Looney

By Geronimo Sager

Gérard Croset is a struggling writer obsessed with success. One day he’s fortunate enough to meet George Clooney at a fund-raising dinner in Geneva. They have a nice chat and even exchange phone numbers before parting. Gérard thinks they’ve become close and is mad with excitement. He decides to put aside his fruitless writing and try his luck as an actor, convinced that with George’s help he’ll succeed.
Months go by. Gérard has taken acting classes and discovered a brilliant plastic surgeon who can make him look like a star. He’s ready to shine in Hollywood, but when Clooney comes back to Geneva, Gérard realizes his “friend” has forgotten all about their previous encounter. Humiliated, terrorized by the prospect of another failure, Gérard comes up with a demented plan: if he can’t become an actor like Clooney, he will become Clooney himself...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geronimo Sager
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9782970101918

Book preview

LOONEY

First published in 2015

Copyright © Jeremy Ergas 2015

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever – traded, lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated – without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Open Market ISBN: 978-2-9701019-0-1

eBook ISBN: 978-2-9701019-1-8

Artwork by Naninindia Bros

To those who love me

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Azadeh, David, Mitra, Nic, Simone, Soussan, and Zeki.

And thank you to George Clooney of course.

Contents

North of Eden, Wyoming

Part One

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33

Part Two

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33

Part Three

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33

Afterword

North of Eden, Wyoming

God’s Eye rising in the sky, arcing over evergreen treetops, dissipating the film of morning mist clinging onto Nature’s waking hour. I hear jay-songs and oriole-trills resounding in the air; I hear the warbling of starlings, the lark’s tremulous melodies, and the octaves of thrushes, ethereal. I smile and stretch my limbs. Over my Cabin, a frenzied woodpecker is sculpting the bark of a century-old pine. Heart pumping strongly, blood spreading through veins and arteries, flooding the tiniest of my capillaries. A bear-bellow emanates from my throat: the echo rushes down the mountain, over sparkling streams, and splashes miles away in the deep-blue waters of a Sacred Lake.

I am itching to write.

Brilliant Ideas flash through my Mind, swift as swallows chasing each other between trees. I go back inside, boil some water, and eat oatmeal soaked in blackberry juice. The body’s hunger hastily dealt with, I prepare to satisfy an infinitely larger appetite: that of my Spirit. I start by reading those Emerson Quotes I have carved in the logs of my Cabin: Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. And higher: Be not the slave of your past: always do what you are afraid to do. And higher yet: Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. As I recite, I feel it mounting in me: the Irrepressible Need to create. I have been waiting so long for this moment. I’m trembling with Inspiration. My wooden table is waiting outside, covered with pine needles and invaded by tall sibilant grass. A gentle breeze scampers over the glade. In these last days of the Indian summer, there is still warmth enough to work in the open air. I take my Royal typewriter outside and place it at the centre of the table. It clinks and rattles, as eager as I am to commence our Task. I’m almost set: a few more Gestures and the Preliminary Rites will be completed. I lay Thoreau’s Walden on the left of my typewriter, and a roll of paper on its right. Then I face my Text standing, like a fighter: I flex my arms, pop my knuckles and heave a great sigh, hands suspended over paper and machine.

Lightning and Thunder.

Neck cracking, fingers tapping, keys clicking: the White Page darkens as it ascends in the Sky. Constellations of Signs emerge from my past, Black Ink unraveling the Ariadne-Thread of my Memory, recreating the Labyrinth of my Adventure begun three years ago in Geneva. Three, three: I’m thirty-three. Letters uncovering my Scars, unfurling my Miraculous Story. I write with Passion but must not lose myself: Simplicity and Exactitude are key if I want to avoid misrepresenting, even by an iota, the Book I have imagined. Only Absolute Perfection can lead me to the Truth. Naturally, given my limitations, I should be doomed to fail, yet I refuse to lose Hope.

I see the White Pages in front of me and have no choice.

This is my Fate: this is the Goal I have been running after since I was born. Never have I been closer to reaching it. It took me a long time to understand my Calling, but when I did, I left for the Great American Wild. Emerson said that humanity would eventually die of civilization. Then I shall survive alone. I live lost in a Forest where I have spent the last three months building my Cabin and thinking about my Story. As I worked the wood, entire passages took shape in my Mind, Hallowed Words gathered at the tips of my fingers and pressed against the lips of my mouth. Soon I knew them by Heart. Listen now, as they come pouring out!

