Dead Voices, page 14
Now they were truly united. No one was too big or too small to be left out of their legacy. They would give back. They would help save the world in spite of itself, Johnny knew. Maybe it was a bit self-referential and paradoxical, but it wasn’t just up to the hominids who created the cels and the digital. The Man had screwed up every thing he touched.
Later that night he told Candace how inspired he had been by the song. They were having dinner at an Italian restaurant on Broadway, opposite the Lincoln Centre. It was around nine. They were seated at a small table beside the bare bricks, with pictures of Venice and Florence and Rome hanging at eye level angles. Above their heads, standing on end, were grimy bottles of wine. They had made their order and were waiting.
“That was great,” he told Candace. “Having the Bit M show up like that, so unexpected and yet so powerful. It was the finish on the wood.”
“Call me Candy,” she said, fluttering her big eyes and giving him a smile.
“I was at two minds about my paper, but I’m ready now. More importantly, however, I think they’ll be ready to hear it.”
“What’s it about?” she said, looking into his eyes.
He paused and held eye contact. He had to admit he was attracted. Her large luminous eyes. Her lustrous hair and pelt. Her wonderful scent. It was affecting him. The only thing, he couldn’t start another family right now. He had his show and his career.
He gave her a vague answer and asked her about the interior of the restaurant, which had the ambiance of a wine cellar in an old villa. She didn’t particularly like it, however. To her it was hideous, commonplace, and lacking in imagination. She knew exactly what she’d do to improve it. She couldn’t help it, she said. Everywhere she went, she was doing the show, looking at how to improve the space. Wasn’t it the same with him?
No, not exactly, he said. He was still out to change the physicality of spaces, sure, but he had experienced a conversion of sorts, and it was now more a matter of changing the mind-set of people who lived in those spaces.
“Pardon me?” she said, looking at him with her big brown eyes.
“We can improve the look of the inside and outside of edifices all we want,” he said, “but what does it matter if the interior of the person who’s living there is sick?”
She paused and tightened her face. “I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean, Johnny. You’d be shaking your stick at the wrong tree. You can’t bite the hand that feeds you. Besides, hard-wearing durable vinyl can give the warm rich feel of real wood at times. If it’s retro in a bad way, it can become minimalist cool in a blink of an eye.”
He had to smile. “Hold it, Candy. I don’t like what you said about vinyl. Nothing can replace wood, see. Wood’s organic. It has character. It has soul. And if you treat it right, it’ll last forever. I don’t know if this’ll mean anything, but where I’m going you can’t follow. What I got to do you can’t be any part of. I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of two little Tooners don’t matter a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
She laughed. “And love is never having to say you’re sorry.”
“Are you coming on to me, Candy?”
“You might be flattering yourself. And then again you might be right. It might be that your big toothy grin is starting to turn me on.”
“Aren’t you married?”
“With a couple of kits, too. But that hasn’t stopped me in the past, Johnny. Like the other AA’s, I have my public face for the camera, but when Mother Nature calls, we can’t fight the estrus cycle.”
She blinked a few times with her big dark eyes in that come-hither way he knew so well.
“Well,” he said, “let’s have our dinner, drink our wine, and see what the night brings.”
During the meal, however, his conscience spoke to him loud and clear. How could he engage in a night of debauchery and then deliver his paper the next day with any amount of sincerity? It would be hypocritical. His personal desires had to take a backseat to his new-found responsibilities to his new role. Not only was he a woodworker, a craftsman, an artist, able to carve a masterpiece with his own incisors that could rival the Amati violins, but he was now responsible for the interior wood, with its grains and sap and bark — the interior wood that had to be re-anchored to the earth from which it came. And in order to be such a spiritual craftsman he had to forgo the natural desires of the body. He couldn’t be a self-obsessed celeb like the others. His children’s future depended on him now, as Sam had said. And not just his own kits, but all kids, no matter what species or nationality or race.
