by Paul Slatter
Sebastian began to wonder who the father of her kids actually was and watched as Suzy crossed her arms in defence of her words and stressed the buttons on her blouse. He said, “Everything comes to an end dear, nothing lasts forever. You can forget about it now.”
“Exactly. What did he think was going to happen, I was going to be swinging around a pole and sitting on laps when I’m fifty? Christ. Get real. Sometimes I’m glad I’ve got this bag now—at least it woke me up.”
Sebastian looked at her and smiled, for a moment he’d almost forgotten about her colostomy bag, which, for some reason, despite the tight clothing, he had yet to see. He said, “Well, you’d never know you had one, I can tell you that, and I’m sure you won’t have one for ever.”
Suzy took a deep breath, it was good to get it all out. She was sure everyone could smell the bag taped tight to her skin underneath the top of her jeans. “I hope not,” she said.
“So do I my love, so do I.”
Then without a moment of hesitation in her voice Suzy said, “I’m going to leave him, Seb. Could you help me?”
*************
It was just after ten at night when Belinda’s limo stopped outside the front of the house and dropped Dan off. Chendrill and Dan’s mother sat in the living room with Rock Mason’s bullshit long forgotten. Both of them snuggled on the couch drinking wine and watching TV, listening to Dan huff and puff his way up the small steps outside, through the front door, into the kitchen, opening the fridge, closing the fridge, and carrying on into the living room with the attitude of a coal miner who’d spent his day down the pit and come home to find his wife doing her nails and no pork chop on the table. He said, “What the fuck are you doing?”
Trish looked at Dan, this kid of hers who’d just arrived home from work and who, from the looks of things, now thought he owned the place.
“Sorry?”
“Where’s the cheese that was in the fridge?”
“Chuck’s had it, he ate it with his wine.”
“Oh well, that’s fucking great!” Dan said as he looked to Chendrill then back to his mother and threw his arms in the air like a baby. He carried on, “That’s fucking great. I’m at work all fucking day. Hot as fuck—all I’ve been thinking about all day is that cheese and how I’m going to eat it when I come in and when I get here, I discover you’ve been feeding the dog.”
Chendrill looked up at him and then put his glass down, stood and said, “I’m going to count to ten in my mind and when I get there if you have not apologized then I’m either going to call an ambulance for you or I’m going to call your boss and have him take away all the food you get for free tomorrow along with that great big fucking trailer they let you eat it in.”
“It ain’t that big actually, ask Rock Mason,” Dan snapped back with his eyes half closed and his head twisted to the side, which could only be interpreted as meaning that Chendrill was nothing more than an uninformed moron.
“Rock Mason’s lucky he’s still got a job, besides using him as reference kind of invalidates your argument.”
Then with the fear that her son may at any point in the next thirty seconds be picked up and thrown through the window, Trish spoke up, butting in, “Dan from what I can remember so far on your short journey through life you’ve done two days work and today was your second—and for the record, doing half a job cutting the lawn is not proper work. So, quit the attitude and apologize to Chuck, or call Sebastian and tell him you need a suite at the Sutton Place Hotel along with all the rest of your phoney bullshit actor friends because you’ll no longer be welcome here.”
He could, he thought, as he watched Chendrill smirk as he sat back down and pick up his glass of red wine. All he’d have to do was call the office and he’d have a suite with room service. But that would mean Adalia would be two doors down, along with that idiot with the big mouth. They did have a lot of chicks floating about the place though, at least he remembered that from the time he’d been there and nearly fucked Marsha—or ‘Marshaaa’ as she liked to be called. He said, “Chuck, you’re not a dog you’re a cat, and cats always find the best place to sleep and that’s here, so I’m sorry for the insult—it’s just that I’m tired because I’ve just worked a fourteen fucking hour day while you two have done sweet diddly fuck all.”
And then he left, slamming the door and slamming his way down the steps to his suite in the basement two steps at a time and slamming the door behind him when he got there. Seconds later he was slamming Metallica up through the ceiling.
