Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret)

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  Vivian’s face turned to a smile, listening to Helen ask, “What’s a callback?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it means they’re interested in me.”

  “Well, it means just that, but you have to wait for the callback; sometimes it takes awhile. Yet, as soon as you get it, that means you got the role, almost positively,” Gloria stated. Vivian began to weep rapidly from happiness, feeling a hug from Helen, and hearing Gloria add, “Did you give them a number they could reach you at when they decide to call you?”

  “I told you they would love you,” hurrahed Helen.

  “Vivian, did you?” Gloria asked again.

  “No, how could I? I mean, I just got here this morning,” she responded, suddenly seeing Gloria getting up and walking up to the woman with the clipboard.

  Vivian and Helen noticed Gloria handing Jenny a card; confusion came over them. Vivian turned to Helen and asked, “What’s she doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gloria came back and sat down, hearing Vivian question, “What did you give her?”

  “I gave my home phone number. Since you don’t have a place to stay, and this is a big-time soap opera, I felt you could stay at my place,” she explained with a grin.

  “What about Helen?”

  “She could stay too.” Then, Gloria gave Vivian a tight hug, adding with excitement as well, “Welcome to New York, Vivian.”

  Gloria took out her ponytail and allowed her long, black hair to hang, suddenly hearing Vivian ask in a frantic manner, “Oh my God, I forgot something. Is there a phone I can use around here?”

  “Why do you have to use a phone?” Helen asked.

  “I have to call Damen, I told him I would.”

  Gloria pulled out a cell phone from her black leather purse and handed it to Vivian, saying, “Here, use my phone.”

  “I’m making a call to California, do you mind?” Vivian pulled up the antenna slowly, waiting nervously for Gloria to answer, hoping that she would say yes.

  “No, not at all, I can afford it.”

  Helen suddenly gave out a huge scream, causing Vivian’s eyes to widen, as well as Gloria’s. Vivian spoke in confusion, “Why did you do that?”

  Helen gave her another tight hug, saying, “Because, I’m so happy for you.”

  Vivian started to dial the apartment number on the cell phone, listening to Gloria say, “Don’t get your hopes up, you didn’t sign a contract yet.”

  Ring, ring, ring.

  The phone started ringing, while Vivian turned toward Gloria in a fast manner, after hearing her words, and stated with a for-sure grin, “Don’t worry, I won’t, Gloria.”

  Ring, ring, ring.

  Back in California, Damen walked out of the bathroom, grabbed a lit cigarette that was hanging off the coffee table, and answered the phone, saying, “Hello?”

  Gloria and Helen got up from their seats, listening to Vivian scream, “Hi, Damen, it’s me, Vivian.”

  Damen formed a huge grin at hearing her voice, even though it was loud at first, he still was exhilarated to hear from her. Taking a drag of his cigarette, he exhaled the smoke while questioning with happiness, “Hey, how was your trip?”

  She paused, recessed, wanting to play a little joke on Damen for the hell of it, she responded with a low, sad, disappointing, and dismayed voice, “It was fine, I just finished my audition.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t sound like the audition went well.”

  She smiled, but said with seriousness, “Well, it doesn’t matter.”

  Damen got up from the couch, and walked over to the old, brown Christmas tree, asking, “What do you mean? How did it go?”

  “Well, um, let’s see.” She paused for a second, and then screamed with vivacity, “Oh, I think I got the part.”

  “What? Really? Congratulations, Vivian, I knew you would.” He began taking the ornaments off the tree, pulling one by one, adding with felicity, “Didn’t I tell you you would get it?”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know if I got the role yet, they said they’ll give me a callback.” Vivian then noticed Gloria and Helen beginning to walk out of the waiting room. “Hold on for a second, Damen.” She walked up to Gloria and Helen, adding, “Where are you going?”

  “We’re getting ready to leave, it’s already 5:30 p.m., and I don’t want to wait till it gets dark outside,” Gloria replied, taking out her car keys.

  Vivian put the phone up to her ear, asking to Gloria, “Why?”

