Still Holding

by Bruce Wagner

  Alf loomed again, the irrepressible jester, trickster. Shapeshifter. He got his kicks by tweaking his more famous friend and knew what buttons to push. Yesterday, he’d made a point of telling him Spike Jonze was up to something big—Spike was about to do a really wild film, “more genius than Adaptation,” about celebrity look-alikes. Alf said he didn’t know much more than that, but did know Spike was supposedly out there looking for a “Kit Lightfoot type.” When he heard that, Kit had laughed out loud, playing it cool. (He’d secretly resolved to phone the director at home and get the friendly lowdown. If there was something for him, he’d most likely have heard. Spike would have called or his people would have approached.) Kit wanted to do challenging work; it haunted him that he hadn’t yet made his bid. He was desperate—so he told himself—to do something magnificent, to work with an art house hotshot, any hotshot, young or old, step right up. He completely understood Tom’s need to have done the Kubrick thing. Respected it. Admired it. Then the Master went and died, as if in homage to Tom’s great taste and timing, Tom’s great luck. Kit kept telling himself that he wanted to do a film to challenge him in his core the way his practice once had, back in the day. But even if he found the right project, there were obstacles to surmount—he knew that he needed to be empty enough to exceed real or imagined boundaries. Maybe he just didn’t have it in him; never did and never would. Maybe he was just a pretty boy with swagger, gutless and not that bright, the King of People’s Choice. And that was that.

  He shivered, straightening his spine.

  The zendo had been built by master carpenters from five-hundred-year-old Japanese cedars without benefit of nails or glue. Each morning, the toryos had made offerings of sake and rice to their tools before setting to work. Architectural Digest wanted to put it on their cover, but Kit turned them down in his nobility. He flashed on the whore and the extemporaneous teisho before the shrine of the Buddha: the pornography of hubris. How had the path led him to this? He felt in danger of dying.

  Like a warlock, he summoned a Kalachakra invocation to clear the air—“I will achieve complete enlightenment through the four doors of thorough liberation . . . emptiness, sinlessness, wishlessness, and non-activity!” These words he had said in Wisconsin, before his mentor and friend, the Dalai Lama. These words he had said before Prince Siddhartha, before timeless Shakyamuni, before Nothingness. He whispered Om shunyata-jnana-vajra-svabhavatmako ham and bowed deeply to the void, the hum of his words merging with the drone of a faraway leaf blower.

  Stagecoach

  RUSTY PICKED BECCA up around seven. Even though Sadge’s things were still in the apartment, she felt single. It was a turn-on. He came in and sniffed around like a cartoon dog. He sniffed his way to the bedroom, and she laughingly had to keep hauling him out.

  They drove to Beverly Hills and parked near the big church where Bo Derek got married in Becca’s mom’s favorite movie, 10. Suddenly she got the crazy notion Rusty was going to take her to Crustacean. She started worrying about the sullen maître d’ but figured he probably wouldn’t recognize her—tonight, hair and makeup were in anti-Drew mode.

  Rusty walked them toward Wells Fargo, saying he needed cash. He went past the ATMs and into the building’s lobby. It was already after seven.

  “The bank’s staying open late,” he said, with a smile. “Just for me.”

  For a fleeting moment Becca thought he was going to commit armed robbery, but then she saw a gala group on the other side of the tall windows. A guard was at the entrance. Rusty said, “We’re with Grady and Cassandra Dunsmore,” and he let them in without a hassle.

  A peculiar, festive scene greeted them within. Gang bangers and their relations, some in wheelchairs (she was reminded of Valle Verde), upended slim-necked Coronas and sipped champagne from plastic glasses beside jovial white men in suits and loosened ties. A table had been set up with Costco deli platters, some as yet unwrapped; people seemed more thirsty than hungry. Motown played on a boom box. The high-spirited wives wore satiny dresses and as many tattoos as their spouses. Toddlers ran manic circles around their grandparents. Some of the gray-haired folks also had tatts.

  “Hey now!” shouted Grady, on seeing Rusty come toward him.

  “Hey now.”

  They did their bear-hug thing.

  “The gravy train has finally pulled into the station!”

