The End Is Now

Sally was gushing about my chemistry with Zapp Stillman, and how much people liked seeing the two of us interact, and maybe we could do a few more clips featuring the two of us. Gang boss and lieutenant, an ineptly gay couple, boxer and trainer, rock star and manager, superheroes. The possibilities were endless, almost like having Raine back. For a moment I wondered if Sally had a thing for Zapp’s gangly ass.

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” I said once I could break in. “I need to take a break from making movies. I was thinking of going back to North Carolina.” I tried to explain how I kept seeing Raine and Reginald whenever I closed my eyes lately, but Sally grabbed my scruff and pushed me halfway over the edge of the bridge. My pants fell down, and the wind whipped through my boxer shorts. My ass was in space.

“You asshole,” Sally said. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Every time I think I can rely on you. What the fuck? I was going to be a real director. I was doing great in film school, making serious films about real stuff. And then you turned up and sucked me back into spending all my time making these dumb movies instead. And now you’re just going to leave? What? The? Fuck?” She shook me with each word. My shirt tore around the armpits. I could feel my feet, somewhere far away, trampling my pants.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I looked up into her bugged out eyes. “I just can’t. I can’t deal. Jesus, you’re my best friend no matter how long I live, but I’m a poison time bomb, you don’t want to be around me, I’ll just hurt you, I’m so sorry. I break everything.”

She hauled me off the edge and dumped me on my feet. “What the fuck are you talking about, Rock? I love you, but you’re an idiot. Just listen to me, okay. You’re not some kind of destructive engine. You are good for exactly one thing, and one thing only, and that’s turning people’s brains off for a few minutes. You should stick to that. And another thing, did you ever stop to think about what I’m getting out of doing these movies with you? Did you? I mean, jeez. The world we live in now, the only time things make sense is when I’m coming up with bigger and crazier disasters to put on film. I finally decided, slapstick is the new realism. And I can’t do it without you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, but . . .” I took a breath and pulled up my pants. The snap had broken, so I had to hold them together with one hand, and that limited my gesture menu a lot. “I keep feeling like I’m going to hurt somebody. I feel like people keep getting hurt around me, and maybe it’s my fault somehow. Like what happened with Reginald. And Raine, before that.”

“Jesus, this pisses me off. My boyfriend dies, but it’s still all about you. What is up with that?”

The bridge rumbled, and I worried the supports had eroded or someone had sabotaged them. I tried to get Sally’s attention, but she was still talking about how dumb I was. I grabbed her arm with my free hand and pulled her toward land. She jerked free and said she didn’t want to go with me, she was sick of my crap, let go.

“Listen, listen! Something’s wrong,” I said. I pulled her the other way, toward Boston. By now the bridge was definitely vibrating in a weird way. I could feel it in my teeth. I ran as fast as I could without letting go of my pants-clasp. The bridge felt like it was going to collapse any second. We made it to land, but the sidewalks had the same problem as the bridge. The rumbling got louder and felt like it was coming from inside me.

“What the fuck is going on?” Sally shouted.

I raised my hands. By now I was seeing funny, like there were one and a half of her. My teeth clattered. My stomach cramped up. And most of all my ears were full—they hurt like murder. I had earaches like someone had jammed sticks into my ear canals, it hurt all the way down my throat.

The last words Sally ever said to me were, “What the hell, we need to get inside—”

The pressure inside my ears built up and then it spiked, like the sticks in my ears had jammed all the way in and twisted like a corkscrew. I can’t really describe the pain. People have written tons of poems about it, but mostly they use it as something to compare any other kind of pain with. Two giant hands smacked me in the head, at the same time as a massive force trying to push its way out from the inside of my skull. I staggered and fell over, nearly blacked out.

Blood burst out of Sally’s ears at the same time as I felt something splash on my shirt. I tried to say something like, What the fuck just happened, or Shit I dropped my pants again, but nothing came out. No, I was doing all the right things to make a sound, but nothing. I couldn’t hear birds or street sounds. I couldn’t hear anything. Sally was moving her mouth too, but she had the same panic in her eyes as I felt. I sat down on the ground, impact but no noise, like we were in outer space.