The Sound of One Hand Clapping

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING

by steven day

dedicated to You

What the f is this? An Introduction: (skipping the intro won’t hurt the experience but come back for information later)

This novel was is written using a literary form created by John Steinbeck that he called the Play/Novelette, which evolved into the Play/Novel; the idea being that the novel is heavy in dialogue, light in description, and easy to adapt. Of Mice and Men was his first attempt and was immediately adapted to the stage. Steinbeck felt that it wasn’t until his third time working in the form that he had perfected it. Having been able to stand on his shoulders, I think in my next attempt I’ll have roughly perfect command of it, however, I’m happy with the outcome here

(although, it has adaptation issues). My version is elegantly called, the Limited Series/Novel.

Stylistically, this is an attempt to work in the form, modernize it, and also to create something new-ish. The modern version being adapted not to the stage, but as a limited series by one of the many studios (of course, I might have pissed off everyone in Hollywood enough that it will never happen with my stuff, but like they say in the movies; the first one through the door gets shot.)

This is one of the deepest novels ever written and hopefully it’s also sexy and engaging and fun. I know it’s one of the deepest novels ever written because I have read all of the other deepest novels ever written and the reality is that you can’t write about enlightenment if you’re not enlightened. Herman Hesse, the author of Siddhartha, wasn’t enlightened. Somerset

Maugham wrote about enlightenment in The Razor’s Edge, but also wasn’t enlightened. All the

French guys; not enlightened. Nietzsche? Nope. These authors have all been inspirations to me, but like with Steinbeck’s literary form, I have tried to stand on their mighty high shoulders and go beyond, and unlike these authors, I have the enlightened operating system to work from.

Whoever wrote the Bhagavad Gita probably was enlightened, but that’s an old book.

This is a new book. I have been hoping to take what is modern and timely and what is ancient and timeless and combine them; trying to bridge a gap between two worlds; the world of popular culture and the world of the deepest spiritual truths. Because of that, it may piss some people off or make some people uncomfortable. I’m not trying to hurt or harm anyone with my work, but, as an artist, and someone rockin the Enlightened OS, or the EOS, my art is challenging and it’s made for those brave enough to face the reality of our collective situation. This is a book for the adults in the room, and by adult, I don’t mean the age of your body.

So, the trifecta here is: write one of the deepest novels ever written, in this rarely used literary form, and to bridge the gap between pop culture and deep spiritual truth.

Are these the thoughts and ideas of a mad person? You will have to be the judge of that for yourself. By my own standards, anyone claiming to be enlightened is not to be trusted. No ego is ever enlightened. Enlightenment is the name for a process of transformation the ego undergoes when it has a direct encounter with the truth of all reality. The bright flame of the real burns away the facade of the self and the individual is transformed, source code rewritten. I’m not trying to convince anyone of my Enlightenment. I’m just an artist and Enlightenment informs my art.

I hope you enjoy the book for fun and also become a little bit more awake and aware yourself through the process of reading it.

Steven Day

(March, 2020—from quarantine)

Instructions:

Books aren’t supposed to come with instructions but welcome to the Avant Garde. The novel is a six-section mural (or it’s episodic like a limited series.) Each section should be read, consumed, or ingested, all at once. Don’t stop reading in mid-section. Stop between sections.

The second section of the mural is the longest, so give yourself time. The rest are half as long.

(You could read the second section in two parts and I don’t think it would impact the experience but that’s not true with other sections.)

Read each chapter or section completely as a whole and then listen to the song that goes with it. (This is for max effect. You can do whatever you want obviously) I’m working on some visual elements, but because of the limitations of time, that will have to come later. This is just the beginning of this internet based mixed media literary form I’ll be developing over the next two decades. Thanks for reading ; )-

Track List:

1) Neutral Milk Hotel - Aeroplane Over the Sea (Listen after section 1)

2) Bruce Springsteen - Dream Baby Dream (Listen after section 2)

3) Kanye West - Runaway (Listen after 3)

4) One Winged Angel (Radiohead Cover) - Fake Plastic Trees (after 4)

5) Beethoven, Symphony 9, complete 4th movement, Presto, Philharmonic Baroque (The theme song of the novel; after 5)

Table of Sections:

i. LOVE

ii. BIRTH

iii. FEAR

iv. PAIN

v. DEATH

vi. PEACE

Voltaire -

To hold a pen is to be at war.

David Mamet -

Drama is the stepchild of religion.

Adyashanti -

We come to Nirvana by way of Samsara, which is to say; we come to truth through suffering.

Zen Koan -

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

i. LOVE

“I'm going to do some coke,” Vanity said from her perch on the low ledge of a window that looked out onto the city, “Do you want some coke?”

It was a warm spring night and the moon was rising over the city lights.

“If there is Xanax,” Jessie said without looking up from her laptop, “I have that thing tomorrow morning.”

“There is Xanax,” Vanity said as she grabbed her backpack from next to the dresser.

She unzipped it and found the small metal tin she sometimes kept her drugs in. “I got everything here from diddly eye Joe to damned if I know,” she said quoting a movie they both loved.

“I'll have a little.”

“Coke?”

“Coke.”

Jessie's skin was as white as the blank page and her short hair boyishly fell in her eyes and was as blue as Krishna. There was a flowing childlike elegance to her body that was expressed through her movements as she sat hammering away at the keyboard like a jazz musician making love to her instrument or a warrior vanquishing her enemies on the battlefield.

Between these two, her life turned; creating art and wagging war.

Vanity looked like she had fallen out of a teenage vampire novel. She was in her underwear, having just painted her finger and toe nails to match the Krishna blue color of

Jessie's hair. Her almost naked, cheetah-like body, was thin and lanky and she had a face that was both angular and ovular; something fashion photographers swooned over. She had big green eyes with white outer edges that changed color in the sun, and with her full lips oozing sensuality, she did look like she could seduce her way through the world and be a very successful vampire; creating desire and administering the kiss of death.

“I should have been a musician,” Jessie said from behind the laptop; the soft computer light casting an aura around her like a Buddhist or Hindu deity.

“I've heard you sing,” Vanity said shaking her head, “wasn't gonna happen.”

“A painter then. A true artist. I should have been a painter. I was good at drawing. I could have done that. I could have been rich and famous, like what's his face. The guy who painted the Facebook building for stock options and made a cooool couple hundred million. That could have been me!”

“David Choe. He is very punk rock, but writing is the one that has the most power in it?

That’s what you told me. The power of transformation.”

“I don't know anymore,” Jessie said in her soft breathy voice that reminded one of

Marilyn Monroe.

Jessie sat on a cushioned wooden chair, at the desk she had set up for herself, with the laptop resting in her lap. The desk had been a gift. An antique, wood thing, with four legs and a

9 top and no drawers. It was buried under piles of books, but had a spot for her computer, if she ever put it down, but she mostly liked to hold it in her lap.

The desk was covered with stacks of novels and plays and screenplays: the French existentialists, the American transcendentalists and the American transgressionalists:

Palahniuk, Selby Jr, Easton Ellis, Burrows, Camus, Sartre, Beckett, Whitman, Thoreau,

Emerson, and Melville—And stacks of her own notebooks that were overflowing with notes and pages and napkins that had been covered in writing. Sticky notes in various colors were stuck to the edge of the desk and covered the wall above it all the way to the ceiling and it looked like the great wave but made with multicolored sticky notes instead.

She was still in her uniform; the black t and the black jeans, her shoes having been kicked off earlier. She still had her socks on. She pulled them off now with the computer in her lap and threw them, one at a time, into the pile of dirty clothes in the corner next to the hamper.

The apartment was moderately clean and had a low moody lighting that they both found sexually flattering. It was warm and comfortable and lived in.

“I can't figure out what to name my main character,” Jessie said.

“Ideas?”

“Alice.”

“Why always, Alice?”

“Alice, because I think every character I will ever write is Alice. Because we're all Alice.

Here we are. We don't know where we are or how we got here. We can't remember our birth.

We have no idea when this is going to end. Religion tells us one thing, science tells us another, but the reality is that we don't know anything. Can't know anything. We're all lost down the rabbit hole, just like Alice.”

“We're all agnostics,” Vanity said. “What's the other name?”

“Jessie.”

Vanity laughed, “Don't you think that's too, metta?”

“All fiction is metta fiction to some degree, I mean, we know there’s an author, but the idea is that the story is so compelling that we forget about the idea of the author—but I’m not using the name because it's my name. The character is like female Jesus. So, Jessie is close to that.”

“I think you are working too hard, is what I think. I think regardless of what you name her, it will be brilliant, because you are brilliant. I think you need to relax and get over here and get high with me. We're going to go to Hollywood and make rad shit and it's all gonna be Scooby

Dooby groovy baby,” she said and then, “we're going to be invited to all the parties and we're going to be the talk of the town. Everyone is either going to want to fuck us, work with us, or be us. It's going to be fabulous, darling.”

Jessie laughed and closed her computer and set it on the desk and stood up and stretched and then walked to the window to join Vanity who was now cutting up two lines on a small mirror that was resting on the ledge in front of her.

They had rented this apartment because they had both fallen in love with this big picture window. It had a tiny six inch plant balcony with a railing and It reminded them both of France; of

Paris, and their romantic ideas about love and poetry and art and truth. When Vanity saw the window she said, “Baby this window is literature.” It seemed like a window they could build a new life around, and they rented the place that day.

“I don't care about any of that shit,” Jessie said.

“You don't care about any of what shit?” Vanity said.

“L.A. and all of that shit. I don't care.”

“You need to care about all of that shit because that is all there is here on Earth,” Vanity said as she took a pair of safety scissors from the dresser behind her and used them to cut a plastic straw in half.

She handed the straw to Jessie who bent over the mirror and snorted half the line with her right nostril and then switched the straw to her other nostril and did the other half. Then she

11 sat up straight and said, “You are a delicious and delightful little fuck stick,” and handed the straw to Vanity who laughed and then bent to the mirror and did her line all in one nostril, all at once, fast and hard.

Vanity pinched her nostrils and then sniffed and then ran her finger across the mirror and rubbed it on the front of her gums and then licked her lips and shook her head and said, “Isn't a guy a fuck stick,” and then tilted her head before concluding in a tone that suggested it might require further investigation, “Girls don't have those,” and then she set the straw on the mirror and put them both out of the way on top of the dresser.

High now her voice sped up a bit and Jessie said, “I had another dream about that guy. I keep dreaming about him. So weird. I've never had recurring dreams before.”

“Dreaming about boys,” Vanity said and then as if it all clicked into place she exclaimed,

“Fuck sticks!”

Jessie laughed, “It's not about sex. It's not sexual. It's almost paternal or something.”

“What's the dream about?” Vanity said grabbing a pack of cigs from her bag and a lighter and an ashtray from the dresser next to the window. She set the ashtray between the two of them and lit the cig with the lighter which she then set down next to the ashtray.

“It's about this guy who goes through this process of personal destruction. It's crazy but every time I have the dream I learn more about him. He was a normal teenager and living this very normal teenage existence until he had this epiphany. This massive life changing nuclear shift that sent him on this crazy search to find truth or God. And then, somehow, against all odds, he found it. He found truth and God. And it was satisfying for a while, but then he felt like he had to try to express this truth, and that if he didn't he would be doomed to live the same life over and over like Groundhog’s Day, but the whole life. The problem was that, whenever he tried to express the truth, it would always come through his ego and he couldn't move through ego, because the truth he is trying to express is beyond ego, and it creates this polarizing contradiction in him. He sees ego in everything he touches. So he’s trapped. He can’t do

12 anything. He can’t move. He’s frozen and he can’t go back and he can’t go forward and he’s doomed to repeat his life forever and ever.”

They were both silent for a moment and then Vanity said, “Maybe he should have been a musician.” And they both laughed and then they were silent again until Vanity said, “He would be a great character. Can we make him a girl? I'm interested in playing him. He sounds even more tortured than you.”

“Can we make you a boy instead?”

“The audience approves,” Vanity said and then blew a smoke ring out the window. “Like

Cate Blanchett in that Bob Dylan thing. She was such a sexy version of him. So good.”

A siren sounded in the distance and a light breeze blew up the warm air from the day and the smell of the booze and beer and fryer oil from the bars and restaurants just down the street.

Vanity put out the smoke and then pulled another one from the pack. Jessie gave her a dirty look. “If we share, we're not even smoking a whole one,” Vanity said and then changed the subject back. “It's an interesting story. Crazy elaborate dream. Seems simple, but the energy of it. It's haunting. I like it. He's paralyzed by his ego and his lack of ego. Different type of internal conflict. Very interesting, actually.”

“I've been having a hard time getting it out of my head and it's made me think about something else that I was stuck on. What if we don't write these stories?”

“I don't write these stories at all,” Vanity laughed. “You write these stories. I don't know how you come up with the shit you come up with. I'm glad you do it.”

“That's what I'm saying. What if we writers don't write these stories but are imagining people or worlds that already exist somewhere? Rowling said Harry Potter just came to her on a train. You remember that?”

“I don't remember that, no.”

“I remember, and I remember thinking that it was all out of her control, but what if she wasn't imagining it?”

“You think she had a vision of something real? You think wizards exist here?” Vanity said looking out the window as if to suggest, here in the city.

“Not here. No. But somewhere. Maybe. I don't know. I guess I'm just thinking about this.

Like a thought experiment or something.”

“Is this like the idea of the muse visiting you?”

“Kinda, but not exactly. You know how when you really get into a character, how it can take you over?”

Vanity nods.

“It's like that feeling but more intense. When the writing is going well, I feel like I'm transcribing what I'm seeing and what the characters are saying and doing. They start coming alive and talking to each other. It's usually a sign that what I'm doing is working. It's this feeling of it not really being me.”

“This guy in your dreams. You think he's real?”

“Yes!” Jessie said taking the cig from Vanity, “I do! I think he's real!” She took a drag and blew the smoke out the window and thought for a second. You know that feeling you get sometimes like deja vu or like your life is like a movie or something?”

“I'm well acquainted with that feeling.”

“What if I'm not real? What if we're not real? What if we're just characters in a story? Or, what if the characters I create are real? Either because I create them or because I'm just tuning into a frequency; into a world or a person and transcribing their existence?”

“Like Chaung Tzu's butterfly?”

“Something like that. I'm not saying all characters all the time, but some characters some of the time. Just like in dreams. Most of the characters in our dreams are not going to be real, but some are, or, I don't know. At least they have a counterpart in reality.”

Vanity thought about it for a minute and said, “Day dreaming is like lucid night dreaming.

I hope the characters you write aren't real because that would be a very cruel and hard life to live for many of them.”

“We could just be characters in another writer's dream. Dreams within dreams within dreams. Is life more than it seems? Or is it merely a dream within a dream?”

“You're making my head spin,” Vanity said as she put the cig out in the ashtray and moved it off the ledge. She slid over closer to Jessie so they were touching and reached out and touched Jessie's thigh and then slid her hand up between her legs as Jessie closed her eyes and let out a small sigh and leaned forward wrapping her arms around Vanity.

“You feel very real to me,” Vanity said.

“That's all that matters,” Jessie said as she deeply kissed Vanity's vampire lips. As they kissed, Jessie started to forget what they were talking about and then just before she completely lost her train of thought she pulled back and said, “Down the Rabbit hole.”

Her alarm went off at nine and she reached a naked arm out and grabbed her phone from the bedside table and turned the alarm off and sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed and brushed her fingers through her hair. Vanity rolled over towards her and Jessie leaned over and kissed her neck and whispered, “Stay in bed.”

Her warm bare feet made small imprints on the cool hardwood floor that disappeared like the deep thoughts of the night in the morning sun, as she made her way across the bedroom and then through the hallway and into the bathroom.

Jessie’s skin was just as soft as it was white. Because of how soft it was she bled easily and she also liked to take the hottest showers possible; the water had to be scorching hot. She turned the old metal handle all the way open on the warm side and then she just barely touched the cold side handle.

The apartment building was almost as old as the city but it had recently been renovated.

They kept as much of the old charm as possible, including the claw footed bathtub. Once the steam started to warm the bathroom, she pulled off her top and hung it on the hook near the shower and then the bottoms came off and onto the hook.

She pulled back the curtain and stepped a milky white foot into the porcelain basin that almost matched the color of her skin, until the hot water hit it and turned it pink and then red.

She stepped up and into the tub and towards the back away from the water as the steam warmed her and she became comfortable with the heat.

After her shower she stood in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around her body and one around her head and filled the electric kettle from the sink and set it on the base and pushed the button and it lit up blue to heat the water. With the towels wrapped around her the smallness of her was more apparent. She was lost in the towels almost like a child out of the bath.

She dumped ground coffee into a French press and checked her phone, which was charging on the counter, as she waited for the water to boil. The only fight Vanity and her had ever had was over coffee and how it should be prepared. They both agreed the beans would be single origin organic fair trade light roast, but Vanity was of the home grind and pour over school of thought and Jessie didn't like the noise and inconvenience of the home grinder, plus the extra mess. Vanity argued that the beans would go bad and Jessie argued that she would make sure they didn't have time to. Coffee being her main vice, Jessie won the argument and Vanity quickly decided that as long as the beans were good, it didn't matter all that much.

Jessie sat drinking her coffee in the breakfast nook in the kitchen. She went over her itinerary for the day, figuring out what she needed to bring with her and mostly who she needed

16 to call and when. Then she read the Times on a tablet Vanity and her shared that had subscriptions for all the major periodicals they liked to read.

Unless Vanity had talked her into doing something else, Jessie ate the same thing every day. She was happy to finally have a place with a fridge she could use and stove she could cook on and electricity but she was and always would be almost monastically simple when it came to food and clothing and shelter. That was something the hardships of her life had given her that she was thankful for. She ate plain organic yogurt and organic granola without any sugar and some organic fruit for breakfast. A couple days a week she would make smoothies or juice. Always green juice, but sometimes with beets. Usually it was kale, celery, cucumber, lime, and ginger. It was her favorite meal and she would have liked to have lived on it if it were more practical. Her second favorite meal was what she ate for lunch every day which was mixed green salad with balsamic and olive oil and salt and pepper and whatever vegetables were in the fridge and some nuts or seeds for crunch and blue or feta cheese if it was around; sometimes parmesan.

Dinner was usually a clean pasta dish or clean tacos. Those were her go to meals; or rice and bean bowls with vegetable cabbage salads and handmade salsa. She snacked on nuts, almonds, like Joan Didion used to when she was writing. She didn't eat much meat because it was expensive and greasy. Grease you needed heavy soap for. She didn't understand the meat argument. Mostly, she thought that if you had to argue, something was probably wrong and most likely it was the thing people had been doing for a long time that they shouldn't be doing any more. People always know right from wrong but like to fight against it.

That was how it always was. Bad behavior corrections were always an argument, she thought.

She figured if the human species survived long enough it would figure out that animal beings feel pain and sadness and loneliness too and deserve love and care and compassion just as much as other human beings, but it wasn't just about all that. Veg was clean and affordable and she felt like it gave her brain it’s maximum charge; it helped her think more

17 clearly. She would occasionally eat chicken wings or get a burger when she was out and that was enough meat for her.

Kombucha and homemade pickles, however, those were things she didn’t want to ever live without again. She had always wanted to have a home so she could get into fermentation and she would make Vanity help her twice a month with it. Something Vanity loathed at first but came to enjoy; quiet healthy domestication. In return, Jessie would go out dancing with Vanity, something she loathed at first, but came to enjoy.

Once caffeinated and informed she hung the towels back in the bathroom and dressed.

She wore the same thing every day so she didn't have to think about what to wear. Like being a vegetarian, it just made her life simple and she could bring a samurai like focus to what she truly cared about; creating transformational fiction, or stories that could change the world.

Naked of the towels she grabbed a black t from the top dresser drawer and pulled it on and stood in front of the big mirror, t shirt clamming like a little kid, which made her laugh at herself. Then she thought maybe it was sexy as she put her hands on her stomach and lifted her shirt slightly above her belly button and bit her bottom lip and then ran her fingers through the small soft patch of light colored hair. Then she thought about the time and decided she didn't have time for sexy and she resisted the urge to smell her fingers which she knew would be the point of no return and instead she grabbed a respectable pair of sheer black panties from the drawer and pulled them on. The ones with the little bow that sat at the top of her mons and below her belly button. Then she pulled on her black jeans and black leather belt and black socks. She combed her bright blue hair with her fingers and pulled on a black zip up hoodie and grabbed her black rain jacket and stuffed it into her backpack, which was the only colorful thing she owned. It was a psychedelic blur of day glow swirls and it was like her pet, it went everywhere she did.

She grabbed the U-lock for her bike and tucked it between her belt and jeans in the back and grabbed her keys which she clipped to her belt loop on the side, with the carabiner she used as a key chain.

She pulled on her backpack and then walked to the hallway and grabbed her bike that was leaning against the wall and she blew a sleeping Vanity a kiss and then rolled the bike out of the apartment and onto the patio deck that lead to the stairs.

She carried the bike on her shoulder down the front steps and set it down and leaned it towards her and then swung her right leg back and up and over onto the pedal and into the strap; her stirrups. Pearl, her white fixie was her second home in the city. She had always done her best thinking on the bike. The bike was like her horse or her motorcycle and whenever she mounted to ride, she always felt like an outlaw. It had been the cowboy outlaw and the motorcycle outlaw; now it was the era of the city cyclist outlaw.

It had rained just before dawn and the morning was cool and damp with everything dripping. She loved riding in the morning watching the city drip awake with the transformation of water. Water into steam, into heat, into caffeine and fuel for the day. Steam rising from cups of coffee, and asphalt and buildings and piles of eggs and bacon and pancakes and oats. Steam from showers. Steam from city grates. Water transforming in the heat of the sun or the fire of the grill or the fire of the heart as she pumped her legs riding her bike.

She passed a homeless man already up at his corner starting the day's work holding a sign that said: THe Only PriDe a beGGaR Has is that He is not a ThieF.

She passed a group of gutter punks, still under their tarps and sleeping bags, their dogs up sniffing the air.

She rode east though the park and to the waterfront and then she rode across the bridge and up the ramps and then past the stadium. She followed the bike path north up into the neighborhood that was mostly medium sized craftsman homes, all built over a hundred years ago. At one time this neighborhood had been the home to a jazz club where all the greats had

19 come to play and it was the only neighborhood in the city where people of color could buy a house and now the real estate developers were putting in million dollar condos and pushing everyone out. Same as it ever was, she thought, till the takers take too much and we all go the way of the dinosaurs, and then as she often did, she said out loud to no one but herself, “So it goes.”

She found the street and then dismounted, hoping off the bike, and then walked with it next to her looking for the address she had memorized the day before.

A black van was parked on the street at the end of the block near the park. It was a matte black Astro Van with blacked out windows that she knew she had seen before. She couldn't immediately place it. It wasn't abnormal for her in town, always on her bike, but it did strike her as being of some importance in the larger context of things, other than being just another vehicle she knew from around town. She made a mental note to look for it afterwards.

She found the house; a big craftsman recently painted bright purple that had a big rainbow flag out front and Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the porch. She lifted the bike, hoisting it onto her shoulder, and then climbed up the stairs to the porch and set the bike down and rang the bell.

The door opened almost immediately like she had been expected. A large man with a shaved head and beard and covered in tattoos and too-hip sneakers and matching basketball jersey, opened the door and in the high pitched voice of a gay man he said, “Oh geez, look at you? You biked here. Why am I not surprised? I haven't gotten into biking yet. I have a bike. I should actually ride it. That would be good.”

She laughed, “It's addictive.”

“Well, I’m addicted to bad food and being a lazy piece of shit,” he said. “Come on in. I’m

Paul, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said as he held the door and she rolled the bike past him into the breezeway of the house.

Inside the place looked like a tattoo parlor with colorful modern art everywhere: graffiti,

Asian, pop art, and plastic dolls and toys. The furniture was the same; vibrant colors, artistic without being uncomfortable.

“Bring your bike right in here,” he said motioning her towards the hallway as he closed the door. There were two bikes leaned up against the wall.

“See,” Paul said, “we have bikes, we just don't use them.”

Another large man stepped into the living room from the kitchen. He was dressed in a similar hip-hop style, but this man didn't look or sound gay at all as he said, “I'm Max. Welcome, welcome. We have really been looking forward to this. How are you? You get good sleep last night?”

“I'm good,” she said, “nervous.”

He laughed, “First time?”

“Yes--well--no, but, yes,” she said.

“This won't hurt a bit,” Max said and laughed.

“You can hang your jacket and bag on the hooks if you want,” Paul said. “Or bring them in the back with you. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

She took off the backpack and hung it off her handlebars and then took off her hoodie and hung it over the center of the bars.

“You’re eighteen now?”

“For three weeks. I’m old enough to fuck on camera for money.”

They both laughed and then Max said, “We're not going to be live so if we get into trouble, we'll just cut it. We do it with every show.”

“Every show,” Paul said. “So, you don't have to be nervous about that. We try to protect our guests—and ourselves,” he said and they both laughed.

“You'll mostly be interacting with me, but Max will make sure we sound good and he'll come in occasionally.”

“We like to jump right into it though, if that's good for you?”

“Yes!” She said. “Of course. Ok, so?”

“So, the bathroom is over there,” Max said pointing to the hall off the kitchen.

“Yes!” she said.

“Just come on into the master over here when you're done, grab an energy drink on your way in, if you want, from the mini, and we'll jump to it,” Paul said.

“Ok, great. Thank you!” she said.

She walked to the bathroom. Went in. Shut the door. Looked in the mirror. Splashed some water on her face. Flushed the toilet. Wiped her hands on the towel. On the wall was a picture of a snake eating its own tail. She did a double take looking at it and then she walked out of the bathroom, closed the door and walked to the hall and grabbed a cold brew from the fridge and walked down the hall to the back master bedroom that they had converted into a studio.

Recording and computer equipment covered two desks. They were both sitting with headphones on setting up. She opened the cold brew and realized her hands were shaking.

She was really nervous about this.

She sat down in a big black leather Herman Miller Eames chair across from Paul and adjacent to Max and picked up the headphones and put them on.

Max nodded to Paul.

“One. Two. One,” Paul said in the most gay sing song voice imaginable which made

Jessie laugh and relax a little.

Max gave them both the thumbs up.

“Welcome to the show everyone! Today on the show we have a very special guest. I always say that but I have been looking forward to this interview since I first found out about her. Her play has brought her international attention and overnight fame. Such esteemed publications as the New York Times, The Guardian, and the LA Times have all given it

22 rave reviews. It has been called, ‘Poignant and luminous.’ ‘Jarringly real.’ ‘Unsettling, heartbreaking and uncomfortably true.’ ‘A staggering accomplishment for such a young person.’

She is being hailed as the voice of her generation, a prodigy, a genius, which she hates being called—We'll get to that—The Mozart of Playwrights. And one of my favorites: ‘Finally, America has an existential philosopher that can turn the spotlight onto our collective insanity, the world has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new mind, and thankfully, SHE has arrived.’ Her play was published online and downloaded a million times in nine months? That's insane for a play.

It's already been translated into over twenty different languages. She is now being courted by agents! Publishing houses! And Hollywood! Oh my! Jessica Day, welcome to the show!”

“Thanks for having me. I hope I can live up to that introduction.”

“Jessie, I have a lot of guests on this show that I am excited about, but I don't think I have ever wanted to talk to anyone more. There is so much I want to cover but let's start with you. You burst onto the world stage like a California wildfire. How are you and how the actual fuck has this been for you?”

“It's been incredibly surreal. I’m still shocked by all of it. It's obviously great after working really hard for a really long time and wanting to do something really different and hoping it works. I was just focused on the work and then this all happened really fast.”

“You're not on social media, but you were sort of discovered because of social media?

Video and audio and pictures from the play went viral. How did the world find out about the play?”

“I don’t use social media. My girlfriend, Vanity, who is also the lead actress in the play, she is like influencer level into social media. She had like thirty k followers at that time. She was putting stuff online and so were the other actors and specifically the media crew that does all the promotional stuff.”

“I read you don’t like being photographed.”

“I’m getting better with it. I struggled with it before. I’m shy. I'm a shy person. Cameras make me nervous. I'm an introvert. I don’t love the spotlight, really.”

“Well, here you are, smack in the center of the spotlight.”

“I'm grateful for the opportunities and I don't want it to seem like I'm too cool for social media or whatever. I just don't like it because it's another distraction in a world of them and then also it makes me feel kinda hollow inside after I'm on there and I think it's addictive, and I don't see it as being a healthy addiction. It seems very egoic and empty, and like fast food or something. High calories, low nutrition.”

“I can completely understand that feeling, but it has it's uses too,” Paul said.

“Yeah. It's a great tool if you can use it that way. Kids in our drama program were taking video of rehearsals and putting them on Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat. It was all very innocent, but then, with the way it is online, things go viral. But that's not how Gus became involved. He was already involved. Hollywood was interested before it went viral.”

“By Gus she means the famous Director from the North West, Gus Van Sant,” Paul said.

“How did Gus become involved?”

“Gus is an alumni at my school. I'm really lucky to go to the school I go to, or went to, I graduated.”

“Congrats!”

“Thank you! I was lucky to have the drama program at the school. Our drama teacher,

Ezra Scarry, is—”

“That's a great name for a drama teacher.”

They both laughed.

“He is not that at all. He is amazingly kind and wickedly intelligent and really good at teaching. Again, it was thanks to Ezra Scarry and Richard Henderson, the dean of the school, and then Gus Van Sant getting involved, that this happened. They all took a huge gamble on this because the content is obviously really intense for a high school play.”

“I'm very surprised they let you do this.”

“It almost didn't happen. It was a fight, but everyone really believed in it and took really big risks, putting their careers on the line. Ezra is a brilliant director and writer who spent his career on Broadway and then sold treatments and scripts to Hollywood. He really took me under his wing. I didn't do this in a vacuum. I want people to realize that. At my age, I was able to go further because Ezra let me climb up on his shoulders and then Richard Henderson believed in us and of course Gus Van Saint passed it around Hollywood. If I didn't have their help I wouldn't be here. I also have an exceptionally talented cast, and of course, the love of my life is an amazing actress.”

“So, Gus was involved already and Hollywood was watching but the big national attention came because of the viral videos on social media?”

“We had some attention, but the big national thing happened because of snowballing social media attention, for sure. Then the YouTube video, and the content being banned by

YouTube, and all that controversy was what threw gas on the fire.”

“What was it like getting all that attention for the play opening night? What was that pressure like?”

“It was awful,” she laughed.

“That had to be so intense.”

“We were getting this national publicity, and news trucks were there, and the house was standing room packed. Like, they had to turn the heat off in the auditorium because it was getting too hot because of how many people were there. Cause it sold out immediately, but then all this media showed up and the school wanted to let in as many journalists and critics as possible. The fire marshal was called in to make sure if there was a fire people could get out. It was insane. People were outside and couldn’t get in. Critics and Gus Van Sant and, like, I was basically mortified. I was panic attack bad. Throwing up. I was sick. I was giving directions to people and holding a trash can.”

Max and Paul both laughed.

“I’m sorry to laugh,” Paul said. “That’s so intense. You’re not even enjoying it at that point.”

“That's like being in a pressure cooker,” Max said.

“And of course, we had rehearsed the day before and nothing was working,” Jessie said.

“The lights and sound didn't work. Everything was breaking. Two of our lead actors are brothers and they both had the flu. It was basically a nightmare.”

“Oh, geez Louise!” Paul said.

“I couldn't eat anything, either, so I was just dry heaving and some of my cast made me drink tea so I would have something to throw up and then I was just throwing up tea and it was warm and all like coming out of my nose.”

They both laughed again, “Oh gross!” Paul said, “I feel bad for you, but—”

“I was happy to have them there, of course, it’s a dream come true, right? But I was just dying because like what if it's a flop? Now I'm not just going to fail, but fail in the biggest way possible. If you’re going to bomb it’s nice to do it privately. And I just didn't know If I could come back from that, honestly. So, I don't want it to seem like I don't care what people think. I'm not that cool. I don't want to care. I don't want to care what people think. Also, I want to keep doing what I love and inevitably that does depend on having an audience and support for your work.

You need an audience to support you. So you want people to like it.”

“And they did, and they do, and from what I’ve read, opening night was a smash,” Paul said.

“Honestly, that night, the cast murdered. No pun intended. They were magically on point.

It was the best version of the play. I was overwhelmingly happy with it.”

“That's such a classic showbiz story,” Max said. “Everything is going wrong until the show must go on and then like magic, the stars align.”

“It was,” Jessie said, “It was like that.”

“People are obsessed with the idea that you are a genius,” Paul said, “and you hate that?”

“I hate it because it's not true,” Jessie said. “I'm not Mozart or Good Will Hunting.”

“You've been writing and trying to tell stories for a long time, right?”

“Yeah. Since I was a kid. I was obsessed with comic books. I was always trying to make my own. It was comics and graphic novels and then I got this idea that real literature was what people respected, which is of course stupid, but that got in my head for a long time and I was trying to write, air quotes, serious literature, until I was about fourteen.”

“Wow. Fourteen?” Max said.

“So, as a Kid?” Paul said. “That's not normal behavior, Jessie.”

“And you don't think you're a prodigy or a genius?”

“I hate the idea of a genius. I don't know what that means. I think people have this idea that some people don't have to work their asses off and make a ton of sacrifices because they are geniuses or prodigies and that's just total bullshit. I'm obsessive and I tend to be very monomaniacal or purpose oriented. But that's not genius unless genius means working your ass off and mostly failing over and over and sacrificing to repeatedly fail and fail because you can't stop yourself from doing it even when nobody believes in you and everybody thinks you’re stupid or crazy. If that's what a genius is, then I guess I'm that. But that's not what people think.

They think genius means it's easy for you or something. Like you wake up and yawn out a classic.”

Paul and Max both laugh and then Max said, “The master makes what is difficult, look easy.”

“Soooo talented and you like comic books?” Paul said, “If I weren’t gay I'd be trying to date you,” and they laughed.

“What did you think of Wonder Woman?” Max said.

Jessie laughed, “It's abhorrent garbage. I’m sorry, I know it's not nice to say things like that even if they're true. I'm not a mean person, but that movie is dog shit. Wonder Woman is the worst kind of Hollywood trash and it says everything about how women are looked at in

Hollywood still. Wonder Woman is this hot chick with super powers who lacks intelligence and common sense, which is how Hollywood views women. I was recently listening to a podcast about old Hollywood and Marilyn Monroe. Nothing has changed in Hollywood since those days.

Women are sex objects and that's it and Wonder Woman is a perfect example of the dumification of women. I'm not saying women can't be smart and sexy. But you have to include the smart part. Wonder Woman is just a slap in the face. She's basically a moron who can't survive even something simple like blending in without the help of a man. I'm sorry, if you were raised on an island, it doesn't make you retarded. You can figure things out. The message of the movie is that no matter how tough a woman is, she won't ever be able to accomplish anything without the help of a man. It's a fucking joke. I felt like Hollywood raped me when I saw that movie. It really hurt my heart for female heroes in media. I cried over it.”

There was a brief silence and then Max said, “So, you didn't like it?” and they all laughed.

“I was on my period when I saw it and it was a heavy flow day, so maybe that had something to do with it.”

They both laughed hysterically and Max clapped.

“She's a firecracker!” Paul said. “You don't pull any punches do you girl?”

“Nope. I'm here and I'm going to be real. Bloody tampons and period blood and all,” and then she rapped, “Like Eminem said before he went soft, ‘God sent me to piss the world off!’”

“I love it,” Max said, “and I'm bi-sexual by the way,” and they all laughed.

“I didn't used to be so crass and vulgar,” Jessie said. “It's my girlfriend's influence. She's about as far from middle class values as Marilyn Manson.”

“We’re gettin the picture here,” Max said, “I like it. Keep it real.”

“So, you're starting this promotional tour and going to Hollywood, right?” Paul said.

“Yeah, I have been talking to different agencies. I'm going to Hollywood next week and

Vanity and I will be pitching to different networks. I'm not supposed to talk about everything that's happening yet.”

“I was told you passed on a deal to write a novel,” Paul said. “Supposedly, some crazy money offers have been made and Broadway wants you and your play.”

“I'm not passing on those offers. That's not exactly what's going on. I just don't want to do that first. If I can get a show, I want a show. And I don't know If I'll get that chance again because of how expensive shows are to produce. I can write novels and plays without a lot of money. TV is expensive.”

Paul and Max were both quietly shaking their heads and Paul said, “Why? Why

Hollywood? Why TV? Why not write a novel and then sell it and have it adapted? We mostly think of screenwriters as individuals who can't write novels and plays—sort of.”

“I know it sounds crazy to people. I love plays and novels but the thing now is streaming and I want to be at the cutting edge and to reach the largest possible audience with my work.

That's always been the goal for me. I want to do deeper stuff but with film.”

“As a playwright and novelist,” Max said, “and someone who has also written and sold two screenplays, not good ones, but still, in defense of screenwriters, I don't think screenwriting is easier than playwriting or writing a novel. The problem is that screenwriters don't have control of their words. Directors and actors and studios and producers do. It's a fucked up system. So that's the fear. That we won't ever actually see your vision. Or you won't have your vision realized and we won't get to see the movie you would like to make—or show—you would like to make.”

“I think the problem,” Paul said, “like Max is saying, is that the Hollywood caste system has screenwriters at the bottom when they should be at the top.”

“Yes!” Jessie said, “and I think screenwriters should be able to win the Pulitzer and I think that would help the situation.”

“The audience probably doesn’t know, but, the Pulitzer Prize,” Max said, “is given out every year to playwrights, journalists, novelists, and poets, but not to screenwriters.”

“Yeah and it's bullshit,” Jessie said. “The Pulitzer was created by Joseph Pulitzer, who was a newspaper man back in the 1800’s. Back then newspapers weren't taken seriously, it was sensationalized story telling. It wasn’t reporting.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“It was old school click bait, basically,” Jessie said, “and he wanted to create a situation where journalists would be taken seriously like novelists and poets and playwrights who were taken very seriously back then. He created the Pulitzer Prize which was awarded for exceptional work.”

“He created it and then awarded it,” Paul said. “Mighty white of him.”

Jessie laughed, “He gave it out to people who deserved it and did really exceptional journalism and that changed the newspaper business.”

“I have to say I love this idea,” Paul said. “Writers would become celebrities instead of just the actors.”

“It would be a different dynamic,” Jessie said, “we are on the brink of possibility and there is a new form of media emerging and it could really be something special If everyone will give it some room to breathe and find itself and I think this should at least be part of the conversation.”

“I think it would be good for studios,” Max said. “They would have some other angle to sell from. You don't have to explain a movie like, say, Fight Club, which is a hard movie to sell, if you have a famous writer involved, you sell the writer. You don't really have to tell an audience what a Quentin Tarantino movie is about. Nobody gives a shit. It's a fucking Quentin Tarantino

30 movie. He could make a movie about doing dishes and laundry and we're all going to see it because we love his style and the passion he brings is magnetic.”

“The problem is that studios don’t know how to sell writers because all they do is sell the pretty faces, the actors,” Jessie said, “if that changed, movies would get better. The writing is everything for a movie.”

“I completely agree,” Max said. “The writing is everything.”

“What exactly do you want to do in Hollywood?” Paul asked.

“I want to make action movies with substance. Or a show. It's not like they don't exist.

Star Wars and The Matrix are big budget action movies with depth and substance and they made everyone involved a fuck load of money. Star Wars is deep as fuck, which is why it resonated with so many of us for so long and still does.”

“Your play is like Avant Garde art with deep existential and political themes and you want to make action movies but you're not going to sell out?”

“I want to bring that depth back to the action and superhero genres.”

“Ambitious,” Max said. “I heard there is an interesting story about how you got into screenwriting and playwriting.”

“People think it's interesting because it's a story about a drug trip. I'm probably going to catch some heat for talking about this.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Paul said.

“No. It’s ok. I’m not going to lie or tell half truths and turn into a fake hypocritical asshole, but I know I’ll catch heat on this,” Jessie said and then continued, “A friend of mine was going to a lot of raves when we were younger and she wanted me to go.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. This is before I came out west.”

“You kids are growing up fast these days,” Paul said.

“Fourteen is very young,” Max said. “I can’t imagine being at a rave and being around fourteen year old’s in a place where people are taking drugs. That sounds scary to me. Maybe

I’m getting old.”

“It does sound young to me now, but I obviously didn't feel that way then,” Jessie said,

“and also, I'm not sure that isn't an appropriate age. That's when vision quests should happen.

That's when we're supposed to become adults, but that's another conversation.”

“So, your friend takes you to a rave?”

“So, my friend took me to this rave and she gave me two blue Teslas, MDMA, and I rolled for my first time. It was one of the most beautiful and transcendent experiences of my life and it really opened, and I had been kinda closed, so it really opened my heart—My heart chakra—I hope that doesn't come off as too esoteric, but that's what it felt like, and I was walking up the stairs, the rave was in this big warehouse that had all these floors and rooms, underground kinda thing, and I was rolling and walking up the stairs to where the main DJ was and it hit me like they say, the cliché, but it felt like it, it felt like it, it hit me like a bolt of lightning and I knew--I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life--Or at least one of the really important things. I was going to write screenplays. Or at least try to write one. One screenplay.

But really, it felt like my reason for being on this earth was to bring something to the screen. It felt like the most direct message from the Universe that I had ever gotten.”

“That was when you switched from comics and prose writing to plays?”

“Well, no. I had already switched from comics to prose and then I started writing screenplays. When I finished my first screenplay, I showed it to my boyfriend of the time and—”

She stopped and laughed remembering, “You know what he said to me? He said it was boring and he didn't get very far, but he said that I should write a movie about a guy from the Midwest that moves to the west coast. A fish out of water story. If I wanted to write a movie, he thought that would be a funny one to write.”

