by Lee Goldberg
If this was a nice day, he couldn't imagine what her bad days were like.
"Besides," she smiled, "we entertainment professionals have to stick together."
"How did you know I'm in the TV business?"
"Your bag," she tipped her head towards his gym bag, which had the network logo on the side. "I've done many fine productions for your network."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a featured player," she reached over to the seat beside her and lifted up a huge photo album. "I've been in hundreds of productions and worked with all the major stars."
Marty had absolutely no idea what a featured player was, but at least now he knew why she rescued him from having to wipe his ass with a leaf. Even though her true intentions were revealed, he didn't feel in any hurry to leave. He still felt light-headed and the solitude of her courtyard was soothing.
She opened her album on the table and turned it around to face Marty. "That's me in Hello Dolly with Barbara Streisand."
She tapped her gnarled, bejeweled finger on a photo of a crowd outside a train station. "I'm the pretty woman standing behind Walter Matthau."
Before Marty could find her in the picture, she flipped the page to a still from Planet of the Apes. "That's me, the monkey woman holding the basket of fruit, two monkeys to the left of the marvelous Edward G. Robinson, though you can't really tell it's him with that make-up on. It was one of my richest roles."
Now Marty understood what the term "featured player" meant. It was either an antiquated description of what she did, or a phrase she made up to make her work seem more like genuine acting. She was an extra, one of the countless, nameless background faces hired at $70 a day plus meals to fill out corridors, streets, and crowd scenes in shows.
She flipped rapidly through the pages. "I left the business after being a nurse for a few seasons on Diagnosis Murder. My character just wasn't challenging any more. Most of the time, she walked up and down the same corridor holding the same files. I really felt my character should be answering phones, perhaps even consulting in the background with other physicians. The second assistant director wasn't willing to take the creative risk so I resigned. I've been waiting for the right role for a comeback."
"I see," Marty nodded. "I'm afraid I have nothing to do with the casting of featured players."
"But you'll keep an eye open for any interesting roles?"
"Certainly." Getting her a job as an extra was easy. It was the least he could do for her. He was grateful for her kindness. Then again, he thought about what she might say on the set. Oh, he's a delightful man. I met him when he was shitting in my juniper bushes.
Perhaps he'd just send her a lovely fruit basket instead. Or some flowers for her garden.
"You live here by yourself?" he asked to change the subject.
"Oh no. The Flannerys are upstairs and Mr. Cathburt is relaxing over there," she waved to someone on the other side of the pond.
Marty craned his neck and saw two bare feet and part of a mangled chaise lounge sticking out from under a massive slab of stucco, tile, and glass. The startling sight seemed to sharpen his vision, enough to finally notice that the roof on the second floor had caved in. When he turned back to the old lady, the air wasn't shimmering nearly as much and his pulse was pounding in his head. Death, and the fear of dying, brought things into focus once again.
"Mr. Cathburt likes to take a little nap in the afternoon," she whispered.
"I don't think he's napping."
Marty got up and hurried over to the crushed chaise lounge to see if there was anything he could do for Mr. Cathburt. There wasn't.
Mr. Cathburt was smashed under the remains of a second-floor veranda. On the patio, a few inches away, a glass of iced tea sat undisturbed on the latest issue of The Globe, which was crusted in a dried puddle of blood. The iced tea was cloudy with particles of plaster and stucco, and the headline on The Globe shrieked: Inside Clarissa Blake's Lesbian Love Den! Her Bisexual Galpals Revealed! As curious as Marty was about Clarissa and her galpals, he wasn't about to touch the magazine.
"When he wakes up, Mr. Cathburt and I usually water the garden," the old lady was just chattering away. "Everything would die if it was left up to the Flannerys."
Marty heard another voice, barely audible. At first he thought it might be Mr. Cathburt, squeaking from underneath the veranda, but then he recognized the scratchy broadcast cadence: the voice was coming from a speaker. He looked around and found a tiny head-set dangling from a cord that was pinched between the rubble and the smashed chaise lounge. Somewhere under all that, a Walkman had survived. The cord was sticky with blood, but Marty's desire to hear some news was stronger than his revulsion. He crouched beside the late Mr. Cathburt, picked up the head set, and held it close to his ear.
