Hell's Half Acre Read online

  Do you want to come in? says Miller. Have a drink?

  I sigh. Are you going to be doing a lot of that?

  What? he says.

  Oh, you know. Reading my mind and that sort of thing.

  Miller laughs. I can’t read your mind, man. I pretend that I can.

  Uh huh.

  It’s easy, he says. People aren’t very complex. You take a stab at what somebody is thinking. Then politely spit it out like a piece of gristle. And even if you’re wrong, it makes people nervous. There’s no better way to fuck with a snotty waiter, or a salesman. Try it sometime.

  Interesting, I say. Do I look like a salesman to you?

  Why, he says. Are you nervous?

  Miller pushes open the iron gate that opens onto a downward drive lined with gravel and heavy flat stones the color of cigarette ash. The front yard is a hillside, wild and dark with twisting rose bushes and exposed roots. The house is barely visible from the road. The white moth returns to strafe my face and I wonder if I’m glowing. I try to catch it in my fist, to kill it. But the little bastard is too fast for me and I clutch at the air like a spastic. I lower my head before it decides to fly down my throat. Miller starts down the slope and I follow him.

  The house of Miller is bewildering, and much larger than it looks from the outside. He gives me a rapid tour of the lower level, telling me there are nineteen rooms in all. The house is primarily constructed of stone, but some of the walls are made of glass. The house is cold and dark and I imagine it is cold and bright by day. There are three floors, or levels. The house is not vertical, but staggered. It clings to the hillside like a giant spider. Two massive trees come up through the back of it, like twin spines. A complex series of wood platforms is built around these trees, with rope ladders connecting the various levels. The kitchen door opens onto level two. I stand in the doorway, a goofy smile on my face.

  It’s like something out of a fairy tale, I say.

  Miller is pouring tall glasses of bourbon and soda.

  Yeah, he says. I think the guy who designed it was out of his mind, however.

  How’s that?

  Miller shrugs. You can feel it. There’s madness in the walls.

  Ah, yes. Madness in the walls. I hate it when that happens.

  Miller stirs our drinks with what appears to be a bright blue chopstick.

  Do you live alone? I say.

  Not exactly. He hands me a drink, very strong.

  The kitchen is black tile and bright steel. Harsh white light. Functional, cold, a surgical theater. I imagine myself laid out on the island with a mask over my face and tubes running in and out of my belly, surrounded by a crew of silent men in dark red gowns. I doubt there’s anything in the refrigerator but olives and French mustard and spare plasma.

  Come on, says Miller. Let’s go to the lizard room.

  A long, windowless room that glows from the light of twenty-two terrariums. These contain lizards, iguanas, chameleons, and various snakes. Obviously. I walk the perimeter and look them over. I am fond of reptiles, generally. Because they can sit on a rock for two days without moving. Because they are untroubled by the loss of a limb and more than likely will grow another one. Because they methodically seek out sources of heat, but will not necessarily perish without it. Their chances of survival on this planet seem so much better than ours and I think Miller is wise to be friendly with them. The last terrarium along one wall houses a very large boa constrictor, coiled and sleeping. I stare at him for a while and I think I would like to hold him, to close my eyes and wonder at his strength.

  It’s too bad you didn’t come yesterday, says Miller.

  Why is that?

  It was feeding day, he says. The boa put on quite a show.

  Does he have a name?

  I’m sure he does, says Miller. But I don’t know it.

  There are two black leather chairs at the far end of the room. Miller sits in one of them, his legs stretched out and his feet up on a round coffee table of solid, roughly cut glass that looks like a block of ice. The wood floor is stained the color of black cherries and down the middle of the room runs a narrow Turkish rug, green and gold. The rug comes to an end under the glass table and the colors melt and magnify. The walls are painted a dark, faintly metallic green.

  Miller tells me to sit down. He doesn’t sound like he’s asking.