Trish looked at Chendrill and smiled. She said, “Well half an apology is better than none I suppose.”
It was, Chendrill thought, but it wasn’t over—he knew that. The little prick thought he’d done a day’s work when all he’d done was stand around in a space suit and move from one piece of tape on the floor to the next. Maybe he’d speak with Sebastian tomorrow and, in between this ‘exhausting work’ he’d been doing, he’d have the kid carry some of the heavy stuff about, the same as he’d seen some of the guys on set doing when that mouthy prick refused to work.
***********
The next morning at 5 a.m. Belinda was back with his face and hands pressed against the window to Dan’s cave in the basement, calling out as quietly as he could so as not to wake the neighbours. An hour later, Chendrill’s phone was ringing.
“Are you with Dan, Chuck?”
Chendrill sat up, it wasn’t that the call had woken him as he’d been half expecting it to come as for the last forty minutes he’d been lying there listening to the East Indian tapping on the basement window.
“Dan’s not responding Chuck; they are trying to wake him and he won’t respond.”
They, Chendrill thought, they—meaning more than one, and from what he could tell it was just Belinda outside. He said, “Really?”
“Yes Chuck, they’re trying to call him and the driver’s been knocking on the door. I’m worried, you know with the way the world is and we hear all the time about celebs dying early for strange reasons, you know, same as Clive Sonic almost did! Could you go round, I’m sure Trish won’t mind.”
If he knew he was there he’d have not been able to contain it in his voice, Chendrill thought. He’d have said something like ‘since you’re on the payroll; or, if it’s not too much trouble for you’ but he hadn’t, he was asking if he could just go over, and he was asking nicely.
Chendrill said, “He’s still alive Sebastian, I can assure you that, what he is, is a teenager—and teenagers don’t get up at 5 a.m., they go to bed at 5 a.m. if they can. Don’t forget you were one once. So don’t worry, he’s still with us—I can guarantee that. I’ll sort it out and he’ll be there within the hour.”
“He’s late, can you make it within thirty?”
Fuck, there it was. He did know, Chendrill thought. It was almost twenty minutes from his place downtown to Dan’s so there was no way he could do it all with getting there and getting Dan up and out the door and to the studio in less. And of course Belinda would have told him the Aston was parked outside. Fuck, he was getting weak.
He hung up the phone and got back into bed and smiled at Trish who was looking straight at him. She said, “Should we just make love for a bit then go get him up. It is after all a little early.”
It was a hard proposition to turn down, but knowing Sebastian’s ability to continually ruin their love making, it wouldn’t be long before the phone went again.
“I’ll be quick.”
“Oh!”
“Not in that way,” Chendrill laughed as he got up again and slipped on his jeans without his underpants.
“I mean, getting him up.”
Then Trish got up and slipping on her dressing gown said, “I’m his mother—I’ll do it.”
She reached the bottom of the stairs and knocked on Dan’s door as she had a thousand times before and said, “Dan, wake up you’re late.”
Nothing.
“Dan?”
Nothing.
“You’re late for work, Dan.”
Nothing.
Then after waiting a moment, she began to walk back up the stairs, reaching the top she called back down, “Dan, Sebastian just called and said they’re eating pizza for breakfast and if you’re not in soon, it’ll be gone.”
Dan sat in the back of the limo and looked at Chendrill sitting in the front grinning at him. “I can’t believe a genius like yourself fell for that one,” said Chendrill.
Dan shook his head, looked out the window, and closed his eyes, wishing he had never rushed out the door like he had. Now though, his stomach was rumbling. He said, “We should stop at Micky-D’s.”
Chendrill looked at Belinda, who was obviously listening as he was now shaking his head. Chendrill said, “Dan wants you to stop at McDonald’s, he says there’s a backlog of food there lately because he’s been eating for free at work.”
“Cannot stop sir, I am having orders.”
And opening his eyes, Dan said, “What about a drive through?”
“No sir, it will make the car smell sir.”
