Home Free

by Dan Wakefield

  “What is it?” Gene asked.

  It didn’t matter now, but he was curious. He liked to know the names of things.

  “Acid,” she said.

  “But I mean does it have its own name, like the other was Clear Light?”

  “Blue Sea” she said.

  “It was purple.”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  She kissed his neck.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” he said.

  “In a while, little while …”

  Don’t press. Don’t lean. Lay back. Way back. Sway. Let it be. That’s the way.

  Bodies fall, diving, water splashing, lights on the pool, veranda, not white but gold, not gold like Laura’s hair, not so pure, but golden anyway, not harsh or spotlike. Bikinied bodies. A top taken off. Natural. Naturally. “Leeeeeee.… Loooooook.… Meeeee.” Party play, pretty people, playing. Boom! Final boom of band and crowd comes down from hill, and band, all in purple velvet, lean, tall, bless em all, over the long green lawn. Laughing. What about the Blue Sea? We’ll see. Let it happen, cap’n. Thongs. Sue standing over them, smiling, not seeming happy though, smoking regular cigarette, looking down on them, summons Laura just wants to borrow for a while well be sure you bring her back, Laura blows him a kiss, skips across lawn, onto into veranda, house, one of the many doors. Staying, swaying, Gene watches the water, how it pops open and spits with bodies falling in, and after a while he stands up, swaying, and seems to see it coming toward him. The water. Is this Blue Sea? Recede. It recedes. He is safe again for now but better find Laura find out how this sea thing works is the sea supposed to come out at you, she’ll know how to put it back, see, yes, she has control of the sea, goldchildgodchildgoldenhair find her, blind flash just for a second then back to light everything fine all right, laughter, shrieks, giggly tickly squeals, people come out a door, Gene tries another door, locked, but the next knob turns, opens, a guest room, double bed and table with lamp beside it, lamp on the overhead light, bright, a white vivid, door-framed photograph, lit in Gene’s mind like a blown-up color photograph in graphic detail:

  One of the band, his shirt and velvet jacket still on him, his velvet pants tangled down around the ankle-high black buckle boots on his feet, his white body writhing on the bed his tongue licking up at the black fur of Sue the girl from Xanadu her leather skirt pulled up around her waist as she rides up and down on his mouth while his cock high and swollen is leaping and turning to the lick of the small pink tongue of the other one her mouth goes down as the spastic spurt begins so she swallows some and some goes over her cheeks her long gold hair falling over his hips he arches with a scream and she looks up, licking some of it off her pink delicate lips, smiling, looks at Gene, says in her high little girl lilt:

  “We were going to do you later.”

  Insides coming out, spilling on his shoes, the blue and white Mexican tiles of the veranda, spoiled, lumpy pink, stinking, sinking, the sea, stop it, go, run, get to the room where the sea can’t get you she can’t get you nothing can get you again ever never no

  White.

  Ceiling. Walls. Room.

  Faces.

  Swimming.

  Blink, they stop.

  Barnes.

  Belle.

  Barnes is scared.

  Belle starts talking.

  “People shouldn’t try to commit suicide. They should read Trollope. Especially the Palliser novels. How can you go around trying to commit suicide when you haven’t even read the Palliser novels? You probably read these disgusting modern novels that don’t have any stories in them, and words put in queer places all over the page and rotten things like that.”

  “No,” he said, a feeble croak.

  “Then you go to these horrible modern movies, that’s what you do. You go to see Bergman and those foreign people and these modern Hollywood jerk directors who don’t have any plots and no wonder you get depressed and want to kill yourself. And on top of it all listening to that disgusting rock noise, it’s enough to make anyone deranged.”

  Belle didn’t put any blame on Laura or the acid because she didn’t know about Laura and as for the acid she enjoyed doing some from time to time and didn’t like to believe those lurid scare stories about the dangerous kind of bad trips people could have. She believed her bedside lecture, and also blamed the rotten influence of Ray Behr and blamed herself for getting Gene mixed up with him and his depraved associates. She was determined now to aid in Gene’s rehabilitation.

