The screen cut to footage of the event: in front of a team of horses, the robotic Louis Armstrong clunked along with stilted steps, mimicking horn-playing while prerecorded music issued from its belly. The human partic.i.p.ants enacted their roles more fluidly, weeping, laughing, tossing Mardi Gras beads and giving each other high-fives. Upright on his wheeled bier, a gla.s.sy-eyed Backman waved to the watching crowds with steadily diminishing gusto.
Danny clucked his tongue. "What a production. Debord was so right. Our society is nothing but spectacle. I wonder if they paid those so-called mourners scale-"
Lisa"s shriek nearly blew Danny"s closest eardrum out. "This is it! This is the future of Weeping Walls!" She threw herself onto Danny and began frantically unbuckling his belt with one hand while pawing at his crotch with the other.
"Leese, hold on! One minute, please! What"s with you?"
"You"ve got to f.u.c.k me like you"ve never f.u.c.ked me beforel"
"But why?"
"I want to engrave the minute I realized I was a G.o.dd.a.m.n genius onto my brain cells forever!"
"Carol-I mean, Zapmama to Deconstructor. Target in sight." The message crackled from the walkie-talkie hung at Danny"s belt. Danny s.n.a.t.c.hed up the small device and replied.
"Deconstructor to Zapmama. Is your weapon ready?"
"I think so."
"Well, make sure. We can"t risk a screwup on our first kill." "Let me ask Gordon. Gordon, is this what I pull-?" A blast of rifle fire filled the neighborhood"s air, and was simultaneously replicated in miniature by the communicator"s speaker. From his perch of command atop the flat roof of a ten-story office building Danny could see small figures struggling to control the bulky weapon At last the automatic rifle ceased firing.
"Dan-I mean, Deconstructor?"
Danny sighed deeply. "Deconstructor to Zapmama. Go ahead."
"My gun works fine.""Acquire target and await the signal. Over."
Reslinging his walkie-talkie, Danny walked over to the cameraman sharing the roof with him.
"Can we edit out those early shots?"
"No problem, chief."
A bank of jury-rigged monitors showed not only this camera"s perspective, but also the views from other cameras emplaced on the ground. All the lenses were focused on a waddling bus, which bore on its side the legend JERUSALEM TOURS. The bus was nosing into a broad intersection full of traffic and pedestrians. Suddenly, the cars in front and back of the bus seemed to explode. Curiously, no deadly jagged debris flew, nor did any shock waves propagate. Only melodramatic plumes of smoke poured from the gimmicked vehicles.
The explosion brought the hidden attackers out. Dressed in bur-nooses and ragged desert-camouflage gear, the very picture of martyr-mad Arabs, they opened fire on the trapped bus. Window gla.s.s shattered into a crystal rain, holes pinged open in the bus"s cha.s.sis, and the pa.s.sengers slumped in contorted postures. One of the terrorists threw a grenade, and the bus rocked like a low-rider"s jalopy. Blood began to waterfall out the door.
The a.s.sault lasted only ninety seconds, but seemed to go on forever. Mesmerized, Danny nearly forgot his own role. He fumbled with his walkie-talkie and yelled, "Cut! Cut!"
The shooting immediately ceased. Danny hastened down to the street.
A line of ambulances had materialized, directed by a few bored cops. The bus door opened, and the nonchalant driver jumped awkwardly out, anxious to avoid spotting his shoes with the synthetic blood in the stairwell. The medicos entered the damaged bus-seen up close, a twenty-year-old antique obviously rescued from the sc.r.a.p-heap and repainted-and began to emerge with the victims on sarcophagus-shaped carry-boards.
None of the dead people exhibited any wounds. Mostly elderly, with a smattering of young adults and even a teenager or two, they all appeared to have pa.s.sed away peacefully. Many of them had final smiles clinging to their lifeless faces. As the victims were loaded onto the am bulances, the bystanders to the attack watched and commented with mournful pride.
"Uncle Albert went out just the way he imagined."
"I thought Aunt Ruth would flinch, but she never did."
"I saw Harold wave just before the end!"
Danny crunched across the pebbles of safety gla.s.s to where the elated mock-terrorists clumped. Spotting him, they shouted and hooted and applauded their director. Congratulations were exchanged all around.
"Did those charges go off okay, Danny?" asked an earnest techie.
"Just fine."
"I triggered the squibs a little late," confessed another.
"Next time will be perfect, I"m sure."
Stretching her terrorist"s shirt to undemocratic proportions, a gloomy Carol approached. "I"m awfully sorry about that screwup earlier, Danny. Even though they were only blanks, I could have frightened the bus away!"
Danny regarded Carol silently while he tried to pa.r.s.e her logic. "You do know all this was fake, don"t you, Carol?"
