INT. LONNIE’S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
LONNIE takes the weird gun from under the bed. He adjusts a few dials and makes sure the jar is tightly attached.
INT. LONNIE’S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS
LONNIE, finger on the trigger of the weird gun, creeps through the living room like some kind of ninja. He listens at the door.
GERTIE ELLIOT (OFF SCREEN)
Ha! No matter how many times you roll back that turtleneck, it’s always a surprise.
LONNIE slowly turns the door handle. Moans of passion grow louder and louder. LONNIE throws open the door, hits the lights, and is confronted by a horrible scene. TOMMY is on his back, being ridden by a drunken GERTIE, who waves one hand in the air like a bull rider. Various parts of her turn in seemingly conflicting directions as she bounces up and down.
LONNIE is not sure where to stick the gun. He approaches the couple.
GERTIE ELLIOT
Oh good, you’re here. Come over and show me what you’ve got, and I’ll decide where I want it.
LONNIE approaches the bed. TOMMY’s eyes begin to morph into the glowing, reptilian form that is the sign of the SUPPLEMENTARY TERRIAN DWELLER. It has already been transmitted from GERTIE to TOMMY! In one deft motion, LONNIE brings the gun down into TOMMY’s navel and pulls the trigger. A series of flashes goes off, followed by an unearthly hissing as the DWELLER gets sucked into the gun’s nozzle, slides through the tubing and, with a pop, ends up in the glass jar. Its slimy, blue body convulses. Its claws scrape wildly against the interior walls. LONNIE runs out of the room.
INT. LONNIE’S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
LONNIE removes the jar from the gun, careful to screw the lid on tightly before the DWELLER is able to jump out. LONNIE holds the jar up and looks into the DWELLER’s horrible eyes. In disgust, he walks over to the microwave, opens it, and places the jar inside. A wide-eyed look of horror comes over the DWELLER’s middle-butterfly-part features. His snout comes completely unrolled and his eyes widen. Suddenly, LONNIE is overtaken by a strange feeling. There is a stabbing pain in his brain. He bends over and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, he is able to see through the DWELLER’s eyes and feel his emotions. This phenomenon is completely unexplained in the film, and moviegoers must accept it, not unlike the way they had to accept the cheaply comedic psychic link between Elliot and E.T. Tricked into feeling sympathy for it, LONNIE removes the DWELLER from the microwave and takes it back to his room.
INT. LONNIE’S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
LONNIE places the jar underneath his bed.
LONNIE HERISSON
I can’t bring myself to kill you, Dweller, but I’m going to make sure you never infect anyone again.
LONNIE pulls down the sheets, hiding the jar.
INT. THE SUPPLEMENTARY TERRIAN DWELLER’S JAR - MOMENTS LATER
The DWELLER waits for the lights to go out. In the darkness, a soft blue glowing emanates from the DWELLER’s skin. He begins rocking back and forth until he is able to knock the jar over. Like a hamster in a wheel, the DWELLER runs and makes the jar move forward, causing it to knock against the leg of the bed. The jar remains intact. The DWELLER looks discouraged, but then makes out a dumbbell a few feet away. He turns the jar around, gets a lot of momentum, and then…
CUT TO BLACK. A shattering of glass is heard, followed by hysterical DWELLER laughter.
Then, to make sure the audience knows they have just wasted a lot of money on a movie that will definitely have a meaningless sequel, the screen reads “Your end is always the beginning for the Supplementary Terrian Dweller!”
FADE OUT
2
The writing was done, which meant that my work pretending to be Dennis was almost done also. I sat back and admired my little pile of half-crumpled pages and listened to the soft tapping of my buddies’ typing. I was going to miss coming to Culver City. Who knew, maybe I’d start another project someday, a real screenplay, so that I’d have an excuse to come back.
I called Grant’s shit phone to tell him I was ready.
“Oh look, I’m calling myself again,” he said.
“Grant old buddy. You can tell your boss I’ve got the final act, with evidence.”
“I’ll come get it along with my phone.”
