Fight the Rooster

by Nick Cole

  “Sure. No problemo. How about a little PJ and then if you don’t mind, my compadre would like to hear ‘Plush’ by STP.” He indicated a companion with a James Dean haircut, mirrored sunglasses, black jeans, and a white pirate shirt laced up the front. The pirate sat reclining at the back of the bar, in a tall burnt-red leather banquette. A mostly empty pitcher of beer and a soft pack of smokes lay on the simulated wood grain table in front of him.

  “He’s in the throes of a bad pine for some dancer he met,” said the shaggy man, who quickly stuck out his fist and introduced himself as Eddie. Kip responded with the secret handshake of all Cal State Long Beach denizens. The closed fist tap, half-handshake, and ending finger pull, with bonus index finger-point for extra kudos.

  “Right on,” said Eddie. Now they were fast friends. “Come on over and join us.”

  “Hail and well met. We shall purchase another pitcher of fine brew to slake our manly thirst.”

  “Right,” said Eddie suspiciously after a slight pause.

  Eddie went to the jukebox to lock in the songs while Parker and Kip collected their things, along with a pitcher of beer and fresh glasses. Soon they were all ensconced in the quiet of the booth.

  It turned out that Eddie and The Pirate, as the other one was known, were college students attending, or at least hanging out with, the film department at Cal State Long Beach. The conversation turned to the making of films, with Kip, as he was wont to do, holding court. He began to command their attention with a scheme to film a master opus he wished to create called Paris Shakedown. A Frankheimer-ish, Peckinpah-heavy, trance industrial car chase film slash opera through the streets of Paris with almost no dialogue.

  As he wove his tale, it was possible to see, what with the various chemicals coursing through their collective systems, that Kip’s idea was indeed a “good one” and its author a bona fide auteur. Kip was the only one talking now as he led them all the way from the making of the movie to marketing to Oscar night, for which his film would be nominated for almost every category, including best animation short. He laid coherent evidence for this plot, walking them through every step of the production. When Oscar night finally arrived, Kip would be dressed well below Hollywood Disheveled, wearing a Seattle Mariners baseball jersey. He would be limoed up, and accelerating full throttle on an epic Hollywood drug and alcohol binge, only to fake his own fiery death and disappear from Hollywood until the twentieth-anniversary Blu-ray re-release.

  “Awesome,” declared Eddie.

  “I know,” confirmed Kip.

  The Pirate said nothing and lit a smoke from his dwindling pack.

  Parker, whose head was down on the table, uttered a plumbing-like groan and was soon outside vomiting in the gutter around the corner. Kip and Eddie went out to assist him, and when they returned, The Pirate was gone.

  “Where’d he go?” asked Kip.

  “Dunno. He just does that. He disappears. I think he goes and stands outside her house or the place where she works or something lame like that,” explained Eddie.

  “What’s with the shirt?” asked Kip.

  “He likes pirates.” Eddie sighed, obviously having explained the shirt before. “Come on, everybody wants to be a pirate.”

  “That’s true,” said Kip.

  ***

  Back at Eddie’s apartment, just around the corner and halfway down the block, his roommates were watching John Woo’s Hard Boiled, drinking Amstel Lights and playing their guitars. Eddie introduced everyone. They dumped Parker on the floor near the door, while Kip plopped down into a green velvet beanbag in the center of the room. Eddie disappeared into the back and returned a few minutes later with a large glass bong and a sack full of pot. The guitars stopped and everyone got high.

  As the bong continued to make its way around the circle of four, the phone rang, and Eddie could soon be heard trying to extricate himself from a conversation. When he hung up, he returned to the group mumbling something about a girl he’d been dating and her friend. They were on their way over.

  “What’s the friend like?” asked Kip, mentally rubbing his paws together.

  “Annoying,” said Eddie, just after he sucked in another lungful of smoke.

