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PASTANO:

The first thing that hits me in the face in the morning isn’t the realization that I’d agreed on no uncertain terms to portray someone else with the intent of deceiving unknown third parties (and for money, at that). It’s not a sweltering wave of guilt that hits me, either. What I think, first thing in the morning when my alarm clock shudders, is, I wonder if the movie’s going to be any good. Stumbling over my shoes and across the fuzzy hotel-room carpet toward the curtains, I’m mulling the fact that Clovis probably has no idea of my taste in movies. I didn’t even bother to tell Franck about the deal, figuring she’d blow the whole thing completely and grotesquely out of proportion; it seemed like the kind of thing she’d do, nurse a proxy anxiety for me, worry about my blood splattered all over the sidewalk, come up with all kinds of speculatively horrible outcomes for me—develop a worst-case-scenario, wildly intensified. I did mention something to Horace, but only because I knew he’d think nothing of it and more than anything else probably forget I ever told him. “I’ve got to do a favor for these guys,” I told him, “so I’ll be busy tomorrow night, probably.” He’d shrugged, okay, fine by him. Horace had other things to do, he said, referring to himself in the third-person. Clovis had said how I could take as many of my friends as I wanted along for the ride on this favor, but it seemed (was implied) that it was the sort of thing best done alone.

tbc

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