Clem, the chipped-tooth Family boy, asks Squeaky, “Want me to take care of him?”
Squeaky gives Clem a motherly smile and says, “Not yet, honey. I can handle it.”
“Oh shit,” Snake says.
Although she already knows the answer, Squeaky asks, “What?”
“The old Hawaiian guy’s coming this way,” Snake says with alarm.
Squeaky straightens out the reclining chair, rises from her throne, and walks into the kitchen to see what Snake sees through the screen door. And she sees the guy in the Hawaiian shirt walking alone toward the stairs that lead up to the door they’re looking through.
Squeaky bites her lip and wonders, Who the fuck is this dude?
Then, to the other kids, “Okay, you guys, get the hell outta here. I’ll handle this fucker.”
As Squeaky stands by the screen door, the other kids file out of the house and walk single file down the staircase, passing the approaching stranger in the Hawaiian shirt.
They all give him dirty looks. Once the last Family kid has left the house, Squeaky replaces the hook on the screen door into its metal hole.
The Hawaiian guy climbs the stairs till he’s standing on the other side of the filthy screen door, directly in front of Squeaky.
“So you’re the mama bear?” he says in a good-natured fashion.
Squeaky considers giving him a sarcastic “aloha” but decides that would be too encouraging. So instead she says, as crisp and brittle as a snapping twig, “Can I help you?”
The Hawaiian guy sticks his hands in his back pockets and says, in a trying-to-be-personable way, “I hope so. I’m an old friend of George’s. I thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
With the two headlamps she has for eyeballs, she turns the full effect of her big, bulging, unblinking stare on this Hawaiian interloper.
“Well, that’s very nice of you. Unfortunately, you picked the wrong time. George is taking a nap right now.”
The Hawaiian guy removes his sunglasses and says, “Well, that is unfortunate.”
“What’s your name?”
“Cliff Booth.”
“How do you know George?”
“I’m a stuntman. I used to shoot Bounty Law here.”
“What’s that?”
That makes the Hawaiian guy chuckle a bit.
“It’s a western TV show we used to shoot out here,” he says.
“You don’t say?” Squeaky says.
“I do say.” Jerking his thumb behind his back at the western town, he tells her, “I think I’ve been shot off of horses on every inch of that main drag. I think I’ve fallen into bales of hay from the roof of every building. And gone headfirst through the window of the Rock City Café probably one time too many.”
“Really? That’s fascinating.” Her unblinking eyes challenge this interloper in a manner that would make the stare Ralph Meeker used to employ during acting scenes envious.
“Not bragging, mind you,” the Hawaiian guy assures, “just letting you know I know the place.”
With the unemotional authoritative demeanor of a highway patrolman, Squeaky asks the Hawaiian guy, “When was the last time you saw George?”
That stumps the intruder, and he has to think a moment. “Oh, let’s see, ahh . . . I’d say . . . oh, ’bout eight years ago.”
Finally, a smile creeps into the corners of her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you two were so close.”
As a fan of face-to-face sarcasm, the Hawaiian guy chuckles.
“Well, when he wakes up,” she informs him, “I’ll tell him you came by.”
The Hawaiian guy looks down to the floor, puts his sunglasses back on for effect, then raises his head and looks through the screen door at her freckled face. “Well, I’d really like to say a quick hello—now—while I’m here. I came a long ways, and I don’t really know when I’m gonna get back this way again.”
Feigning sympathy, Squeaky says, “Oh, I understand. But I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Impossible,” Cliff repeats incredulously. “Why is it impossible?”
Squeaky bursts out in one breath, “Because me and George like to watch TV on Saturday night—The Jackie Gleason Show, The Lawrence Welk Show, and Johnny Cash. But George finds it hard to keep awake that late. So I make him take a nap around now, so I don’t get gypped outta my George TV time.”
The Hawaiian guy smiles and takes off his glasses again and says through the screen door, “Look, Freckles, I’m coming in there. And with my own two eyes, I’m gonna take a good look at George. And this”—he taps the screen door right in front of Squeaky’s face—“ain’t stopping me.”
