by Lee Goldberg
She came over to Marty now and leaned down to check his blood bag. "How are you doing?"
"Fine."
Angie wasn't wearing a bra and he was ashamed of himself for noticing. He was on his way home to his wife in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in history. Beth could be dead, or critically injured. What kind of guy would leer at a woman's breasts at a time like this?
Any guy.
Marty shifted his gaze to her face, hoping she didn't notice where it was before. "I never got a chance to thank you."
"For what?" she smiled.
Leaning over. "Saving my life. I could have gotten shot back there."
"It's what you deserve," Drillface lisped. "Scumbag."
Marty turned to him. "I paid for the damn shoes, and I would have paid for them whether you showed up with a shotgun or not." He looked at Angie again and lowered his voice. "You believe me, don't you?"
"No," she said. "And I don't care one way or the other."
"As long as you get my blood."
"Yep."
"Well, I'm still grateful to you."
"We're even." She gently brushed the hair away from the gash on his forehead and studied the wound. "That's a nasty cut. Were you unconscious for any period of time?"
"I think so. It's hard to say." Especially with her breasts in his face again. He tried to look somewhere else, but his eyeballs were caught by the tractor beam shooting out of her cleavage.
"Uh-huh," she reached over to a medical kit, poured something on a cotton ball, and dabbed at his cut. That broke the tractor beam.
"Ouch!" Marty squirmed. "Is that soaked with alcohol or bleach?"
"Sit still. Have you experienced any blurred or abnormal vision?"
"Yeah," he winced.
"Pussy," Buck said. "A real man would put a horsehair in the wound, cherish the sweet pain of infection, and wear the scar with pride."
Marty opened his eyes and saw Buck standing beside him, munching a handful of Oreos.
"I'm glad I'm not a real man," Marty replied. "I'll live longer."
Angie dabbed at his wound some more. "Is that what you were trying to prove back there? That you're a real man?"
"I just wanted to buy a new pair of shoes," Marty glanced back at Drillface, who sneered at him.
"And what about the guns?" she asked.
Marty glanced at Buck. "That wasn't my idea."
She leaned back, looking at him with concern. "Have you experienced dizziness, poor balance, or nausea?"
"Not in the last few minutes, but yeah, I have."
"I don't like the look of that laceration, or the bruising and swelling. I wish I'd examined it closer before, I wouldn't have taken your blood."
"It looks worse than it is," Marty said. "It didn't bleed that much."
Marty didn't mention the gunshot wound. His jacket was so torn and dirty, she must not have noticed the bloody rip in his shoulder. If he pointed it out, she'd probably tell the nearest police officer, and then he'd be stuck here for hours.
Besides, it's just a flesh wound, right?
"I'm going to clean that cut, stitch it up, then give you a tetanus shot. After that, you should stay put for a while."
"Eat my cookies and juice, I know."
"I meant until a doctor can take a look at you."
"I thought a doctor was."
"I'm a nurse practitioner."
Buck snorted. "A real man would crawl into an earthen shelter and apply a poultice of cow dung, bacon fat, and crushed leaves. Fuck this cotton ball shit."
"Ignore him," Marty told Angie.
"I think you may have a concussion," she gave him a grave look. As grave looks go, it was pretty good, but Marty still wasn't worried. He didn't know anything about medicine, but he was an experienced TV viewer.
"Mannix had thousands of them. All he did was rub the back of his neck and jump into his convertible. How serious could it be?"
"Nothing five Advil and a beer can't cure," Buck opined.
She sighed. Not just any sigh, but one that expressed her deep disapproval, frustration, and scorn. Women were particularly good at the sigh. Marty figured it must be genetic, that Neanderthal women sighed in exactly the same way as their mates returned to the cave.
"You really should wait and see a doctor," Angie said.
"I can't. I've got to get home."
"Where's that?"
"Calabasas."
"That's too far. You shouldn't be walking, not until you've had a neurological exam."
"And how many days until that happens?"
Angie didn't say anything, which told him all he needed to know. She sighed, a completely different sigh than the one before. This one signaled her reluctant acceptance. Marty motioned to the helicopter idling on the field.
"If you're so concerned about my health, how about having one of those choppers drop me off at home next time they pass over the valley?"
"Unfortunately, it's not a taxi service. I wish it was."
"Where would you go?"
"My mother lives in Marina del Rey. A condo two blocks from the beach. They say the ground under everything turned into quicksand."
"I'm sorry."
Angie shrugged. "I'm sure she's alive. I would feel it if she wasn't, know what I mean?"
Marty nodded, wanting to believe that was true, not only for her, but for himself.
Angie removed the needle in his arm, taped a cotton ball against the pin-prick, and told him she'd come back to take care of his forehead in a few minutes. She left Marty with a pack of Oreos and a small carton of orange juice.
Buck watched her go. "Did you see how she was trying not to look at me?"
"She was ignoring you. There's a difference." Marty wasn't in the mood for Buck right now.
"She wants a slice of the big pie."
"The what?"
"She needs the incredible Buck Fuck."
Marty couldn't believe Buck's insensitivity, not that he was Michael Bolton himself. "She hates you, that's why she was ignoring you."
