The Hollywood Guy

by Jack Baran

Pete buries his face between Cleo’s legs, but from a high, wide angle surveillance point of view, it is Desirée squirming under his ministrations. What she wants is to be on top, in charge. He submits to her aggressive behavior but the theatricality of her lovemaking, the vocalizing, feel all too familiar. His mind wanders, flashing Samantha on the High Line, knowing that even with all that extra flesh, he could bring her to orgasm and know for a fact that she really came.

  Is that Desirée grinding up and down pneumatically, squeezing him like a lemon, if so, what happened to Cleo? Whoever it is at any given moment, Pete, with the aid of the blue pill, will not be broken. He will go on and on until all three of them come.

  During a quiet moment in this strange endless session, Jackson brings Annabeth home from rehearsal. As soon as she sees her father’s pickup she remembers her promise to cook dinner. She sits down on the porch feeling guilty. Jackson hovers near, wondering when he and the girl will finally get it on? He thought it would be tonight but she got her period and doesn’t want the first time to be messy.

  Annabeth lost her virginity in junior high but was drunk when she did it and can’t remember much about the experience. It took awhile for sex to feel good and she still doesn’t enjoy it all the time. Maybe with Jackson it will be different; she certainly likes kissing him. As she relaxes in his arms the final movement of the sexual symphony being performed in Unit 15 begins. The sound carries beautifully in the cool night air, building to a crescendo. When Dicey starts to howl, Annabeth decides it’s time to bail.

  “Do you have a rubber?”

  “I thought you said?”

  “I want to.”

  Pete and Cleo eat Singapore chow fun and very spicy Szechuan bean curd. Was the action long enough, he wonders? How long is enough, especially if there are two women to satisfy? Sixty minutes? Was it that long?

  In reality, Cleo does not mind a quickie. Men always try to impress women by fucking them to death. After being hammered by someone like Roy who had multiple orgasms but was never satisfied, slam-bam, thank you ma’am isn’t a bad way to go. Get in, get off and get on with it. Ten, fifteen minutes – done. She rolls a joint from her own stash.

  Pete fills a bowl of water for Dicey. “Where did you get the grass?”

  “Jamie scored for me.”

  “You guys friends?”

  “I like her and José and Jackson and even your daughter who hates me.”

  “She only thinks she does.” Pete flips on the recorder. “Let’s talk about Carlos.”

  “You said we were going to start writing.”

  “Last interview.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Trust me. After this, we start, and when I start something, I won’t stop until we’re finished.”

  “You promised”

  “Please. I want to know more about the narco?”

  Cleo lies back on the chaise and closes her eyes. “We lived in a walled compound outside Culliacan, but traveled constantly.”

  “While he did business?”

  “He trusted me.”

  “I thought they don’t like outsiders.”

  “I was initiated at a secret ceremony. That’s where I met Shorty.”

  “Guzman!”

  “Carlos told me Forbes Magazine listed Joaquin Guzman as the 701st richest person in the world. Shorty recruited him when he was thirteen. He was like a son to the boss. It was Shorty who officiated.” She takes a long hit off the joint. Her voice changes to Desirée’s. “Everyone handled Precious, but that was nothing. What I had never done before was get fucked by an animal.”

  Pete tries to remain nonchalant. “An animal fucked you?”

  “A goat, then Shorty slit its throat and covered me with blood.”

  Pete is shocked. “That’s sick.”

  “Why do you have a hard on?”

  He’s embarrassed. “What was Carlos’ reaction?”

  “When it was over, he purified me in a sacred spring, swore an oath to bring Joaquin Guzman’s heart to me on a plate.”

  “He was going to kill the boss of the Sinaloa Cartel for you?”

  “Some day, after the syndicate was set up.”

  “Carlos didn’t have the stature to negotiate a truce between the cartels.”

  “Not a truce, a business merger. Carlos had vision.”

  “That’s why the CIA took him out?”

  She nods.

  “How did you get away?”

