The Fictional Man (27 page)

Niles nodded. “She did say any time...”

Bob opened up the driver’s side door. “Look, Niles – what I was going to say was that it’ll just be you and me in that car, so...” He looked Niles in the eye. “Well, it’s probably a good opportunity for the two of us to talk things over. Just... I don’t know, clear the air a little.”

“What, like couples counselling?” Niles joked, nervously. Bob ignored him and slid into the car.

Niles followed suit, easing himself into the plush leather interior and taking a deep breath – the Mercedes still had that new car smell. Suddenly the extra hours didn’t feel like such an imposition – he’d be comfortable, at least, and as Bob said, there’d be time for breaks to stretch their legs and have lunch. Maybe he’d even get a turn at the wheel.

Anyway, Bob was right. The long trip would give them an opportunity to mend some fences. Maybe he could get Bob to see his side of things.

“You know, when you put it like that,” the Fictional said, the light of understanding dawning in his eyes, “everything makes sense. In fact, I’d say you were totally right about everything, and I was completely and utterly wrong. Thanks for explaining all that to me.” He smiled, patting the author’s shoulder. “You’re a good Joe, Niles. You really are a good Joe.”

Then, because he’d taken his hand off the wheel at a critical moment, the car ploughed into a chemical tanker and both of them were instantly immolated in the blast.

Niles winced. Bob, buckling up in the driver’s seat, caught the change of expression. “What?”

“Nothing,” Niles sighed. “I’ve been having these sort of...” He wasn’t really sure how to describe his occasional bursts of auto-narration. Daydreams? Fantasies? “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Look, I just wanted to say, face to face, before we really get going – I’m so sorry about what I said to you on the phone, about Robert. That was incredibly callous and insensitive and... well, you know. I shouldn’t have said it. It won’t happen again.”

“All right, fine. Apology accepted.” Bob turned to face him, the sticking plaster white against his skin, like a third accusing eye. “Do I get a ‘sorry for punching you in the face’?”

Niles smiled weakly as Bob let the handbrake off and moved the Mercedes out into traffic. “Oh, yes, of course. Absolutely. I’m sorry I punched you in the face.” He looked away, staring out of the window as a pair of joggers passed them, and then were passed in turn as the vehicle accelerated. “Are you still staying at Iyla’s?”

Bob hesitated for a moment, then nodded warily. “I’m not moving in. I don’t think that’d be a good idea, considering, you know... the papers. People generally. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got anything to lose myself, but...” He tapped the wheel of the Mercedes. “Iyla’s got a career. So.”

“So...” Niles paused. He had a feeling Bob had just answered his question, but he wanted it to be absolutely clear. “Are you and Iyla...” He hesitated. “I mean, are you still...”

Bob looked at him. “Is that a problem?”

Niles shrugged. “No, not at all,” he said, stiffly. “Why would it be a problem?”

“A
LL RIGHT, FINE.
It’s a problem.” Niles sighed. “I have a problem. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

They were on I-5 now, just passing Castac Lake, and the conversation had circled back around to Bob and Iyla.

He’d briefly tried changing the subject. Bob had been surprised to hear that Niles hadn’t known about Maurice’s death – “It was all over the news!” he’d said, incredulous. “What the hell were you
doing?”

But as it turned out, one of the things that Niles had been doing was charging over to Iyla’s house, breaking Bob’s nose and being literally kicked out of the house by Iyla – which swiftly brought them back around to the question of Bob and Iyla. And whether it was a problem.

“All right,” Bob said, quietly. “What’s your problem?”

“Well,” said Niles, staring out of the window at the lake passing them by, “I suppose it’s that I used to be married to her.” Bob opened his mouth to say something and Niles cut him off. “Yes, yes, I know, I
know –
I’ve got no right to make it about that. I cheated on her more times than I can count. I don’t think I loved her at the end, I just tolerated her. But I suppose I’ve still got some petty, jealous streak that –”

Bob, mouth a thin line of anger, checked the mirror and then pulled over to the side of the road.

“What?” Niles said, blinking. “Why are we stopping?”

“Because I’m not taking you one more mile in this car until you cut the shit.”

