“I think we’ve been here too long,” my aunt said.
“That is an understatement,” my father said, shifting in his chair.
“I want to leave,” my aunt said in a very far-off voice, eyes distant, her fingers clenched around the magazine.
“Well,” my grandfather spoke up. “We’d better get out of here before too soon. I’m turning as red as a tamale. Right, Clay?” He winked at me and opened his fifth beer.
“I’m going to make flight reservations today,” my aunt said.
One of my cousins was looking through a copy of the L.A. Times and mentioned something about a plane crash in San Diego. Everybody murmured, and plans for leaving were forgotten.
“How awful,” my aunt said.
“I think I would rather die in a plane crash than any other way,” my father said after some time.
“I think it would be dreadful.”
“But it would be nothing. You get bombed on the plane, take a Librium, and the plane takes off and crashes and you never know what hit you.” My father crossed his legs.
It was silent at the table. The only sounds came from my sisters and cousins splashing in the water.
“What do you think?” my aunt asked my mother.
“I try not to think about things like that,” my mother said.
“What about you, Mom?” my father asked my grandmother.
My grandmother, who hadn’t said anything all day, wiped her mouth and said very quietly, “I wouldn’t want to die in any way.”
I drive over to Trent’s house, but Trent, I remember, is in Palm Springs, so I drive to Rip’s place and some blond kid answers the door only wearing a bathing suit, the sunlamp in the living room burning. “Rip is gone,” the blond kid says. I leave, and as I’m pulling onto Wilshire, Rip pulls in front of me in his Mercedes, and leans out the window and says, “Spin and I are going to City Cafe. Meet us there.” I nod, follow Rip down Melrose, the license plate that reads “CLIMAXX” shimmering.
City Cafe is closed and there’s an old man in ragged clothing and an old black hat on, talking to himself, standing in front and when we pull up, he scowls at us. Rip unrolls his window and I drive up alongside him.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask him.
“Spin wants to go to Hard Rock.”
“I’ll follow you,” I tell him.
It starts to rain.
We get to Hard Rock Cafe and once we’re seated, Spin tells me that he got some great stuff this afternoon. There’s a man sitting at the table next to ours whose eyes are closed very tightly. The girl he’s sitting with doesn’t seem to mind and picks at a salad. When the man finally opens his eyes, I’m relieved for some reason. Spin’s still talking and when I try to change the subject and ask where Julian might be, Spin tells me that he once got ripped off on what was otherwise real good blow from Julian. Rip tells me that Julian has too many hang-ups.
“For one, he is constantly strung out.”
Spin looks at me and nods. “Strung out.”
“I mean he sells great coke and smack, but he shouldn’t sell it to junior high kids. That’s real low.”
“Yeah,” I say, taking this in. “Low.”
“Some people say that that thirteen-year-old kid who O.D.’d at Beverly bought the smack from Julian.”
I turn to Rip after a while. “What have you been doing?”
“Not too much. Took some animal tranquilizers last night with Warren and went to see The Grimsoles,” he says. “They were cool. Throwing rats out into the audience. Warren took one out to the car.” Rip looks down, giggles. “And killed it. Big rat too. Took him twenty, thirty minutes to kill the fucker.”
“I just got back from Vegas,” Spin says. “Derf and I drove down. Just hung out at my father’s hotel by the pool in our jocks. It was cool … I guess.”
“What have you been doing, dude?” Rip asks.
“Oh, not too much,” I say.
“Yeah, there’s not a whole lot to do anymore,” he says.
Spin agrees, nods.
After dinner we share a joint in the car as we drive out to Malibu to buy a couple of grams of coke from some guy named Dead. I’m sitting in the small back seat of Rip’s car and I thought that Rip had said, “We’re going to meet someone called Ed.” But when Spin said, “How do you know Dead is gonna be around?” and Rip said,
“Because Dead is always around,” I realized what the name was.
It seems that there’s a party at Dead’s house and some of the people there, mostly young boys, look at the three of us strangely, probably because Rip and Spin and I aren’t wearing bathing suits. We walk up to Dead, who’s in his midforties, wearing a pair of briefs, lying in a huge pile of pillows, two tan young boys sitting by his side watching HBO, and Dead hands Rip a large envelope. There’s a blond pretty girl in a bikini sitting behind Dead and she’s petting the head of the boy who’s on Dead’s left.
“You gotta be more careful, boys,” Dead lisps.
“Why’s that, Dead?” Rip asks.
“There are narcs crawling all over the Colony.”
“No. Really?” Spin asks.
“Yeah. Kid of mine was shot in the leg by a narc.”
“No way. Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus.”
“The guy was seventeen, for Christ’s sake. Shot in the fucking leg. Maybe you know him.”
“Who was it?” Rip asks. “Christian?”
“No. Randall. Goes to Oakwood. Huh?”
Spin shakes his head and “Hungry Like the Wolf” bursts out of the speakers that are attached to the ceiling, above Dead’s balding, sweaty head.
