TERROR MANNEQUIN,
By Douglas Hackle
201 pages

Douglas Hackle (aka Big Daddy D, aka D-Eazy, aka Tha D-Child, aka Tha D-ster, aka Tha Big Dippa, aka Douggie-Style, aka Tha Douginator, aka The Dougerizer, aka Dazzlin’ Dizzy-D McNasty, aka Dig-Dug McDoogenstein McDrizzle, aka DJ Dougzilla von Chillmasta, aka Fyodor Dougstoevsky, et al.) is up to his old tricks again and possibly a few new ones with the release of his latest novel, TERROR MANNEQUIN.

***
Forty-year-old Glont Lamont is a longtime employee of Fun 4-Life Corporation, where he gets paid good money to play videos games, watch TV, get drunk, get high, devour pizza, ride the company roller coaster, take long-ass naps, and toss off like a madman in an insane asylum. There’s only one problem: Glont’s sick of his job! Nowadays, all he really wants to do is work long, grueling shifts 7-days-a-week doing any sort of awful, backbreaking, tedious, demoralizing, soul-crushing, severely undercompensated labor.

But with Halloween just a few days away, Glont has more important things to worry about than his workplace woes. Namely, he must take his two “freak” nephews out reverse trick-or-treating, which is a form of annual ritualistic tribute whereby the cruel townspeople force his nephews to walk door-to-door on Halloween night to hand out candy to people instead of receiving candy themselves.

And this year, the last stop on the trio’s reverse trick-or-treating itinerary is Fallingwater—built on a natural waterfall, Frank Lloyd Wright’s world-famous architectural masterpiece is now closed to the public and allegedly haunted by an evil supernatural entity known as TERROR MANNEQUIN…

BUY A COPY HERE

***
Praise for TERROR MANNEQUIN:

“If you want a Halloween read unlike any other, you’re gonna wanna pick this one up.” –Gregor Xane, author of Brides of Hanover Block

“Very weird, very gory, and very funny. Douglas Hackle has written the literary equivalent to The Toxic Avenger, a blood-soaked, genre-defying, anti-horror novel.” Danger Slater, author of Impossible James

More praise for Douglas Hackle:

“Hackle may be the best absurdist story writer working today.” –Bradley Sands, author of Dodgeball High

“…the best bizarro absurdist in the business.” –Amy M. Vaughn, author of Skull Nuggets

 

 

 

Big Ol’ Jelly Boy

I’m full of jelly. I’m a big ol’ jelly boy!

There’s jelly in my tummy, and there’s jelly in my arms and in my legs and in my feet and in my face and in my pee-pee. I’m full of so much jelly that I could pop, so I don’t use sharp objects. No number two pencils, sewing needles, thumbtacks, vaccines or steak knives for this big ol’ jelly boy.

Sometimes I wish that wasn’t full of so much jelly. Then I would be like all the other boys and girls, who mostly aren’t full of jelly.

I waddle across the classroom, putting one foot in front of the other with big ol’ jelly-filled steps. It will be faster if I get on my side and roll across the floor because I’m pretty much a big ol’ ball of jelly, but that’s not safe. If there’s anything pointy enough on the floor, I would burst open and spray jelly everywhere and all over the other boys and girls in class would be covered in my jelly and that would be bad.

Teacher sees me taking my big ol’ jelly steps and her face gets all tight like someone is pinching her skin. You can tell that she isn’t full of any jelly at all.

“Come on, Smucker. Walk faster, I need to get everyone to recess,” says Teacher. “You can’t keep holding everyone up like this.”

Teacher doesn’t like big ol’ jelly boys.

“Teacher, I’m walking as fast as I can,” I say. “It’s hard for me to move fast, because I’m full of so much jelly.”

Teacher rolls her eyes. It seems like she is making a very big show of rolling her eyes, because I don’t think her eyes need to move that fast just to see things.

“You’re going to use that excuse your whole life, aren’t you?” says Teacher. “No matter how much you inconvenience and burden the people around you, you’re just going to act like you’re the victim because you’re so full of jelly. Is that really how you intend to live, Smucker?”

I don’t really understand what Teacher is saying, but I can tell that it isn’t nice. I don’t say anything back to Teacher, but I stop taking my big ol’ jelly-filled steps forward and look down at my sneakers.

“Oh, and now you’re done moving entirely. Great,” says Teacher. “All the other boys and girls are lined up by the door, but they still can’t go to recess yet because the boy who filled himself up with jelly has decided that he’s done walking.”

I think that Teacher is confused about my jelly.

“Teacher, I didn’t mean to fill myself up with jelly,” I say. “It was an accident that happened to me when I was little, and it makes things very hard for me.”

“Hard for you?” says Teacher. “I’m the one who has to deal with getting you from class to recess to gym to art class to lunch and back again with wasting all the other kid’s time. I’m the one who has to keep anything sharper than a fork away from you so you don’t pop open. I’m the one who has to spend all day looking at your gross, jelly-bloated body.

“You get to spend all day waddling around without a second thought to everyone else’s time and the places we have to go and things we have to do. You get to spend all day converting the excess jelly in your body into nutrients while the rest of us have to worry about feeding ourselves. If the fact that you’re filled with jelly makes life hard for anyone, it’s me. You have no idea what a selfish luxury you’ve given yourself.”

Teacher likes to use lots of big words that I don’t know, but I get the gist of what she’s saying.

I look at all the boys and girls, lined up by the door and ready to go to recess. They look at me with annoyed eyes. I’m the reason they aren’t outside right now, running around and screaming and throwing balls at each other’s faces. None of them are full of jelly, so they don’t understand and Teacher hasn’t helped.

“You shouldn’t be so mean. You’re the teacher,” I say. “I don’t like having to take so long to walk anywhere and I don’t like having to worry that I might pop open and splat everywhere and I don’t like that I make things hard for the people around me, so stop being so mean, Teacher.”

“I’m not being mean, I’m just telling it like it is,” says Teacher. “It’s the nicest thing anyone will ever do for you, kid. Your life is going to be so easy from now on just because you filled yourself with jelly as a toddler, and it’s going to be easy at the expense of everyone else.

“You’re going to handicapped parking spots and extra time that you don’t need on your SATs. Colleges are going to let you in so you can be a statistic and photo-op for their brochure and employers and going to give you jobs for the tax rebate, and all the while you’ll be taking opportunities away from more qualified people who actually deserve them but had the misfortune of not having once been an idiot child who filled themselves up with jelly. Now stop feeling bad for yourself and get over here so we can go to recess.”