Carol reared back indignantly. "Of course I do! I"ve never even been to Jerusalem!"All the ambulances had departed. A DPW truck arrived and discharged workers who began brooming up the gla.s.s. A large tow truck engaged the derelict bus and begun to winch its front wheels up. A car and several vehicles blazoned with the modified WW logo (now reading WW&FE) pulled up, and Lisa and Jake emerged from the lead vehicle.
Clad in a tasteful and modest navy shift, the owner of Weeping Walls took swift strides over to her husband, pecked his cheek, and then turned to address the crowd.
"Thank you, friends, for partic.i.p.ating so enthusiastically in the inaugural performance by Fantasy Exits. I"m sure all your loved ones appreciated your attendence today, as we ushered them off this earth in the manner they selected. Incidentally, your DVD mementos will be available within the next three days. As for those of you who have preregis-tered to commemorate the departure of your loved ones during the accompanying Weeping Walls ceremony, you may now line up in the s.p.a.ce indicated by the temporary stanchions."
As the spectators began to herd, Lisa spoke to her crew in lower tones. "Okay, people, let"s shake our b.u.t.ts! Our permits only run until two o"clock."
In a short time the standard Weeping Walls arrangement was set up the prefab wall itself going up quickly on a leased stretch of side-walk where prearranged postholes awaited-and the friends and relatives of the chemically slaughtered bus riders were being processed through their relatively restrained and somewhat sh.e.l.l-shocked grief.
Lisa and Danny moved off to one side, away from their respective employees.
Lisa"s eyes flashed like the display on an IRS auditor"s calculator "Not bad, not bad at all.
Fifteen hundred dollars per staged suicide times sixty, plus the standard Weeping Walls fees from the survivors.. A nice piece of change. Even after paying your crew and mine good money, there"s plenty left for you and me, babe."
Danny pulled at his chin. "I appreciate having steady employment for my people, Leese. But I continue to be troubled by the ethics of this hyper-real simulation-"
"Ethics? What ethics? These losers were going to off themselves with or without us. We didn"t push them into anything. All we did was provide them with a fantasy exit-a trademarked term already, by the way. They sign the consent and waiver forms, get the hot juice in their veins, and then sail away into their fondest dreams of public crash-and-burn.
We"re like the G.o.dd.a.m.n Make-A-Wish Foundation, only we follow through with our clients right up to the end."
"Okay, granted. n.o.body forced these people into our simulation. But some of these scenarios you"ve got me writing-I just don"t know-"
"Aren"t your guys up to some real acting?"
Danny grew affronted. "The Derridadaists can handle anything you throw at them!"
Lisa smiled in the manner of a gingerbread-house-ensconced witch with two children safely baking in her oven and a third chowing down out in the fattening pen. "Good, good, because I plan to ride this pony to the bank just as fast and hard as I ride you."
"I think you"d better have a look at the deck chairs, Lisa."
Jake Pasha stood tentatively at the door to Lisa"s office. His boss had one phone pinched between her neck and her bunched shoulder, and held another in her right hand while she guided a mouse with her left.
Lisa wrapped up her conversations with both callers and toggled shut several windowsbefore turning to Jake.
"This had better be important."
"I think it is."
Jake made a beckoning motion, and a worker in paint-splattered overalls carried in an old-fashioned wood-and-canvas deckchair. A legend on its side proclaimed it PROPERTY OF WHYTE STAR LINES t.i.tANICK.
"They"re all like this," Jake complained.
Surprisingly, Lisa did not explode, but remained serene. "Oh, I guess I didn"t get around to telling you. As I might have predicted, the bas-tards at TimWarDisVia wouldn"t lease the rights to use the real name, so I figured we"d get around them this way. They"ve still got a hair the size of a hawser up their a.s.ses since we pulled this end run around their pathetic Sadness Fences.
Have you seen the price of their stock lately? Their shareholders have to use a ladder to kiss a slug"s a.s.s. And I hear they"re switching to chain link to cut costs."
"But won"t our customers complain about the inaccuracy?"
"Duh! Our customers, Jake, will be a bunch of romantic idiots just minutes away from a watery grave. If it makes you any happier, we"ll just hit them with the hemlock c.o.c.ktail before they even board our tub, instead of after. They"ll be too woozy to recognize their own faces in a mirror, never mind spotting a frigging historical f.u.c.kup. Just make sure you round up enough dockside wheelchairs, okay? And don"t forget the GPS transponders for the clients. We don"t want to lose any of the stiffs once the ship goes down."
"What about the relatives, though? Won"t they see the error in their souvenir videos and complain?"
"Those f.u.c.king vultures! Most of them are so happy to see their enfeebled parents and aunts and uncles going out in a blaze of glory that they couldn"t care less about historical accuracy.
Remember, Jake- we"re selling fantasy here, not something like a TV docudrama that has to adhere to some rigorous standards."
Jake dismissed the worker with the historically dubious deck chair and closed the door before speaking further.
