by Bruce Wagner
They disappeared into the crowd.
Becca introduced herself as Drew (per Elaine’s instructions), showing browsers to their cars. All in all, people were kind, and flattering about her resemblance. She had read that a lot of Hollywood power-types came to the Auto Show—you never knew who you’d make an impression on. Her Southern charm and sunny spirit lightened everybody’s load. She even won the staffers over.
After an hour or so, she took a break. She saw Elaine over by a customized SUV, having an argument with the handsome man who had impersonated Russell Crowe in Playa del Rey. Becca hid herself behind a display and eavesdropped.
“I told you to bring the armor!” she hissed.
“I said that I couldn’t find it. I didn’t want to be late.”
He was docile—a far cry from his brutish behavior of the other night.
“Well, next time I say bring it, bring it. Or there won’t be a next time. They specifically asked for the armor, and now I don’t even know if they’re going to pay for you, understand? If you ask for Mickey Mouse, you damn well expect the ears.” She tapped her foot with irritation. “Start paying attention or there won’t be a London and there won’t be a European tour. Understood?”
“You’re a little over the top, don’t you think?”
“There won’t be a European tour, Rusty! Am I making myself understood?”
He stared at the ground in the diffident way that had charmed Becca when they first met. “Understood.”
Elaine stormed off.
Rusty—she wondered what his real name was but liked Rusty just fine—approached the Subaru space, defeated. She was reminded of the scene where Joaquin Phoenix stabs Maximus, mortally wounding him before their Colosseum showdown. Becca discreetly circled around so that they both approached the exhibit at the same time. When he saw her, he seemed to reach out and retreat all at once. She said hello, and he nodded in a way that broke her heart. Becca saw him deflate as he stood there in his shabby Beautiful Mind suit, watching the Louie cavort with people’s kids. He listened to the other look-alikes introduce themselves by their celebrity names, and seemed to steel himself; then, in a remarkable rally, he approached a young black couple and vigorously said, “G’day, mates—I’m Russell Crowe. Come have a seat in the Subaru Baja! I assure you its south of the border qualities won’t disappoint. As a real Insider, let me tell you this little vehicle’s no croc—or ‘Crocodile’ Dundee! So c’mon over, put a shrimp on the Barbie doll and let me give you something strictly L.A. Confidential: I got half A Beautiful Mind to give this Gladiator”—arm sweeping toward polished passenger door—“an Academy Award—for Best Car of the Year!”
The Fireman’s Fund
THE COLD, MOLDY, red-shingled string of cottages was called The Albany. A voice inside her—the snotty L.A. voice, the wry deadpan voice of her boss, Reggie Marck—said, Hey: it doesn’t get much more imaginative than that.
Robbie wouldn’t take her home, and she knew that meant he was involved. Though maybe not. Lisanne wouldn’t ask. Maybe he had a roommate he was embarrassed to parade her in front of, the kind who would tease him about porking a porker. She understood. She’d never made love at this weigh-in. He seemed excited enough, and besides, she didn’t care. She only wanted communion. She had almost forgotten what that was like.
He was an athlete in high school. It was torrid between them, but when Lisanne got accepted to Berkeley they broke up. Robbie stayed behind and drove an ambulance, with the idea of eventually enrolling in med school. When the company went bankrupt, he took the EMT course for paramedics in training and began working for the city. His story was that he injured his back lifting a gurney and wound up addicted to painkillers. He moved back in with his mom, inheriting a small amount of money when she died. Lisanne didn’t want to know too many details.
The sex was still good. She got vocal and cried out to God. That surprised her. He went down on her, and that was rough; she instinctively covered the fatness of a thigh with one hand while drawing up folds of belly with the other. While he worked down there, she thought about enrolling in an obesity program at UCLA. You ate seven hundred calories a day for months and lost three or four pounds a week, the only drawback being that your breath stank as your body began to devour its stores of fat. There was a moment of embarrassment when he spoke up and said it looked like she had some discharge. She switched on a lamp, but it was only a small wad of toilet paper. He went back to his labors—nothing seemed to turn him off.
