#there's also the 2005 film the aggressives that i have heard good things about but haven't watched myself yet

[that-butch-archivist]

as a baby butch i really appreciate your blog,, i feel so lost sometimes esp as a black butch as i haven't seen many sources on other studs,, so just having these lists is really awesome :)

Hey, thanks so much for reaching out, lovely to hear from you! I'm glad the lists are helping you, honestly that's everything I could have hoped for. Unfortunately, I have also found that it's strangely difficult to find material on black butches and studs ... but I am on the hunt nevertheless! As of the past two weeks a few more black lesbian anthologies have arrived and I have a few more lined up that I hope to procure soon--all this to say that I hope to present more material to you that suits your interests in the days & weeks to come. I hope we both can find good stuff for you. :)

(Which, speaking of ... if ANYONE out there happens to know where the treasure trove of black butches & stud lore is, I would happily trade my best cheesecake and/or cookie recipes for this knowledge. I can also provide manual labor and cleaning services.)

#questions for the archivist #the archivist answers #i have also found a couple short documentaries that have black lesbians/studs in it but it doesn't go enough into stud culture and history #i would say anyways #there's also the 2005 film the aggressives that i have heard good things about but haven't watched myself yet #i have found one book specifically published by a stud but it was published in 2023 and also appears very informal #which definitely isn't a bad thing but as a person who always wants to find citations so i can find MORE books ... i fear this local legend #may not help me find the pot of gold at the end of the black rainbow #thankfully i am nosy as fuck #i will get to the bottom of this come hell or high water!

[dibleopard-writes]

Make This Chaos Count

Fandom: The Island (2005) Characters: Bernard Merrick, Gandu Three Echo/Alpha, others Rating: Teen for language and brief violence Warnings: Terminal Illness, brief description of symptoms, murder, shooting, brief description of blood, infrequent strong language, CHARACTER DEATH, hospitals, mention of a car accident Additional tags: Angst, fluff and angst, cloning, pre-canon, canon compliant, technically

Word Count: 14,074 Also on Ao3 and Wattpad

Summary: Is it really stealing if you’re taking back something that was stolen from you in the first place? In the wake of his partner’s death, Bernard Merrick thinks not.

Watching the film isn’t really necessary since this is just the lead-up, but you should watch it anyway cause I’m carrying the fanbase on my back.

The study had an absent solemnity to it that Bernard Merrick wallowed in easily. He watched his own fingers tap against the red leather of the sofa. Tap. Tap. Tap. Along in perfect rhythm with the infernal ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

“Stop sulking,” said Steve, who had carefully selected a can of inexpensive beer from a cooler of vintage whiskeys. “Hey, at least I won't leave you a widower.”

Bernard glared at him. He had been hoping to leave the question of their marriage for another day. Still not legal, even after their decade of waiting. Hopefully they would get the opportunity soon enough. He had half a mind to march to the capital and write the bill himself. Steve never quite cared as much about that kind of thing. ‘I mean the tax thing would be nice but really it's just a piece of paper, right?’ He’d said so many times before, when there wasn't yet a deadline hanging over their heads. Bernard would nod, ‘Right’, and wonder if either of them were qualified to select wedding flowers. It was the small things.

“You know drinking will make it worse?” He unlocked his phone to the webpage he had found in the hospital lift. For the tenth time in three hours, his eyes glided over the concise little paragraphs, taking in none of them.

Steve rolled his eyes. “I'm drinking to cope, Bernie.”

“According to the NHS, less than fifty percent of people with cirrhosis live for five more years when they keep drinking.”

“Well then I'd better get all of my living done now, then, hadn't I?” He flopped down next to Bernard, threw one hand over his eyes. “And getting blackout drunk is first on my to-do list.”

Bernard sighed, knowing a losing battle when he saw one, and wrapped an arm around Steve. They still had time.

Months later, in that same room, papers lay on every available surface as well as many supposedly unavailable surfaces. At his desk, Bernard had a sizable stack of documents balanced on his lap and was holding a file in one hand, typing and scrolling with the other. So far his computer had coped with keeping fifty-seven tabs open with only minimal lag. Most were various healthcare websites, some for hospitals nearby, others for the most successful hospitals, and the rest for the best options in their price range. Tinny hold-music was playing from underneath one of several empty mugs; the last few days had seen him drink coffee and tea indiscriminately and, in one memorable instance, simultaneously.

“Man!” There was a crash as several thick hardbacks fell from their perch on the stair banisters outside. Steve’s hand emerged around the door, one foot poised over the paper-covered floor. “You say I’m a slob! What do you call this?”

“Try not to move anything; I've got it all where I want it.”

Steve poked his head around the door, still balancing on one foot, to give him an unconvinced look. “Is this still the same thing as last time?”

Bernard could only meet his eyes for a split second. “What else would it be?”

“Bernie, you can’t keep using your sick days to go looking for something that doesn’t exist. What if you actually get sick?”

“I wouldn’t be as sick as you,” replied Bernard, typing more aggressively than strictly necessary.

“Low blow, man.”

“Listen, I think I’ve found a few that could work.” The printer by the door thunked and juddered before deliberately whirring out webpages in glorious black and white. “There’s a research group in Italy working on artificially grown organs, and a firm in Japan that’s trying mechanical versions. Also, I have a hospital on the line about donation and three more to call by five o’clock.”

Steve took the pages and flicked through them half-heartedly. Bernard couldn’t see him from behind the door but he heard the sigh. He’d been hearing that sigh with increasing regularity. It signalled something in the area of pity, which rankled him more than he liked to admit. He wasn’t the one who had been falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon; he wasn’t the one who became nauseous every other meal; he was not the one with an expiry date hanging over his head. If anyone was worthy of pity, it was Steve, and Bernard refused to subject him to that indignity.

“You know they won’t give me a transplant when I’m still drinking?” said Steve. He did know. He hated it. “Ethics, and all.”

“Then stop drinking, for God’s sake!”

“Bit late for that, don’t you think?” And he could hear the smile in Steve’s voice, the dry humour. “The withdrawal would probably kill me before the liver.”

A sigh of his own, signalling something in the area of anger.

“Look, just– I’ll find something. I’ll find something. I promise you.”

“Promise yourself; you seem to need it more than me,” Steve put the pages on top of the printer, voice somber. His hands were shaking. “Just don’t run yourself into the ground, okay? I need you.”

Bernard nodded, unseen, “Of course.”

Steve’s footsteps retreated in time with the hold music. Bernard stared at his screen, at the file in his hand, at the forest of paper around him, seeing only the potential futures in his head.

“Steve?” He called.

“Yeah?”

“Could I take a genetic sample from you? Just in case?”

“Anything for you, Bernie.”

...

    It was snowing. Bernard Merrick was dressed for the weather in the loosest sense: a long coat, a scarf, but with business shoes and no hat. The frigid air nipped at his ears and the snow soaked through his trousers as he knelt in front of the freshly turned earth, which was only just beginning to turn white. 

Steve Gandu had not been a religious man; there was no church, no service, no stone angel, just a funeral, a wake with a noticeable lack of alcohol, and Bernard paying vigil until the sun set or he collapsed from cold, whichever came first. Who did you pray to, he wondered, when neither of you believed much in an afterlife but you liked the idea of someone keeping him safe, now that he was out of reach?

    It was a strange thought to have, and unproductive. He let it become numb and fall away from sensation as his fingers had.

    The last few months had been bad. He’d been bad. Steve had been coping as well as he could, but was also bad when it came down to it. His eyes had lost their life before the rest of him, the whites yellowing as they became more and more drowsy. Sometimes he’d wake up confused, or blood would end up in places blood shouldn’t be, and Bernard would find him with a can of something foul scrounged from who-knows-where. Those were bad days. 

On bad days Bernard would find himself gravitating towards the study even after he’d promised to leave alone the ‘mad scientist pipe dreams’, as Steve occasionally referred to them. Not all of them were mad. Every now and then there was a spark of brilliance among the paragraphs of otherwise uncreative research papers. He’d pursue the thread until he found the end, which was usually before anything left the realm of theory, a brick wall few were willing to take a sledgehammer to. Ethics, funding, feasibility. All seemed negligible in the early hours of the morning, but apparently biochemistry did not occur before dawn.

Steve would look at him sadly, once he would return to bed, eyes red from screen strain. Bernard would smile at him, and they would both be too tired to do anything about it but sleep.

There was no one left to smile sadly at him anymore. No one to sigh dramatically when he brought up a new idea he’d found, or make snarky comments about death and inevitability and karma. It was just Bernard Merrick and the snow.

The house was empty which meant he could slam as many doors as he wanted. Papers flew as he swept into the study with a crash. They didn’t matter, they hadn’t helped him. Disorder could reign among them until he screwed them up and set them alight in the garden. It could all burn.

His snow-sodden shoes made the print underfoot bleed. Memory stick, wallet, change of clothes. That was all that mattered. Car keys, they mattered too. Only the things he needed to get out and not come back, at least for a night. Toothbrush? Yes, and toothpaste. Nothing else.

Articles were stuck to his shoes as he left the house, door locked only due to a chance remembering in the fervour. He noticed the papers only once he was in the car and threw them into the passenger seat. 

Where to go? Simple enough: work. They did good things at work, things he could use. He would stay in his office. He would find an answer among all of the meaninglessness around him. He would make things better. He would fix everything. He would. He would.

...

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was entirely natural. It’s practically indistinguishable from the real thing. Bravo, Dr Merrick.”

A small crowd had gathered around the plexiglass container. Visually, the contents was unremarkable, if visceral: a wet, reddish mass that was ever-so-slightly pulsing where blood-filled tubes pierced the surface. Beyond the visual, it was the culmination of the department’s collective careers, brought to fruition by Merrick’s own contributions.

Months of work, years for some, and now they had a liver.

“Thank you, Dr Wilson, your feedback is greatly appreciated.”

It was a liver. A real, organic liver grown entirely in the labs.

Grinning, someone slapped him on the back. “You know, Merrick, I think this makes up for all that time off. I bet this’ll be on the other side of clinical trials before the year is out.”

“Just need to consolidate all the data,” added another, “And we’ll breeze through peer review.”

Before all this, he’d expected livers to be bigger, somehow.

“Saving lives, Merrick, this is what it’s all about. This is why you join the industry!”

Adrenaline-fueled conversation filled the room, most of it only half directed at him. His reflection in the plexiglass stared back at him, tight-lipped. Behind the reflection, the liver glistened. It had been made with the genetic material of some poor sod who still had years to live. They’d stopped drinking, presumably, to make the whole venture worth the investment.

The liver wouldn’t bring back Steve. It would save a life – and many more by its legacy – but it couldn’t bring back Steve. It was just one liver, and that wasn’t enough anymore.

“Merrick.”

Trial eighty-one looked up at him with beady eyes; its distinctive black-spotted ear flicked disinterestedly. Only a day old, and it appeared identical to the photos of the original mouse, which had died of old age around the time that trial thirty-seven had woken prematurely and drowned, still half-formed.

“Merrick.”

Trial eighty-one had so far avoided the pitfalls of its predecessors. It had taken sixty attempts to make the switch from accelerated aging, and another twenty to iron out the kinks in developing a physically mature specimen from the initial stem cells. Maybe this time he had succeeded.

“Merrick!”

He blinked. “What?”

“I was being serious yesterday, we need to watch ourselves or we’ll get–” Merrick’s supervisor reached the desk, moving through the jungle of pipes and cables. “Is that–?”

“That,” said Merrick, not taking his eyes off trial eighty-one, “Is our first mature clone to survive twenty-four hours out of the growth-support system.”

“Oh my god. Merrick–”

“I know, I know, but I think we’ve done it.”

“You’ve done it.”

“Well, yes, but it’s on behalf of the company, of course. This is our research.”

“No, no. You don’t– Merrick, the boss needs to talk to you about this. We’ve had people– This is a major thing – way beyond the scope of the project – and we can’t just–” She gestured at the mouse, “Do that. Not– not here.”

“You seem to be overlooking the fact that I just did,” smirked Merrick. His supervisor dug her hands into her face.

“Listen, just– the boss needs to talk to you. Now.”

“Of course. I think I’m just about finished here,” he replied, gently scooping up trial eighty-one and putting it in a small enclosure.

“Yeah, I think so too. You’d better be up there ASAP.”

His new lab was in an unassuming building in the outskirts of the city – the industrial sort of outskirts, filled with warehouses and trainyards all in various states of rust. The main entrance looked more like a side-door, painted in flaking blue, opened from the inside with a crash bar designed for fire exits. In the corridor, the plaster was flaking off the walls, coating the exposed pipes in pale dust. The few rooms he had been allotted for his exile, however, had been repainted and retiled upon his arrival. It still wasn’t the old labs, but it was clean, it was big enough, and it was his.

There had been an ultimatum: he could no longer work towards human cloning while openly under the company’s employ. Covertly, however, with reduced funding and a team only of those who volunteered for a supposed career suicide, he could continue. He would owe the company money for their investment, but their name would be kept from any research papers and, by extension, any controversy.

The deal was fine by Merrick. At least, it would be if some of the supposed volunteers were actually trustworthy. He could have sworn that one of them was reporting on him to someone a phone call away. Another was far too eager to know the ins-and-outs of the process. Merrick kept his office locked.

A small menagerie of animals had come and gone by the time he felt ready to take on the endgame. The success rates were climbing, and their equipment was no longer as foreign as it had been – not to mention bigger.

It was after hours. Everyone else had left and Merrick was staring at the completed designs for the final growth-support system. 

Could he do it? 

Obviously, he could do it, but could he do it with so many suspicious eyes on him? Was it safe to make this final step in the lab, which had less-than-stellar security? What would happen if the spy reported to an ethical committee? Or if his work was stolen and misappropriated? What would happen to the clone, if anyone knew about it?

Finding out was not worth the risk, he decided; he would have to find another way.

He took the design sheet, downloaded the digital backup, and put a coil of tubing in the boot of his car. None of it would be missed, and now he needed it in his own hands – his hands alone.

...

It took two months to gradually assemble everything in his basement, and in that time he finally got used to being alone in the house. He’d never been superstitious, but he couldn’t help but shiver every time he had heard the boiler knock on the walls or passed the cold spot halfway down the basement stairs. There were two new locks on the door and he hadn’t opened the curtains in the front room since he had begun to work on the project at home.

In the lab, the construction of the new growth-support system was months behind, interrupted by small, hard to find mishaps that threw the entire system out of balance. Two loose bolts one day, a punctured tube another. Poor luck, said one scientist. A sign, said another. Merrick simply tapped the desk irritably and said that there had better not be any bad luck tomorrow. Often, there was. Funny how things happened like that.

He had requested a new genetic sample for the lab’s first test, claimed the one he was originally planning to use had been damaged in the freezing process. Now, in the safety of his basement, he carefully placed Steve’s sample into the analyser. The computer whirred for a few minutes and he watched, drinking the fifth coffee of the day, forcing his hands not to shake from caffeine or otherwise. Readings flicked onto the screen. The sample was safe. It would work. Just another month, and he could hear Steve’s voice again.

