Their boss’ name was Chuck. He’d been in Hollywood all of his life, seeing all the famous people, from Judy Garland, to Fred Astaire; he’d been around the block. He said that all actors were different in their own way, especially the successful ones. Chuck always said that some successful actors were conceited, evil, snotty, or even nice; after all, he’d seen a lot.
He’s a sixty-five year old grump, acting mean toward his workers for no reason at all. But, he shows his meanness mostly toward Damen, yelling at him for no reason, swearing at him, not often, but sporadically in a month’s time, and always acts like a tyrant around him. Damen never knew why Chuck’s character was sinister toward him, at least not for the time being.
One night on December 24, Jose, Damen and Vivian worked late. Seeing it was 10:00 p.m., Jose Rodrigo decided to go across the street to a magazine store; he wanted to pick up the newspaper. As he crossed the street he noticed four men on top of a big billboard, they were putting up a poster, pasting it up while smoking a joint that could be smelled a block away. He walked into the magazine store and picked up what he needed, still smelling the sweet aroma of hemp, and then walked out of the store, noticing a piece of the poster; it was an eye and a nose. He said to himself, “I don’t believe it.”
Jose ran back to the café, dropping the newspaper he just bought, and paraded into the coffee shop as if he had just seen a mushroom cloud. He stopped for a moment, trying to catch his breath in this little café, filled now with drunks trying to get sobered up for the next day. Jose could still smell the aroma of marijuana in his nose, yelling, “Damen, Vivian, come outside, you’re not going to believe this.”
Damen was pouring some coffee for an old woman, smelling the marijuana on Jose’s clothes, Damen thought he wanted to take him outside and have a joint break. “I got a customer here, Jose, just wait.”
Jose then ran up to Vivian, shouting with excitement, “Vivian, are you busy?” Smelling the marijuana as well, Vivian rolled her eyes at him, and tried to say, through her roll of eyes, that she didn’t want to go with him.
But, before she could answer, before she could say anything, Jose pulled her arm toward the door, literally dragging her feet. She pulled back, saying, “No, why? Listen, Jose, I don’t want to smoke any bud.” He grabbed her arm again and pulled her body outside the door, without even answering her question, her statement.
They both went outside to the billboard and slowly looked up upon it. Vivian couldn’t believe her sight, smelling the hemp as well, and seeing the half-made poster, she said, “Get Damen now.”
Jose ran into the café once more, grabbed ahold of Damen and whipped past the old woman. He pulled him with all of his might, causing Damen to drop the coffee bowl on the ground, shattering it into a million pieces. All the drunks lifted their heads up—hard at the time—but they did, and watched them both. That’s when Damen asked in a puzzled voice, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jose got Damen halfway out the door, wanting to surprise him, instead of telling him before he saw it, Jose spoke, “Listen, after you see this, you’ll understand, that’s all I’m telling you.”
Damen stood there by the glass door to the café. Stubborn as all, he didn’t want to move from this spot until Mr. Rodrigo told him the reason. But, he then followed Jose’s jumping body, saying, “Okay, fine, what is it you want me to see?”
Damen reached Vivian, and she gave him a hug with a smile. Jose ran up behind them, shouting, “Look up there.”
Damen slowly looked up at the billboard, following its pulsating light to the sight of a face; a face that resembled Darell. Damen couldn’t believe it. “My God, is that who I think it is?”
They stood there for an hour and a half, watching as the four stoned men assembled the image of a person on the poster. Standing there speechless in the middle of the street, their boss, Chuck, went over to them inconspicuously. Chuck followed their eyesight to the poster; he made sure he stood behind them, that way he could surprise and yell at them for being out of the café.
They finally finished the poster, slowly but surely, and Damen whispered in amazement, “He did it, he actually did it. That’s Darell’s movie.”
Vivian stared at the poster, wishing that was her own face upon it, and stated, “Yeah, and that’s Darell’s face too.”
Suddenly Jose’s jealousy came back, showing itself through his tone. “Well, Damen, at least we know he’s alive still, ever since he went away he hasn’t called us once.”
