?Verboten? was the first word that Jeremy spoke. Not ?Mom;? it was strictly verboten to call his birth mother Mom?for she was supposed to be his Big Sis, and it wasn?t her fault the condom broke and she was only fourteen when she conceived him, dammit! Nor was his first word ?Grandma;? it was strictly verboten to call his grandma anything other than ?Mom,? for the fiction was his grandmother was his mother?a fiction that gave his mother a few more years as a teen actress on forgettable sitcoms (one of which was called Strictly Verboten?which is how Big Sis came to know of the phrase), and let his grandmother feel all girly and youthful, to have conceived a child in her forties. Now Big Sis is twenty-two and looking for adult parts in movies. Kids are fashionable in the film biz now?quite the trend of the moment to have a small dog in one arm and a child in the other. So Jeremy?s been trotted out, accompanying Big Sis on countless auditions and the odd shoot?and now it?s strictly verboten to call her anything other than ?Mom,? and the old ?Mom? has been demoted to ?Grandma. Not an arrangement that thrills Grandma, by the way, but Mom brings home the reduced-fat bacon? The bacon-bringer has brought them to Chicago. An ultra low-budget horror film and Mom?s the heroine?s BFF. She?ll be killed in a particularly gruesome way by the zombies in the end?but she?ll save her friend, the female lead; so it?s a sanctimonious death, a sacrifice, and Mom?s hopeful this tragic turn will lead to bigger parts in studio movies. Jeremy hates Chicago. Grey like ash, and frigid to boot. He loathes the cramped apartment they?ve been crammed into, with the only window?small and slanted? looking out at other similar box-like buildings. In L.A., they?d lived in a trailer home with a park nearby and the sun out all the time. Hummingbirds came right up to the window?he knew them well enough to tell them apart. Nothing comes to this Chicago window?nothing but rain, thin as needles, cold as death. Still, Jeremy looks out of it. Nothing else to do. Grandma goes to the set with Mom. The babysitter hired by the production spends all her time calling her friends or texting them. TV sucks?there?s no cable, since the production can?t afford it. So he looks out of the window. The building right across looks abandoned, with smashed panes; at nights it remains dark, unlit. He guesses it must be an abandoned building. He wonders if ghosts or monsters haunt the building. ? And one day, he actually sees something in the window: a doughy, roundish something. A face. Odd-shaped and savage. The eyes land on him?and the creature on the other side starts, as if in shock, at having been seen. A pair of hard eyes glowers at him with unmistakable menace, and a twisted forefinger is placed on crooked lips. Jeremy knows what the gesture means: strictly verboten. He?s not to tell anyone that there?s a person in the abandoned building. Bharadwaj, Strictly Verboten Page 3 Jeremy nods. He knows to keep things to himself. They?re talking about the ?Cluster Fucker,? Mom and Grandma, over dinner. Mom brings the leftovers home from the snack-table at the shoot: mainly potato chips, cubes of fake cheese and mini chocolate bars. Not proper food?but Mom and Grandma don?t eat anyway, since they?re always dieting; and it?s a drag to have to worry about dinner just for Jeremy. Besides, they tell him brightly, kids love chips and chocolates, and other kids?the ones sitting down to home-cooked soups and made-from-scratch casseroles? would be jealous of him if they knew what he was having. ? How would they know??he thinks; for it?s strictly verboten to tell anyone else what he?s fed, or how often he?s washed, or how he?s schooled. So he tries to douse the fire in his stomach by filling his mouth with M & Ms. He listens to what Mom and Grandma are saying, about the Cluster Fucker. That?s the name the Chicago media have given to a serial killer who targets groups of women: groups of twos, threes; his most audacious killing involved five Baptist women on their way to church. The Cluster Fucker has apparently eluded the police and FBI, and is at large. ?He could be anywhere?on our street, even,? Mom says with a shudder. They leave Jeremy to his devices that night?they?re hoping to pick up rich guys in a fancy bar. So they lock him inside the apartment and leave. They remind him that both these activities?their leaving him locked up, and their trolling for men?are not to be mentioned by him to anyone else. ?Strictly verboten,? says Grandma. Jeremy nods. He takes his plate of cookies to the window. There?s no one in the window across the street. Past midnight, he sees a shadowy blur scoot into the empty building. And in a few minutes, the face shows up in the window facing his?with its misshapen skull and feral eyes. A hand is raised in the window across, in greeting. Jeremy stares, transfixed. It?s the first time in his life, that anyone has noticed