“Geez,” Paul said. “What an ass.”

“A fish out of water story?” Max said. “Like Wonder Woman?”

“And that discouraged you?” Paul said.

“It made me think about who my audience was. And that's when I switched to plays— and dumped that guy.”

They all laughed.

“Your brain is very full and moves very fast for a teenager,” Max said.

“It's the Adderall.”

They both laughed, “Seriously?”

“No, not seriously. It keeps me up. I'm usually trying to turn my brain off, not ramp it up.”

They both laughed again.

“Well, Jessica Day, you do not disappoint,” Paul said. “I hope you can figure out how to navigate the Hollywood system. We'll be looking forward to watching whatever you come up with. Hollywood is difficult because movies are really expensive to make. That's part of it.”

“You love storytelling, though,” Max said. “You're very passionate about it.”

“I love this stuff, yeah. I have loved it since I can remember.”

“It shows in talking to you and it shows in your work,” Paul said, “you have a ton of passion.”

“We will be rooting for you in Hollywood,” Max said. “I hope you are able to break some of those barriers and continue to do the work that you do.”

“We wish you luck,” Paul said. “You’ve got your work cut out for you in Hollywood, girl.

We hope you fight the good fight and win. Come back and tell us about it. Hopefully with a show to promote.”

“Thank you both so much, I would love that!” Jessie said.

Once the podcast was over Paul and Max walked Jessie to the door as she rolled her bike out.

“That should be a great podcast,” Paul said.

“I'll text you when I'm done editing,” Max said.

“Ok. No worries! That was really fun. I'm buzzed off of it,” she said lifting her bike up and walking down the stairs. “Thank you both again.”

“You're going to like this press stuff for a couple more months and then hate it for the rest of your life,” Paul said.

“Come back and see us once the show is finished and you're promoting,” Max said.

“We'd love to hear how it went.”

“Come tell us about the process and the experience of it all. We'll both be happy to see you again.”

“I will,” she said getting on her bike as Paul waved and closed the door.

She rolled down the sidewalk and looked both ways and then dropped into the street, high on adrenaline from the interview. It was later now and warmer than it was when she went in and she was warm in the hoodie and thought she would have to stop and take it off.

She saw the van again in the same place it had been before and as if on que it started up and slowly crept down the street towards her. She turned right down the next street and kept riding and the van turned the same corner not far behind her and then she started to think that maybe someone was following her and she couldn't remember where she saw this van before.

She picked up speed trying to lose them. She banked hard left down the next street heading towards the main bike vein in the neighborhood and then she turned onto an unlikely street and rode fast down the straight away to the end of it and through the concrete bike barriers that connected to the bike route, she rode a safe distance past them and pulled over hiding behind a big old Doug fur. She turned back to look, waiting and watching, as she unzipped her hoodie, took it off, and tucked it into her backpack. Just as she was putting her backpack back on, the van turned the corner onto the street. It crept slowly all the way down to the bike barriers and stopped. She tried to see who was in the van but she couldn’t see through the windshield from where she was hiding. The van tail lights came and it reversed up into a

34 driveway and then turned around and pulled away heading back up the street. She tried to get a plate number, but it didn’t have one. The van didn’t have a plate. And then it was gone.

Now there was no doubt in her mind,

she didn’t know who or why,

but someone was definitely following her.

Later that night Vanity and Jessie lay in bed together naked under the soft white sheets.

“Tell me a story, Jess,” Vanity said as Jessie lay against her stomach tracing circles around Vanity’s belly button and mons, running her fingers through the small soft patch of hair. “Tell me about this guy in your dreams again.”

“You want to hear about the boy in my dreams?”

“He's a boy?”

“He's boyish. Childlike in a way. Like a sage. I think they are always like that in some way. He has moles on his face.”

“He has moles? Like gross moles?”

“Not too gross.”

“Like Cindy or Marilyn?”

“Kinda. Kinda like both and then some. Kinda like a constellation. Like the dipper maybe..He has a huge Adam's apple. Like a baby dick it's so big.”

Vanity laughed. “Like a baby dick? That's ewww gross.”

“He wears all black.”

“Just like you.”

“And he never takes his hat off—almost never.”

“He's probably hiding being bald.”

“I don't think he's totally bald. He has more hair than one might think..but receding definitely..like a hippie losing his dreadlocks, it's going away..but not yet.”

“What about his body?”

“He's about average height. Athletic. Gay guys call guys like him twinks. Skinny and muscular. He has long arms and legs, like you, and his hands and feet are real big, so he kinda looks like a puppy that never grew into its paws.”

“That's kinda cute..what kinda hat?”

“Sometimes a beanie, sometimes with a bill and usually those are from a brewery somewhere. Always black though.”

“He sounds interesting.”

“He is interesting. He's definitely that. No arguments there.”

“Can I meet him?”

Jessie laughed, “He's only in my dreams. How could you meet the man in my dreams?”

“You said maybe he's real.”

“I don't know if he's real. I said we might not be real and then you proved the realness of us..three times.”

“How's his..um..” She cleared her throat.

Jessie laughed and rolled her eyes, “You would think of that. I haven't seen it. I told you, it's not sexual.”

“What's he like?”

“He's kinda shy and nice, but he's also kinda nuts and wild, and if you get him talking about spirituality, he's as fiery and ferocious as an old Zen master,” she said and then she made her hands into claws and did a roar sound. “Roooaaarrr!” and Vanity stuck her finger into

Jessie's armpit and Jessie squealed and wrapped Vanity up in her arms and peppered her with kisses in her most ticklish spots all over her neck and Vanity squealed and laughed and then she said, “You think about him a lot?”

“I can't get him out of my head. I feel like there's something I'm supposed to do. Or know. It's like I'm actually supposed to help him.”

“Maybe you're supposed to help him with his novel. The one he's stuck on.”

“How do I help him?”

“I don't know, but I think you should help him. I don’t want him to have to live the same life over again.” Vanity kissed Jessie on the cheek and said, “You'll figure something out, Jess.”

And she hugged her tight.

Jessie nuzzled in and rested her head on Vanity's breast.

“Jessie,” Vanity said, “do I muse you?”

Jessie laughed, “You definitely muse me.”

“You muse me,” Vanity said in the cutest way possible as she kissed Jessie on the head before they both fell into an easy and restful sleep.

ii. BIRTH

Fall, nine months earlier.

Jessie lay on her back at the edge of the stage looking up into the rafters as she did almost every day after school. A few feet away the apple in her laptop glowed as the screensaver came on and the color changed. The auditorium was mostly dark except for one cam light that illuminated the center of the stage, at the base of the big velvet curtain, that was the deep maroon color of a Tibetan monk’s robes.

Creating something meaningful, to her, was like giving birth. And this place, with no windows, was like a womb. A place where things could gestate and morph and grow and become something before they were pushed out into the world. Like giving birth, it was a painful process. Like part of her heart and her soul and her mind had come out of her and formed the energy that brought the thing into existence. Like the words on the page were written in her blood and that's what the play was; it was the body of her body. It was her Eucharist. It was her soul cut out and opened and given to the world. It was her Body of Christ.

She always thought the stories about artists going down to the crossroads were about this. The artist didn't actually sell their soul to the devil, but they found a way to give their soul to the audience. Either way; the artist was out a soul.

The theater itself had been a gift from an alumni. He had wanted to be an actor but life dictated otherwise and he became a business person. He had always regretted it. He built the theater to be a grand palace, an experience in and of itself, to encourage others to follow their dreams. The drama program had grown around the theater, as had been intended by its progenitor, and it had become one of the most prestigious high school theater programs in the country.

The theater had dressing rooms that were down a hallway in the back. Hardly used, the hallway had turned into a closet and was so packed with stuff the dressing rooms were never accessed except during performance season.

When Jessie ran away from home to come out west, she lived in the dressing rooms for most of freshman and junior year. Sophomore year she bounced around the city living on different couches, but it was unproductive and everything suffered that year because of it.

A dark figure was sitting in the shadows of the first row, just at center stage, reading pages from her most recent attempt.

“This is some of the best work you have ever done, Jessica,” Ezra said, “but you need to structure it. It's too much like a talking head. And you're going to have to use some kind of dramatic through line. You need a character to say all this. One that would make sense in context. I like Avant Garde but it won't work for a longer production. I have seen it. It's like trying to hang pictures without walls. It doesn't work.”

“Like one long extended poem,” she said looking up into the rafters. “Romeo and Juliet is like one long poem.”

“With a structure,” he said, “and characters with arcs and a whole shit load of conflicts.

And it's a poem. Jessie you gotta chill with the competing with Shakespeare thing. You are not competing with Shakespeare.”

“Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Dickens, Miller. You know what they all have in common, Ezra?”

He was silent.

“Old white fucks!”

Ezra laughed the infectious belly laugh that made people around him relax and feel comfortable and then he said, “A lot a motherfuckers think they re-invented story structure or figured it out, but shit hasn't changed much since Aristotle. Life is organized at every level.

Storytelling is the same; Beginning, middle, ending. S'it.”

“I just don't want to do it like that,” she said, “there has to be another way.”

Ezra had gone to one of the east coast schools that people made a big deal about, but he didn't come from a place where people went to those schools. He'd helped Jessie get into the school and into the drama program. She'd written to him and sent him her work and he got her in on a full scholarship. He didn’t know what he was expecting when she came in for her interview the summer before freshman year but it wasn’t what walked through the door. She looked like a tiny Pixar character, with the upturned nose and the chubby cheeks, and her voice as soft as butter, but she had the intensity of a warrior or a war time general. She was tiny but she took up the whole room. She was like a mutant human from another part of the Universe and she was all about storytelling.

He had been impressed immediately and then his respect for her had only deepened over the years. She was the most driven person he had ever met. He knew the drive came from a lot of pain and a deep, constant loneliness, but she didn't like to talk about it, so he didn't ask.

Ezra’s skin was as dark as Jessie’s was light and he was big enough to do his undergraduate on a football scholarship and she was as small as a bunny and together they

40 harmonized perfectly like yin and yang, complimenting and balancing each other’s talents and ideas. They were a modern day Huck and Jim, except the roles were reversed; Jessie was the runaway and Ezra was hiding her and protecting her. He often wished he had found someone like her to work with when he was working on Broadway or in Hollywood, but he never had.

“I'm sick of literary devices and trite, tired plot lines,” Jessie said. “It's all the same. It's overwritten and underwritten trash that has no real depth or substance. The hero's journey and the character arcs or whatever the fuck it is. It's not the truth. Not the larger truth. Especially here in America and in the world today. Maybe the villain's journey would be more accurate.”

“Structure. You need to structure it somehow.”

“Life isn't like that. Life is messy. Life is real. Things don't ever fucking change and people don't ever fucking change and I'm sick of everything being like that. All the same shit.

Not every story has to be some stupid ass character arc. All those teachers have created a situation where everything is exactly like everything else. All the stuff is the same.”

“Jessie, you're in high school. You need to chill. You're going to make yourself crazy.”

“I just don't want to do that paint by numbers act break shit that everyone does. What if I use fractals to structure it? Like the Universe. Like patterns. Every tiny story contains the whole story and each large story is composed of a myriad of small stories. Like the Goddamn

Universe.”

“Don't Blaspheme.”

“Sorry. Like the damn Universe.”

Jessie sat up and pulled her computer towards her and then sat cross legged in front of it and started typing furiously going to war and then she said, “What if everyone is wrong about everything, Ezra? What if we can’t tell because we can’t see?”

“You think you're the first person to try to reimagine the idea of what a story is? What a play is? You're not. Work with what is available to you. Save yourself a lot of time and

41 headaches. Paint with the tools and canvases provided. Structure, plot, literary devices, archetypes. Don't try to go deeper. You'll make yourself crazy. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Art is supposed to hurt,” Jessie said, “it’s supposed to bleed,” not really listening at this point, typing at an inhuman speed, back in front of her instrument.

“Don't listen to me, but be warned. It's not what you do, Jessie, it's how you do it. It's the style you bring to it. There is no new thing under the sun.”

He stood up and grabbed his jacket and the computer bag he carried and repeated,

“There is no new thing under the sun.”

“How's your novel coming anyway?” She said.

“Fuck off,” he said as she laughed and then he said, “Don't work all night.”

“What else am I gonna do, Ezra?”

He tensed as he was pulling on his rain jacket, he knew how lonely she was but he could only do what he could do for her.

The rear stage door opened and a second later Vanity pushed her way out through the curtain, sweating and out of breath, like she had just gotten done working out or running track or having extremely athletic sex with one of the jocks in a broom closet; or all three.

“You guys are still here?” She said catching her breath.

“I'm leaving,” Ezra said, “Jessie lives here.” He zipped his rain jacket and grabbed his computer bag and slung it over his shoulder. He walked up the aisle towards the back of the auditorium and said, “Goodnight,” as his hand hit the door handle and he was gone.

Vanity saw the stack of printed stapled paper that usually meant, “New Pages?”

“Yep. It's still a work in progress but I want to work this and see how it goes. I shared them with the group too if you want them on your phone.”

Vanity grabbed a copy from the stack at the edge of the stage and looked for her parts.

“Would you read for me? Jessie said, “I need to hear it.”

“Of course,” Vanity said blushing, but Jessie never looked up from the computer so she didn't notice. She was oblivious to the fact that Vanity had been in love with her since freshman year. It was obvious to everyone around them but Jessie couldn't see it. She was usually an astute observer of the human condition, her own included, but she had a blind spot when it came to the affections of others towards her, maybe feeling like she didn't deserve them, or maybe afraid of the vulnerability of being close to other people.

Vanity wanted to tell her how she felt, but was worried that if she did, and Jessie didn't have the same feelings, it could make things weird between them, and they might not be able to work together anymore. Theater was the most important thing in Vanity’s life and that would have crushed her.

Vanity moved into the light of center stage and looked out into the auditorium and then held up the pages and cleared her throat and then paused for a second and took a breath and then she started reading:

“These words. What are they? Twenty-six characters called letters, plus a half dozen more for punctuation. How can such things express the truth of a person, or an entire species of people? Can they? Have they? Will they ever? What are words anyway? Symbols of things and not the things themselves.”

“Words are the chains of our enslavement and the swords of our freedom. Words are the bombs that destroy and the machinery that builds. They are separation and unification. They are the truth and they are the lie. Words are the things falling from our lips like kisses and praises and love. Words are the things falling from our lips like curses and criticisms and hate. I am the words small and impermanent but the words to describe me are not the same as the words that come from me! I am not--”

“Stop,” Jessie said cutting her off, “sorry, but just stop.”

The rain battered the roof outside.

“I'm sorry,” Vanity said, “I'm getting it wrong.”

“No. No. It's not you. Ezra is in my head now. He's right. I'm missing a character. Or a plotline. The character that will give the whole thing a structure.”

“You ever read Ken Kesey?”

“Of course.”

“Chief Broom. Kesey said he was on LSD when he had this vision of the narrator of his story. It's Kesey's story. Broom is like a literary device. I know you hate devices but Kesey found one that was effective for his story.”

“It needs something.”

“Are you hungry?”

Jessie looked up from her computer for the first time, not really sure what the question meant, thinking maybe Vanity was pitying her for being poor. She hated pity, which was part of why she never told anyone about her situation. “I ate,” she said which was a lie. “I ate a ton. I'm not hungry.”

“Oh. Ok,” Vanity said and then she thought and said, “There's a new show at the art museum downtown. It's about the beats.”

“It's really good,” Jessie said lying again, “I went with some friends last week.”

“Oh..Ok..Well, I really like the new stuff, Jess. It's good. Always. Ok. Cool. I'm going to leave you alone. I'm going to go to my home now,” Vanity said not wanting to leave. “Where do you live anyway? I can give you a ride if—”

“I'll figure out how to fix it, Vanity. I can't believe I'm still—the play won't suck. I promise.”

“Your plays never suck, Jess. Can I take this?” Vanity said holding up the pages.

“Of course.”

“Ok. Goodnight Jessie.”

“Goodnight Vanity,” Jessie said with her eyes glued to the computer screen as Vanity walked out through the curtain.

The night janitor, Herald, was Jessie's friend and he knew she had a hard way to go, so he would make sure she was safe and nobody ever knew she was living in the dressing rooms.

He had placed the shelf in front of the hall and put kinds of stuff on it, so nobody would go back there. One box was light and it could be pulled out and Jessie could sneak under and push the box back and be locked in and safe. At first, she felt like a criminal, but after a month it became routine.

One of the boys at the school's older brother grew weed and he had a big crush on

Jessie so he'd bring her pot products almost every week. She wasn't a big pot smoker but

Herald loved it so she would give him pot and he would bring her food that had been left over in the cafeteria that day and she would eat dinner with him sometimes and he would smoke weed and they would joke about being poor surrounded by all this wealth.

Herald popped his head in, “Jessie. Hey! You staying here tonight?” He asked.

“Not tonight. I'm going home.”

“Ok. I'm locking up. Going to set the alarms. You want out, you better get out now.”

She knew people around the city from the art and music world, and the bike and anarchist world, but everyone was older. At that time in the city, at the end of the heyday, everyone slept late and stayed up and out late. When she stayed in the city, she had a hard time getting to school on time. She had tried sophomore year, and because of it the play had suffered.

Plus, it wasn't uncommon for the guys and the girls to want to sleep with her, which was difficult to fend off when you're sleeping on someone's couch and there's nowhere for you to go.

Some drunk musician was trying to fuck you at two in the morning when you had a big quiz at nine. It just didn't work for her and she didn't want to give up on school because of the theater program. She knew it was her springboard, or it could be. If she quit school, she was also afraid that she might become an alcoholic or a drug addict, which were real threats to her existence.

School, for all of its faults, protected her from that. It structured her life. She needed the

45 structure and the discipline. She wasn't good at asking for help, so for lack of a better place, she slept in the dressing room. Especially in the winter when it was raining and she didn't want to bike. She'd just stay late doing homework and then she would be the first one to school in the morning when everyone got there. At night, when she had a few hours to herself she just worked her way through the literary canon or she would write. She had become an even more prolific reader and writer because of it.

Jessie packed her computer into her backpack and grabbed her scarf and hat out of it and then bundled up in her jacket and gear for the ride home. Outside the school she unlocked her bike and turned her lights on and then rode in the drizzling rain up and down the hills and it was always fun, but dark and hard to see, and she thought if she were going to get killed on her bike it would probably be riding home late from school in the dark and in the rain.

That summer she had moved into a Van in a friend's yard and it was the first time she had her own place to live since she’d been on her own.

She pulled up to the side yard and dismounted off her bike and threw up the latch to the wood fence and rolled the bike back into the yard and latched and locked the fence with a small combination padlock that hung off the latch.

It was a big old blue Chevy Beaumont and it was parked safely behind a fence, which was much better than it being in the street, and she didn't even have to lock her bike when she was home.

Inside the van had a raised bed that was built out and it had some shelving built in and counter space where she had set up a camp stove to make coffee. She had a small cooler that occasionally contained food and she had some snacks around, usually. A few handfuls of dried fruits and nuts. She would sit on the floor and set her laptop up on the bed like a desk and she could write like that or sit up front in the passenger seat and write with the laptop in her lap and the property was up a little in the west hills, so from the passenger seat she had a view that looked out onto the city and she could see the snowcapped peaks of the Pacific Northwest

46 when it was clear. It was the most comfortable place she had lived since she came out west when she was fourteen. For a time, she had a place to call home and a place to rest her head.

As she slid the door open, she was hit with the unmistakable feeling and relief of coming home after a long day and being able to rest. She hadn't had that feeling about a place in a long time. The school was fine and she had gotten comfortable there, but it was never home. This was though, and she hadn't realized how important it was to have a home until she'd moved into the van.

She kicked off her shoes and set them up under the front seat and slid off her bag and tossed it down and she let out a sign of relief as she felt the tension of the day leave her body. It was a feeling that couldn't be fully appreciated unless you'd spent a lot of time without a home.

She jumped into bed and rolled in the damp cold covers and she was happy and she thought that when she became somebody, she would try to help the homeless. It would be her cause.

Not like people say, but for real. She would do everything she could to get people homes. She would make some kinda dent..and then she thought that people who have those thoughts never become anybody because you have to be a monster to get power and money, same as it ever was. Then she let it go and closed her eyes and fell asleep almost immediately, still wearing her clothes.

Ezra was sitting a few rows back from the stage. Jessie was standing on the ground below the stage directing. Vanity and the two other leading actors, who were also un-identical twin brothers, Brad and Tim, were on the stage holding the new pages Jessie had written. They had been at it awhile and it was getting late and everyone else had already left but they had

47 stayed to try to get this scene right because it wasn't working. Something wasn't gelling and everyone knew it.

“I just don't think this is working for me, Jess,” Vanity said. “Don't you think you’re sort of asking a lot of the audience doing it this way? Maybe betraying their trust?”

“The idea is the characters and the actors playing them are so compelling that the audience is happy to go along because they know they're in good hands. The audience forgets everything and they lose themselves in the story. That is our job.”

“Yeah, Jessie, but I have to believe in the story and the idea and I'm lost. This isn't working for me.”

“I don't get it either, Jessie.” Brad said, “I like it, but I don't get it.”

“That's nonsense,” Tim said.

“It's not nonsense,” Brad said. “I can like a thing I don't understand.”

“No,” Tim said. “that's nonsense. You can't like something if you don't understand it because then you don't actually know if you like it unless you understand it.”

“That's nonsense?” Brad said.

“We’re like George Clooney lost over here,” Vanity said. “We can't sell what we don't understand.”

Tim and Brad gave Vanity a sideways look and Brad asked, “George Clooney?”

“It's a Hollywood thing,” Vanity said. “George Clooney is famously clueless when it comes to depth and good writing. He only really understands the language of being attractive and flirty and he thinks that's a movie. It works for him. If the audience doesn't have a brain it totally works. Or if you just turn your brain off and watch the movie with your genitals. But my pussy can't pay for a ticket,” she said and then she thought and added, “legally.”

Jessie came back over to the stage and said, “Can we do it one more time?”

“Jessie, we have done it this way twenty times and it's not working. I don't really want to just keep doing it the same way.”

Jessie was exhausted and stressed and she started to get upset. “Geez, Vanity, your job is to read the lines I write. If you can't do that, maybe someone else would be better for the lead!”

“Wow! Seriously? Just because I don't understand the point of the scene? Talk about dictatorial. It's not just white men that be power trippin.”

“Yo!” Ezra said. “Maybe let's call it a night.”

“I'm not power tripping just because I don't want to have to explain the simplest shit to you. I spend half my life trying to explain simple shit to other people and I'm getting tired of it.”

“Oh really? Maybe you think your work is better than it is,” Vanity said.

“Hey!” Ezra said standing up now, “That's enough.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You know how easy it is to find a pretty face to stand in place and read the words I slave over? You know how fucking easy what you do is?

Do you have any idea how hard I work? If you had to work half as hard and feel half of what I feel you would die. You would shrivel up like a little bitch and die!”

Ezra was now slightly in shock and he sat back down deciding to let them have it out.

Maybe this had been building up for a while.

“You think you're so much smarter than all of us but what have you really done?” Vanity said. “This is just another half baked, jerk off, Avant Garde, half finished, I'm so much smarter than all of you piece by the great, Jessica Day. Maybe you aren't as great as you think you are!

Maybe you'll never really amount to anything and you fucking know it! And maybe everyone around you knows it too. They're just watching you waste your fucking life. But oh yeah. Nobody is around you, Jessie. Because nobody can live up to your ridiculous standards. Not even you!

You're like a fucking school shooting waiting to happen!”

Vanity’s words went right through her soft skin, penetrating her heart, and her eyes filled with tears. Jessie hadn’t been ripped apart like that since she’d run away.

“Ok,” Ezra said standing back up. “Rehearsal is over for the night. Let's take tomorrow night off too.”

“What?!?” Jessie said. “The play is in six weeks! We can't take a night off!” Then getting even more upset. “We are not taking a night off!”

Ezra shook his head and said, “Jessie, you are not in charge of this program. Everyone go home. Let the rest of the cast know tomorrow. No rehearsals. Come back fresh on

Wednesday.”

Jessie was more upset about them not rehearsing than she was about the fight. She threw the play in the trash and grabbed her jacket and her backpack and walked to the side door.

“Jessie!” Ezra said trying to call her back but she slammed the door open and she was gone into the night and into the rain.

Ezra looked up at Vanity. “Vanity? A school shooting? What the fuck was that?”

Vanity had liquid welling up in her own eyes and once Jessie was gone she burst into tears and ran off the stage through the back curtains and was gone out the rear stage door.

Brad and Tim looked at each other and shrugged and Brad said, “Nonsense,” and then

Tim parroted, “Nonsense.”

Ezra just stood there with his arms out, more or less helpless between these two planetary talents.

Jessie woke up in the Van the next morning just as the pouring rain was letting up against the van's roof. On her demon ride home in the rain the night before, riding as hard and

50 fast and recklessly as she could in the rain and without her lights, in a heightened state, close to life and close to death, it hit her again as it always did. Whatever anyone could say about her didn't matter. She never had a choice about writing; about this life she was living. She sometimes wished she had but she never did. She was made the way she was made and she couldn't change it. Not for Ezra or Vanity or anyone. She was driven almost to madness to do this thing and whether she had the capacity or not it didn't really matter. She was going to throw herself at this with everything she had and if it killed her then so be it.

She wasn't mad at Vanity or Ezra, either. She never could stay mad at anyone for very long. It was something she had tried to change about herself when she was young but it never worked. She practiced holding grudges but it just ended up being fake. She couldn't hold on to anger; maybe to a fault.

She also knew something wasn't working with the play. It was missing something really critical. She felt like the vignettes about the darkness and pain of American teenage life were poetic and poignant and true, but it was missing something really critical. It was missing a main character and a dramatic through line and maybe a setting, just like Ezra said and Vanity had intuited.

Tell the truth! Tell the truth! Tell the truth!

Her mantra rang in her head louder than usual as she tried to make coffee on the camp stove that sat on the small counter next to the bed, but realized there wasn't enough fuel left to boil water.

She did an inventory check looking around the van, in her jean pockets and backpack and she came up with eight dollars and thirty-seven cents. She had enough to buy coffee and get refills all day and then she figured she could maybe steal a sandwich from the grocery store or hit a dumpster or a homeless feed in the city for a meal and then she would have enough, if it was pouring rain later, she could take the bus home so she wasn't soaking wet all night—And then she remembered she needed to wash clothes too—She would have to sacrifice something.

She would have to wear dirty clothes and go a little bit hungry for a couple days, she figured, and that would be ok. She wanted coffee. She could get warmed and spun out on it and not really be hungry and walk everywhere if she had too. And then she realized caffeine was more important than food and clean clothing and a cold shiver ran up her spine as she realized she really did have the potential for a serious addiction issue.

She took a bath with wet wipes, unscented non-chemical ones; tits, pits, and bits and between her toes and then she dressed quickly. She brushed her teeth and spit in the bushes and rinsed her mouth out with a jug of water she kept in the van. She grabbed her bag with her computer and her bike lock and slammed the van door and she was on her bike, riding, not long after, into the city and feeling good and free and like something—like something was going to happen.

It was still raining some as she rode and she was wet when she got to the bookstore but they always kept the place really hot and she knew she would dry out inside. She parked and locked her bike against the blue bar in the bike parking place and passed the street kids holding cardboard and the guy selling the papers and past the column of books with the one that said veritas and her mantra, again, rang loudly in her head: Tell the truth!

In the bookstore, she went around to the cafe and bought a large light roast coffee, which she drank black for now but she would add non-dairy creamer and honey to it later if she started to get hungry and felt like she needed the calories. This was a better food source in theory than it was in practice.

She went up the stairs and found the theater section and she started digging through the plays. She skimmed Macbeth and then Camus and finally Beckett's, Waiting for Godot. She read for a couple hours and drank coffee and after half the day she hadn't figured out what to do with the play.

She was taking a break from reading, sitting on the floor, when a guy walked in that she thought she recognized and she had a really strong feeling of deja vu. He was dressed in black

52 which wasn't uncommon in the city at that time, with all the punk and metal kids, and bike anarchists, but it wasn't just his clothes. She recognized him from somewhere, which also wasn't strange. It wasn't a big town. She did have a small social life at one point that involved musicians and artists and backyard shows and she thought maybe she knew him from there, but she didn't. She couldn't place him. He wasn't bad looking. Tall, to her, thin and fit. His hands were too big for his body and she thought it made him look like a puppy. She was staring at him and as if he could feel it, he looked over at her and before she looked away, she could see the very distinct moles on his face and she knew that she knew him from somewhere, that she had seen him before, but where?

She tried to go back to Waiting for Godot but now she couldn’t focus and all she could think about was him. She read the same sentence ten times and then stopped trying to read and sat looking at the poured concrete floor trying to clear her mind and then it hit her and she knew where she knew him from and she looked up and he was gone.

She dropped the play and jumped up and ran through the section of books he had been standing in and around the corner and then down the stairs taking them in leaps and down to the main floor and through the heavy tourist traffic and up a couple stairs and then through the double doors and out to the corner, hoping to catch him, and there was a black van pulling out into traffic and she thought maybe it was his. She ran to her bike to chase after him and then realized her key was up with her computer and her stuff, it was clipped to her backpack and she had left everything, and she just watched as the van pulled away down the street, made a right turn and was gone.

Back upstairs, she put the books away and grabbed her stuff and her coffee and went down to the cafe.

She was spun from the coffee and not eating and that was always when the negative thoughts would start, which she knew. No food money was a recipe for this. Her empty stomach would make her start to feel stupid. And then Vanity’s words started to haunt her mind and she

53 thought that maybe Vanity was right. She was nothing. She was kidding herself. She started to think about killing herself and how it would be so much easier and it would take the pain away.

She could maybe spange up enough money for a motel room that she could hang herself in. Or spange up enough for some drugs and then do them in the park and go to sleep under one of the big Doug firs and never wake up again. She thought about jumping off a bridge but didn't think any of them in town were tall enough. Maybe a building, but she would have to get roof access. Regardless, she needed to die. She needed this pain inside of her to go away; this pain that was always there. She couldn't take it. Then she remembered that she was tired and hungry and that being tired and hungry always made the pain worse. It would be ok, she thought. She needed to relax and it would all work out somehow.

She closed the laptop and put it away and cleaned up her space and shouldered her bag and went back up to the room she was in earlier and then over to the aisle where she had seen the guy who she thought maybe was the guy from her dreams.

He had been in the eastern philosophy section and she thought she could easily pinpoint the shelf he was reading from and was fairly certain it was the shelf that held the books about

Zen Buddhism. She picked one up. She had tried to meditate before but her mind was always so crazy and it didn't really work and she just thought maybe it wasn't something that was for her, or that she couldn't do it.

She put down her bag and sat down on the floor and started flipping through the books about Zen. As she cracked the books and started to read she felt a sense of calm and peace wash over her. Then she remembered what brought her over here and she had this feeling like she often did that her life was being guided by forces she couldn't see and didn't understand.

She sat there reading about Buddhism and Zen for longer and later than she intended and she forgot about food and coffee. Long after dark, she put the books away and went outside and it was dry so she didn't need to take a bus home and she bought some fruit at a grocery store for dinner and road home with enough money for coffee the next day.

The next night the drama crew waited for Jessie to show, but she never did. In four years she had never missed a rehearsal. Vanity was nervous and so was Ezra. They rehearsed the first act with Ezra directing but without Jessie everything was off. It was her play. She was the cornerstone. The theater company had formed itself around her.

Over the last few years the school and the drama program had become well known.

With Ezra coaching these two talents they had put some great plays together. Theater people came from the city and even from the closest two major cities. They were written up in small papers from around the west and on various websites. The drama program had achieved a low level of fame. They had to increase the number of shows they did every year and the faculty and board were happy because the revenue justified the size of the theater. It was an academic school to begin with, but everyone in the school and all the teachers and all the parents came to their plays and the theater kids were more popular than the jocks.

With Ezra's experiences on Broadway, he was able to really help his drama kids hone their talents and he was able to push them and keep them from making the same mistakes he made or saw others make. Everyone in the program was good, but with his help, Vanity and

Jessie together had become a powerhouse and it wasn't a hidden fact. They were on another level. With Ezra producing and Jessie writing and directing and Vanity acting, they were like extensions of each other and the output made them the most interesting thing in theater on the west coast.

After they rehearsed the first act, they all hung out to see if Jessie might show up and they all talked and told stories to entertain each other. Vanity always liked to rehearse barefoot because it showed off one of her two physical imperfections. Her legs were slightly bowed in at

55 the knee. She felt like this nakedness made her a better actor. She was sitting on the stage with her long legs dangling off the edge and her shoes still off and some of the kids were in the front row and some were next to her, sitting on the stage with their legs dangling as well.

Ezra was sitting a few rows back just listening to the kids talk as he liked to do. Just letting them riff and be themselves and they were talking about their sexualities, as high school kids will. It was Vanity's turn and the other kids were all interested to hear the story of why she thought ass hair was gross, something she had brought up repeatedly before, and she was holding court on the subject.

“I was dating one of the football players from Ridgemont,” she said. “This was freshman year. I'm not going to say who, but he was a big deal over there.”

“Dale Jenkins,” Brad said from the front row.

“How did you know?”

“Everybody knows who he is and everybody knows that you two were dating. Duh.”

“He was famous,” Tim said. “He went on to go to state. You guys were together constantly. He came to our plays.”

“Oh, yeah,” Vanity said remembering. “We dated till his coach made him dump me because I was fifteen and he was going to be turning nineteen, even though we'd been dating for a while at that point and those rules are arbitrary bullshit.”

“What, that adults can’t fuck kids? How is that arbitrary?” Brad said.

“I started getting my period when I was thirteen, by the time I’m eighteen, that’s seventy eggs that I can never get back.”

“Um, math?” Tina, a girl sitting on the stage interjected, but Vanity continued.

“Who the fuck is to say those weren’t the best evolutionary chances my genetics had for procreation? We live on a breeding planet. It’s all about procreation and our society has decided on some bullshit rule that goes against what nature wants. So, I can’t fuck my boyfriend, but once I’m eighteen I can get twenty or thirty cocks shoved in my ass on camera and it’s all

56 groovy baby? Can’t buy alcohol, but suck all the dicks you want on camera. This planet is governed by morons—but I digress—Regardless of why we broke up, Brad was the last straight guy.”

“Because of the ass hair?” Tim said.

“Yep. I tried to get him to shave it but he wouldn't and every time he would take a shit, shit would get stuck in the hair and it was the most disgusting thing ever and that's when I decided to stop dating straight boys. So, I only date bi-sexual boys, because they shave their ass hair—and women, because a little period blood and some vaginal discharge, ain't shit,” and they all laughed at the joke and so did Ezra, but he tried to hide the laugh, which he didn't do very well.

And then Vanity looked up at Ezra and they locked eyes for just a second and they could both read each other's thoughts: Where was Jessie? And more importantly: Was she ok?

Jessie had decided not to go back to school the next day and to skip rehearsals, which she had never done. She couldn't figure out the play and she felt like there was no point in going back to school if she didn't have something to go back with.

She went back to the bookstore to read about Zen and Buddhism and meditation practice. For these two days, for the first time in her life, she had forgotten herself and lost herself in the stories of the old Zen masters. They were these wild individuals who owned nothing and they roamed through Japan writing poetry and meditating and harmonizing with nature and with themselves. She was transfixed. She felt like she'd found a missing piece to the puzzle of her own life and she thought about dropping out of school, and out of society, to

57 pursue serious meditation practice. The thought gave her so much relief, just to be done with it all. But no. She had to finish the play. She was graduating in December anyway. It was just a couple more months. She would do the play and then maybe she would disappear. She laughed at the thought. Disappear from what? Who would even know she was gone? And she laughed again. She was already living like a Zen master.

The next day she did go back to school. After reading and thinking she had made a decision. She needed to talk to Ezra. She couldn't figure out what to do with the play exactly and if she didn't have something good, she didn't want to do anything at all. She thought maybe it was time she gave up this high school game. She never fit in, anyway. She had always been on the fringe. It wasn't working and the older she had gotten the less it worked. If she quit school she could move to the city and get a job as a barista or something and find a room to rent and maybe figure out her life and then maybe look into spending time at a Zen center or meditation center. She figured it was time for that. For her to move on. They would still have time to pull something together for the winter program if she pulled out now.

She came late to school showing up at lunchtime, missing her morning classes, but she wasn't there for class. The rule was you had to attend half a day to do anything after school.

The school was really strict about this. So, she showed up for that. She didn't want to talk to anyone, so she didn't go to lunch, which was usually her one meal of the day, and she hadn't had it in a couple days, but she didn't know what to say to people so she went to her secret hiding spot to re-read the play one more time.

She walked down to the bottom of the most hidden stairwell in the building, one that was hardly used. When she turned the corner she jumped, startled at what she found there; another person.

“Who the fuck are you?” She said.

He was cute. Boyish looking with blond hair that was long in the front, falling into his big blue eyes. He reminded her of a character from a Salinger short story she hadn't thought about in a while. He was more startled then she was. Like she caught him with his pants down or something.

“Who are you?” She said.

“I'm Jonathan.”

“Ok,” she said calming down, “ok. I'm—”

He nervously interrupted her and said, “Everyone knows who you are.”

Surprised she said, “People talk about me?”

“You're like the most famous person that goes to school here. You and-—”

She cut him off. “What do people say about me?”

They were both still standing, facing off. He was holding a brown paper bag, having just gotten there a few minutes before her.

“You're aloof. Probably a genius. They say you're a snob. You think you're too good for everyone here.”

“I'm not a genius,” she said, “that's ridiculous.”

“They say you'll be famous for your work someday, probably. You'll be one of the famous alumni from here. The guys are all in love with you.”

“What guys?”

He shakes his head, wondering if it's a trick question. “All the guys,” he said.

“How do you know all this?”

“People ignore me. I hear things.”

She looked at him and realized that he was even smaller than her which was unusual.

Then she said, “You're a wallflower.”

He nodded.

She thought about it for a second. She forgot that she went to school with other people sometimes.

“What are you doing here?” She said.

“Eating lunch.”

“Why aren't you in the cafeteria? “

“I moved up from the Bay a couple weeks ago.”

“You're new,” she said. “Is this where they're making the new kids eat now?” Then she remembered how awkward it was being new and said, “Well, scoot over Harry Potter. What do you have for lunch? This is basically my stairwell, so, you have to pay the tax. Billy goats gruff it up. Watcha got?”

He laughed. “I have peanut butter and jelly. You want half?”

He scooted over on the ledge that was under the staircase which was the best place to sit down here, and she sat down next to him and put her backpack between her feet.

He handed her half the sandwich. She took a huge bite and then almost choked. He handed her his chocolate cold brew and she drank some and coughed.

“Sticky,” she said. “What is this? She looked at the sandwich. This is some gourmet shit.

S'good,” she said taking another bite and looking at it again. “Wow.”

“It's peanut butter and honey and pretzel bits and cranberry jelly on sourdough wheat.”

Taking another bite around a full mouth she said, “Damn. This is the best PB and J I have ever had.”

“Thanks. I baked the bread and..”

“And what?”

“And I make the peanut butter too, and..”

“And What!?!”

“And the jelly too.”

“So you make all of it?”

He nodded.

“Oh. Wow. Geez. You're an artist,” she said.

He blushed. “It's just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” he said.

“You make other food?” She said with a full mouth.

He nodded.

“Why is this so good?” She said, “What's the trick?”

He looked at her for a second to see if she was just being polite or if she really wanted to know. “It's not really a trick,” he said. “It's like anything. The key is, you have to create in layers.

That's where the subtlety and complexity comes from. Layer upon layer. The more layering the more complexity. That's how you turn flour and water and fruit and nuts into something really special. Of course, you have to be careful. You can overdo it. Ya know?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I do know. I know exactly what you mean.”

They sat for a moment in silence and then she said, “Layers,” and then it hit her and she said, “fuck me writin a play,” as she thought, Vanity nailed it. ‘You're a school shooting waiting to happen.’ The pain and despair it must have taken to commit such acts. How could she have missed that? It was the pinnacle of despair and pain, so great that it overflowed itself into the world. But how could she possibly pull that off?

“What?” He said.

She stuffed the rest of the sandwich into her already full mouth and she pulled out the pen she always kept in her pocket and then unzipped her backpack and pulled out her notebook and started flipping through it looking for a blank page. It was full. She had forgotten that. Even the margins had been completely filled with notes and story diagrams.

“Do you have any paper?”

He held up the brown paper lunch sack, “Will this work?”

She took it and laid her notebook on her knees and laid the bag on top of her notebook and started scribbling rapidly.

He looked over at what she was writing and she looked at him and shook her head and said, “No peeking.” He looked down at his feet. “Eat your lunch,” she said. He sat eating his creation as she scribbled furiously.

Jessie and Jonathon walked down the hall together. She was marching, in a bit of a hurry and he was following just slightly behind her.

Vanity was near her locker talking to one of the cute, strapping, jockey boys, as Jessie and Jonathon approached.

“Vanity, I need to..”

Vanity dismissed the jock saying, “I'll text you later and we'll see how it goes.” Jock boy smiled and skipped away up the hall on air.

Vanity turned to Jessie then and acting more upset then she was she said, “I'm just a pretty face. What could you want with me?”

“I'm sorry about rehearsals, Van. You're the sexiest girl in this school and you might be the sexiest teenager in America. You actually might be the sexiest teenager of all time, ok? But you're more than just a face. I'm sorry.”

Vanity hated compliments about her looks, but she was blushing and trying not to. She pulled herself together as Jessie continued, “I know about the method classes in France. You're on fire. You've always been good, Van, but you're becoming incredible. Truly.”

Vanity fiddled with the door to her locker, not looking at Jessie.