A few taps of a keyboard, and the arduous process of creating the first human clone began. He pulled up a chair, his eyes not leaving the system until he fell asleep hours later, still sitting upright in front of the foundations of a human skeleton.

...

The clone was not Steve. Perhaps that should have been predictable.

It did not have his memories, it did not have his wit, it did not have his rough-around-the-edges smile or his world-weary optimism. But it did have his eyes, and, once it learnt to speak, it had his voice, albeit stilted as his never was. It was a newborn in Steve’s body, with Steve’s brain if not his mind.

It was not Steve. It was a facsimile. However, it was Steve enough to put the thrill of success through Merrick’s nerves. The clone was a second iteration of Steve, similar but different. Manufactured. Gandu Two Alpha.

Good enough. He would always be good enough.

After the initial birth, as it were, after fluid splashed across the floor, soaking his shoes and the air was filled with gasping and begging and “breathe, breathe, breathe,” after choked sobs in two voices had abated, after eyes had opened, clouded with unfamiliarity, after Merrick felt the blow of being a stranger to those eyes, after he locked the pain away with viscous practicality and helped dry everything down, after all of that, he left the basement. The deed was done. It was alive.

That night he cried himself to sleep, back in the bed they had shared for the first time since Steve’s death, and the clone remained alone downstairs.

Eventually, he collected himself. The morning was spent teaching the clone to walk and then helping it up the stairs into the kitchen. There was no conversation, only Merrick’s monosyllabic encouragement and the clone’s attempt to catch the eyes that looked anywhere but its face.

In the days following, when Merrick wasn’t at work, he was guiding the clone – someone had thought of another term, a euphemism, but that was what it was: a clone – through human experience. The messy basics, initially, hygiene and eating and drinking, but then speech, abstract ideas, self-sufficiency. He set boundaries but allowed free roam around the house, not that he could have done much to stop it. Alcohol had long been banished from the house, so he needn’t worry about that, and he had long forgotten to pay the cable fee, so there were few opportunities for the clone to see something Merrick wasn’t ready to explain. The basement was locked again, cleaned and relegated to the back of his mind.

A finger gently prodded Merrick in the sternum, eyes questioning, brow furrowed with the intent seriousness of a three-year-old with a mission. 

“Yes, this is me, Bernard.” 

“Bernard,” confirmed the clone’s achingly familiar voice, “Me.” 

“No, no, you’re you, I’m me.” Merrick took the unnaturally soft hand in his own and pointed it at the clone. 

“Me?” Repeated the clone. 

“Yes.” 

The clone smiled, somehow managing to make it too wide, even if Steve had always smiled more than Bernard. It was strange that Merrick was more aware of those little details now than he had been when the real thing had still been right in front of him.

“Bernard?” The clone’s hand hadn’t moved from where Merrick had put it.

Merrick pointed to himself. “I’m Bernard. That’s my name.”

A nod of understanding, clarity, then, “My name?”

The clone wasn’t completely dopey, not anymore; it knew what it was asking. Perhaps last week it would have been a case of parroting, but now the clone was beginning to attach meaning to words. It took a few tries, sometimes from different approaches, but slowly things were clicking into place and comprehension was dawning.

Still, the gaze was fixed on Merrick. Still, Merrick found it difficult to meet.

“Bernard.” Not a question. Deliberately so. “My name?” A demand, skewing strangely into an English accent, imitating Merrick’s own tone.

What was its name?

He had named it on the documents, but the thought had been fleeting in his mind, where he mostly thought of it as ‘it’ or ‘the clone’ or, if he was feeling particularly morose, ‘not him’. The name was comfortingly clinical, distant and inhuman. He could shorten it to just ‘Gandu’ but that was a step too close to calling the thing ‘Steve’. If he couldn’t look it in the eye, he couldn’t call it by his name.

“Your name is Gandu Two Alpha,” he said, ignoring the way it felt strangely final, as if this, of all moments, was the one he couldn’t turn back from.

“Gan-du Doo– Gand-u… Two Alv– Gon–” The clone stopped with a huff, frown morphing into one of frustration. Apparently ‘Gandu Two Alpha’ was more of a mouthful than ‘Bernard’. Who’d have thought?

“Me,” decided the clone.

    ...

By the time the lab’s version (which had been completely dismantled and reassembled in an effort to fix several loose connections, twice) was ready for its first trial, Gandu Two Alpha had mastered basic speech and was gradually learning to spell. If it tried, it could probably work its mouth around its name, but it seemed content with writing ‘me’ instead, and if Merrick hadn’t wanted to push Steve’s name onto the thing, there was no one meaningful to judge.

Work, however useless it was becoming, was still taking up half of Merrick’s day. From what he could tell, the clone spent most of that time pottering around, inspecting inconsequential little details. Merrick had hidden all of the photos of Steve in a box under his bed, but it was only a matter of time before the clone got curious enough to venture there. Already, it had blindly reorganised the bookshelf in the front room, presumably by spending hours taking each book out, scrutinising every aspect of it, and then forgetting where it had originally been and putting it back at random. At least it hadn’t moved everything around in the kitchen.

Every now and then, Merrick would catch himself smiling as he watched the clone stumble through life. It was still painful to see that face with none of Steve behind it, but he found himself growing used to the differences and the clone had a captivating innocence to him– it– that was more endearing than Merrick wanted to admit. The smile that the clone often gave him when Merrick came back at lunch was not Steve’s smile by any stretch, but it was earnest and the fact that Merrick was the cause of that smile somehow made it better.

The clone had all of its own little eccentricities: an accent that was a strange mesh of the one its mouth was adapted to and the one it heard Merrick use; a fascination with water (Merrick had once come home to all of the taps running and the clone staring into the bath); and an insatiable sweet tooth that earned Merrick a wild grin anytime he made jam on toast. It was easy to forget that the clone was ever intended to be Steve, and that somehow made it easier to be around him– it. They had a strange little harmony between them that hummed beneath the heartbreak and the stilted navigation of conversation.

It was nice, and Merrick learned to accept that it was.

One evening, they were sitting at the kitchen table playing Scrabble – Merrick had decided to put the clone’s memory and spelling skills to the test – when there was a knock at the door. The clone jumped, skewing the tile he was placing. He realigned it with deliberate precision, eyes darting between the board, Merrick, and the hallway.

“Over,” he read.

Merrick smiled, rising, “Good, v is quite high scoring. I’ll be back; I just need to see who this is. Stay here, okay? Don’t follow me.”

“Okay. Is it work?”

“Usually I go to work, not the other way around,” Merrick replied, dryly. The clone tried to smile, but the anxiety of the unfamiliar made it flicker. The door knocked again, more loudly.

One of Merrick’s peers from work was behind the door when it opened. “You’re a hard man to get hold of, Dr Merrick. You keep your phone on silent or what?” He didn’t, he just let the calls ring through. They were never worth his time.

“Ambrose, what brings you here?”

“Oh, nothing much, just that some of the guys were working overtime and got the system up and running,” he grinned. Ambrose was a relatively young man, the kind instilled with that insufferable swagger that made Merrick want to put him on admin duty for a month. “We need a sample, preferably before the thing falls apart again.”

“And you came to me at eight o’clock in the evening because…?”

“Well, we need your go-ahead before we can make any decisions about this sort of thing, y’know? You are the one in charge. And you still haven’t got back to me with that new sample you were talking about months ago. After the first one got... damaged...?”

Ambrose’s eyes were fixed on something beyond Merrick’s shoulder. Urging himself not to sigh too heavily, he turned around to see the clone standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Good morning,” called the clone.

Ambrose swallowed, nodding. “Evening.” Then he looked back at Merrick. “Is that–”

“No.”

“I thought he was de–”

“No.”

Ambrose grinned in a way that Merrick didn’t like. This was the problem with normal humans: they always had an ulterior motive. At least Two Alpha was always genuine or, failing that, a terrible liar. This time Merrick did sigh. “You’d better come in.”

Ambrose didn’t hesitate, his attention fixed on the clone, who smiled nervously back and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Oscar. Oscar Ambrose. What about you?”

“What about me?” Their voices moved into the kitchen as Merrick worked on relocking the door.

“What’s your name?”

In his mind’s eye, Merrick could see the frown on Two Alpha’s face as he worked on recalling it. The last lock clicked into place.

“Gandu Two Alpha.”

Ambrose shot Merrick a disbelieving look as he entered. “Dr Merrick–!”

Merrick glared at him and played his turn on the Scrabble board. Resolute. Two Alpha mouthed the spelling to himself, expression somewhere between indignance and admiration. It was a long word by his standards and Merrick had so far been playing five letters maximum.

“Work on your turn. Ambrose and I need to talk upstairs. Stay here. Really, this time.”

“I did stay here; I didn’t leave the kitchen.”

Cheeky brat. Merrick rolled his eyes, unable to maintain his stern facade. Ambrose was still staring, so he dragged him up to the study by an arm. 

As soon as the door was closed, Ambrose was talking. “‘Two Alpha’? What sort of name is that? Is he actually an agnate, you really did it? Wait–” He stopped dead, processing something. “Are you the reason the system keeps breaking? You want the tech all for yourself!”

Merrick thrust the desk chair across the room. “Sit.”

Ambrose’s legs gave way as he sat. Behind his back, Merrick’s own hands were shaking. “None of what you’ve seen or heard today will leave this house, understand?”

A skeptical narrowing of eyes. That damn arrogance, even as the man was slumped in Merrick’s shadow. As if there weren’t an innocent life at risk, sitting downstairs and playing Scrabble, unaware of what damage loose lips could do to his entire way of life. Irreverent bastard.

He lunged forward, pinning Ambrose’s wrists to the armrests. “I said: do you understand?”

Ambrose nodded unconvincingly and then winced when Merrick leaned into his hands. Merrick spat, “Yes, I sabotaged the system. No, it was not to hoard it. None of you can be trusted, not with him, so I did it myself. I needed you to be delayed.”

“So he’s your…”

“His genetic donor was my partner, yes, not that that’s any of your business.”

“And… Sorry, I can’t get over that name–”

“It’s better than Human Trial One.”

Ambrose gave a conceding nod, “Point taken.” Then, “Hey, could you ease off a bit? I can’t feel my fingers.” Merrick pushed into him, perhaps taking too much pleasure in the way he folded at the pressure, before moving to lean against the desk. Hissing, Ambrose tried to rub the pain out of his wrists. “God, you don’t do things by halves, do you?”

Merrick glared.

“Okay, okay, whatever, water under the bridge, doesn’t matter, but– do you know what this means? It works! You’ve made a human agnate! Have you– have you done any testing? Like, genetic analysis? Is he one-for-one identical?”

The main negative to having someone in your house, Merrick decided, is that you couldn’t walk out. “I haven’t taken any samples. Cognition has been my main focus, if not his survival. He seems accurate enough, physically. He has no memories, though, and he’s had to learn everything practically from scratch.”

“Sucks. Bet you were hoping for a carbon copy, memories and all, huh? Hang on, have you…” 

Merrick could see the way his mind had turned and was unimpressed. Let him wade through the embarrassment, Merrick wouldn’t fish him out. “Have I what?”

“...Kissed him?” Ambrose’s shoulders were hiked up to his ears. Idiot.

“Mentally, he is a child, Ambrose, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Sorry, sorry. Had to ask, though, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

Ambrose sighed as if Merrick was the insufferable one. “Look, I think we’re overlooking just how massive this is. If we could make this on a mass scale, we could– I don’t know. This is the kind of thing that very wealthy people would pay a lot of money for.”

“Millions of dollars for… an organ transplant?”

“Millions of dollars for an organ transplant with a wait-time of days, maximum, practically zero chance of the body rejecting it, and it would be up to the client to decide whether or not they should get a transplant – no lifestyle changes necessary just to tick boxes. That’s millions of dollars for twenty more years of life. Maybe more! If I were the kind of person who had a billion just lying around…”

Steve hadn’t had a million, let alone a billion dollars collecting dust in a drawer somewhere. If he had – if either of them had – would it have made a difference?

“Hell,” continued Ambrose, “at that point immortality is within reach. Imagine that, Merrick! Once the surgical world catches up, you could just keep going forever!”

“And we just keep harvesting from the agnates,” His voice was far more somber than he intended it to be.

“Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, the net result is positive. In terms of life, that is. If you count them as real people, which– which I wouldn’t, legally. Not if we wanted to sell anything.”

At some point, Merrick realised, he had begun to think of Two Alpha as a ‘he’. Somewhere else – before or after, he didn’t know – he had begun to care for him as an individual. Perhaps it was latent love for Steve, or perhaps it was an independent affection for someone who was slowly learning who they were as he guided them along. Either way, something in the back of his mind reared at the idea of Two Alpha being killed for parts. 

If Two Alpha had existed before Steve had died… 

Part of Merrick wanted to say that he wouldn’t have sacrificed him, that he’d have kept both for as long as possible and accepted Steve’s death when it came. The rest knew that he wouldn’t have given himself the chance to care for him – Two Alpha would have been on the operating table before he knew how to cry for help.

Sometimes Merrick hated himself.

“And we could do it on that scale?” It was hardly a question.

“You’re the one to ask.”

“We could.” He ignored the sound of the kitchen tap being turned on and off, on and off. “If we had enough money to do so.”

“Well that, my friend, is where you’re lucky I was the one to find out.” Lucky was a strong word. Merrick didn’t feel very lucky. Oblivious to it all, Ambrose continued, energised and far too loud for the time of evening, “I’ve got some sway with one of the banks, and if we proposed the project to, say, the Department of Defense, I’m sure they’d be more than willing to make an investment. I can handle all of the marketing, networking, whatever, you’d just have to get the science going.”

“You’re saying we start a new company – not research-based – to sell organs grown in…” He wanted to say sentient beings, or humans, but already he could tell that it was a dangerous train of thought, “Agnates?”

“I doubt the boss wants us to do it with his funding. Breaking off is the only way to go.” It was a valid point and Merrick had already been one bad day away from walking out and never returning, but starting an entirely new business venture had never been on the table – he was a scientist, not a businessman.

“Why should I agree to this?”

“Why not?! Millions, Dr Merrick, why would you turn that down?”

“Agnates are hardly cheap on the production end, not to mention upkeep.”

“They’ll pay for themselves, you know they will. What’s your problem with this? Your real problem.”

The real problem? As if he would spill his emotional turmoil to the kid with the supposed business skills. No. Merrick lied, “I feel you’re underestimating exactly how much time, money, and resources this will take.”

“And I feel you’re underestimating how worth it it will be.”

Sighing, Merrick took off his glasses and began to clean them, using the distraction to sort his thoughts.

Two Alpha had never left the house. He would never need to know exactly what Merrick was doing if he agreed to this plan. Merrick could create hundreds of agnates and keep Two Alpha safe for himself, all the while he would be saving lives like Steve’s from preventable deaths. If he just didn’t talk to them, if he didn’t stimulate their individual development beyond the physical, didn’t allow them to be much more than walking organs, they wouldn’t really be people. Not like Two Alpha. They would just be insurance policies, clean and clinical.

He put his glasses back on. They were smudged.