  The boys got lost in the throes of an epic gun battle being played out on screen. After what seemed a huge amount of time there was a knock at the door, catching them completely unawares. The two girls entered the room beaming. Grudgingly, Eddie turned off the TV, lit some incense, and offered the girls a hit from the bong. The friend—a shorter, curvy, almost plump brunette—waved it away dismissively. But the leggy girl, whom Eddie had been dating, accepted. Soon she made clear her reasons for accepting by the incompetent way in which she attempted to use the device, finally requiring Eddie to assist her by holding the lighter. Now, in her mind, she was fitting in. She was getting high with the boy she wanted. It was obvious to everyone, and no one said a word.

  “Hi, I’m Kip,” Kip said to the plump brunette.

  “Barbara,” she replied, making sure every “a” and “r” was pronounced.

  “What’s your major?” asked Kip, opening with the oldest and most tired of lines used to pick up college girls. Incredibly, she fell for it. She fell for it because, compared to her friend, no one looked at her, and if they did they soon discovered her attitude, which could be described in grade school terms as U for unsatisfactory, or even, on occasion, the dreaded check minus.

  “Business Accounting with a minor in Fashion.”

  “Have you ever thought about starting a magazine?” baited Kip.

  Unknowingly, she was now clamped securely within his mental bear trap.

  The two guitarists returned to their session. The incense burned. Eddie’s girl cut him away from the pack, offering herself up once more to a boy she would not spend the rest of her life with. And Kip and Barbara talked late into the night about starting a magazine. They planned every facet, even sketching the first layouts.

  Later, as the morning paper truck made its rounds, the guitarists went to sleep, and a short time after that the birds began to wake, testing their songs. Barbara swore as she realized dawn was just moments away. The house was silent as she pulled on her shoes and jacket and buttoned her top, which Kip had managed to remove while giving her a massage. She flung herself out the door and down the steps, disappearing into the pre-dawn blue silence.

  By mid-morning, the sun was streaming through paned windows, catching the whirling dust motes against the richness of the dark chocolate hardwood floors. At some point Eddie’s girl passed through the room like a ghost to her grave. The expectation that she had finally tamed Eddie was still hanging in the room, stronger than the sandalwood of the night before.

  Toward noon Eddie shambled into the main room. Parker was still curled up near the door where he’d been left the night before. Kip drooled peacefully, recharging for further debauchery.

  Eddie packed the bong and lit it.

  Kip woke immediately to the gurgling alarm clock.

  “Morning,” said Kip.

  “Good morning,” coughed Eddie through an exhalation of smoke.

  “Sorry about crashing,” offered Kip.

  “No problemo.” Before exhaling, Eddie decreed, “Su casa es mi casa.”

  Soon they were very high. Parker remained dead-like. The roommates lay entombed somewhere in the back of the labyrinthine house.

  “We should go to the punk show,” said Eddie.

  “Yes we should,” responded Kip adamantly. In truth, Kip was happy to orbit the bag of dope and hang out in Long Beach for the day. “Yes, we really should.”

  “No, really. It would be cool.”

  “I agree. Let’s go,” Kip said bravely, gambling on the fact that most stoners are all talk, often coming up with bold ideas but seldom having the fortitude to act upon them, much less see them to completion.

 
; Eddie stood up.

  “I’ll make some calls and you guys can raid my closet for clothes.”

  ***

  On Sunday night, Kip crawled through the window of his brother’s hillside Silverlake house. He’d lost the key, along with other things and people, at the punk show. His brother was still not home and the house was dark. He went to the fridge and found a quarter jug of chilled white zinfandel. He unscrewed the cap and took a long, cold swallow.

  He picked up the phone with one hand and dialed Parker’s number. He got voicemail again.

