Chapter 9

Dylan

Kavanagh’s is a shitty bar. You can find it tucked away between an abandoned theatre with graffiti scribbled over the tragically big doors, and a pawn shop that only opens at night. It was built during, and never really escaped, the Great Depression. It’s cheap enough for the bums to spend their begged quarters in, and so poorly signed that if you didn’t know it was already there, you’d never find it. Only the loneliest, thirstiest, most aimless men find a place like this – the password is desperation.

The rules are written in the floor, battered and worn from work boots and heavy thoughts, in the craggy, inward-looking faces of the men there, and it’s always men, commiserating, regretting, and hurting as only men choose to do – alone. The rules are that you don’t talk to anyone, and that if you do, it never leaves the stained, peeling walls.

I sidle in to the dim, smoke-filled room (not even a smoking ban can change Kavanagh’s) and walk to my usual spot at the bar. My fame, my face – none of it matters here. A flicker of eyes – more at the light that I let in as I push open the door, than the fact that I’m Dylan Marlowe – is all that greets me.

Seconds after I’m in my seat there’s a triple whiskey in front of me. I gulp half and let it burn, let it sink into my body, let it wash all the shit I want to shout and scream about down my throat once again.

You can’t run away from the past. But if your past is as dark as mine you’d better run anyway – or else it’ll run after you.

I rub my eyes, and when I open them the bald bartender, in his ill-fitting jeans and meal-for-one stained shirt, looks at me blankly. I nod my head, down the rest of the whiskey, and he has another there in seconds, before going off to lean at his post by the radio.

How could something so pure, so good get corrupted to shit so easily? It was all so fucking simple when we were kids. Me and my buddy Cal swapping VHS tapes of R-rated films that were on past our bedtime, but that we set the machine to record. Quoting lines from Scarface as we walked to school. Talking about what we would do if we were stuck on this ship with the Alien, because we were really just shit-scared of the thing. Talking about why Jaws was the greatest film ever. Realizing that being an adult was harder than it looked when we saw the Godfather trilogy. Wishing to God that our Sunday school teacher had also seen the Graduate and liked the idea of it.

It was all another world. Someplace fantastic, but real enough to move you. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to make art, create characters that people felt they knew as well as their closest friends, scenes and situations so powerful that people referred to them like real memories. It was untainted, a good ambition.

How did it all turn to so much shit? How does something as good and as pure as making art, telling stories, reaching out to people, all end up with scumbags digging into your past and blocking your doorway? How does all the work that goes into creating characters and plots and scenarios, with elegant visuals and vivid sound, get turned so quickly by cockroaches into discussions and critiques of career trajectories, marketable stars, snide slanders and arbitrary praise? How does the fantasy and infinite imagination of film live so closely with miserable reality and close-minded judgment?

I slam the second whiskey glass down and pick up the full one next to it. I gulp down another soothingly hot sensation and drop my head into my hands.

What am I talking about? I’m so full of shit. I’ve spent so long thinking about movies that I’ve lost touch with reality. I’ve gotten so used to clean endings, happy endings, that I can’t handle the things that linger inside of me like unfulfilled promises. Gemma’s right. I’ve never dealt with any of it. I’ve just kept on blocking it out, distracting myself, and hoping that the great scriptwriter in the sky will figure out an ending for me – a good one. I’m the star after all. Aren’t I? Dylan Marlowe. The biggest name on the poster. The hero.

I listen to a guy behind me push his chair back, slam some coins onto the counter, and shuffle his feet out of the door, mumbling as he goes. “Back to the bitch.”

Was I really thinking that? Was I really believing things would get better for me? That I could move on and not live in either a state of anguish over the past, or throwing myself into things that would help me forget for a few seconds? I’ve never been optimistic before. Never had reason to believe things would get anything but worse. So what changed? Why am I acting like this is something new?

Gemma.

I hate to fucking admit it, but this fourth whiskey is making me. She’s the one who’s had me thinking I might be able to move on, might be able to put all this shit behind me. Shit. She just broke up with her boyfriend, lives in a shitty studio, had to deal with following me around all fucking day long, and she still has her shit together more than anyone I know.

I might be able to knock a guy out in the time it takes to bring up his hands, I know how to take control of a room and whoever’s in it, and I’m in a position where I don’t need to take any shit from anybody – but none of that can help the pain inside go away. For that…I don’t know what I need, but there’s a small part of me that was hoping Gemma might be the one to provide it. But in the end I can’t escape from myself.

So of course, I’ve treated her like shit. Pushed her away when I should have brought her close, and tried to get close when it was smarter to keep my distance. Maybe I know, deep down, that she’s too good for all this. Too pure to get involved with all my sins. Maybe I know I’ll only corrupt her, like I’ve done to anyone who gets close – like I’ve done to myself. Maybe if we just fucked and kept it at that, there’d have been no danger – for either of us.

I look up at the bartender. He’s in front of me, waiting for the sign. I think about calling it quits. About going back to my home and looking at the dailies, try and get my head back to the job at hand. I think about going to the set, talking with Christopher a bit, going over our approach to the upcoming scenes. I think about just grabbing a square meal somewhere and then working out, trying to pull my head out of my ass and get myself right.

I think about all of that, but instead I just give him the nod and watch him put another whiskey in front of me.