Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret)

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  Damen jumped up from his seat and began running toward the stage, it felt like he was dreaming; the stage was getting farther and farther away from him every time he took a step toward it. He dodged the frantic people as he ran and jumped over their bodies to get to Jose, seeing the audience filled with pandemonium, fright, panic, and fury of fear that drenched their elite minds. He ran up to the stage and saw Jose lying in a puddle of blood, not wanting to accept through his tear-filled eyes that this was his blood brother, lying in blood while holding the Oscar that he’d just won. Damen couldn’t speak, couldn’t say a word, seeing the people, out of the corner of his eye, running about in fright, Damen didn’t want to accept this moment of ruptured melancholy, tied in a bow of immense fear. Damen’s tears started to fall on Jose’s face, and that’s when his voice was found, yelling, “Somebody help me, please somebody. Help us!” Damen watched as the crowd ran for their lives, stomping over each other, trying desperately to reach the exit of the building. “Please, Jose, oh God, please don’t die. Please, help me, Chuck,” he screamed even louder as Chuck walked up to him with John.

  Chuck grabbed onto Jose’s twitching, shock-filled body, shouting toward Damen, “Here, help me carry him to the exit.”

  “Please don’t die on me, Jose, please,” cried Damen in a nervous, frantic, and shocked manner, grabbing onto Jose’s legs and helping John and Chuck carry him off the stage.

  Julienne just gawked at Jose’s bloody body, feeling tremendous shock, understanding deep in the depths of her mind that she was to blame for this tragic happening. She ran toward the stage, and shouted in a frantic way, “Oh my God, Jose, Jose?”

  “Julienne, call an ambulance now. Do it,” moaned Damen with the blood from Jose’s stomach spilling out onto Julienne’s dress, leaving her with a reminder that this was her cause, her doings, this blood, reaching the outside air, was her fault.

  They carried Jose’s dying body away. Passing by the first row, they saw Tom Fryer with blood rushing down from his head. His scalp was blown off completely and the blood began pouring out from it like a waterfall gushing down to a lake. But in Tom’s incident, the waterfall was pouring down into a lake of blood. As they passed by all of the rows, they saw women and men lying on the floor with blood coming down from their faces. Chuck knew they were trampled on by the rage and fear that the other movie stars had in them that caused their feet to run over anything in their way. As soon as they reached the outside of the building, they placed Jose down on the red carpet. The ambulance showed up and took Damen, Chuck, John, and Jose with them.

  Meanwhile, Julienne sat down in her seat, in the vacant hall, and called the ambulance. Feeling anxiety, colossal and utter fear, draping her thoughts, her plans, her deceits, and her past lies, Julienne felt guilty, and depressed. As soon as she called the ambulance on her cell phone, shaking the phone in her nervous, twitching hand, someone came up to her and spoke, “The ambulance already showed up.”

  “What?” Julienne turned around and saw Mark and Curtis standing before her, in this vacant, still-echoing auditorium. She hesitated, muting her words toward them, absorbing confusion as to why they shot the wrong person, and why they were still here; the police would show up very soon. She muttered, “What happened?”

  “Well, your plan didn’t work out like we wanted it to, but don’t worry, we’ll still get Damen,” Mark replied in a drunken voice while Curtis reached under Julienne’s seat and grabbed the check.

  She couldn’t understand it, couldn’t comprehend on how her strategy, her scheme, her sinister workings got screwed up so quickly, and inevitably changed and altered everyone’s life, including hers. She couldn’t understand why they were still here, why they didn’t do the job right, and why they were taking the check, when they didn’t even deserve to have the money. She filled her own mind with fury, screaming toward Mark, “What happened, you bastard?”

  Curtis slapped her in the face to calm her down, seeing that her eyes showed that of delirious nature, and her vein, in the middle of her head, was pulsating the beats of her heart. Mark stared at Julienne, holding her face from the slap of Curtis, and felt anger toward him. Mark then hit Curtis in the head with his right hand, shouting, “What did you do that for?”

