Damen grew a huge smile, knowing that he was in the right hands, knowing that God placed him that alley, last night, out of all the alleys in Hollywood, and finally allowed Damen a chance at achieving fame; it was a simple twist of fate.
Chapter Fifty-Six
A circle of people, standing on the very top of the green hill, surrounded a burning cake, showing flames that came from candles swaying about from the English wind. It was cold, but the flames still danced about, showing their warm beauty, soaring around the cake of sweetness. “Happy birthday, Jose, happy birthday to you.” The people finished singing to Jose, and now he was about to blow out the candles.
Darell patted him on the back, shouting with a smile, “Now blow out the candles.”
Jose blew with force, all of his might, and with all of the air that his tar-filled lungs could give, extinguishing twenty flames, leaving only one flame to stand alone. The flame still stayed, even the soaring wind from the hill’s top, couldn’t blow it out. “Come on, make a wish,” Dennis Schultz said.
Jose blew out the final candle and closed his eyes, making the wish in his mind. He then opened his eyes, grabbed a knife, and cut himself a piece of the large cake, hearing Darell saying to him, “It’s already been two weeks we’ve been working on this film, it feels like it’s been two years. Thank God today’s our day off. You know what we should do? We should call up Damen and wish him a happy birthday.”
Jose coughed up a piece of his cake, saying in a frantic and loud voice, “No, no, no, that’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
Jose didn’t know what to say. Julienne was standing across the table from him, with the cake and crew members blocking her view; she was frantic of what Jose would say to his question. “Because, um, um, it’s gonna be a long-distance call, it’s going to be expensive,” Jose replied, seeing Julienne giving a deep sigh of relief, staring at her through the snuffed-out candles.
“Don’t worry, I could afford it.”
“Yeah, but where are you going to call from? We’re in the middle of a hill,” stated Jose, hoping inside his mind that Darell would give up on wanting to call Damen. He figured that Darell would spill the beans and talk to Damen about why he didn’t get chosen for the part, and that’s where the lie would be revealed.
In the middle of the conversation, and while everyone was having a bit of Jose’s cake, Darell started walking toward his own trailer—of titanic size—saying, “There’s a town that’s about a mile away from here.”
Julienne and Jose dropped their pieces of cake on the cold, green grass and began running after Darell. Julienne suddenly hopped in front of Jose, saying with anger, “Let me handle this, you just stand there and be quiet.” They both reached Darell’s presence, with her speaking, “Darell, do you think it would be a good idea that you called Damen? I mean, he was supposed to play Jose’s part; it would be like rubbing your success in his face. Why don’t you wait till the movie’s over with? You don’t want to make him jealous, do you?”
Darell stood there, by his trailer door, speechless, not facing either of them, but looking straight at his door, pondering if she was right or not. Darell questioned, “Do you think he would actually get jealous?”
A girl, named Becky, an actress in the film, came up to them and took a picture of Darell with a Polaroid camera. He started to rub his burnt eyes from the flash while hearing Julienne replying, “Yes, he would get extremely jealous. I tell you what, after the movie is over with, you could go see him and explain why you didn’t talk to him while you were making the movie. Trust me, he’ll understand then, instead of now.”
“Alright.”
Becky suddenly kissed Darell on the lips, asking in her ditsy, immature way, “Like, what are we all talking about?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Julienne’s eyes widened at Becky kissing Darell on the lips a second time, after he answered her question. A plan developed once again in her evil mind, seeing Becky’s lips, in slow motion, how they touched Darell’s, made her plan develop in a blink of an eye, in the birth of a thought. Julienne turned to Jose, still keeping her eyes in focus of this undefined but passionate kiss to Julienne’s mind, in her view, whispering in a suspicious tone, “Jose, could you come inside your trailer right now, I have to talk to you urgently?”
“Alright, I’ll be right there.”
Julienne grabbed Jose by the arm tightly, pulling him toward her, saying with strictness, “Listen to me, it’s very urgent.”
