by John Kaye
“Warren said that? Really?”
“I shit you not.”
“Was Ben good?”
“Intense, man. He was intense,” Snake said, and he pointed to the tequila in Burk’s lap. “You mind if I have a taste?” Burk passed the bottle through the open window and Snake tipped it up to his mouth for two long swallows. “Let me tell you something,” he said, closing one eye and peering down at the set. “I know everyone thought Warren was crazy to cast unknowns in those parts. At least Crumpler’s done a soap. But the chick, that took some cojones, man. The word in the street was that Fonda was considered.”
“Dunaway too. Paramount almost canceled the picture when Warren changed his mind.”
Snake squeezed Burk’s shoulder, uncapped the tequila, and swallowed again. “Fucker knows what he’s doing. I don’t know where he found those people, but they’re good. I mean they’re fuckin’ real.”
“Unlike those hippies down there.”
“Tell me about it. Fuckin’ casting blew it,” Snake said, getting to his feet. He shaded his eyes, looking off to the west where the sun was burning through a cloud shaped like a gray heart. “But don’t worry, I got my people down on the boulevard bringing in a new batch.” Snake flashed Burk a wink. “And remember, everyone down there on this picture believes in your script.” Snake handed back the bottle and rapped the hood twice with his knuckle. “Picture time,” he said. “I gotta get back to work.”
Burk shifted his car into reverse and made a U-turn in front of a studio van that was pulling into the parking lot. Inside were the new extras: unpleasant-looking men and women with pallid faces that were gouged with failure and disillusionment. A woman with a yellow bruise on her cheek caught Burk’s eye. When he smiled, the boy in the seat behind her—he was ten at the most—leaned out the window and spit on Burk’s windshield. Burk gave him the finger and the kid gave it back with both hands, spitting and cursing, until someone shouted, “Cool it, Alan,” and pulled him back inside by his hair.
Burk continued driving through the park until he found an open but nearly empty parking lot on Los Feliz Boulevard, next to the riding stables. Using a narrow footpath that circled around the tennis courts and the children’s zoo, he was able to approach the movie’s location undetected through a dense wood. A dove called softly while he rested for a moment in the shelter of a mammoth oak tree; then, lighting a cigarette, he crouched down to watch the activity below him through the haze and rising heat.
Jon Warren was sitting in his canvas chair, talking to the wardrobe designer, an uptight-looking woman wearing purple pedal pushers and purple-tinted granny glasses. After a few moments he dismissed her with a wave, got up, and moved over to where Chickie Green was watching the grips build the camera platform. They were joined by Snake Myers, who tapped his watch and pointed at the clouds rolling in from the west. Warren nodded his head. Then he took Myers by the elbow and walked him over to a trailer that was used as a dressing room and toilet. There was a short conversation that ended when Myers slipped what looked like a vial of cocaine into Warren’s hand and strolled off wearing a crooked grin.
Burk heard a sound behind him and turned and saw a boy standing motionless a short distance away: the same boy with the fever-red eyes who spit on his windshield earlier that morning. A woman, emaciated and as white as salt, appeared from behind a large gray rock and stood there next to the boy in a rectangle of sunlight, twisting her hands nervously.
Burk was suddenly aware that he recognized this odd pair. Two years ago, when he drove endlessly through the streets of East Hollywood, he used to see them several times a week, noticing them because the mother—that’s who he assumed she was—always seemed to be in such a tremendous hurry, speed-walking up the sidewalk with the boy pulled along in her wake, running every few steps to keep up.
The first time he saw them he thought the boy was late for school, but then he began seeing them not only in the morning but at odd hours in the middle of the day, moving at the same frantic pace, their heads bobbing crazily as they deftly quick-stepped through the traffic on some unknown mission.
One time they nearly collided with Burk while he stood outside Ernie’s Stardust Lounge, lighting a cigarette with his back against the wind. When they passed by, he saw the woman’s mouth moving silently, her expression both a grimace and a grin. The boy’s face had an odd air of mischief, and there was an Archie comic book rolled up in his rear pocket. Who were they? Burk wondered at the time. And why were they always in such a rush? If they were really mother and son, where was the father, and why wasn’t the boy in school?
