"TONIGHT'S GUEST IS!"

Ghoulish fiction from Robert Nazar Arjoyan

Good morning, ghouls! I thought it’d be fun to kickoff the weekend with a free short story: “Tonight’s Guest Is!” by Robert Nazar Arjoyan.

This story is included in the debut issue of Ghoulish Tales, which is out now and available to purchase via our webstore, B&N, or Amazon. You can also SUBSCRIBE. Additionally, copies are in stock at our bookstore (Ghoulish Books, 9330 Corporate Drive, Suite 702, Selma, TX 78154).

If you’re on TikTok, I made a little “flipping through the magazine” video showing the issue off.

Also, if you’re local, stop by our bookstore tonight for MOVIE NIGHT. Tickets available HERE.

And now, Robert Nazar Arjoyan’s Ghoulish Tales contribution. Stay tuned after the story for an exclusive interview with the author.

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“Tonight’s Guest Is!”

by Robert Nazar Arjoyan

He needed someone to turn the heater down, for God’s sake, there were already sweats pooling under his pits. As much as he loved doing the talk shows, he hated the green rooms. But Joe Bach didn’t complain. The life he led was lucky.

He would call out, perfectly certain someone would come because someone always did. Those in earshot could actually hear his smile. It was a power he’d always had and used.

Joe cleared his throat once and let loose the award winner, the crowd pleaser, the sea parter.        

“Excuse me?” rang the avuncular voice recognized in every developed country—most of the third world for that matter. And if for some reason his voice went unidentified, then his face would be a dead giveaway. His lapis lazuli eyes, the free fall of his snowing hair, a wrinkle in the right corner of his mouth.

Joe Bach had grown up with one generation, fathered another, and now bounced their successors on both of his knees. Everyone had a favorite Joe Bach movie and anyone charmed enough to have met the man himself walked away feeling lighter, better, happier.

“Yes, Mr. Bach?” A PA’s head popped in.

“Joe, please. No ‘mister’ anything,” beamed Joe. He knew how to make anyone feel comfortable in his presence and really, he was at ease with folks of all kinds.

“Could we turn the heater down a tad, please?” continued Joe. “I would myself but I couldn’t seem to find a console or station or whatever they’re called.” Joe chuckled as the PA consulted her iPad.

“I believe your people told us that you like it a little warmer than usual?”

“Warm, sure, but it’s a bit too warm just now.”

“Copy that. We’ll turn it down right away.”

“Thank you so much. What’s your name?”

“Marina.”

“Thank you so much, Marina. I appreciate it.”

See? The world could function properly with just a sprinkling of kindness. Knowing someone’s name, saying please and thank you, lookin em in the eye. Status is nice, Joe wasn’t a fool, but at the end of the day, he was a person just like Marina.

Joe relaxed and got ready for the hot seat.

***

“Five minutes, Mr. Bach.”

Joe opened his eyes and saw Marina at the door. He spotted lights prancing behind her.

It took a long second to get his bearings. Who was the host again? They all bled into each other after a while. He was here to plug his new... movie? No, it was the memoir!

Was it time to write one of those already? An obligatory obituary written, edited, and proofed by any celebrity worth their salt. No ghostwriter for Joe Bach.

Joe stood and stretched. The one action movie he tried in the 90s left him with a shattered knee and it smarted more than ever. He winced at the sudden buckling and fell on the crafts table. The turkey slices his team requested were ham. The chocolate chip cookies he loved were oatmeal raisin. Such blatant erring pissed Joe off, if he was being honest, but after a deep breath and a short talking-to, he realized it was the bum knee just exacerbating things. Ham reminded Joe of Christmas, his favorite holiday, while the oatmeal cookies painted a pretty picture of Jess.

He grabbed one and bit. Joe stopped mid-chew. He ground his jaw and teeth slowly.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. Joe would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles that these cookies tasted just like—no, were indeed his grandgirl’s. He pocketed another, thinking already how to bring it up on camera. Everyone would eat that up.

He laughed inwardly.

Tie straight, hair just so, cookie in pocket, Joe went to greet his adoring public. And anyway, he was all too ready to leave this blasted furnace.

