The Informers - Bret Easton Ellis [60]
“What’s going on?” Martin asks.
“You left me a note,” I say. “Something about having lunch.”
“I did?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You left me a note.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“I saw a note,” I say, unsure.
“Well, maybe someone did.” Martin doesn’t look too sure either. “If you say so, dude. But if you think it was me you’re freaking me out, dude.”
“I’m pretty sure there was a note,” I say. “I could have been hallucinating, but not today.”
Martin looks over at Leon tiredly. “Well, um, okay, uh, yeah, I’ll be able to get out of here in around twenty minutes and, uh.” He calls out to the cameraman, “Smoke machine still busted?”
The cameraman is now on the floor and he calls back, flatly, “Smoke machine busted.”
“Okay, well.” Martin looks at his Swatch and says, “We just have to get this shot right and”—Martin’s voice rises but only a little—“Leon’s being a real jerk about it. Isn’t that right, Leon?” Martin is rubbing his hand across his face slowly.
Across the room Leon looks up from the gun and makes his way very slowly toward Martin.
“Martin, I’m not gonna jump off that fucking table onto the fucking floor and look into the fucking camera and wink. No fucking way. That’s fucking lame.”
“You said fucking five times, you piece of trash,” Martin says.
“Oh boy,” Leon says.
“You’re gonna do it, man,” Martin says, sort of sounding like he means it.
“No, Martin, I’m not. It sucks and I’m not going to do it.”
“But you were in a video with singing frogs,” Martin protests. “You were in a video where you turned into a bewildered tree, a plate full of water and a large, talkative banana, respectively.”
One of the band members says, “He’s got a point.”
“So what?” Leon shrugs. “You’ve got viral herpes, Rocko.”
“Has anybody forgotten that I’m directing this?” Martin asks air.
“Hey, I wrote the fucking song, stooge.” Leon looks over at the girl who kind of knows him, sitting on the pile of pillows. The girl smiles at Leon. Leon looks at her, confused, then away, then back again at the girl and then away again, then back again, then away.
“Leon,” Martin’s saying. “Listen, the video doesn’t make sense without this shot.”
“But you’re missing the point, which is I don’t want it to make sense. It doesn’t need to make sense,” Leon’s saying. “What are you talking about? Sense? Jesus.” Leon looks at me. “Do you know what sense is?”
“No,” I say.
“See?” Leon says accusingly to Martin.
“You want all those retards in whatchamacallit, Nebraska, staring at your video on MTV openmouthed, not realizing that it’s all a joke, thinking that after you shot your girlfriend in the head and the guy she was partying with that you meant it? Huh? You didn’t mean it, Leon. You liked the girl you shot in the head. The girl you shot in the head was a flower to you, Leon. Your image, Leon. I’m just helping you shape your image, okay? Which is of a nice friendly guy from Anaheim who is so fucking lost the mind reels, okay? Let’s just do it that way. It took someone four months to write this script—that works out to a month a minute, which is pretty impressive if you think about it—and it’s your image,” Martin persists. “Image, image, image, image.”
I put my hands to my head and look at Leon, who doesn’t seem that different than when I saw him with Tim at Madame Wong’s last Tuesday but maybe a little different,