“Fuck.”
“No sir, this will make the car smell also sir.”
Chendrill laughed, he hadn’t expected that one from the normally straight-faced East Indian who had a crush on his girl—this guy who was never late and always professional.
He said, “No you can’t be doing that Dan, not in this limo.”
Chapter Twelve
It was around about two hours later that Dan started work—if you could call it that. Standing there on the painted floor of the green screen with his space suit on fresh out of the shower because the make up girl told him he stank.
Adalia was there now also, trying to make eye contact through the helmet after snubbing him the day before, but seemingly changing her tune upon hearing Marshaa would be coming in later in the afternoon. Dan not giving a shit though and was more interested in watching Rock Mason in his suit holding his space helmet in one hand as he took over the whole stage whilst he acted out being a movie star. The guy strutting about like he owned the studio, telling the director, Campbell Ewes, how it should be, loving the sound of his own voice, saying out loud as he walked away to the other side of the green screen area and gesturing to a group of people sitting in the wings who couldn’t give a shit either way.
“What I’m needing here is to be able to move, move as the character takes me and I’m feeling as though because this is such a crucial scene that’s being played out here with these guys while we have tea, I feel as though my character should be right here.”
The visual effects guy piped up for the first time, “Well if you are there you’ll be having tea outside the ship.”
Having given up listening a long time back, Sebastian had walked to the monitors where Clive Sonic now sat—the ex-rock star having joined them for the morning so he could have some photos taken and talk to Sebastian some more about how the guy was going to make him mayor. As he looked to Rock Mason still trying to explain himself, Clive said, “That guy really knows what he’s talking about.”
Sebastian closed his eyes and wondered if he was the only one around who could see straight through the man’s insecure nonsense. He said, “Yes, it’s rare to see one of the greats in action.”
Unbelievable, Sebastian thought, as he watched the young man sitting there star struck. Getting up, he walked away and out of the door of the factory that once made corrugated steel. What the hell was he doing this for, he thought? Dan didn’t care, Mazzi Hegan was too busy going through his own personal crisis to care either, Chendrill had come and gone and wished he was back hunting thieves and murderers, Patrick just liked the new job title and nothing else—except for flirting with Adalia. There were however a lot of people working on the show and from what he could tell from the odd conversation he’d had, some had families—so that in itself made it worthwhile.
He walked back inside, grabbed a tea, and walked back to the monitors to see Rock Mason sitting in Sebastian’s chair when his own was only three feet away. The man doing his best to look like an astronaut who’d just got back from collecting moon dust. In his mind, there was no doubt that he was the superstar and with that any chair was fair game. Smiling, Sebastian said, “When you’ve finished in my chair, they’ve got a space shuttle out back that needs docking.”
Breaking away from the tail end of another bullshit story in which he’d taken over a movie—first as the director, then as the producer, and then the editor and finally arranging a crazy distribution deal with a guy he’d just beaten at poker—he looked at Sebastian and finished his sentence, “… and saved a great script from being destroyed by imbeciles. Don’t make me do it on this one Baby.”
As he dragged the aging superstar’s chair over and sat down, Sebastian said straight back, “How’d the restaurant business work out for you?”
Rock Mason sat there for a moment and stared at the little gay twat who had the audacity to be sitting in his chair—this guy who thought he knew how to make movies but hadn’t made one yet. How dare he, he thought, how dare the fuckhead motherfucking cock sucking son of a bitch criticize him when he’d spent a lifetime reinventing Hollywood? Where was this prick when he was battling the studios for women’s rights in film, fair pay, ethnic diversity?
Looking over, he said with the smile that had won over countless women and the selection committee at Cannes many years prior for his portrayal in an indie about a Mexican cliff diver who didn’t like heights, “You know some people just don’t know a good thing when they see it.”
Or taste it, Sebastian thought. He said, “Have you met Clive Sonic?”