Someone had turned the heater on again.

***

The curtain was crimson and crushed. Joe waited for his cue as he’d waited countless times before. Surefooted and never nervy.

“Ready?” It was Marina again.

Joe understood intellectually that she was just doing her job but, come on. Ready? Joe didn’t like the cut of her gib.

“Yup,” he assured.

“Our second guest canceled, unfortunately, so you’ll have to fill in both slots.”

“Ah,” scoffed Joe. “No problemo!”

“Do you have stuff you can talk about?”

Joe was certain that she was just trying to get his goat. One of those kids who ironically didn’t like him, who thought him disingenuous and his acting canned.

Well, fuck her.

“I have stuff I can talk about, yes.”

“Good. We’re back in thirty.”

She loped away, whispering in someone’s ear who’d whisper it to someone else and so on and so forth until the message would unquestionably become Joe Bach has warts on his toes.

Would he get paid for the overtime? He was certain his agent would take care of that after the fact. Other than the action movie snag, she was a winner in Joe’s eyes. Took care of all his needs. Nell earned every bit of her ten percent.

The live band kicked into high gear and the audience applauded, whooping and hollering.

Joe heard a husky voice slither out of the speakers.

“Welcome back to Tonight’s Guest Is! We’re very fortunate this evening to have with us a paragon of cinema, a model human being, and everyone’s favorite man. He’s someone’s father, he’s someone’s son, he’s Joe Bach! Give it up, kids!”

The curtains came to life and swung apart. The powerful lights hit Joe with a blinding force and he put a hand up to shield his eyes from the rays. They should’ve done a walkthrough earlier in the day. Why hadn’t that been arranged? Whatever—a set is a set is a set.

Joe had walked over them all.

The man behind the desk was smaller than Joe but swarthier—deep tan, black hair and brows, and a most impeccably shaven face. Joe respected anyone who knew how to shave correctly. The host was smiling and cajoling him onward with waves and clapter. One of Joe’s secrets was this word, a portmanteau of clap and laughter. It sounded more natural to him than applause.

“Joe Bach, everyone! Let’s hear it!”

The mirth of the crowd rose to a roar. Swept up by the pandemonium, Joe hooted back. Again, he could be comfortable with the President of the United States or strangers in a bar. What’s more, Joe loved this shit. He made like it was nothing, but it got him hard in all the places that mattered.

He took a bow and sat beside his host. But oh hell, Joe didn’t know this guy’s name! Wouldn’t do to start the program by asking this fella’s name, not at all. He racked his prodigious memory, certain the handle was nestled in there someplace. He could of course employ his seldom seen improv chops and make a—

“Joe, Abe Lyon. Been waiting a long time to meet you!”

“Well, Abe, that’s kind of you and I’m glad to be your guest.”

To underscore the general bonhomie fomenting betwixt Abe and Joe, the crowd broke into another round of ovation.

“Ah, clapter,” declared Abe. “Keeps this show on the air!”

The wrinkle curving around Joe’s mouth deepened. Did this Abe just say clapter? Could be a... coincidence, of course, people make up words like that all the time-

“And a nice segue right into the memoir, I’d say. Aren’t I doing good so far, Joe?” The lights were glaring, sparkling, intense. And quite hot.

It made seeing any part of the spectators impossible.

“The memoir, you said?”

“Yes, your memoir!” Joe noticed that this man spoke in exclamations strictly. From beneath his desk, Abe pulled out a hardcover copy of Joe’s book.

“Someone’s Father, Someone’s Son. What an exquisite title.”

“Heh, thanks, thank you very much.” Joe’s editor, Carl, came up with the title. Nell made Carl sign an NDA stipulating that he’d never reveal this information.

“Kudos to your editor for such an inspired choice, eh?”

Joe’s head snapped back but Abe kept on rambling and wouldn’t let Joe get a word in.

“It’s a doorstop, this thing, look at it! You, zoom in with camera B. What a monster, huh?”

As Abe held the book up, Joe thought it looked… thicker.