  “You mean the Grady train,” said Cassandra, waddling over, napkin filled with canapés and little sugar-dusted donuts. Her belly had grown since Becca last saw it underwater.

  “You got that right,” said Grady.

  “You’re both wrong,” said Rusty. “It ain’t the Grady or the gravy—it’s the ‘bullet’ train.”

  “The bullet train!” exulted Grady. “That’s right! That’s dead-on! It’s the motherhumpin bullet-in-the-leg train!”

  They had a laugh, then Rusty said, “You remember Becca.”

  “I ain’t fuckin senile.” Grady turned to his wife. “Tha’s Rusty’s lady.”

  Cassandra nodded, in Barbara Stanwyck–The Big Valley mode—all steely, matriarchal approval. They’d actually met at the party but Cassandra didn’t recollect.

  “Honey,” she said, taking Becca’s elbow with mock intimacy, “would you make one thing clear to your boyfriend for me?” She paused for dramatic effect before saying, “He ain’t gettin any! Not a dime, OK? He ain’t gettin even the caboose of the bullet train! Not a red Indian cent!”

  Cassandra choked as she laughed, fizzing up tiny sprays of Diet Pepsi that cooled an exhalation of cigarette smoke.

  “Now, hey, Cass,” rebuked Grady. “Don’t be like that. When we party, everybody parties!”

  A bank bureaucrat spoke up, and the lawyers motioned their clients to gather round—time to get serious. The families of the men hung back respectfully.

  “What’s going on?” whispered Becca.

  “Payback,” said Rusty in like tones. “I told you: Grady got shot by Rampart. LAPD planted dope on him. Did nineteen months. Got out three years ago, when Perez talked. Took this long for the settlement.”

  “Settlement?”

  “One point eight.”

  “One point—”

  “Mill.”

  “But who are the others?” she asked, not really comprehending.

  “All plaintiffs. Grady said some are detainees—guys held in jail longer than they were supposed to. That’s a no-no. Class action, big time.” Becca couldn’t keep up. “The county had to fork over twenty-seven million. See the chick standing next to him? To Grady? She got busted on some domestic violence thing. They held her an extra day and strip-searched her. Ugly bi-atch. Screws must’ve been hard up! Well, she’s rich now. For that kind of money, I’d do twenty-four hours standing on my head—or sittin on a dick. That’s what’s called a detainee. Most everybody here has the same attorneys.” He nodded toward a charismatic, black-stockinged woman in a pantsuit. “Ludmilla Vesper-Weintraub. She’s got a thousand clients, I shit you not. And every one of ‘em is gonna be motherfuckin rich.”

  “But the money they got for their little girl . . .”

  “That don’t have nothing to do with this. Can you believe it? They won the lotto twice! Can you fucking believe the karma of these people? Wheel of Fortune, man. Blazing Sevens.”

  Grady bounded over. “The moment has come! The time is upon us!”

  “What’s happening?” asked Rusty.

  “They’re gonna dole it out, soul man. Then we are going to get our asses over to Gardena! We are going to get in that limo and cruise on down to Hustler Casino! Gonna play me some twenty-one.”

  Cassandra kissed her husband, deliberately regurgitating a stream of soda into his unsuspecting mouth. Grady belched it back at her, and they both laughed gutturally.

  “See that jail-face?” said Grady to his friends. He pointed surreptitiously to a short, muscle-bound skinhead standing in a corner with his wife and kid. “He got two million for doing less time than I did. Fucker already spen
t half his life in the penitentiary. I asked him what his thing was, and you know what he said? ‘Raping niggers.’ ”

  Deities

  LISANNE FINALLY CALLED to say she was pregnant. Robbie didn’t have much of a response. At the end of the brief conversation he told her to take care of herself, as if she’d said she was down with a cold or the flu.

  • • •

  TIFF’S OFFICE LET Sotheby’s know that Lisanne would be picking up the item. When she got there, they were friendly enough but made her show ID.

  She’d thought about bringing Kit something personal—a flower, maybe, to grace the gift—but discarded the notion as amateurish. No coy upstaging allowed. Something like that might get back to Tiff. No, she would just have to be as charming and low-key as she could, in spite of her schoolgirl jitters. Besides, Tiff was the one who deserved the flowers. It really was awfully grand of him to have engineered the meet.