Wonder at the Mad Tale of my Metamorphoses!

Part One

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

– Henry David Thoreau

1

I stopped breathing.

Over there! Over there! whispered my father excitedly, his index finger pointing straight in front of us, to an Iridescent Form nibbling shrubs some eighty meters away on the mountain flank. We had just come out of the forest: it was a Godly Apparition. Light shone blinding bright on the animal’s fur still wet from the morning drizzle. All around it, water drops clinging to grass blades glittered under the sun like a sea of stars. The mist had evaporated and now the sky was a halcyon blue. Its vastness encompassed the three of us, my Pop, I, and the prey we had been hunting since dawn. Be very quiet! cautioned my father. Of course I’d be quiet! What did he expect me to do, jump up and play the harmonica? I observed his clenched jaw and hawk nose with mordancy. Why did he always have to tell me what to do? Stay still and get closer to the ground! I was already dead still and crouching as far down as I could get, but he ordered me to do it anyway just to remind me that he knew more about hunting than I did and that, therefore, I had to obey each and every one of his instructions. Right. The Master Hunter had spoken, Orion himself who, barely ten minutes ago, had knelt over hoof tracks and fresh droppings on the forest ground and, stroking his mustache, had proclaimed that we were after a royal hart. But here it was, much younger and more delicate.

Barely a stag; closer to a fawn in fact.

Pop took off his deerstalker, unslung his Winchester 21, and carefully broke the double barrel open. It made a hollow noise. He locked the circumflexed shotgun between his left elbow and his heavy ribcage, tore off his right glove with his front teeth, and tapped against his right thigh in search of something. Despite his age, he was still in great physical shape with long brawny limbs. His hand found the pouch attached to his belt and rummaged through it. Deftly, he managed to take out two shells. A smile widened on his broad face crowned by dark hair. He was gleaming like a kid. For hours we had trudged through a pine forest, close behind our prey, and now Pop was two shots away from reaching his goal. One by one, he loaded the barrels. The shells slid through the steel cylinders with short hissing sounds.

Click-click: ready to fire.

My muscles tensed up. Ever since I was a child, I had always hated this part. I accompanied my father once a year on his autumn hunts only to spend some time in the wild, to breathe in the mountain air and the smells of mushrooms, decaying leaves and damp pine cones covered in needles. I didn’t need to sacrifice an animal to feel at one with Nature. Lying in tall grass and listening to bird songs was enough to create this Sense of Unity. But Pop had read too much Hemingway (it was the only reason he had started hunting in the first place). He saw the kill as the culmination of man’s struggle with nature, the bloody yet noble ending to an age-old confrontation. Bullshit. I didn’t see anything noble in gunning down a defenseless fawn. No matter how eloquently Ernest or Pop expressed it, this was a useless slaughter, a cruel amusement serving only to satisfy a brutish lust for domination.

Pop snapped his Winchester shut and looked at me with resolution. His patience and perseverance had borne fruit: now was the time to snatch his reward. He lifted his shotgun and, closing his left eye, took aim, the stock firmly tucked between his right deltoid and pectoral muscles. As he heaved deep breaths, I noticed his hunting knife hanging from his belt in its leather sheath. Suddenly an image shot into my mind: Pop skinning the fawn before hacking its body into pieces. I bucked and cried out No! in an undertone. Pop opened his left eye and the muzzle of his gun sank an inch.

What’s the matter? he inquired, turning his head toward me. His menacing eyes studied my face. I fought not to flinch.

Let me have the honor this time, I said with as much poise as I could muster up. He lifted one of his bushy black eyebrows and looked pleasantly surprised. For the first time, his son was showing manly courage on a hunt. Up to then, despite Pop’s constant exhortations, I had always refused to take a shot at an animal (though I was an excellent marksman as far as beer cans and targets were concerned).

Very well boy, he answered with a proud grin, handing me the weapon. I took off my gloves and seized the plain wooden stock in one hand and the twin barrels in the other. The cold steel bit into the flesh of my palm. Do as I taught you and everything will go well, said Pop. Without nodding or reacting in any way to his injunction, I lifted the shotgun and wedged its stock under my armpit. Then I bent my neck, closed my right eye, and tried to steady my rapid breathing. The fawn had stopped nibbling and was scanning the mountain flank in our direction, its snout held high. It couldn’t have detected our presence, yet I could tell it was instinctively troubled. Somehow it knew danger was near. One of its front legs was bent backwards, hoof in the air, and its ears twitched nervously. As I put my finger on the trigger, it froze, ears, leg and all.

