‘You can’t get Emilio back.’
Martin felt a small sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach; and it wasn’t only caused by last night’s Spanish wine. When he thought about Lugosi’s grisly transmogrification into a cat-snake, the prospects of getting Emilio back from beyond the mirror seemed desperately remote. Or even if they
could
get him back, it seemed highly unlikely that he would be the same normal five-year-old boy that he had been before.
It seemed to Martin that the mirror changed the shapes of living creatures so that they took on the physical appearance of what they really were. Lugosi, like most cats, had been sinuous and coldhearted and carnivorously minded. That was why he had taken on the shape of a snake.
Maybe he was wrong, but Martin strongly suspected that the world beyond the mirror was just like the world of the dead, the way that Theo had described it to him. Maybe it was the very same world. Maybe the mirror was a window that looked into heaven; or purgatory; or straight into hell.
The strongest piece of evidence was Boofuls, the living, breathing, long-dead Boofuls.
Martin said, a little unsteadily, ‘Okay … let’s take this one step at a time. First of all, what’s beyond that mirror?’
Boofuls turned to the mirror and frowned. ‘Hollywood,’ he said.
‘But not
this
Hollywood?’
‘No,’ Boofuls agreed. ‘Hollywood the other way around.’
‘Let me ask you this: where do you live in Hollywood?’
‘Sixteen sixty-five Stone Canyon Drive, Bel Air. The house is called Espejo.’
‘Is your grandmother still alive?’
Boofuls shook his head. ‘She hung herself.’
‘But she didn’t hang herself until she’d killed
you
. So how come you’re still alive and she’s not?’
‘Because I didn’t want her to be.’
‘But that’s not up to you, is it? Deciding whether people live or die?’
Boofuls said nothing in reply to that question, but stared at Martin intently with those piggy little eyes. Martin could see now just what the M-G-M makeup department had done to give him that wide, dreaming look. Boofuls was pretty, in a way, but if Martin had been Jacob Levitz, he certainly wouldn’t have looked at him twice when he auditioned for
Whistlin’ Dixie
.
Perhaps Boofuls had been fresher looking in 1935, thought Martin, with a sudden dash of black humor. After all, in those days, he hadn’t been dead for fifty years.
Martin slowly rubbed the palms of his hands together. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘if your grandmother’s dead, who takes care of you?’
‘Miss Redd takes care of me. Miss Redd always took care of me.’
Martin sat back. ‘I never heard of Miss Redd.’
Boofuls shrugged, as if to say that wasn’t
his
fault. ‘Would you like some orange juice?’ Martin asked him. ‘Anything to eat?’
Boofuls brightened up. ‘Do you have Ralston’s?’
Martin said, ‘I’m sorry. How about Count Chokula?’
Boofuls looked disappointed. ‘I’m collecting Ralston box tops, for the Tom Mix Straight-Shooters ring.’
‘The Tom Mix Straight-Shooters ring? That’s a radio premium, isn’t it? Or
wasn’t
it? They haven’t given away stuff like that on the radio since –’
He stared at Boofuls in horrified fascination. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t simply talking to a living ghost, he was talking to a ghost who still lived in 1939.
Boofuls sat at the kitchen table with a large bowl of Count Chokula and a glass of milk. Martin had made himself another cup of strong coffee. It was four o’clock in the morning, and his head felt as if it were slowly being closed in a car door. Outside the kitchen window, the sky was gradually beginning to lighten; false dawn, the hour of false promises.
Martin sat opposite Boofuls, straddling one of the kitchen chairs. He tried to discover what kind of life Boofuls lived in ‘Hollywood the Other Way Around’. He found it almost impossible to imagine an entire city in complete reverse. Yet of course he glimpsed it every day of the week, every hour of the day. Hollywood the Other Way Around appeared in store windows, barbershop mirrors, polished automobiles, shiny cutlery – everywhere and anywhere he came across a reflecting surface.
It was the idea of walking around
inside
those reflecting surfaces that he found so difficult to grasp. But Boofuls, with his mouth full of chocolate cereal, said, ‘Why? You do it all the time. You can see yourself there.’
