The Mirrors Page 14

  As Mervyn’s appeared to be doing lately.

  The first several items on the evening’s agenda proved unremarkable. One of Mervyn’s newer fans might have been more impressed, but I’d known him long enough to have seen him pull this shtick before. Mervyn ridiculing organized religion during the course of his belching “benediction,” Mervyn getting to second base with the strippers, in front of several hundred onlookers, Mervyn reading the alternate ending to his first novel. Call me jaded, but this was all old hat. Things didn’t get too interesting until the question-and-answer session.

  A girl with purple hair and dark circles under her eyes asked the first question about breaking into publishing. “Mervyn, I know that zombies are hot right now. And no doubt you have a lot to do with it—you’ve carved out an impressive career by writing nothing but zombie books. But, as we all know, you’re drinking yourself to death. You seem miserable. Is your zombie-fame a curse? How do you recommend that a newer writer avoid getting pigeonholed in one subgenre?”

  “Look, I’m not a dilettante scribbling away just for the fun of it.” He badly slurred the esses in “scribbling” and “just.” “I’m selling the shit I think you want to buy. The fans are my bosses. I’m just doing as I’m told.” Mervyn grimaced. For a moment I thought he was going to cry. But he seemed almost too far gone for that.

  The next question came from a short, husky man sporting a series of piercings arranged over his face in the shape of a beard. “Mervyn, if I can tell you a dirty joke and make you laugh, will you stop drinking yourself to death?” Polite laughter erupted from the crowd. At that moment, I suspected that the majority of them must have still thought that all this was an elaborate hoax.

  “Do you think this is all a show? Do you think I’m faking it all?” Mervyn roared with a phlegmy voice. “Would you ask that question of Poe or F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway?” He staggered toward the fan and took a swipe at him with ragged, unkempt fingernails.

  Maybe the fan fell. Maybe Mervyn pushed him. In the low light it was hard to tell. All anyone knew was that he’d landed on the floor.

  Many in the crowd gasped, but a handful giggled. The nervous giggles from those who were concerned mixed with snarky giggles from those who still saw all this as nothing but theatrics—the sort of over-the-top Friday night antics that were tailor-made for Monday morning blogs.

  Beard-of-Piercings-Dude came to realize Mervyn wasn’t playing, though. He crab-walked away as swiftly as his own tipsy, uncoordinated legs could take him. In his haste, he knocked over some of the shorter, thinner women like so many inebriated bowling pins.

  More people laughed, but I didn’t see the humor. This just confirmed the worst rumors that I’d heard about Mervyn. Stories had leaked out that, outside of a handful of public appearances, he’d gone Howard-Hughes-reclusive over the years. One of his personal assistants (a pale, nervous hipster named Jake Togg) quit last year—ostensibly because he “was tired of cleaning up Guestwhaite’s puke.”

  It took no more than a week after resigning for the erstwhile servant to write a stunning series of blog entries running Guestwhaite’s name through the mud, entitled “Slave to the Redneck Master: My Life Behind the Scenes with Mervyn Guestwhaite.”

  Tales were told of the great Guestwhaite pissing all over himself the morning after a particularly egregious bender; of the author not even bothering to take a shower (much less change clothes) afterward. “Mervyn could handle losing control of his bladder,” Togg had blogged, “but he couldn’t stand the idea of losing a train of thought. Clean underwear and a shirt free of b.o. could wait. The muse could not.”

  The blog was, however, most famous for this single paragraph, an artsy creative nonfiction composition that turned the heads of a not-a-few editors recruiting new talent:

  “For Merv, the smell of body odor was the smell of writing. Which was the smell of cash. Which was the smell of Woodford Reserve. Which was the smell of work getting done. Which was the smell of body odor. Which was the smell of writing. Which was the smell of cash.”

  It wasn’t long before a micro-press publisher approached him with the idea to mash up his muckraking blog with a fictional zombie apocalypse tale of his own. That was how the 2014 Rotting Austen Award Winner for Best Mash-Up, Slave to the Redneck Master & His Zombies Which Turned Out to Not Be Fictional But Really Real, came to be.

