A Pagan's Nightmare (30 page)

Carla nodded and started on the underside of a chair.

Miranda shook the hair out of her eyes and glared accusingly at each of us. We all wore serious faces, concentrating on our
work.

“How come everybody but me gets to read the story?” she asked.

I removed my glasses and wiped them as casually as possible. “It’s a bit evil in places, Miranda. So perhaps Larry just wanted
to keep you from having any nightmares.”

She looked around again at everyone hard at work, hesitated a moment, and said, “Oh… how sweet.”

More amusing to me, however, was watching Larry and Angie get along.

I think Larry saw that Angie could appreciate his effort—wacked as it was—to show that many non-believers give thought to
the afterlife. To her credit, she only tried once to thump, er,
convert
him.

She did this while discussing with him her idea for bathroom wallpaper. Samples were laid out all over the kitchen and against
the walls.

Angie recommended the Last Supper scene.

Larry climbed up four rungs of the ladder and chose sunken treasure beneath a deep blue sea.

And this—just a small disagreement on décor—is what caused their differing views to pop up and debate.

Angie held her preferred sample in both hands and stood facing Larry from across the kitchen. “Larry, I just thought that
I should tell you that hell is lonely and totally absent of fun. The only thing you got right in your story was the heat.”

Larry tried to humor his way out of the conversation. He came down off the ladder, grabbed his sunken treasure sample, and
spoke from behind it. “Oh, yeah? And how do you know the M&M’s aren’t red? Who’s come back and told you for sure? Hmmm?”

“If there are any M&M’s, they’ll melt. So will the sage green Xterra, the ridiculous billboards, Castro’s yacht, and Fence-Straddler
AM.”

Larry paused, still attempting to hide behind his sample and his humor. “But what if subtropical moisture was pulled in by
a hurricane and cooled things off?”

Angie shook her wallpaper sample and stomped her foot. “There is no sub-tropical moisture in hell, Larry.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“There’s no evidence for it. So you’d better come to grips with how you can bypass hell altogether. If you would only trust—”

And that’s when Larry dropped his sample and put his hands up.
No.

A turn of the head.
No.

A movement of lips.
No.

There would be no sharing of the gospel from Angie today. Larry had one firm rule for our free week on Abaco—no Jesus conversations.

Apparently, Jesus was the line in the sand.

* * *

At lunch on Day Seven, the six of us gathered around Larry’s picnic table. Miranda and Carla brought out twin serving bowls
filled with boiled shrimp and centered them between Zach and me. Mid-meal, Larry stood with a jumbo shrimp in one hand and
pounded on the table.

“I have some news,” he announced. “Well, actually it was a phone call I received earlier today, but that led to my news.”

Miranda pointed a three-pronged fork at him and said, “Spew it, handsome.”

“How many at this table have ever been to a movie premiere?”

Larry scanned each face around the table. I shook my head no, as did Angie and Miranda, as did Zach and Carla.

Larry picked five more shrimp from the serving bowl and arranged them in his hand, tails up. “Pretend these shrimps are tickets,”
he said, and handed each of us a large, pink crustacean. “The producer gave me permission to ask five friends to attend the
premiere.”

The replies came quick and sarcastic.

“I’ll be your friend.”

“You can rent me.”

“I take bribes.”

“I just ate my ticket.”

“Do I get to meet some actresses?” Zach asked.

Carla reached over and took him by the arm. “No, you get to escort me.”

Our last night on the island came much too quickly. After Zach and Larry fell asleep in two of the hammocks—Miranda and Carla
had whipped them soundly in a game of Hand ‘n Foot—Angie and I stayed out on the porch to talk.

“Funny how this week has been just what we needed,” she said, her head on my shoulder.

I could barely mutter, “Mmm,” through my exhaustion.

Long minutes and many breezes passed before she spoke again.
“Ned, please tell me I’m not one of those musical do-gooders in Larry’s story.”

