Sociopath? (36 page)

“She’s really sweet and smart but heavy and
not very attractive, thank God.”

“Thank God?”

“Yes, Rafe,” she sighed, “because I showed
her your website and now she has a huge crush on you. She asks
about you all the time and when this movie comes out, it’s going to
be worse. I don’t want you coming to school to visit me and
seducing my roommate and then leaving me to deal with her broken
heart. “

He grinned. “Do you think I would do that to
you, Laney?”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t?”

“When would I have time?” he asked, pulling
her head down to kiss her.

*

When it was released to the general public,
“No Winners” became the highest grossing movie ever. The rape scene
was the talk of the media, even including those that didn’t
normally pay much attention to the film industry. The video of it
zoomed to the top of YouTube’s all-time most viewed list. Rafe’s
butt and Rhiannon’s boob were surely the most shaded out pieces of
film ever on family channels and mainstream media. But not in the
magazines and on cable, where they were shown clearly and lingerly,
as they were in other print sources not quite so prudish. Press
Buckley was the forgotten man as Rafe and Rhiannon became
Hollywood’s new power couple. She was voted “Most Beautiful
Actress” and he was voted “Handsomest Actor”. Collectively, they
were named “Hottest Duo”.

*

The studio called Rafe and Rhiannon to a
meeting.

“We need to start thinking about your next
film.”

“There’s not going to be a next film for me,”
Rafe told.

They were stunned, aghast.

“What do you mean that there’s not going to
be another film? You have to make another film! You’re a star now!
The public wants to see you!”

“I don’t owe the public anything and I don’t
owe you anything either. I fulfilled my obligation under my
contract.” His smile went sliding across his face. “I only promised
to fuck you, I never promised to marry you.”

“You can’t do this!”

“Yes,” he said, gently, “I very definitely
think I can.”

“Rhiannon, you’ve got to make him see
reason!”

She shrugged. “Man says he doesn’t want to
make a movie, I guess that’s his business.”

“But what about the money, Rafe? We’ll make
you a multi-millionaire!”

“My trust fund just kicked in. I’m already a
multi-millionaire.”

*

Back at her house, she told him, “God, Rafe,
that was great! I loved seeing the looks on their faces when you
told them no. They couldn’t believe anyone existed on this earth
who’d reject them. At first, they thought you were just holding out
for a better deal. The mercenary bastards can understand that. When
they finally realized you really meant it, they went into shock. I
envy you, Rafe. It must have been nice never to have had to kiss
anyone’s ass to get what you wanted. What would you have done if
you’d been in my position, I wonder?”

“I’d have done just what you did, Ree. I’d
have been tough enough to play the game however I had to play it
until I got myself into a winning position.”

She moved up to him and unbuttoned his jeans.
“I know a winning position, I’d like to put you in right now.”

*

They were watching Rafe’s face on the t.v.
screen for what seemed like about the millionth time.

“What did I tell you, Jeff? He went, he saw,
he conquered.”

“You were right. You know, he probably got
the part based on his looks but he deserved it too. He’s actually a
good actor, Denis.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. That’s what used to
make the rest of us so upset with him when we were kids.”

*

“Have you seen the new Time magazine?” Linda
Dee asked Rhonda Fisher at their weekly dinner (which was Mexican
tonight).

“No, why?”

“Guess who is on the front cover?”

“I have no idea. Who?”

“Rafe Vincennes, that’s who!” she slammed her
hand down onto the table, causing the other diners to stare in
their direction.

“Are you serious, Linda? Rafe on the cover of
Time?”

“Yes, because of that movie he made, and the
caption above his treacherous, smiling face says, Headed for
Super-Stardom. I’m not sure I can bear it, Rhonda. Whatever
happened to ‘what goes around, comes around’? A less deserving
person I can’t imagine and yet, he just keeps going around and
catching the brass ring every time. It just isn’t fair,” she said
bitterly. “And here’s the very worst part. Chelsea confessed to me
that she went to see that movie and she told me as soon as it comes
out on dvd she’s buying it and she said she was probably going to
watch it about a million times.” (Chelsea was a nurse in St
Vincent’s Hospital in Baltimore now).

