Hollywood Savage

by Kristin McCloy

  Shit, you don’t—

  God, Lear, relax! I’m taking a break, okay?

  By break, you mean—

  I’m hanging up now—

  No, wait, he says, he starts laughing. Sorry, Miles—hey, you free today? I gotta pick up a couple things, want me to swing by, come get you?

  All right, but please—don’t take me to any more parties.

  No parties, he agrees.

  Thus does Lear become the break in my solitary life. I let him drag me out of the house every few days, if only to tag along on his variously bizarre errands (such as to health food stores for dubious “human growth hormone” supplements—which he frankly admits he’s scared to take … imminently credible, since I have yet to detect any change in his—quoting the man himself now—“sylphlike” physique)…

  More often, we meet for a bite at the odd café on Beverly Blvd. (under the pretext of giving some truly sylphlike barely eighteen-year-old “actress” this or that “script,” naturally).

  One afternoon he drags me to a casual (if you can call a fifty-five-dollar T-shirt casual) clothing store by the unlikely moniker of Fred Segal.

  Fred’s where everyone goes, he assures me.

  Sounds like it was named for some actor fuck’s investment banker, I say (Lear laughs like he’s barking, it’s weirdly contagious).

  Dude, you’re the writer, he says (yeah, right. Wait till I quote him—and I WILL).

  Don’t threaten, he says, he wags his finger like a total queen. Not nice!

  Then, before I can stop him, he calls a willowy black male over, saying carelessly, Brett, this is the guy I told you about—now you take care my friend, ’kaaaay?

  BAM—in the space of six minutes, tops, my arms’re piled high with pairs plus pairs of jeans PLUS shirts (to go with), one fabulous leather jacket, a belt I didn’t realize (though of course THIS WAS BEFORE GOD SPOKE TO ME) I needed (ditto socks, undershirts, and an entire fortnight’s worth of funky boxers).

  Thus armed, Brett (clearly the arbiter of all things fashion), then stands guard outside my dressing room, saying yea or nay to everything I try, until he is satisfied I am well and truly clad, at which point he picks up my armload of clothes and marches me to a cashier, all the while refusing to let me look at so much as a single price tag.

  Most men, he says, lifting one eyebrow, would spend this much on their wives without blinking an eye—it’s time, mister, you got as good as you give.

  Who told you I was married? I ask stupidly (wedding band on). He rolls his eyes in answer and holds out his palm for my Visa, adding, I got strict orders from Massa Lear.

  Yeah, and killer commission, I answer. His smile wicked.

  What the hell—whore am I indeed.

  Beginning to understand how LA works. Worst part is, beginning to understand why. Terrifying to think of it, the vastness—the ABYSSES—money tries to fill.

  What’s worse, how nearly it does.

  —26 april, hollywood

  Driving down Sunset, I’m mesmerized by the giant, ever-changing billboards, stars established and up-and-coming glittering like demigods from on high, movies presented as something that could somehow save us.

  It is only product, I’ve heard Lucci say—I love it when Lucci goes off on one of his rants (“The endless hacking”—he means hawking—“of endless product! It is entirely tedious!”).

  But then what isn’t tedious. Lucy comes to mind, immediately a flash of—what—hatred? (No. Surely not hatred—I reserve that for my wife.) No—it’s only wanting her, not having her. The body’s defense against that, throwing up the opposite of what makes us ache.

  Shit: and that will bring! us! back! TO SEX!!! (Or, more accurately its lack. For the first time, cannot stop trying to picture Lucy fucking her husband. Drives me beyond insane. If I don’t get the hell out of Dodge, I’ll see Nietzsche his nihilism, and raise him one…)

  That thought, of having a bad mood seen, raised (and called), makes me miss New York the way you miss your oldest, best friend. I want to be there, right now, & realize it’s on the same (carnal) continuum of desire on which I want Lucy (gives a whole new meaning to the term “fuck New York”…).

  Sitting here, in the dark, it dawns in a wholly slow-witted way, but dawns nonetheless: I can have New York. I’m a ridiculously overpaid Hollywood hack and everybody else took off, didn’t they? Shit, they’ll never even know I was gone.

