Quite a cast of characters: Another excerpt from "Blue Hill," my latest book, which publishes on Oct. 6

 Along with several fictional characters, starting with the narrator, "Blue Hill" features some real-life people -- Jack Nicholson, for example, albeit in fictionalized form. To learn more about the book, which publishes on October 6 - and to preorder in audio, Kindle or paper formats - visit http://www.gwaynemiller.com/books.htm

The crowd was hushed. You could see them glancing around, nervously, a case of mass suspicion. I looked at them looking and saw—my number-one fan, the tall skinny kid who’d wanted Ultra Bloodfest.

“It’s him!” he shouted, pointing at me.

“The crazy old guy!” his friend added.

“HE’S THE SOCIETY STALKER!”

The boys looked terrified. They looked like I was about to eat their livers, here in view of two hundred people—and then they ran, screaming as they ripped through the crowd.

In an instant, the place was bedlam. Kids shrieked as mothers tried to get them to safety. Elders fainted. And when I bolted, a blue-uniformed security guard decided it was his moment to become a hero. You know the type—a twenty-something high-school dropout entrusted with a loaded sidearm and carrying a boatload of attitude.

“Stop!” he shouted.

I plowed into the scattering crowd.

“Stop or I shoot!”

That only happens in movies, I thought.

I didn’t stop.

It didn’t happen only in movies: Our intrepid hero fired a warning shot over my head.

And then another, and another, until his magazine was empty.

The bullets must have hit a power line because bulbs blew and the ceiling started smoking and the mall went dark. Alarms were ringing and people were crying and screaming and Christ knows why, but the fire sprinklers were sprinkling—and I kept on going, past stores, down a stopped escalator, outdistancing the guard, across a promenade and into the enclosed walkway that connects Copley Place with the Prudential Center, which is next to the Sheraton, where I was staying.

I was being pursued.

Not by the guard—that slug had fallen by the wayside—but by a young man with a fancy camera. I never did learn if he was an off-duty news photographer, or an intrepid freelancer, or just some feckless passerby. Whoever, he wanted my picture. Wanted dozens of them! A paparazzi, of all things! And an athlete, to boot—a sinewy young man in Nikes who surely ran marathons! He was gaining quickly on me when, as impulsively as I’d done anything in that season of impulse, I stopped and dropped my trousers. Mooned him as he clicked away.

“Is that what you wanted?” I said.

Before he could answer, I snatched the camera from him, opened it and exposed the film. Then I threw his camera onto the floor. It shattered and the flash exploded.

I ran into the Prudential Center and ducked into an elevator.

The doors closed.

I was going down.

“Shit,” I said.

My room was on the twenty-third floor.

The elevator stopped at the parking garage. I was about to hit the button for my floor when I noticed a magnificent black ‘30s roadster. A distinctive-looking man dressed in a white three-piece suit and wearing a tan fedora was behind the wheel, smoking an unfiltered cigarette.

By God, it was Jack Nicholson! Driving the car he drove in Chinatown! He smiled when he saw me. Evidently, he’d been waiting for my arrival.

“Take a load off your feet, kid,” he said, opening the passenger door.

I got in.

“What happened to you?” he said, examining my face. “Don’t tell me the old liver’s giving out.”

The cream had created a tan in streaks, as was evident on inspection. Close on, the overall impression was jaundice.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Don’t I know,” Nicholson said. “I’ve been following you on TV.”

“Then you know why I couldn’t make the Knicks.”

“Disappointed as I was, I understood.”

I noticed Nicholson had a flask cradled between his legs.

“Johnnie Walker Red,” he said. “Good for what ails you.”

He offered me the bottle. I took a swig and thanked him.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Cigarette?”

He opened a silver case and I took one. He lit it. I hadn’t had a cigarette since Venice Beach.

“I’m lucky I made it out of there alive,” I said, inhaling deeply.

It was a Camel. It tasted wonderful.

“Tough audience,” Nicholson agreed, “but aren’t they all? They love you when you’re up—and when you’re down, you might as well be wind from a duck’s ass.”

It was J.J. Gittes’ best line in Chinatown.

“Look how they crucified Roman Polanski,” Nicholson said.

“Or Randall Patrick McMurphy.”

“Exactly. All I can say, kid, is your story’d make a hell of a movie.”

“I suppose it would,” I said, modestly.

“Call it My Adult Life or Blue Hill or Deep Blue, something darkly ironic like that. Or 1997, if you want to capture the zeitgeist of the era and quite an era it is. You’d have the critics eating out of the palm of your hand.”