“Fine. I’m in.” Ambrose’s grin returned and Merrick wondered if he’d regret putting this much trust in the man. “But we’re doing this my way. I don’t want any surprises, understand?”

“Of course, Dr Merrick.” He held out a hand. “I think this is the start of something incredible.”

Merrick shook it. “I want you in my office tomorrow morning; we need to plan this properly.”

Ambrose was already moving back downstairs, “Nine AM, sharp, Dr Merrick.”

“Make that eleven.” God knew he wouldn’t be able to cope with the man so early in the day. He unlocked the front door and waved Ambrose out.

“You won’t regret this!”

“Make sure of it.”

With the door finally closed, Merrick could acknowledge the headache worming its way into his eye sockets. He needed to sleep this off.

“Is he gone?” asked Two Alpha, standing by the kitchen door, just barely behind the threshold. His weight was shifting from foot to foot anxiously. 

“Yes. I trust you haven’t run the taps dry?”

“No,” the clone smiled, “There’s still water in them, look!”

Merrick put a glass under the tap as Two Alpha demonstrated, nodding seriously. “Very good. And did you play your turn?”

“Yup, error. I had a bunch of R’s.”

He drained half of the glass and stared at the board. “Do you want to continue? It’s getting late.” 

Two Alpha seemed to disagree with that assessment, but he also seemed to have hit his energy limit for the day because his objection was broken by a yawn. “Maybe,” he conceded. “What was Oscar Ambrose doing here?”

They left the Scrabble untidied on the table, climbing the stairs to the guest room that Two Alpha now occupied. 

“He just wanted to talk to me about work, nothing to concern yourself over.”

“He seemed nice.”

If only you knew the things he is planning, Merrick thought, before saying, “I suppose he did.”

Two Alpha nodded, content in his first assessment of any human beyond Merrick. “Goodnight, Bernard.”

“Goodnight.”

...

    In far less time than was reasonable, Ambrose had wrangled the lab’s growth system and plans out of the company’s possession – easy, he claimed, when they had refused to have their name on any of it – and into the asset pool of the newly christened Merrick Biotech. Soon enough, they had enough investors to buy land in a barren part of the Arizona desert, specifically an abandoned missile facility complete with underground silos and outdated wiring.

    “The missiles were Titan II’s, you know?” said Ambrose, unlocking the facility for the first time. “They were going to be replaced, that’s why they were decommissioned, but the replacements were never produced.”

    “Fascinating,” Merrick lied. He had never been to Arizona before, but the desert reminded him of Steve, beautiful in that rugged, slightly unforgiving sort of way. Even after only fifteen minutes of direct sunlight, he could feel his skin burning.

    They stayed in the nearby motel for days at a time, returning home for a few weeks at most before something else required their supervision. Two Alpha remained at the house, alone. Merrick found it more anxiety-inducing than he anticipated, unused to no longer being able to check in every few hours.

    One morning he came downstairs to see Two Alpha intently scribbling on printer paper, seemingly trying to cover the whole sheet in graphite.

    “You don’t always come back,” he said, not moving his gaze from the table.

    “Of course I do,” replied Merrick, surprised by the sullen attitude, “I’m here now, aren’t I? So I must have come back.”

    “But not always.” Two Alpha had the look on his face that betrayed his frustration when he couldn’t convey his thoughts properly. It used to be an almost permanent fixture but months later his communication had improved to the extent that Merrick struggled to remember the last time he saw it. “Sometimes you’re not here when I go to sleep or when it’s morning and I don’t know what to do. Sometimes you come back and it’s good and you don’t go for ages. But then you do go and you don’t come back.”

Merrick sat next to him, put an arm around him. “I’m sorry. Work has changed. It used to be nearby but now it’s far away, so I have to stay there for a few days every time. I try to stay here as much as I can, I promise.”

Two Alpha stopped scribbling, eyes distant with thought. “What’s promise?”

It was always jarring to find the little gaps in Two Alpha’s knowledge, the oversights and the things that seemed too obvious to miss. Each one would be filled, however, and Merrick took care to do it well.

“A promise is when you say something and you mean it. If you promise to do something, you should always try your very best to do it. Don’t make them lightly and don’t break them.”

“Do people break them anyway?”

“Yes, some people. That just means you shouldn’t trust them when they promise things. Especially big things.”

“Do you break promises?”

Yes, he thought, though his promise to Steve was not one he wanted to talk about. “I try not to,” he said instead, “But sometimes I get carried away and make promises that I could never hope to keep.”

“Big promises?”

“Yes, though I don’t think anyone expected me to actually fulfil them. Except myself, maybe.”

“And you promise to stay here as much as you can?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Two Alpha refused to look him in the eye and returned to his paper. “... I’m not sure it’s enough.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t promise much more.”

An understanding nod. “The promise would be too big to keep.”

“Yes.”

Two Alpha processed the conversation and Merrick waited. Eventually, Two Alpha sighed and leaned into Merrick’s hold. “But you’ll come back eventually. You won’t always be gone.” Two statements, more self-reassurance than anything.

Merrick nodded. “I… May be able to get you a phone. So that you can talk to me when I’m far away.” It was a risk, of course, a hole in the protective wall of isolation that Merrick had erected around him, but it would put both of their minds at ease. He could try to put restrictions on it, to prevent internet access and unwanted calls. A curated library of apps would help keep him occupied while Merrick was alone. Yes, it was worth the risk.

“That would be good,” Two Alpha agreed.

    ...

The phone proved its worth but also highlighted Two Alpha’s loneliness. Previously, it had been relatively easy to forget that every hour Merrick spent away was another for Two Alpha to kill at home. On Merrick’s first day away after buying the phone, Two Alpha called almost hourly until Merrick had to tell him to ease off while he was working, after which the calls came every three hours on the dot.

On his second trip, three weeks later, Merrick was flicking through the channels in his motel room when the fourth call of the day came through.

“Hello?” Even after so many of these calls, his voice still raised as if there was any question as to who was on the other end. It felt silly. Distant.

“Hi, Bernard.”

Usually it was at this point that Two Alpha would choose an arbitrary conversation starter, anything from the weather to where paper came from. Instead, there was quiet. Merrick pulled the phone from his ear, checked the call was still working, then put it back and asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” came the voice, strained in the way voices were when their face was pressed into a pillow. “We don’t need to talk. I just…” There was a staticky sigh. “We can just be together like this.”

Something hurt beneath his collarbone and he pretended it had nothing to do with the creeping guilt rising in the back of his mind.

“Okay,” he replied, voice strained in the way voices were when emotion pressed into them. Strange how such abstract things had such physical symptoms.

Steve had liked these moments, the ones where the conversation had run dry and there was nothing but companionable silence. Nothing owed, no performance, no give and take, just being near someone you loved. That was what he lived for. He enjoyed the rest of it, sure, but this– this was what the it all amounted to. When he had explained this, half-asleep on Bernard’s shoulder,

Beyond Steve, however, Merrick found people’s presences grating. They were always watching too intently or not listening enough or putting far too much thought into the act of existing near him. It made him hyper-aware of every infuriating aspect of the situation, on guard and tiring. Steve made it easy to drift, semi-conscious, relaxed. With Two Alpha he had never been truly on edge, rather wary of his own tongue slipping, saying something that would break the translucent illusion he now lived in. As such, the silence of Two Alpha was comforting in a completely different way; no chance of error when there was uncomplicated quiet between them.

Merrick lay back and allowed himself the calm.

Construction was underway at the facility, installing new wiring and digging out new space. He didn’t pretend to know much of what any of it meant, why any of it was happening the way it was, but the schematics that he had been talked through seemed sound enough to his inexpert eye. Ideally, he’d be able to let the construction team do their work and stay home, but such projects were never without their hitches and Ambrose was never without his impatience.

“I know you have your hang-ups about this whole thing,” he had said that day, having dragged Merrick into an unpainted office, “But we need you to be here. Like, really be here. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours can’t take up so much of your attention; yesterday you signed off on a cement order that was ten times under what we need – if I hadn’t caught it this morning we’d be another week behind schedule.”

“You said I wouldn’t have to handle any of this.”

“Cross-checking numbers hardly needs a business degree, Merrick! Your head isn’t in the game. I’m here a week more than you per month. What’s your excuse?”

“Well, unlike you, I have responsibilities at home.”

“What? The agnate?”

Merrick had clenched his teeth and tried his hardest not to glare too venomously – the last thing he needed was to get over-defensive. That way lay exposing himself to a man who would not hesitate to attack such weakness in the name of the bigger picture. Ambrose took his terse silence as a confirmation.

“The agnate can manage by itself – it has so far. This is so much bigger than that, this needs you to put the effort in. What difference will it make to the agnate? You just won’t be around three goddamn weeks a month – who do you know with that sort of time off? It doesn’t happen! This is work, so treat it like work. Prioritise.”

“My private life is just that: private,” Merrick had replied, enunciating sharply, “You would do well to remind yourself of that, Oscar.” And then he had left, wondering if he regretted using Ambrose’s first name. In the end, he decided that he didn’t, which was the easiest problem to solve.

The entire conversation had been repeating in his head like a blinking indicator, only silenced once the underlying issue was confronted. It was true that his total working hours had tanked after leaving the company and it was true that he rarely had more than seventy-five percent of his brain focused within those hours, however there was an entire life hinging on his own and it did so far more directly than the abstract lives that Merrick Biotech could save.

Two Alpha hated being alone and Merrick was loath to extend that time anymore than he had. Already, Two Alpha was navigating more negative emotions than he had ever felt and Merrick could only guide him so well with an entire week of absence looming over both of them, let alone two. The dependence could be called unhealthy if not for Two Alpha’s age.

Still, the tension was undoing them both, the phone simply a loosened valve to release the pressure before something exploded. A coin-sized valve in the Hoover dam, more a weak spot for the pressure to crack than any real aid. Perhaps Two Alpha needed to learn to alleviate the tension by himself, reduce his dependence just enough that there wasn’t such a weight on Merrick’s shoulders.

But how to do it?

He would need to do some research – out of work hours – but he should let Two Alpha down slowly before he could let himself get caught up in radical solutions. Gradually easing him off calling so regularly would help. That was a simple enough step to take.

The phone told him that the call had lasted over ten minutes, most of which was dead air. Their silence hadn’t yet been broken. He sighed.

“Hey.” Thinking about it, he’d never addressed him as Two Alpha. Perhaps it was a bit too inhuman. But was now really the time to think of a more endearing name? “You know that I get charged per minute?”

“For what?” The voice was soft, the tension melted away. Merrick hated the way that his couldn’t do the same.

“For these calls.” Silence. “So– so I’m going to have to go now. We can talk tomorrow. Or not talk. Up to you.”

“Oh.” Soft again, but not in the same way. Damn it. “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Bernard. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, instinctively, though he didn’t quite know what for. In the moments it took for him to wonder, the line went dead.

...

Merrick stayed in Arizona for three days longer than he had originally planned, if only to get Ambrose off his back. Two Alpha had kept his calls to twice a day, morning and evening and kept both strictly within ten minutes. Merrick supposed that his words had gone deeper than intended and Two Alpha was hyper-aware of the time and money Merrick was using to talk to him. It was charming, in a bittersweet kind of way.

He was hoping that Two Alpha hadn’t noticed his extended stay, and as such he hadn’t brought it up. He would be back soon enough.

On the morning of his last day, the phone rang at eight o’clock exactly.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at work.”

“You can’t come back?” 

“Unless there’s an emergency,” he lied. Two Alpha had clung to his promise, used it to reason his way through Merrick’s absence. It felt cruel to exploit that trust, break the promise, but the semantics of whether or not he truly could have returned earlier saved him from complete self-hatred.

“No, no emergency. Is there an emergency with you?”

“No, why would there be?”

“I dunno.”

The rest of the conversation was subdued, though Two Alpha often tended to grow withdrawn in his loneliness until Merrick returned and he bounced back. Nothing abnormal. No reason to be concerned. None at all.

Hours later, when Merrick was digitising spreadsheets at something resembling a desk, the phone rang again. He frowned at it and picked it up with a speed he would never admit to being panicked.

“Mr Merrick?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

“Yes?”

“I’m calling from St Luke’s Hospital about a patient we’ve just received from a recent motor incident. You were the only emergency contact.”

“What?” he croaked.

“Unfortunately, the patient had no ID and was unable to provide a name. Are you able to come to the hospital at this time?”

No. No. It couldn’t be–

“I– I’m in Arizona, I can get there in– nine hours? Where did you find him?”

The matter-of-fact tone of the answer didn’t help calm him as the caller listed an address barely ten metres from his house. Already, the spreadsheets were abandoned in the wake of his strides to the nearest exit.

“What condition is he in?”

“I can’t tell you much without you here to confirm your identity and relation to the patient, but his prognosis is poor. What did you say his name is?”

Merrick hung up. That was not a question he would ever be able to answer, not to anyone other than Two Alpha himself. Even then…

No. Now was not the time.

He ran.

...

Since the 2007 American Transport Initiative, high-speed maglevs connected major cities down each coast and across the southern states, drastically reducing travel times on even cross-continental scales. Unfortunately, there was still a two hour drive to the Phoenix station – perhaps once the system was more established he could petition for another to be built in Tucson, the drive was easily the most grating experience of his life – a four hour trip along the Latitude Line, and another three hours of sporadic stop-starting up the Eastern Seaboard. His loose interpretation of the speed limit in Arizona cut thirty minutes off his prediction but the extended adrenaline high made the journey feel like aeons.

He was already hammering the open door button when the train hummed to a stop and squeezed through the moment the doors allowed him. No one batted an eye at the sight of yet another smartly dressed man rushing with no regard for those in his way and he wouldn’t have noticed if they had. The route to the hospital memorised on the journey, he was a gale force wind weaving between the crowds.

Merrick practically collided with the reception desk, making the receptionist jerk back in her rolling chair.

“I’m here for–” he gasped, caught his breath again, “For a man. Admitted about nine hours ago, no ID. I was called–”

The receptionist typed in the number he showed her once he fumbled his phone over the desk. “Well, the numbers match but we’ll need a proof of identity for you and also what relation you have to him.”

“I’m– I’m Bernard Merrick. I’m all he has, he has no family– except– except me. Please, I need to see him.”

“He has no name on the record, do you–”

“Where is he?”

“Just follow the blue line, he should be in room six. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

Merrick just about managed, “Thank you,” before he was moving again. Blue line. The signs blurring past identified it as the route to the ICU but the blurring was in his head as much as his vision. All he could see was the line. It was all he needed to see.

There was a man standing outside room six. Merrick almost missed him in his determination to pass through the door, but he stepped in the way, placing a hand on Merrick’s shoulder. The hold was probably meant to have some compassion to it, but all he registered was the firmness keeping him from entering.

“Mr Merrick, I presume? Please, a word before you go in.”

There must have been something wild in his eyes when they met the man’s face, because the grip on his shoulder became tighter.

“I’m Dr Colby; I’ve been looking after the patient since his arrival in the department. He is… gravely wounded. Honestly, I’m amazed he’s lasted this long. When you go in there, please, be gentle. The state he’s in may be shocking to see, but you must stay calm, for his sake.” Colby caught his eyes as they darted to the door. “Breathe, Mr Merrick. And… prepare yourself – it is unlikely that he’ll recover.”