  I call JetBlue, reserve the most expensive seat there is—what’s money for, etc., etc. (Burbank to Kennedy, direct; it don’t get no shorter, and I’ll take sprinting over excess—i.e., first class and its attendant price gouge—any day), flight leaving day after tomorrow.

  It’s all set in fifteen minutes, myself confirmed, my gold card in their data banks, and still, it seems a total fiction that in forty-eight hours—give or take—I’ll actually be there, New York, New York.

  The city in late spring, a season excelled only by early fall.

  Sit back and close my eyes, imagine my departure as precisely as I know how, hoping to make it—what? Realer.

  Start with the half joint I’ll smoke before I leave the house (Visine wedged in jacket pocket), a 10 mg Valium stashed in my Levi’s front pocket (& there is no question I will ask Lear to procure the necessary pharmaceuticals to make the voyage painless—or as close to unconscious as I can manage, whilst still traveling in semi-style, of course).

  Drive to Burbank myself, park in long-term, bring only a carry-on so I can check in at the curb and proceed directly to the bar, where I will drink a couple, or three, stupidly overpriced Bloodys, and purchase a deli sandwich to wolf upon boarding.

  Then, as politely as I know how, I’ll instruct the necessary personnel not to come near me till we’re there yet, goddamn it (not even if we’re going down … shit, especially not if we’re going down!).

  Imagine even that, the drop into this planned, blurred unconsciousness, can already feel the fuzz of its hangover—but somehow, that’s as far as I get. Although I remember perfectly well every last interminable step and stutter of alighting, disembarking, & trudging toward the taxi line, it feels more like a movie I’m watching, or have watched, rather than the place and time I’m actually going to find myself in.

  Open my eyes; realize the reason it still seems unfathomable, my presence there—my homecoming for fuck’s sake—is that no one’s expecting me.

  Well shit, I think, I’ll call someone…

  But I don’t move.

  (When did “someone” become my wife? Shame a hot flare across my chest.)

  Then, slowly, as if through a fog (I blame the pot), it also becomes clear that I won’t—because I refuse to say can’t, even though it’s truer, really—in fact, call her…

  Because I want to arrive unannounced (this also dawning, as if to the mentally challenged)—because I want to (refuse to say “need to”) find her out.

  One way or another: finally, and for certain.

  Start to picture it; stop. Like hitting concrete, at eighty per. My head won’t wrap itself around it (her mouth), my eyes refuse (his cock)—STOP.

  Stand abruptly, suddenly aware it’s pitch dark in here, and turn on the lights.

  Know I should eat (as if it’s only lack of protein making my legs wobble), but hunger’s a mere abstraction right now, nothing I actually feel.

  Decide instead to pack, a chore that only increases in tedium the older I get—choosing, folding clothes, shoes, the myriad sundry toiletries one cannot, somehow, live without, reminds me of what François used to say, translating more perfectly than he knew, “Mon Dieu, it is tedious to pack, and it is tedious to de-pack…” (As only the fastidious Parisian fag can, with that exquisite attitude de fait.)

  Get as far as dragging my overnight bag out of the closet, throwing it open on the bed, when I am suddenly exhausted. I sit at the foot and for one wild second think I might cry.

  Amazingly, at that precise moment, a knock.

  Too late for Jehovahs,
but who the hell else …? Lear’d never risk the mileage without a call (or five, the man uses his cell phone the way others twitch—compulsively, unable, it would seem, to help himself)—

  Peer out the window and see a car at the curb, but I forgot to put on my porch light (quaint term, that), & can’t tell its make even when I squint.

  Start to call, I’m coming, then have to clear my throat, try again—second time I hear my own voice, unpleasantly false, overly hearty; feel like an actor (bad) in a soap.

  Christ, yes, I think, get me the fuck out of this town!

  Open the door just in time to see her turning around, as if changing her mind:

  Lucy …?

  She whips back around, smiles shamefacedly, flushed.

  Raises a hand halfway, then drops it, the gesture of a high school girl, uncertain and awkward. Hi.

  Hi.

  For a second, two, several, we both stand there, immobile.