“You gotta be more careful.”
“Yeah. You gotta be more careful,” Spin says, licking his lips at the girl whose fingers are still running through the blond boy’s hair. Blond boy winks at me, pouts his lips.
In the car, Spin tastes the coke and says that it’s cut with too much novocaine. Rip says that at this point he doesn’t care and that he just wants to do some. Rip turns the radio up and keeps screaming happily “What’s gonna happen to all of us?” And Spin keeps screaming back, “All of who, dude? All of who?” We do some of the coke and then go to an arcade in Westwood and play video games for close to two hours and end up spending something like twenty bucks apiece and we stop playing only because we run out of quarters. Rip only has one-hundred-dollar bills on him and the arcade won’t give him change. So Rip stuffs the bills back into his pocket and yells fuck off to the guy working at the change booth and the three of us go back to his car and finish the rest of the coke.
Blair’s father is having this party for a young Australian actor whose new film is opening in L.A. next week. Blair’s dad is trying to get the actor to star in the new film he’s producing, some thirty-million-dollar science fiction adventure film called Star Raiders. But the Australian actor’s price is too high. I go to the party to try to talk to Blair, but I haven’t seen her yet, only a lot of actors and Blair’s friends from film school at U.S.C. Jared’s there and he keeps trying to pick up on the Australian actor. Jared keeps asking him if he’s seen “The Twilight Zone” with Agnes Moorehead, and the Australian actor keeps shaking his head and saying, “No, mate.” Jared mentions other episodes of the show and the Australian actor, who’s sweating profusely and drinking his fourth rum and coke, keeps telling Jared that he hasn’t seen any of “The Twilight Zone” episodes he’s talking about. Finally, the actor walks away from Jared, and Jared’s joined by his new boyfriend, not the waiter from Morton’s but a costume designer who worked on Blair’s father’s last film, and who might, or might not, work on the costumes for Star Raiders. The Australian actor walks over to his wife, who ignores him. Kim tells me that the two of them got into a fight this afternoon and that she left their bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in a rage and went to an expensive hair salon on Rodeo and had all her hair chopped off. Her hair’s red and cut close to the scalp and when she turns her hea
d to a different angle, I can catch patches of white beneath the spiked hair.
Talk of the damage the storms caused at Malibu is brought up and someone mentions that the entire house next to theirs collapsed. “Just like that. One minute it was there. The next—whoosh … Just like that.” Blair’s mother nods her head as she listens to the director who’s telling her this and her lips are trembling and she keeps glancing over at Jared. I’m about to go over and ask her where Blair is, but some people, a couple of actors and actresses and a director and some studio executives enter, and Blair’s mother walks over to them. They’ve just come from the Golden Globe Awards. One of the actresses sweeps into the room and hugs the costume designer and whispers to him loudly, “Marty just lost, get him a whiskey neat, fast, and get me a vodka collins before I collapse, will you, darling?”
The costume designer snaps his fingers at the black, gray-haired bartender and says, “Did you hear that?” The bartender rises out of his stupor a little too quickly, a little too unconvincingly and makes the actress her drinks. People begin to ask her who won what at the Golden Globes. But the actress and most of the actors and producers and studio executives have forgotten. The director, Marty, remembers and he recites each name carefully and if someone asks who they were up against, the director will look straight ahead and tell them, in alphabetical order.
I start to talk to one of the boys who goes to film school at U.S.C. He’s very tan and has the beginnings of a blond beard and wears glasses and ripped Tretorn tennis shoes and he keeps talking about the “aesthetic indifference” in American movies. The two of us are sitting alone in the den and soon Alana and Kim and Blair walk in. They sit down. Blair doesn’t look at me. Kim touches the boy from film school’s leg and says, “I called you last night, where were you?” And he says, “Jeff and I smoked a couple of bowls and then went to a screening of the new Friday the 13th movie.” I look over at Blair, try to make eye contact, get her attention. But she won’t look over at me.
Jared and Blair’s father and the director of Star Raiders and the costume designer walk in and sit down and the talk soon turns to the Australian actor and Blair’s father asks the director, who’s wearing a Polo sweatsuit and dark glasses, why the actor is in town.
“I think he’s here to see if he got nominated for an Oscar. The nominations come out soon, you know.”
“For that piece of shit?” Blair’s father barks.
He calms down and looks over at Blair, who sits by the fireplace, near where the Christmas tree used to be, and she looks depressed. Her father motions for her. “Come here, baby, sit on daddy’s lap.” And Blair stares at him incredulously for a moment and then looks down, smiles and walks out of the room. No one says anything. After a while the director clears his throat and says that if they can’t get that “fuckin’ Aussie” to be in Star Raiders, then who’s going to star in it? Some names go around.
“What about that delicious boy who was in Beastman!? You know who I’m talking about, Clyde.” The costume designer looks over at the director, who’s scratching his chin, deep in thought.
Blair walks back in with a drink and looks over at me and I look away and pretend to be interested in the conversation.