  I take a sip of whiskey and suddenly feel strange, almost happy. This place smells of Dr. Moreau’s island and there may be much mischief in store for me, but I don’t care. Miller is an excellent host and I like it here. I am wary of telling him so, however, and I have to remind myself who he is and what he did to Jude. I have to steel myself against his charm. The house feels empty but for the reptiles and ourselves. The house has been utterly silent since we entered but now I imagine that I hear music, the soft lament of a solitary cello. The same few notes over and over, stretched and groaning. They stop and start, as if there is someone practicing upstairs. It’s a mournful tune and the only explanation for this sort of thing is that my brain is full of poison. I sink into the chair across from Miller and put my feet up.

  He smiles at me and promptly the cello resumes, urgent now.

  Okay, I say. Do I hear music? Or am I fucking nuts.

  The cello stops. Miller lights a cigarette.

  Beethoven, he says. Piano Trio number 4, in D Major. The love song for Anna Marie.

  Who is playing, though?

  I don’t hear anything, he says. Perhaps you’re nuts.

  Uh huh. Give me a cigarette, please?

  Miller pushes a pack of Dunhills across the glass table. I light one and we blow smoke and stare at each other. I wait for the cello to resume but it never does. The player is self-conscious, maybe. He heard us talking about him.

  I feel like I’ve seen you before, says Miller.

  I have that kind of face.

  It’s a good face, he says. Not too handsome, but interesting.

  Thanks, I guess.

  Miller leans forward, pours two fingers of whiskey into my glass.

  Have you ever tried acting? he says.

  The whiskey burns my tongue. I light another cigarette, vaguely uneasy. Miller smiles at me and I wait for him to tell me what I’m thinking. But he doesn’t.

  I can become someone else, I say. If that’s what you mean.

  Interesting, he says. I’m talking about regular drama, however.

  Only as a child, I say. In the fourth grade I had a non-speaking role in Great Expectations. I was beggar number nine. And one Christmas I was an anonymous shepherd in the nativity scene.

  Miller laughs.

  Why do you ask?

  I’m interested in making a film, says Miller.

  I am a thousand miles from home and once in a while I have to remind myself that I have no home. This is California and on any given Thursday there could be a nuclear sunset. And it’s earthquake country. The earth could come apart beneath my feet, any day now. Jude is waiting for me in a hotel room but I am prepared for the possibility that she may not be there when I return.

  I won’t like it.

  But I will sit down on the bed and take off my shoes. I will breathe the recycled air that may or may not smell of her hair. I will read the newspaper and smoke a few cigarettes and eventually I might take a nap. There will be no one to hear me if I speak in my sleep.

  What sort of film? I say.

  I finish off my bourbon and consider shooting Miller.

  Do you know anything about snuff films? he says.

  Urban legend, I say. But probably true.

  Why do you say that?

  Anything you can imagine is probably true. And the worst you can imagine is probably worth money.

  How philosophical, he says.

  Fuck you. People tend to kill people. And they do it every twenty-nine seconds. In the time it takes me to smoke this cigarette, eleven people will be murdered in this country.

  Where do you get these statistics?


  I make them up.

  Excellent, he says. What else?

  Everything is on videotape. Vacations, weddings, birthdays, dogs and cats doing tricks. Every time you go to a cash machine or mail a letter or purchase a quart of milk, you’re on tape. If you get murdered, you’re probably on tape and somebody somewhere on the Internet is going to masturbate while watching it. Reality is in the business of killing off fiction.

  I like you, says Miller.

  Okay.

  There is a brief silence. Miller picks up a remote control and aims it at what I thought was a giant mirror on the wall behind me. The mirror flickers to life, a television. He mutes the sound and flips through the channels until he finds a baseball game, the Mariners and A’s.

  Why do you ask? I say.

  Because I want to make one, he says.

  A snuff film?

  Yes.

  I take the gun out of my jacket pocket and point it at him, politely.

  Take off your fucking ring, I say.

  Why?

  I’m leaving now. And I need proof that I killed you.

  Art, he says. It’s going to be a quality piece of film, a masterpiece of blood porn. Literary, mysterious. The kind of thing you can screen at Sundance.