The newscaster's voice was weak and quivering, as if he was fighting himself to speak at all.
". . . total, catastrophic devastation. The destruction is simply indescribable. The death toll is surely in the thousands. We don't have details because the city has gone dark, there's no electricity, the phone lines are down, all we know is what we're seeing from our traffic chopper and picking up on the police band. We do know the epicenter was somewhere around Chatsworth, and damage extends as far north as Santa Barbara and as far south as San Juan Capistrano. There have been two strong aftershocks and dozens of smaller ones.
The coastal communities of Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey, and Playa Del Rey have been decimated. Wildfires are raging in Baldwin Hills, Malibu, and above Sherman Oaks. City Hall, the Griffith Park Observatory, the UCLA Medical Center, Dodger Stadium, the Santa Monica Pier, and Sleeping Beauty's Castle are a few of the prominent structures that have crumbled. We're hearing widespread reports of chemical spills and explosions, landslides, and bridge collapses. Underground gas lines have broken, fueling intense firestorms that have razed neighborhoods in Chatsworth, the Fairfax district, and Culver City.
Every freeway has sustained massive damage and most major streets are impassable, drastically impeding official rescue efforts, which are sporadic at best right now.
Los Angeles International Airport is on fire, its runways destroyed. Van Nuys Airport and Santa Monica Airport have also suffered severe damage.
The National Guard has been called in, but with virtually no way into the city, it could be days before they arrive in significant numbers.
We are on our own . . ."
Marty dropped the headset, his hand shaking. He was scared. There was no news about Calabasas, his home, but he didn't take any relief in that. Calabasas wasn't far from the epicenter of the quake and more than once had been threatened by fires that spread from Malibu canyon. Was their house destroyed? Was his wife about to be consumed by a raging wildfire?
"We spend the whole day out here, Mr. Cathburt and I, reading mostly," the old lady was still talking. "It took Mr. Cathburt three weeks to read The Pelican Brief. I finished it in a weekend, but I'm not like most people. I like literary fiction."
"You should go," Marty got up quickly and went to her. "It isn't safe here. The rest of this building could come down."
"I have all the John Grisham books, if you'd like to borrow one. We could read here together, by the pond."
The garden didn't seem nearly so peaceful anymore. Now he could hear the flies buzzing over Mr. Cathburt, the wailing car alarms on the street, the thup-thup-thup of a helicopter in the distance, the tingle of bits of glass still falling to the ground.
"I have to go," Marty told the old woman. "You should, too."
"Where would I go?" she looked him in the eye. "I've lived here for forty-seven years. There is no where else. This is my garden."
Marty nodded. "Is there anything I can do for you before I go?"
"Yes, please." She slid the straps of her bathing suit off her shoulders and smiled coyly.
Oh God, no, Marty thought.
She handed him the bottle of Hawaiian Tropic. "I could use some suntan lotion on my back."
<
br /> Marty didn't want to do it, but he was so relieved that was all she was asking, he quickly squirted some lotion on his hands, rubbed them together, and smoothed the cream on her shoulders. It felt like he was polishing a dashboard with Armor All.
"That feels so good," she purred. "Your hands are very soft."
"You shit in her bushes," said a familiar voice, "that doesn't mean you've got to fuck her."
Marty turned and was stunned to see Buck leaning against the courtyard gate, shaking his head in disgust. Wasn't there any way to escape this guy?
"To each his own, I suppose," Buck shrugged and left.
"Thank you again for your help," Marty hurriedly wiped his hands on his jacket, realizing too late that now he'd be carrying that coconut scent with him the rest of his journey. Then again, it beat the scent he'd been carrying so far.
"Come back and visit any time," she smiled. "And keep your eyes open for the right script for me."
