“Good.” She lifted another forkful of spaghetti. “When does Mommy come home?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” he answered.
She smiled. “Mommy always brings presents.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I like Mommy’s presents.”
That was true, he thought. He wondered why he never thought of bringing a present for her. But then, he never knew what to get her except Tootsie Rolls. He watched her eating. It was strange. He knew that she was his child, of course. But other men always talked about their children and carried their photographs around. He never did. In a way he never thought about her as a child. She was more like a doll or a toy. Maybe it was because he had no way of communicating with her. Perhaps when she grows older and could say more, maybe then he would understand more about her. He loved her, he knew that. But exactly why, he didn’t know. Maybe that was one of the things about being a father—not understanding his feeling but only the responsibility she placed on him.
“I went to the park with Rosa,” she said.
“Was it nice?” he asked.
“We saw fish in the pool,” she said.
“That was nice.” He looked across the room at Rosa. “Did she enjoy it?”
Rosa nodded. “Mucho.”
“Mucho,” Caroline echoed. She pointed to the empty plate with her fork. “All empty,” she laughed. “Now, Tootsie Rolls?”
Joe took them from where he always kept them in his pocket. He placed three Tootsie Rolls on the table. “One extra.”
“Good.” She laughed, already unwrapping one.
“What do you say?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, darling,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. He straightened up and looked over at Rosa. “I’ll have dinner at eight o’clock, after she’s gone to sleep.”
“Sí, señor.”
He kissed Caroline on the cheek. “Daddy’s going to have a little nap, sweetheart. You have a nice night’s sleep.”
“Nighty-night, Daddy,” she answered, already chewing on the first Tootsie Roll and unwrapping the second.
He went upstairs to his small study and looked down at the typewritten pages of the treatment. Thirty pages. Not too bad. Now that he was getting into it, it was coming easier. Maybe he could have it finished in two weeks.
He turned and went into the bedroom. Quickly he undressed and took a shower. The afternoon in the sun had made him tired. The hot water felt good against his skin. He dried himself with a large bath towel, then stretched out on the bed. It was warm in the apartment. He threw the towel to the floor, rolled over on his stomach and fell asleep.
Then he was in the midst of a strange dream. First, Blanche was sucking him and almost swallowed his testicles in her mouth, and then he was fucking her, ramming into her as if he were an animal and all the while A. J. was standing over them, screaming at him. “Bust her ass! Bust the bitch’s ass!”
A tentative soft hand touched his shoulder. He awoke. Rosa was looking down at him. “It is already nine o’clock, señor,” she said softly. “Would you like to have your dinner?”
He shook the cobwebs from his head and began to roll over, then stopped. He felt the urging of his erection against his belly. “First, give me the towel,” he said, pointing to it on the floor.
Silently, she handed it to him. He wrapped it around his waist, still conscious of the impression against the towel. “El señor tiene muchos sueños de amor,” she said with a faint smile.
He ignored her comment. “Turn on the big radio downstairs,” he said. “I’ll have dinner on the small table in the living room. I’ll be right there.”
“Sí, señor,” she answered and left the room.
He went into the bathroom and stepped into the shower again. This time, ice-cold water. He dried himself quickly and slipped on his bathrobe and started downstairs.
Walter Winchell’s program was already on by the time he sat down at the table. He sat there silently as Rosa placed the salad in front of him. “Beer, señor?” she asked.
“Yes. Beer.” He listened to the rapid speech of Winchell. The effect was exciting, as if everything the man said was of life-and-death importance.
It was almost at the very end of the program that Winchell gave the plug that Joe was awaiting.
From Triple S studios, usually better known as producers of B movies and quickie pix, comes the sleeper hit of the year—Warrior Queen of the Amazons—with Steve Cochran, known only as the poor man’s Clark Gable, and Judi Antoine, known only as the star of pinups—Warrior Queen has garnered a million and a half dollars in just two weeks … that’s one and a half million simoleons, Mr. and Mrs. America, and that ain’t hay.… The genius behind this money-grabbing movie is a little up-to-now-unknown writer, Joe Crown … Joe Crown, who has written two short stories published in the Foley collection of great American short stories, has now written the script of the movie that blends fantasy and adventure that the cognoscenti compare favorably with such box office giants as King Kong … The Lost World … Tarzan of the Apes … Even though helped by the most scantily clad beauties of the silver screen, the triumph belongs only to the genius of Joe Crown … Remember that name, Mr. and Mrs. America, Joe Crown … You’ll be hearing much more about him … At this very minute every studio in Hollywood is trying to sign the man to a multimillion-dollar contract.…
Almost the moment he had gone off the air the telephone began ringing. A. J. was the first call. “Just remember, Joe, we have a contract. Don’t let anybody fuck your head around.”
“That’s right, A. J.,” Joe said. “I know that you are always in my corner.”
“You bet your ass, son,” A. J. answered. “I want to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be there, A. J.”
The moment he put down the phone it began ringing again. A. J. must have redialed immediately. “In case I forgot to tell you, son,” he said, “I meant to tell you this afternoon at the beach. I’m doubling the figures on your contract to forty thousand instead of twenty.”
