by Ray Garton
“Honey” was his euphemism for sex and violence. Adam had heard it all countless times before.
Michael’s dark brown hair was long and thick and wild. It curled and waved just past his shoulders. Bushy eyebrows and a bushy beard and mustache that looked as if they had been purchased to match the bushy hair on his head. For all Adam knew, they had. There was a streak of gray in his beard on each side of his chin, both artificial. He thought the look commanded more respect than facial hair with no gray.
The beard and long hair helped disguise the fact that his face was not only, like his head, unusually large, but perfectly round. The facial hair, however, could do nothing to camouflage the flatness of his face. It even sank in slightly in the center, giving him an ugly profile that he never knowingly allowed to be photographed. Gossip columnist Mitchell Fink had referred to him once as “the dinner-plate-faced scribe.” The tossed-off remark had so infuriated Michael Julian that both Adam and his mother had been even more careful than usual to stay out of his way for about two weeks.
“That honey sweetens the box office receipts,” he continued. “Pays more than any Goddamned short story. Who the hell’s gonna read a short story? I don’t think anybody even publishes them anymore. But everybody goes to the movies.”
Adam did not respond to his dad’s screenplay speech. He wished the conversation had never begun, and certainly did not want it to continue. The food was good, though. Adam seldom ate at the table when his father was around, but the food made up for the company.
Saturday and Sunday breakfasts had been Adam’s favorite meals as a boy. His mom always cooked them. Saturdays, she would make waffles with fresh fruit and whipped cream. Sunday, eggs and bacon and fried potatoes. The indulgent breakfasts were eaten at that table, with Adam seated in the same chair he occupied now. And with his mother seated in the same place as Gwen.
He frowned slightly as he thought about those weekend breakfasts. They had stopped abruptly when he was still a little boy, but he could not remember why.
He looked at Gwen, sitting in his mother’s place, and felt a moment of déjà vu. It had been longer than he had thought since he had eaten at the dining room table. The last time, that spot, where Gwen sat—his mother’s spot—had been empty.
* * *
Mom was Emily Moessing. She had not been quite as pretty as Gwen, but much more beautiful. A bigger forehead, bigger nose, weaker chin. Long straight dishwater-blonde hair that would not curl or take on any shape no matter what she did with it. But she was not ugly or even plain. Tall, a killer smile, big brown eyes.
Adam could not hear the massive wind chimes she had hung around the patio without thinking of her laugh. She used read to Adam at night, acted out each story, made Dr. Seuss sound like Shakespeare.
If they met today, Adam guessed, Michael Julian would not give Emily Moessing a second look. She simply was not his type now. Of course, when Michael Julian and Emily Moessing met, Michael had not yet achieved his tremendous success.
They met while he was writing for a few television action series and she was working in wardrobe at Paramount. Their marriage was a good luck charm at first. Somebody bought one of his screenplays, and the movie, Mayhem, did surprisingly good business. Somebody saw her sketches and made her a designer. He started selling scripts for big money. The critics laughed at and eviscerated the movies, but they were hits at the box office. Emily was in big demand, worked with the biggest directors in the business. His reviews got worse...and she got an Oscar nomination. Then another. The third time, she won.
The New Yorker called Emily “the Edith Head of our time.” Michael’s bitter response was, “That’s not the kind of head I’m interested in.”
Her Oscar ate at him like a cancer. After she won it, things fell apart fast. They shouted instead of talked. Adam would find his mom crying in the kitchen or living room, sometimes with bruises on her arms, neck, or a swollen black eye.
Emily was beautiful, but not in a Hollywood way. Her beauty was authentic and shone from inside. Everyone loved her and her work, and everyone with an I.Q. higher than their shoe size agreed that Michael was a prick who pulled his scripts out of his ass.
Adam was convinced that Oscar was why his dad had killed his mom. He had no proof. Nothing solid he could show anyone. Just a certainty deep in his gut.
* * *
“How’s the movie coming?” Gwen asked, delicately dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin. Adam watched. There was no sign of such delicacy when she had his cock in her mouth. She caught him staring and smiled.
