Dismally, and full of sorrow as Damen may be, he grabbed the envelope, muttering, “What’s this?”
“Before we left California to come here for the funeral, I found it. It was in your tuxedo pants. I think you should read it, Damen, it makes a lot of sense.”
He frantically opened the envelope, pulled out a wrinkled letter, and recognized Darell’s handwriting. “My God, I forgot about this.”
“Before you read it, I just wanted to tell you that I’m going back to California tomorrow morning. If you decide to stay here, then call me and tell me at the motel I’m staying at, that way I could cancel your contract with the movie that you’re doing now. I know I’m probably gonna get a big lawsuit for it, but who cares. I just want to tell you that you’re a real good friend. And, I, um, well I thank you for making my true calling in life come true. You know, if it wasn’t for you, I would probably be back in the café right now, only serving coffee to old people.” Chuck grinned, held his body over Damen’s and gave him a huge hug. “Well, I’ll tell your parents that you’re gonna be back in a few minutes.” Chuck walked away from him, vanishing in the darkness, disappearing in the forest above.
Damen stood in the Valley and stared at the Oscar that was on top of Jose’s tombstone. He then began to read Darell’s letter, the last and final words that Darell wrote. At first he hesitated, but he knew he had to do it, there was no choice in this matter. Before he read it, he was hoping that it would give him closure, when in fact, it didn’t, but it helped him a lot: in more ways than one.
Dear Damen, I’m going back to Ridge Crest tomorrow. I realized that fame wasn’t everything I’ve imagined for all these years. I know about the lie that Jose and Julienne told about you, if you don’t know it yet, then just ask Jose about it. I was a terrible friend to you, Damen, I should have stuck up for you and told somebody about the lie, but I didn’t.
Damen began crying again, pausing from reading it in his mind, and imagined what Darell looked like when he was writing it. He imagined Darell high on cocaine, ready to take his last sniff of the devil-made substance, before he died.
I know that I’m a drug addict, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m going back home. But, I don’t want you to come to Ridge Crest for me. I want you to stay in Hollywood and climb the steep hill to fame. I know you want it. Damen, you’re one of the greatest friends that I’ve ever had, and I thank God every day for giving me the gift of having you as my blood-brother. I always looked up to you. But I realize now that friends move on. I miss Sugar Valley, and that’s where I belong. But, you Damen, you don’t belong there, you belong in Hollywood, you always did.
He stopped again from reading, squeezed his eyes together from sorrow, and opened them up, to only reveal fogginess to the words. So, he wiped his tears away, and focused in on the last letters of Darell O’Conner’s thoughts.
Well, I have to go now, I have one more sniff to go, and then that’s it for me, I’m leaving, and when I do, I’m gonna go straight to Sugar Valley, and sit in it for a day, just smiling at it. Man, I feel goose bumps just thinking of Sugar. Do you get like that, Damen?
Damen paused again, smiled though his tears, and spoke, “Yes, all the time.”
Anyway, I just want to let you know that you’re like a brother to me, and I love you for that.
After Damen finished reading it, he put it in his pocket and began walking to the cave where the time capsule was. He pulled the capsule out once again and carried it out of the cave with him. Suddenly, the picture of him, Jose, and Darell flew out of the box and began bouncing against the ground as it flew. He dropped the capsule and began running after the photo in the darkness, trying to step on it or catch it so it wouldn’t disappear into the apparition-filled-shade of the night. As soon as he caught it, he fell to the ground and scraped his knee, but didn’t bother feeling it, worrying about it; all he cared for was retrieving this photo of memories. He looked at the photo, and at that moment, all the memories came back. He got up from the ground and began running around the Valley, for some spiritually driven reason, feeling the cool breeze rushing against his face and drying his tears in the process.