“Thank you, A. J.,” Joe said. He put down the telephone once more. Keyho was right. Bullshitters are the first to believe the bullshit.
For the next two hours the telephone kept ringing. Almost everyone who knew anyone in Hollywood and many who didn’t know were calling to congratulate him. It was finally past eleven o’clock when the telephone calls subsided; Joe had never got around to eating his dinner. He walked to the couch and stretched out.
“You didn’t eat your dinner, señor,” Rosa said.
He turned to her. “It’s been too hectic,” he said. He sat up and looked up at her. “You don’t like to wear underwear, is that it?”
“No, señor,” she said, the secret smile in the corners of her mouth as she looked down at him. “I was getting ready for bed, señor.”
“Okay,” he said. “Just bring me a cup of coffee and you can go to bed.”
“Si, señor,” she said. She looked down at him again. “I have some cigarillos Mexicanos, señor. Perhaps one would calm you down and you will sleep better.”
“Marijuana?” he asked.
She nodded.
He thought for a moment. “What the hell,” he said. “Okay.” Maybe it would work. He was still too excited to go to bed.
She was back in a moment with a cup of coffee and a thinly rolled cigarette. “Thanks,” he said, lighting it. He dragged it deeply into his lungs. It was sweet and soft, not like the Jamaican, which sometimes was harsh and bitter. He dragged on it again. He began to feel better almost immediately.
“Es bueno, señor?” she asked.
“Very nice, thank you,” he answered. “You can go to bed now.”
“I can make you even more calm, señor.”
“I feel perfectly calm right now,” he said, feeling slightly silly.
She laughed aloud. “Mire, señor,” she said, pointing her finger.<
br />
He looked down at himself. His prick had never looked so large. It was amazing. He began to laugh. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. He tried to press it down beneath his bathrobe but the moment he let it go, it sprang up almost slapping against his belly. He laughed louder. He looked up at her. “I’m fucking stoned,” he said.
“Sí, señor.” She smiled.
“You better go to bed now,” he said, trying to be reasonable. “Or I might wind up shoving it up your ass.” It was really funny. He couldn’t stop laughing.
“Okay in my ass,” she said. “But not in there, the other place. I am virgin until marry.”
He laughed again. “That makes sense.”
She pulled off her dress then backed toward him. “First I must make you wet.” She spit into her hand and rubbed the saliva over his penis. “Good?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder at him.
“Very good,” he said, taking another drag of the cigarette. “Really very good,” he laughed.
Delicately, she took the cigarette from his fingers and placed it in an ashtray. Then she carefully spread her buttocks with both hands and backed into him. At the last moment, she grabbed him with one hand and guided him into her. “Aiee!” she cried aloud as she sat down completely in his lap.
“Fantastic!” Her anus was as soft as a velvet glove.
She began to spring up and down on him. He grabbed her by the hips. “Hang tight!” he yelled, “or you’ll go up through the ceiling!”
There was the sound of a key clicking in the door, and she suddenly froze. In another moment she was gone and racing up the stairs. Motty stood in shock at the door.
He pulled himself to his feet, trying to be serious. “Motty!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
Motty slammed the door angrily behind her. “I can see that,” she said icily.
He pointed, his index finger straight. “You’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you,” he said seriously.
She stood there silently.
Then he glanced down at himself. His erection was pointing in exactly the same position as his index finger. That was too much—it really was too funny to believe. He began laughing uncontrollably. He fell to the floor rolling back and forth; his sides hurt from the laughter. He tried to sit up but could not. He couldn’t stop laughing—tears ran from his eyes.
“It’s so funny!” he managed to gasp, between spasms of laughter.
Then the nightmare began.
26
“IS HE GOING to be my new daddy?” Caroline asked. She was more curious than concerned.
Joe looked at her as she stood in front of him. Children came right to the point. What’s in it for them and where do they fit? He glanced across the room where Motty, Mr. Marks and the attorneys sat before the small round table, exchanging agreements as several moving men carried out the suitcases and boxes packed with Motty’s and Caroline’s belongings to the truck outside. He didn’t know what to tell the child. “I guess so,” he answered doubtfully.
Caroline was puzzled. “Don’t you want to be my daddy anymore?”
“Of course I want to be your daddy,” he said reassuringly. “But Mommy is moving out and little girls have to live with their mommies.”
Caroline shook her head. “I miss Rosa,” she said. “Mommy doesn’t know how to make huevos rancheros.”
“I’m sure she will find another girl who’ll be able to make them,” he said.
“I hope so,” Caroline said. “And then she can take me to the park too.”
Joe nodded.
Caroline stared at him. “Do you like sleeping on the couch, Daddy?”
Joe laughed. “Not really.”
“Then why didn’t you sleep in bed with Mommy?”
Joe shook his head. This was Friday. He had been spending the nights there since Motty came home on Sunday. The week had been hell. On Monday morning, Motty told him she wanted a divorce.
“That’s stupid,” he said. “I really was stoned. I never even fucked, not even a little bit.”