“It’s coming along. Everybody’s worried it’s gonna piss off the gay community,” he said as he lifted his hands and hooked invisible quotation marks in the air with the first two fingers of each. “Those dipshits never learn. Of course it’s gonna piss off the queers. The cannibal serial killer’s a fag, for Christ’s sake, it’s gonna make ’em all nuts.” He stabbed his fork hard at his food, took in a mouthful and chewed, but kept talking. “But that’ll mean another, what? Twenty? Thirty million at the box office? You can’t buy the kinda publicity you get from a buncha Judy Garland fans picketing theaters and whining on radio talk shows. That kinda stuff sells tickets, for Christ’s sake.”
Gwen asked, “What if this is the time everybody decides to agree with them?”
“Never happen,” he said. “This movie’s already got everything going for it. Sex and guns, a couple kick-ass car chases, some kinky killings. The protests’ll be a plus. And with any luck, there’ll be some controversy over the MPAA rating. You know, they’ll wanna give it an NC-17, we need an R for it to be a success, we’ll have to cut some sex, that kinda thing. The movie’s gonna make a fucking fortune, and they all know it. The only reason the studio’s worried about the fags protesting is that half the people who work there are fags, and they don’t want their friends talking bad about them under the hair dryers.”
Adam could not hold back a quiet laugh.
“You think that’s funny?” Michael asked, turning to him with a smirk.
“I was just...laughing at the way you put it.”
That was partly true. Adam was repulsed by his father’s harsh language toward homosexuals and racial minorities. He often referred to Mrs. Yu as a “chink” when he thought she was out of earshot. His favorite term for black people was “jungle bunnies.” He practically fell over laughing every time he said it. The reason Adam had laughed at the dinner table was that he knew a great number of the people his dad worked with, and for, were indeed openly gay. And because his dad regularly attended benefits to raise money for AIDS research and to support gay rights. They were two of the biggest thorns in Michael Julian’s side. A bit of him died each time he attended such a function. Ate at him from the inside out, because he did not give a damn about the charities he was donating to or the causes being supported. More often than not, he was completely opposed to them. But he knew everyone who was anyone would be there and it was important to attend to be seen. And it was nice tax write-off. Adam found that funny.
Somewhere in the house, a phone purred.
Michael and Gwen exchanged a lingering look. He started in his chair and laughed quietly.
Adam knew they were playing footsie under the table and suddenly, no matter how delicious the food, he lost his appetite.
Mrs. Yu entered the room with a cordless phone in hand and went to Gwen’s side.
“Missy Gwen, phone for you.”
Gwen took the phone and said, “Hello?”
Adam poked at and cut his food, even though he was no longer eating it. His dad ate as if there were a chance the food might flee the plate. His knife and fork clacked and scraped, jaw worked hard beneath that mass of hair. Grizzly Adams eating something he had just killed and waved over the campfire a couple times.
After a long silence, Gwen whispered, “Oh, my God.”
Adam looked across the table at Gwen’s wide eyes and open mouth. Something was wrong.
“My daught
er, what about my daughter?” she asked, loudly this time.
Michael put down his utensils and watched his wife, frowning.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said, her voice breaking as her head dropped forward and she covered her eyes with her hand.
“Hey, hey,” Michael said quietly as he got out of his chair and went to her side.
“Have you checked her grandmother’s?” she asked. After a moment, “No, his mother. She thinks that girl can do no wrong, and—” She stopped and listened for a few seconds. “Yes, that’s the address. If she’s run away, she might be there, or at least on her way.”
Adam exchanged a puzzled look with his dad.
“Oh, yes, she’s hitchhiked before,” Gwen said.
Mrs. Yu stood beside Gwen looking aloof, indifferent. Waiting for the phone so she could put it back where it belonged when Gwen was done.
“Yes, I wish you would,” Gwen said. “And please call the second you know anything. Will you, please?” She sat up straight in her chair, took a deep breath and let it ease out of her. “Thank you. Thank you very much.” She pulled the phone away from her ear, handed it back to Mrs. Yu, who immediately left the room.