I start to cry. I can’t see my tears, but I know that they’re purple and sticky and go good on toast. My tears always do.

Teacher sighs.

“And now the fat little jelly boy is crying,” says Teacher. “Great, great, great. I love this job and it’s totally worth the thirty-four grand a year they pay me to put up with this.”

Teacher walks over to me with the fast steps of a person who isn’t full of jelly. She grabs me by my shoulder and leads me over to the other boys and girls waiting in line.

I see the point of the number two pencil sticking out of her pocket a moment too late.

I open my mouth to say something but before I can, the pencil jabs into my jelly-filled arm. It breaks through my skin and touches the jelly beneath.

I go pop and there is jelly everywhere.

I guess that’s the end of this big ol’ jelly boy.

A Big Start, Part 7 (Finale)

The guy at the reception desk had a checkerboard on the counter. His nose was deep in a book of chess problems. He said, wait a minute. I slammed the bell until he understood that having me wait a minute wouldn’t help him work out a new opening gambit or endgame. He muttered something that included “Ofay.” I flashed a C-note. A fifth of it was his, if he’d buzz my room to let me know if two middle-aged women with sweet-sounding names checked in.

The room had a TV set. Adult entertainment was available on closed circuit.

Holmes knew how to treat a lady, at least on-screen. His co-stars were all smiles when the act was done.

The chess wizard in the lobby called to say a couple white chicks just checked into the Matrimonial Suite as Kitty Moisten and Mary Widow. The ladies were regulars. He wanted his $20 before he knocked off and the night man took over.

I doused porn-o-vision, walked down the hall past an ice machine and a room with a Do Not Disturb sign permanently painted under the doorknob as a matrimonial touch. I put my ear to the door and heard rushing water.

I exited the motel from a side staircase without passing reception, got twenties from the Sea Gull’s cashier. No good handing an unbroken C-note to a guy who probably practiced magic tricks between solo chess games.

I snapped the bill. “What do the ladies look like?”

“White girls,” he said, and made a grab for the dough. He might’ve been good at chess, but wasn’t quick with his hands. “Both of ‘em tall, with dark hair.”

“That ain’t much.”

“You just said to call your room.”

“I mean, did you notice anything else about them?”

“They got your same taste in movies.”

He sniggered. I gave him twenty bucks.

I loitered in the lobby, crossed the street for dinner and a beer at the Sea Gull. At 10 o’clock, I retrieved the John Holmes nametag from my car, pinned it back on and knocked on the Matrimonial Suite’s door.

“What is it?” Kitty Moisten or Mary Widow sounded displeased at being disturbed despite the sign.

“Pizza delivery.”

Whispers. “Someone says we ordered pizza.”

“Tell them to go away.”

“But it’s like…” Unintelligible.

The door opened on mature women wrapped in towel togas. Background TV glare bathed the scene in blue light. The sound was off. A dresser mirror reflected adult entertainment.

“So where’s the pizza?”

“Look at his name tag!”

“Get in here, stupid.”

The lady standing closest made a grab. The other lady shut the door on her friend’s towel. The towel got stuck.

The lady who pulled me in punched my chest. “Say the line,” she said. “If you’re going to do this, do it right.”

The nude woman behind me twittered. “It worked! I can’t believe it.”

The woman who punched me wheeled and slugged her shower buddy on the arm. Her towel hit the ground too. “Shut up! How do we know he’s for real?”

They looked expectant.

I fumbled. “Uh well, I gues there ain’t no pizza after all.”

The air was steamy. Everything was out in the open all too soon.

The punchy one said, “It’s not him.”

“But he’s here.”

Motel life turned metaphysical. A glowing woman emerged on a cloud of steam from the bathroom. I would’ve been scared, but she seemed friendly. Her smile was familiar.

The client, Mr Johnson, said his mother was dead, but there she was. She looked as happy a she did on TV. Honey and Sadie didn’t look up, didn’t seem to know she was there, but they moved aside when she knelt down between them.

After an eon or two, the waifish wraith said, “How do you feel?”

Deadly porn dialogue seemed appropriate, but I felt like crying. “Havin’ the time of my life.”

She beamed forgiveness. She’d heard all those lines before.

“Talk like a human being,” she said. “Go on, try.”

I tried. “You ladies are a dream.”

“These two are ladies, not me. And I’m not even a dream. Just here and there and gone. But do you like what you’re doing?”

 “A man hired me to find out who his father was, or wasn’t. He said you’re his mother. He showed me a scene where you and John Holmes were together, at least on film.”

“His story’s true,” she said, and moved aside so Sadie could cut in. Sadie’s eyes stayed closed.

The mystery brunette watched. “Johnson’s my son,” she said, “and John’s. But he wants to be sure, for the wrong reasons.”

“What wrong reason could there be for wanting to know who your father is?”

She looked sad that I couldn’t figure it out. “He just wants to turn a buck. He wants legal proof so his story will hold up in court. He wants the name, the rights, and royalties.”

“Maybe so, but I took the job. Would you tell me where John Holmes is buried? I got a feeling these two don’t know.”

“Nobody knows. These two girls come here together to conjure the spirit of love.”

“I thought love was different.”

“You don’t feel the love here now?”

Her smile faded. I almost yelled a line from a disco hit that was popular then. “I do,” I said. Sadie and Honey either couldn’t hear, or didn’t let on. It wasn’t a wedding, after all.

“Love is love,” the spirit said. “Even if you do it for money. Money isn’t real.”

She said it as though she were revealing a deep secret. “My son might’ve hired you, but from now on you work for me.”

I couldn’t tell her Johnson’s money was real enough. Couldn’t explain the man retained people who’d deal with me if I screwed him. She took me into another world, and then I couldn’t see her any more.

There was another man behind the reception desk when I checked out. He said a pretty lady had dropped something off for me. He’d tried to buzz my room.

He slid a manila envelope across the counter.

I opened it in the car. Inside was a plastic bag printed LAPD and EVIDENCE. The bag was full of smaller bags with case numbers written on in blue ballpoint. “Hair specimen, pubic.” “Poss. blood sample.” Another bag contained a stained scrap of towel: “Semen sample: AB-/secretor”.