"You don't know shit about romance," Buck hiked up his pants, ran a finger over his teeth, and wiped it on his shirt. "Stay here, I don't want you cramping my style."
As Buck marched off to offend Angie, Marty lay back on his cot and sipped some orange juice.
The cut on his forehead stung. He'd need stitches. The scar would give him character. And as he thought about it, Marty realized maybe Buck was right. He didn't know much about romance, not that the "incredible Buck Fuck" qualified.
Five years ago, Marty was still single and living as a freelance reader, taking a stack of scripts home each week to synopsize and critique for various studios. He was sitting in his apartment one day, reading a buddy-cop screenplay he was going to trash in his report—a script that would, two years later, become one of the highest grossing movies of all time—when his phone rang.
It was the UCLA Medical Center Emergency Room. Beth had been hit by a car in Westwood and gave his name as an emergency contact. They needed him to come down right away.
All at once, he experienced a string of clichés: his heart skipped a beat, his knees wobbled, and he had trouble breathing. Those feelings he expected. What surprised him was the terror. The idea that he nearly lost her, that she might be suffering right now, made him want to scream.
Marty demanded to know details, what kind of injuries she had, how badly she was hurt. But the nurse wouldn't answer his question; she just told him to come down as soon as possible.
He made the drive from their apartment in West LA up to Westwood in about fifteen minutes, running two red lights and nearly hitting a bike rider himself. Marty could barely see through his tears or think past his terror.
He was her emergency contact? He didn't know that. When did that happen? When did she decide to give him that responsibility for her? When did he become more important to her than her family?
Marty parked, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and told himself to be strong. For he
r. He was her Emergency Contact.
Family Feud was on the TV in the ER waiting room as Marty rushed in. None of the worried people sitting in the stiff, plastic chairs were watching it. He knew his face looked just like theirs.
Marty went up to the desk, told them he was Beth's emergency contact, and they led him to one of the large rooms. Three gurneys were separated from one another by curtains. A little boy was sobbing, clutching his parents, as a doctor removed a nail from his foot. A woman in her twenties lay in a bed, covered with hives, reading People Magazine. And on the next gurney was Beth, her eyes closed, a big, open gash across her chin.
Her blouse was splashed with blood. Her legs, arms, and cheeks were covered with scratches. He swallowed a scream and rushed to her side, afraid to touch her.
"Beth?"
Her eyes opened and she smiled, grabbing his hand. "Oh, Marty, I'm so sorry."
"What are you apologizing for?"
"Scaring the shit out of you. I'm fine."
"It's okay," he said. "God, don't worry about it."
"I told them not to call you, but they insisted," she caught him staring at all the blood on her clothes. "It's nothing, Marty, really. It's from this cut on my chin. Nothing's broken, just a lot of scrapes and bruises."
Marty was so relieved, he thought he might start crying again. He willed himself not to. Emergency Contacts don't cry. They provide strength and reassurance.
"What happened?"
"I was crossing the street and this car came charging around the corner. You would have loved it, I dived out of the way like T. J. Hooker," she smiled again, which opened her chin wound like a second mouth. "Only T. J. would have gotten the guy's license number."
The cut on her chin was deep, right down to the bone, and still bleeding. His chin hurt just looking at it. He hurt everywhere she did and he wished that was enough to take the pain from her, to transfer it to him. If he could do that, he would.
"What do the doctors say?" Marty asked.
"They want to take a bunch of x-rays, just to be sure, and they want to stitch my chin. I don't know if they're listening to me, so promise me you won't let one of the interns sew me up. Get a plastic surgeon."
"Okay."
"Make sure it's a plastic surgeon. A scar could ruin my acting career."
If she was worried about that, she really was fine. "A little scar didn't hurt Harrison Ford."
"He's a man," she said, "it's different for them."
Marty smiled and squeezed her hand. He wanted to hug her, to let her know how full of love and relief he was right now.
"What are you smiling about?" she said, stifling a smile of her own.
"Nothing."
"I'm in pain here." She squeezed his hand back.
"I know."
"You're still smiling."
"Marry me."
The words came out of him with no warning, no thought. But when Marty heard himself say it, he didn't want to take it back or turn it into a joke. He knew it was right and that he meant it.
"What did you say?" she stared at him.
"I said marry me."
"I'm not going to die," she said, her lip trembling. "You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do. I realize now I should have done it a long time ago. I've taken you and what you bring to my life for granted. I never will again."
Tears streamed out of her eyes, but not from the pain or fear. She smiled. "I suppose if the marriage doesn't work, I can always say I was under duress and on drugs when you asked."
"Is that a yes?"
She nodded. He leaned down, and as gently as he possibly could, kissed her.
A plastic surgeon did sew Beth up (and, years later, the scar was barely visible) and while she was being x-rayed, a nurse played on Marty's concern for Beth and got him to donate blood for accident victims not as lucky as his wife. In an odd way, giving blood made him feel a lot better, the same way it did now.