“Try not to be too upset, Linda. I mean, I
think most of the people in or from Benedict have seen it. It’s
natural when Rafe comes from here. And that’s probably even more so
if you were ever, if you were ever…. (she was trying to think of a
delicate way to say it) involved with Rafe.”

Linda closed her eyes in pain at the
thought.

“And even you have to admit that Rafe was
rather larger than life. Even as a student, the normal rules never
seemed to apply to him.”

“Oh, I’ll grant you that. Will he get away
with it his whole life, do you think, or will justice finally catch
up with him someday?”

*

Rafe was having somewhat the same thoughts,
not the justice part, just about the brass ring and how people came
to get it. He’d ridden up to the cabin to get away from the phone.
Now he was sitting on a chair on the porch with his legs propped up
on the railing, Hawk at his feet. It was an overcast day, making
the world look metallic - the sky was iron, the grass in the fields
was pewter, the bay beyond was steel. He’d left his cell back at
the house. There’d be no new messages because his voice mail box
was full. Luckily, Renny and Magdelene were in Mobile visiting
again with Gil and Cindy (Gil was retired now from Princeton)
because the land line just kept ringing and ringing and ringing,
taking messages until the answering machine ran out of tape. Rafe
had deleted them a couple of times but this last time, he’d just
let it fill up and left it that way. The post office had notified
him that they were holding his mail too because the Heron Point
mailbox, while large, wasn’t big enough to stuff all his fan mail
into. He guessed he’d have to run into Benedict and pick it up
eventually. He’d told them to just pitch it but they said they
couldn’t do that. A person’s mail was sacred whether he wanted it
or not. Jeri told him his movie fans had discovered the race
website and it got so many hits, it crashed the server. He’d sent
her a check for a new and bigger one. He also sent her an extra
$5,000 for herself just for all the work she did. When she e-mailed
him back, she said she did what she did for him and not for money
but she was keeping the $5,000 just the same ?! Vic e-mailed him
that he was getting mail at the carriage house too because he’d
never turned in a change of address since he’d hardly received any
mail there and he knew he could trust them to forward on anything
that looked important. Vic asked what Rafe wanted them to do with
it and Rafe told him to throw it away. Then Vic asked if he cared
if they read it. Amused, he told them to go ahead and to tell him
about anything especially interesting. So, now Vic kept up a
running commentary in his e-mails, mostly about exotic and explicit
sexual offers, (from both men and women), marriage proposals (from
both men and women) and of course, passionate promises of undying
love (from both women and men). Rafe had decided there were even
more crazies in the world than he had previously thought.

So he was here at the cabin because it was
about the only refuge he had left (no phone, thank God), here or
driving in his car. Reporters had even tracked him down and tried
to snag an interview when he was on the boat, for Christ’s sake,
not that anyone could catch him in the cigarette boat but
still.

Rafe didn’t really think much about God one
way or the other. If there was a Supreme Being, it sure seemed like
he (or she, or it) had a capricious sense of humor. Even a brain as
smart as his couldn’t make rhyme or reason of what human beings
were supposed to accomplish, if they were even meant to accomplish
anything. If an Intelligence had planned it all, it was as if it
had set them all down in an impenetrable forest with no map and
then just said, “have at it.” So they all staggered around this way
and that, bumping into trees and stumbling over rocks and falling
into holes. People were terrified to admit there might be
absolutely nothing rational about any of it and that’s why they had
to invent institutions like the church and idiotic ideas like the
infallibility of a Pope to comfort themselves that they had some
freakin’ kind of guidance.

If there was one thing he knew, and anyone
who paid any attention at all had to know, it was that life was not
fair. That was so patently obvious, it appeared to be deliberate.
There seemed to be some perverse law of physics operating that
dictated that objects and people, were attracted to other objects
and people, in direct proportion to how much those other objects
and people repelled them, in other words, anything or anyone that
was hard to get was automatically deemed more desirable.