  “Parker. Paaaaarker. Dude. Duuuuuude. That was awesome. You are the man. I hope you had a great time. Those girls I was with were totally into you. They didn’t think anyone your size was going to get out of that mosh pit alive. I hope you did. That was intense. Don’t worry about your car. The riot was definitely moving through the parking lot, so I don’t think they stuck around to do too much senseless damage. We’ll go out there tomorrow and turn it back over and drive home. I’m sorry I had to split, but when riot cops start drawing their guns I get a little self-preservationistic. Plus, I really don’t like horses. All right, I’d better finish up. Let me close by saying: you are the man, and don’t worry, I made it home. I took the bus all the way from Riverside to Silverlake. That’s like seventy miles, man. It took all day. All right, hope to hear from you soon. Peace out.”

  He hung up. He knew Parker was going to be mad. But what was Kip to do? Eddie had accidentally lured another girl into his web, and she had immediately taken control of his life. They’d disappeared right after beer sales got cut off, which was about twenty minutes before the riot in which the cops showed up and Parker’s Yugo got turned over. This was all way after Parker was thrown into a seething mass of careless, angry young punks heaving in a mosh pit. He was thrown in because a punk standing near Parker thought he looked like Sting from The Police.

  After Kip had escaped the concert he’d hitched a ride to downtown Riverside, then spent the night drinking a twelve pack of beer at the bus station. At eight in the morning he began catching buses toward Los Angeles. Every hour or so he would get off the bus and go into a local bar and have a few drinks. All the bars were old guy bars. The opposite of your plug-in corporate-culture poison pits where the drinks are all themed, blended, and served with a paste-on smile. These were bars where the customers felt, by virtue of their patronage, they owned the place. Bars where retired truck drivers drank Cape Cods at six in the morning. There was often a jukebox, but no one played it. Until Kip showed up. At times people glared, knowing him for exactly what he was, an oversized kid out of his depth and looking to get hurt. Other times these bars, so lonely for a new story, regarded Kip with high esteem as he sat down and held forth.

  In one bar, an old man with bleary eyes mistook Kip for a long lost relative. He kept calling Kip “Johnny” and speaking as though his story had started some time ago.

  “I’m so glad you’re alive, Johnny.”

  “How have you been, Johnny?”

  “Is your mom okay, Johnny?”

  And “I’m so glad you’ve come to get me, Johnny. I just knew you would.”

  The old man was stuck in the groove of a record that had skipped long before Kip had been born. Kip was kind, and for a little while he became Johnny, letting the old man find something that was lost, even if for just a moment. They talked, or rather the old man talked, telling Johnny everything he had ever wanted to tell that other long lost Johnny. His history, their family secrets, how to cook a really good steak, and the best kind of horse to bet on. The old man talked on and on, his voice fast, his smile wide, like the first of the spring poppies after the longest of winters. When Kip had finished a few drinks and was ready to head back to the bus, he said, “Well, I’ve got to go.”

  “I just want to say one more thing, Johnny.” The old man smiled desperately up at Kip, who stood near the exit.

  “Yes,” said Kip as Johnny, turning to face the old man.

  “Be careful over there. Don’t step on that land mine, okay? I should have said this before… but I didn’t… and I just want to tell you…” The old man’s mouth and face convulsed in a tremor, straining against unseen iron bands. “I’m so proud of you.” Then he began a soft pitiful whimpering as he folded back into himself.

  Everybody in the bar looked away and into their drinks. The old man lowered his head, sobbing as if into an abyss without bottom or end.

  Kip walked back from the door he had been heading toward. Back to the old man. He put his arms around him and held him for a moment. He squeezed him tight and whispered a secret in his ear. The old man patted Johnny on the back, weeping and not letting go. Finally he looked up at Kip, wiping his wet eyes with a grungy sleeve.

  Then Kip left.

  Peace.

  ***

  Now, back at his brother’s house, Kip, the lost boy, played back his brother’s voicemail.

  “You know who.” It was the Executive VP again. “I’m guessing. No, I’m hoping you’ll be there tomorrow, Jay. I know this has all been very fast. But Jay, listen Jay, I need you on this one. I know we really don’t know each other, but everyone knows you can do it. Just get over there and get this picture made. I hope you’re there tomorrow. Call me at the office when you get in. Carpe diem!”