  Damen thought she was talking to him, questioning, “Why what?”

  Gloria buckled up her winter coat, explaining, “Because, this is New York, Vivian, no one should go out past dark.”

  “Why what?” Damen asked again.

  Vivian finally acknowledged that Damen was speaking, so she put her complete attention to the phone, and responded, “Oh, I wasn’t talking to you, honey. Listen, Damen, I got to go now, I’ll call you later on in the week.”

  Vivian put on her summer jacket while still talking to him, while Gloria mentioned with laughter, “You girls, those jackets of yours will not be enough to protect you from the cold. This isn’t L.A., you know? It’s New York.”

  Unexpectedly, a needle from the old Christmas tree pricked Damen’s finger, making him shout over the phone, “What day are you going to call me?”

  “What are you doing, Damen? What happened?” They all started walking toward the exit of the building, while Vivian waited for Damen to speak over the phone; he was too busy trying to suck the blood out of his pricked finger.

  “Oh, I’m just taking the Christmas tree down. I pricked my finger off of one of these frickin’ needles,” he answered, kicking the tree with his legs, pricking his pants with the needles as well.

  “Oh, I thought you were yelling at me on purpose.”

  “No, I would never yell at you on purpose. Well, what day are you going to call me?”

  Gloria opened the exit door of the building, and allowed the February frost to blow in, making Vivian and Helen’s non-immune bodies to feel its cold presence, and feel chilled from it. “Um, I don’t know, Damen. Listen, I got to go now, I love you,” she replied, grabbing her summer jacket and pulling it closer to her body.

  Before she disconnected him, he stopped kicking the tree and concentrated on the speaking end of his phone, saying with seriousness, “Alright, I love you too.”

  “Come on, my car’s across the street,” Gloria said, starting to cross the street and stopping traffic at the same time.

  Vivian still held the cell phone in her hand, running and dodging cars, trying not to get killed. Helen noticed Gloria heading toward a red, shiny Cadillac, whispering toward Vivian, “Vivian, that’s her car?”

  “Yes, that’s my car alright,” Gloria replied, overhearing what Helen asked. “I have very good ears,” she added as Helen looked at her in a shocked manner; she couldn’t believe Gloria heard her question.

  “Where do you live?” questioned Vivian, entering Gloria’s car and sitting in the front seat.

  “Manhattan,” she answered, turning on her engine while Helen entered the car and sat in the back seat. “Alright, ladies, buckle up, it’s going to be a long ride,” she added with a smile; but Vivian knew there was a deeper meaning in what she said.

  VI

  Through the Reflection of Dreams and the

  Confusing Image It Shows, a Simple Twist of

  Fate Is What He Now Holds.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The days started to get harder for Damen as they became weeks; everyone was gone, his girlfriend, even his best friends. The landlord of the apartment complex kicked him out because he couldn’t afford the rent, and every agency that he went to for a job wouldn’t take him for a client. His depression grew stronger as he walked about the streets of Hollywood with his backpack and journal, seeing the true reality, authenticity, and the consequences of trying for an artist’s career. He used all his money up to stay at a cheap motel for a few days after h
e was kicked out. But, after that, he had to turn to the streets of Hollywood for his bed.

  He didn’t know how to contact Vivian, he knew she would call the coffee shop, but Damen’s pride was too strong to face Chuck again. He didn’t even know if she got the part in the TV show or not. He had no money, couldn’t even afford to go back home to Ridge Crest and put this long, terrible experience behind him. Damen never imagined that his life would come to this, never thought for once that he would go as low as to living on the streets for his dream. Damen comprehended, perceived, and understood that he really, truly wanted to be an actor, he realized that as he walked each night down alleys in search of a bed made out of a cardboard box.