Lying on the cot, on the football field of Fairfax High School, a landscape of destruction between him and Beth, he almost felt as though he could touch her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Swimming Pools, Movie Stars
12:32 p.m. Wednesday
Marty was anxious to leave and wasn't going to wait around to have his wound stitched up. He did his bit for the disaster relief effort and wanted to get moving before they tried to get him to do more. There was still the Santa Monica Mountains and a smog-choked valley between him and Beth.
He got up and looked for Buck, which meant he had to wander among the wounded with his eyes open and his head up, really seeing their faces for the first time. They were all the same. It didn't matter whether they were injured or not, or how seriously they were hurt. They all shared the same body language, the same expression. It wasn't terror, sorrow, or pain, though there was plenty of that, too. They all looked lost. Everything they were connected to was gone. Their homes, their jobs, their families, their own bodies, the ground beneath their feet, all shattered.
Marty remembered walking away from that collapsed overpass after rescuing Franklin. The first thing he noticed was Bob Baker's Marionette Theatre and he couldn't figure out how or why it existed. Back then, he didn't see the relevance of puppetry in a modern world. Now he did.
They were all puppets, animated by the properties, responsibilities, and relationships they were tied to, all the things that were missing now. The earthquake cut all those strings.
Marty knew he wasn't any different. He was grasping for that one string he had left, the one that led back to Beth.
And Buck, he was holding on to the one thin string that kept him alive: his tough-guy, bounty hunter persona. He needed to be a hero, to constantly prove his guts, to make a decisive move in a life-or-death situation, which was why he probably went out of his way to create those situations when fate didn't bother to.
At least that was Marty's instant pop-psychology take on things. It was probably simplistic and too easy, but it was the best explanation he'd come up with yet for Buck's impenetrable, one-dimensional personality.
He found Buck on a stretcher, giving blood, eating Oreos. It made Marty angry. Buck was the last person he expected to find lying around when they should be on the move.
"What are you doing? You already gave blood."
"Actually, I didn't. I was just eating their cookies."
Marty glanced at his watch. It was nearly 1 o'clock and he still had a long way to go. "Damn it, Buck. Why couldn't you have done this while I was doing it? Now it's going to take twice as long to get out of here and I want to get going."
"So go."
It wasn't a malicious retort. Buck said it casually, without malice or bitterness, taking Marty completely by surprise. Marty didn't know what to make of it.
"You mean it?"
"They need me here. Giving blood. Crowd control. Guarding the cookies. Whatever. I want to do my part. Maybe I'll even get one of those slick windbreakers."
Buck was trying to look at something, but Marty was in the way. Marty followed Buck's gaze, and saw Angie bending over a box of supplies, her back to them. It was a nice back.
"You really think you've got a chance with her?"
"Wrong question, kemosabe," Buck grinned. "What you should be asking is: how long can she control her natural urges?"
Marty couldn't recall anything Angie said or did that could have made Buck so hopeful. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe she wasn't the real reason Buck wanted to stay. It came back to strings. He might have found his here.
Buck was always looking for opportunities to prove his heroism and his courage, and this one was ready-made. And best of all, there was a woman he could impress doing it. If Buck was really lucky, maybe he'd even get a chance to shoot someone.
"But if you need me," Buck said. "I'll yank this fucking needle out of my arm right now and we'll get the hell out of here."
Marty smiled. Everything Buck just said seemed to confirm Marty's conclusions about him. For the
first time, he thought he really understood who Buck was.
"I think I'll be all right. They need all the help they can get here and, unlike you, I'm too selfish to stay."
"You got family responsibilities, Marty, that's not selfish. That's being a fucking man. I'll catch up to you later, make sure everything is okay."
"Any time, Buck." Much to Marty's surprise, he realized he actually meant it. "You know where I live. I'll leave your name with the guard at the gate, assuming there's still a guard and a gate."
Buck held out his hand to Marty. "We've been through battle together. That's a bond that can never be broken."
Marty shook it, put some real emotion into it this time. Somewhere back there, Buck became his friend and now they both acknowledged it.
"This is the third time we've said good-bye," Marty said. "I think we're getting better at it."
"Just try not to bring a big fucking wave down on me this time."
Marty smiled and walked away, marveling at how strange his life had become. He'd just invited the guy who shot him to stop by his house any time.
Wait until Beth hears about that, he thought.
And then, for the first time since the earthquake, he had a good, hearty laugh.
* * * * *
1:00 p.m. Wednesday
Los Angeles wasn't so much a city as it was the undefined space between many small towns that had grown too close together. Unless there was an obvious cultural landmark, like the Chinese Theatre or Rodeo Drive, it wasn't always easy to know where you actually were.
Marty didn't know when, exactly, he left Hollywood and entered West Hollywood. Had he been a few blocks north, on Santa Monica Boulevard, it would have been obvious.
From the east, West Hollywood began roughly where the Pussycat Theatre once stood. The theatre was still there, but around the time West Hollywood became a city, it transformed into the Tomcat, showing fare like I Love Foreskin, to better serve the community.
From the west, Doheny Drive was a definitive boundary line, with large signs on grassy plots on either end of the intersection informing travelers the instant they crossed into chic Beverly Hills or gay West Hollywood. The only thing missing was razor wire and a mine field.