“I have forever been a devourer of people’s lives and this book is delicious.”

“I’m sorry, is that a new edition?”

Abe turned the book over in his hirsute hand, inspecting it.

“Don’t think so!” He perused the copyright page, his filed nail denting the folio.

“By the way, Joe, this dedication: ‘for my Jess.’ That’s your granddaughter, right?”

The cookie! A better lead-in couldn’t have been written.

“That’s right, Abe. In fact, the funniest thing happened.”

“Tell!”

“In the green room today, everything was off! Turkey was ham, water was wine, and chocolate chip cookies were oatmeal raisin. You guys did not have that room together.”

Joe chuckled to reassure everything was fine, just fine.

“But when I tasted it, the cookie, I mean, I would have taken an oath that it was from a batch of Jess’s. So I rationed another for later.”

Now, thought Joe, I will reach into my pocket and seal the d—

“Ahhh!” Joe shot up out of his chair.

“Joe, Joe! What happened? Are you alright?”

Joe took his jacket off like a man on fire and tossed it away.

“There was something in my pocket! I took a cookie from the green room and I’d planned to eat it... but... I don’t know what but something just touched me!”

The audience grumbled, some giggled.

“Why don’t we go to commercial? I won’t let you go anywhere!” Abe flashed a grin and kept it until the all-clear. Then his face drooped.

“Joe, are you OK?”

“I’m telling you, man, there was something in my pocket.”

“Let’s take a looksee.”

“Go for it. I’m waiting here.”

Abe walked over to the blazer and Joe noticed the man wasn’t wearing shoes.

His feet were bare.

Abe reached into the offending pocket and after feeling around, produced the cookie.

“Whatever it was must have crawled away,” conjectured Joe.

“Possible. These are very old studios.”

From the wings: “Back in thirty.”

“Come on, Joe, let’s really get into it now. Do you want the cookie?”

Joe just shook his head. Later, the sight of Abe biting into the cookie would chill Joe perpetually.

“Let’s talk about the book,” suggested Joe.

“That’s why we’re here!”

Prompted by the winking sign above their heads, the studio audience ushered the cameras in with shouts and whistles.

“And we’re back, my dears and acolytes! Sitting here with Joe Bach. Joe, we were just getting into the meat of your memoir. Dedicated to your granddaughter Jess, titled by your editor—”

“Really, no, we both batted around—”

“And still selling like hotcakes.”

“I’ve been very fortunate.”

A pause. Abe looked at Joe from down his sharp nose.

“And... I just felt like getting it all down and thanking the folks who helped me along the way.” Joe nodded, swallowed. Threw his hands up and smiled.

“What a gent, this guy. Another round of clapter for our Joe!”

“Wait, wait. Stop. I’m—I’m just curious. You said it before and—”

“Said what?”

“Clapter. Where’d that come from?”

Abe made a goofy face.

“Ummm, your book, Joe.”

Joe’s heart picked up its pace.

“That’s not in my book, Abe.”

“Joe, I read this thing backwards and forwards.”

“Yeah, and I wrote it.” Joe’s voice did what it did when he played Macbeth at the National.

Abe flipped through Someone’s Father, Someone’s Son.

“Aha. May I? ‘The girl’s vocabulary was nowhere near as fully fleshed as she. Before I actually had her—or any of them—I took time to make her feel cozy, snug, warm.’”

“Stop,” commanded Joe. Abe did not heed.

“’We’d play a game or two, talk about movies, what they were learning in school. And this particular child—”

Joe wrenched the book from Abe.

“What the fuck do you think this is, huh? I will sue you and your entire—”

From under his desk, Abe brought out another copy of the book and picked up where he left off.

“And this particular child whose name I never learned—”

Joe snatched this one too but it, in turn, snatched him. America’s actor began to elocute.

“‘—because I never learned any of their names, asked me what it was like to hear clapter all the time. The unnamed and unnumbered and unflowered girl gave me this lovely word. She had a strange blemish on her left shoulder. I wish the others were gentler sometimes.’”

Joe stared at words he’d never written.

Only lived.

