. I leave the next step up to you my man.
Joe
ps I didn't get Tina's(?) email last night, but I was going to let both of you know my show is this friday...
The details of the event were following. Max heard a wild crashing as cognizance of his situation brought that of his imagination down on top of his head.
Max was stuck. His idea had sunlight and rain, but it didn't seem to grow. During that week, Max struggled to try and offer up some way to turn the dream plant into a real one. These feelings and tension they brought, were spinning asymmetrically to what he believed was right and lawfully condoned. Every moment, he felt sure that word would get out. That his parents would call if and utter the fateful phrase 'We need to talk'. The relief that it brought to think of it all ending due to a power outside his own was short and ill-tempered when he recalled the duty he still had to his silent partners.
It was in this frame of mind, that Max attended the house party Joe was playing. It was with this distemper, Max met Pete.
Max arrived at the house half an hour after the party had started. He was trying to slip in casually to feel out how the evening would go. If the party was wild and obnoxious, populated by steroid fueled collegiates and catty mistresses, he would save himself the trouble. But as he arrived, he saw that the street seemed quiet, though, the thumping of bass somewhere rattled his jaw bone and blurred his vision.
He made his way to the front door, nodding to people he thought he recognized or thought they recognized him. Max found Tina sitting on a counter talking to Joe. He greeted them and they pointed him to the fridge or the keg.
I think I've got us another bidder, man. Joe said.
Really? Asked Max.
Yeah, he's my drummer, I told him about it on the way here.
Joe gestured across the room to a skinny guy with a lip ring who was setting up his stuff. The guy was bopping his head to some unknown music and spinning his drum key in his hand.
Hey Pete! Joe shouted.
Pete looked up and smiled crookedly. He bopped his way across the room, waving and nodding.
Hey man, what's up? Pete asked.
This Max, the guy I was telling you about.
Pete turned to Max, offering a hand.
No way man. You really gonna go through with it?
Max was nervous. He didn't feel totally comfortable talking about it in public. He started to give the guy a vague kiss off, when Tina jumped in with the truth.
We don't know yet. We don't have a cast or a script yet.
We also haven't really told anybody yet, Joe added. He nodded to Pete.Pete here had an interesting idea for getting things rolling real smooth like. Tell them Pete.
Pete looked sheepish. He drummed his hands on his jeans and stared at the floor.
Listen man, he said to Max. I don't want to tell you how to run your stuff or mess with you or anything.
But? Max said.
But, it seems like you've already got everything you need, man. You need actors, right? Well you're in an acting class. You need material, well you got that too.
Max laughed.
We are doing Twelfth Night! That's Shakespeare's Twelfth Night! We'd be condemned to death for doing an adult film based on a Shakespearean play.
Not technically, man.
How's that? Tina asked. She hopped down from the counter and closed off our little circle.
Listen, Shakespeare's plays were written, what, in the 16th /17th century? A copyright expires after seventy-five years. So his plays are public domain.
Which means we can use them?
Yeah, no harm no foul.
Max's head swam. He was disengaged from the conversation at hand, lost in the swarm of his own mind. The pieces slammed together like cars into each other, melting and molding themselves around their drivers.
Max turned around and went home.
Two days later, Max emerged from a bedroom turned cave turned studio. He had spent the hours, no longer days and nights, merely marked time; trying to piece together how to break the news to his would-be cast without breaking it also to the teacher and the school.
He called Joe.
Hey, can I meet you before class?
Joe answered and he hung up the phone. He stared into the bleak ivory of their once opaque carpeting. He followed it down the hall to the kitchen.
Going to school, hon? His mother asked.
He yawned at her and nodded. She was wearing a brown dress with blue earrings. She smiled to him and grabbed her keys.
Do you need a ride?
He shook his head and sought for food.
A moment later, he was pedaling as fast as he could.
Two moments later, he was sitting waiting for Joe.
Many moments after, he was in class.