  Mysterious? I say.

  Miller smiles richly. That’s the beauty of it, the suspense factor. Because I have not yet finished the script, the victim will be uncertain until the end. It could turn out to be me or you. Or someone else. Perhaps an innocent will die. It will be called The Velvet.

  Oh, fuck you, I say. You’ve been talking to Jude.

  Miller picks up the remote control and my eyes go to the television, where the Oakland game rolls silently. Ichiro has just stolen third base for the Mariners and the cameras cut away to the crowd for reaction shots. The fans are not pleased. They boo and hiss. They bang drums. There is a close-up of a bearded man with a massive naked belly and a plastic jug of beer sloshing in each hand, dancing like a drunken god. The camera zooms on his face, then cuts to a luxury box where the fans are a bit more sedate. Miller pushes a button and the picture goes to slow-motion. And there is a lingering shot of MacDonald Cody, senator and tapped to be president one day, sitting next to a small blond-haired boy with the same dark eyes. The boy looks to be about five years old. He laughs and claps his hands with the kind of glee that most adults can barely remember and now someone who sits outside the frame leans over and gently touches his hair. The shot widens and I see that the man who touched the kid’s hair is Miller.

  Motherfucker, I say. This is a tape?

  Sort of a home movie, says Miller. His voice has slipped into that narcotic tone.

  What the hell does that mean?

  Miller presses another button, freezing the tape. The kid with dark eyes stares out at me. He is no longer smiling and like his eyes, his lips are dark and just slightly too big for his face and now they are pressed together and he looks very serious, almost somber. He looks sleepy.

  Beautiful kid, isn’t he? says Miller. Those eyes could break your heart.

  Yeah, I say. He looks just like his father.

  I suppose you recognize him? says Miller.

  MacDonald Cody, I say. The senator.

  Miller stares at the TV, then looks at me.

  But you’ve met him, am I right? He says.

  Turn it off, I say.

  Look at the kid, he says. The camera loves him.

  I’m gone, I say. I’m fucking gone. It was a real thrill to meet you and everything.

  Look at the kid, he says. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, would you?

  Fuck you, I say.

  Whatever you say.

  I stand up and Miller lazily tells me to hang on a minute. He tugs at the big ruby ring, but it won’t come off. He slips his finger into his mouth and sucks on it for a moment. The ring slips off easily and Miller offers it to me, red and wet as a bloody eye. I hesitate, trembling. The gun still in my hand, forgotten. I should just put a bullet in his skull. I should. I should. I should. I should put the motherfucker to sleep forever and maybe Jude and I could rest easy tonight. But I have never killed anyone, outside my dreams. It’s not an easy thing to shoot a man who has done nothing but talk to you, a man who sits in a leather armchair smiling. Miller smiles at me and I take the ring from him. I drop it into my pocket and now it occurs to me that I need cash for cigarettes and the train back to San Francisco. I hit Miller up for fifty dollars and he gives it to me without a word.

  ten.

  THERE ARE FOUR CHAMBERS IN THE HEART, four rooms. I stumble through the house of Miller and my chest is full of terrible echoes.

  Through the kitchen and a woman is there. Blue jeans and a white tank-top. Pale blond hair, wispy. She stands with her back to me, staring into the open refrigerator. Her shoulders are narrow and bare and I don’t want to frighten her.

  Excuse me, I say.

  The woman turns around, slow. Honey brown eyes with dark circles. Thin lips, silent and moving. As if she is whispering to herself. Or praying.

  I thought I heard voices, she says. She shrugs. I wondered if we had company.

  Exhale. Sorry if I startled you, I say.

  Molly, she says. My name is Molly Jones.

  Phineas, I say.

  Her lips begin to move again and I think of Franny Glass. Her mouth silent and ever moving to form the words Jesus Christ have mercy on me in not quite perfect time with her heartbeat as she slowly came to pieces in a snotty restaurant while the ivy league boyfriend yawned and explained that Flaubert was ultimately a mediocre talent because he had no testicles. Franny Glass was my first love. Hopeless and somehow appropriate that at the age of sixteen I was in love with a fictional woman.