The package looked hideously genuine. The client would believe it’d been obtained it through private investigator skulduggery.

Back at Mr Johnson’s Hollywood Hills home, I accepted final payment. He would’ve been suspicious if I hadn’t. In exchange, he got the Bag from Beyond. When he asked how I got it, I said, “Don’t ask.”

Johnson smirked. He probably owned a private DNA lab.

Everything would come back negative. Justice of a kind would be done.

On my way out, I asked Johnson what his mother’s real name was and if he knew where she was buried.

John Holmes was cremated, his ashes scattered at sea. He’d made charitable donations towards dolphin welfare.

Nancy Ebbett Johnson’s last wish was to lie beside her show biz colleagues in Hollywood’s hallowed ground. The graveyard’s caretaker took five bucks and a pint bottle for a grave number, even though he would’ve given the information free. I left flowers, chocolates and a heart-shaped note that said, “Love is love.”

A Big Star, Part 1
A Big Star, Part 2
A Big Star, Part 3
A Big Star, Part 4
A Big Star, Part 5
A Big Star, Part 6

A Big Star, Part 6

A gibbous moon silvered the waves off Redondo Beach. Ship lights flickered in the distance, blinked out over the horizon. I tried some Morse code semaphore with my car’s brights, but got no answers.

An arrow aimed at nothing in the dark had missed, or hit the wrong target.

A bonfire blazed further down the strand.

There was a luau in progress, a possible taste of the beach lifestyle Los Angeles advertises lavishly and doles out so sparingly.

Surfers are a friendly crowd. The kids who stared into the driftwood pyre called me dude when I showed them a paper bag with a bottle inside.

A surf-bunny in a sheepskin jacket and sheepskin boots noticed the John Holmes nametag and flicked at it with a chipped black fingernail. “Oh hey, my Mom goes to your meetings.”

“You mean, like AA?”

She shook her head. “It’s funny, because my Dad used to go to John Birch meetings. After they got divorced, Mom started going to John Holmes meetings with her friend Honey.”

Honey. Holmes’ co-stars in the Johnson film went by Sugar and Candy. “What’s your name, kitten?”

“It’s not Kitten, it’s Amy.”

“What’s your Mom’s name, Amy? When does she attend these meetings, and where are they held?”

“That’s too many questions. My mom is Sadie, but how come you don’t know where the meetings are if you’re wearing the badge? I don’t think I should talk to you any more, ‘cause you’re a stranger.”

A surfer with major muscles under his sheepskin detected alarm in Amy’s voice. He could’ve made me eat a surfboard in a fair fight.

To preserve the luau spirit, I said, “Mellow out, Amy. John Holmes is…was…he died, unfortunately…a movie star. Well, a kind of movie star, but a big one for sure. Your mother and her friend Honey must belong to his fan club. I’m in Redondo ‘cause they’re making a movie about him. We’re shooting not far from here. The nametag’s so they’ll let me on the set.”

Amy stared. “That’s cool,” she said, as though nothing could be less so.

Waves crashed and surf music oozed from a battery-operated beatbox.

These coastal kids were in diapers when the Reaper took John Holmes. Pre-video porn’s largest male star had become a brand name. Brands are imprinted, like the rule against talking to strangers, on infant American brains. The Girl Talk’s stag films were product for smut consumers of the near future. Mister Johnson wanted to make his presence legal in a potential mega-million licensing market. Genetic proof of his legitimacy meant he could have the Feds bust scams like Deek’s without messing a manicure.

“So Amy, when does your mom go to meetings with her friend, and where do they go? Maybe I could convince the producer to hire them as extras.”

There were no stars in Amy’s eyes. They were red, and her pupils were as wide as the moon seen from the Earth. She wouldn’t remember our conversation in the morning.

“Mom and Honey go to Huntington Beach on the last Sunday of every month.”

That was tomorrow, or later, since it was after midnight.

“They meet up at a motel called the Zag-Nut,” she went on. “I listen in on the phone in the den whenever Honey calls. Honey’s got tons of boyfriends and she and my mom talk dirty to each other.”

***

There was a lonely, lit-up phone booth just off Redondo Beach. An operator named Dolores said there was a motel called the Ziggurat on Grabber Blvd in Huntington Beach.

Grabber Boulevard runs along the coastline. There was no early morning traffic, and only waves and seagulls for a soundtrack. The Ziggurat Motel was a faded two-story longhouse. Mock balconies faced the parking lot, decorated with Babylonian motif glazed ceramic tiles stolen from the set of “Intolerance.” An Orange County Persepolis of men in pleated skirts and spit-curled beards, wingèd cows, lions with Shirley Temple manes. The entire cast looked to the west.

There was nothing going on at the Zig. Someone inside or an automatic timer turned off the neon sign framed by naked bulbs.

The dashboard clock said 10:08 when I awoke, but that’s what it always says. The clock in the Sea Gull Diner down the street said it was nearly noon. The redhead waitress’ nametag said Brenda.

Brenda hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the Ziggurat Motel. She couldn’t say whether Masons or Shriners or bored OC housewives gathered there on Sunday nights. She only worked breakfast and lunch, she said, but if I wanted to find out what happened at the Ziggurat after sunset, I could park on the stool, drink coffee and stare out the picture window till kingdom come.

The Sea Gull Diner looked even older than the Ziggurat Motel. There was a wooden phone booth in the back.

The client’s girl Friday said Mr Johnson was on a lunch date, he’d have to call me back. He needn’t bother, I said, but if someone could deliver emergency expenses cash, I’d be able to have a lunch date too, and continue surveillance of a possible lead. Mr Johnson had told her about the case. She asked where and how much. She laughed when I sheepishly asked for a hundred, so I said OK, make it two hundred.

Not much later, a brown Plymouth Valiant parked just outside the Sea Gull. A brown dude in a non-descript brown suit got out and stretched like he’d been driving around selling encyclopedias all morning. He entered the diner and sat two stools away. He spoke to waitress Brenda as though he’d known her for years, ordered a chicken sandwich, coffee and pie. He ate quickly. When he reached for his wallet to pay the check, he knocked his brown briefcase off the stool. When I bent over to pick it up, we koko-bonked each other. “Ouch, thanks,” he said, and reached into his breast pocket. “Just the kind of thing people need insurance for.” He gave me his card.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a whole bunch.”