Burk stood up. “Who are you?” he asked the woman, keeping his voice low and one eye on the boy.
The woman didn’t answer, just stared at him with a madwoman’s eyes, swallowing and working her jaw. Finally the boy said arrogantly, “Who the hell are you?”
“I asked you first.”
The boy grinned slightly and made a weird gesture with his right hand, like he was getting ready to salute. “They said they’d pay us,” the woman said in a lifeless voice, “but Alan don’t want to do that.”
“Do what?”
“They want him to be someone else’s child.”
“I want to be with my mom,” the boy said, seizing her hand.
“They don’t want me in the movie,” the woman said. “They say I don’t look right.”
Burk’s facial expression tightened slightly. He felt annoyingly vulnerable. After several seconds he turned away and looked down at the set. The catering truck had arrived and two long tables were being filled with huge platters of food. Nearby, a couple of extras in costume were throwing a Frisbee across the grass behind an empty bandstand.
“I’ve seen you before,” Burk said, bringing his eyes back to the woman. “Both of you. I’ve seen you walking through Hollywood.”
The woman took a step forward, still holding the boy’s hand. “We’ve seen you, too.”
“What’re you doin’ up here?” the boy said quickly, staring at Burk with a strange combination of boldness and fear.
“I’m hiding.”
“From who?”
“From—”
“Everyone,” the woman said, her face taking on an almost lifelike color. “He’s hiding from everyone. Just like us.”
“Where are you calling from now, Ray?”
“Ernie’s. This bar on Hollywood Boulevard.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I’ve had a few.”
“You sound drunk,” Maria said. Burk dropped a quarter into the jukebox and punched P-5. When Maria spoke again, her voice was stern but careful. “Ray, listen to me. It wasn’t such a good idea to show up at the location.”
“I wrote the movie, Maria.”
“And everyone knows that, especially Warren, but he’s calling the shots. So just let him do his job. Okay?”
“What about dailies?”
“What about them?”
“Do I get to see them?”
“I don’t know. I’ll talk to Sanford. Again, it’s up to Warren. If he doesn’t want you in the screening room, then it’s tough shit. I’ve got to take another call,” Maria said suddenly. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear anything.”
When Burk came back to his bar stool, there was a fresh shot of Cuervo Gold waiting for him. Miles told him it was on the house. Burk thanked him silently with a nod and a woman down the bar said, “How’s your kid?” Burk turned and looked at her: one eye was closed and she was squinting over the top of her cigarette. “He don’t remember me,” the woman said to Miles, exhaling a great cloud of smoke.
“It’s been a long time, hon. Almost two years.”
“My hair used to be blond and wavier. I used to wear it like Esther Williams. This is not my real hair,” she said to Burk.
Miles said, somberly, “Alice’s been sick.”
“I’m sorry,” Burk said.
“Down below. In the hot spot. But I’m fighting it,” she s
aid, her lips twisting into a painful grin. She was silent once more, then: “So, back to your son. Louie, right?” Burk nodded, wondering, How does she know this? “What is he now, six?”
“He’ll be seven in June.”
“I’m sixty-two and a half,” she said, chuckling softly, and Miles was smiling now too. “You still don’t remember me, do you?” Burk shook his head. “Alice. Alice McNair. I worked at Columbia, in wardrobe.”
“Okay,” Burk said, nodding, his memory finally becoming un-snagged. “Sure.”
“We used to talk about the old days. I worked with Rita Hayworth on Cover Girl.”
“Now I remember.”
“Before chemo I was like this,” Alice said, making a large circle with her arms.
Miles said, “Alice was at the track the day your wife had the miscarriage.”
“That’s right. I was there,” she said with certainty. “I was standing right alongside her in the grandstand. Of course I didn’t know you guys were married until later that evening. When Miles told me the story I put two and two together.” Alice leaned forward and looked Burk in the face. “Boy, she could sure play the horses.”
