Fifty Cents For Your Soul

by Denise Dietz

  Liechtenstein’s colorful pop art canvases lined the walls.

  Oak shelves held Native American books, crafts and toys.

  Above the shelves were masks that Cat said represented the mythical forest creatures whom the Indians believed had powers to cure diseases. By impersonating the spirit, she said, a man who wore the false face gained the power to cure.

  “What about a woman?” I asked, remembering my mother’s take-some-Nyqil-and-call-the-Rabbi-in-the-morning.

  “I don’t know, Frannie. I’ve never put the masks on.”

  “When did you become interested in Indian artifacts?”

  “The day after I could afford to buy ‘em.” She smiled. “Maybe it’s Oral Roberts backlash again.”

  “Or maybe it’s Prince of Darkness fallout.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Victor Madison.”

  “Oh. Right. Sit down, Frannie.”

  I sank onto a white, nubby-cushioned couch. Cat placed a bowl of candies atop a marble-top coffee table. Chewing a chocolate, I sighed, nodded, and said, “Le Chocolatier. Behind the tailor shop.”

  She grinned. “Correct.”

  I reached for another French-style chocolate, then gave my wrist a slap. “I’m supposed to lose ten pounds. During my first interview with Suzanne Burton, she mentioned a nude scene. Please tell me about Madison. Maybe I’ll forget the candy.”

  “We met. I lived with him for thirteen months. Thirteen used to be my favorite number.”

  “Cat, you’re doing it again.”

  “Sorry. We met and fell madly in lust. Our relationship was like a see-saw. Up, down, up, down. Remember that thing we used to chant when we were kids? ‘See-saw, Marjorie Daw, Johnny will have a new master.’ I never understood what that meant, still don’t. But Mary Catherine Lelia Sanchez found herself a new master and loved every minute of it, until the end.”

  “Where did you and Madison meet?”

  “I waited tables. Madison frequented my restaurant but he never tipped. One night, royally pissed off, I told him off and got my ass fired.”

  “Good for you. I wish I had the nerve. I wait tables, Cat, at least I did. I quit after my screen test. Sorry, where were we? Madison got you fired. Then what?”

  “He took me home with him.”

  “How romantic.”

  “Yes. Romantic.”

  “Tell me about his house. Does it have a gazillion rooms?”

  “Have another chocolate, Frannie. Madison lives in a caretaker’s cottage, on a fairly large estate. The estate is owned by a very successful Vegas financier.”

  “Mafia,” I breathed.

  “Nope. In thirteen months I never saw a hidden shoulder holster, although I once waved at a man who looked like Frank Sinatra.”

  “It’s hard to believe Madison lives in a cottage.”

  “Why? He’s always on location. Anyway, his cottage is huge and trés posh. Screening room, solarium with hot tub, a guest room, screening room, and a library as big as a bookstore. Rumor has it the cottage is haunted by a ghost who looks like Vivian Leigh. Your face is wonderful, Frannie. You’d never be able to bluff at poker.”

  “I’m still trying to adjust to a caretaker’s cottage, although what you just described doesn’t exactly sound like a hole in the wall. Madison has oodles of money, doesn’t he? They say he can’t win an Academy Award because his films are too commercial, too successful.”

  “That’s only partly true. He’s had some major flops, and he can be rude, crude and obnoxious. He pisses people off, important people, because he rarely, if ever, plays by the rules…” Cat paused to light a cigarette. “Do you remember his first full-length movie?”

  “Sure. It’s legend. He shot a low-budget horror film, based on a train monster who devoured commuters. The heroine was a little girl with Mouseketeer ears, an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike. Madison always aimed his cameras at the devour-ees, but he never showed the monster. His background music was Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, and the sound of snakes hissing. He kept the audience glued to their seats and no one could enter the theatre after the movie started.”

  “Madison followed that up with a couple of sequels. Monsters kept breeding anew in Manhattan’s underground subway system. The little girl grew older. Last I heard, she was attending Yale.”

  “It wasn’t the movie’s plot. That was predictable.” Crossing my legs, I reached for another chocolate. “It’s the way Madison uses his camera to create a mood. And this might sound funny, Cat, but twice I cried when the monster died.”

  “Did you cry during the last sequel, when the girl died? Madison’s backers were furious, and he almost went bust.”

  Out of the blue, I remembered my mother’s question, the one she’d asked on my answering machine, the one where she wanted to know if Madison was as scary as his movies. Before I could stop myself, I said, “What’s he like, really? Damn! My poker face again, huh? I’m so afraid I’ll sound like a voyeur.”

  “No problem, Frannie. We kept a low profile, and the paparazzi went batshit. It’s hard to explain, but our esteemed director collects wounded animals, especially birds with broken wings.” She torpedoed her cigarette into an ashtray. “He changed my name to Catherine Lee Sands, paid for acting lessons, and didn’t expect anything in return, even though I worshipped him.”

  “Cat, I’m sorry. This is none of my business, and Samson will never hear one word, I promise.”

  “In that case, I’ll tell you about our unhappily-ever-after.”

  (People gravitate to you, Frannie. You’re like a magnet!)