“This is where it all began,” he cried out loud, his voice echoed throughout the Valley’s walls. He didn’t know why he was running like a madman, or why he was yelling out such words over and over again, but it felt good to him. He ran to the lake and sat down by the shoreline, noticing the moon reflecting off the basin and iridescence, dazzled and glistened onto his face with such massive beauty to its rays. Suddenly, a smile broke through all the pain and agony he had within him, and that’s when he began laughing. He felt like a little kid again; he felt safe in the arms of the Valley. But then the memory of his friends’ deaths returned to his mind, and his laughing seized, completing its last humorous noise with a big gasp of air. Damen turned around and saw the tombstones of Darell and Jose, striking his eyes with its painful sight like a bullet striking the water of calmness. He got up and ran away; he couldn’t take it anymore. He exited the Valley with the one photo from the capsule, and began running to Ridge Crest, it was like death was chasing him, and he couldn’t get away. He couldn’t outrun the guilt that Jose and Darell’s death brought to him. He knew he couldn’t go back to Hollywood, he knew it would be unfair to Jose and Darell. “They wouldn’t leave my grave for a second,” he said out loud as his running became walking.
Damen was lost in the cold darkness of his town, like some of the memories from it were hidden away from his consciousness, and made him feel like a stranger to its presence. He felt alone and terrified. Damen realized that he knew Hollywood better than Ridge Crest, but the thing is, he hated Hollywood, and loves his hometown; that’s what frightened him the most. He contemplated, analyzed, and then finally understood, as he walked, that Hollywood was his home, but didn’t like the realization at all. He stopped and looked at the photo again, staring at it for ten minutes straight as his tears began to fall more, trying to capture that moment in the photo again, to make him feel not like a stranger to this town’s scenery. But no luck, so he put the photo in his pocket and began walking again, and that’s when one of his memories returned. He looked to the left of him and noticed a house with an old porch to it, behind a large oak tree that stood in its front yard. “My God, I remember that porch,” he whispered, opening the white, wooden, and chipped painted fence that led to the porch. He walked up slowly to it as the wind blew harder. Damen started knocking on the screen door, chanting, “Hello, is anyone home?”
A young woman, who was obstructed to Damen’s sight, because of the darkness, opened the door, and shouted, “Who the hell is it?”
Damen whispered, “Maria?”
A tear began to fall down her face, showing her presence more, by walking out into the moon’s light, and arraying her beauty to him once again. Every letter that Maria wrote, and every memory that she had of Damen, Jose, and Darell returned at that crucial second. She opened the screen door slowly, reached her lingering hands up to Damen’s face, and started feeling his textures. “Damen, is that you under those new clothes?” She wrapped her arms around him and held him like a teddy bear, spinning around, crying out with joy that Damen was here with her.
They both sat down on the first step of her porch, and just gazed at each other’s eyes and faces, holding hands, living in this moment of happiness. “My God, Maria, you grew up so much.”
They talked for hours with Damen crying on her shoulders. She was the last and final true friend that he had left, and Damen didn’t want to lose that. At the end of the conversation, he wiped his tears away, and said, “So, out of all that’s happened, I’m not going back to California.”
“You know, Damen, you should go back. I mean, I always knew that you were gonna come out on top, and you did.”
Damen looked at her with serious eyes, and then took out the photo and studied it some more. He then looked back at her and explained, “Thank you, but I’m still not going back. After al
l that’s happened, I’m afraid to go back. And their funeral helped me make up my mind. I just can’t leave them behind, Maria, I can’t.”
“I know the way you’re feeling, I know it’s hard. That’s why I didn’t show up to the funeral at all, I was afraid. A lot has happened since you guys left. Too much has happened.” Maria lay back on the porch, and gawked at the moon’s silhouette of beauty, staring at it through the clouds, watching the billowing clouds dance within its light.
Damen lay back as well, asking, “Why were you afraid?”
“Because, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I wrote over a hundred letters to you guys, but never sent them out. I still have them upstairs in my room. I didn’t know where you guys were, I didn’t even know if you were alive. Damen, I cried a lot since you, Darell, and especially Jose left.” Maria began crying again, showing her tears to Damen as she turned her head, and felt them plummeting off her face and onto the porch’s wood.