“Nah,” I whispered, “you don’t even like disco.”

We listened to the ocean and spoke between long moments of silence. Topics came and went like fleeting schools of tropical
fish, colorful but brief. During a drowsy hour sometime after midnight, we even discussed the fleeting camaraderie between
the escapees aboard Castro’s yacht. Angie called it a glimpse of community, though one that lacked a true nucleus.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I remember her shaking my shoulder at 4:00 a.m. “What’s the matter, Ned?”

“I was being chased by men in black fatigues.”

She yawned at length and mumbled, “Yes, dear, and Marvin is hiding in the closet.”

On the evening of the premiere, Mylan Weems stood at the entrance and greeted each invitee who strolled into L.A.’s Starlit
Theatre. He held a silver tray in his hands, serving warm clusters of McScriptures in little red cartons.

“Gracias, Mylan,” I said, and reached for a carton.

“Only one per customer, Ned.”

Larry entered behind me, arm-in-arm with both Miranda
and
Angie. He tapped me on the back and pointed to the theatre wall to our left. Someone had hung a poster of a Jaws-like shark
coming up from the blue to nab a swimming pagan. Larry admired the artwork for a moment and said, “Ya know, Ned, if you ever
sell the novel rights, that might make a good book cover.”

Little black dresses abounded, and Angie did not disappoint. She motioned to the fourth row, where Zach and Carla were already
nibbling away, giggling as they bit into each fry, pausing from their chatter to wave. Larry and Miranda sat directly in front
of them;Angie sat next to Zach, and I next to Angie. I had barely settled into my seat when Larry handed a fry back to Carla,
who passed it to Zach, who passed it to Angie, who passed it to me.

“But I have my own….”

“I wanted you to have an autographed one,” Larry said.

I held it up to the white screen and saw that it was curled into the word
Larry.
“Ah, impressive.”

“It’s not a stamp or a Wheaties box, Ned, but at least I got my name on something.”

We toasted each other with raised morsels, and then the house lights blinked three times and everyone hushed. A waiter hurried
in and served us soft drinks—which was a relief, considering all the salt in our mouths.

After shaking hands with studio execs and their spouses, Mylan stopped by our row and asked everyone to please give him their
honest
feedback after the film ended. A group of actors—Mylan had cast unknowns for all major roles—summoned him back to the sixth
row and he went and sat with them.

Mylan said, “Roll ‘em,” and the theatre went dark.

The members of our triple date peered anxiously at the screen—until Angie shared her speculation on what Hollywood had done
to the ending.

“They kiss in the surf,” she said. “I just know it. They’ll ruin it with a big kiss in the surf.”

Miranda, who had opted for the black strapless dress, turned to us and asked. “
Who
kisses in the surf? Will somebody please tell me who gets kissed in the surf?”

On the screen a small circle of light appeared. It slowly widened, revealing at first a section of stained glass, then the
top of a baptismal, then the brown hair of a thirtyish man in jeans and a T-shirt. Then we saw that the man was on his knees,
on hardwood floors, in front of the baptismal, leaning forward. And finally the circle of light expanded to the full size
of the screen—and in the young man’s hands a Craftsman cordless drill whirred to life.

Everyone laughed, and the actor who played Lanny shouted from behind us, “That’s
me!”

The film moved quickly: Lanny confused at the BP station, perplexed at McDonald’s, aghast at seeing the first billboard. Waiting
to merge on the interstate, he turned on his radio—and there was the voice of Paul McCartney, singing “I Wanna Hold Your Tithe.”

“How did they do
that?”
Zach whispered to no one in particular.

Larry turned and gave me a thumbs-up, and I returned the gesture in kind.