him enough to greet him. The next afternoon is raw and damp, and the streets are empty. Jeremy sneaks out with two bags of chips (saved from last night), and crosses the street. He goes to the abandoned building and peers through the broken door: someone?s inside, standing in the shadows, tall and still. A shaft of light from the hole in the roof catches the face in its murky net: a misshapen face, with a crooked mouth and dead eyes. Jeremy puts his forefinger on his lips?and the man inside nods. Jeremy leaves the bags of chips on the front steps, and dashes back to his building. That night, Mom and Grandma discuss The Cluster Fucker as they get dressed to go bar-hopping. Mom?s brought home a newspaper with a police sketch showing what the guy looks like, and they are passing the paper back and forth between them as they cackle at the ?freak.? Jeremy reaches for the paper?but Grandma pushes him away, and it?s not her fault for she doesn?t know how strong she is, but he skids right into a radiator and cracks the bone beneath his eye. ?That?ll teach you to not get under-foot,? Mom shouts, picking him up and studying the cut beneath his eye. ?Wash it. And stop sniveling. Big boys don?t cry.? He washes the cut when they?ve gone for the night. Mom?s left the newspaper behind. He looks at the police sketch of the Cluster Fucker. The weirdly shaped head, the long jagged mouth, the empty dead-end eyes. It?s the man across the street. But I?m not going to tell anyone?not Mom or Grandma; not the police of the FBI. It?s strictly verboten, Jeremy thinks. And smiles?for the first time in?oh, a very long time; at the idea of having his very own secret, something only he knows, in the whole world. The cut is hot and throbbing to touch. It has turned a vicious red. Grandma clouts Jeremy on the head, for ?choosing to fall on the rusty radiator like an idiot.? They discuss whether to take Jeremy to the hospital that night. But someone called Ashton has apparently invited Mom to his penthouse on the lake, and Grandma?s invited, too, and this guy?s just shaken loose his third wife and he?s also ?loaded,? so, in the interests of their long-term prospects, Mom and Grandma decide the hospital visit can wait until the next morning. ?Jeremy?s a strong kid anyway,? Mom adds. ?Remember the time you dropped him, Mom? And we didn?t find out until months later that that was a fracture?he didn?t even whimper, tough bastard?? They lock him in and leave, talking loudly and excitedly about stopping at Dillard?s on the way and getting their faces done for free at the Clinique counter before proceeding to Ashton?s . And when he can?t hear their voices anymore, Jeremy goes to the window and looks. In a few minutes, a silhouetted figure behind the window appears and gives him a brief wave. Jeremy waves back?then points his face, with singular intent, towards the street below. The figure in the abandoned building follows the line of the boy?s gaze: two women emerge from Jeremy?s building, chatting intensely, oblivious to all else. Jeremy looks at the figure in the window: the Cluster Fucker places his forefinger on his lips and smiles. Jeremy smiles back, nodding; he understands: it?s strictly verboten. He watches?pain and feverish throbbing forgotten?as a lumbering shadow shoots out of the dilapidated building, and follows his mother and grandmother down the cold and empty street. *** Rahda Recommends:
For flights, Ruth Rendell?s?Judgement in Stone, S.J. Bolton?s?Now You See Me, Justin Evans?s?The White Devil,?Elly Griffiths?s?The Crossing Places.? When spirits flag, Ayn Rand?s?The Fountainhead.? For joy, Lewis Carroll?s?Alice in Wonderland.? To be carried away by a writer?s prowess, Vladimir Nabakov?s?Lolita.? For solace, serenity, a glimpse of the eternal, sage Vyasa?s?The Mahabharata.
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Parting Shots:?
Radha Bharadwaj is an Indian-born feature screenwriter-director with two acclaimed features to her?credit: CLOSET LAND (the screenplay won Bharadwaj the prestigious Nicholl Screenwriting award; the film stars Alan Rickman and Madeleine Stowe, and was produced by Ron Howard?s Imagine Entertainment and released by Universal Pictures), and the Victorian mystery BASIL (based on Wilkie Collins?s book, with Sir Derek Jacobi, Christian Slater, Jared Leto).?? Her stage adaptation for CLOSET LAND continues to be?performed all over the world by various theatre groups.
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Bharadwaj has just completed two novels?both literary suspenses; one set in Victorian England, the other in modern-day Philadelphia.? She is at work on her third book while she embarks on the process of selling the first two (so she?s been?re-reading?The Fountainheadquite a bit!).
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Source: http://www.nftu.co.uk/2012/11/19/strictly-verboten-by-radha-bharadwa/
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