“You bet.”
At nine o’clock I was at a park bench just outside the fenced-in La Brea Tar Pits, looking at the plaster statue of a great woolly mammoth stuck and being pulled down into the muck.
The red phone in the blue bag rang.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Aunt Deb,” Dr. Neelo Brown said, “I have someone here who wants to talk to you.”
The phone made some transfer noises and then a masculine voice said, “Hello?”
“Yes?” I said. “Who’s this?”
“Willie Norman, Mrs. Pinkney.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I just wanted to thank you, ma’am, for putting me together with Dr. Brown and making it so that I could get my spells under control.”
“Neelo’s been treating you?”
“Uh-huh. Yeah. I never went to no doctor before ’cause I didn’t think they could do anything, but Dr. Brown gave me these pills and this light I could look at and now I’m almost perfect. So I just wanted to tell you thanks from me and, and, and Tai too. And I wanted to tell you that you don’t have to worry about my car. I can fix that myself.”
“Thank you, Willie. Thanks a lot.”
“And I wanted to say that I’m sorry about your husband. I’m sorry he died.”
Anna Karin asked me if I wanted to kill myself and I told her that the idea entered my mind only when I thought about making films again. But I realized later that that wasn’t the case, I wrote in my pilfered journal: The truth is I’m thinking about it all the time. It’s like a door open at the side of the house and this cool breeze is blowing in over the back of my neck. The breeze is Death whispering and that door is open for me to go through anytime I want. And I want to go through. I want the confusion to stop—no, not only confusion but pain too.
In Anna’s office I realized that fucking Myron Palmer somehow jump-started me back to life like a woman finding herself suddenly awake after years and years in a coma. It hurts to feel all these things and to know that all I have to do is shut them off again and the pain will stop.
Just breathing hurts me. Feeling love for my son hurts me. The idea of the sun shining cuts at me with red-hot blades.…
The phone was ringing again.
“Hello,” I whispered.
“Deb? It’s Bertha, Bertha Renoir.”
“Hey, Bertha,” I said, feeling real pleasure at hearing her voice. “It’s been so long, girl.”
“Uh-huh, it sure has. Lana called and told me about Theon. That’s a shame. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. I guess he went out the way he would have wanted, though.”
“At least he didn’t take you with him.”
I was remembering how blunt and straightforward Bertha was. That was a real help in movie makeup; subtlety did not show up on digital shots.
“I’d love to get together with you and talk, B, if you have the time.”
“That’s what Lana said. I’m up north of Malibu on a surfing movie shoot. You could come up anytime today.”
She gave me the directions and I scribbled them down below my notes about death.
I was on my way to Malibu when the red phone rang again. “Hello?” I said into the multidirectional car microphone.
“Hey … It’s me.”
“Hey, Rash. I’m sorry I haven’t called you, hon. You wouldn’t believe the things been going on.”
“Oh, um, well, yeah … I know that you’re a very busy woman. I guess I just wanted to know …”
“It’s okay, honey. I wanted to call but I really couldn’t. This funeral thing has been a bitch, and I had to deal with that guy Coco.”
“Did you work it out?”
“Will you come to the funeral? It’s gonna be Saturday at two forty-five at Day’s Rest Cemetery.”
“I didn’t know your husband.”
“You’ll be there for me.”
After a long silence he said, “Okay. All right. I’ll be there.”
“There’s another call,” I said, looking at the monitor above the rearview mirror. “I’ll talk to you later.
“Hello?” I said, after disconnecting Rash by answering the next call.
“Hi, Sandy,” Delilah Peel, my stepsister, said.
“Hey, Deihl. How you doin’?”
“You wanna come by tonight, hon? I think Edison expects to see you.”
The sensual feeling of suicide flitted through my mind and body. I wondered why.
“How you feelin’ ’bout all this, Deihl?”
“He’s your son.”
“But you raised him. You been there for all his first days and bruised knees. When he wakes up scared in the middle’a the night you the one, the one he calls to.”
“He asks God to bless you in his prayers every night.”
“But you the one sits there when he gets down on his knees.”
“A boy needs his mama, Sand; you know I will not stand in the way’a that.”
“I’ll come by tonight. I’ll be there.”
The rest of the ride I felt a thrumming in my body. The idea of ending my life increased with the passing minutes. I had thought I’d left that feeling in the Malibu mountains, but as I returned to that enclave of wealth and beauty the yearning for release returned.
The movie, Surf’s Inn, was being shot on the beach a mile or so north of Sunset. Seeing the small production sign, and the row of trailers, I pulled in.
“I’m sorry, miss,” a young white man with reddened skin and bulging biceps told me. “This is a closed set.”
“My name’s Deb,” I said, “and I’m here to see Bertha Renoir.”
The young man frowned. There must have been a few of the younger Hollywood lions on the set. That meant there were all kinds of fans and paparazzi trying to get in.
“Deb who?”
“Dare.”