  Your lips are moving, I say.

  Oh, she says. I’m sorry.

  Prayer?

  It’s a short monologue that I’m having trouble with.

  What do you mean?

  I’m sort of an actor, she says. I’m a theater major at Berkeley.

  And the monologue?

  I’m playing May in a production of Fool for Love, she says.

  Sam Shepard, I say.

  Do you know the play?

  Hell, it’s the story of my life. Do you want to practice on me?

  Molly smiles, takes a breath.

  I don’t understand my feelings, she says softly. Her face goes pale, as if she’s banished the blood from her skin. I really don’t, she says. I just don’t understand how I could hate you so much after so much time. How… No matter how much I’d like to not hate you, I hate you even more. It grows. All I see is a picture of you. Of you and her. I don’t even know if the picture is real anymore. I don’t even care. It’s make believe. It invades my head. The two of you. And this picture stings even more than if I’d actually seen you with her. It cuts me. It cuts me so deep. I will never get over it, never. And I can’t get rid of the picture. It just comes, uninvited. Like a little uninvited torture. And I blame you for this torture. I blame you.

  I stare at her. I feel hot, almost guilty. Molly shrugs and her face returns to normal. I’m having trouble with the tone, she says. How did it sound to you?

  Very cold. A little psychotic.

  I know, she says. It needs to be more vulnerable.

  Heartbroken and weary, I say.

  Molly bites her lip, thinking. Yes.

  Think of your mother, I say.

  What do you know about my mother?

  I shrug. Mothers. They are often heartbroken, weary.

  She nods, staring. Do you want a sandwich?

  A sandwich?

  Yes. I was going to make a tomato sandwich.

  Okay.

  You have a gun in your hand, she says.

  What?

  Is that a prop, she says. Or is it real?

  Uh. I believe it’s real.

  I am so fucking stupid. I know that. The gun hangs at my thigh. I slip it into my jacket pocket and mutter an aborted apology. Molly shrugs and tu
rns back to the fridge. She takes out mayonnaise and a brick of white cheese, then leans over the sink to get a red tomato from the windowsill. She opens a drawer and takes out a long sharp knife.

  Echoes, footsteps. Miller is nowhere to be seen.

  Molly wears scuffed brown cowboy boots. I look around. The kitchen is not so cold and frightening as before. The lights are different and I never noticed the tomatoes in the window.

  It’s okay, she says. But would you mind leaving the gun on the island, where I can see it?

  I hesitate, watching her slice the tomato on a round wooden cutting board.

  Please, she says. Humor me.

  I take out the Walther and remove the clip, then place the gun on the bright steel surface between us. I am tempted to give it a spin, to see who the gun favors.

  Thank you, she says.

  Oh. You’re welcome.

  Long pretty hands, unpainted nails.

  Molly cuts the sandwich in half and wipes off the knife. Takes two red paper napkins from a drawer and gives me half the sandwich. White sourdough bread, red tomato that drips onto my fingers and white cheese. Molly leans against the island while she eats, holding the sandwich in two hands.

  I realize how hungry I am.

  John refuses to get barstools, she says. He thinks they reveal a profound lack of taste.

  I nod, dumbly. Molly takes small, fierce bites of bread and tomato. She murmurs softly as she swallows. I contemplate the aesthetic of barstools. I watch the muscles in her throat ripple.

  The corner of your mouth, I say. You have a bit of mayonnaise there.

  She touches the red napkin to her lips and says thank you.

  I should be going.

  No, she says. Don’t go.

  The soft flash of honey eyes. That monologue got to me, the way her lips moved. It tore me up. I tell myself to be careful.

  Miller is your husband? I say.

  Molly frowns. Did he tell you that?

  I stare at her and realize she has likely not read Miller’s script.

  He has gotten so weird, she says. I can barely talk to him.

  Yeah. He seems a little preoccupied with…baseball.