Rafe had benefited from this principle
throughout his life, not because he was trying, but just because of
the way things were. Take women, for instance. How many times had
he ever beckoned a woman, offering her nothing more than a quick
lay, and had her come flying to him even as she cast aside the man
who loved her and wanted to give her the world? The answer was many
times. He’d even asked a girl about it once. He knew she had an
adoring boyfriend. Why would she hurt that boyfriend to be with
him? She said it was because he was exciting and her boyfriend
wasn’t. He told her, “yeah, but I’m only going to be exciting for a
few hours and then I’ll be gone.” She’d just shrugged and said
she’d worry about that later. He guessed at least a third of the
fan club gals were married but they threw their names in the hat
just like the single ones, taking the risk of the consequences if
their husbands ever found out what was going on.

He’d played sports with other athletes who
ached to be stars and craved the spotlight of media attention.
They’d have crawled on their hands and knees to be interviewed by
reporters but the media chased after him, who did everything he
could to avoid them. Things flowed to him that he didn’t give a
fuck about like winning poetry prizes or being published in the JM
while there were others who would have been ecstatic to have those
things and never got them.

And now, he was being called a movie star,
although it wasn’t anything he’d ever wanted or needed, not like
Ree had needed it. She was one who had broken that barrier, forcing
life to hand over something she was determined to have, and she’d
done it through sheer guts and will. He admired her for that, being
able to get herself out of a terrible situation and into one where
she had enough power to control her own life. She saw all the media
bullshit as a debt she owed the people who put her where she was,
her fans. She loved them and was immensely grateful to them. He
didn’t feel that way. He didn’t give a damn whether he had a fan or
not because he wasn’t dependent on them for anything he cared
about.

Fortunately, there was a large gate at the
head of the Heron Point driveway. It had almost never been closed
before but he had it closed now and he was letting Hawk run loose
so if some enterprising reporter or camera person did make it over
the fence or up to the house via the dock, they were taking a
chance on suffering some rather significant injury.

~ ~ ~

Rhiannon came to Heron Point and spent a
couple of weeks with him at Christmas. She fell crazily in love
with the house and the family. She hung on Renny’s every word about
Vincennes history, studying every item in his study, wanting to
know the stories behind the heirloom furniture and the model train
and the dueling pistols and the civil war letters. She pored over
the family tree and asked him to explain as much as he knew about
each name listed. Renny enjoyed talking to someone who was so
interested since his own kids had always pretty well taken their
heritage for granted.

She spent hours with Magdelene, wanting to
know about her and Renny’s love affair and what it was like to
spend your whole life loving someone and knowing they loved you
back and to be brought here to this wonderful place as a young
bride and how it was for her when her kids were young and at home.
Magdelene told her that from the first day she met Renny, she
thought he was the perfect man and almost 40 years, nine kids and,
she’d have to stop to think to remember how many grandkids later,
she still thought so. Getting to know Rafe’s father, Ree could
definitely understand how Magdelene would feel that way. It seemed
to her that if you were under Renny’s protection, nothing bad would
ever be allowed to happen to you.

Rhiannon was fascinated by the open oak
stairway with all the family pictures lining the wall going up the
steps. She made Rafe tell who each of the brothers and sisters were
and who they were married to and how many children they had and
what they were doing with their lives now (although she did notice
the pictures kind of petered out when they got to Rafe and
Lane).

He took her out on the boats, the sailboat
and the speed boat and even the little pirogue in which they could
investigate the swampy side streams of the bay which he knew like
the back of his hand (fortunately, it was an especially warm
winter). He taught her to ride the horses, something she’d never
done, and he took her up to the cabin, explaining jokingly about
how it had been the Vincennes sexual rendezvous point, first for
their parents, and then for each of the kids in their turn. They
made love in the bedroom so she could say she’d done it there too.
She adored Hawk and Shasta. She’d never had a pet of her own. He
took her into Benedict, where he knew everyone and everyone knew
him, and they seemed suitably impressed although not surprised that
Rafe had ended up with a woman like Rhiannon.