He left waitress Brenda a generous tip, and drove away.

His card was two cards, with a pair of folded mint-condition C-notes taped in-between. The cards weren’t from an insurance brokerage, but from Mr Johnson’s film production company. One of them had green ink scribble on the back: “Glad you’re on the case. I need to know.” The phone number was a direct line to the client, not the one he’d used to call Mrs John Holmes. Gladys.

Mr Johnson worked fast, and employed a far-reaching network of skilled professionals.

After sunset, the diner stakeout turned into a Ziggurat Motel hole-up.

***

A Big Star, Part 1
A Big Star, Part 2
A Big Star, Part 3
A Big Star, Part 4
A Big Star, Part 5

Coyote Woman

A starless winter sky above Pojoaque Valley, it felt like snow. I walked into Jake’s Dirty Shorts Laundromat. It was around 8 p.m. Two people washing clothes; a woman with her six-year old daughter telling her: “Don’t try to blackmail me with Santa Claus mommy,” and a tall guy with long black hair, dropping quarters into a dryer.

I loaded a washer and sat down to read a magazine. The big guy came over and sat beside me.

“How are you doing?”

“Good. How are you?”

“My name’s Lucy Flowers.”

“Dwayne Evans.”

Lucy Flowers? I was shocked. Lucy had bulging biceps, stood about 6’5”, weighing in at about 235. She wore a New York Yankees baseball cap, a sleeveless black t-shirt with San Diego State in gold lettering and tattered blue jeans.

For a moment I wondered why she sat next to me and aggressively introduced herself. That moment didn’t last long.

“Tomorrow night,” Lucy said, “I’m going to commit suicide on stage at the El Farol Theatre. I’d like you to shoot the video and believe me it will go viral. I want you to memorialize me forever. But first you need you to design a web-site: suicide.com.

“Wait a minute. How do you know I make videos?”

“I watch you on YouTube,” she said. “I liked your last one, Coyote Woman Sings the Blues. I’ve created a design for the site. I’ve even written the advertising text for you.

“Basically, here’s the deal,” she said, “suicide.com will give anyone $1,000 for the video of their suicide. One-thousand dollars may not sound like much, but if you’re committing suicide you’re a loser, so forget about it. If you’re interested in learning more about our offer please go to suicide.com and we’ll have a counselor guide you through the process.

“After you get the suicide videos put them on your site and charge $5.00 to log on. You’ll become a millionaire within three months and then you can sell the movie rights to Hollywood.”

“And I go to jail and someone makes a movie about suicide. com and I’ll quote Lacan from behind bars and become famous and I’m still be in jail. Sorry Lucy, I can’t help you out. I’m busy tomorrow night.”

“It’s your choice. I’m committing suicide whether you video it or not. I just thought you might like to make some easy money.”

Lucy asked me if I’d like to hear about her last performance piece. I didn’t have anything better to do so I listened.

“I called the piece “Frozen Blood,” she says. “I collected eight pints of my blood, it took me over a year. I froze the blood and carved and ice sculpture of myself. Then I sat my frozen self at a computer with the icy fingers on the keys. The room was refrigerated but the blood slowly melted, leaving nothing but bloody fingerprints on the computer’s keyboard.”

***

Lights up. Bare stage, except for a full length mirror next to a small round table. Black flats enclose the actor in a 12’x12’ space.

Lucy dances to the Future of Radio, a Noise piece by Khlebnikov. The music is mechanical, a cacophony of cars, bombs, trains, honking, screaming, guns and machine orgasms sans melody, just a hint of rhythm.

“Have you ever heard the noise of a butterfly’s wing? The noise of a dying sunflower makes me cry.” Lucy chanted as she danced. She entered into a trance.

“I am giving birth to the dark waters of time…” She picked up a pistol from the table, aimed the gun at her image in the mirror. Held that pose for ten seconds then continued to dance, the gun like a magic wand.

“I am Kali, Isis, Persephone…” She holds the .45 to her head, her stomach, pauses and aims at her image in the mirror. “I am crow, cloud, demon, saint, virgin, mother, whore. I am trans-sexual and I am tired.”

She aims the pistol at her image, holds the position. Lights down. Five beats of silence. Loud gunshot blast. Future of Radio goes silent. Lights up. Lucy’s body splayed on the floor, blood leaks from her head. Lights down. One minute later, lights up. Lucy’s body’s not there. An empty stage. “Future of Radio” heard at a deafening level.

Dwayne caught it all on video. On his way driving back home to Pojoaque Valley he thinks about erasing Lucy’s suicide video. He doesn’t.

A Big Star, Part 5

The Girl Talk’s not a gay bar. It’s a near-nudie dive, Mexican ladies the house specialty.

On the way to Redondo, I stopped at an office supply shop for a plastic Hi My Name Is identification tag. The sales clerk lent me his blue marker, smirked when I wrote John Holmes on the cardboard label provided and pinned the tag to my jacket.

“It’s on for tonight, sport. See you there.”

His face went blank.

The name tag was so jacky-boy would recognize me. Also so there’d be a better chance that someone in the Girl Talk crowd would remember they’d seen me there.

The Girl Talk’s a whorehouse front. The dancing señoritas hustle drinks and trips upstairs after they do their mat-work onstage.

The only skinny stripper sat on the next stool. When I offered her a drink, she asked the burly bartender for a Negra Modelo instead of ginger ale champagne. With pockmarked cheeks and ribs that poked out under her crocheted bikini top, her hustle wasn’t exactly bustling. When she suggested we go upstairs, I asked what that meant.

She nearly took off.

I said relax, in Spanish. Her eyes bulged. “Migra?” I shook my head, handed her a twenty. She folded the bill, snapped a bra-cup over it. “Es suficiente. Vámonos.”

I gave her another twenty, tapped the conventioneer ID badge, asked what John Holmes meant to her.

She said some of the men who went upstairs also used that name.

“Big guys?”

She snorted beer through her nose.

“I mean big like, jugadores de fútbol americano.”

She nodded. “Grandes, y malos.”

Holmes fans came to the Girl Talk to re-live their star’s screen exploits and play rough with illegal alien bar girls. I asked if the rooms upstairs had mirrors. She nodded. Did I want to look at them?

I gave her another twenty. The red neon-rimmed clock behind the bar said it was nearly six o’clock. Sunsets were invisible from inside the Girl Talk, but there was half an hour to wait. We went upstairs to see what reflected.