Blood was rushing through his ears but those final words rang through his mind clear as anything. They couldn’t be true, the doctor was just pessimistic; he’d seen too many deaths in his career, he was seeing a ghost where there wasn’t one. Two Alpha would make it through. 

Nevertheless. “I need to see him.”

“He has been somewhat aware of his surroundings, so he may be able to talk to you. The best we’ve got from him is what we believe to be his first name, Alf, right?”

Merrick nodded, no longer feeling tethered to reality.

“The worst injuries were elsewhere – his heart has been… erratic. Try to keep any conversation from working him up. Just be there for him, okay?”

Frustration bubbled up – I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to do – but it was distant, as if it hadn’t accompanied him all the way from Arizona. All he could do was croak, “Please.”

Colby nodded solemnly and opened the door. Behind was a small room made smaller by the abundance of machinery, most of it feeding back to the pale shape on the bed. Merrick moved in, suddenly slowed as if moving over sacred ground.

“Hey,” he said, softly, and the eyes opened and his own began to sting. Two Alpha’s eyes were bloodshot to the extreme that the whites of one had become rust-dark. They looked up at him drowsily.

“...Bernard?” His voice was raw, from disuse or pained screaming Merrick couldn’t tell. He took the hand that tried to lift itself off the bed, weighed by the IV line. The fingers were cold but they wrapped around his, fitting like Steves’ had, positioned like his didn’t. 

“Yes, it’s me. I’m here.” Merrick had taken Steve’s left hand, at the end, traced the ring there, covered the back of his hand with his own. Now, he was on Two Alpha’s right, and the hand was upturned, nothing to trace but those lines he didn’t know how to read. Life line. Heart line. Fate line. Illegible.

“Good… I was… worried about you.”

“Worried? Why should you be worried?”

“You didn’t come back. I know you said–” Two Alpha’s voice caught on its raw edges and on the shortness of breath. Perhaps it caught on something else, Merrick could hardly judge. “You said that you would always come back, if you could, and you couldn’t always because of work but– usually you’re back after seven days, sometimes it’s eight. So I waited and– you were away for ten days, no coming back, so I thought–” He sniffed, a thin tear track catching the light to become visible. “I know– I know it wasn’t– you were still on the phone. Looking back, I shouldn’t have worried ‘cause you were still answering, but– I thought maybe something had happened so I went out, the way you go when you leave. To find you.”

He was openly sobbing now, the monitors around him grumbling at the strain it put on his respiratory system. Merrick knew that if he turned his attention to himself, he would see the same sorrow and regret on his own face, but he didn’t, his focus purely on the man on the bed. The man who, if he was willing to admit it, did look terrifyingly delicate. 

It was only in comparison to the clinically white sheets that Two Alpha’s skin looked at all alive. There were bandages covering half of what was visible, bruises covering what remained. Every movement, down to blinking, was measured, pained, subdued. All except the crying.

“I don’t remember– I walked for a bit, I think, then–” He tried to screw his eyes shut as if to block out the sensations still wracking his body, but the bruising was too much to do more than furrow his brow.

“It’s okay,” said Merrick, beginning to stroke the hand with his thumb. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. I should have kept you informed, that’s my fault.”

Two Alpha simply opened his eyes to look at him grimly. There was a depth, a weight to him now that there hadn’t been and Merrick desperately wished to relieve him of it. He met his gaze, unflinching, and let it hurt.

After a while, Two Alpha whispered, barely audible over the machines, “What’s going to happen to me?”

Merrick wished he could offer some spiritual belief, some promise of heaven or of rest. He wished that his first thought in response hadn’t been death, that clinging to his hope of Two Alpha’s survival wasn’t as hollowly delusional as it suddenly felt. He wished that he had anything to say that wasn’t a lie.

“I don’t know.”

“I– I never thought about it. ‘Cause I can only remember being alive, and you being alive too. But, now that… There must have been a time when I wasn’t alive, right?” He watched, a warped half-pride at working it out in his eyes, as Merrick nodded. “So… I think that maybe it’ll happen again. ‘Cause I feel like I’m… running out.”

Merrick felt himself slump forwards, head on their hands, his breathing refusing to work normally. It couldn’t happen again. Was it inevitable? If he tried again, would he be forced to watch this face die again, inhabited by yet another person with his own quirks, his unique endearing traits, a new name? A different death; illness, injury, what else? How many cooling hands would he have to hold for daring to pursue a different, kinder fate?

“You’re okay,” he said into the sheets.

“It hurts.”

Pulling his head back up, he moved one hand to Two Alpha’s shoulder, holding as lightly as he could to avoid causing any further pain. “I know,” he said, “But I’m here now. I’m here as long as you need.”

A weak smile. “Thank you.”

As he returned the smile, he pushed all of his sincerity to the fore. “I love you.”

It wasn’t the same love he had for Steve, but it didn’t need to be, because this was Two Alpha and he was enough. Love was the thing tearing him down from the inside, no regard for dignity, undeniable. Two Alpha deserved to know. If Merrick didn’t love him, he’d have lived his entire life unloved.

“Thank you,” Two Alpha repeated, “I love you too.”

With that, tears finally fell, landing on Two Alpha’s arm. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“It’s okay,” he added, echoing Merrick’s speech the way he had when he was still learning. How long ago? A year? He was so painfully young… “You’re okay.”

All Merrick could do was repeat, “I’m sorry.” You deserved better.

“I think, maybe…” mumbled Two Alpha, eyes becoming drowsy, “Maybe it’ll just be like… those times on the phone. When we don’t talk… and we can’t see… but we’re together anyway. I’d like it, if it was like that.”

“Perhaps it will be.” The tears made his voice wet, but the words didn’t taste of cruel deception. It sounded like a good afterlife, for one invented by a clone with barely any life lived to speak of.

A twitch of lips, probably intended to be a smile. “I’m glad you came back.”

“Me too.”

Then Two Alpha closed his eyes and his breathing slowed. The fingers in his hand slackened their grip. Merrick didn’t take in much after that, even as the flatline drilled through his skull and medics bustled around him. What did any of that matter, anyway?

The important thing was that face, tranquil despite the wounds, motionless again. The important thing was Two Alpha and the heavy silence between them. He half expected to hear the click of a phone disconnecting.

...

This time the aftermath had no storm to it. He didn’t march home, threatening to burn everything in sight. He didn’t go to work and start shouting at Ambrose – though he probably deserved it. No, instead he began to make a list of criteria for the new facility. If they were going to have half an army of walking organs biding their time underground, they would need to do it properly.

The plan as it stood was to teach the agnates hygiene, nutrition, exercise, but nothing that would constitute a normal education. Speech would be necessary, reading less so but perhaps convenient. They would simply need to keep themselves healthy until their time came. Minimising contact to just staff members was also outlined in the initial protocol, though it sat uncomfortably with Merrick. He had no better plan, however. If they could communicate with each other, they would eventually catch on that some disappeared and never returned.

It would be easier, he found himself thinking at least once a day, if they never woke up and could just remain in those gel sacs until they were needed. Unfortunately, all of the animal trials proved it impossible or at least too much effort to be a better option. Once the agnates reached the end of their growth cycle they would wake up regardless of whether they had been taken out, occasionally drowning if they weren’t removed quickly enough. And if they were kept unconscious from there, they would atrophy – brains never finalising their development quite right, muscles never developing, digestion system shutting down without ever being used properly. Unfit for transplant donation.

The investment required to keep them in any fit state was major either way, but at least there were fewer fatal risks when they were allowed consciousness. So, living beings. Care to be taken to do it right.

From his list, Merrick found a sense of purpose in monitoring the construction efforts, making sure everything was as it should be, compiling another list of potential scientists, maintenance workers, caterers, making sure there was enough accommodation in the area, streamlining the growth-support system, getting a small team of lawyers to handle NDAs.

Maybe there was a storm, but he had found the eye more quickly than last time – a numb haven where he could work until he collapsed, ignoring the chaos beyond.

“We need a test run,” Announced Ambrose, walking into the break room where Merrick was lamenting the lack of kettle.

“A test run?”

“Yeah, like your guy, just to make sure everything works. We’ll give it a better name though.” Though Merrick was the one who had garnered a reputation for being cold simply by virtue of his general demeanor, Ambrose could be downright cruel. Not that Merrick had discussed Two Alpha at any length; he wasn’t a masochist.

“And do you have a genetic sample ready?” He asked in lieu of dignifying his jab with a response.

“No, ‘cause I’m not familiar with collecting that kind of thing, but I was thinking we should clone me.”

Merrick simply looked at him, disbelief readable enough without any expression. When Ambrose failed to elaborate, he collected his mind enough to ask, “You?”

“Yeah. Me.” The poor man. His brain must have been damaged from inhaling fumes from the construction. Or perhaps there was unhealthy amounts of radon this far underground. That would need to be checked. “All great pioneers of science end up trying their stuff on themselves, it’s practically a rite of passage. Besides, I can’t sue myself if it all goes wrong, now can I?”

“The legal team still needs to finalise the consent forms…”

“We don’t need it if I own the company!”

“You don–”

“Sorry, if we own the company. Point still stands. Bet this is why all those scientists do it.”

Should Merrick really stand in the way of such a misled endeavour? It was one thing to clone a dead partner, it was another to clone a man who was still alive and in regular contact with the project. Still, it would be interesting, for data collection purposes. Far too much of their current plan was based on hypotheticals. On one hand hubris, on the other… 

“I’ve heard the physicists get on just fine without it,” he said.

Ambrose waved a hand dismissively. “Physicists.”

Merrick made a conscious effort not to put a hand to his eyes, turning instead to what passed as a kitchenette. “And what do you intend to do with your agnate?” 

How did people make tea without a kettle? Would he have to microwave a mug full of water? Was that even legal?

“Dunno, figure it’ll be an insurance policy like the rest. Maybe teach it how to do my paperwork.”

“I’m sure that will pay back the millions it will take to do it.”

“Investment, Merrick, I know you’ve heard of it.”

“And I’ve yet to see the benefit.”

“You’re taking jabs at me ‘cause nothing’s happened while I’m telling you to make something happen!”

He sighed, “If you really think it’ll be of benefit to us, be my guest. Just don’t make the decision lightly. If I find out that you thought of this five minutes ago–”

“You wound me, Dr Merrick, when have I been anything but thoughtful with this venture? This is a great idea – what do we have to lose? It’s the same thing we’ll be doing in a few months anyway, just contained so we can troubleshoot any issues. A prototype!”

This was not a battle that Ambrose was about to lose. Merrick hardly knew which side he was even on. Why not humour the man? 

“Give it a week so I can train the skeleton crew on the initialisation and get everything calibrated,” he said, giving up on tea and instead filling his mug with cold water, “Make sure you’ve thought it through. If you want to go ahead, I’ll get your sample on Thursday.”

“Great!” exclaimed Ambrose, already halfway out of the room, “You won’t regret this, Dr Merrick!”

“You keep on saying that,” Merrick mumbled to the empty doorway. Mug water wasn’t as nice as glass water, he decided, but that hardly mattered.

...

In the end Ambrose went through with it. He dubbed the endeavour ‘Project: Pelasgus’ in the files, though Merrick could think of several more accurate titles, ‘Narcissus’ for one. Was he in a position to pass such judgements? Perhaps not, but there was no one else around to do it and Ambrose was in severe need of someone to temper him.

A great chamber had been hollowed out near the base of one of the old silos, fitted with a surprisingly expensive drainage system and the equipment needed to keep up to twenty-five growth-support systems, only one of which had actually been installed. Merrick viewed the room with much the same strange discomfort as he did the version in his basement, which was probably rusting with neglect. It was the discomfort of an ugly yet unregretted truth and he didn’t like how much of his life now had that tint to it. Sometimes, among the haze of work and his general distaste for Ambrose, he wondered if he too considered the whole affair to be ugly. Then he would decide that Ambrose had no such depth to him and, if anything, thought it cool.

When, eventually, Pelasgus was up and walking, Ambrose holed him away in the large office that was by now his own small apartment. Apparently there had been a scene regarding the staff seeing the agnate’s naked body – more out of concern for himself than the agnate – but Merrick could not bring himself to watch the security footage back to scan for any other red flags. This was Ambrose’s agnate, Merrick had had his chance already.

Which wasn’t to say that he hadn’t been tempted to stick his foot in.

“Check this out.” A memory stick collided with his forehead as Ambrose entered, no knocking as always.

Merrick remained motionless at his desk. “What is it?”

“You need to watch it. I showed Pelasgus a mirror this morning.” He didn’t know how he could say that name so seriously; it was ridiculous. Ambrose picked the memory stick up from where it had fallen, removed the one already in Merrick’s computer, and plugged it in before any preventative measures could be taken.

“I was using that!”

“Hope you save regularly,” replied Ambrose, unrepentant, “This is more important, anyway.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Just watch the damn video.”

The video began with a scene featuring Pelasgus having a simplistic conversation with two technicians that had probably been dragged in from the corridor, camera jerking about until the agnate was centred in the frame and Ambrose moved into view.

“Hey, Pelasgus, can you tell me these guys’ names?”

His response was a dubious look, as if the agnate knew it was a stupid question. Ambrose had probably introduced him to them ten minutes previously. 

“Clyde and Bill.”

“Which is which?” asked Ambrose, to the tune of an even more unimpressed glare.

“Clyde,” poking one, “Bill,” poking the other. Both technicians, wearing matching dusty coveralls and stony expressions, seemed to share the agnate’s attitude.

“Good. You two can go about your business.”

Clyde and Bill seemed all too happy to comply. How the agante had mastered complete disdain so early, Merrick didn’t know. It was almost impressive. Apparently these thinly veiled tests were a regular occurrence and consistently skewing beneath his capabilities.

“Now,” continued Ambrose, moving to uncover a mirror he had leaned against the wall, “Who’s this?”

“You,” said the agnate to his reflection. Then he paused, mind visibly working as he watched his reflection move with him.

Ambrose apparently grew impatient and stepped beside the agnate, grinning. “You.”

A frown creased the agnate’s face as he watched their two reflections, identical if not for their expressions and clothing.

“You look like me,” explained Ambrose as if the agnate hadn’t already worked it out.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I made you to. You’re a copy of me, a clone.” 

Merrick fought the urge to bat him around the head. No subtlety. He had mentally run through the scenario of Two Alpha finding evidence of Steve a hundred times, preparing for each a gentle way of responding to any range of reactions to the inevitable revelation of Two Alpha’s origins, and Ambrose had just barreled through it, no awareness of any of the variables Merrick had mapped a route around.

“A copy?”

“Damn right.”

“Why?” hissed the agnate, half in shocked confusion, half in indignant outrage.

“God, you sound like Merrick saying that–”

“I stand by that statement,” interjected the Ambrose watching over Merrick’s shoulder.

“I had lots of reasons. You’re just the first in a line of agnates that will revolutionise our ideas about illness and the human lifespan. Not to mention that it’s breaking scientific boundaries and starting a whole new industry!”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How does me looking like you change our ideas about illness and the human lifespan?”

