𝐉𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐨 𝐃𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐬𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞 /or/ 'N̶E̶V̶E̶R̶ F̶O̶R̶G̶E̶T̶'

This is a play for three characters.

They are invoked as X, Y, and Z.

You are all of them.

Others may appear, but they are incidental, and perhaps hallucinatory.

All of this has happened many times before.

---

➊

WE STEAL TIME FOR A LIVING

---

“Well you know, in the future, some celebrities, some public figures, they won’t be real.”

Listening.

Suppressing a cough.

Failing.

Barks uneven laughter into the condenser microphone.

Goddammit. Gonna have to edit that out. Fucking hate editing.

A constant stream of internal curses.

Fucking hate doing my own editing. Can’t afford a fuckin’ editor though. Fuck.

He tried to tone it down for the podcast.

“What do you mean they won’t be real?”

“I mean what I’m saying — they won’t be real. They will be incorporeal. Not people. Non-persons. Never having had personage. Fleshless bloodlessness unborn and undying . . . Terminal.”

He leaned back, stroked his beard.

“Heads of state, CEOs . . .”

Hit of a joint.

“Mere avatars.”

Circular smoke sighed.

“A means of abdicating responsibility . . . Horrors, atrocities . . . An alien cold that will leave them — the survivors — begging for the loving indifference of machinery.”

Tap.

“So you’re thinking we’re in the end stages?”

Double-tap.

Ash.

“The end of man . . .”

“The end of all?”

“Perhaps . . .”

They trailed.

“You know, ‘80s Judith Light was so fucking god damn hot.”

Ringside Retro Wrestling Wrap-Up had 850 subscribers, and a few hundred irregular listeners.

“Talk about the end of an era.”

X and Y had known each other for a decade or so.

“Here we go . . . Here we go. Horny on the podcast again . . .”

High-five idiot-time.

“Waxing jizzological.”

They’d met at the Gleaming Bean, a cafe on Lankershim.

“I think at this point I'm more attracted to certain mannerisms than to appearance.”

“Yeah?” leaned-in.

“The way girls speak and move now is so weird and non-human.”

“Yeah?”

“Inhuman. Post-human.”

“Yeah?”

“Anti-human.”

“Yeah.”

“Absolutely.”

Left.

Right.

Left right left.

Babbling jabs.

And he’s rapping:

“I’m a squeegee guy, stick my dick in some CGI.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“You don’t make sense.”

Time fills.

Like any other hole.

Deliberate idiocy.

Engineered noise and nonsense.

Firecrackers and farts and overturned donkey karts.

It’s all a bit teenaged.

They’ve got sponsors, though.

And the streams pay.

A bit.

A light bill, here and there.

“This is getting too stupid. Here, here, here — tellyawut — you ever, you ever, you ever — y’ever hearda Tom Magee?”

It’s unclear why Y is “doing that voice,” but he’s doing it.

Doing it to it.

He’s done it.

It’s done.

It’ll be going to tape, folks.

X stammered a bit.

Being a know-it-all nerd, he’s wary of admitting unknowing, lest he be undone.

“Sounds familiar . . .”

Tests the waters.

Licks a finger.

Sticks it in the air.

“Tom Magee. You-know-him you don’t-know-him?”

Y is kind of doing a “Howard Stern Thing.”

Stabby talk, gossipy.

It’s obnoxious.

But it’s what recorded.

If not called for.

“Was he the fella with the show?”

Hand check.

“Wasn’t, no — not the Nazi guy. . . . No.”

Nothing.

Y looks on, uncharacteristically quiet, giving space.

“The show . . .”

X is all out of ellipses.

“Home repair show, was it? Wasn’t it?”

“No, that’s — that’s Bob Vila.”

“No, no, no. I’m talking about something else. Tom Magee, he did — he fixed up old, what, like, log homes? PBS . . . Or maybe it was, was that CBC, or — shit, I forget, you know I grew up at the border, and so we’d get signal from Windsor, and I—”

“No I’m talking about Tom Magee the wrestler.”

Y cackled.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I don’t think any Tom Magee ever showed up on ‘This Old House.’”

“Whatever.”

“Anyway.”

“Anyway.”

“Anyway so Tom Magee was a wrestler. You never heard of him?”

“I must not have. He’s new?”

“No, ‘80s guy.”