“Oh no you won’t. I’m hand delivering this one to your boss, and I expect to get paid once he’s looked it over, so tell him to bring the money we agreed on.”
“I’ll let him know. Where do you want to meet him?”
“You know the big plant-dinosaur fountains on the Promenade? Tell him to meet me at the one on the north end at noon tomorrow.”
“You want one of the most famous men in the world to go to a crowded place like that?”
“Yeah, that way he won’t get any smart ideas.”
“Okay…but one minute. I missed a friend’s birthday because I don’t have my phone anymore. At least let me get a copy of the repertory. It’s bad enough I have a sloth on the hood of my car. And hey, I did you a favor. I called your ex and told her about the STD and—”
“What! You dick!” I yelled and hung up on him. I drew back my arm to throw his phone down on the pavement, but luckily the guys stopped me.
“Don’t do it. You’ll just end up buying another one,” said Scarf-Guy Al.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, putting the phone down on the table and then taking deep breaths to calm down.
“Whatever it is, get your revenge on paper. It pays better, and you don’t end up getting arrested,” said Hat-Guy Leonard.
“I learned that lesson the hard way,” said Pee-Smelling, Old-Birkenstock Jerry. Several of the guys nodded quietly to themselves.
I imagined a sequel to my work, in which Grant would come knocking on my door after midnight just as the Dweller was escaping his glass prison. As we are talking at the door, the Dweller sneaks behind us to the toilet and waits. Having completely reconciled our differences, I feel comfortable enough with Grant to let him into my house and offer him a drink. At some point he uses the bathroom. Now in complete control of Grant, the Dweller decides to terrorize all of New England by doing what Grant does best, which apparently involves typing unimportant details into an organizer and kissing ass. But how would this Dweller-ized version of Grant differ from any other New Englander? This writing stuff could be tricky after all.
I said my goodbyes to the writers and told them I wouldn’t be around for a while, since my big project had come to an end. They wished me luck and told me not to wait too long to start a new one.
3
I had only just returned to Dennis’ house when the phone rang. It was Dennis, still sounding as depressed as he had the last time. I wanted to make him feel better, so I launched into the good news.
“Dennis, glad you called. I’ve got some great news for you.”
“Wonderful. I could use some. Ignacio has had to stay longer than he thought in L.A., so here I am still alone.”
“I went by that apartment, and there’s no way a gay dude lives there. You can be sure that Ignacio’s lover moved out like he said. I met the little girl who lives there now and her dad.”
“There was a little girl?” he asked with a tone of despair.
“Yeah. Amanda.”
There was a long pause. Then I had to take the phone away from my ear because a loud pounding, as if Dennis were slamming the phone down on something, shot out of the receiver, punctuated by obscenities and wailing feedback. After the fifth or sixth explosion, the line went dead.
About an hour later, the phone rang again. I lifted the receiver and out poured the sound of passing cars, dance music and an occasional shout in Mexican. Above all that, I could make out Dennis’ voice.
“Um…I think we got cut off,” he said.
“You mean after you smashed the phone?”
“Yeah…Lonnie, I need a favor. First, do you have a pen?”
“Oh do I,” I said, but when I pulled out the Montblanc I was annoyed that
it didn’t have the same effect over the phone. Maybe these things should play music as you write with them. He rattled off an address in Beverly Glen.
“Okay. Got it,” I said.
“Now, I need you to go downstairs into my office. You’ll see some steel shelves, and on the middle shelf there’s a manila envelope marked ‘Reyes’. I need you to take that envelope to the address I gave you. Make sure it gets in the hands of Mrs. Reyes. If anyone else answers the door, just pretend you’ve got the wrong address.”
“You want me to go over there now?”
“No, it’ll be evening before you get there, so she might not be alone. Wait until tomorrow. She doesn’t work, so unless she goes out to run an errand, she’ll be around. Just make sure you give it to her personally.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“One other thing. Would you mind picking me up at the airport on Sunday? My plane arrives in the afternoon. It’s the first flight I could get that didn’t cost a fortune. Everything leaving before then was four times the price.”