“Don’t forget, Jose, he’s been busy, he was in a movie for crying out loud.” Seriousness, the strictest form, was mixed with a bit of laughter as Damen tried to stick up for Darell. Yet, he lost the battle when Jose said something to himself.
“What are you mumbling, Jose?”
“Nothing, I was just humming to myself.”
Damen stared and fixed his sight on him, knowing that Jose was lying to him, he explained, “No, I heard you mumble something about Darell. I know for a fact that I heard Darell’s name come from your mouth. What did you say?”
“You really want to know?”
Chuck sat down on the curb. He found them amusing, plus he knew a fight was brewing. Chuck’s mouth grew a smile at this sight, seeing two guys and a girl looking at a billboard in the dead of night; he was highly amused.
“Yes, I want to know.”
“Okay, I think Darell’s a jerk. All this time we’ve been busting our butts working at this cheap café and he hasn’t called us once,” Jose explained. Chuck got upset at the name he used for the café, his smile slowly vanishing into anger. “I also think he’s not going to help us at all, he just cares for himself. He’s probably in New York right now living it up. He probably forgot about us. I mean look at his face,” he added, pointing toward the poster. “That face does not look like an innocent face. Look at the way he’s smiling, it makes me sick.”
“Listen, Jose, you have got a big problem. He’s not a jerk and he doesn’t care only for himself. We should know, he’s our best friend. I’m happy to see that at least one of us made it in film so quickly, I’m happy to see he’s smiling on the billboard. Why can’t you look at it the same, man?” After Damen’s voice stopped, a small beeping noise was heard by Vivian, sounding like it was coming from a pager nearby.
“What’s that noise?” Vivian asked. Jose and Damen looked around them, trying to figure out where the noise is coming from. “It sounds like a pager,” she added, following the noise to Jose’s pants’ pocket.
“My God.” Jose’s words went on mute. Grabbing onto the pager from his pocket, his face lit up with shock, happiness, and overwhelming excitement. The pager that he’d been waiting for so long to hear the beeping noise from, finally showed itself, made itself heard, and now it was time for him to answer it.
“Wait a second, you mean that pager actually works? I thought you just found it somewhere, I thought you were just wearing it to look cool,” said Damen. Jose looked at the number on the pager, knowing it was Julienne Wells, coming to rescue him from this low-class lifestyle, he still didn’t say a thing.
Jose was speechless, but somehow, someway, he was able to squeeze his words out and muttered, “Listen you guys, I have to find a phone.” He sped toward the café but ran into Chuck in the process.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Chuck’s question stopped Jose from entering into his café, his words literally pushing him back. Then, to make Jose more frightened of him, Chuck pushed him back with his hand, thrusting him with great force away from the café’s doors.
Jose broke through Chuck’s second push, stating, “I’m going to make a call.”
Chuck ran over to Jose and grabbed his shirt collar, allowing him to choke for a second, while Chuck pulled him back like a whip. “First, I want to ask you something, Jose.”
“Okay, what?”
Damen and Vivian walked up slowly to this conversation, seeing that Chuck developed a fake grin on his face, hearing him as
k, “So, you think my café’s a dump?”
“No, I never said it was a dump. I said it was a piece of shit.”
Damen and Vivian looked at him in shock, causing Damen to kick Jose in the leg, and explain, “He’s just kidding, Mr. Fritter, he doesn’t think it’s a piece of shit. Right, Jose?” Damen kicked him unnoticeably in the leg once more, hoping that he would get the message to lie.
“Fine, fine, I don’t think it’s a piece of shit, not at all. You make us work here on Christmas Eve and slave us to the bone, I think it’s great. So, like I said, I don’t think it’s shit.” Suddenly, Jose’s pager went off once more.
“Good, good.”
Jose looked at the number on his pager once again and stated with a huge smile, “I think it’s a dump.”
“How dare you.”
“If I may add, I think the coffee here sucks.” Jose then ran into the café, feeling like a free man, knowing that he was about to quit this job that he despised.