“You're smart and talented and hardworking and I'm the luckiest high school playwright in America to have you. What are the chances? Any Broadway director would be lucky to get you as the lead.”

Now Vanity was really blushing. Jessie didn't give many compliments. She wasn't good at it.

“I'm not blind,” Jessie continued. “You're world class, Van.”

Vanity turned and looked at her and said, “You were right though. I can do better. I will. I will do better. I said some really mean shit to you. I was really hurt. I wanted to hurt you. I'm sorry.”

Jessie smiled, “You were right about the play.”

“I was?”

Jessie nodded.

“Listen,” Vanity said, “we're both still growing, right? Developing our talents?”

“Yeah,” Jessie nodded, “we are.”

“We need to learn to communicate better with each other. Be able to be real with each other. This is a process. I'm not perfect. Not perfectly perfect. I’m flawed.” Vanity paused and looked at Jessie. “I think of you as my Arthur Miller, but younger and more talented and sexier.”

Now Jessie blushed. “I always liked Camus, thought he was darkly handsome.”

“I'm trying to be the best Marilyn I can be for you.” Vanity said. “Let's just be honest with each other, ok?”

Jessie looked at her for a minute in a way that she never really had before, thinking about Arthur and Marilyn, and then she said, “Honesty is good. I think I figured out what's wrong with the scene and also what the play is missing.” Jessie held up the sandwich bag she was clutching.

Vanity gave it, and then her, a funny look.

“I have to type it up.”

Vanity smiled and nodded, “Fuck yeah.” Then she finally noticed Jonathan, “Who's the tag along?”

“Oh,” Jessie said remembering him, and then realizing that he really was a wallflower,

“This is Jonathon. He's a badass maker of delicious food. A chef. He's my new friend.”

Vanity raised her eyebrows.

“Legit,” Jessie said.

“Cool! We need to talk then,” Vanity said, “I need help with the food for the afterparty. It's going to be at my place. Would you want to help me with that?”

“Yes! Definitely,” he said.

“Great. I want it to be fun and healthy and chic. Modern. No dead animals cause Jessie is vegetarian.”

“No problem,” Jonathon said.

“I'm counting on you then. We'll make arrangements later. I have to go. See you both later,” Vanity said closing her locker and heading down the hall. “Rehearsals tonight! New pages!”

Jessie spun around and walked in the other direction. Jonathan followed her. She turned and looked at him.

“Are you going to follow me around all day or do you have somewhere to be?”

“Oh, right. I gotta go to class.”

“Go to class. I will look for you tomorrow at lunch,” and then she added, “in the cafeteria.

If you want to make friends, bring some more of those PB and J's.”

He smiled and then headed off to class.

A week later everyone came to rehearsals to see the new play and to get on board with the production. The buzz through in the theater was electric. Everyone was excited. There were about twenty kids involved in the theater program and they were all there hanging out watching rehearsals or working on their parts or figuring out what they needed to do for the play or production. There was a sound and lighting and stage crew and an art department to assist with props and lighting and creating whatever art and costumes needed worked on and a film crew to document and make promotions.

Vanity was on stage under the light reading her lines with another actor. The whole place was lit up and warm and everyone was attentively watching the performances. Jessie stood in front of the stage trying to explain this part of the play and this scene to them so they were all on the same page.

“Each actor in this scene represents the contradictory thoughts of the protagonist/antagonist,” she said,” which is the same person. The inner dichotomy. Inside each of us is a hero and a villain,” she continued, “the ego is the center of this trauma. The ego is the center of this pain. The evolution of the self is out of and away from this temporal aspect. So,

Vanity, say your lines again.”

Vanity stood center stage as she read.

“Love is the illusion of others. Pain is the illusion of self. For the love of others and to deal with the pain of the self, I take up my sword. I take up my sword against the futility of impermanence.”

Vanity stopped, flipped through the pdf on her phone with her fingers. “Jess, should I face the characters on the stage or the audience for this?”

“You say the first two lines to Brad's character and then you spin and do the monologue for the audience.”

Vanity faced the auditorium and continued.

“I take up my sword against the hypocrisy and the lies, against the half baked beliefs handed down by the puritanical fundamentalists and propagated through religious dogma by the ruling capitalists to suppress the human spirit.”

“Yep,” Jessie said, “just like that.”

“Let my words fly into the hearts of the bullies and the bigots, like bullets and bombs. Oh shit, sorry,” Vanity said and then started again. “Let my words fly, like bullets and bombs, into the hearts of the bullies and the bigots and the hypocrites and the self righteous, ignorant masses, who allow the blood of this nation's children to flow like rivers through the streets. Let only those who are pure of heart survive the onslaught and repercussions of these truths. Let those who have it coming suffer the pain of a thousand hells as this world burns to the ground and let the meek finally and truly inherit this Earth.” She said the last words, and raised her fingers up into the air in the shape of a gun and pointed it at the other kids on the stage and started pretend shooting them.”

Vanity stopped reading the scene and everyone listening and watching was dead quiet, their skin turned to goose flesh.

Then Vanity finally spoke, “God damn, Jessie. This is so fucking intense.”

Everyone in the production agreed. The energy was really high. This was something real and they could all feel the high gravity; It was a force.

A door opened in the back of the stage and Ezra came out from behind the curtain holding a printed copy of the latest draft of the play.

“Ok everyone, listen up,” he said. “I just got done talking to the dean. It looks like we are all very close to having a finished play.”

Everyone jumped up and down on the stage which made a ton of noise and they were all whistling and clapping as Ezra continued. “But hold on! We still have to get script approval.”

Everyone quieted down.

“There's a hierarchy here just like everywhere else and we don't get to do the play without approval, same as it ever was.”

Ezra looked at Jessie and gave her a nod.

“Ok,” Jessie said. “Great job tonight everyone. Rehearsals tomorrow and every night till showtime. Tomorrow we'll hopefully know if we got the greenlight!”

Everyone grabbed their bags and jackets or whatever they'd dropped or shed during rehearsals and they said goodnight to each other or followed each other out for rides.

Everyone left except for Ezra and Jessie and Vanity. They all hung back.

“Jessie,” Ezra said as he jumped down from the stage. “Can we talk?” Ezra sat down in the front row center so he would be less threatening. Jessie was standing next to the front row aisle seat and putting her stuff away.

“Why do I feel like what you're about to say I'm not going to like,” she said.

Vanity was putting her shoes on and getting ready, but taking her time wanting to be here for whatever was about to go down.

“Vanity,” Ezra said, “I need to talk to Jessie about the play.”

“I'd like her to stay, Ezra,” Jessie said. Vanity smiled at her and he nodded appreciating whatever bond they had formed after the last confrontation. They were both being very mature with each other and he wanted to hold space for that.

“Ok,” he said. “I'm really proud of you both. You know how I feel about this. This is the real deal, otherworldly shit. Exceptional. Maybe the best play I have ever read.”

They were both a little shocked at that compliment coming from someone who worked on Broadway and in Hollywood.

“Vanity, I'm really proud of you. You've worked your ass off. You're doing some next level character work. Vanity disappears onstage and I just see the character and it's electric and hypnotic to watch. I'd say you're murdering, but in this case, maybe not the best description.”

“He's right, Van,” Jessie said, “you're next level with this. You're blowing us all away. No pun intended.”

“Thank you both,” Vanity said. “It's been an incredible journey and I have been really blessed to work with you two. I think it's some kinda Jungian synchronicity that we all found each other here.”

“I agree,” Ezra said. “Working with the two of you has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I mean that completely and totally. I feel blessed by the grace of God to have you both as students. This is some incredible shit you wrote, Jessie and both of you are going to go on after this to do great things.”

“Thanks Ezra,” Jessie said sincerely and then, “Obligatory I love you scene. We all love each other. This has been amazing. Blah blah blah. Now, what the fuck is up?”

Ezra lets out a deep sigh. “Jessie, they're not going to give us approval to do this play as it's written. They want you to cut it.”

“What?” Vanity said, “Why?”

“The violence. This is a high school play.”

“The violence brings the whole thing home,” Vanity said.

“I knew it!” Jessie said. “Fucking cowards! Who?”

“Who what?”

“Don't give me that shit, Ezra, Who? Dick Head? It was fucking dick head wasn't it? That cock sucking mother fucker.”

“Jessie! Easy on the cocksucker stuff, ok?”

Jessie's chipmunk cheeks turned bright red and Vanity could see that she was about to go into a rage and she was worried and looked to Ezra who just sat there because he knew this was going to happen.

“Can you talk to them Ezra?” Vanity said.

“I'm trying Van, but he's not wrong. If he lets you do this play, he could get fired.”

“What does he want me to do?” Jessie said.

“Take out the violence. Just allude to it.”

“How much of it?”

“All of it.”

“You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the rich white men who make up our government and the rich white CEO's who's dicks our government sucks for money, I'd like to see them do something about the fucking school shootings and global warming. Rich white men on both sides of the fucking aisles sucking each other’s dicks and not doing a fucking thing and

I'm getting censored over a fucking piece of art because it's too much like reality? Fuck that!”

She said.

“Jessie,” Ezra said. “You gotta calm down.”

“They want to censor reality,” Jessie said. “Keep everyone enslaved! This fucking planet is ruled by asshole cowards and sick twisted men that care only about themselves and their money and their fucking careers. I'm going to fucking kill myself,” she said and then grabbed her backpack and her jacket and stomped her feet up the aisle as she fell into the blindness of her rage.

“Jessica!” Ezra said.

Jessie slammed the door open busting out of the auditorium.

Vanity started to run after her and Ezra just said, “Good luck.”

Like a raging drunk, irrationally out of control she marched down the hall and through the school to the dean's office with Vanity not far behind.

The light was on and the door open as she burst into his office and started screaming at him. “You want to censor my play? You're a fucking coward and everyone in charge of everything is a fucking coward too! Human history is full of stories about fucking cowards because all the truly brave individuals died fighting against the cowards for what was good and right and true!”

“Hi Jessie.” Richard said. “We're not doing a play about a school shooting where there is a school shooting reenacted. It's not going to happen. This is a high school. When you get to college--”

She cut him off, “You are a fucking dick head you know that?”

“What did you just say to me?” He got to his feet and pointed at the door. “Get out of my office before I suspend you.”

“You're a fucking faggot ass coward and I'm so sick of men like you!”

“You're suspended for three days,” he said. “Go home for the rest of the week.”

“That's just fucking perfect! I would expect nothing less from a fucking cock sucking coward. Everyone knows you're a faggot and that you don't have the courage to come out of the closet even though we live in the most progressive part of the country and it's twenty-fifteen.

Fucking cowards!!” She screamed in a piercing high pitch that could burst eardrums and then turned on her heels leaving him there as she grabbed the office door and slammed it so hard the trim broke off and fell to the floor and she never noticed because she didn't look back.

Vanity was just standing outside the door with her jaw hanging and eyes wide. Jessie brushed past her without noticing or acknowledging her, in her seething rage, leaving the school as fast as possible.

Vanity came back to reality as Jessie hit the door and left the building. Ezra was coming out of the auditorium from the other direction as Vanity ran down the hall after Jessie. Outside

Jessie walked to her bike and unclipped her keys from her belt loop and undid the u-lock and

70 put it back together and tucked it into her belt in the back just as Vanity was coming out of the building and it started to rain.

“Wait for me!”

Jessie rolled her bike towards the street and Vanity followed after her yelling, “Jessie!”

Jessie was fuming.

“It's always the same Vanity. The dicks in charge do what's best for them and everyone else gets to suffer. I'm sick of it. I'm not coming back to school.”

“Let me drive you home.”

“I need to be on my bike. I gotta go,” she said as she threw her leg over the bike and pushed off the curb leaving Vanity standing there as she rode into the night and into the rain with no lights, riding hard, riding fast.

Her body became a white hot machine in union with the bike as she rode, peddling with all of her strength as she screamed and rode and peddled as hard and fast as she could screaming out and hoping to get hit by a car and die. She ripped through a red light and almost got her wish as a car slammed on its breaks and honked skidding through the intersection missing her only because of how fast she was riding; almost impossible to see in the rain and with no lights.

Surviving the ride, she made it home to the van and leaned her bike against it glad to at least be home. She opened the van door and there on the ground just inside the door was a note. It was written on yellow legal pad paper and she picked it up and stood out in the rain read it:

Jessie,

It's been really great having you and knowing you have a safe dry place to stay but unfortunately one of the neighbors complained to our landlord about you living in the van and he said you can't live in the van on the property. I'd move the van into the street but it isn't running

71 and doesn't have plates and I'm worried it will get towed or ticketed. I'm really sorry. He wanted you gone immediately but I told him I needed to give you at least a week to figure something else out. (I was really happy to have a place for you! I'm so sorry Jessie. I hope you can find something else.)

Robin

Jessie climbed out of the rain into the van and dropped her bag and kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed reading the note over and over as it started to rain harder. Her anger dissipated into a pain she felt in her gut and her head and her chest like someone was squeezing the life out of her heart and stabbing her in the stomach and pounding on her forehead, all at the same time. The pain was overwhelmingly bright. She felt like the world was spinning and everything was out of control and she thought about suicide again and was determined that she would have to kill herself now. She couldn't deal with all of this and if she was done with school she wouldn't be able to sleep there and a tent in the rain just seemed so painful and how would she lock her stuff? Or avoid being raped or robbed? And it was too much for her to think about.

She started to cry and fell back into the blankets and rolled over in them and she balled the paper up and bit into it and screamed and then spit it out in frustration and bit her pillow muffling her cries as she as the pillow became cold and wet and soaked with tears, still in all of her clothes, she cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, Richard Henderson, the dean, called an emergency meeting with

Jessie’s teachers and some key staff members. The six of them assembled in a staff meeting room around a large ovular table. Richard sat at one end of the table and Ezra sat at the other.

They all had coffee or tea or water and a copy of the play in front of them.

“We have two problems here,” Richard said. “We have a student with some serious personal issues, an anger management issue at the least, and we have a play that will potentially get a number of people fired from their jobs if we allow it to be performed. Let's start with the student and then deal with the bloodbath. She used hate speech and damaged school property. She's suspended for a week,” he said, “that's non-negotiable. She can't treat faculty members like that without there being serious consequences. Is an apology a possibility? For the things she said?”

“That won't be a problem,” Ezra started, “She's—”

“It's outburst with her,” Katie, the school psychologist said, cutting him off. Katie was an attractive middle aged woman and her and Ezra were obviously dating. “She's remorseful but she can't control her anger. She bottles up all this pain and it turns into these outbursts. She's trapping negative emotions inside of herself. She needs to find a way to release some of her anger and her pain. She's in a lot of pain.”

“How is she on credits?” Richard asked.

“She graduates in December.”

“She probably could have graduated at the end of Junior year,” Jim, her counselor said,

“but I think she wanted to—”

Ezra cuts him off, “The senior play. It's a culmination of her work and her time here.

Sorry to cut you off.”

“It's fine. I figured something like that.”

“She thinks,” Ezra said, “that she has to do something really special, like it's her last chance.”

“Does she have any parents?” Her math teacher, Bridget, an older lady that didn’t know her very well said, “Where are her parents?”

“She emancipated herself when she was fifteen stating abuse as the reason,” Katie said.

“She'd been forging documents since before that. I don't know how long she's been alone, but she is one of the most alone human beings I have ever met. We're talking about a person with a tremendous amount of trauma in their past.”

“She was bounced between parents and schools like a volleyball,” Jim said. “On one side she was being abused and on the other she was being neglected.”

“Neglect is a form of abuse,” Katie said.

“She was being abused and neglected in both situations,” Jim said.

“They had her going to all these doctors and they were running all these tests on her like something was wrong with her,” Katie said, “MRI’s, brain scans, I.Q testing, medications. The whole nine. They made her wear glasses at one point because they thought she couldn’t see the blackboard.”

“Of course, the testing would show that nothing was wrong with her,” Jim said, “so they would punish her. It was a cycle of pain and trauma and pain and trauma, that was pretty unrelenting for most of her young life; her developmental years.”

“She was effectively tortured, punished for breathing,” Katie said, “and it was at the behest of the psychologists and counselors she was made to see. She was forced to spend a lot of time locked away in her room. I think she started inventing stories out of loneliness and boredom. I think it was the early genesis of her creativity.”

“They had devised elaborate programs for punishment,” Jim said. “I’ve never seen anything like it on the west coast. It was almost insane asylum stuff they did in the sixties.

Psychologically breaking people. They were trying to break a little kid.”

“I can’t figure out if the doctors were just using her as a guinea pig or if it was an insurance scam, or what, but they screwed her up pretty bad and she hates doctors. Hates the medical establishment. Has no trust or regard for authority,” Katie said.

“At one point she was seeing a child psychologist who was later arrested for abusing and molesting kids,” Jim said.

“Jesus,” Richard said.

“One evening,” Ezra said, “she let it slip that there were years in grade school she cried herself to sleep every night, and everyone listening was shocked because she had said it like that was normal. Just how life is for a kid.”

“Obviously, some of the abuse in her work is autobiographical,” Katie said, “that’s very easy to see. She’s writing about her own pain.”

“How do you know all this?” Richard said. “Did she tell you?”

“No,” Jim said. “She will not talk about her past. At all. I found out where she's from and made some phone calls. Katie and I did. It took us a while but we tracked down her files and found out what had happened. IQ tests and psych evaluations. I didn’t think we would find much and then there was a ton. She spent a lot of time with doctors. Which is why I wonder if they knew what she was and used her to run experiments. Very strange case.”

“She finally had enough when she was fourteen,” Katie said. “They bounced her around so much that she was struggling in school and they blamed the issues on pot and tried to stick her in some teen Jesus camp and then she ran away and came here. She emancipated herself.

Then applied to the school, under the scholarship program.”

“Ezra, you admitted her?”

“I read about three sentences of the hundred page letter she sent me and I understood her goal and knew she belonged here. I wanted to work with her. I knew I could help nurture the type of talent she had.”

“I'm worried she's going to have a breakdown or a psychotic break,” Katie said. “Ezra and I have talked about her a number of times. With her aptitude and the over working, over stressing, and then if her life out of school isn't perfect, she's a candidate for schizophrenia, psychosis, a nervous breakdown, suicide, drug addiction. All of it. She's in grave personal danger. Make no mistake about that. This is a child living on the razor's edge between life and death and I'm very worried that she is losing her balance because of this play and whatever is going on outside of school.”

“She has an explosive brilliance,” Jim said. “We're not talking about Stephen King or

John Grisham here. We're talking about Franz Kafka or Alan Turing. Brilliant in a way that doesn't function well in our society.”

Ezra and Katie started to get into an argument sitting next to each other.

“—psychiatrists who have tried to medicate and forget,” Ezra said.

“Some of the medications are really helpful for kids, Ezra,” Katie said.

“A classroom is an unnatural environment and you're trying to medicate people into it. In nature the docile would have been eaten.”

“It doesn't have to be medication. I'm not saying we need to medicate kids, but sometimes it's effective. Every case is different.”

“Ok!” Richard interjected. “This isn't the time. We're not going to be medicating this one.

So, any thoughts here?”

The room was quiet.

“Not everyone all at once.”

Her science teacher, Jeffery Miller, who had been quietly listening, raised a tattooed hand into the air. He was covered in tattoos of buddhas and koi fish and he looked like he just got off tour with his band.

“Jeff, you don't have to raise your hand. Just say it. Speak,” Richard said.

“I don't know her as well as all of you,” he said in his characteristic calm rational voice,

“but I've had a few brilliant students with spirit or trauma or both. You all remember Sabina I'm sure.”

“Could we forget?” Richard said, “Compulsive computer hacking. Leaked private emails of teachers and parents. The FBI. Got arrested at school senior year for her connection to the

Silk Road. We all remember Sabina.”

“I know everyone thinks I'm a nut for pushing meditation and yoga the way I do, but I'm telling you, for these types, it gives them tools they can administer themselves. They feel like they are in control. That's part of why yoga, meditation, and dietary changes can be so effective.

They have the power to administer their own medicine. They have control of treatment.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “Meditation helped Sabina tremendously.”

“I talked to her recently,” Katie said. “She seems to be doing well but she is deep in that cult.”

“It's a school,” Jeff said. “How did you talk to her?”

“It's a church at the very least,” Katie said. “She called me. We always had a good relationship. We actually talked about a student meditation program. The problem is that people are afraid that it’s a cult.”

“You think meditation is going to work?” Bridget said, “You don't think that's an under reaction?”

“I’m with Jeff on this,” Katie said. “I have some apprehension about this school, but yoga and meditation has been working for the kids who take it seriously and practice it. I wish we were teaching it to kids as part of the curriculum. My job would be a lot easier. I’m not sure how

I feel about this meditation school yet.”

“Would she try it?” Richard asked.

“If it were put to her in the right way,” Ezra said.

“I can see if Sabina will reach out to her, I think she’d be happy to,” Katie said. “Or Jeff, do you want to make arrangements?”

Jeff smiled at the innuendo and said, “be my guest.”

“Great,” Richard said. “Sooner is better on this.”

“I'll get in touch with her today,” Katie said. “I think Sabina will be happy to help.”

Jeff nodded.

“Ok. Great.” Richard said. “We're going to nudge her towards meditation practice because she has been abused by everyone else. What is wrong with people?” And then he held up his hands. “Rhetorical. The play. You don't have to be in the theater to appreciate how powerful this is. Can we edit the play so it doesn't look like a teenage bloodbath? I have to think about the families of the victims of the shootings and also the parents who are going to come to this. I don't want to do something that's insensitive. That's honestly my biggest concern.”

“She'll quit school if you touch a word,” Ezra said.

“I don't think it’s as insensitive as it might seem,” Katie said, “It’s not a joke. It’s not a humorous play. I think it's insensitive that nothing has changed since Columbine and this play is trying to start a conversation about that. We all know what the dangers are of a kid bringing a gun to school and we live with it and nothing is changing. It's like people in this country are just accepting it as the American landscape, like violence in video games and movies and the school shootings. It's treated like entertainment by the media to sell advertisements.”

“I agree,” Bridget said surprising all of them, “How many dead kids is enough dead kids?

How many dead teachers is enough? The solution is to bring more guns into schools? The play isn’t disrespectful. Washington’s position on gun violence is and I am so damn tired of it.”

Everyone was silent. This wasn’t just about Jessie’s play; this was a subject that deeply affected everyone in this room and none of them had thought of it like that until this moment. It was personal. In her play, Jessie had said what everyone was thinking.

“We live in a world that is trying very hard to ignore these realities,” Richard said. “I just don't know what to do here. I have an entire school of kids and faculty to think about. I'm not going to sacrifice all of them for this play. That's not fair and it's not ok and it's not going to happen. If we don't do this play, Ezra, are you going to cancel the winter play or what are you going to do? You don't have much time.”

“If we don't do this play I'll lose half of my drama kids and the other half want to do Julius

Caesar.”

“Great,” Richard sighed. “Just what I need. A metaphor.”

Everyone was silent again.

“Shootings are the reality of our lives at this time in history,” Ezra said, “Art is a reflection of life. Idea of the play is to dissect the pain, and despair, and loneliness of teenage life in

America that leads to these horrors. The play is a social commentary. It’s political and existential.”

“How many teachers have been killed?” Jim said. “How many kids? I’m about sick and tired of it myself,” he said. “Nothing is changing and they want to bring more guns into schools and that’s the only solution anyone is talking about. The mental health issue of American’s is the real issue, but the corporation breeds fear to make profit so they don’t want healthy people.”

“What if we contact Gus?” Jeff said. “Tell him the situation and see if he'll read the play and maybe talk to her. She might listen to him.”

“You think he'd do that?” Bridget asked.

“Last time I talked to him he said to let him know if we ever need help with anything,”

Richard said.

“He made his career with edgy material.”

“What do you think, Ezra?”

“I had the same thought. I was just hoping someone else would come to the same conclusion.”

“You just didn't want to take the heat if it backfired,” Jeff said.

“Not alone,” Ezra said and then laughed and they all laughed with him, glad for the release.

“That's why we hired the guy with all the tattoos,” Richard said.

The room laughed again.

“I'm half joking though,” Richard continued. “We wanted risk takers because we want to inspire these kids to take risks. If Gus endorsed the play, gave us a little good press, maybe some interest from Hollywood in at least the idea of an adaptation. That would be a big deal for everyone involved and it would at least justify our position as being the right thing for the kids and the program and the school. It would show that we're supporting this talent in a responsible way.”

“It could also bring more attention than we might want,” Katie said, “You bring Gus in, you bring in a spotlight.”

“Keep it low key and it could get out anyway.”

“Ezra?”

“I obviously want to do the play, but I don't have much at stake. If I lose my job here it's not a huge deal to me. These girls are worth it. Not just Jessie. Vanity too. This is a once in a lifetime part written by a world class playwright that knows her and has been working with her for years. Jessie wrote this as much for Vanity as she did for herself. I know it. They have worked so hard and they deserve this and the play is incredible and yeah, it legitimately has something to say. I’d fall on a grenade for these kids and this play if I had to.”

The room was quiet again.

“Ok,” Richard finally said. “Ezra, can you get in touch with Gus? See if he will even read the play. Start there. Let's start with getting outside help for her and the play and see what happens.”

Vanity and Jessie were walking down the street together both wearing winter jackets but starting to shed them as the day was warming up. Vanity was wearing expensive clothes and heels which made her look like a young girl wearing adult clothing that she didn't quite fit into yet. She unbuttoned the long cream colored Burberry jacket she wore and took off the brown and red cashmere scarf and said, “How has the time off been for you?”

“I'd rather be at rehearsals,” Jessie said, “but it's been ok. They're asking me to learn to meditate and to take some yoga classes. I can't really afford yoga but they're kinda setting me up with the meditation thing and I have been reading a lot about eastern philosophy so it's like this weird synchronicity. I'm supposed to meet up with Sabina Canyon.”

“I know Sabina,” Vanity said. “She's kinda like you, actually.”

“What's that supposed to mean,” Jessie said.

Vanity looked at her. “She's real smart.” Vanity said, “She has a really intense presence.

I think you'll get along.”

“Oh,” Jessie said relaxing. “It might not happen right now. I'm dealing with something this week and I don't know if I'll have time to go to meditation. How have things been there?”

“Weird. We still don't have script approval but we rehearse the play anyway. We're supposed to do Julius Caesar if we don't get approval, but I already told everyone I'm not going to do it. I've been directing those rehearsals though and that's been fun, actually.”

They reached the big glass doors to the building and Vanity said, “This is it.”

The building was unassuming from the outside and the lobby was just poured concrete and some mailboxes. No door person. No decorations. No furniture or fireplace.

Vanity swiped her key fob and pulled the door for Jessie. Inside at the elevator Vanity swiped her key fob again and the doors opened and they got into the elevator and Vanity swiped the fob again and hit the button for the seventh floor, illuminating it and the door closed and the elevator went up.

At the seventh floor the doors opened out into an enormous studio style condo with a loft and two story ceilings and a massive wall of windows that looked out onto a patio and rooftop garden with the city beyond. Jessie was floored. She had never in her life seen anything like this or been anywhere like this.

“Fuck me, Van. I knew you were rich, but, Hesus Cristo.”

“Yeah, my Dad bought this place when it was dirt cheap. Late nineties. Nobody lived downtown then. It was scary down here, actually, and the building was falling down. But that's my Dad. He's like two decades ahead of everyone all the time. That's why he is who he is.”

The place was big and lofty and modern; grey poured concrete and exposed metal roof beams. Open and airy. Cold metal. Big cold windows. Cold concrete floors. Modern angular furniture. Big, expensive, and cold.

They both kicked off their shoes and Vanity turned up the heat and Jessie walked in and looked around.

“I can't believe you live here. This place is gorgeous. Like a work of art. It suits you.”

Vanity laughed, “Gorgeous and cold and lonely and empty. Barely touched and barely loved, just like me.”

Jessie looked at her and said, “That's not how you see yourself.”

Vanity raised her eyebrows, “Isn't it?”

“Who else lives here?”

Vanity laughed again, “My aunt comes over a couple times a month to check on me or I go to her house for dinner. She lives in the westies. Has a couple young kids. I'm supposed to go every Sunday but that's too much.”

Jessie walked around admiring the spaciousness and the furniture and the art. On the wall there were before, during and after photos of the building and the condo. The place was falling down when Vanity's dad bought it and he paid next to nothing for it and fixed it up for cheap because there wasn't much downtown condo work then. He turned a small investment into enough for his daughter to retire on. It was something he felt like he owed her for not being around.

On the far wall in the living room was a ten foot by ten foot photograph, the biggest photograph Jessie had ever seen of anyone and she walked into the living room to study it.

“She's beautiful. She looks like you. Same angles.”

“That's my mom.”

“No shit.”

“My Dad was fucking one of his models over here in the United States on a shoot. She got pregnant. She was eighteen, supposedly, but I suspect she was actually sixteen or maybe fifteen. She was Italian and married in Italy. Super Catholic family. Didn't believe in abortion.

Didn't want anyone to know she had a baby. She stayed over here hiding till I was born and then dumped me off on my Dad, who was young and famous and not really into the slowing down for a kid thing. And also was probably relieved she didn’t get him in trouble for statutory rape. He raised me some, mostly my Aunt raised me. She lived here in town, which is why he bought this place and it's why I'm here. You want some wine?”

Jessie was shocked and didn't know what to say. She thought Vanity was perfect. The perfect girl with the perfect life.

“Surprised? I'm just..everyone thinks I live some perfect life because my Dad is this big famous photographer. My famous father. I barely saw him growing up. Now I see him once a year in the summer for a few months.”

Vanity corkscrewed open a bottle and grabbed two stemless and brought them over to the dining room table near the big windows that looked out onto the rooftop patio and the city.

“He has a new family now. They live in France.”

“They live in France?”

Vanity nodded pouring the wine, “They asked me to move with them and I probably would have, but then..” Vanity trailed off. She finished pouring and handed Jessie a glass.

“What? Why didn't you go to France?”

“Well..” Vanity started remembering, “It was freshman year..I was going to but..I,” she laughed at herself and then said, “I guess I fell in love.”

“With that asshole?” Jessie said. “The football player? Sorry. He was a fucking douche bag.”

Vanity laughed. “No. Not with him,” she said and then she changed the subject. “I've been wanting to invite you over for a long time,” Vanity said holding up her glass, “Cheers,” she said as they clinched glasses together.

“You should have just invited me over. I would have come. God. We could have hung out more. I didn't..” Jessie sipped the wine and trailed off.

Vanity wanted to scream at her. I have had parties over here every year that have been in your honor and I have given you a personal invitation to every single one and you have never come! Not once! But she didn't say anything.

“Do you like his wife?”

“Yeah. Here name is Jean. She's not like the women he used to date. She's really warm, also a photographer, but for art and National Geographic, and I guess, photojournalism. She's amazing actually. I go in the summer every year. They have two daughters, my half sisters, and it's a very nice family vibe. My Dad and I get in a huge argument every year about me coming back here and living alone but I always win. He abandoned me and now I'm independent. What the fuck did he think was gonna happen?”

“I can't believe you didn't move to France. I would have taken that in a second.”

“I was going to freshman year like I said, at Christmas but,” Vanity topped off their glasses of wine, “there was this really talented playwright and I wanted to be in her stuff. Like I said, I fell in love.”

Jessie laughed thinking Vanity was kidding.

Vanity used her phone to put some music on the surround sound speakers and

Wheatus’s Teenage Dirt Bag came on and Vanity said, “Come on outside.”

Jesse followed Vanity and they walked out the big sliding doors onto the rooftop garden and over to the railing to look out at the city.

“I'm going to quit theater,” Jessie said.

“Can I persuade you not to.”

“No. You can't. I'm sick and tired of these men who hold all the keys. They either support you or oppress you. If they support you it's because you're making them money. That's it. The only reason.”

“Ok. Fuck theater. What's next? “

“What do you mean, what's next?”

“Jessie, you're fucking talented. I don't care what you do, what you write, I want in. Fuck theater. How do you feel about movies? I have a couple of my Dad's cameras and gear and I make movies of myself sometimes, but I don't really write. You could write a script. I star in it.

We put that shit online. Start our own production company. Fuck em. We'll do it ourselves.”

Jessie looked down over the edge, “I should just throw myself off this building.”

“I'd have to follow you,” Vanity said, “Romeo and Juliet style.”

Jessie looked at Vanity quizzically for a moment and Vanity held her gaze in an intense and serious way, then Vanity said, “You ever think about suicide for real?”

Jessie looked out over the city and sipped her wine again and said, “You're a very interesting person, Vanity.”

“So are you, Jessie.”

“If I tell you things,” Jessie said, “can I trust you?”

There was a silence as Vanity finished her wine and filled her glass again.

“Sophomore year I was having a really bad year,” Vanity said. “The play that year was tough and everything was just hard.”

“That was probably our worst play.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that. That was a tough year. I had broken up with football in the summer and I didn't want to go to my aunts. I was alone for Thanksgiving and Christmas. On

New Year's Eve I ate a bottle of pills and drank a couple bottles of red wine.”

“I'm sorry, Vanity,” Jessie said remembering, “I'm so sorry. I was such a bitch that year.

I'm so sorry. I was so hard on you that year. I'm so sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault.”

“What happened?”

My aunt was calling me and I didn't answer. I always take her calls. It's one of the deals for me living here alone. She thought I was throwing a party and ignoring her or I was drunk or something so she came over here and I was passed out with the empty bottles and pills and she took me to the hospital and they pumped my stomach and then they put me in this place called

Pine Hills, on the suicide ward and that's why I missed all of January that year.”

“Everyone thought you were in Europe or something,” Jessie said remembering. “I'm so sorry, Vanity. I didn't know.”

“How could you? So, what about you Camus, suicide? You ever dabble?”

Jessie took a drink and let out a long sigh and then said, “I think about it almost every day. I know people believe certain things. If you don't vote you don't get to complain, right?

That's the party line of the species. They have a party line about suicide too. Cowardly and a cop-out or something. At least in America. But that's not true. Not to me. I think it takes a lot of courage or a lot of pain to face your death like that. It's a brave thing to do, and not cowardly at all—I think I'm brave sometimes but—I don't know. Whenever I get close to it, close to being

86 able to do it, something stops me and I get this feeling like I didn't finish my work yet or something, and I have to stay until it's done.”

“Is that why you're so driven? You feel like you're supposed to do something?”

“Yeah, I do. I don't know, but that's what it feels like. It feels like something is driving me sometimes like a car or something, or a video game. Like I'm a character.”

“All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merrily players,” Vanity quoted then she said, “Please don't kill yourself.”

“You either.”

Vanity held up her pinky, “Pinky swear?”

Jessie held up her pinky and locked pinkies with Vanity and they shook.

“Pinky swear,” Jessie said.

“Pinky swear,” Vanity repeated and then she didn't want to let go of Jessie but she did.

“I really wanted to do something really great before high school was over,” Jessie said.

“Why is it so important that it happens right now?”

“Because my life isn't like yours,” Jessie said. “I don't have family in France. I don't have anything. I just feel like I’m running out of time.”

“You think it's easy for me to be alone like this?” Vanity said. “What's your story? I know nothing about you. After almost four years. I can't believe how little we know about each other.

Where do you live?”

Jessie shook her head and opened her mouth to talk and then remembered the note and the pain and frustration hit her again and her eyes started to fill with tears and she just shook her head and then her phone vibrated in her pocket and she was glad for the interruption as she pulled it out and looked at the caller I.D. and said, “It's from L.A. probably a telemarketer, but maybe, just maybe, it's Hollywood calling.”

Vanity laughed.

Jessie slid her finger across the glass and then lifted the phone to her ear and said,

“Hello?”

A gay male voice said, “Is this Jessica Day?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said suspiciously.

“Hello! I'm calling on behalf of Gus Van Sant. Are you available to talk right now?”

The world became a psychedelic blur of surrealism as dreams and reality intertwined and she froze in time on the rooftop for a moment. Her eyes wide, mouth open.

Vanity looked at her and whispered, “Who is it?” Then looked at her curiously. “Oh my

God, who is it?”

The voice was confused and said, “Hello?”

Jessie snapped back into reality and said, “Sorry. Yeah. I'm here.”

“Oh great. Is this a good time for you? I can put you through to Gus.”

“Yes! Yeah. Yep. Yep. Good timing.”

The voice laughed. “I'll connect you. Just hold on the line for a few moments.”

“Ok. Thank you! Great.”

Vanity was almost jumping up and down, she could feel Jessie’s excitement, “Who is it?”

It was a clear cool winter night and the front of the school was a hub of activity. News trucks were lined up down the street. All the school volunteers had been called in to help and the residents from the neighborhood were selling driveway space. People were everywhere and

88 parking was a nightmare and the energy was really high and it had started to snow lightly on top of everything.

Inside, the theater was packed. It had been decided by the school board and the student council and everyone involved in the decision making that opening night would be for parents and families of the kids in the theater program first and then industry and media, second. The left side of the auditorium was full of all the families and friends of the kids involved in the production. The other half of the auditorium was for outside industry interests and critics;

Broadway and Hollywood producers and talent up front and then critics and the media in the rear house right of the auditorium. The press section, they called it, which wasn’t something the school ever had to deal with before, not like this. The whole thing had been a fight with parents and teachers but the school wanted to raise tuition the following year and it had been decided that they could leverage the situation.

Vanity's family had come in from France and her Dad and Step Mom and sisters were up front and center, sitting next to Gus Van Sant, who was sitting next to a Broadway and a

Hollywood producer.

Jessie had given a few interviews in the weeks leading up to the play and she hadn't slept much and neither had Vanity or Ezra or really anyone involved in the program. It had become a big exciting overwhelming thing.

Jessie was backstage holding a small plastic garbage can and puking into it every few minutes. She had been there for three days straight and she had given a speech earlier thanking everyone and encouraging them, saying that even though they were all nervous and this was probably one of the biggest moments of their lives, they had all trained for it. She assured them that they had rehearsed and rehearsed and all the work they had done would pay off tonight.

Jessie was a wreck but she had still delivered a good rallying speech and she was directing still, giving instructions; yes and no and that will work, or that looks good, do your best,

89 don't worry about it now, you got this, and we rehearsed the hell out of this so it should flow, I have faith in you, you were made for this moment and all kinds of words of encouragement and then she would dry heave some more into the trash can.

Ezra pulled her aside just before show time to give her his pep talk as she had been giving everyone else their pep talk.

“Jessie, listen to me,” he said. “Tonight might seem like it matters and I'm not going to sugarcoat it. The press and the media. You packed the house kid. This is a big deal.”

She dry heaved into the trash can again, “You're not helping,” she said.

“Sorry. What I want to say is—you wrote one of the most real and true and beautiful plays I have ever read. Way better than that Salesman shit.”

She laughed, “I always thought Crucible was his magnum o.”

“They will never be able to take this away from you. Do you understand?”

She wiped her mouth and dried her eyes and she nodded her head, “Thanks Ezra.”

“Now don't go getting a big head about yourself, ok? That shit is toxic and it can make a person insufferable and it can kill you or make your life not worth living. Understand?”

“Of course, but,” she said, “I don't think that's possible.”

“Nobody is immune to that shit, girl. Don't be naive about that.”

She nodded her head, “Thank you for everything Ezra.”

One of the twins came through and handed her a warm cup of ginger tea and she nodded a thank you as he ran off to continue getting ready. She sipped the tea with one hand and then puked the warm liquid into the trash can she held in the other and it was cleansing and warm and felt better than the dry heaving and she was thankful for the liquid.

“Ok,” Ezra said as he stepped off. “I'll be on the other side of the stage.”

She heard her name being called.

“It's time,” she said, “It's showtime.” She took a deep breath and let it out and then felt more relaxed and ready and excited and it was time for action and her nerves settled as they always did just before curtain.

“Places everyone!” she said.

All the actors were costumed and ready and production was ready and sound and light and the film crew were all ready. She looked out the curtain and saw that the ushers had closed the doors which meant everyone was seated and it was time and a jolt of energy moved through her and she was ready.

She walked to the center of the curtain and looked at everyone and said, “We ready?”

Everyone nodded.

She looked out the curtain and gave the sign to the lighting crew and they killed the lights in the auditorium and she waited for the audience to become completely and totally silent and then she nodded to the narrator who was holding a microphone off to one side of the curtain. The auditorium became as quiet as a meditation hall.

She gave the signal to start the play and the sound of a conch shell blew through the speakers and then the room became even more quiet.

She nodded to the narrator.

“In the darkness of our consciousness images of light flash on the screen. Let there be light!”

The stage lights came on as Vanity took the stage as the main character was introduced and the first scene started where Vanity’s character was left at a party by a friend and then was bullied and then raped and it was one of the more difficult scenes to watch until the murders at the end and Jessie had been nervous that people might walk out, but they didn't. The rape was behind a prop so you couldn't really see anything but you knew what was happening and it wasn't easy to take and Vanity was so convincing, her pain visible. She sold it so completely it hurt. It was hard to watch.

Ezra stood on the other side of the stage and occasionally gave Jessie the thumbs up and helped with any questions or issues that came up during the production.

Jessie watched and directed and didn't move much from beside the curtain as they moved through the acts. Everyone was on. Vanity was perfect. Tim and Brad, who both had the flu, were perfect. They had always both been great under pressure. The play flew by and then once the kids were all onstage dead, the bodies everywhere, Jessie moved to the side of the curtain and buried herself into it hiding as Vanity performed the last scene of the play.

Jessie wanted to be close to the door so she could run out if they hated it. She would go to the motel she had rented for a night and kill herself. That was the plan.

She dug herself deep into the curtains like a small mouse as Vanity stepped to center stage to close the play.

Vanity stood with a gun in her hand. She was covered in blood. The stage was littered with the dead teenagers as she delivered the plays last monologue.