Robbie lit an après-sex joint and proceeded to get all happy. She smoked and choked. He asked if she wanted to come see his house (the one he had bought and was slowly fixing up) and glowed like a cheap guru when she assented. Her cohabitation theories might have been wrong after all.
The ride was freezing and quiet. The truck smelled of desuetude and cigarettes, old mud, junk mail, torn vinyl promises. She hadn’t been this loaded in a long time. She became focused on the long, trembling metal stick that ruled the roost, the crystal of its eight ball cupped in Robbie’s hand like an animal’s heart. She watched the arcane, manly, unfathomable patterns of his upshifts and downshifts with the attention of an adept. The engine provided heat; there wasn’t even a radio. Her ex seemed to lose impetus as they drove, but Lisanne thought maybe that was because there wasn’t any more weed. Robbie clearly had a tolerance.
A light flurry of snow blew down as they pulled into the drive. It felt like high school, playing hooky to do something dirty.
“How long you been here?” she asked as they stepped out.
“About a year,” he said. “My grandma stays with me.”
“I thought Grannie was dead!”
“That’s Mom’s mom—remember Elsa?”
“Sure do,” she said.
“Well, Elsa died about a year after Mom.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, well, it was time for her to go.”
“So this is your dad’s mom?”
“Uh huh.”
“I don’t think I ever met her.”
“She lived in Rochester. She’s kind of a hermit.”
When they entered, the house was filled with shadows. A cloud of perfume pressed on Lisanne like a rag of chloroform. A petite, hawklike figure watched them from the other side of the kitchen counter.
“Maxine?”
“Yes?”
Lisanne was suddenly self-conscious that she hadn’t showered. Robbie’s eyes were bloodshot. She felt dodgy and illicit.
“This my friend Lisanne, from L.A.—her dad died. I told you about her,” he added. “We went to high school together.”
“Hello,” said Lisanne, brightening like a loser.
Perky whore.
The pot was still kaleidiscopically working on her.
“Hiya,” said the woman.
Her features grew more distinct as Lisanne’s eyes adjusted to the light. She looked around seventy, of slender frame and predatory countenance. She was meticulously groomed, and Lisanne pegged her wardrobe as vintage—Chanel or YSL.
“I was just getting ice cream,” said Maxine. “Y’all like some?”
Robbie turned solicitously to Lisanne, who shook her head. In the full fluorescence of her stonedness, her man looked wild and bereft, startled to have put them in this wrong, weird predicament.
“Actually,” said Maxine, “it’s soy. They call it Soy Dream and it’s raspberry. I am absolutely hooked and don’t care who knows. Do I, Robert?”
“No ma’am!”
“Aren’t I absolutely hooked?”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Hook, line, and stinker. Bell, book, and candle.”
“May I use the bathroom?” said Lisanne.
She could feel her smile becoming fixed and ghoulish; Robbie pointed the way.
Lisanne listened to the voices engaged in low argument as she douched.
The Greenroom and Beyond
“HE’S BEEN VOTED People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ more
times than anyone on the planet—and he can type too. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome . . . Kit Lightfoot!”
The supernova took the stage with his patented self-effacing panther walk. The band raucously played the well-known theme from an early megahit. There was a large contingent of fans and screamers toward the front.
They embraced. After the applause died down, Jay did his jokey debonair thing. “Those screams—if our viewers at home are wondering—are partially for me. Something in the aftershave.”
Laughter. More swoons, hoots, and hollers.
“All right,” Jay chastised. “That’s enough now!”
He turned to his handsome guest. “So how the hell are ya?”
Hair-trigger whoops came before he could answer. Kit raised an eyebrow at the audience and chuckled. A few isolated screams.