  “I’ve never told anyone before.” She lit another cigarette, and I saw that her hands were shaking. “Victor was at a business meeting when I discovered reels of vintage Disney inside the projection room. Remember that bit with Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer’s apprentice?”

  “Yes. Fantasia.”

  “Victor stumbled into the projection room. He was a mess, his clothes torn, his face gashed. Drunk, too. For the first time he became the aggressor, as if he had something to prove. Like an idiot, I didn’t leave the room, didn’t even try. Then he became amorous, beastly, explicitly lewd. I shoved him away, asked him what had happened, screamed that he needed a doctor, but he ignored me.”

  “Please, Cat, you really don’t ‑‑”

  “It was so weird, Frannie. Victor stood in front of the screen, his shadow blending with Mickey Mouse’s shadow. He…Victor…ripped off my nightgown…I was wearing a nightgown, did I tell you that?”

  “Madison raped you, right?”

  “Yes. No. I wanted him, but not like that. I’ll never forget what he said. He said, ‘Mickey’s jealous, but no one tells me what to do.’”

  “Mickey Mouse?”

  Cat nodded. “I was furious. And hurt. Not physically. You just said you were afraid of playing voyeur. I accused Victor of enlisting the aid of an animated mouse to play voyeur. It wasn’t pretty, the stuff I screamed. To tell the God’s honest truth, it was almost as if I had the devil inside me, like that exorcist movie or our movie. My voice didn’t even sound like me. It was growly…” She took a deep breath. “The next morning I got my walking papers. April Fool’s Day, 1989. Victor’s lawyer…a huge palimony settlement. I moved to Manhattan. The rest you know.”

  “Samson will never hear this, I swear!”

  “Thanks. I don’t know why, but I trust you, Frannie. And it’s a…relief…telling my bizarre tale to a stranger.”

  I accepted that premise. Hadn’t I contemplated confessing, to a stranger, the bizarre events that had occurred during my Night of Wine and Roses? I might have told Cat about the click-beetles, except by now I’d convinced myself that they were roaches, emerging from one of my apartment wall cracks, then scurrying back inside when I passed out and Andre turned all the lights on.

  “I hope I’m not a stranger any more,” I said.

  Cat smiled. “Give me your life story and we’ll remedy that.”

  I chatted o
n and on about my so-called career, Andre, and my mother, but Cat only half-listened. She wouldn’t make it in a poker game either, I thought, because she’s definitely hiding something. At one point, while I was talking about Mom’s “subtle” hints for a grandkid, I saw Cat stroke her flat belly.

  Had Cat been pregnant when she’d split with Madison?

  Had she miscarried?

  Given the baby up for adoption?

  Or did it exist somewhere away from the limelight?

  I couldn’t ask. It would be like someone asking Carol Brady if her first husband, the dead one, had really fathered Marcia, Jan and Cindy. I mean, none of those kids looked alike!

  I chewed the last of the Le Chocolatier candies to avoid asking personal questions, but my mind raced.

  Had Catherine Lee Sands given birth to Victor Madison’s son or daughter?

  Had Cat given Madison the silver lighter?

  To M from S. To Madison from Sands?

  It was none of my business. Except Cat…and Bonnie…had made it my business. Why did Madison have this thing for Disney?

  Simple explanation. Madison was a perfectionist. So were the Disney artists who created the animated panels. Madison used the innocent, exuberant, irrepressible cartoons to alleviate stress, the same way I used The Spa’s whirlpool.

  Fear had been my off-again, on-again companion ever since the Forever Asmodeus audition. I didn’t mind Madison’s Clark Kent persona, but I didn’t want Superman’s X-ray vision.

  Madison had X-ray vision. He did! He could see into a person’s soul, and that scared the shit out of me.

  My tongue probed at a tiny piece of cashew, stuck between my teeth. There was no mystery, I thought, no underlying enigma, no skeleton in the attic.

  Was there?

  The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.

  Only this particular gentleman, stimulated by a virginal waif named Cinderella, had screwed one friend. And he had seduced…make that raped…my new friend, cheered on by a squeaky-voiced rodent who donned red shorts to hide the family jewels.

  Hooray for Hollywood! New York pretended to be cool, but Hollywood still employed old-fashioned censorship. Peter Pan was gelded. Tinkerbell wore “me-Jane-you-Tarzan” regalia. Minnie Mouse flaunted panties.

  I watched Cat clear away the empty candy dish, her ballerina’s grace gone, her movements uncertain. I had stirred up memories, like a bitchy witch bending over a crock pot. Double, double, toil and trouble, Catherine will have a new master.

  “When do you fly to Houston?” I said, changing the subject.

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “You’re not taking the part?”

  “I’m not flying. If God had meant me to fly ‑‑”

  “She would have given you wings.”

  “She would have given me a stomach that doesn’t do flip-flops every time it leaves the ground. Have you heard of Charlie Daniels?”

  “Of course. Except for John Travolta, he was the best thing in Urban Cowboy.”

  “Charlie’s an old pal. He’s touring, and he has this comfy bus, so I’m hitching a ride to Texas.”