  “Carlos’ body guards saved me. Don’t forget, I was like their priestess, they were sworn to protect me.”

  “Shorty let you go?”

  The voice changes to Cleo’s. “Everything happened very fast. Desirée disappeared before he knew she was gone.”

  “What about the CIA?”

  “They were looking for a blond.”

  “Did she love Carlos?”

  “Very much.”

  “Was he a good lover?”

  “Always back to the sex.”

  “It’s an essential part of your story.”

  “I loved Carlos, he was very charismatic but physically not my type.”

  “Was he more Desirée’s type?”

  “He liked her to fuck him with a dildo. Not my thing.”

  Pete’s mind reels from all this graphic information. “What is your thing?”

  Cleo is embarrassed. “Don’t laugh. I want to have a family.”

  “Kids?”

  “That’s what I want, I’m ready for a normal life.”

  Pete turns off the recorder. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “Go home Pete.”

  Alone in bed, Pete tries to process his feelings for Cleo. Sexual intimacy is supposed to bring a man and a woman closer but for her it’s associated with work. After she comes, she disengages. The up side is that when she disengages she opens up creatively, not a bad trade off.

  CHAPTER 16

  Pete wakes up in the morning with a headache, feels dizzy when he gets out of bed, but all in all is in a good mood and ready to take a pass at Cleo’s thirty pages. He actually can’t wait to start writing, but first coffee. While it brews he peeks into Annabeth’s room: clothes are strewn everywhere, her computer is on, and a coffee encrusted Zabar’s mug sits beside an overflowing ashtray. How can his daughter think clearly in the midst of chaos? Then again, what does she think about? And where is she anyway? Whenever Barbara found Annabeth’s door open, it gave her license to clean the room, which led to a forensic investigation into the life of an adolescent girl growing up in Pacific Palisades. The disturbing bits, like the pill containers, Barbara shared with Pete who would have preferred to remain oblivious. Ultimately her research became the basis for a doctoral thesis that morphed into a best selling pop-psych book about teens. David made the deal of course.

  Top Of The World lies open on the bed; his dust jacket persona stares back at him - no gray in his unruly hair, no doubt in his eyes. Two years writing, several more revising, a couple more searching for an agent, then another revision, finding a publisher and working with an editor on the final draft. Eight years that ended in failure and left him devastated. What really hurt was how diminished he felt in Samantha’s eyes, how he had disappointed her. The day he left for LA he told her she made a mistake giving up on him and would regret it for the rest of her life. Samantha laughed, knowing she was going to marry a very rich man. He closes the book, leaves everything as is and shuts the door.

  Taking his first sip of coffee, Pete opens the New York Times Sports Section. His Yanks beat the Twins 7-2, the bullpen combined for 2 1/3 innings of solid scoreless relief. The phone rings, David from LA. It rings a second time. “Fuck it.” Pete picks up.

  “Pete?”

  “Up early.”

  “Staying ahead of the curve, you’re my first call, Marcus is my second. Let’s do the deal.”

  A pair of squirrels zigzags from tree to tree. “As my representative you can tell Marcus Bergman I enjoyed our meeting, but regretfully pass on his
project.”

  “Pete, if this is a ploy to get your price up, you should tell me.”

  “David, I’m not available, simple as that. This is the new me being honest and direct. I’m working on something that really interests me.”

  A familiar voice chimes in. “He’s writing a tell-all with a porn queen.”

  “Is that you, Barbara? This happens to be a private conversation between me and my agent, not me and your boyfriend. Where the fuck are you two anyway?”

  “Home,” she answers.

  “You guys are calling from our bedroom.” He’s getting irritated fast. “Do you have clothes on? Are you talking to me naked?”

  “I had a conversation with your daughter last night,” Barbara replies calmly.

  Pete’s voice rises. “Is Annabeth not from your womb?”

  “Annabeth is our child.” Barbara’s response has a practiced therapeutic cadence. “She is very stressed out by your behavior.”