“On Sunday? This Sunday?” I asked. I couldn’t believe my ears. I hadn’t expected him to come back for another couple of months. Now I wasn’t going to have time to do anything. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do. I needed more time to find out.
“I’ll call you from the plane when it lands. You can drive one of my cars to pick me up if you want…well, take the Honda. Since you’re not insured on my cars, I’d prefer you take the one I’d be the least sad to see wrecked.”
“All right. See you Sunday,” I said with all the enthusiasm of a man buying the coffin he knows he’ll eventually be buried in.
4
This was very bad news. It meant I was going to have to find somewhere to put my dad. I definitely didn’t want him to end up all stinky back in Venice, and anyway, I didn’t think he’d go back now that he’d gotten used to the good life. The only solution I could think of was to let him move into my house, but it would be pretty crowded over there. Also, once Dennis got back and I stopped getting that second check, keeping my dad stocked up was going to be a lot harder. Of course I’d have the five grand from Spieldburt and the last check from Dennis, but how long would that last? I hadn’t thought about any of this in the beginning.
My dad was on the couch clicking away at the computer. His hair was getting all crazy again and his beard was getting thick, but I knew he had been showering on his own because I’d occasionally see soap on him that he’d forgotten to rinse off.
Most of his clothes were on the love seat all folded up. Tommy didn’t realize that I had been slipping my dad’s dirty clothes in with mine, so he had been doing laundry for both of us. I picked up the piles and loaded them into the trunk of the Charger. Then I took a trash bag and picked up all the dirty clothes scattered around the living room and the bathroom. While I was doing all this, my dad would glance up nervously. I knew he had gotten used to the place, and whenever he had to change it made him uneasy.
All the rest of the cleaning would have to wait until my dad was out of there. I needed to wipe the leather couch off with a spot remover, run the vacuum everywhere, and get a carpet cleaner to take care of the ring of chocolate stains around the coffee table where my dad had been sculpting.
I sat down next to him and watched the rest of his game. He must have been more nervous than I had thought because he kept losing piece after piece but played on anyway. When he finished, he tried to start up another game, but I stopped him by closing the laptop.
“Look Dad, I’ve got a problem.” He was staring at the closed laptop. “My buddy, the guy who lives here, is coming back on Sunday, so we have to get out of here.”
“I can’t play chess on the computer anymore?”
“Of course you can. You can keep the computer. It’s all yours.”
“But someone will steal it from me.”
“No they won’t, because you’re going to come live with me. You remember that guy I introduced you to the other day? He lives there, too. It’ll be like a frat house or something.”
“I don’t know that guy. He looks weird.”
“Yeah, I know, but he’s all heart inside. Anyway, he’s a student so I don’t know how long he’ll be staying with me. When he leaves it’ll just be you and me.”
He sat still for a long time without saying anything. I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
“I got your stuff loaded up in the car. I’m going to unplug the computer now, but we’ll take it with us. I thought we could stop off and get you a haircut and a shave before we go get settled in. What do you say?”
He still didn’t answer, but he got up and walked outside. I packed up the last of the stuff and joined him.
He was still nervous when we arrived at the barber shop. Sometimes he breathed heavy like he needed more oxygen. At first I thought it was because I had asked the barber to cut his hair even shorter than before so that it would look good even if he didn’t comb it, but when I asked him if he was okay with the cut he said yes.
We stopped at the Giant Angry Panda to get some takeout. I figured if he had something good to eat on his first night at my place he’d adapt better, but I was wrong. He barely ate anything. He just sat on the couch staring down at the floor. I even hooked up the internet chess again, but he didn’t show any interest. I was out of ideas.
Later in the evening, Gertie and Tommy walked in. Both of them gave me weird looks and waited for me to speak.
“Hi guys,” I said. “Tommy, you remember my dad. Dad, this is Gertie, my boss.” My dad didn’t look over, but Gertie didn’t even notice. She was just standing there staring at me with a puzzled look on her face. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t move.