  After Mervyn’s question-and-answer session freakout, the entire evening derailed from the schedule. Shortly after that débâcle, I saw Meryvn and a couple of strippers groping one another while sauntering off to one of the club’s private rooms. Then two hours passed without any sign of them. Benedict Brown, the mortician, was ushered onto the stage ahead-of-schedule to give his spiel. I wasn’t in the mood for a morbid sales presentation. Luckily, while pinballing around the crowded club I happened to run into my old friend Katie Winslow.

  Katie went by “Kathryn” on her book covers, but went by “Mistress” at conventions. I didn’t get the whole S&M thing, but didn’t let it stand in the way of our friendship either. Katie wore a black leather version of the outfit donned by Xena: Warrior Princess. Only Xena never juggled a whip, handcuffs, and a mixed drink.

  Even with the depressing circumstances of the evening, I couldn’t help ribbing her. “I know it’s traditional to wear black to a funeral, but …”

  She mumbled something I couldn’t hear over the heavy bass of the stripper-music.

  I pointed to my ear. “Huh?”

  She leaned forward. “I said my sackcloth is at the cleaners.” I didn’t think that was very funny, but I smiled and nodded, getting a whiff of Katie’s breath. Rum. Rum and mango juice. One of our old favorites. We used to sit out on my deck in the springtime and drink them while talking about which anthologies were open to submissions.

  My mind started to play tricks on me. Earlier in the evening, Mervyn had reeked of liquor. But by this time of night, it seemed that everyone did. Even Katie. I felt myself start to get a vague contact buzz, just from the smell. Sounds washed together like the inside of a seashell. My forehead tingled.

  “Hey, do you mind taking this off my hands for a second?” She put the drink in my hand. “There’s a submissive male—he says he’s going to be one of Guestwhaite’s pallbearers—that’s expecting me in one of the back rooms.”

  I looked at her. Stared at her.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry. I forgot you still … I mean, you’re still not drinking, right? I just thought …”

  I looked at the pink stuff in her goblet. I remembered the taste. Sweet with a kick. A nice change of pace from my old drink-of-choice, gin and tonic.

  “I’m not drinking. Why don’t you go ahead and just have this guy hold it for you? I mean, if he’s all into serving you, then that seems to be the way to go.”

  She smiled and grabbed her glass back. “Good idea. You know, you could be a dominant yourself. There’s this slave in our kink group who gives the best pedicures …”

  I felt my stomach start to slosh. My head start to buzz. My ears start to tingle. Just like before. It’s just a contact buzz. I told myself. Just a contact buzz.

  “Look, maybe another time …” I stood on tiptoe, trying to spy on Mervyn. He’d just emerged from the private room with the strippers and had been mobbed by fans. I looked down at my cell phone. If this were really on the up-and-up—if Mervyn really planned to die by midnight—then he had less than an hour to live. I excused myself and decided to get out into the night air. Away from the smell of rum and stench of cigarettes.

  Outside, it felt better. Cleaner. The starry sky offered a sense of wonder, awe, and reassurance. It all looked so sterile and orderly. As if someone was in charge. As they say in A.A., a Higher Power.

  Such a Higher Power appeared to hold no sway over the macabre events inside The Electric Lady, but here, outside, looking up, I had faith again. Faith in the fixed bodies of the cosmos. Stars appeared to move across the sky over the course of months, of course—but th
at was a mere illusion of position. It was the Earth that did most of the moving.

  Perhaps that’s how it was with Mervyn and myself. Maybe it only looked as if he’d changed over the years, when I was really the one who had done all the changing. I was the one who checked out of writing to go to rehab. I was the one who hadn’t bothered keeping in touch—mostly out of envy. Thinking of Mervyn made me think of everything I’d lost. So I tried to stop thinking of him, but even in absentia he still influenced my thoughts, in a roundabout way, by motivating the conscious effort to stop thinking about him.

  He was a big, brilliant star. I was just one of the bodies revolving around him, whether I wanted to or not.

  But what happened when a star imploded? When the denseness of its gravity collapsed it onto itself? I tried to remember the little bit of astronomy I’d learned from Carl Sagan. Carl had said on his TV show, Cosmos, that a star that imploded into itself would become a black hole; that it would suck in everything around it.