Hamming it up again and pointing his fingers at Clive, Rock Mason said, “Have I met Clive Sonic? I love Clive Sonic man. He’s the best. You know how many times I’ve made love to ‘Love me till I die’? You know for a while that song was almost playing 24/7 at my place in the Hills.”
The one you had to sell, Sebastian thought but didn’t say.
Clive Sonic was loving it and wishing his girlfriend was here—and at the same time he was glad she wasn’t, as he’d inevitably end up having to fuck her dressed as a pastry chef while Rock Mason was on the TV. He wanted to speak but for some reason he couldn’t get a word in edgewise with the man. Then he got his chance when he heard Rock Mason ask him, “Why’d you stop playing kid?”
And before Clive Sonic could start to tell his own bullshit story of how he’d tried to save the life of a kid in shark infested waters two and a half miles off shore in the Caribbean, Sebastian had done it for him, saying quickly, “Clive was attacked by a Stingray and nearly drowned, only he was saved by a real-life hero.”
Rock Mason stared at Sebastian who’d just given him a back handed slap and obviously didn’t care. Who the fuck was this guy to talk when the guy’s biggest claim to fame was being the lead man in a circle jerk? He said, “You think I’m plastic, is that the way you see it? Well some people are heroes and people like me make them national heroes. Because if it wasn’t for me, no one would know about Jack Carton—the guy who saved the honey bee from extinction by strapping two hives to his body and climbing to the top of Mount Denali during the honey bee virus of ‘72. Hey—you ever heard of that guy? Or Mak, Mak the saviour of the state of New York, as they call him now, the guy who single-handedly decoded the Nazi’s one atom bomb they’d developed and took his own life strapping it to his back and diving into the depths of the cold Atlantic back in 1945! Well you never would have if it wasn’t for me, yeah me, Rock Mason, playing those parts, becoming those great men who changed history. You want me to go on?”
Sebastian didn’t. Truth was he hadn’t heard of either of these people, who, in fact, never actually existed. Rock Mason’s mind being all mixed up with the real-life heroes and fictional characters—who now all existed in the self-centered world Rock Mason now inhabited. He said, “What on earth would the world be without you?”
“That’s right, be thankful I’m here.”
>
“Oh, we are Rock, you better believe it,” Patrick suddenly said, piping into the conversation after he’d just finished a little sexting session with a new hooker he’d found online—the girl with her little bubble butt who liked the fact he was open about her fucking him with a big rubber dick he’d bring over and him being a big film producer and all. Carrying on he said, “Rock, the whole world is waiting with bated breath for this movie.”
“You’d better believe it is,” Rock Mason answered back with a little smirk which led straight into another self-important line, “The world waits for any movie I’m in.”
Then Patrick stood and with his arms wide open and most sincere smile Clive Sonic had ever seen in his life, Patrick said again, “Trust Me!” Then after just the right amount of pause, he carried on with, “Oh but more so they are waiting for this one Rock.”
Fuck, Clive Sonic thought, as he watched Patrick sit back down again and go back to texting—there it was again, that catch phrase, all he needed was to take a leaf out of this guy’s book. He knew what he was doing. Clive thought back to the days when he used to write songs—days when he didn’t give a fuck about anything in life except that people had to miss him when he’s gone—same as the world would miss this egotistical prick sitting in Sebastian’s chair if he died saving some kid who had his foot stuck in the tracks of an oncoming train.
He needed a campaign line that stuck in people’s minds—‘I’ll be there’, he thought, ‘I’ll be there for you’. No. ‘I’m there for you’. No, how about, ‘I’ll be there when the rain comes’. No, too long, but not bad for a soppy song title—‘I’ll be there for you, come what may’. Still too long.
He stared at the people all around the stage eating and chatting as he tuned out Rock Mason’s seemingly endless bullshit. Then it just came to him, just as the opening lyrics to ‘Boom Boom Love’ had when he was taking a shower that time, and forgetting he’d already decided to steal the catch phrase after meeting Patrick for the first time at Sebastian’s home. He blurted out, “Trust Me.”