“Have you ever known despair? Felt what it's like to be raped? To be bullied? To have your brother murdered by the police? To have a husband or wife killed because they're a teacher? Losing everything that makes you human? Hopelessness. Pain. Suffering. Grief. A weight on your chest that won't let you breath. Like something or someone is squeezing your heart. A pain so intense that you ask for nothing more than death. Hundreds of senseless murders. The despair of a nation. Is that what life is supposed to be like?

We enter this tunnel of birth and death without choice. The stage lights come on and we're stuck with the actors around us trying to figure out our parts. Like prisoners in chains.

Watching the images of our lives as children and teens, mostly out of our control. We are beholden to the game that has been created for us by those supposed adults who we must obey. The authorities.

Born into a country that calls itself the most prosperous in the world, and says it loves us, but promises us no health care or education or meaningful work. A country that saddles us

92 with debt and desire and separation and pain. In a world that is hell bent on its own destruction.

A place where corporations have more rights and power than citizens and who rule over us and treat us not like individual people but like numbers, cows, consumers, commodities. How else was this story supposed to unfold? How were we supposed to act? What did you think the reaction would be? But that's life you say. Grow up you say. Grow up, because that's life and it's not supposed to be fair you say. Well, fuck your life then!”

The lights flicked off and a gasp moved through the quiet auditorium. One light flickered back on illuminating Vanity as she stood center stage with the gun pressed against her temple.

One of the sound crew slammed two bricks together with a bang as a blood capsule exploded out of Vanity’s mouth and she spit blood at the audience and fell to the ground dead.

There was another gasp and then an electric silence as everyone held their breath waiting to see what was coming next.

The lights faded low as two of the tallest kids in the school came out onto the stage with a large curtain which they stretched the length of the stage concealing the actors as they cleared the stage. Once the stage was empty the lights went out again and the auditorium went completely dark again as the narrator came back on to finish the play.

“It starts and ends in darkness. This tunnel of birth and death. In-between, light illuminates these moving images and we call it life.” There was a brief pause, then the narrator finished with— “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’”

A small stage light came on illuminating the emptiness of the stage and the play was over. The audience sat in stunned silence.

Jessie buried herself more deeply into the curtains at the far end of the stage. She buried herself deep in them where no one would find her, clinging to the curtains for physical support, waiting for a reaction, but there wasn’t one. Only silence. Someone coughed. Someone got up and left the auditorium and she heard the door open and close and then she started to cry. She bit the curtain and began to sob silently into it. Another person got up and walked out of

93 the auditorium. Then another. And another. She bit the curtain harder clenching her fists. It was a disaster. She would go to her motel room and eat a bottle of pills and drink a fifth of whiskey and then hang herself for good measure and her short life would be rounded with a sleep, she thought.

Ezra stood on the other side of the stage behind the curtain studying the audience. The biggest flaw in the production was obvious to him. They needed a clearer ending. Easy enough he thought. He stood waiting for the audience to realize the play was over. A few of the reporters had slipped out the back to get their Tweets out and online first, so they knew it was over. They will get it, he thought, and then they did. Slowly, the audience came out of their stupor, the coma that had been brought on by the intense emotional onslaught the play had just delivered. Someone started to clap, and then another. And it snapped everyone out of the coma and others waking up started to follow as the clapping became louder.

Jessie opened her eyes and let the curtain fall from her mouth as the clapping continued getting louder. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and dried her eyes as the audience got to its feet and started whistling and then she heard her name and the sound of the voice made her start to almost cry again but now the tears were tears of joy as she heard Vanity calling her name, “Jessie! Jessie! Where are you? Jessie!”

Jessie stepped just out of the curtains so Vanity could see her and then Vanity rushed over and grabbed her and hugged her and held her tight and then she let her go and Vanity could see that she had been crying and she said, “No more tears, Jess. They loved it. They love it! You are going to be fucking famous for this, Jessie! We are both going to be fucking famous for this!” Then Vanity looked her in the eyes and realized it was now or never and she put her hand on Jessie's cheek and then Vanity kissed her on the lips. Just softly at first to see how she would react. As Vanity pulled back Jessie was shocked, surprised, and then she looked into

Vanity’s eyes and said, “Van?” And Vanity nodded her head and it was like a damn breaking, the rush of water as Jessie grabbed her and kissed her back and Jessie pulled her tight

94 stepping onto her tip toes so overcome with emotion and elation and Vanity pushed her back into the curtains as they fell into each other's arms. The kiss was like a kundalini explosion after years of buildup that had finally crescendod into this moment as they kissed each other deeply, pulling tightly into one another as if their bodies wanted to merge and become one being as the audience was getting to its feet applauding and everything was happening and happening fast.

The crowd was calling her name and the students and cast were stomping. The energy was electric and the feeling for Jessie was an ecstatic melting away of pain and fear and self doubt that felt like ecstasy and love and birth and life.

Vanity grabbed Jessie's hand. “What are you doing back here?” Vanity said jokingly and

Jessie laughed. “We gotta go! What are you waiting for? Come on you brilliant beautiful girl!

They want to see you!” Jessie smiled and laughed and Vanity pulled her along and together, hand in hand, they lunged forward through the curtains bursting onto the stage and the crowd went wild with applause and the photographers snapped photos and Jessie could hardly see the crowd for all the lights and flashes. Gus beamed at her and gave her two thumbs up and the

Broadway and Hollywood people were standing and clapping and one of them got up onto his chair to clap. Vanity's Dad and her Step mom and sisters were all in tears.

Jessie started to cry again and Vanity led her up to the front of the stage and Vanity took a big deep bow and Jessie took a little small one as the crowd continued to cheer.

They stepped back and the entire cast came out on the stage. They lined up and they all took a bow together and then Jessie went back stage and grabbed Ezra and dragged him out onto the stage and the audience gave him a big applause. The cast surrounded Jessie and then lifted her up and onto Ezra’s shoulders and the crowd loved it and the applause exploded again.

Ezra set Jessie back down and right there in front of the cast and crew and the auditorium full of people and reporters and the entire school and Gus and her family, Jessie grabbed Vanity and kissed her and Vanity kissed her back and no mistake would be made

95 about the two of them from that point on and it added a layer of meaning to the moment, to the night, to the play, and the crowd loved it and went wild with applause with everyone caught up in the energy and the surprise of it all.

And then for a second Jessie felt a small twinge of sadness as she realized, not unlike giving birth, this would probably be the best moment of her entire life.

The after party was at Vanity’s condo. Jonathan had missed the play because he was there cooking. The cast was all there and the parents of the cast members and all of the New

York and Hollywood people and Ezra and Katie, with everyone getting very drunk and having a great time and the food did not contain any dead animals and nobody noticed because

Jonathan was an excellent chef and it was all terrific.

The Hollywood producer and the Broadway producer were practically fighting over

Jessie and Vanity, one trying to convince them to move to L.A. the other to New York.

Vanity’s Father and Step Mother and sisters had come backstage after the play and

Vanity had introduced them to Jessie. Her father was in tears and he said, “Now I get it.” And

Jean and Vanity’s sisters immediately invited them both to Paris. “You'll both have to come to

France now,” Jean said in her French accent, “We have room for you both. You'll love Paris,

Jessie, and they will love you there. Just come visit and see.” Her dad and step mom both and

Vanity’s sisters all said they finally understood what all the fuss was about and what had been keeping Vanity away. Vanity's father was really emotional, the play had really floored him.

“Now I see what I have been fighting with my daughter over the last few years,” he said, “I never stood a chance.”

And just like that Jessie had become a famous playwright, and was in a new relationship, and had a new family; all in twenty-four hours.

And they lived happily ever after...

...for a couple months.

iii. FEAR

Summer 2016

“The reviews are about as good as anyone could ever ask for. She has been called a prodigy, a genius, like, for real genius. The voice of the Millennial Generation. Not since Camus or Sartre has there been a playwright with the philosophical and existential chops of Jessica Day. Her play has already been translated into over twenty languages and been downloaded a few million times? And in less than a year? Is that even possible? My favorite review from Twitter is: From the opening scene the play hits you like a semi-truck and drags you down the highway till it's over and finally leaves you ragged and bloody and beaten; and wanting more.

I think her work will have this deep affecting impact on readers for a long time and she is just getting started. She is joining us remotely from home today for this interview, although, she will be here in L.A. in a couple days, but she is in high demand right now. The talk of the film industry. We are so happy to be ‘Nerding Out’ today with, Jessica Day. Welcome to the show.”

“Thanks for having me on,” Jessie said.

“This is a show mostly for nerds and writers as you may well know. But there is this controversy about you going around town, so, I want to address that and then for the rest of the podcast get into what I like to talk to people about: What you nerd out to, and why.”

“I'm a big fan of this podcast because I am both of those things; a storyteller, and a nerd.

So I do know.”

“A lot of the press around town is talking about you coming to Hollywood thinking you're going to change the industry. Do you think you're being naive about what you can accomplish here in Hollywood?”

“The idea isn't that I'm going to change the industry. I don't know how that started.

Obviously, I'm just one person. I hadn't really thought about whether I'm naive or not. So, I don't know exactly how to answer that. I'm just a believer that it's worth the fight. Whatever the fight is or whatever it has to be—I'm not Hollywood Jesus, here to throw the corporations out of the arts—I'm going to fight the good fight and bring beautiful and real and true stories to a streaming platform or to the big screen. I do care about making art one way or another. If I have to make the fucking thing on my iPhone and it's just me and my girlfriend and we do all of it, I'm going to make good stuff or die trying.”

“A lot of people are interpreting some of the things you said as you thinking like you are some kinda reformer, and yeah, Hollywood Jesus has been the headline.”

“That's not it. Well--I don't have that much power--and look what they did to Jesus, right?

That guy threw the money lenders out of the temple and they beat him to within an inch of his life and then nailed him to a cross and let him die. That's, like, worse than anything in the Saw movies. And that's what the capitalists do to people who fuck with them. I'm good on all that. I want to make movies. I don’t want to get nailed to a cross.”

“Yeah, it didn't turn out that well for old Jesus. Some folks here in Hollywood don’t think movies are art.”

“Movies and novels are art! That's what they are. Even the shitty ones. I was a comic book fan since forever and comic books are fucking art too! I think a lot of the comic book movie stuff isn't good, but not because it's the comic books or super heroes but because it's dumbed down. It's pasteurized homogenized American garbage. McMovies. Comic books are the shit.

Dark Horse and Image and those guys make some fuckin rippin comic books. Gorgeously drawn, beautiful and interesting and strange stories that are beyond unconventional.”

“I have always loved Dark Horse and Image comics. You have some favorites?”

“When I was a kid, I was obsessed with this comic called Clown Shock about this killer clown who was kinda punk. Looking back on it, it was completely a rip off of Scorsese, of Taxi

Driver really, I think he even drove a cab. But this crazy guy would get picked on for dressing like a clown and then he would fuck people up. It was dark and there was a bunch of weird sex shit in it which I think turned me on as a kid, that was part of the thrill. I was like getting this strange bodily reaction from it that felt good and made me want to keep reading.”

He laughed, “That sounds..intense. Do you have a favorite film genre or a certain type of film that you like?”

“I don’t know about favorite. I’m into a lot of stuff. I love French cinema and most of what does well at Cannes. But I also love American movies. I want to make things that are the best of both of those worlds. I love movies that I watch and I'm like: ‘That's Life!’ Literally, that's what life is like. It looks and feels and moves like that. That's the issue and difference to me between

American movies and French cinema. You never come out of an American Movie and say, ‘Oh wow, that's what life is like and I think I understand what it is better now because that piece of art was able to hold this mirror up for me and show me.’ You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do. That is a very French thing. It's this very poetic form of expression that they bring to cinema and to filmmaking. Who are your other favorite Hollywood directors?”

“Excluding Charlie Kaufman, my favorite big Hollywood director is probably Fincher.”

“David Fincher? Really? That's kinda surprising.”

100

“Fight Club is one of the deepest studio movies ever made. It's one of my three or four favorite movies. It's like this French existentialist Hollywood movie and it's rippin good. The movie talks about, like Thoreau said, most individuals live lives of quiet desperation. The main character is breaking out of that. The main character is breaking out of desperation and finding depth and community and connection and then he returns to bring down the system he escaped from in order to help others escape. It's the story of a bodhisattva or sat guru in my opinion.

Chuck Palahniuk, the author, might not see it that way, but art is in the eye of the beholder, right? Not necessarily in the eye of the creator. So, you have the French existentialist part, which are the ideas about culture and self and self in society. Existential questions about the meaning of life. That's French. Then you have these motherfuckers rappelling out of buildings and blowing shit up and car crashes and guns and that's Hollywood. So, you have both. And it fuckin rips. It just fuckin rips!”

“I always loved Fight Club. It’s interesting to me how many people I talk to who say it’s one of their favorites, if not favorite, Movie.”

“I have read that too. People love that movie because it’s about something real, and it’s also really fun and exciting. That’s what sticks with people in the long term.”

“Do you have any shows you really like?”

“True Detective Season Two. I like season one but season two was groundbreaking-- season one really isn't that much—other then maybe one scene--”

“Now that is a controversial statement. People hated season two and loved season one.”

“I understand why.”

“Why people didn’t like it or what?”

“I'm not saying I don't like season one, but it doesn't replay well because of the Yellow

King bullshit. Two doesn't have that. Two is like a novel on TV and it unfolds like one with all these disconnected subplots and it's beyond brilliant. The dialogue is incredible. It's about ten

101 years ahead of its time, but eventually, everyone will be doing that and people will look back on it like, oh yeah, that's what that was—we didn't get it then, but now we do—it's a slow burn and it gets better every time you watch it and it’s epic L.A. noir. It’s my favorite thing I have ever seen on TV so far.”

“Your favorite thing on TV? Wow! That is a serious endorsement. That is a very different perspective. The writer was a novelist before he wrote for the screen so that makes sense.”

“It's a novel in my opinion. Season two is a novel. The only one of its kind. Season one is more Hollywood. I think it takes a smart audience to appreciate season two but I think audiences are going to be smart enough here soon, but we'll see if I'm right.”

“You like depth. That's kinda your thing. What else is deep to you?”

“Vanilla Sky is next to Fight Club as one of my favorite movies.”

“Did you see the original? Abre Los Ojos.”

“I did and I like the Hollywood version better.”

“What!?! Heresy! Why? The Spanish version was sooo much better.”

She laughs, “No way! The depth. I think it's deeper with the American cast and the

American director because it's a commentary on fame and celebrity and wealth. The scope of the American version is just so big. Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee.

Stephen Spielberg has a cameo. An empty Time Square to start the movie, which is epic. I love the directing from Cameron Crow. I think it's his best thing ever and his style just makes the whole thing that much deeper and, really, because of how shallow his style is. I mean that in a good way. His direction makes everything that happens a surprise. He was the perfect director for the material. It's actually genius and I hate that word. It's about the horrors and emptiness of fame and celebrity and wealth. The shallowness of it. And it's also about the fact that reality is a dream or an illusion; a construct. And that the conflicts of self are illusory. That movie is about so many incredible things. It's up there with Fight Club and The Matrix as my three favs.”

“You mentioned Charlie Kaufman. You're a big Kaufman fan, right?”

102

“That's an understatement. He's like screenplay Kurt Vonnegut. People call me

American Camus, but if you’ve actually been paying attention, there was already an American

Camus and there has been since the 90’s and his name is Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman is the greatest living screenwriter. Period. Mic drop. S’it. Kaufman is truly an American treasure and one of our greatest creative minds and he can't get movies made right now and It's fucking sickening! And a lot of it is because, air quotes—The Corporation—doesn't care about anything but money, but also I think this is why I think the Pulitzer should be given out to screenwriters. In someone like Charlie Kaufman's case, if he won the Pulitzer, it says to people that this guy has broken out of the norm and he is doing things on another level in screenwriting and it's worth reading his screenplays because they have transcended the common. It signals that something truly exceptional has been created by an individual. I just reread Synecdoche, New York, and it's better than any book I have read in the last two years. It's hilarious and painful and true and just fantastic. This is where I get in trouble and they start calling me, Jesus, or whatever but the studios used to be run by people that loved cinema and thought that it would be ok to make some stuff that didn't make money because, art is worth it. They loved art and I think we have—”

There was a loud ding and Vanity took one of the earbuds out of her ear and clicked the button on her headphones and turned off the podcast.

The captain came over the loudspeaker and said, “Ladies and gentlemen we have begun our descent into sunny Los Angeles California. We should have you on the ground in about forty five minutes.”

Vanity looked over at Jessie who was agitated, trying not to be, but obviously really nervous.

“Hey,” Vanity said, “look at me.”

Jessie looked at her.

“Scooby Dooby groovy baby.”

103

Jessie let out a sign and tried to smile and Vanity leaned over and tightened Jessie's seat belt and then set her hand on the soft part of Jessie's inner thigh and kissed her on the cheek and took out the other earbud and tucked them both into her pocket.

“That was a good podcast,” she said. “You're getting better. More practiced. It was a good idea to start with the smaller shows.”

“I'm nervous about the big one,” Jessie said. “It's long and live. It's such a different thing.”

“Joe's nice. And you're ready. I can tell. You're ready. You're doing really well with all this. I'm proud of you and I'm proud to be here with you. You're becoming a public figure. It's exciting. This is going to be fun—just one thing.”

“What?”

“You might want to ease off the Hollywood bashing. We want people to like us here. If we act like snobs it's not nice—and you're nice! You're so nice. And everyone is going to be nice and you're going to be nice and I'm going to be nice and we're going to have a nice time and it's going to be nice. And they will ask us, ‘How was L.A.?’ and we will say, ‘It, was, just, so, nice,’

Ok?”

Jessie watched Vanity’s performance, amused, and then leaned over and kissed her cheek and tightened Vanity's belt like Vanity had done for her.

Vanity put her seat back and tray table into their upright and locked positions and then took a selfie for social media and then tucked her phone into her pocket.

“Please return your seat backs to their full upright and locked position,” Vanity said with a smirk quoting one of the movies Jessie had talked about in the podcast and then she decided she would use that on Twitter.

104

Vanity was a head taller as she stood next to Jessie coming down the escalator heading towards baggage claim. They looked like the coolest couple to ever fly into LAX; like they belonged on the cover of a glamour mag. Vanity wore a black dress and Jessie wore a tight black t shirt and black leather jacket. Both in big oversized sunglasses; too many accessories.

Jessie had dyed her hair from blue to bright violet purple and Vanity had one violet streak put in the front of her long straight dark hair to match and they both had violet colored nail polish on.

They had gone shopping for L.A. and Vanity talked Jessie into buying some new jeans. They were black as usual, tight and stretchy and had holes all over the fronts of them and they cost more than she had ever spent on jeans before. Her jeans usually ended up with holes instead of starting out with holes and she wondered if maybe they would work in reverse but thought probably not.

At the bottom of the escalator in the baggage claim area there was a very tall bald guy in a black suit holding a sign that said: DAY. Vanity waved to the driver and he saw them and nodded.

The driver had been a gift from one of the producers that was courting them. He had hired a driver and a limo for them to get around town in for the week. They both thought he wanted to fuck them more then he wanted to work with them but they excepted the gift.

Outside the airport, as the driver was helping them put their bags in the trunk, Jessie thought she saw the black van again; the one from home. She ran from the back of the limo around to the front trying to see if the van had California plates but she couldn't see through the cars and the traffic and Vanity noticed her being weird.

“What are you doing?” Vanity said jokingly.

“That looked like the van.”

105

“Nobody followed you here,” Vanity said. “Trust me.”

They got into the back of the limo and left the airport and traffic was immediately bad and Jessie thought of the first line from a favorite novel which she plagiarized out loud:

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”

The traffic was bumper to bumper and it was noisy and slow and everyone was honking and it had a hard stressed out energy and the fumes were terrible and the sky was bright and blue and clear and it wasn't hot or cold and birds were in the sky and it was L.A.

“Talk about a heavy flow day,” Vanity said laughing at her own joke as she scooted closer to Jessie. Vanity was almost in her lap on the big back seat of the limo.

“I don't think I could deal with this traffic every day.”

“You could ride your bike.”

“I'd get killed.”

Vanity kissed her on the cheek again, being much more affectionate than usual. Jessie was happy to have the attention, and annoyed by the attention, but either way, it wasn't helping with her nerves.

Vanity looked her in the eye and said, “I know this is a bad time to tell you this—”

“Hey!” Jessie said cutting her off holding up her hands and scooting back, “I know you're trying to help me but please, no bad time stuff, ok? I'm sorry, but I can't handle the extra stress right now. I'm stressed out enough. I have these pitches and podcasts and I need to hire an agent and a lawyer. This is a dream come true for me and a nightmare at the same time, ok?”

Vanity sat back in her seat. “Of course, babe. I'm here for you. Listen to me though. Not the thing I was going to say, but something else, something I've been thinking about. This is only going to happen once.”

“Geez Van! Tell me something I don't know!” Jessie said getting upset. “That's part of why I'm stressed out.”

“That's not what I mean,” Vanity said shaking her head. “Not like that.”

106

Vanity looked out the window at the traffic gathering her thoughts and then she said,

“This whole thing is going to happen really fast. Once this is over, you're going to be a pro and you won't be nervous about this stuff at all. You also won't be as excited. Neither of us will be.

We only get to do this once. We only get to make it once. Once in a lifetime, babe. You know what I mean?”

Jessie took a breath and let it out and relaxed a little and she nodded her head and she was happy to have Vanity there.

“So,” Vanity said, “let's enjoy being nervous and in over our heads. We're young and this is the time for it. Cause you know later we're both going to be disillusioned and cynical and jaded as all hell.”

The limo was parked on a hill up a winding road with a view of the Hollywood sign beyond. Vanity was leaning against the limo trying to take the perfect selfie with the Hollywood sign and the limo in the back.

Jessie was on the other side of the street, down a little way, walking back and forth in a gravel pull off, talking on the phone. She couldn't sit and make a phone call and she didn't like to stand in one place either. She would walk around in circles or go on a walk. She had to be in motion; her body following her mind. She paced back and forth in the gravel patch, occasionally glancing up at Vanity and the sign behind her and it was all very surreal and it made her feel even more like life was a dream.

107

On the phone was the fifth or sixth agent she had talked to and he was enthusiastically making his sales pitch like he was trying to sell her an overpriced mattress or an expensive used car.

“I'm going to make you rich and I'm going to make you famous,” he said. “We just have to get you thinking about the four quadrants in your work and you are going to be all over day time television. Day time, night time, all the time. You understand the quadrants, right?”

Jessie was watching Vanity wondering how she did it. The limo driver was out of the car now and was happily assisting her. She was directing him as he took pictures of her, where to stand, how to hold the camera, what angles she wanted. She was a more than capable director.

She knew what she wanted and how to get the people around her to help her get it and to feel like they wanted it too, and maybe that was because they wanted her. She Modeled and posed and directed and she was built for this world, Jessie thought, and for just a second, Jessie envied her for that.

“Jessie? Are you there? Do you know what the quadrants are?”

“Movies are supposed to manipulate four groups of people into buying a ticket, right?

The quadrants? Male, female, over twenty five and under twenty five. Psychological manipulation just like in advertising.”

“That a girl! That's what we do out here in Hollywood! And we make a lot of money

Jessie. We make all the money! Picture this: You and Vanity sitting by an infinity pool that looks out over all of the city of Los Angeles. Now imagine,” he said almost giddy, “you own the house!

That's the kinda money the quadrants bring in, Jessie! All the money!”

Jessie paced and turned and looked up at Vanity again longing for whatever mechanism was at work in her that made it so easy for her.

“I don't care about any of that,” Jessie said into the phone. “I want to make transformational fiction. Stuff that changes people's lives. Stuff that inspires people to be better humans and to live better and love deeper and most of all, to think for themselves. We live in a

108 world where people don't know how to think for themselves. I want to make a difference in the world and I still believe in the power of film and television. It has the largest reach of any medium and if it were used for good, it could change the world for the better. You know what I mean?”

She stood with the phone to her ear, listening, but didn’t hear anything. “Hello?” She took the phone away from her ear and looked at it and it said: Call Ended. “He fucking hung up on me?”

Vanity had now begun to get a bit raunchy for the camera and it was kinda hot and

Jessie took a mental note to pull out a camera later but for right now she figured it was time to go save the limo driver from having a heart attack.

Jessie walked back over to the two of them and the driver handed Vanity back her phone as she was pulling down her dress and he opened the door for both of them.

“How was that one?” Vanity asked climbing into the limo.

“The fucker hung up on me, which, honestly, is better than normal.” Jessie said getting in behind her. “They usually just lie to me and make me a bunch of promises they can't keep, telling me they'll get me the world, the key to the city, the red carpet, the money, the fame, the blow jobs, the glory. Game over. You win. You're the champion of the world—I feel like I've already been around the block and I just got to L.A.”

“I just talked to an agent who told me I will be able to buy my mom a house with all the money I'm going to be making,” Vanity said. “How fucked up is that?”

“Soulless prick. What an idiot,” Jessie said. “Why did God make these people?”

“These people are proof that God doesn’t exist,” Vanity said.

“I have that meeting with Mr. Bids tomorrow. This guy is a piece of work already. His secretary called me to set it up.”

“He didn't even call you himself?”

109

She shook her head. “His secretary said he knows exactly what I want and he can make all my Hollywood dreams come true. No question about it.”

“Why even take that meeting? From everything I hear he sounds like the human equivalent of dog shit mixed with cat shit smashed between two hundred dollar bills.”

“I don't know. Seriously though, why are these people?”

“Why are these people? That is the question.”

Vanity was horny from taking pictures and she slid close to Jessie and started to bite her lip and open her legs and slowly hike up her dress.

“Apparently, I'm lucky this guy is even meeting me.” Jessie said shaking her head. “I'm starting to think this was a bad idea.” She thought for a minute as Vanity slid her panties off from under the black dress. “Is it really like this? Can it really be like this?”

Vanity grabbed Jessie's hand and slid it between her legs and she was dripping and

Jessie said, “Wow. The photos? You were born for this industry.” As she leaned over and Vanity flicked out her tongue licking Jessie's lips and Jessie stuck out her tongue and they rolled their tongues around each other’s and Vanity had some special skill in this area and it always got

Jessie really hot.

“We have to break the limo in,” Vanity said. “We're going to have to make best use of this gift cause with this traffic, we're going to spend half the week in this limo.”

Jessie kissed her deeply and gently rubbed her dripping slit as her fingers slid inside and

Vanity moaned.

“Vanity, you are so incredibly gorgeous it should be illegal.”

Vanity smiled, “Tell me about it. I get horny just looking at myself. Shoes on or off mommy?”

“Leave them on for now,” Jessie said. “But let's get that dress hiked up like a good girl.

Uwww. Now that's a good girl—Hey Bill, can you roll up the window and give us a little privacy.

And can you play somethin bumpin?”

110

Bill laughed and said, “You got it, Jessie.”

Jessie pulled out her iPhone and she said, “Let's see what we can do with this,” as G6 bumped through the limo’s speakers.

Jessie was sitting in the well decorated studio of the biggest Podcasts in the world.

“Just go ahead and pull the mic down to your face. Keep it about a fist away.”

“Ok. Sorry,” she said obviously nervous.

“You don't need to be sorry. It happens a lot. We just want to make sure everyone can hear what you have to say.”

“Ok. I'm nervous. This is a big deal.”

“You want a drink?”

“Yes! Thank you.”

“Usually, we have whiskey but I have some really good scotch that was just sent to me.

Allegedly, it’s really good. I’m not a big scotch drinker but my friend’s trying to get me into it. You drink scotch?”

“I put it in my cereal.”

He laughed. “How much you want?”

“Like a full glass.”

He poured her a half a glass of scotch and handed it to her and she downed it and handed it back.

“Beast mode. You’ve done this before, girl.”

“Like a baby to the titty.”

111

He laughed and filled it and handed it back and said, “Don't get too drunk on me. This goes on for awhile.”

“I won't. I'm good. I'll sip this one. Thank you!”

“No problem. Better we do this off air. Don't be nervous. You're safe here.”

“I definitely feel safe in certain ways, Joe. This might be one of the safest rooms in L.A. on one level.”

He laughed, “In certain ways it probably is. Ok. We ready?” He asked his Jessie.

“Yeah,” his Jessie said.

“You ready?” He asked Jessie.

“Let's do this.”

“3,2,1, and we are live. Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the show.” The intro played and he introduced her and said, “Thanks for being here.”

“Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time actually. Since before the podcast blew up.”

“Fear Factor?”

“No. Sorry, but no. I hate reality TV bullshit. And I don’t like to use the word hate.”

“It's ok. It was a useful stepping stone. I’m glad I got past it.”

“I read this book about DMT when I was young and was really intrigued. And then I did research and made DMT but also, I came across you talking about it. Not a lot of people were speaking about it openly and about psychedelics openly either, cause most people are bitch ass cowards. You were talking about psychedelics openly long before it was a safe topic, which

Pollan's book seems to have helped with—which is an argument for the power of books to transform our world—but my psychedelic nerd friends and I were all fans of yours because you talked about it and described the experiences we were having. That was a cool thing to do. You were one of us. I have always thought of you as a hippie in disguise.”

112

He laughed. “A hippie in bro drag. I'm glad I could be an inspiration,” he said and laughed.” I don't even want to know how old you were.”

She laughed too, “No you don't.”

“DMT is so crazy because it makes this reality seem like it’s the hallucination,” Joe said.

“That’s the really trippy thing about it. LSD and mushrooms and everything else is like a dream within this dream. DMT is like someone unplugged the machine.”

“Which can be terrifying,” she said, “If you’re not ready. It seems like the only one that really does that. I feel like other psychedelics give you some answers about what life is. DMT raises more questions than it answers.”

“Yeah,” he said, “You feel the interconnectedness of all things and see people as all being one and maybe you drop your ego for a minute and see through your own bullshit.”

“Yes! But not DMT, it’s like Holy Shit! What the fuck! Reality isn’t real. Like we’re in a hologram of some kind. Or like simulation theory is actually real.”

“Yeah. It’s a crazy one. Hard to sort out.”

“It is. It’s hard to integrate the experience I think,” she said.

“This is your first time in L.A.?”

“Yep. Popping my L.A. cherry. Talk about surreal.”

“That's crazy. You come to L.A. and you’re fully immersed in the entertainment industry.

I guess that’s a thing that happens to people. How do you like L.A. so far?”

“The traffic sucks.”

“The traffic is a nightmare. I’ve thought about leaving because of it.”

“The weather is great. It's wonderful to be surrounded by so many geniuses. What's the plural form of the word genius anyway? That's something I never had to think about before coming to L.A.”

113

He laughed, “The plural of genius? I'd have to look it up. People use the word genius here like it's a non-binary pronoun. In the movie industry, but also throughout the entertainment industry.”

“Not at all!” she said sarcastically. “As soon as I got off the plane I started hearing about how much of a genius I am and then about all the other geniuses that are working out here.”

She continued in a mock accent, “You're a genius! He's a genius! She's a genius! Wait till you meet this genius! Geniuses everywhere. I had no idea L.A. was stockpiling all the world's geniuses. Piles of geniuses. Piles and piles. Must be really hard for these geniuses to get stuff made though because I can't remember the last time I saw a Hollywood movie that I thought was genius--but I do like L.A. How does that old joke go? It's like a fungus? It grows on you.”

He laughed. “I heard you write so much that you wear out keyboards.”

“I break keyboards like Rockstar’s break guitar strings.”

“How is that even possible? What are you, fifty pounds? I could bench press six or seven of you, and I write, and I don't break keyboards.”

“I can get to wailing on the keys. You gotta bend that shit! Hammer the keys! You gotta type like you mean it. Like you’re making art, or going to war, or both. Get serious about it. All this fuckin around. I'm not a secretary.”

He laughed. “Are you saying I type like a secretary?”

She shrugged and held up her hands and said, “like Biggy Smalls said, ‘I’m playin, but

I’m sayin.’”

He laughed and said, “You love writing.”

“I love writing. I don't see how you could do it if you didn't love it. It's so hard and you spend half your life alone. Hemingway said that at its best, writing is a very lonely life. Writing is a job or a thing that when people talk about it, they all say how hard it is. It’s like Universally agreed upon. Musicians don’t say that. Painters don’t say that. So, why do it if you don't love it?

Learn to paint or play guitar or something you love if you don't love writing. When I'm really

114 locked into a piece of writing there is nothing better. Riding my bike through the city is a close second, though. Riding really fast. If I could just write and ride my bike, I'd be cumming all the time.”

He laughed at the reference, “You can write a song in an hour or whatever and then you can play it for someone in five minutes. You can share and get feedback on the thing you’re creating. Jokes are like that too. I can write a joke and go onstage with it tonight, and if it bombs,

I can fix it or write another one.”

“Yes!” she said, “That’s part of what I think people don’t understand. If you write even a short story it takes a commitment from people to actually read it. A painting or song is so easy for the audience. Writing a novel, you might spend two or three years before you get feedback on it. It’s real hard for a bunch of different reasons.”

“What happened with you and Lena Dunham? You want to talk about it? You were critical of the show or something? There was some big controversy.”

“I wasn't being critical. This is why I hate social media and don't use it. I was having a conversation about how I would do a show like Girls, and obviously, I have a different experience and different ideas and the whole thing was one of those things that gets taken completely out of context. I have never even been to New York so like, that’s not the show I would make.”

“It's really common in this click bait world where they are constantly trying to make everything into drama. Everything is taken out of context to start shit so they get views.”

“That's exactly it. It was some comment taken out of context to start a fight between

Lena Dunham and me and it was ridiculous. Girls is an attempt to make something that is real and almost like modern life, as close as you can get in the medium. But it's close. Closer than any reality TV show, which is kinda ridiculous if you think about how many people watch reality

TV. Girls is great. It's the portrait of an artist as a young woman in the modern world. What is

115 there to be critical about? If anything, Girls is one of those things as a writer, you see it and you're a little bit jelly.”

“Like jealous because it's so good and you didn't write it?”

“I think saying Jelly to me is different than jealousy or envy. Jealousy and envy are both negative emotions to me. Jelly is like you feel a bit of that but it's also coupled with admiration for the creator's accomplishment and then you feel inspired by what they did.”

“I get that. I feel that way now when I see a really great bit or a really great set in comedy.”

“Totally. I think as a human, and as a human with a vagina, when I see something that is really beautiful like Girls, I feel some pride too. I'm proud of the studio for making it, HBO of course, and for everyone involved. The audience for responding to it. So, to say that I'm a jealous hater or envious of Lena or Judd or anyone involved is silly. Do I want a banging hit show on HBO? Fuck yeah I do, but Girls and other great shows are testaments to what the possibilities are for those mediums and in this new era of creation. Girls broke ground and paved the way for the next generation. Same as it ever was.”

“I totally get that feeling. I feel that way doing comedy. When you hear a certain joke, it's like, damn. It almost hurts and you're happy for them and also inspired by it. It's not a negative thing. It’s positive and you can feed off of it in a positive way. People do have negative reactions though.”

“You have to turn that energy into the energy of inspiration. I think it’s a choice and also something that comes with maturity. What do you think about being called a content creator?”

Jessie said.

“I don’t really give a shit what people say about me.” Joe said. “People talk all kinds a shit. Let em talk.”

“Whoa!” Jessie said. “Deja vu! Big time deja vu!”

“You just had deja vu?”

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“I’m sort of having it right now. Damn. That was really strong deja vu. Like the strongest deja vu ever.”

“What does that feel like for you?”

“It kinda feels like life is a dream, and remembering something I’ve seen or somewhere that I’ve already been, at the same time.”

“You have any theories about what it means or what it is?”

“Deja vu? Like we’re in a movie. Or like life is a dream we recognize occasionally and we have this memorable moment of deja vu. It's like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm in the dream of life. I know this dream!’ And then the power of our thoughts, like gravity, just brings us back. The power of the self. Someone told me that deja vu happens because we are all God and god is omniscient and we know everything already. Someone said it is that and I think that is an interesting theory.”

“Now you’re talking about being God and all of us being God. You’re living up to your name, Hollywood Jesus.”

They both laugh.

“Well, you know Joe, fiction used to be the moral compass of the world. The thing that could change and direct people's lives. Myths and storytelling did that for people for a very long long time. Religion was supposed to be the new moral compass, but a few ten thousand altar boys and a bunch of bomb strapping and clit cutting and magic underwear wearing—not to mention whatever cult mess Scientology is—that one is like Jonestown bad—all of that bullshit has really fucked up the experience of religion for people and for the planet. So, maybe we do need a Jesus figure, I’m not it though. I’m just a writer with something to say and nothing to lose. Humans are starving for truth and intelligent discourse and the popularity of this show is a testament to that. The human species loves this show because it’s about exploring the truth through intellectual conversations. You’re smart and hardworking, Joe, but you’re also sort of every man. You’re very smart of course, but in a way, you’re relatable is what I mean and I think that’s part of it. And you’re honest and seeking answers and not acting like you have all the

117 answers. That sort of reminds me, I wanted to ask you—Joe, do you ever think that maybe you are the new moral compass of the species? Your show? And all the conversations you have on it?”

They were late for the big pitch walking quickly through a maze of glass offices. Jessie was juggling her backpack and some rolled up posters and another bag and juggling everything and Vanity was walking beside her and she wasn't carrying anything. The posters were cumbersome and coming unrolled. They were unruly unwieldy things and Jessie was struggling and hurrying and struggling because she was hurrying. It was all adding to the stress and the buzz she still had from all the scotch wasn’t helping.

“Can you take these posters?”

“I really don't think you need any of this.”

“I need visual aids!”

Jessie was stressed out and nervous. She was tired already and the pressure was getting to her. They were following behind an expensively dressed receptionist and once they reached the glass conference room, that was full of new Hollywood executives, she stepped out of the way.

“How do I look?” Jessie said.

“I'd fuck you,” Vanity said. “Would you fuck me?”

Jessie looked her down and up, “Definitely, I would fuck you.”

“No, I'd fuck you.”

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“No. I'd fuck you.”

“I’d fuck me.”

The receptionist was looking at them like they were ridiculous.

They kissed and then Jessie said, “This is it. Be sexy and distracting and flirty, but don't overdo it. I want them to like us, but I don't want them to think we're not real artists. Sexy and smart.”

“I know all this.”

Vanity pulled the glass door open for Jessie who walked past her into the conference room carrying the armloads of props and said, “I'm so sorry we’re late! Our scheduling didn't account for all the traffic in this town.”

Everyone in this room looked the same. They were different races and genders but they could all be replaced with robots and you'd never know. They were like the fembots or the

Stepford wives or whack a moles. They were all tall and attractive and wore all the same designer clothing that looked special and different but wasn’t special or different. Combined, the clothing in this room could finance a small maybe brilliant indie feature; maybe just for the collective cost of their sunglasses.

“The traffic is terrible here,” a woman said, the one who seemed to be leading the meeting on the executive side. “We listened to the podcast while we were waiting. We know you had to come across town right after for this, so don't worry about it.”

Jessie's mind was racing now because they were all very cold and she just bashed the shit out of Hollywood all over that podcast, the Hollywood system, and now here she was pitching to it.

She looked at Vanity who was taking a seat next to the head of the table where she would be standing to pitch. Vanity just shrugged like, what can you do?

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She looked around the room and realized there was no time or place for her to hang the posters and all the props were useless. And then Jessie took a breath and thought, fuck em all.

The executives went around the room introducing themselves which Jessie thought was nice and once they finished it was Vanity's turn. She introduced herself and said, “I'm a huge

BoJack Fan. Love that show. Also really loved, Hot Girls Wanted. Rashida Jones is so great.

Love the direction. Both of those shows are deep and sexy.”

“I’ve never heard anyone refer to BoJack as sexy,” one of the executives said.

“Are you kidding me? That show is so sexy. I mean, we all know about the anatomy of a horse.”

The whole table laughed. Vanity nailed the ice breaker. She looked up at Jessie who was standing looking like a deer in headlights. Vanity gave her a nod. Jessie realized she was still a little bit buzzed from all the scotch as she started her pitch.

“Ok! We’re here to pitch a movie, but first I want to talk to you about what I'm about and to do that I want to talk about three of the deepest films I have ever seen.”

At first awkward, she continued.

“These examples are not indie films, they are not experimental French films, they are not low budget Avant Garde art films. They are big budget American movies. Produced by major

Hollywood studios. They all made a ton of money at the box office with great merchandising opportunities afterward and they are still three of the most profitable movies of all time and they are also three of my favorite movies and Vanity’s too.”

The executives started to become attentive and interested. Jessie's passion was Steve

Jobs magnetic and the room was sucked into her own version of the reality distortion field as she continued.

“Each one of these movies is thematically grounded in a spiritual or philosophical tradition with far ranging ideas rooted deeply in the human psyche and they are irresistibly appealing to individuals from completely different backgrounds because they are all aspects of

120 what Aldus Huxley wrote about in, The Perennial Philosophy. The philosophy or truth that is the ground of all of our lives. Spirituality is the key to the success of all three of these franchises and all three of these movies are also textbook examples of the hero’s journey, which is also my issue with them, but I will come back to that. The hero’s journey has universal appeal because it is the story of all of us. The three movies I’m referring to are the og, sci fi, super hero epics: Star

Wars, The Matrix, and Avatar. I like nostalgia as much as the next girl, but what I like more is substance and depth, and all three of these movies took substance and depth to another level using aspects of philosophy and human spirituality to tell deep, resonant stories.

Star Wars uses the samurai philosophies derived from the Zen and Taoist masters that focused on attuning oneself with the underlying energy of the Universe, which Star Wars calls, the force. Taoism called it, the Tao. The Jedi, like the samurai, are minimalists who live their lives to serve the greatest good while practicing self mastery and attuning to the force or the

Tao.

