A MESSAGE ABOUT HEALTH

I was crashed out on the couch.

“Why aren’t you writing?” Jason, my roommate, asked.

“I can’t concentrate,” I said. “All I think about is Eric Szmanda.”

“Eric who?” he said. Eric Szmanda, I told him, the star of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the TV series. “Is he the one with the spiky hair?”

“Yes,” I said. “I sent him a copy of The Haunted Hillbilly.” The Haunted Hillbilly was my last novel. It’s about a vampire tailor who rapes and terrorizes country singer Hank Williams. “Do you think he’ll write me back?”

* * *

I watch TV when I write. I lie on the couch, laptop on my lap. A year ago I was struggling to start a new novel. On my computer screen: nothing. On my TV screen: CSI. The show had been a hit for years. I had never paid it any mind.

But then, it hooked me. Here’s how: men. The Las Vegas crime lab is staffed with gorgeous guys. Gary Dourdan, who plays Warrick Brown. George Eads, who plays Nick Stokes. CSI is syndicated on several stations. I found myself watching it four or five times a night. I found myself drinking Scotch, downing Gravol and watching CSI. My novel went nowhere.

I fell for Eric Szmanda, who plays Greg Sanders. It took time. At first I didn’t like him. His hair, his character, his acting style – all of it annoyed me. Then, stoned and soused, I noticed his lips. And his eyes. And ass. I Googled him. Mapquested him. I bookmarked a bunch of Szmanda-themed websites. Fanlistings. Fan forums. Within weeks I’d read where his parents live, where his brother works. I’d discovered his home address in Hollywood.

I mailed him The Haunted Hillbilly. “To Eric,” I inscribed it, “with admiration.”

* * *

Panda. Rhymes with Szmanda. So said an Eric Szmanda fansite. I began to refer to Eric as “Panda.” I referred to him a lot.

Panda smokes. Panda was born in Wisconsin. Panda has a portrait of Sid Vicious hanging in his house. Panda attended the wedding of Marilyn Manson and Dita von Teese. Panda appeared in a Manson music video. Dressed in drag. If he could handle that, how much could he hate my novel?

I noticed that Panda was often photographed wearing a chain with a sword-shaped pendant. I tracked down the chain’s maker, an international design collective called Surface to Air. I bought one. I bought a lot of Panda paraphernalia. A CSI companion book. Boxed sets of CSI on DVD. A Panda fridge magnet. My sister, bless her socks, bought me a Panda keychain. It’s plastic. On one side, a picture of Panda, his hair coiffed like Limahl’s; on the other, these words: “Eric Szmanda: There is no substitute.” For my birthday, a friend gave me a swatch of cloth cut from Panda’s lab coat. My friend found it on eBay. The seller swore it was authentic. By the by, my birthday is in June. Half a year I had spent watching Panda, waiting for word from him.

“I love him,” I said, sprawled on the couch, computer asleep on the recliner. “Why haven’t I heard back?”

“You don’t love him,” Jason, my roommate, said. “Remember Buffy?”

* * *

The Haunted Hillbilly had been hell to write. I wrote. I wrote. I wrote. After years of writing, I had nothing. Nothing that wasn’t awful.

All I had was Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. It had been a cult hit for years. I had never paid it any mind. But then, it hooked me. Buffy starred a slew of beautiful men. James Marsters, who played Spike. Marc Blucas, who played Riley. I fell for Nicholas Brendon, who played Xander. I bought Buffy DVDs. I cried while watching them. I cried every day.

I bought a lot of Buffy merchandise, including a fake class ring from Buffy’s fictional alma mater, Sunnydale High. I bought it in Los Angeles. Jason and I were there to see our friend Dennis. Dennis is an Angeleno by birth. And a Buffy fan. He showed us locations where the show was shot. A graveyard in Hollywood where she battled vampires. A house in Los Feliz where Giles, her mentor, lived.

“There’s Xander,” he said.