  “What happened?” Julienne yelled out again; her tears began to fall down to her bloody lap.

  “Hey, I don’t like it when you hit me like that,” Curtis spoke in seriousness.

  Julienne stood up from her seat, and shouted again, “What happened?”

  “Your drunken ass has been hitting me all night, and I’m sick of it,” Curtis announced toward Mark.

  Julienne slapped Mark in the face, screaming out, “So you’re drunk then? Why the hell, of all the fuckin nights of the year, would you get drunk on this one, you piece of shit?” Curtis pulled out his gun and hid it behind his back, seeing that she was getting out of hand, waiting to use it on her if she didn’t calm down. To Julienne, she saw these two men as businesspeople, not as killers; she was ignorant to the true reality of this situation.

  Julienne just glared at Mark, awaiting an answer from him, while Curtis hollered toward the side of her face, “Listen to me, we’re not killing any more people, the job is done with.”

  Mark was still falling for Julienne’s lust, her beauty, the way he liked to help people and hear their problems. He didn’t want her to be mad at him, so just like a little boy, he spoke in a childish way, “Julienne, I didn’t shoot Jose, Curtis did.”

  Julienne slapped Curtis in the face, not knowing him, but still wanting to hit something, for the anger she was feeling at this crying instant.

  Curtis felt his face, after receiving the blow from Julienne, and abruptly lost it, shouting out with a high pitch, “That’s it, I’m sick of people hitting me.”

  Bang.

  Curtis pulled out his gun, and shot Julienne in the arm. The force was so substantial, that it made Julienne fall, screaming out with pain, but only screaming in her mind’s voice. She was panicking, the realization of them being killers finally got captured in her thoughts, and the realization and clarification allowed her to go into deep fright, showing tears of terror toward her life being in danger.

  Mark was angry, shouting toward Curtis, “What the hell did you do that for? You...”

  Bang.

  Curtis interrupted him by shooting Mark in the head. His dead body fell to the red carpet, and bled out onto it, being mixed in with the textures of the rug, turning it into a dark, dark reddish color.

  The terror built up on its own in Julienne’s mind, seeing Mark lying dead on the ground, seeing Tom Fryer, in the front row, sitting dead in his seat, and feeling her arm of pain, bleeding out because of a bullet shattering through her flesh. She couldn’t move, gazing toward Curtis’ gun, and him glaring toward her beautiful blue eyes; she was in deep panic of shock, embracing her worst fears, and bringing them into reality of this crucial moment. She was webbed with terror, seeing the darkened room, watching Curtis’ every move, knowing that he was going to kill her, even if she tries to talk her way out of it or not.

  Julienne started running for her life down the aisle, stepping over bodies that were trampled to death, comprehending that she caused all of this, and maybe she deserves to die; which she does. Julienne didn’t want to feel another gun shot, didn’t want to feel death coming to her yet, she was panic stricken, but also guilty, and this abundant puzzlement, just allowed her legs to carry her body farther away from danger, farther away from Curtis’ sight: instinct.

  Bang.

  As she came to the foyer, Curtis shot her in the leg, allowing her to scream without even forcing her vocal cords, without even knowing that she was using them. She screamed out louder, crawling her way and reaching the red carpet on the outside. She shouted, “Somebody, help me!”

  Curtis walked up calmly, and stood next to the exit of the building, looking at her helpless silhouette, finding humor in it, smiling toward her frantic-filled eyes. Julienne saw h
im pointing the gun toward her; she knew this was it. She grabbed onto the carpet’s body, pulling out the fabric from within it, showing fear in her pull of the material, and waited for God to forgive her, to show pity on her soul for her malevolent, villainous being. At that precise moment, a flash of red lights occurred, being an ambulance that showed up at the curb’s level in front of the Oscar building. Curtis saw it, and knew that police would be surrounding soon, if not already, so he ran back into the main part of the building. The ambulance took Julienne’s fragile, but evil mind and injured body away, leaving her with trepidation, terror, knowing that Curtis still lived, still lurked.