“I know all the ‘80s guys, I never heard of Tom fuckin’ Magee.”

Cursing too fucking much. Fucking it up. Gonna have to edit it.

Edit it all down.

All down, all down.

God damn it.

“I never heard of him either.”

“Was he like a Jumpin’ Joey Maggs guy?”

“More of a Jim Brunzell.”

Both nerd-laugh.

Probably keep that laugh in.

The audience wants friends.

It’s just good for business baby.

Fuck.

“Here I’ll pull him up.”

Y makes for the mouse-and-keys with speed and precision produces an online encyclopedia entry for Tom Magee.

The two scan it, making periodic comments on stand-out items.

“A Canadian!”

“Stu Hart . . .”

“Riki Choshu.”

“WWF?”

“What?”

“Lost tapes?”

“What the fuck?”

All to come to the conclusion:

“I never heard of this fucking guy.”

---

                                         [title card drop]

         NEW WESTERN 𝔸ℝ𝕋𝕊 & 𝔸𝕋 H𝕃𝔼𝕋𝕀C𝕊

                        sᴛᴜᴅɪᴏʙᴀɴᴀʟ

           SAURIAN SKIES KINO (sᴀ/ᴛᴠ)

             𝐗𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀 𝐒.𝐩.𝐀.

                   &

             ego def/ILLUSION

                  present

𝐉𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐨 𝐃𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐬𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞 /or/ 'N̶E̶V̶E̶R̶ F̶O̶R̶G̶E̶T̶'

               as realized by

             𝐉𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐄

                        aka

              𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 . . .

             . . . 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐅𝐓-𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐑

           𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑 . . .

            . . . 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓

                 𝚖.𝚟.𝚍.

                  💙 

---

➋

“THIS IS ALL SOME MARVIN PONTIAC BULLSHIT,”

---

“Talmbout Marvin the Martian?”

“Don’t do talmbout. We can’t be doing blaccents. You lose sponsors over dumb shit like that. Plus, it’s not cool.”

“Talmbout Marvin Pontiac?”

“Look, like, I get the level of irony you’re operating on, but seriously, cut that shit out.”

“Fine.”

“It’s, like, look, like — it’s, I’m not trying to be a cop, or your dad, or anything, I just don’t want to have to edit all this shit out.”

“Fine, fine.”

“Alright, redirect.”

Sudden:

“You ever heard of King Baggot?”

X burst into laughter.

“No seriously — have you ever fucking heard of King Baggot?”

A shaken head.

“I never heard of King Baggot.”

“Most famous actor in the world, allegedly.”

“What?”

“Yeah, here, look —”

Reads from the screen:

“Baggot was referred to as ‘King of the Movies,‘ ‘The Most Photographed Man in the World,’ and ‘The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon.’”

“‘The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon.’”

“Rolls right off the tongue, huh?”

“I never heard of King Baggot.”

“King of the Movies!”

“King of the fuckin’ movies.”

“Never heard of him.”

“THE. MOST. PHOTOGRAPHED. MAN.”

Y jabbed his thumbs toward his chest.

“IN THE WORLD.”

They crack up.

This laughter’s staying in.

Fifteen, twenty seconds.

Yes, yes.

Eat their time.

“If there’d been a King Baggot he’d be at the tip-of-the-tongue of every hack comedian that disgraces this Earth, right. Like. Come on.”

“I mean, you’d think, right?”

“Like you get to approach saying a slur.”

“Which you clearly love.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

More editing.

“No but like people just respond to funny sounds or powerful sounds, you know, like, uh, morphemes, phonemes, I think it is.”

“This is a wrestling podcast. I didn’t know we had an on-staff science communicator.”

“That’s not science, that’s linguistics.”

They’ve devolved to a Zoo Crew.

“Maybe we should call up some of our premium subscribers, the people who’ve been supporting the Wrap-Up all these years, and ask them if THEY ever heard of this Baggot character?”

Edging closer and closer to sweet transgression.

But for the sponsors, sentries, and spreadsheet entries.

Watch what you say.

Nobody’s really listening anyway.

They’re just here for the beats.

Thought banished.

Retreat.

It bears repeating:

They’ll hear birdsong but never take on its meaning.

A reprieve’s what they’re needing.

An unburdening.

And so it is eternal talks of dicks and stiffening and puffed-farts and nipple darts and Hey Remember This? and piss-and-shit.