Through the dirty kitchen screen door, Squeaky and the Hawaiian guy share a stare-off, until Squeaky suddenly gives one decisive blink of her eyelids. “Suit yourself.”
Then she noisily flips the little hook lock off the screen door, turns her back on the Hawaiian guy, walks into the living room, and plops down in the chair again, leans back into the reclining mode, and picks up the remote and clicks the TV volume louder.
She turns her attention to George’s little black-and-white television set that sits on top of his broken cabinet-style Zenith. On the little screen at the moment, Paul Revere and the Raiders are hopping up and down, performing their song Mr. Sun/Mr. Moon.
When it comes to persuading George to do things, Squeaky is usually pretty good. But when it comes to persuading a skinflint blind old man to shell out money for a color television, it would appear Squeaky’s powers of persuasion have their limits.
She hears the rusty hinge on the screen door squeak, as the Hawaiian guy pulls it open and steps inside. She doesn’t turn her head his way, but she hears him enter the living room.
“Where’s his bedroom?” he asks.
Using her bare foot, she points to the hallway. “Door at the end of the hallway,” she barks. “You might hafta shake him awake. I fucked his brains out this morning.” Then she turns toward the Hawaiian intruder and says with a smirk, “He may be tired.”
The Hawaiian guy doesn’t give the shocked look she was hoping for, or, for that matter, any reaction at all. He just moves past her, enters the hallway. Just before he disappears from her sight, she tells him, “Oh, Mr. Eight Years Ago? George is blind. You’ll probably hafta tell him who you are.”
That stops the Hawaiian guy for a beat, then he continues down the hallway, disappearing from sight.
On the little TV set, the Raiders finish their song and Mark Lindsay tells the people out there in TV land to stay tuned for “these Happening messages,” followed by a promo for the ABC television show The FBI. Squeaky hears the Hawaiian stuntman lightly knock on George’s bedroom door and ask, “George, are you awake?”
Squeaky yells loudly from the recliner, “Of course he’s not awake, I fuckin’ tole’ you that! And he won’t hear those little-girl knocks either. If your heart is set on waking him up, then open the door, step inside, and shake his fuckin’ ass awake!”
She hears the old man’s bedroom door open. She grabs the chunky clicker and clicks it twice, lowering the volume on Efrem Zimbalist Jr. narrating The FBI promo.
She hears the Hawaiian guy shake George and call his name, then she hears the confused old man wake up with a start. “Wait a minute! What’s going on? Who are you? What do you want?”
She hears the Hawaiian guy explain, “It’s okay, George. It’s okay. Sorry to disturb you. It’s Cliff Booth. I just stopped by to say hello and see how you’re doin’.”
A confused George asks, “Who’s that?”
The Hawaiian guy further explains, “Well, I used to shoot Bounty Law here. I was Rick Dalton’s stunt double.”
“Who?” George squawks.
“Rick Dalton,” the Hawaiian guy repeats.
George mumbles something Squeaky can’t hear from the other room. Then she hears the Hawaiian guy repeat and emphasize the name “Rick—Dalton.”
“Who’s that?” George asks.
Getting confused again, George asks, “Who are you?”
The Hawaiian guy answers, “I was Rick’s stunt double.”
Squeaky laughs when she hears George say, “Rick who?”
“It doesn’t matter, George,” she hears the Hawaiian guy in the other room tell George. “I’m an old colleague from the past, and I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“Well, I’m not okay,” George informs him.
“Whatsamatter?” the Hawaiian guy asks.
“I can’t fuckin’ see shit!” is George’s reply, and that makes Squeaky laugh again.
The Hawaiian guy says something she can’t hear, then George says something else she can’t hear, then the Hawaiian guy says something she can’t quite make out, but she can make out the words “little redhead.”
Squeaky has no trouble making out George’s reply: “I told you I can’t see shit! How the fuck am I supposed to know what color the hair is of the girl who hangs around me all the time?”