Chuck yelled, “You’re fir--,” not being able to finish his sentence, due to Jose slamming the entrance door in his face.
Chuck thrashed open the door and ran over to Jose. Before Chuck could open his mouth, Mr. Rodrigo added, “Oh, and another thing, I quit.” He dialed the number on Julienne’s pager, finishing with, “I should have quit a long time ago.”
Damen passed by Chuck and walked up to Jose, watching him hold the phone up to his ears, and asking why he quit through his eyes. “Jose, what are you doing?”
“Damen, I’ll explain it all later.”
“Do you realize you’re not going to be able to pay the rent, plus, you’re not going to be able to eat?” Damen questioned, seeing Vivian walking in the café and standing by the door. “You need this job.”
“Hey, I’m going on to better things. Right after I make this phone call, I’m not going to work in any more cafes again, Damen,” he announced, hearing the operator’s annoying voice coming on the line. “Damn, I dialed the wrong number.”
“Listen, Vivian and Helen were nice enough to allow us to live with them, the rent is cheaper now. Without this job, you’re not going to be able to pay for the rent,” stated Damen, seeing Jose redialing the number.
Some time ago, they couldn’t make ends meet, so they were forced to move in with Vivian and Helen, but Jose never liked the situation. With Jose, he wanted more out of life; mansions, fancy cars, he lived for the fairytale, craving it in his imagination, and flaunting it through his talks about his ambitions. Nevertheless, Jose’s money situation was just like Damen’s, he had to keep this job, to pay the rent on time, and now since he quit, either he’ll be on the streets or else living somewhere else.
Jose shouted, while waiting for someone to pick up on the phone, “You listen to me, I didn’t like living there anyway. Plus, I’m going to be living in mansions and driving nice cars after this phone call. So please, back off.” The operator came over the phone, again, and Damen just watched Jose’s undefined anger, build up through the way he tapped his foot against the brown hardwood floor of the café.
During the tapping, Vivian heard what he said about how he didn’t like living in her apartment. The anger slowly built up inside of her as well, but she didn’t explode yet.
The anger was also passing over to Damen, building up its flames, traveling to his throat, and finally releasing a little bit of it, slowly, so it could be heard by Jose. “I can’t believe what you just said, Jose. It’s that number you’re dialing, isn’t it? That’s why you said those things? It’s an agent or something to do with acting, isn’t it?”
Jose ignored Damen’s words, dialing the number again, he finally answered, “Yes, it has something to do with acting.”
“Boy, you’ve changed by just getting a frickin’ page, I wonder what would happen to you if you won an Oscar. You probably would become a bastard,” shouted Damen, feeling the anger rising up more to his mouth.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Julienne answered the phone. Showing her sexy voice, she spoke, “hello, Jose?”
“Hi.”
The rage slowly slipped through Damen’s teeth, pushing its way out of his mouth, it expressed itself by two little words. “Screw you.”
Jose paused from talking to Julienne for only a second, looked at Damen, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Screw you, too.”
Damen and Vivian walked out of the café, feeling their own anger for Jose, and toward Jose; it was too much to handle.
Julienne heard Jose’s last words, thinking he was talking to her, she asked with shock, “What did you say?”
“No, I wasn’t talking to you, Julienne.”
Chuck Fritter crept up to him, waiting for the perfect time to kick him out of the café, or else scare the hell out of him and break a few limbs in Jose’s body.
“Well, Jose, are you still up for that deal we made?”
“Hell, yeah. What exactly was the deal?”
“Don’t you remember?” Julienne questioned as a director approached her in a dressing room where she was. The room was decorated with photos of herself, posing in sexy positions, positions that made her look like a goddess. It had a single mirror with bulbs surrounding its ends, with her staring at her reflection, while talking to Jose.
“I remember you saying to me, um, that you’re going to introduce me to a lot of agents,” Jose finally answered with Mr. Fritter still staring at him with evil eyes.
“Yes, that’s it, but I’m going to do more than that, I’m going to make you,” she explained. Her words were cut off by the director giving her a script to read.