Sometimes vomit.

The way to their stomachs is an insistent finger down the throat.

The way to their hearts is blocked black with plaque.

They’re burnt on illusions.

Half-literate massed.

Lightheaded half-assed.

Disembodied voices stir their memories.

Remember Starrcade ‘89?

Arena lights and oiled flesh and colorful trunks and entrance ramps and guardrails and photo flashes and flashy finishers and submission holds.

“What was it like, before you were old?”

Mockery retold.

Distorted fragments reassemble.

Lossy mirrors.

Dusty.

Perhaps the self is inserted.

Maybe you were there.

In the audience, or the ring.

With your face painted, howling.

Maybe you’re already dead.

Maybe you died of a drug overdose, in Tampa.

Hotel room.

Motel, maybe.

Maybe.

Or an ex-wife’s condo.

Hanging.

Could be.

Maybe.

Lossy mirrors.

Dusty.

Perhaps the self is exited.

And on-view, absolute reality.

Appears before you gridded in a green field.

Cliche and unyielding.

A vision of heaven.

Or some other crashing system.

Unspooling.

“So like, who do you think the most famous man in the world is now?”

“I don’t know. I mean, who’s famous?”

“I guess this is a retro show, so we don’t really need to know all that.”

“No really, who’s famous?”

“Like, Tom Cruise, right?”

“Yeah, Tom Cruise is famous. Brad Pitt. All those guys. They’re famous.”

“Denzel Washington.”

“Denzel Washington is famous.”

“They got the new guy. Timothy Shalimar.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Nope.”

Listeners are actively sacrificing their life to this.

“But the most photographed man?”

“Gotta be —”

BOTH: “Trump.”

Jinx.

Owe me a Coke.

“Gotta be.”

“Right?”

“Yeah . . .”

Y, forever meta and hovering, goes into a “hacky comedian” voice:

“NOW THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED WOMAN OF ALL TIME, WELL JUST GIVE ANY GAL ONE-A THESE EYEEEEEE PHONES AND SEE HOW MANY GIGGITY GIGS OF SSSSSSSELFIES SHE CAN STUFF IT WITH!”

Performs a shrill scream, careful to ease back from the mic a bit.

Fucker better have. I don’t want to edit this shit.

“What was that, like a Jim Carrey-Ric Flair?”

“That’d be a good gimmick.”

“I think it’s your gimmick now.”

Banter on banter on banter.

“But back to Baggot. Between him and Tom Magee I’m feeling confused, man.”

“You think it’s, what — implanted memories?”

“Seems likely . . .”

“Maybe you do too much reading.”

“Apparently we don’t do enough, or we’d have heard of Baggot.”

“I mean, I never heard of him.”

“Don’t you think it’s kinda, you know, weird, that two guys who host a variety of, uh, esoteric knowledge podcasts never heard of the King of Movies, the Most Photographed Man in the World?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess . . .”

“The man whose face you see in the fuckin’ moon?”

“Yeah, that’s weird.”

“Imagine how much time Frank Sinatra musta spent up there with him.”

Good one.

Kind of.

(close enough)

“You know when I look up at the moon I don’t see a face.”

“Well yeah you’re blind as shit.”

“You see a face?”

“I see how you could see a face.”

“You see Baggot up there?”

“I don’t know. . . Pull him up.”

Click-click-click.

And there’s his portrait.

Monitor glow.

Prim and proper.

Ever the gent.

As if from a dream.

“You see this fella in the moon?”

“I’ve never seen him there, no.”

“It’s all just silver light, to me. I don’t see any detail in it.”

“He looks like silver light, alright.”

---

---

➌

DEAD STYLES IN THE IMAGINARY MUSEUM

---

The early animation exhibit was smaller than they’d expected.

Cels under glass.

Lines on the floor keeping distance from creeping tip-toes.

Stand back.

X craned his neck to see, but poor vision and a succession of reflections ensured that everything on view was an indistinct blur of color and shape.

He cursed and muttered internally, but Z had wanted badly to see this exhibit, and she’d driven and paid the admission, so he kept from complaining, sort of.

“I can’t tell if my glasses are smudged.”

“Your glasses are smudged.”

“No, like, I can’t tell.”

“I can. They are.”

“It’s just, uh, it’s hard to see the exhibit . . .”

“Don’t rush me through it.”

“I’m not rushing you.”

