It was like a death squad letting go an endless fusillade. J. C. rocked and swayed as if struck.
Groc’s assistant makeup men were about to guide J. C. away when—
The thing happened.
There was a soft hiss as something like a single drop of rain struck the bed of burning coals.
We all looked down and then up—
At J. C., whose hands were thrust out over the charcoals. He was studying his own wrists with great curiosity.
They were bleeding.
“Ohmigod,” Constance said. “Do something!”
“What?” cried Fritz.
J. C. said, calmly, “Shoot the scene.”
“No, damnit!” cried Fritz. “John
the Baptist, with his head off, looked better than you!”
“Then,” J. C. nodded across the set to where Stanislau Groc and Doc Phillips stood, as merry Punch and dark Apocalypse, “then,” said J. C. “let them sew and bandage me until we’re ready.”
“How do you do that?” Constance was staring at his wrists. “It comes with the text.”
“Go make yourself useful,” J. C. said to me.
“And take that woman with you,” ordered Fritz. “I don’t know her!”
“Yes, you do,” said Constance. “Laguna Beach, July 4th, 1926.”
“That was another country, another time.” Fritz slammed an invisible door.
“Yes.” Constance paused. The cake fell in the oven. “Yes, it was.”
Doc Phillips arrived at J. C.’s left wrist. Groc arrived at his right.
J. C. would not look at them; he fixed his gaze on the high fog in the sky.
Then he turned his wrists over and held them out so they might see his life dripping from the fresh stigmata.
“Careful,” he said.
I walked out of the light. A small girl followed, becoming a woman along the way.
43
“Where are we going?” said Constance.
“Me? Back in time. And I know who runs the Moviola to make it happen. You? Right here, coffee and sinkers. Sit. I’ll be right back.”
“If I’m not here,” said Constance, seated at an outdoor extras’ picnic table, and wielding a doughnut. “Look for me at the men’s gym.”
I moved off alone, in the dark. I was running out of places to go, places to search. Now I headed toward one place on the lot I had never been. Other days were there. Arbuthnot’s film ghost hid there and perhaps myself, as a boy, wandering the studio territories at noon.
I walked.