Fifty Cents For Your Soul

by Denise Dietz

  “It was just a dream, brought on by my watching Fiddler,” I said, as sweat-centipedes crawled down my face, slid across my neck, and inched toward my meager cleavage.

  The thumpy noise, however, was no dream.

  I looked around for a weapon. Incantations wouldn’t ward off burglars, and demon hocus-pocus wouldn’t shoo away people who raped people in their sleep.

  “People…people who rape people,” I sang softly, paraphrasing Streisand, hoping Rodgers and Hammerstein’s whenever-I-feel-afraid philosophy would calm my ragged nerves.

  At the same time, I reached for an oversized Les Miserables T-shirt. Before putting it on, I gazed at the sad-eyed waif on the front.

  Which made me think of Cat Sands, who had called earlier to tell me that Madison had scheduled a meeting for cast members. I figured a mere double could skip the meeting, especially since the time clashed with Tenia’s Black Mass. Cat made me promise not to attend the Mass alone. Crossing my fingers behind my back, I promised.

  Technically, I wouldn’t be alone. I’m not sure how many folks constitute a Black Mass, but I’m fairly certain it’s more than one.

  I finally found a weapon, Rick’s golf clubs. Although I couldn’t care less about golf, I’ve watched Tiger Woods at least a million times. So if there really was an intruder and I swung one of the woods like Tiger --

  Another thump, this one slightly muted, then a howl of pain.

  “Fuck!” said a voice that sounded like Andre’s.

  “Andre,” I yelled, “what happened?”

  Silence.

  “Hey,” I yelled, “I heard a noise, two actually, and I’m already awake, so you don’t have to worry about waking me up.”

  Silence.

  “Andre,” I yelled, “what did you knock over?”

  “That stupid wooden statue,” he yelled back. “It won’t sit straight on its base, and this time it fell on my fucking foot!”

  “What’s your definition of stupid?” I yelled. “Rick paid a fortune for that statue.”

  “He was robbed,” Andre yelled back. “It has no arms or legs.”

  “Neither does Venus de Milo.”

  “Who?”

  “Why don’t you come upstairs where you can hear me better?”

  “Because I’m drunk, Frannie, and frankly, my dear, I don’t ‑‑”

  “Give a damn?”

  “Want to sleep with you.”

  “But I need you, Andre. We don’t have to make love. Just hold me. I had this horrible nightmare and I’m still scared. Please?”

  My throat hurt from yelling, but I couldn’t move.

  Because I was suddenly afraid to confront the man I loved.

  Was I still dreaming?

  Would Andre turn into a spider, too?

  He entered the bedroom like a man, not a spider. His blonde hair was mussed, his chin boasted designer stubble, and he looked adorable. All my original feelings for him washed through me, and I was one caress away from an intense orgasm. Had he touched my shoulder, I would have dissolved into a throbbing heap of protoplasm.

  “Do you plan to take up golf at three o’clock in the morning?” he said. “Or are you playing the female equivalent of OJ Simpson?”

  “What? Oh. No. I heard a noise and thought it might be the spider.”

  “You were going to kill a poor defenseless spider with a 9-iron?”

  Taking the wood…the iron…from my hand, Andre placed it in the corner, against the wall, beneath a scenic watercolor.

  “The spider wasn’t defenseless,” I said. “It was hu-huge. Five feet. Maybe more. I had this hor-horrible nightmare. About a giant black spah-spah-spider.”

  Andre wrapped me in his arms. “Hush,” he said. “Don’t cry. Hush, Frannie, it’s okay. I’m here.”

  “Please, Andre,” I sobbed into his chest, “please make love to me.”

  “I can’t. I told you. I’m drunk.”

  “You don’t look, sound, or smell drunk.”

  “Okay, I’m exhausted.”

  I pulled away a little. “Then why did you say you were drunk?”

  “I’m fulfilling your mother’s prophecy.”

  “That’s so unfair, Andre. Mom has her faults, but she’s never, ever accused you of ‑‑”

  “Let’s not go there, Frannie. I’ll tuck you into bed and stick around until you fall asleep. Is that fair?”

  “Stick around? Were you planning to go out again?”

  “Yes. Rick found this rodeo star…ex-rodeo star. He’s gonna’ teach me how to twirl a lasso.”

  “At three o’clock in the morning?”

  “Yes. No. He…the rodeo guy…lives a couple, maybe three hours away. Rick wants to get there early, before sunrise, so we can be back in time for our noon-thirty rehearsal. We’re taking his dog…Ginger…so that means stopping along the way to…uh, walk her.”

  For an actor, Andre made a lousy liar. My hand dipped between his thighs and began to stroke. “This is me, honey,” I said. “You don’t have to deal with that crazy Frannie who invaded our apartment, after my screen test. This is me, not her.”

  “Prove it,” he said, but I could tell he was weakening. For one thing, his voice was 75% tease. For another, his erection practically burst through his jeans.

  “ ‘There are two reasons why I’m in show business,’” I said, “ ‘and I’m standing on both of them.’ Quote, unquote.”

  “Betty Grable. ‘They say a man is as old as the woman he feels.’”

  “George Burns?”