“You know I almost went to school for this.”

“I know . . .”

X stalked the gallery, shifting hand-in-pocket configurations and pacing slow along the wall.

“Sir please don’t touch the artwork.”

A docent.

“I’m not going to touch the artwork.”

A glutton for punishment.

“I just need you to step back.”

“I’m not over the line.”

“Sir just step back.”

“I’m not over the line!”

“You’re hovering.”

“What is this, fucking darts? I’m blind!”

“Please don’t make this difficult.”

X rolled slight-sighted eyes and moved on.

Fucking everyone is a cop.

Snarling internally.

Hate this fucking place.

A nostril’s flared tell, lizardly.

Fuckers.

“X, come check this out.”

She’s back.

“I’m feeling crazy right now.”

“Me too, I just had one of these useless polyester nazis up my ass about getting too close to some shit.”

“Well were you too close?”

“No! Jesus.”

“I mean I don’t know . . .”

“I’m not a fucking child, Z.”

They wander to the glass cases at the center of the exhibit.

“Okay, so like — have you ever heard of Mumfry?”

“Like that shitty band?”

“What? No —”

She points.

“Mumfry the Mummy Butler.”

“Is that like an interactive CD-ROM game for babies?”

“No, look.”

Back to the glass.

He cranes in.

One of these goddamned animation cels.

Light on light on light, diffuse reflection.

Impossible.

Unseeable.

Cranks.

Strains.

Squints.

Reads the exhibit card first.

Skims really.

MUMFRY THE MUMMY BUTLER . . . GORGEOUS DECO BACKGROUNDS . . . EGYPTIAN REVIVAL ARCHITECTURE . . . VANISHING POINT PERSPECTIVES . . . HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL . . . ONE OF THE EARLIEST MASS-MARKET TOYS . . . TRAGIC FACTORY FIRE . . .

Sure, okay, whatever.

And yeah, there he is.

Long lines.

Purple bandages.

Mumfry.

He’s a mummy, and he’s a butler.

“You ever heard of Mumfry the Mummy?”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“Doesn’t trip my memory . . .”

“Me either.”

The raves of recall.

Z hosts a podcast as well.

Spellbound Tell-All.

Classic Hollywood.

Glamour, decay.

Rises, falls.

Prats, props.

Penthouses, flops.

Technicolor swashbucklers.

Cowboy extras, film ranches.

Diners, dalliances.

Rapist executives.

Sable furs and queens and queers and desert retreats.

Waxed antiquity.

Thousands of subscribers.

She’s lost count.

Pays the rent, mostly.

“French cartoon, apparently?”

“No idea.”

“Makes sense it’d be French.”

“I thought I knew all this shit.”

“Maybe you knew it before and forgot.”

“That’s not knowing. That’s . . . Not knowing.”

“Maybe you had encountered it but it didn’t stick.”

“Everything sticks. Information’s my lint.”

“You’re not wrong. God knows you hold grudges.”

“I’d remember the mummy butler though. And French? French, too? I’d remember.”

“I’d think you would.”

“It’s a bunch of bullshit is what it is.”

“Maybe you just need a coffee.”

---

➍

WHERE VIOLENT SORROW SEEMS A MODERN ECSTASY

---

J*PRESS Book & Tape was on the third floor of Ogawa Plaza in Little Tokyo.

Perpetually filled with misfits seeking toys and distraction.

A real grab bag.

Endless rows of pens and markers like push-pops.

Stationery of all sizes lined and unlined.

Notebooks, waiting.

Desk toys.

Novels, graphic novels, manga, coffee table books.

Character keychains.

Used CDs.

DVDs.

Hell you might come up on a LaserDisc.

Everyone’s got coffee from next door.

Cupped careful from the keepsakes.

Or boba from down the way.

A lid-and-straw crowd.

Hard to tell who’s in costume here.

Civilian?

Cyborg?

Kitsune?

A bit loony?

Old as time.

X has picked up a book, a picture book.

‘Tsukomogami.’

Household objects come to life.

Tools, furniture, garments.

Spirited and quickened.

He’s got the slim gloss compendium clutched under-arm, and he’s been ready to go.

Z’s lost in the stacks, hard to find.

Hunting for a black head of hair and coming up Everyone.

Stalks the rows.

No, no, no.

There she is — DVDs.