He watched Joe lean over to Jane. Joe was no doubt whispering to her about Max's dubious stratagem. Max watched. He saw Jane glance his way, he blond hair shifting slightly, one blazing blue eye winking out at him. He turned back and quietly started to sweat. He was half sane, half asleep, and half crazy.
Through the entire class, he jittered uncontrollably, the whispers of his classmates become stares as the message was spread.
After the class was over and the teacher was gone, he stood up and spoke to them.
I assume that those of you still in your seats are interested parties. Anyone else, feel free to take off now. Max stopped and watched the blood settle for a moment.
Alright, now, depending on how this game of telephone went, you should understand something of what we're up to. Right Joe?
Joe stood and walked over to him.
I just told them we were going to work on a project that had to do with the class. He whispered.
The blood, once settled, began to rise.
Did you tell them about the nature of the project? Max rasped.
No, I figured the vaguer I could be, the better just in case someone mentioned it to the staff.
Aw hell, Max thought to himself. He once again addressed the crowd.
Romans, countrymen and lovers! The 'project' we have conceived is endowed with elements related to our class work. It is, however, not part of the class. Not whatsoever. So if that's why you are hear, please leave. Also, what we have planned is of what some might call an 'adult', unsavory', or 'vulgar' nature. Anyone offended by or repulsed by what we are implying here, should also not feel ashamed to leave.
A shuffling of footsteps left max in a room much emptier than when he began.
Do you think that will protect us? Max asked Joe.
As much as it would be possible to protect men of our purpose.
Well then, (to the group) is it safe to say that you remnants understand that we plan on doing something unwholesome and socially deviant, in the basest of terms?
Some nodded. The boy in with the matching clothes stood up and looked around.
I think I speak for everyone when I say: We're making a movie, right?
6
It's super simple, Pete says.
The day had started normal enough. The parents offering sentiments to each other before leaving for work. Max watched this over his copy of Twelfth Night, penciling notes in the margins that would make gang member blush. It could be said that since Shakespeare wrote only dialogue, his work was relational. One person heard one voice and manner of speech from a certain character, another heard something different. Each line and verse had its own, personal meaning to each reader.
It could also be said that very few ever found the meaning Max found.
After he had drank the chocolate milk at the bottom of his bowl. Max sent Joe a text. It was a simple enough issue: a camera. Max didn't have one, neither did Tina. Max was too afraid to ask the sheep that had signed up for his escapade, as he felt they were very skittish of their new shepherd.
Alas the day!
Joe replied that he didn't have one, but he should try calling Pete. He implied in his message that Pete may have the camera they needed. This wasn't true. Max assumed that a call to the man would end his search, rewarding him with his necessary instrument.
Hey Pete, this is Max? We met last Friday?
Hey yeah, how's it goin' man? What do you need?
Hey, I was wondering if you might, I don't know, have a video camera I could rent from you?
Nah man.
Really? Cause Joe said I should call you...so I thought...
Nah nah, Joe was right to have you call me man. Where do you live?
Confused, Max gave him the address. Fifteen minutes later, Pete was on his doorstep in big reflective sunglasses and a cut off t-shirt with cut-off shorts.
Hey man, Pete said with a grin.
Max soon found out that Joe didn't mean that Pete had a camcorder. He meant nothing of the sort. The fact was, Pete was good at getting things. Preternaturally gifted in the art of procuring items for people. The confusion Max experienced upon hanging up the phone lasted with him all day.
Here we go, Pete said. He was pulling his beat-to-hell Honda into a Mexican food restaurant on University. Restaurant is stretching it, Max thought looking at the title painted to the stucco on the side of the building. The place only had an order window and a pickup window with a large menu behind a graffiti'd plastic sign board between. Food might be stretching it too.
Hey, you want anything? Pete asked him.
Max was still gorged with sugary chocolate cereal, so he waited while Pete chatted up the register guy.