  Curtis ran to the back alley of the building and began laughing; he had eight million dollars all to himself. But, what he didn’t realized is that Mark’s dead body held the other check for two million dollars, plus the other two million that Mr. Fryer gave him. As he took out the bloody eight-million-dollar check, he noticed that Julienne didn’t sign the bottom of it. This imbecile, this vacuous mind, this incredibly bovine mind actually believed that he could get away with a check for eight million, even if she signed it or not. That’s when he shouted, “Shit, that bitch is dead.”

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  While Curtis was jumping up and down with accentuation in his rhythm, Damen, Jose, Chuck, and John showed up at the hospital. They dodged camera crews and media mobs, trying to capture Jose’s body as he was wheeled in the doors on a stretcher, yearning to get a picture of him. They rushed Jose to the emergency room and began the process of helping him, hoping that it wasn’t too late, praying that they were able to capture every second of preserving his life. Damen just stood in the waiting room and looked out the window of the hospital, seeing the media, cameramen, journalists, and fans waiting outside and trying to bust their way in through the hospital entrance.

  My God.

  Damen’s thoughts spoke those words over and over again, in his perplexed, tear-filled, and terrorized mind.

  Damen’s hatred, jealousy, and anger toward Jose was lifted from his thoughts, and through the process of it being hoisted, came tears of immense sadness. Damen was in shock, the shock of seeing his best friend holding the Oscar, and at the same time being shot. He began to think about Sugar Valley and his childhood, wondering back on the day before they began their journey to Hollywood. All these things flashed in his mind, corrupting his brief thoughts of any tranquility, and obliterating any form of a positive future into an oblivion, leaving his mind empty to any other thoughts. That’s when Chuck approached him and interrupted his flashback by saying, “Don’t worry, Damen, everything will be okay.”

  “I could have stopped him,” Damen whispered.

  Chuck sat down in a chair next to the window, watching Damen as he fell to the cold, tiled floor, drowning his eyes with tears of guilt. “Stopped who, Damen?”

  “Jose. I could have stopped him from coming here. It was his idea for us to come to Hollywood when we did. If I would have stopped him from going, then me, Jose, and Darell wouldn’t be here right now, and Jose wouldn’t be in this hospital at this moment.”

  Chuck put his hand on his shoulder, watching Damen gazing at him. Chuck smiled, showing sincerity through his frail teeth. “Listen, why didn’t you stop him then?”

  “Because, I wanted to come here too.” Damen got up from the floor and looked out the window again, adding with tears in his voice, “But now, I don’t think I want to be here anymore.”

  “Listen, sometimes life isn’t as perfect as you think. Sometimes you can’t have your cake and eat it too, but you did,” Chuck stated.

  Damen turned away from the window and looked at him. The last, single tear came from his right eye that would be the last tear that Damen will shed for a little bit to reality, but a long interval for Damen. “What do you mean, Chuck?”

  “Well, you guys came to Hollywood to make it famous together. But, you guys ended your friendships and made it famous anyway. You see, through this, you got to see the way Jose is really like, you got the chance to finally take off the mask that Jose wore, and also the mask that Darell wore,” Chuck explained, concentrating on Damen wiping away his final tear.

  “But.” Damen paused his words and noticed a doctor approaching him and Chuck.

  “Hello, I’m Dr. Andrew, are you Damen Schultz?” the doctor asked.

  Damen noticed a stain of blood on the doctor’s blue apron, responding in a fast and frantic voice, “Yes, is Jose alright?”

  Chuck got up and questioned to the doctor, “Listen, before you answer him, could you please tell me, in private, the information on Jose’s injuries?”

  Damen looked over Chuck’s shoulders to see and hear the doctor’s answer. “Sure, please come with me, sir.”

  Chuck walked with him down the hallway, suddenly stopping, turning around and saying toward Damen, “I’ll be right back, Damen.”

