“Nothing’s the matter, I’m just tired is all.”
“Listen, I know you’re lying, you’re not that good of an actor,” he spoke, seeing Damen turn away from the sky and staring at him in a shocked way.
“I’m not?” Damen dropped his cigarette and swallowed his saliva in a loud fashion. Walking slowly over to Chuck, he felt something crunching from underneath his foot. He felt it every time he took a step closer to Chuck. When he looked down, he noticed that it was coffee grains. So, he looked up again and asked, “I’m not?”
“You’re not what?”
“You said that I’m not a good actor, do really mean that?”
“So, that’s what this is about. Damen, I don’t know if you could act good or not, it’s just a way of saying that you’re lying to me.”
Damen turned back to the sky, saying in defense, “Oh, alright, if that’s what you meant. I am a good actor, I really am.” He wanted to trick his mind into believing that he’s good at acting, but the denial was overpowering his mind.
“Alright, if you say so. Tell me what’s wrong? I know it has something to do with acting.”
Damen just stared at the sky and watched the stars twinkle within the smog, watching small insects fly about this scenery, dancing in circular flight. “You know, I stared at these stars for ten minutes now, and, and I still feel confused. Every night, every frickin’ night I would stare at the stars and wonder if there is really a God up there. And every night, there’s always a certain star that twinkles in the distance, a star that, that stands out from all the rest. It’s my way of knowing that a God really exists,” Damen explained as Chuck tried finding the star, the star that twinkled over all the stars in the sky.
“So, what’s the problem, then?”
Damen lit up another cigarette, saying in a loud voice, “The problem is, why isn’t the Lord helping me? Why, why is he helping Darell and Jose? They don’t even believe in a God. Why?”
“I’m confused here.”
“Darell’s probably in New York still, signing autographs and movies contracts. Jose’s on his way to becoming what Darell has already seen. With me, I’m still far behind in the race for, for fame, and I don’t know why,” Damen said quietly.
Vivian came over to the back door and opened it a crack to eavesdrop. Hearing every word they spoke, she crunched down on the ground and stared at them.
The customers came pouring into the café, waiting for a waitress to wait on them, but Vivian was nowhere to be found; everyone was in the back. Vivian listened behind the door. Through the crack, Damen listened, in front of his eyes, when Chuck explained, “Maybe, just maybe, God is helping you. Maybe he’s waiting for that one moment, that one moment when the doors of Hollywood open for you. Who knows. I’ve seen many actors over the years, and there has always been one actor, one special actor that stood out from the rest. Those actors were usually the ones, the ones that made it to the top...” Chuck paused, feeling that this moment was getting too personal, but then continued with, “I’ve always admired those actors, I treated them like ... they were my own kids. What I’m trying to say is you’re one of those actors. You’ll make it, Damen, you just have to give it time.”
“I’m not strong, that’s it, I’m not. I’m not like Darell and Jose, they’re the strong ones.”
Vivian looked away from the crack in the door and saw a drunk customer coming toward her, stumbling over bags of coffee and urinating in his pants; she heard the sounds of water dripping and knew what it was.
“You’re right, you’re not like them at all,” spoke Chuck, not hearing, through the crack in the door, a drunk man tripping over a bag of coffee grounds and falling on his face.
“Thank you, at least someone agrees with me. Well, you’re the first person I discussed this with, so I guess that’s a start,” Damen stated in a tone; a tone that was defensive, lost, and surprised at the same time.
“Yeah, because they are the weak ones, and you’re the strong one. Tell me, how many resumes and photos did you send out to agents?”
As Chuck waited for a reply from him, Vivian stared at the drunken man and watched him struggling to get up off the floor. She was afraid he would make too much noise, attempting to get up, dropping bags of coffee as he grabbed onto them to try and hold his lift.
Damen thought about it, and responded, “My God, about 150 resumes and 155 photos. The extra five photos were for the agencies that didn’t want a resume.”
