Bootycall 2 - J. D. Hawkins Page 0,28

anyone, and that if you do, it never leaves the stained, peeling walls.

I sidle in to the dim, smoke-filled room (not even a smoking ban can change Kavanagh’s) and walk to my usual spot at the bar. My fame, my face – none of it matters here. A flicker of eyes – more at the light that I let in as I push open the door, than the fact that I’m Dylan Marlowe – is all that greets me.

Seconds after I’m in my seat there’s a triple whiskey in front of me. I gulp half and let it burn, let it sink into my body, let it wash all the shit I want to shout and scream about down my throat once again.

You can’t run away from the past. But if your past is as dark as mine you’d better run anyway – or else it’ll run after you.

I rub my eyes, and when I open them the bald bartender, in his ill-fitting jeans and meal-for-one stained shirt, looks at me blankly. I nod my head, down the rest of the whiskey, and he has another there in seconds, before going off to lean at his post by the radio.

How could something so pure, so good get corrupted to shit so easily? It was all so fucking simple when we were kids. Me and my buddy Cal swapping VHS tapes of R-rated films that were on past our bedtime, but that we set the machine to record. Quoting lines from Scarface as we walked to school. Talking about what we would do if we were stuck on this ship with the Alien, because we were really just shit-scared of the thing. Talking about why Jaws was the greatest film ever. Realizing that being an adult was harder than it looked when we saw the Godfather trilogy. Wishing to God that our Sunday school teacher had also seen the Graduate and liked the idea of it.

It was all another world. Someplace fantastic, but real enough to move you. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to make art, create characters that people felt they knew as well as their closest friends, scenes and situations so powerful that people referred to them like real memories. It was untainted, a good ambition.

How did it all turn to so much shit? How does something as good and as pure as making art, telling stories, reaching out to people, all end up with scumbags digging into your past and blocking your doorway? How does all the work that goes into creating characters and plots and scenarios, with elegant visuals and vivid sound, get turned so quickly by cockroaches into discussions and critiques of career trajectories, marketable stars, snide slanders and arbitrary praise? How does the fantasy and infinite imagination of film live so closely with miserable reality and close-minded judgment?

I slam the second whiskey glass down and pick up the full one next to it. I gulp down another soothingly hot sensation and drop my head into my hands.

What am I talking about? I’m so full of shit. I’ve spent so long thinking about movies that I’ve lost touch with reality. I’ve gotten so used to clean endings, happy endings, that I can’t handle the things that linger inside of me like unfulfilled promises. Gemma’s right. I’ve never dealt with any of it. I’ve just kept on blocking it out, distracting myself, and hoping that the great scriptwriter in the sky will figure out an ending for me – a good one. I’m the star after all. Aren’t I? Dylan Marlowe. The biggest name on the poster. The hero.

I listen to a guy behind me push his chair back, slam some coins onto the counter, and shuffle his feet out of the door, mumbling as he goes. “Back to the bitch.”

Was I really thinking that? Was I really believing things would get better for me? That I could move on and not live in either a state of anguish over the past, or throwing myself into things that would help me forget for a few seconds? I’ve never been optimistic before. Never had reason to believe things would get anything but worse. So what changed? Why am I acting like this is something new?

Gemma.

I hate to fucking admit it, but this fourth whiskey is making me. She’s the one who’s had me thinking I might be able to move on, might be able to