Free Remote Feed by David Gilbert Page A

makes
     mechanical clicks, she asks, "Oh, how's your finger, by the way?" And she smiles—with playfulness or with ridicule, who can
     tell with a woman like that?
    1:17 P.M. Thursday.
    Saul sneaks out of the building. The fresh air doesn't feel so fresh or even much like air; it's more like breathing through
     a mixture of cotton candy and insulation. The people he recognizes give him pained smiles pretending that failure, in the grand scheme, isn't much of a tragedy. For example, you could lose a loved
     one. And at least you have your health. But screw that, you'd take cancer right now, HIV, a terrible maiming collision. At
     this moment, you'd gladly collapse on the caskets of your wife and daughter. Just give me grosses! You can be a martyr—in
     fact, personal calamity would probably be good for you, a test of the human spirit—but professional ruin is not a role you
     want to be cast in. It all comes down to being active and passive (this is what your shrink says). You can't control misfortune,
     so there's a certain freedom to luxuriate in it. But the rest is a cowbell of responsibility: every time you move, you clatter.
    The high-pitched tweet of a car alarm—bee-boop!—and Saul is in his Porsche and Saul is out the gate and Saul is going east.
     He leans back into the traffic and does what little steering he has to with his knees. Above him, a pigeon flies—circling?
     do pigeons circle?—while the midday light hits its wings with vulturous foreboding. Even birds act.
    6:15 A.M. Friday. Right now.
    The sun is rising to the left with the syrupy promise of Little Orphan Annie to bet your bottom dollar. (What was John Huston
     thinking, but at least he had emphysema as an excuse.) Saul, infinitely tired, drives twenty miles with each blink of his
     lids. Whoa! what happened there? A brief moment on the rumble strips, the sensation similar to a 5.3 on the Richter scale,
     and Saul is awake and gripping the steering wheel and jerking back into the middle of the road. That can give you a small
     heart attack. Luckily, the traffic is sparse. No one is out at this hour. Saul grabs the two-gallon bottle of Coke and takes
     a long sip. Disgusting. Warm and flat, the landscape's equivalent in carbonate. Where are the mountains anyway? Shouldn't
     this be the opening shot of Bonanza?
    After Monida Pass, you enter Montana—The Last Best Place, Big Sky Country. Friends in Saul's business are buying ranches here
     left and right, sprinkling the sage with glitter. Property is no longer discussed in three-to-five-acre plots, swimming pools
     and tennis courts, ocean views. Now it's the lingo of spreads, ten thousand acres, five hundred head of cattle, a lake, a
     river, a mountain. Rugged individualism is held within land, and real estate agents can get it for you cheap. Just plop down
     a couple of million and you're a new pioneer with manifest destiny.
    Saul perks up a bit. He's done it. This was the goal. Montana by car. Sixteen hours ago it actually made sense, but like much
     impetuous behavior, it's in jeopardy of turning foolish. So where do you go now? The wing-and-a-prayer structure is showing
     signs of a weak third act. Nothing worse. You can't leave them bored, checking their watches, scraping the bottom of the popcorn
     barrel. That kills word of mouth. Always better to end with a bang. The test audience that sits in Saul's synapticplex wonders
     if there's a point to this journey. Too aimless, not much action. Hell, they can't even decide if the protagonist is a sympathetic character. An adulterous movie producer. A rich Hollywood Jew. A self-involved egoist. He's simply not likable, not interesting, not good entertainment value, not worth the price of admission. And what can you
     do to save yourself? Nothing. No reedits. No reshoots. Just rush it straight to video and hope nobody notices. Saul feels
     the unique tingle of an anxiety attack—it starts with prickly flashes, like being beamed up in Star Trek,