The Matrix uses Plato's cave, the old philosophical idea that we aren’t experiencing the true form of reality. They turned that into a version of simulation theory. The film is full of eastern philosophical wisdom with ideas as far ranging as right action and free will and the nature of the self as a construct, and the nature of reality as a construct.

Avatar is arguably the most political of the three movies, the main political point being that the capitalistic system is an extension of the greed of individuals who will sociopathically seek profits at all cost. The movie, similarly, has ideas about the nature of consciousness and the very shamanitic idea that nature is conscious and that we are connected to that consciousness in such a deep way as to be able to travel from one life form to another.

The idea that reality has an underlying field that we can all tap into is a major theme in all of these movies. In all three of these franchises, the hero, through selfless service to the greatest good, overcomes dark forces and ultimately learns how to connect with reality or

121 manipulate it in order to defeat these darker forces--forces that are oppressive, selfish, or greedy.

Eastern philosophy, western philosophy, Zen, Buddhism, Taoism, simulation theory,

Native American spirituality, Shamanism. All three of these films resonated deeply with audiences, not because of how many explosions or the appeal of the actors on the quadrants, it was about deep human connections that transcend all the quadrants. Every human, whether they realize it or not, is a spiritual being, and movies like Star Wars, Avatar, and Matrix resonate at the deepest levels of our human collective consciousness and our individual experience. We are all Luke, or Neo, or Jake going on our own life changing spiritual journeys. That is all of us and it’s why these movies are three of the highest grossing films of all time. Deep resonance on a spiritual level.

On the opposite end, you have the dumpster fire that is Wonder Woman. Nothing spiritual about it and it’s degrading to women. In the middle of the film this ‘wonder’ of a woman, not knowing how to blend in, has her male partner help her. Superman has no problem figuring out how to look normal. Batman? Not a problem. Wonder Woman is a moron though, so she can’t survive without a man. Common sense isn’t something a woman possesses according to the movie—Women are helpless without a man, according to the movie.

Star Wars used the Zen Buddhism of the Samurai and very famously, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung’s ideas about archetypes and the hero's journey. Matrix and Avatar borrow from

Star Wars and also use the hero’s journey. Matrix used Plato's cave, an old version of simulation theory, and it used the hero's journey as well and the story of the savior or the story of Jesus, or whatever, pick your savior. Avatar is a hippie movie about capitalism's sociopathic need for profit at all costs and it’s about the interconnectedness of all living things and mother nature or the idea of the Gaia, or that nature has a consciousness. Again. To reiterate: All three of these films are about human spirituality and connection. They all have a theme of the force, or an unseen unknown connection to matter that can be harnessed. All three of these movies hit

122 the biggest and most Universal theme that has nothing to do with race or sex, it’s deeper than all of that. It’s the deepest—the g spot of the species.” Jessie held her hands up in the air like she was in church and said, “Spiritual truth…My bitch about them is that not one of these mega franchises has a female lead. Not one of them has a female protagonist. I could actually make a strong argument that there have only ever been a couple strong original female superheros in all of cinema and they were Beatrix Kiddo in the Kill Bill Volumes and then of course, Katniss

Everdeen…Tomb Raider doesn’t count because it’s a hack rip off of Indie and one could argue her sex is overemphasized as opposed to the other examples.

Like it says in Avatar, I don’t want your shareholders to have a bad quarter. I’m not a savage. I want to make money, money, money, num, num, num—but—I also want to make stuff

I’m proud of. I can’t imagine spending my life making empty entertainment. McMovies. A billion dollars wouldn’t fix the brokenness I would feel from wasting my life...Raise your hand if you have been in a comic book store recently.”

Not a single hand went up.

“Wow. Ok. Well—I’m surprised and also not. I’m sure you are all very busy—If any of you had, what you would have seen is: Titties! Titties titties titties everywhere. Lots and lots and lots of titties. Why?”

Nobody volunteered a response.

“Because men ages fifteen to thirty five love women and they love titties. They love to look at them and fantasize about them and jack off to them. They love titties and pussys.”

The room giggled.

“Women enjoy having real female characters to look up to and root for and men can’t help themselves but fall all over a great female character—But not a single one of the thoughtful, deep, mega franchises I mentioned has a female protagonist. Why? I could make an argument that Stranger Things is popular because it’s about a female character, a superhero, who harnesses the force, or the simulation, or the spirit of nature, or whatever, just like in the

123 franchises I talked about. Unfortunately for all of us, Stranger Things has chosen not to be about anything. It’s chosen to be shallow, which is sad. In the first season, it seemed like the show had something to say and obviously MK Ultra and the CIA using Nazi doctors to run LSD experiments on prisoners and using psychics to find criminals--all that is real--and I thought that was the direction the show was going in, but no. It wasn’t. It’s just more Americana and banal nostalgia and jerking off the quadrants.”

Jessie paused to gauge how they took the criticism, which was part of her interviewing them. If they couldn’t listen to honest criticism, even harsh, she figured they didn’t really care about quality and she didn’t want to work there. Quality was about self examination and the desire to get better, even if it hurt.

“Ok,” she said satisfied, “Enough about other stuff. The movie we’re here to pitch is this:

What if an indie love story like Lost in Translation and a sci fi action adventure film had a baby and that baby was deeper than the Matrix, Avatar, and Star Wars combined?”

She paused again dramatically.

“I’ve written the first screenplay for a trilogy I want to direct. I’m going to cast Vanity to play the lead character whose name is Lila. Lila is the story of a young woman's journey to understand what all of reality is. The totality of reality. In the beginning she is in a relationship with an elite capitalist who loves her very much, but treats her like a possession. Her life changes when she meets another free spirited young woman named Law, who helps her find the courage to break out of the oppressive chains of the patriarchy and these two bad ass chicks go on an interdimensional, spiritual journey, searching for the meaning and genesis of life while kicking ass and taking names. It’s an epic, interdimensional, Thelma and Louis type story but it’s a romance as well and it’s very modern. They adventure together while Lila undergoes a process of spiritual transformation and realization that ultimately leaves her spiritually enlightened and with them both finding the meaning of life. Along the way, the two of them travel through space and time together fucking up rapists and bigots and freeing sex slaves and the

124 oppressed and creating peace and harmony in the Universe, while they are also being chased by forces or aspects of the illusion, Maya and Mara and a character that is actually belief itself— that would never have them find the truth or the meaning of life or the genesis of reality. These forces are hostile because they have a great stake in keeping the simulation going and they think if she finds the genesis it could mean the end of the Universe itself.”

She paused, catching her breath.

“It has a big love story element, just like Matrix, Star Wars, and Avatar, although, I went a little heavier on the sap because I'm kinda sappy.”

The room giggled.

“I hate, hate, hate, CGI. So, I want to use old school techniques like they did with

Robocop and Tremors and Bladerunner, which will also keep the budget down. I also have this idea visually to do something like Linklater did, but only partly. An overlay. I also love the idea of mixing cartoons in like Tarantino did in Kill Bill, but I want to do it more and different and better.”

She noticed at least one person roll their eyes at this and she smiled a little on the inside as she continued.

“I am writing and creating strong female characters that don't need men to figure out how to wipe their asses. And young boys and men, fifteen to thirty five will love these women because they are strong and independent and that is the sexiest thing ever. And, young women will, for the first time, actually have characters to relate to and look up to the way young boys have had the action heroes of the eighties and the superheroes of the early mill.”

She looked around the room making strong eye contact with each one of them.

“I'm here to pitch this because I believe there is a new form of media emerging and I want to be one of the early voices of this new generation and part of the next wave of great cinema. People told me not to try to make anything good in Hollywood, that I would just go nuts here—but I don't believe that.”

She folded her hands in front of her heart as she continued.

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“I have been encouraged to take as much money as I can get to make some terrible garbage that is going to pack the movie houses on a global level only because of marketing and hype and make a billion dollars and then be forgotten tomorrow and never really have a cultural impact. They tell me if I do that, I will be the darling of the industry. As you can probably tell, I'm not very darling.”

The room giggled again.

“This is a different kind of studio and production company and I am a different kind of screenwriter and a new kind of director—You can think of me as Quentin Tarantino and Charlie

Kaufman’s bastard.

The old guard is dying and together we can be the next generation. We can be the new guard, where the Avant Garde film meets the studio movie and real cinema magic happens.

Magic I still believe in. I want to make things that pack theaters, or get people to sign up for streaming services, not for a couple months, but for decades. I want to make things that transcend the common, and that are also sexy, and that have the spirit of enlightenment in them. I want to make things that will be remembered forever, that will make a dent in the

Universe, that can change and impact the world and I still believe in the power of fiction. Make no mistake, I’m going to make something that changes the world and I’d love to do that here at this studio.”

There was an unreadable silence in the room. A chair swiveled. A pen ticked against the table. A phone vibrated.

The executives began to come out of the daze that Jessie fostered in her audiences and like a bunch of Mr. Smiths they all looked at each other. Nobody said anything, and then the head executive spoke. “Who is representing you? Do you have an agent yet?”

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Vanity and Jessie were standing out in the studio lot trying to figure out what to do next.

Jessie was pacing back and forth and smoking a cigarette, hating the taste, but nervous reading their itinerary off her phone. “I need to meet this agent and you have Russell and then we have dinner tonight—these things are terrible, why do people smoke these?”

“Can you go see agent asshole without me? You think you can handle him?”

“At this point I'm eating these mofo's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Ok. Ok. Ok. Then I'm going to Uber to the podcast and meet you back at the hotel. And we can get ready and go to dinner?”

“I’m so tired. I'm so fucking tired.”

“Me too,” Vanity said opening her phone, “I'm going to summon an Uber. It's almost over babe. Two more days. Then we can go home and sleep for a week.”

The driver took Jessie to the studio where she was supposed to be meeting the agent. It wasn’t far away from where she was and they arrived slightly early since she was planning on dropping Vanity off first, but the agent said he was ready via text, so the driver took her over.

He was standing on the sidewalk talking on the phone and she could see him through the window of the limo as they pulled up. He was leading man handsome; in a light grey suit.

She didn't know anything about suits but it was obviously expensive. Everything about him looked like money. Even his hair cut. Her immediate reaction was attraction. He was sexy, she thought. He had even done some acting early in his career until he realized it was easier to make money off of other people’s talents. The driver pulled up out of traffic and parked the limo and the agent waited for the driver to get out and come around to the door to let him in and the attraction Jessie initially felt disappeared as she realized that this guy was definitely a prick and she almost told Bill to pull away and just keep going. The agent had a copy of her script in his

127 hand though, and her own curiosity, mixed with a mild narcissism, kept her from saying anything.

She could hear the entire conversation he was having on his cell phone, “Yea, yea, yea,” he said. “I'm meeting with one now. Give me about thirty minutes and I'll be more relaxed and I'll call you back.” He laughed and then hung up as the driver opened the door.

He slid onto the seat next to her and the driver shut the door and walked back around the limo and got in and started the limo and the agent yelled at him from the back, “Put the window up and just drive around the block.” The driver rolled up the window and the agent looked through his phone.

Jessie was sitting with her knees and feet up on the seat, curled up next to him, waiting for him to talk and she was cuter than he imagined and now he was actually excited. “I need to make one more phone call,” he said. “Do you want to blow me while I'm on the phone and then we can talk after?”

She was confused, not sure if he was kidding, “What?”

He shook his head and started to make the call with one hand and unzipped his pants with the other and pulled his cock out. It was not small. Her mouth opened, but not for it. She was shocked.

Her eyes grew big, as did it, as he made his call. Her mouth agape.

“I'm in a meeting,” he said into the phone, “she won't be talking for a few minutes,” he said laughing into the phone. “No, I'm going to be late tonight, but racket ball and then courtside tomorrow night.”

He realized she wasn’t sucking his dick and he snapped his fingers at her and pointed to his big throbbing cock and she just stared at it in complete and utter amazement.

“Hold on a second,” he said into the phone, “I thought I was on the same page as my potential client, but it would seem otherwise. It looks like I'm going to have a problem here.” He hung up the phone, pissed off now.

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“What is your problem?” He said, “You open your mouth and stick it in until I shoot my load into the back of your throat and then you swallow and we sign papers. What did you think this was going to be? About your script?” He laughed. “Your script is an unmakeable piece of shit.”

Now she was even more shocked as he continued talking with his big hard cock throbbing shamelessly. “It doesn't matter that your script is shit. I could sell a heart attack.” He laughed. “I could sell cancer. I need to make a call.” He started to make another call. His cock throbbing out of his suit pants, bobbing slightly. “It's not going to suck itself,” he said, “It's ok that you can't write for shit,” he said. “I’m still willing to rep you. I can leverage your fame even if you don’t have any talent.”

She started to reach for it almost reflexively, robotically, as an act of kindness, then she said, “What am I getting out of this?”

He sighed annoyed at the talking and said, “I will probably sell your shit script for millions. I'm thinking I can get two point five or three. I triangulate a bidding war, which is my thing. My specialty. Play all sides of the court. I’ll make sure we get some back end of whatever gets made. Likely a franchise. You'll be rich. You’ll never have to work again. They'll gut it. Bring in someone who knows what people want to see, real studio writers who understand how to make a quality studio movie. The quadrants. But it will still have your name on it and you'll promote it glowingly. It will hit the box office like a freight train and everyone gets rich. You'll never have to work again. Like I said. I'm offering you wealth and fame beyond most everyone's dreams. I'm going to lose my hard on here.”

She started to reach her hand out for it again and he said, “That's a good girl. Take that big fat cock.”

She stopped and pulled her hand back and shook her head.

“It can't be like this.”

“It's like this.”

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“How many blow jobs is enough?” She asked.

“Excuse me?”

“How many blow jobs is enough?”

“That's like asking, how much money is enough.”

“Isn't that a valid question?”

“You're not understanding the situation,” he said. “Cock goes in. Words don't come out.”

He really looked at her for the first time, seeing now what he didn't see and then he realized he might have miscalculated. “You're not one of the fun ones, are you?” He said and shrugged and tucked his dick back into his pants and zipped up and pushed the button for the driver and when the window came down, he yelled, “Around the block and pull over.”

“That's it?” Jessie said. “I don't want to suck your dick so that's it?”

“Listen to me. You might be—I don't know what—but your work will never get made in this town.”

“Are you going to get me blacklisted?”

He laughed. “They're humoring you with all these meetings. They don't have real jobs so these meetings are all they have. One of the things you're going to learn about this town, and about the world, is that the people with money don't actually work, so they have to do things to fill up their time. Pointless phone calls, meetings, lunches, dinners, movie screenings. That way when they go home to their million dollar mansion in the hills and their wives and husbands ask what they did today, they can say they are exhausted from all the meetings they had. Meetings don't mean shit.”

“Why do this?” Jessie asked. “Why live like this?”

“Are you serious? Driver!”

“I am. Money and sex and money and sex. I don't get it. I really don't get it. You have the most powerful life transforming media machine in the history of the world and all you want to do is get blowjobs and make money?”

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“You're really that naive?” He said. “It's not about money or sex. It's about power and control. This is America. It's about knowing that the talent, an actor or actress or whoever, not usually a writer, but whoever, blew you and now every little girl in the country is watching her looking up to her and wanting to be just like her. That's power. That's control.”

She was silent as he continued.

“I'm yuppie scum. Is that what you want to hear? I'm the bad guy? Wake the fuck up! I have helped make some of the best movies that have ever come out of this town. My friends, who would do so much worse to you and expect so much more, they have made most of the movies you love. Do you have any idea how many of the supposedly, ‘talented’, ‘geniuses’ you know who have swallowed my load or someone else's load? You're not special. This isn't about

Hollywood. This is about Earth. This is the system.”

The driver pulled over as the agent continued, “When they offer you the big money for some dog shit tent pole movie we all know is garbage, just take it. You're being offered a chance to join the financial elite. Don't be stupid.”

He opened the door as his phone rang and he stepped out onto the curb.

“Hey,” Jessie said before he shut the door. “Are you going to blacklist me?”

He made a sound that was probably a laugh and said, “No. I'm not going to blacklist you because little bitches like you get themselves blacklisted without my help. There are realities that we all have to face, and little faggot dreamer girls who don't face reality don't last long in this town. This is a business, and business is business. I'm not going to blacklist you, Jessie, because you're going to blacklist yourself.”

“It can't be like this,” she said.

“This is Earth,” he laughed. “You said it yourself on the podcast, even the Altar Boys have to suck cock. Welcome to Hell,” and then he slammed the door and answered the phone.

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Alone in the limo, the futility hit her like a rogue wave, her heart broke, and it was physically painful and she pressed her palm into her chest as she slid off the leather seats and onto her knees on the floor and she started to cry knowing what he said was true.

She felt the pain of futility in a way she hadn't since the night of the play, all of the pain came flooding back into her and she wished, of all things, that she had just sucked his dick, which might have pacified them both, and maybe then everything would have been ok, because now she knew that it wouldn't be, maybe not ever.

The limo took her back to the Chateau Marmont. She opened the hotel room door and dumped her stuff on the counter. The bathroom door was closed and the shower was running and Vanity was singing and Jessie went directly to the mini bar and opened it and took out a handful of small bottles. She immediately opened a bottle of whiskey and downed it. This, she thought, is how an alcoholic is made. She grabbed a glass and filled it with some ice that was still in the bucket and she dumped a bottle of rum and a bottle of vodka and a bottle of whiskey into the glass and topped it off with a splash of coke and sipped it.

She fell onto the big fluffy bed feeling sick and tired and like she could sleep for a year or two and feel good about it and have zero fomo.

The shower turned off and after a couple minutes Vanity came out of the bathroom naked with a towel wrapped around her head.

“How did it go with the power agent?”

“Not a good fit. How was the podcast?”

132

“It was great, actually. You should go on there. You and Russell are like soulmates,

Jessie. Seriously. Russell is real cool and real sweet. And super hot. And vegan. And into yoga and meditation. You would really get along, Jessie. There are some good people in this business. He invited us to come to dinner one night if we want. And I do want. I want to go to there,” she said.

“Ok, yeah.”

“Are you drinking already?”

“I'm not going to make dinner tonight. Can you go without me?”

“I'll just cancel and we can stay in. I'm tired too. They will understand. We had a big day.”

“Are you sure you won't mind? I know you want to meet all the people.”

“We can meet them later. Let's order something and watch movies.”

“No movies! Fuck movies!”

Vanity was slightly surprised. “Ok, babe. No problem. Are you ok?”

“I'm just tired.”

“Ok. How about we get drunk and high and listen to music?”

Vanity took Jessie's drink and sipped it and said, “that's awful.” And then she set it on the floor and laid on top of Jessie, pushing her still wet body into her and said, “Tell me I muse you.”

“You muse me,” Jessie said as she kissed Vanity’s cheek.

“You muse me.”

“Are you sure you're ok with skipping dinner?”

“Baby, I'm tired too. I don't want to meet everyone tired.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

133

The room service cart was pushed next to the door and looked like a car that had been left overnight in a crime ridden part of the world. It was stripped and decimated.

They were into their second bottle of Cristal. Netflix was on and they were watching

BoJack. Jessie was sitting at the table facing the room so she could see Vanity and the TV while writing on her laptop. She was writing more out of compulsion than anything, but working on a series of letters to people she thought she might want to work with. Both of them were in t shirts and underwear.

Vanity was jumping up and down on the bed starting to get restless as it got later into the night, something that wasn't uncommon; Jessie knew that the vampire came out at night. Vanity usually got her second wind around ten pm.

“I think you are a workaholic,” Vanity said as she jumped up and down on the bed, her boobs bouncing with her and the pillow she was holding and then, “Can we have a pillow fight in our underwear?”

“We'll just do all the cliched male erotic fantasies for ourselves?”

“Why not? As long as we don’t hurt anyone, we can do what we want. Speaking of which.”

Vanity dropped the pillow and fell to her knees near the edge of the bed and opened the bedside drawer and pulled out a joint and a lighter. She put the joint in her mouth and sparked it and took a big hit, filling her lungs with smoke and then she exhaled a cloud of ghostly grey and then did it again.

“Is that pot you are smoking young lady?”

Vanity laughed, “Why yes, it is.”

“I thought you didn't do soft drugs?”

“I do not usually do pussy ass soft drugs. You are correct, but tonight I do. I have a flexible moral fabric when it suits me,” she said half jokingly.

Jessie laughed and Vanity said, “I muse you. I know I muse you.”

134

“You muse me,” Jessie said nodding.

“You muse me,” Vanity said and then looked at the TV and said, “You know you kinda look like Diane. You're smaller and even more pail and dare I say, cuter, but Diane is cute too.

You're a lot like Diane's character in some ways. That's your archetype, I guess.”

“The Universe was created with patterns and we're all just archetypes. Fractals and

Fibonacci and phi and patterns within, and patterns without,” Jessie said.

“You're a genius though and Diane is just real smart.”

“Vanity!” Jessie started to get upset.

“Awe! The genius doesn't like being called a genius!”

“Vanity, please don't tease me. I had a hard day and you know I don't like being teased.”

Vanity sat on her knees with a pouty lip and said, “I'm sorry.”

Jessie sighed hard out of her nostrils and said, “I don't know how I feel about being compared to Diane. Now I'm going to be thinking about that when I watch the show. Does that make you BoJack?”

“He's a has been. I'm a never was.”

Jessie laughed, “You're about to be the it girl of the industry for the next five years probably.” Jessie thought about it for a minute and then said, “Who's the Pug Peanut Butter is dating in season 5?”

“That do talent bitch! You're a dick. Not funny.”

Then Jessie thought for a minute and said, “Sarah Lynn,” without looking up from the computer.

Vanity thought about it and said, “The young, hot girl who has daddy issues and likes to fuck and suck and take drugs too much? On the noise, Diane.”

Vanity’s phone started to buzz incessantly.

“Jessie? I'm bored. This is boring. I'm not made to sit inside.”

Jessie looked up from the computer. She was waiting for this to come.

135

“There's some exclusive underground party tonight and they are offering to come pick us up in their limo and pay for us to get in,” Vanity said.

“Limos, limos, limos, how many limos is enough limos? I'm getting sick of limos.”

“We're in L.A. and we've hardly gone out. It's Friday night! All we've done all week is work, work, work. I want to go out, Jessie.” Vanity made the pouty face again. Jessie was exhausted, but this she figured, was part of the job, and also came with dating someone like

Vanity, so she just nodded and said, “Ok.”

“Ok?” Vanity said as she jumped up on the bed and bounced up and down and said,

“Yay!” As she made a call and then said into the phone, “Hey! Come get us!”

In the back of the limo Jessie was staring out the window at the city lights as they drove through L.A. to the underground party. On the other side of the limo, high on ecstasy and cocaine, Vanity was sandwiched between the young black male pop star of the moment and the young Latina female pop star of the moment. Vanity was so high and so overwhelmed by the attention she could barely keep up and breath as the three of them went at it.

“You are the most beautiful actress I have ever seen,” the male pop star said as Vanity slipped her hand down his pants.

“Vanity is the coolest name ever,” the female pop star said with her hand down Vanity’s pants.

“It's a stage name,” Vanity said, “but thanks.”

“That's a sick stage name,” the male pop star said reaching around Vanity and slipping his hand up the female pop stars skirt.

Jessie was sitting on the other side of the limo just staring out the window at the city.

“Are you sure you're ok?” Vanity asked Jessie, coming up for air. “Do you want to join us?”

“There's room for you,” the male pop star said. “You're the hottest writer I’ve ever met.”

136

“Leave her alone,” the female pop star said. “She likes to watch. Writers are like that,” she said knowingly as if from experience.

Vanity and the male pop star smiled and then all three of them tried to make what they were doing into more of a theatrical performance for Jessie, who still just sat looking out the window.

The underground party was like a modern rave, Jessie thought, but with all the ethics taken out of it. The fully capitalistic version. A lovely thing, turned prostitute, just like everything capitalism touched, she thought. The music was dark, heavy hardcore techno. High beats per minute. A remix of Sweet Dreams. Grimy. The walls of the place were all painted black and the air was thick and heavy and it smelled like sex and sweat. Damp and heavy with the smell of bodies dancing and humans in heat. Jessie felt uncomfortable immediately, but the pop stars paid for them to get in, and it cost two thousand dollars per person, and you had to be famous or have a Wikipedia page or be a female and the guest of someone famous, so Jessie felt obligated to make the best of it.

There were a couple different bars and there was a counter area with a glass case that was lit with blue LED lights and that was the dispensary area where you could get any manner of drug. Cocaine, ecstasy, Adderall, LSD, 2CI, Mushrooms, and the like. The psychedelics were only sold in small party doses so nobody would have a really intense and inappropriate trip. No heroic doses. And the drug tenders were knowledgeable and all the drugs had been tested for quality and purity. There were a few nurses floating around to make sure everyone was safe and there was an ambulance and paramedic on standby and a house doctor.

They sat in an area with black leather couches that overlooked the dance floor and the pop stars had some bottles brought over and some cocaine.

Vanity and the pop yin and yang were still going at it. Their bodies almost transformed into one six armed and six legged creature with a beautiful array of skin tone that was

137 completely enraptured with itself. It was now sticking its hand down its pants and sucking its fingers in a very vulgar and public display of its sexuality.

Jessie sat sipping champagne on a couch by herself, academically watching and thinking that this was why the planet was becoming crowded, but, they were all gorgeous humans and it was a beautiful ménage à trois, she thought. There was something voyeuristically appealing about them and everyone close by was taking in the show.

Jessie saw a guy sitting at the corner of the bar. He was older and he had a gut and he was balding and he was too old for this party and he looked like he didn't exactly fit in and also like he didn't exactly care. He kept glancing over at them and then trying not to.

“Who is that?” Jessie asked the monster.

The female pop star surfaced and looked out towards the bar.

“You like fat guys?” She said. “I think he's gay.”

“He's not fat,” Jessie said.

“You're defending the fat man. I think we have ourselves a chubby chaser.”

The many headed creature laughed.

“He's a writer too,” the yang version of the pop star said. “He interviewed me for something once. For The New York Times or Vogue. Some shit. He's cool though.”

She tried to make eye contact with him. He couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or if there might be another person she was looking at.

Jessie smiled and shook her head and said, “I'll be back.”

She scooted past the many headed monster and walked over to the bar and up to him.

“You mind if I join you?” She said.

“Their lips are going to start to prune if they keep sucking face like that,” he said.

She laughed, “They're on drugs. Reeaal fuckin high on drugs,” and then she said, “I'm—”

“You're Jessica Day,” he said cutting her off, “You're the talk of the town right now.”

She was a little shocked.

138

“Please. Sit. Let me buy you a drink.”

She pulled out a chair and sat down next to him at the bar.

“I read your play,” he said, “Loved it. You said what we are all thinking. Genius.”

The word made her cringe.

“Sorry. Sorry. I forgot. We had the podcast on today in the writer’s room for a little bit. As did most everyone in town. Bunch of geniuses. Funny. I read the screenplay you wrote too. Lila.

I liked it. The two women fall in love and then basically kick ass and take names, but it's deep and it has a political and spiritual arch. I liked what you did there.”

“Thank you. That’s nice to hear. I haven’t gotten good feedback on it from Hollywood really.”

“Will you take a shot with me?”

“Sure.”

He ordered them shots of tequila and he ordered a beer and she held up two fingers.

An hour later the bar was covered in empty shot and beer glasses. The place had gotten busy and the bartender had been too busy to bus. They were both really drunk as they sat talking.

“It's like life,” he said, “Good and bad. Some of the actors love your work. Characters and dialogue and they really want to bring it to life. That can be really gratifying. With the right people. Same with directors. They can be great, and love the script and really want to bring your story to life, and they can also be arrogant pricks who think they know what they’re doing and have no fucking idea. Some directors are just shit. They can have really good ideas or they can have really terrible ideas that can destroy the entire movie. Same with the studios. They can have good ideas or they can have really terrible ideas that will destroy the entire movie. Or the studio can castrate the director by not giving them enough control, or the studio can piss all over it for some really dumb reason. Shitty executive who thinks the quadrants are everything. Which is stupid. People go to the movies if the movies are good. Period. If you spend three years

139 working on a screenplay and the director or studio destroys it for no good reason, that is heartbreaking. I don't think many writers come back from that. They just end up broken and writing garbage because who cares? It's the same pay check or better and nobody cares anyway, so, fuck it.”

“That would be brutal,” Jessie said.

“The funniest thing to me about Hollywood, though, is the hypocrisy. You'll want to put realism in stuff and then the studio will tell you no because middle American soccer moms can't handle the fact that people like sex and people do drugs. And then some Hollywood producer is raping actresses by the handful and everyone in town knows. It's kinda like the Catholic Church or something. These awful hypocrisies. And people just keep going to church. You see too much of this and you start to lose faith in humanity. It's all just a power grab. Money grab. The people in power doing what they want, feeding the flock a bunch of lies. Movies. Religion. Take their money and don't show them the truth. It's the same. We're a sick dying species.”

He looked over at her and she looked sick herself. He tried to lighten the mood and said,

“It's not all bad. Sometimes it's great.” But the emotion in his voice wasn’t genuine.

“It’s ok,” Jessie said. “The truth isn’t supposed to feel good,” and then she said, “The idea of the focus groups is really stupid to me. Can you imagine William Shakespeare writing

Macbeth and then some soccer mom from Kansas watching it and being like, ‘It’s too dark,’ or, ‘I don't like that it's about racism.’ Or just some arbitrary thing and then Shakespeare is getting studio notes. Can you imagine?”

He laughed. “Yeah, you're asking a car mechanic or a soccer mom to judge storytelling, something they know absolutely nothing about. It's absurd. It's all absurd. Storytelling is really, at its highest level, it's about everything that makes us human, and the biggest things, philosophy and psychology and human history and storytelling history and like what the fuck do soccer moms and car mechanics know about that? The car mechanic will want more chase scenes. Like that will help tell the story. The soccer mom will want less realism. They didn't

140 spend their lives in bookstores and libraries reading about sociology and psychology and all the books and everything trying to make sense of the human condition and then spend the decade it takes to learn to express it through writing. They didn't do that and they know better than we do? Writing is the hardest art form there is. Period. I don’t give a fuck what anyone says. It’s hard—acting is not writing. You don’t create a character or a world or plot, or dialogue. You don’t write anything. Which, look, acting isn’t always easy, but the balance is off with compensation, which is the real unspoken language of capitalism.”

“Yeah, actors getting Sixty million for a movie and they don’t write the story or come up with the idea—or direct or whatever.”

“Movies are the studios products. The studios use actors to sell their products, basically, and its bullshit because the actors really don't create the products. It ends up being like Steve

Jobs talked about with companies, how product people are the most important but usually the sales people end up with more power and that's why the products end up sucking. That’s

Hollywood in a nutshell. The product people, the writers, are treated like shit and the sales people are treated like Gods and Goddesses and the products are shit because of it. And then most of the people that come out to be in this industry just want to get rich and fuck anyway.

Fuck and get rich. The whole thing is absurd, which is what the French Philosophers thought about life in general---and maybe they were right. Which is why I loved your play. Blew my fuckin mind actually. It’s been awhile since a piece of fiction did that.”

“Thank you. That’s nice to hear from someone who’s work I respect,” she said finishing her beer, “I always thought it was interesting that Sartre rejected the Nobel Prize.”

“Yeah, he did, cause fuck em all.”

“I just want to make deep stuff,” Jessie said. “Stuff that’s important. Stuff that influences the next generation the way stuff has influenced me. Is that so crazy?”

“You're not one of the fun ones, are you?”

141

“I have heard that thrice now. What does that mean? I'm not a piece of meat that everyone can fuck and abuse?”

“It means you only open your mouth when someone's dick is being presented for you to suck,” he said.

Jessie looked at him to see if he was kidding. He wasn't.

“It can't be like this,” she said.

“Oh babe,” he said shaking his head. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“You're just finding out?” He said.

“I got asked to suck a dick today.” She said.

“Who was it?”

“Mr. Bids.”

“Oh, yeah. He's known for that. He likes to have his clients blow him. Even his straight male clients—and they do it too.”

“Just like that?” She said, “You're not shocked?”

“I'm sorry, but that's nothing. I’ve been in this business for too long. At least he asked you. There are some producers—big time producers—they won't ask. The world is run by a lot of really sick men—I'm glad he didn't rape you. They like to rape women, some of these men.

They get off on it and they're powerful so nobody does anything about it.”

“It can't be like this. Can it? All of it?”

“I'm sorry, Jessie. I really am. I'm sorry. Listen, if you need an agent. I know of one.

She's incredible. I'm surprised you haven't already talked to her. Caroline Silver.”

“I've heard of her.”

“She's the best.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

142

“Fuck man. Thank you. I'm drowning her in L.A. I see why artists become addicts living here. You need the drugs to get through it.”

“It's so true. They don't teach you any of this in film school. They can't teach you to write.

They can't teach you how to deal with scumbags. They give you books to read and charge you

100k. That's America baby. Fuck you, pay me. You're not a student, you're an atm. I'll send you her contact. Caroline. You'll love her.”

Her office was all glass and windows with modern wood furniture. Jessie was hungover but sitting in a chair on the other side of the desk signing paperwork and telling Caroline about her experiences here in L.A.

“We're only here for a week,” she said, “and we’ve been running from pitch to podcast to meeting and it's been a lot. It’s really been a lot. I’m exhausted and I haven’t been able to find an agent that isn’t a total monster.”

“You met with that prick?”

Jessie nodded.

“What did he do?” Caroline said. “Try to get you to suck his dick?”

Jessie nodded again.

“Obviously, you didn't want to do that or you wouldn't be here with me. One of these days all these assholes are going to get what they have coming to them.”

“I'm not going to hold my breath.”

“Jessie, you are here with me not because I sold you on what I think you want, but because you intuited that I could help you get what you actually want, right?”

143

“Yeah. I felt like you understood me when we talked on the phone and that was better than any agent I had talked to.”

“You want to make great stuff and you actually still have integrity. You're not as jaded as all of us, yet,” Caroline laughed and hit a button on the office phone that was sitting on her desk and said, “Clyde honey, can you put me through to that call we talked about now?”

“Yes, mam.”

“Thank you, Clyde.” She said and then to Jessie, “I told you I wasn't going to fuck around with you and that I would do the best I could, but I couldn't promise miracles, right?”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“Well, you have had an impact on people in this town already, Jessie. I didn't tell you this but I have been talking to some producers and they are very interested in working with you.”

“Really? Who?”

Caroline’s phone buzzed and she hit the speaker and said, “Jeff, I have you on speaker phone here. I just signed Jessie, and I thought it would be nice if she heard it from you.”

“Hi Jessie, do you know who I am?”

“Hi. No. Sorry. Caroline didn't tell me.”

“Caroline likes to do that,” Jeff said. “She's a great dramatist herself. Jessie, I'm head of content and talent acquisitions over at HBO.”

Jessie dug her fingernails into the leather of the chair and scooted to the edge of her seat as her eyes widened.

“Are you there?” Jeff said.

“Yes! Yes.”

“Jessie, we love your play and we love the screenplay that Caroline sent over. At HBO we try to bring artists in. True artists. The passionate ones. People who have something to say and then we try to help them connect with like minded individuals and really help them realize their vision. We loved the podcast and everyone here at the network appreciated what you said

144 about HBO, because we all know you speak from your heart. We want you to come and do a great show for us over here and we are prepared to really give you some reins to do what you want. We're already talking about a team and some artists that are jumping up and down to work with you. Jessie, we really want you to come be a part of the HBO family.”

Jessie was speechless.

“Jessie?” Jeff said. “Are you interested?”

“I'm dying right now!” Jessie said. “I'm dying! I really want to be with you guys. That static screen has always represented a really high standard in the industry. Yes! Yes! Of course!”

“Great. Great,” Jeff said. “Everyone here will be thrilled. Let's get you over here soon and get things moving along. This is going to be one of those hair on fire productions, so I hope you're ready.”

“I'm so ready. Thank you so much!”

“Thank you, Jeff,” Caroline said. “You made our day.”

“Ok. Good. Mine too. Talk to you soon. Goodbye Caroline. We'll be in touch.”

Caroline hit another button on the office phone hanging up and Jessie was so excited she wanted to jump up and down on the chair like a love drunk Tom Cruise. HBO had been her dream since the first time she saw Real Sex when she was young. HBO was always next level— forbidden and really grown up---and arguably the genesis of the television revolution.

“Holy shit, Caroline. H-B-mother-fuckin-O! I can’t believe it!”

“Do you want a drink to celebrate?” Caroline said.

“Yes! Definitely.”

Caroline spun around to the small bar behind her desk and grabbed two glasses and poured them both a whiskey neat and then she picked up the glasses and carried them around the desk and handed one to Jessie.

“Come sit on the couch with me,” Caroline said.

145

Jessie stood up and followed Caroline over to the leather couch and sat down on it holding her drink.

“See, I told you,” Caroline said holding up her drink. “We're going to get you what you want. Not what they want you to want. Fuck the big tent pole garbage dump. You're an artist.

There is still a place for an artist in this town, regardless of the soulless assholes who would cut a baby kitten open if a couple hundred dollars were inside. Making deals like this today is very exciting for me,” Caroline said, “It's what I live for.”

Caroline set her drink on the coffee table and then stood up and began to walk around the office closing the blinds. Jessie was elated thinking about the show and what she wanted to do and already writing it in her head, as Caroline closed all the blinds so they had total privacy.

Then Caroline walked back over to the couch and sat next to Jessie, her energy shifting.

“Holy shit,” Jessie said again. “I can't believe it. HBO. This is a dream come true

Caroline. Thank you so much for helping make this happen!”

Caroline unbuttoned the top button of her blouse and her voice was different as she said, “I'm really happy we could get you what you wanted.” Then she said, “You are really cute.

You ever think about acting? I represent some A-list actresses that aren't nearly as adorable as you.”

“If I was going to make my own movies, shoot them myself,” Jessie said, “I would probably act in them.”

“Your hair is so violet,” Caroline said and then ran her fingers through Jessie’s hair, and then she looked into Jessie's eye, and leaned in and kissed her. Jessie was surprised.

“Caroline? What are you doing?”

Caroline moved her hand to Jessie's breasts rubbing them gently and then said, “What?

Is it Vanity? I heard she was having a good time last night at The Deluxe. Do you think I’m too old?” Caroline said almost sad.

“No, I—you’re not old.”

146

“Oh, good,” Caroline said letting go of Jessie's breast as she stood up in front of her.

“You like women, right?” Caroline said, “I thought that's why you came to me. You like pussy. I don't like dicks either. You know what it is for me? Well, they look ridiculous. Re-dick-u- lous.” She laughed. “But it's the smell. I can't stand the smell. The musk. Makes me gage. But, sometimes you gotta suck one of those things. Especially in this business. What can you do?

That's life.”

Caroline was wet and hot as she stood above Jessie. Jessie could smell her as she lifted her skirt up and pulled her panties down.

“When you're young you pay with sex,” Caroline said. “When you're older you get paid with sex. It's just the circle of life. Try to enjoy it,” she said.

Caroline lifted one leg up onto the couch. Jessie was so small that she barely had to strain her head or neck. Caroline ran her fingers through Jessie's hair and wrapped her fingers deep into a fistful of it and then used it like a handle, like the scruff of a kitten's neck, as she guided Jessie's face into her pussy. “That’s a good girl,” Caroline said, as Jessie, for the first time in her life, did what she was told.

“HBO baby that's so incredible!” Vanity said, “That's like, the best. The best for the best.

Except for the last season of Game of Thrones. That was not the best. That was a train wreck.

Baby? Are you ok?”

Jessie and Vanity were in the limo on the way to the final L.A. interview. Vanity leaned over and tried to kiss Jessie, but Jessie pulled back, recoiling from her touch.

“Vanity, stop,” she said.

147

“What's up? You ok? Baby, you smell like pussy. Do you need a shower or is that someone else? Cause it doesn't really smell like you.”

“Vanity, I'm not in the mood, ok? I'm tired and I'm stressed.”

“It's ok. It's just sex ok? We're young and we're enjoying our bodies and our lives and we don't need to be married to each other in that way. Physical monogamy is a superficial type of love. Was it Caroline? Did you fool around with your agent? That's so Hollywood! Caroline is hot. Sexy, older women. God, I bet that was super hot. I'm kinda jelly. Can I watch next time?”

Jessie was getting angry and said, “Not everything is about fucking all the time! I'm sick and tired of it. It's all you think about. Do you even care about anything else?”

The limo stopped in front of the studio building. Vanity teared up instantly, not sure what she did. Jessie couldn’t even look at her as she got out of the limo and slammed the door and headed into the studio to do the interview.

“Jessica Day is a playwright turned screenwriter..”

Jessie couldn't even hear the introduction. She was thinking about Vanity and Caroline and this town and how maybe this wasn’t what she wanted for herself, and that Vanity would probably break up with her because Vanity was made for celebrity, like Kim Kardashian or something and Jessie was starting to think that she wasn’t that, and never would be that, and didn't want to be that. A commodity for the corporation. A rich toy. A soulless zombie. She was certain that Vanity would leave her as soon as she realized that Jessie wasn't what she thought she was and that's all she could think about and the pain in her chest was real as she heard the last part of the introduction and then: “Welcome to the show.”

“Thanks,” she said flatly.

“So, Jessie, have you ever heard the story of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake? There was an article in Vanity Fair about them called, The Golden Suicides.”

“I haven't heard the story, no.”

148

“Theresa was this really gorgeous and talented filmmaker and Jeremy was a very talented artist. They came out to L.A. from New York because Theresa got a two picture deal with Fox Searchlight and then it was this whole sort of fiasco and she couldn't work within the system and her and Jeremy both left and went back to New York and then she killed herself not long after that and so did he.”

“Wow,” she said and then she was quiet for a second and there was radio silence.

“Jessie? Did I lose you?”

“No. Sorry. That is just really sad. I hadn't heard the story. I'll look it up later.”