Darell and Becky slowly walked away from them, with Becky still taking his picture, and still kissing him ever so often. Darell turned to face Jose and Julienne, shouting from a distance, “Oh, I’ll see you guys later.”
“Alright, I’ll see you later,” Jose shouted.
Julienne then pulled him by his arm more, like a little disobedient boy, yanking his sockets, trying to get him to follow her every move. She pulled him all the way to his trailer, pushing him inside of it and announcing, “Yes, Jose, I have got the perfect solution to our, I mean, to your problem.”
Jose took off his winter jacket, questioning in a high-pitched voice, “What are you talking about?”
“Listen, I’m tired of explaining it to you, you know what problem I’m talking about, Jose.”
“You mean about the lie?”
She went up to his face, pushed him down on the couch, and answered in lowness, “Yes, I’ve got an idea about how we could handle this little lie. It’s a great idea, but it involves threatening Darell.”
“Well, what’s the idea?”
Julienne explained her vicious plan to him, saying it step by step, piece by piece as her ruthless mind became overpowered with lies and deceit. Once she finished her idea, Jose regarded her with some core of innocent shock, saying with guilt, “No, I don’t want to do that to Darell.”
“Jose, listen to me, it’s gonna be for insurance, it’s the only way to stop him from explaining, or telling anything to Damen. Just do it please, trust me,” Julienne spoke with loudness, walking up to Jose closer and grabbing his leg. “Come on, baby, would you please do this for me? I came out here for you, I’m only doing this for you.” She kissed him gently on the face, knowing that her seduction would, and will, work on him, making him crave to her needs, and act to her wants.
She started kissing his lips, tenderly, but with force, having him give in to her strong, erotic passion, turning him on by her womanly power. He gave into her beauty, her lips, her body that quivered toward his own, and whispered, “Okay, okay, what do I have to do again?”
Later on, when day became night, Darell found out that Damen was working at the café, discovering the name, location, and number from, ironically, Jose’s mouth. He went into town and used a telephone in a bar; little did he know that Jose was right behind him. Darell called up the café and finally heard a ring coming from the phone, waiting patiently, listening to the rings travel, and echo longer into his ear.
Meanwhile, Chuck was washing some dishes in the café, hearing the phone ringing, he turned off the water over his sink, and started to dry off his hands. The ringing was worsening, traveling to Chuck’s ears more, he finally finished drying his hands off, and went over to the ringing phone. He picked it up and spoke, “Hello, we’re closed now.”
“Hi, um, I was wondering if a Damen works there?”
“Yes he does,” answered Chuck, noticing that Damen was walking up to him. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“Oh, this is Darell, Darell O’Conner.” Jose snuck into the building where Darell was and listened to the words that he spoke, waiting patiently, like a killer, stalking his prey.
Chuck put his hand over the phone, looked at Damen’s face, saying, “He said his name is Darell O’Conner.”
Damen snatched the phone from Chuck’s grip, speaking with eagerness, mixed with a form of zealous, “hello, hello, Darell, it’s me Damen.”
“Hey, Damen, Happy birthday.” Darell took out a cigarette from his pock
et, lit it, and then added, “Sorry about the change in parts, I hope you’re not upset.”
Damen stopped his excitement from growing, muted his actions and voice, and thought about what Darell meant by those words. He was confused, not knowing anything about the situation that Darell was speaking of, or else, would speak of soon. So, Damen peered at Chuck, standing about ten feet away from him, drying off some dishes, and anxiously questioned over the phone, “What change in parts?”
“On how they chose Jose for the co-star role over you.”
Damen was even more baffled. “Jose’s out there? Jose is your co-star?” he asked, looking at Chuck in a confused manner.
The bewilderment that Damen had, or still has, was injected into Darell’s mind as well. Darell answered with confusion to his words, “Yeah, didn’t you know that?”
“No, the reason why they didn’t choose me is because someone said I was on drugs. They wouldn’t accept me because of that,” Damen explained in a sad but defensive way.
Darell started laughing, saying with surprise, “What? You doing drugs? And they actually believed you were doing them?”