‘Well, sure,’ said Martin, ‘but that’s not actually
me
, is it, that’s Me the Other Way Around. A left-handed me, a me who parts his hair on the opposite side, a me with a mole on my right cheek instead of my left.’
Boofuls smiled at him. Martin wasn’t too keen on his smiles. They had a sly coldness to them that he couldn’t quite pin down. Boofuls said. ‘That you in the mirror is more like you than you are.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Look in any mirror, Martin, and you’ll see the truth.’
It wasn’t only Boofuls’ smile that Martin found disturbing. It was the way he talked. sometimes he was quite childish, only using eight-year-old words, and eight-year-old ideas. But occasionally the mask of childhood would slip slightly, and he would say something that was too calculating and too philosophical for a boy of his supposed age. Although, what
was
his age? He was ageless; he was dead. He was nothing more than a glamorous memory that had stepped out of a mirror.
‘Tell me something else,’ said Martin after a while. ‘If I lay a mirror flat on the ground and look down into it, the world looks upside down, as well as the other way around. Everybody’s clinging onto the ground by the soles of their feet. How do you guys cope with that?’
Boofuls finished his milk and wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘It’s different, that’s all.’
‘I’ll say,’ Martin remarked.
Boofuls propped his chin on his hands and stared at Martin with supreme confidence. ‘The thing is, Martin, she didn’t kill the real me. That’s why she hanged herself. When she was doing it, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t killing the real me.’
Martin thought about that. Then he said, ‘All right, if she didn’t kill the real you, which one of you was the real you? The Boofuls in this Hollywood or the Boofuls in Hollywood the Other Way Around?’
Boofuls smiled. ‘Which one of you is the real you, Martin? If I were to kill
this
you, who would be left? What would be left?’
‘I really don’t know, to tell you the truth,’ Martin admitted.
‘Well, you’d know if it happened. You’d
know
.’
‘All right,’ Martin agreed, ‘she didn’t murder the real you. But what happened then, after the you who
wasn’t
you got himself chopped up into two hundred eleven pieces?’
‘There was nothing I could do but go away,’ said Boofuls. ‘Everybody thought I was dead. They closed down
Sweet Chariot
and everybody was paid off. Have you seen any rushes from
Sweet Chariot
?’
Martin shook his head. ‘I’ve seen everything else you’ve done. I’ve even seen your screen tests for
Flowers From Tuscaloosa
. They were pretty dire, weren’t they?’
‘I had the grippe. I still got the part.’
‘Well, sure you did. There was nobody else. There was only one Boofuls. Well –
is
only one Boofuls.’
The hot coffee had steamed up Martin’s glasses. He took them off and polished them with the pulled-out tail of his shirt. Boofuls watched him for a little while and then said, ‘We could finish that picture, couldn’t we?’
Martin peered at him. He was shortsighted, and without his glasses Boofuls’ face appeared white and fuzzy, with dark circles around his eyes. Almost – for a moment – like a skull.
‘What do you mean we could finish the picture?’
‘Well, imagine it,’ said Boofuls, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘Screenwriter discovers boy who can sing and dance and act just like Boofuls,
just
like Boofuls, and plans to finish Boofuls’ last unfinished picture.’
‘But I
don’t
plan to finish Boofuls’ last unfinished picture. I plan to present a musical of my own called
Boofuls!
’
Boofuls was silent for a long time. He traced a pattern on the Formica tabletop with his finger. At last he said, ‘I want to finish
Sweet Chariot
.’
‘Well … it’s a possibility, I suppose,’ said Martin. ‘But it’s going to be pretty difficult finding backing. I had enough grief trying to sell my own musical. And the whole idea of
Sweet Chariot
is pretty much out of date these days. A boy turning into an angel? Everybody’s done it – Warren Beatty, Michael Landon … all that
Heaven Can Wait
stuff. George Burns even played God.’
‘George Burns is still alive?’ asked Boofuls in surprise.
‘Well,’ said Martin, ‘some people like to think so.’
‘I want to finish
Sweet Chariot
,’ Boofuls repeated. His eyes widened in sudden ferocity. ‘It’s
important
!’