“You see, now how many did Jose and this Darell character send out?”
Chuck picked up his cane and stumbled over to him, draping his hand over Damen’s shoulder, trying to comfort him in his depression.
“Well, Darell sent out one, and Jose sent out none.”
“There you have it, I rest my case. You know what your problem is? You’re not patient. You look at Jose and Darell in a way that’s envious. If you want to survive out here, you have to stop being envious of them and start being more patient toward things. I admit, Jose and this Darell guy were lucky, they were very lucky; but that doesn’t mean you’ll be lucky too. You just have to keep on sending more resumes and photos to agents. You’ll be surprised, one of these days fame will hit you before you know it. That’s the day you’ll finally realize the meaning of that bright star up there in the Heavens, and that’s the day when you’ll realize God made you wait for a reason. Just wait and see,” Chuck said, trying again to find that twinkling star, but gave up as soon as Damen threw down his cigarette and lit another one.
“Yeah, well I think Jose and Darell found that star already.”
Vivian saw that Chuck was up and standing, looking as if he was about to enter into the café again, so she ran past the drunken man on the floor in a panic, and began to wait on the customers who were impatiently waiting for coffee. But then, she turned back and grabbed onto the drunken man. Pulling his arm and helping him up, she guided him back to the café, and placed him in a seat.
“I thought you said they don’t believe in God?” Chuck asked, looking at his watch.
“Well, if they’re happy and content, then they have to believe in something. Right?”
Chuck walked over to the door and sat back down on the garbage can again, questioning, “How do you know they’re happy?”
Damen dropped his half-smoked cigarette, and stepped on it, wondering if Chuck made, or was making, a good point. “Well, Darell’s already been in a movie, and Jose is probably signing a contract for a movie right now.”
Silence took over for a bit, Chuck looking up at Damen slowly through the darkened alley. He then asked with seriousness, “That doesn’t mean they’re happy. How do you know, let’s say, that they didn’t just sell their souls to the Devil?”
“What? They wouldn’t do something like that, it doesn’t exist,” Damen replied with a loud tone. He smiled because he thought that Chuck was just joking about the Devil.
Chuck was tired, and dropping his head in a slow motion, he explained, “Why wouldn’t they? People do it all the time.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Chuck.”
“It’s fairly simple.”
“What’s fairly simple?”
“You see, a lot of people in show business want fame more than life itself, and they would do anything to achieve it. One day, a person discovers them, and makes them famous. What they don’t know is the person who discovered them is the Devil himself or herself. Sometimes people don’t realize they’re selling their souls to the Devil; they just accidentally sign a contract. And sometimes people don’t know that they’re the Devil, he just comes in them for a while. As you know, there are a lot of contracts in Hollywood,” Chuck replied, watching Damen look at him with a straight face. “The Devil can be anyone. It can be a woman, a man, an agent, or even your best friend. Satan never shows his true self, he just hides below your soul, and waits for that perfect moment to shine through. I believe that everyone has a little piece of Lucifer in them, and it�
��s mainly up to them to never allow him to shine through.” Chuck paused for a few seconds and then added, “You see, Damen, every evil act that a person commits, no matter if it’s lying, cheating, stealing, or killing, that’s Satan shining through.”
“Wait a second, this is crazy. Darell and Jose would never do something like that. I mean, selling your soul to the Devil, that’s ridiculous,” Damen argued, his defending fashion was proving to Chuck that he was in denial. Mr. Schultz didn’t want to believe that—it was folklore, a fairytale that he always thought was an analogy in today’s society, but Chuck wanted to make him believe that it wasn’t; it was the truth.
“Well, didn’t you say they didn’t believe in God?”
“Well, yeah, kind of, I mean, they believe in him sometimes, but they don’t practice it often, but that doesn’t mean they worship Satan,” Damen replied. “I’m confused as to what you’re talking about.”
