His problem was, he said, he didn’t know where the voice was coming from—there were so many people on the soundstage that he couldn’t isolate it. He’d gone home to his house in the Hills when the shoot was over and hadn’t heard it there; the house was empty except for his housekeeper cook and one other staff and the big rooms hung heavy with quiet. But as soon as he was on set again—the same movie, but there was a large cast, there was a massive crew, it was a big movie—the voice started up.
It drove him crazy, he said, because visiting the set was the only real perk of his job. He’d never cared much about the money, he liked to be there seeing movies get made, it was the whole reason for his career, and this movie, this movie in particular was his baby, he’d nurtured it from the cradle, it was his project. He even tried not doing drugs, but that didn’t help (he smiled, self-mocking) so he went back off the wagon a couple of days later.
The voice performed speeches, he said, as far as he could tell it was speeches from hundreds of different films, scripted monologues and dialogues—not all of which he recognized. It might as well have been making its way through the AFI Catalog.
“I mean, I guess—” he interrupted himself, and looked at Don. “I guess I’m wanting to know what we’re all doing, like, what is this? Why me? I just wanted to do my thing, make the pictures and sell them, you know, stay on trajectory. I was making, like, this almost perfect arc. And then there was this—it was pretty much noise, like static, like really fucking annoying, I mean I’d punch walls, man, I put a hole in drywall once—which—and cracked a Lexus window—anyway. So this is what I’m saying—assuming it is some kind of higher power or whatever, then what’s the goddamn point of it? It fucks us over, and for fucking what?”
Instead of answering, though, when all of us turned and looked at him, Don just nodded.
“Go on,” he said gently, as though Navid hadn’t asked him a question.
“We come here, we talk, we tell our stories and whatever, say what we heard or felt, what our perception was. We have this—with the cookies and the donuts and that shit. Group therapy. But it’s, like, circles. Around and around. Are there answers? Will anyone ever fucking tell me why and how this shit happened to me?”
Don kept nodding solemnly.
We sat there in an uncomfortable silence. But Don was waiting too, clearly, as though he didn’t get that he was being directly asked—as though he didn’t feel the pregnancy of the pause. Still no one wanted to say anything. There was a force field around Don, it seemed.
“He means, Don, do you have an explanation for us,” said Kay softly.
The group seemed embarrassed, people fiddling with coffee cups or adjusting their positions on the hard chairs.
“Basically I’m one of you,” said Don, after a few seconds. “They don’t offer degrees in this, I’m afraid. I need you to understand that I try to be here for you, I want to do everything I can to help, but I’m not a credentialed expert.”
There were a couple of nods, but faces went slack and shoulders sank with a disappointment so tangible I could feel it even from the cheap seats, sitting behind a row of backs. They’d wanted him to explain in simple terms what had happened to them, they’d thought he might really have the key.
I had too. I was no different.
Someone’s cell phone rang from a bag under a chair and around the circle the guests shuffled their feet, started to pull on gloves and wrap scarves around their necks. I noticed they’d come bundled in full winter gear, even though most had only twenty feet to walk from their rooms.
“One thing,” said Don. “Navid. When you say why us, it’s not that we’re the only ones. We’re a subset—we heard more clearly than most. But we’re not the only ones by a long shot. None of you are alone.”
“‘My name is legion, for we are many,’” said Gabe.
There was a glazed look in his eyes.
Listless, wanting something to occupy me when I got back to my room, I searched for the quote online.
It was from Mark 5, when Jesus cast demons out of a man and into a herd of pigs.
He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!”
Then He asked him, “What is your name?”
And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”
The unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they drowned.