At this point Ambrose seemed to spot the hole he had dug himself into. The chances of Pelasgus knowing the meaning of everything he was saying was unlikely, but there was no way that he would misunderstand what being an insurance policy entailed.

“Uh, well, there’s something to being able to create an adult human without the physical development of childhood…” Ambrose rambled as he walked back to the camera.

“What’s childhood?” Merrick had to stop himself from snorting. Ambrose was out of his depth, that much was clear.

The video cut out as he began, “You know what–”

Amused, Merrick looked up and saw that Ambrose’s ears had turned faintly pink.

“So you see, Pelasgus can differentiate between two different faces and identify that we look alike. It even seems to understand the general idea of cloning.”

“Perhaps you should provide some support with that,” Merrick said, as if there was any chance of it being a bad idea, “I can’t imagine that’s an easy pill to swallow.”

Ambrose waved a hand dismissively as he plucked out the memory stick. “It’ll be fine. Introduce the idea early and it’ll be normal. The rest’ll have to come to terms with it.”

“Will they? I was under the impression that we weren’t disclosing that to them.”

“What? You’re saying we should just lie?”

Sighing, Merrick pulled up the document he had been working on. Pelasgus was going to be a psychologist’s nightmare by the time Ambrose was through with him. He almost wanted to move him into his own office, but that was probably just the grief-echoes talking. Ambrose would turn it into a situation anyway, and Merrick was here as a scientist, not a caretaker.

“If your Project doesn’t see any issues arise because of this, we can consider telling the first generation. If.”

Grinning in the disconcerting way that he did, Ambrose strode backwards to the door. “You’re a pessimistic man, Dr Merrick,” he jeered before spinning into the corridor, exclaiming, “Self-recognition! Incredible!”

...

Conversation with Pelasgus would have been easy to avoid if Ambrose didn’t insist on keeping him in his office rather than in the purpose-built accommodation that would benefit from the prototype’s test run. At any given moment, Merrick was at most only half convinced that Project: Pelasgus was actually intended to be a true prototype and not a vanity project. Either way, Ambrose left them in the same room together far too often for Merrick’s liking.

The agnate had gradually accumulated a sort of static around his person that crackled every time Ambrose waltzed in. Existing in the same room as the two of them made Merrick exhausted and often left him with a pounding headache. Ambrose, of course, was too wrapped up in his fantasies of power and wealth to notice.

When he wasn’t there, suspicion was still thick in the air, which Merrick supposed was not helped by the small library of sci-fi and murder mystery films that was strewn about the TV. Although he had decided not to involve himself, he couldn’t bring himself to truly ignore the agnate. Initiating conversation felt a step too far, but throwing what he felt to be a comforting look in the agnate’s direction, or offering him coffee from Ambrose’s machine was fair game. If no-one did it, something would snap, so why not the only person in the godforsaken facility who didn’t look at him like either a freak of nature or a point of fascination.

Occasionally the agnate would say something and they’d talk until Ambrose returned and transformed the air into electricity. He’d often choose far heavier topics than Two Alpha had. Or at least topics that were heavy in context.

“Do people not like me because they don’t like Oscar or is it because I’m a copy of him and they don’t like that?”

“No consideration that they dislike you for your own merits?” Merrick asked, dryly. It was probably less than sympathetic but the agnate seemed to be on his wavelength about such things. The equally dry look he got in response affirmed this.

“How likely do you think that is? I don’t want to talk to them, but that’s because they already don’t like me. So do you think it’s because I’m a clone or because I’m Oscar’s clone?”

“Honestly? Given the people who work here and Oscar Ambrose’s general demeanor, it’s probably a bit of both.”

The agnate swore.

“Quite.”

...

At some point or another there was an incident in which Ambrose was mistaken for his agnate – or was it vice versa? – which had sent Ambrose into a somewhat vindictive frenzy, culminating in him commissioning an entirely new security system featuring RFID keys and a tech-filled bracelet that was quickly locked around the agnate’s wrist to prevent any further misidentifications. It would be amusing if not for the ire that was now constantly palpable between the two of them and the new glint in the agnate’s eyes. 

Apparently there had been an argument and Ambrose had started shouting.

“Do you even know what being an insurance policy means?!” a security officer had quoted when he offered to show Merrick the footage, finding it to be far more hilarious than it was. “It means you’re here for parts! I own you! The moment I get sick or injured, you’re done and I live on! Don’t start thinking you can go around being me. Don’t think you’re on my level. You hear?”

Subsequently, Merrick tried to keep himself away from the administration and management block, instead investigating a way to keep the commercial generations from ever even considering the possibility of their grim prospects. Evidently, the truth had a negative impact. Who knew?

...

Merrick was taking one of his unfortunately necessary brief visits to his own office when it happened. All he had in warning was a percussive commotion sounding from down the corridor, then Pelasgus was in his room, knocking the door as he passed it and appearing noticeably ruffled.

He stood up. “What–”

“Please,” gasped the agnate, “I don’t– I–”

The uncharacteristic desperation was written over his entire body, shaking and wide-eyed. Footsteps thundered on concrete and the agnate began to stumble forwards.

Merrick was halfway around his desk when the dark uniforms of the security team filled the doorway.

“Dr Merrick! Move away from the agnate, he’s dangerous!”

He froze as he spotted the firearms in their hands, the blood flecked on the agnate’s trousers. Slowly stepping backwards, he asked in a voice that thankfully didn’t shake, “What’s going on?”

“It killed Mr Ambrose, sir, we caught it on the cameras.”

The agnate step forwards again. “I–”

The reaction was instant. One, two, three shots. Merrick jerked back as the agnate toppled over. A member of security rushed over to usher him away from the rapidly pooling blood.

“Sir, are you okay?”

He nodded, still trying to process. It was hard to ignore the shape on the floor even as he was guided out of the room. Everything had happened in the space of a minute and now… 

“We’ll get someone in to clean up. You should find somewhere else to be.”

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“The agnate attacked him. Unarmed. Slammed his head against the desk, I think. Blood everywhere. We’re gonna cordon off the area until this is sorted.”

“Christ.” He needed a drink, though he didn’t own any alcohol. One of the maintenance workers would have something under the board, surely?

...

Death was one thing, seeing a man get shot was another. Nightmares plagued him. Faces in double, growing resentment, blood. The sensation of falling, over and over again. Two Alpha flatlining as he entered the room, moments too late. Pelasgus trying to retake control, fighting the man keeping him trapped. Ambrose dismissing and dismissing and dismissing.

Merrick found himself unable to sleep, spending his increasing waking hours reorganising the accommodation sector. Isolation was evidently asking for trouble, so the agnates would need regular contact. He couldn’t exactly hire people for them to talk to, so they would need to talk to each other in order to build proper social networks. But then how would staff be able to take them out of the active population for donation without arousing suspicion? How could he keep them from trying to find a way out? How, how, how?

In the end he hired a writing team to fabricate a world-ending event that had turned everything outside the compound into a dangerous hellscape unfit for living things. A Contamination. One that hadn’t reached a single small haven in the middle of the ocean, where a chosen few would be sent to repopulate humanity in the outside world. He didn’t want competition inciting violence within the group, so the method of selection would be presented as truly random, a lottery.

This all necessitated bringing in a further team to imprint artificial memories: the life before the Contamination, which they could hope for on the Island and make the staff’s memories of real life seem unextraordinary; and the devastation that the Contamination caused.

It was all quite elegant, in the end. Everything was explained neatly. The agnates would keep themselves contained, not needing to trust the word of the staff since they had memories of exactly what they were being told about. Perhaps this was the sort of lie that Ambrose had wanted to avoid, but Ambrose was dead by his own stupidity, so Merrick could continue as he wanted to.

He ordered the construction of new exercise facilities, various forms of entertainment, and a rudimentary educational curriculum all to keep them occupied so that they wouldn’t be bored into unpredictable behaviour. A techie had suggested that they get the clones to do some of the manual labour involved in maintaining the growth-support systems and hydroponic farms, which filled in the impression of ‘work’ given by the false memories and Merrick’s staff having obvious jobs.

Yes, all very elegant.

Now all that remained to be done was the agnates themselves.

...

The first generation was called Alpha.

Merrick watched as the first batch of samples got loaded into the system. Most of them were high-ranking officers in the Defense Department. A few were from notoriously flagrant billionaires. One was the only remaining genetic material from Steve.

He wouldn’t interact with Gandu Three Alpha out of course, he had learnt that lesson. Three Alpha would just be another face in the crowd, making friends, finding himself, living. But Merrick would be able to see his face, hear his voice. Steve and Two Alpha would live on through him. He would never be able to talk to them again, but he wouldn’t forget their face. It would be a silent phone call, staring at a photo across the room.

That was all he needed.

#the island #the island movie #the island 2005 #fanfiction #AO3 fanfic #fanfic

[unicornery]

For my own amusement, I started tracking how the songs from the Billboard Hot 100 from this week in 1974 have been used in movie soundtracks. Feature Films only people! As you read, you will see the “gimmes” that made me think of the idea, but I’m putting this behind a cut because there ended up being so many which had a soundtrack match. As a reminder, you can follow along as I do the Hot 100 each week corresponding to which classic AT40 and VJ Big 40 get played on SiriusXM ‘70s on 7 and ‘80s on 8 respectively with my ever-changing Spotify playlist. 

100. “Beyond the Blue Horizon” - Lou Christie. This one is a cheat because when I looked it up on Spotify it showed up on the Rain Man soundtrack. The only song I could have told you off the top of my head was in Rain Main is the Belle Stars’ version of “Iko Iko.” Rain Man marked the first soundtrack appearance for Christie’s version. 

98. “The Air That I Breathe” - The Hollies. Very memorable appearance in The Virgin Suicides, which had the score done by, wait for it, French electronica duo Air. The song would go on to be heard in other movies. 

90. “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” - Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. The Paper Lace version appears in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Both acts topped the charts with the song on opposite sides of the pond: Paper Lace in the UK and Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods in the US. [Update: the BD&H version may be in "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday"] 

87. “Hollywood Swinging” - Kool & the Gang. This oft-sampled track first appeared in a feature film in the 2005 Get Shorty sequel Be Cool. 

84. “La Grange” - ZZ Top. Armageddon first, followed by others. 

68. “Band on the Run” - Paul McCartney and Wings.  I didn’t search for this at first because I didn’t think there would be anything, but then Jet was on the chart at #27, so I did a twofer search on imdb. Jet has not been in any films (save “One Hand Clapping, a rockumentary on Paul, which I don’t count for purposes of this discussion) but “Band on the Run” appears in The Killing Fields, in a shocking scene that contrasts the light tone of the pop song with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge’s executions of Cambodian citizens. 

66. “For the Love of Money” - The O’Jays. Has been used many times, according to IMDb the first feature film use was the Richard Pryor roman a clef (if I’m using that right, I only know it from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man) Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling. 

59. “Rock Around the Clock” - Bill Haley and his Comets. Notably used in Blackboard Jungle, the song is on this 1974 chart for its appearance in American Graffiti. 

55. “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” - Rick Derringer. First one that comes to mind is Dazed and Confused bc I had that soundtrack, but it has been in others.

49. “Love’s Theme” - the Love Unlimited Orchestra. The swirling strings of this song indicate that someone is indeed falling in love. That’s my way of saying, if you think you haven’t heard this, you have. Imdb has it in Mean Girls, among others. 

47. “The Way We Were” - Barbra Streisand. The titular song of the 1973 film The Way We Were, starring Barbra and Robert Redford. A little long, but worth a watch bc Barbra is amazing in it. At the 1974 Academy Awards, Marvin Hamslich won Best Original Song honors for this tune, and was awarded Best Original Dramatic Score for his other musical work on the film. I always think of Lisa Loopner’s big crush on him.  

44. “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” - Stevie Wonder. First feature film usage was the 1998 Eddie Murphy flop Holy Man, which surprised me as it’s such a good song, you’d think it would have been in something earlier. Notable given Eddie’s impression of Stevie Wonder he performed on SNL! 

42. “Rock On” - David Essex. Michael Damian’s cover (or remix as described by Patton Oswalt) was recorded for the 1989 2 Coreys classic Dream a Little Dream, and per imdb, David Essex’s original appears in the alternate-history comedy Dick, from 1999. 

37. “Oh Very Young” - Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam. Surprisingly, this sweet song appears in the gross-out bowling comedy Kingpin. 

36. “Jungle Boogie” - Kool & the Gang. This song may have been used in the most films and tv shows of any I’ve researched so far, but its first appearance was in Pulp Fiction. 

34. “The Payback - Part 1” - James Brown. First feature film appearance was in 1995′s Dead Presidents. A different James Brown track appears on the soundtrack for racist-ass Melly Gibson’s Payback from 1999. 

33. “Help Me” - Joni Mitchell.  Another why’d-it-take-ya-so-long shocker, this mellow tune first appeared in the 2018 sci-fi movie Kin, narrowly beating Welcome to Marwen from 2019. 

31. “The Entertainer” - Marvin Hamlisch. The title theme from the Redford/Newman team-up The Sting. Hamlisch won a record-tying third Academy Award in 1974 for Best Original Score for The Sting.  It seems at this time Best Original Score and Best Original Dramatic Score were separate categories. Hamlisch would win Grammys for both this and “The Way We Were,” eventually becoming an EGOT winner in 1995.

30. “Eres Tú” - Mocedades. This Spanish Eurovision entry notably appears in the buddy comedy Tommy Boy when Chris Farley and David Spade’s characters sing along with the radio. 

28. “Midnight at the Oasis” - Maria Muldaur. Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard perform their own rendition in the Christopher Guest film Waiting for Guffman. That should be all you need, but imdb has the first film appearance for the song as 1995′s Falcon and the Snowman. 

24. “Let it Ride” - Bachman-Turner Overdrive. This lesser-known but not less great BTO jam has appeared in a handful of films, the first being Ash Wednesday, starring Elijah Wood and directed by Edward Burns and not Garry Marshall. Note: it does not seem to be in the Richard Dreyfuss gambling movie Let It Ride, a classic VHS cover of my youth. 

18. “Mockingbird” - James Taylor and Carly Simon. Memorably performed by Harry and Lloyd in the dog van in Dumb and Dumber, later joined by a Latinx family on guitar and vocals.  Before that, Beverly D’Angelo and Chevy Chase’s characters also sang it on their road trip in National Lampoon’s Vacation. I couldn’t find an instance where James and Carly’s version played in a movie but I am sayin’ there’s a chance. That it could be someday. 

16. “Tubular Bells” - Mike Oldfield. This instrumental is best known for being the theme to The Exorcist, but I was surprised to learn from the Wiki entry that it was not written for the film. Tubular Bells or something that’s meant to sound like it has been in a ton of other things, generally uncredited. Of note: Mike Oldfield would go on to do the score for The Killing Fields. 

