P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street

by P. J. Morse

  Patrick leaned in and kissed me, and I tasted the same Chapstick. I was starting to like it. He whispered in my ear, in German, “Du bist sehr hubsch.”

  “I can hear you,” Tortoise grumbled. “Do you have to be difficult today, Patrick? Could you try to speak American?”

  “Aw, c’mon, live a little!” Patrick yelled.

  I pulled away. “Is it Lorelai’s turn? Switch off?”

  Patrick laughed. “May as well. See, Kevin, Katherine here knows how to play the game!”

  Kevin grinned, showing no sign that he already knew me. “Indeed she does. Lorelai, your turn.”

  Lorelai pulled herself on Patrick’s lap, and Tortoise and Hare got some shots of their kissing. Kevin encouraged me to look jealous. I found that to be surprisingly easy. Patrick was fun, and his attitude toward the show was healthy. I thought he would be a cheesy sell-out, and he wasn’t as dumb as I thought he would be. Well, maybe in some ways, he was dumb — being on reality television struck me as dumb, period — but I was enjoying being around him. And his lips were spectacular. I stared into my Manhattan in a sulky fashion and clinked the ice against the edge of the glass.

  “That’s great!” Kevin said. “Nice work!”

  Once the crew had the coverage they needed, we sat back with our Manhattans and commented on what a good driver Fred was. He had been honked at a few times, and some tourists took pictures of the limo, but he steered us to North Beach without incident. We pulled up in front of Bimbo’s, a supper club/rock venue. The Marquee Idols had not yet had the pleasure of being on the Bimbo’s marquee, but I had been in the audience at many of the shows there.

  Only this time, when we walked inside, it was deathly quiet — no bands selling merch near the entrance, no hipsters scrounging for dollar bills to give to the bathroom staff, no opening bands doing anything for attention.

  Fred found a chair and broke out a copy of Sports Illustrated to read while he waited. A manager started chatting Kevin up, pointing out everything he did to make the place perfect for the show. I heard Kevin swear the venue would be mentioned at least three times during the episode.

  I walked past the entryway into the concert hall, and I saw two tables were sitting out in the middle of a floor that I had usually seen packed with standing crowds. The tables had been draped with red tablecloths. I also saw multiple bartenders in white jackets, and Patrick was conversing with one of them about the greatness of Fernet-Branca. Bimbo’s was sparing no effort if a single airing of Atomic Love 2 brought tourists to their club.

  Kevin grabbed me and Lorelai. “We gotta move fast. They’re having a fundraiser tonight, and we need to get what we need and head out.” He set me down at one of the tables on the dance floor and Lorelai down at another, like we were already enemies. In fact, we looked at each other and smiled, and Kevin barked, “Don’t look at each other unless you’re sneering!”

  “But I don’t have a motivation for sneering at her,” Lorelai said.

  “Make something up,” Kevin told her. Then he saw Patrick at the bar. “God, is Patrick talking booze again…” He vanished.

  Lorelai and I sat for about 15 minutes and practiced snarling at each other while waiters plied us with champagne laced with Fernet-Branca. I wasn’t good at the snarling, but pretty soon Lorelai was giving me looks so convincing that I couldn’t tell if she was acting or not.

  Then Patrick emerged from behind a heavy red curtain, armed with a Gretsch, a Duo Jet. I was less interested in his performance and more interested in that guitar. I wanted to try it myself. I always thought that I’d know I’d made it if I could afford a Gretsch.

  “This one’s for Sean,” he said, driving his pick down the strings and launching into the band’s top-10 ballad, “Hard in the Heart.” The lyrics weren’t romantic in the slightest (“Hard in the heart / you look the part / what I conclude / we die too soon”), but the way he sang them had Lorelai tilting her head and looking at Patrick with glassy eyes. I had to admit I was impressed as well. His voice wasn’t as good as Sean Morgan’s, but he could sing more than adequately. And I always had trouble resisting men whose knowledge of guitar playing went beyond knocking out three chords. His hands flew over the frets, and he threw in a guitar solo that wasn’t in the original song, but he kept it just restrained enough for it not to be too showy.

  I was mesmerized. I stood up. I thought I heard Tortoise grumble, “Going rogue!”