He forced a smile in return, took the toilet paper, and left, closing the gate behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Mythic Hero Paradigm
Buck was waiting for him on the curb.
"Your running is improving," Buck said. "It would be more impressive, however, if you didn't shit yourself the minute you stopped."
"Can we change the subject?" Marty started walking, stuffing the toilet paper into his pack as he went.
"Okay," Buck fell into step beside him. "Let's talk about breasts."
"Let's talk about why you're following me."
"If you weren't so fucking full of yourself, asshole, you'd remember that I live in Hollywood. We happen to be going in the same direction."
"There are at least a dozen different ways of getting to Hollywood."
"Not if you want to avoid the giant fucking cloud of poison fucking gas. Besides, I'm getting to like you, Mark."
"Martin. You won't like me so much after I tell the police what you did."
"I'm sure it will be a top priority for them." Buck snorted.
"You were supposed to stay with the guy you shot."
Buck grinned. "I'm with you now, aren't I?"
"The other guy you shot."
"Enrique and the black kid are with him. Turns out Enrique is one of those male nurses which, as we all know, means he's an amateur proctologist in his spare time."
Marty gave him a look, took the map out of his pack, and spread it on the hood of a car.
"What are you doing?" Buck asked.
"Trying to figure out where I am."
"You're a couple blocks away from Koreatown," Buck said. "Keep heading west, and we'll hit Western Boulevard."
"How can you tell?" Marty glanced around for a street sign, finally spotting one lying on the ground.
"Because I live here, asshole. Don't you ever look out the window when you drive?"
"I don't drive here." Marty studied the map for the street and discovered Buck was right. They were on the northern edge of Koreatown. It could be the safest stretch of his journey or the most dangerous, all because of another violent upheaval not so long ago.
In the early hours of the Rodney King riots, while news choppers hovered over the streets, scores of enraged blacks surged through Koreatown, looting, torching, and demolishing storefronts and mini-malls. It was an unstoppable tide of furious humanity and terrific TV.
Although the Koreans had nothing to do with the beating of Rodney or the acquittal of the officers involved, they were resented for opening their liquor stores, markets, and gas stations in black communities and not hiring blacks.
The besieged Koreans quickly armed themselves, gun-toting brigades patrolling the streets while others stood guard on the rooftops, cradling their carbines, watching and waiting for the invaders to return. But it was too late; the Koreans had already suffered nearly half the damage inflicted on the city during the riots.
Still, Marty was quick to see the series potential. Immediately after the riots, he developed a pilot entitled LA Seoul, about vigilante Koreans cleaning up the mean streets. It didn't make the schedule, despite a last minute attempt to rework it for the Olsen twins. Instead, the network bought Cross-Eyed, a show about a born-again private eye taking cases from God.
The Koreans certainly hadn't forgotten the riots and were probably back on the streets, armed against another incursion. Which meant the neighborhood might be safe from looters but teeming with trigger-happy vigilantes hostile to any strangers, even one who championed what could have been the first Korean cop show on primetime television.
Marty decided having Buck around might not be so bad after all, at least until he got to the Cahuenga Pass and was on his way into the valley. He folded up his map and stuck it in his inside jacket pocket.
"So, once we get to Hollywood, you'll be home," Marty said. "Right?"
"Yeah."
"And we go our separate ways."
"That's a cliché," Buck said. "Something that's been said so many fucking times it means shit."
"Yes, I know what a cliché is, thank you." It was going to be a long walk to Hollywood.
* * * * *
5:35 p.m. Tuesday
Marty and Buck were in a place where people worshipped wrought iron. It surrounded their properties, covered their windows, and barred their doors. It made them feel safe. Now, the wrought iron fences were all that was standing around their homes, which had crumbled like stale cake.
If only their homes had been made of wrought iron, Marty thought.
"The ones I hate are the pointy kind, the ones that seem to be going two different directions," Buck said. "Like they're trying to get the hell off her body or something."
"What are you talking about?"
"Breasts," Buck replied. "As in tits, jugs, and honkers."
"Thanks for the clarification."