  “Really?” Pete is fuming. “She doesn’t seem stressed to me, in fact her room looks normal, like LA.”

  David retrieves the phone. “Hey I’m sure you both have lots of parenting to catch up on, but we have a business issue to resolve. I have an interesting solution to your problem, Pete. Do the Bergman series while I get you a monster advance on the book. By the time I’ve done the deal, you’re finished with the season. It’s a win-win situation.”

  “Let me be perfectly clear, David. I don’t care about a chief of detectives and a sexy ambitious mayor. I don’t want to write make believe masquerading as reality. I’m working on a truly amazing story. That’s what I want to do.”

  Barbara loses her professional cool. “Translation, he’s fucking a porn queen.”

  Pete is insulted. “This is way beyond the physical.”

  “You, beyond the physical? Typical OCD behavior, David, he’s had these episodes before.”

  “Spare me the psychobabble.”

  “Carrying on with a woman at least half your age.”

  David recaptures the phone. “Pete, put your sexual compulsion aside for a moment, you’re making a tremendous mistake if you pass on this deal.”

  “Speaking of sexual compulsion, does Barbara still like to get banged before breakfast?”

  They hang up.

  Unbelievable. “OCD behavior, like before,” she said. Sure, he had a gambling problem, but that’s over, even the womanizing is history. Pete, righteous and reborn, can’t wait to get to work.

  He freshens the coffee in his favorite cup, the heavy one with the faded blue trim he bought on his honeymoon in Paris with Barbara. They were so in love in the city of lovers, surreptitiously jerking each other off at a Cinematheque screening of Last Tango in Paris. What is she doing in bed with his putz agent? If she’s trying to get his attention, she has it.

  Annabeth returns home guiltily. “Sorry about last night, daddy.”

  He plays it stupid. “What was last night?”

  “I promised to cook dinner.”

  “I had Chinese takeaway, it was fine.”

  “I was like totally immersed, you know with rehearsal. The guys are all so great and, after, Jackson and me couldn’t stop talking so I crashed at his place.”

  “Great to have that communication with someone.”

  In the past she loved to share her infatuations with her father, not today. She takes a sip of Pete’s coffee. “Since you left, the blend at home sucks.”

  “Know what I’m thinking? You and Jackson are so in tune, you should produce the demo.”

  “Dad, Jackson is depending on you.” She sounds like her mother. “He’s in awe of what you know about music. We all are.”

  Pete is flattered. “David and your mother think I’m crazy to pass on the series.”

  “You did?” She’s surprised too.

  “LA is over for me, I don’t want to go back. Woodstock is my home now.”

  “We were a happy family, weren’t we, dad?” She’s suddenly emotional. “I know you and mom still love each other.”

  “We did for a long time, now we don’t.”

  “So love is like this powerful feeling that transfers from wife to girlfriend and so on and so forth as needed?”

  “Your mother is with David Stone, I’m here.”

  “In bed with a porn queen. Love is a meaningless word, I get it dad.”

  “We both love you.”

  “I have work to do. I’m close on a deal for a studio.”

  “Just remember how strapped for cash I am.”

  “Why do I think you want to get out of this?”

  “I don’t, just keep the cost down.”

  She smiles. “You taught me how to haggle, dad.”

  Annabeth vanishes into the mess of her room before Pete can comment about its transformation into a pigsty, or ask what the consequences of hooking up with Jackson might be? Barbara used to wonder how a man so quick with his mouth could not communicate with his family? Something else she was right about.

  Instead of writing the opening section of Cleo’s book, he drives up the mountain to talk to Brother Ray.

  The monk splits wood in a slow, steady rhythm. Pete stacks logs alongside the cabin. They work together in silence. A small woodpecker lands on a nearby tree and begins rat-a-tat-tatting for insects. Pete and the monk stop and watch the bird.

  “Have you been with women Brother Ray?”

  “Before Mao, my family very rich, but Revolution take everything, parents killed. I stay at monastery until Red Guards make us leave. I was very happy to be free from there. On my journey west I meet many women in need of protection. I was young and strong but could not make any of them happy.”