“Make me what?” Jose then caught Mr. Fritter’s eyes, gawking at him like a serial killer’s prey.
Julienne went through the last pages of the movie script she’s doing now, explaining over the phone, “I’m going to make you what I am. There’s a dinner coming up on January 1. I want you to be my date. During and after that dinner, you could be sure of it that you’ll be asked to be in a few flicks or even a few movies. So, just come to my house December 31, I’ll get you prepared then.”
“Why can’t I come over tonight?”
Mr. Fritter looked up at the clock over the bar area, it said 11:58 p.m., and then went back to staring at Jose’s eyes, trying to tell him something through his glare.
“Because, silly, I’m not in California, I’m in Chicago. We’re just finishing up the last few scenes to my movie, we’ll be done in about three days.” She then closed the script and placed it down next to the mirror, still staring at her reflection, smiling at her arrogance.
“Great, that’s a week from now,” Jose yelled in a sarcastic way, seeing that Mr. Fritter switched his eyesight from the face of the clock, back to Jose’s face.
“Just meet me at my house early on the thirty-first of this month,” she said. Suddenly they were disconnected.
“Hello ... hello, Julienne, are you there?” Jose then saw Mr. Fritter’s hand on the receiver, so he slowly hung up the phone, seeing Chuck’s anger through his shaking wrinkles, and pulsating eyes.
Chuck spoke, “Get out, this dump is closed.”
Jose slowly walked past Mr. Fritter’s eyes and walked up to the door, saying before exiting the café, “Well, Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah, or have a nice holiday—whatever you celebrate, have a good one.”
He strolled down the Hollywood streets for a while, his mind filled with confusion and anxiety as he tried to cope with the fact that he had no place to stay. Jose turned into a whole different person once he met Julienne Wells. Some might say he let it go to his head, forgetting the deep friendship he had with Damen and Darell. He forgot the dream that all of them shared, being only out for himself, and he knew it. After Julienne hung up the phone, Jose realized that he didn’t want Damen or Darell to become famous, he only wanted himself to. He realized the dream he had that night, before Darell left for New York, was an omen of some sort, a premonition, it was a dream that was telling the truth. Jose Rodrigo became a
ddicted to fame, addicted to something he didn’t possess yet; addicted to the vision that manifested his mind into believing he would become it.
When he reached Vivian’s apartment, he sat outside by her door; instead of trying to figure out a way of saying sorry, he was trying to figure out a way to lie, to lie his way back into the apartment. He tried to think up a plan, a plan that would trick Vivian and Damen into believing he was sorry for the things he said. Instead of the words coming from his heart, they came from his mind, a mind that was wicked, and a mind that was becoming lost. He went over every act in the book he could think of, until he came up with one he thought up himself.
His plan was to pretend he was mugged by a criminal. He knocked on the door and Damen answered with a depressed voice, “What do you want, Jose?”
Jose saw that Damen wasn’t angry, but depressed instead. So he went for another strategy, a strategy that was simple and consisted of two words. Two words that Damen would definitely fall for. “Sorry, Damen.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that?” Damen asked, noticing Vivian standing directly behind the door so Jose wouldn’t see her.
“I’m under a lot of stress, besides, um, well, um, it’s the first time I’m spending Christmas away from home. It will never happen again,” Jose explained while Damen looked at Vivian. “It’s just, we’ve been in Hollywood for about seven months, and I guess it did something to me, it changed me. Now I realize what I did, and I’m sorry for it. I didn’t mean that about not liking to live in this apartment, it was some other person talking, it wasn’t me.” During Jose’s fake monologue, the door started to open up wider. Every word he said meant the door would open up a half an inch more.
Damen looked at him, trying to cope with the fact that Jose was an ass, but still he was his best friend. “Before I let you in, you have to tell me who was on the phone.” Damen waited, seeing that Jose gave a short pause, Mr. Schultz added, “So, who was on the phone?” The door opened up all the way, Damen waiting there in the middle of it, craving for Jose to say what he wanted to know, and what he should know.
Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) Page 28