The love booths were in a row. The mirrors screwed to the plywood back walls were the two-way kind.

It’d look suspicious if the customer didn’t perform. Someone was watching. They’d seen the scrawny Mexican lady rake in sixty bucks in no time.

“Here’s what you say, sweetheart: ‘O meester ‘Olmes, even beeg-er than my last donkey show.’ Got that?”

We rehearsed the line twice.

Late for a sunset rendezvous.

At a corner table, squeezed into an XXXL gray chalk-stripe suit, was the broadest expanse of back in Southern California. The big man was bald on top, with a wiry gray fringe. His neck bulged out of a white collar. The backs of his ears were livid. Everything about him looked angry.

He looked up at an angled mirror and saw a guy try to discreetly unpin a John Holmes nametag. He swiveled his chair. His face wasn’t a fat man’s. Sunken cheeks, a sharp nose and a strong chin, deep-set enraged eyes under beetling salt-and-pepper brows. He’d eclipsed the other men in the booth.

His voice boomed. “Well hey. John Holmes, as I live and breathe. You’re late, but c’mon and take a seat.”

He grabbed my wrist. One of his friends slid over. “Welcome to the Girl Talk bar. Nice place, huh. Have you toured the facilities?” His little dark eyes beamed malice and X-ray vision.

Without moving his head, he said, “Larry, our friend John Holmes is packing a snub-nose revolver. Mr Holmes, kindly hand it over under the table.”

Larry poked a barrel in my ribs, hard. He had no qualms about plugging someone in public.

“Now tell me,” the fat man with the thin man’s face said, “how you got my number.”

“You were on a list of crank calls.”

“Aha. Gentlemen, let’s take this outside.”

Behind the Girl Talk was a poorly lit alley with no cars parked. Larry pulled a Luger and one of his colleagues went through my pockets. Mr Big lit a cigar. The match nearly burned his fingers.

“He’s just a shmo, Deek,” one of the guys who wasn’t Larry said. “New York driver’s license and a few twenny-dollah bills is alls he got.”

The big man winced when the frisky guy said his name. He looked at my driver’s license. “You said you were from San Diego. You are exposed as a liar. What’re you doing so far from home? And why do you carry a gun?”

He stuffed the license back in my pocket, but not the dough. The glowing tip of his stogie drew in close.

“Second Amendment rights,” I said. “And those New York winters got me down.”

“I can’t figure out what you’re up to, but I got a feeling you haven’t figured it out, either. Get lost. And don’t come back, unless you’re dumb as you look.”

Deek pulled what looked like a butt-plug welded to a flashlight from his back pocket. He flicked the switch. Blue sparks spread and danced. “We’ll give you a wrong-way taste of 10,000 volts. Might be fatal, who knows? Minks and foxes sure don’t enjoy it.”

I pulled my arms free. “Sheesh. I thought this was a respectable joint.”

“One more thing: you said, ‘It’s tonight.’”

“Well, it is tonight.”

“You said you had car trouble and needed a ride. Where to?”

“What? I took a bus all the way from Beverly Hills, spent sixty bucks on a girl with no tits, and now I don’t even get a complimentary limo back to the hotel? Some dive you run here, Deek.”

“Good night, sucker.”

They went back into the bar bordello. The goon who wasn’t Larry flipped a bird and closed the door behind him.

***

A Big Star, Part 1
A Big Star, Part 2
A Big Star, Part 3
A Big Star, Part 4

A Big Star, Part 4

Porn actors have parents too. Some of them lead normal lives, in houses. Another telephone operator said there were over five hundred Holmes listings in greater Orange County. Since I’d already paid for a search, I asked to be connected to the John Holmes residence on Stackpole Drive. The late adult star might’ve dropped the Jr in his screen credits. It was a shot in the dark, but it only cost the client half a buck.

A woman with a raspy voice picked up. “What do you want now?”

“Hello, Mrs Holmes?”

Her tone changed. “That’s me. Why, did I win something?”

“Sorry, Mrs Holmes. Not this time. I’d like to ask a few questions.”

“Who is this?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Oooh. Has there been a murder?”

She sounded as though nothing would please her more. Mrs Holmes was a bored OC housewife, the stuff on which adult loops are made. You could practically hear the ice cubes tinkle in the third gin and tonic of a late afternoon.

“The murder happened a long time ago, Mrs Holmes. That case is closed, but a man with the same name as your husband’s…”

“Ex-husband’s, you mean.”

“Oh. Anyway, one John Holmes, a suspect or an accessory to the fact, was released due to insufficient evidence. You might’ve read about it in the papers.”

“Oh yeah, I’m old enough, if that’s what you’re trying to find out. But my ex is not that John Holmes. Far from it. How many times I gotta say that? Goodbye now, jacky-boy.”

“Wait. You mean you get calls from adult entertainment enthusiasts?”

“Oh, not a whole lot. You sound different, though.” Mrs Holmes wasn’t just a bored OC divorcee housewife, she was lonely. Even her voice was lonesome.

 “You’ve seen his films?”

“Hah! Whatever it took to get my former husband in the mood, I was willing. We used to have quite a collection of dirty movies.”

A heavy glass went down on a hardwood table in the twilight.

“Look at me, spilling my drink and my former sex-life to some shamus over the goddamn telephone. I oughta have my head examined. And my name’s not Mrs Holmes anymore, it’s Gladys.”

“Listen Gladys, your former human marital aid died from drug abuse and AIDS.”

“Too bad. All those happy memories. Well, he was good at what he did. His work lives on.”

“My client thinks that John Holmes was his father. His mother said that was the case, but she’s dead too, from dope and/or disease. Holmes’ last known residence was in Orange County. Is it possible he was related to your ex-husband? Do you think he’d submit a bone-marrow sample?”

“Doubt it.”

“Do you know where John Holmes is buried?”

“How’d you find out about me, anyhow?”

“Phone operator.”

“Well maybe there’s a phone book for dead hard-ons somewhere.”

“Sorry to bother you.”

“Wait a minute. I wanna help you,” Mrs Holmes said. “Me and my ex had us a nice lawsuit. There was nothing amicable about our divorce. He claimed I was unfaithful. I should’ve been, but I really was taking mah-jongg lessons. He claimed constructive abandonment. Anyway, we both avoided taking each other’s phone calls after he moved out. In between writing checks to the goddamn lawyers.”