14. “Seasons in the Sun” - Terry Jacks. Now here is the type of song that ‘70s haters point to as an example of the whiny wuss rock that they feel over-dominated the era. It’s not one of my favorites but I appreciate it for how weird it is. I suppose being translated into English from a French/Belgian poem will do that to ya. Before I did my search, I imagined I would find it in a Farrelly Brothers movie or two, possibly the Anchorman sequel. However, the only feature film match I found was the 2002 indie flick Cherish, a movie I have never seen despite being confronted by the cover many times at rental places over the years. Before today, when I watched the trailer, I would have told you it starred Jennifer Love Hewitt and was about “a band trying to make it.” It turns out I am thinking of the 1999 film The Suburbans. Anyway Cherish seems aggressively indie and very of-its-time in a way that makes me want to watch it. 

13. “Dancing Machine” - The Jackson 5. The song appears in the Blaxploitation spoof I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, as well as the movie of Starsky & Hutch.

11. “Lookin’ For A Love” - Bobby Womack. This was in the movie of The Ladies Man starring Tim Meadows as his SNL character Leon Phelps. I almost skipped this one but I’m glad I didn’t because Tim Meadows rules.

8. “The Loco-Motion” - Grand Funk Railroad (the single and album it was on are credited to Grand Funk). We have our second song from the Kirsten Dunst/Michelle Williams movie Dick. Since that was satirizing Nixon and Watergate, well done to the filmmakers for including these 1974 hits!  It appeared in one earlier film, My Girl 2. 

5. “Come and Get Your Love” - Redbone. Known to modern listeners for appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy. [Sidebar: if you can find a way to listen to the With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus episode T.G.I.G.O.T.G.OST (Thank God It’s the Guardians of the Galaxy Original Soundtrack) with Sean Clements and Hayes Davenport, do it!] The song first appeared in Dance Me Outside, a Canadian film about First Nations youth, which is a cool parallel with Redbone being composed of Native American musicians. “Come and Get Your Love” is also in Dick! 

4. “Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me” - Gladys Knight & the Pips. Another SNL feature pops up on our list, 1994′s It’s Pat: The Movie. 

3. “Hooked on a Feeling” - Blue Swede. ALSO known to modern listeners as being from the GOTG, but possibly only in the trailer? I’m fuzzy. The song ALSO also appears in Dick, and its first feature film appearance was Reservoir Dogs. 

2. “Bennie and the Jets” - Elton John. You know it, you love it, you cackle at the gag in Mystery Team. IMDb has this song down as first appearing in the low budget feature Aloha, Bobby and Rose, from 1975. It is ALSO in My Girl 2, with proper credit for Sir Elton. 

1. “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” - MFSB featuring The Three Degrees. IMDb says this appeared in the Al Pacino film Carlito’s Way, and I have no reason to doubt them because it means we are done! Thanks for readin’ and rockin’ along. 

#AT40 #1970s music #movie soundtrack #Billboard hot 100

[yeonchi]

Sasha Fokin (Crazy Ukranian Kid) - Behind the Meme

The language barrier is such a wonderful thing. Without the ability to understand the context behind something, we can react to it any way we want. As such, people are so easy to judge others.

The three-minute video above is usually the only thing that Westerners know about Sasha (because this is usually the only bit that gets used in memes and as such, is the only bit that gets translated). Sasha’s story is a two-parter that premiered in December 2011 with a lot of golden meme material left untapped. I know because I bothered to watch the videos and I used a bit of extra material in my own parodies, which I did in high school.

This show is a Ukranian adaptation of the BBC show Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, which was broadcast from 2005 to 2007. The show’s name in Ukranian is Кохана, ми вбиваємо дітей (Kokhana, my vbyvayemo ditey) and amazingly, it was broadcast on STB from 2011 to 2017. I mean, is it really surprising for a channel that has been known for reality TV?

I must warn you, I am only able to recap Sasha’s story (in the two-parter) from what I can see. The show was broadcast in Ukranian, but YouTube’s auto-transcription system assumes that it’s Russian, so the English translation I get is not very good. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Context

11-year-old Sasha lives with his mother Elena and 5-year-old little brother Oleksiy. Elena is a single OL, so presumably Sasha and Oleksiy are left at home. Sasha is addicted to computer games and television. He is known to play violent and gory video games. We see him laughing at a violent cartoon. There was a line where he said something that translated to “swears, blood and tits”. He and his brother are known to fight each other and they don’t eat healthily. His grandmother can’t control him and he refuses to do his homework.

The brothers are taken to do some tests to analyse their current condition. Elena meets with the host, Dmytro Karpachov, who shows them simulated images of what Sasha and Oleksiy would probably look like in their current situation when they turn 40. Sasha kind of looks like Sal from Futurama while Oleksiy reminds me of Brad Garrett (who played Robert in Everybody Loves Raymond). The life expectancy of Ukranian men at the time was 62; it was predicted that Sasha and Oleksiy’s life expectancies would be 59 and 57 respectively. Dmytro gives the family a few rules to live by for the week, which include limiting their screen time and only playing non-violent games, a change in diet and giving the brothers their own spaces.

Next, we see the family implementing their new rules for the first week. The brothers don’t want to eat the healthy food and Sasha begins playing his violent games again. We then come to the first half of the meme video, up to the point where Sasha goes into the kitchen and starts whacking some papers on the chair. What you didn’t see after that was that Elena came into the kitchen and Sasha attempts to attack her with anything he could find. She lectures him for a long time and Sasha is finally convinced to do his homework.

The next day, Sasha and Oleksiy are taken to a karate class in the hope that they can get some exercise. Interestingly, he gets interviewed during the class while the other kids stand in a line behind him. We then see them back at home practising their karate moves. Elena prepares a healthy dinner and both Sasha and Oleksiy are willing to eat it. They have the bedroom renovated and they get the kids involved.

On the third day, the kids are taken to a speech therapist. Upon getting home, Sasha is on the computer again and in getting him to do his homework, there is a verbal altercation between him and Elena. Elena has someone come in to create a new user account for Sasha so she can limit his use of the computer. This leads us to the second half of the meme video. Sasha goes on the computer and is led to use the new account that was made for him. He discovers that he can’t access his games or the internet. There’s the bit from the video where he makes a creepy smile and says “I will install all the games”. The ensuing argument is skipped in the meme video, up to when Elena gets Sasha to turn off the computer and she throws the keyboard away when she can’t. We then have the scene where Sasha starts crying and screaming at his mother. That’s when the meme video usually ends, but what happens after that is absolute meme gold. Elena and Sasha start fighting again, at which point the former gets psychologist Igor Artemyeva (he’s not the father) to restrain him (I interpreted it as a rape scene in my parody). This ends Part 1.

Part 2 starts with Elena seeing Dmytro to discuss their progress. He implements three new rules on top of the previous three; “it’s time to grow up”, meaning that they should start living a more adult-conscious life, “get to know the world”, which I might have mistranslated because of auto-translate, but he arranges for them to visit an animation studio, and also for Elena to “care for [herself] more”. Yeah, I kind of borked there. I’m starting the days again.

During what seems to be the second week, Elena goes for a snorkelling session at the pool while Sasha goes to buy food and make dinner. The next day, they go to visit the animation studio, where they make a clay stop-motion cartoon. Knowing Sasha, there is a violent nature to it, but it’s as violent as Dynasty Warriors is “violent”.

Later, Sasha helps plan his birthday party and we see his friends during the party. It’s unclear to me what happens after that, but from what I can make out, we see him bending the rules at home, making food in the kitchen, going to school, coming back from school, has a friend come over, then his grandma comes over and they have what seems to be a little argument about homework or something.

At the end of the week, they see Dmytro again and he implements three more new rules for the next week; “fight against aggression”, “help and respect your elders” and “win against the computer” or something like that, I dunno, there was a finish flag there.

During the next week, the family goes go-carting. While Elena is at work, Sasha learns how to take care of the house and do his homework. He also learns to build a canvas wardrobe. Sasha and Oleksiy start fighting again and there’s another interpreted rape scene where Sasha unzips his pants (but not his underwear) and pretends to pee on Oleksiy. After comforting Oleksiy (this kid, I swear), Elena makes a life-size punching doll for them to punch and hit all they want.

This is where things start to go back to where they were. After some days, Sasha somehow goes back on the computer again. His grandmother comes in and confronts him and there’s this bit where during an altercation, Sasha pushes her away and goes back on the computer.

During Elena’s final meeting with Dmytro, she did not seem positive about the changes. The simulation of Oleksiy at 40 shows a marked improvement over the initial simulation, but Sasha didn’t seem to change much. Dmytro states to Elena that there were rules she didn’t fully implement and some generally ignored. Later on, Dmytro goes to visit the family at their home. He finds Sasha still at the computer and in trying to speak to him, he gets sworn at.

This ends Part 2. There was also a set of behind-the-scenes footage that wasn’t in the episode, but is pretty memetic. Once again, a lot of things have gotten lost in translation, but I managed to get the gist of it. If anyone wants to correct me on something or enlighten me on the full details of what happened, feel free to contact me.

Sasha revisited

In 2015, Sasha, Oleksiy and Elena are interviewed in a special episode of the show filmed in front of a studio audience. I remember downloading the raw footage of it from VK and using the Sasha portion of it for another parody. It was nearly 30 minutes long and I had to fill it with random dialogue. I deleted the raw footage afterwards, but this YouTuber did a reaction video on that, which you can find here. And finally, you can see Sasha in glorious widescreen. In that 2015 interview, footage from this video was shown of him at school seemingly fighting a couple of others.

Around 2017, Sasha started posting on YouTube. For those of you who were wondering, 2017 Sasha looked about the same as 2015 Sasha, so this image is fake news. He’s basically a fucking gopnik now. He did a few crazy videos, but he also did a few videos talking about his time on the show as well. A couple of these “crazy” videos include this one, which seems to be some kind of debate between beer and cider that quickly turns violent, and this one, which seems to be an attempt at gopnik rap (fuck you, there’s no hardbass in this). He also did this reenactment of some key moments from the two episodes. He also had an Instagram account, but it seems to have been deleted.

This is one of the videos in which he shares his feelings about his time on the show. Gathering from this video and some other articles, I deduced that he was bullied by everyone at school after they heard about his family’s problems and was forced to change schools as a result. He also states that he doesn’t know how to act around girls, but I think that’s a separate thing considering there are other people with this problem. In this video, he mentions an incident where he shat himself in class because his tea was laced with laxatives.

Presently, he doesn’t keep up a regular social media appearance. Most of his interactions are isolated to VK, so I have no idea about it.

My thoughts

A lot of people know about Christian Weston Chandler’s life and how he is a “victim” of the trolling he received because he divulges lots of details and/or the trolling is very well-documented. Many people might have a one-sided view of him, that is, you hate him or you feel sorry for him, but there are some who have mixed feelings because of all the factors in his life that made him the way he is. CWC is different from Sasha in that even if you got both sides of the story for the former, you’d still hate him for a variety of reasons.

While there are not a lot of details on the internet (in English) about Sasha, I’d have to be one of the few people who actually feel somewhat sorry for him, after having learnt about what happened after his appearance on the show. Reality TV becomes the talk of the town and if Sasha or Minami-chan (from Japanese Kitchen Nightmares) are anything to go by, it’s that certain people, who the show seemingly fails because they don’t want to be helped themselves, are mocked quite frequently. These two have changed with time, so maybe people should be more forgiving when they see the “where are they now” stuff about them.

At the time when I made the Sasha parodies, I was under the impression that Elena was just a strict mother who was trying to get Sasha off the computer. However, some years and a lot of thinking later, I learnt that Elena was a shitty mother overall. In the end, while she got Oleksiy to eat his vegetables, she couldn’t get Sasha to control his time on the computer or respect his elders. I have mixed feelings for the older Sasha, though; there were photos and videos of him smoking, drinking and being a gopnik, but in other photos and videos, he seemed more mature.

I tried to understand Sasha’s situation as best as I could so I could make this post, but as I said, there are still things that are lost in translation and I might not understand him as well as I might think. I think the bottom line for us Westerners is, given that the meme is practically dead, that Elena was a shitty parent during the program and Sasha was bullied because of it and his actions, but he eventually became mature, even if he did have that gopnik phase. And I swear, sooner or later, I’ll have someone tell me, “Stop saying ‘gopnik’, it’s derogatory to us Slav’s!”

#crazy ukranian kid #sasha fokin

[anonymoustoddler]

I got stoned and found out some things and started writing a facebook post. And then... it turned into whatever the hell this is:

I went to NYU from 2005-2009.

Ilana Glazer.. apparently went to NYU from 2005-2009.

We graduated at the same time.

ALSO, I thought Rachel Bloom was older but NO, she was there too. And everyone seems to know her except for me.

She didn’t even go to Tisch, or study acting or writing or.. any of it. Rachel did. But all three of us sat in Yankee Stadium at the same time and listened to Hillary Clinton give our graduation speech. We had all the same opportunities and general access, the same potential for experience, exposure, connections, and a career.

And now they are there.

And my BFA’d ass is... right here.

It’s just really strange to think about that. Maybe if I had somehow done things quite differently, I’d be there instead.

Probably not, to be honest. I know I’ve never had whatever that thing is that makes certain people magnetic. I’ve never been the one to stand out in adulthood. I think, in fact, that many people find me rather dull compared to the shine of others in this field. But maybe... maybe if I’d really worked for it, for real. Maybe if I could have put everything into the work instead of most of it into all the wrong places with just a shaving of energy and effort and commitment left over.

But also. Something happened to me, back then. When I left Northview and Grand Rapids and Michigan to head for New York, I believed in my talent. I believed in myself in that way, if not much else. I knew I could do it, and do it well.

A lot of people seem to come into themselves in college. Find themselves, find their people, their passions and strengths, their future. But I think I had the opposite experience altogether. From my very first day in New York, I felt Weird. Different. Loser. Less than. Behind. Misunderstood. Shamed. Overlooked. Ignored. Doubtful. Anxious. Depressed. Afraid. Embarrassed. Hidden. Invisible.

It was a slow motion dissent into the earlier stages of where I am now. But nobody noticed. No one saw an eating disorder or depression or tremendous anxiety. No one saw severe mood instability, executive dysfunction, a strained and codependent and complicated two person family relationship. No one saw the things going on and attributed them to “She’s not ok.” It was always, “She’s immature. She’s selfish and lazy. She doesn’t WANT to grow up, so she’s keeping herself in states of dependency so she never has to try.” “She just doesn’t want any of it badly enough. If she did, she’d be doing the work to get it.”

I wonder, sometimes. If I hadn’t been sick and scared and alone, with only so much understanding at the time of what was happening to me and no understanding of what I was preparing to become; if I had real and proper help from any doctor or professor or from my mom - because I did not understand the severity of my need for help back then, and I thought my family doctor, a PA who actually really fucked up my life multiple times with her loose prescription pad and severe lack of knowledge of what she was doing, had me covered - what might I have accomplished instead of spending most of my free time in bed, balancing a part time job but barely able to take on anything else. 30 hours a week in retail plus commuting was literally everything I had in me WHEN I WAS AT MY BEST IN LIFE. When I was the closest I ever got to being a rack rate size, when I was still able to prioritize limited money spending, still eating both regularly and healthfully (as much so as I’ve ever been), still exercising simply by getting around, sleeping ok enough for the most part and generally on a more normalized schedule. I mean — I got up at 6 to be at work at 8 OFTEN. It was excruciating sometimes, but other times it was fun to get up and get ready for work. I had routines. I loved getting off the train at my SoHo stop and, depending on which line I took and how much time I had, getting my coffee at Starbucks or at Aroma, so overpriced but an entirely different experience and worth the convenience and sometimes a pastry to go along.