I said: “The only issue is: Would it be a comedy or a tragedy?”

“Neither,” Nicholson said. “It would be a farce. What a silly ass you’ve become, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

I was crestfallen.

My face must have given me away, because Nicholson added:

“You haven’t lost your sense of humor, have you, kid? That was a joke! As for tragedy or comedy, it would be both. You’re talking Hollywood. Nuance means nothing out there. Think Oscar. We’d go for the big lights and forget the rest.”

He took a long, loving swallow of Johnnie Walker.

“Only one person,” he said, “would do justice directing: Robert Altman.”

“Not me?”

“You’re too close to it, kid. Not that you don’t have what it takes, ‘cause you do. Your day will come.”

“Thanks.” I smiled.

“Know who’d have to play you?” Nicholson continued.

“Sure I do,” I said. “You.”

“A gentleman you are,” Nicholson said with that shit-eating grin I adored, “a casting agent you are not. I’m a little past that now, kid.”

“No, you’re not. You look the same as you did in Cuckoo’s Nest.”

But he didn’t. Off screen, up close, in the unforgiving fluorescent light of an underground garage, you could see gray roots and what probably were scars from plug transplants. I saw his eyes, the flesh around them especially, and I knew why he always went out in shades. Surgery may have ameliorated all those years in Hollywood, but it couldn’t erase them.

And if I’d had a time-travel machine, I would have seen the sad last chapter of his life, when he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, his memories and long career achievements scrubbed from his mind, as if they had never happened.

“God bless you,” Nicholson said. “I was thinking more along the lines of Tom Hanks.”

“I’m flattered.”

“The big question is who’d do justice to Allison. I kind of have Julianne Moore in mind.”

“She’d be perfect,” I said. “Perfect! They even look alike.”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You saw Lost World, I’m sure.”

“Three times.”

“Only thing wrong with that picture was Moore kept her clothes on. I ask you: What the hell would have been wrong with a little skin—say, one of those velociraptors ripping off her shirt just before she escapes into that building?”

“Nothing at all!” I said.

“I’m not talking sex—just give me a second or two of tit!” Nicholson said. “Use a body double if Moore’s not the type—but give me somethingto hang a fantasy on, for Chrissakes! Well, that’s Spielberg for you. Damn prude. Only skin he’s ever given us was in Schindler’s List, of all fucking flicks! What are your thoughts on who’d play Ruth?”

“Faye Dunaway?”

Nicholson looked over his sunglasses at me.

“Have you seen ole Faye lately?” he said. “I think Glenn Close is more what I have in mind.”

“Or Rene Russo."

“Better yet. Good middle-aged women are so hard to find.”

We were relating now. I could feel it. Destined for each other over the miles and the years, our souls had finally, irreversibly connected.

Nicholson took another hit of whiskey and checked his watch.

“Sorry to cut out on you,” he said, “but I’ve got a Celtics-Lakers game to catch. It’s not the same without Magic and Larry, but that’s life in the big city. Things change.”

“Not you, Jack.”

“Even me, Mark.”

He started the car.

“Take me with you?” I asked.

Nicholson was puzzled.

“To Boston Garden?”

“To anywhere.”

“I’m afraid you’re on your own now, my man. Just watch out for that Malloy: There’s something not quite right about him.”

“Everything’s so fucked-up,” I said. “I need help.”

“What you need,” Nicholson said, “is a golf club!”

He grinned, and then he was cackling, and before long he was wheezing, he was so amused with himself. Apparently, he still wasn’t over his freeway encounter.

“That’s not funny,” I said.

“Not funny? You really have lost your sense of humor. The shit you’re in, my friend, you need one. I wasn’t kidding about the golf club. They’re all bastards. Have a little fun at their expense. You’re good at that kind of stuff. I laughed myself silly at the Sermon put-on at the convention.”

I was stunned.

“You were there?” I said.

“Hell, yes,” Nicholson said. “Snuck in at the last minute and had to run out before you got your Wilbur—congratulations on that, by the way. I figured I’d see you at the Knicks. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go.”

“Please don’t,” I begged.

“Don’t make me do something I’ll regret,” Nicholson said. “We’ve been friends too long.” 

“We could go to the movies,” I said. “I’ll pay.”

Nicholson took off his sunglasses and our eyes met.

“You just don’t get it, do you, kid?” he said.

He was not a man to mess with now. I stepped out of his car and slowly closed the door. He put the transmission in gear and roared off.

Nicholson photo courtesy Kingkongphoto, www.celebrity-photos.com via wikipedia commons.