Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir)

by Gary Phillips

  And this weekend Terry would come down and they'd check out the clubs near Dana Point, maybe find some blondhaired surfer girls. Oh yeah ... this was going to be a fine vacation.

  Except Terry Dills didn't make it down. He had a rewrite for a hot new writer/director named Jake Pyne. Pyne specialized in yuppie thrillers. This one was a story of not-so-nice yuppies being attacked by their own greed in the form of a satanic insurance salesman. Very upscale horror. Terry had a Thursday deadline and no time to party.

  "But enjoy, Johnny. Everything's good, right?"

  "Oh yeah, great, bro," Johnny said. "Love this place."

  But in truth, he was feeling a little bit lonely. After all, he wasn't exactly freaking Siddhartha. A week or so was all he could take of examining his inner being. He had to face it, the inner guy wasn't all that well developed anyway.

  Sitting alone for a few more days might make him go into another nosedive, one even worse than when they'd tossed him off his own show. Christ-what the hell was he gonna do?

  Then he remembered something ... the basketball court, only a few minutes away. Yeah, he could get down there, shoot some hoops, nothing like the camaraderie of the ball game. Maybe he'd even make a few new friends. People not in the freaking business.

  He ran into the bedroom and changed into his Nikes. He had that feeling inside ... the one he'd had as a kid. He couldn't wait, man. Let this old Baltimore East Coast boy show these O.C. guys how to jack it up.

  A few minutes later he was running down the street, bouncing his ball. Just like a happy kid. Not a care in the world.

  The court, which was only two blocks from the ocean, was just as cool as he'd imagined. The rims were new and they actually had fresh twine up there. When you played street ball back in N.Y.C. or Baltimore, you NEVER had a net up there. Well, that wasn't quite true. You had one for about five minutes until one of the players decided to take it down and put it up somewhere closer to his 'hood.

  Man, these ballers from Dana Point were polite.

  But they could play. There were some big white boys, two who wore UCLA letter jackets, and another one-a Czech named Toni-who had started at Pepperdine. They could run and shoot, but they played a West Coast finesse ball. More about speed than rebounds, muscle, or trash talk. All three of the guys were in their late twenties, and in law school. In between plays and during water breaks they talked about mak ing partner at Jones Gray as soon as possible. Turned out JG, as the blond guy Mark said, was paying, "$160,000 for firstyear employees." The other two guys nodded and Toni added, "Why I love America." They all laughed at that.

  All but the fourth guy, a big wide Italian guy named Eddie Ivarone. Eddie wore painter's pants-not retro painter's pants that you bought at Old Navy but real ones covered with real paint. This was because Eddie was a housepainter. He was working on a condo unit right nearby, he explained, down near the lighthouse. He didn't live that close, though.

  "My pad is over in Mission Viejo," he said. "Drive over here to show these yuppies who is really the court king."

  The three law students laughed a little, and one of them, Joel, another blond guy with a space between his front two teeth, patted Eddie on his wide shoulders. "He's a beast," he said in a slightly patronizing way.

  Right away Johnny liked Ivarone. Even just shooting around, he knew Eddie was the kind of guy who would be a workhorse under the basket, dig out the rebounds and pass to Johnny to pump it back up. Eddie had a friend with him too, a short guy with a bald head named Stenz. Stenz didn't say much but Johnny recognized the type. Catholic kid who was fast and tough. Maybe the three of them could give the taller, sleeker lawyers a good game.

  The first few games of three-on-three half-court ball didn't start that way. The three ex-college players had obviously played together for a while. Their passing and teamwork were excellent. They played without any noticeable emotion, just efficiently, and effectively. In no time at all the first two halfcourt games of 15 were over, and the scores weren't pretty. 15-5, 15-9, and 15-10.

  Johnny, Eddie, and Stenz were improving, but not by that much. Then Johnny had an idea.

  He called a time-out and brought his team over to the water fountain.

  "We're guarding the wrong guys," he said. "Eddie should be on Toni. He's their scorer but you can muscle him outside. If he drives, I'll give you help. Stenz, you wait in the middle for the kick-out pass. When it comes, grab it."

  The two housepainters looked at one another and shrugged.

