Justify My Sins

by Felice Picano

  “From what I’ve heard, you don’t at all. What about a mini-series?”

  “Is that how Demetrius is positioning the property?”

  “Dmitrios wants the six-hour movie. That’s how I’m positioning it. Trying to be a little more realistic.”

  “Not much more realistic. You about ready for another ’tini?”

  “Shoot! If you’re trying to discourage Dmitri, why build me up so much with all that ‘buddies with Warren Beatty’ crap?”

  “These kids should know who they’re dealing with. They’re far too arrogant and act totally entitled for no reason I can figure. Reggie. Hit us again. I mean after all, he’s no one. No one. Whereas you—“

  “Are known to six people in this business at the moment,” Victor said.

  “Ah but when the other five find out you’re back in town, they’ll get all sentimental and give you all kinds of regards and kudos.”

  “We shall see. In fact we shall see in April because that’s when I’ll be escorting an aging Academy member to various parties around town after the Ceremony at the Shrine.”

  Victor began telling Joel about “The Brassy Old Dames Club.”

  Joel, a true Old Hollywood fan, was mesmerized, and began asking for details, more than Victor could provide.

  “I just don’t know, Joel. Ask the women yourself. I’m assuming you’ll be hanging around after the ceremony.”

  “I usually go to the Governors’ shindig, then drop in at Morton’s. But this year I’ll look for you and your ‘date.’ Do you know who you’ll be with?”

  “Maybe Carol Bruce. Maybe Marie Windsor. Or Jan Sterling or . . . I’ll know in a few weeks, I guess.”

  “Leave it to you to locate the very soul of this town. I mean really, Victor, I couldn’t ever have gotten into that.”

  “You couldn’t because you’re gainfully employed and otherwise engaged. Not an obvious bum, like me.”

  They sipped. Victor said, “Since you were making us such close pals the other day, want to hear a funny story about me and Warren Beatty?”

  “Are you kidding? Let me pretend to adjust my undies and in reality start up my tape recorder. Okay, shoot!” Joel puts his “I’m listening” face on.

  “This is in New York. Some years after he and Julie have split and she’s back in England being a socialist. I’m at one of these rich kids fund-raising parties to make an Indy Prod movie in some oversized loft way down south of Soho in Manhattan. Garbage on the street and maybe a wino in the gutter and not much else to be seen. But twenty big black limos with drivers parked all around the place. One for me and my literary agent, Marcie. You two never met, but I believe you talked on the phone.”

  “Marcie. We talked, yes. Lots of fun.”

  “Lots of fun. She retired agenting to do competitive dressage. With horses. Don’t ask. So we’re at this party, noshing, drinking, and occasionally getting hits off a three foot high mountain of coke—this is the mid-70’s, right? sitting right out there on a table in the main room!—we’re at this party, where we pick up the late and great Mark Chastain. He’s helping cater this affair. He’s not yet officially my lover, but we’ve already begun dating. At midnight, he’s getting off and joining Marcie and me going to Flamingo for The Black Party. There, Mark will be working again, being a statue of a man in black leather high on a plinth. He’s working his way through Law School.”

  “I heard about those Black Parties!” Joel shook one hand in a “Va Voom!” gesture.

  “Every sordid rumor you heard is true. They were as fabulously down and dirty as you could get. So we’re all three dressed in black, natch, for the party. Marcie has on a black bra, jodhpurs and a riding crop. Very Venus in Furs. And this very tall, pretty girl comes over to us and asks what’s the occasion. So we tell her.

  “Two minutes later, she drags over Warren, who’s her date at this shindig, and she begins needling him, saying that Farrah Fawcett and Liza Minnelli always go to Flamingo, which is not completely untrue, and how she wants to go to the Black Party.

  “Now, I’m certain the very last thing Warren wants is to go to this dance club filled with eight hundred gay guys and like six women. So he tries to weasel out of it. No deal. Clearly, she makes it that No Black Party equals No Nookie. So he gives in, and says to me, ‘Okay, “Comp” us in.’

  “At which point I have to say, ‘It’s a private club and I think the party is sold out. I’ll have to call the club and see what I can do.”

