Fan Fiction

by Brent Spiner, Jeanne Darst

Genres: Humorous sci-fi

Synopsis

Brent Spiner's explosive and hilarious novel is a personal look at the slightly askew relationship between a celebrity and his fans. If the Coen Brothers were to make a Star Trek movie, involving the complexity of fan obsession and sci-fi, this noir comedy might just be the one.
Set in 1991, just as Star Trek: The Next Generation has rocketed the cast to global fame, the young and impressionable actor Brent Spiner receives a mysterious package and a series of disturbing letters, that take him on a terrifying and bizarre journey that enlists Paramount Security, the LAPD, and even the FBI in putting a stop to the danger that has his life and career hanging in the balance.
Featuring a cast of characters from Patrick Stewart to Levar Burton to Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, to some completely imagined, this is the fictional autobiography that takes readers into the life of Brent Spiner, and tells an amazing tale about the trappings of celebrity and the fear he has carried with him his entire life.

Release date: October 5, 2021

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

ONE

PANDORA’S BOX


THE SECOND WORST part of my job is wearing makeup. The worst is taking it off. The only thing that will cut through my thick mask at the end of a sixteen-hour day is a kerosene-based product called Eliminate. In case you missed it, I said kerosene. I’ve doubtless swallowed at least a gallon of the stuff in an attempt to rid myself of every fleck of gold powder that has worked its way into the pores and orifices of my head. If anything is being “eliminated,” it’s several layers of skin and the well-being of a couple of internal organs, brain cells, and potentially essential fifteen-years-down-the-road sperm. But hey, the show must go on.

While I am going through my end-of-the-day ritual in the two-by-two bathroom of my trailer, which is the exact size of an airplane bathroom and just as comfortable, a knock comes at the open door, followed by the familiar voice of Mickey, the mailroom boy. “Package for you, Mr. S.”

Wiping the excess lighter fluid from my face with a never-again-to-be-used towel, my eyes burning thanks to the flesh-melting Eliminate, I stumble to the door. My trailer is one of a breed of what are called honeywagons, and a second-rate version at that, especially reserved for syndicated series. Originally designed in the early twentieth century for animal stars, they’re strictly utilitarian structures to say the least, though admittedly, they’re considerably nicer than my old apartment in New York. Mickey loiters outside the door holding a large cardboard box and wearing a ridiculous expression on his face. He stands just under five feet and has almost white-blond hair and skin the same color. If they ever start making vampire movies in this town again, this kid could be a star. Though he delivers the mail to nicer trailers than mine, he’s still a bit of a fan and usually genuflects when not carrying such a large package. I’m thankful that on this occasion the size of the carton prevents any such embarrassing display.

“Gotta love those fans, Mr. S. This feels like something important … though I gotta say, it don’t smell very good,” he says, taking a huge whiff.

I don’t care for the sound of that.

“In the future, Mickey,” I admonish him, “if a package comes for me, and it doesn’t smell very good…”

“I know,” he butts in, “spray it with Right Guard before I bring it to you. That shit’ll take the stink outta anything. I ought to know.”

Not wishing to pursue the matter, I swallow the rest of my sentence. Mickey takes the two steps up into my trailer, and as he crosses the threshold, the aroma hits me. It is so heinous, so revolting, it can be described only as a solid. It’s like getting a left hook to the olfactory nerve. There is something unmistakable about it. It is the smell of … evil. He plunks it down on the foldout table that doubles as office and dining room in my home away from home. I can’t actually get close enough to open it. The smell is like an invisible shield between me and the box.

“Yeah, it’s kind of stinky,” says Mickey.

I’m not sure what disturbs me more, the smell or the fact that he finds it “kind of stinky.” Getting woozy, I stagger outside, followed by Mickey.

“Well, if you need anything I’ll be here till midnight,” he says, reaching out to shake my hand.

“Uh … Thanks, Mick,” I say, and slip him a ten-dollar bill very carefully, so as not to touch the hand that held that vile box. “Enjoy your evening. Full moon, you know.”

It’s one of those Los Angeles nights when a marine layer covers the moon like Vaseline over a camera lens.

“Oooh, yeah,” he says, flashing a couple of pearly whites that could cut through an oil drum, “my kinda night!”

And he wolf-howls like Lon Chaney Jr.—I swear he does—before disappearing into the mist. Paramount Pictures in 1991 is lousy with nutty characters.

Deciding to take another shot at opening the box, I inhale a few deep breaths and start in. But my good sense coupled with the atrocious odor stops me cold.

“What if there’s something alive in there?” I say to myself.

I chew on that thought for a couple of seconds and then sprint next door to see if LeVar Burton is still in his trailer.

All of the cast on The Next Generation have become good friends in a very short time. Series work will do that. Or it will do the opposite. The long hours and repetitive work either forge lifelong mates or create bitter enemies. My relationship with LeVar was cemented by the birth of his daughter, Michaela. He showed up at my door not long after the blessed event with a jar containing the placenta, asking me to keep it in my freezer until he and his wife, Stephanie, moved into their new home. Apparently their own freezer was spiritually contaminated, as it was housing a few pounds of beef in various states of dissection. Their intention was to eventually bury the placenta in a hole along with a newly planted apple tree. And that’s exactly what they did. The last time I visited their house, I was delighted to see the tree had grown tall and strong, with apples that all looked curiously like Michaela’s head.