“Beautiful, Joe. Just beautiful! That entire chapter. And while it only spans one hundred pages, it was your entire life, wasn’t it?”

If Joe was looking at his host, he’d have seen smoke drifting from Abe’s mouth.

“Can we... can we lower the lights, please? It’s incredibly hot.”

“Those aren’t the lights,” was all Abe said.

Joe was sweating now and the smell of rotten eggs began to perforate from all around him.

“Writing is a basin in which to wash away one’s sins. Those sins scamper and surge down the drain all the way to yours truly.”

Joe looked at Abe now and saw him in truth.

“Marina, would you bring Joe here the surprise, please?”

Joe bolted for the curtain. It opened at his approach but he skidded to a halt. A naked little girl was pushing a cart laden with awards of gold and silver and bronze.

There was a ruddy discoloration on her shoulder.

“Marina?”

The child that Joe violated thirty years ago nudged past him.

“Guessed right, Joe. First prize! Add it to the heap, boys.”

From an inky ceiling that was nothing but dripping stalactites fell another award.

“Good for you, Joe! We’ve already issued a press release to the mourning world via Nell. I like her, Joe, and I think she’ll be joining us sooner than later. Come on, let’s have another round of clapter!”

Clapter there was and louder it got. The throng stood. The gauze holding Joe’s mind in place tore away when he saw the audience descend and approach.

Kids, all.

Innocents who were someone’s son, someone’s daughter, but never anyone’s father, never anyone’s mother. Marina dumped the cart into a chasm which had materialized out of nowhere. Great, steaming magma roiled and screamed, melting the history of Joe’s victorious life.

The children came nearer to him.

“Careful, kids, this man is a danger to us all,” warned Abe. Joe rotated his head and glanced at Abe, a red thing with red talons and a red penis. It hurt Joe’s wilting eyes to look for long so he turned his blank stare to the children. There he found fury.

Abe—real name unsayable but sometimes called Apollyon—inserted a cloven hand into the maw of fire. From this cauldron a blade he hoisted, alloyed together from the muck of Joe’s false narratives.

“Get him.”

Leashed by the commands of domineering adults, the children seized Joe with unrelenting and immovable loathing. He searched their faces, skimming from one unfamiliar visage to the next, never stopping.

As Abe scuffed his hooves toward Joe, erect and armed, the man loved by all, the man who loved all, had still one greater thing to fear: when would he spot Jess?

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Read the other stories in Ghoulish Tales Issue #1 HERE.

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A GHOULISH INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT NAZAR ARJOYAN

Is there an origin story you can share for “Tonight’s Guest is!”?

Honestly, it was a shower idea. The title came first and I fingerwrote it on the befogged glass, the explanation point and everything. It looked good! The very next thing was just a pitch I wrote to myself on a sticky note - talk show in hell - along with other one liner story concepts. This was after a shave. And then I guess it just sorta tumbled out in one sitting. The ending completely surprised me, as I hope it surprises the readers.  

This story feels, at its heart, like a classic EC Horror comic or Tales from the Crypt episode. Were any of these an inspiration? If so, can you talk a bit about what these stories might mean to you?

I grew up on comics but never the EC stuff. Marvel was my jam and those aren’t spooky, are they? Tales of the Crypt creeped me the fuck out when I was little, that damn crypt keeper and his carefree menace never sat right with me, but I devoured Are You Afraid of the Dark? I specifically remember the pool monster episode. That bastard scarred me and my cousin for a long, long while. I can also recall the vampire neighbor episode crystal clearly and one oddball character that sorta popped up in various tales, he seemed to be an untethered traveler of time and space. Even the opening credits of that show were so ominous, so sure of its innate ability to unnerve. I guess the overall tone and narrative flexibility of that series sank into me as water into soil. I also loved horror movies, always have, and though I got into Stephen King books in my mid 20s, I dug his movies a lot and was terrified by the VHS box art of 1990’s IT every time my mom and I went down to Blockbuster.

What about late-night television? Any particular hosts you prefer? Do you watch any religiously? In the Ghoulish household, we are diehard Conan fans, so please don’t confess your love for Leno and make us regret publishing your story.