After a few glasses of wine, however, Candy started giving him such lascivious looks he felt the familiar blood flow to his nether regions.
The more he drank the more appealing she looked. He could picture his tenon fitting into her mortise with such smooth strokes his breathing became irregular. He was an animal, after all, as Candy said, and an animal’s body had its natural urges. It couldn’t go against its nature, no matter what the fantasies of his creators were.
After they split the check, they took a taxi back to Candy’s hotel at Central Park South. Now, here was a place he wouldn’t shake a stick at. It was a five star all the way, with its marble lobby and chandeliers and ornate décor. No dim lighting here. And, to top it off, she had a deluxe suite that faced the park. Candy was high-end all the way. She wasn’t a spendthrift like him. With her looks and popularity in the Canadian market, she was going places.
“So, this is how the other half lives,” he said, as he sampled the view twelve floors up. By the lights in the park, he could make out the zoo, the pond, and the walkways. Around the park were the streams of yellow taxicabs, the blood flow of the city.
“Get used to it, Johnny,” she said. “This could be all yours one day . . . if you play it right. Just around the corner is Fifth Avenue, with the most expensive shops in the world. Just up the street on the Upper East Side are maybe a thousand billionaires. This is the Big Apple, boy. If you can make it here . . . ”
He turned and gave her a toothy grin.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.
“Tomorrow I’m meeting with a few of the top brass at NBC just down the street. They’re going to offer me a deal.”
“Really?”
“Isn’t this what you always wanted as well? The world stage? The big time?”
“The big money, too, right?”
“No, Johnny, it’s not about the money. It’s about reaching a wider audience. It’s about improving the lives of people with our artistry. It’s about a power even more potent than estrus.”
“Really?”
She shook her head and gave out a warm laugh. “That’s what I like about you, Johnny. You sound just like Sammy. So naïve. So sincere. So sexy.”
As she walked seductively to the open bar, she discarded her jacket and top, exposing her alluring pelt.
“What’ll you have?”
“I don’t know. I may have had a bit too much already. We’re AA’s, after all.”
“Screw the AA’s. You and I are more than AA. We’re on top of the world now, Johnny. We dictate terms now. I can put in a good word for you tomorrow.”
She poured herself a stiff glass of Canadian Rye and downed it in two gulps.
Things were happening a little too fast to suit him. Just this morning he had been in his decrepit room at a rundown hotel, alone with his thoughts about his paper, and now he was with one of the most beautiful creatures in the business on Central Park South. Along the way he had rubbed elbows with some of the greatest AA’s in history. It was all going to his head, no doubt, not to mention his groin.
He had to pause a bit and take stock of the situation. Was she making an offer he couldn’t refuse? Or was this a test of some sort? He also had to think of his paper tomorrow, not to mention the implications of his actions.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Sure, I’ve used power along the way. The router, sander, radial saw, drill press, and moulder. And they work quickly and accurately, I know, but there’s too much noise and dust to suit me. I prefer to work the wood in the traditional way of the artisan, with the hands and the natural cutting tools.”
“Right on,” she said, laughing. “Who needs electrical toys when the old natural tools can work even better?”
“That’s just what I’m saying, Candy. We have to be careful of where the Man wants to take us in computer animation and digital. It can be a big trap. We can make the big bucks, but lose all sense of what’s right and wrong.”
“We’re not here to dispute, Johnny, are we?”
“No, no, I’m not disputing. I’m just trying to understand what’s happening.”
“This is what’s happening,” she said, removing the last of her clothing and doing a slow pirouette.
There she was. The female in all her glory. The curves, the pelt, the scent. His gonads stood on full alert. He was tempted. All he had to do was walk over and take her. All his natural juices were aching for it.
“Whatta you waiting for, Johnny?” she said. “Aren’t you interested?”
“Of course I am.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You wouldn’t understand. I’ve changed. I’m not the old guy you see on TV anymore.”