  When she arrived at the beach location, a cop directed her to a parking space beside the famous Indian motorcycle. That’s when her heart began to pound. A baby-faced A.D. appeared and led her to Kit’s trailer. She cracked herself up with wild, nervous thoughts along the way. She imagined the star, a legendary on-set practical joker, coming to the door nude with a big veiny hard-on. They knocked at the trailer’s door, and there was no answer. Just as they turned away, Lisanne said, “Wait! Something’s wrong. I can feel it.” Before the A.D. could restrain her, she burst in to discover Kit on the floor, facedown. She began resuscitation efforts as her escort ran for help. The star, in diabetic semicoma, dumbly began to explore her mouth with twitchy, treacly tongue as she breathed warm life into his grateful bronchi—

  A slender brunette in a headset answered the door. She smiled in a way that made the already paranoid Lisanne certain that Mr. Loewenstein had tipped them off about the “messenger” and her minor crush. The gorgeous, multitasking assistant motioned her in.

  “What’s happening with Aronofsky?” The unmistakable voice came from deeper inside. “Are we supposed to meet?”

  “Darren’s on his way back from Boston. We’re trying to set a place and a time.”

  “He can come to the house—wherever. And, Xan? I want to call Spike. At home.”

  Without warning, Kit emerged, barefoot in blue jeans. At first, he didn’t see Lisanne. He wore a tight cotton T, and actually stretched in front of her. A tattooed spiritual symbol floated above a hipbone.

  “I want to find out if my homeboy Alfalfa is full of shit,” he said, winking at Lisanne. “But that’s not really accurate. I know he’s full of shit. I just want to find out how much.” He turned his full attention to the visitor and said, “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  She waited to see if he recognized her from that time at yoga (she hoped he didn’t) but there wasn’t a flicker. Lisanne introduced herself, announcing that she was an emissary from the “offices” of Tiff Loewenstein. She said it drolly, as if speaking of a cardinal. She wanted to come off just a little bit sophisticated, and it seemed like he appreciated that and got where she was coming from. She reiterated that Mr. Loewenstein was adamant in his desire the package be delivered personally, and that she was performing her duties as his “special envoy.”

  He took the box and opened it as he parodied the studio chieftain railing about his “tribute addiction.” Aside from the occasional impulse to prostate herself at his feet, the besotted go-between was relatively at ease.

  “Wow,” he said, pulling the figure from a beautiful velvet sack. Xanthe came over to gawk.

  It was a golden Buddha, mounted on dark wood, without question the most beautiful thing Lisanne had ever seen. Kit read from a creamy insert card that fixed its provenance to the thirteenth-century. His finger delicately transcribed the air above its head.

  “The crown symbolizes reaching enlightenment,” he said, with casual authority. “Usually they’re five-pointed.”

  The transcendent sculpture sat in lotus position. With deft elegance, one of its hands reached over a leg to touch the ground.

  “Touching the earth,” said Kit. “To touch the earth spirit means that he’s conquered Mara, the world of illusion.”

  “It’s so beautiful,” said Lisanne.

  That was all she came up with, but she was glad to have said anything.

  “What’s it made of?” asked Xanthe.

  He traced a hand over its belly. “Copper.” Kit leaned over, crinkling his eyes in scrutiny. “See the gems in the crown? Whoa. What is that, lapis? And the tiny symbols on the sash? See the little symbols?”

  He bade them draw closer. Lisanne could smell him. She felt her leg touch his.

  Xanthe called his attention to an envelope tucked within the box. He opened it, reading the note from Tiff aloud. “But I should have got you this.” Kit removed the paper clip and looked at the photograph beneath that had been ripped from the auction house catalog. The mogul had underscored the accompanying text.

  AJNA-VINIVARTA GANAPATI

  COPPER ALLOY

  TIBET CIRCA 15TH CENTURY

  The exotic form of Ganapati is supported by a monkey goddess engaged in fellatio, sitting on an amrita vase flowing with jewels and menses. He is depicted with three heads: the elephant-headed Ganesha (primary) with a rat head to its right and a monkey head to its left. The role of the deity is to appease the suffering of insatiable beings.