  That was fine with Gene. He figured he’d need all the help he could get.

  His hand was bandaged. Two fingers broken. His body was cut, scratched, and burned in a couple of places. Had someone beaten and tortured him? Yes. Himself. How?

  The Sea. The Blue Sea. The seal that came out of it. He had always been fond of seals, had loved to watch them slip through the water at the Aquarium in Boston. But back in the room that night at the Marmont when the Sea receded it let out the seal, it was there with one blink, a black, slimy, snarling beast with blood coming out of its mouth. Coming at him. He hit, hit it, hit it. Then it stopped coming at him and he was it. The seal. A black slimy thing, ugly and sick. He tried to scratch the slime off himself, then tried to burn it off with matches. Then he got the pills, tried to kill it with the pills, poison it to death. Almost did. Barnes came early to work on his script and found him.

  Laura. That last night of her bright in his mind still made him nauseous. But that one would fade, in time the colors would dim and the shapes would come unfocused. The one that freaked him was the seal, the blood-fanged ghoul from the great blue acid sea. That was no mental snapshot fixed in place, that was a real monster that had already made another flash appearance in his head. He didn’t know how he’d kill it off without getting himself in the process. Maybe he’d learn, maybe it would leave if he got himself together, started living better.

  He spent another night in the hospital and after a little talk with a tired shrink, he was released.

  ’Twas the night before Christmas.

  God knew what all was stirring through the Marmont.

  Not Gene.

  He read a MacDonald, sipped a beer, slept.

  Christmas at the Marmont. Telephone operator nipping from a guest’s gift bottle of holiday cheer. Rock stars dripping in the pool, assortment of groupies in brief bikinis draped around it, an actor from England with wife, kids, nanny, stretched on a lounge chair reading the Trades. No Santa Claus here—too fat to get in. Too old. Wrong clothes.

  Gene was glad Belle picked him up to go with her and Barnes to her parents’ house for dinner at noon. Scrambled eggs with chorizo, the sweet Mexican sausage, champagne Barnes brought, then gourmet gumbo, made and served by Belle’s mother, most gracious welcomer Gene had ever been welcomed by in any new place. She and Belle’s father took polite puffs off the joint that was passed, wanting to make Belle and friends feel at home, then, in the somnolence ensuing, Mother said, “Well, shall we all just lie around aimlessly awhile?” and they did, till sometime later Belle took Barnes and Gene on a walk to see how beautiful it was and it was, the curving streets and lanes, silence, the whiteness of houses instead of snow, just as good, and the soft warmth of the winter sun, in Hollywood, not the imaginary place of movies but the one where people lived.

  Walking back Gene feared that Barnes would blow the whole peaceful scene when he said, “Belle, why can’t you be more like your mother?”

  Gene braced himself for an onslaught, but Belle just sighed and said, “Why can’t everyone?”

  Her mother gave Gene a jar of preserves that he didn’t want to eat but preserve, like the day, the calm and soft of it, quiet relief from the jittery electric life he’d been into, the jangle and the din.

  God rest us merry gentlemen.

  VI

  The first step in Belle’s plan to cheer up Gene and give him a better outlook on life was to show him her artwork.

  She drove him out to her studio in Venice in the beat-up red Triu
mph given to her by a former boyfriend who was an actor. When he got his first big part he bought an XKE and took up with a woman whom Belle described as “one of those starlet hussies.” At any rate he gave his old Triumph to Belle “sort of as a going-away present,” she said.

  Belle propelled the car in a series of fits and starts, bucking and snorting, squealing and backfiring. She refused to drive on the freeways, for which Gene was thankful. She knew her beloved native city by heart and darted through all kinds of shortcut alleys and plunged along avenues, pointing out little-known stores or shops or restaurants that had earned her favor, explaining that avoiding freeways was not only safer but more educational, since you got to see more of the actual city. When Barnes that first day had spoken of Belle’s “loyalty” to Los Angeles, Gene could not have imagined its depth and ferocity, not yet having met Belle. When Barnes warned Gene about calling L.A. “plastic” in Belle’s presence, he hadn’t mentioned that Belle had lost all patience with people who mouthed that cliché, and instead of trying to “reason” with them anymore she simply kicked them in the shins. Hard.

