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at me. “The studio is letting me use their private plane. There's plenty of room for you, Ronald.” He called me Ronald. That's how I knew he was serious. “Whoever this freak-show turns out to be, just look what he has done for cinema. He's just pushed film forward twenty years! This is the equivalent of seeing King Kong for the first time! I've gotta know how he did it; I could really use your expertise.”
    “Bernie, I'm too....”
    “Old?” he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you're right. Maybe I should just take you back to assisted living, so you can veg out on your couch and watch low-budget porno movies on your VCR until you eventually die.”
    I opened my mouth to argue but nothing came out. The little shit had a point. A damned good point. Somewhere down the hall, people cheered. I was offended. I thought, what in the hell is worth cheering about? Then I remembered. The election. Reagan must have won. I'd completely forgotten.
     
    *   *   *
     
    I hated flying. Or rather, my stomach hated flying. So did my hip. It throbbed, humming relentlessly, harmonizing with the roar of the plane's tiny engines. This was the first time I hadn't flown commercial. Hell, I'd never even flown first class before; now here I was, reclining in a posh leather seat, drinking a very expensive bottle of wine, in a studio-provided jet. I looked out my window at the cotton candy clouds and wondered what would happen if I died at 35,000 feet. Would Death still find me? Would He still bring flowers?
    Bernie talked nonstop throughout the flight, only pausing to sip his mimosa. He was one of those pinky-straight-out kind of sippers. At one point he lit up a bloated joint of marijuana, puffed. breathed in, and then handed it to me. It was tempting but I declined. He called me a pussy and made squishy noises with his mouth.
    We landed about thirty miles east of Fort Knox, on a strip of land once a storing ground for decommissioned train carts. We took a taxi out of the city; civilization disappeared like the tide.
    The town of Bouldergreen seemed frozen in time, as if they hadn't heard everyone else in the world had moved on. We met the grocer—the man mentioned in the Director's letter—and he gave us directions to the address on the envelope.
    Trees and grassland stretched the entire panorama; there were no buildings, no water towers and no smoke in the air. The only inkling of human interference was a small gravel road, dissecting the hill in half. Bernie swore the house wasn't too far. He also swore if my hip broke, he'd carry me the rest of the way.
    We saw it for the first time when we came over the ridge: The house—the same house from the movie. I don't know what we were expecting. We should have known. Maybe we did know on some uncharted level of our subconscious. Then we saw him—the Director—sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, fanning away the southern heat, dressed in the same pinstriped suit as he wore in the film. The sun reflected off his golden hair; he waved to us, beckoning us closer.
    “So, dreams do come true,” he shouted to us. “Hollywood actually does come a-knock'n.”
    “We do when we see a film like Godforsaken,” said Bernie, trying to match the Director's wide grin.
    His handshake surprised me: limp, lightweight, harmless. “What do we call you?” I asked. “What is your name?”
    “The Director.”
    “I hope you'll not be this mysterious when it comes to the tricks of your trade,” I said, exuding my excitement. “Can't wait to see how you achieved these effects! Really quite mind-boggling!”
    “The devil's in the details my friend,” he winked at me, twice. Wink, wink. He led us into his home, humming the tune from Green Acres under his breath.
    Sunlight drenched the opening foyer in rich, beams of light. Production equipment of all shapes and sizes filled the room, leaving no wall untouched. Halogen lights, cameras, tracks, dollies, even a makeshift crane for the high shots. “I