  Care to come in? It comes out unexpectedly formal, and she bows her head—for a second I think she’s going to refuse—then, without raising her face to look at me, she does, taking care (it seems to me) not to brush against me while passing.

  I shut the door, and the quiet click of it reverberates in my ears, the same sexual echo I remember from the bathroom at that Benedict Canyon party.

  I am wondering if it’s only me, my stupidly adolescent, marijuana-addled imagination, corrupted by too much solitude, or if she’s heard it, too, but before I have even turned toward her she’s on me, literally throwing herself against me, knocking us both against the wall, where I stagger, my knees bending—for a split second think I—we—will fall, a heap on the floor, all knees and elbows, saying ow, and ouch, and what—but then she’s got my face in her hands, the smell of her rising up into my head, sandalwood and new-mown grass and, just, her—and the scent works the way I’ve always imagined smelling salts would—it braces me, makes my legs strong, instantly provokes me to wrap my arms around her, to open my mouth against hers, to hold her tight enough to make her wince (except somehow she doesn’t), till I am kissing her savagely, thinking “thank God” and “fuck you” in equal measures, wanting her as badly as I wish I could push her away—

  We fuck on the floor, her pants around her ankles, mine not even that far, the buttons of her shirt popping off when I tear at it to feel her breasts against my chest, both us of making sounds I associate more with animals, loud enough—were we in New York—to alarm the people next door.

  I’m a slut, her first real words to me, muffled by the fact of her mouth mashed against my ribs. I try to twist, to look at her, but she won’t let me, she burrows tighter in, the arm that grips me gripping harder. I feel more than hear her laugh, a brief, warm gust.

  Yes I am, she insists, though I haven’t said anything to the contrary, and sounds like such a child, a little girl about to get the giggles, that I start to laugh myself, helpless, aware that my legs are shaking still, that sweat beads my upper lip, slides slickly down my spine.

  It’s a kind of hysteria, we both understand this I’m sure—the relief of being together combined, at least for me I know, with knowing how nearly we might have missed out. It seems utterly inconceivable now, that I was prepared to live—that I had lived, days and days, weeks now—without her, and I hear myself gasping involuntarily, like a man who has just surfaced, lungs near to bursting with the need for air.

  We are totally entangled, shirttails and zippers, socks hanging off midfoot, laces knotted, hair glued to the back of the neck, stomach inexplicably sore—and yet when she finally tries to sit up, to begin the process of reclaiming her own space in the world, it’s my turn to grab her, fingers closing around her biceps, her thigh, that precious flesh—

  What? she asks, the smile in her voice, and I realize I had spoken those three words aloud.

  Nothing—I’m stoned, I admit, embarrassed at having been caught. Your own fault.

  Oh yeah? The fruits of my labor?

  Fruits of your garden, anyway.

  She twists to look at me, and I release her.

  Eyes wide in the darkened entryway, hair everywhere, face flushed: there she is, my goddess.

  Say it again.

  What, I ask (I know what). She nudges me, knuckles a small hard knot against my flank—she knows I know.

  “Precious flesh”? That? I tease her to mitigate against the power of the current running between us, its undertow. That’s just the name of my next album.

  And you thought you had me down.

  Who knew? I respond, watching her stretch, comb her fingers through her hair, yank her T-shirt down, my gaze devouring, amazement still yawning wide—amazement and gratitude.

  Kisses, she demands, puts her lips to mine. I grab her again, throwing her off-balance and using it to drag her on top of me, my fingers digging into the sublimely soft flesh of her ass.

  Thank God, she says (praying!), kissing and kissing me. Thank God thank God thank God.

  Then, moving fast enough to deflect my grip, she jumps up, extending a hand.

  Please sir … can I have some more? She’s an urchin in Cockney, Oliver Twist himself, eyes mock-meek beneath a fringe of hair.

  Allow her to help me up, groaning as my both my knees pop.

  Bed? she queries.

  Bed, I agree.

  I lead the way, yank my belt from its loops with one leathery hiss, and she grabs at it with two hands, cooing, Ooh la la!

  From English orphan to French whore, I say. What range my mistress has …!

