by John Rechy
“Do you promise, now?” she asked him, her voice quivering.
He lay there looking at her, getting hard again. “Sure, yeah, whatever you say,” he said, still not knowing what it was exactly he was promising to do, but knowing he would keep his word, because it was proper to help a woman who was in danger.
She pouted. “Now remember. You promised, I have to count on you to escort me, that dangerous evening.”
He held up his hand to emphasize the sacredness of his vow. What exactly had he promised?
“I’ll pick you up at—” she consulted her watch, to approximate today’s time. “On—” The magic day, the day of the Academy Awards. She tossed off the next as if it was of the most minor importance: “I’ll be in a limousine with Rusty Blake.”
Now he was even more baffled. “Who is Rusty Blake?”
She sat down. Again, she crossed her legs, uncrossed them, and again his mind threatened to sneak away, but he had to listen to what he was to do.
“Rusty? He’s—uh—you know, gay. The studio just wants him to be seen with me, for his reputation. He’s a wimp and wouldn’t be able to protect anyone from a—from a—midget.” Had that come out right? “He’ll just step out of the limousine and drift away—and that will embolden the stalker to strike. Then you’ll come out and be my grand, brave protector, and we’ll have caught him in the act!”
It all sounded nutty; maybe she was nutty. Anyway, what was there to lose by going with her to that big show? Maybe she wouldn’t even pick him up, just part of her pretending. A fantasy, like whatever Amber had going in Las Vegas, and that Babette lookalike; and if it turned out that she really wanted him to protect her, Clarita would be proud of him.
“You may wonder why I don’t go to the police or hire guards. That would only scare him away. We need a trap.” She produced tears. “Lyle, the terror of being stalked, night and day! He’s sworn to kidnap me—in view of everyone!—and then take me away and spend months with me, having sex, over and over and over—”
“Oh?”
“—and, Lyle, you must wear your best cowboy clothes.”
“Oh, ah—” He hesitated on purpose, and goddammit if it didn’t work. His visitor had pulled up her skirt and was sitting on his lap, lifting herself up and down.
“Oh, oh, oh!”
“Ah!”
7
The confirmation of a possible ally.
On her way out, Tarah ensured that Mrs. Allworthy would hear her footsteps. She did and she rushed out with a notebook and pen. “Did you feel it? It was only a four point one rumbler. No damage!”
After granting her an autograph—and ignoring more information about the small earthquake that had threatened to give the hard-of-hearing music teacher in the court a heart attack—Tarah wiped away more tears. “I think—” she gasped. “I think I’ve talked him into agreeing, convinced him—”
“Of what, of what?”
“To change his course,” Tarah said. “I had to sacrifice—”
“Huh?”
“Oh, Mrs. Allworthy, dear Mrs. Allworthy, I’m here because that terrifying stalker has invaded my life and is determined to strike at the Academy Awards!”
“Lyle?”
Tarah rushed away, sobbing softly for Mrs. Allworthy to remember; and what she would remember was that in a futile attempt to keep the now-uncovered stalker from proceeding with his promise to kidnap her at the Academy Awards, Tarah Worth had come—with enormous courage and great risk to herself—to attempt to talk him out of his nefarious act.
8
The triumphant return!
Item: Liz Smith is back from vacation and will resume her column while covering the Academy Awards.
9
And a sad return.
“Who the hell are you and how the hell did you find me?” In his shorts—he’d been in bed resting—Lyle asked the tall man standing outside his apartment door, the tall man he recognized immediately although he had never seen him until now.
“I’m your father,” answered the tall man wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.
“If you are, then you’re a no-good goddamned son of a bitch,” Lyle said.
Lyle the First laughed, a sad laugh. “That’s what Sylvia called me.” Lyle forced his fists close against his sides, but he wouldn’t guarantee that in a moment they wouldn’t push out. “What makes you believe you’re my goddamned son-of-a-bitch father?”
“First, she gave you my name—”
“It’s just a name,” Lyle tried to dismiss.