  $10,000 – $15,000

  Kit laughed, then became almost somber.

  “Get Loewenstein on the phone, OK, Xan?” He shook his head. “That’s a serious gift. That’s a very serious gift.”

  Xanthe immediately got through. She handed him the cell.

  “Mr. Loewenstein! Mr. Loewenstein! Head, from a monkey! Yes! Yes! The gift that keeps on giving!”

  Then he expressed awed appreciation and began his sober thanks, disappearing into the bedroom as he spoke.

  There was nothing for Lisanne to do but go.

  Hustlers

  HUSTLER’S WAS ONLY forty minutes away. It was a shock to Becca that casinos existed in places other than Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City. Rusty said that gaming was all over the place—even Palm Springs. Cassandra said the American Indians owned more casinos than Donald Trump. You could even gamble on-line.

  It was their third consecutive night. (And their last, according to Cassandra. “Cause our money’s gettin royally flushed.”) Rusty’s guesstimate to Becca was that the couple had dropped at least two hundred thou. They were given the royal treatment. They had their own private blackjack table if they wanted, and everywhere they went security guards politely followed, even standing outside when the girls used the powder room. Cassandra sometimes needed help walking, and the guards were there for that too. Now in her eighth month, she claimed to have stopped drinking but still took painkillers. She said that was OK because she knew a doctor who prescribed certain pills that wouldn’t hurt the fetus. Grady was sloshed and kept wanting to hire the affable men away (he kept slipping them hundies) to be personal bodyguards. Cassandra put the kibosh on it, in a friendly way. “I don’t want no cop knowing where I live,” she said to Becca under her breath.

  Each night, Larry Flynt was supposed to be tooling around the premises in his gold-plated wheelchair, but whenever they asked, a pit boss would say he wasn’t in town. Larry’s brother was there, though. Well, whoop-dee-doo. The Dunsmores weren’t too eager to meet frère Flynt. But the casino manager said the Dunsmores and their friends should come to Bel-Air and join Larry for cocktails when he got home from wherever. The funky invitation only rankled them more.

  “Shit,” said Grady, “Larry can come to me. Wheel his diapered ass on up to Mulholland!”

  Cassandra made a point of laughing louder than she might have.

  “Got a bigger house than him anyhow,” said Grady. He thought about that and said, “Well, maybe not.” The Dunsmores had a real conniption over that one. No one was feeling any pain.

  Becca was returning from the rest room when she
saw Rusty and the decorous blue-haired lady. She was in her seventies and clutched his arm with arthritic hands.

  “Now young man, I know who you are and I respect your privacy, your right to privacy as a human being. But you, young man, belong to the world. And you are in a public place—not a very wonderful public place, I may add—so you cannot mind if I call you to task. I know that you are Russell Crowe. And I cannot remember if you are an Australian or a New Zealander, but I am of a certain age that allows me to say what’s on my mind. I am an elder, and while we do not honor elders in this country as we should and as they do in others, I know that you will not object—and I don’t care if you do!—if I tell you, young man, that you are simply marvelous. A marvelous actor. And a wonderful lit’ry man. You are authorial. I have never heard such marvelous acceptance speeches in my life! So marvelously composed and thought out, with such theatricality! I wish, young man, that you would write a book—not one of those damn tell-alls but a real book, a book of poetry, the poetry that’s within you. A memoir or a marvelous novel. Dylan Thomas is there, inside. Now I know when to shut up, I’ve lived long enough to know that, and I will leave you be, young man.” She clenched him hard and fast. “Don’t let them be your master!” she said, cautioning like a feral gypsy. “You are the artist. You have the power.”

  She winked, then hobbled away on a tripod cane.

  Becca slipped her arm in Rusty’s. They ambled to the sushi bar.

  “California roll, Ms. Barrymore?” he said.

  “No thanks.” She was happy to see him in such good humor—and that he hadn’t taken offense at the old woman’s eccentric ambush. “Been gambling?”

  “A bit.”

  “Does Grady give you money?”

  Wrong question. She saw his face cloud over, then reappear.

  “I assure you that when he does, it won’t be for gambling. Not this kind.”

  She softly tickled his knuckles as if to undo her crassness.