The costume designer slaps his knee and says, “Marco! Marco!” He yelps the name again. “Marco … uh, Marco … Ferr … Ferra … oh shit, I have completely forgotten.”
“Marco King?”
“No, no, no.”
“Marco Katz?”
Exasperated, the costume designer shakes his head and says, “Did anyone see Beastman!?”
“When did Beastman! come out?” Blair’s father asks.
“Beastman! came out last fall, I think.”
“Did it? I thought I saw it at the Avco over the summer.”
“But I saw a screening of it over at MGM.”
“It didn’t even open at the Avco,” someone says.
“I think you’re talking about Marco Ferraro,” Blair says.
“Yeah, that’s it,” the costume designer says. “Marco Ferraro.”
“I thought he O.D.’d,” Jared says.
“Yeah, Beastman!, that was pretty good,” the film student says to me. “See it?”
I nod, looking over at Blair. I didn’t like Beastman! and I ask the film student, “Didn’t it bother you the way they just kept dropping characters out of the film for no reason at all?”
The film student pauses and says, “Kind of, but that happens in real life .…”
I stare ahead, at Blair.
“I mean, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.” She won’t look at me.
“Marco Ferraro?” Blair’s father asks. “Is he a dago?”
“He’s gorgeous,” Kim sighs.
“Total babe,” Alana nods.
“Really?” the director asks, grinning, leaning toward Kim. “Who else do you think is … gorgeous?”
“Yeah, girls,” Blair’s father says. “Maybe you can give us some input.”
“Just remember,” Jared says. “No great actors. Just some guy whose ass looks as good as his face.”
The costume designer nods and says, “Absolutely.”
“Daddy, you know I’ve been asking you to put Adam Ant or Sting in the movie,” Blair says.
“I know, I know, honey. Clyde and I have been talking it over and if you really want it that bad, I think something can be arranged. What do you think about Adam Ant or Sting in Star Raiders?” he asks Alana and Kim.
“I’d see it,” Kim says.
“I’d see it twice,” Alana says.
“I’d get it on videocassette,” Kim acids.
“I agree with Blair,” Blair’s father says. “I think we should seriously look into Adam Ant or String.”
“That’s Sting, daddy.”
“Yeah, Sting.”
Clyde smiles and looks at Kim. “Yeah, let’s get Sting. Whaddya think about that, honey?”
Kim blushes and says, “That would be great.”
“We’ll call him and Adam for readings next week.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” Blair says.
“Anything you want, baby.”
“You better check his bod out first, Clyde,” says Jared, looking concerned.
“Oh, we will, we will,” Clyde says, still smiling at Kim. “Wanna be there when we do it?”
Blair finally looks at me with this pained look in her eyes and I look over at Kim, almost ashamed, then angry.
Kim blushes once more and says, “Maybe.”
Julian hasn’t called me since I gave him the money and so I decide to call him the next day. But I don’t have his number and so I call Rip, but Rip’s gone, some young kid tells me so I call Trent’s apartment and Chris answers and tells me that Trent’s still in Palm Springs and then asks if I know anyone who has any meth. I finally call Blair and she gives me Julian’s number and when I’m about to tell her that I’m sorry about the night at After Hours, she says she’s got to go and hangs up. I call the number and a girl with a really familiar voice answers.
“He’s either in Malibu or Palm Springs.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, can I have the number at either of those places?”
“All I know is that he’s staying at the house in Rancho Mirage or at the house in the Colony.” She stops and seems unsure. “That’s all I know.” There’s a long pause. “Who is this? Finn?”
“Finn? No. I just need the number.”
There’s another pause and then a sigh. “Okay, listen. I don’t know where he is. Oh, shit … I can’t tell you this. Who is this?”
“Clay.”
There’s a longer pause.
“Listen,” I say. “Don’t tell him I called. I’ll just get in touch with him later.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I start to hang up.
“Finn?” she asks.
I hang up.
That night I go to a party at Kim’s
house and end up meeting someone, Evan, who tells me that he’s a close friend of Julian’s. And the next day we go to McDonald’s after he gets out of school. It’s around three in the afternoon, and Evan sits across from me.
“So, is Julian in Palm Springs?” I ask him.
“Palm Springs is great,” Evan says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Do you know if he’s there?”
“I love it. It’s the most fuckin’ beautiful place in the world. Maybe you and I can go up there sometime,” he says.
“Yeah, sometime.” What does that mean?
“Yeah. It’s great. So’s Aspen. Aspen’s hot.”
“Is Julian there?”
“Julian?”
“Yeah, I heard he might be down there.”
“Why would Julian be at Aspen?”
I tell him I have to go to the restroom. Evan says sure. I go to the phone instead and call Trent, who got back from Palm Springs and ask him if he saw Julian there. He tells me no and that the coke he got from Sandy sucks and that he has too much of it and he can’t sell it. I tell Trent that I can’t find Julian and that I’m strung out and tired. He asks me where I am.
“In a McDonald’s in Sherman Oaks,” I tell him.
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