An Evening at Joe's (39 page)

To Adrian's surprise, Dennis is nodding, as though the strange encounter made sense to him. "Okay, Adrian. Now I see what happened. It's as if we played so much with the game of travelling through time, and we played so much with the rules of natural law by doing fiction about Immortals that suddenly, as a revenge, nature is punishing us." He looks Adrian in the eye. "We are in purgatory, we are stuck with being forever alive"—with a heavy sigh—"on a film set." Dennis then disappears into the fog.

"Dennis... wait.... Come back," Adrian shouts. Any attempt to pursue his friend is lost as an explosion brings him to his knees. The actor barely has time to cover his face, protecting it from the heat, as a second explosion then a third engulf the soundstage in flames.

What threatened to be a sob comes out as laughter. "Fire! Of course there's fire. After all I'm in hell. You gotta have fire in hell...." Adrian pushes through the exit door and is surprised to find himself in the studio backlot, not the alley as he has expected. He takes off running for the relative safety of his trailer, across the backlot, through the studio door and right into someone, knocking them both down.

"Sorry, ma'am," Adrian hastily apologizes, noting that the person lying under him is wearing a dress.

"Yeah, well, watch it next time and I would appreciate if you didn't call me ma'am." The voice definitely does not belong to a lady of any type.

"Stan! Thank God!" Adrian gets up off the ground and pulls Stan with him. "What the hell are you doing in that dress?"

"Hell is the key word here, man," Stan says, dusting the dirt from his dress. "Richie is getting in touch with his feminine side," Stan's voice turns into a whine. "They're making me a transvestite, an Immortal transvestite. Can you believe this crap?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore," Adrian answers solemnly.

"Sorry man, but you get no pity from me. This whole purgatory thing is all in your hands. But hey, it could be worse, you could be spending eternity in a dress..." Stan gives him a wry smile, "...and panty hose. Now that is truly hell, they're so"—wiggling for emphasis—"binding."

Adrian puts a comforting hand on Stan's shoulder. "We'll find a way out of this mess; we have to."

CRACK!

"Oh no!" Stan's face pales and he starts to back away.

CRACK!

"Stan? What's wrong?" Adrian asks.

"It's time," Stan says in a small voice.

CRACK!

From out of the shadows of the sound stage emerges F. Braun, the swordmaster. "Time to train," F. says in a low, dangerous voice. The Swordmaster advances toward Stan with a sword in one hand and whip in the other. "Come on, soldier, time to train, now parry!" F. cuts at Stan with his sword. Stan blocks the cut, but his form is very sloppy.

CRACK!

Stan lets out a startled yelp as the whip hits its mark.

"That's no way to fight," F. proclaims angrily, raising the whip again.

Suddenly Adrian is there, pulling the whip from F.'s hand. "What are you doing? We're not at war here!"

F. stares at him for a moment, then: "It's worse, it's worse than war. It's purgatory."

The whip cracks again and Adrian is driven back through the door of the studio. Inside, the fire has died down, leaving an unharmed soundstage. As his eyes adjust to the dimly lit room Adrian can't help but notice the set is now a courtroom. A courtroom with no ceiling and no fourth wall, the "mahogany" walls merely dark stain on cheap plywood. Good enough for camera.

A door by the jury box opens and men start filing in. Cautiously, Adrian takes a few steps towards the jury box, which by now is almost filled. He feels a sense of dread at the recognition of who they are. The twelve men sitting in the box before him are all actors who have guest starred on Highlander. Over the years of filming all of these men have played Watchers. Including—

"Jim," Adrian whispers softly, "what is going on?"

Eyes full of compassion, the Watcher responds, shaking his head sorrowfully, "Sorry, friend, this is out of my hands. Nothing I can do."

"What?" Adrian questions emphatically. "What's out of your hands? What's going on?" The Watcher responds only by taking his place in the jury box. "What the hell is going on here," Adrian queries in disbelief. "Am I on trial?"

"That is precisely what is going on here."

Adrian whirls around to see who spoke, to see his judge. Standing at the judge's podium is Kalas. One of the Highlanders greatest adversaries.

"David?" Adrian asks hopefully. The question lingers between them for a moment. But the laugh that bellows from the judge is all Kalas; no trace of the actor that Adrian had worked with is present in that laugh.

"We are here to find out if you're condemned forever to live on this set or if you can go free, back into the real world."

A speechless Adrian can only mutter a strangled, "Why?"

"You made a deal, a Faustian deal. You dared to pretend to be immortal when you are merely an actor." Kalas's laugh echoes through the courtroom. "I find you guilty," he proclaims, ignoring the indignant gasp from the Watchers in the jury box. "For your crimes I sentence you to live forever in darkness, confined to this horrible little TV set. Because you are always over time, time has stopped for you. Because you are always over budget, you are permanently indebted to this organization, you belong to us forever, you will never escape." Kalas's inhuman laugh gets louder and louder as the room seems to get smaller with every laugh.