Burk stopped a smile and made a thoughtful face. “You know,” he said, “I don’t remember talking about Sandra and Louie in here.”
“Talked about them all the time,” a man behind him said in a sardonic voice. Burk looked over his shoulder: A stringy white-haired man sat alone at a table against the far wall. He wore a dirty tweed hat, and his hands and arms trembled with Parkinson’s disease. “Of course, you were so liquored up you don’t remember.”
“That’s Martin Epstein,” Miles said. “He used to sit here.” Miles slapped the bar with his palm. “Right under the TV.”
“Until my arms started flappin’ and knockin’ over glasses and ashtrays. Now he’s got me down here in the flats where it’s safe.”
“Martin owned the magic shop over on Wilcox,” Alice said. “Martin’s Magic Kingdom. When we lived on Yucca I used to bring my boy by almost every day after school. He made me buy loads and loads of those little red and blue metal soldiers.”
“The Civil War guys. I had a set of those,” Burk said. “I saved them and gave them to Louie.”
Miles caught Burk’s eye. “Alice’s son died in Vietnam,” he whispered, shielding his mouth with his hand. “Paratrooper.”
Martin Epstein raised the cane that was resting in his lap and pointed the rubber tip at Burk. “I knew him since he was a kid. Him and his brother. Came in on Saturdays. Am I right?” Burk didn’t remember but nodded anyway. “I knew your father, too,” Martin Epstein said. “So did all the big-shot actors—Fonda, Mitchum, the whole bunch. They all got their hometown rags from your dad. ‘I’ll meet you down at Nate’s’—how many times did I hear that? Or ‘Goin’ down to Nate’s; I’ll be back in ten.’
“I remember when he first came to town with your mom. Had the little stand over on Gower and Fountain. Carried the trades and the Racing Form and the local dailies. That was it. Then—bingo—couple of years later he’s over on Las Palmas with racks runnin’ from here to Tijuana. If I remember correctly, it was Frank Havana who set him up there.”
“My dad worked his ass off,” Burk said. “Nobody set him up anywhere.”
Martin Epstein made a guilty face. “Havana and your dad were friends,” he said, bowing his head. “I know that for sure. Seen them every week sittin’ ringside at the Hollywood Legion Stadium.” Martin Epstein’s hand jerked in front of his face, pretending to part a curtain that shielded his eyes. “Can see it now, like it was yesterday. Max Baer is fightin’ some colored stiff, and sittin’ on the aisle in the sixth row is Frank Havana. Beside him is your dad and his cousin Aaron Levine. On the other side, Max Rheingold.”
“Max Rheingold?” Burk said the name as if he were hearing it for the first time. Then he laughed nervously, gazing into his glass for several seconds before he finished his drink.
No one spoke for a while, and the only sound was the whir of the ceiling fan and the clink of beer glasses as Miles stacked them behind the bar. “I’d like to hear a song,” Alice said at last.
Burk took out a coin and turned it over in his hand several times, examining it closely. “I’ll play P-Five,” he said. “That’s ‘Dream Lover.’”
“You just played that,” Miles said.
“That’s okay. I like that song,” Alice said.
“No. I’ll play something else,” Burk said.
“Play something by Gogi Grant,” Martin Epstein piped up. “‘The Wayward Wind’ is one of my favorites.”
“That fella’s changed,” Miles said, speaking in a low voice as he watched Burk feed quarters into the jukebox. “The first day he came in here, he was wearing a coat and tie. Hardly said a word. When he did open up, he talked about his wife, how much he loved her, but that sometimes she acted so queerly he didn’t think he knew her at all.”
“You can’t ever know a woman,” Martin Epstein said. “Even without her clothes on, she’s one of God’s great mysteries.”
Miles glanced at Martin Epstein and they stared at each other until Alice said, “That day at the track I noticed her right away. She had one of those faces that was beautiful and miserable at the same time. She had four winners and the Daily Double.”