“Theresa was criticized for being naive about Hollywood. Do you worry that maybe you're being naive about Hollywood?”

“I was definitely naive about Hollywood,” Jessie said. “I know it. So I don't really worry about it. I was naive about Hollywood. I would say I'm not as naive as I was even a week ago.

My eyes are open and I know where I am now.”

“Fitzgerald struggled here in Hollywood. Bukowski wrote a book about it. Salinger called it prostitution. I think it's hard for really talented writers that have been working in other mediums. Hollywood is driven by corporations now more than ever. I was talking to this executive recently and we got in an argument about what movies are and the executive was telling me they are entertainment, and I was arguing that they are so much more. To me that's like saying sex is entertainment. Sure, sex is entertainment, but it's also responsible for the entire human species,” he said laughing too hard, “we would go extinct without it.”

“Yeah,” Jessie said. “It's really hard because the capitalistic system is like this disease at the center of everything and Hollywood is just an example. The school system is another example. It all ties back to Wall Street and Washington. The system is really just an extension of human greed and selfishness. It's almost too much. Maybe it would be better if robots took over.

Maybe humans are too greedy and selfish and maybe destined for extinction because of it. It

149 says in the bible that the human heart is bent towards selfishness and greed from childhood and it alludes to that being the reason God destroyed the world the first time.”

“Are you religious?” He said, “Do you believe in the bible?”

“It's not about religion or the bible or beliefs. I can look around and see that the human heart is bent towards its own selfishness. Doesn't take much faith to open your eyes to that, and

If I were God, I'd probably flood this mother fucker myself. The human heart is bent toward selfishness and greed and nothing I write, nothing I create, nothing I make will have an impact on that. Books don't matter. Movies don't matter. Nothing is important anymore.”

There was another uncomfortable moment of radio silence before the interviewer asks another question, “Um, so then, on that topic. What do you think of dystopian or dystopic fiction?”

“It's interesting that it's become so popular and I think that maybe it's a type of foreshadowing which makes me worry or makes me relieved depending on my mood.”

“What made you want to come out to Hollywood and make movies?”

“I thought it mattered on some level. Like movies and books did. They were to me these important things that could shape and change life as we know it. Non-fiction is truth, fiction is wisdom---that old adage or whatever. I guess I was told they mattered growing up and you can see the power and the influence of things like Shakespeare or the Bible, and other works of fiction, across almost every culture on this planet. I guess I was naive or stupid or I just believed in something because I had to in order to survive, just like everyone else. I think people do that a lot. They just find something to believe in to survive. I used to think that a book could change the world,” she laughed at her own naivete, “can you imagine such a thing? Such a silly belief?

Of course, people believe a lot of stupid stuff, but I have this private conceit that I am above stupid beliefs.”

She paused and then continued.

150

“It's not about creating art, it's about creating commodities. It's about the commodification of celebrity and fame and it's all about money and power. There is this actor, and I know I'm talking about an actor and I don't want to pick on actors, even though I think it's strange that they get paid more than writers.”

“A lot more. Like 100x more.”

“I'm not touching that right now, and not just because my girlfriend is an actor. I have my reasons. They are in a strange position and I understand that they really end up being the sales people for the corporation, and that's not easy, and they suck a ton of dicks to get a job where they suck a ton of dicks. So, maybe, they deserve the money. Sucking all those dicks.”

He cuts her off, “Uhm...So, what about comic books though, you like comic books, right?”

“Look, I love comic books. When I was young, I wanted to make comic books. That was how I first got into writing. I was going to be a comic book writer and illustrator. But movies have the biggest audience and I wanted to change the world.”

“It's not stupid to think you can have a positive impact on the world, or that fiction can create transformation.”

“It's not important anymore. Now it's all so empty and it's just content and filler. And if that goes, what do we have? Everything has become expensive and empty. We're paying more, not for less, but for nothing. You could say that it's because the commodification of the artist is the death of art, but that's not really what it is, you know?”

“What is it then?”

“What it is, is that there is one world religion. The global religion of Earth. You know what it is?”

“What?”

“Capitalism. That's the religion of Earth. That is the global religion of this planet. Money is God and capitalism is the religion of money. Money is the God of humankind. The more you

151 have the more divine you are. That's why billionaires are worshiped. They are at the top of the religious pyramid because they have the most money and they are considered to be the closest to God. Celebrity and fame are just forms of currency which is why celebrities have been worshipped for so long. That’s why people want fame and money. They want to be worshiped like a God. Money, fame, bitches and power. Welcome to Earth. That's how it works. Plan as day. Simple as apple pie. And it’s a false God. Bunch of apple eating, money worshipers.”

“Have you thought about writing something about all this? It could be an interesting novel.”

She continued, but more for herself then for the interviewer or the audience as she said, almost ranting, “The problem becomes that you can't tell a story about ideas without using individuals to represent those ideas but then if you do too much of that it's all archetypes and then you keep going in that direction and you get symbols that represent things instead of the things themselves. You know?”

“Not exactly.”

“Like in religion, like Buddhism and Hinduism and Greek religion and Mesopotamia and

China and Egypt, all of them, all over the planet, you have these representations, these deities that are archetypes because you need a figure to represent the ideas or it just isn't a story. And then you have all the symbols. Symbols and archetypes and rules based on fear, not love. I was reading a copy of the Gita and then reading this commentary on the Gita.”

“The Bhagavad Gita?”

“Yeah, the Bhagavad Gita, and this individual who was commenting on the Gita said that there was a time in human history when story or myth didn't represent the truth, it was the truth, and that the truth could be spoken and heard by everyone without the story and maybe that is true but even if it is or was. So what? So what?”

“I'm not totally following you.”

152

“People aren’t interested in the truth. That’s obvious. I think part of it is there is this idea about fame and success that just isn't real. It's much emptier than everyone thinks but then on the other hand, you need people. You need an audience and then you need to have some financial support as well. Otherwise you’re fucked. You’re dead basically,” she said.

“If you come out here to Hollywood and even go to New York,” the interviewer said,

“even just to publish novels, it takes people to believe in the thing and then they have some say and control.”

“Yeah, and then you have to get a lawyer and a manager and an agent and none of these people helps you do a damn thing. They don't help with the writing or the pitching, the most difficult things, and you pay them a ton of money. Honestly, I probably should have just written novels and published them online.”

“You still could.”

“I still might.”

“I always thought it was nuts,” the interviewer said, “that authors had no say over book jackets and 90 percent of book jackets are not very attractive. Sorry book jacket designers, but, seriously. Publishers will say they know better than the writer about what should be on the jacket, but we all know that’s bullshit. The writer is an artist and the publishers are business people. The artist knows better more often than not.”

“Yeah, it's all so fucked. On every level. The book jacket has nothing to do with the content half the time and they are mostly hideous. Money is the root of all evil, everyone knows that right?”

“That's the saying.”

“How does that philosophical thing go? If, and, then? If money is the root of all evil and everyone on Earth worships money, what does that tell you about Earth and this species?”

“Then humans are evil?”

153

“This planet is a fucking roach motel. This species is a satanic cult, with a false God, that worships evil and everybody fucking knows it, and nobody fucking cares—”

He cut her off again trying to change the subject, “—Yeah, and audiences are really intelligent now and they're not given credit for it by the big institutions. They're treated like idiots.

That's not cool.”

“Everyone just worships at the feet of the wealthy because capitalism is the religion of

Earth.”

“Audiences are really smart now,” the interviewer said trying to get her onto another topic, “they have seen a lot of movies and they know a lot. So you have to bring the A game or you lose them. They get stuff, too. They’re educated.”

“If we have already seen all the movies and read all the books and listened to all the podcasts isn't it like we already know what is going to happen anyway?” Jessie said, “It's like we're all scripted and we're all just going through the motions.”

“So how does it end for your character?”

“Usually rehab or suicide. My type doesn't fare well in this world. The lucky ones of us end up at meditation centers or monasteries and live long lives there in peace.”

“Like Leonard Cohen.”

“Yeah, exactly like Leonard Cohen, but, even he, didn't his manager or someone steal like millions from him?” She laughed. “Even Leonard Cohen hiding at the Zendo couldn’t escape the horrors of capitalism. Earth doesn’t have a spirituality. Money is Earths God and capitalism is its religion. Same as it ever was.”

The interviewer interjects again, “Well, Jessica Day, I had heard many things about you.

You are a pistol, and I have to say, a breath of fresh air. I just don't think many people take the time to think about anything and I can really appreciate that you are not like that. True or false, you have taken the time for serious thought and it has probably cost you. I wish you the best and hope you keep fighting the good fight.”

154

“That's it? Ok. Thanks for having me on the show.” She took off the headphones and got up and left the studio.

The driver held the door open for her. Vanity was on the phone as Jessie climbed in.

“Hold on,” Vanity said, “Can I call you back? I know it was live. How bad is this? It's a smaller show but Twitter is going nuts. Let me call you back.” Vanity got off the phone and looked at Jessie.

“Jessie, what the fuck was that? You just called the world a satanic evil worshiping cult and said that maybe it would be better if everyone was dead. You realize what you just did, right? You can't say shit like that!”

“Why not? It's the truth. It's been that way since God flooded the Earth the first time.”

“Are you serious? You know HBO just heard that entire podcast and they are probably going to cancel the show you just got three hours ago?”

“I don't care. Good. Money fucks everything. Fuck all this. Fuck all this.”

“Jessie, you have some serious anger issues and I think you need to get some help dealing with them.”

“I'm in no mood right now, Vanity. I want to get on the plane and get the fuck out of this town.” Jessie yelled up to the driver, “Yo Bill, can you take us to the hotel, please!” Then to

Vanity, “I need to get out of this town, Vanity. I need to go home.”

Jessie's phone was blowing up but she ignored it. Vanity took one of her own calls,

“Yeah. It's not that big. Ok. Ok. Thanks. I'll call you when we get home.” Vanity said and then hung up.

“That was Caroline. She said that it's a small podcast and it won't hurt your image too much and it might be ok. The bad girl thing is playing for you. HBO has always been edgy. She is going to tell them that you are working too hard and need to go home and rest and then you'll come back down for some meetings.”

“Fuck Caroline,” Jessie said, “Fuck HBO.”

155

“Jessie, what is wrong? HBO was your dream. Our dream I thought? I want to be on a hit HBO show.” Jessie started to cry and then she burst into tears and fell into Vanity’s lap as she completely lost it. Jessie cried and Vanity rubbed her back and said awkwardly, “What is going on Jess? What happened? Was it Caroline? Did she force you?”

Jessie was sobbing into Vanity's lap, “No. No..Not really.”

“Not really? Or no?“

“No, Van. I just need to go home. I'm tired and confused and I don’t understand this place. Can we please just go home?”

They pulled up to the front of the hotel and Jessie saw a black van on a side street, like it was waiting for them.

“That's the black van,” Jessie said. “The one that’s following me.”

“What if we're on a reality TV show that we don't know about?” Vanity said, “How crazy would that be? Is that even legal?”

“I'm serious,” Jessie said sniffling and drying her eyes, “Something weird is going on.”

“Fuck it,” Vanity said, “Let's get out of this God forsaken city before we can't. What is this place anyway? It’s like the entertainment industry and the porn industry have melded together on some dark unseen level.”

Inside the hotel room they both put their bags on the bed and started gathering their stuff from around the room. The maids had been there and everything was clean and organized and it made packing easy.

“I called the airline,” Vanity said, “our flight leaves in two hours. Direct flight home.”

Vanity opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony to grab her extra sunglasses from the patio. She picked them up off the table and something on the lounge chair caught her eye and she looked to see what she thought was a towel and then she screamed the practiced blood curdling scream of an actress, and then caught her breath and said, “Fuck me!!”

156 as Jessie ran over to the sliding glass doors and stuck her head out and then stepped out and

Vanity pointed to the lounge chair and Jessie saw what had upset her. It was a dead cat.

“What the fuck!?” Jessie said. “How the fuck did that get up here?”

“Theresa and Jeremy,” Vanity said. “The Golden Suicides.”

“What?”

“Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. I looked it up when you were in the podcast. There are conspiracy theories all over Reddit. Theresa found a dead cat on their roof before her and

Jeremy left L.A. and people don't think they committed suicide. They think it was murder. They think it was the Scientologists. You talked shit about Scientology on the podcast, Jessie.”

Jessie looked over the balcony to see if the black van was still there but it was gone.

“Vanity, someone is following me. They have been following me for months. It's him

Vanity. It's the guy in my dream. He's—”

“Jessie, you realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

“It's not crazy. I'm not crazy! I'm not fucking crazy! Vanity! Seriously! Maybe I saw him and then I started to have dreams about him. I don't know, but it's him. Theresa and Jeremy and the dead cat and this person following me—Vanity.”

Vanity looked down the street one way and then the other.

“Jessie, I think someone went through my stuff.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I wasn't going to say anything.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I roll my clothes in a very specific way so they don't wrinkle and I have been doing it forever and I have the technique down perfect and it's very hard to copy if you don't know exactly what to do. So, if you didn't go through my stuff?”

“It wasn't me.”

157

“Then someone went through my shit. I'm telling you. It could have been the maids but they don't usually do that. I don't think it was them.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“I don't know,”

Vanity said,

“but I don’t want to be in a David Lynch movie right now so

we need to get out of here while we still can.”

158

iv. PAIN

When they got home from L.A. there was a package in the hallway of the apartment leaning against the door. An art shaped package. A big thin rectangle. Vanity slid the box out of the way and unlocked the door and pushed it open. They rolled their bags into the apartment and through the hall and they dumped everything on the floor of the bedroom and then Vanity went back out to the hall and dragged the box into the apartment through the hallway and into the bedroom.

“It's for you,” she said.

Jessie had already fallen onto the bed but she got up and walked over to the cardboard rectangle that came up to her waist and took it from Vanity. She found the pull tabs and yanked on them and the plastic cut through the cardboard in a very satisfying way and she pulled the cap off the box and threw it on the floor and wrestled the picture out of the cardboard and then she set the big heavy thing up on the chaise and stepped back to look at it.

159

“That is really cool,” Vanity said sitting on the edge of the bed looking at it.

It was a framed print of the M.C. Escher self portrait of his hands drawing themselves, but instead of it being a pencil drawing it was a modernized version and it had been painted with day glow psychedelic colors. It was like a psychedelic remix of the Escher hands. It looked like the hands might if you had just eaten some acid; all set in a heavy, and probably expensive, black frame.

“It's really rad,” Vanity said. “Like Andy Warhol had his way with the Escher hands or something. What’s that one artist you like? Does that trippy ass shit?”

“Alex Grey,” Jessie said.

“Very counterculture,” Vanity said. “Trippy. You should hang it above your desk. Take down those crazy sticky notes.”

“I like my stickies. You don’t like my wave?”

“It’s fine, but this is nice and would look good there. Is there a card, or not, or anything, or what? Do you have a secret admirer? Should I be worried?”

Jessie looked through the box and through the packaging looking for some kind of clue as to who might have sent it but she didn't need to be told because she already knew.

“This is from him, Van.”

“The guy from your dreams that is now stalking you?”

“I'm telling you. This guy has been following me for months. It started before the play was finished. Sometime during that process.”

“Which you told me was the most stressful time in your life. You don't think the stress had something to do with it?”

“You saw the van in L.A! The cat. Somebody going through your stuff. I thought we were past this?”

“I saw a van in L.A. It just seems like every little thing has to do with this stalker, that I have never seen, that is in your dreams. We were just in L.A. and the cat thing and now you

160 think this is him too and I'm just worried that now everything is going to be about this and we don't really know what's going on yet and I don't want to be completely freaking out.”

“I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy!”

“Tell me again what he looks like,” Vanity said.

“He wears black. Medium height. Thin but muscular. Really wide shoulders. He has a goatee and a soul patch.”

“He sounds hot. Maybe we should bring him home and give him what he wants.”

“This is serious Vanity!”

“Sorry. Just trying to keep it light.”

Vanity got up off the bed and walked into the living room and flipped the lights on and walked around the apartment and came back to the bedroom. “It doesn't look like anyone has been here. Ok?”

Jessie opened the closet and pushed the clothes around and was satisfied. She walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge looking at the picture and Vanity walked over and sat down next to her and kissed her on the cheek. Jessie smiled.

“I'm so tired,” Vanity said.

“Me too.”

“Can we just rest and figure it out later? Can we just watch movies and eat junk food and cuddle and hang in our pjs?”

“Yes,” Jessie said, “but no movies. Fuck movies. But yes. Junk food and cuddling and sleep.” They laid back on the bed together and Vanity wrapped Jessie up in her arms and they spooned into each other and they both closed their eyes and before either of them realized it, they fell asleep on top of the bed, in their clothes, with all the lights on and they didn’t get out of bed for a week.

161

A week after they returned Jessie got her energy back and started writing again.

Everything had changed for her though and she was writing something really different. She was never able to trust anyone with an early draft, but she let Vanity read part of it. That night they hung out together like they did before, when things had been better. During the honeymoon.

The between period. After one storm and before the next—the short sweet spot of life that never lasted long enough.

Vanity had dressed up like a schoolgirl, in a short plaid skirt and she had long white thigh high stockings on. She wasn’t wearing underwear. She had wanted to get Jessie’s attention, have some fun, maybe distract her from her thoughts, make her happy, but it hadn’t worked.

“I'm going to do some coke,” Vanity said from her perch on the window ledge. “Do you want some coke?”

“Deja vu,” Jessie said from behind her computer, “Like a record skipping. Like a loop---

No! No coke. My mind is burning at warp right now. I can't eat enough almonds. I'm hungry like every twenty minutes. I need more almonds. I'm about to break through to the next level.”

“Jessie, I think you're about to break down if you don't slow down.”

“I don't have control,” Jessie said, “Look at this.”

Jessie had ordered a very large roll around white board that she had put next to the desk. She had written all over it with different colored dry erase markers.

She got up from her seat at the desk and jumped in front of the white board erasing everything on it. Then she said to Vanity, “Everything that exists, must exist somewhere, or it doesn't exist at all. How can it exist if it doesn't exist somewhere?”

“Ok.”

162

“If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound? The tree wouldn't exist if it weren't for the forest. The forest's existence is what creates the tree. It's the same with the Universe. The existence of the Universe proves the blackboard. If the Universe were drawn on the blackboard.”

Jessie draws an oval on the white board to represent the Universe.

“If the Universe were drawn on the blackboard, then what is the blackboard?”

“I'm so lost,” Vanity said, “Is this what the screenplay is about?”

“Yes! The blackboard. Well, white board. But yeah.”

“I don't get it.”

Between lines of coke Vanity was flipping through the new page of the screenplay and she said, “I think you overdosed on fiction food babe. Your brain turned into a book. You crossed some imaginary line and fell into your own mind.”

“This is really different, but I think—”

“If by different, you mean bad, then I think you're being successful,” Vanity said laughing and then immediately regretted it.

“What the fuck? Don't use that word! I hate that word. It means fuck all to me and I'm trusting you with my early draft and you're bagging on it?”

“I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm high. But also, most people are not going to want to read this, or watch this.”

“Most people are sheep. Rubes. Idiots.”

“You're going over the heads of the audience, Jessie. You're going to isolate yourself.

They can't identify with you or follow your genius.”

“Don't use that word either! Geez Vanity. You're being really insensitive. You know how much I hate that.”

“Jessie, you're a genius. You need to accept it. It's ok to be a genius. But it does make you different from everyone else, and yeah, it would be really hard for most people to have a

163 conversation with Albert Einstein about physics or the theory of relativity, and that's ok for him, but your work is supposed to be accessible to an audience. You're getting too far out. You're going to start to lose people.”

“I'm not writing for anyone but myself.”

“Don't you think maybe you should let Caroline know that then? You signed contracts with her Jessie. She has been blowing me up. She said you aren't taking her calls and I told her your phone has been dead, and you're resting, but that's not going to fly for much longer. HBO wants to talk about the show.”

“Fuck Caroline. Fuck HBO. Fuck, fucking Hollywood.”

“So, you're just going to blow it for both of us?”

“I dreamed about him again last night. What if he is death? What if death is stalking me.

Stalking me in my dreams and stalking me in my waking life and who can say where one ends and the other begins?”

“He's stalking you in your dreams and he's stalking you in real life and you think he is death? Is his name Freddy Kruger?”

“No, Bitch! His name is..His name is..Alice. Jesus. Jessie---his name is Sss..his name is

Steven!”

“His name is project mayhem! Jessie, baby, will you please go see a doctor?”

“I'm not losing my mind, Vanity!”

Jessie started to pace back and forth in front of the whiteboard while Vanity sat on the ledge.

“Ok,” Vanity said. “Then go see a doctor and tell them what you told me, and if they think everything is normal, then I'll leave you alone to process yourself into oblivion.”

“What the fuck does any doctor know? Anyone who gets near the truth is medicated. I'm supposed to go to Hollywood, make a bunch of dumb movies about the same shit they have always made movies about, fuck celebrities and take drugs, become an addict, go to rehab,

164 stage a comeback, win an Academy Award, get married, have kids, go to yoga, eat salad, and watch the dumb movies other people make about the same shit they have always made movies about? I can't move in a circle. I can't move in this circle that everyone else moves in. I can't do it! Life as a three act structure. Beginning, middle, end. Do you want to do the same thing? Or do you want to be original? To break free of the chains of archetypal bonds. Out of Plato's cave and into the light of the sun!”

“How about a xani? Do you want a xani? Or a valium. I have some valium. Benzos. I got em.”

“No! I'm not going to medicate away the truth. That's all anyone ever does on this planet.

They medicate away the truth. With alcohol. With drugs. With sex. With bad TV and shitty movies about trite tired characters and trite tired plots about hero's journeys and good and evil.

People root for the good, but the real evil is this thing they are watching that is medicating them away from real thought, from actually thinking for themselves! I'm not going to medicate myself into a stupor! I feel like I spent my life in a delusion of medication and I'm finally getting sober.”

“I thought we were going to go to New York or L.A. and I was going to be your Marylin and you were going to be my Arthur and write me great parts, and now, Jessie, I'm scared.”

“We're all just cows. Just following the herd. Fucking and eating and what? Vegging out in front of the TV? And that's the mentality and that's the direction they want you to go in. Just fucking and eating and making shit. Into the creative combine. It's the same machine. The same mechanism. Just like Kesey talked about except I thought it was different for artists, for writers and filmmakers, but it's not. It's all just ego, ego ego, and it's all so vapid and empty and I can't do it!” She started screaming. Vanity hadn't heard her scream like this since they were in school together, “I can't do it!!”

“Can't you stay with politics? Current events? People are bat shit crazy arguing about politics.”

165

“You want politics?” Jessie said, “Capitalism is the religion of Earth and money is the

God of Capitalism. And money is the root of all evil and humans worship money. Humans worship evil. Those who have the gold make the rules. People love it in America so much they're thinking about electing a reality TV show Capitalist alpha male to the most important job there is. I think that says a lot about the species. I feel bad for the planet having to deal with these greed zombies and all that. This species deserves to choke on its own toxic pollution and die!”

“Jessie baby I think you’re losing it,” Vanity said and then holding up the script, “this doesn't make any sense, Jessie. This is Hollywood. If you want to go to New York, we should go to New York. This Avant Garde shit isn't going to get made by a big studio. The studios have gone soft core action porn again. Like the 80's---but not as good.”

“What the fuck do you know about bad?”

“If something is beyond the audience or over every one’s head, then it's bad, Jessie.

You're going to alienate everyone. Most people are going to be bored out of their minds with this! This is rabbling and preachy and fucking over every one’s head.”

“What am I supposed to do? Write for the fucking quadrants. Barely legal lesbians doing drugs and fucking? The difficulty of being a hungry child runaway whose excruciating pain is driving her creativity and madness? Something deep for the academics? Something literary for the artists? Something nerdy for the industry and comic con crowd? I'm not going to fucking pander to the lowest common denominators! If they want barely legal lesbians licking each other out they have fucking tube sites! I'm doing something different!”

“Again, if by different, you mean bad, then I think you're being successful,” Vanity said.

“Did you just say successful again?” Jessie said really starting to lose it, “You know how

I feel about that word. Don't say that word to me again. I'll break up with you if you say that word again! Do not say that word again!”

166

Vanity stood up now, “Did you just threaten me over a word? Our entire relationship over a word? You need to grow up. Successful! Successful! Successful!”

The sound of the word to Jessie was like the sound of being molested as a child, if being molested as a child had a sound, it triggered an almost crippling cascade of painful memories that flowed into her mind and contracted in her body. She started to break down, almost crying now.

“Child psychologist piece of shit! That's it! I'm done! I'm done. Get the fuck out! No. No!

I'll leave. No. He's out there!”

“Freddy?”

“Yes, bitch! Freddy! The guy who's following me. The guy from my dreams who is following me in my waking life.”

“You understand how crazy that sounds?”

“I know it sounds crazy but I'm not crazy,” she said manic and almost in tears. “It's something to do with reality. Reality is a construct of some kind. And my reality is closing in on itself. Consciousness supersedes matter.”

“Jessie, I'm scared. You're going to blow it, and then you’re going to end up old and cynical and alone and nobody is going to give a fuck. In this world, it’s better to be a has been then a never was.”

“I was reading that essay,” Jessie said, “The Golden Suicides, about Theresa and

Jeremy. You know what Theresa told her neighbor before they left L.A? She said that her and

Jeremy had joined a club where they let rich white men fuck them in the ass, and you know what I think? I think she was talking about Hollywood, because that's what it is! It’s a club where you let rich white men fuck you in the ass.”

“That's Chinatown Jessie!”

167

“My dreams died in that fucking town, ok? I died in that fucking town. Nothing matters anymore and I can't figure out what the fucking meaning of life is anymore and without a meaning I don't want to live! Ok! I don't want to live anymore and my fucking life is over!!”

Jessie grabbed the trash can and threw up into it.

“You’re giving them power over you, Jessie,” Vanity said.

Vanity walked over to her to help her, but Jessie hit her hand away and said, “Get away from me! Leave me alone. You’re one of them and I can't deal with you!”

Hurt, Vanity just said, “Ok, Jess,” and then calmly she walked to the closet and took out a bag and then walked around and grabbed a few of her things as she said, “I'm going to go to my condo for the night. I’m going to give you some space.”

“Good idea,” Jessie said wiping her mouth.

Vanity grabbed her keys and walked out of the apartment with tears in her eyes.

As soon as the door closed, Jessie collapsed to the ground in tears.

Once Vanity was out of the apartment and her sadness turned to anger, and the anger carried her walking half way across town to her condo and then it dissipated and she became nervous. She didn’t go up. She started to pace and started to think that maybe leaving Jessie like that wasn’t a good idea. Jessie was sick. She probably shouldn’t have been left alone. She paced around the block thinking and was trying to think of who she could call and then she realized there was only one person who really might be able to help Jessie.

The first thing Ezra said when he answered the phone was, “How was L.A.?” He had obviously been worried about it.

“It..” Vanity didn’t know what to say. “It..”

“It wasn't everything you thought it was going to be, was it?”

“For me it sort of was. My dad hates L.A. with a venomous passion. I know what L.A. is.”

“But Jessie..” Ezra said.

168

“I tried to tell her. Everyone warned her. She has these deep altruistic motivations and she thinks other people do too and they don’t. They just don’t. People only care about themselves. Especially in L.A. Maybe more in New York or Paris where they care about art at least, but not in fucking L.A. It’s just money and sex and power.”

“How is she?”

Vanity started to cry, “Not good, Ezra, She isn't..We've been fighting and I don't really know what to do..Something happened. I don't know what it was, but something happened and she won't talk to me about it and she is just writing, but her writing is beyond philosophical. It doesn't make any sense..It's all twisted around and she's talking about weird shit and she thinks someone has been following her and—I think she’s having a nervous breakdown or a psychological break..or something..I don't know—She has been talking about Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake and all the writers who kill themselves or medicate themselves to death and she got this chalkboard and she’s been trying to make these diagrams about what God is, and the Universe is, and show how it is the same, and then her stories are trying to show that too and it’s scary. I feel like she’s losing her mind and I don’t want to lose her and I’m scared.”

“I was worried something like this could happen. I'm going to get ahold of Sabina and make arrangements for her for tomorrow morning first thing. Vanity, Jessie doesn't have anyone but us. We are her only friends and only family. You understand that?”

“I know. I know. I just don’t know what to do.”

“It’s tough love time, ok? I will come over there and drag her if I have to. We gotta do everything we can for her even if she doesn’t understand it. You with me?”

“I’m with you.”

“Where are you right now?”

“We got in a fight and I said some really mean stuff to her about her writing and then I said I was going to go stay in the condo for the night.”

169

“Vanity, I know it might be hard to swallow your pride right now but I don't think she should be left alone.”

“Fuck Ezra. Now I'm worried,” she said as she turned around immediately heading back to the apartment.

“Can you stay with her tonight and I'll try to make arrangements for her tomorrow. Is that possible? If something happens Vanity we're going to have to live with it for the rest of our lives.

I just don't think she should be alone right now.”

“I'm heading back there now,” Vanity said. “I'll call you first thing in the morning.” She said as she ended the call and headed back towards the apartment.

Jessie lay on the ground clenching her side and over and over it rang in her head:

With great wisdom comes great suffering,

for she who increaseth in knowledge increaseth in sorrow.

The pain in her gut and in her heart was excruciating. It was worse than any pain she had ever felt. She couldn't take it. Couldn't take it. Needed it to stop. The constant throbbing, pulsating, in her forehead and her heart and her gut, the pain torturing her from the inside like a cancer she couldn't escape.

With great wisdom comes great suffering,

for she who increaseth in knowledge increaseth in sorrow.

Jessie felt the pain of losing what she loved. Of having her dreams crushed by the corporation and then losing Vanity too. She had to stop the pain. Couldn't live with this pain. It's too late, she thought and then she said aloud, “It’s too late and my dreams are dead and I'm going to lose Vanity and I can't take it. I can't take this pain. I can’t be this alone!”

With great wisdom comes great suffering,

For she who increaseth in knowledge increaseth in sorrow.

170

With wisdom comes suffering. She who becomes wise will suffer! It rang in her head again like a hammer smashing into an anvil and she couldn't take it---and then she thought—

What a cruel dream. What a cruel dream. Buddha was right, life is suffering. Life is suffering.

Love brings birth, which brings fear, because that's what a human is; a ball of fear, and that fear leads to pain which is followed by death—and that’s life. And that’s life. And that’s life!! Life is suffering!

The Ego is always looking for something to make it feel like it's not alone and the ego is always looking for something that will make it feel permanent. That's why people breed and why people make art and why people do most of what they do. Ego needs to feel like it exists and it's not alone. It came at her like a rushing epiphany and then she remembered: She remembered what Camus said, about suicide and decided that Camus was a pussy because the futility of life and the absurd meaninglessness of life did require suicide and he knew it and she knew it and she thought he was a pussy for not acting on it. And she was not going to go out like that! She would not be Camus! She would not be all the white, bitch ass pussys that couldn't do what was true and necessary. She would be brave where they were weak, and she would do that not later, but now. Not dying in bed like a stupid bitch but on the battlefield of her mind like a warrior and there would never be a better place than here, or a better time than now!

She got off the floor and ran to the door of the apartment and locked it and bolted the chain and then into the bathroom and grabbed the hair straighter off the sink. It had a really long cord. She brought it into the bedroom and tried to use the safety scissors to cut the cord, but it didn't work. They weren’t sharp enough or strong enough to cut through the wires. She took the straightener into the kitchen and then laid the cord across the cutting board and grabbed one of the big Heinkels that were a gift from Vanity's dad, and lifted the knife into the air and said, “All is Vanity and a chasing after the wind!” As she brought the knife down hard hacking at the cord until it broke away from the straightener and then she grabbed it leaving the straightener behind.

171

She went back into the bedroom. The closet had large accordion style doors which

Jessie opened. She grabbed all of the clothes off the rod and threw them on the ground in a big pile in front of the closet.

Her eyes were full of tears but her body was full of resolve as she tied the cord to the dowel clothing rod and made a slip knot with the other end and yanked on it hard, working on it till she had it right and it seemed good and like it would hold. She stepped into the closet so she was facing out at the room and then opened the noose and stuck it over her head and then down around her neck, then she pulled it tight with her hand so it was snug and then she slowly let her body sag down until the cord went tight with her body weighting it and it started to pinch as it tightened and she came off the weight of her feet and let her arms go slack, and the backs of her feet were dragging on the ground, as her body hung and the cord tightened around her neck and she couldn't breathe. It hurt her and she was choking and her throat made awful sounds as her body weight crushed her windpipe and throat. She closed her eyes and told herself that it was just a pinch and that it would be like she was going to sleep at night and over; the pain of life behind her. She tried to relax into the choking and knew that soon she would pass out and there would be no more pain, only blackness forever.

Her hands hung at her sides and her toes dragged and her knees dangled above the ground as her body weight hung and she relaxed more into it as she began to lose consciousness and her eyes went heavy and she thought that this was just like going to sleep at night, but she wouldn't wake up to the pain ever again. No more pain, she thought.

The door of the apartment opened, but she had bolted the chain. She heard it clink as the door hit it and she could hear Vanity start to scream:

“Jessie! Let me in!”

The entire time they lived in that apartment that chain had never been bolted and Vanity was immediately terrified and from outside the door she started shrieking and screaming and crying because she knew exactly what it meant.

172

“Jessie..No! No, Jessie..No!! No! No!”

Vanity could see through the hall and into the apartment and the closet and she could just make out Jessie's arm hanging limp and she knew what was happening. Vanity screamed like an animal that had been disemboweled by a car but was still alive chewing the guts of its own stomach in pain and shock and delirium. She screamed.

As Jessie began to pass out Vanity’s deafening shrieking, screaming and crying jolted her out of the darkness, her body reacting to the sound with a jolt, the backs of her feet pushing into the closet floor and the cord digging deeper into her neck as Vanity watched from the door screaming and crying as Jessie hung dying.

“Jessie, baaabbbbyyyy! Nooo, nooo, no! Pleaasse Goodd don’t do this to me! PLEASE!”

The sound of Vanity screaming instinctively continued to jolt her body pushing with the backs of her feet straining into the noose, into the wire, the last asana, this twisted upward dog pose, and just as she was slipping away her body twitched and pushed into the floor and the extra stress was too much for the old plastic mounting cups they cheaply reused during the last remodel. The plastic cracked and Jessie and the noose and the wooden dowel and the mounting bracket came crashing down to the floor onto the pile of clothing she had thrown out of the closet. When she hit the pile of clothing the dowel rod hit her in the back of the head and knocked her unconscious. Jessie lay passed out in a heap on the heap of clothing. Her lungs fighting for air, breathing hard and heavy.

A neighbor heard Vanity’s screams and came to her aid. “Back up!” he shouted as he thrusting front kicked the door open and Vanity pushed him aside and ran into the apartment as he said, “I'll Call 911!”

Vanity ran through the hall and turned into the bedroom and fell to her knees and completely lost it in grief thinking at first that Jessie was dead. She was crying like a Muslim mother that had lost a child, her voice gone from the pain, the hollow sound of her body in convulsive seizures of fear and grief.

173

She lifted Jessie's head into her lap and the tears fell from her eyes and rolled off and down her chin splashing against Jessie's face and cheeks. She loosened the noose from around Jessie's neck and took it off of her head and threw it across the room in anger screaming at it and then she saw Jessie's chest rising and falling, her body fighting for life and air, and she held her hand near her nose and could feel her breathing hard and she realized

Jessie was still breathing. She was alive.

“Jessie! Jessie.” She said through her tears. Jessie opened her eyes and Vanity caught her breath and Vanity hugged her body in relief and then set her head on the clothes and fell into the pile and screamed into them relieved and terrified and horrified and lost.

Vanity curled into a ball and cried into the pile of clothing. Jessie watched her in shock, dazed and out of breath. Her voice gone; a blood red ring around her neck. Jessie fell onto

Vanity and hugged her and then sat up next to her and then lifted Vanity’s head into her lap and brushed her straight dark hair out of her face as Vanity cried into Jessie's jeans losing it. They sat there like that, two lost little girls, in this heap of clothing and pain.

Jessie rubbed her back and touched her face surprised by the outpour of emotions. She always felt like Vanity was with her because Jessie could make her famous and she liked the attention and the punk rock vibe of them being together, like a fuck you to the bullshit world, and the whole thing of it, so she didn't care why she was there.

“Baby. It's ok,” Jessie said, her voice barely audible, “I'm here.”

“I—can't—lose—you—” Vanity said sobbing. She was a real sober, the snot and the tears and the aching, heaving chest, she was a mess of a crier, like a child, it all came dumping out without restraint or self consciousness. Jessie wanted to laugh because it was almost funny but she just rubbed her back.

“If I commit suicide that would make you even more famous,” Jessie said, “You'll be

Courtney Love.”

Vanity could only get one syllable out between sobs, ‘I—can’—live—with—out—you—”

174

Jessie just shook her head, “Where is this coming from?’

“You--don't—get—it—”

Jessie grabbed a shirt out of the pile. “Here, blow your nose on this,” she said handing it to Vanity. Vanity blew her nose and wiped her tears away and took some breaths composing herself for long enough to talk.

“When we got together, you remember we said we wouldn't talk about our pasts? We had both been so alone and now we had each other and we would move forward and never look back and we'd make a new movie together called, Jessie and Vanity Take Over the World.”

Jessie laughed and said, “I liked the sound of it at the time. Maybe It was naive.”

“The first time I saw you was freshman year. The seniors were hazing all the freshman and my douchebag boyfriend had come over to be a dick with all the other dicks. Knocking books out of their hands, pushing them around, being bullies.”

“I remember that. I hated all those assholes.”

“You came through the door swinging your backpack, fending them off so the freshmen could get through. You were so small but you were like a wild animal and they were scared of you. They were laughing but I could see the fear in their eyes. Nobody had ever stood up to them. They wouldn't have messed with you because you were a cute girl and they didn't mess with cute girls. You didn't have to do it and you just did because that's who you are. You were the first person I saw and thought, that is what a good person looks like and that is what a good person does. They take chances to help others. I fell in love with you right then and there. I didn't know who you were, but I was going to stalk you and find you and make you my friend.

People have always come to me. Always. But I looked for you all day and I couldn't find you and then at the end of the day, after school, I went to our first high school theater meeting and there you were. Big as shit,” she said starting to cry again, “Standing up on the stage addressing everyone, with Ezra backing you. You were talking about the next four years and what we were

175 going to do and you already had it all figured out..I realized I wouldn't have to stalk you.” Vanity said before she started balling again.

“I almost didn't cast you as the lead that first year,” Jessie said.

“I had to fight for it. That had never happened to me before. Nobody had ever seen me for anything other than the way I look. You took me seriously. You were hard on me. You pushed me and I studied. I worked hard because you worked so hard. I wanted to impress you so bad. I studied acting, method, and I learned everything I could. I took classes in France. I was in other plays outside of school. You pushed me to be the best I could.”

“You were on another level sophomore year. And I fucked the play up. I was such a bitch to everyone. I was having a hard time that year. Living on couches in the city and I couldn't focus on school. I was barely surviving. I rewrote the sophomore play because you were so incredible though. I couldn't take my eyes off of you after that. I hadn't thought of it in a while.”

“I knew you did and that was the first time in my life that I didn't feel alone. I felt like someone saw me. Someone was thinking about me,” Vanity started to break apart again, convulsing like a toddler. Her pain was palpable. You could see it in the veins on her face and the tears flowing down her cheeks. Real pain.

“Why didn't you ever tell me this?”

“I was trying to tell you. I was going to tell you in LA. Everything has been happening so fast,” Vanity was really crying now, the tears just flowing. Jessie couldn’t help herself but laugh and she said, “Gee Van, when you get to ballin you really get to ballin.”

Vanity laughed a little and through her sobbing she caught her breath and said, “Once the—dam breaks.”

“You're just a big softy, Van. I thought you wanted to date those pop stars and leave me and start a music career.”

“It's just—sex—I—”

Jessie cut her off, “It's ok, Van. I'm gettin the picture here.”

176

“I don't want to be alone Jessie and everyone is just sooo..Have you ever been in a

Denny’s? Please don’t leave me here with these people! I need your brain. I need to be close to it. It's not exactly like this world is full of people like you, Jessie. You are so unique and beautiful. You are so different. You're not replaceable.”

“Everyone is unique.”

“I know Jessie, but you are my unique.”

Jessie laughed.

“Jessie, I can't lose you. Everything is impermanent. No relationship is fairytale perfect and life is messy and relationships are hard sometimes, but I want—”

Jessie cut her off with a kiss, “You're pretty amazing yourself. I'm a real lucky girl to have you.”

Vanity looked up into her eyes to see if she was serious and then satisfied she said,

“You pinky swore that you wouldn't kill yourself.”

“Technically, I didn't break my promise.”

“Jessie, will you get some help?” Vanity started to cry again afraid Jessie wouldn’t try to get help. “Jessie you have to do something! Get some help. Please, baby. Please, try.”

“I don't know, Van. I'm broken on the inside. There is this pain in my heart all the time. I think it's broken. I think it’s actually broken. Like a real broken heart.”

“We can glue it.”

Jessie laughed. “We can’t glue the world. The world is broken and my stupid stories aren't going to fix it. They're just not. It's all broken. God, this is all so awful. I just wanted to make movies. Transformational films. I really should have been a painter.”

“I heard once that the cracks are how the light comes in, Jess. Maybe you need to let the light come in.”

Jessie laid Vanity’s head down on the clothing and then slid down onto the pile with her and hugged her and they held each other like that until the paramedics showed up.

177

Jessie was standing out in front of the gate with a black duffle bag. The place was nice.

Japanese minimalist architecture. A statue of a meditating buddha on either side of the gate.