  "What the fuck?" Stenz said. "I'm up for it."

  They went back on the court with their new defensive lineup, and the results were stunning. With Eddie's big body on him, Toni couldn't get underneath. He had to shoot outside, and just as Johnny had predicted he was mostly short with his shots. Without their driving attack the three lawyers started gunning from long range. They missed shot after shot, and lost 15-7.

  Johnny felt good about the win, especially his part in figuring it out. But Eddie and Stenz were ecstatic. They trash talked the lawyers, who took it all with a grain of salt, or at least pretended to.

  After gulping down some more water, the six guys played again. This time the three grad students worked harder, and came closer. But a beautiful pass from Eddie to Johnny under the bucket, threaded right through two other players, set up the winning score, and Johnny didn't miss.

  Once again, Eddie and Stenz carried their celebration to the extreme, but Johnny got a kick out of it. The lawyers seemed like the passionless guys who would probably end up working in property law or corporate tax write-offs.

  So he was happy to win, and even felt better for Eddie and Stenz, working guys who probably spent most of their lives on the short end of the stick. It was nice to see them celebrating, even if Eddie was carrying it a bit over the top.

  By the end of the long day, Johnny was happy he had come. It'd been a really good afternoon, and he felt fulfilled.

  He started to say goodbye to everyone, when Eddie put his arm over his shoulder.

  "Hey, man let's not break up the team yet."

  Johnny was touched by the bigger man's obvious affection.

  "Sorry, I haven't played for a while," he replied. "Gotta watch the knees."

  "No, no, no," Eddie said. "I'm played out too, but we oughta get its some beers. There's a place not far away, off Harbor Drive. Called Minelli's. Great subs, pizza, pasta. Let me and Stenz buy you a cold one."

  Johnny was going to say thanks but no thanks. As much as he'd enjoyed playing with these guys, he wasn't sure he wanted to spend the evening with them. Still, he didn't relish going back to Terry's house and staring at the moon again.

  "Okay, I'll come down for a little while. Can't stay out too late, though. Got work tomorrow."

  "Yeah, that's fine, bud," Eddie said. "A couple of brews and we're on our way home. Leave your car here. We'll get you back."

  Johnny was going to say no to that too. He wasn't at all sure he wouldn't feel trapped by these people ... but what the hell, he didn't want to be a snob. After all, they had been a great team.

  "All right. Why not?'

  "All fucking right!" Eddie said, scratching his five-o'clock shadow. "The team endures."

  "The Big Lebowski," Johnny said. "You guys like that movie?"

  "Like it?" Eddie Ivarone said. "We are it."

  They all laughed at that one and then walked over to Eddie's primered 1971 Dodge Super Bee.

  "Hop in the trusty chariot," Eddie said. "Cause this is the way we roll."

  The pizza place was exactly as Johnny had imagined it, dark, wooden booths, pitchers of beer, and mediocre pizza. There was a pool table and a jukebox, and a small bar with five stools. In short, a dump, the kind of place Johnny had hung out in when he was a kid in Baltimore. The kind of a place he'd wanted to escape from. But today, saved from the agonies of solitude, Johnny decided to embrace Eddie and Stenz, and have a good old-fashioned drinking session, with pitchers of beer and discussions of old-time TV shows, and after
a few rounds, a little singing along with the jukebox. It was all great fun, and soon Eddie's girl came by, an attractive, if slightly sluttish woman named Connie. She had short blond hair, and a long, sexy body which she poured into tight jeans and an Oakland Raiders T-shirt.

  She was a waitress at a nearby Denny's, and when she smiled she showed a little too much gum, but she was fun, warm, and liked Johnny right away. He could tell because when he got around to mentioning what he did for a living, the two men were impressed: a TV producer.

  "Whoa, Eddie, do you know what we have here? A real Hollywood celebrity. Man, are we lucky or what?" she teased.

  Eddie and Stenz looked at Johnny to see how he would respond to her baiting, and when he laughed and wagged a finger at her, they were relieved, and began doing their little Hollywood routine too.

  "Oh, I'll have the cafe con leche jamba juice with the cappuccino latte," Eddie said.

