Chapter 4: Borriss Tells a Story, Part One: Playing With Joe.

Joe sat back and relaxed for a moment, feeling self-satisfied. He had created a new person! He had forgotten his own problems for the moment, grown beyond himself, given a voice to the voiceless of humanity—he had, if only for a moment, acted like a genuine artist. There was a blank screen, and Joe had peopled it. Not only that, he had peopled it with someone he took the time to understand. People who don’t even exist are the most vulnerable of us all, he caught himself thinking, and tried to reel it in a bit; was art about saving people? Was it leaving a guidepost? Here’s what I learned; maybe you can go further. You lucky bastards. Was it his own phony baloney religion?

Or maybe his religion was searching for morality. Natural morality. The avoidance of horror, but without adding any dumb stories. If you force people to believe stupid shit at the point of mortal fear, they’re gonna get dumb. They just are. But if you don’t, the people who do are always gonna win, and they laugh in your face, and let’s be real, here,; you can only take so much of that. What happens when you hit your limit? Drugs only work so many times. Do you become bullshit through and through? Do you snap? Do you become one of those old people that those of us still stuck on this side can only smile and nod at?

As his self-satisfaction grew darker, he once again became aware of Borriss lurking there, grinning mear the ceiling.

The LA night was as dim as ever, but even in the dark you knew when Borriss cracked a smile. His smiles cracked literally. Not the one-time—perhaps gross and meaty, but limited, thank the gods —“click” of a human smirking to itself, the lips parting to take in the prize or express the victory. Borriss’s smiles ticked continually, a slow poisoned waterfall of electric satiation. Like the rest of him, the smiles were almost rhythmic. Five seconds—click—five-point-o-o-three seconds—snick. Close enough to being timed to fill Joe with vile anticipation, but nothing was ever quite resolved. When Borriss smiled in the light, it was nearly impossible to watch.

“Did I ever tell you my story?” Borriss said suddenly.

The self-satisfaction now expired. La Vie en Joe, completely back to usual. Well, it didn’t expire so much as it… drained into Borriss.

“You tell me shit all the time,” Joe said irritably.

“Yes, but I only have one real story,” Borriss said. “Like that novelist you like, your James Baldwin…. oh,” he smirked. “How it must have bothered him, deep down, to know that for all the praise and all of the earthly enjoyments it might have ever afforded him, he only had one story!” The thought of it clearly delighted Borriss. “Ah, and he was black, too, during a perfect decade for that to ruin things for him; white people thought everything he did must have some kind of excuse, because he’s black. So don’t bother actually giving him good advice on the new novel. OK, OK, everyone will forget him a lot faster than they would if you gave him good advice, but that’s not your tragedy, now is it?”

“You got that right,” Joe said, annoyed to find that he agreed with Borriss for once. So he made the agreement as generic as possible: “Fucking literary critics. The only time they don’t want to bury you in an oubliette is when you’re wrecking yourself.”

Joe giggled. “Ah, but I only tell my tales to you, my posterity-seeking little prostitute. Doesn’t bother me at all, but I know how you are, you….” He gesticulated with a cascade of dirty, furry arms.

“Humans?” Joe offered sarcastically.

“Heh. Yes, darling, precisely. Anyway… so here’s the story of a man who lost a sense. I don’t mean eyesight, I mean something life and death. I do believe it may have killed him in the end… hard to say, though. Can’t quite separate that from the Denny’s skillets.”

“I can see why you think you’re cleverer than James Baldwin. Jesus, it’s cold again. How is this woodstove more efficient than the gas heater?” Joe blew at the embers and went round to fix his coffee.

“Now, not to drop names or anything, but I knew this person. I know, I know, it seems I’ve always been with you, doesn’t it? But I am a very old spider, Joe.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I also sleep.”

“I knew him very well, Joe,” said Borriss angrily.

“OK, OK, jeez.”

“Very well, indeed!”

“Just tell your damn story.”

BORRISS HAS A STORY

“So tell me something, Joe. How do you know that something is horrible?”

“An interactive story. You lazy piece of shit.”

Borriss shrugged grandly. “How d’ya know something is horrible, Joe, old bean?”

“It’s just horrible,” Joe said.

“Tsk. The big writer. Here you are in fucking Hollywood, Joe. This is your one big chance.”

“I’ll never have a chance and you know it, Borriss.”

“But you’re in Hollywood!”

“No I’m not, I’m in goddamn Lawndale.”

“Just like the character in your story. How inventive. You’re a real James Baldwin, there, pal.”

“I think you mean Shakespeare.”

“Pretend we’re in Hollywood. Anyway, how do you even know I’m just a spider, Joe?”

“Whaaaa…”

“I do talk, yes?”

“I just assume that’s me losing my mind, Borrisss. How long has it been since I slept eight hours?”

“What if all this time, I’ve been a Hollywood agent?”

“So when we were living in Iowa City, that was you taking a vacation from it all?”

“That’s right,” said Borriss grandly.

“Had to get away from the nice weather and the working plumbing once in a while, I suppose.”

“You got me, Joe. I was actually looking for talent. So don’t disappoint me now. Don’t be a waste of all my time. God, the diner flies in Iowa. They tasted just as bad as the food, if you were wondering.”

“Huh, sorry about that…”

“Your friends. Your girlfriends… god, I haven’t seen that many stretch marks since… there’s no way to finish that fucking joke; you’re a pig.” There was no clicking now. The sound Borriss was making—that could have been a frown. Joe was too on edge for these little games. Was Borriss angry? Who fucking cares?, Joe thought, with a rising panic. Who fucking cares? He can feel what he likes, I’ll mash his ass with a shoe…

It was just a goddamn spider, and probably imaginary. But the fear was rising. The fear, the fear, the stale fear. It’s much worse when it is stale. How can it be stale and rising? Joe’s hands began to shake.

“How do you know that something is horrible, Joe? How do you know, Joe? How do you know it’s horrible, huh? Come on. I’m not asking you to redesign the space shuttle here. How do you fucking know if something is—”

“It just is!” Joe yelled. “Jesus, are you morally retarded?! It’s just fucking horrible!”

“Thannnnnnnnnk you,” said Boris, feigning a great patience, unjustly tried. Cold sweat dripped down Joe’s back. “It just is, right?? It’s horrible. All that pain. Pain that didn’t need to be, right? The Khmer Rouge. Vlad the Impaler… not enough movies about old Vlad. OK, Jews in ovens. Lots of movies about them. Huns. Kids pulling wings off flies. Fuckin’ clitorectomy. Starving babies. Heat death of he sun. Simple enough.”

“I don’t know about that last one,” Joe said.

“Oh, we got a class clown here? I thought you wanted to just sit back and hear a story.”

Joe sighed. “And how many clitorectomy movies have you seen?”

“You’d be surprised. Now don’t you want to shut up and—”

“I want whatever will get you to your point without driving me up a fucking wall,” Joe said. He was as gruff as possible but he couldn’t stop the quivering voice. Borriss pretended not to hear it and launched into his tale.

“I met someone,” he said, “ who was treated so badly she no longer noticed bad treatment.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a spider. How do you think I know that?” Borriss grumbled.

Suddenly there were a lot of sirens and flashing lights. Joe put a hand over his eyes. “Oh, that’s right, I could just step—”

Borriss put his face in his palm. “I need a lot more sleep,” he said.

He gazed up. “Sorry. Could you… I don’t know, put something in his coffee once in a while?” There was no reply.