by Alan Spencer
Hannah wasn’t his girlfriend, but instead an old friend who exchanged romantic niceties from time to time. She didn’t want marriage, because she’d done the marriage dance three times, and she had finally said enough. They had a special bond together. She had participated in what Brock called the legacy of Gene Richards. She had partied down at his father's mansion alongside Brock and his sister until they had successful dismantled each of their own successes. Hannah called herself a rehab queen. They were each other's liaisons into sobriety. Best friends.
Brock dragged along his airport bag on wheels. Reaching her, Brock hugged Hannah close. “What a surprise. I didn’t expect you to be here. Seriously.” It would’ve been a long trip in a public bus, since he didn’t own a car, to lower Beverly Hills. “How did you know I was going to be here?”
“I called Ryan, and he dished the details." She worked a strand of blonde hair from her the edge of her mouth with a finger. “And here I am. I have really good news. But first, let’s get out of this place. I hate terminals.”
They walked to the parking garage three levels down and reached the Honda Civic parked in the orange level. After storing his bag in the trunk, Brock plopped down on the passenger seat, and Hannah took the wheel. After driving out of the airport, then getting onto the interstate, they had a decent drive ahead of them. During that time, Hannah shared an exciting piece of good news.
After hearing it, Brock asked, “So what’s the movie you're going to be in called?"
Hannah tried not to laugh. “It’s called Dust Devils. It’s about these insects in the Sahara Desert who grow to the size of dogs, but they’re like mites, but with teeth, and they can fly, and they can eat a person in two seconds. It’s a straight to cable release, but hey, it’s work. I’m playing a bug specialist and an adventurer. They say I get to wear my boots and spurs like back in my old western movie days, and unlike those macho westerns films, I get to wear the guns this time. Two six-shooters. I’m the man this time. I’m shooting my phallic pistols at the monsters and slaying the evil.”
Brock was genuinely happy for her. “How did you get the job, you star you?”
“A new agent contacted me, and he said there’s a market for aged actors and actresses to be in b-movies. It's mostly science fiction and horror flicks, but they pay—they pay, Brock! I need this. I could be doing tampon commercials, and I’d still be ecstatic, though I about shit myself when I learned I get to wear spurs again. I loved being in westerns. There's something so romantic about it. Horses and leather and hot grizzled men get me hot."
Brock suffered a pang of concern. If this movie landed her other gigs, would she drop off of his radar now that she wasn’t completely washed up anymore like him? You selfish prick, be happy for her.
He sweetened his words to cover up his thoughts. “So when do you start working?”
“I fly out to New Mexico in two weeks. That leaves me time to get into character."
The next two months would be hell to survive, he remembered. Brock needed a plan and fast. He did his best to keep it from showing on his face, but he’d never been an actor or TV personality like his father. He was a son riding his father’s success, those coattails extended for decades. He judged people of their talent without having a talent of his own.
You’ve been sober two years.
That’s no cakewalk.
And you’re working on your book. You’re not on your way to a casket anymore. If that’s not talent, then America sucks balls, and who’s the biggest cock sucker?
Concern bogged down Hannah’s voice. “Tell me what’s wrong?”
The air he sucked in was ice cold. Brock was shaking. It was a residual habit when he craved cocaine in the past. She touched his wrist and caressed it, then she put his hand against her chest. She kissed his hand, leaving the rouge lipstick imprint on his skin. It had been her signature when she was an A-star actress.
“Don’t think I’m leaving you, Brock. I’m working, yes, but,” she forced modesty, “it’s a three week shoot. I’m practically being paid nothing. I’m excited over a bug movie.”
Brock tried to be happy for her and leave it at that. “You just want to wear your cowboy outfit again so you can get dolled up and purdy.”
Hannah smiled. “We’re celebrating tonight. I’m not abandoning you. I’m calling you, texting you, sending your postcards, photocopying my ass to you, everything. Brock, it’s going to be fine. We're going to be fine. You're not going to slip, Brock. You're too strong now for that."
He wasn't so sure, but he played along anyway. This was Hannah's moment, and Brock wasn't going to ruin it.
DATE TONIGHT
Hannah dropped Brock off at his apartment in lower Beverly Hills. His residence was in the middle class sector far enough from the movie studios and Hollywood for a man like him to afford rent. Brock proceeded up the steps to the third floor and arrived at his apartment. Considering how modest the apartment was, nobody would think the son of the famous Gene Richards lived here. He was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, including rehab bills and back taxes. Being a talent scout wasn’t the most lucrative job in Hollywood, especially for a b-grade celebrity, but he was surviving and keeping his nose clean.
Once inside, he checked his machine for messages.
There was one from Ryan.
"Hey man, I just wanted to see if you got back safely. Keep in touch. Tell me how you’re holding up. I’m thinking about you, man. Don’t give up. I believe in you. Call me."
