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American Debut The snakes darted and skimmed in the swimming pool with their arrow heads flexed above the blue water. They moved like cartoon streaks in every direction, no one knew whether poisonous—though they certainly looked it. A butler in black tails holding a test tube of blue liquid bent over one end of the pool, which was shaped like a kidney or lopsided heart. Waiters and waitresses circulated trays of drinks and canapés around to guests sitting at tables under white umbrellas or lolling along the waterside terrazzo. Meanwhile, in the inverted bubble of blue sky above, puffy white clouds boiled and imploded spectacularly as if performing for an audience, though no one at the party paid them the slightest attention. The shrubs around the pool had been pruned to look like the busts of long dead film idols. Below the embankment, on a clay tennis court cratered with blemishes and lacking a net, a young man in a clear plastic codpiece and his friend in an old fashioned tennis dress giggled as they tried to hit an imaginary ball back and forth. The mansion to which the court and pool belonged was not in view. Perhaps on the other side of the hill. Neither was the host of the party anywhere to be seen. In fact, nobody present seemed quite sure of the name of the host for the occasion, if it was an occasion. Everyone introduced themselves as a friend of an acquaintance, or acquaintance of a friend. Sinking behind the hills, the sun began transforming the sky into a purplish contusion. Bathed in its toxic light, an agent and producer stood engaged in earnest discussion. Next to them, looking at the pool, posed a starlet, shrink-wrapped inside a silver-scaled lamé costume that made her appear to be buttocks, breast and leg, convexities and concavities, in a state of near nakedness verging on revelation. She exuded a scent simulating jasmine. “I’m telling you, Marv,” the agent said, “On this you can trust me.” Instead, the producer slowly turned his head, panning a pair of mirrored sunglasses across the imaginary tennis game. His profile revealed the belly he’d acquired in advance of his successful career. “Sure, Stan. About what?” “You realize this is a great picture you made, Marv. Greatest of the year. Just my opinion, but one of the greatest of all time.” The agent was emaciated in a manner that made it plausible to believe that the flesh mounting on the producer’s midsection had been procured at the expense of the agent’s entrails. “Well, I admit, it ain’t bad,” the producer produced behind the twin bubbles of reflection in a way that proved that humility was yet another virtue he possessed. “It’s perfect. It’s exactly like” and here the agent named three vast box offi ce hits, “but totally original. Entertainment, sex. I mean the thing’s got characters; real human values, Christ, Marv, it’s even got truth. And I’m not just talking TV truth here. I mean real commercial truth.” He turned. “Eva. Am I right?” The starlet watched the snakes. They made hissing sounds like ripping synthetic fabric as they shifted across the blue pool. Their activity created mysterious mathematical figures, mandalas, elaborate knots, sinewy, vanishing constellations reminiscent of subatomic energy trails squiggling inside physicists’ laboratory cloud chambers—images of the invisible forces of creation and destruction. She looked over at the two men, perhaps to draw them into the knot of some quandary, but her agent, like a wiry, sharp-lipped fish, had already risen to snap up the lure of his own point. “This picture’s made for Eva, Marv. Day you release this baby she’ll be it, our new age spiritual sex symbol. That’s a fact. But she needs more play, Marv. Just five minutes more of that celestial ass and you’ll have every man in the civilized world itching to lay his hands on it, and half the women.” “Wait a minute. We talking celestial ass or spiritual ass, Stan?” the producer asked mordantly. “We gotta be clear.” “Christ. Both, Marvin. I mean, whatever you want.” “On the other hand, Stan, there’s Stella.” “Stella? What about Stella? Marvin! Stella’s nothing. A name. A loser. Her body’s heading south. Days of that ‘sultry power broad’ shit are past. Eva’s the new thing. The spirit thing. You gotta go with the latest thing, man. That’s America. The American dream. I’m telling you, Eva’s what the American public wants to dream about these days.” “World. We make pictures in a global market now, Stan. The world.” “Correcto, Marv, but everybody knows when it comes to culture, America is the world.” “Stan?” Eva seemed to call from the furthest edge of this world-embracing dream. Her voice had the forlorn quality of an object mass-produced for some