Bang-bang!

The fawn jolted, then sprang away. In a few leaps – the deflagrations still echoing over the valley – it had disappeared in a dense thicket.

For Christ’s sake! barked Pop. You didn’t even wound it!

I looked up at him, ashamed. I don’t understand, I mumbled. I had it perfectly in my line of sight…

You don’t understand? You didn’t listen to me! Mister Know-It-All doesn’t need the advice of his father: he does things his own way, and what’s the result? You blew our only chance of success!

Pop grabbed the gun from my hands.

We can still go after it, I suggested. It’s not that far off and I might’ve clipped it slightly.

Clipped it slightly! Pop snorted. Don’t talk nonsense, boy. Even if you clipped it, which you didn’t, it won’t stop running for miles. Pop glimpsed at his watch. It’s too late. We’d never have time to get it and find our way back to the Jeep before nightfall.

But why don’t we at least…

Forget about it, interrupted Pop. His wrath had passed. The animal’s gone. Let’s eat here and go back home.

I really thought I was going to nail it, I added relieved.

Did you? said my father warily. He wasn’t altogether fooled. Now that he had calmed down, he sniffed some foul play. He always sensed my ploys, no matter how hard I tried to hide them from him.

We ate lunch in silence, each to his own thoughts. Later, as we were heading back to the Jeep, side by side, Pop put his heavy arm over my shoulders in a sign of forgiveness. I smiled and he patted my chest. The back of his hand was under my nose, its dark skin bulging with taut blue veins. I could sense the blood rushing underneath, pumping through his body. It was large and glowed with an aura of strength that made it even larger. I was a little taller than Pop, but relatives and friends always assumed it was the other way around. Unlike Pop, I seemed smaller and more slender than I really was, and though I was not bad-looking, no one paid attention to me at first glance. I didn’t possess my father’s striking and charismatic presence: there was nothing attractive in me, nothing repulsive either. In the eyes of strangers, I was ordinary. This was a reality I found difficult to accept. It drove me mad when people who had already seen me several times kept presenting themselves, or when cute girls who had gone to the same school as me didn’t recognize my face.

I had always thought of myself as a Poetic and Fascinating Figure.

When we got to the Jeep, Pop changed his clothes. He took off the brown high-collared hunting suit he was wearing and donned his habitual ex-University Professor outfit, namely his cashmere sweater and corduroy ensemble. After a 45-minute drive on sinuous dirt roads, we arrived at the family chalet as the daylight was dying. It was nestled atop a mountain crag, next to an isolated white chapel consecrated to the Virgin Mary. From this promontory, we had a glorious view of the Val de Bagnes. The first snows had just fallen on the mountaintops all around and icicles were beginning to form under the gutters of our chalet.

Winter was coming.

Home sweet home! said Pop, scraping the soles of his Derbies against the doormat. He entered, and I behind him. The chalet was spacious and rustic in a cozy way: exposed beams, wood floors, massive oak furniture, woolen couches, sofas, and ornamented bookcases stuffed with hefty volumes. Mommy had inherited the place from her parents, well-off entrepreneurs who had taken advantage of the real estate boom in Verbier, the fashionable ski resort higher up the mountain. Pop hopped into his knitted slippers and went to light the fire he had prepared before sunrise this morning (he truly was an industrious bee). Then he opened a bottle of humagne and made himself comfortable on the couch facing the fireplace. Above it, nailed to the wall, was his favorite hunting trophy, a stuffed deer head with glassy black eyes. Thinking this was an invitation for a little father-son chillin’, I brought a chair next to the couch, poured myself a glass of red wine, and sat next to Pop.

I should’ve known better.

Before I could take my first sip, he had begun harassing me with his usual string of reproachful questions. How was my novel selling? Why had I left Oxford to write? Why didn’t I take up a job as an assistant at the University of Geneva? What was the point of getting a D.Phil. if I had never had any intention of pursuing an academic career in the first place? Why was I wasting all these golden opportunities? Did I not realize that my life was heading in the wrong direction? My responses were evasive to say the least. Mainly I sighed and stared at my glass, withdrawing into a carapace of feigned indifference as I always did when he decided to embark on these humiliating condemnations of my life. What could I have answered? Yes, Pop, my first novel continues to sell horrendously. I left Oxford because my doctoral thesis – Joyce’s Body Language – had been rejected by Oxford University Press and not so well received by Joycean specialists, but most importantly, because I was sick of the academic world and felt I had to try to fulfill my Dream of becoming a Great Writer. Academia would never have satisfied my Creative Urge, my Desire to become recognized and loved on a wide scale. Yes, Pop, it was probably a mistake. My life could very well go to shit, but even if it does, I’ll have tried to make my Dream come true (which is more than most people do). No, I’d never actually say these things; I didn’t have to justify myself to anyone. Besides, Pop knew darn well what motivated my decisions: he just didn’t accept my way of thinking, my stubborn independence.

