Channel Blue (3 page)

Perry had wanted to be an author, but the public preferred movies to books, so he’d become a screenwriter – just before the public gave up movies for watching videos of cats playing the piano. Yes, he’d succeeded in chasing his culture downhill, always a step behind. In
The Last Day of School
, however, Perry believed that he had found the biggest of all Big Ideas, a story that would not only turn out to be internet-proof but writer-proof as well. First of all, it had teens, oodles of teens, more teens than he could think up good names for. Teens had become very important to the movie business, since they seemed to be the only demographic with the inertia to escape the gravity of their small screens and actually transport themselves to a cinema.
The Last Day of School
would not only bring in the teens, but present them with better-looking versions of themselves screwing and killing each other. How could it fail?

Tonight, however, Perry was having trouble mustering the self-delusional momentum that every obscure writer needs to overcome the fact that no one is interested in reading him. He had made the mistake of mentioning the idea for
The Last Day of School
to his agent, Dana Fulcher of Global Artistic Leadership Limited, and the pause as he waited for her response, which he recognized as the sound of someone looking on their call log for someone more important to talk to, had severely battered his confidence. Her delayed, obligatory ‘That’s fantastic, Perry, can’t wait to read it,’ did nothing to soften the blow of that deleterious silence. Perry avoided writing by checking his e-mail repeatedly, marvelling at the technological advances that had turned the once daily disappointment of not receiving mail into thirty or forty disappointments a day. And then there were the numerous phone numbers on which he received no voicemails or texts.

It now seemed like there were infinite ways to not get good news.

As Perry stared once more at his empty mailbox, an ad for swimsuits popped up onto his screen: tanned, handsome surfers and beautiful models lounged on the beach. It was almost like his computer was taunting him.

He turned away from his computer and considered the large stack of unread student screenplays that hovered by his desk. Caught between his own script and those of his students, Perry opted for a different but just as futile activity, the evening masturbation (one of only two daily activities he enjoyed, the other being the wake-up edition). In this he had no lack of encouragement, for the internet was set up like a lawless frontier town where even banks peddle prostitutes and contraband out the back. To this extent, his computer was much more efficient as a portal for pornography than as a screenplay typist. The range of choices, in fact, was paralysing. When Perry finally settled on a website with an acceptable balance of smut and attractiveness, he was interrupted by a knock at his door. Staggering across the room while pulling up his pants, he peered through the peephole at Noah Overton, a young, well-meaning neighbour with the kind of random facial hair that Perry was certain that people in their twenties grew just to bother him.

Noah held a clipboard and stared at the peephole with an air of righteous calm.

Perry tiptoed back to his desk and sat quietly. If he opened the door, his neighbour would request a donation to save the oppressed, the war-torn, the endangered, the globally warmed or all of the above (i.e., a Chechnyan polar bear), brandishing a brochure that declared: ‘The Free
Must
Remember the Oppressed’ or ‘The Earth Has a Fever and We’re the Virus’, and Perry would once more be forced to face his inadequacy as a human being, not to mention the disappointment in Noah’s large brown eyes and the inevitable lecture:
I’m sorry, Per, that you don’t think the [name of species or nationality] is worth saving, because I do. I happen to think the whole planet is worth saving. And that’s what we’re talking about right now – the whole planet is going to die unless all of us start working to save it, one [name of species or nationality] at a time. Will you join me? Starting today? Come on, Per.

Perry shuddered at the thought of this. How can you save the world when you can’t even save yourself?

Searching for something to distract him until Noah gave up and moved on to the next door, Perry’s eyes lit on Brent Laskey’s newspaper clipping. He picked it up and read it. It was a pretty straightforward news story, though not particularly well written. Perry considered the possibility that Brent Laskey and his goateed, baggie-shorted cohorts had fabricated the clipping as a practical joke on their teacher.

Noah’s knocking had ceased. Perry opened his laptop and typed ‘death by helicopter’ into Google and discovered in .17 seconds that the story was all over the news sites. As far as it was possible to tell, it seemed completely legitimate.

