He looked at what he had tripped over: a short, wiry, older man in a large, floppy hat, wearing boots with spurs, filthy, corduroy trousers, some kind of leather vest over a plaid shirt, and lying in a massive puddle of blood. Much of the man’s face seemed to be missing. The boy struggled to his knees, the blood already soaking into his jeans. There was a gun in one of the man’s hands. Dear God, the boy said, and this time he didn’t just think he was going to puke as the sun rose slowly over the old brick buildings of the sleepy campus, and the other students began to emerge from the buildings they lived in to go into the other buildings and try their best to learn and learn and learn.
BLUE VELVET CAKE
LAURA LEE BAHR
The Ingénue gets the toilet lid open just in time. “It isn’t on purpose,” she thinks, as she pukes up blue and brown. “He has to know this isn’t on purpose.”
Fluorescent lights flutter and hum in the far-too-bright bathroom with its white and black tile. Two stalls and any moment anyone could walk in. A sharp little voice continues singing through the speakers in the bathroom, just like it sings in the diner outside:
“Why do the birds go on singing, why do the stars glow above . . . ?”
And out there, waiting for her, The Young Man with the Blue Eyes is sitting in a booth, hearing the same song, if he is listening at all.
“Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? It ended when I lost your love . . .”
She leans against the stall and gives herself over to the emotion with a heaving sob. Then, seeing that while she made the toilet, she didn’t miss her pink cashmere sweater, her disgust takes over and the business of cleaning herself up overwhelms her self-pity.
It isn’t lost to the Ingénue, after she rinses her mouth with the travel-size Scope she carries in her purse, that she has often puked on purpose, and that is why she is so well-prepared. It isn’t lost on her that this is something like irony, if not actual irony, though a month or so ago she said something was ‘ironic’ and received a snarf of condescension from a screenwriter that made her question her definition. She should look it up when she gets home. She feels pretty definite that this—her puking due to being knocked up, when she has puked so much in an effort to be sexy—is ironic.
It is a different song entirely now, being piped in, “Pretty Little Angel Eyes.” Her pretty little mouse-brown eyes are still moist but no one will know she was crying. If he knew she was crying, maybe it would help her cause. The Ingénue re-applies her lipstick and appraises her reversal face in the mirror. “I love you,” she practices. “No matter what you want me to do. But I want to keep it. We can stay together, or we can say goodbye, but I want to keep it.”
Goodbyes are the biggest cocktease. The Character Actor blinks his eyes at himself in the mirror and gives himself a pep talk the best way he knows how, a monologue where he is the hero who has to do the hard thing. He is—he knows from the mirror, if nothing else—an ugly man now. The bathroom smells nice with its scented soaps and floor wax, even though he just took a big shit. And even in the low, kind light of a private bathroom, the mirror shows a foul ugly man. No use denying it. Not his fault. The years. The heartache. That bitch.
But there is a promise in a goodbye of something beautiful, something sad. If you know it is the end, you can do something. You can tie it in a pretty little bow. Yeah, that’s something—something punchy his smart-cracking detective character might say from the series no one remembers anymore.
“I guess you want it all tied up in a pretty, little bow, don’t’cha?” and he’d shove his fist in the boss’s face.
A pretty, little bow.
This goodbye has been a long time coming. This goodbye is one he has been thinking about for five years hard, ten years soft. This goodbye might have come in a flash of temper, but it is one he told himself to think about first, and thinking about it did him good. It was like a present, like a reward he was giving himself for being smart about it and not losing his cool. This is a goodbye he has dreamed about, his hand tight about his cock, late at night, hell—even with her mouth tight swallowing his cock some afternoon. He hates that bitch. He hates even the pretty things she has given him, even his own cum on her, in her—especially his own cum in her—for she has trapped him like some Chinese finger puzzle.
He has thought about this goodbye for too long. Now that it is here it brings him no pleasure. It makes him throw up.
The Character Actor, he’s sick. He is here, with her, the Faded Fatale, eating dinner, but he can’t eat. Before he excused himself to the bathroom, she was there (stupid cunt—stupid slut—stupid bitch—ruined my life) looking so sad and old and drunk but still something pretty in her.
It is nauseating.
The sight of the pasta—named after him for he is a loyal celebrity patron at this establishment, and many people order the dish the way he likes it just because it says his name on it—the sight of the pasta on his plate made his stomach churn. And he excused himself to the bathroom. She is out there, still. She doesn’t know anything is wrong.
The Faded Fatale is tipsy, or drunk, and she has never thought for a second that he would make good on his promise to kill her.
Tonight’s the night. It’s set, but he can’t keep his head on straight because she keeps shimmering. Not like the character in the movie in his mind but like some other person he doesn’t know. Someone real, real like dirt, real like the food coming back up. Not the bitch he hates but just some pretty background actor in the distance with nothing, not even a name.
And now, when he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see every hero he’s ever played, or even every villain. Instead he sees what he feels; that he is sick and old and going to die. And whether or not he gets his revenge, it’s going to be him—not in jail, he’ll get out of the bad rap—it’s going to be him dead. Someday. Sometime. Like her, when he least expects it. His heart bursts or the cancer gets him or whatever it is, what does it matter?