The accused turns to flee—out of the soundstage, back out into the fog-covered alley.

His attention focuses on the constant repetitive sound of dripping water. A dripping drainage pipe farther down the alley. The face that returns his gaze from the glassy surface of the puddle is one he cannot recognize. His mind begins to race from doubt. He silently questions his reflection,
Am I Adrian? Am I MacLeod.? Who am I? Which life is the real one?
Without receiving an answer, he dips his finger into the small pool of water, causing ripples which distort his reflected features. Adrian closes his eyes, unable to look at the reflection he no longer recognizes. He silently begs for release from this nightmare.

After a moment he opens his eyes; the water is still but another reflection has joined his own.

"Dennis!" Adrian jumps up and embraces his friend. "You're alive! Where have you been? What's going on? Are we totally nuts or is this the Twilight Zone?" As he's firing off questions he begins to take note of Dennis' appearance. The director looks like he's gone through a hell of his own. He's disheveled and his eyes look haunted. "Are you okay?"

"No, my friend." Dennis slowly shakes his head. "I am not okay. We are not okay." The director takes a deep steadying breath before continuing. "I fear we have been taken on a sudden journey, a walk on the other side of the hill, a walk on the other side of the coin, a walk on the other side of the mirror."

"The other side of the mirror," Adrian repeats, his mind flashing to his distorted reflection in the puddle.

Dennis pats the actor on the back and says with a wry smile, "It's not that bad; after all, it's not really worse than certain other horrible productions we've worked on."

Adrian shoots a shocked looked at Dennis, then smiles himself. Whatever is to come next in this nightmare, they'll face it together.

They don't have to wait long. They both turn to see a fog rolling in, filling the alley. Through the fog they see a dark figure standing in the mist. As the fog dissipates, there stands Bill. He is larger than life, with the backlighting and fog giving the Executive Producer an unearthly glow.

Adrian takes a step forward, but stops as Dennis grabs his arm.

"Where do you think you're going?" asks the director.

"To make a deal with the devil," Adrian replies, nodding toward Bill. "I'm going to get us out of this," he finishes with determination.

"Bill, we need to talk," Adrian begins, with all the confidence he can muster.

There's no place like home.

Adrian opens his eyes with a groan. Sitting up he realizes he is back on the couch in his trailer. He stares blankly at Judy Garland on the TV for a moment before turning it off.

"A dream..." Adrian says in disbelief, "...a damn bizarre dream, but just a dream." He sighs with relief.

He steps out of his trailer into the blinding sun. Adrian is overwhelmed with a sense of calm. He pulls his sunglasses out of the pocket of his leather jacket. Putting the sunglasses on he realizes that he is alone on the studio back lot, but he is at peace. He tries to open the gate to the parking lot but finds it locked. Acting on instinct, Adrian reaches for his sword, which, as always, magically appears. He begins to spin the sword in fast, fluid motions. The blade seems to take on a life of its own, becoming thicker and spinning faster. The blade stretches out over his head and begins to surreally multiply.

Suddenly, the katana is no longer a sword but has morphed into a vehicle. The mini-helicopter lifts Adrian up into the sky, past the studio, past the city, perhaps over the rainbow, perhaps to paradise or someplace else unknown. As he flies away he sings to himself and to anyone who might hear.

"Here we are, born to be kings..."

FANTASY/MEDIA TIE-IN

WHEN YOU LIVE FOREVER, THE STORIES NEVER END...

An Evening at
J
oe'
s

Belly up to the bar with the cast and crew of the
Highlander
television series and read the stories that have remained untold until now; character histories dreamed up by the actors who played them... spin-offs of favorite episodes... plots that existed only in the producer's imagination. These all-new adventures of Duncan MacLeod and the Immortals offer a once-in-a-lifetime look inside the minds of the people who knew
Highlander
best—because they created
Highlander
...

An Evening at Joe's
includes short fiction by: Don Anderson (Assistant Props Master)
•
Roger Bellon (Composer)
•
Dennis Berry (Director)
•
Laura Brennan (Script Coordinator)
•
Jim Byrnes ("Joe Dawson")
•
Anthony De Longis ("Otavio Consone")
•
Ken Gord (Producer)
•
Gillian Horvath (Associate Creative Consultant)
•
Peter Hudson ("James Horton")
•
Stan Kirsch ("Richie Ryan")
•
Donna Lettow (Associate Creative Consultant)
•
F. Braun McAsh (Swordmaster and "Hans Kerschner")
•
Valentine Pelka ("Kronos")
•
Peter Wingfield ("Methos")
"Highlander" is a protected trademark of Gaumont Television, © 1994 Gaumont Television and © 1985 Davis Panzer Productions, Inc.