private, intimate use and then, inadvertently, left behind in a public place. “Sure, baby. Just a minute. I’m trying to make a point. I’m trying to make your career. Marvin knows what I’m doing. Marvin knows where I’m coming from. Right?” “Right, Stan. Everybody knows where you’re coming from.” “Damn straight. And where I’m coming from right now is we need to think about another dimension. Get this: We make the sales line that Eva is like a friendly extraterrestrial from a distant galaxy come here to help. She’s the tragic type—a Marilyn Monroe—with a sense of the planet. I mean, that scene where she looks at the clouds and the woods, then comes down the stairs with her boobs practically sliding out of the nightgown and says, ‘People try so much to be noticed,’ Jesus. It was funny. Sad. Deep. A perfect combo. Jesus, you’re getting a hard-on watching it and you’re almost in tears. Personally, I actually was in tears. I mean, Marv, I’m not that sensitive a guy, but the tears were coming down, coming and coming till I thought I would drown. What we got right here is the icon of a generation.” Eva, who had been trying to get her agent’s attention, desisted and began singing to herself in a little girl’s voice, like a fairy-tale child. Neither man heard her. She watched the seething cauldron of snakes, clasping her hands along her sides, clutching her dress. “Sure, Stan, she’s a comer. But why should I take the chance? I give her five minutes and Stella’s pissed. Stella’s a star. A sure thing and this is a funny business.” “That’s my point. You made my point. It’s no fucking life when any second you can bomb. But with Eva here, you can believe. Make the leap of faith. I mean, every bit of that package is real. Those are genuine tits, Marv. Tits with character, spiritually significant tits. Not some plastic jobbies like every other broad in this town. Like Stella, as a matter of fact. And I ain’t even talked about Eva’s soul.” “Real? You got actual proof of this soul thing?” the producer interrupted. “Question is, will they work on the big screen and the small screen? Will they fit on TV? Does Eva have the right sized soul for the medium? TV’s what Americans are all about, Stan. A thousand channels, fast cut commercials, more ads, less content. That’s your American dream.” “I hear you, Marv. But TV, big screen—the audience knows. They may be suckers and fools but you can’t flat fuck ‘em when it comes to the genuine article. With Eva it’s all right there implied. She’s a genuine what-you-see-is-only-the-surface of this girl.” The producer signed, finally exasperated. “That’s too deep for me, Stan.” Eva was again trying to say something. “Never mind, baby. You just stand there and look meaningful. It’s under control. But you don’t want to look too intelligent,” he laughed. “It’s not part of the image. But she is, by god, Marvin. She may seem dumb, but I bet you she’s the brightest piece of ass at this party. Hell, she may be brighter than you and me. No offense.” He glanced over for a quick smile and noticed Eva had unzipped the dress to the crotch, wriggling free of it as if molting. From her body, a fat cloud of jasmine-like perfume puffed into the atmosphere. “Jesus, Eva, what the fuck’er you doing? We can’t go giving that away.” He laughed nervously. She was muttering to herself, rising up from the dress. “It’s too heavy, Stan. It’s too tight. I can’t breathe. My skin’s going numb. I’m a plant, Stan. I need water and air. I just wanted to tell you.” “What’dya mean? That thing don’t weigh an ounce. There’s nothing to it. Hey, you wanted that thing, didn’t you? I paid a thousand bucks for that dress.” But she was out. An instant later she hit the water with a big plop and shriek. The couple on the tennis court paid no attention. However, a few people at the tables or standing around with their drinks gathered at the edge of the pool. The starlet thrashed. A freelance photographer snapped pictures for a sale to the tabloids. Could she swim or couldn’t she? It seemed a very old publicity trick. Fortunately, the answer came quickly so they could all go on with their careers. Shortly after that, the police arrived and the guests departed. Night fell, the underwater lights flicked on. The cops went back in the mansion to wait for the animal control officers and the coroner’s van. Eva floated on her back in the pool. She would get her five minutes more on film and a splash that boosted box office with its headlines. Arms out, she floated in silhouette. The snakes curveted all around her, as if knotting a garland. Thus, now arrayed for its debut, her body seemed to rise on the loft of its wondrous breasts toward the black, starred concavity of sky. |
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