  Belle’s studio was in a large sort of loft above a garage on a funky street four blocks back of the beach. It was rented by a hot young sculptor named Donley who had given Belle the use of an ample-sized corner for her own work. She had partitioned off her section with bookcases she had painted bright colors, to make it more her own. The main space of course, was given over to Donley, who worked exclusively in automobile tires.

  He piled them on top of one another, he cut them in halves and quarters, he tied them with ropes, he hung them from ceilings with chains, he painted them in vivid Day-Glo colors or covered them with velvet or leather or silk. He was regarded as one of the bright young men of the L.A. art scene, and had one-man shows about twice a year at the very chic galleries. Rich people bought his tires and hung them in their living rooms in Beverly Hills. Then they weren’t tires anymore, they were “Donleys.” That, Belle-explained, was how the art world worked.

  Belle thought Donley was wonderful and admired his ingenuity at what she called “hornswoggling the public,” though Donley never admitted to that, he stood by his work as genuine Art. And who could tell? A hundred years from now? Anyway he was nice to Belle and gave her the free space in his loft.

  “Was Donley one of your boyfriends?” Gene asked, beginning to be genuinely impressed with the number, variety, and talent of that category.

  “Well, not what I mean by a boyfriend he wasn’t, he’s not ever really anyone’s boyfriend, like living together or doing things with you. Donley just fucks people, and then he goes on and fucks other people. He isn’t a cad or anything, it’s just his way.”

  That was enough about Donley, now they would get to see Belle’s work.

  Gene was not prepared. He was speechless. Belle helped him out.

  “Aren’t they wonderful?” she said.

  The Palm Trees.

  Belle had more palm trees than Donley had tires. That was her art. Everything was palm trees. Paintings of palm trees of all shapes and sizes, in different places at different times of night and day: palm trees at sunset, palm trees by moonlight, palm trees by the ocean, palm trees on the street, individual palm trees, and rows of palm trees. In addition to the paintings there were ceramic palm trees and palm trees cut from beer cans, palm trees made of pipe cleaners and palm trees carved from wood.

  “They really are something!” Gene said.

  “Don’t you love them?”

  “Yes, I really do. I just hadn’t expected—all of them.”

  “Well, you can’t have too much of a good thing. Of a wonderful thing. To me, they’re just wonderful. Not only because they’re beautiful but because they mainly grow here as far as this country, so if you see a palm tree you think of Southern California. Or if you don’t you should.”

  “I see what you mean. Absolutely.”

  Belle sighed.

  “What gets my goat,” she said, looking at the other part of the loft, “is that Donley can sell all his tires to people for exorbitant sums and I can’t sell my palm trees. It isn’t fair.”

  “I agree.”

  He really did. He thought many of the palm trees were perfectly swell, and he would have far preferred one of those to a velvet-covered automobile tire. He found out, though, when he asked people, that Belle’s problem was not so much one of “art” but to put it gently of “public relations.” Friends had got gallery owners to look at her work, but fearing they might not like it Belle always attacked them before they could criticize her palm trees first. One wealthy gentleman of the L.A. art world who looked at her work had started to say something about the difficulty of introducing new artists, even very talented ones, and before he could finish Belle had called him a “gutless fag” and kicked him in the shins. She had also kicked in the shins of an influential lady gallery owner who had simply asked if Belle ever painted anything else but palm trees. So most of Belle’s paintings were sold to friends, or friends of friends. Her boyfriends all bought at least one palm tree during the course of the affair, sometimes at prices that demonstrated an appreciation of Belle as well as her art. But aside from such personal patrons there were genuine nonpartisan supporters of her work, there were palm trees hanging in distinguished homes from Beverly Hills to Malibu, and one as far north as Santa Barbara. That’s about as far north as she’d want one to go unless it was a special unusual person who lived up there. She considered San Francisco and its citizens almost as unredeemable as New York and the poor souls who didn’t know any better than to live in it.

