taking illicit narcotics.
They seem only vaguely aware there’s been an earthquake. This is mostly a subject of concern as it applies to the size of the surf or when someone makes a trip to the local market and finds the beer or wine understocked. Everybody is involved in the movies but they’re not like Vikar imagined; none of them looks like a movie star, except perhaps the dark-haired woman and one of the guys who’s not particularly handsome but has a big black beard like Viking Man and also a flashing smile and a matinee manner about him. He wears a safari outfit that he seems to consider debonair. Vikar believes he’s an actor but in fact he’s an aspiring director.
74.
All the guys Vikar believes are actors are directors, and all the guys he believes are directors are actors. The women cook the meals and take care of the guys who, as Viking Man said, care and talk about nothing but movies. “The peak of Hawks’ art,” one is saying the first afternoon. “Hemingwayesque in its understanding of masculinity’s values and rituals.”
“Dean Martin is underrated in that movie,” Viking Man agrees.
“The opening scene,” points out another, “where he’s digging the coin out of the spittoon? All wordless. A kind of American kabuki.”
“Existential,” someone adds, “in its exploration of courage and professionalism even at its most futile.”
“Angie Dickinson,” Viking Man says, “is the modern incarnation of the quintessential Hawks woman.” The conversation continues like this for about half an hour, until there’s a pause.
“The Western,” Vikar says, “has changed along with America’s view of itself from some sort of heroic country where’s everybody’s free and shit to the spiritually defiled place it really is, and now you have jive Italians, if you can feature that, making the only Westerns worth seeing anymore because white America’s just too confused, can’t figure out whether to embrace the myth or the anti-myth, so in a country where folks always figured you can escape the past, now the word is out that this is the country where you can do no such thing, this is the one place where, like the jive that finally becomes impossible to distinguish from the anti-jive, honor becomes impossible to distinguish from betrayal or just, you know, stone cold murder.”
It’s the first thing more than four words long that Vikar has said since arriving. Including the women preparing the meal, the household comes to a stop. After a long silence Viking Man says, “That’s a damned interesting perspective, vicar.”
“Uh,” someone else says, “let’s go surfing!” The room immediately clears of everyone except the women. The dark large-breasted one studies Vikar for a moment and returns to the cooking. After that, Vikar doesn’t say anything else. The only person who talks as little as Vikar is an intense dark man in his late twenties who sits on the couch staring at him and at his head in particular; he has a strange smile. Five years later Vikar will remember the man, and the way he looked at Vikar’s head, when Vikar sees him with a mohawk in a movie about a cab driver who goes crazy and kills everyone.
75.
The beach house is shabby, the plywood walls warped from moisture, the garish shag carpet blotched and worn. There are three bedrooms upstairs, and a balcony circles and overlooks the downstairs, which is organized around a fire pit in the center. Sofas and chairs line the walls. His second day in the house, sitting in the living room and staring at the blue necklace of the sea stretched across the breast of the sky, Vikar turns to see a five-year-old girl standing next to him, looking at his head.
76.
It’s only when the girl’s mother calls that Vikar realizes it’s the same child he saw in the ruins of the Harry Houdini house in Laurel Canyon, after first arriving in Los Angeles.
“Zazi.” Vikar turns to the same soft voice and the same beautiful young woman
They seem only vaguely aware there’s been an earthquake. This is mostly a subject of concern as it applies to the size of the surf or when someone makes a trip to the local market and finds the beer or wine understocked. Everybody is involved in the movies but they’re not like Vikar imagined; none of them looks like a movie star, except perhaps the dark-haired woman and one of the guys who’s not particularly handsome but has a big black beard like Viking Man and also a flashing smile and a matinee manner about him. He wears a safari outfit that he seems to consider debonair. Vikar believes he’s an actor but in fact he’s an aspiring director.
74.
All the guys Vikar believes are actors are directors, and all the guys he believes are directors are actors. The women cook the meals and take care of the guys who, as Viking Man said, care and talk about nothing but movies. “The peak of Hawks’ art,” one is saying the first afternoon. “Hemingwayesque in its understanding of masculinity’s values and rituals.”
“Dean Martin is underrated in that movie,” Viking Man agrees.
“The opening scene,” points out another, “where he’s digging the coin out of the spittoon? All wordless. A kind of American kabuki.”
“Existential,” someone adds, “in its exploration of courage and professionalism even at its most futile.”
“Angie Dickinson,” Viking Man says, “is the modern incarnation of the quintessential Hawks woman.” The conversation continues like this for about half an hour, until there’s a pause.
“The Western,” Vikar says, “has changed along with America’s view of itself from some sort of heroic country where’s everybody’s free and shit to the spiritually defiled place it really is, and now you have jive Italians, if you can feature that, making the only Westerns worth seeing anymore because white America’s just too confused, can’t figure out whether to embrace the myth or the anti-myth, so in a country where folks always figured you can escape the past, now the word is out that this is the country where you can do no such thing, this is the one place where, like the jive that finally becomes impossible to distinguish from the anti-jive, honor becomes impossible to distinguish from betrayal or just, you know, stone cold murder.”
It’s the first thing more than four words long that Vikar has said since arriving. Including the women preparing the meal, the household comes to a stop. After a long silence Viking Man says, “That’s a damned interesting perspective, vicar.”
“Uh,” someone else says, “let’s go surfing!” The room immediately clears of everyone except the women. The dark large-breasted one studies Vikar for a moment and returns to the cooking. After that, Vikar doesn’t say anything else. The only person who talks as little as Vikar is an intense dark man in his late twenties who sits on the couch staring at him and at his head in particular; he has a strange smile. Five years later Vikar will remember the man, and the way he looked at Vikar’s head, when Vikar sees him with a mohawk in a movie about a cab driver who goes crazy and kills everyone.
75.
The beach house is shabby, the plywood walls warped from moisture, the garish shag carpet blotched and worn. There are three bedrooms upstairs, and a balcony circles and overlooks the downstairs, which is organized around a fire pit in the center. Sofas and chairs line the walls. His second day in the house, sitting in the living room and staring at the blue necklace of the sea stretched across the breast of the sky, Vikar turns to see a five-year-old girl standing next to him, looking at his head.
76.
It’s only when the girl’s mother calls that Vikar realizes it’s the same child he saw in the ruins of the Harry Houdini house in Laurel Canyon, after first arriving in Los Angeles.
“Zazi.” Vikar turns to the same soft voice and the same beautiful young woman
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