There was a moment of stunned realization in the young man’s eyes. He had seen me in action before: my shaved pussy and swollen clit. He’d stared at my perfect-looking breasts and listened to thousands of my sighs feigning pleasure. He looked at my short hair and almost asked a question but then got on his walkie-talkie. He moved away from my car but I could see by his shoulder movements that he was arguing with someone.
Finally he turned back to me and said, “Go to the pink trailer on the right-hand side.”
“I know which one it is.”
Bertha’s trademark was the pink trailer that looked like it just pulled out of a fifties campsite somewhere in America’s heartland. Inside that mobile space she had clothes and wigs, every shade of makeup imaginable, and accessories from feather boas to leather bow ties.
“Hey, Deb.” Bertha was chubby and beautiful, probably in her fifties but she looked ten years younger. Her skin was delicate and pale.
“B,” I said.
“Come on in and sit down.”
On her makeup chair sat a barely legal white girl wearing only a bikini thong bottom. While we talked Bertha was covering the girl’s body with various forms of creams and powders.
“I’m so sorry to hear about Theon,” Bertha said.
“Yeah. Thanks, hon.”
“It’s a hard trade,” Bertha said. “That’s why I got out of it. Too many people died and too few mattered.
“Jo-Jo at the front gate was tryin’ to tell me that it wasn’t really you. He thought that because you didn’t have long white hair and a tattoo that it couldn’t be. Nice job on the makeup over the stain.
“Okay, Juanita,” she said, slapping the bikini actress’s ass. “You can go out and frolic with your friends.”
Juanita giggled and got up. She was short and thin, except for her butt.
“Miss Dare,” she said from the doorway. “It … it’s a real honor meeting you.”
She tittered again and skipped out into the sunshine.
Bertha put a sign on her door and closed it.
“I worked past my break waitin’ for you to come, hon,” she sai
d. “So we have some time.”
She sat me in her client’s chair and placed her stool across from me. She didn’t offer me anything to drink, not because she was rude but because Bertha lived a life where you asked for what you needed or else you went without.
“I see you’re married,” I said, referring to the rose gold band on the wedding finger.
“His name is Tommy Blueblood.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Uh-uh, real name. I’m Bertha Blueblood now.”
“What does he do?”
“He makes jewelry from semiprecious stones that he polishes himself. It’s really very cool and he’s a great guy.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said, trying to find the feeling those words expressed.
“How you holdin’ up?” the makeup artist asked.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I mean, I don’t feel bad or anything. I cried once and everything’s different now. I quit the business. And even though everything seems fine I think about killing myself when there’s nothing else going on.”
“Are you taking something for that?”
I smiled to think that there might be an antisuicide pill in the world.
“I’m seein’ a shrink.”
“That’s good,” the chubby woman said with a nod. “You know there’s no reason for somebody to take their life away. Uh-uh.”
“You know, B, I came here to have you do something for the funeral.”
“I already gave that Dardanelle my credit card, baby. I gave him a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Are you coming?”
“Oh yeah. Me and Tommy will be there. He’s never met my old crowd and says he wants to.”
“Do you think you can come early and bring me some stuff?”
“What do you need?”
Bertha walked me out of the pink trailer and went with me toward my car.
“Bertha,” a young man called.
He was wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt and khaki cutoffs. A thirtysomething white man, he was handsome in a rugged sort of way. He looked familiar.
“Hey, Johnny,” Bertha said in a tone that let me know that he was important. “This is my friend—Deb.”
“Hi,” he said, hitting me with a killer smile. I could feel the strength in his hands but his grip was gentle.
“This is Johnny Preston,” Bertha said even as I recognized him.
“Oh. I think you were doing business with my husband.”
“Who’s he?” the affable star asked.
“Theon Pinkney.”
“Yes, indeed. He put up the money for a heist script I’m producing. It’s called Inside Out. We’re hoping to shoot it next spring. You can tell Theon that.”
“He died,” I said.
“Oh.” The actor put on an appropriate frown. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pinkney. So sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said. “So … you think you’re gonna make the film?”
“You never know,” he said, producing that well-rehearsed smile again. “I want to. I get to play a homicidal maniac. Maybe if they like it I won’t have to do any more surf films.”
I smiled and nodded.
“It’d be great to get the script money back,” I said. “Theon died kinda broke.”
“You’ll know when I do. His accountants, uh …”
“Chas and Darla?”
“Yeah. They’ve been on top of my manager.”
“Hey, Johnny,” a young woman called from down toward the beach.
“That’s my scene,” he said to me.
We shook hands and he sprinted away toward the cameras.
“That’s my son’s college fund,” I said to Bertha.
“Theon was a good guy,” she said, “but nobody could ever blame him for being too smart.”
Suicide sat next to me on the ride back from the beach. He was the same olive-skinned gentleman who was in the periphery when I had my orgasm. He was sleek and cool in a dusky gray sharkskin suit, in every way someone you’d want to know and whom you were afraid of at the same time. His smile was understanding, even friendly. He was armed but wouldn’t hurt you unless you crossed him.
My fingertips were numb, my lips too.
Suicide smiled easily. He wasn’t Death but merely an intermediary, like that door left ajar at the side of the house.