  Damen lingered the hallways of the large hospital with a thought of despair, mixed with guilt in the grasp of his mind. He was confused, disoriented, wanting only one thing, and that was Jose to be better, to get well. The thought of him even dying wasn’t in his mind, only because he couldn’t handle it, and if it did happen, he didn’t know what he would do, who he would kill for harming his best friend, and what length he would travel to find God. His beliefs, his divinity, his trust in God would be lost forever, if God took Jose’s life, and those thoughts spun in Damen’s aptitude, as he walked the hallways more and more, trying to find, retrieve some direction, some purpose as to where he’s going to. He walked down the stairway, hoping to find a way out from the hospital.

  But, why?

  He asked that in his mind, repeatedly, wanting to know why he should escape from the hospital that holds his dying friend. To Damen, his escaping symbolized the escape from his problems, guilt, and sorrow that Hollywood has brought to him; yet, he shouldn’t blame it on Hollywood, only because it was a city, not a human being.

  As he reached the main floor of the hospital, he saw the exit, so he began running to it, running from his fears, and running from his destiny, a destiny that he didn’t want anymore. He ran out of the hospital and came across the media, journalists, fans, and cameramen that were separated from him by a single yellow fence that was put up by the police. He lit a cigarette and looked at them all, watching as the flashes of light from the cameras came on his face. He scrutinized and watched very carefully as the yelling of his name came out from every single one of them; Damen realized that he was trapped. Between the hospital and the yellow fence, that’s where he stood, not knowing where to turn, or which direction to take on. All he wanted was to go back to Ridge Crest and go down to the Valley that he called Sugar. He remembered how he used to feel so safe in it, the Valley held his happiness; that’s how he remembered his roots. He remembered what Chuck told him about finding his roots, and he did at that moment. Remembering how the Valley protected them, protected their happiness, their contentment, and their ambition, Damen was overwhelmed with the yearning for the euphoria that the Valley gave to them all. He looked up at the stars and found the brightest in the sky, comprehending in metaphoric sense that he was that star, the star that he always wanted to be. But to Jose, he would become a fallen star, that is if he didn’t survive his wounds.

  Damen tried to cry again, to release the pressure that his guilt, terror, and sadness brought to him, but he couldn’t cry. It was like he used up all of his tears. He tried for an hour to cry, but he wasn’t successful. He lit up his eighth cigarette and slowly began to approach the crowd that was getting larger by the minute. That’s when Chuck appeared behind him. He put his hand on Damen’s shoulder and squeezed it ever so gently. Damen knew who it was, remembering that same grasp from before, feeling the love in it, the trust. Damen turned around very slowly, and asked in sadness, “Why can’t I cry anymore? Chuck, why can’t I let this pain leave?”

  “Come here, son,” Chuck grabbed Damen and gave him a tight hug, wanting him to feel better, blanketi
ng him with his love, wanting his dear friend and surrogate son to feel better with his love, urging.

  “Is it wrong for me to not cry? I mean, is it?” Damen was frantic, he squeezed his eyelids tight together and tried to create some sort of a tear, but nothing was shown.

  “Damen, Jose wants to talk to you.”

  He dropped his cigarette, and began walking with Chuck in a fast manner toward the hospital entrance. “Is he gonna be okay?”

  “Well, he just came out of surgery, and the doctor already talked to me.”

  “Well, is he gonna be okay?” Damen asked again, stopping by the entrance doorway and looking at Chuck in an eager way.

  Chuck paused for a few second, knowing the news of Jose’s health, and not really wanting to speak of it. But, he explained, “Damen, I don’t want to lie to you. Listen, Jose got shot in the liver, and many other spots that caused internal bleeding, and it went straight through to his spine. The doctor’s explained to me, in medical terminology, what happened to Jose. But, in English terms.” He paused his words for a moment, and then added, “He’s dying, Damen. I’m sorry.” Chuck began crying, showing his tears to Damen, symbolizing that all people have a soft spot to them. Damen looked away from Chuck’s crying face, not showing any tears, but having so much strength within him that he took it like a man. He was crying inside, so much he was, yet he still asked one single question, a question that was hard to get out from his tear-filled lungs.