“I’m great. I’m great, Jay.”
First words greeted by more electric commotion (everyone was having fun, and fun was what it was all about) which gradually though never completely faded away.
“I saw you at a benefit last week,” said Jay.
“For scleroderma,” said Kit, nodding.
“Yes. For a lovely lady who Mavis, my wife, has actually known for years—Char Riordan. They’re doing wonderful research.”
“Yes.”
“Making great strides. Do you go to a lot of those things? I would imagine you get asked to lend your name to causes.”
“This business is so frivolous, Jay, and so many of us have been absurdly blessed. I mean, let’s face it, I put on makeup for a living—”
“You could always work on Santa Monica Boulevard . . .”
“Don’t quit my day job, exactly! But I think we get compensated on such a ridiculous scale, that we’re . . . compelled . . . to do what we can. Otherwise, you’re just a kid in a sandbox. I try to do my share.”
Applause kicked in, soberly encouraged by Jay. “So you went last week—”
“I had a personal connection. Viv and Char—the woman being honored—are very, very close.”
“That’s of course Viv Wembley,” said Jay, pausing to acknowledge the audience as they whooped and applauded. “In case the folks out there didn’t know,” he added with a wink. “The very lovely, and by the way very funny star of Together. And I want to get to some other things—it’s well known you have an interest, a long-standing interest, in Buddhism, and you’ve agreed to talk with us a little about that tonight in connection with an upcoming event—which is something you rarely do and I’m thrilled you’re going to enlighten us, so to speak. But first, I’m dying to ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Someone told me you and Viv have nicknames for each other.”
The audience hooted while Kit squirmed appealingly. “Who told you that?”
“Vee haff ways. Now come on, Kit, tell us what she calls you.”
He hemmed and hawed. The crowd cajoled.
“She calls me Bumpkin.”
The audience let out a happy groan. Warm laughter. Wolf whistles.
“Now come on!” said Jay, admonishing the mob. “I think it’s very sweet.” He turned back to Kit. “She calls you Bumpkin.”
“That’s right, Jay.”
“And . . . what’s your nickname for Viv?”
“I don’t think we should go there.”
The audience protested, then began to plead.
“This is a family show,” Kit added.
Laughter. More pleading. Isolated begging whoops.
“Now, you were supposed to do a cameo on Together—”
“Jay! I thought we were moving on!”
“We are, but this is important. I heard Viv was mad because that cameo hasn’t yet happened.”
Kit looked at the host with keen-eyed admiration. “Oh, you are good. You are really good.”
Audience laughter.
“Bumpkin’s been a very bad boy,” said Jay.
“Yeah, she’s not too happy. But I’m busy! I’m in the middle of shooting a picture! I’m in a little bit of hot water here, Jay, help me out!”
“I’m trying to be sympathetic. But to most of us, being in hot water with Viv Wembley probably isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
“Think you’re man enough to handle it?”
The audience laughed. Jay cracked up, blushing.
“When we come back, I want to talk about the Dalai Lama—he’s a friend of yours, right?—and the important work you’ve been doing building clinics over there.”
“Helping to,” Kit added, with a modest smile.
“Where are they, India?”
“Yes,” Kit said matter-of-factly. “India.”
“For the refugees.”
“For whoever needs them.”
Jay looked straight into the camera and said, “Kit Lightfoot. Right here. Right now. Wearing makeup. So don’t touch that dial.”
How Verde Was My Valle
RUSTY INVITED BECCA to his apartment. They met instead at the Rose Café, a few blocks from where he lived. She wasn’t ready to be alone with him just yet. There was something so tender about him but something dangerous too, like the actor he portrayed.