We were in the mall where the Academy Awards are staged. Xander sauntered past, climbing onto an escalator. I followed him to another floor, where he went into a restaurant. I concealed myself behind a column. Drew my camera from my courier bag. Stepped out from behind the column. Snapped. In the photo, Xander’s a blur at the bar. A waiter’s stormed toward me. He kicked me out. Me, Hollywood’s sorriest stalker.

* * *

Panda strolls down a suburban sidewalk. Panda strains to see over a fence. Panda inspects the garbage in a gutter. Panda peers down a storm sewer.

It’s a sequence from CSI. When I first watched it, I wept. I thought: Did residents of the street see Panda shoot the scene? If so, was it the happiest moment of their lives? What happened to them when he and the crew packed up and left? Did their lives continue?

“If I saw Panda and didn’t talk to him, I would die,” I said.

“You’re being stupid,” Jason said.

It had been the better part of a year since I mailed my book to Panda. Days I daydreamed that he was reading it, that he was relishing it, that he wanted to make it into a movie. Nights I read CSI fanfiction online. Specifically: N/G, Nick/Greg, slash fiction in which the Nick Stokes character fucks Greg Sanders silly. I remember renting David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, a movie I adore. Scene by scene I studied it. Somehow, I’d become positive that Panda could be seen in the background, driving in his car or walking his dog. I had no proof of this. I never spotted him. I decided that I’d send him another copy of The Haunted Hillbilly. I decided that I’d comb through it, crossing out the name “Hank” and inking in “Eric.”

“It’s like he’s all the goodness and beauty in the world,” I said.

“I’m calling a therapist,” Jason said.

* * *

Lonely. I started seeing a therapist, and he sensed that I was lonely. He sensed that fanboy infatuations filled in for real-life romance. How long, he wondered, had I been falling for famous men?

Shaun Cassidy was my first crush. Shaun starred as Joe Hardy in The Hardy Boys from 1977 to 1979. Like a lot of kids, I owned a complete library of Hardy Boys books. I bought them one by one from a second-hand bookstore in Peterborough. After the TV show started, I began to buy Tiger Beat.

The first book I ever wrote was a Hardy Boys mystery. I was ten. I don’t recall the title. I don’t recall the plot. All I recall: Frank was in the family library. Studying something. Joe jogged in. Sweaty. His shorts were made of mesh. Frank said something. “You’re sweaty.” Or: “Those are nice mesh shorts.” Picture the TV adaptation! Shaun Cassidy in shorts – who needed a narrative?

As a teen I wrote another Hardy Boys book. I still have it. Joe and Frank are holed up in a hotel room. Frank administers an enema to Joe. With champagne. Joe jerks off into the empty bottle. Filling it. A magnum!

All of which made me wonder: Am I lonely because I write, or do I write because I’m lonely? Is all my writing a form of fan fiction?

Is all my fiction slash?

* * *

Panda appeared live at Much Music last fall. Friends phoned me: Why, they wondered, wasn’t I there, trying to talk to him?

Panda had been replaced. I was busy with a new obsession. I’d met a man at a reading. We’d dated. I was smitten. He was not. A crush on someone I’d actually met: Jason considered it a step in the right direction.

I was writing again. Slowly and unsteadily, a new novel was taking shape. I deleted my Panda bookmarks. I packed away Panda paraphernalia alongside mementoes of Buffy and other shows I’ve loved. In the mail I received a package postmarked “Hollywood.” A glossy promo picture of Panda. “To Derek,” it said, “Eric.” I display it on my fridge. It hangs beside a novelty magnet, a skull with a cigarette in its mouth. Press the cigarette. The skull laughs.

“Smoking kills,” the skull says.

* * *

Derek McCormack's critically acclaimed fiction has been published widely, and The Haunted Hillbilly appears in editions from Canada's ECW Press and the USA's Soft Skull Press. Other titles include Wish Book, Christmas Days, and Grab Bag.