  “No. Groucho Marx.” As he gave me a fathomless kiss, Andre’s hand roved beneath my T-shirt. “I think you’re losing weight, babe,” he said, abandoning my lips. “Your breasts feel bigger.”

  “Breasts grow when you lose weight?”

  He actually laughed. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “The rest of you shrinks, so maybe your breasts feel bigger.”

  “That feels so good,” I said, arching into his fingers and fumbling at his fly. “I’ve missed you, Andre. I’ve missed…oh my God!”

  Pressing my hands against my mouth, I ran for the bathroom.

  And made it just in time.

  The finger that had ticked my throat…on the deck…when Jeremy Glenn initiated his “Fanny seduction”…finally finished its mission…its assignment….its function.

  This time there was no liquor in my system.

  This time I didn’t lose consciousness.

  Kneeling, hugging the toilet bowl, I retched.

  And kept retching, over and over again.

  My wretched retching blocked out everything, sound-wise, except the slam of the front door. Like Elvis, Andre had left the building.

  The finger, however, wouldn’t leave. It ebbed just long enough to let me take a breath, then plunged down my throat again. And tickled again. And choked me again.

  I retched and gagged.

  The finger tickled.

  I gagged some more.

  The finger plunged deeper. And deeper. Until I gave a desperate moan and my stomach turned inside out and the world turned upside down.

  I heard the hissing voice: He’s not the one.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  In my circle of friends it’s not cool to admit that one is an atheist. But it’s chi-chi to say that one is an agnostic, which not only kicks butt, metaphorically speaking, but also covers one’s butt. If there really is a God, we haven’t denied his/her existence, and if we want to bargain with God ‑‑ for example, during an audition ‑‑ that’s perfectly acceptable. My mother, of course, thinks my logic is as twisted as a French cruller.

  Now, however, I was pissed off. Because agnosticism went out the window when it came to my demon.

  Call it a doppelganger, call it a dybbuk, call it a nudist who stuffs beetles inside its belly without swallowing. I only knew that if a tree fell in the forest and hit a mime, no one would hear (or care), but if it hit my demon, the echo of its eerie screech would reverberate left and right, up and dow
n, from the Bronx Zoo to Bloomingdale’s, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Guggenheim Museum. Then the demon would pick itself up, brush itself off, and visit a Houston forest.

  Why me? That’s what I couldn’t understand. Why an uptight Jewish “ecktriss” from Long Island?

  Did the demon have a warped sense of humor?

  “Let’s choose Frannie Rosen, who won’t even put a cock in her mouth,” the head honcho tells his legions, “and let’s make her sexually promiscuous. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

  Which didn’t explain the hissing voice.

  Vomit his kiss. He’s not the one. Son of mad, son of mad.

  Rising from my bow-backed kitchen chair, I poured myself a mug of Mr. Coffee coffee, added a splash of milk from a carton inside the refrigerator, then walked into the living room and sank down upon a couch whose clawed feet fondled wooden balls.

  Mad could be…probably was…Madison, I mused. Or taken literally, Victor Madison’s son. Madison, fifty-something, could have sired a son who was now in his twenties or thirties. Except, to my knowledge, based on a Rolling Stones magazine interview and an A&E Biography, Madison didn’t have a dad, mom, sister, brother, wife, ex-wife, or any offspring.

  Both bios had mentioned Cat Sands, briefly, and I remembered my conjecture during my visit to her brownstone. I had talked about my mom’s desire for a grandkid and she had rubbed her belly and I had thought she might have been pregnant when she and Madison split. But, assuming my presumption was correct, where the hell was Madison’s son?

  Or if the demon meant Madison himself, it was way off base. I pictured Bonnie inside the mermaid rest room, where we had talked about Jem. “He’s not my type,” she had said.

  I wasn’t Madison’s type, not even close. There was no chemistry between us. He’d no sooner take me to bed than fly to the moon.

  Even if we didn’t need chemistry, even if I merely scratched an itch, there was a definite roadblock ‑‑ Madison’s Disney obsession.

  Despite her dark hair and dark eyes, Cat resembled Tinkerbell. Bonnie could have posed for Aladdin’s girlfriend. Or Pocahontas.

  At best, I looked like Simba’s gal-pal in The Lion King.

  Yet, an image came to mind. Jem and Madison standing near the restaurant’s piano bar, Jem gesturing toward me and Madison shaking his head.

  But that could have meant any number of things. Madison might have been telling Jem not to get involved with a cast member. Madison might have been telling Jem that his 99%-vodka-ploy would make me puke my guts out.

  Which brought me, in a round-about way, to Andre. I was pissed at him, too. He could have stuck around. He could have held my head. Christ, how often had I held his?

  Well, to be perfectly honest, once ‑‑ the night he up-chucked four quarts of Madeira into our potted palm. Still, that counted. Andre owed me at least one head-holding.

  After he held my head, we could have rationally discussed recent events. The click-beetles. The finger. The hiss-voice. The spider dream. My fortuitous promiscuity. Andre might have suggested a visit to the Betty Ford Clinic, where I could rid myself of demonic addiction. The thing is, Andre can almost always make me laugh, and I desperately needed laughter to eliminate the doubts and fears that were spreading faster than zits before a prom.