This caused Perry to wonder. While he had admonished his students repeatedly over the absence of reality in their writing, maybe
he
was the one who needed a dose of it. Maybe what he considered to be incredible was in fact happening somewhere on the planet at this very moment.

To test this theory, Perry typed the words ‘magic monkey’ into Google. One of the worst scripts of the term, written by Heath Barber, involved the discovery by zoologists of an African ape that could grant wishes. Within seconds, Perry was reading news reports about an orangutan in Borneo, who villagers claimed had saved their village from a mudslide. Heath couldn’t have copied this idea, either; the news item was dated two days after the script had been read in his class.

Perry proceeded to enter key words from three other scripts: ‘murderer clown’, ‘deranged physicist’ and ‘breakfast cereal superpowers’, and they all retrieved news reports that vaguely mirrored the bizarre events he had criticised his students for conceiving.

The clincher was
Honk If You Hate Jesus
. This was a dreadful screenplay by Doreena Stump, the born-again schoolteacher. It told the story of an evil atheist, who tormented a small Midwestern town by driving his Volvo around with a bumper-sticker that read ‘Honk If You Hate Jesus’ until, finally, the righteous townspeople rose up, pushed the Volvo into a ditch and, in a scene that would make a slasher film-buff blanche, tore the evil atheist limb from limb. Perry found a related news story from the month before in which the bumper-sticker had read ‘Honk If You Love Satan’ and the atheist had been merely maimed, not killed.

Perry shut his computer and sighed. It was only a matter of time before all his students came in wielding newspaper articles to justify their awful scripts. He would have to come up with a response before the next morning’s class.

* * *

The day that changed Perry Bunt’s life, but not, incidentally, the fate of the Earth, began the same as most. Perry rose, showered, dressed and, while brushing his teeth in his filthy, windowless bathroom, did his best to buck himself up, postulating that maybe today would be the day he would ask out Amanda after class. She would not only accept, but carefully lock the classroom door, throw him down on his desk and... Perry had orchestrated many different scenarios around this basic premise, but he wasn’t picky. Any one of them would do.
Stranger things have happened
, he thought, conveniently forgetting that it’s the strange things you want to happen that never do.

He left the Wellington Arms and drove to a nearby convenience store for coffee. It was here Perry had the first of the many uncomfortable encounters that made up his day, with a homeless man named Ralph. Ralph, standing in the searing sunlight next to the convenience-store entrance, wore a large, stained, down-filled jacket and a hat sporting two cup-holders for beer (currently empty). He gripped a handmade cardboard sign that read: ‘They’re Watching’, the jagged scrawl of the penmanship more than adequately reflecting the insanity of the message.

Other than making a left-hand turn at a major intersection, getting past Ralph was the scariest thing Perry would have to do today. He usually succeeded in circumnavigating him while avoiding eye contact, but today was different. Just when Perry seemed to have a clear Ralph-free passage to the door, the homeless man stepped into his path. Perry had no choice but to look into the man’s face. His scraggly beard and overgrown eyebrows framed two slate-blue, piercing eyes, the eyeballs of choice for Siberian huskies and visionary lunatics. The heat also made it impossible not to smell Ralph, and this was not a pleasant experience, unless you relished the combination of alcohol, cigarettes, perspiration and faeces.

Ralph spoke, unleashing a froggy voice that seemed to emerge from a giant reservoir of whisky at the centre of the Earth. ‘Ralph knows the aliens are watching,’ he said. ‘How about you, Buddy?’

Perry put a hand to his chin as if to suggest that he was taking the question seriously, all the while wondering why only crazy people and highly paid professional athletes referred to themselves in the third person.

‘You don’t say,’ he said.

Ralph nodded frantically like a dog with a jar of peanut butter stuck on its muzzle.

‘I’m telling you, Buddy. They use us! They use us for their own fun!’ The hairs that jutted from Ralph’s nostrils like mutant whiskers quivered in excitement. ‘We have no choice but to play their little games!’