“Damen, a long time ago, four guys came to Hollywood. They all wanted fame in the movie business, just like everyone does. Three of the guys got discovered right away, and they became movie stars in Hollywood. They sold their souls to Satan. They didn’t realize it until they became movie stars. Once they finally realized that they hurt a lot of people by acting like a tyrant and being conceited, they also realized that they were acting like the Devil himself; that was enough evidence for them to know that their soul was being controlled by the man downstairs. So, two of the guys went to a church and begged God for forgiveness. The third guy accepted it, and didn’t care if he sold his soul to him. Many times, it doesn’t have to be through a contract, he just creeps inside of you, and if you accept it, meaning if you like being a tyrant, conceited, evil, than your soul stays with him,” Chuck explained before he looked at his watch.
“So, what happened next?”
“Well, the one guy who accepted it, he went on to become Hollywood royalty, but only for a short time. After he decided to end his acting career, he became a very successful person in another type of business,” replied Chuck.
“What business is that?”
“I’ll tell you when the time is right, but not yet,” Chuck responded with a smile.
“Well, what happened to the other two guys that went to the church?” Damen questioned with interest.
“I can’t tell you what happened to them either. I’ll tell you when the time’s right.”
Stressed, tired, confused, irritated and angered toward Chuck for not answering his questions, Damen showed aggravation when he spoke, “Well then, what happened to the fourth guy who didn’t get discovered?”
“Well, eventually, he did get discovered. But as soon as he got discovered, he ran away from Hollywood and decided he didn’t want fame,” Chuck replied, once again with a smile.
“Why did he run away? Where is he now?”
“I can’t tell you why he ran away, not yet. But, I can tell you that he did return to Hollywood many, many years later.”
“What did he do? Did he go back to acting again?”
“No, he opened up a coffee shop,” Chuck replied with a grin. “Time’s up, your session is over with; come back inside to the real world and start pouring coffee.” Chuck opened the door to the café and held it idle for Damen.
Damen walked halfway into the door, smelling urine, coffee grounds, and vomit in the air, showing a face of disgust. He held his nose, and said, “I have to ask you one more thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
Chuck released the door onto Damen’s back as he asked, “Well, Chuck, it’s about Darell and Jose. If they’re not happy, then what are they?”
“Um, Damen, they’re just lost. It’s up to you, and ... you alone to help them find their way back, and in the process, help yourself find your way back too,” Chuck responded, watching Damen as he let the door loose and began walking with him toward the front of the restaurant.
“Back to where?”
“Back to whatever and wherever your roots formed from,” Chuck replied.
Damen put his green apron on right as a drunken man vomited on the counter. Watching its slime drip down to the clean floor, he knew who was going to clean that mess up.
Damen was about to clean up the mess when Vivian jumped in very quickly and started to clean it up instead, whipping a rag around the floor, trying not to get any vomit onto her hands as it absorbed into the cloth. Damen smiled toward her, seeing that it was very suspicious of Vivian to clean something up that he could have done, but he ignored that and smiled away. Damen then turned to Chuck and questioned, “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see, in the future you’ll see and understand what I mean. Just wait, I’ll explain it to you when the time is right, and you’ll see it for yourself,” Chuck answered. Another drunken man vomited, this time on the floor of the café, so Chuck smiled toward Damen, and added, “Damen, go clean that up, I don’t want this place smelling like a bar.” Chuck turned back to his old self once more, being that they were in front of Vivian, Damen kind of figured that he didn’t want anyone to know that he showed kindness to his workers: mainly to Damen. So, Mr. Schultz watched, accepted, and found it amusing as Chuck slowly turned back to his old self, giving orders and being a wannnabe tyrant—a jerk.
V
And Now, the Angel Closes Its Eyes Toward
the Evil, and Lets the One Learn His
Fate, the Mentor Being Pure Sinister,
and Blinded to Morality...
A Lie Is Born...