When she asked his real name, he said Rusty, without a trace of irony. He said he was from Sarasota. His father was a wealthy entrepreneur who, among other ventures, had been involved in business dealings with Burt Reynolds, a pal from college. About himself, Rusty used the term jack-of-all-trades. He had worked as a racetrack stable hand, a private nurse to the wealthy (“like the guy who killed that billionaire in Monaco,” he said with a laugh), and a thief whose expertise was delivering the items on grocery lists of antiquarian books for reclusive bibliophiles. He was so disarmingly forthright that Becca didn’t know which fanciful story to believe.
She immediately regretted asking if he had an agent. She should have known that Elaine Jordache was his lifeline to the business, such as it was. When Becca mentioned her work with Metropolis, Rusty said he did theater too, when he could, preferring it to the game of auditioning for film or television, which disgusted him. He asked if she was single, and Becca felt foolish because she told him about Sadge and how everything was between them—just blurted it out. He put his hand on hers and she laughed nervously then got teary-eyed, the two of them like an image from the cover of an old Pocket Books romance. He asked again if she felt like coming to his home. Becca shook her head. He smiled, pleased by her reticence.
“Then let’s go to Magic Mountain.”
She left her car in the lot.
• • •
THEY WERE ON the freeway, heading north. She wanted to be cool around him and not make any missteps. She was glad when he turned up the radio because it calmed her not to have to make conversation. He knew all the words to “Baby, I’m Yours,” and even though half-goofing, his voice was sensuous and beautifully modulated. He kept looking over, winking devilishly. She felt like she was high.
Rusty took an off-ramp and after a few miles, they pulled onto the grounds of a sprawling hospital. When Becca realized that Magic Mountain had been a joke or a ruse, she got nervous. They parked and began to walk. To allay her fears, he began a little travelogue. He said that, fifty years ago, Valle Verde had been featured in a Brando movie about paraplegics in rehab. He had lots of Hollywood trivia like that in his head.
Rusty confidently threaded his way through a maze of polished linoleum corridors, with the occasional nod to a passing nurse. He was an old hand. No one stopped them or asked who they were visiting. Young, heavily tattooed men loitered in wheelchairs, alone or in quiet groups. Most of their heads were shaved. One bore the legend CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING on his skull. Rusty said they were gang bangers whose luck had run out.
He led her into a patient’s room. A brawny, shirtless man stood by the bed with an attendant. He looked at Rusty with cold hostility before breaking into a grin, as if for a moment he hadn’t recognized him.
“Hey now,” said the man.
“Hey now,” said Rusty.
(Old Larry Sanders freaks.)
Becca hung back while the men embraced.
“Jesus, it stinks,” said Rusty. “What’d you, just take a dump?”
“Nature’s finest.”
“This is my friend Becca—Becca, this is Grady.”
“Hello, Becca.”
“Hi.”
“Grady Dunsmore, at your service.”
His hand felt damp when she shook it.
“Need servicing? Give Grady a call.”
“Hey now,” said Rusty, chastising. “Heel, boy. Stay at your curb.”
“Hey now.”
Grady wobbled on his good leg while bracing himself against the slim Filipino man who was helping him dress.
“Wish I knew you were coming, motherfucker. Always so sly. Slip and slide. Stealth-Man.”
“Into the night, baby.”
“See, cause now I gotta go do my thing. My get-better thing.”
“They gonna work you?”
“You better believe it.”
“Put you through some major pain?”
“I already prepared.” He voodoo-rattled a bottle of pills. “Gots to take the vikes before Ernesto puts me through my paces.”
“How long you gonna be?”
“I don’t know—forty-five? Maybe an hour. Can you hang?”
“Absolutely. I’ll try on a prosthetic or two.”
“Knock yourself out, Mad Max.”
“Hey now.”
“Eat me.” Then, to Becca as he left: “Pardon my Spanish. And watch him closely. See that he doesn’t steal any of my shit.”
Benefits
IT TOOK LISANNE a few days to shrug off the torpor of the trip back across America. There was so little to do on a train that one’s cycle shifted—Lisanne’s did, anyway—she slept practically from sundown till dawn.