  Just as an alcoholic does.

  I decided to call my sponsor. I wasn’t sure if attending this funeral was such a good idea.

  My sponsor (a kindly real estate agent who was ten years sober, but who knew nothing about Mervyn Guestwhaite) insisted I drive home immediately. “You’re in a slippery place,” she said to me. “Slippery places lead to slips.”

  I explained that I wanted to determine if Mervyn was really going to drink himself to death that night.

  “Good Lord, girl, you need to get that man to a hospital. I don’t have to tell you to call 911, do I?”

  “B-but this is just a little hick town down here along the Tennessee border. They’re not taking this seriously.”

  “Then make them take it seriously. Call them.”

  I called 911, but thought I got the wrong number. It sounded as if I’d gotten a hold of a busy bar by mistake.

  “Bristol County 911,” I heard amidst the din, “where is your emergency?”

  I looked around, frantic, and realized I had no clue of the street address for The Electric Lady. So I just blurted it out. “The strip club. I’m in the parking lot outside the Electric Lady strip club.”

  The redneck guy on the other end of the phone giggled. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s no listing for ‘Electric Lady Strip Club’ in your area.”

  “Look—you have to know the place. What do they call it? A Gentleman’s Club. ‘The Electric Lady Gentleman’s Club.’ It’s here in Corbin. There’s a big party here tonight.”

  The door to the Electric Lady swung open. Two men— muscular EMTs in full rescue squad regalia—strutted out, gravel growling under their every step.

  “911 is getting forwarded to my cell tonight. Now what seems to be the problem, missy?”

  “What do you mean, what’s the problem? Have you been inside and seen Mervyn? He’s dying!”

  “Actually,” the blond EMT said, “he’s running late for that. It’s midnight now, and he’s still breathin’.”

  The brown-haired EMT snickered. “Pay up, cuz! You said he’d croak early! But I knew that tough son of a bitch wouldn’t die that easy!”

  The blond one huffed. “I’m never bettin’ with you again. It’s like you’re psychic or somethin’.”

  “Look—both of you—you’re emergency medical technicians, it’s your job to make sure he doesn’t die.”

  “Lookit this,” the brown-haired one said. “A troublemaker! Comin’ in here from the city and tellin’ us what our job is!”

  The blond gritted his teeth. “I don’t like that. No, not one bit.”

  “There’s a man in there who’s going to die. Maybe not right at midnight, but probably tonight. If not tonight, probably soon. All because you goons aren’t doing your job.”

  “Actually,” the blond said, “we are exactly doing our job. We’re working two gigs tonight. We’re taking calls for 911, sure, but The Electric Lady hired us as bouncers for this event.” He grinned. “Guess who pays more?”

  I cringed.

  The blond guy continued. “And so, in our capacity as bouncers, we’re issuing you a warning. Mr. Guestwhaite has made it abundantly clear that he wishes not to be disturbed by interlopers during this evening’s event. If you hassle Mervyn Guestwhaite during this performance, then I will be forced to call the cops to arrest you under the same state law that punishes customers for hassling strippers.”

  Exasperated, I raised my voice. “He’s not a stripper!”

  The blond’s muscles flexed as he grabbed my shoulder.

  “Calm down, ma’am! If you can’t calm down, I’m going to ask you to leave.”

  I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay; to do what I could to help Mervyn. And, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to talk to my A.A. sponsor either. If I was really honest with myself, I just wanted to get drunk. All for a good cause, though, of course.

  I wanted to get drunk and summon up the courage to tell Mervyn he should stop all this right now. Only a drunk could tell a drunk he was too drunk. And a former drunk just wouldn’t do. I’d lack street cred if I didn’t smell of booze when I shared my recovery with him.

  The only thing left to do was march back into the strip club and belly up to the bar.

  It took a long time for me to actually work my way through the line at the bar. Long enough for me to have second thoughts. I decided I’d order a virgin strawberry daiquiri.

  The topless bartender shook her white, ghoulish head. “No virgins allowed here,” she said. “You need to be good and drunk for the crazy shit goin’ down tonight.” Then she went ahead and poured copious amounts of rum into the drink. Less than a minute in the blender, and it was ready to go.