I knew he wasn’t really there next to me but I also knew that he was real. He’d been my bodyguard since the day my father died. He was my exit strategy, my best friend and guardian angel.
Mr. Suicide was as tangible as the blood in my veins, as the midnight special in my purse. He was why no one could hurt me or bully me or make me into something I didn’t want to be.
Suicide was a messenger who kept in constant contact with Aldo, my father.
“What do you want from me?” I dared to ask him as we crossed Sepulveda headed east on Pico.
He didn’t answer but his smile was resplendent.
“I need you to tell me,” I said, even though I was mostly sure that he wasn’t there.
Stopping at the next red light I turned my head to regard him.
His race was indiscernible, nonexistent among the varieties of men. He was a god, perfection, as real as the sky and as distant.
A sexual friction was rising in my lower abdomen. It was slick and bloody, vibrating at an incredible, feathery rate. It was the feeling I had for Theon when I was living at his place but we had not yet become lovers.
His interim girlfriend had been Venus Moxie, a frequent costar in his various films. They would do lines of coke and fuck in the living room where I watched TV. Theon would have his eyes on me while Venus rode his incessant erection.
I loved the attention. It made me feel that he belonged to me even if he was with her.
A horn honked loudly and I realized that I’d drifted out of my lane.
I pulled to the curb on Motor and took in deep breaths. Suicide was semitransparent there next to me. Theon and Venus were memories threatening to become real in the backseat. My fingers were numb, my wrists were burning, and I felt like I did just before stupid Myron Palmer made me come.
Everything was sex: the soles of my feet, the crazy bone in my left elbow, the smell of my sweat and perfume. I wanted to get down on my knees and have some nameless, tattooed biker fuck me with his bent dick. I wanted Suicide to take me without having to give him a thing.
Was that possible?
I pulled up in front of the lime-green bungalow on Darton Street just as the sun kissed the horizon. The sky had turned an iridescent orange and black from the sunset, cloud cover, and air pollution. On the way I had to pull my car to the curb eight times to avoid losing control.
I wanted to die but every time I imagined it a sexual tension ignited in me and the wish for death turned into a need for sex. This agony was exquisite and depleting. It took a quarter of an hour to climb out of the car and go to the door of the small house.
“Mama!” Edison yelled as he flung the door open.
I dropped to my knees and he rushed into my arms. I held on to him as if he were a single jutting stone in the middle of the ocean and I was a drowning woman fresh from a shipwreck.
“How are you, baby?” I asked.
He squeezed me for an answer.
“Did you save your mama something to eat?”
“Come on,” he said.
He took me by the hand and dragged me into the manicured living room. Delilah wore a cranberry pantsuit, standing there like a saleswoman for a well-maintained furniture showroom. The sofa and its companion stuffed chair were blue and plush. The floor was dark oak, as was the coffee table.
There was a gray cardboard box in the corner, overflowing with Edison’s toys. I imagined him straightening up his little boy’s mess for me while I was out in my car struggling to survive long enough to see him.
Delilah smiled. She was shorter than I, with big eyes and freckles across her copper-and-gold face. She was a few pounds over her perfect
weight and lovely to me.
“Hi,” she said with a smile that added intention to the greeting.
“Hey.”
“Come on, Mama,” Edison said. “We got pizza in the kitchen.”
It was hard for me to fit into that evening with my son and stepsister. Edison showed me his room and his toys, his books and secret treasures. I paid attention like a forensic accountant gauging the worth of my little boy’s life.
Delilah loved him and cared for him in ways that I might never be able to. He could read at least a dozen words and he could count. He said please and thank you without reminder, and he was healthy and unafraid.
In other words—he didn’t need me. Delilah had brought him up into childhood with no scars or frowns on his face.
He loved me but he needed what my father’s adopted daughter had to offer. And she loved him; I could see that love in each gesture and in every corner of her home.
We watched a cartoon movie about a little beaver named Barney who had been driven out of the forest by a fire and who had to make a life for himself in the city. There he met cats and dogs, humans and other displaced forest denizens, struggled to survive, and finally found a natural paradise where the waters were clear and there was need for a dam.
By the end Edison and Delilah were both sound asleep. My hands felt huge, like baseball mitts. My head ached and my legs were numb but ambulatory.
I put Edison to bed and then woke up Deihl.
She gave me a sleepy smile and kissed me.
“You wanna stay the night?” she asked.
“I think I better. I really don’t feel like drivin’.”
She got me sheets and a blanket and fitted them to the cushions of the blue sofa.
“Me and Eddie are off early in the morning,” she said.
“Not early as me.”
There are states other than wakefulness and sleep. There is, for instance, the kind of unrest when you are so close to consciousness that you are not really out. You’re still there in the world—just separated by a thin barrier of black tissue.
I lay there on the couch thinking about dreams and dreaming of ideas. Theon was there with me trying to distract my train of thought. He was grumbling that I wasn’t paying attention. My hands and feet were swollen and I said, “Give me a break, man. I’m trying to let you go.”
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