  “This,” Joel adds, “to Warren Beatty, who’s has never, but never, been told he can’t get in anywhere?”

  “At least not since he was sixteen. Right. You’ve got the picture. At which news, I receive a look . . . Well, I won’t describe it except to say friendly it wasn’t. At any rate, Marcie stays with him and the model, Angelica or whatever, because after all it’s Warren Beatty and he’s got a reputation, while I go call. I finally get club owner Michael Fesco on the phone, he says, ‘Victor! If you’re bullshitting me . . . !‘ Then he reminds me that Warren and Roberta, or whatever her name is, have got to come in the door with us on my membership card or it’s no go. So I’ve got to go back to Warren and report that to him, too.

  “Well, he is not at all happy. I’m guessing he was hoping I’d say they couldn’t get in at all. But we leave and they leave, their limo follows ours across downtown Manhattan to lower Broadway and we’re all jammed together with a dozen dance queens in full black leather regalia in that little entrance hall, getting in. And even Marcie can’t distract Warren from this bad choice he’s allowed himself to get into.

  “Once upstairs, with luckily no coats to have to check since it’s Spring and anyway we have limos, I figure Warren wants to be on his own with the model. So I make sure we lose them fast.”

  “Wow!” Joel is suitable impressed. “I’m picturing Warren Beatty at a Flamingo Black Party.”

  “I’m not done. It gets better! Given all the drugs and ex-tricks and ex-boyfriends of mine who are there, not to mention the extreme crowdedness of the place which is like a study in Homosexual Brownian Motion, in two hours or so I’ve lost Marcie, and Mark is off his plinth and who knows where. I’m distinctly over-Quaaluded at this moment, and quite happy. I decide to wander to the back lounge, where I can get away from the crowds and the loudest noise and kind of contemplate my very pleasant high. Except it’s all sex back there. So I have to find an unoccupied spot and I lean against the wall to groove on the drugs and on Riche Vasquez’ mixing.

  “Two minutes later, it’s Guess-Who at my side? Right, Warren. He’s lost Becky, or whatever her name is. Have I seen her? No. He leans up against the wall as I’m smoking a joint and shares it, and he begins talking about the break up with Julie as though I knew her like a sister. Defending himself. Saying how she just wouldn’t let him get away with anything. How she was intellectually demanding and exasperatingly rigorous and after a while he just wanted a rest. Then he begins in on Ed Trefethern, the producer who had introduced us, about how they were doing a project together and why it fell through and all just kinds of stuff, like we’re long lost buddies . . . Like I actually would care.

  “Suddenly Warren leans over to me, right close, and he whispers something in my ear. I ask him to repeat it, and he says, ‘I think someone is trying to open my fly.’ I look down and sure enough, we both have guys kneeling in front of us.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. After all it is the darkened back lounge of Flamingo in the midst of the annual Black Party.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Mind you, I’m so deeply stoned at this point I could have Dumbo the Elephant down there and I wouldn’t really notice. I can barely focus, and this actor’s demands upon my attention are seriously bringing me down. I just wish he would go away.

  “Then he leans in even closer and says ‘Do you think he’s trying to suck my cock?’

  “No, he’s taking a semen-sample for Biology class! So I say, ‘Pus
h him away!’ I push my guy away and he falls over and is nearly trampled. But I can see that isn’t going to work with Warren. The guy has like a total hold on his lower body and he will not be daunted.”

  Joel Edison is now cracking up.

  “So I grab Warren and forcefully turn him around. The guy in front of him falls to one side. I yell in Warren’s ear, ‘Zip up!’ I give him five seconds to do so, then push him forward out of the dark room and into the flashing lights, crowd, and absolute mayhem of the Flamingo dance floor, filled with six hundred dancers on drugs. His shirt is wide open. He’s utterly dazed and confused, and I’ve got my arms on his shoulders and still can barely hold on. The crowd in front of us is packed so tight that it takes all of ‘Ring My Bell’ and ‘Disco Inferno’ and half of a Jackson Five hit to boogie him through and out the other side. Of course people continually stop us to snap poppers under our noses, to stuff ethyl chloride rags into our mouths while tweaking our nipples in greeting. One or two people recognize Warren but shake their heads, No, it can’t be. Must be the drugs they’re on.”

