Michael Cassutt - Beyond The End Of Time

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Beyond the End of Time

by Michael Cassutt

"Beyond the end of Time," she says, all blue eyes, bronze hair, and freckles.

"That would be somewhere in northern California?" I say, since I have asked her where she's from.

"No," she says, her expression starting to shift from indulgence to exasperation. (I've seen it often

enough.) But she finishes with a laugh, "Nice try, though."

We are at Peter Deibel's party high in the Hollywood hills, a place I would rather not be. It's a Saturday

night in November, unseasonably cold, and I've stopped drinking, considerably dimming the appeal of

the bright lights and wildlife. I've stopped drinking because Amy left me, meaning I have to drive myself,

meaning I'm exposed to Saturday night specials like the one who injects his PT Cruiser into my lane on

the Marmont curve as if I were only a virtual Explorer. Naturally, there's a phone embedded in his ear.

I'm too tired to offer the Cruiser pilot a single-digit salute, or even a blast of the horn, not that either move

is easy, given my hand controls. I just want to increase the space between us, because I'm already late.

Then there is the usual challenge of parking: after twenty years I can get out of the driver's seat and into

my wheelchair fairly easily, but not if I'm on a steeply sloping street, especially one so narrow that I have

to dodge passing cars.

All this to spend three hours with Peter, a man I haven't seen in five years, until his party invitation shows

up in my mailbox. Divorce, substance abuse and a gigantic lawsuit have driven my old mentor into exile in

Carmel or someplace like that, which is why "Northern California" pops into my head as I talk to … to

…

"By the way, I'm Clark," I say, holding out my hand.

This tallish woman (well, they're all tall from my perspective) of thirty, pretty but not beautiful, impossibly

enthusiastic, bends ever so slightly to take my hand. Her touch is warm. "Jasmine."

"I'm sorry, but that name sounds more like Carmel or Marin than Beyond the End of Time."

"It's sort of a translation from another language."

"Well, you sound like a native speaker. English, I mean. Not Hollywood."

"Neither do you."

"Odd that you should put it that way." My Hollywood career, while successful to objective observers,

has always baffled me, because I am completely unsuited to the business. In addition to the obvious

irony—an action adventure television director in a wheelchair?—I am too outspoken, too impulsive,

and, lately and perhaps inevitably, too unemployed. "Where did you meet Peter?"

I expect Jasmine to answer "rehab" or "a nightclub" or "I don't know him, I just came with a friend."

What she says is, "About a billion years from now."

I'm not the first person in history to continue a ridiculous line of conversation because he's attracted to a

woman at a Hollywood party. I must admit, though, that Jasmine from Beyond the End of Time, aka a

billion years from now, is not remotely the typical actress/model/whatever, all boobs and lips and creamy

skin and blond hair, the usual dispenser of this sort of silliness. Before I can offer anything more than a

non-committal "Oh, really?" I hear the sound of something smashing in the kitchen. Jasmine focuses her

blue eyes on mine and says, "Clark, will you excuse me for a moment?"

Maybe it is because I am rebounding (Amy, my own actress/model/whatever, having finally tired of the

role of girlfriend-nurse), but I feel as though I am about to see one of the more fascinating, not to mention

attractive, woman in this or any other time, glide across the room, disappearing into the crowd and the

night. "Not at all," I say, as smoothly and confidently as I can, which is not too.

"I promise I'll be back," she says. "We have to talk further."

That curious addendum buoys me so thoroughly that I don't notice Peter himself shambling up behind me

in his flannel shirt and faded jeans. "Great, isn't she?" he says, meaning Jasmine.

"Intriguing. She said you'd met a billion years in the future."

"Right. It was a very strange space." Now, you can expect Peter Deibel to say things that don't make

sense in the real world. Part of this is just his screwy view of the universe as a realm of mysterious

powers and alliances, magic formulas and secret histories, which helped him carve out a lucrative career

as creator of unusual television concepts. Part of it is off-and-on pharmaceutical intake that made it

impossible to see those concepts realized under his control.

At least, this is my semi-informed judgment. Peter and I worked together for most of a decade, but I

really don't know him well. Even though I directed twenty episodes of three different Peter-created series

over that span, this party marks only the second time we have had what you'd call a personal moment.

Even when we were on a series, we never spoke about any subject other than the job.

So I have to chose whether to react with my usual direct skepticism, or go post-modern. I pick the

second: "She doesn't look a day over five hundred million."

"Age isn't important to her. The concept is meaningless."

"I wish I could say the same." At that instant, I know why Peter Deibel and I have never truly connected.

He raises one eyebrow and half-smiles behind his Frito Bandito mustache. "Sorry," I say, blushing.

"You're serious."

"Yeah. Weird, huh?" He offers to wheel me out of the party and toward his office. Feeling like a

small-minded shit, I let him.

· · · · ·

Crazy as Peter is in his professional dealings, he always takes great care in his physical surroundings. His

home office looks like something from the New York Times "Style" section, lots of burnished wood and

expensive rugs framing a tiny iMac. Neatly-bound television scripts sit in a row beneath a picture window

alive with what are, to my aging eyes, the fuzzy lights of Hollywood. A pair of Emmys and a CableAce

award rest in their illuminated nooks.

I offer praise on the design, which he dismisses. "All rented for my new project," he says. "The food, the

music, the lighting, even the women are merely an illusion to convince people I'm a player."

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Michael Cassutt - Beyond The End Of Time

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