The Man in the Seventh Row

Brian Pendreigh

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Iwant to report a murder," says the visitor. “Sit down,” says the man behind the desk. There is a hard edge in his voice. He is a man who says no more than is necessary, sometimes not even that much. “Who was murdered?” he asks.

His visitor takes a deep breath, considers the question “Who was murdered?,” and weighs up his response. “I was,” he says.

The policeman’s face shows not a flicker of reaction. He picks up another piece of paper and begins to read it, as if the topic of discussion has turned out to be too trivial to warrant any further attention.

“Do you want to hear my story or not?” asks the visitor. “I don’t have much time left. A day, two days, a week at the most. And then I will be gone.”

“Where?” asks the policeman.

“The movies,” says the man.

“I’m disappearing into the second dimension,” says the man. Quickly reconsidering the melodrama inherent in his comment, he feels he must elaborate. “The movies are taking me over,” he says. “Taking over my thoughts. Taking over my body. I can walk and talk but I have no life of my own anymore, no life outside the movies.”

Most people in this city are taken over by the movies. That is why they are here. Serving beers. Waiting tables. Just waiting. Waiting for the big break that will turn them into the next Tom Cruise, or the next Julia Roberts. But more likely the only movies they will ever make will involve sex with strangers filmed by other strangers. They are no more than children when they come to LA. They quickly grow old, lose their looks and mislay their innocence. Every day the policeman sees people who have been taken over by the movies. They live in trailer parks and dirty, cramped apartments, and they turn tricks on Sunset Boulevard until their own suns set. He has looked on their corpses, abused by drugs and sexual perversion and sees a dream that turned into a nightmare. They were dead long before they were taken to the morgue.

The man from the seventh row looks at the policeman.

“The name’s Batty,” he says at last. “Roy Batty.”

About the author

Brian Pendreigh is an award- winning film writer. The Man in the Seventh Row and Related Stories of the Human Condition is an expanded version of his - 2011 novel, price £ 8.99