The gate itself was made artistically with a welded metal frame and wooden paneling.

The gate opened and a beautiful Chinese American girl in black robes, with a shaved head, came out through the door.

“I was thinking that maybe I should cut my arm off,” Jessie said. “I read that's what you used to have to do to get into one of these places. No pussy shit. Full commitment to enlightenment.”

“We're not all that sought after these days,” Sabina said. “We don't even ask for a donation, let alone a flesh and blood sacrifice. You must be Jessica.”

Jessie nodded and Sabina said, “set your bag here inside the gate and let's take a walk before you come in, ok? Let's talk a bit outside of the school and get all of that out of the way, because once you're in here, that's it. No conversations. No questions that don't have to do with life at the school or the practice.”

Jessie set her bag down inside the gate to the side and Sabina shut the gate and latched it. “It'll be safe for our short walk.”

They walked next to each other down the street, both of them dressed in black. Sadina in robes and Jessie in jeans.

“I figured you might have some questions for me,” Sabina said, “and I wanted to be available to you, so now is the time if there is anything, and then I won't really be available to talk after this. This is the time.”

“I do have questions,” Jessie said. “The first thing I guess is, what's the story? How did you get involved here?”

178

“I’m not sure how much you know about me.”

“Next to nothing,” Jessie said.

“Well—We're both nerds, just of different subjects. I was very much a computer nerd. I was always Mr. Miller’s student. Jeffery. You know about him, right?”

“Kinda. Just what everyone else knows. MIT. Robotics. He's tech rich right?”

“He dropped out of MIT and sold patents for self driving tech. He made a lot of money, but he wasn't happy with his life. The cars, the jet, the houses, the bitches, the whole thing. He hated it. He came back to our school to teach. I think Ezra has a similar story. They both became what the world said was important and found it to be vapid and meaningless, so they became teachers. Devoting their lives to helping others.”

“—to inspire the next generation of people who live meaningless lives,” Jessie said thinking about her own experiences.

Sabina shrugged, “Till people get it right.”

“You were involved with some really crazy underground hacker community, right?”

Jessie said.

“I was a hacktivist. The financial collapse was my baby. Finance is the main issue with the capitalistic model. It’s a way to rob the workers of the world. I was trying to make the world better by exposing the flaws in the system through targeting individuals. I was specifically targeting any individual that was directly responsible for the financial collapse. I was going to war with them in a way. But yeah. Yeah. I helped work on cryptocurrency early and then I was involved in a very small and indirect way with some individuals that were involved in creating the

Silk Road.”

“You were arrested for your connection to them, right?”

“The authorities said I was arrested because they thought I was connected to Ross

Ulbricht who was supposedly the kingpin behind the Silk Road. He wasn't of course. Ross was a pawn. They wanted to make an example of someone and the DEA needed a victim. So they

179 cut off Ross's head and stuck it on a pike in front of their castle of hypocrisy and lies—that was a long time ago. The silk road was an excuse, though. They arrested me because they thought I knew who Satoshi Nakamoto was and that I had gained access to the Primarch System. And also, because I was hacking the financial elite—those pulling the levers of law enforcement. But they would have just suicided me If they didn’t think I could be used.”

“The Primarch System?”

“The Primarch System is a mythological part of the internet, the deepest part of the internet, where A.I. supposedly exists already, and where matter and consciousness connect in the mind of God. The genesis of manifest reality, the genesis of the simulation and all that jazz.

It’s internet folklore, basically. The authorities of course thought if they could access it, they would be all powerful. Fear based creatures they are. It's a very long story and I can't get fully into it right now.”

“Did you hack the Primarch System?” Jessie said.

Sabina smiled and then she continued, “When I was arrested and locked up in Jail, I thought my life was over. They were trying to break me. I was tortured and beaten and raped and starved and stressed to the point of psychosis and I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for

Jeffrey. Jeff convinced them he could get me to comply and they let him see me. He brought me books on Zen and Buddhism and Advaita and during our visits he taught me how to meditate and he taught me asanas. They did everything they could to ruin my life. When I did get out I had nowhere to go. No one wanted anything to do with me. Jeff brought me here and introduced me to the main teacher, the individual who started this place. He took me in and I've been living and working here ever since.” Then she paused thinking and said, “I was wrong about everything back then. It took me coming here to realize it. I was never going to help the world or change the world through creating more conflict. I was fighting fire with fire and I needed to bring water to the fire. That’s what we do in meditation. We bring water to fire.”

Jessie nodded. “How did Jeff, or Mr. Miller, get involved with this place?”

180

“He was a Steve Jobs fanboy and Steve, as you probably know, was into Zen and

Veganism and the whole thing. Jeff started to practice when he was a kid, after he read the

Isaacson bio. He felt like it helped him and gave him an advantage in robotics, in competitions, and life. He says his best ideas have come to him while sitting on his cushion, which he does every morning still. Jeff was trying to find something deeper than Zen. A teaching that was more pure. He found the Vipassana tradition and then started practicing with Goenka, but didn’t like the dogma he found there either. Then his friend, Jack Dorsey, who was also a Vipassana meditator, stumbled across this blueprint for a new religion that had been laid out by this individual who believed truth needed to be the center of the teaching and not any individual person. They became involved and this place started as an experiment to see if it might be possible to begin the world's first religion based on truth and without a central figurehead. Jeff and Jack helped build this center. They, along with the rest of the board of directors of the center, they believe the world needs a new religion that isn’t based on worshiping some person or following some old dogma, but is rooted in truth and based in meditation and the importance of skepticism and the individual experience.”

“The teacher,” Jessie said, “The one who helped write the books and started this ball rolling. It’s a little weird, don’t you think? All the secrecy? What’s the deal? People think it’s a cult.”

“Like Satoshi, the teacher who founded this place understands that any religion with a figurehead, Jesus or Buddha, or whatever, will always lead humans astray. He says the only figurehead to any true spiritual path is truth itself, and the pursuit of truth is the true spiritual path. He says there is only one truth and that is what everyone is looking for. He spent most of his life living in monasteries and found the truth for himself and then stripped the traditions all down and built a school for meditation and living. He feels that in order to heal the human heart we need a new spirituality; a new religion. It starts with meditation practice and the healing and

181 transformation of the individual. You will have a short meeting with him at the end of your retreat. It’s not about secrecy, it’s about focusing on the moon instead of the finger.”

Jessie nodded.

“The student is always the moon and any true teaching will direct the student back inwards. Try not to focus on the teachers or on the school, Jessie. It’s really not about him. It’s about you and your relationship to life. Meditation takes work. The center is open and free to all, but the practice isn't free. The freedom it brings isn't free. Meditation is very powerful if you're willing to do the work. Meditation can help you, Jessie. Once you learn how to meditate properly, it can change your life. It takes time and practice and discipline and dedication, just like anything worth doing. Meditation changed my life and this place gave meaning to my life.”

They had circled the block and they were almost back at the gate when Sabina said,

“The world is..wrong about almost everything and it was designed that way.”

“For people to be wrong about everything?”

“Indeed,” she said, “but that is all about to change. The world is about to change. The species is about to upgrade its OS. Any more questions? I won't be willing to discuss any more of this once we enter the meditation center.”

Jessie shook her head, “No more questions. I'm ready.”

“Come on in,” Sabina said holding the gate open. “I'll show you to your room and then we can begin your training.”

“Whoa,” Jessie said walking through the gate, “This is very formal.”

“I'm kinda kidding. I'll show you around though and then after that you'll be expected to remain in silence. You can put your things away and then rest or walk around or read until dinner.”

The Meditation hall was at the center of two wings that were the male and female dormitories, which were connected by corridors. There was a giant courtyard between the two

182 wings, with a koi pond in the middle that was surrounded by a raised wooden deck used for contemplation and walking meditation.

They walked together through the grounds towards the dormitories. Then past the pond and up onto the wooden deck that surrounded it, down a covered walkway past another statue of a meditating buddha.

“We ask that you turn your phone in to us if you can't keep it off while you're here,”

Sabina said. “No phones. Not even as an alarm. No computers. No tablets. None of that here. If you can't follow the rules and the code of discipline, which you should have read, then you will be asked to leave. Being here is an opportunity to live like a monastic and to detox from the world and all of its addictions. Dinner is at five and then cleaning, but you don't have to worry about cleaning or working at all tonight. We'll give you a task for tomorrow. We eat a simple vegetarian dinner tonight and then we don’t eat dinner after that, following the monastic traditions. Just breakfast and lunch. After dinner, meditation is at five thirty tonight and then a break followed by the evening dialogues.”

They reached the female dormitory wing and Sabina held the door for Jessie. Inside the door there were benches and coat hooks and shoe cubbies as there were inside every door.

Sabina took off her shoes gently and Jessie kicked hers off haphazardly. Sabina noticed and said, “Try to do everything here with care. Begin to cultivate presence and awareness, ok?”

Jessie nodded and then neatly set her shoes next to each other on the rug.

Sabina led her down the corridor to the meditation hall which was connected to the dormitories at the center of each wing.

“This is the hall,” she said and then continued to lead her down the long corridor of rooms until they reached a door at the end of the corridor. “This is your room,” Sabina said pushing the door open. Jessie walked past her carrying her bag in front as she looked around.

“You are free for a couple hours to get settled in and rest. There is always tea available in the dining hall. I'll leave you to get settled. Before the retreat begins, Jo-shu will meet you

183 outside in front of the meditation hall and help you get situated. He'll be wearing a robe like mine but maroon colored. You’ll see him.”

Jessie walked around looking at the room and out the small window.

“There is a library down below the meditation hall,” Sabina said and Jessie’s lit up as she turned and looked at her as Sabia continued, “We ask that you don't remove any books from the library, but if you do bring a book back to your room, please return it before you leave.”

“Thank you so much Sabina. It was nice to meet you, finally.”

“Likewise. I'll see you later,” Sabina said as she closed Jessie's door and headed off.

Jessie set her bag on the bed. The room was small, just a simple bed, already made up.

A night table. A window. It had a bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet. It was like a nice clean cell.

There were four laminated pages of text hanging on the wall near the door. The time table, the vows, the code of discipline, and instructions for cleaning the room at the end of retreat:

The Daily Time Table:

4:30 - 6:30 meditation

6:30 - 8:00 breakfast or yoga/chi gong

8:00 - 9:30 breakfast or yoga/chi gong

9:30 - 11:30 group meditation

11:30 - 2:00 lunch time

2:00 - 3:00 group meditation

3:00 - 5:00 afternoon working meditation period

5:00 - 6:00 tea time

6:00 - 7:00 group meditation

7:00 - 9:00 evening discourse

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9:00 - 10:00 evening quiet study

10:30 lights out

Please be in the hall for all of the group meditations and the evening discourse. The time table is set up to help you with your practice. Please follow the timetable for your benefit and for the benefit of everyone else at the center.

The Code of Discipline:

abstain from killing or harming any beings, including self harm

abstain from intoxicants including drugs, alcohol, or tobacco

maintain silence at all times

abstain from all forms of entertainment, including reading books that do not relate to

practice or writing that does not relate to practice or creating any form of art

abstain from sexual activities

maintain a simple and minimalist lifestyle void of excessive luxury

The reason for the code of discipline is to help aid you in practice and personal growth. Please follow the code for your own benefit and for the benefit of everyone at the center.

The Three Vows:

do as little harm to other beings as possible

do as much to help other beings as possible

take care of yourself

The Key Principles:

do not follow the truth of anyone else. be skeptical of everything and do your own

experiments and investigations

185

seek truth for yourself

serve others. serve truth. help others find truth if and only if they wish to find it

seek truth for yourself. with all your heart, mind, and body

seek truth and true morality will arise

She put her clothes in the small dresser and set her alarm clock up and then put her toiletries in the bathroom; her castle soap and floss and toothbrush. She changed out of her jeans and into some black leggings and Vanity’s black Kanye West sweatshirt, that was too big for her and covered her almost like a dress. The website had mentioned that clothing should be modest and yoga pants were not to be worn in public areas and that shorts should be worn over them even during yoga. At first, she thought this was weird and then she thought about it, and then she understood. Vanity’s yoga pants always made concentration impossible. Even her own sometimes would catch her in front of the mirror. Which was fine, if you weren’t trying to focus on work or meditation practice. Sex was always a powerful human distraction, she thought.

Procreation was a powerful form of self preservation.

Once she was settled in, she tucked her bag under the bed and then left the room and went looking for the library. The center was a quiet and peaceful place and she could understand the appeal of it. Just being there she felt more relaxed than she ever had at the spa's Vanity had taken her to. Those places made her feel uncomfortable, but she felt relaxed here. The place itself cultivated a feeling of peace and well being within her.

On her walk to the library she passed a few students and they all kept their heads down, without being rude, but without interacting. This place, she thought, was an introvert's wet dream. And then she remembered that abstinence was in the code of discipline and she vowed not to use sexual metaphors, analogies or comparisons in her inner dialogues while she was here.

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The giant building that was the meditation hall and the dormitories and library was built into a big hill that overlooked the city. The library was on the lower level. She walked back through the corridor and found her way back to the meditation hall and through an outside door and then went around the building and down some stone steps to a great big deck that was attached to the library.

She opened the big wooden double doors that led into the library. The place was like an oasis of books and reading nooks.. She was a connoisseur of libraries and bookstores and even by her standards this space was impressive. There were pictures of various teachers hanging on some of the walls between the bookshelves. She recognized a picture of the Indian sage

Ramana Maharshi and another one she thought might have been the trappist monk Thomas

Merton who was walking next to the Dali Lama.

It was empty of other people but was full of books from every corner of the world, focused on enlightenment or truth realization and the collection contained books that ranged from the Christian, Muslim and Jewish mystics, to Zen and Advaita, as well as books by dozens of modern spiritual teachers, some she was beginning to recognize, all about truth or spiritual enlightenment. This lady Byron Katie who’s books she wanted to read still, and this funny guy

Eckhart Tolle, who was a popular modern teacher, and then of course that name she kept coming in contact with—Adyashanti.

There was a big stack of books that the center published itself, which were supposed to be a synthesized version of all these teachings about truth realization, the practice leading to realization, and the way to live or to conduct oneself, before, during and after realization. The book was bound in a black cover with gold lettering that said simply, The Book of Truth. and she thought it looked like the bible, sort of. She had read about this book online before she came.

Supposedly It had been created by a group of individuals known collectively as The Truth

Council.

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She grabbed a copy and took it to one of the reading nooks. The nooks were like couches built into the walls, each under a window that looked out onto the grounds where a few students were quietly doing yardwork and observing silence. She arranged the pillows and curled up in the window and pulled one of the folded blankets over her lap and she thought that she could very easily get used to this meditation center lifestyle as she opened the book and started to read the first of three introductions. It was written by the center's teacher and signed with the name Anatta, which, she had read online, he sometimes went by.

It said the book was written by a group of enlightened individuals and edited by another group of enlightened individuals to get as clear and unbiased a picture of truth, the path to truth, and the path after the realization of truth, as possible.

She liked the stripped down minimalist prose style and the way it was laid out. Fifteen chapters with five sections all about aspects of the path and an outline for operating the church and school.

The intro said that in organized religions of the past, too much attention had been placed on the egoic manifestations that brought the light of truth to the world, instead of focusing on truth itself. This had been the key mistake and the most common one. Ego ended up worshiping ego, and the truth became forgotten over time as the ego that taught truth became a larger than life figure and then died without leaving a school or religion and then one was often constructed by the egoic students and the whole thing turned into a mess and was a great loss for the species it said that The Church of Truth would try to avoid this.

The introduction then went on to talk about how human spiritual teachers were getting better at waking students up and that the species was close to a breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms at work, which would help bring about this next evolution. It said that awaking from delusion could be looked at as a type of science, one we have just begun to understand.

The problem with calling it a science, though, is that science is less about truth then it thinks it is. It's a belief system or a religion, based on materialism. The key to solving some of these

188 issues would be for scientists themselves to wake up to the truth, or to download the enlightened OS. Which was the point of the school and the church. Not to create another belief system but to help as many as possible find truth for themselves to aid in the evolution of the human species.

After the introduction she jumped to the section on spiritual practice and started to read about the various meditation practices.

The first meditation technique in the book said to turn your attention inward, to your inner body, and to observe the sensations there. She closed her eyes for a moment and she could feel her heart beating and her blood pumping; the energy of her body being alive. The livingness of it. There was a pain in her chest, in her heart, which she could really feel as she sat quietly observing.

After about five minutes, she opened her eyes and flipped to the next section and this one said to put attention on the breath, feeling the chest and lungs expand, or watching the breath at the base of the nostrils, feeling the air move in and out. The book said once you became sensitive you could feel a temperature difference from the inward breath to the outward breath. She closed her eyes again and felt the air move in and out at the base of her nostrils. It tickled and she giggled and rubbed her nose.

After a few minutes of observing her breath she opened her eyes and flipped to the next section. This one was about putting attention on the third eye area, which was also part of the inner body. She closed her eyes and turned her attention inward to the space between her eyes; the place she would sometimes get headaches, right where they said the third eye was. There was a dark empty spaciousness, and from that place she could feel her breath and the sensations in her body as well.

The next section described a meditation technique for a very dull or challenged mind in which a scanning of the inner body was employed; from head to foot, and from foot to head; on the outside of the body and on the inside of the body, paying attention to subtler and subtler

189 sensation as the mind became more focused and sensitive. She closed her eyes again and moved her attention from the top of her head, feeling the follicles on her head, then she passed her attention all the way down to her toes, feeling them warm and maybe a little sweaty in the blanket.

From the different approaches, what she was gathering was that the idea was to put attention on the body and breath and sensations in order to get attention out of thinking and the habit patterns of excessive and constant thought. As she sat practicing these techniques, she had a small insight that all of the pain she had been feeling was, at the very least, amplified by the habitual thinking of her mind.

The conclusion to the section said that the point of meditation was to bring attention out of thoughts and emotions and to rest attention in consciousness or the silent spaciousness that was always underlying thoughts and emotions.

It said that as the meditator sits and is able to allow thoughts and emotions to be as they are, they will lose power and energy over the individual and the layers of the onion of self will slowly come apart. Once the most powerful thoughts and emotions, or thought/motions, have come to the surface and been seen through, subtler and subtler ones would arise until almost no thought/motion would be interesting enough to disturb the silent spaciousness and the self would unravel and the truth would bloom in consciousness. It said that in order for the self to unravel, perfection wasn’t necessary. Once a relative level had been reached it would begin to happen naturally like a flower blooming in spring. Truth, it said, has a gravity, a pull, and once the motion of thought had stopped some, the gravity of truth would begin to take over and the natural process of awakening would occur.

The book had a footnote about what these thought/motions had been called at different times in history, and in different places. It said that naming and words were illusions. A thought/motion was simply the emotions and thoughts that were deep patterns in the individual

190 that took over attention and had energy or power to distract and pull the individual into the illusion of self and separation.

She ended up sitting and meditating and reading in the nook through dinner time and just before meditation, she got up and folded the blanket and put the book away, vowing to return and read the rest of it. There was something very powerful in the book, she felt, something evolutionary, and she had the sense that she was just touching the surface of whatever it was.

She left the library through the big wooden doors and headed back across the deck and up the stone steps and through the covered walkway that connected the dorm to the meditation hall. Out in front of the hall, she saw the maroon robes and realized it must have been the guy she was supposed to meet. Jo-shu was middle aged, and she thought he looked like he might be Middle Eastern, Israeli maybe. He had beautiful tattoos all over his hands and arms and long straight dark hair pulled up into a top knot. He bowed to her and she bowed back.

Students passed them quietly filing into the hall as he led her into the coat and shoe room, carefully taking off his own shoes as she did the same.

Shoes off, she followed him to a giant closet just outside of the meditation hall that was full of meditation implements. It was overflowing with stuff she had never seen. From floor to ceiling it was overflowing with every form of cushion or pillow, zafus, back jacks for older people or anyone with an injury, wooden kneeling benches of all sorts, yoga blocks and various block type pillows, and lots of blankets; shelves full of blankets of every size, color, and softness.

She grabbed a small round, black cushion, the type they often use in the Zen tradition, and she grabbed a nice soft fleece blanket that matched her bright violet hair and was big enough for her to get completely wrapped up in if the meditation hall was cold.

After she had her pillow and her blankie, her implements of meditation, Jo-shu led her into the hall. She thought this was all kind of funny and she wondered if they got to drink milk now too.

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The meditation hall was a great big spacious room with vaulted ceilings and small skylights. Nothing hung from the walls except the code and time table near the doors.

Some small windows on either side of the hall let some light in and the place was cool and full of a soft natural light. The floor was carpeted in a soft cream shag and there were thick pads spaced out on the ground and lined up in staggered rows all across the floor and facing the front of the room. The square black pads were like thick pillows or cushions that were the base that students sat on for meditation. It kept them just a couple inches off the floor and warmer and helped keep them comfortable through long periods of sitting. On top of these square cushions students placed their other pillow that they sat on and whatever implements they needed for warmth or comfort. Everyone was assigned a cushion and after a few days each person had built some sort of nest for themselves to meditate in, with pillows and blankets and the room looked very much like the adult version of nap time.

Jo-shu took Jessie to her spot at the front of the hall near the teachers, which was where they liked to put the new students, to help hold energy for them and to make sure they were ok.

At her cushion, Jo-shu bowed to Jessie and left her, heading off to his own spot in the far back corner of the room where the oldest students were, so they could monitor and help if needed and also to hold the energy and give strength to the room, as well as to give the old students space for their own practice.

Jessie dropped the black circular cushion into the middle of the square and sat down on it and wrapped the soft fleece blanket around her and it felt nice and she was relaxed even though she was a little nervous. It did have the feel of adult nap time to her and she laughed out loud but concealed it with a cough, thinking what a silly thing this was; who would have ever thought of this?

The other students piled into the room and it filled up and was warmed by the energy of the bodies and she realized that this was a really nice feeling thing and she did already understand how having this as an anchor could be really beneficial. This was the community

192 energy and she knew it was one of the main things people needed from a religion or spirituality.

Humans are social and they need community.

Up in the front of the room there were three platforms that were about a foot off the ground. The platforms had cushions on them as well, but more minimal. The platform almost directly in front of Jessie also had a small maroon colored shawl.

There was a door at the front of the room off to the side of the platforms and it opened and Sabina came out and Jessie was surprised to see her walk across the front of the room to the first platform just in front of Jesse. Sabina adjusted the cushion and set down a piece of paper she was carrying on the side table that was next to the platform. Sabina then turned and sat on the platform and very carefully and methodically folded her legs and wrapped the shawl around her body and lap and settled into her cushion. Jessie couldn't totally make it out but she thought there was a clock on the stand next to her.

The meditators began to settle in as Jessie sat on her cushion like a hen sitting on an egg, waiting for something to happen, and then, on the hour, Sabina picked up a wooden stick and hit the side of a large singing bowl that sat next to her. She hit it once and it rang out and she waited for the sound to dissipate and she hit it one more time and then set the stick next to it and rested her hands gently on her thighs, with her palms facing down and she closed her eyes and meditation had begun.

Everyone settled into silence. As the hour went on the room became quieter and calmer, except for the occasional cough or sniffle and the general noises that bodies make. Nobody got up during the sitting period. The door never opened.

There were no formal instructions but Jessie had been reading the book that the school published and started by watching her breath and focusing her attention on the sensations of her inner body, for what felt like a few minutes—and then a sticky thought/motion grabbed her and she got lost in her mind.

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She thought about Hollywood and then she was back in the limo and then she was back in Caroline’s office. She felt fear and sadness and physical pain in her chest and stomach. Then she came back to her breath, taking a deep breath to clear her mind and bring it back to the sensations of her body. The soft fleece against her skin; the room warm with so many bodies.

She could feel the tension in herself, the anger and pain inside of her from what she had gone through. She took breaths into the contraction and pain she felt, like she was doing a yoga asana, breathing into a stretch, and then she exhaled some of it out, and it felt like tension was released.

She fell into relaxation. Her inner body. Feeling light on her cushion and warm in the blanket and safe in this space. And then it came back—the image of the agent’s dick flashed in her mind and then Caroline again and then she thought—No matter what you do in this life, they try to fuck you—How could they? How could they do that to me? How could they be so awful?

She instantly lost her peace, her body contracting again, the tension causing pain, she could feel it. She took another deep breath wondering how much longer this was going to last. She was alone, she reminded herself. Far away from what had happened. Far away from them. She focused on the sensations of her inner body again and breathed into her stomach and relaxed.

And then she thought of Vanity. An image of her smiling. An image of her naked. An image of her naked and spreading her legs and beckoning Jessie forward with one curled finger, her dripping wet slit and engorged clit. No! No! NO! Jessie thought as she fought off the more pleasant onslaught from her mind. She could feel the reaction caused by the thoughts. The warmth in her crotch, the wetness of her own slit, and the engorging of her own clit as the blood rushed into it as it pushed up looking for the friction of touch. She focused on the air on her skin.

She brought her attention into her body away from her lower chakras. The room stilled even more as the period continued. It wasn't about silence only, it was a stillness, a spaciousness that seemed to increase as everyone sat together in meditation, and she thought that this was another aspect of the meaning of sangha, or those gathering together for truth or spiritual

194 community. It was about being supported and supporting each other. She could palpably feel the energy shifting, deepening. She could feel the charge from the room full of meditators. The power of the intention and focus. Her sexual energy dissipated. The tension in her body relaxed further. She began to feel peace. She followed her breath feeling the air moving in and out at the base of her nostrils as she began to relax. Her neck cracked and tension left her body on a physical level, and then she thought, this works. This works. Then she thought about writing a novel about this, and then she thought about how she could do that without boring people because meditation isn't exactly entertainment. She thought about tense and character and the narrative voice and she completely and totally lost herself in thought without realizing it until she heard the sound of the singing bowl again. She immediately became tense and frustrated with herself for forgetting what she was supposed to be doing.

Everyone in the room eased out of their meditative postures emerging from their blankets and uncrossing their legs, sitting up on their nests.

Once the bowls stopped singing from the front of the room Sabina said, “Take a short break and come back for evening discourse.”

She didn't need to go to the bathroom so she just sat there with her arms wrapped around her knees. As the students got up and left, the space opened and became cooler. Students came up to the front of the room and sat on the floor in a line waiting to ask

Sabina a question about practice. Jessie was close enough to hear the questions and Sabina’s answers, which was part of why new students were up front.

A young guy came forward kneeling in front of Sabina. He said that he kept getting caught in his thought and forgetting what he was doing until the period was over, which is exactly what Jessie just went through. She listened, a little freaked out that the question was so much like her own experience, like someone, or thing, had read her mind.

“That’s perfectly normal,” Sabina said. “Your attention will wander to thought because that is the habit of the mind. You're not going to undo a lifetime of conditioning immediately. Just

195 as soon as you realize that your mind has hijacked you, bring your attention back into the body, to sensations or to the breath. What's important is that you don't respond emotionally. Don't get upset with yourself. You'll just create more tension and more contraction and more thinking.

Don’t traumatize yourself. That's not what we want. As soon as you realize your mind has wandered, very gently and compassionately bring it back. Don't indulge in thinking unless it's absolutely necessary, but don't internally berate yourself for getting lost in thought.”

The student nodded and Sabina continued.

“Sometimes a thought pattern will need attention. It will have such a strong energy that you just need to think it through, and if you don't it will never leave you alone. This can happen.

Try not to indulge in thinking during meditation periods unless it is absolutely necessary.”

The student bowed and turned and stood and walked away.

After about ten minutes one of the older students sounded the gong and everyone began to file back into the room and back to their birds nests. Once everyone was in, an old student closed the hall doors and Jo-shu took a seat at the other small platform.

Jo-shu and Sabina had a short back and forth communication in which they seemed to be discussing who would give the talk tonight. The communication ended with them both laughing and nodding. Sabina rang the bowl again and once it was silent she started to speak.

“Some of you have been here in retreat for a few days now, and some of you are just starting your retreat today. We stagger the seven and ten day retreats. This is day three if you're on a ten day retreat and it's day one if you're just starting. If you're in a work period it's different.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. We’re all here for the same reason. To discover the truth within.

Silence is one of the keys to deep meditative practice. Silence and continuity are why we go on retreat. The ego is a subtle and tricky entity and silence is critical in helping de-energize it. Like a battery operated machine, ego needs power to operate, and it gets power through emotions which are tied to thoughts. If we stop giving it power, eventually it will lose energy and shut itself down. Once it shuts down, the truth is there.”

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She paused for a moment.

“I was asked an important question during our break and I want to make sure you all understand how to come to meditation, especially if you are just learning. We are not here to fight our minds. You can go to war with your mind and you will never win. We are not fighting our minds, we are bringing our attention away from thought and out of emotion. In life we live in our thoughts, in what science is calling the default mode network, where we are constantly in thoughts about our past and our future. These thoughts are tied to emotions and that is how we define the story and feeling of our experience. That is what most thought is. Past and future. It has almost nothing to do with the present. That's why the idea of being in the present moment has been a prevalent one, but the idea of the present moment or the now, that's just another thought. That's why we place our attention on the sensations of the body, or the breath, or the third eye. All of these things, these places of attention, are in the present moment, they are right here, happening right now. How our inner body feels is happening now. Tense, hot, light, pulsating, whatever the sensations are, they are here and now. Same with the breath. It is here and now. We are breathing. The body is constantly breathing to stay alive. The inner body is constantly working to keep the body alive. The heart beats. Blood pumps. Digestion is happening. The liver is cleaning the blood. Constantly. And also, the third eye, which is just the inner spaciousness in your head, inside your head, it is the place that is between and just above your eyes. Your third eye or your inner eye. This isn't meant to be some esoteric thing. It is near some of your powerful sense points. Your eyes. Your ears. Your nose. Your mouth. Your brain sits right there in this spot. This is not some new age thing. This is a powerful place to set your attention and it can help you in your meditation to sometimes put your attention on the third eye.

A spaciousness can open from there. A very stable seat of attention and presence can open right there.

One word of caution. Don't jump from point to point. Practice to practice. If you decide to focus on your breath this hour, then focus on your breath. If you decide to put attention on your

197 third eye, then put attention on your third eye. If you are having a lot of sticky thought/motions, then scan the bodily sensations from the top of the head to the bottom of your feet and from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. This is a very effective practice for new meditators and sometimes for very old meditators. We all have sticky days. Days when the thought/motions are in charge. Pulling and pushing on us. But even still, peace is underneath that, always.

Silence is always there. Spaciousness is always there. In the most tumultuous seas, deep under the waves, there is calm, undisturbed peace. Always. Always peace is within. We’re not creating it. We’re just paying attention to it.

Eventually, as you practice, you will sometimes release all of these objects or tools and you will just rest in spacious stillness. In the inner calm that precedes thought and is always available to you. From that place we begin our inquiry into the self. To get to that place of no practice, takes practice. Simple as that. That's why you come here, or to a place like this, to make time for your meditation practice and to deepen your practice. To become deeply rooted in your practice with minimum distraction. Everything here is designed to help you with your practice. To help you find the inner stillness, the inner silence that exists within you already.

Remember, during meditation periods, if you get lost in thought, be gentle with yourself.

Remember the third and most important Vow: Take Care of Yourself. In meditation, be kind to yourself. That is taking care of yourself. The third vow is the most important vow because if you don't obey the third vow, you can't obey the other two. That is law. If you don’t take care of yourself, how can you help others? How can you be of service to others? You can’t. If you get lost in thought, just gently realize it and come back to the inner body. Feeling sensations, or turn to your third eye, or watch your breath as it goes in and out at the base of the nostrils or also you can watch it in your chest or belly as they expand and contract. Or deep in your hara, the place below your belly button, where we all are connected to life in the womb. That can be a very deep reservoir in your practice, breathing softly and keeping attention in the hara.

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Inner space isn't something you can manufacture. As you become curious about it, as you notice it, it will open. It will become the seat you rest in. Your inner meditation cushion.

Over time, as you began to inquire: What do I know for sure? What is true? Is that true?

You will unhook from the thoughts of self, the thought/motions will lose power over you and you will become more rooted in silence. A thought/motion will come and it will try to take you over and you will immediately, from a place of silence, recognize, that’s not truth, that’s not now, that’s not here, that’s not mine, and it won’t have any power over you. You won’t be interested in it and it won’t have any energy. Thought/motions need your energy to exist and once they don’t have it, they will leave. They will go and only silence and peace will remain. Only what you are without the story will remain. Truth will remain.

Please read and follow all the rules and instructions while you are here. Take this time very seriously and these will be some of the most important days of your life. Many people have had life altering experiences on retreat. Focus on what you came here to do. Let go of your life story outside of the center for these days, and truly give yourself to practice, and the results will come. Peace will come. Truth will come.

Jo-shu and I will be available during the retreat to answer any questions about meditation practice. Feel free to come up during break or to schedule a meeting during lunch time. The main center teacher will not be available to students until the last day of retreat. You will all have a short meeting before friends and family arrive and retreat is over. If you need anything else, ask the female or male manager.

Rest for the evening and begin again tomorrow. Take rest but remain silent. Cultivate this inner and outer silence while you are here. Discipline is important for developing practitioners. Rest for the evening but maintain the discipline of silence and the focus of your intention. Rest for the evening.”

Sabina rang the bowl and then carefully stood up and Jo-shu did the same following her across the front of the hall to the side door. Once they were out the door, everyone else got up

199 and the hall started to slowly empty for the evening with everyone heading back to their rooms for the night.

Jessie waited till the hall was empty and then she got up and folded her blanket. Then she walked through the front of the meditation hall stepping around cushions till she reached the aisle and then she turned and headed up the aisle. When she got to the meditation hall door she read the haiku that was on the back of it. It was attributed to Ryokan, and it read:

Oh snail,

Climb Mt. Fuji,

But slowly, slowly.

Jessie pushed out the door and left the hall feeling very present in her body. She walked quietly and deliberately like a ninja, paying attention to her movements. The meditation center had a calm cozy vibe at night that almost felt exciting and fun, like she imagined going to camp as a kid might have, if she had gone. Meditation camp, where the main activity was adult nap time, she thought and she laughed to herself as she walked through the hall of the women's dormitory.

Back In her room, Jessie brushed her teeth and washed her face and then climbed into bed and under the covers and pulled them up to her chin. She laid in bed and thought about

Vanity. They hadn't spent a night apart since the opening night of the play. It had been a long strange journey in just such a short time. The window was just above her head and the sky was clear and she could see one bright star and she thought of a movie she had on vhs as a kid and the words from a song played in her head, ‘Somewhere out there, someone’s saying a prayer, that we’ll find each other. It helps to think we’re under the same bright star.’

She lay observing the sensations in her body. She missed Van, but she felt good about being her. She was trying too hard in life and she needed to let go. To let things flow. Things had been too stressful for too long and it was taking a toll. She lay moving her attention through her inner body. Starting with the top of her head moving all the way down to the tips of her toes,

200 and then back to the top of her head, she lay observing the sensations in her body until she fell asleep.

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v. DEATH

Her week in this meditation bootcamp ended up being one of the most challenging things she had ever done. She had some great periods of meditation and some horrific periods of meditation. She had worked through some of her inner pain and trauma. She had thought about and meditated on aspects of her childhood she had repressed or pushed out of her mind. She had begun to do deep inner work on herself and it was sometimes very painful and sometimes incredibly relieving. This, she had concluded by the last day of retreat, was by far the most important thing she had ever done.

It had been seven days of silence and yoga and meditation and healthy food and intermittent fasting. Monks had been practicing intermittent fasting for thousands of years she had learned. Of course, they didn’t call it that. It was just normal for them. She had done a deep dive into her deepest self and it was the equivalent of years in therapy and better than time at a spa for health and rejuvenation. This was the apex of human psychology and spirituality and human health and balance. She understood why Sabina had stayed here. She missed Van, but

202 she had mixed feelings about leaving and was seriously considering dedicating her life to this school or church or whatever it was, and to this practice. Everything else paled in comparison to this.

She read the entire book that the school published and she was impressed with the simplicity and the lack of dogma or spiritual trappings and she was eager to finally meet this human who had started the place, but she was equally as nervous.

She had her final morning yoga and then a light breakfast of fruit and nuts and granola and yogurt. After breakfast was the final meditation period and then the meeting with the teacher, and then retreat was over and she could see Vanity who she had missed more than she could have ever imagined. She'd become very attached to a person, she had realized during the retreat. She had never been attached to one before. Her heart felt big and full and free of pain at the thought of seeing Vanity and she almost cried thinking about being back with her and telling her about the retreat and then convincing her to sit one herself.

She went to the hall and they had the final morning sit. As she sat on her cushion waiting for everyone else to pile into the room she couldn’t stop thinking about Vanity. Sabina rang the bowl and meditation began but Jessie was distracted. It was a difficult last sit for her but she pushed through and found a way to sit even though the though/motions were strong today and they mostly revolved around this new thing in her life: Love.

After the meditation period they took a break and she went out to the hall and went to the bathroom with most everyone else and then washed up and grabbed a sip of water from the fountain and then came back and sat down on her cushion with her blanket in the comfortable spot that had become home. She felt a sadness that this was the last time she would sit here. In this place that saw her greatest pain and her greatest joy. She was surprised by the emotions she had about leaving retreat. She wanted to go and get back to work, but she never wanted to leave this. She felt pulled in both directions, but she needed to write. During the retreat she had an epiphany and she had a new idea for a movie she wanted to write.

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Once everyone was back and settled in and the doors were closed, Sabina hit the singing bowl again like she had done many times a day for the last week. They all began to meditate as an older Arabic woman, who was a long term server and the female manager, came around the room calling each of them up to interview. They were guided up to Jo-shu, who stood at the interview door in front of the hall listening for the ringing of the bell that signaled it was time for the next student to enter for interview.

Jessie was in the front of the room and not long after the period started the woman came and stood in front of Jessie and bowed to her, It was time. She was nervous and shaking slightly as she stood up, she remembered that first podcast she did. The nervousness of that interview.

She took a breath and walked across the front of the hall towards the door behind the platforms.

She passed Sabina making eye contact and Sabina nodded to her and then she walked over to where Jo-shu was standing. The door reminded her of the rear stage door from school. She stood there next to Jo-shu waiting for the bell. She glanced at the poem on the back of the door.

It was attributed to Guatama:

Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:

The sky at dawn

a bubble in a stream

a flickering lamp

a phantom

and a dream.

As soon as she read the poem, the bell rang and Jo-shu stepped forward and pulled the door open for her and she stepped into the room.

Inside, the room was the size of a small conference or interview room. It was mostly dark. It didn't have any windows. There were a couple L.E.D. candles lighting the place. The teacher was sitting on a slightly raised platform draped in dark robes like a villain in a Star Wars

204 movie, she thought. He had a table next to him with a small bell on it and there was another door off to the side of the room where students were supposed to exit after the interview.

His robes covered him, his hood up, she could only see shadows as her eyes weren't adjusted to the darkness in the room. There was a cushion set out in front of him. The door closed and she walked forward and then kneeled on the cushion before him, not sure what was supposed to happen here.

They were both quiet for a moment. The silence was comfortable. Calm. Still. She could feel his presence. It was like a deep well of resonance that permeated the space and her being.

Her eyes started to adjust to the light and she could almost make out a face under the hood. And then he slowly reached up and removed his hood and her eyes had adjusted enough and she could finally see his face.

It was him.

The man from her dreams.

Her stalker.

The person who was stalking her

in her dreams and in

her waking life.

Adrenaline rushed through her body as the horror of the realization hit, kicking in her flight or fight response as she said, “No,” and then she shouted: “NO!!!” As she jumped up and spun around as fluidly as a cat bolting for the door.

“JESSICA! WAIT!” He shouted after her as he sprang to his feet, off his cushion and after her, flying out of his robes, leaving them behind and now in his street clothes, yelling her name again as he ran after her like a cheetah chasing a small daft bunny he shouted—“JESSICA!!!”

205

She burst out the door and into the meditation hall as Jo-shu tried to stop her. She knocked him over into a seated meditator causing a domino effect involving two other meditators.

She ran through the hall hurtling over another sitting meditator clearing two cushions and landing towards the back of the hall. She hit the door of the meditation hall with her shoulder knocking the cushions out of an older lady's hands as she bolted through the coat room not bothering to grab her shoes and out the door into the quart yard past the pond. She grabbed a statue of a buddha and pulled it over and It crashed to the ground but didn't break and she kept running with him chasing just behind her. He hurdled over the statue as she was shouldering through the gate of the center and bombing out into the street. You would never have known it to look at her, but Jessie was fast---she could run.

Barefooted, her feet smacked hard against the pavement as she bolted up the street thinking once she was clear of the center he would stop following her. She stopped to catch her breath and turned back and realized she was wrong as she saw him coming. “Shit!” She said aloud, then bolted again, down the sidewalk and then at the last second, she darted across the busy street running out in front of cars and one slammed on its breaks almost flattening and ending her in the street. She jumped out of the way onto the sidewalk and kept running looking back as he ran through the street and jumped up and slid across the hood of the car like a stuntman, which he had wanted to be as a kid.

“What the fuck?” she said out loud as she kept running up the sidewalk dodging pedestrians, uphill as fast as she could as he chased her down sociopathically like the T-1000.

Up the block she ducked left into a Chinese food restaurant in a strip of businesses. A bell rang as she went through the door and the lady behind the counter said, “Can I hep you?”

As Jessie ignored her and hurdled over the counter knocking over the cash register. The lady screamed as Jessie reached into the lobster tank behind the counter pulling out a great big red

206 lobster as the lady ran from behind the counter shrieking and screaming in Chinese and to the bathroom where she locked herself in.

Jessie waited till he pushed open the door and the bell rang and then she under hand hurtled the lobster at him, knowing his weakness. She didn’t stick around to see, but he caught it gently as she bolted into and then through the kitchen and shouldered out into the alleyway.