  According to the living room’s ship-shaped wall clock, it was five a.m. From Rick’s duplex, I heard Ginger bark. Then I heard Rick shout, “Shut up, you bitch!” Which meant that he and Andre were not on their merry way to the retired lasso twirler.

  So where was Andre? Surprisingly, I didn’t care. I had blown my breakfast, lunch and supper, but Andre had blown his chance at a forever love, and I felt sorry for him. He might find another woman to wash, dry, even iron his clothes, but he’d be hard pressed to find one who possessed a mental encyclopedia of nostalgic movie quotes.

  So why did I feel like crying?

  I returned to the kitchen and poured myself another mug of coffee. My throat felt raw and it was hard to swallow, but I didn’t want to go back to sleep. If I slept, I might dream. Which was why I decided to sit on the living room’s hardwood floor, mentally compose rap lyrics, and wait for sunrise.

  Someone, or something, must have slipped decaf into my 100% pure caf coffee beans. As I gradually curled into a fetal position and closed my eyes, I remembered my psychic’s prophetic words: “I see cameras and people. Travel. Romance with a tall, dark man.”

  Jeremy Glenn was tall and dark, but I didn’t think she’d meant Jem. Despite the he’s-not-my-type justifications, despite the lack of sexual chemistry, she’d meant the Prince of Darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I slept for eleven hours.

  I didn’t dream.

  But my throat was still sore when I awoke, which made me wonder how I’d simulate the demon’s voice.

  Sol Aarons had finished refining the Asmodeus makeup, and Madison would soon shoot the first possession scene.

  Andre had programmed the answering machine and it blinked like a freaked-out rabbit. Christ, I’d slept through the ringing of the phone. The first message was from Andre. No apology regarding his abrupt departure. He’d leased a car, he’d be driving to rehearsal, he’d be back late. His voice assumed its gee-I’m-so-sensitive groove as he said he’d sleep on the couch so as not to wake me, and he wouldn’t knock over any statues, ha-ha. His laugh sounded forced.

  The second message was from stagehands, Bambi and Fawn.

  “This is for Ann-dray,” they said.

  “Ann-dray, are you there?” a twin said.

  “He’s not there,” the other twin said.

  “Ann-dray, when are you coming?” they both said, then giggled.

  The third message was from Rick. He would drive to the rehearsal with Andre, so if I needed Yoda, the keys were in the visor. And would I feed Ginger, please?

  I heaved a sigh of relief. Yoda took care of my transportation, the one and only Black Mass obstacle.

  “This is Sheldon Giglia,” the fourth message began. A limo would pick me up tomorrow morning at five-thirty and drive me to the Asmodeus set. Makeup would commence at six, and Madison wanted to discuss a spider sequence with me.

  A spider sequence? What the hell did that mean? There were no spiders in the book. With a shudder, I listened to the fourth message.

  Mom had dipped into her mah-jongg fund to call me long distance, and she sounded irate as she blamed my absence on “schmoozing with movie stars.” Charlene had begun her second trimester and Marlene was still engaged to that “nice Negro.” Nettie Lieberman had eloped with an Italian. His last name had an etti in it, like spaghetti, so she’d be Nettie Spaghetti, wasn’t that funny? Daddy missed me, but Mom told him he shouldn’t expect someone who lived near the Alamo to remember her parents. Even though, if it weren’t for Daddy’s seed (for an instant, I thought she said “semen”), I wouldn’t be in Texas making a movie. She hoped I hadn’t taken up smoking, after all John Wayne died from lung cancer, and the kosher butcher, Mr. Plotnick, wanted an autograph. Could I sign a picture from the movie, please, and send it to him? And while I was at it, could I send one to Daddy? Then she gave me Plotnick’s address.

  The last message was from Bonnie. She reiterated Cat’s warning. I must not attend the Black Mass alone. And Madison had said something about hiring an actor to do Asmodeus voice-overs. Bruce Willis, Debra Winger, and Angela Lansbury were on his short list.

  Well, that solved my sore throat problem.

  It was time to go potty, shower, and don proper clothes.

  While pantyhose and heels were suitable for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, my mother would have given an enthusiastic thumb’s up to my Black Mass ensemble ‑‑ black stirrup slacks, one of Andre’s black T-shirts, and a motorcycle jacket I’d found at a garage sale. The Prince of Darkness would have upped his thumb, too.

  The effect I strove for was somewhat ruined by white socks, white sneakers, and the jacket’s Harley logo. However, I successfully stuffe
d my hair underneath a black Stetson, then slid a small but sharp pair of scissors into my pants pocket. I didn’t think I’d need a weapon, but a Girl Scout, even an ex-Scout, should always be prepared.

  After feeding Ginger, I toasted some stale-but-not-yet-moldy bread, smeared a ton of peanut butter across the slices, and cut off the crusts. That took care of my empty stomach. Thirsty, I wondered if I dared drink anything more potent than Diet Pepsi. Compromising, I downed a Diet Pepsi and two Lone Star beers. I went potty again, then filled a Thermos with cranberry juice. And vodka.