Are you going to sulk now? asked Pop as I sat humped in my chair with my eyes lowered.

No.

I’m worried about you, that’s all boy. Don’t get angry at me for caring. I don’t want you to make wrong decisions that you might regret your whole life. Do you understand?

Yes.

I’ve lived forty years more than you have; I know what you’re going through and what you should do. I just want you to listen to me, to trust me about these things, ok? I nodded. Fine, then let’s go eat. I bought some nice raclette cheese, we just need to get the pan heated up.

I’m not hungry.

Pop stiffened up. As you wish, he said tersely. If this is how you want to react, then I’d rather eat alone. You ruined my hunt, but I won’t let you spoil my evening as well. He got up and went to the kitchen.

Now I felt guilty.

He always managed to reverse the roles this way. I looked at the reflected flames crawling over my glass of wine and hated myself. I had fucked everything up. Again. Once a year, Pop sacrificed a hunt with his friends to go with me instead so we could spend some time the two of us, man-to-man, and this is how I thanked him, this is how I behaved. Like a child. But I couldn’t help it. Why did he always have to bring up the same old crap? Why did he torment me this way? Did he sincerely expect a reaction other than the one I always had in such circumstances? My future already made me anxious enough without his constant negativity. My first book was a flop and soon the money I had received for my Oxford scholarship would dry up. Then what? I was too proud to live off unemployment doles, so I’d have to find a way to make some money. To work. God I hated the word and everything it implied: no more writing, early rises, long office hours, colleagues, bosses, boredom, monotony, the deprivation of all Freedom, all Creativity.

It felt like being sentenced to prison.

The next morning, Pop escorted me back to Geneva. During the hour-and-a-half trip, neither of us uttered a word, but by dinnertime we were on speaking terms again thanks to Mommy. A harmless skirmish. Nothing like the vicious fights we had had in the past.

2

By the way, my name is Gérard Croset.

At the time, I was thirty years old and a so-called writer as Pop said when he was angry at me. He was often angry at me. It was usually my arrogance and my provocative sense of humor that got me into trouble. Pop and I would be shooting the breeze at the dinner table or in the living room and I’d come up with a remark I found funny. Abruptly, Pop’s eyebrows would arch up on his forehead and I’d realize that to him, my remark wasn’t droll but infuriating. For example, the other night Pop was predicting a global economic crisis that would have catastrophic consequences. I laughed and said it suited me: Once the market crashes, I’ll invest all my savings into stocks: then I’ll wait till they rocket back up and I’ll make a hundred grand easy. It was all in jest, but Pop became so angry he stopped shooting the breeze and started aiming at me. He began ranting about how he abhorred the word easy, especially when it was coupled with the word money. He didn’t believe in easy money. Trying to get easy money was the best way to lose your shirt and end up in the gutter. Money could only be earned the hard way. You had to sweat it out, to work your ass off! Of course I had it all without doing anything; I lived off my parents and Mommy gave me everything I needed so what would I know about work, why would it be anything else than a joke to me, et cetera… His sermonizing Colts were firing faster than Yosemite Sam’s.

Thank God, I was a swift and agile Bunny.

I survived, but not without some fresh psychological wounds. Yes, Pop, my behavior was unacceptable. Instead of facing what you called the real world, I read and wrote the whole day in my room; I spent hours lost in Myriads of Thoughts; I imagined Adventures and Wild Open Spaces… But where was all this leading me? I had no job, no source of revenue, I was a nonentity. My first novel – Alice – had sold 96 copies. Each copy had been sold for 25 francs, of which I had received 10%. 96 x 25 x 0.1 = 240 francs. My royalties. I had worked for a year on my book, 6 hours a day, 2190 hours in all. Thus, my writing activities had earned me slightly less than 11 centimes an hour. That’s less than a Sudanese farmer. Pop kept saying that my business of writing books was an illusion, that I couldn’t earn a living as an author in Geneva because there was no market. He was probably right. I had to find a proper job and make some real money, I had to go out there and