  Texas! The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Michener. Edna Ferber’s Giant. The movie Giant, with Rock and Liz and James Dean. Remember the Alamo.

  Suddenly, I remembered the Urban Cowboy cowgirl, writhing seductively on top of a mechanical bull while Charlie’s bow and fiddle coated everything with breezy layers of pizzicato cool.

  Hadn’t Charlie sung about the Devil going down?

  * * * * *

  That night I met Samson at Starbucks.

  “Sorry, sweetie, no juicy tidbits,” I said, having mentally edited my Cat Sands interview until there was nothing left except a detailed description of Madison’s posh cottage.

  Samson thanked me nicely, and paid for my Caffé Latte, but he gave me the same look my mother gives me when I tell her I never forget to dead-bolt my apartment door.

  A MANHATTAN SUBWAY STATION - 1983

  Victor Madison stared at the subway poster ‑‑ Torch Song Trilogy. At the same time, he drummed his fingertips against his black jeans. Inside his head, he heard Lionel Ritchie’s Truly.

  An image came to mind: his mother tap-tapping on table tops, as if she played a “piana.” Victor flexed his fingers.

  Rose Mostel had died shortly after Peggy’s Marilyn Monroe bit --

  No! Blue-pencil the Marilyn Monroe comparison. Marilyn’s death had been an accident, although she had to know, deep down inside, that she’d never live happily ever after. Shit, that realization would make anybody crack up, unless they admitted to themselves that happily-ever-after was an illusory concept.

  Victor had no illusions. He didn’t have any guilt, either. Because Piglet’s impetuous Kamikaze exploit wasn’t his fault. He had merely tried to protect his investment, keep his sister from ball-and-chaining herself to some Phrygian civil service king who’d reverse the Midas touch and turn Victor/Chaim’s hard-earned emergency gold into ashy residue.

  And if anyone believes that bullshit, Victor thought, tell them you have a bridge for sale, and it’s not far from where you used to live.

  Although she said Peggy “broke her heart,” Ma’s killer had been a cuticle remover. Ignoring a deep, ugly thumb gash had allowed the infection had spread to her whole hand, then her arm, then her torso. She must have suffered incredible pain, but (shunning the synagogue) she spent her days and nights inside a neighborhood church, finding Jesus, and when she finally saw a doctor she was terminally gangrened.

  To Victor’s surprise, while he’d been paying for Piglet’s piano and ballet lessons, orthodontist, private school tuition, and amoral theatre dress, Ma had been paying the premiums on a life insurance policy. The compensation wasn’t a fortune, but there was enough for film school, and once he’d sold the Brooklyn brownstone to Mrs. O’Connor’s divorced-but-not-really-divorced-because-she’s-Catholic daughter, he could “emergency” himself for a change.

  Following Peggy’s duck-dildo number, Donald Blaustein had given the words “Jewish guilt” a whole new meaning. He’d also given Peggy’s big brother the money to shoot Anthophilous, a little film about a priest trounced by the Antichrist. Manhattan-in-miniature was set aflame while grotesque gargoyles gnawed on roasted flesh. There was even a brilliant playground scene where vultures pecked at a swinging corpse whose white panties flashed every time her swing swung.

  Victor’s professor graded the short subject C+,

  (“Fuck film school, I quit,” Victor said)

  but it won a few minor awards and became a cult favorite. The cultists branded Madison heir apparent to Orson Welles. The Times wrote an article lauding Madison’s cinematography.

  Thanks to the Times article, and the fact that his film made an oodle (he would have preferred oodles) of money, the financing for his low-budget feature-length movie, D-Train To Hell, had been no sweat.

  He was only twenty-seven, and he wished the A&P manager could see him now.

  Christ on a crutch! Orson’s heir-apparent hadn’t finished shooting D-Train, and already his investors were talking about Express Train To Hell ‑‑ a fucking sequel and his second full-length feature.

  With a grin, Victor punched the button on his tape recorder. A trip to the Bronx Zoo’s reptile house with a state-of-the-art, borrowed tape recorder and ‑‑ voila! ‑‑ the flawless blend of rhythm and blues, early California rock, and snake-hiss. The snakes sounded nicely sibilant, like the spray of water from a defective shower head.

  Loud, obtrusive, his background music would spawn shivery sensations, and he felt a congratulatory erection build. But the turgid swelling diminished when he glanced down at his script. Why had the goddamn writers named the monster-slash-antagonist Clootie? Kids would mentally translate it into Cootie.

  (“Ya got cooties, Omar Chaim?” his schoolmates had taunted, after Ma discovered body lice and shaved his head.)

  Victor looked up and down the subway tracks. Another t
rain, a local rather than an express, was due any moment, and he needed exterior shots. For those shots, he’d use real passengers, a few paid extras, and…

  Snapping his fingers, he nodded toward the script girl. She scurried to his side, her face a mask of fearsome anticipation, her unfettered breasts bobbing beneath her angora sweater.

  “Strike out all references to Clootie, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Why?” Taking a few steps backward, she leaned against another subway poster. Cats. Black background, yellow eyes.