A Pagan's Nightmare (28 page)

He handed the first photo to Lanny, who dismissed it with great haste.
A stout blonde in cowboy boots? This ain’t Miranda.

“That blonde,” said Sir Crackhead, taking back the photo, “she art a rodeo girl who haileth from Amarillo. Donald Deacon desireth
to date her… when she becometh legal, that is.”

“You mean she’s underage?” Lanny glanced anxiously as Sir Crackhead pulled four more photos from his wallet.

“No, I meant that if thou art hoping to marry one, thy must waiteth until total reform hath completeth its course. Then she
becometh
legal to weddeth. Thou canst also readeth this rule on E-Marviny.”

Lanny snatched the four photos from Sir Crackhead’s hand and saw four women of various ethnicity, none of the faces familiar.
His heart sank again, though determination bouyed it for one last try. “This. . .this can’t be all.”

Sir Crackhead tapped the third photo. “The Asian woman and I flirteth yesterday during paint detail.”

Lanny tried to imagine Miranda sloshing white latex on Puerto Rican graffiti. His hand trembled as he handed back the pics.
“Where are the rest of the photos?”

“No more exist. There are only five women here.”

Disappointment so welled up in Lanny that he grabbed Sir Crackhead by the shoulders and shook him. “This is all the female
resistors you have?! Where else are they kept?”

Sir Crackhead spoke in haste, as if unfamiliar with emotion. “There is nowhere else. All five holdouts were broughteth here.
The blonde even earneth her Texas captor a Big Reward! But thou shouldest not worry about their treatment;the women haveth
their own loft apartments, 200-thread-count sheets, and a small budget for décor.”

Lanny shook him a second time. “This is
it?!
There were never more than these five? Why would Marvin build a language school for just five people?”

“Thou engagest in faulty thinking. The Puerto Rican language school shall be mostly for those who’ve already joineth the movement.
Although the tall woman and the rodeo girl doth showeth a great knack for languages.”

Only five?
“But this can’t be…”

Lanny let go of Sir Crackhead.
This cannot be.

Lanny turned to see Donald Deacon striding over, the pasted-on smile reminding him of zealot fast-food workers. “Sir, the
five women remaineth busy painting portraits of Marvin on white canvas. Thou cannot disturbeth them.”

Lanny searched his face for any sign of joviality. “C’mon, Donald!
Y’all stop kidding with me. Where are the rest of the female resistors? Tell me there are more somewhere!”

Donald Deacon shook his head no and left to greet a second plane.

Sir Crackhead had no words of sympathy as he walked Lanny back to the terminal. Lanny sat in the lobby and grasped his hair
above his ears and commenced to rocking slowly. His expression sank into the spaced-out comportment of one devoid of hope,
although to any casual observor he was merely a man mildly suffering, perhaps having a bad day.

Sir Crackhead looked on with brainwashed confusion, though after a time he sat beside Lanny and tried to make conversation.
“Thou leavest so soon? What of thy contractor work?”

Lanny motioned for him to leave.

He did not. “But thou just arriveth…”

Slowly Lanny raised his head. But he could not look upon any more zealots, so he just spoke to the lobby window. “I. . . forgot
my tools. I have to go back to Orlando.” His words lacked all emotion, just the residue of conscience.

Sir Crackhead patted Lanny on the back before walking away. “Thou must worketh on thy memory,” he said, tapping the side of
his head as he strolled down the lobby.

For the return flight aboard Detour Airlines, Lanny settled into seat 3F, the lone outbound passenger.

With reddened eyes he stared out his window as the plane took off.

Miranda is gone…. Gone! I’m alone in the world, and every idea I have leads to a dead end.

The plane rose swiftly, but neither blue waters nor coastal scenery had any effect on him. Blank-faced and despondent, he
would not even accept the flight attendant’s offer of charismatic peanuts.

I just want out of this misery.

T
HE NIGHTMARE HAD COME TRUE,
and now Lanny figured a downtown Orlando high-rise an appropriate venue for his exit.