I’ve gotten quite entirely away from myself, but.. I was doing the best I’ve ever done or maybe will ever do. And I still could not work to pay my bills and also take voice and tap and jazz and scene study and exclusive workshops and networking events and open calls and appointment auditions and keeping up with theater and film and the business and and and.

I went to a handful of auditions in 2013 and 2014 - My Only Almost Good Years. Things were actually pretty horrible for the majority of them but it was also mostly the closest I ever got to Good in the beginning.

Regardless, I subscribed to Actors Access and I got the only real headshots I ever had taken and I submitted and submitted and submitted (not nearly as regularly or often as I should have, because I was still too scared then. I still gave a shit.) and I very occasionally got an audition. I submitted for a commercial call Under 18 girls skin care. I got called in. When the CD saw me, she told me they were only considering minors, but she wanted to keep my headshot and info anyway. I never heard from her again.

I got a call for a short film once (or was it a web series? Who knows) and even got a callback. But no part.

I did one show in those two years. Technically I guess one could argue two if you count the weird little Christmas play I did for no money right after I moved at the end of 2012, but. Aside from that... one casting. One.

In New Jersey. No pay - travel stipend included.

I was 24 years old playing a 12 year old in an aged down musical version of Three Sisters set in 1970s New Jersey. “We have to get back to Mosc- New York City!” But with generic numbers telling most of what little story there was.

And then I took an acting class, I fell and injured myself, my body wasn’t ever the same after that, and by the time my shoulder was as normal as it would ever be again, my brain was really starting to crack. I was depressed and anxious. I hated living in Brooklyn, I hated having no friends after so briefly being close with Jenn. I hated my roommate, the only man I had ever lived with before George. And no wonder. He was one of the worst people I’ve ever met, I think. The worst kind of fucked up Entitled Vaguely Wealthy White Male. He enjoyed making me upset, making me feel unsafe. He listened to me express my issues with things he did and instead of even pretending to care about living harmoniously, he laughed in my face and used every chance he could get to fuck with me for the kick of it. He was rude and weird and cold and cruel and cocky and prideful and hateful and gross and mean. He was selfish and thoughtless and manipulative. I knew he felt wrong from the moment I met him. I knew. But our third roommate was chill and relaxed and flexible, she seemed to get along with both of us enough so I thought she could and would act as a buffer if it ever came to that. I knew but I loved the apartment, and he found it and I didn’t have any friends to grab it out from under him with. I knew he was a bad guy and someone I might well have real trouble with and discomfort around, but Jenn had gone silent and enemy for reasons and in ways I will never, ever understand. One day she was my friend, and the next she was putting locks on her doors and saying I should really move out of HER apartment as soon as possible. She stopped speaking to me. She passive aggressively left disgusting messes all over the apartment. She locked the living room television in her bedroom and told some version of events in which I was the bad guy somehow to friends who we both went to school with, people I knew and liked. They in turn randomly met my coworkers and proceeded to say horrible things about me, and the only reason I even know is because one of them told me about it in the break room the next time I worked.

I knew Nick was a terrible risk in multiple ways. But I had to get out of the apartment because at the time I didn’t think it could be worse than living with Jenn, and Dan was a third who I thought would be in my corner, and the apartment was so much nicer than most of the places I had lived. I thought I could make it work. I thought that move was going to save me.

By the time my headshots were taken, I was beginning to lose feeling in my legs. I was struggling to keep treading water and starting to drown. I never got the free retouching because I never chose my final shots. I never chose because I barely submitted for auditions. I was doing on partial leave from work and doing as much physical therapy as I could afford to copays for, I was taking percocet for months and months because the pain wouldn’t go away. Something’s Wrong, I said. The Scans Look Normal, Try Taking Ibuprofen. I was home and hiding in bed more and more often. I extended my work leave and gave shifts away as much as I could. I went to therapy and a middle aged white woman with long beaded necklaces and a New Age Buddhism vibe in a shoebox office on the Upper East Side was getting tired of me and my lack of progress and consistent last minute cancellation of appointments. I went back to work and had panic attacks that kept me sobbing uncontrollably for over an hour, so many shifts spent partially alone sitting in a little room in the basement back of house, steam pumps taking up much of the space and nothing else there aside from a single office chair and a little grey table. I spent my entire hour lunch chain smoking on a stoop down the street. I smoked cigarette after cigarette, compulsively and even when I did NOT want any more. I talked more loudly and often about how bad things were, about my disorder and anxiety and depression and people liked me less and I was alone at work more. New people came on and old people left and new cliques formed and I had no friends. Work was torture and home was terrifying. I got through the summer by getting stoned on the roof so I wouldn’t have to be in the apartment in case he was home. But then one day my door knob broke and I was so terrified he would go into my room and take or break or mess with my things and the fear and panic were so real and so severe that I missed my best friend’s baby shower because I couldn’t find a locksmith on a Sunday and I couldn’t leave my room until I fixed my door knob. She was angry with me for a long time after that. We never saw each other before I moved back to Michigan. I don’t even know when we last saw each other anymore.

I could keep telling this story for hours, days. Tell every piece as I remember it straight on through 2014 and into 2015 and cancer and treatment and 2016 and George and more cancer and the worst possible conditions for a new relationship and relapse and the beginning of my current inability to function because everything was depression and exhaustion and loneliness. And on and on through five more moves and break up and emergency surgery and being thrown into the drivers seat and struggling with my mom’s health changes and selling my home and leaving everything I had for something new that was just more versions of bad. The scariest loneliest months of my life. And then the even scarier even lonelier ones after she died.

But just... just think of all that. And what if most of it had never happened?? If I’d gotten proper help a decade ago, who would I be now? Where?

Maybe I’d be there. With them.

Instead of here, alone, with nothing but memories of other times when I was also sad and life felt pointless.

I wonder what it would have been like to be there instead. I wish I knew.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

Ratner, Simmons face new allegations of misconduct Powerful Hollywood friends shared party lifestyle FILMMAKER Brett Ratner, right, with Russell Simmons in 2013. The pair met in 1987, and Ratner became the Def Jam Recording mogul’s protege. (Kevin Mazur VF13 WireImage) By Amy Kaufman, Daniel Miller and Victoria Kim Keri Claussen Khalighi was a 17-year-old fashion model from a farm town in Nebraska when she met Brett Ratner and Russell Simmons at a casting call. Ratner was an up-and-coming music video director and a protege of Simmons, the Def Jam Recordings mogul. They took Khalighi to dinner one night in 1991 at Mr. Chow in New York, and then back to Simmons’ apartment to show her a music video they’d been working on. Quickly, Simmons began making aggressive sexual advances, yanking off her clothes, Khalighi said. “I looked over at Brett and said ‘Help me’ and I’ll never forget the look on his face,” she recalled. “In that moment, the realization fell on me that they were in it together.” Khalighi said that Simmons, who was then about twice her age, tried to force her to have intercourse. “I fought it wildly,” she said. He eventually relented and coerced her to perform oral sex, she alleged. “I guess I just acquiesced.” Ratner, meanwhile, “just sat there and watched,” she said. Feeling “disgusting,” Khalighi said, she went to take a shower. Minutes later, she alleged, Simmons walked up behind her in the shower and briefly penetrated her without her consent. She said she jerked away, then he left. “It hurt so much.” In a statement, Simmons, 60, strongly disputed her account. “Everything that occurred between Keri and me occurred with her full consent and participation,” he said. Much of the two days and one night he spent with her, he said, was with other people, or in public. Ratner had “no recollection” of Khalighi asking him for help and denied witnessing her “protest,” his attorney Martin Singer said. Ratner has also disputed the accounts of four other women who accused him of sexual misconduct in this article and a previous report by The Times that included the claims of six others, among them actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge. Since that Nov. 1 report, which detailed allegations of harassment, groping and forced oral sex, additional women contacted The Times about Ratner, who has directed, produced or financed successful films including “Rush Hour,” “The Revenant” and “Horrible Bosses.” In several of the accounts, the women said that Ratner, 48, surrounded himself with powerful friends, including Simmons and filmmaker James Toback, who, while sharing Ratner’s playboy lifestyle, have also been accused of engaging in sexual misconduct. Those friendships, some women said, enabled inappropriate behavior within the group, sometimes by active participation and in other cases by simply providing venues for incidents to take place. These men and other older, controversial Hollywood friends — including producer Robert Evans and filmmaker Roman Polanski — have served as father figures to Ratner, who had a distant relationship with his late dad. Evans, the former Paramount Pictures production chief who was convicted of trafficking cocaine, explained his relationship with Ratner in a 2007 Vanity Fair story: “I was his Hollywood father. I don’t know whether I should be proud of that or not.” ‘Mutual admiration’ for women Simmons, who co-founded Def Jam, has often described how Ratner first curried favor by furnishing him with models after they met in 1987. Then an undergraduate studying film at New York University, Ratner seemed to know where the models lived in Manhattan, Simmons has said. “He was willing to do anything to be of use,” Simmons wrote in his book “Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success,” published in 2007. “After he hung around a bit and figured out that I liked models, then he made it his business to take me to every model’s apartment he could find.” Ratner, who has said his father abused drugs and became homeless, found in Simmons a willing surrogate. “He’s my son, all right,” Simmons told Vanity Fair. Ratner’s introduction to a 2005 book about the rise of Def Jam acknowledged that their relationship was “initially based on our mutual admiration for beautiful women.” The men would go clubbing in Simmons’ Cadillac limo, partying all night and into the next day. At the time, Simmons was a power player in New York who helped turn hip-hop into a mainstream business and cultural force with the release of records by Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J. Simmons also has founded clothing labels including Phat Farm — once a staple of the hip-hop scene — and created HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam,” which has launched the careers of many black standups. Admiration — and success — were not the only things Ratner and Simmons allegedly shared. In a 2005 Playboy article about Simmons’ reformed ways, magazine writer Touré described a 1994 incident in which he met Simmons for an interview at a cafe below the music mogul’s apartment. When Ratner showed up, Simmons disappeared for half an hour without explanation. Touré wrote that he later learned that Simmons “had gone up to his place and had sex with a sumptuous model whom Ratner had just finished with.” The pair’s conduct together has also been scrutinized by authorities. In 2001, a woman told Beverly Hills police that she was held against her will at Ratner’s mansion, Hilhaven Lodge, “by two males who both unlawfully touched her,” Lt. Elisabeth Albanese told The Times this month. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to file criminal charges against Ratner and Simmons due to insufficient evidence. Harland Braun, Ratner’s attorney for criminal matters, said that the allegation “was a minor thing” and that the accuser had made similar claims against others. In a statement to Variety, which first reported the investigation, Simmons said that public figures such as himself are “vulnerable and susceptible to claims that are untrue.” In 1994, an aspiring young model said she crossed paths with the duo at a hotel in South Beach. Tanya Reid had moved to Miami hoping to become a model. She’d dreamed of it since she was 14, taking modeling classes and entering regional modeling competitions in Caledonia, Miss., a small town of less than 1,000. When she met Ratner, who was staying at the hotel where she worked the front desk, he was filming a music video featuring a coterie of beautiful models. Simmons was also staying at the hotel, and, Reid said, the two men repeatedly called the front desk asking to speak to her. Simmons asked her to personally bring a toothbrush to him, but she deflected, saying a bellman would handle it. “I remember this very, very clearly, the exact words he said on the phone. He wanted me to come upstairs so Brett could hold me down and he could [perform oral sex],” Reid said. One day, Ratner invited her up to his hotel room as she was leaving work. Spread out on his bed were photographs of models appearing in his video. Ratner asked if she wanted to be one of them, Reid recalled. She gave him her phone number. A couple of days later, he stopped by her apartment, a few blocks from the hotel. Not long after they sat down on her living room sofa, he exposed himself, put her hand on his crotch and asked for oral sex, she said. Reid, who was an 18-year-old virgin, said she asked if they could just kiss. He then allegedly used his hand to push her head to his groin. Eventually, she said she gave in. Ratner left immediately after, and she never heard from him again. Ratner, through attorney Singer, said he did not recall Reid or the alleged incident. Simmons said in a statement, “I mean no disrespect to her when I say I do not recall a conversation with a hotel front desk clerk over a quarter of a century ago.” Reid’s roommate in Miami confirmed that Reid told her at the time about inappropriate behavior by Ratner. Tara Garrett, her childhood best friend, said Reid told her, “I’m better off being at home.… You just don’t understand that world.” A couple of weeks after the alleged incident, Reid packed up and moved back to Caledonia, giving up on her dream of becoming a model. ‘Private playground’ Ratner has long sought to cloak himself in the mystique of Hollywood’s golden age. His circle of friends and his home, Hilhaven Lodge, have been a big part of his self-styled reputation as a playboy. The Beverly Hills estate, situated on a large, leafy lot off Benedict Canyon Drive near Sunset Boulevard, was previously home to “Casablanca” star Ingrid Bergman, “Vertigo” actress Kim Novak and later “Grease” producer Alan Carr, who installed a disco. Ratner’s 2003 book, “Hilhaven Lodge: The Photo Booth Pictures,” features images of stars such as Britney Spears, Robert Downey Jr., Heidi Klum and Colin Farrell taken in a booth at the house. He also branded a Hilhaven Lodge whiskey with a label that reads: “The lodge quickly became the private playground for those who live in the spotlight, a haven where they could be themselves.” And for years, it has been just that. In January, Toback, the director who was accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by more than 300 women during a Times investigation, called it his “second home.” Brittny McCarthy said she was approached by Toback at a Santa Monica bookstore in 2008. He told her she had a good look for a part in one of his upcoming films. McCarthy, then 30, said Toback “name-dropped Ratner from the very beginning of our conversation,” suggesting that they go to Ratner’s house to screen a documentary Toback had recently directed. When they arrived at Hilhaven Lodge, McCarthy said she did not see Ratner or any other people. Toback brought McCarthy into a bedroom where he asked her to show him how she masturbated, she alleged. “I was afraid that if I didn’t do what he said, it would get worse,” she said. “I felt frozen.” Afterward, she said, he humped her leg until he ejaculated. “It is so terrible what these men have done — and to not be held accountable for it,” said McCarthy, who recently filed two police reports about the run-in, including one with the Beverly Hills Police Department. “… There is a lot of enabling that happens.” When asked about the allegations, Toback hung up without comment. Ratner “denies knowledge of Mr. Toback ever engaging in any inappropriate behavior at Hilhaven,” Singer said. Singer said the claim that Hilhaven Lodge was a venue for alleged inappropriate behavior involving Toback or others “does not square with the fact that there are regularly many other people around to whom someone could voice a complaint if something objectionable was allegedly taking place.” ‘Just touch it’ In other cases, Ratner did his own entertaining — separate from his friends. Jaymee Ong, a model and actress who became acquainted with Ratner in 2001, said she was invited to a Halloween party at Hilhaven Lodge but when she arrived with two friends, there were no other revelers. “[Ratner] said, ‘Oh, I just thought we could chill,’” recalled Ong, whose credits include the TV shows “Entourage” and “Las Vegas.” Ratner asked her to come to his bedroom. Once there, she said, he locked the door and began groping her. “I was saying, ‘No, stop, I don’t want to,’” she said. “And he took his pants off and he was trying to grab my hand and put it on him [saying], ‘Just touch it, just touch it, come on.’” When Ong, then 21, refused, he masturbated and then ejaculated, she alleged. She said she left and immediately recounted the experience to her friends. “I will just never forget the look on her face when she walked out of that bedroom,” said Gina Angel, who was with Ong at Hilhaven Lodge that night. “It gives me chills to think back to that moment, because we were all so young.” Singer acknowledged that Ratner and Ong were “very friendly around that time period,” but denied Ong’s claims. He said that Ratner recalled Ong flirting with him and asking to be in one of his films. The actress Mei Melancon, Singer said, was also at Hilhaven Lodge with Ong in 2001 and witnessed no misconduct. Melancon said Ratner and Ong were never alone together, but witnessed Ong “all over” the filmmaker, according to Singer. “I never, never, never have done that because I always wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror,” Ong said, denying that she flirted with Ratner or asked to be cast by him. In cultivating Hilhaven, Ratner was emulating Evans, the former Paramount executive, who had transformed his own Beverly Hills mansion, Woodland, into a party pad. Ratner lived there in the 2000s while Hilhaven was being remodeled. Former marketing executive Melanie Kohler said in a Facebook post in October that Ratner raped her at Evans’ home (she told The Times she did not see Evans during the alleged encounter in the 2000s). After Kohler made these allegations, Ratner sued her for defamation; in subsequent interviews, Kohler has stood by her account. As recently as January, Ratner named Evans as among his “closest friends,” but when reached for comment, Evans’ attorney said: “Mr. Evans has not interacted with Mr. Ratner for almost a decade — I think that speaks for itself.” Singer said Ratner considered Evans a mentor, although “they have not been close” since Ratner lived at Evans’ home from 2003 to 2005. Alleged on-set encounters The new allegations against Ratner also include claims of harassment in show business settings. In 2004, producer Shelly Clippard, then 29, flew to Prague, Czech Republic, with Ratner and others to tour a production facility that was offering promising tax incentives. She said Ratner traded seats to sit next to her for the transatlantic flight, and began making sexually explicit comments to her, showing her nude photographs of his famous then-girlfriend and graphically describing her body. Clippard said she was so disturbed by the encounter that upon returning from Europe she shared details of the incident with a friend, who confirmed that conversation with The Times. (Two other women who talked to The Times described being shown nude photos of the same woman by Ratner.) Singer said Ratner “has no recollection” of the alleged run-in with Clippard and “absolutely denies” showing her photos of his former girlfriend. “No such photos exist,” Singer said. On the set of “Rush Hour 3,” Sarah Shahi, 37, said that on multiple occasions, Ratner approached her from behind, thrust his groin against her and made graphic sexual comments. Fearful of looking like “one of Brett’s girls,” Shahi said, she did her best to shun his advances. “Each time, I’d get really loud and say, ‘Why are your hands on me? Don’t you need to go set up a shot?’” said Shahi, who was then in her 20s. Shahi told casting director Michelle Lewitt Kehl about the experience shortly after it occurred, which Kehl confirmed. Shahi said the encounters were also witnessed by other actors, including star Jackie Chan, who did not respond to requests for comment. Despite the run-ins, Shahi stayed in touch with Ratner. She emailed him, sometimes to just say hello in flirtatious messages, and in other cases to ask for favors, such as when she solicited his vote for Maxim magazine’s “Hot 100” list. In 2011, she asked Ratner to give her sister, who had interned for the filmmaker, a job as an assistant. Shahi, who has starred in the TV shows “Life” and “Person of Interest,” said that she kept in touch for business reasons, and did so without knowing of his alleged misconduct with other women. Now, she wonders if she did the right thing. “I was trying to be a smart businesswoman by keeping the lines of [communication open],” she said. “I played the Hollywood game like every other actress.” Ratner, through his attorney Singer, “vehemently denied” Shahi’s claims, noting their ongoing contact and providing copies of emails referring to him as a “cutie pie” and signing off with hugs and kisses. “These overwhelming contradictions make the claims inherently improbable,” Singer wrote. Ratner has now denied the allegations of several women. Since The Times’ Nov. 1 story first detailed Ratner’s alleged misconduct, Warner Bros. has severed ties with the filmmaker, opting to not renew a production deal with his company, RatPac Entertainment. He has also lost his office on the studio’s Burbank lot. ‘Time for the truth’ Now 43, Khalighi said her memories of her encounter with Ratner and Simmons remain vivid — even as she has worked hard to move past the incident. A year ago, she said, she saw Simmons at the Soho House in West Hollywood, where he approached her, “poured his heart out in a really touching, remorseful apology” for his behavior and offered his telephone number — saying she should call him if she wanted to talk further. “He knew what he had done; I knew what he had done,” she said. “That’s also why it was so vindicating, because it was there, acknowledged.” That apology, Simmons’ attorney Brad D. Rose said, was in the “context for the embarrassment and upheaval the weekend caused her” related to her “infidelity.” (Khalighi disputes the account.) “In fact, they also shared a meaningful healing hug,” Rose said. In recent years, Simmons has publicly spoken of his personal reformation through yoga and meditation. Formerly a man “constantly on a mission to make more money, have sex with more women, and snort more coke than the next man,” he has found peace, Simmons wrote in his 2014 book, “Success Through Stillness.” He wrote, though, that he was “still working on the women part.” Highlighting his own social activism and support for the #MeToo sexual harassment campaign, Simmons said in a statement to The Times that Khalighi’s claim “does a disservice to those who have been true victims of sexual harassment.” “Let me be crystal clear and very direct. Abusing women in any way shape or form violates the very core of my being,” he said. Khalighi said she has told at least three people about her 1991 encounter with Ratner and Simmons: a friend in the modeling industry shortly after the incident, model Claudia Mason and another friend several years ago when she was declining an invitation to an event one of the men would be attending. All three corroborated Khalighi’s account to The Times. “It came up when we were discussing abuse of power from men who were in powerful positions,” Mason said. “I had heard stories about these two men — who I happen to know — but had not had any of this done to me. I was horrified, because she’s a good, dear person.” Simmons’ attorney provided a signed statement from Simmons’ former assistant, Anthony “Mac” McNair, who said he saw Khalighi go to Simmons’ bedroom “on her own volition and without any coercion or undue influence.” McNair said the group also went out to a nightclub later that evening. McNair said he saw Khalighi at Simmons’ house the next day — an assertion affirmed by Simmons — and did not notice “any visible signs of distress or that anything improper had occurred.” Simmons’ attorney provided two additional anonymous statements from people who said Khalighi showed no signs of distress during the weekend. Khalighi said she did not see anyone but Simmons or Ratner at Simmons’ home and did not recall being there the next day. The Times could not reach McNair for comment. Khalighi said she reached out to Simmons on the day The Times published a story about Ratner’s alleged misconduct, and told him she was considering publicly telling her story. She urged him to disclose his past behavior. He called her, she said, and they spoke for 27 minutes, according to phone records reviewed by The Times. Simmons, she said, did not deny any of her claims. Instead, he apologized, mentioning that he is now the father of two daughters, Khalighi said. After their initial call, he continued to text message her repeatedly, asking if they could speak again, according to a record of the exchange Khalighi showed to The Times. Khalighi said she responded to Simmons after reading about the 2001 police investigation to express displeasure over his statement referencing “untrue” claims. Simmons said in a text message that the woman who had filed the police report “has made a fortune on this racket,” adding: “I’m really in very scary space if u have time.” She did not answer, she said. Khalighi said she also discussed the 1991 run-in with Ratner when she saw him out one night in L.A. about 15 years ago. “He listened and he un-defensively acknowledged the truth of what had happened,” Khalighi recalled. “He said he was young and stupid and blinded by Russell’s sway over him.” Now, however, Ratner has said, via his attorney, that he never heard any “alleged protest” from her. Ratner also has “no recollection” of Khalighi discussing the matter with him 15 years ago, Singer said. “They are publicly denying these allegations, which implies that the women who come forward are liars,” said Khalighi, who is 38 weeks pregnant. “So I’m coming out because what I’ve experienced privately is not matching what they are saying publicly and hypocrisy to me is repugnant and it’s time for the truth to come out.” amy.kaufman @latimes.com [email protected] [email protected] Times staff writers Richard Winton and Glenn Whipp contributed to this report.

