A young couple—nothing like the yellow-haired girl with the gun—pulled a twee red sweater over their little white dog. They had a string of white Christmas lights blinking along the mantle, though Christmas was miles and miles away.
The dirty old glider was still on the porch. It was the only thing to convince Humphries he wasn’t crazy.
He had a bad day and couldn’t get any turds painted.
That evening, just before the sun went down, he went back to the odd little duplex. The young couple had put up curtains. The black cat, a fixture of the neighborhood, was back in its place on the soiled glider. The white dog in the red sweater stood smugly on its hind legs between the curtain and the window with its white forepaws on the window ledge, safely behind the glass, staring at the cat with sick superiority.
Cancel My Reservation
1
ON HIS WALK, CHUCK PASSED A CHURCH. HE SAW SOME BIRDS. He didn’t know what kind. They were brown, pecking at something—what do birds peck at? seeds?—on the lawn. He caught himself thinking, They have their mouths open! Indeed, when the birds turned to him with their frozen faces, not eating but not closing their mouths, they looked dumbstruck and evil. But birds have beaks, not mouths. Upon reflection.
He was not good with details. He had even become fat without knowing it. Thinking back, he really couldn’t imagine not noticing that his clothes were so tight, not wondering why he had to wear his shirts untucked and unbutton his pants, why he didn’t wear a belt anymore and his knees hurt so much, why it was hard to rise from a crouch and how come he had so much trouble breathing and broke the toilet seat.
He didn’t know the right name or purpose of anything in nature. He saw a bank of flowers, the kind he wrongly called coolers—grape coolers, cherry coolers, vanilla coolers—bright and cheap as candy, trash flowers, pretty as paper stars or costume jewelry, the kind of flowers you might find planted in black plastic drums near the gas pumps. He saw an embankment of them ashen, crumpled, bubble-gum colors chewed up, sucked out, and discarded by the heat.
His scratchy shirt was long-sleeved and hot. It was early in the morning and already miserable in the sun. Saints used to wear scratchy shirts—hairshirts, right? It was good for you. It made you stop concentrating on your thoughts and opinions, that was probably the gist of it.
He kept walking to the old graveyard.
Used to be you couldn’t go in: too many bums waiting to cut your throat. So said the pro-gentrification forces on local talk radio. Now it was safe to look at the old headstones. They were good for a laugh.
Leak. Hope. Luckie. Shedden. He thought those were pretty funny names to see on tombstones. He planned to jot them down on a pad when he got home. Later he’d show it to somebody for a conversation piece. He was sad to have lost touch with Donny. Donny loved wordplay.
He saw a tombstone that said Stocks. That was only funny depending on the stock market.
Not everything was funny. He saw a black log, dead or burnt, part of a tree that had come through the ground, come out of somebody’s head and knocked aside his granite lozenge. He saw four stubby matching stones in a little parade. Their squat bases said: Mama. Papa. Honey. Me.
One squirrel grabbed a twig from a clump of plants with purple leaves, took the purple leafy twig to the top of a grave to chew.
Angry squirrels romping. Owned the place. Probably had it to themselves for fifty years or something, except for the bums. He guessed the squirrels weren’t so tough anymore. Too bad, you squirrels and bums. The rich people are taking over.
The walk helped him think. Chuck went home and got really drunk and booked a first-class round-trip airplane ticket from Atlanta to LAX and back. It cost nearly a thousand. For sixty bucks more he could’ve upgraded to a plan that allowed him to change his flight or cancel his trip, but however drunk he was he wasn’t that drunk. Not hardly.
2
Donny and Chuck had reconnected on Facebook. At first it was okay with Donny. Chuck made a friend request and Donny complied. He didn’t see why not. Chuck showered him with private chat messages right away.
Hi, it’s Chuck. Remember me Donny
hey man long time hows it been goin
My wife passed away.
did not know you were married congrats
Yes, but she passed away.
sorry
Hey aren’t we lucky we turned out to be the wrong age to be in any wars? At least we got that going for us, haha
That was sad about Chuck’s wife passing away. Donny found out that Chuck had had two wives, and both of them had passed away, which was twice as sad. Maybe it was exponentially sad. Donny couldn’t believe Chuck had married hot-to-trot Shelly Riviera straight out of high school. Donny had moved out of the district halfway through his junior year, but he still remembered the name Shelly Riviera. He wasn’t sure if he was putting the right face and body with the name. He was thinking of some hot girl he had permanently in his head.
Chuck had an estranged son. Donny found out everything about Chuck. His favorite canned soup. Chuck told stories about his two wives and how sexy they had been when they were alive and all their sex things.
Sometimes Donny got hard and secretly beat off, Chuck none the wiser. Or maybe Chuck was egging him on. Who was in charge here?
Soon he didn’t want to see Chuck around Facebook anymore. He was so tired of Chuck and Chuck’s crazy stories and opinions. He was scared of how much he was beating off these days. He was too old for such horseshit. He told Chuck he had a fatal disease and couldn’t chat anymore.
Chuck’s private messages became devastated. He wanted to know whether it was cancer.
no its none of the big ones you never heard of it
Donny realized that the only way to make the story stick was to leave Facebook altogether. He deleted his account and it was a great relief. He found that he didn’t miss Facebook at all.