Brock unpacked his dirty clothes, took the journey downstairs to shove quarters into the washing machines and started the laundry. Brock returned to his room to shower and slip into more comfortable clothes. He was too tired to do much of anything, so he lazed on his bed reading a novel about a man who finds out he has eight different children by eight different mistresses. It wasn’t long before he drifted to sleep, and he didn’t wake up again until Hannah called.
“This is your wake up call, handsome. You still up for getting plowed? I'll come by at eight."
“Let's open the bubbly and drink ourselves into a coma! I’ll see you at eight.”
Brock was the type of person to be inspired by deadlines. He had two hours before Hannah arrived. Hurrying downstairs, he fished out the laundry from the washing machine and switched it over to the dryer. He vacuumed the apartment, opened up the windows to let in the breeze and filter out that not-so-lived-in-apartment-smell. He checked the automatic feeder on his zebra tetra aquarium. Changing into khaki pants and slipping on his running shoes, he ventured out to the grocery store for basic food supplies, but first, he checked his mail box on the first floor. Twenty envelopes were stuffed in the slot, junk mail and bills mostly. He tucked the collection under his arm, and when he turned to leave, Carlos Miloh, the building's superintendant, was sweeping the front steps and greeted him.
“Brock, when did you get back?"
“This afternoon.” He thought on it a second. “We’re paid up until the end of the month, right?”
Carlos was five feet tall with sun burnt skin darkened to a fine Mexican gold. He wore a dirtied top and black jeans. He was the kind of man who took pride in the upkeep of his building and worked with his two sons, both teenagers, to perform the hard work of maintaining the building. He knew of Brock’s job and was very interested.
“Yes sir, we’re square. Did you find anybody talented?”
“A kid who could blow farts out her ass like a bean curd champion. Other than that, it’s mostly singing and dancing. Same old."
Carlos scoffed. “Ah, anybody can sing and dance. Me, I can outrun immigration and speak English better than some of your born and raised Americans. Now that's talent."
Brock enjoyed how good of a sport Carlos was about Mexican stereotypes. “I’m keeping my eye on you. You’ve got flair, pal."
Brock piled the mail on his kitchen table and then went back out to hit Hinkley’s Market two blocks from the apartment building. He passed the Beverly Hills
Open Air Park and watched the Frisbee golfers, joggers, dog walkers, and the late picnicking couples on the way. For all the fear of lapsing on his sobriety, the clean air, the activity, seeing healthy people live, all of it was cleansing. Hannah was coming over in an hour. Today was going to be fine, he thought. He was going to be okay.
Hannah was with him during his rehab. They fought through the tough times together, becoming better friends at the end of it, but Angel, his sister, didn’t survive rehab very long. She broke out after the first week, and two years later, she was a ghost to him. If Angel had died, he wouldn’t know it.
He went from one high to a drastic low thinking about his sister.
Look her up. She needs her brother. I’m the one who was right there with her feeding her cocaine. We had all that inheritance money, and we partied it all away at Dad's mansion. We destroyed that place. We destroyed each other.
Face it, Angel hates you. She'd never talk to you again.
The last thing Angel said to him before she left Brock at the rehabilitation clinic was, “I hate you, Brock. Thanks to you, I’m a goddamn coke head. Thanks to you...thanks to you, I'll always be this way.”
He had apologized to Angel so many times in his head, if only he could locate her and actually say what was on his mind. Their mother Brock called the black widow. The woman took her part of the inheritance and bolted out of their lives.
Brock arrived at the store, forcing himself to think about his grocery list instead of his family. He purchased enough supplies to last him two weeks and returned home. By then, he had ten minutes before Hannah showed up.
ANGEL RICHARDS
Angel Richards couldn't understand the method by which she was hanging by the neck. She had bled a great deal from the collection of wounds her body had suffered, though she felt no sensation. No pain. No agony. Nothing. She smelled mold on the walls and something else she couldn't place. Something very wrong. The mysteries in the room kept her searching for what had happened to her being suspended in the air by the neck. Silence for the past few hours, she kept trying to speak but what came out of her throat was useless air. She wasn't even breathing. Somehow, she was still alive, thinking, and processing information. But how? What had the man with the golden axe done to her?
The axe attacker was a juggernaut of a man standing at 6 '4. He was as wide and hulking as a grizzly bear and just as fearless. The man with the golden axe stank of blood, sweat, and other people's fear. Angel had been running from the axe man, but how she got here in this room, the memory was fuzzy. She tried to fight her restraints, but with no sensation or ability to move, it was pointless.
The distant thud of steps from upstairs indicated someone had entered the house. Angel could sense the house tense up upon the arrival. The doors, the windows, the floorboards, the foundation all stiffened. One step at a time down a staircase, she knew it was the man with the golden axe who was coming.
Angel could sense the shadows shift when his bulk entered the room. The shape pivoted towards her. Closer he came. Close enough, Angel could see he was carrying another body over his shoulder. He dropped it onto the concrete, though it didn't make the sound it should've, as if it was softened by other bodies already on the floor.
That's what she was smelling.
Death.
Rotting bodies.