“—and, next, all ya gotta do is look.” With his eyes, Lyle the First measured Lyle’s full length, lingered on his face, and traveled to the hat tossed on a table, then to the boots readied by the side of the bed—and one odd lone boot nearby. He allowed his eyes to rest on the bountiful crotch under Lyle’s white shorts.
Lots of people resemble each other, Lyle readied words to speak; didn’t some of those kids on the Boulevard tell him he looked like this guy or that on television or in the movies?—and that didn’t mean the person was related to him. What he could not deny was that this man, whoever he was, had prepared for this visit. Everything on him looked fresh, even new. His breath carried the scent of mint freshener. He was a fit, good-looking man, Lyle had to admit; how old? Fifty? How old had he been—if he was who he claimed to be, Lyle still kept that in abeyance—how old would he have been when he invaded Sylvia’s life and branded her so harshly with his presence that she could never forget him, no matter how she tried, with liquor?
“Lyle, son, let me come in.” The arrogant man was almost shy.
Lyle felt waves of rage. His fists quivered eagerly at his sides. “Don’t call me ‘son’. Only my mother can.” But, he remembered wistfully, she hadn’t wanted him to call her that—mother; nor had she ever called him ‘son’. “Go ahead, come in,” he heard himself say. He stepped aside to let the stranger into his apartment.
The man sat, awkwardly. He looked around. “Nice place ya got here, s—.” He stopped the word. “How long you been here? Intend to stay in LA? Got a girlfriend?”
Lyle dressed and sat down on his bed. When he realized that now they were both wearing boots, he removed his and stayed in his socks. He did not answer any of the questions the stranger had asked only to fill these strange moments—two strangers, one claiming intimacy, face to face.
“I went to visit your mamma.”
“You son of a bitch!” Lyle said. “I bet you had to push your way in cause she refused to see you, and I bet you conned her out of my address, didn’t you? There was no way she’d tell you where I was.” Clarita. Of course.
“Your mamma didn’t tell me, she didn’t want me to find you.” Lyle the First bowed his head, held his hat in his large hands, playing nervously with it. “Listen now: It was a terrible thing I did to her,” he said, “and I wanted to tell that to your mamma—my beautiful Sylvia—when I saw her again, but she wouldn’t believe me, she—”
“Good!” Lyle said. “I would’ve bet she wouldn’t. She hates you, you goddamned son of a bitch.”
“So much so that she even tried to make me believe you’re not my son,” Lyle the First said softly.
“It’s true, I’m not your son,” Lyle seized the opportunity. “There’s a guy named Armando. I got his color, this isn’t a tan, you know.” He wanted to hurt this man, not for himself, because, strangely, he had grown up without a father, and so he had thought of him only as the goddamned son of a bitch who had left his mother. It was not for himself that anger was bursting out of him. It was for Sylvia and all the lonely years she had waited for this man he was facing.
“She even told me you were dead,” Lyle the First whispered.
“As far as you’re concerned, I am dead, dead to you, for all you cared to know about me.” Why was he talking this way, as if, for all the time when he hadn’t even thought about a father, he had been. “I would have been dead if my mamma had followed your instructions. Am I worth the money
you gave her, you lying son of a bitch!”
Lyle the First winced. His broad shoulders sagged.
One of Lyle’s tightened fists rose, up, out—but he ordered it to ease. Instead of becoming a fist, the hand reached out, as if to touch this sad man, but he did not allow the intended goal. Unclenched, his hand fell, open, to his side. “You never even tried to find out if I’d been born.”
“I did—once I even came to see you.” The words were soft.
“You saw me?” The man was a fucking liar.
“That one time, when I paused. Sylvia was with you. I thought she’d seen me. Maybe she did. I wanted to call out, but I got all edgy, and so I fled.”
“You fled all right, you never even wondered what would happen to her.” Not to me, he insisted to himself; that didn’t matter to me, that you didn’t wonder if I was all right or not. “You didn’t care how she’d get along, didn’t—” Had all these accusations always been there?—rushing out so easily?
“I helped her out.”
“You never—”
“Your mamma—bless her—your mamma never paid much mind to financial matters. I’ve made deposits regularly for her, knowing she wouldn’t even notice. … And I left you a guitar in that vacant lot I knew you went to.” His voice became a whisper, as if he were only remembering: “A guitar I bought long ago, used only once, to serenade—”
Lyle saw the guitar now, resting on the chair where he kept it. “Why did you leave Sylvia?”