  Joel can’t stop laughing.

  “After what seems to little old stoned me like forever, we finally reach the main lounge, and there, miracle of miracles, we immediately spot Antonia the model, or whatever her name was. I’m relieved. He’s relieved. They hug and he’s all over her, he’s so turned on now. I see them leave the club and figure they’ll probably screw in the limo.”

  Joel is stricken. “No! And that was it?”

  “Never saw or heard from him or her again.”

  “He could have written!” Joel is enjoying himself. “He could have called! You two had something ‘special’ together.”

  “In retrospect, I’m glad he didn’t.”

  At that very moment, someone in the restaurant passing by stopped, turned, and suddenly slid into the booth, right onto the banquette next to Victor. Before he could even register who it was, the man grabbed Victor’s head in his hands and planted a kiss on his lips.

  When he pulled away, Victor saw it was . . .

  “Sam? Sam Haddad?!”

  Sam to Joel. “You were right. He’s still much too young-looking. Wanna be my Boy Toy, Vic?”

  Victor didn’t know what to say.

  Sam slid a snaky arm across his shoulders and hugged him.

  “Now, this is why I come to the Palm,” Sam said. ”To render this one speechless.”

  Sam had gained weight and heft, but it was Sam all right. His head was squarer and his face was definitely lined, his hairline way back now, and he was dressed superbly.

  “You didn’t just happen in, right?” Victor guessed.

  “In fact, I was going out somewhere to celebrate with the wife and my two daughters, one of whom is fifteen today and a total carnivore!” He pointed to a booth ahead of them. “And then Joel said you would be out, too. So . . . So you’re here in L.A. now?”

  “A little late, no?” Victor admitted. “Laurel Canyon. Tiny little house with a view.”

  “Ah, La Boheme! For me it’s Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills. Stockbroker’s Tudor. Three car garage. Exactly as banal as you’d expect.” Then, “I would ask if you’ve seen anyone. But who is there to see anymore from the old days, huh?”

  “You stuck with Frank till the end?” Victor said.

  “No. I couldn’t. After the fiasco that you predicted and worked so hard to avert, Frank gave up. You were a trooper, Vic. I was a slave driver and a louse. But you did what you could to keep the production afloat. And that’s how we were able to finish it.”

  “Now you tell me! All these years I was certain you hated me.”

  “What? No! You were a prince! I happened to be insane at the time and couldn’t recognize it. So after it opened and tanked big time, Frank moved to the East Coast. He got cancer. He made one last film, about having cancer . . .” Sam waved an open hand back and forth to indicate its questionable quality. “And boom! He died. I offered but he didn’t want me to join him there. He set me up here instead, in some little development department at Fox. I was sure it was a dead-end he’d placed me in, like putting me out to pasture. But it became an independent unit. Six of us in it. First we produced an Irish movie about an ugly horse that everyone in town had passed on. We took it to Venice and Berlin and Cannes, gathering awards. A hit! Next we took on a French-Vietnamese ‘Co-Pro’ about a gang-lord and three plucky kids. More awards. And a German movie about a crazy house-party. They all struck international gold. We shot in Mongolia and in the Po valley. In the Amazon jungles of Peru and in the Carpathian Alps. I loved the travel. I met Luce,” he nodded to the table ahead at his wife, “the former Lucinda Carpenter, track and field star, on a shoot in the Caribbean. She was with a gang of Euro-Trash, scuba diving a hundred feet down in the Caicos Trench. We were shooting locales on shore. She came out of the water and we nearly killed her with falling sound equipment. I took her out to apologize and the rest is history.”

  “I’m happy for you, Sam.” Then, “You don’t happen to still have that Porsche?”

  Sam’s face lit up. “You remember! My first and most bitterly lost love. Nah. In 1989 the brakes died all of a sudden as I was coming down Sunset Boulevard onto the Pacific Coast Highway. You must know that hill.” He made slalom gestures with a hand. “I was going ninety miles per hour when I hit. Luckily, it was at 4:15 a.m. and I was the only car anywhere in sight. But I ended up three feet deep in the Santa Monica Bay surf before I could stop. Good thing it was low tide or I would’ve drowned! Nothing was really wrong with the car. But it was never any good after that.” He reached over and kissed Victor’s cheek. “I missed you. We both did. Especially when we heard that you had some really hard knocks.”