The only thing that concerned him was his lie about dying. Donny couldn’t recall any specific examples, but he had a strong feeling that he had lied a couple of times before and the lie had always come true. Had he maybe lied about being poked in the eye with a stick? And then had something happened to his eye at the beach? Or was that somebody else?
3
It was Chuck’s first time in first class.
A woman behind him was talking loudly about a person who was a “dick.”
Across the aisle a man referred to the spare tire around his middle as “this fucking thing.”
They should call it First Crass, ha ha, thought Chuck.
But seriously, why were people so crass?
He didn’t care too much because of all the pills he had taken. He could stretch out his legs while the nice people brought him drinks.
He looked down at his loafers and remembered how his second wife had always made him wear shoes with laces. He said, “I was never any good at tying my shoes,” and she said, “I wouldn’t go around admitting that either.” And he said, “What do you mean either?” And she laughed and said, “I don’t know.”
Chuck laughed too. They laughed a lot. Veda didn’t want kids. Neither did Chuck. He already had one, and look how that turned out. It was a racket. But he brooded about what she said: “I wouldn’t go around admitting that either.” Freudian! What was the other thing? There was some other thing about Chuck that shamed Veda, something she never told him, something she nursed deep inside.
Then she got the terrible virus that improved their relationship but weakened and killed her. She left him a good bit of money and a big life insurance policy, about which he hadn’t known. He cashed her substantial retirement account and his too when he quit his job. He had not expected to live very long without her.
The money was running out, but he kept spending it however suited him. Most of the time he couldn’t think of anything, which was why it had lasted.
They gave him a good hot breakfast in first class, with a real fork and knife. They gave him his choice of cookies.
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Chuck drank and took pills and lived all the time in a fog that wasn’t too bad. He had mostly crushed down his emotions. He hadn’t had a normal thought in two solid years. But these new pills the doctor had given him for the airplane didn’t work. The plane seemed to slow down at weird times in the middle of the air.
Chuck was scared.
________
4
Chuck’s knowledge of Hollywood geography was based on snippets of things he had heard on television. He ended up way out in Burbank, a fifty-dollar cab ride from Beverly Hills, where he had business.
But he liked the hotel. His stay was going to cost him a thousand, but what the hell. Seemed like everything about California cost a thousand. He had a thousand to spend on his official business, too.
Chuck liked that there was a drugstore across the street. There were lots of things across the street. It was a good location. You could go across the street and get anything, even a cat from the pet store. Chuck traveled light, and he liked the easy access to necessities. His terror of airplanes had kept him out of the air for a while. He knew about the latest measures—that he would have to take off his shoes and belt, for example. He practiced taking off his shoes and belt at home and got really good at it. But he didn’t want to be held up in security by some zealot who thought his bottle of shampoo was explosive or his phone might trigger a bomb. So he didn’t bring a phone. Why would he need one? People just thought they needed stuff. Chuck had seen a commercial where a guy bragged about his Kindle being like “a thousand books in your back pocket.” Only a moron or an unimaginably perverse monomaniac would need a thousand books in his back pocket. A thousand books in your back pocket was not a good thing. One book at a time in your back pocket was plenty. Zero was also good. Hotels supplied free shampoo, soap, shower gel. They would give you a toothbrush and toothpaste if you asked. Anything else he needed, Chuck could get at the drugstore.
Chuck was hungry for dinner at three thirty in the afternoon because of the time difference. He went to the “bistro” across the street. It was empty that time of day, but open. Chuck ordered roasted chicken and French fries. He sat at the bar, a black cloth napkin on his lap. A guy in a burgundy apron waited on him. A guy with a Russian accent popped up from the back and made genial, lewd comments about life. Chuck ordered some rosé and the Russian complimented him on his selection then loudly cursed the man in the apron, who had disappeared. The man in the apron came back. A third guy showed up. Everybody stood around doing nothing.
His first wife Shelly had worked in restaurants, and Chuck knew it was unusual for people who worked in a restaurant to stand around doing nothing. Wasn’t there silverware to roll? The Russian guy told the other two he would get dinner for them. He got on the phone and loudly, almost abrasively, ordered a pizza and two chicken parms from some Italian place. Chuck thought that was interesting, but who cared? His roasted chicken was good when it came out. It looked like a picture. When the third guy carried it over to him, he stopped on the way and showed it to the man in the apron, like it was something special. Was that a sincere move or showmanship? It was like neither of them had ever seen a chicken before. Had no one ever ordered the chicken before? They seemed so amazed. Chuck was in a blur from the airplane booze and airplane pills and regular booze and regular pills. He dug in, breaking through the gorgeous, shiny skin.
Back at the hotel, Chuck used his key card to get into the “Business Center.” It was some closet with a tiny wastebasket and a computer. Chuck guessed that business centers had atrophied since the last time he had been in one. Everybody was his or her own business center now.
Chuck signed into Twitter and announced to his followers that he was in L.A. He’d sure love someone to show him the ropes.
He was surprised to get a direct message right away with a phone number from Maria Garey, whom he didn’t remember following or being followed by.