Chapter Thirty-Six
Julienne and Jose walked slowly down the red carpet, the carpet that led to the Beverly Hills Horizons. Jose looked up on the front of the restaurant and saw Darell’s name in bold letters; right next to his name was the title of his movie. Jose stared at Darell’s name in a jealous way while Julienne signed autographs and talked to the media. Jose thought in his mind, That should be my name up there, not Darell’s...
Every inch they walked, a new person would come up to Julienne and ask for her autograph. The red carpet was full of movie stars, movie stars that Jose looked up to in his past. The one movie star that he most admired and most envied was John Smitherson. John Smitherson won five Academy Awards in his past acting career. He was forty-five years old and had a face of a twenty-five year old. His black hair resembled a football helmet, and his face resembled a mannequin’s image from all of the plastic surgery he had in his past career. Jose stared at John’s plastic face and began to become frozen at the knees, staring at him in amazement. He felt like a rock, a rock that got heavier and heavier each time John became nearer to him, watching John’s image as it became closer. Every step John made caused Jose to lose one more sense from his body. By the time John passed him, Jose lost his sense of hearing, touch, speech, smell, and almost sight. His loss of sight was due to him almost passing out.
Julienne noticed Jose acting funny and strange, so she tapped him on the shoulder, with one of her fan’s pens, and asked, “Are you alright, honey?” Jose’s sense of hearing was still missing, it was like he was in a trance, a trance that he wished he would never escape from.
He looked at Julienne and then looked at the red carpet, Jose seemed helpless to Julienne. She looked down at his tuxedo and made her eyes scan his whole body form. Her eyes ended up at Jose’s sight and looked into them, saying, “Snap out of it, Jose, please snap out of it.”
Jose’s eyes turned slowly around the crowd of fans, staring in every direction of them, his sight ended up on Darell’s name in bold. That’s when every sense returned and his envy and jealousy became reality again. He rubbed his eyes and said to Julienne with a whisper, “Let’s get inside and do this.”
“Alright.”
Suddenly, a journalist put a microphone into her grasp and began asking her questions, speaking with a grin, “Julienne Wells, how did you enjoy the premiere of this movie? Did you think newcomer Darell O’Conner played the part of Timmy well?”
“It was very good, but I think Darell need
s a little more practice at his craft,” Julienne replied in a phony tone. Jose looked at her and grinned; it was a grin that meant thank you.
Another journalist, with a long trench coat on, and glasses that stuck out three inches from her eyes, pushed a tape recorder up to Julienne’s mouth, asking, “Miss Wells, who is this person with you? Is he your date?”
She grabbed onto his hand, smiled and responded, “Yes, he is my date and he’s an actor.”
“Has he been in any movies?” the same journalist questioned, them noticing even more media and cameras coming over to them both.
“Yes, he’s been in a few. He is an excellent actor, I think he’s going to be the next John Smitherson,” Julienne said with a sneaky tone. “His name is Jose Rodrigo.”
“Jose, did you see the premiere of this movie?” another journalist asked while sticking a microphone in his face.
He looked at Julienne with confusion, not knowing whether he should lie or not. Jose thought back to yesterday morning when he came over to Julienne’s house. He remembered her exact words, “Now, Jose, tomorrow night, I don’t want you to say anything to the media. Let me do the talking for you. If they ask you a question about how we met, or anything else, just tell them the opposite of what they want to hear. So, in other words, lie to them.”
He looked back at the woman holding the microphone and replied, “Well...”
Julienne interrupted his sentence and said in a joking manner, “Of course he saw it, but he slept through most of it. That should tell you something about the film.”
“Do you have an agent? How were you discovered?” the same journalist asked, watching the other movie stars passing them down the red carpet, and entering into the building.
“Well...”
She cut him off once more, responding with, “I discovered him. As soon as I saw him, I thought to myself, ‘Julienne, you’ve got to help him out, he’s the one who can make it in film.’ I said that at the Starbox, that’s where we met. As you know, only celebrities can enter that establishment.” Julienne knew her plan was working, the plan that she had from the beginning, the plan that only she knew of.
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