  “Did you make love to these women?”

  “Not love, we fornicated.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “What is not to like?”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “It lead nowhere.”

  “All my life I sought salvation with women.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “I found satisfaction but it was only temporary. Three years ago I stopped and took another path, but secretly I still craved the flesh.”

  “Orgasm does not confirm existence.”

  “It does for me, I fuck therefore I am.”

  “And when you can’t?”

  “This is the era of pills.”

  “Then you will never find peace.”

  Pete drives back to town mulling Brother Ray’s comments. Did he actually expect to find peace with Cleo and Desirée?

  George waves Pete down in front of his gallery, he needs a hand off-loading a van. “Please, two minutes.”

  Pete gets out of the pickup. He hates moving stuff.

  “Everyone at the poker game is relieved you got off that celibacy kick, even Edith.”

  “What business is it of everybody?”

  “None of their business.” He opens the van; a brushed steel bench is in the back. “An original Sol Leroy, I traded a dealer in Hudson for it.”

  With much straining and grunting, they move the bench off the van and on to the sidewalk. “Inside, here we go, on three.”

  “This belongs outdoors, not in a gallery.”

  “On three. One, two, three.”

  They lift.

  “Oh!” Pete cries out in pain, drops his end of the bench on his foot. “Fuck! Oh man, shit. My toe! My back!” He holds his back as he hops on one leg, wincing in pain.

  “Probably nothing.”

  “I have a bulging disk.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t sue you. I’ll send Jackson to help you move the fucking bench.” Pete climbs gingerly into his pickup

  “Wendy wants you guys over for dinner.”

  “She hates me.”

  “She’s fascinated by Cleo.”

  Jackson sits under a tree eating a hero sandwich, writing in a pad. He jumps up when he sees Pete in obvious distress limping toward the house
. “What happened, boss?”

  “Do me a solid, go over to the gallery and help George move something.”

  “Sure, no worries.” He puts the pad in his pocket. “Got a new song for the demo.”

  Cleo bounds out of her unit, begins stretching, smiles at Pete. He waves to her, slowly climbs the stairs to the house. “Why are you walking funny?”

  “Tweaked my back, no big deal.”

  “Give you a massage.”

  “I want to work.”

  “At last.”

  Annabeth rushes out of the house, excited. “I can get us the Dreamaway Studio if we start by Friday.”

  “Friday?” Jackson sounds panicky.

  “Forty percent off if we pay cash.”

  Pete holds his back. “Give me a number.”

  “A flat six grand buys out the studio for a week, as many hours as we want, including mix and rehearsal time.”

  “The engineer?”

  “Extra.”

  “How much?”

  “Another two.”

  “Plus your trip to LA, Ten is what I figure.”

  “Minus forty percent of the six thousand if we pay cash.”

  Cleo does the math. “Seventy-six hundred, sounds like a bargain.”

  “Put the twenty-four back in for incidentals.”

  “The place is legendary, dad.”

  “Can you do it kid?”

  Jackson, astounded, nods.

  “Book it.” He limps into the house.

  “Running, tennis girl?”

  “Too busy, thanks.”

  Cleo takes off.

  “You are amazing.” Jackson hugs Annabeth.

  Much later after the usual procrastination, Pete settles in front of the computer, uses a pillow to support his back, ready to start at last. The phone rings, Van Dusan, must take it.

  “Hey Kurt, how you doing?”

  “Not good Pete. The roast was a disaster, the Congressman went ballistic.”

  “The speech didn’t play with the crowd?”

  “They loved it. Denby hated it.”

  “That’s different, anyway, in a week, who will remember?”

  “Denby will.”

  “I will personally write him an email of contrition, take full responsibility for my authorship. It was a roast for fuck sake.”

  “You’ve written enough on my behalf.”

  “I’m sorry Kurt but you wanted laughs, you got laughs. I delivered as promised, how about you?”