Pete grabbed his food and waved by to the guy. They walked back to the car, where Pete began to devour his burrito, while giving Max instructions as to where they we going next.
Apparently, Pete slurred around the carne asada, Felipe knows some guys who go to your college. They're in the film department. They would be able to hook you up with the necessities.
With this in mind, Pete drove through a few narrow back alleys that dropped them into an apartment complex on Main. Upon arriving, Pete jumped out of the car and started running to the stairs. Once there he jumped them two at a time.
Hurry up, he shouted.
Max, still perplexed, jogged up to him.
Sorry man, don't mean to weird you out, but my car doors don't lock. God's bodykins, man.
What does that mean? Max asked.
Heck if I know, I just heard it somewhere.
Finally, they came to the right apartment. Pete looked around and then rapt sharply on the door. An old woman opened it as far as the chain would pull. She squinted at them.
What? She asked.
We were looking for Romero? Pete said, moving lightly from one foot to the other.
He's on a shoot, she replied.
Uh, do you know where?
Down in at the college I think.
That was all the excuse Pete needed. He lit out of there on rocket skates. The car was turned and aiming westward and beyond, when Max got the door handle and jumped in.
See the thing is, Pete explained. This guy Romero, or whatever, he loves those zombie flicks. Loves them. Nuts about them. He think old George A. is the great sovereign god of the universe. So he uses that as his moniker. He figures it fits him because his last name is Ramirez. Close enough, he says.
Pete lowers his glasses to Max.
Everybody is just too afraid to tell him old George is Italian, not Mexican.
Max laughs.
When they hit the school, sure enough, Pete's out like a bullet. No wonder this guy's so skinny, the man sprints everywhere he goes, Max thinks.
It's why I don't smoke, Pete shouts at him.
They hit the film department like a track and field blitzkrieg. Pete finds the first person in his way, some poor girl with thick glasses and her hair behind her ears, and starts shouting that he needs to find Romero right away.
I'm new here, the girl stutters to him.
Surely you have some sort of supervisor? A T.A. Perhaps? He cries.
She begins to sob and the dial gets rolled back. Suddenly, Pete is hugging her and rubbing her back telling her that everything is alright and he thinks she's a wonderful person.
Max is flabbergasted when Pete wipes a tear from her eye and says kindly:
I love you dear Cynthia. Do you know where Romero is?
I-I-I think he's over at the university off Rural.
Well why didn't you say so! Pete shouts as he dashes out the door.
This time, Max throws himself in the path of the car as it speeds out of the parking lot. Pete slows down long enough for him to throw himself through the window of the Honda.
Why are we rushing so much? Max asks, his legs scissoring the air as they turn out into the street.
Pete levels for a moment.
The thing is, these film makers. He thinks for a moment, then amends.
These STUDENT film makers, they like to do things pretty commando. Especially Romero. He isn't into handing out forms or asking restaurants permission to shoot. He prefers to run screaming through the quad at midday, a horde of ghouls in make up behind him screeching. Then jump in a van and take off. He says things like “It's all about energy! The heat of the moment!” but really, he doesn't want to get turned down by a Starbucks and end up having to shoot elsewhere.
A few laps later, they were standing on a bridge over the main drag that ran next to the state college. Romero introduced himself and his camera man, Kreeger. He observed Pete's nervous shuffling.
You should get your locks fixed one of these days man, he noted.
Be cheaper just to buy a new car there money bags, Pete snapped.
Romero shrugged as if to say:
You are cranky when you are ill fed.
So can you help us possibly? Max asked.
Yeah, I think so. Come by the film lab tomorrow and I'll hook you up.
They smiled and shook hands as ten grotesque creatures and a well endowed cheerleader ran by them.
At the end of the day, Max stood on his front porch and waved to Pete.
See, what did I tell you? He yells.
Simple.