LeVar’s trailer is the antithesis of mine. It is filled with dozens of crystals and the intoxicating, unmistakable perfume of patchouli and lavender, mixed with the residue of Export ‘A’ cigarettes. I call it LeVaroma. The lavender, by the way, is reputed to keep evil spirits away, so I’m definitely in the right place. LeVar sits on his sofa with his legs tucked under him in a pretzel-like configuration. His eyes are closed and his breathing suggests some secret mantra running over and over through his mind. As much as I hate to disturb him, I figure that if he is in a transcendental state, he will surely forgive me.

“Burt…”

He told me once that Steve McQueen called him Burt when they made the movie The Hunter. He said I was like McQueen in that way. In every other way—well, not so much.

“Burt … I know you’re in there somewhere. If you can hear me, I need your help.”

He peels one eye open, then the other. He looks like a giant bird slowly coming to life. Very, very slowly, or so it feels to me. At last, after a long series of deep inhalations through his nose, he speaks.

“Do you know where I keep my pistol?” he says like a character in some other movie.

“No. You have a pistol?”

“No,” he whispers as an enigmatic smile crosses his face. The Mona Lisa has nothing on LeVar. “What’s the problem?”

“This is going to sound ridiculous, but there’s a box … do you really have a pistol?”

“No.” Again the enigmatic smile.

“Anyway, Mickey just delivered a box to me that smells like … like…” My hands and face contort to express just how awful it is.

“Like evil?”

“Something in the evil family, yes,” I say, not at all surprised at LeVar’s intuition.

He untwists his limbs and sweeps a black saddlebag up from the floor. He reaches into one of the pockets and withdraws a long stalk of some kind of dried plant.

“This is sage,” he says. “It’s used to eliminate negative energy. Evil spirits. Let’s go smudge that motherfucker.”

Before we brave my unholy lair, LeVar strikes a match and sets the sage on fire. He lets it burn a few seconds and then blows it out. And as pungent smoke continues to billow from its tip, he passes it over the length of my trailer.

“Will that do it?” I whimper, buying into hocus-pocus for the first time in my life.

“That just lets them know we’re here.”

We open the door and peek our heads in, as if we’re doing a remake of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. LeVar is one step into the trailer when the smell hits him. It literally knocks him to the ground.

“I’m not going in there,” he says as he picks himself up off the ground. “You need more than sage for that evil stink.”

He makes a fast U-turn for the safety of his crystal palace, with this born-again believer on his heels.

“You got something stronger, Burt?” I ask, now certain he has a voodoo spell that will do the trick.

“Yeah. I’m calling Paramount security.”

As is typical in an emergency, help arrives half an hour later, in the person of Ted Spiegel, studio security chief, the Lone Ranger in a white golf cart with the William Tell Overture playing in a continual loop in his brain. If he could wear a mask, he would. He dismounts—if it’s actually possible to dismount from a golf cart—and marches fearlessly to the door of my trailer.

“Stand back, boys,” he commands as he charges in.

We do. Several feet. Even at that distance, the putrid aroma makes its way to our nostrils. Ted seems oblivious.

“How can you stand it, Ted?” I call to him as I back another few feet away.

“I got hit by a car when I was seventeen,” he says, pulling a Rambo-like knife from a scabbard attached to his belt. “Lost my sense of smell. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

He slices open the top of the box like he’s performing surgery and carefully looks inside. He lets out one of those “holy shit” kind of whistles. Then he picks up the box and tilts it toward us so we can appreciate what he has just seen. The sides of the box are lined with heavy plastic, which is a good thing, because inside is some horrible fleshy object, floating in blood.

“What the hell is that?” I manage to croak.

“That, gentlemen, is a pig’s penis,” says Ted.

“Au jus,” adds LeVar, ever the wit.

I would laugh if what I was looking at wasn’t so horribly, bloodily, grotesquely real.

“I’m not sure I want the answer to this, Ted, but how do you know?”

A strange, dark memory passes over Ted’s face for what seemed like a long holiday weekend.

“I once saw a man lying facedown with his arms and legs tied behind him. One of these babies was stuck down his throat.”

They say acting isn’t acting, it’s reacting. LeVar and I are paralyzed. Neither of us know exactly what in God’s name to say, but I take a leap. “Was he dead?”

The way Ted looks at me makes it clear I am not the straight man of this comedy team. “That man was my uncle Sam,” he confides, as if we want to know.

“Jesus” is all LeVar can get out.

“Yeah, Jesus,” says Ted with a disgust that tells us his churchgoing days are far behind him.

He tilts the box so that LeVar and I can see the underside of the lid where the word DEAD is written in black marker. Dead. LeVar looks at me as if to say, “I can’t sage this but it’s going to be okay.” Nice try, but I don’t feel like it’s going to be okay.

Still lost in his own nightmare, Ted shuts the box and lifts it into his arms, leaves my honeywagon, slides back into his saddle, and drives away. I wish that I could drive away on some company-owned white golf cart, home to Ted’s word-jumble-doing wife and his over-air-conditioned ranch house in Toluca Lake. I wish I could sleep the sleep of Ted, an older man with nothing to wrestle with, nothing to hide from or cover up, no makeup or lines to learn. No one is out there following his golf cart; no one is concealed behind a window watching him or waiting at his house for him to come home alone. Or sending him blood-soaked genitalia. No one wants him dead.


Copyright © 2021 by Brent Spiner