Funny you say that because I think the post-Conan Leno era is the strongest stretch of late night comedy I’ve had the pleasure to- I KEED I KEED! Look, I’ve seen Leno a few times here in LA, on the street and on his old set, but Conan is the undisputed king of late night. The masturbating bear? The Year 2000? The Walker Texas Ranger lever? Even now his podcast is my go-to. Such a wonderful interviewer, a real listener. And the fact that my man went to Armenia for a remote is HUGE. My family and I were so touched by that gesture, all us Armenians were. He will always have a special place in my heart. I went to a taping of Conan with Jeff Goldblum as his guest and laughed fit to split. Fun fact, I met Goldblum at one of his jazz shows in Los Feliz and sang the Armenian National Anthem for him. We later touched thumbs while being photographed together. 

Your author bio teases an “arguably ill-advised foray into rock n roll bandery” during your late teens. Please elaborate and tell us everything.

Ha! There’s honestly not a lot to tell. I cut my teeth on classic rock thanks to my dad and our drives to school and the late 90s/early to mid 2000s of life were soundtracked by the wide spectrum of pop punk to heavy metal. In junior year, I asked my best friend to learn how to play bass and then shortly thereafter we formed a band. One iteration became another became another. I sang and played lead guitar all over Hollywood, mostly the Whisky. It was a ton of fun while it lasted and that adrenaline rush was one I have yet to reencounter. I guess there’s a parallel there between me and the Joe Bach thing - the lights, the crowds, the whooping and hollering. It can be very addicting, very titillating, very rewarding. But I was attending USC’s film school at the time so I had a kind of “what the fuck am I doing” moment and decided to end the enterprise after a couple of years. Ironic, of course, because I’ve now shifted to fiction writing for the past year or so and haven’t thought about filmmaking since. Tell you a secret: my band and I, we were all incredibly close friends and we all shared a love of one particular band. Because we were nuts, we knew where the guitarist of said band lived, so we would go to his house before gigs, leave stickers with notes written on the back and stuff, stalk him at his favorite burrito spot. Stupid shit, but cool shit when you’re 19. That, coupled with actually meeting the guy by sheer happenstance, becoming friends with him, and then having it crash and burn was the basis for a screenplay I wrote and rewrote for a decade. Maybe it would make a good first novel? 

Any final words you’d like to share about “Tonight’s Guest Is!”?

I’m just glad it found the right home. “Tonight’s Guest Is!” was one of the first short stories I wrote last year when starting off on this madcap trail and it was met by rejection after rejection. I understand: the story is gross, the protagonist is gross, and people like him unfortunately exist. Ghoulish got it, though, and I was delighted to receive that initial HOLD email followed by the YES email. I was pre-reading the rejection, actually nodding my head and saying OK OK let’s get this over with, assholes, until I realized the words I saw didn’t match the words I heard! What a lovely surprise. Also, first paid acceptance! It was a big deal for me and I’ll never forget it.   

Please use this space to promote anything else you might have coming out that our ghouls should be excited about.

Well, I’ve got a healthy handful of short stories coming out later this year with A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Lamplit Underground, Door Is A Jar, Cleaver Magazine, Dark Horses Magazine, Loft Books, and 2024’s first sale with Off Limits Press. I’ve been so lucky with acceptances during my short run, and I’m grateful Ghoulish gave me a slot in their premiere issue. Lots of stories subbed and waiting too! I feel like I need to start writing a novel but I’m still not sure what the gist is. Maybe the rock and roll thing, maybe another old screenplay idea. I’m not sure. But I do feel gears turning, Stephen King’s purported little muse fellas moving about in my musty mental basement.

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ABOUT ROBERT NAZAR ARJOYAN

Robert Nazar Arjoyan was born into the Armenian diaspora of Glendale, California. Aside from an arguably ill-advised foray into rock n roll bandery during his late teens, literature and movies were the vying forces of his life. Naz graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and now works as an author and filmmaker. Find him on social media @RobertArjoyan or on his website at www.arjoyan.com.