  For a few moments I just stood there, gawking at the drink in my hand, swirling my straw in figure eights around the icy froth of the daiquiri. A girl with gray skin sat in the closest bar stool. All the other stools were taken, too.

  “Need to sit?” the gray girl said in a perky voice. She started to get up from the bar stool, revealing the fact that she, too, had been made up to look like a zombie—but not hastily made up the way the strippers had been. Made up in a way that made me wonder if she dated Tom Savini.

  “Oh, it’s okay. I don’t want to take your place.”

  “I don’t need to sit,” the gray girl said. She got up with an awkward, shuffling motion. “I’m a real zombie, you know. My limbs will never tire again. I could stand all day.”

  I’d heard that Mervyn’s fans could become unhinged. And this, apparently, was a prime example of the phenomenon. Mervyn had cranked out zombie novels by the dozens during his career; but he never mistook fiction for fact. The novels were just a way to make a living telling stories. But to readers like the gray girl, the books provided a new cosmology, a new ethics, and so much more than that: a raison d’être.

  “I really am a real zombie,” the gray girl said. “And I’m not the only one here who is.”

  I nodded and smiled and just thought about leaving my drink there with her. Maybe it would calm her down.

  “Mervyn’s a real zombie, too,” she said. “I saw it on his message board. His avatar clearly shows him in undisguised zombie mode.”

  “I think you misunderstood a publicity photo. That was just Mervyn clowning around with some makeup people on the set of the R.A.N.K. movie. He’s really not a zombie.”

  “He is too a real zombie. He almost began feeding on that one guy during the question-and-answer session. He’s like me—without a soul. Lost in the automation of his own flesh. Just a skin puppet.”

  “I’m still not convinced. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

  The girl smirked. “The evidence is right in front of you—he’s not dead.”

  “Exactly. But I’m a little confused. How does that prove your point? If he’s not dead, how can he be a zombie?”

  “He’s not dead because alcohol poisoning won’t kill a zombie. But this misery of his has been going on for too long. He
deserves release from his pain, and the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot him in the head.” That’s when she dug into her purse and showed me the gun. She took it in hand and strode away toward Mervyn.

  I looked around for the off-duty EMTs. She lurched through the crowd with her lithe little body. I slapped the bar with my palm. She disappeared from sight. I began to scream and point to where I’d last seen her. “She has a gun, she has a gun!”

  I heard something that sounded like a firecracker going off.

  The wound in Mervyn Guestwhaite’s head looked like the mouth of a wheezing baby. Tiny. Spastic.

  A hush came over the crowd, and I heard the gray girl shouting. “This is the way—the only way—for a zombie to die with honor!”

  Blood began gushing out of the hole in spasms. It fell on his cheeks and dripped onto his teeth. Mervyn looked more awake than he had at any point during the evening. He let out a hoarse moan and staggered about.

  He did not fall.

  And so the gray girl kept shooting. She demonstrated decent marksmanship for a “real zombie,” landing most shots on Mervyn’s forehead but missing once in awhile—blowing off Mervyn’s left ear or piercing the arm or leg of a bystander.

  Whoops rose up from the crowd. The topless bartender climbed atop the bar to get a better view. But that only lasted for a minute. In the end, she decided to rush into the crowd—she and all the others who were feeling their booze consumption by this part of the evening. They surrounded Mervyn and the gray girl like kids at a birthday party, waiting for the blow that would pierce the piñata.

  Fear nailed my feet to the ground, so I stood apart from the rest. I watched. I watched without helping Mervyn live or die. I stood by the bar and just watched.

  I don’t know how many shots it took to blow Mervyn’s head off. Smoke and bad lighting obscured some of these particulars from my vantage point near the bar. I only know that there was a chorus of demon-screams one moment, and someone shouting “Brains!” the next.

  “Brains! Guestwhaite’s brains!”

  I saw the crowd fall to the ground, searching for a gray matter souvenir of the wildest night of Mervyn Guestwhaite’s life. “I need to eat it. Eat Guestwhaite’s brain! By consuming it, I can absorb his writing power,” I overheard someone say.