Then she hears the Hawaiian guy mumble something and George tell him, “Look, I don’t remember who you are, but thanks for coming and visiting me . . .” then whatever else the blind old man tells the Hawaiian guy is unintelligible to Squeaky. The next couple of exchanges are just mumbles in different tones, till she hears the Hawaiian guy’s voice rise up because he’s trying to get through to George. “So you’ve given all these hippies permission to be here?”
At that question, an angry George answers back, “Just who the fuck are you?”
She hears the Hawaiian guy try one more time to explain why he’s here. “I’m Cliff Booth. I’m a stuntman. We used to work together, George. And I just want to make sure you’re okay and all these hippies aren’t taking advantage of you.”
“Squeaky?” George asks. Then answers, “She loves me, sir.”
That makes the little redhead smile. She grabs the chunky clicker, hits it three times, and watches Canned Heat perform Going Up the Country on It’s Happening.
About six minutes later the Hawaiian guy comes out of the bedroom and is standing in the living room, looking down at her in the recliner. Without looking at him she asks, “Satisfied?”
He sticks his hands in his pockets and answers, “That wouldn’t be the word I’d use.”
Her head turns toward him, and she says with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face, “I think that’s the word George woulda used this morning.”
Cliff smirks at her saucy comeback and sits on the loveseat opposite her recliner.
“So you have sex with that old man regular, huh?”
“Yep,” she says. “George is great. And I bet he can get hard and stay hard longer than you, Bronco Buster.”
“Look,” the Hawaiian guy says, “George is an old friend—”
She interrupts him, “He doesn’t even know who the fuck you are!”
“Be that as it may,” he follows up, “I just want to make sure he’s happy and aware.”
“He’s aware I have sex with him five times a week and he’s happy about it.” Squeaky points to his room and says, “If you want to embarrass him, you can ask him directly.”
The Hawaiian guy removes his sunglasses, leans forward, and asks, “And the reason you have sex with George five times a week is because you love him?”
Squeaky gives this Hawaiian fucker one of her unblinking stares and tells him, “You bet I do. With all my heart, and everything that I have, and everything that I am, I love George. And whether or not you believe in my capacity for loving George means to me,” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “less than nothing.”
The Hawaiian fucker meets her unblinking glare with a sarcastic question: “So you’re not talking to him about changing wills or anything legal like that, are you?”
That question makes Squeaky blink, once. But the blink doesn’t break her composure or compromise her righteous indignation.
“No, I’m not talking to him about changing wills. I’m talking to him about marriage.”
How do you like them apples, smartass?
Squeaky sums up, “So let me get this straight—the last time you saw George was the fucking fifties, and now all of a sudden you show up and you’re gonna save ’em . . . from marriage? You’re gonna save him from sex five times a week? Are you sure when you knew George you were his friend? Do you drive around saving everybody from marriage, or is there something special about George?”
The Hawaiian guy sits on the love seat listening to this, then says, “You know something . . . you have a point.” So he stands up from the love seat and walks through the house and out the screen door and down the staircase. A satisfied Squeaky crosses her legs at the ankles and turns her attention back to the Dick Clark–produced music show.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Aldo Ray
Almeria, Spain
June 1969
As fifties’ movie star Aldo Ray sat at the foot of the soiled mattress in the stuffy Spanish hotel room, sweat dripping down his hairy shoulders and back, he wasn’t contemplating some of the wrong turns he’d made along the way that were responsible for him occupying this oppressive room. Nor did he torture himself about the days, once upon a time . . . in Hollywood, when he worked for directors like George Cukor, Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh, Jacques Tourneur, and Anthony Mann. He didn’t stress about his long-gone swank apartment at the El Royale, or his little baby Porsche, which, fast as it was, was way too small for the barrel-built beefcake. Nope, sitting in the sweltering un-air-conditioned hotel room in Spain on his first night on location on a new picture, Aldo thought about the thing that Aldo always thought about every night about this time. A bottle of booze.
