Dear diary,
Now the next three chapters are dedicated to describing in detail the way that I, Bryan the Abomination of Desolation, hasten to tidy up all the people who in the previous scene got mayonnaised by God.
I do one of those routines that might be familiar to you if you’ve ever watched any funny movies. What happens is that I use a serviette to begin wiping the mayo from where it landed on each mademoiselle’s eveningwear. I cleanse only the womenfolk, who all happen to fit my definition of breathtakingly gorgeous (that’s how sexist and racist this novel is: its actors are exclusively bluestocking females) — I make God do the males. However, as I attempt to clean each spot, the mayo only smears more and more; also the regions of the bodies of each maiden where I keep daubing and caressing and polishing are tastefully risqué. As an added bonus, every damsel is highly sensitive in precisely the places that I am compelled to focus my efforts — necks, shoulders, forearms, shapely calves — thus the women melt at my touch and are unable to stifle involuntary moans of pleasure.
Meanwhile, God’s scenes are equally humorous but in the opposite direction, because all the menfolk in their tuxedos flinch back at the deity’s touch and shout “Hey, watch it, mister!” or “Whoa, buddy, have a care for the merchandise!” And God keeps pawing unceremoniously at each stain.
§
After this, I leave the room and walk down the hallway, to the place where a funeral scene is being filmed.
“This feels real,” I whisper to one of the actors who is pretending to mourn. “The whole set looks like it’s truly outdoors; and whoever’s playing the stiff is believable — is it an actual cadaver?”
“Alas, I can’t answer you,” sez the mourner, who suspiciously resembles Leo Tolstoy. Then he adds: “Not because I’m sworn to secrecy; it’s just that nobody has told me anything, so I have no clue what’s happening. I’m just here for the ride — I received an invitation to a funeral in my mailbox, and I didn’t recognize the name; but I’m retired, so I have nothing but time on my hands; therefore I thought it might be interesting to attend. Next thing I know, I’m weeping for some guy I’ve never met, because the last speech was truly moving — the woman who delivered it introduced herself as the deceased’s mistress. I wish you could have heard it.”
“Hmm,” I say. “There’s one way to find out if this event is real or not: I’ll go and punch the corpse in the face. If the actor weeps, then we’ll know that this is a televised miniseries, and I’ll rejoice that I will have earned myself a juicy role in the scene, which they might credit as ‘Corpse Beater’; however, on the other hand, if the actor who’s playing the deceased does not break character but remains inert and unbreathing, then we’ll know that this is not a TV series but rather a motion picture, perhaps even a European film by Alain Resnais or Rainer Werner Fassbinder, on account of the fact that it is so masterfully done. Here, hold my beer.” I hand the mourner my clear plastic cup of amber liquid that I’ve been nursing for the last few hundred takes.
I approach the coffin with the sure stride of a supermodel on the runway. Looking down, I notice that the dead man is definitely a male, aged forty-five: he could be the doppelganger of a young Count Tolstoy. This corpse is bearded and mustachioed. I raise my hands overhead with my fingers splayed in a menacing fashion and then pause for a moment to look and see if anyone is watching. It turns out that everyone is shocked and staring at me aghast. The present speaker has halted her address; for the podium where she has been delivering her teary-eyed remarks is located just to the left of the coffin, from the audience’s perspective. I now slowly turn back and glare at the dead man for an instant; then with determination lean forth and sink my fangs into his neck. I drink deeply, and the color drains from the corpse’s face. When I come up for air, I note that the encoffined soul and I now share the same measured pace of breath. That convinces me: the actor playing the corpse must be a professional, for he does not let on that I have done this deed to him.
“Cut,” yells the director. And he springs forward out of his chair to scold me: “What was THAT!?!?”
“I won the fight,” I explain. “It’s called a knockout.”
“You were supposed to raise your arm in a balled fist as if about to land a punch but then have second thoughts and prove unable to execute your act of vengeance upon this man who stole the bureaucratic position that you had been coveting for years,” screams the director thru his bullhorn, right in my face. “Now you’ve forced me to go thru the process of hiring another extra to play your rival! Do you know how hard it is to find real men who have thick mustaches and full, masculine beards nowadays!?”
“You mean, because most males are all pansies now, with bare faces and smooth skin — hairless chests and soft, alabaster hands — as if they all got frozen in adolescence?” I ask, just to clarify the director’s criticism of my performance.
“Bryan, you’re fired,” the director humiliates me in front of the crew. “You are TRULY the Abomination of Desolation. I should have listened to God when he invaded my dream last night to warn me that you are a troublemaker.”
This hurts my feelings, so I grab a nearby folding chair that is made of cheap light-yellow wood, and I lift it to the sky and smash it down upon the head of the director.
“Ods bodkins! You killed Mr. ____ [the most currently popular filmmaker, not worth naming],” sez the cinematographer.
“Then dump the coffin out and let him replace the stiff who bailed on us,” I say, grabbing the bullhorn out of the hand of the recently deceased. “Mr. So-and-so here has very nice facial hair, for a pipsqueak who got his job only due to nepotism, because his father was…” [I redact the name again, not wishing to allow his memory to live on forever in my classic storybook here — besides, these market-darling hacks are never scarce, O gentle reader; therefore, just go ahead and fill in the blank with whichever undeserving poetaster sucks up all the fame and financing in your own age.]
So the crew helps me dig a grave for the stiff that I rendered undead, and we give him a proper Christian burial under Antarctica, in accordance with the will that we found in his breast-pocket. Then we team-lift our late director, whom I accidentally slew, into the newly vacant coffin; and he does a much better job as a stage-prop than he ever did as a filmmaker.
We wrap on the movie, and the project comes in WAY under budget; so I take the crew out for ice cream. “You all earned this,” I shout, raising my triple-scoop cone like we’re making a toast.
§
After completing my first full-length feature film, I am compelled to attend the awards ceremony. So I get drunk and high; then, when my name is called and I’m summoned to the stage to accept the trophy for Best Motion Picture, instead of feeling any social anxiety, I’m comfortable enough to make a very good speech.
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