There’s a sound people make when they bring up their experiences with lawyers.

“Hang on a sec. I bought a doo-hickey that gives nuisance callers a permanent no-answer. I got a list of phone numbers for the police, just in case. Some of the guys who call at awkward times might have something for you.”

The receiver hit the wall-to-wall carpet.

Shots in the dark never entirely miss. Some weird particle physics guides them.

Gladys dictated phone numbers. One of them was Johnson’s.

The client only called her once, she said. He wanted to know about her husband’s family too, and was satisfied with her negative answer.

Gladys said we should watch some Swedish Erotica movies together. She had the full series.

I didn’t leave the phone booth.

The conversations with Mrs Holmes’ phone molestors weren’t nearly as friendly. The fellow fan act failed to convince. Most of them hung up without a word. One guy said, “Kiss off, pig.” He didn’t say why he thought the police might want to pester him.

An inspiration hit. Fan clubs, like AA and religious groups, have meetings.

When the next guy picked up, I said, “I heard the meeting’s on for tonight.”

Long pause. “You heard, huh?”

“You know what I’m talking about, but I got a problem: no car. Blew a gasket on the 405. Leaking oil all over the place. Overheated. Possible ring-job. In the shop till next Tuesday.”

“That’s rough, bud. Have we, uh, had the pleasure?”

“I’m up from San Diego. You’ll recognize me. Will you give me a lift to the meeting?”

“Sure, pal. No problem. I’ll pick you up at the Girl Talk Bar in Redondo. We can watch the sunset and get better acquainted.”

***

A Big Star, Part 1
A Big Star, Part 2
A Big Star, Part 3

A Big Star, Part 3

Bonehandle confessed he directed the Johnson loop, and went misty-eyed about his late star. “You know, he wasn’t the way most people think.”

“You mean, straight?”

“That’s not what I mean, although…”

“Listen, do you have in your possession any object that bears traces of John Holmes? Genetic material, something that’ll register on a laboratory DNA scan. My client will pay.”

Bonehandle didn’t want money. What he had on John wasn’t much, he said, but it was precious, and not for sale. If I promised to behave myself, I could come over to his place for a look at his Holmes relics.

Hideseekers’ closing time was never. Bonehandle gave a West Hollywood address and said he didn’t wish to be disturbed before 3:30 in the afternoon.

***

Bonehandle opened his door dressed in a tooled leather kimono. Leather hats and leather hockey masks crowded a leather hat-rack in the vestibule. The black leather jackets stuffed in the wide-open closet elbowed each other out of the way in a futile attempt to escape.

An over-designed kettle blew. Bonehandle made tea. We sat in his leather living room, lit by a low-watt bulb suspended from the ceiling. He pushed a spiral notebook across his hidebound coffee table. “John wrote these,” he said.

The notebook was full of poems.

I riffled the pages, selected one at random. The title was “Stripped Away.”

Not bad. Spelling mistakes and bathos galore, but sincere. A man hacks and wrenches away the parts of himself he feels aren’t worthy of a human being. In the end, there’s not much left.

Bonehandle slurped Earl Gray through his moustache. “They’re so touching, his poems. He wrote stories too, and movie scripts, though not as successfully. He used to read at the Young Adults Community Center in El Segundo. The kids there loved him sincerely. They didn’t know he was a star.”

Exhibit B was a bigger spiral notepad filled with watercolors, ink washes and chalk pastels of female nudes in erotic poses. There were close-up studies in sunset shades. Nothing recognizable as the client’s mama.

Bonehandle couldn’t mask his distaste. “Johnnie thought female pussy was beautiful. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he was really one of us. He had depths I couldn’t plumb, and shallownesses.”

I asked about the women who starred in the Johnson short. He claimed amnesia about the women in his straight loops. There weren’t many of them. He’d directed gay porn almost exclusively, made an exception for Holmes. “Pussy is pussy,” he said, and waved unpleasant memories away.

“How well did you know the guy?”

“Our relationship was mostly professional. I don’t think he had any friends. He used to show up unannounced every now and then. Occasionally, he’d stay over. This was before he got hung up on blow.”

Bonehandle rose from his leather club chair. His kimono flapped open like the wings of a giant bat. He crossed the room, turned on an outdated hi-fi system. He let the tubes warm up, then flicked on the reel-to-reel. Someone with a reedy baritone accompanied himself unsteadily on a steel-string guitar.

“Holmes.”

Bonehandle nodded. “He wasn’t what you could call talented, but he tried so hard.”

“Aww, poor Johnnie.”

Bonehandle shut the music down in a huff. “Are you sure you’re a private investigator? What exactly do you want, anyway?”

I showed him my license, reiterated the request for an item that would yield sample DNA and stand up as evidence in a court of law.

“Evidence of what? That murder case was settled ages ago. Johnnie was cleared.”

“Nothing to do with that old business, but I plead client confidentiality. I’ll take whatever you’ve got, but if whatever you give turns out bogus, I’ll be back to settle accounts.” I wasn’t interested in keeping Bonehandle as a friend. “I’m authorized to go as high as half a grand.”

He waved the idea away. “Can’t help you.”

“In that case, do you know where your soulful friend’s buried?”

“Why? Is it some State secret? I guess down in Orange somewhere. That’s where he used to live, anyway.”

Orange County is, as the dead man was, large.

***

A Big Star, Part 1
A Big Star, Part 2

A Big Star, Part 2

The job was to track down a dead adults-only performer and get a DNA sample.

Life is a lonely, mediocre business. Some LA porn-freaks must collect relics. The star’s co-workers might’ve kept mementoes. Another scan of Johnson’s loop would possibly yield credits, not that many people use their real names in porn films. 

The motel where I live features color TV sets, but no video equipment. 

Usually I work from photographs. The walls in my room are covered with pictures of runaway kids. 

The guy at the TV repair shop on Vine hung his hand-lettered “Back in 5 minutes” sign on the door for the screening. When the happy ending rolled, he punched the air like it was a football highlight.

Holmes had two female co-stars. I asked the TV repairman whether he’d seen the brunette before. Uh-uhn, but he’d sure as hell bang her if he ever saw her again. He said, “That’s too bad,” when he heard she was dead.

The credits were minimal. John Holmes played himself, and got top billing. Mr Johnson’s mother was either “Candy Lane” or “Sugar Brix”. The director signed himself Bonehandle.