“Hey, are you good? I think I need to use the bathroom.”

“They’ll probably let you do it at the cafe.”

“No, I already threw my cup away, and you know they’re stingy.”

“Alright, give me a minute — look at this shit though, you’re not gonna believe it.”

She hands over a DVD case.

‘マムフリ 3000 B.C.’

“You know I can’t read this shit.”

“Well I can.”

“Good for you — spell it out for me.”

“Ma-mu-fu-ri three-thousand bee-cee.”

“Okay?”

“Mumfry. Mumfry the goddamned mummy butler. This is an anime adaptation, X.”

“Whoa, what the fuck. And you just found this?”

“Yeah, apparently it’s from 1971.”

“I have never seen or heard of this.”

“I mean, I guess I should buy it.”

“Kind of feels like you have to.”

“Feels like we’re being fucked with.”

“It’s all just patterns.”

“Alright, well — I gotta piss.”

“Did you end up with anything?”

“Yeah, couple things.”

“What have you got?”

“Uh, what is it, some book about futons that kill people, or like, animated spirits, Japanese, uh, Sakumogoni?, here —” he inspected the book, “Tsukomogami.”

Z mouthed the accompanying kana.

“And I also found this CD. Six bucks, used. I didn’t know he did music . . .”

“That seems like a bad thing to bring into the house.”

“Fuck it, gotta have it. You’ve got funky Mumfry, I’ve got singing Shoko.”

“Mystery media weekend.”

“Now let’s get out of here before I piss myself.”

---

➎

---

zu Vingt.

She pronounced it “Vinged” and “Vongkt,” alternately.

Nose buried in a smartphone, knees hunched in.

“They say there’s a new Carl van Vechten photograph that’s surfaced, and it’s of Leopold zu Vingt. I have never, ever heard of Leopold zu Vingt.”

“Sous vide.”

“You’re just saying shit.”

“I know.”

“Don’t . . . So, seriously — zu Vingt, you know him? Apparently he was in New York and LA in the ‘30s, had come over from Germany, hung out with the avant-garde set, apparently got them funding for all kinds of shit . . .”

“Sounds like an early Nazi. Like an SA guy who’d have gotten culled.”

“You’re always on the Nazi thing. You need to examine this.”

“I mean how could you not be fascinated?”

“I’ve got better things to do.”

“We host podcasts and I moonlight at a bar.”

“It’s a bistro.”

“I mean it’s not a gastropub, that’s for sure.”

And they sat.

Opposing.

The sofa’d been bought used, and bore someone else’s cat’s claw-marks.

Neutral-grey nothingtaste.

It sat under tract lighting in a North Hollywood 1 bedroom that’d been advertised as “1.5br — or an office!,” and, well, you can imagine.

The office was full up with their shoes and seldom-used camping gear.

Last year’s taxes.

It’d be an appropriate bedroom for a goldfish, perhaps.

One not particularly loved.

But yes.

One-and-a-half bedrooms.

Here we are.

One bath.

Sure to result in tragedies.

Showers and shits overlapping.

All mystique collapsed.

Every humor spilled.

Hilarious.

Red, yellow, brown.

Whose hair’s clogged?

Red, yellow, brown.

Who’s left a log?

And it’s food poisoning and snot and too many margaritas.

A difficult period and exclamatory loose trot-afters.

Fritters found floating.

It’s an afterthought to piss in the dark.

Leave the lid.

Keep your head.

Don’t be a dunce.

Get on back to bed.

And its sleepy-peejays comfort flannelsheets.

An old T-shirt and ease.

Fleece.

They’d softened with familiarity.

“But I mean, I know every Carl van Vechten photo, like — all of them, like, I’ve got books, I’ve been to museums, exhibits, exhibitions, like—”

“zu Von [wrong].”

“zu Vignt [also wrong (closer)].”

“I don’t know, he was, like, what — an actor?”

“Seems to have been a gadfly.”

“A gadfly?”

“Like a scene guy.”

“A scenester?”

“You know what I mean.”

“So he was a guy who was around.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so? Why would you ever have heard of him?”

“I’d have heard of him!”

“You sure?

“I just would . . . I mean, I’ve exhausted the whole social mileau . . . Been to the bottom of sources’ sources.”

“You’re a sorceress.”

“Yes.”

“You pulled at roots, and found — what?”

“More roots.”

“Yes.”