  "Yeah, and I'll have the profiterole with a side of endive gooseberry ... whatever," Stenz added, not quite able to pull off the joke.

  "You got me," Johnny said. "Guilty as charged. Just the other day I ate a fig tart for breakfast."

  "Gag me," Connie said.

  "With a pomegranate smoothie chaser," Johnny said.

  They all laughed again, and Johnny could see that they were pleased by his good sportsmanship.

  "That must be great to be a producer on TV," Eddie said. "But what the heck does a producer do anyway?"

  "He gets all the money together, silly," Connie said.

  Johnny laughed but shook his head. "No, no, no. That's what a movie producer does. But in TV, the networks and the studios put up the money. In TV, the producer is really a writer. All those names you see at the end of the show, Story Editor, Co-Producer, Co-Executive Producer, and Executive Producer, all those guys are really the show's writers."

  "Ohhh," Connie said. "So that's what you are? A writer?"

  "Yep," Johnny replied, taking another sip of beer.

  Connie nodded like she got it, but Eddie shook his head.

  "Gee, I read in the paper that TV producers make a ton of money. But I never knew they were just writers."

  There was a long silence after that.

  Johnny, who had heard this before, and from people much better educated than his current crew, just smiled.

  "All that for just knowing words," Stenz said.

  "Yeah, that's kinda weird," Eddie said.

  "For God's sake, you guys," Connie said, starting to feel embarrassed, "you are being so rude."

  "No, it's fine," Johnny said. "I think the guys here don't quite understand. How do you think a script gets done?"

  "Well, I never thought about it that much," Eddie answered. "But I guess like they set up a situation for the actors, who kind of make up the dialogue to fit, you know ... that situation."

  "Yeah, they improvise the dialogue," Stenz said. "Right?"

  "Wrong," Johnny said. "Every word that is spoken on 99 percent of all TV shows is written in the script, and the actors have no freedom to improvise."

  "Yeah, but I seen actors come on Leno and say they wrote their scenes," Eddie said.

  "Yeah, they say it sometimes," Johnny said. "But that's not true. They say it because they want the audience to think they do everything. But trust me, most actors couldn't write a decent scene much less a whole script."

  "Huh," Eddie said. "So the word guy is the boss, then?"

  "Yep," Johnny said. "But we don't make a big deal out of it. The audience likes to think the whole thing is real, so we don't go running around telling them that we did it all."

  "I'll be damned. And so all the stories and stuff, that's the writers too?"

  "Yep, all that stuff."

  "Hmmmm," Eddie said. He looked as though he was having a hard time believing it.

  "Well, here's to the word man," Connie said, toasting Johnny.

  Eddie and Stenz joined in but they didn't look all that happy about it.

  Soon the talk drifted to other subjects, though, like who was the sexiest actress on TV, and they laughed and ate pizza and drank beer. By the end of the night Johnny was almost feeling like they could become friends. What the hell, it was only going to be for a week or so anyway.

  During the next three days Johnny worked up a routine. First thing in the morning, a brisk walk on the beach, then get back and drink his second cup of coffee and work on his new idea ... an idea he had gotten talking to Eddie and the rest for the past few days. It was called Hometown, and it was about a guy who comes back to his working-class hometown, after living in a flashy place like L.A., and once there finds himself getting involved with the kind of working-class people he thought he'd left behind. He even had the log line for it. They say you can't go home again, but what if home is the only place left go to?

  Oh yeah, the networks would love that. It would be a hit ... he could feel it. A show with heart, and a lot of the heart would be from Eddie and Stenz and Con. He'd owe them and he wouldn't forget them when the show made it either. He'd find a way to make them participants in the profits. Not a lot of money, obviously, but not a trifle either. He'd be a mensch and take care of them. Though he hadn't told them any of this yet. No use starting a feeding frenzy for something that might take awhile to happen.

  But happen it would.

  Even though he'd been kicked off of Boys in Blue, he'd still created the number three show in the nation. Yeah, he'd have clout for Hometown, and someday (maybe even sooner than later) he'd get it on the air.

  Every day after working on his characters, and the pilot outline for the show, Johnny headed down to play ball with his new pals. Since the three of them had become hot as a team, new challengers began showing up at the park to take them on. There were three financial guys from Long Beach, whom they demolished 15-4, and there were three restaurateurs from Newport, rich ballplayers, whom Eddie destroyed almost singlehandedly.