Motty was adamant. “It was not only Rosa. There were always other girls.”
“Shit,” he said. “They never meant anything. If I did fuck them it was only a little bit. Friendly. Sociable.”
“I don’t understand you at all,” she said. “You were always like that. I thought you would change once we were married.”
“I tried,” he said.
“You didn’t try hard enough,” she said. “You were screwing around even while I was pregnant, the minute you started working at the studio.”
“I can’t talk you out of it?”
“No.”
“You’ll have to get a lawyer,” he said. “The whole thing’s going to take time.”
“I have a lawyer,” Motty said. “The same one that handled Mr. Marks’s divorce.”
“What’s Marks got to do with it?”
She was silent.
He stared at her, a light dawning in his head. “You’re going to marry him?”
She flushed.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been really stupid. You’ve been fucking him all the time!”
She was angry. “You make things sound so dirty.”
“You made it dirty,” he answered. “At least, I didn’t play angel.”
She changed the subject. “Are you going to the office this morning?”
“I have to,” he said. “I had a meeting scheduled with A. J.”
“I’m staying home with Caroline,” she said. “I’ll tell the lawyer to call you there.”
“I’ll be home in the evening,” he said. “He can talk to me here.”
“You’re not going to get into the bedroom,” she said.
“I can sleep on the couch downstairs,” he said. “But I don’t see any reason for me to move out. I’m not the one looking for a divorce.”
“I’ll be moving by the end of the week,” she said flatly and walked away from him.
* * *
A. J. STARED AT him across the desk. “I don’t know how you did it,” he said. “That Winchell plug means another half million at the box office.”
“I was lucky,” Joe said.
“More than luck,” A. J. said. “None of our PR people could ever get a plug in Winchell.”
Joe was silent. Somehow he had not felt as elated as when he listened to the man last night. The rest of the night had been a disaster.
A. J. peered at him. “You don’t look like you’re happy at all. As a matter of fact, you look like a truck ran over you.”
“Wife troubles,” Joe said.
“Serious?” A. J. asked.
“She wants a divorce,” Joe said.
“You talked to her?”
“Until I was blue in the face,” Joe said. “She means it. She’s going to marry her boss.”
A. J. stared at him. “Gerald Marks, the department-store guy?”
Joe nodded. “You know him?”
“I know him,” A. J. said. “I heard he just got a divorce.”
“What kind of a guy is he?” Joe asked.
“Okay, I guess,” A. J. answered. “He’s not like us. Very straight, serious. And a lot of money. He’s the only heir of his family. Someday the whole department-store chain will belong to him. Your wife is smart.”
“Fucking cunt,” Joe said bitterly. “She’s already lined up a lawyer. Marks’s attorney.”
“That’s serious,” A. J. said. “He’s going to clean you out.”
“What for?” Joe asked. “Marks has money. She’ll have all she needs, she won’t want any from me.”
“You’re naive,” A. J. said sagely. “That’s not the way it goes. Her lawyer will tell her to go for your throat. You better get yourself a sharp lawyer just to keep yourself alive.”
“There’s nothing they can take,” Joe said. “The furniture cost shit. I got maybe twenty-six, seven grand in the bank.”
A. J. stood behind his desk. “They’ll take it. And besides that they’ll hit you for child support. And wait until they find out about the new contract we’re signing. Then you’ll see the shit flying.”
Joe stared at him. “What do I do about that?”
“First, you get a lawyer. I know a good man for you and he’s not too expensive,” A. J. said. “Then I suggest we delay signing any new contracts until after the divorce is completed, otherwise they will really wipe you out.”
“Motty will never go along with that,” Joe said.
“She has no choice,” A. J. said. “I put you on week-to-week for seven fifty, no guarantee. If they get tough, we just agree to lay you off.”
Joe was silent.
“Then when it’s all over we’ll just sign the contract,” A. J. said. He looked at Joe, who was still silent. “You can trust me, Joe,” he said. “Just remember, I’m on your side. I don’t like the idea of a talented kid like you winding up getting screwed.”
“Do you really believe she’d do that?” Joe asked.
“All women are bitches,” A. J. replied. He looked at Joe. “Do you have a joint account?”
Joe nodded.
“You better grab your money out before she does.”
“She won’t do that,” Joe said.
“No?” A. J. said pointedly. “Call your bank and put a hold on your account. You can use my phone.”
Joe picked up the telephone and dialed the bank. An assistant vice president answered. Joe asked him to put a hold on the account, then waited.
After a moment, the bank officer came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Mr. Crown,” he said, “but Mrs. Crown was just here this morning and withdrew all the funds and closed the account.”
Joe put down the receiver and stared at A. J. “She took out all the money,” he said in a stunned voice.
A. J. shook his head. “I told you.”
“But all the money,” Joe repeated, still stunned.
“Like I said,” A. J. answered. “When it comes to money, all women are nothing but bitches and whores.”
“What do I do now?” Joe asked.
“I’ll make an appointment for you with the lawyer,” A. J. said. “You better see him right away.”
The Storyteller Page 18