The one he chose was still under construction, half completed, if that. The outer shell of the twenty-story building appeared
a monstrous gray skeleton, as emotionless as the inhabitants he’d met in Puerto Rico. No glass yet in the windows, few doors
hung, and the high-rise’s shadow angling across the Xterra’s hood.

No workers around on this cloudy Saturday afternoon, just heavy equipment, a crane, a dumpster overflowing with debris. Lanny
drove to the gate, got out, and used his pair of bolt cutters to break in. Confident that he was alone, he eased his truck
to within fifty feet of the building and sat idling, peering up through his windshield.

Lanny wanted a twenty-story building. He’d already driven around and rejected nine other structures. He left his truck on
the asphalt and didn’t bother to lock his door. The only item he took with him was a pre-paid cell phone he’d purchased earlier
that morning while posing in his
Got Religion?
T-shirt.

He entered the buildling through an unframed doorway. Sand and concrete powder covered the first floor.
I should at least tell somebody, bring some closure to mg life. Tell Ned he can have mg Xterra to drive to his zealot meetings.

The inner stairs were of unfinished concrete, the steel bannisters cool to the touch. Wind blew through the north end of the
building and whooshed out the far side. Lanny never hesitated as he climbed higher, though between the twelfth and thirteenth
floors he paused to look down.
Not high enough.

Higher and higher he climbed, his thoughts and memories fighting for supremacy, as if they, too, knew their time was short.
We walked barefoot on a golf course at sunset….
… I
drove her to the airport…. She wrote me into her will… DJ Ned loved disco before he became a, zealot…. I once soaked in Castro’s
hot tub…. Miranda’s mom left her a phone message in Cocoa Beach: “Miranda, we’re on our way to the marina to check on your
dad’s boat. It’s 10:20 now, and we’ll be back by 10:45 to take you to the airport. There’s some turkey and Swiss cheese in
the fridge if you’d like to make a sandwich to take on the plane,”
… I
tried my best to find you, Miranda… . I wanted to marry you.

Lanny reached the twentieth floor, made his way to a metal door, and stepped out onto the roof. From the south corner he saw
Orlando spread before him—office buildings, bridges, lakes, sidewalks, palm trees, the outskirts of Deity World, train tracks—and
hopelessness.

A gust pushed him backward off the corner, but he stepped back up and peered down again. After a long moment of meditation,
he pulled his cell phone out and dialed a number.

“Welcome, caller, to Fence-Mender AM! I’m DJ Ned Na—”

“Ned, it’s Lanny, and I’m just calling to tell you that—”

A short pause. “Folks, I have here on the line a genuine American poser, a man with whom I once—”

Lanny cut him off again. “Ned, even though you’re now a zealot, I wanted to let someone know that I’m exiting this misery.
Tell your cohorts they won. Tell Marvin he rules the earth. Tell ‘em whatever you want. You can even have my Xterra if you
want it…. I’ve decided to… I just want. . . She was all I had… all I wanted…. It was nice knowin’ ya, Ned, back when you
were normal…. I’m outta here.”

“Wait, Lanny! I’m… just. . . just tell me where you are.”

“I’m not telling you where I am… but I can see the top of your station from here.”

And with that, Lanny tossed his cell phone over the side of the building. He watched it somersault for two hundred feet until
it burst into fragments on the asphalt.

Lanny inched his toes out over open air. He teetered at the next gust. And the next, and the one after that.

Again his thoughts raced.
All my friends fell victim to the brainwashing…. Miranda gone, my golf buddies gone
…
Remember to jump far so you don’t hit the building on the way down…. There’s no afterlife…. Life here is worthless… .Jump
far so you don’t hit the building…. Nothing here counts for anything…. I wish I’d punched Marvin in the geezer… .Just five
more seconds… Miranda, I love you… wherever you are…Jump far and don’t hit the building…. New Year’s Eve we danced to James
Brown music…. Close your eyes…. No, keep them open…. Go headfirst… I tried to find you Miranda…. Don’t look down… . Yes, face
your fear and do it….