  I dropped my professional guard and walked toward the Gretsch. I could hear the steps of Tortoise and Hare behind me, but I kept my eyes on that guitar.

  Patrick kept singing, and I looked up at him. I fancied myself a good guitar player. I didn’t just pick up the instrument because I wanted to start a band. I shifted to guitar lessons after playing violin as a kid. I knew my stuff, and I took classes. I knew that Patrick Price wasn’t a rock fraud.

  When he was finished, I asked, “Can I try it?”

  He handed the guitar to me, and I suppressed the urge to try out anything by the Marquee Idols. I also turned shy. What if he didn’t like our songs? What if he thought we were poseurs, just trying to recapture the rock spirit of a few years ago?

  Instead, I played a song by Asphalt, “Salton Dust,” which had a pleasing up-and-down rhythm that fell in between the grunge era and ironic indie-rock, with the added bonus of a reference to the part of California where Patrick grew up.

  Patrick flashed a thumbs-up. “Asphalt — whatever happened to those guys?”

  I smiled. I wanted to tell him I was on their label. Then I faded into something better known, Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.”

  Then I looked up at Lorelai. Since I had monopolized Patrick’s attention, she finally had enough motivation to sneer. Kevin began signaling that I needed to stop.

  I reluctantly handed the guitar back to Patrick. “I’m sorry. I got carried away. It’s your guitar, after all.”

  “When you said you played, I thought you just meant acoustic, campfire stuff.” He smiled. Did I detect genuine interest?

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’ve had lessons for years. I’ve never played one of those, though.” I pointed at the Duo Jet, a thing of beauty.

  When I stepped off the stage, Kevin gathered me and Lorelai and said that Patrick was going to spend time with both of us individually and that we might have to reshoot a few scenes because the lighting in Bimbo’s was dark. I thought Patrick and I had a moment with some emotion in it, and now we were going to have to chase after it and fake it. I guess two people enjoying a music connection isn’t the kind of thing that resonates with a television audience.

  I went toward the bathrooms by myself while Kevin gave Lorelai some direction. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a pep talk, as if he were a coach and she were on a basketball team: “You’re a pretty girl, so you should be aggressive. You are a competitor! A warrior!”

  “A warrior!” she cried out.

  Tortoise and Hare left me alone, following basic bathroom protocol. Right as I was about to open the door to the women’s room, I felt two arms lock around me in a bear hug. My instincts told me to scream and drive my elbow into the offender’s side, but I heard Patrick whisper, “How about a detour?” just in time.

  Once Patrick pulled me into the men’s bathroom, he leaned in to kiss me, like he meant it. With the Major Rager, the Manhattan, the champagne and the Gretsch Duo Jet, I had no problems kissing him back this time. The bathroom attendant ho-hummed discreetly and ducked out.

  Outside the door, I heard Hare ask, “He go in there by himself?”

  The attendant replied, “Yes. I’m just getting some air. It’s a toilet, you know.”

  I murmured against Patrick’s lips, “I think the attendant needs a good tip.” I was wrapping my right leg around his left, nestling in closer. My body remembered it had been a long time since I had a boyfriend before my head did.

  “A crisp hundred,” he said back, in between kisses and tongue.

  I let my hand rise t
o his cheek, but I started to remember that he had twisted his tongue with nearly every woman in the house. And it was my job to watch him, not make out with him. He moved slowly, which gave me just enough time to draw back.

  “Hey, why so cold all of a sudden?”

  Although I didn’t particularly want to push him away, I tried to think of excuses. Most of them involved STDs, but we had all been tested before the show, and he knew it, so that wasn’t going to fly. All I could think of to say was, “I don’t like it when you kiss all those other girls. It’s gross.”

  “Aw, c’mon. It’s just for television. Kevin shoves all this down my throat, all business, all the time. Look, half of them, I don’t even like.” He seemed sincere, and his voice was different. He was looking me in the eye.

  “You say that to all the girls.” I told him, laughing. Kevin and I were going to have a long talk about how to cope with this situation. I expected Patrick to make passes at me, but I did not expect it to happen when the cameras weren’t rolling. I thought the whole thing would be like a play, with no real feelings involved. Nor could I have predicted how I would respond to his advances.