Jose hit himself on the head, not knowing whether to pull the phone line or wait till the conversation ceased.
“Yeah, I don’t get it either. Dennis gave me a lecture and then he said to get out of his office and never come back. Finally, if you thought that was bad, Dennis sent a letter to almost every agency in Hollywood and told them to not take me as their client, because I was on drugs,” he explained more, with sadness in his loud tone.
Jose started to slowly pull on the telephone wire, having Darell not see him, because of a wall that was blocking their eye views. The pulling allowed fuzziness and static to come into the phone, causing Darell to say, “Listen, the phone’s getting a little fuzzy. I tell you what, I’ll get to the bottom of this. Tomorrow I’ll go to Dennis and ask him who told him that.”
Damen’s eyes widened with happiness, knowing that he was his true friend, realizing that Darell, for the time being, was his last hope to clear his name, and banish the lie, while giving birth to the truth. “Will you?”
“Yeah, of course I will, you’re one of my good friends.”
“Thank you so much, Darell, I owe you one.”
“I’ll call you up tomorrow and tell you what he said,” spoke Darell as Jose began to pull the wire harder.
“Yeah, that’s cool, and I’ll tell you about my commercial I’m in.”
Darell’s face grew a large smile, yelling with ebullience, zest, “What? You’re in a commercial?” Jose heard that, and began yanking the wire harder and harder, feeling the jealousy coming back to him, toward Damen, once again.
“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.” Abruptly, Damen was disconnected. “Hello, hello?”
“Hello, hello, Damen,” Darell spoke. He looked down at the telephone wire and saw it yanked out of the wall. “Shit.”
Darell went outside and began walking toward the car he used to get to town. Feeling the warmth of night, and the cold of winter, Darell was confused as to who would lie about Damen. That’s when Jose jumped out of nowhere and asked, “Hey, what’s up, Darell?”
“What’s up, Jose?” Darell then shook his hand. “I got a story to tell you. You’ll never believe what happened to Damen.”
They both went on a trip to France and strolled into the city of Paris. Darell told him the lie that was spread about Damen, and also told him about the commercial he got in. As they walked, Jose tried to pretend like he gave a damn about Damen, that’s when he started acting again. In his mind, he was brainwashed by Julienne into believing that this was a mission; a mission to keep all their lies undercover, to make his own fame rise.
“I don’t know who could have spread that rumor about him,” Jose said in a sincere way.
They stood underneath the iron dress of the Eiffel Tower, looking out at France’s winter, conversing with each other about a mystery that only Jose knew. “I don’t know either. I’m just gonna talk to Dennis tomorrow about it. This is depressing me, let’s talk about something else, like home. You know, I miss home a lot,” Darell admitted.
Darell gazed up at the cold sky, seeing stars of every shape and size, while Jose spoke, “I don’t.” Jose just thought about the conversation that Darell and Damen had, and also thought about what Julienne said to talk to him about.
“Well, don’t you even miss Maria?”
Jose was in a frame of mute, thinking about what Damen and Darell were talking about before, and what Julienne explained to him to talk with Darell about. Suddenly, he was broken from his silence and answered, “Who’s Maria?” Darell gawked at him with shock, allowing Jose to see his confused eyes, and to totally forget about the conversation between Darell and Damen.
“Remember, she was your girlfriend before?”
“Oh, that Maria, I forgot about her a long time ago,” Jose replied with a laugh. “Remember we promised her we would give her a call, or write to her?”
“Yeah. I remember Damen used to like her too.”
Jose questioned with a loud voice, and laughter, “What? Damen used to like Maria?”
“Yeah, he was jealous of you.”
Jose started to laugh harder, finding it amusing that all this time, he was jealous of Damen, and Damen was jealous always of him. “Man, he could have fooled me. So, how are you and that Becky girl doing?”
Darell began smiling, sitting down on the ground, he answered, “Well, we’re doing okay, I guess.”
“Did you sleep with her yet?”
“Hell yeah, she sneaks over to my trailer every night at 12:00 a.m.,” he spoke as Jose began laughing again.