For two hours and five minutes we sat in silence, absorbing the scenes at Cocoa Beach, inside Fence-Straddler AM, at Abaco,
and in downtown Havana. Particularly good was the guy who played DJ Ned Neutral, though I thought him a bit too pudgy. Mylan
showed his flare for irony when the soundtrack dubbed a gospel rendition of “Free at Last” during the escape scene, where
Lanny, DJ Ned, MC Deluxe, and
the Former Donald ran past graffiti-sprayed buildings at midnight, on their way to steal the yacht.

Throughout the screening I snuck glances at Miranda, looking for a reaction. I never saw her blink. She just held Larry’s
hand and stared zombie-like at the screen, giggling at the funny parts, smiling whenever she heard her name.

I had figured that when Miranda found out Larry had used her name and likeness in his story she might immediately bolt from
the theatre… or slap him and bolt from the theatre… or sue him, slap him, and bolt from the theatre. But that’s not what
happened at all.

Perhaps I just don’t understand how the female mind works.

Watching the scene of Lanny leaving Puerto Rico, crushed and despondent, she stood in the third row and pulled Larry to his
feet. “You looked all over the Caribbean for me? You cared that much?!” By the time Ned Neutral and MC showed up below the
high-rise, confessing that they were posers and yelling for Lanny not to jump, Larry and Miranda were a silhouette against
the screen—and in front of us all she kissed him smack on the lips.

“Down in front,” said Mylan. “I wanna read the credits.”

“Yeah, down in front,” Angie echoed. “I wanna see my husband’s name scroll.”

The film ended with the hippie van rolling through Arizona, dust flying up behind the tires, DJ Ned driving and singing “Born
to Be Wild,” MC begging him to switch radio stations, Lanny searching a map for something called Area 51. Then the credits
ran against a still shot of the long, dark room in Cuba. The room was empty, and light from the partially opened door slanted
across the center. There was no one inside, just a row of reclining lawn chairs set against moist stone walls. The slanted
light revealed what was propped against the fourth chair—an old album cover of the Bee Gees, plus a black-and-white photo
of Lanny and Miranda seated on a picnic blanket.

I heard Zach whisper to Angie, “I wanna be in the sequel.”

“Me, too,” she said.

I leaned forward to make eye contact. “Same here, son.”

I remained in my seat and watched Larry’s name scroll with the
credits. He turned in his seat and caught my glance. “Me, too,” he whispered.

The screen light faded and the theatre went black.

Applause began immediately. Zach even whistled.

To say that the ending spurred talk of the afterlife would be to minimize the thrust of it. As soon as Mylan stood and asked,
“Well, what did everyone think?” I could feel the tension in the theatre.

The house lights came up.

A lean, boyish actor who had played the BP station cashier was the first to speak. From the row behind me he explained that
God was everywhere, especially in nature, and that the making and marring of our destinies was nothing to lose sleep over.
Whether we viewed the afterlife as a kind of heaven or a kind of hell was irrelevant;we would all possess bodies of light
and live forever.

A young actress seated near the back—a redhead named Lauren, who played the counter girl at Detour Airlines—said the rut Lanny
was in was very similar to how she pictured hell. But then she added that she was certain heaven was her own destiny, based
on her contributions to UNICEF, her volunteer work with Hispanic immigrants, and the peace of mind she attained through yoga.

Angie squirmed in her seat beside me.

I nudged her and whispered, “Please don’t say anything…. We’re their guests.”

“Ned, I have to.”

“Please don’t.”

Angie restrained herself so well—for about a minute. After a minute she was bursting with rebuttal. In fact, rebuttal was
the very air that filled her.

Perhaps her response came because there was no line in the sand like in Abaco. Or perhaps in California, one need not be ordained
to preach.

She stood and faced the back of the theatre. She leaned forward and gripped the back of her seat. “A year ago I was just like
those zealots. I even led a protest in my own street—against my own husband for working with this very material. I was wrong,
and since then I’ve
stopped protesting Ned and begun praying for him instead“—a glance toward Larry—“and for his clients, as well.”

Larry’s jaw dropped.