  He sat beside me on the countertop and leaned his head on my shoulder. Usually on the show, he was real handsy and never asked if he could feel a girl up first. This version of Patrick was respectful. He didn’t say anything or try to fast-talk.

  “That feels nice,” I said. It wasn’t a lie.

  “You know what?” he started to giggle.

  “What?”

  “I think the boobs are getting too big.” He began to comb my hair with his fingers.

  “You really think so? I was afraid the trend was to keep making them bigger.”

  “If they make ‘em any bigger, then you wouldn’t be able to see Andi’s face. That might not be a bad thing.”

  I tried so hard not to laugh, but I betrayed myself. He added, “You know she’s cross-eyed, right? You don’t notice because of her tits, but her left eye turns inward and it drives me nuts.”

  I hadn’t noticed. It was hard to notice anything beyond boobs and hair. But I was impressed that Patrick noticed details. I thought he was too drunk to even care half the time. Then I looked at the bottle of whiskey he had perched on the sink’s countertop, next to the bathroom attendant’s economy-sized mouthwash and plastic cups. He had brought it onstage with him and took a gulp of it, one of his stage habits. “Can I have a sip of that?” I asked.

  He pushed it away. “Gee, I thought you were worried about germs.” He wagged his finger toward my nose.

  “It’s watered down, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He took his head off my shoulder and looked at me, shocked. “How’d you know?”

  “You don’t share it with the other girls.” I started moving in closer.

  “They’d think I was a pussy. You don’t mind? I’m not, like, ruining your rock-star ideal or anything?”

  I shook my head and leaned in to kiss him. When we separated, he said, “God, you’re young.”

  “I don’t think you’re a pussy. I think you’re smart,” I replied.

  “I always did love Gardenia girls,” Patrick said. “I don’t say that just to make ‘em happy in that town.”

  I had to ask. Muriel would kill me if I didn’t. “Did you ever hear of Muriel Kovacs? She’s a friend of mine.”

  He howled. “Oh no way! Kovacs? They own that crazy place…”

  I filled in with “Kovacs Tanning Salon and Video Rental.”

  “Aw, they had the best selection of horror flicks. Anywhere. And then these hot chicks would be in and out of the tanning bed. Best place in Gardenia, hands down. My parents told me about her — she does music now. I loved that place! They had a popcorn machine!”

  I went along with it, but I took a mental note to ask Muriel how she made sure the suntan lotion didn’t mix in with the popcorn butter.

  Then we heard Kevin yelling outside the men’s room. “Where the hell is Patrick? We gotta shoot the scenes with Lorelai! Lorelai, honey, you stay right there.”

  Patrick pulled out his wallet, and he really did put that $100 in the attendant’s basket. “Showtime,” he said. Then he gave me a long kiss.

  “You gonna kiss Lorelai as long as you kissed me?” I asked, holding on to him.

  “I’ll kiss her as long as I gotta. Would it be so bad to say that she might be competition? She’s an actress and all, but she’s a sweetie.”

  To take his mind off Lorelai, I kissed Patrick before he went out the door, and the bathroom attendant took his place.

  Once the bathroom attendant saw the bill in the basket, he gave me time to touch up my lipstick and acted as a lookout for me to leave the bathroom when the cameras were gone.

  When it was my turn to shoot a scene with Patrick, he sat down at my table. The electrical charge that had been in the bathroom was gone with the presence of the cameras. Nothing killed romance like having a producer, a camera guy and a sound guy heavily breathing over your every move. Patrick asked me about myself, and we talked about Gardenia. He complimented me on my guitar playing, and I riffed on how the Nuclear Kings inspired me.

  Then Kevin jumped in. “Are there any women in the house you want to warn him about?”

  “You looking for a catfight?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied.

  When I turned to Patrick, he rolled his eyes. He was happiest playing his guitar or mixing his drinks. The rest of it seemed to be a way to make some money. But I did what Kevin told me and recited the standard lines from the reality shows: “Well, Patrick, I don’t think some of the women in the house are here for you.”

  “Who?” He did a good job of looking hurt.