  But, his dream was fading as each approaching night came. Every night he would lose one more memory of his ambition, he just wanted to go home to Ridge Crest. He was angered by his ambition, yelling out to himself how it was only a pipedream, and he never should have come to this horrible place, that he thought he loved so much. The depression, as he walked like a hobo, grew stronger, thicker, surrounding and plaguing his mind with the thought of deceit, and how God damned him to this horrible life with the dream of fame, that he would never reach. Yet, before his dream vanished completely, and wiped all of its memory from his mind, a miracle took place. It was a miracle that Damen didn’t realize, but would in the future. This miracle took place on January 31. To Damen, this incident changed his life for the worse at the time, but for his dream, it changed for the better.

  He was walking down a dark alley; he didn’t know his whereabouts. To Damen, all alleys look the same, that is, after you sleep in a high number of them. Some are just dirty, full of garbage, debris, filth and boxes that make homes for neighbors in the streets, and some are dark, deserted, where only crime lurks. His dirty clothes and his uncleansed body were tired when he decided to stop and find a place to sleep in the dark alley. The moment he sat down, he heard a voice say, “Give me all your money, now.”

  Damen looked up at the dark figure and began laughing in a crazy manner. “You idiot, I think you’re robbing the wrong person, I don’t have any money.” Damen got up and asked in a snotty form, “Do you think I would be sitting in an alley if I did have money?”

  “Oh, I think we got a smartass here,” the figure conveyed when two other figures came out from behind a dumpster and walked up to him.

  One of the figures pulled out a knife, Damen seeing its silver glow by the moonlight above. His fear started to show now, vocalizing, “Listen, I don’t have any money.”

  “Well, we don’t care,” one of the men shouted. The man then slit Damen’s arm with a black, stained knife, while holding another luminous, silver one in his other hand.

  Damen ran away from the evil silhouettes, heading deeper into the alley and screaming, “Please, just leave me alone.”

  The three men grabbed Damen and pulled him to his knees. One of the men pulled out a silver gun and put it up to his head. “Nick, check his pockets and knapsack, he must have something with value.”

  “Nope, nothing, Chris, all he has is a few clothes and a journal.” The man named Nick kicked Damen in his chest, and he fell to the alley’s floor on his stomach.

  Chris put the gun up to the back of his head and asked, “Well, boy, any last regrets?”

  Damen heard the gun being loaded, and clicked back, feeling this moment of terror, having his life flashback before his terrified eyes. In a way, Damen wanted him to pull the trigger, thinking that he will finally be ripped from his misery, but then the thought of Sugar Valley flashed before him, and the wantings of seeing it one last time. He realized, if this man pulled the trigger, then he would never see Sugar’s body again, and never see if he would have actually made his ambitions real. Damen looked at the gun, and saw this devil, Chris, slowly pushing the trigger, feeling sweat dripping down Damen’s forehead, he concentrated on the trigger, seeing it slowly being pushed down more, and more. He started to imagine what would happen if the trigger was pushed down an inch more, even before it reached that inch, and what pain he would feel, what world he will see when that bullet strikes his temple and pulverizes his mind.

  Suddenly, the trigger came to that inch he was thinking, but the bullet still didn’t exit the gun, so he knew that the trigger had to be pushed, tempted, forced just a little bit more, a tap, till his life will be over. This rapture of manipulative terror, overfilled his mind with massively thick anxiety, waiting for the bullet to exit the gun, wondering how long it would take till this man pushed it down, to the point of no return, and the bullet does its job on Damen. But then, he thought about what type of job it will do on him: would it kill him? He was hoping that it would, that its sharp, pointy body would kill him, instead of leaving him here, bleeding and feeling great agony for a while. He wanted it to be painless, striking his brain with all of its unnatural but eccentric force.

  Abruptly, without warning, another man appeared behind the three figures, saying with solemnness, “Yeah, I want you to put the gun down before I shoot you myself.”

  Damen looked up for a glance and saw that it was Chuck, standing behind the men, with a gun pointing at Chris. Damen was relieved, whispering, “Thank God.”

  “What are you gonna do, old man, are you gonna shoot us all?” Chris questioned, slowly turning around to face him. “All I have to do is pull the trigger on this little shit, and boom, he’s dead.”