“I cried a lot too. I must have cried every single day since I left Ridge Crest. I lost my friends, Maria, I’ve lost Jose and Darell.” Damen began crying himself again, whispering, “I’m so sick of crying night and day. I wish that the pain would just go away, and never show its face to me again. Yet, it does. I don’t understand why, why is the pain still here?” Damen then lit up a cigarette, and blew the smoke toward the moon’s light. “Once, just once, I would like to cry of happiness, I mean, I stopped crying for some days now, and I don’t know why. It was like I ran out of tears because I used them so much. But then I started crying again, and I don’t want to anymore. It’s like, when I want to cry, for those moments when you should, I don’t, and when I don’t want to cry, at those moments where you should be strong, I do. I just want to cry of happiness once, but now, I don’t think I’ll ever reach that point. I know Chuck’s mad at me, I got a movie that I’m still acting in, and I have to do it tomorrow. But I can’t, I can’t leave Darell and Jose behind,” he cried.
Maria gave him a hug while still lying on the porch, saying to his eyes, “Damen, why would you give up fame for them? You’re a star, and the weird thing about it is, you’re just beginning. You don’t realize how much you have going for you. So, like I asked before, why would you give up what you’ve worked for, for them?”
Damen pulled fiercely away from her hug, got up with anger to his motion, and walked down the steps. He started walking away from her porch, shouting toward her, “Because they’re my friends. And they’re my brothers.”
“But they’re dead,” Marie yelled. Damen stopped his walking and turned around to look at her with shock. “Yeah, that’s right, they’re dead, Damen. You said it yourself, remember? Remember what you said to me about a half an hour ago? You said that they achieved fame way too fast. You told me that they changed when they achieved it. They changed so much that they forgot about you,” she shrilled at the top of her lungs.
Damen walked toward her, shouting, “Yeah, I did say that, but Darell didn’t change like that. Darell was confused and homesick, he just wanted to belong!”
“Yeah, so that’s why he didn’t tell you about the lie then? You know, a true friend would give anything for a friend, even his freedom, or fame,” Maria stated with loudness still.
Damen began walking away from her again, screaming, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Maria ran after him and grabbed onto his arm, turning Damen around to face her. That’s when she yelled, “That’s why I stayed behind, Damen. I stayed because I didn’t want to ruin Jose’s dream. I didn’t want my problem getting in the way. I knew if I told Jose, then neither of you would go to Hollywood.”
“What are you talking about?” Damen was confused about her words, watching her looking up at the moon’s light, studying her face as if she had a secret in her eyes.
“Come inside, I’ll show you what I mean.” Maria grabbed Damen’s hand, and they walked into her house. Her house was filled with junk piled on top of junk, Damen’s sight caught on that something was wrong with this picture.
“Why is your house a mess?”
She pushed him into a chair, responding with, “Hold on, I’ll explain in a second.” Maria ran upstairs in a heartbeat. When she returned to the junk-filled room where Damen was sitting, she didn’t return alone.
In his view, was a baby, beautiful as an angel’s wing, held in her arms. “Who’s this?”
She handed the baby to Damen’s arms, answering, “This is Jessica. She’s my daughter. Jose is her father.”
“You mean Jose’s father is the father?” he asked in a confused manner.
“No, I mean our friend Jose is. You see, before you left for California, I found out I was pregnant with her. I assumed Jose would make it famous, but then I saw that he was dating Julienne Wells. I saw it on television. Damen, everyone in this town calls me a whore and a slut. The name-calling and embarrassment got so bad, that my parents left three months ago and went to Kansas to stay with my other relatives. Jose’s parents help out a lot with Jessica, but it still isn’t enough. That’s what I meant by what I said. The reason why I didn’t tell Jose was because I knew it would be stressful on him, plus I knew he had to hold a reputation. I didn’t want him getting a reputation as a baby-maker,” Maria explained in a crying voice as Damen stared at Jessica in amazement.
“She has Jose’s eyes. She even has his big, ugly nose.” Damen then smiled toward Jessica and felt a single tear coming down from his left eye.
“Damen ... this town isn’t everything you said it was. It isn’t a kind and happy town. Ridge Crest wears a mask every day. They put my family through hell, and me also. Leaving this place was the best decision that you guys have ever made. That’s why I’m telling you, go back to Hollywood,” she spoke, grabbing Jessica and taking her away gently from Damen’s grasp.