Whenever Aldo Ray did a movie on location, the crew, the cast, the hotel employees, and frankly anyone else who could be enlisted was put on Aldo watch. When Aldo was put up in a hotel or motel on a film location, he was basically under house arrest. He wasn’t allowed to leave the hotel, for fear of him getting a bottle. He was banned from the hotel bar. He wasn’t allowed to carry any money. And either he or the building entrances and exits were closely monitored. Every member of the production was given strict orders, in no uncertain terms, no matter how much he begged, pleaded, and cajoled, not to supply Aldo with booze. In David Carradine’s autobiography, Endless Highway, he recounted the time he made the low-budget Fernando Lamas–helmed film The Violent Ones with Aldo. Mr. Carradine wrote about how if any young actor who knew and respected Mr. Ray from his early days did a film with him, they were basically given the job, Take care of Aldo.
By the summer of ’69, Aldo had fallen pretty far from his former heights during the fifties starring opposite Bogart, Tracy and Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Anne Bancroft, and Judy Holliday. What wasn’t known at the time was how much farther he had to fall. By 1975 he wouldn’t be able to handle any role that lasted longer than two days (the longest he could be counted on to stay sober).
As the seventies progressed and turned into the eighties, the man who was discovered by George Cukor—in a screen test that consisted of Aldo tossing playing cards into a hat—could only find employment for schlockmeisters like Al Adamson and Fred Olen Ray (no relation).
He was the first former Hollywood star to ever appear in a seventies’ porno film, making him (so far) the only former Hollywood star to win the best actor award at the Erotic Film Awards, for 1979‘s Sweet Savage with Carol (Deep Throat) Connors (in the eighties, Cameron Mitchell would appear in a porno film as well).
Aldo Ray was also the first former Hollywood star to be sued by the Screen Actors Guild for appearing in cheap nonunion movies.
Since its inception, Hollywood had seen its fair share of former highfliers who fell on hard times, as evidenced by the films they were doing as opposed to the films they once did (Ramon Novarro, Faith Domergue, Tab Hunter, even poor Ralph Meeker). Still, none could really match Aldo Ray when it came to publicly played-out poig
nant pity. So as desperate as he was on that night in Spain during the summer of ’69, twenty years later that night would seem like the “good ole’ days.”
But for Mr. Ray it sure as hell didn’t seem like the good ole’ days. It seemed like the same goddamn fucking night he faced every goddamn fucking night the big man didn’t have a bottle.
On the same night, in the same hotel, in the same country, in a different un-air-conditioned room, Cliff Booth poured two fingers of room-temperature gin into a plastic hotel cup. The deep cut above his right eyebrow, which he’d received from the rifle butt of a Winchester earlier that day, was beginning to bleed again and run down his face and drip onto his sweaty wifebeater. Not only that, but his ballooning eyebrow was showing no sign of settling down. If it didn’t begin to unpuff at least a little bit, he’d be useless tomorrow on set. Cliff stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. He touched his bulbous eyebrow to see if it still hurt. It did. What he needed to do was ice it, and he needed to do it pretty fast.
And while he was at it, a couple of cubes for the warm gin wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It’s not like he preferred the taste of chilled gin to room-temperature gin. To Cliff, gin tasted like lighter fluid, and gin over ice tasted like chilled lighter fluid. But the addition of a couple of cubes of ice did give one the appearance of drinking a cocktail, as opposed to the depressing sight that drinking warm gin out of a plastic cup provided by a cheap hotel thousands of miles away from home gave. As he walked over to the little table where the little plastic ice bucket the hotel provided sat, he glanced at the little television chained to a heating pipe. On the screen was a black-and-white Mexican melodrama from the early fifties starring Arturo de Córdova and María Félix emoting melodramatically in Spanish. Cliff had no idea who they were.
Cliff had traveled to Europe with his boss, Rick Dalton, and for the first time in a long while, Cliff was stunt-doubling for Rick again. This was the fourth European film they had done in rapid succession. The first two (Nebraska Jim and Kill Me Quick, Ringo, Said the Gringo) were westerns shot in Italy. The third, a James Bond–wannabe secret-agent flick called Operation Dyn-O-Mite, was shot in Athens, Greece. And this one, Red Blood, Red Skin, co-starring Telly Savalas and Carroll Baker, was being shot in Spain. When this film finished, Cliff and Rick would be heading back home to Los Angeles.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Page 28