7
In Max's dreams, Jane skin was as soft as silk. Although, even in the stage of his subconscious, he never touched her; he imagined that she was composed principally of starlight and glass. In his dreams, she was always far off, bright and lovely in the distance. She stood upon the highest peak, her smile radiant, garbed in the clouds and the ice and the atmosphere.
O' she that doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It was a sort of madness, seeing the holy wonder and being but just out of reach. Forever lost a finger length away. Max prayed for lucidity to reach him and give him the wings, rope, letter; he needed to but stroke her palm. This blessed reality did not descend, leaving him therefore, wholly unrequited. In his mind they were just as parted as in the day. If she could but see his longing, he hoped. That she would know the deep solemn pools of his love for her. What his mind perceived to be his touch reaching out for hers.
I see Queen Mab hath been with you, Tina said.
She saw him haggard and rough-cheeked as he slumped into the pew beside her. His parents were receiving bulletins and shaking hands with some of the older folks that they were relative to or friendly with.
Max looked around at all of the crucifix's staring at him and moaned.
Where is your sister?
He turned to her. For a moment, the light through the stained glass touched her cheek and Max had thoughts to do the same.
San Diego, he said.
Tina was very much surprised. She had known his sister relatively well. We had Sunday school together, not a week ago, she thought. And now she's gone?
She got accepted to State then?
Max nodded, his eyes blue and half shut.
She got a scholarship. All paid for except her living. She's got a friend out there she is staying with until she can be set up properly. Max turned to look into Tina's pure familiar eyes.
My parents are thrilled.
Tina sighed. She could see that Max was low in spirit, but couldn't think of what to tell him. He had made a rather strange choice, in which she was now a conspirator. Why, she thought, why not call the whole thing off. We could call Joe...
She thought of Joe at the party. He had asked her if she wanted anything and then fetched her a drink. He had laughed and dedicated a song to her. Well, she thought, to my new friends is what he said. I'm a new friend aren't I? Not a week so, I'm as new as they get, I'd say.
Oh Joe. Joe America.
A noise disturbed her from her revelry and she turned to Max. His eyes were open, but he was drooling ever so slightly. She gave him a nudge and his head came up again; the light behind his eyes flickering on just as his parent sat down. She touched the corner of her mouth and nodded to him. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
We're are getting started tomorrow Tina, Max whispered as the organs began to play the introit.
Tina smiled at him prosthetically.
We're going to Hell, Tina thought, and smiled on.
As Tina sauntered up to the gray building and it's big gray door, each of these containing the superbly frosted air which the outdoors lacked terribly, she saw a girl in a sports bra and track pants by the door. Tina decided to convey an attitude of ease and understanding. Not realizing, she also created not a sound, thereby shattering her effected pleasantness when the girl spun around with a start.
Wow, thought Tina. The girl had light brunette hair and blue eyes. The shining waves of her mane curled very slightly and Tina had the urge to touch them to see if they were as smooth and soft as they seemed. Although her composure had been mildly trounced upon, Tina continued as if it was only natural in the time and place they both occupied.
Hello, said Tina; the paradigm of civic virtue and well engendered formality. This voice says, I am not going to harm you Earthling, we come in peace. It also said, tell me about your childhood, I'm here to help.
The civility otherwise established, Tina was surprised by the harsh tone and nature of the woman's words.
I heard about what's going on in here, she said. Her tone was smooth and careful, but Tina was stung slightly by it nonetheless.
Did you? Shakespeare's Twelfth Night?
I mean the film.
Oh. Tina was momentarily caught in a chasm between the truth and the lack thereof. She decided to pull up her boots and dive into this one. Lying, she thought, let's start with lying.
Film?
The girl looked away. Her eyes seemed a darker shade when faced away from the sun. Tina was unprepared for the blushing she was accomplishing. Why should I blush? Tina thought. She stands there half nude!
Tina cursed her revelation in that moment. Her shallow standards of morality seemed a laughingstock. Considering what she was doing. Considering what she was involved with. How could she pass any sort of judgment on a bare midrift of all things.
