Friday night.
L.A. is sweaty.
I blast Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” on vinyl.
I light candles and dance while I wait for Monica. She’s helping me with lines tomorrow. I start shooting on Monday, but tonight my brain is a black hole. I don’t want to think about work.
Monica and I met on set and clicked instantly. Did a bunch of scenes together. She didn’t backstab me when I got my first real film job. Apparently, you’re not allowed to leave the XXX industry.
She’ll bring K tonight because we always do it. I could use it for my nerves, but I need my head working. I’ll say, not before work, I really can’t fuck this job up.
A few minutes before she shows up, my limbs go numb again. I grip the railing on my balcony. I can’t get the full feeling back. It’s like I’m not fully there. Something is disconnected.
She finally shows up and I change the music to Mazzy Star “So Tonight That I Might See.” We eat, drink, dance. I try not to think about work, but she insists on seeing the script. I let her peek while I smoke at the balcony door.
The film is called NEEDLES. I play a prosecutor in the middle of a big case. A car crash puts me in a coma. A doctor injects me with an experimental shot, and I come out of the coma, but it’s not really me, I’m fucked up, like Pet Sematary or Reanimator. Turns out, the car crash wasn’t an accident; it was a contract kill paid for by the defense. I steal needles from the hospital and go on a rampage. It’s set in the 70s. Same director as my first film, which was about a youth serum that turns you into a mutant if you take too much.
Midnight.
We crawl into bed. I rented Coma from 1978. We’re both obsessed. The scene with the bodies suspended from the ceiling in violet light at the institute is hypnotic. I’d die to be in a scene like that, even as one of the bodies.
2 a.m.
I’m wired because as long as I’m awake, it’s still Friday and I can push off thinking about work. A vision replays in my mind: it’s when the doctor puts the needle in my temple and my eyes shoot open. That’s what I keep seeing, my eyes opening.
I also rented Sisters from 1972. I’m so in love with Margot Kidder’s smokey voice. But now we’re delirious and giggle ourselves to sleep, so we miss most of the movie.
Everything else goes as planned. We sleep in, make brunch, make out, run lines on my couch. The day flies by and it’s already almost night again. Monica goes home.
Saturday night.
I go to the balcony to watch the sunset with my satin robe hanging open. I think that if I smoke enough, I’ll sound like Margot in time for Monday. I stare at the script on the table inside. My heart is pumping. Another cigarette slows it down, but it speeds up again every time I stop. I pour myself a drink then I go to bed because I’m whirling.
11 p.m.
I’m in bed, naked, sweating. It’s not even a hot night. Things are slow, like my senses are taking too long to get to my brain. I’m nauseous. I start to think that if I fall asleep I’ll slip into a coma and they’ll cast someone else.
I’ll die if I don’t make this film.
I put Sisters back on. It’s creepy and sexy, I don’t want it to end, but I’m dozing off. I try calling Monica. I go to the bathroom. I pee. I stare in the mirror; I look like Margot as the other twin with dark eyes and pasty skin.
I dig the script out again and read the first scene. A doctor looking at x-rays blows cigarette smoke, turns to the camera and says, “coma.” It’s the first line of the film and I can’t read past it.
I go to my computer and start an email saying I won’t make it to work on Monday.
I don’t send it.
Instead, I research what happens before a coma. Now I’m sure I’m about to be in one. I decide that I’ll go to the hospital.
Then, I think about Coma and Sisters…both films have a woman who is positive something sinister is happening and nobody listens. I’m convinced that will be me if I go to the hospital. They’ll run tests and tell me there’s nothing wrong and send me home. Or, they’ll keep me there and use me.
I’m scrolling like I’m possessed until I find a page about Locked-In Syndrome. I slam the computer shut and everything goes black.
And then white. I’m in a white bed in a white room. I have tubes in me. It hurts to move my eyes. I can’t see or feel my limbs. I look at the wall in front of me and think.
I remember.
There was a doctor here. He said, “locked-in syndrome.” That was the first time I put things together. I was at the clinic for a K problem. They said I was doing fine. They said they’d run tests.
I was alone in my room.
I was looking out the window daydreaming about what my second film would be.
I slowly lowered to the ground, and everything went black.
Then, I was in this bed and the doctor was on the other side of the curtain, talking quietly about “locked-in syndrome,” and “she’s trapped inside her own body.” I couldn’t say anything back.
I think tears are running down my cheeks.
There’s no second film.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I’ve woken up and put this together a hundred times now.
If only they’d pull these tubes out of me, I could stop doing this to myself.
* * *
Ⓒ Christopher St. Prince