  Victor laughed ruefully. “Everyone died, Sam. My family. My partner. All my friends. Everyone. Everyone died but me. What the hell is that all about!”

  “We’re glad you’re still around, aren’t we Joel? See? That’s one little reason for it.”

  Victor felt strange discussing what had happened since he’d last seen the two. He knew AIDS had hit Hollywood and hit it hard. Both of them must have been affected. But he still felt singled out somehow. It was as though no one who had not undergone the decade or more of illnesses and deaths, one after the other, could possibly get it. Never mind the immense personal and social problems those deaths brought, including dealing with mean, greedy, and bigoted relatives. Mark filed lawsuits on behalf of the stricken, but he no sooner got his degree and the high paying job of his dreams than he, too, began showing symptoms and ultimately needed all that help himself. Could these folks living and working in their Golden Triangle, living in their Golden State, with their golden everything around them possibly comprehend how dark the world had become for Victor—and if they did, could they care?

  “Some day I’ll tell you all about it, Sam.”

  “That’s a promise. But right now I gotta go to my family before my wife comes here and I die. You guys work out a date to come see me at the office and check with my assistant.”

  “Great. A week or so,” Joel said.

  “Sounds good.”

  “You don’t want to wait until after the Oscars?” Joel said. “You’re gonna pick up what, four? Five?”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear. Two, if we’re lucky!”

  Sam stood up, stroking Victor’s chin, lovingly. “You look good. Despite everything bad.”

  He was about to leave when Victor reached out a hand to stop him. “Sam, why are we coming to your office in a week or so?”

  “I thought he told you already? I want to make Justify My Sins into a movie. Your second book? Remember?” He seemed to be addressing the air: “I’m there! I’m coming! See? I’ve stood up and left their table!” Victor now saw he was addressing his daughter, who’d gotten up to come fetch him. She now tenderly dragged him off.

  Their Caesar Salads arrived and Victor was still too shocked to wave off the extra grindings of w
hite pepper.

  Some four minutes later, Joel looked up from his salad and said, “So, right now, Victor Regina is thinking what?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “What do you mean? Of course I want to know!”

  Victor stared at him and said, “What I’m really thinking, Joel, is, ‘Please God, let me have a ten-inch cock for one hour so I can fuck the hell out of Mr. Totally Gorgeous Fitness Trainer.’ Because right after that I can die in peace.”

  “But . . . no movie business. Why not?”

  “Not with that book, and you already know why, Joel.”

  Joel laughed. But he looked at Victor carefully. “Don’t be foolish, Victor. Both Sam and I have very good reasons to want to make that particular movie. It’s nothing personal. And you know that, nowadays, we can make it.”

  “What you’ve got to understand, Joel, is my history with that book.”

  “I know already. Twice optioned, twice never-made.”

  “Twice!? Justify My Sins has been under one option or another since the month it was published until, I think, the current option ended, maybe a week ago. That’s twenty-two years under about twenty options. Twenty! During that time it’s been optioned for television movie of the week and for feature films, for stage plays and for musicals. It’s been optioned for everything but a board game! Well-known producers have optioned it. Famous film directors have optioned it, and it was more people than just Frank, believe me, who optioned it. Movie actors like Sissy Spacek optioned it. Television stars like the woman who played Wonder Woman did. Theater divas like Julie Harris optioned it. Two corporations of gay men and two consortiums of straight women have optioned it. The blind, the halt, and the lame have optioned it. The Japanese optioned it for non-exclusive rights. Truth is, Joel, I’m waiting one day to be abducted by aliens at some abandoned crossroads in the Sierra Nevadas so they can option it for who knows what kind of non-carbon-based entertainment venues they have in the Andromeda Galaxy.”

  “Are you done? Listen, with a track record like that?” Joel said admiringly, “It’s just got to be made into a movie.”