Stone Mattress: Nine Tales(58)
“But,” said Jack. “I forgot about the contract thing. It isn’t a real contract, it was only a joke, it was just a sort of …”
“It is a real contract,” said Irena icily. She knew quite a lot by then about real contracts. “It proves intentionality.”
“Okay. I was going to do the split. I hadn’t got around to it.”
“That’s rubbish and you know it.”
“Since when can you read my mind? You think you know everything about me. Just because I’m f*cking you …”
“I will not have that language,” said Irena, who was a prude when it came to words, though in no other way.
“What do you want me to call it? You like it well enough when I do it. Okay, just because I’m sticking my carrot into your well-visited …”
Stomp, stomp, stomp. Across the floor, out the door. Slam. Was he happy or sad about that?
There followed a letter from the collective lawyer of the three irate shareholders. Demands. Threats. Then, on the part of Jack, capitulation. They had him dead to rights. As Irena claimed, there had indeed been intentionality.
Jack was upset about the departure of Irena – more upset than he could admit. He did make some attempts at fence-mending. What had he done? he asked her. Why was she writing him off?
No dice. She’d made an evaluation of him, she’d added him up and found him wanting, and no, she did not want to discuss it, and no, there wasn’t anyone else, and no, she would not give them another chance. There was one thing Jack could do – should already have done, she said – but the fact that he had no idea of what it was merely underscored why she had left.
What did she want? he pleaded, though feebly. Why couldn’t she tell him? She wouldn’t say. It was baffling.
He drowned his sorrows, though like other drowned things they had a habit of floating to the surface when least expected.
On the sunny side, The Dead Hand Loves You was a hit in its own field, neglected though that field was by serious literati. As his editor put it, “Yeah, it’s a piece of shit, but it’s good shit.” Even better, there was a film deal in the offing, and who more suitable than Jack to write the screenplay? And then to produce a sequel to The Dead Hand Loves You, or at any rate some other piece of good shit? Jack quit his advertising job and devoted himself to the life of the pen. Or rather, to the life of the Remington, soon to be replaced with an IBM Selectric, with the bouncing ball that let you change the typeface. Now that was cool!
His life as a scribe has had its ups and downs. Truth to tell, he’s never lived up to the success of his first book, which is still the one he’s known for and provides the bulk of his income; an income that, thanks to that youthful contract, is three times smaller than it ought to be. Which rankles. And as time passes and he finds it ever more difficult to churn out the verbiage, it’s rankling more and more. The Dead Hand was his big thing; he won’t, now, be able to repeat it. Worse, he’s at the age at which younger, sicker, more violent writers are patronizing and dismissing him. The Dead Hand, yeah, it was, like, seminal, but tame by today’s standards. Violet, for instance, did not get her intestines ripped out. There wasn’t any torture, nobody’s liver got fried in a pan, there wasn’t any gang rape. So what’s the fun of that?
They’re likely to reserve their spike-haired, nose-ringed respect for the film, rather than the book – the original film, not the remake. The remake was more accomplished, yeah, like, if that’s what you want. It had better technical values, it had – god knows – better special effects; but it wasn’t fresh, it didn’t have that raw, primitive energy. It was too manicured, it was too self-conscious, it lacked …
Here’s our special guest for tonight: Jack Dace, the grand old man of horror. And what do you think about the film, Mr. Dace? The second one, the dud, the failure. Oh. That was your screenplay? Wow, who knew? Nobody on this panel was even born then, right, guys? Haha, yes, Marsha, I know you aren’t a guy, but you’re an honorary guy. You’ve got more balls than half the guys in the audience! Am I right? Witless giggling.
Had he himself ever been that brash, that callow? Yes. He had.
Last week he received a proposal for a TV miniseries, linked to a video-game tie-in; both forms unhappily subject to the original four-party contract, according to his lawyer. There’s also to be an entire symposium – in Austin, Texas, home of super-cool nerdery – devoted to Jack Dace and his work, his total oeuvre, and especially to The Dead Hand Loves You. This renewed activity and the accompanying social-media blitz will lead to more book sales, and more residuals, and more of everything that – f*ckit! – has to be split four ways. This is his last gasp, it’s his last hurrah, and he won’t be able to enjoy it; he’ll only be able to enjoy a quarter of it. The four-way splitting is supremely unfair and it’s gone on long enough. Something has to give, someone has to go. Or several people.
How best to make it look natural?
He’s kept track of all three of them, not that he had a choice. Their lawyers saw to that.
Rod was briefly married to Irena, but that’s long over. He’s retired from his position with an international brokerage firm and lives in Sarasota, Florida, where he’s involved in the ballet and theatre communities as a volunteer financial adviser.