when I had finished, I fell into what I suppose must have been
my own state of depression. I went
through the edited script in a kind of daze. I felt such a feeling of regret . . . of
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
loss . . .'' He looked directly at me and
said, ``Does any of this make any sense to you?''
`Ìt makes sense,'' I said. And it did. In a crazy sort of way.
``There were lots of pills left in the house,'' he said. ``Linda and I were like the
Demmicks in a lot of ways, Clyde--we
really did believe in living better chemically, and a couple of times I came very
close to taking a couple of double
handfuls. The way the thought always came to me wasn't in terms of suicide, but in
terms of wanting to catch up to
Linda and Danny. To catch up while there was still time.''
I nodded. It was what I'd thought about Ardis McGill when, three days after we'd said
toodle-oo to each other in
Blondie's, I'd found her in that stuffy attic room with a small blue hole in the
center of her forehead. Except it had been
Sam Landry who had really killed her, and who had accomplished the deed with a kind of
flexible bullet to the brain.
Of course it had been. In my world Sam Landry, this tired-looking man in the hobo's
pants, was responsible for
everything. The idea should have seemed crazy, and it did . . . but it was getting
saner all the time.
I found I had just energy enough to swivel my chair and look out my window. What I saw
somehow did not surprise me
in the least: Sunset Boulevard and all that surrounded it had frozen solid. Cars,
buses, pedestrians, all stopped dead in
their tracks. It was a Kodak snapshot world out there, and why not? Its creator could
not be bothered with animating
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
much of it, at least for the time being; he was still caught in the whirlpool of his
own pain and grief. Hell, I was lucky
to still be breathing myself.
``So what happened?'' I asked. ``How did you get here, Sam? Can I call you that? Do
you mind?''
``No, I don't mind. I can't give you a very good answer, though, because I don't
exactly know. All I know for sure is
that every time I thought of the pills, I thought of you. What I thought specifically
was, `Clyde Umney would never do
this, and he'd sneer at anyone who did. He'd call it the coward's way out.' ''
I considered that, found it fair enough, and nodded. For someone staring some horrible
ailment in the face--Vernon's
cancer, or the misbegotten nightmare that had killed this man's son--I might make an
exception, but take the pipe just
because you were depressed? That was for pansies.
``Then I thought, `But that's Clyde Umney, and Clyde is make-believe . . . just a
figment of your imagination.' That
idea wouldn't live, though. It's the dumbbells of the world--politicians and lawyers,
for the most part--who sneer at
imagination, and think a thing isn't real unless they can smoke it or stroke it or
feel it or fuck it. They think that way
because they have no imagination themselves, and they have no idea of its power. I
knew better. Hell, I ought to--my
imagination has been buying my food and paying the mortgage for the last ten years or
so.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
`Àt the same time, I knew I couldn't go on living in what I used to think of as `the
real world,' by which I suppose we
all mean `the only world.' That's when I started to realize there was only one place
left where I could go and feel
welcome, and only one person I could be when I got there. The place was here--Los
Angeles, in 1930-something. And
the person was you.''
I heard that faint whirring sound coming from inside his gadget again, but I didn't
turn around.
Partly because I was afraid to.
And partly because I no longer knew if I
my own state of depression. I went
through the edited script in a kind of daze. I felt such a feeling of regret . . . of
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
loss . . .'' He looked directly at me and
said, ``Does any of this make any sense to you?''
`Ìt makes sense,'' I said. And it did. In a crazy sort of way.
``There were lots of pills left in the house,'' he said. ``Linda and I were like the
Demmicks in a lot of ways, Clyde--we
really did believe in living better chemically, and a couple of times I came very
close to taking a couple of double
handfuls. The way the thought always came to me wasn't in terms of suicide, but in
terms of wanting to catch up to
Linda and Danny. To catch up while there was still time.''
I nodded. It was what I'd thought about Ardis McGill when, three days after we'd said
toodle-oo to each other in
Blondie's, I'd found her in that stuffy attic room with a small blue hole in the
center of her forehead. Except it had been
Sam Landry who had really killed her, and who had accomplished the deed with a kind of
flexible bullet to the brain.
Of course it had been. In my world Sam Landry, this tired-looking man in the hobo's
pants, was responsible for
everything. The idea should have seemed crazy, and it did . . . but it was getting
saner all the time.
I found I had just energy enough to swivel my chair and look out my window. What I saw
somehow did not surprise me
in the least: Sunset Boulevard and all that surrounded it had frozen solid. Cars,
buses, pedestrians, all stopped dead in
their tracks. It was a Kodak snapshot world out there, and why not? Its creator could
not be bothered with animating
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
much of it, at least for the time being; he was still caught in the whirlpool of his
own pain and grief. Hell, I was lucky
to still be breathing myself.
``So what happened?'' I asked. ``How did you get here, Sam? Can I call you that? Do
you mind?''
``No, I don't mind. I can't give you a very good answer, though, because I don't
exactly know. All I know for sure is
that every time I thought of the pills, I thought of you. What I thought specifically
was, `Clyde Umney would never do
this, and he'd sneer at anyone who did. He'd call it the coward's way out.' ''
I considered that, found it fair enough, and nodded. For someone staring some horrible
ailment in the face--Vernon's
cancer, or the misbegotten nightmare that had killed this man's son--I might make an
exception, but take the pipe just
because you were depressed? That was for pansies.
``Then I thought, `But that's Clyde Umney, and Clyde is make-believe . . . just a
figment of your imagination.' That
idea wouldn't live, though. It's the dumbbells of the world--politicians and lawyers,
for the most part--who sneer at
imagination, and think a thing isn't real unless they can smoke it or stroke it or
feel it or fuck it. They think that way
because they have no imagination themselves, and they have no idea of its power. I
knew better. Hell, I ought to--my
imagination has been buying my food and paying the mortgage for the last ten years or
so.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
`Àt the same time, I knew I couldn't go on living in what I used to think of as `the
real world,' by which I suppose we
all mean `the only world.' That's when I started to realize there was only one place
left where I could go and feel
welcome, and only one person I could be when I got there. The place was here--Los
Angeles, in 1930-something. And
the person was you.''
I heard that faint whirring sound coming from inside his gadget again, but I didn't
turn around.
Partly because I was afraid to.
And partly because I no longer knew if I
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