‘Come on, you’re talking about a twenty-five-million-dollar production here. I don’t think many producers are going to risk that kind of money on a remake of a 1939 musical.’
‘But it’s a Boofuls musical,’ Boofuls insisted.
‘Ho, ho, ho, don’t tell me that,’ replied Martin. ‘In this town, there are half a dozen names that stink, and as far as I can make out, Boofuls is the Least Desirable Aroma of the Year.’
Boofuls slowly shook his head. His eyes had a tiny, faraway look, as if he were peering down the wrong end of a telescope. ‘You’re wrong, Martin. Things are going to change. Boofuls is going to be famous again. Boofuls is going to be loved!’
Martin stood up and collected Boofuls’ bowl and glass. ‘All I can say to that is, convince me.’
‘I will. I promise.’
‘Meanwhile,’ said Martin, ‘I have something a whole lot more serious to talk about. I want to get Emilio back.’
‘I told you. You
can’t
get him back.’
‘Does that mean
ever
?’
Boofuls was silent. Martin leaned forward across the table and snapped. ‘Does that mean
ever
? Or what?’
‘There is a way,’ said Boofuls.
‘Oh, really? And what way is that?’
Boofuls glanced up and smiled, and looked away again. ‘We could make a deal. If you help me to finish
Sweet Chariot
, if you take care of me, then when it’s finished, you can get Emilio back.’
‘Why not before?’ Martin demanded.
‘Because I won’t,’ said Boofuls.
‘What the hell do you mean you won’t?’
‘I won’t, that’s all. I can, but I won’t. That’s the deal.’
Martin banged the kitchen table with his fist. ‘Listen to me, you beady-eyed sprout! There’s an old couple downstairs and Emilio is all they’ve got in the whole entire world! Either you get Emilio back or you don’t get squat from me,
comprende?
’
‘I won’t,’ Boofuls repeated.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Martin challenged him. ‘Put you over my knee and spank you?’
‘You mustn’t shout at me,’ Boofuls replied. ‘If you shout at me, it brings on my fits.’
‘I want Emilio back,’ Martin told him in a soft, low, threatening voice.
‘I want to finish
Sweet Chariot
.’
Martin tried to stare Boofuls out; but there was something about the little boy’s eyes that made him feel unnerved; almost vertiginous; as if he were about to fall into a cold and echoing elevator shaft forever.
He backed away. Boofuls didn’t take his eyes away from him once.
‘I don’t lift one finger until I get Emilio back,’ Martin told him, but much less convincingly than before.
‘But – if you
do
get Emilio back – how will I be sure that you will still help me to make
Sweet Chariot
?’ Boofuls asked him.
‘You don’t know. You’ll have to trust me.’
‘I don’t trust anybody.’
Martin finished his cup of coffee. ‘Maybe it’s time you started.’
At seven-thirty that morning, Martin tugged up the venetian blinds and greeted the bright California sunshine. Boofuls was sitting at the desk, solemnly doodling with Martin’s black Conté pen: clouds and faces and disembodied smiles.
Martin turned around and looked at him. He was a real boy, right enough, flesh and blood, freckles and buck teeth. His legs were lightly tanned, and there was a grazing of white skin on his knee where he must have fallen. Martin crossed the sitting room and watched him drawing for a while, and Boofuls even
smelled
like a boy – biscuity and hot. Without even thinking about it, Martin ruffled his curls.
Boofuls immediately knocked his hand away. ‘Don’t do that. Nobody’s allowed to do that.‘
‘All right, I’m sorry.’ Martin smiled. ‘I guess I wasn’t treating you quite like a big movie star.’
‘I am a big movie star,’ Boofuls said petulantly.
‘You
were
a big movie star,’ Martin reminded him.
Boofuls didn’t bother to reply to that; but by the look on his face Martin could tell just how contemptuous he felt about it. Martin knew plenty of grown-up movie stars, and their total egotism never came as any surprise. It was as much a part of the job they did as a steady hand is to a carpenter. But it was a shock to meet such consummate vanity in a child of eight – even a child of eight who had walked into his life in wildly unnatural circumstances. Somehow Martin had always liked to believe that prepubescent children had a natural cynicism, a gift for self-squelching, which made such vanity impossible.