[artsvark]

Sell-out musical RENT comes to Johannesburg

After sell-out shows in Cape Town, the award-winning Rock Musical, RENT, is coming to Johannesburg in a vibrant 20th anniversary production at Joburg Theatre from 28 April – 07 May. The original rock musical, composed by Jonathan Larson in 1996, was a Pulitzer Prize and Tony-Award winning masterpiece that changed the landscape of musical theatre. Previously featuring well-known actors such as Neil Patrick Harris, Rosario Dawson and Taye Diggs in various Broadway adaptations, including the 2005 feature film, the show has enjoyed on-going success with diehard fans being dubbed ‘RENT-heads.’ Inspired by Puccini’s classic opera La bohème, RENT tackles issues of homelessness, homosexuality, drug addiction and HIV and Aids.

RENT 

Directed by Byron Bure Choreography by Shona Brabant

CAST LIST:

MARK COHEN (Played by Dean de Klerk- 21): A filmmaker. Left behind his affluent Jewish upbringing to pursue his craft. Narrator: would rather tell the story than be the story. Hides behind his camera.

ROGER DAVIS (Played by Nicky Rossouw ): Former frontman for a rock band. Discovers he has AIDS in a note his girlfriend left when she committed suicide. Tortured artist – brooding and aggressive with a gentle side. Recovering drug addict. Searches for meaning through his song writing.

TOM COLLINS (Played by Arlin Bantam- 21): Philosopher, professor and AIDS activist. Former roommate of Mark, Roger, and Benny. Angel’s lover. The patriarch. Strong, yet warm presence.

BENNY COFFIN III (Played by Matthew Kriel): Went to college with Mark. Lived with Roger, Collins, Maureen and Mark. Married into a wealthy family. Hopes to fulfil dream of building an arts studio for his friends, while making money for his father-in-law.

ANGEL SCHUNARD (Played by Anzio September- 23): Drag Queen. Living with AIDS. Warm, lovable, nurturing, and honest. The mother hen of the group.

MIMI MARQUEZ (Played by Nadine Suliaman- 22): Fragile drug addict. HIV/AIDS positive. Puerto-Rican descent.  Exotic dancer at the cat scratch club. Sexy, sassy and street smart.

MAUREEN JOHNSON (Played by Emily Adair- 21): A performance artist. Not as good as she leads on. Lover of Joanne, Mark’s ex-girlfriend. Young, spunky, quirky and fun. Selfish and enjoys the drama of life.

JOANNE JEFFERSON (Played by Namisa Mdlalose- 22): Harvard grad, lawyer. Affluent upbringing. Comfortable with her artistic liberal way of life and conservative upbringing. Insecure in her relationship with Maureen. Politically connected. Dry wit.

FEMALE ENSEMBLE:

Bonolo Makhele

Jessica Kohler

Maya Spector

Robyn Ivey

Tammy de Klerk

Tara Macpherson

MALE ENSEMBLE:

Jaydon Farao

Keegan van Zyl

Leagen Phillips-Laws

Director, Byron Bure, highlights the significance of these issues, particularly in a South African context, as they are still very relevant today “Every day we see the divisive effects of nativism and intolerance which ends up in violent conflict between different communities. The story of RENT may be specific to the artists in New York`s Bohemian East Village in the early 1990s, but the theme of a community in crises and how they struggle to deal with it still resonates today.”  Bure stresses the importance of addressing these issues through art and performance wherever possible. “As South-Africans we often see the impulse to turn against one another when threatened by these external forces.  RENT challenges us to turn towards one another to weather a storm and to choose love and respect. In our fractured society, this is a message that desperately needs to be heard.”

While setting the bohemian scene, much like in the original, Bure’s production focuses on the group dynamics of the characters. “We spent a great deal of time analysing the characters and their needs within the piece, which informed how we were going to construct a production that best serves Jonathan Larson’s vision.  We set about finding actors that could embody the characters both physically and vocally.”

Having played to full houses in Cape Town and receiving rave reviews, RENT producer, Stephan Fourie, who is making his debut with The Stephan Fourie Theatre Company, believes the success of the first run is due to the vibrancy and relevance of the production.  “The feedback we received from Cape Town audiences was incredible. We had tons of comments on the energy of the cast, the fantastic choreography, the set, and significance of the shows themes. I am particularly excited to bring this sell-out sensation to a Johannesburg stage as the story holds its relevance today more than ever. RENT brings on a unified sense of community, making difficult themes and conversations more palatable, and we are now working hard to bring an even more spectacular production to Johannesburg this April. “

The cast members include award-winning theatre and performance artists from around the country, technically trained across musical theatre, acting, singing, dance and choreography.  Anzio September (23), who plays drag-queen ‘Angel’ has not only the challenge of performing dynamic dance moves in 4-inch platforms, but to also bring to life the true essence of one of the show’s most complex and lovable characters. “The role of Angel has made me realise that fear is the only thing that keeps us alive in this life. We are caged by normative thinking and what is deemed ‘socially acceptable’. If love and respect was at the core of humanity, peace would prevail and wars would be an unknown entity. One has to be true to themselves even if the world says no.”

Classical and contemporary singer and recipient of an invitation to audition for Juilliard Performing Arts School in 2012, Namisa Mdlalose (22) who plays the role of the brooding ‘Joanne’ echoes September’s sentiments. “RENT tells a story of a community of broken people begging to be loved, to be forgiven, to be seen, to be healed. Ultimately, we find, love wins.”

The Ultimate Rock Opera Taking on the task of the music itself is no small feat. RENT set the bar for rock musicals 20 years ago, quickly becoming the best-selling cast album of the decade. The musical score is technically a challenging one since it is a completely sung-through production.  Rooted in rebellion and protest, the show is a blend of soulful gospel, grungy rock and pop. Bure explains that the music is well- written but that it’s the place of the lyrics in the narrative that imbues them with relevance. He describes the real magic of the show as the hybrid of 80’s and 90’s rock combined with the unique sounds of contemporary musical theatre.

“My hope for this production is that audiences will leave with a sense of compassion for the characters, and a broader view of different communities.  Without the support of fellow beings, issues that should be easily resolved, are made incredibly difficult to overcome. We need to approach differences with love and understanding to create a consciousness for change, and that’s what RENT is all about” says Bure.

Bookings through Webtickets or visit http://www.joburgtheatre.com/rent/

Follow The Stephan Fourie Theatre Company Facebook page for show updates @stephanfourietheatreco

Sell-out musical RENT comes to Johannesburg was originally published on Artsvark