"I changed the subject, like you asked. Try to keep up."
And as Buck prattled on, Marty shifted his attention to the ruins around them.
They passed a large apartment building, its outer walls stripped away so it looked like the set of The Hollywood Squares. Except instead of seeing celebrities sitting behind desks, answering stupid questions, Marty saw unmade beds and overturned chairs, fallen pictures in shattered frames, kitchens splattered with broken dishware and spilled food.
The Korean tenants were scavenging what they could, despite the strong possibility the building could collapse right on top of them. Four bloodied tenants struggled to heft a dented Kenmore dishwasher out of a ground floor apartment. Other tenants carefully carted out computers, stereo systems, and TVs, gathering it all on the sidewalk under the guard of family members.
It didn't matter that these goodies were useless to them now, that they wouldn't keep them alive, warm, and healthy for another day. What was important is what they'd once cost. A can of corn and the water it was packed with was only worth sixty-five cents, a dishwasher was worth three hundred dollars. At that price, who cared if the machine worked or if you'd live to use it again?
Yet even as Marty watched them, shaking his head with disdain, he found himself wondering if Beth managed to retrieve his laptop and their new TiVo. Before he could berate himself, they reached Western Avenue, which looked like it had been plowed up the center by an enormous hoe. Cars, buses and telephone poles were scattered everywhere, overturned by the uplifted roadway.
The street was filled with people, mostly Koreans, treating their wounds, embracing each other, or staring in dazed disbelief at the destruction. Marty hardly noticed; the scene had become the only familiar site in this transformed city, the new standard of normalcy. The only people who caught Marty's attention were the ones holding AK-47s, standing in front of their slumped storefronts and flattened mini-malls, just waiting for the looting hordes to arrive.
Marty looked over at Buck, worried that the Neanderthal psycho might do something. "Don't do anything stupid, Buck. Let's just walk through here as quietly and as inconspicuously as we can. We don't want t
rouble."
"What the fuck are you afraid I'm going to do?"
"I don't know, but these people are very nervous and the slightest thing might set them off."
"They don't look nervous to me."
"Then why are they holding automatic weapons?"
"So you'll be nervous," Buck waved to the nearest armed Korean. "Yang chow, amigo-san."
Marty averted his gaze and hurried along as fast as he could. He didn't want to be too close when the Korean gunned down Buck.
Koreatown was nothing like the one Marty remembered from LA Seoul, which was claustrophobic, humid, and dark, the air thick with incense and opium and dangerous men in Manchu jackets. Nor, much to Marty's surprise, was this Koreatown packaged for tourists yet, the entire country and culture synthesized into Disneyfied pagodas and imitation silk robes with catchy slogans.
The only thing Marty could see that set this bland retail strip apart from any other were the services offered—acupuncture, aromatherapy, Shiatsu massage?and the plethora of signs, all written in bright, red Korean calligraphy with English translations in tiny print underneath.
Shong Hack Dong's Permanent Make-up. Jang Soo Bakery. Myung Ga Massage. Yum Park Sa Ne Restaurant. Yeh's Tailor. Myong Dong Natural Herbs. Kentucky Fried Chicken.
That stopped Marty.
There, unscathed and resplendent amidst the destruction, the smiling caricature of Colonel Sanders smiled down at Marty from atop a sleek building comprised of metal cubes, aerodynamic fins, and steel vents. It looked like the Colonel just returned from outer space with an emergency bucket of extra crispy chicken.
"Good idea, Marty," Buck said. "I was feeling a little hungry myself."
"I don't think it's open."
"Don't worry, the maitre'd knows me." Buck headed for the restaurant.
That's when they heard the shriek of rubber against asphalt. Marty and Buck turned to see a truck, its tires spinning and smoking, pulling a set of chains attached to an ATM machine in the wall of a bank. The front of the truck bucked like a horse, its front tires lifting off the ground; then it landed hard and jumped forward, tearing the ATM out and dragging it a few feet before stopping in a cloud of stucco and loose cash.