Bob’s voice was like stone. For a moment, it was like being in a car with the Black Terror. Niles shook his head, perplexed. “I’m sorry, what? I’m not sure I –”

“You’re either lying to me or lying to yourself, and I don’t know which is worse. So – new rule.” Bob turned the key and the engine died. He looked over at Niles. “The new rule is that every time I hear some bullshit out of your mouth, that’s a strike.” He held up three fingers, then lowered one. “You’ve had your first strike. Three strikes and I turn this thing around and drive you home.”

“Well – what if I’m driving?” Niles was really hoping to take a turn at the wheel before they got to Weaverville.

“If you’re driving, I will grab hold of this wheel and run us right off the fucking road. Seriously, take over the driving and test me on that. You know I can do it.” Bob looked at Niles seriously for a moment, waiting for him to say something, then sighed. “Look, I’d love it to be the jealousy thing. I swear to God I would love it if you were just an irrational ex-husband seeing the new boyfriend-slash-fuckbuddy and realising that
actually –
even though he was a lying, cheating, emotionally manipulative asshole who threw this woman away like a fucking tissue – his being jealous on
top
of that, like the cherry on top of a cake made of bleach and human shit, meant he was still in love with her and he was going to drive to her house and punch the new guy for her. I’d love it if it was that, because at least then you’d have told me the truth just now. But it’s not that, is it?”

Niles looked away. “...No.”

Bob put his hand on the ignition key. “All right,” he said, “take two. What’s your problem, Niles?”

“I think it’s sick.”

Bob started the engine again. “You think it’s sick. Why is that, Niles?”

“Because you’re not real,” Niles muttered, and Bob checked the mirror, signalled, and pulled smoothly out onto the highway.

“There,” he said, very calmly. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I
T WAS A
few more miles before he said anything else. Niles was looking out of the window, feeling like a small boy being scolded by a parent. “So,” Bob said eventually, “You don’t think I’m real.”

“I went through all this with Cutner,” Niles said, not turning to look.

Bob frowned. “I thought your weekly hour with him wasn’t until tomorrow?”

Niles sighed. “I had to sort of... well, book an emergency session with him.”

“What, because you hit me in the face?” Bob raised an eyebrow. “Or was this whatever you were freaking out to Iyla about before you came over to her place and hit me in the face?”

“A little of both. And no, I’m not going to tell you what I was,” – Niles did ‘air quotes’ – “‘freaking out’ about. That’s my new rule, by the way. I don’t have to tell you every little detail of my life.”

“Doesn’t sound like a little detail to me,” Bob shrugged. “But that’s fine. We’ll add that to the rules. Anyway, back on topic. What did you go through with Cutner?”

“He thinks
you
think you’re real. Which you’re not, since you came out of a tube. And he thinks I should accept that. Which I do. I accept that you think you’re real, I just don’t think that means you
are
real.” Niles scratched the back of his head, sighing. It had been an early morning for them both, and suddenly he felt very tired.

“Because I came out of a tube. That’s the criteria we’re applying, is it? You know, last time I checked, I was made of exactly the same kind of meat, bones, guts and gristle as you, Niles.” He concentrated on the road for a moment, flicking the turn signal on and overtaking another semi. “Does it matter where I got them?”

“You weren’t born out of a human womb,” Niles muttered, feeling too exhausted for any of the usual prevarications and justifications – what Bob would have called
bullshit.
He just wanted to say what he felt. “You can pretend whatever you like, but you weren’t born a real human, and you’re
not
one. You’re a Fictional.” He shook his head. “Why can’t you just accept that? You can’t just... I don’t know, wake up one morning and
say
you’re real.”

“I didn’t just wake up one morning,” Bob said, scowling. “You know, that comment’s pretty typical of you, Niles –”

“What, realist?” Niles finally turned and looked Bob in the face. “Fine! I’m a realist! I think Fictionals
aren’t real,
because they’re
not
real! They’re fictions we dressed up in flesh so we could look at them better! That’s all you are, Bob! No matter how much Pinocchio wants to be a real boy, he can’t be! You’re
words on a page,
Bob! That’s all you are!”

Bob stared at the road for a while. The rain was starting to come down, just a little at first, spotting the windshield. “That’s not what I meant,” he said at last, “but never mind. You remember I told you about Malcolm Stuyvesant?”

