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pick up Annie, and they would go somewhere where he could get a job with some
film-maker. Maybe even right here in New Mexico. There were bound to be people
here somewhere making films, and some of them had probably heard about Pat
from people out on the Coast. When you were good, word got around.
Porn was by far the easiest kind of work to find, for Pat at least.
Particularly when they found out that he was ready, willing, and able to
double as an actor.
He did well in front of the camera as well as behind it, though acting or
performing of any kind wasn't really what he liked to do. His androgynous good
looks were in demand, for straight, gay, or free-style porn. There was only
one kind of thing he'd never touched, and never would. So he took part in the
filmed sex smiling like the madman he sometimes was, faking the sex as much as
possible, meanwhile continuing to keep himself happy by thinking how he would
do the lights and the camera work and time everything differently if he were
put
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in charge. Of course there was a dreary sameness in all porn, or almost all.
But there were an infinite number of ways to disguise the sameness, if you
knew what you were doing. Pat never doubted that he did.
But very rarely had he ever been allowed to take charge, to show what he could
really do, though sometimes his suggestions on specific points were taken, by
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filmmakers who were always gratified with the results. The equipment and the
space had always belonged to someone else. Nowhere, as far as he knew, was
there a complete film of any kind that he had made. Once he had been allowed
to take complete charge, at some real madman's house in Mexico. And once,
another time, in this mansion with giant roof beams they had been going to let
him take over, but&
& something had happened. And now here he was, hiking north on Interstate 25
and trying once more not to think about Phoenix. Today for some reason was a
day for struggling with that problem. Maybe just because this was the first
time he had returned to the Southwest since&
& someone had brought him into that rich guy's mansion out there, someone
promising what they called a party. And Pat had thought he understood what
that entailed&
His thought recoiled now, twisting, from a half-vision of blood. The memory
faded, like a dying dream, almost as quickly as it had come. It left behind it
no new knowledge, only a wash of sick fear. What he couldn't stand was the
fear that that time he had been maneuvered into working on a snuff film.
Real torture on film, and real death. That would be for Pat an ultimate
profanation, a blasphemy. He would have no part in it at all, though what
exactly was being profaned, he could not have said&
His inner thoughts had become a burden, and it was a great relief when a car
stopped for him at last. A new yellow Pinto, stopping cautiously, well ahead.
Pat hitched his small backpack higher on his back, and trotted. The face
peering back at him from the window on the driver's side was that of a
middle-aged man with steel-rimmed spectacles, alone in the car. A fatherly
type, it would appear.
Perhaps genuinely so. As soon as they were under way, the man would begin to
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wonder aloud just why a young kid like Pat was hitchhiking alone; didn't he
realize it could be dangerous ?
"Hi, young feller, you going up to Santa Fe?"
Something about the name sounded reasonable. "Yeah," said Pat, and climbed in
on the right. Santa Fe was one of those towns whose name everyone had heard,
but he had never seen the place before. Right now, though, it sounded
congruent with Annie.
The car was rolling, easing cautiously off the shoulder onto pavement, picking
up speed. The man asked: "You got some family up there?"
Pat not-answered, as he often did. Looking out the window, he pretended that
he hadn't heard. The man cleared his throat but did not repeat the question.
Later on he would. A small roadside sign announced that they were entering an
Indian reservation. God, what could even Indians do on land as barren as this?
Raise sheep? But there were none in sight.
You could make movies, of course, you could do that just about anywhere. Pat
visualized a line of Indian dancers a thousand strong, their line stretching
away over the yellow-brown plain. Make it ten thousand, the line would still
look small. A camera in a low-flying aircraft, skimming just above their
heads& tell them to show no expression on their faces&
The Pinto sped in scanty traffic. They kept topping long brown hills, one
after another. Annie was getting close. In the distance, on every side now,
more mountains reared. Somehow the highway had shrunk, it seemed too narrow
here to be called an Interstate. Pat hadn't been watching the signs. The man,
after his first attempt to talk, was unexpectedly going to be silent. Who knew
what went on inside people's heads? No one did. No one. It was all right,
silence was okay with Pat.
After they had driven for the better part of an hour through virtual
nothingness they topped a final long hill. Now, miles ahead, some kind of a
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town or city came into view, looking as if it had been dropped at the foot of
the tallest-looking mountains around. Their peaks still showed white that Pat
supposed was snow.
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The man cleared his throat again. "Whereabouts can I let you off?"
Pat brought his gaze back into the car, shifted his position in the seat.
Annie was near. "Somewhere around the center of town is fine. If you're going
that way."
"The Plaza?"
Pat didn't know what The Plaza meant. "That's fine. Anywhere around there is
fine."
The man stopped the Pinto twenty minutes later to let Pat out in the midst of
a minor traffic jam in narrow streets. Slanting afternoon sunlight warmed low
buildings covered with what Pat would have called beige stucco; they put him
vaguely in mind of pictures that he had seen of Indian cliff dwellings. And
here were some Indians, real-by-God Indians, with their blankets spread on a
roofed sidewalk to display pots and jewelry for sale. Above their heads the
rough ends of unfinished logs stuck out of the edge of the building's roof.
"Thanks for the ride." Pat flashed a merry smile as he got out. He always
liked to do that, no matter what. Maybe he hoped that the people would
remember him.
The man huffily not-answered as he drove away.
Annie was somewhere around here. That way. Within walking distance now, or
almost. Pat started walking.
On the rear patio of his huge house near the northern edge of Santa Fe,
Ellison
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