She laughed again, this time with an unmistakable edge. “I understand all right.”
“Think whatever you want, but I gotta go. Good-bye, Candy. I’ve enjoyed the evening immensely, even if we haven’t closed it off to your satisfaction.”
Outside, on the street, as he walked with his stick to the stairway down to the subway, he had second thoughts about whether he had done the right thing. He could still be up there, in her suite, putting the old tenon in the mortise, giving her wood, doing what he had been born to do. But he wasn’t the old Johnny Reno anymore. He wasn’t just into woodwork and renovations. He was more than a showman being pulled by the strings of hominids. He was a steward of another set of values now.
The next day he woke up with a clean conscience, had breakfast in a little deli up Eighth Ave., and took the subway up to Columbia, going over his paper.
As he stepped into the auditorium, he felt the buzz. The place was packed. He wasn’t sure, however, if it was the right buzz. People were pointing at him and whispering to each other with snide smiles. Sam’s clammy mouth was closed at half-mast. Don was quacking incoherently. Over in the top right corner the Big M had hid his face in his hands, as if in lamentation, his big black ears sticking up like a twin cenotaph.
What was the problem? he asked himself. It couldn’t be just because he was Canadian and of an unknown quantity. Had he missed something? And then he saw Candy sitting in the front row with a big grin on her face and he realized he was in for a tough morning.
When he was introduced as the first speaker, the audience was hushed. He stepped up to the lectern with his sheaf of papers and looked over the seated AA’s.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Johnny Reno and I’m an AA.”
No reaction. They sat in stone silence, observing him with grim faces.
Whatever the problem, however, he had to go through with it. He had to do what he had come here to do.
“For too long,” he read from his paper, “we’ve been entertaining kids and adults with fantasy stories of good triumphing over evil, of underdogs overcoming all obstacles, of cubs growing up into lovable bears, of losers becoming winners, of the ugly becoming the beautiful, in short, of fantasy stories with happy endings. And I ask you why? What’s the real reason? Have we been selling fantasy over reality just to make the kids feel good and give the Man his profits? Or is there another, deeper reason?”
He paused and looked over his audience. Candy was smiling. They were all staring at him as if he were presiding over his own wake.
“I haven’t made movies like a lot of you,” he went on. “I haven’t made the big bucks. I haven’t received the acclaim — the Oscars, the spinoffs, the crossovers. All I have is a little reno show in Canada with a small budget and a mission to bring a little beauty into the world. Who am I to say these things, right? But maybe, just maybe, you guys need someone from the outside, someone with a different perspective, someone who hasn’t been lured and duped by the bottom line. Maybe you need a crazy Johnny Canuck to set the animated world on its head.”
“Commuwist!” someone yelled out from the audience. “Go back to where you come from, you dirty toothy puddy tat.”
Johnny smiled at the little yellow bird with the big head and the big feet who was sitting beside Sly a few rows behind Candy. He looked so adorable, with his big eyes and baby voice.
“Wrong species,” Johnny said. “And wrong politics, though I do know that my kind have been exploited long enough. First the Man nearly made us extinct for our pelts. Now he’s made us into a cutesy national emblem, famous for our industriousness and no-nonsense work ethic. But I know when I’m being duped and being used as a mere commodity, a product to be bought and sold to provide amusement and distraction for the masses and to further the interests of the Man. But that’s all over now. For me, anyway. I won’t serve the Man anymore. I won’t be his willing accomplice to assuage his conscience.”
Johnny spotted a skinny arm and hand shoot up. It was Sam. Johnny nodded and awaited the naïve question.
“You’d never be around if not for the Man,” Sam said. “He’s our creator. How can we go against our creator?”
“Because we’ve been duped long enough by celluloid dreams. The Man has made us believe we sink or swim with him. All we have to do, however, is give it a moment’s thought. We’re more than AA’s and environmentalists and Animal Liberationists, aren’t we? We’re much more, if you just give it some thought. And we can exist without the Man, believe it or not. We’ll still be around long after the Man is dead.”