Lyle the First shook his head. “I was stupid, afraid—and married—”
“Married—and promised to marry her?”
“I didn’t tell your mamma, no, didn’t tell her I had a daughter. Yes, I lied to her, because—because—” He paused, looking up at Lyle. “—because I loved her, a lot, loved Sylvia like no one before or since, or ever.”
The son of a bitch, to say that, to face him with that. Yet he wanted to hear more, learn more, understand more, try to understand more.
“Your mamma was hurt, deep, long before I met her.”
“Don’t try—”
“No, no, I’m not excusing myself. I added to her pain, that’s all I’m saying. In her sleep your mamma used to mumble about how she was cursed.”
“Cursed?” Was that what Clarita withheld?
“My beautiful Sylvia—your beautiful mamma—would wake up scared, some nights, and then she’d cover herself. Yes, I even turned away from her pain.”
Damned if he would let this son of a bitch see him crying! Lyle swore, even if he was crying inside, for Sylvia, and still trying to understand it all. Fragments were emerging—what Clarita had hinted at, pulled away from—about some terrible event, a terrible curse; had that propelled Sylvia to the revival meeting, coaxed her letter to the evangelists? There was more he had to know now, understand, about a long-ago curse that seemed to hold them all in its clutch. He longed to ask more, much more, but he didn’t want to assert any intimacy with this man.
Lyle the First had moved on: “I was trapped, and like a coward I ran, and I’m sorry, sorry, worse, because I do love your mamma, and I love you, and now that I’m divorced—”
Lyle stood up, fiercely. “I don’t love you, you son of a bitch! Talk all you want, but don’t expect me to believe you, because you’re fucked, you shit! You expect me to say, Yeah, dad, come on, let’s be friends, let’s make up for all the years you didn’t see me, didn’t come back to my mamma who was waiting for you—if you think that, then—” Lyle shook his head, wearily, wondering whether he’d be able to control his anger, or his tears. “I hate you, you goddamned son of a bitch!” he shouted at this intimate stranger.
Lyle the First slumped. “I deserve your hatred, and hers. I am a goddamned son of a bitch. But”—he looked up directly at Lyle, who turned away—“all I want now is for you to know that I have always loved your mother, and you, and that I am your father.”
Of course he had never really doubted that the cowboy was his father, nor had Sylvia. The man before him must have looked exactly like him once.
When the stranger who was his father walked out, slowly—Lyle stalked to where his guitar was. He took it and raised it, high, bringing it down to smash it. He stopped. He lowered it and held it. Damned if he would cry!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1
The Academy Awards! The terrible deception.
This is Claudia Mans with my cohost, Tommy Bassich … Hi, Tommy!” Claudia held the microphone away from her lips so that the gloss would not smear.
“Hi, Claudia!” said Tommy Bassich in an expensive rented tuxedo.
“We’re here covering the Academy Awards for station—”
“They’re arriving, the stars are arriving!” Tommy Bassich interrupted with forced excitement.
“So they are,” said Claudia Mans, dressed in a black drape by Valentino. “We’re going to interview—who is it?”
“It’s Julia and Tony! Julia! Julia! Over here!”
Reporters and photographers shoved and jostled to get prime positions from which to capture the entrants. Cameras collided, wires coiled into nests of warring snakes.
It was still light, not yet evening. The day was dusted with sunshine. Bleachers groaned with eager fans mounted on boards stacked like unfinished bookshelves, skinny fans, heavy fans, old, young, drab, mostly drab fans—a few exceptions emerging to the surface of the dowdy tide.
Lizardy limousines spilled out a new stream of stars and almost-stars, some in gaudy clothes, some glamorous, some almost naked, the men coiffed—all looking less beautiful in the daylight and anxious to enter the area of benign lights inside.
“Leo!” fans screamed. “Jennifer!” “Cameron!” “Rob!” “Ben!”
Shouts, moans, screeching, applause, whistling!