There were no other names. Bonehandle was the cameraman, set decorator and lighting engineer. He worked solo, in secret, hoped the Park Rangers wouldn’t shut down the production, hold him and his stars prisoner until the cops showed up. You could almost smell the nervous sweat.

***

A few glass telephone booths still stood, in Hollywood. One of them had a phone directory chained to its fold-out shelf.

A patient operator said there was no listing for anyone named Bonehandle in the entire LA basin. Neither were any subscribers named van Bone, McBone, Hueso, Osso, Knochen. 

On a hunch, I drove to the La Brea Tar Pits Museum. None of the curators in short sleeve shirts and bow ties, ticket clerks, janitors were amateur nature-movie buffs. Nobody vibed hard-core auteur.

The foreign word jigged a spark. There were trace elements of art in the client’s loop, something fetishistic about its focus.

***

A preliminary canvass of West Hollywood turned up zero on Bonehandle. Many of the residents had heard of John Holmes, though.

Boys’ Town has many neighborhoods. A friendly leather man with a walrus moustache said Bonehandle was not only still alive, he was a regular at Hideseekers. 

Hideseekers’ doorman wouldn’t admit anyone improperly dressed. He was an imposing figure, and meant business.

Beat-up motorcycle jackets go for $20 at late-night second-hand clothes shops on Melrose Blvd. A legit client expense.

Hideseekers was like jail, with monotonous music. Leather squeaks within its stifling near-darkness were the mating-calls of bats. 

The leather barman rolled his eyeballs at my new old jacket. “Get you, Dorothy.” 

I ordered beer, slipped a twenty across the counter. I asked if any regulars went by Bonehandle, and won the leather lottery.

“Yeah, he’s here. He’s always here.”

“Point him out, please. Discreetly.”

Another eyeball-roll, with spin. Bonehandle spent his evenings out in the toilet. 

It was even more womb-like in there. No doors on the stalls. Bonehandle held court in the third cubicle from the left. He had a walrus moustache too. He said he wouldn’t talk to me unless I pissed all over his face first.

***

A Big Star, Part 1

Mumbo Jumbo

‘This isn’t going to hurt is it?’ said Andrew, dragging on the last remnants of a spliff in a carpark on the edge of town.

‘It might hurt a bit, yeah,’ said Omar holding out a Taser, closing in on Andrew.

‘But it won’t kill me?’

‘No, no, we just want people to think you died. Briefly.’

‘But if we just want to pretend I died do we really need the Taser?’

‘We need to create the sense that you’ve been knocked out by something. Look it’s all set up, everything is in position, and I’m going to call the ambulance as soon as you hit the floor. We’ve discussed this a million times.’’

‘Wait, why are we doing this again?’ said Andrew.

‘I don’t know, why do we do anything? Money, fame, the yucks?’

‘OK, OK, let me psyche myself up…’

But before Andrew could finish his sentence Omar jabbed the Taser into his chest, digging in hard, once, twice and then a third time. The spliff came shooting out of Andrew’s mouth and he collapsed.

Omar dialled an ambulance and it arrived in minutes. The nurses scooped Andrew off the floor like he was a damp dishcloth.

‘Is he alright?’ said Omar, giving his best impression of being concerned.

‘No sir,’ said the ambulance man, sucking on a mint, ‘he’s dead.’

‘I know that, but wait, what!? Dead!’

‘I’m afraid so sir, his heart has stopped beating and we can’t seem to resuscitate him. I assume you were the last person to see him alive? Can you give us any clues as to what happened to him?’

Omar shoved the Taser deep into his pocket and said, ‘Oh god, oh god, what’s happening? It was just a silly prank.’

‘Sir, I advise you to get your story straight before you talk to the police. This doesn’t look good.’

‘The police? Oh jeez, no.’

Omar squeezed past the nurse and grabbed hold of Andrew, ‘Wake up you idiot, wake up!’

In the hospital, Omar paced around the waiting room, pouring himself paper cups of water from the cooler, crumpling them into balls and then hurling them into the bin. But it wasn’t long before Andrew was wheeled out of the emergency room, blinking furiously, his face flushed.

‘Your friend is a very lucky man,’ said an elderly doctor with a giant paunch. ‘He was clinically dead for a significant amount of time.’

‘So,’ said Omar, ‘no need for the cops?’

‘No,’ said the doctor, ‘Andrew says that won’t be necessary.’

‘Oh, thank god. Can I see him?’

‘Yes, but be aware, he’s in a fragile state.’

Omar poked his head into Andrew’s room and said, ‘Hey buddy.’

Andrew groaned then sat up and placed his pillows in a comfortable position.

‘You nearly killed me,’ Andrew said.

‘In fact, technically, I did kill you.’

Andrew made a move to strangle Omar, but he didn’t have the energy and instead flopped back onto his bed.

‘I’m sorry Andrew, I really didn’t mean for all this to happen.’

‘I saw things Omar, I floated outside my body and saw crazy things.’

‘Leave it now mate, there’s no need to continue with the plan, you’ve been through enough.’

‘The plan was to pretend I had a near death experience, but I think – I think it really happened. I actually had one.’

‘You’re not well Andrew, you’re delusional.’

There was a knock at the door. A man with a side parting, fringe dangling by his cheek, entered the room. I’m Christian Kyle, writer and journalist for Alternative Media. ‘I received a phone call yesterday that a man named Andrew Fitzpatrick had a near death experience.’

‘No,’ said Omar, ‘you’re wrong, no one here had any experience. I’m sorry to waste your time.’

‘Me, I did,’ said Andrew, ‘I died and I saw things I couldn’t have known about.’

‘Really? Fascinating,’ said Kyle pulling up a chair. ‘Tell me all about it.’

‘Well,’ said Andrew, eyes wide open. ‘I saw a bright, bright light and then I felt my being rise up and float above my body. I mean I could see my body below me and all the doctors milling around too. Then I floated out of the window. I have this image of a unicorn but it’s hazy. I can’t really place where that comes in. Next thing I know I’m back in my body and all the doctors are peering at me, confused but happy.’

‘Well Mr Fitzpatrick,’ said Kyle flicking his fringe from his cheek, ‘what you have here is a classic near-death experience. We’ll need to do further research and confirm your story with the doctors of course, but if everything goes smoothly, I’d like to write about this in my magazine. Maybe sometime you could join me at one of my symposiums and speak with others who have similar stories demonstrating life after death is a very real phenomenon.’’

