Chapter 5: Adrenaline

Chapter 5

Adrenaline

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The car accident that will kill Tom Atari 

is still days away.

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There had to be retribution for Heather Jasmine. Tom was no hero, no policeman or judge, but at one time or another every man has the right to hold the hammer.

She was a child, an innocent soul brought into this world and tainted by angry humans, who misdirected her, used her as fuel and burnt her before she could stand on her own. That soul was now gone, forever, irretrievable, before it had a chance at awareness, before it got a day for redemption, and now Tom found himself suddenly sanctified, sitting in his Chrysler 300 outside the gates of MCM studios, loading his gun, singing along to the Diamonds’ ‘Little Darling,’ and feeling no fear.

His body alive with righteousness, this was God’s work, had to be.

The gates opened, slow, and from the driveway descended the new black Lincoln, the car of reputable producer Marvin Millser: talent scout, filmmaker, child pornographer. He was done for the day, having spent the last six hours creating wholesome motion pictures that would establish morality for the country, planet. The last hour of his day was spent with a ten year-old boy, naked and romantic, while the child's Mother waited blind in the lobby, praying to the heavens that her son might become a star.

Tom dunked the Chrysler into Low and that’s just what she did, purring slow on the cement behind the mogul’s creeping vehicle. Atari- on fire- followed good, one of his specialties, invisible at a distance, using billboards and the shark-fins of fellow cars to navigate the highway’s shallow waters and stay in the black Lincoln’s blind spot.

The usually impetuous Tom Atari was in complete control of his emotions, his hands steady on the wheel, his heart metered in beat, until turning off La Cienega Boulevard, when he suddenly heard Heather’s hot whispered breath in his ear: “save me.”

That’s when his car smashed into Millser’s, bumping it into a country club shrub. The hood plowed through to the other side of the greenery- the headlights getting to see how the other half golfs. Tom was out of his car even before Millser’s driver, who came at him with a swift drop of a tire iron. Atari countered by shooting him in the face.

The driver dropped it, and while the liquid adrenaline poured through Tom's body he opened the car door and took Marvin Millser out of the backseat. He grabbed him by the collars of his expensive suit and he shook him hard. And he shook him harder. And he shook Marvin Millser out of his spell and back into sanity. The producer- chubby, balding- was finding it impossible to catch his breath. He was in fact hyperventilating, his chest seizing and his arms shaking.

Tom spoke in a voice he didn’t recognize: “Tell me.”

Millser, afraid, could not have spoken if he had wanted to, his lungs fighting his body for air. There were tears in his eyes, and Tom- out of habit- wiped them away.

“Tell me.  Tell me who got to Heather. Why she was set up- why I was set up. Why did she have to die?”

Both men trembling on the side of the road, the deaf chauffeur smiling peacefully at the clouds.

“I’m not the one...” Millser gasped, his chest heaving involuntarily.

Tom shook his head, “It’s the whole goddamn studio, right? The whole industry?”

“Big- bigger,” Millser panted, “It’s Project Geronimo.”

A Cadillac, turning up the road, saw the accident and honked its horn, which was when Tom turned to look, letting the gun drop, giving Millser the chance to yank it away.

Tom whipped his head back to see Millser put the gun between his lips and take a sip of gunpowder. He fired and his skull exploded from below, splitting pretty and leaving an eye over each of his shoulders. The Cadillac carried on.

Tom would not remember getting back in his car and driving home, or the Marion Davies movie playing on television that night. He would not remember the aspirin, or the glasses of milk, or the falling asleep on the sofa in his suit and stocking feet. He would remember the words ‘Project Geronimo,’ and the look on Millser’s face when he took himself out of the game.

America watched Miss Davies on television skating sweet to the red mill, and Tom Atari fell asleep, wide awake for the first time.

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