He called her from his room. Probably nobody used in-room telephones anymore. The hotel was going to love Chuck so much. He felt happy to make them happy. He felt like maybe they would give him special treatment because he was such a big spender.
Chuck and Maria caught up a bit, exclaiming how great it was to hear each other’s voices, how they couldn’t believe each other remembered each other, how of course they remembered each other, are you kidding? Maria remembered that Chuck had married Shelly Riviera. Chuck had to tell her Shelly was dead. Maria was so sorry. Chuck said it was okay. It happened a long time ago, when they were young. It was sad that Shelly had died young, but they had been having difficulties. She died in a small plane crash, taking flying lessons from her clandestine lover. There had been a lot of anger mixed up with the grief. Chuck was too young to be a husband and he was a terrible father, but being so young and resilient and selfish at the time had helped him heal. Maria said that was great, all that stuff about the healing and everything.
“Their skeletons were mingled,” said Chuck.
“Oh no!” said Maria.
“So you live out here?” said Chuck.
“I’m just off Beverly Glen.”
“Is that near Beverly Hills?” said Chuck. “I have to be in Beverly Hills tomorrow.”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
“Well, they both have ‘Beverly’ in the name,” said Chuck.
“What are you doing out here?” said Maria.
“Do you remember Donny Billings?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, well, he left in eleventh grade, was it? He had big ears and freckles.”
“I just don’t know.”
“Brillo pad hair?”
Maria made a noise like she didn’t remember.
“Dark red, but like a Brillo pad. They called him Brillo Head. Do you remember the guy, Brillo Head, they said he tried to choke himself with his mother’s bra?”
“You’d think I’d remember something like that,” said Maria.
“That’s Donny, anyway. He’s real sick now.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Maria.
“Yeah, he’s, uh, they don’t think he’s going to make it. I was going to send him a ‘get well’ thing, and I remember he always liked Bob Hope. So I was going to send him this, like, Bob Hope thing.”
“That’s cool,” said Maria.
“Yeah, so they’re doing this auction of Bob Hope’s personal effects.”
“I want to go!” said Maria.
“Do you really?”
“It sounds cool.”
“It’s tomorrow afternoon.”
“I can’t do tomorrow afternoon.”
“That’s too bad,” said Chuck. “Well, it’s on Saturday, too.”
“Saturday might happen,” said Maria. “Let me check into it. I’m having some people for dinner Friday night, tomorrow night. You should definitely come. What time is your auction over?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been to one.”
“Well, here, let me give you my address.”
She gave him her address.
“Just come over when it’s done, or call me or whatever. I’m making red beans and rice. It’s kind of loose.”
“So what are you doing out here?” said Chuck.
“This is embarrassing, but I’m a writer on a TV show,” said Maria.
“Why is that embarrassing?” said Chuck.
“It’s not,” said Maria.
“What show?” said Chuck.
“Elevated Feelings,” said Maria.
“I don’t know that one.”
“It has a cult following. It’s quite popular, actually. The New York Times called it one of the top twelve programs of the year three years ago.”
“Is it on one of those pay stations?”
“Oh, no, it’s just basic cable.”
“I liked it better when there were just three channels.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Maria.
“Yes,” said Chuck. He was falling asleep.
“I’m glad there are more channels, or I’d be out of a job.”
5
It must have been 1979 or ’80, because Donny hadn’t moved yet. There were three channels on TV. Chuck always liked to talk about how much better things had been when there were just three channels on TV. A kid was forced to grapple with cultural objects no kid today would ever discover. Kids today had too many choices, and as a result their worldview was paradoxically and oppressively narrow. They could watch Finding Nemo over and over. There were channels with nothing but cartoons. A kid in the 1970s would find himself watching Harold Lloyd on a Sunday afternoon—a silent, black-and-white movie! Unthinkable now.
All through the seventies Chuck had watched something called “The Big Show,” an afternoon movie franchise on the local CBS affiliate. They were mostly black-and-white. The weatherman introduced them. There was one about a giant tarantula. A Tarzan movie came on most Fridays. Chuck remembered one with these two supple trees growing side by side. The natives would bend the trees toward one another and bind them. They tied some safari dude’s legs to the trees, one to each tree. Then they cut the rope and the trees whanged away from one another. You just saw the tops of the trees flying in opposite directions but you heard the guy go Eeeeeeyaaaawwwww and knew he had been ripped in half, down the middle, wishbone style. It was intense.
By the time Donny and Chuck were juniors, “The Big Show” had some competition on Channel Ten. It was this thing called “Movies 10,” and it was too cool to have a host. There was just an animated opening graphic, some psychedelia on a cherry-red background of a guy with a movie camera disintegrating into cubist components. Then the movie would come on. Hipper stuff than “The Big Show” could get: Harry and Walter Go to New York, The Hot Rock, Popi, Where’s Poppa?, The Pink Panther, The Choirboys, Cotton Comes to Harlem, California Split, Super Fuzz, Freebie and the Bean, Uptown Saturday Night, Little Murders. Heavily edited, most of them, but they made you feel you were getting away with something.
Movie Stars Page 4