Damen got up from the ripped chair, stating in defense, “Sugar Valley doesn’t have a mask on.”
“Yeah, that’s the only place that doesn’t, probably in this entire world. Damen, go back to Hollywood.”
Damen wiped his tears away with his arm and opened the front door. He stopped for a moment, like a light bulb went off in his thoughts, turned around to face her, and spoke, “Listen, you said before to me that you wanted to go, right?”
“Go where?”
“Hollywood, that’s what you said to me.” Damen opened the screen door and felt the cool breeze flush against his face, but he still kept his eyes on Maria’s.
He walked completely out of the house, stood on the front porch, and smiled, hearing Maria saying “Yeah ... so ...”
XI
The Vanities Meet, in Spirit
and in Life, To Show Their
Subliminal Messages of Love,
While the Angel Still Keeps
Its Eyes Shut For a Bit Longer.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Damen walked back down to the Valley the next morning, absorbing the new fallen dew into his shoes and socks, as his feet brushed against the Valley’s natural skin of green. He sat next to the graves of his friends and began talking to them out loud. At the same time, he listened as the crickets chirped and the fish jumped in the lake, knowing that the sun was rising slowly, craving hunger for their fishy stomachs. Before he conversed and began his moment of closure that wouldn’t come yet, Damen absorbed his vision in the Valley’s body, watching this massive beauty become brighter to his eyes as the sun rouse to a higher climate every second and every time his heart beat once. He was in a state of awe, closing his eyes and staring toward the clouds, feeling the sun’s rays beating down on his image, and creating a sense of warmth to his flesh; it was like God’s eyes saw the Valley first before anything. “This is paradise,” he said out loud, watching the wind blowing against the grass of the Valley’s hills. “Please, guys, give me a sign. Give me sign that it’s alright for me to go back to Hollywood. Chuck’s leaving in an hour and once he leaves, I’m staying here. Just please, give me a sign and I’ll go.” D
amen stared at the Oscar trophy, which was placed on Jose’s grave, and waited for it to move. He was praying that it would fall or shake a certain way, so his mind would think it was a sign from them. “I know that we’ve changed a lot since we went there. But, we regained our friendships at the end. So please, give me a sign,” he yelled out in anger. “Could you please give me a sign?” He got up and listened for a certain noise, or a certain way that the wind blew, hoping that the Valley’s powers, its soul, would allow Jose and Darell’s spirit to hear his pleads and fulfill what he wanted: the OK to go back.
He sat down again and talked for a half an hour, discussing Jessica, Maria, and just about anything with them. After that, he listened again for a sign, a sign that would set him free from the guilt that he had inside of him; the guilt and depression that their deaths brought him. “Give me a frickin’ sign,” Damen demanded, getting up from the dew-filled ground. “Sugar, please, let them hear me.” His eyes started to form tears, his hands began to shake, and his heart started to beat faster than usual. Suddenly, he noticed an effulgent and shiny object coming from Darell’s grave. Damen didn’t know it was, at first he felt it was a raindrop, reflecting the sun’s light, or a bug that has a shiny back to it. Yet, he wanted to know what it was, so he reached down in the grass and grabbed the object. He dropped it moments later, saying, “I don’t believe it, it couldn’t be.” Damen picked up the object again and saw that it was Darell’s golden pen, the pen that he and Jose gave him before his first movie began filming. A smile grew on Damen’s face, a sweet innocence grin that meant he knew why this pen surfaced to his sight. “Thank you, thank you so much.” But the signs weren’t over yet.
As Damen walked away from the graves with a smile on his face, the second sign came into hand. A gust of wind came and blew the time capsule that Damen left behind, and lifted it up in the air. At that same moment, the gust of wind caused Jose’s Oscar trophy to tip over and glide against the ground, like it was on ice, surfing the ground in a calm motion. Damen turned around, and saw the capsule land right by him with the Oscar trophy blowing directly into it. Damen couldn’t believe his eyes; the shock came over his face as he looked around to see if any ghosts were in the Valley. He then put the golden pen into his pocket and picked up the time capsule, comprehending that this wasn’t the type of sign he was looking for.
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