“Something wrong, Gertie?”
“Oh, so that’s the way we’re going to play this, eh? Just let it go and don’t say a word about it, right?”
“I can bring my dad over here if I want. It’s my house,” I said.
“No, no, pal. You know that’s not what I’m talking about. I want to know why the hell you came in on us last night while we were doing it and took pictures. I’m not sure I even want to know why you grabbed Tommy’s navel lint, put it in a jar and yelled ‘the dweller is blue, it’s always blue!’”
“We were pretty drunk last night, Gertie. You might not remember this, but you asked me to come in and join you.”
Tommy was looking increasingly hostile, his lips quivering all the things he would have said if only he could have strung them together properly.
“You son of a war!” he finally said.
“Hold on Tommy. I probably did ask him to do that. You have to keep an eye on The Gert when she’s lit up. The animal in me gets released. But you…,” she said, looking over at me again, “you had an invitation to paradise, and you passed it up. That makes you suspicious.”
“Um…I knew Tommy would be upset if I took you up on it, but I was overpowered by the idea of your nakedness,” I said, digging down deep for a big lie. “So I took the pictures so I could, you know, go get with the auto-doing.”
“That is repulsive!” she said. “You men make me sick with your lusting after me.”
“I’m truly sorry, Gertie.”
“Let’s forget about the whole thing. But can you give me copies of those photos? I’d ask for the originals, but I know you’ll do anything to keep a copy somewhere.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll give them to Tommy later.”
“All right. Let’s go to bed, Tommy.”
“Son of a war!” he said one more time.
“Jesus, Tommy. How many times do I have to tell you? You don’t pronounce the ‘w’, only the ‘h’,” said Gertie as they entered Tommy’s room. “Now come give your little ‘war’ a kiss.” They shut the door, muffling their animal noises and giggles.
The exchange had made my dad even more uncomfortable. I could see that this wasn’t going to work out yet, so I decided to try again tomorrow.
&n
bsp; “Look, my friend isn’t getting back until Sunday, so why don’t I take you back over and let you sleep there for a couple more days. Just remember, you’ve got to come back here soon, so start trying to get used to the idea,” I said, but before I could even finish, my dad had stood up and walked to the door. I grabbed a change of clothes for him, packed up the computer, and took him back over to Dennis’. After he was feeling comfortable again and ready to sleep, I went home with the big poodle and hit the frog barking.
5
The next morning I brought my dad to my place for the day so that he could get used to it. I told him he’d be sleeping at Dennis’, so he seemed a lot more relaxed than the day before and even started playing chess on my couch. That would give me enough time to rent a carpet cleaner and straighten up before I had to meet Spieldburt at the plant-dinosaur fountain.
I swung by the grocery store and rented a carpet cleaner. I hauled it into Dennis’ living room and went to work. By around eleven I had everything looking good, so I put the machine in the trunk of the Charger and went back inside to grab the envelope for Mrs. Reyes. I figured I’d have time to return the machine, give the screenplay and photos to Spieldburt, and then drive up to Beverly Glen to find Mrs. Reyes before the end of the afternoon.
I tucked the manila envelope under my arm and walked out of the house. After exiting the courtyard, I turned around to lock the gate. While I was digging in my pocket for the keys, I heard quick footsteps coming in my direction. I turned around and saw an outstretched hand reaching for my envelope. I locked my arm down tightly over it and spun around, but the envelope was on the verge of sliding out from under my arm. I dropped the keys and grabbed the envelope with my free hand. I felt a couple of strong kicks in the rear.
“Let go of it you bastard!” said a voice I had heard only a few times but recognized instantly: it was Spieldburt. With both hands on the envelope, he started pulling it from side to side. With each tug he gave, I was losing my grip on it. I needed both hands to get it under control, so I raised the arm that the envelope was tucked under, hoping to flip around and add my free hand to the tug of war. As soon as I took my arm off the envelope, it shot out of my grip.
L.A. Success Page 20