Dead just the same.
Dead and dead. All tied up in a pretty, little bow.
The Young Man with the Blue Eyes waits, feeling that uncomfortable tingle of awkwardness—a man waiting with nothing to do but wait for a woman. He has already killed as much time as he could absently staring at the black and white photos on the wall near his booth, pictures of celebrities who have frequented this diner and autographed headshots, the black and white pictures fading into a gray wash just like their fame.
And still he waits. She is worth waiting for, his girl, who is beyond beautiful and when he was a boy—so long ago, four states over—he dreamed of girls this beautiful but never saw them. Here they grow like orchids. Still rare enough to be treasured, and difficult to maintain, but if one is lost, there is always a place nearby one can find another to try keeping alive.
He waits.
It is a good time to pick up a device. To post something, check something, view something, but he is smearing the dessert into his plate. He has a bad habit of ‘playing’ with his food. Smear the remains of the blue and brown into the white of the plate. Now no one will want the rest. No finishing it, now.
He should check something. A call is coming. The call to tell him whether or not that pilot is going to be picked up. It is a big call, but he purposefully doesn’t want to check it. He doesn’t want to think about it. It is too big a call. It means too much and now he wants to just sit back and pretend that it could or could not happen either way and he will be fine with it. His mind wanders back, not far, just around the corner of the hour when they arrived at this, the hippest coffee shop in Studio City, an area where rich Hollywood types who don’t live in the hills retire. This coffee shop is where you will see the faded-around-the-edges famous types, and the young, runny-yolked, pretty types come to break in on what’s around.
They are those types. Young, beautiful, with only the slightest notes of desperation in their bouquet and not the slightest flavor of cynicism.
He is looking at the remains o
f what was an egg white omelet with crème fraiche and baby mixed green salmon salad. And smears of blue. They splurged to try a slice of the Blue Velvet Cake. Delighted and laughing because they have never seen Blue Velvet Cake—but of course, why not? If there is Red Velvet, why not Blue? While a slice is eight dollars, it was almost as large as one of their heads and they laughed as they bought it, as if they were doing something wicked. It takes careful maintenance to stay as they are.
With skin so clear.
With eyes so bright.
With carefully sculpted, willowy limbs.
Tight and small expensive clothes.
It was wicked.
He can’t admit that the eight dollar cake—plus the fifteen dollar omelet for him, and the seventeen dollar salmon salad for her, plus tip and espresso—hurt. He is trying to manifest the Law of Attraction and does.
He is beautiful, made more so through careful, expensive grooming, and soon he will be a star. Right now, it is just a pilot. Right now, it is just waiting to be picked up. Right now, it is not to be worried about.
The food was delicious.
The cake was huge and wicked but not as good as it looked, though neither admitted it, moaning with delight and laughing because they saw that their tongues were both blue. The cake stained their tongues, and of course, it is just blue dye in chocolate, just like Red Velvet is red dye in chocolate. Your brain makes you think things taste differently based on the color. But it is just the same thing as regular old chocolate cake, filled with enough dye to stain everything it touches.
The Ingénue comes back from the bathroom. For a second, as he looks up at her, her lips are so red, and her face so pale, that she looks like a vampire: she has been drinking blood and it is still all over her mouth. She sits down and looks at the remains of the cake.
“Is your tongue still blue?” he asks, and sticks out his tongue at her, waiting for her to mirror back.
She doesn’t parrot the move but shakes her head. “I brushed my teeth.”
There are plenty of things wrong with this answer but he can’t formulate them clearly. He points to the remains. “Want any more?”
She shakes her head.
The magic of it is gone now, and there is a look like guilt on her face. Like she never should have done that to her diet, like . . . no, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.
She’s beautiful, but it is something he is starting to take for granted, and its flavor seems bland and overpriced and stained.
Stained?
He runs his fingers through his hair in the semi-conscious gesture that has become a trademark for showing deep thought. The producers love it. “Anyway,” he says, in response to nothing.
She gives him a small smile that means nothing.
“Shall we go?” he says, suddenly wanting to run away into the night.
She nods.
They make the awkward transition of moving from down to up, up to down, picking up their various personal affects. Plastic smiling statues, historic, give them leering smiles. They had laughed at them when they entered. Now the chunky plastic waiter with his handlebar mustache is laughing at the Young Man with the Blue Eyes. He knows a secret. He knows a plot twist is around the corner.
Across the street there is a landmark Italian joint, a restaurant, a place where old celebrities go to pasture. The booths are still a sticky red, the wallpaper a faded yellow, and very little light—“intimate” as they like to say. A plate of pasta there can cost you upward of twenty-five bucks.
Not that the Young Man wants to think about money. It doesn’t matter who he owes what to, now. He is a rising star, and who knows how far he will rise or how bright he will shine. No one is asking for anything but his credit, now. No favors to be repaid, now. Just let me grant this wish, now, and then this wish. Things are going to happen. They smell it on him.
