Part 44 (1/2)

How does it smell?

It's cow brains. How you think it smells?

Please, Michael?

It smells... okay. All right? I could eat them. It would be okay.

Okay is what will keep you out of the ground. You stick with okay and no bullet in the head. You get too far away from okay, and you're gone, no matter how good a plumber you are. Okay?

[Pause.] Okay.... c.r.a.p.

I want you to do thirty meetings in thirty days. Here's the card. I want it signed every day by your sponsor. You need to have some long talks with him.

Aw, man! I haven't had to do that stuff since when we first started.

You ate some brains this week. If you think that was a good plan, let me know. I'll shoot you myself.

It wasn't a good plan.

Pee test every week until you get to the other side of this.

Fine. Just... fine.

I'm on your side, Michael, but you've got to be on your side, too. I believe in you. You're a good man. You can do this.

I know.

I'll see you next week, Michael.

Not if I see you first.

[Pause.]

Just kidding.

There's a meeting at Beth Israel at seven tonight. I'd like to see a signature on your card that says you made it.

Yeah. I'll try.

Just remember: there's a bullet in the head waiting for you if you don't.

He Said, Laughing By Simon R. Green

Simon R. Green is the bestselling author of dozens of novels, including several long-running series, such as the Deathstalker series and the Darkwood series. Most of his work over the last several years has been set in either his Secret History series or in his popular Nightside milieu. Recent novels include The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny and and The Spy Who Haunted Me The Spy Who Haunted Me. A new series, The Ghost Finders, is forthcoming. Green's short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Mean Streets Mean Streets, Unusual Suspects Unusual Suspects, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, Powers of Detection Powers of Detection, and is forthcoming in my anthology The Way of the Wizard The Way of the Wizard.

Apocalypse Now is a strange, wild movie. In it, director Francis Ford Coppola retells Joseph Conrad's cla.s.sic Colonial-era novel is a strange, wild movie. In it, director Francis Ford Coppola retells Joseph Conrad's cla.s.sic Colonial-era novel Heart of Darkness Heart of Darkness by transposing the story to the Vietnam War. In one scene, American soldiers attempt to seize a beachhead while simultaneously blasting Wagner's ”Ride of the Valkyries” and surfing. Robert Duvall, playing the mad Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, stands tall as mortars land all around him, and declares, ”I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” From there things only get stranger and more surreal, as Martin Sheen's character Captain Willard travels farther and farther upriver, seeking a rogue colonel named Kurtz. by transposing the story to the Vietnam War. In one scene, American soldiers attempt to seize a beachhead while simultaneously blasting Wagner's ”Ride of the Valkyries” and surfing. Robert Duvall, playing the mad Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, stands tall as mortars land all around him, and declares, ”I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” From there things only get stranger and more surreal, as Martin Sheen's character Captain Willard travels farther and farther upriver, seeking a rogue colonel named Kurtz.

But the process of filming the movie was as mad and out-of-control as anything that appears on film. Drinking and drugs were rampant among the crew. A storm destroyed the sets, and the borrowed helicopters were called away to fight real-life battles. Star Marlon Brando had become grossly obese and refused to be filmed except from the neck up while standing in deep shadow. Someone on the production had obtained real cadavers to use as props, which turned out to have been stolen from local graves. And director Francis Ford Coppola, who stood to lose everything if the film failed, threatened repeatedly to kill himself.