  After that game they headed out to Minelli's and had two or three extra pitchers of beer, and threw in a pretty decent lasagna with the pepperoni and garlic pizza.

  It was a hell of a day, and a hell of a good time.

  Right up to the moment it wasn't anymore.

  Even after it happened, Johnny couldn't really remember how it had gone bad.

  Maybe Eddie had downed a few too many beers, and maybe it was the Vicodin he had admitted he took just to give the booze a little extra kick. Or maybe it was just one of those days ... but somewhere along the third hour of partying, Eddie got a little morose.

  They were all still partying, and then Eddie said it, the thing that had been there all along in the back of his mind: "Here's to our Hollywood buddy. May he remember its when he heads back to la-la land and starts hanging with the big shots again."

  That stopped everyone cold, and then Johnny realized all eyes were turned to him.

  "Hey," he said, "I wouldn't do that. You guys are my buds. I mean, yeah, I gotta go back to work, but you guys will come up and we'll play some of the celebs who practice at the Hollywood Y."

  Stenz made a fist and said, "Yeah, right!" but Eddie only looked over at Johnny with a cynical leer.

  "Hey, Mr. Big Shot, you think we bought that bit you told its about coming down here to get a little R & R before you started working again? Well, you must think we're nuts. Cause we saw a bit on Entertainment Tonight about you, how you were kicked off your own show, and how you came down here to get away from the tabloid reporters."

  "Jesus, Ed, why you gotta get all judgmental all of a sudden?" Connie said. "We don't care why Johnny came down here. He's still our friend."

  Johnny managed a tortured smile at Connie, who reached over and patted his hand.

  Johnny thought maybe the attack would be over then, but Eddie was just warming up: "Say what you want, Connie, but Johnny's down here slumming. You think we're ever gonna hear from this guy again once he gets back to Latte Land?"

  Stenz stared down at his feet, and Connie just shook her head.


  Johnny let out a long breath, and slid out from the booth.

  "Okay," he said. "I better go. Seems like things are getting a little too unpleasant."

  "No, Johnny," Connie said in a panicky voice. "Don't go. He doesn't know what he's saying."

  Eddie turned his head and stared blankly across the room.

  "No, I think he means it. I don't want to bum you guys out. So-take it easy."

  He started to walk toward the front door, when Connie ran up behind him and grabbed his wrist. He turned to see tears on her face.

  "This isn't really about you," she said. "He's really furious at me."

  "Why?" Johnny asked.

  "Cause I'm pregnant."

  "Oh," he said. "And you want to keep the baby."

  Connie nodded. "Yes, more than anything in the world."

  Eddie came staggering up behind her, mean-drunk.

  "Yes, more than anything in the world," he said in whiny mimicry. "Oh, I have to have a little baby with me at all times. So I can play kootchie-kootchie-koo with it. Fucking bitch. She put a hole in my rubber, man. This is like entrapment. Well, I'm not having it, see ... I'm not. And you're not either, bitch."

  He reached out and grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him. Johnny grabbed Connie's other arm and for a few seconds they battled one another in an absurd tug of war. Until Johnny let go, and Connie fell into Eddie. They were both off balance and went down, upsetting a table and a pitcher of Sam Adams.

  The owner of the place, Dan Minelli, came running toward them, his hair a great frizzy mess, like Larry Fine's.

  "You make a huge mess," he said, "you gotta pay. You all gotta pay for this."

  Johnny waved a twenty at him and headed outside as quickly as he could. Thanking God he'd brought his own car, he trotted over to his BMW, opened the door, and hustled away.

  Later that afternoon, he sat on the front porch smoking a joint.

  This was better, way better. He'd been crazy to get involved with those people. It was all about his sentimental attachment to people from his old hometown. When he was dealing with the sharks in Hollywood, guys who would throw you off your own show, he sentimentalized working-class people, the kind of people he'd grown up with in row-house Baltimore. They were more lively, had the ability to appreciate simple things, would be your friends through thick and thin ... all the best qualities of working-class existence.