“What the hell was that?” Michael asked.
Gwen wiped her eyes, although there appeared to be no tears in them. “Police in Miami. There’s been a fire. Larry’s house. It burned down. He was in it. He died.” She sighed and shook her head slowly. “Probably drunk. As usual.”
“What about your daughter?” Michael asked as he hunkered down beside her, put an arm around her shoulders.
“She’s run away again. They don’t know where she is.”
“At least she wasn’t in the house with her dad,” Adam said, uncertain and cautious.
“They’ll find her,” Gwen said hoarsely. “She’s at her grandmother’s, I’m sure. If she’d been home, she might have been able to save Larry. Wake him up, get him out of bed. He sleeps like a corpse when he’s been drinking. Which is probably most of the time now that he doesn’t have me around to bitch about it.”
“Hey, you’re not gonna start blaming yourself, honey,” Michael said firmly. “I’m not gonna let you do that.” He leaned forward and embraced her, kissed her cheek.
“No, no, no,” she said, pushing him away. “I’m not blaming myself. I’m just...angry. At him, at her. When they find her, she’ll have to come live with us, you know. Right away.” She turned slowly to Michael. “She’s not an easy girl to live with.”
He smiled. On him, it looked more like a sour expression. As if he had bitten into an extraordinarily unpleasant cheese. But Adam recognized it as a sincere smile, an oddity on his father’s face.
“Hey, that’s no problem,” Michael said enthusiastically, stroking Gwen’s hair. He jerked his head toward Adam and said, “Hell, you think it’s been a barrel of dancing girls raising this clown? He’s not perfect, either. He’s not even normal. I mean, Jesus, he writes poetry, for God’s sake.” He glanced at Adam. “For all I know, he’s a fag.”
A suppressed laugh snorted through Gwen’s nose, but she managed to make it sound like an emotional catch in her throat. Adam smirked.
“You wanna go upstairs?” Michael asked. He stood, took her elbow and gently tugged her to her feet. “C’mon, let’s go. You can take a couple of my pills. You’ll feel better.”
As he led her away from the table slowly, she glanced back over her shoulder at Adam and kissed the air silently, smiled.
“Oh!” Michael blurted. “You go upstairs, baby, I’m right behind you.” He returned to the table, looked down at Adam. “If you don’t have any plans, we’re taking Money Shot out for the Fourth. The whole week. You wanna bring a friend, fine. We’ll be leaving early on the Fourth, as usual.” He headed out of the dining room again. Over his shoulder, he said, “Try to bring a girl, okay? Carter doesn’t count. You ask me, I think it’s way past time you two got your own place together and started a family.”
When he was gone, Adam sat alone at the table. The smell of the food stirred his appetite again and he began to eat. Dinner was delicious, and the company had improved.
THREE
The next day, Adam drove over to Carter’s house, only a few blocks away. He parked behind the house and walked in through the back door without knocking. He had known Carter since third grade, and often felt more comfortable in Carter’s house than in his own.
Adam walked through the large kitchen, said hello to Mrs. Sanchez, the maid, passed through the dining room—there were four cardboard boxes on the table—and nearly ran into Devin in the hallway.
“Oh, my God!” Devin said, leaning against the wall to take a deep breath. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m just preoccupied.” Devin held a cardboard box in his arms. It looked heavy, although it wasn’t very big. He was a thin man who stood a few inches short of Adam’s six feet. On that hot summer day, he wore a light blue sundress of thin, cool cotton, no stockings, which was rare for Devin, and a pair of deck shoes with no socks. His glasses rested on his chest, suspended from his neck on a thin silver chain.
“What’re you doing?” Adam asked.
“Cleaning out the library. C’mon.” He jerked his head for Adam to follow him back into the dining room. Devin put the box on the table with all the others. Sweeping the back of his hand over his shiny forehead, he turned to Adam and smiled. “We keep buying new books, but we have no place to put them. So I’m getting rid of the ones we don’t need anymore.”