Miles absorbed this information with a nod as he poured himself a slug of gin and knocked it down neat. Burk came back to the bar and Alice smiled at him, but he turned away from her watery eyes. A moment later the front door opened and a black sailor peeked inside and scanned the bar.
“Can I help you?” Miles asked him.
“I’m lookin’ for my partner. He ain’t here,” the black sailor said, his face looking embarrassed as he stepped back outside.
As the blade of sunlight vanished from the floor, Burk let his mind carry him back to that exhilarating afternoon when he met Bonnie Simpson for the first time. Behind his squinted eyes he saw her walking next to him, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her unbuttoned coat, her laughing face raised to the sky.
Miles reached out and patted Burk’s shoulder. “What’s goin’ on?” he said. “You look a little lost.”
Burk nodded and swallowed hard. Bonnie’s sunlit face was gone, but he could still hear her laughter in the back of his head. “I feel lost,” Burk said, surprised by the pain gathering in his stomach. Then he stood up and dropped a five-dollar tip on the bar. On his way out he said, “I’m not sure I’m ever coming back to this place.”
* * *
That night around 2 A.M. Radio Ray received a call from a man named Clark. He said he was a graduate of Princeton University.
“I graduated with a degree in Library Science,” he said. “Right now I’m working at a local university, which I will not name. I’m having a difficult time at my job. Why? Because I’m in love with a colleague. Her name is Diana.”
“Diana. That’s a pretty name. Does she—?”
“Please let me finish.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“I know what you’re going to ask me,” Clark said in a high voice. “No. She does not know I love her. We have never spoken.”
“But you did say you were colleagues?”
“She works in Periodicals. I’m in the History section.”
“Maybe you should introduce yourself.”
“No. No matter what I said it would be wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“Then by not speaking to her—”
“Not speaking to her is ecstasy!”
There was a long pause. Then Radio Ray spoke firmly. “You said at the beginning of this call that you were having a difficult time. Maybe you would like to explain what—”
Clark cut in. His voice trembled. “I want to follow her home at night. In the morning I want to watch her run. Later, I want to surprise her in her house—”
“Wait a sec—”
“Naked, sweating, h
er eyes filled with raw fear.”
“Clark—”
A pitiful moan, then softly: “I need to be inside her secret heart.”
Eight
Tuesday: Burk Goes Back to the Set AND Bobby Remembers Omaha
May 18, 1971
Burk woke up on his back with a hard-on tenting the sheet above his waist. While he amused himself with his right hand, his empty mind was filling slowly with erotic images left over from his last dream. In one he saw himself standing naked against a stark white wall. Kneeling in front of him with their eyes half closed were two women, a brunette and a redhead, both with hair reaching to the middle of their backs. They were fondling him—the redhead stroking his balls, the brunette licking his cock. In the background other unseen women were speaking softly, murmuring encouragement.
Burk climaxed violently, his face grimmacing with each convulsion. When he finally opened his eyes he saw drops of semen sliding through the hairs on his chest, glistening like the trail of a snail. In the corner of his vision he also noticed the message light blinking on the phone beside his bed.
After he lit a cigarette and ordered coffee from room service, he dialed the hotel operator. “You have a message from Boyd Talbott,” she told him. “He said you could reach him on the set.”
“Is that it?”
“Loretta Egan also called.”
“When?”
“Nine-thirty.”
Burk checked the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was ten-fifteen. Although he was a heavy sleeper, he rarely slept through a ringing phone. “Did you put her through?”
“No. You instructed us to hold all calls.”
“That’s strange,” Burk said. “I don’t remember doing that.”
The LA Times arrived with the coffee and Burk drank three cups, two quickly, but savoring the third while he browsed through the sports page. Soon his serenity was interrupted by a commotion in the room next door, followed by Tom Crumpler’s angry voice: “Get the fuck out of here, you stuck-up cunt! Now! And don’t fucking come back!” A door slammed, and Burk swung his legs out of bed. It was not a good sign when a featured actor in your first film was either drunk or going through cocaine withdrawal at ten in the morning, two hours before he was due on the set.