“Why should she sneak over? Why doesn’t she just come anytime?”
Darell started laughing, chuckling, “You know, I don’t know myself. I guess she wants to be professional about it. She doesn’t want the whole entire crew knowing about us.”
Then, Jose quieted his voice, questioning in a semi suspicious way, “So, ah, how old is she?”
“She’s twenty-one. She’s gonna be twenty-two tomorrow.”
“Damn, an older woman,” laughed Jose.
Darell laughed with Jose, saying in sarcasm, “Oh yeah, by an entire week. Ah, man, I can’t believe I’m going to be twenty-two years old next week.”
Jose lit up a cigarette with his cold lighter, looking up at the sky, and saying, “I can.”
Meanwhile, Julienne and Becky were having their own little conversation. They sat inside of Becky’s trailer, drinking some heavy-duty liquor. The thing was, Becky was doing all the drinking.
“Come on, have one more drink with me?” Becky asked in a drunken way.
Julienne held a clear glass with water inside of it. “I already had ten glasses of this stuff,” Julienne replied, crossing her legs together and trying to hold in her urge to go to the bathroom. She pretended to be drunk as well, adding, “Besides, I think you better calm down on drinking.”
Becky got up and started dancing in the middle of the room, singing, “I love Hollywood.”
Julienne looked at her coldly, very abruptly showing her change in eyes, and asking with interest, “So, do you love Darell also?”
“I don’t know, why?”
“Well, I just figured you two were together.”
Becky started laughing. Sitting down on her couch, next to Julienne, she chuckled, “Yes, we’re together alright.”
Julienne blocked out all noise from her ears, her mind and concentrated on Becky’s last words, phrase, the way she said it, the way she smiled when she spoke it. This was the moment that she has been waiting for, ever since she saw Becky kissing Darell. Closure, this moment, would allow Julienne’s lies to never come out, as she thought, to never be revealed, as she assumed. Julienne looked at her and questioned, “So, well, ah, how old are you, Becky?”
“To the director and my agent, I’m only sixteen. But to Darell, I’m twenty-one,” she slurred as laughter followe
d.
“Oh, really?” Julienne then got up from the couch and headed toward the door to the trailer.
“Yeah.” Becky suddenly passed out; falling to the floor, she was knocked out cold from her liquor.
Julienne smiled at her, like Satan would smile at innocence giving into temptation. “Thank you for that information.” She walked out of Becky’s trailer, with laughter to her tone, to her voice, chuckling as the door slammed shut.
Darell and Jose returned to the top of the hill that held the trailers which made up their little town. Jose said goodbye to him and went inside his trailer. That’s when he heard, “So, what did you get out of him?”
Jose turned around, jumped back, and saw Julienne with a mud mask over her beauty. He shouted, “Oh, you scared the shit out of me, Julienne.”
“Come on, what happened when he talked to Damen?”
“Well, you were right, Julienne. Damen did tell Darell about the drug lie, and Darell’s gonna talk to Dennis tomorrow and find out who told the lie,” he answered in a nervous manner. “I still don’t know why you made me tell Darell the number to the café?”
She whispered, “Listen to me, Jose, I did that to show you I was right. I told you he would do it.”
“Yeah, but now my career’s going to be over tomorrow when Darell finds out the truth from Dennis,” he yelled with anger.
She sat down on the couch, looked at Jose in a gazing way, and spoke, “That’s why I wanted you to find out if Darell’s sleeping with Becky. So, is he screwing her or not?”
“Well, before I tell you anything, I want you to promise me that you are not going to tell Darell that I was involved in this little plan of yours. Do you promise?” asked Jose, grabbing a beer from the silver refrigerator.
“Listen, I’m going to tell Darell that you didn’t know, and that you’re not going to ever know. So, I promise.”
“Alright. Yes, he’s sleeping with her alright.”
She took Jose’s beer, and sipped it once, asking, “So, did he tell you if he had any sort of ritual sleeping times with her?”
Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) Page 52