‘I would love that,’ Andrew said, ‘it would give me some direction. All of a sudden, I want to be someone, straighten myself out. Maybe travel, spend more time with my family. I want to grow.’

‘Yes, experiences such as this can often lead to positive life changes. You are not alone. Well, let me write you a cheque for your time and if things progress as they should, you will get more. I have a really good feeling about this.’

Kyle shook Andrew’s hand and left the room. Omar ran his hands through his quiff in despair, ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘All this mumbo jumbo you’re going on about.’

‘I’ve seen the light Omar. I’m serious. If you can’t support me on this then it’s your problem.’’

‘Are you listening to yourself? Look, I’ll come back to visit you tomorrow, maybe then you’ll see some sense.’

Omar marched out of the room. Andrew relaxed back against his pillows and gazed up at the ceiling with a look of awe.

A couple of days later Andrew was discharged with a clean bill of health. He waited for Omar by an alleyway outside the hospital and lit a joint. Then he stubbed it out and threw it away, saying to himself, ‘No more, things have to be different. Come on Omar, where are you?’

Then Andrew caught a glimpse of something out of his peripheral vision. He sidled down the alleyway and found a stuffed toy animal, pink and yellow, laying on a pile of bin bags. It was a unicorn. He poked it. It was real.

‘No way,’ he said and went to find Omar. When he emerged from the alleyway Omar was still nowhere to be seen. Andrew called him but only got the answering machine so he left a message, saying, ‘I found the unicorn! I found the unicorn! You can’t say I’m crazy now. Hurry up and I’ll show you. Oh man this is major. Get back to me as soon as you can, bye.’

When Omar did arrive, he was out of breath and all apologies. ‘The underground is a state,’ he said, ‘have you been waiting long?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Did you get my message?’

‘No.’

‘Well come this way, I have something to show you.’

Andrew led Omar down the side alley. A garbage truck was just exiting through the other side, beeping as it went. Andrew came to the spot where he had found the unicorn but it, and the bin bags it was resting on, were gone.

‘No, no!’ Andrew cried out. ‘It was just here.’

‘What was?’ Omar said.

‘The unicorn. The truck must have collected it, oh man. Don’t you see, this was proof I came out of my body. The emergency room must be just above our heads.’

‘I don’t know what’s happening to you Andrew. Maybe you’ve been smoking too much weed or you banged your head hard when I Tasered you but these crazy ideas have got to stop.’

Andrew perceptibly slumped and then lit up. ‘I’ve got to talk to that dude Kyle,’ he said.

The next day Andrew took a trip on the train to visit Kyle in his country home that was located by a shimmering lake surrounded by trees. As Andrew rang the doorbell wind chimes tinkled. Kyle opened the door, barefoot – incense wafting from inside the building. 

‘Welcome Andrew, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you again. We have many things to discuss.’

Kyle guided Andrew to a seat in his living room. Crystals were placed on the mantelpiece and the side table and paintings of Buddha and Ganesh were hung upon the walls.

Andrew gulped then blurted out, ‘This is wrong, I have to give you your money back.’

‘Oh,’ said Kyle, ‘why is that?’

‘I didn’t have a near death experience. It was all lies. Here, take the cheque.’

‘Andrew, it is common for there to be doubts. What is this really about?’

Andrew picked up an astrology book from the coffee table.

‘I just don’t know if this is me.’

‘God finds us in many ways.’

‘God? I didn’t know He was involved.’

‘Oh most certainly and what you have experienced is the beginning of the journey to getting closer to Him.’

‘I really don’t know about that. This is all a bit overwhelming.’

‘Would you like to try a forty minute meditation with me?’ Kyle said, flicking on some whale sounds on his stereo.

‘Uh no.’

‘What is it Andrew? Why are you resisting?’

Just then Kyle’s phone rang and he said, ‘I have to take this. Take a look around maybe something will ignite your spirit.’

Kyle disappeared out of the patio windows and padded around the garden as he talked. Andrew stood and wandered about the house. He sniffed the fresh flowers in the vases lining the hall but recoiled in disgust. Then he walked up the stairs and arrived at the bedroom. Inside was a shrine opposite the bed with beads wrapped around a picture of an Indian Saint sitting in the lotus position. Andrew pulled out his phone and dialled Omar.

‘Omar?’

‘Hey dude, sup?’

‘I’m at Kyle’s house.’’

‘Oh man, look I don’t want to hear it, OK?’

‘Omar, he’s trying to get me into God. He’s got all this spiritual stuff around. He wants me to find the real me. I can’t take it.’

‘Of course not, I know the real you and you haven’t been you lately.’

‘But I don’t know who I am anymore.’

Andrew picked up a book lying on Kyle’s bed. It was called Unbound Spirits by Christian Kyle. Andrew flung it to the floor knocking over a statue of Siva.

‘Tell me who I am Omar, who am I?’

‘I’ll tell you who you are, you’re an idiot!’

Andrew stood up straight and dropped the phone. ‘I’m an idiot,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

Andrew poked the picture of the saint. Then he punched it sending it crashing to the ground, cracking the glass. Then he tramped around the room smashing effigies of gods and tearing apart the dreamcatchers hanging over the bed. He howled with delight, clenching his fists.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Kyle said, appearing at the door.

‘I’m an idiot!’ Andrew said, picking up his phone and barging past Kyle. He raced down the stairs in a fervour. On a table by the front door lying next to a flickering candle Andrew noticed a selection of tiny porcelain unicorns. He stopped in his tracks. He looked back at Kyle but he was busy tending to his spiritual paraphernalia.

‘I’m going to kill you!’ Kyle said.

The unicorns glistened in the candlelight with pink, yellow and blue colours. Andrew’s life flashed before his eyes – vomiting on his mother’s lap as a baby, yanking his little sister’s pigtails as a toddler, giving friends wedgies in primary school, dry humping his first girlfriend, passing out after his first drinking binge, crashing his dad’s car, and so on all the way up to being Tasered the other day in the carpark.

‘Woah,’ he said, feeling dizzy. He felt the urge to smash but instead picked up one of the unicorns and placed it carefully into his jacket pocket. ‘Well, who knows?’ he said, and he dashed out the door.