Niles had to think for a moment. “I think you mentioned him before...”

“The man who put the words on the page.” Bob chuckled, dryly. “The words that are all I can ever be, right?” He sighed, shaking his head. “Look, on that fourth season of
New Adventures
, we were all starting to burn out. Malcolm was getting into some deep allegorical territory, and he felt like he was limited by the whole Bowery Bay setup, the others wanted to go less camp, or more camp... the whole thing was fracturing. And I was part of that, I mean, just because I was the Black Terror didn’t make me immune, you know? I felt like... like Bowery Bay was just a painted set and some location work in Miami. Thea – this woman I was supposed to care about, my supposed partner – was just an actress playing a role, and so was my girlfriend on the show, and so was everyone else the Black Terror knew. My whole life was this sham, this fucking
lie,
and meanwhile there was a real world I wasn’t allowed to be part of. It was driving me fucking crazy.”

Niles blinked. “Um. That’s exactly the opposite of what Ralph said.”

“Ralph Cutner?” Bob looked over at Niles, curious. “What did he say?”

“Well, the way he put it was that the show was the only thing that was real to him – that to him, it was the real people who were fictional. He asked me if I thought I was real.”

Bob laughed. “Well, are you?”

Niles winced. “It’s not funny.”

“No,” Bob said, “it’s a serious question.
Do
you think you’re real?”

“Well, the way he put it was in terms of... oh, I don’t know. Crossing from one reality to another. Like the translation tube is sort of a doorway.” Niles shook his head. “It was arrant nonsense, obviously.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bob shrugged. “It makes sense in a kind of metaphorical way. And I hear most Fictionals think along similar lines – focussing on the show, treating it like real life. Treating their scripts like things they thought up on the spur of the moment. I’ve had conversations with assholes who thought they were Oscar Wilde just because they had a great writer for a couple of weeks.” He sucked air through his teeth and overtook another semi. “Anyway... speaking of great writers. Let’s get back to Malcolm.”

Niles nodded, staring out of the windscreen at the oncoming rain. Bob turned on the windscreen wipers, and for a moment the only sound in the car was the gentle squeak of the rubber on the glass as they swept the rain off.

“So like I was saying... we quit. We made Season Four as good as it could possibly be, and then when the studio came around and said they wanted Season Five, we told them no. Malcolm pitched
Sea-Thru,
which did about as well as you’d figure for a complex allegorical drama about an underwater invisible man, and I went off to become a failed voice actor, which is something I kind of fell into. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do or be, just that I hated being the Black Terror and I wanted to change.” He shot Niles a look.

Niles squirmed, flushing red. “Well, you can’t. Just because you’re not a
normal
Fictional doesn’t mean you’re suddenly not a Fictional at all. You can’t change what you are just by wanting to be something else. In fact,” he said, warming to his theme, “everything you are – including that little epiphany moment you had when you were filming – is just characterisation. What was written down for you by Stuyvesant. Words on a page.”

“I know,” Bob said.

“What?”

“I figured that out myself. I was mad as hell at Malcolm – honestly, I wanted to kill the guy. I thought he’d screwed up when he was writing me, put something in there that the technicians could have misinterpreted or something. It happens – look at Dexter Morgan. Hell, look at the Sherlock Holmes killer. Anyway. I ended up confronting him. I told him I didn’t want to be Bob Benton any more, I didn’t want to be the person I’d been made as any more, and what had he done to me, and blah blah blah.” He looked over at Niles with a small smile. “I was pissing mad. I wanted to know what the hell he’d put in there that was screwing me up, that was making me hate my life. And he just looked at me – he was this big, kindly guy with these big puppy eyes – he looked at me like his heart was just
breaking.
Because he hadn’t even known he was doing it.” Bob shook his head, sighing. “He said he wrote me to be the absolute best, most interesting, most complex character I could possibly be. He said he put months of his life into me, that as far as he was concerned I was the most important character in the show, the reason for people to tune in, and if I wasn’t good enough then the whole thing would just be a waste of time.”

“So... I don’t understand.” Niles’ brow furrowed. “He put all that effort into you, and then he wrote you to just quit after four years?”