"Is Danny still talking about pulling out?"
Lisa frowned. "Not for the past couple of days. But I can still sense he"s not exactly a happy camper."
"Did you apologize to him about Bonnie and Clyde?"
"Yes, Dear Abby, I apologized-even though it wasn"t my f.u.c.king fault! Who knew that both our suicides were junkies and that the juice would take longer to work on their dope-tolerant bodies? So a blood-gushing Bonnie and Clyde kept staggering around yelling "Ouch!" after seeming to be hit by about a million bullets and ruined his precious script! G.o.d, he is such a f.u.c.king perfectionist!"
"He"s an artist," said Jake.
"My Christ, what do I hear? Are you hot for him now? I wish I"d never told you about his f.u.c.king ma.s.sive c.o.c.k."
Jake quelled his irritation. "That"s not it at all. I just sympathize with his ambitions."
Lisa stood up huffily. "All right. If it"ll make you feel any better, I"ll pay Danny a visit right now, in the middle of my busy workday, just to show I"m a caring kind of b.i.t.c.h."
"He is essential to our continued success, after all." "Don"t kid yourself, sweetie. The only essential one is me."
"It"s just no use, Carol. I can"t convince myself that helping people die melodramatically is art."
Perched on the corner of Danny"s desk like a concupiscent Kewpie, Carol frowned with earnest empathy. "But Danny, what we"re doing it"s so, it"s so-conceptual!"
Danny dismissed this palliative jargon. "Oh, sure, that"s what I"ve kept telling myself, for three long months. We were pushing the envelope on performance art, subverting cultural expectations, jamming the news machine, highlighting the hypocrisy of the funeral industry.
Lord knows, I"ve tried a dozen formulations of the same excuse. But it all rings hollow to me. I just can"t continue with this Fantasy Exit c.r.a.p anymore. I thought I could sell out, but I was wrong."
"But, Danny, for the first time in years, we all have regular work in our chosen artistic field.
And we"re making good money, too."
"That was never what the Derridadaists stood for, Carol! We could have all gone into commercials, for Christ"s sake, if steady employment was all we cared about. No, I founded our troupe in order to perform cutting-edge, avant-garde theater. And now we"re merely enacting the most ba.n.a.l scenarios, cliched skits out of Hollywood"s musty vaults, predigested for suicidal Philistines. And this latest one is the final straw. The t.i.tanick If only that d.a.m.n remake hadn"t come out last year. Di-Caprio was bad enough in his day, but that little Skywalker adolescent-" Danny shivered and mimed nausea. "Uuurrrggg!"
Carol seemed ready to cry. "It"s me, isn"t it? My performances have sucked! Just say it, Danny, I can take it."
Danny stood to pat Carol"s shoulder. "No, no, you"ve been great."
Carol began to sniffle. "Even when I fell off my horse during the Jesse James bit?"
"Sure. We just cut away from you."
"How about when I knocked down all those buildings before you could even start the San Francisco earthquake?"
"They were going to go down sooner or later, Carol."
"And that accident during the Great Chicago Fire-?"
"Insurance covered everything, Carol."
Carol squealed and hurled herself into Danny"s arms. "Oh, you"re just the best director anyone could ever ask for!"
Danny gently disentangled Carol"s limbs from his and began to pace the office. "How to tell Lisa, though? That"s what stops me. She has such a temper. I know she loves me-at least I"m pretty sure she does- but the business comes first with her. Oh, Carol, what can I do?"
"Well, I know one thing that generally helps in such situations."
"And what might that be?"
"A b.o.o.b job."
"Carol, no, please, stop right now. b.u.t.ton yourself right back up."
"I know what I"m doing, Danny. You"ve been so good to me, and now it"s my turn to help you. Just sit down-there, that"s better. Now let me get this zipper and this snap and this clasp- No, don"t move, I"ve got plenty of room to kneel right here. There, doesn"t that feelgood? Oh I"ve never seen one that was long enough to pop right out of the top of the groove like that!"
"Oh! Lisa!"
"I don"t mind, Danny, you can call me by her name if it helps."
"No! She"s right here!"
From the doorway, Lisa said, "She"s already cast, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And you"re supposed to use the f.u.c.king couch I bought you!"
"Hit that glacier with more Windex!"
Techies on movable scaffolds, looking like bugs on a windshield, responded to the bullhorned instructions by a.s.sidulously polishing the floating Perspex glacier anch.o.r.ed now in the harbor. On the dock, a cavalcade of wheelchairs held the semi-stupefied, terminally ill paying customers slated to go down with the fabled luxury liner (an old tugboat with a scaled-down prow and bridge attached that reproduced the famous vessel"s foreparts). A host of lesser craft held camera and retrieval crews. Near a warehouse, a standard Weeping Wall and appurtenances awaited the end of the maritime disaster reenactment. Over the whole scene, the January sun shed a frosty light.