PROLOGUE I smoke too much. My brother invented rain. I tell these things to the smelly bum sitting next to me. I wait in the airport for my brother. He is arriving from Seattle inside of a big metal tube with seats. They put him inside of it in Seattle. They take him out of it in New York. That's the way the world is.
I have a saying for how the world is. It is this: And then some.
The bum does not listen. Bums never listen to anyone. Bums rot. And then some.
This story is dedicated to the only bum who ever listened. I told him about my brother who invented rain.
"What a coincidence," the bum said.
This is something people say all the time when they are amazed by a coincidence.
I am full of death. So is this book. The death this book is full of is murder. Because that is what all the characters get, except for one, who doesn't. His name is Wade Wetknees. I met him once. This is what he said: "Make me a millionaire." This is what I did: I didn't. He told me as a creator I left a lot to be desired. He was right. I'm also a lousy father. My children take drugs and wish I were dead. Wade takes no drugs and wishes I were alive. His asshole looks like this: *
He is the only character I love. He is the only character in this book I will allow to survive. What a coincidence. Life is full of coincidences. The world is full of life. Here is Chapter One.
CHAPTER ONE John Hinckley is a real man. I did not create him. I sometimes change the name to protect the innocent, but I never change the name to protect the not guilty by reason of insanity. John Hinckley loved Jodie Foster, a young college student he had never met. Didn't we all?
There is a real-life analogy to what love is. It is the best analogy I have ever heard. It is this:
There was a town in upstate New York. The soil and water in this town were saturated with death-dealing toxic chemicals. Above the ground stood lovely middle-class people with red saw skin and bald patches on their heads. Every child in this town had asthma. One woman grew seventy-two toes as she slept. This is true. The place is called Love Canal. It is spitting distance to Niagara Falls. I know. I tried it.
How can anyone think love without thinking canal? I can't.
No one knew more about the toxic waste of love than John Hinckley did. This is what his toxic chemicals made him do: Hinckley plotted to kill Ronald Reagan, who was president of the United States, a country on the planet Earth.
This was how he would impress Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster was an actress. Ronald Reagan was an actor. What a coincidence. And then some.
CHAPTER TWO President Reagan loved Jodie Foster. It was a secret. He was old, she was young. To impress her he planned to kill a human being. How can one love Jodie Foster without thinking of assassination? It is impossible.
He picked the human being's name out of a phone book. He picked the phone book out of a hat. He picked the hat off the head of a congressman.
Here is the name he picked: John Hinckley. What a coincidence. And then some.
CHAPTER THREE Martin Scorsese was a director of motion pictures. The director is the man who yells "Cut." He gets paid a lot of money.
Martin Scorsese was a man with a vision. On a good day he was a man with a double vision. This was the title of his current project: "The Obsessed and the Inarticulate." It took place on the lower east side of the planet Saturn. It was science fiction. I am not a science fiction writer.
"The Obsessed and the Inarticulate" starred Robert De Niro in the title role. Martin Scorsese's idea of Saturn was fancifully patterned after Ancient Rome, as was his idea of modern-day Little Italy. Little Italy is in New York City. In the picture Robert De Niro portrayed centurion John Hincklius, a disturbed chariot driver from Little Ancient Rome who assassinates Jerrus Lewus, who was played by Leonard Nimoy. He assassinates Lewus for the love of Jodus Fostus, as played by the lovely Albert Brooks.
And then some.
CHAPTER FOUR Wade Wetknees sat in the bar of the Holiday Inn in Boise, Idaho. It was a long commute from his job at the Illium Artificial Artery Factory in New Jersey, but he liked the piano player. He guzzled planter's punch and told his boyhood friend and manhood bartender, Ed Wyzyrbicki, about Saturn.
"Ed, Saturn has rings," Wade said. "To boot, it is like Ancient Rome. To the other boot, they dress in togas, the plural of which is togi."
"Live and learn, live and learn," Ed said.
Live and learn. And then some.
"Someday I will go there and be Emperor," Wade said.
And it was true. Someday he would.
"But first I want to remake the famous Zapruder film."
The Zapruder film is an eight-millimeter home movie of John F. Kennedy's assassination.
"It is out of focus," Wade said. "And there is no music. It begs to be remade. If I don't, who will? Of course I will need to reshoot the president as well. Is there a president currently?"
"Yes, Donald Reagan," Ed said.
"Why do you call me Donald Reagan?" Wade asked, hurt.
"I don't call you Donald Reagan. I call the president Donald Reagan."
Wade rubbed his chin and said: "It is as clear as fine china now. Here, take this."
He handed Ed a gun. A gun is a tool used for killing. It looked like this: *
"This is what we will do," Wade said. He told Ed what they would do. And then some.
CHAPTER FIVE The backers watched a preview of "The Obsessed and the Inarticulate." A backer is a person who supplies money for any project. On Saturn they are called bacchus.
The film ended. The lights were turned up.
One of the great controversies of the second half of the twentieth century was whether a person's actions were determined by what he, or she, saw on T.V., and in the movies too.
The backers raised this question.
"Don't you think," they said in unison, "that Nimoy's assassination will encourage actual attempts on his life? The character who assassinates Nimoy is hailed first as a hero, then as Emperor, then as Head Emperor. In our book that means you condone the killing of Leonard Nimoy. What has he ever done to you?"
"Gentleman," Scorsese said, "as an artist, I have considered all this. And first, I do not condone, I condemn a sick society that would praise a murderer. As a lesson to all those who plot to kill Leonard Nimoy, I shall kill him first, simply to prove that I will not be made a hero, but sent to jail, and consequently prison, for the rest of my days. The nights shall be my own.
"And secondly I shall prove that one does not murder because he has seen murder depicted in a film. For I have never seen this film..."
"But..." said the backers.
Scorsese held a hand up to them.
"Because you see, gentlemen, I am... blind."
My brother was blind, too.
And then some.
(To be continued...)