Catching the lobster he ducked under the counter and deposited the small friend back in the tank prison where he would wait to be cooked alive.

One of the chefs, figuring out who was the predator and who was the prey, came out of the kitchen and tried to stop him or slow him down wielding a butcher knife but he ducked under the slow older man and ran into and through the kitchen. The dishwasher dumped a bucket of hobart soap on the ground near the rear of the kitchen and he slid around in it catching himself on the sinks as the dishwasher pulled a knife. He got his balance and ran outside as chow mien was flung out the door hitting him in the back.

Jessie had been outside before him and she saw a fence and some dumpsters and garbage cans. She jumped up onto a pile of flattened cardboard boxes and then jumped over to the first garbage can and then hop walked across the lids of a series of garbage cans and jumped up onto the dumpster and then jumped from the dumpster and caught the fence, cutting her toes up badly on both of her feet. They started to bleed and drip as she climbed up, just as he was coming out into the alley. She swung her leg over the top of the fence as he yelled:

“JESSIE! STOP! JESSICA!”

But she was jumping off the other side and didn't hear him. She hit the pavement in her bleeding bare feet falling forward catching her balance and running with her momentum as he was trying to climb up onto the dumpster that blocked access to the fence realizing he needed a ramp.

207

She busted a right out of the alley and ran down a side street that dumped down into a drainage gulch and to a wall above an industrial park. She slid down into the gulch and ran to the end of it and jumped down the wall and into the parking lot of an abandoned building.

She ran hard and fast diagonally across the parking lot that was now being taken back by nature. She was flat our sprinting across the lot and running out of breath as he was coming down the gulch behind her.

She reached the building but couldn't get around because of the fencing and a concrete wall so she went to the door. The handle and lock had been broken off and she pulled it open and went into the building hoping to be able to hide or find a way through.

The first floor didn't have windows and it was pitch black and she thought if he had a phone he could find her. She saw some light coming from a stairwell and ran to it and then started climbing up the stairs to the second story which had windows and light. The building was a giant open rectangle that had been gutted by scrappers and she saw another door and exit sign on the far end and ran towards it. It was a big open dusty factory building and it took her a long time to run all the way across and there was nowhere to hide so she was committed to this door as she ran at it with everything she had and then not being able to slow her momentum with her bleeding feet she slammed into it praying for an exit as she pushed and pulled the handle but the door didn't budge. It was locked. She was trapped. She looked behind her.

She could hear him coming into the building and then up the stairs.

She saw a 2x4 laying on the ground and thought she could fight him with it and she picked it up and then looked at the window and threw it into the window busting out the glass.

She walked across the glass cutting her feet again, like John Mclean, and then she busted out the remaining glass with the palms of her hands cutting them up badly in the process. Now she was bleeding from the pads of her feet and toes and the palms of her hands like she had stigmata as she leaned out the window.

208

The building was on a hill and it was twenty-five feet down to flat asphalt. She looked back and he was turning the corner running towards her flat out. She climbed up on the window ledge and tried to yell “yippee ki yo,” but she was too scared and it came out as a small whimper as she jumped out the window falling for a second and then slamming with her bare feet into the asphalt as pain spiked through her feet into her legs and back and neck and up and down her whole body through her jolted skeletal system as her knees buckled under her and her chin chimed into her knee almost knocking her unconscious. Dazed, it took her a minute to shake off and then she looked up and he was in the window above her shaking his head in awe and then she looked up again and he was gone to find another way down.

She ran.

Through the parking lot towards the park with the iconic bridge.

She thought if she could get to the bathroom she could lock herself in.

She ran struggling now bloody and in pain. Limping, out of breath, her chest hurt, everything hurt, everything was bloody. She could feel her face swelling from the impact of her knee. She wasn't sure if anything was broken. She looked behind her and he was coming at her again.

She was exhausted and he was gaining on her as she ran through the park towards the door and she thought she saw the leaves on the trees began to change and fall off the trees and then it was fall and then the leaves were gone and it was winter and it was snowing and she thought the pain was making her hallucinate as she ran towards the door, pleading:

“NO! NO! PLEASE! NO!”

She was starting to realize what was happening and she screamed out again:

“NO!

NO!

NOOOO!

THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!!”

209

She ran through the park as the leaves and scenery changed again and again. Winter and snow and spring and rain and summer and sun and fall and leaves and winter and snow and spring and rain and summer and sun and the whole time she was screaming:

“NO!

NO!

NO!”

Like a bad trip ringing with truth, there was nothing she could do to stop it, all she could do was run.

She hit the door hard and yanked it open and she ran into the black void that she thought was safety and she burst through the big maroon curtain that was like a Tibetan

Rinpoche’s robes and out onto the stage at her school. She was back in the theater.

On the stage there was a bench and a garbage can and one cam light illuminating them both. She ran to the garbage can and threw up. Then she heard him coming and she ran through the other side of the curtain to the stage door. She opened the stage door and ran into the void and burst back through the big maroon curtain on the other side of the stage and there was the garbage can again and the bench and she started to cry out:

“NO! NO! NO!

PLEASE GOD NO!

PLEASE GOD HELP ME!”

And then the line, ‘no atheists in fox holes’, rang in her head and she felt like a hypocrite as she heard him coming again, and again she ran to the stage door and through it, into the void and immediately she burst right back through the curtain on the other side of the stage and this time the futility hit her, like some kind of nightmarish loop, she realized she was trapped.

She ran to the garbage can and threw up. Succumbing to the inevitable she fell to her knees and to the ground where she balled herself into child's pose and screamed and cried as her self images broke apart in her mind, she balled up as if in the womb, all the trauma of her life

210 compressed into a moment. It felt like every one of her chakras was being opened with an ouster knife. The existential pain excruciating as the light of consciousness blasted through her:

“No, no, no, please,” she said pleading to no one, “I can’t take this. I can’t take this. Please stop hurting me. You’re killing me,” she said as she curled deeper into child's pose holding her gut and covering her face screaming as her self broke apart. Her voice became muffled and soft like a lamb lost in the forest as she said, “no. no. please. I can’t take it. I can’t take this pain,” and then she threw up onto the stage and in all her anguish and despair she said again softly,

“please just kill me. please. i can’t take this. i can’t take this life. please make it stop. i’m sorry for whatever I did, please help me.”

She heard him coming again but the fear of death wasn’t strong enough to move her and neither was the desire to live. She lay in child’s pose covered in blood and vomit and tears in a ball of pain and moments away from death.

And when I walk through the curtain,

stepping out,

onto the stage,

that’s how I find her,

in a bloody ball of Earthly pain and suffering.

“No more turtles, Jess,” I say. “No more stages.

No more doors.

No more turtles.

It’s time to face the truth.

It’s time to meet your maker.”

She sobs still in child’s pose, curled in a ball, and I give her some time and then she finally manages to speak.

“Is this a dream?” she asks through her tears.

“No.”

211

“Am I dead?” She asks.

“No. But the more interesting question might be, were you ever alive?”

She starts to cry harder, clenching her gut, the existential pain excruciating, more than she can take as she tries to hold on to her sense of self. Getting to her knees she holds herself up on the garbage can throwing up into it.

“Stop,” she says. “Please stop doing this to me. I can't take it,” she says sobbing through clenched teeth.

“It's just life, Jess,” I say. “We fret and worry our hour on the stage and our short lives, full of sound and fury, are rounded with a sleep. You know this,” I say, “we all die in the end.”

“Oh my God,” she says holding onto the garbage. “Please stop torturing me.”

“Maybe don't blaspheme,” I say.

She tries to catch her breath. I grab the box of tissues from the bench and walk them over and pull one out and extend it to her.

“Here Jess, this will make you feel better.”

She sits on her knees and takes the tissue and blows her nose and tosses it in the garbage and I hand her another one and she cleans up some of her tears and some of the blood on her hands.

“In some spiritual circles,” I say, “they talk about this molten ball of lead that is at the core of every individual and they say that the point is to vomit up that ball. That ball is the self.”

She reacts to my words and vomits into the can again and I hand her another tissue and she cleans herself up and I take the box of tissues with me and walk over and sit down on the bench, confident she’ll be ok now.

“Take your time,” I say. “When you're ready, come sit,” I say.

“Who are you?” She manages to ask through her tears and pain.

“Come sit and we’ll talk about it,” I say. “Take a deep breath,” I say.

212

She doesn’t like it, but she takes a deep breath. On the exhale she relaxes and some of her tension and pain is gone, leaving her body like a dead demon after an exorcism.

“Do I have a choice?” she asks still shaking but calmer.

She slowly gets to her feet as a light snow begins to fall on the stage. She drags the garbage can with her and leaves bloody footprints as she makes her way over to the bench, clenching her stomach, with the tissue in her hand, she tosses it in the garbage and sets the garbage next to the bench. I hand her another tissue. She sniffles and sits on the bench as far away from me as she can. Like she's scared. Like I'm some kinda awful monster who has done something terrible to her, like creating a reality for her to live in just so I could torture her and destroy her reality, and I laugh as I think, sort of like God.

She sits and she is small and the toes and balls of her feet touch the stage, but her heels don’t and her bloody feet dangle and drip. She wipes the bloody palms of her hands on her black jeans and you can’t see the blood and I think this is part of what makes black pragmatic; it hides the tears and the blood.

Once she settles, I hand her the box of tissues.

“A couple years ago,” I say, “I was at a bar in the city, with a friend of mine, and we got into a debate about control or free will. He was certain that free will exists, or that the individual has control of his or her self or life. I said it wasn’t that obvious. To win a bet and to make my point, I told him if he was so certain that he had free will, he should punch me in the face right then and there. He thought about it for a few minutes. We were at a bar. We both knew people there. Polite society dictates certain things, certain rules, certain controls over us. He couldn't do it. He couldn’t punch me in the face, because he didn’t have that level of control. I thought I’d won the argument. He didn’t even have enough free will to throw a punch in a bar with not only permission, but a bet on the line.

About three hours later we were at a friend’s house half way through a bottle of tequila and I was ranting about truth and delusion and I had a small audience and I was sufficiently

213 wasted at this point when, in mid conversation, in mid sentence, I stopped talking, because I noticed the expressions on everyone's faces change as they looked over at something that was happening to my right. I turned to look, and because I turned to look, I was blasted, not in the side of the head, but directly in the face with the full force of his punch.”

She stops sniffling and giggles. She is quiet for a second, then she laughs. She takes a tissue from the box and blows her nose again, “He found his free will,” she says laughing some more and then she says very hurt, “That about serves you right, you know. It's not nice to go around shattering people's realities,” she says and on the last word she starts to cry again.

“I’m sorry, Jessie,” I say, “I’m sorry you had to go through all that, but we come to

Nirvana by way of Samsara—we come to truth through suffering.”

We sit quietly for a moment and once she pulls herself together she speaks.

“You're..” She starts to have trouble talking, “You're..”

“You can call me I AM,” I say and then laugh at my own joke.

She bursts into tears again and then she starts to take panic breaths and I think she might hyperventilate and pass out so I say, “Breath. Nice slow deep breaths into the hara, into the place below your belly button and above your mons.”

“Don't talk about my mons!” She says finding her words and some anger for what she probably feels might be some privacy violations on my part. I did publish some of her more intimate and private moments and on a certain level, a person could take offence to that.

She breathes and takes another tissue and blows her nose again and then throws the tissue in the trash can, finding her calm and the inner silence she has begun to connect with through her meditation practice.

“You're..Him..”

“Who am I, Jess?”

“You are the person from my dreams. The one following me,” she says and then she says, “but that’s not all is it?”

214

I nod and she continues.

“You're the author of me,” she says. "You're Steven Day.”

I nod.

We are both silent for a moment as she processes and then she speaks.

“I'm not real,” she says shaking her head. “I'm not a real girl.” And then she clenches her gut again, the existential pain too much for her small self to bear and she says, “I’m a character.”

“It might seem that way, Jessie,” I say, “But that's not exactly it.”

“Am I like Tyler Durden?”

“No.”

“Truman Burbank?”

“No.”

“Neo Anderson?”

“No,” and I laugh.

“Alice of Wonderland?”

“No.”

“Dorothy of Kansas?”

“No,” and I laugh again.

“Harry Potter?”

“Definitely not.”

“I'm not like anything else?”

“You're not really like anything modern...”

“I'm different?”

“You're different.”

“But I'm not a real girl?”

“It's not that simple.”

215

“How is it then?”

“You're supposed to be like the red pill in a way, but the jury will be out on that for a while.”

“So, it's about the audience? The audience is what? Supposed to wake up?”

“That has always been the idea behind my work.”

She giggles softly, breaking the tension. Then she laughs softly. Then louder. Then manically and then she says, “You're fucking insane!”

I laugh, “Am I? If all the worlds a stage, Jessica, what are the implications of that? For us both. You're a writer. Think about it.”

She thinks about it for a long minute and I watch as her face is turning black and blue from jumping out that window, something I might not have thought she would do.

Her face lights up as the realization hits her, “It's not that I'm not a real girl,” she says,

“It's that you're not a real boy! You're a character too. We're all on the stage! You're no more real than I am—In fact,” she says as the truth of the situation hits her, “I might out live you, just like Hamlet outlived Shakespeare in a way. Fuck!” She says, “We don't even really know who

Shakespeare was,” she says.

“That's my girl. Cut from the same cloth we are.”

“Hooolllyyy shit—and it's not that I don't have control of myself, it's that you don't have control of me. You don't have control. When it's going well, it comes through you, and out of you, and you don't have control of the story, or characters.” She pauses thinking for a minute then the implications of that pop in her brain like wet logs in a hot fire and she says, “I'm a real girl.”

“That's not really accurate either,” I say.

“We're the double helix. Our truths entwined like our DNA,” she says.

“It's not that one of us is real, and one of us isn't real, it’s more like a question. What is real? What isn't real? What is consciousness? What is the self? People have a private conceit

216 that they exist. Forget about control and consciousness. The conceit is existence itself. Where does your so smart self even exist?”

I let a moment pass for her to think and then I answer with the obvious truth of our collective condition.

“Nowhere. Period. The stage is just a stage in nowhere forever. Nothing exists except consciousness, so everything exists in consciousness. It is the ground of being.”

“Is that what they call Enlightenment?”

“That's a dumb ass name for it and it's become a loaded word, but yeah, sort of, an aspect of it. It has many aspects. I hate the word Enlightenment for the same reason I have issues with the word God. They are both two of the most important words in existence but have been bastardized into confusion. I like truth realization much better because there is a finality to the realization of truth, but there is no end to the expression of truth through the self, and the self, contrary to popular belief, still exists after Enlightenment. God-realized is also better than

Enlightenment, but again, semantics. People have an even harder time with the idea of God, than they do with Enlightenment. They are both words that humans are struggling and failing to understand. Almost Universally. You really need to download the Enlightened OS in order to understand God. Otherwise, it’s just belief one way or the other.”

Now I have her full attention and she isn’t in much pain. She is listening as I continue.

“There are really two main aspects of human spirituality and one of them is waking up to the truth of what you are, and when that happens, the false persona is seen through. The character on the stage is seen for what it is—a character—an impermanent illusion. What we actually are is the consciousness that underlies all characters. We are that.”

“We are the blackboard,” she says, “or, white board.”

“Yep. Jesus said, ‘I and the father are one.’ Using the words and religion of his day to describe it. Buddha said, ‘There is no self.’ Or, ‘I alone.’ In Advaita Vedanta they say, ‘Not-two.’

In the Vedas, it’s, ‘The Atman is Brahma.’ That is the Enlightenment. Where do I end and where

217 does God begin? Where does the self end and the Universe begin? Where does consciousness end and the Universe begin?”

“Where does the author end and the character begin?” She says.

“They don't,” I say, “No where. All one. It's all one. We both exist in the same

consciousness.”

“We are one,” she says. “All one. All alone. All God. Shakespeare is Hamlet. And Hamlet

is Shakespeare. Fuck me!”

“The audience would definitely not approve,” I say.

She laughs.

“Deep within everyone's heart they know the truth, but they deny it for as long as they can, because that's how the author made it. That's why truth realization is often described as remembering, because that’s actually what it is. When the energy of self dissipates enough, truth is remembered. How’s the stigmata?” I ask. Her bleeding has stopped and the blood is gone.

“It’s gone,” she says looking at her hands and feet, “no more stigmata.”

“Good.”

“My face feels better too,” she says. “You can change things? This stage thing is a great metaphor and all—stage, players, sound and fury, symbolizing nothing—but can we go back to the park? I really want to be outside. Is that ok?”

“As you wish,” I say obligingly and like a hologram as smoothly and seamlessly as the illusory world on a heavy dose of psychedelics, the stage disappears and is replaced with a beautiful park near the waterfront, with big old trees that have turned fall colors of reds and yellows and are losing their leaves. Most are on the trees still but some are down, and off in the distance behind us two small children are playing in them; jumping and throwing leaves up into the air.

218

“Where do I end, and where do you begin?” I continue. “Who is more real? You might outlive me actually, right? As an artist, a writer, I hope you do. Is art imitating life, or is life imitating art? Where does art end, and life begin? Where does life end, and art begin? The answer is of course that they don't. They, like everything else, are one. Life is the art the

Universe makes. Earth is one of its masterpieces, with all of its infinity of forms and characters and beauty and the ever changing landscape.”

“So,” she says, “we are both fictional characters in a dramatic production.”

I nod.

“So then, what is the meaning of life?” She asks cleverly grokking the implications of what I’m laying down, “If all the world’s a stage, and everyone is a character. The implication of that, is that, all conflict is an illusion, and if all conflict is an illusion, then, yeah—no conflict, no story—so, what is the meaning of life?”

“You.” I say.

“You? Like me? Like I? Like I am the meaning of life?”

“You,” are the meaning of life.

“Like life has whatever meaning I give it? Or, like, I give life it's meaning? Or, like, we all give life it's meaning?”

“No. Definitely not. That's a philosophy of living, or a living philosophy. That's not the meaning of life. A philosophy can't be the meaning of life. That's just the ego trying to get along with life. Which is fine, but that’s not the meaning of life. We give life it’s meaning, isn’t a bad philosophy for living life. But it’s not the meaning of life. You. Are. The. Meaning. Of. Life.”

“You? You are the meaning of life.”

“You literally are the meaning of life. If you spend your entire life homeless pushing a cart, smoking sniped cigs off the ground in the street, shooting heroin, and prostituting, you will be a perfect expression of the meaning of life. People hate this truth because they think it’s apathetic. But it’s the truth.”

219

“You are the meaning of life…God in form,” she says, “in a self, playing a character, on the stage. God is one of us. God is all of us?”

“You are the meaning of life. Not what you do. Not what you think. Just you. As you are.

You are the meaning of life. That's not to say you might not be called to do something, or asked to do something, but that doesn't have anything to do with the true meaning of life. That’s more of a function of your character. Functions of a character can change. The meaning of life never changes. The meaning of life never changes.”

“Which is, You?”

“The closest thing we have to a religion getting this right is in the Vedas. In the Vedas it says that God goes to sleep and dreams the Universe into existence. That's not bad. So, the point of life is for God to forget what it is and to have the experience of being something else.

The ego. Or, You.”

“Or You. So you are the meaning of life because, I AM, is all the characters and the audience? And that is the whole point of existence—the meaning of life.”

“Yep.”

“The George Clooney's are never going to get this. You realize that, right?”

“Even if they don't know it, the George Clooney's and everyone else is just, I AM. God pouring into God for all of eternity. So, fuck what the George Clooneys think they get or don't get, or know or don't know, understand or don't understand. It doesn't change the truth. What people think or believe doesn't change the truth. The truth is that which, when the George

Clooneys don't understand it, doesn't cease to exist. This isn’t about belief. This is beyond belief. This is another aspect or facet of Enlightenment or God-realization; it’s an operating system that is beyond belief.”

“You're not one of the fun ones, are you?”

I laugh at that. “I don't get invited to a lot of parties. Underneath everything, when you cut it all away, down to nothing, atoms, bosons and bozos, and theories of everything or theories of

220 nothing, all the bullshit the human mind can come up with, underneath all of that is what the

Universe is, ultimately, which is God. You have heard that love is everything or that all we need is love right?”

“Love is all there is,” she says, “I have heard it.”

“The Universe is made out of God's. If I can say such a silly thing—and I guess I can because it’s my book—the Universe is made out of God, for God, forever. Infinitely and eternally.”

“For she so loved the world,” she says.

“That she gave her self completely,” I say. “Not God, is not possible. That’s much closer to the truth, really. You can never express the truth through words. It can only be experienced directly, but calling something ‘not God’ is like saying it’s outside of the Universe, or more accurately, outside of everything that exists.”

“And that is what you are, and that is what I am,” she says, “and that is what You is.”

We sit in silence for a minute while she processes and then she surprises me with a question.

“Why women?”

I laugh. “Would you rather be a boy? I could make you a boy? Like Teddy?”

“I like being a woman. I'm very happy with it, thank you. Are you going to avoid the question?”

I laugh. “Love of the yin and the understanding that the human species and life on Earth is out of balance. There is no rule that says humans will make it, or have to make it. There is no rule. The Universe can be very destructive because it has infinity and eternity to make stuff. You like being human? Then start working, not for your own self, but for others. Because I also believe it’s the selfishness and the greed of the species that will destroy it. This is all in the Bib.

The human heart is bent towards selfishness and greed from childhood. I think the male heart is worse than the female heart. I don’t know that, but I suspect it. We need to rebalance the world

221 and women are the key to doing it. The age of the patriarchy must end or this world will die.

That's not empty talk. That's real. The Universe has infinity and eternity to make and destroy worlds. Earth is a special place, but the human species is not a special species. Earth can give life to hundreds and hundreds of different species, just like humans, over its lifespan. Humans get one chance. Earth gets many chances to produce a functioning race of intelligent beings.

Humans are motivated by individual ambition, i.e. greed and selfishness, which does not serve the common good. Not in the long term. Not in the short term. Not really ever, or at all. Adam

Smith and the like have made up clever excuses for a bad way of doing things and convinced people to go along. S’it. Personally, if this species survives isn’t my business. I’m performing my function for the Uni because that’s what it made me for. S’up to everyone else to decide on the human species and right now I got money against it.”

I pause for a minute and then I continue.

“Also, I just think women are the most beautiful creatures ever. I guess it's that too. I think that women are exceptional. The elegance of them. The lines of them. The ability to make life in their bodies. I don't see what could possibly be a more beautiful form of manifestation.

The sky, the high mountain places, the beach or the ocean itself. I'll take the female form. I'm enchanted by it. Always have been. Perhaps it's a human flaw, but it is my truth. My human flaw—As a species, we need to honor the sacred feminine in a way that we haven’t been doing.

My work tries to do that on some level.”

“Fucking poets,” she says shaking her head, “I hate poets. You all are so ridiculously disgusting with all that love and beauty bullshit.”

I laugh as classical music starts to play in the background.

“So, what am I supposed to do then? Cause isn't that what everyone really wants to know?” Then she thinks about it, “But I already know what to do, don't I? It's already inside of me isn't it? We all know what to do, don't we? We're just human and our brains are made for a certain amount of confusion and contradiction and that of course gets us in a bind. In a

222 dilemma! Always with the damn dilemmas. But that's life, isn't it? That's life. Fuck me, writin a screenplay, I think I'm enlightened!”

I laugh. “You're getting somewhere. Intellectual understanding is the beginning of realization. The only way forward for you is to find something higher than yourself to live for.

That's basically it. Living to help others is a high form of that. Living to create things that inspire others is another form of that.”

“I guess I get that,” she says, “because, the self is an impermanent illusion, anyway. If self motivation is the only motivation, then life is very empty. But if God is everything then does it matter?”

“This is where people really get confused. When the ego is attached to its enlightenment it seems like it doesn’t matter, but when the individual drops back into the depth of life and truth is embodied through the ego, the connection to all life is made and the self or ego is called to move through life from this deepest connection.

Jesus is my favorite example of a fully realized being because his enlightenment didn’t stop with himself. Complete embodiment of the realization of God and also the fully expressed surrender into his humanity. That’s the full enlightenment. Jesus was special because, I don’t give a fuck how enlightened you are, that’s a rough way to die and he did it with his eyes open and love in his heart. Jesus wasn’t just enlightened in my opinion, he was also a saint. Those are two different things. He was both and that doesn’t happen very often.

But we’re not all going to be Jesus or Buddha and we don’t need to be. I think it’s important that many different types of people wake up now. Scientists and artists and teachers, and if humanity is lucky, some of the business and political class will wake up because they have so much influence. It could really change the world for the better. It’s actually not without precedent. I always liked Steve Jobs because for all his faults, he was a bodhisattva as far as

I’m concerned. I think his internal conflict had something to do with this.”

“He wasn’t very nice,” she says.

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“He was no saint, but his works were an extension of his truth, and his truth came from his spirituality which had come to him through meditation and psychedelics and his journey to

Inida.”

“You will know them by their fruits,’” she quotes.

“After enlightenment or God realization, we’re still human. Even after Enlightenment, when we know the truth, we still need to live from it. That is the way. Serving others is the same as serving God because that is what everything is. Service is the highest form of devotion and the highest spiritual practice and it will make your life meaningful as a philosophy and practice.

Don’t take my word for it. You be the judge. The way is through service to others while taking care of yourself and focusing inwardly on the truth. That is the path.”

“What am I supposed to do now?” She asks. “Go to Hollywood? Play pretend? Join the sleeping circus of the world? Make money? I can't believe in this world but I have to live in it somehow.”

“Gautama is famous for saying that life is suffering, but like many ancient spiritual teachings, it's only half of the truth. Life is also beautiful and existence is joy, especially when you know that you are the meaning of life. The world is changing. It's a pivotal and important moment in human history. Who knows? Maybe humans make it and maybe your work will play some small part. You go to Hollywood, fight the good fight. Good things are getting made left and right. It's a different world. Just be yourself. Be honest. The people who have integrity will find you. Hold on to that integrity, girl.”

“I want to make a kung fu epic,” she says.

“I’ve read the script. It’s great. Could be a big franchise. Kung Fu was invented by

Buddhist monks after all.”

“That’s what I didn’t like about Kill Bill,” she said, “It had style for days, but it completely missed what made kung fu movies so resonate—Depth. And because of that it’s not the type of

224 movie that Star Wars is. It doesn’t have that level of fan base because what people resonate with is spiritual truth.”

“Your movie could be like Kill Bill and Avatar and The Matrix and Star Wars all in one. It could be great with the right people involved. You need a studio and a staff who really believe in it. Believes in you, and want to make something really special with you. You need to find people who are competent and want to make something that people will love for a hundred years or more—who care about that level of quality. It can be done. You wouldn't love movies if it didn't happen. None of us would. It happens. You're going to have to work on the title though.”

“You don't like, The Story of Three Zen Masters and Three Samurai Warriors?”

“If you’re not into the whole brevity thing,” I say and she laughs and I say, “how about something simple, like; Bushido.”

“I like it,” she says and then it hits her what's happening, and she says, “Holy mother of,” then she stops herself from blaspheming and finishes with, “Fuck me!”

“Again, the audience would not approve and I'm already on fragile ground here,” I say and look at her.

“You want me to get back up?” She asks but it's not really a question. “You want me to get back up!” She says sitting straight up and scooting to the edge of the bench, “The Gita. The

Bhagavad Gita. I'm Arjuna. You're Krishna. This is the mother fuckin Bhagavad Gita and you want me to get back up and launch the war.” And then she thinks about it again and says,

“Fuck,” like Voltaire said, “to hold a pen is to be at war. Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me! Now I'm definitely enlightened.”

“My mom is going to read this you know. You really do curse like a sailor.”

“I’ve never even been on a boat,” she says.

“Why don't you explain the Gita to us and we'll see if we get it.”

“In the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, Arjuna the mighty warrior is about to launch a war and he sees what will happen as a result; death and

225 destruction of everything he loves and holds sacred on both sides of the battlefield. So he throws down his weapon and falls to his knees. Krishna comes to him to show him the truth and to help him understand that he must act. It's his duty. But Krishna also shows him that he can act from a deeper place than just his ego. His actions can be devotions, and they can also be selfless and in the service of others and in the service of Krishna and life itself. Even if that means death and destruction. The Gita is a manual for living. The way is through selfless service to others and to the Universe and I'm in the mother fuckin Bhagavad Gita! Holy shit!

Holy shit! Holy shit!” She says almost jumping up off the bench.

“Not a real panty dropper, the Gita?” I say.

She looks at me like I’m crazy and then says, “I don't remember it, exactly,” she says,

“but from what I remember, it’s not a real panty dropper.”

“Maybe that's why nobody reads it,” I say. “Those spiritual books are kinda boring.”

“Lots of people read it, actually,” she says and then she laughs again at the absurdity of this all and then thinks for a minute and it hits her and she says, “This is the beginning of The

Pop Culture Sutras, isn't it?”

At just that moment Vanity comes out of nowhere.

“Jessie! Geez, Jessie! I was so worried! Where have you been?” Vanity’s face is covered in eye liner and she has obviously been crying and she says, “I have been looking everywhere for you.” She is out of breath but relieved as she falls on Jessie hugging her tight like she has missed her and has been really worried, which are both true.

“I was so worried almost to death, Jessie. You’re really scaring me these days. What happened? Did you finish the retreat?”

Jess looks at me.

“She finished her retreat,” I say nodding, “She's free.”

Vanity looks over at me for the first time and immediately realizes who I am and she says, “Holy Shit Jessie! It's the stalker!” She whips out the most beautiful switchblade ever. Opal

226 and onyx, mother of pearl and turquoise inlay, hand made out of silver. It's not nearly as beautiful as she is, but together they are something to see.

“Vanity, it's ok!” Jessie says, “Put the knife down! It's ok.”

“What in the mother of God—” Vanity starts to say but Jessie cuts her off.

“Don't blaspheme!”

“What? Are you serious?”

“I am very serious about that,” and then she laughs,” I am. I really am. Please don't do that. Don't blaspheme. Show the whole damn Universe a little respect. Cause that’s what that is.

The whole damn Universe and every other Universe too. I think it’s the least we can do. Don't blaspheme.”

“Ok,” Vanity says, “Ok. No problem. Are you ok? You seem different.”

“I'm good. I'm better than I have been in a long time. Maybe ever. I feel like I just had a spiritual enema and all my chakras are perfectly aligned. I know who I am now.”

Vanity tilts her head sideways almost afraid to ask, “Who are you?”

“I'm a fictional character in a dramatic production put on for the amusement of my self and the unseen audience, which is also my self. I'm the meaning of life—and for that matter, so are you.”

Vanity gives her the sideways look again, uncertain, “Are you sure you're ok?”

Jessie nods, “Better than ever. It’s all good, cause it’s all God.”

Vanity folds the switchblade up and tucks the knife into her back pocket. “This isn't him?

This looks exactly like him.”

“It's him. The stalker. The human from my dreams.”

“How? So? What?” Vanity says confused.

“You were right, Vanity,” I say. “Jessie was supposed to help me with my novel.”

Vanity is extremely suspicious of me and slowly says, “Okaayyy?

The music starts to get louder.

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“Jessie! The orchestra is playing in the park today. They’re doing my favorite. We have to go listen to this! I was going to bring you here after I picked you up at the center. And get

Chinese food too. I'm craving Chinese food…I love Chinese food,” And then she looks around and jumps subjects and says, “Dude what is going on with these trees losing their leaves already? Global warming is real yo!”

Jessica laughs and I ask, “Beethoven's 9th symphony, Vanity? Kinda overdone don't you think?”

“No fucking way!” Vanity says. “It's the greatest piece of music of all time. Everyone hates on Beethoven because he’s become pop culture but they don’t even know. Jessie, you'll love the 9th. It's about God and Joy and the Union of all of humankind. It was his last symphony and it was one of the first choral symphonies. At the time, critics and audiences didn't like the

4th movement of the symphony. They thought it was the worst part, but it was his true masterpiece. Just way ahead of its time. I remember the first time I heard the Philharmonia

Baroque Orchestra’s version. My dad took me to it when I was little. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard and then I learned the words, which are based on a poem. I had to learn some German because they were obviously in German.” Vanity sings for us in perfect German:

Freude, schoener Goetterfunken, (Joy, bright spark of divinity)

Tochter aus Elysium, (Daughter of Elysium)

Deine Zauber binden wieder (Thy magic power re-unites)

Was die Mode streng geteilt (All that culture has divided,)

Alle Menschen werden Bruder (All humans become one family)

Wo dein sanfter Fluegel weilt. (Under the sway of thy gentle wings)

Seid umschlungen, Billionen. (You billions, I embrace with love)

Diensen Kub der gansen Welt. (This kiss is for all the world)

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Freude, schoener Goetterfunken! (Joy, bright spark of divinity!)

Tochter aus Elysium! (Daughter of Elysium!)

Deine Zauber binden wieder! (Thy magic power re-unites!)

Was die Mode streng geteilt! (All that culture has divided!)

Alle Menschen werden Bruder! (All humans become one family!)

Wo dein sanfter Fluegel weilt! (Under the sway of thy gentle wings!)

Ahnest du den Shopfer, Welt? (Do you sense the Creator, world?)

Seid umschlungen, Billionen! (You billions, I embrace with love!)

Diensen Kub der gansen Welt! (This kiss is for all the world!)

Ahnest du den Shopfer, Welt? (Do you sense the Creator, world?)

And then Vanity stops singing and says, “Any work of art can come from the self, from the ego, or it can transcend the ego and come from the divine. I think that's what we are all trying to do really. Transcend ourselves and unite with the divine. But we don't really have to try because it's inside us and all around us. Art, in its highest form, in its divine form, can help us remember that, it can show us that.”

We both look at her in mild astonishment.

Jessie looks at me and I shrug.

“You're full of surprises,” Jessie says.

“Life is full of surprises,” Vanity says. “Come on! We're going to miss it!”

“Vanity, can you give us a minute?” Jessie says. “I'll be right behind you.”

“Are you sure?” Vanity says and gives me the evil eye. She takes the switchblade out of her pocket again and puts it in Jessie’s hand and says, “Take this Jess.” Then she looks at me distrustingly and says, “You’re probably the stupidest person in this whole Ocean.”

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I laugh.

Jessica grabs Vanity and pulls her down to her and gives her a really sweet and very real and very loving kiss which Vanity reciprocates.

“I love you,” Vanity says.

“I love you too,” Jessie says. They kiss again and it gets to be a not so nice girl kiss and then Vanity doesn't want to let go. They finally pull apart like two powerful magnets.

“I'll see you in a bit,” Jessie says.

“Scooby Dooby groovy baby,” Vanity says and skips off towards the music like the world was made just for her.

We both watch her for a moment in silence.

“She's right about everything,” Jessie says watching her skip away. “She's always been right about everything.”

“The sun rises and the sun sets and it hastens to the place where it arose and there is no new thing under the sun,” I say, “Vanity of Vanities. All is Vanity and a chasing after the wind.”

So,” Jessie says, “I get back up and I grab my pen and I blow the conch and I launch the war.”

“I hate to use old dead words, but, It's bhakti before enlightenment,” I say,” it's the realization of unity with bhakti during enlightenment, and it's bhakti after enlightenment. If anyone tells you anything different, they are probably full of shit. Or stuck in the second part, which is common. Or worse, stuck in the first part, convinced they are in the last. Service and devotion. That is the path of the sage. Service and devotion. If you constantly apply that to your life you'll never go astray. And if you do go astray, just come back to service and devotion.

Bhakti, regardless of what anyone else believes, is service and devotion. Devotion is moot, because service is devotion, and it is the highest form of spiritual practice. Before and just as importantly after Enlightenment.”

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She nods, “I think I got it. I feel more enlightened. Not totally enlightened, but maybe a respectable amount for the moment. How do you feel?”

“I've been working a long time for this one to come.”

“Does that feel good?”

“Kinda. It's been a lot of pain for me so I'm happy it's almost over. This one hurt.”

“Is this like a higher self, lower self, thing?”

“You could make an argument for it, you could make an argument for an inner child thing too, but all of that, or none of that, is the Ultimate Truth. Higher self, lower self—you are the author’s inner child and Vanity is his super ego or Tyler Durden or whatever---I don’t think that’s a helpful way to look at it, because it’s not the ultimate truth. Ultimately, Jessie, Vanity, Steven— they are all just characters in the story of infinity and eternity. One thing I will say; just because you have seen the truth of reality, it doesn’t absolve you from having to deal with your trauma, your pain, and your life. You have to help others, but you also have to take care of yourself. You understand?”

“I think so,” she says. “I’m going to be processing this for a while I think. Like forever.

What a trip this life is,” she says and then looks at me. “Thank you, Steven. You've probably heard this before but, I think you changed my life.”

I laugh. “It's been one of the great joys of my life to finally meet you and get to spend some time with you. The pleasure and the pain have both been mine.”

She thinks for a minute. “Come with us. Come to Hollywood with us. The three of us. It will be fun!”

I laugh. “I wish it were that simple.”

“It is that simple.”

“I'd just hold you back. Trust me. I'm not great at parties.”

“I'm not great at parties. That's why we have Vanity. Vanity is great at that stuff. She will make sure we don't fall down the well.”

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I laugh. “I will always be with you, Jessie. No matter what happens; wherever you go or whatever you do. The truth will always be with you---Obligatory the truth is always with you scene…”

She laughs tearing up again.

“If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, but I shall be good health to you nevertheless,” I say quoting our favorite poet.

I hand her a tissue.

“What are you going to call this.. this thing?”

I laugh, “I was thinking I would call it Surrealipsum or Spiritualipsum”

She laughs, “That’s too word clever. The audience does not approve.”

“I didn't think you'd like that. Since it's your story, I thought I would name it after you and call it: The Playwright.”

She is quiet for a minute and I look over at her and she has tears in her eyes again. It's been a journey for her. I can definitely respect that. I know what that's like.

“I like it,” she says, “but you know what I think you should call it? Life, the Universe, being God forever and all, it's like the snake eating its own tail, right? I think you should name it that. Call it: Ouroboros. Cause it's a question really, right? A koan really. It’s a koan. In one way, the book is a long koan. Where does the author end and the character begin? Where does God end and the Universe begin? That's the question really. The answer is they don't. The answer is: Ouroboros.”

I think about it for a second and I say, “I like that. I like that a lot. How about we let the audience decide which one to call it?”

She laughs and nods her head and says, “Perfect. Perfect. There is not a hair out of place in the entire Universe. It's all perfect.”

“You better go before the chorus begins,” I say, “Vanity’s right, that is the best part.”

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Jessie stands up and sniffles and turns to me and folds her hands in front of her heart and bows to me and I fold my hands in front of my heart and bow to her. And she jumps up onto me throwing her arms around me and hugs me and I’m kinda shocked but I hug her back and hold her for just one minute longer and then we both let each other go and she stands up with tears in her eyes.

“Is this a happy ending?” she asks.

“Too soon to tell.”

“Will I see you again?”

“Not if I see you first.”

She laughs and shakes her head and turns and walks up and off towards the music and then she finds her step and thinks of Vanity and skips and then she turns back to me and laughingly dashes with her hair, a smile on her face and a tear in her eye and then she blows me a kiss and she is the most radiant and angelic and beautiful and true thing I have ever seen and then, like a dream upon awakening, she is gone.

* * *

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In the darkness of the theater, light is projected onto the stage.

In the darkness of consciousness,

that place you fall into every night,

the void of your deepest nature,

everything disappears into the blackhole of truth (black whole of truth).

Nothing forever.. Nowhere forever.. Nothingness..

In the morning when you rise the projector starts again and the flickering images remind you of who you are and where you are in the story.

In the dark infinite void of eternal consciousness, the light of the world and the light of the self is projected.

And God said, let there be light.

And there was light.

And God saw that it was good.

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The Sound of One Hand Clapping

The Playwright — Ouroboros

created by

The Infinite Universe

staring

Jessica Day (the playwright)

and

(soon to be) Vanity Day (the actress)

scribed by

Steven Day ; )-

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If you want to play a character in a dramatic production, you first have to create the stage.

- Carl Sagan-ish

You had heard the sound of two hands clapping.

Now show me the sound of one hand.

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Vol II. of The Pop Culture Sutras:

THE PRIMARCH SYSTEM

The Story of Sabina Canyon

Sabina picked up the brush that was loaded with black ink, her long straight hair sweeping back and forth opposite the brush as she painted with the totality of her being, and in long, bold strokes she wrote:

Steven Jobs

went to India

to attain Enlightenment

when he was

nineteen years old:

One. Infinite.

Loop.

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Contact the Author: sexartandgod.com

503 347 4385 allisillusory on insta [email protected]

Many thanks to Adyashanti and Jed Mckenna. Thanks for waking me up. I’m forever grateful.

Thanks to Lama Jamie and his family for giving me a proper place to write this. And also to the enlightened Lama’s of the Tibetan tradition that were with me as I wrote this novel.

I owe many thanks to my family who have supported me as a sometimes homeless and starving monastic artist. Without them, I couldn’t have done the nothing that allowed me to do something, as Thoreau sort of put it—They somehow had the wisdom to never lose faith in me even when I lost it in myself.

Also, to all the friends who have let me crash or helped me out in some way over the last couple decades, couldn’t have done this without you either. Thanks for the basement, the couch, the backyard. This novel doesn’t exist without you.

One more thank you to all those who have read my work and helped me become a better writer over the last decade. Couldn’t have done it without the guidance.

Again, I’d like to continue to offer my work for free, but I can only do this with your help. Please donate if you can, here or through the website:

cashtag @allisillusory

coinbase @illusory

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Blue Chakra Draft (May, 2020)

Copyright, Steven Day, May 2020 No part of this document may be reprinted or reproduced without the prior written permission of Steven Day. (Please don’t violate copyright. Contact me instead.)

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