Hacking up snot and spitting it up against the wall with a piggish grunt, the man with the golden axe went to work. He was busy with many tasks to accomplish at once and balancing various methods on how to go about them. Turning on the light, the bright amber beam filled the room, blinding her like a camera's flash. Slowly, the details of the room registered as the blotches in her eyes faded. What she witnessed would've sent her legs running up the stairs to prevent the man with the golden axe from harming her again. She would've screamed, how she would've screamed, if only she could escape this place, if only she had never come to this town, if only she wasn't a severed head hanging from a meat hook.
A NIGHT TOGETHER
“Can’t you see I’m desperate for justice?”
“You can’t get justice from squashing a bug. Dead bugs don’t say they’re sorry. Dead bugs don’t bring the dead back to life. Dead bugs don’t make the pain any easier.”
“To hell with you! It makes me feel better scraping their crunchy bodies off my boots. I’ll show those Dust Devils no mercy. They ate my father, they ate my mother, they even ate Baxter, and there’s no replacing that Collie. He was one of a kind."
“Get your head out of the clouds, Mary-Beth. This is your life. If you die, who gives the eulogy? Me, Mary-Beth, I'd give the eulogy, and you know what’d I say? She was the greatest woman I’ve known and loved, and she’s dead all over some fucking bugs. Is it worth it, Mary-Beth, giving your life up for those bugs?”
“I’m the only one who knows how to stop them, Craig. I’ve spent years with the insects, studying them, gaining their trust, helping them exist.”
“So why did the government want them to flourish?”
“The Executive in Chief wanted a terrorist weapon that wouldn’t nuke the world. Fallout’s a bitch, right? Nuke the Middle East, and the breeze would blow back cancer in our faces. But image a bug that was commanded to kill terrorists? They've given them mega-intelligence, mega-size, and the only shot we have of taking them out is giving them a bullet right between the eyes, and I’m the best shot in this stinkin’ part of town.”
Hannah stood in Brock's living room clutching the handles of the two cap gun six shooters holstered at her hips. She urged tears to well up in her eyes, her face brimming with believable emotion. She wore a short red skirt, black fishnets, a blue and white checkered flannel top, and brown snakeskin boots with spurs from her old western movie called Cactus Heart, Cactus Moon.
Finished with her dialogue, Hannah tipped her hat to him, her eyes a blazing show of sexual heat. Her mouth was drawn into a pout, her eyes languidly set. She brought him in close. Removing each other's clothes, they threw aside the movie script and began acting out a new scene altogether.
Brock watched Hannah strut about the room in her purple bra and panties. She stayed dressed in her boot and spurs as she filled a cup with ice in the kitchen. “How about some bubbly to cap off the good sex?”
“I already capped off once.”
Hannah playfully rolled her eyes. “It’s always about a man’s cock.”
“That’s all there is, really.” He eyed the table stocked with booze. “Let’s get wild and crazy.”
Hannah kneeled down on the coffee table and announced the selections. “Sparkling grape juice, sparking apple juice, or orange pop?”
“I’ll have a bit of sparkling grape juice. That’ll take the edge off.”
Hannah poured two wine flutes and sat next to him. He was ready to down his but he noticed she was eyeing him with the intent to say something else.
He poised his glass next to hers. “What’s on your mind?”
She lowered her glass, not ready to announce her toast just yet. “I want you to think about things, Brock, because I have. You always blamed yourself for dragging me into this mess. All the parties you invited me to, all the free drugs you offered me when we were younger, and yes, it was a bad thing, but we both made the mistakes, but the mistakes are ultimately mine to own. I had a choice. And when it came time to clean up my act, we did it together, and I’ve gotten to know you, and we’ve made an incredible journey together. We've been through everything. Three months in rehab. Two years of sobriety. You saw me at my worst moments, and I've seen you at your lowest. After sobering up this long, everything became so much clearer to me. I know what I want in life. I want to act again, and I want you to be my husband.”
Brock opened his mouth, but Hannah spoke first. “Just think about it for awhile, okay? I have this movie coming up, so there’s time to think it over. I want you to really think it over."
He understood what she was saying and was grateful for the chance to really take it in. Broc
k took her hand and kissed it, and then he raised his glass. “To making good decisions, to being in control of our lives, and um, to the washed up who somehow find their way back to a paycheck.”
Hannah raised hers proudly.
They downed the bubbly into the late hours of the night.
* * *
It was one a.m., and Hannah was asleep in his bed. Brock spooned her. “Are you sure staying here won't piss off your sister? I could drive you home. I know how much she hates me."
“What, drive? You'd blow a 2.0 on the sugar-lizer. Besides, my sister's got a man, and I don't mess with that, do I? The only thing you need to worry about is being my man, so you stay in this bed and let me worry about my sister."
Brock whispered in her ear, “You’ve given me the greatest friendship in my life. I have fallen in love with you. It's the truth. Whatever that means, I know it’s going to take us many places.”
Hannah enjoyed the words. “We can go on trips together. That’s what married people do."