  “Listen, if you don’t leave right now, then I will shoot all of you, including that little shit who’s laying on the ground,” Chuck said, tricking the robbers into believing he didn’t care about Damen. “This is a private alley, now get out of here,” he yelled out. The three men pulled Damen to his feet and began walking away from Chuck with him. Chuck pointed toward Damen and screamed, “Leave him.”

  Chris asked in a smart-alecky style, “Why do you care if we leave him or not, I thought you told us all to leave?”

  A police car shot down the alley, showing its sirens, hearing its lights. “Run,” one of the robbers yelled. Chris kicked Damen for the last time and caused him to fall to the ground. They vanished from sight, and left Damen there, laying his beat-up body on the ground, staring at Chuck with remorse, penitence, and fright.

  Chuck walked up to him, dawdling his old body toward his body, and helped Damen up to his feet. “Damen, are you alright?”

  A cop exited the police car, flashing his large flashlight toward Damen and Chuck’s figures, questioning, “What’s going on here?”

  “Oh, nothing, officer,” answered Chuck, opening the back door to his café and pushing Damen’s hurting body inside of it.

  A second police officer exited the vehicle, and walked up to Chuck, stating with confusion, “We got a call about someone being robbed, it came from this coffee shop.”

  “Nope, everything’s fine, officer. It was probably one of my customers making a prank call or something.” Chuck then went inside of his café and closed the back door, leaving the officers there alone, looking at each other with puzzlement.

  Damen walked with Chuck through the backroom, holding his bloody arm, trying to stop the bleeding with his hand. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth, Chuck?”

  “Because, that would mean I would have to fill out a bunch of papers and go through the hassle of pressing charges.” Chuck began to put a bandage around Damen’s arm, wrapping it quickly, seeing that the bleeding stopped a little bit.

  He finished putting the bandage on his arm, so Damen walked to the front of the café, seeing that it was vacant, and dark. “But what if those guys come back, Chuck? What if I’m walking down the street and see them?”

  “Don’t worry, Damen, those guys won’t be back,” he replied, following Damen to the front of the café and putting up a “Closed” sign in the window.

  Damen sat down on one of the chairs by the counter while Chuck poured him some coffee. He looked at Chuck, swallowed his pride with one gulp, and spoke, “Thank you. Thank you for saving my life, I guess.”


  “Well, you’re welcome.” Chuck stared at him with a look of despondency, melancholy, sitting down across from him. “Damen, what happened to you? You look terrible, what happened?”

  “Well, I guess living on the streets for a few weeks will do this to a person. I mean, of course I’m dirty, depressed, and plain out scummy, but overall, I’m surviving.” Damen gave a smile of despair, adding, “I mean, I haven’t heard from Jose, Darell, or even Vivian at all.”

  “How’s your acting doing?”

  “Well, that’s doing terrible. I haven’t gotten any acting jobs, or any agents.”

  “Why?” Chuck asked with a surprised tone. “I mean, you’re a handsome kid, and I’m sure you’re talented too. I thought agents would be pounding down your door just to see you.”

  “Well, if I had a door, but they’re not, and that’s a long story itself.” Damen took a sip of coffee, and added in an echoing sense, “A long story in itself.”

  Chuck picked up his cane and walked past the counter. He sat down next to him, saying, “I got time, tell it.”

  He gave a deep breath, exhaling with, “Well, it begins like this.” Damen explained the entire incident, situation, of how no agents wanted him. He must have explained it for an hour, and Chuck didn’t say a word; it was like Chuck was his shrink. Damen finished his story by lighting up a cigarette and saying, “Now, I just want to go back home to Ridge Crest and forget about his whole experience.”

  “Why would anyone spread a rumor like that?”

  Damen inhaled his cigarette smoke, answering with tautness and stress, “I don’t know anymore, and I don’t really care. I don’t think I’ll ever know who said that lie about me.”

  Chuck watched Damen, changing his bloody garment, and putting on another one. As he wrapped it tightly, Chuck declared, “Listen, Damen, I never, ever, ever told this to anyone, and I never did this for anyone, but you have to promise me you’ll hear me out and say ‘yes’ to it. Do you promise?”