X tongued the filling out of a Cadbury creme egg.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“I left some foil on this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, the, uh, metal?”

“The wrapper.”

“Yes.”

“You left the wrapper on your chocolate.”

“Not all of it. I can’t see.”

“Turn on the light.”

“I can’t see to turn on the light.”

“Just feel for the switch.”

“I don’t know where it is.”

“Well I guess you’re eating foil.”

“I can try to peel it off. I mean, it won’t kill me.”

“You’re going to turn into Tatsuo the Iron Man.”

“Tetsuo.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No you didn’t.”

He struggled with the foil.

Tongue figged taut in tight lips.

“I think I got it.”

He’d freed the egg.

“I’ve made it my business to know every fringe dilettante in history . . .”

“I believe you.”

Creme-mouth.

(globs)

“I mean, I relate, clearly, I — I know nothing . . .”

“You know all kinds of shit.”

Creme-mouth.

(strings)

“But I just keep running into these things it feels like I should know, should already have known?”

“King Baggot!”

(wads)

“What?”

A swallow.

“Sorry . . . King Baggot . . . Tom Magee, King Baggot. All new to me . . .”

“What are you talking about?”

“On the Wrap-Up, last week. Me and Y were talking about whatever the fuck we were talking about and he starts talking about some pro wrestler neither of us’d ever heard of before, and then some early movie star we never heard of.”

“Well, wait — who’s the movie star? I’d know the movie star . . .”

“King Baggot.”

She laughed.

“King Baggot?”

He did not laugh.

“King Baggot.”

Scissored her knees to her elbows.

“I have never heard of King Baggot.”

“Seriously?”

“Never.”

“You’re sure?”

“Not once. I mean — I’d remember, right? Weird name . . .”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, a lot of people had weird names back then. King Vidor, sure . . Whatever. But King Baggot? I mean, I love Old Hollywood everything and I have never heard of him.”

“He’s the man in the moon.”

“The man in the moon?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Do they?”

“The most photographed man alive.”

“Stop.”

“Said he was the King of Film.”

“What in the fuck are you talking about?”

“King Baggot.”

“Is this one of those stupid mandala effect things from the Internet?”

“What?”

“Like where people remember things wrong, like — you’re fucking with me?”

“No, I looked him up after Y told me about him, apparently King Baggot was real.”

She scoffed.

“I’m sorry but I’ve never heard of any such thing.”

“Neither had I. Neither had Y.”

“Well . . .”

“And then there was Tom Magee.”

“Who’s that? Like the mayor from Animal Crossing?”

“No, like — a wrestler.”

“Like Hulk Hogan wrestling.”

“Yeah like Hulk Hogan wrestling.”

“I’ve never heard of Tom Magee.”

“Yeah but you also just said ‘Hulk Hogan wrestling.’”

“Had you heard of Tom Magee?”

“No.”

“Had Y?”

“No.”

“Well, what the fuck?”

“I don’t know, it’s strange, right?”

“I mean, maybe we’re ignorant.”

She slapped her thighs.

“Feels strange, though. Something’s off.”

“That mummy. I mean, all I’d watch was animation in college. And then I’d go look for the old stuff. And the foreign stuff. And the old foreign stuff.”

“The banned stuff.”

“The Communist Bloc shit.”

“The lost shit.”

“You know.”

“Exactly.”

“So, like — art deco mummy butler? French?”

“Feel like the gallery card said French-English co-production.”

“So what’s that make him? Fucking Norman?”

“Gotta wonder.”

“We could put the DVD on and see about it.”

“I’m too tired.”

They proceeded to spend the next three hours browsing their phones.

---

“Recall of memory is a creative process. What the brain stores is . . .only a core memory.

Upon recall, this memory is then elaborated upon and reconstructed, with subtractions, additions, elaborations, and distortions.”

— Eric Kandel

---

➏

THE PILLOWFIGHT

---

“You’d asked if he was an actor.”

“Who?”

“zu Vingt.”

“Okay?”

“Why did you ask if he was an actor?”

“I don’t know, you love all that old shit.”

“It says he’s an actor now.”

“What does?”

“The Internet. Everything.”

She shoves a screen forward.

“He was, what — some hanger-on guy, or a spy, or something before, right?”

“Something. Now he’s an actor of stage and screen. You think I wouldn’t know about this?”

