eddle and Hilary Davidson cooked up a little flash fiction game for a chance to score a copy of Hilary's debut novel The Damage Done. I found out about this challenge late. While I don't necessarily need a copy of Hilary's novel (got one, thank you) I'd like to try to win a copy for my favorite public library in Ocean City, NJ. Ground rules? Neil Young and Ava Gardner have to be in the 500 word piece somehow. I was up anyway so I gave it a try.TAPE LEADS
In paint splattered clothes, Neil Young is on Late Night with David Letterman and looking like sixty-five years of hammered shit. I have the television sound on mute and work in the flat screen’s eerie glow. -
Rewinding. Playing. Stopping. Fast forwarding. Rewinding. Playing. I fear the primitive magnetic tape feeding through the heads will snap at any moment like so much shedded snake skin pulled tight, but I have to be sure. I have to have this right. My late grandfather’s voice, the dead actor’s, I have to have the truth. -
“Look. Thanks for making the trip up here today. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Orange juice? No? Have my cook pick the oranges from my trees right out there every morning. Loads of vitamins.” -
“No, thank you.” -
“Suit yourself. Have a seat.” -
(Unspecific noises of settling. A door closes?)-
“I’ve a meeting down on the lot in an hour so let’s not waste each others time bullshitting each other and such.…”-
“Agreed. It was clear or I wouldn’t be here.”-
(Pause, snowy hiss)-
“Right. So then.”-
“So. Quite frankly, it’s a lot to ask.”-
“Yes, but my friend said you’ve stepped up before. Gave me a couple of—”-
“Your friend should keep their mouth shut.”-
“Sure, sure. Of course. But, I mean, you have, haven’t you? I mean, this.”-
(Snowy silence)-
“I have.”-
“So?”-
“You have to understand, we’re not talking about scooping up some underage star-struck fan in the middle of the night and sticking her on the bus back to Provo.”-
“I know. God. Do have any idea how humiliating this is for me to even be--.”-
“Sir, I really don’t want to know.”-
(Indecipherable)-
“Yes, sir.”-
“That bitch. What about my reputation, huh? Now she’s balling that wop.”-
“It’s tricky what you’re asking though. High visibility.”-
“Uh-huh.”-
“The eyes of, well, let’s just say things might run away from us this gets too much attention.”-
“But you can keep that from happening can’t you?”-
“Oh sure. Believe me, I like where I am, Mr. Rooney. What I’m saying here is it would have to be something simple, you know, so as not to draw suspicion or attention after the fact. Something that adds up.”-
(Pause, words not clear)-
(Laughter—my grandfather’s)-
“What’s so funny?”-
(Indecipherable, more hiss)-
“Fine. So what do you suggest?”-
“She’s a boozer, right? (Again, indecipherable) might do the trick.”-
“I have some (Indecipherable), some swish down at the studio gave them to me—”-
“No. That’s a link. And anyway those things won’t do the job.”-
“They’re powerful.”-
“Yeah. But we need street, no way to link it to you. Some stone cold barbiturates. Don’t worry, I know how to get them. Jungle up, go east side. Those club negroes. Score.”-
“Then what?”-
“S’all about figuring where and when.”-
The tape goes dead. I rewind, start over.There are hundred of tapes stored in my grandfather’s trunks. Hours of listening. I've been at it for five days now.-
Why didn’t they go through with it? A slighted Mickey Rooney plots to kill Ava Gardner? Jesus. Grandpa used to push me on the swings.-
Grandpa—the Hollywood cleaner.-
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