As they walk past the windows of the restaurant, he sees a woman, a Faded Fatale at the table, staring out. She was once beautiful but not worth a second glance now, but for the eyes. The eyes pull him in. All pupil. All brown. He stops. Her eyes are like those of the Ingénue, yes, his girl, but there is something so much deeper, sadder, and more beautiful here. The glass shimmers between them. The Faded part of the Fatale is gone in an almost golden glow. He feels he could reach through the glass, take her hand, and pull her out here to the other side. He wants to pull her into him. He wants to press himself inside her while he drowns in her eyes—her sad, mouse-brown eyes—until they both sigh and she closes those eyes to sleep while he wraps her in his arms like a blanket. She lifts her hand on the other side, like she is having the same vision and wills him to pull her through the glass that separates them.
Then his girl, the Ingénue, says his name. The moment breaks. The Fatale is once more Faded and he cannot give her a second glance. He looks forward into the night and pulls his girl behind him.
“Do you know her?” his girl asks.
“No.”
“Did she wave?”
He shrugs and murmurs, “I don’t know what she was doing.”
They get to his car and he opens the door for her. She gets in. He closes the door behind her and looks out into the night. He walks around the car, hearing his feet lightly against the rocks of the road. Then he gets in, puts his phone down in the cup holder. He puts the keys into the ignition, but she stops his hand with hers before he turns it.
“I have to tell you something,” she says.
He looks at her and there is something feverish in her eyes, something he has never seen in her before. Something that scares him in a place he never knew he could be scared.
“It isn’t on purpose,” she says. He feels his nuts climb up into him like Drown the Clown dunked in ice. She tells him, her voice soft, her hand touching her flat belly, how she hadn’t thought it would happen, but there, it did.
His phone blinks a red light at him with an in-coming call. All cards on the table. Show what you got. He doesn’t know what to say, but he has the things he knows he should. He doesn’t know which one to pick because none seem right. So he starts the car. He drives the streets with the studio built houses and tall trees. He drives slow and his lights search for the nothing-but-peace that lies ahead of them.
She gasps, “What’s that?”
His lights have illuminated an animal’s eyes ahead of them in the dark. The owl hovers, just above the gutter, wings spread, flapping. Something must be wrong with it.
It just stands there, not flying, wings out, as if trying to balance. Why is it so close to the ground? Why is it not flying? Why is it poised there, in front of them, not moving, like some symbol they can’t read?
Then, it lifts up.
He sees, then, why it seemed to stand still.
It has a rat in its claws, its body quivering.
It rises into the sky and is gone.
The Faded Fatale is tipsy, maybe on her way to toasty. Maybe that’s too generous and she’s already on her way to sloppy. But she is still sitting straight and her eyes focus all right on things. She squeezes the fat on her stomach. Too many duck farts—that’s bourbon and Bailey’s, baby—too many drinks and pieces of bread and she is tipsy and too fat and it makes her sad because she wanted tiramisu. Or a piece of cake. God, she would just die for a thick slab of cake.
She looks out the window. They have the window seat tonight, her favorite. She likes to watch people. And she sees a boy that takes her breath away. He looks like Montgomery Clift—all dark hair and blue eyes—and he is holding the hand of a willowy blonde, the latest popular brand of pretty. But he’s the one that is breathtaking—and he turns and sees—
Sees her.
Their eyes lock for a moment.
Can he see what she once was? Beautiful, more beautiful than the girl whose hand he is holding, “more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever known,” the Character Actor once told her. She is not that anymore. She is a defeated bag of a woman, and he is a young man with everything ahead of him. H
is eyes sparkle like stars dying, exploding into her own dead orbs, and in that look, a piercing longing that demands she remember that she still has a heart that beats, even now, behind her silicone-filled breasts. She lifts her hand. Yes, I do.
And then just as quickly he is looking ahead into the night. It was only a second, less than that, after all, and the young blonde is but a step behind and they step out of her view and into the darkness.
“Run after him!” says a voice in her head—that silly voice that told her to do all those things (most of which she did) years back. “Run after him! It doesn’t matter what you say, just run after him, down the street, into the night, leave! Run! Tell him—tell him he has beautiful eyes, tell him you feel your heart—tell him, tell him—run run run run run RUN NOW.”
She tries to get up, but she staggers. She is drunk.
And the Character Actor is back from the bathroom.
She sits back down.
He starts to talk, so she tries to focus on him. He looks terrible. His eyes are darting about in his head like—like—she can’t think what.
“Where were you going?” he asks.
She shrugs. “The bathroom,” she says. Forgetting that she was ever going anywhere else.
“I’ll get the check and meet you outside,” he says. “I need to get out of here, I feel sick.”
They are long past feigning concern. She shrugs and staggers out of the booth.
They walk—Character Actor and Faded Fatale— in the neighborhood toward his car. She trips a bit on her heels. She rights herself on his shoulder and he pushes her away. She recalls that first night when they had walked in his neighborhood—quiet, beautiful, lovely, like something from a fairy tale, almost. That night, that first night, she could smell night jasmine blooming and in the distance, she swore she could hear the coo of an owl.
In Heaven, Everything Is Fine: Fiction Inspired by David Lynch Page 12