I'm sorry, I thought you knew. Never mind.
Tina was turned out of her own turmoil by the woman's words. She watched the running shoes at the end of the track pants as the woman shifted her weight uneasily.
Here's to liars, Tina thought.
Tell me more, Tina said.
Max was not totally unprepared for their first session. He was filled with a jittery nervous pulse, like he had been when discussing the matter over with Joe and Tina and Jane. Especially Jane, he thought.
After that, he seemed to be riding the lightning, so to speak. He was cast in the roguish character, sunglasses in hand, he couldn't help but follow it.
So, he said to the people still hanging around. We can get started, I guess.
What do you want us to do? The boy with the matching clothes asked.
Well I guess we can begin by casting our players.
There was some discussion over that. A taller girl with short blond hair spoke up.
Well it does seem rather important to know what each of our parts will entail, she said.
The others nodded.
Max felt greasy sweat on his palms. He turned and fished in his satchel. He brought out a tattered, cover-less paperback; Max's copy of Twelfth Night.
If you could get out your books, we can go over it here quickly.
He flipped through the pages and saw the scribbles done in a madman's hand. Lewd reverences, bawdy additions, even some scene descriptions, littered the pages. Won't be able to sell this one back to the bookstore, he thought.
Okay, he said.
Act one scene one.
It's an adult film, Michelle said.
Really? At school? Tina had continued her contiguous mistruths by placing herself as a student in the school. Tina was interested in the girl's opinion in a guilty way. She wanted to be talked out of it. Everything. The whole project. Her subconscious urgings pushed her on.
I think so, it's what I've heard.
That's insane! Tina was confused which direction she should lean on this one.
It's unbelievable.
So you were hanging around trying to...?
Michelle pulled a camera out of her bag. She placed on the faux-wooden plastic of the table.
I want to catch them at it so I can get the school to shut them down.
Tina was more than a little surprised. She took the project to be a lark, something to waste away the long heat of summer days. The edge Michelle had taken was that of a cop trying to bust up a gang or drug cartel.
But they were harmless, right? Tina thought.
Wow, Tina said. You really want to nail them, then.
I just think it's completely immoral, unethical, and generally... Michelle searched for a word with an appropriate prefix.
Wrong? Tina completed.
Michelle looked at Tina. Her eyes were these cobalt streams of intense feeling. It was like a shotgun filled with feeling.
Millions of women are sold into sexual slavery every day, Tina. Many women in the pornographic industry are drugged or forced or coersed into performing. It's not something I would wish on anyone.
Okay so this scene here is with Malvolio and Maria and...
It may not seem like a big deal. We live in the suburbs, there's a food and clean water and medicine, we live in a modern society.
So then there's Viola and Olivia, which is a bit tricky...
I don't want to come across as some crazed vigilante propigating outdated beliefs, I don't think they should be doing what they are doing. I believe it's wrong.
Uh, has anyone seen Tina anywhere?
And that is why I'm going to do everything I can think of to shut them down.
8
Romero sat in his booth staring into the separate shots he had. Pete and Max and Joe were behind him in some sort of strange Cerberus, guarding the doors.
These are some preliminaries, different locations we have that you could attempt this thing, Romero said.
He points to a shot of a house. An oblong pool sat in front of a gazebo in the back yard.
If you want to do a modern day type rendition, I guess.
Joe and Max looked at each other. Max raised an eyebrow. Joe shook his head, he wasn't sold just yet.
This here, is a mock-up we've done. We are using the same room, we just change the lighting outside. He clicks a button on the keyboard and the picture switches.
We can do yellow or blue or what have you. It's cheap and it gives the view the illusion of two different places.
We could just change the furniture around, Pete says. He's still staring at the screen. Joe and Romero parked in front and behind his car. It's strange to see, but since it's boxed in and can't be stolen, Pete is uncharacteristically calm.