  “Tina and Topaz, for starters. They’re mean to the other girls.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it is a competition.”

  “They look at the camera before they look at you,” I said.

  “I have to see all of this myself before I make a call,” he replied, dutifully. Then he looked at Kevin. “Was that good enough, dude?”

  Kevin ignored Patrick and turned to me. “Wanna say anything about Lorelai?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I don’t have a problem with Lorelai.” I looked at her in the corner, sitting by Fred and looking over his shoulder at his magazine.

  “What if I said she said something bad about you?” Kevin asked, rubbing his hands together.

  I shrugged. Kevin’s interrogation style would have done a waterboarder proud. Most anyone would say what he wanted, but I wasn’t going to give him everything. “I’ll just stick with Tina and Topaz, thank you very much.”

  “Friends turned enemies arc,” Hare chattered, smiling. “We can make them hate each other later.” He may have been new to this, but he was already finding ways to manipulate the contestants.

  “Not a bad idea,” Kevin said, taking notes on a sheet. “OK, can we reshoot that again?” He laughed. “Once more, you two! With feeling!”

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Stretch Hummer on the Loose

  Once Kevin was satisfied with the reshooting, we climbed back into the Hummer. My fingers were still tingling after Patrick let me play the guitar, and I couldn’t stop thinking about our little interlude in the bathroom. His resting his head on my shoulder seemed more intimate than all of his on-camera kisses.

  But I couldn’t forget that Patrick was swapping spit with Lorelai only a few feet away from me. At least he started kissing her only because she was going on and on about how she couldn’t wait to bake him a batch of her famous good-luck brownies, the same brownies that got her old West Hollywood roommate a guest spot as a victim on Law & Order: SVU. It looked like he stuck his tongue in her mouth to keep her quiet.

  So I decided to make myself a drink. Just as with the bar at the mansion, all the labels on the liquor bottles were covered up with duct tape. Only the label for Major Rager was displayed freely. I started fishing for some whiskey.

  Kevin asked, “Hey, can yo
u turn that can of Major Rager toward the camera, maybe take a sip?”

  “Can I pretend to take a sip?” I asked. There was only so much energy drink a woman could take in one day. I was still feeling the caffeine shakes, and it was getting dark.

  “Sure. Just get that label in there,” he said. “And, Lorelai, I know you’re having fun, but you know better. Keep your body turned toward the camera. We need your profile. Patrick, don’t turn your back… argh… are you two listening to me? Do you have to get that close? Really?”

  Patrick took enough of a breath to inform Kevin, “We’re kissing — isn’t that what you want?”

  Kevin complained, “Why do you have to be so difficult today?”

  Patrick kept kissing Lorelai, and he waved his hand behind him, as if he were trying to swat away a fly.

  I shook my head at this little power struggle between star and producer and looked out the Hummer windows. As Fred maneuvered the Hummer onto Columbus, I saw tourists and homeless people pointing at the vehicle in shock. One guy pushing a shopping cart with a toilet tank inside yelled, “Who the fuck do you think you are? Oprah?”

  I put down the can of Major Rager. Then I realized we ran a red light and almost swerved into a bicyclist who was riding alongside us. He raised his left hand to offer a one-finger salute. No one else noticed. Lorelai was nattering again about her brownies and how they got her a spot in a video by some rap group called the Big Ballers.

  “Fred? Hey, Fred?” I asked. I punched the intercom button just as he almost hit a jaywalker. “Fred? You’re going kinda fast there.”

  Kevin began tapping on the window between us and Fred, but there was no response. Then he rolled down the window and stuck his head and arm in. Then he stopped moving suddenly. “Holy shit! Fred! Wake up!” He tried to pull himself out of the window. And then we heard, “I’m stuck!”

  Patrick disentangled himself from Lorelai and asked, “Something wrong?”

  Of course Kevin managed to wedge his girth in the limo driver’s window, right as we were gaining speed and the driver was somehow out of commission. Whatever happened to Fred, it was obvious that his foot was on the accelerator, not on the brake. A Saab in front of us quickly swerved out of the way as the limo overtook it. We weren’t going fast, but definitely fast enough to cause a problem in a dense neighborhood like North Beach.