  After Belle showed Gene her Art she showed him a little of Venice. The nicer part, around Washington Street and the pier. It wasn’t fancy by any means but there were some nice little bars and informal places to eat, a good fish joint, a new wine and cheese shop with tables where you could have a light lunch, a bar with sawdust on the floor, and a popcorn machine with bowls beside it so you could just scoop some out free to go with your beer. Ocean Front Walk was a straight little sidewalk that went along in front of the houses facing the beach. The houses were mostly one- or two-story, stucco and frame and fieldstone, pleasant-looking, individual, and unpretentious. They weren’t “beach houses,” they were just ordinary houses that happened to be on a beach. The beach was long and white and there were hardly any people on it. Gene asked if it got crowded in the spring and summer and Belle said no.

  “How come?” Gene asked. “It looks real nice.”

  “People don’t come to this beach,” Belle explained. “They go to the beach at Santa Monica.”

  “Oh.”

  They went out on the Venice pier, looking down at the ocean lapping at the posts, looking at the people, some strolling, some staring out to sea, some fishing. There were little kids and old men and a couple of young black guys, fishing with long rods, buckets beside them, cans of bait. At the end of the pier was a round wooden concession stand where you could buy hot dogs and coffee and pop. Everything was windy, and fresh. Gene even liked the strong fishy smell of things. They walked back and had salads and glasses of white wine at the wine and cheese place. Belle said this Venice was started in the twenties by some man or group of men who wanted to build a town that would be a California version of the other Venice. The one in Italy. They even dug the canals. Then the Depression came and the whole thing went bust and never really recovered. That’s why you still saw these ditches running through the place, some completely dry, some with a little stagnant green water, they were supposed to have been canals. Some artists and writers lived here and other people who liked it because it was cheap and funky and the beach was so pretty.

  “It’s different,” Gene said. “The feel of it. It’s kind of like a resort.”

  Belle giggled.

  “The last resort!” she said.

  Maybe so. Maybe that’s part of what he liked about it. Whatever it was, he was drawn to the place.

  He rode out to Venice with Belle again the next day
, figuring he’d nose around a little, play it by ear, see what came along.

  Belle invited him to join in a search for Donley, who hadn’t been at the studio for over a week and had promised to take some of her palm trees to a gallery owner he knew in Ojai. Gene didn’t have anything definite he was going to do, and said he’d be glad to help her track down Donley.

  The ingenious tire sculptor lived in a little ramshackle house the next street over from the loft-garage. A sleepy-looking girl in a man’s bathrobe opened the door and said Donley wasn’t home, she had no idea, where or when or if ever.

  “That was no lie,” Belle said as they walked away.

  “Where do we go now?” Gene asked, following Belle’s swift stride.

  “Uncle Phil’s.”

  “Donley’s uncle?”

  “Everyone’s.”

  Uncle Phil lived in a large red-brick apartment building shaped around a courtyard, facing right onto the ocean. A kid was playing with a toy train in the courtyard while a young woman wearing shorts and a tie-dye T-shirt looked on, smoking a cigarette. Belle looked around her and said Uncle Phil’s apartment was right on the ground floor but she could never remember what door it was, they all looked alike. None had numbers.

  Belle looked at the young woman and said, “Which one’s Uncle Phil’s door?”

  The woman shook her head, stood up, took the kid inside.

  Belle sighed.

  “That’s Venice for you.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They all protect each other. It’s nice, but it’s kind of paranoid. They think if you’re looking for someone you must be fuzz or a bill collector or a hit man. They’re very loyal, though, especially if you’ve committed a crime.”

  “A real neighborhood, huh?”

  “That’s the idea. At least here in the funky part. Some parts are just dull and ordinary and people go to work every day and don’t talk to each other just like everywhere else.”