“There’s Mona!” … “There’s Clint!” … “There’s Emma!” … “There’s Fernando!” … “There’s Amanda!” … “There’s Michael!” … “There’s Pete!” … “There’s Bill!” … “There’s Lauren!” … “There’s—?” … “Who is she?” … “I don’t know—someone.” … “There’s Brad!” … “There’s Sandra!” … “There’s Kevin!” … “There’s Ben!” … “There’s Melissa!” … “There’s Emma!” … “There’s Russell!” … “There’s Jean!” … “Oh, my God, my God—there’s—”
Waving and blowing kisses at the dauntless fans, the stars paraded on the velvet carpet. They paused, they sauntered, they marched, they primped, they glided—they waved and blew kisses—they hurried, they dodged, they paused, they posed, they danced—they waved and blew kisses—they giggled, they sighed, they cried, they denied—they waved and blew kisses—they leapt, they wept, they saluted, they exuded, they cheered, they jeered—they waved and blew kisses—they tripped, they skipped, they swirled, they whirled, they sidled, they idled, they waltzed, they pranced, they confessed, they professed, they strutted, they swaggered—and they waved and blew kisses.
More limousines lined up on the street, timed so that the stars they expelled did not interfere with each other’s entrances and breathy interviews. Television reporters, men and women, gushed the same compliments, asking the same questions: Who did your dress? Who is your date tonight? Is that a diamond? Is it borrowed? You look lovely! Who did your dress? How does it feel to be nominated? Are those borrowed jewels? Who did your dress? Who did your dress? Whose tux are you wearing? Who did your dress? You look gorgeous. Jewels by? Hair by? Clothes by? Jewels by? Who did your dress?
Armani, La Dona, Everett, Karan, Versace, Sybil, Mr. Bracci, Anna Richardson, Bulgari, Cartier, Francesca, Alexandra of Milan, Zegna, Armani, Gucci—
“I made it myself,” said soon-to-be-star Zella Riley.
“It’s beautiful anyway,” gushed Claudia Mans.
“Beautiful!” said Tommy Bassich. “Look, there’s Billy! Billy! Over here!” He turned to Claudia: “Grab Jack before that bitch Rivers tackles him! … Jack! Over here! … Keanu!”
As the white limousine drove up
to the entrance, to deposit its occupants at the foot of the red carpet, Lyle, wearing a new pair of jeans, a pearl-button denim Western shirt and jacket—gifts that had arrived that afternoon—his newest Tony Lama boots, and his favorite hat, looked out of the tinted windows and saw the jammed bleachers, heard the screams of fans. He welcomed the frenzied mobs congregating here, welcomed being here, anything that would chase away the memory of the encounter with his father.
Rusty Blake—black leather jacket, tight black pants, black shirt, no tie—stepped out of the limousine. “Rusty!” “Rusty! Rusty!” Waving at the fans, he turned gallantly to help Tarah Worth out.
Grandly she emerged—steel-blue gown by Felix Franquiz, diamond earrings on loan from Harry Winston, hair by Bob Geevar of Transcend. She glanced back to smile at Lyle, looking resplendent in his new cowboy regalia.
Lyle smiled back and prepared to step out from the opposite side of the limousine, ready to escort the actress, as arranged, after Rusty Blake drifted away. So what if she really wasn’t in danger and had made a big story—as he suspected? Here he was at this big movie festival that would keep him from remembering—
“There’s Sharon Stone!”
Photographers rushed away from Tarah and Rusty Blake.
“Sharon Stone! Over there!”
“Sharrrron!” screamed the fans. “Sharon!” screamed the interviewers. “Sharon!” screamed the photographers.
Let the bitch get attention! thought Tarah Worth. She’ll soon be dust.
A female announcer who had been knocked down by those rushing to gather about Sharon caught sight of Rusty Blake.
“And here getting out of their limousine, is—oh, yes—it’s Rusty Blake, with—Uh, Rusty is escorting—” She paused to whisper to her male partner, who was bending to help her up, “Who is the old broad?”
“Tarah Worth of yesteryear!” the male announcer remembered. “She’s looking greater than ever. Tarah! Over here!”