A figure below ran through the open gate and onto the asphalt, waving his arms and shouting up through his hands.

“Lanny, don’t jump!” he yelled. “I’m a poser…. What you heard on the radio was just to satisfy the zealots!… We’re about to
head west!… We think the zealots lied!… There may be millions of us out there!… Don’t give up on Miranda!… Don’t jump, Lanny!”

But Lanny could not hear Ned. The same winds that buffeted his shirt and hair restrained the words;the thirteenth or fourtheenth
floor was their apex, as high as they could manage. All Lanny saw below was a small figure of a man—obviously a zealot—waving
his arms in protest.

Oh, so now Mr. Zealot Maintenance Worker doesn’t want to have to clean up my mess after I splatter. He probably called the
cops on me.

Ned shouted up again. “Lanny, it’s me, Ned Neutral!… I’ve been posing for two weeks now!… I lied to get out of Cuba! There
is
no
DJ Ned Nazareth!”

His words carried upwards again, this time to the fifteenth floor. Lanny peered down over the corner, teetering.
Don’t look down again…. Yes, do look…. You don’t want to hit that zealot and have him cushion your fall.

His next glance down revealed a second figure of a man, this one leaner, darker, waving at first, then dropping to the ground
and spinning.
Just another zealot wanting me to join them. But they don’t want
to know me;they’ll always be strangers, just wanting to nail their vinyl siding on my life, put bumper stickers on my car.
Would any of them ever admit to a lustful thought? A white lie? A big lie? To cheating on their taxes?. . .Jump far and don’t
hit the building…. Close your eyes…. No, keep them open…. Go headfirst.
… J
tried to find you, Miranda.
… I
really loved you.
…
Now why is that second zealot on his back, spinning around in circles?

Lanny clenched his fists, closed his eyes. A gust startled him and he looked down again.

Why is that guy gyrating on the ground?

Lanny leaned out over the edge. Again he teetered with the wind.

His mind was raw mayhem, marinated in chaos and deep-fried in a vat of confusion.

The End.

“That’s
it?
!” I asked Larry. Actually, I yelled this at him from across my office. “How can you write an ending that’s so unutterably depressing?!”

He was still seated between my ferns, watching me for a reaction. “It’s a bit different in tone than Burt and Deborah kissing
in the surf as waves lap over them, yes.”

I shook the pages at him and said, “Lanny doesn’t find her? How can you end it with him not finding her? And why would you
leave him on… does he jump?”

Larry sprang to his feet. “Does he
jump?!
Is that your big concern? The clue is there, Ned. It’s not that hard.”

Neither the shifting of my feet on the floor nor the drumming of my fingertips on my desk brought clarity. I must have shifted
and drummed for a full minute. “I must be an idiot…Tell me.”

Larry remained standing beside the ferns, arms crossed. “No. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not smart enough to be my
agent.”

“Please.”

He shook his head in frustration. “Close your eyes and think of ABBA.”

“ABBA?”

“Yes. What was their big hit?”

“ ‘Dancing Queen’?”

“And it became…?”

“Um… ‘Dancing’s Wrong.’”

“Exactly.” He tapped his skull as he said this.

“I’m not following you.”

Larry slumped his shoulders as if he’d lost all confidence in me. “Ned, Ned, Ned. The dark-skinned guy gyrating on the ground
is MC Deluxe, doing the break dance. And since Lanny knew that the zealots had banned all dancing—they went hardest after
disco, remember?—
he would realize that MC was communicating that he, MC, was also a poser.”

At last I sat back in my chair and nodded. “And so…”

“And so Lanny recognizes that he’s really not alone in the world.”

I leaned toward him, anxious as a kid asking Daddy if Spider-Man ever dies. “And then he climbs down from the twenty-story
high-rise?!”

Larry extended his arms in a gesture of “you got it” and walked to my desk. “In the sequel, he and DJ Ned and MC are on the
run again… out west, barreling through Arizona in a hippie van. Well, the passenger side is now painted in hip-hop art, at
the insistence of MC. Oh, and they now have a dog, a big Lab.”