“I didn’t think Mr. Brandis ever got rid of books,” Adam said with a chuckle. “He’s got the biggest library I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s got more books than he’s got library. But I’ve been working on him. I finally got him to agree that there are at least a couple hundred we can lose. I’m taking advantage of his fit of reason before he changes his mind. I figure as long as I don’t touch his collection of first-edition signed Harold Robbins novels, I’m safe.”
“Is Carter around?” Adam said.
“I haven’t seen him. Either he’s gone, or he’s in his bedroom or studio.” He glanced at his watch and gasped, pressing his other hand to his chest. “Oh, God. Jeremy will be home for lunch in a few minutes.” He squeezed Adam’s shoulder affectionately. “You make yourself at home, sweetie. I’ve got to talk to Mrs. Sanchez.”
Adam went into the hall and headed for the stairs to look for Carter.
Devin had been Jeremy Brandis’s partner in life for over three years. Mr. Brandis’s relationship with Devin had been his longest to date, not counting Mrs. Brandis. He had spent years going through one boyfriend after another before meeting Devin, who insisted on a serious, long-term relationship or nothing at all. While not a cross-dresser himself, Mr. Brandis had no problem with it. “He doesn’t mind my dresses,” Devin had said once, “and I turn a blind nostril to his cigars.”
The summer before Adam and Carter entered the fifth grade, Mr. Brandis had announced to his family that he was gay. He regretted hurting them, but said he could no longer live a lie and needed to pursue his true nature.
This came as a big shock to Adam, who had always thought Mrs. Brandis was the homosexual. Greta Brandis was a stocky woman—not fat, but thick and solid—who never, ever wore dresses or skirts. Adam had never seen her in anything that could not be worn by a man without anyone knowing the difference. She kept her hair cut very short, and, depending on her mood, she sometimes had it buzzed. She was a photographer and her subjects ranged from celebrities to wild exotic animals in remote jungles. She had a loud, deep voice and a laugh that sounded like someone torturing a goat.
Mr. Brandis, on the other hand, was tall and slender, and while not overtly macho, there was definitely a manliness about him. He loved sports, did a lot of off-road driving and mountain climbing, and bore a strong resemblance to a somewhat younger Burt Reynolds, but with real hair. He was a very popular production designer who had worked on some of the bigg
est movies of the last two decades, and had been nominated for two Academy Awards, neither of which he had won.
Ms. Kindler-Brandis—the name sounded to Adam like a pricey daycare center—had accepted her husband’s announcement with surprising grace. They divorced, but remained close friends and occasional roommates. Ms. Kindler-Brandis maintained their Beverly Hills home as her “base camp,” as she called it, and showed up for a couple weeks two or three times a year. The arrangement suited Devin, who was a fan of Greta’s work. He once had told Adam he thought she was “a divine adventurer, like Indiana Jones with a uterus.”
Carter was not in his bedroom, so Adam went up to the attic, which everyone in the Brandis household referred to as Carter’s “studio.” Adam could hear Marilyn Manson playing loudly overhead.
The attic had served as a darkroom for Carter’s mother. Since the divorce, she had used it less and less, until she finally rented a studio in Westwood. The attic had been empty ever since, until two summers ago.
Since Adam had entered high school, his father had been trying to interest him in one aspect or another of the movie business as a profession. The one constant was screenwriting, which he had pushed relentlessly since Adam was old enough to understand what he was saying. But every few months, he would come up with something else. One evening, he had a nervous, fidgety cinematographer over for dinner in an unveiled attempt to get Adam excited about cinematography. He had taken Adam to a foley session to watch as sound effects were added to his latest movie. To Pixar, where he was led through all the steps of making a movie with computers instead of cameras.
Adam had explained to his father that no matter what kind of work he did later in life, it would have absolutely nothing to do with show business in general and the movie business in particular. It held no appeal for him.
His father had sniffed dismissively and said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Everybody wants to work in the movies. Most people would kill for the opportunities I’m giving you.”