Perry nodded slowly. Then, in a sudden surge, darted around Ralph and through the double glass doors. Once safely in the store, he paused for a moment, basking in the air-conditioned cool.
Made it
. He found his way to the coffee dispenser, filled a cup the size of a small child and stepped into line at the counter. He glimpsed briefly at the tabloid magazines stacked next to the register, one of which boasted the headline: ‘Secret Government Films Reveal: Elvis Sighted on the Moon’.

Is it any wonder there are so many crazies?
he thought.

Perry peeked out at the parking lot and was relieved to see that Ralph had stepped away from the door to harass a couple walking towards their car. Seizing the moment, he threw down two dollars, scurried out of the store, jumped into the Festiva, and sped away, like a thief fleeing the scene of a crime.

By the time he strode into his 10 a.m. class, Perry had enough caffeine pumping through his bloodstream to pretend that he was happy to be there. Amanda’s presence in the front row helped.

He began the day’s discussion by quickly recounting his internet discoveries the night before.

‘So, from now on,’ he said, ‘I will no longer tell you that you need to ground your scripts more firmly in reality.’ Sardonic applause filled the air. ‘Reality has obviously become fluid at this point and is of no use to us. I wouldn’t be half-surprised to find out that Elvis really was on the moon.’ Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Amanda looking surprised.
She probably doesn’t realise I’m joking
, he thought. ‘I will, however, continue to ask you to make your scripts more believable to
me
. And that’s not going to change.’ A few students emitted sarcastically loud moans of disappointment.

‘And if anyone out there is searching for an idea for their next screenplay, how about this: God has run out of ideas and is stealing them from a beginner’s screenwriting class in Encino.’ Perry was pleased to hear laughter, actual laughter, emerge from his normally diffident students. He smiled and looked over at Amanda who, unlike her classmates, stared pensively out the window.
So maybe she doesn’t have a great sense of humour
, he thought.
You can’t have everything.

At the end of class, Perry waited with great anticipation for his usual Amanda chat. Bolstered by getting a laugh, he decided that this would be the day he would ask her out. This was as confident as he got in a sober state – it was now or never. To his surprise, Amanda quickly gathered her handbag and notebook and headed for the door.

Perry quickly called to her, ‘In a hurry?’

Amanda paused with evident reluctance. ‘I’m afraid so, Mr Bunt.’

‘Is there anything I can do to get you to call me Perry?’ he said, attempting a playful tone that, to his distress, came out of his mouth sounding creepy. Playful had never really been his forte.

‘I’m sorry, I really need to go.’

‘OK,’ Perry cut in, ‘I’ll cut to the chase. Normally, I don’t do things like this, but you’ve been in my class for a while now, so I wanted to ask you something—’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Bunt—’ Amanda interrupted.

‘Please, call me Perry.’

‘Work has been crazy lately. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to continue your class.’

Perry’s stomach clenched as if he’d been punched. ‘Is this about what I just said? About reality? Or God stealing ideas? If you were offended, I’m sorry—’

‘Please don’t take it personally,’ Amanda said. ‘I’m just too busy. So... thank you, Mr Bunt. I had a good time.’ She smiled quickly, turned and walked out of the classroom.

Perry watched her go, stunned. He had scripted things differently, using one of his more tasteful scenarios involving laughter and large margaritas overlooking the ocean, followed by a romantic montage involving a tasteful but perfectly toned amount of nudity...
Ooh, Mr Bunt, no one’s ever touched me like that
. Instead, when Amanda walked from his class, the screen faded quickly to black.

Perry taught the remainder of the day’s classes in a depressed fog. At the end of his last class, a student found a blue jacket on the floor behind a computer station, and Perry immediately recognised it as Amanda’s. In her haste to escape him and his class, she’d left it behind. Improbable hope filled his heart. He would return the jacket to her personally and prove himself worthy of her love.

This, Perry knew, was the Redemption Story, another of the seven story templates from which all Hollywood movies were constructed. And no, it didn’t stop him from believing it.

Not even for a second.

CHANNEL 4

GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT

The secretary in the college’s administration office glanced sceptically at Perry Bunt.