  Kip hefted the near-empty jug of wine and went out onto the deck. Los Angeles, bejeweled and dazzling, lay sprawled before him in the fading pink of early evening.

  His brother was definitely missing, and Kip was out of cash. Things were grim. For a moment he hoped his brother was okay. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened. That Jay might not be there to rescue him anymore. So he drained the last of the wine, and there on the side of the hill, Kip decided he would help his brother. He would show up the next morning at the production office, pretending to be Jay. Soon enough, Jay would be back, and things could be explained. It would be okay. Jay would be okay.

  And that was how Kip the Devil-Boy became Jay Jameson, can-do superstar-quarterback-producer, and took control of a fifty-five-million-dollar budget.

  At the time, it seemed to Kip like a good idea.

  Chapter Ten

  The Pretzel of Doom

  The Great Director arrived in the production offices late that morning. He entrenched himself in his private suite and added to his ever-growing list of outrageous demands he’d designed to annoy and obfuscate the whole of the production.

  Mindy entered. “Oh, we are so excited today!” she exploded.

  “We are?”

  “Oh, yes indeed. Jay Jameson is on his way here. He’ll be taking over as producer.”

  “He is?”

  “Uh-huh. I just love him. He’s so established!”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No, but one of the articles I read last night when I Googled him made me feel like we’ve lived parallel lives. He grew up on a farm just like I always wanted to. He was captain of his hometown football team just like I always wanted Barton to be. He loves watching old movies and eating popcorn seasoned with trail mix.”

  “Really. What’s his favorite color?” asked the Great Director sarcastically.

  “Blue.” She sighed deeply and leaned against the wall. Her eyes fluttered, convincing the Great Director she was imagining herself and a shirtless Jay Jameson standing on the porch of their custom built home, sipping Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and watching a young foal caper with its mother in one of the many corrals on their pony farm.

  “Mindy!” he shouted.

  “Yes,” she declared from her imagined porch.

  “Who’s working on getting me my circus?”

  There was no call for a circus in the script, but while eating lunch one day at a café, in an attempt to avoid Hat Day, the Great Director had decided a circus could cross through the background of a certain scene in the middle of the m
ovie. No one would bother to explain it in the film, and it would be one of the most expensive, and useless, background crosses ever. He wanted everything. Elephants, tigers, lions, bears, jugglers, trapeze artists, fire-eaters, clowns, and yes, lots of monkeys. He envisioned the cross absorbing the better part of a week to shoot and no small nightmare to arrange. It would cost a mint.

  “Silly. I don’t think you’re going to get your circus,” Mindy admonished.

  “Well, the film’s ruined if I don’t,” announced the Great Director.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really!” The Great Director folded his arms and sat back heavily in his still too-short chair.

  “Just because of a circus?”

  “It’s a symbol.”

  “Oh. Are you making art again, Mr. Director?” she said in her baby talk voice. A voice she too often dropped into and which irritated the Great Director intensely. Every time.

  “Yeah, I thought… what the heck! Let’s do some art. That hasn’t been done lately. People are getting tired of pictures with numbers in the title. People want something of depth, quality, artistic vision, truth, beauty, and yes, integrity.” He was heaving with rage now. “So if you don’t mind, find out who it is that’s working on this problem and get me my circus, ’cause I’m gonna need a lot of monkeys!”

  She fled the room.

  On a roll now, he called the casting director they’d be using on this project. “Hello. Yeah, it’s me. Great! I had a wonderful… listen, no chit-chat. I want to know who you have for me to play the Indian?”

  He paused to listen to the casting director on the other end of the line.

  “No! No! And no! I need an Indian. Danny Aiello, Joe Pesci, and Morgan Freeman are clearly not Indians.”

  Pause.

  “Well if you know they’re not Indians, why are you giving me the names of non-Indian people?”

  Pause.

  “No, no, I mean American Indians. You know… Hiya-ya-ya. Me smoke-um peace pipe, hunt ’em buffalo Indians.”