“Of course you’d know about this. You’d have bored the shit out of me with this dozens of times.”

“It says he was killed. With his wife. . . .”

Scrolls.

Another picture.

‘POWER AND GLAMOUR MEET UNTIMELY HILLSIDE END.’

“What the fuck?”

“Weird, right?”

“Super weird.”

“I swear to god this fucking guy didn’t exist last week . . . Now his story’s changing.”

“You’ve got Baggot Brain.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

A thrown pillow.

“Who was the wife?”

“Says her name was Lucy Lee Wray.”

“Ah yes the famous Double-El Dub.”

“Yeah I don’t know her either.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“All these people keep appearing.”

“I mean, yeah — that’s life.”

“No, but new people — like, made-up ones.”

“Made-up ones?”

“People we have never heard of.”

“That’s just ignorance.”

“No.”

“That’s the nature of ignorance!”

“Ignorance is supposed to be a veil of bliss. I feel insane.”

“Have you ever known anything else? You have to find things out to know them.”

“I’ve known lots of things. I’ve dedicated my life and breath and works to triviality. Names and dates. Properties. Birthplaces. Real people, fake people. Real people playing themselves.”

“A trivial pursuit, your findings.”

Returned pillow.

“Anyhow seems zu Vingt and Lucy Lee were brutally slaughtered in their home . . . Good looking place, too. Beachwood Canyon . . .”

“I gotta talk to Todd. He’d know. He’d know. He hosts that true crime podcast. Those guys make bank.”

“Didn’t Todd and Esme just move into a place?”

“Like in Studio City I think.”

“I think it’s, like, Valley Village.”

“Valley Village?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn.”

“You know she wants kids.”

“Whatever. Todd will know.”

X fumbled at the nightstand for his phone.

“Fuck.”

A toppled lamp.

“Is it broken?”

X huffed.

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. I can’t turn on the light to see it.”

“Well get up and turn on the overhead light!”

“Thanks for your help.”

X rolled out of bed, feeling for the switch.

Z drew the comforter over her head, wanting nothing to do with the light.

Flick.

“The lamp’s fine.”

“Good,” muffled.

“My phone’s not in here though, I’m gonna go look for it.”

“Cool,” deadened.

And X is off down the hall.

The phone’s in the kitchen.

Why’s it in the kitchen?

Fuck knows.

Anyway,

A TEXT:

2:01 A.M.: Dude have you ever heard of Lucy Lee west and Leopard zu Vingt they were actors who got murdered down the street from where you used to live

X shuffles, opens the fridge, closes the fridge.

Walks away from the fridge.

Walks back to the fridge.

Extends a hand to open the fridge, does not.

Scratches at itches.

Opens the fridge.

Reaches for a bag of shredded cheese.

Phone buzzes in the robe pocket.

2:08 A.M.: DUDE CALL ME

Puts the cheese back.

Steps back from the fridge.

“Fuckin’ Todd.”

Fucker must be wasted.

Time to give him a ring.

But before X can figure out how to navigate a late-night stoned cell-phone,

Todd’s on it:

“Dude what’s up man.”

“Yo it’s been a minute.”

“Right?”

And so it went, for some time.

Todd was indeed drunk.

And monologued extensively.

Holding forth on a number of subjects.

Such as:

The difficulty of finding decent contractors.

Esme’s new Tesla.

His old Tesla.

Have you seen the stock market?

And what about the government?

At about 2:45 A.M. X finally got in edgewise:

“So dude Todd fuck we gotta kick it again soon, like, in real life, after your shit settles down or whatever—”

“Yeah!”

“Butsolike let me ask you have you ever heard of Lucy Lee Wray or Leopold zu Vingt?”

Todd paused.

“Yeah — of course . . . We did an episode on ‘em back, fuck — four, five years ago? They got butchered, man. Nice-ass house, though . . .”

“Had you known about them previously?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like had you known who they were, or did you find them by researching them?”

“I mean — you find everything out one way or another, X.”

“But you know what I mean.”

Another pause.

Todd’s sudden-sober.

Intones:

“I don’t know that I do.”

Continues:

“I think you need to stop asking questions. It’s getting late.”

X understood.

“I’ll listen to your episode in the morning.”

Todd’s laughing teeth through the phone again.

“Goodnight X.”

“Always good to chat.”

“. . . yeah.”

█

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