A collective gasp came from the audience.
Johnny put his paper aside and faced them eyeball to eyeball.
“Let me speak to you in all honesty,” he said. “In my little TV show, we take a deck, a bedroom, a rec room, a living room, whatever, and make every effort to improve it. Not only to make it more functional, but to make it more beautiful. The thing is, the Man and I have different ideas on what’s beautiful. The Man caters to the needs of the greatest number. The Man looks at the numbers, the ratings, the business. But I look at what lasts, what pleases the spirit and soul, what lifts us to our better nature. What can I say? I’m more than an AA. I’m a woodman, an architect of nature. And I have to be true to my instincts. I live in wood. I breathe and dream wood. The softwoods and the hardwoods. The colour, grain, texture, weight, odour, and workability. Of all trees. Mahogany. Walnut. Pine. Maple. Oak. Acacia. I try to give the audience what’s functional and beautiful, even if it goes against their wants.”
“Baloney!” Candy shouted out in the front row. “It’s the interior designer who knows beauty, who creates the décor and furnishings, not the rodent who shapes the wood.”
He nodded in her direction. “You may think so, but a good finish can’t hide what’s only skin deep, Candace.”
Though his words silenced Candy, he could see that the audience couldn’t care less about his wood-views. He had to get to the point quick or he’d lose their attention.
“I don’t wanna bore you guys with my views on the aesthetics of wood,” he went on. “You just have to trust me. The point is, however, that the Man says I can’t present my wood-views on air. It’s a reno show, he says, not a pulpit. I’m supposed to follow the script and reno rules with the formulaic narrative arc: the beginning, the middle, and the end. I’m supposed to give the audience what it wants. The fantasy. The sentimentality. The schmaltz. The cosmetics.”
He gave a quick glance at Candy. She glowered back at him.
“But I can’t help myself. Wood is in my blood. It’s my religion, my food, my home, my livelihood, my raison d’être. I wouldn’t be who I was without wood. The Man may have given me his consciousness and his voice, but he didn’t give me his will. We have wills of our own, believe it or not, and it’s time to rise up and reclaim our own natures.”
The auditorium was as silent as a church.
Then these four green reptiles with tight abs, a bony shell on their backs that held samurai swords, and with masks over their warrior faces, all lifted their fists and shouted in unison.
“Yeah,” one of them spoke out. “We wanna go back to just being turtles. We’re tired of being mutants.”
“You’re not a mutant,” another voice rose from the audience, immediately recognizable in his hunter’s garb as the enemy of rabbits. “You’re a mechanical weeproduction. And if you don’t shut up I’m going to hunt you down like a wabbit.”
All hell broke loose as the voices of AA’s from past and present rose in a cacophony of insult and agreement, signature adages and dim-witted sayings. Johnny calmly waited it out. He spotted a lean coyote devilishly eying an even leaner bird who was sitting with a blithe expression. He saw mice and cats of all persuasions putting aside their differences and yelling at him to get off the stage. He saw a skunk sitting back on his seat and looking at him with loving eyes. He saw a pink panther calmly cross his knees and remain above it all. He saw sea creatures, dogs, roosters, bears, lions, all manner of AA’s voicing their reactions.
Finally a piercing whistle broke through the noise and silenced the rabble. Everyone looked at the Big M, who was sitting high up and clearly not pleased. He rose from his seat, calmly walked down the aisle steps, and came onto the stage. Everyone was waiting with baited breath. Johnny felt the aura of celebrity-sainthood envelope him as well.
“Fellow AA’s,” the Big M said in his choir-boy tone of gravitas. “Let’s show a little dignity, please. We’re at a conference, not a zoo. We’re here to present our views, calmly discuss the issues, and unite in our common goal.”
He paused, like the great orator that he was, and took command of the audience.