  But when I turn to catch her smile, she is stopped still in the bedroom doorway, eyes huge, one hand covering her mouth.

  She’s staring at the suitcase flung open on the bed, clothes piled haphazardly around, making a picture both slatternly and desolate.

  Uh, I elaborate, grappling with a sudden rush of guilt (the sense of being caught).

  Her hand falls to her side and then she’s just standing there, shorn of all mirth, her face gone weirdly gaunt, aged. She says nothing.

  I just decided today, I near-stutter, immediately resenting the sense of having to explain—myself, any of it, in any way— A spur-of-the-moment thing…

  New York, she says, it isn’t a question.

  Just for a few days, that’s all—not even a week. (Why am I apologizing?)

  Business?

  Business? I repeat, stupidly (my business is here, surely she is aware of this). No…

  So, Maggie.

  She’s still fixed in the doorway, the toes of one bare foot flexed against the floor—if she were a horse, she’d be pawing the ground.

  What, Maggie.

  She called?

  She has not called.

  Then …?

  Then nothing, I say, trying not to snap (she’s jealous, I think, feeling both gratified and put off—what right has she got?).

  Thoroughly ambivalent now, I shove the suitcase to the floor, where it crumples, an insubstantial, flimsy thing.

  I haven’t even called her—or anyone else, for that matter, I say finally, sitting on the edge of the bed to hold out my hand.

  Lucy. Come here.

  Hesitantly, as if unsure of her welcome, she does. I keep my hand up; when she finally takes it, I pull her in, turning her so that she lands on my lap. Press her close, put my lips to the back of her neck, feel the shiver that travels her body, a hard wrench.

  I’m sorry, she says then. I don’t answer, hold her tighter. I’m sorry, she whispers, even when I make her turn around, kissing her to make her stop; she kept saying it, through, around, between, each kiss, and I could feel how close she was to tears.

  Don’t be, I said, amazed to find I meant it—just like that, I forgave her: how she walked away from me, the space she put between us, the agony of separation and self-doubt, everything—

  Love means, I started, but she stopped me, fingers on my lips, finishing for me, always having to say you’re sorry.

  The sex was so slow, it felt almost elegiac,
an alternating poem of celebration and mourning, and each gesture felt more valuable than the last (for how easily, I couldn’t stop thinking this, we might have missed having it at all…).

  Are you bored, she whispered after maybe twenty minutes of what had been, to me, a gloriously sated silence. I half-sat up to look at her, but her eyes were inky in the moonless dark, indecipherable.

  You’re kidding, I said at last—ineffectual, I knew, but I was incapable of anything more eloquent.

  She shrugged, and I felt more than saw her attention go back to the suitcase, abandoned in its thin canvas heap on the floor.

  You left me, I blurted, and in those three words heard all the injury she’d wrought, the cage she’d made of my days, the drunken jumble of my nights— Christ, the mornings wasted driving around LA’s blighted boulevards, when I might have been working …!

  Don’t be angry, she whispered. I couldn’t bear it.

  My voice escaped in a rush, one long sigh of exasperation and worse—suppressed fury, an emotion I have so long associated with Maggie alone it shocked me, suddenly, to know Lucy now inhabited a similar realm.

  I lay back, craving a cigarette badly, but too exhausted to rise.

  Sorceress that she was (is), it was she who got up to grope for a shirt (mine, I knew before she found it, and knew too how she’d pull it tight around herself with that endless need, always, to hide hide hide her flesh), then ran quickly down the stairs, coming back in a matter of seconds, one already lit. She handed it over wordlessly, its tip glowing, a tiny prophet in the coming dark.

  I accepted it just as silently, though once more I was struck by how much—worse, by how badly I loved her, with what urgency. It’s nothing like marriage, I heard myself think, but did not say (a new censorship having imposed itself, unwanted but somehow necessary, between us), yet equally complicated.

  From love there is no respite, she said, out of the blue—quoting, I guessed, but did not ask whom.

  She watched with a peculiar avidity while I smoked the cigarette down; the minute I stubbed it out, she was on me, hair falling to brush against my chest, my stomach, hand reaching to guide me, already hard, into her hot mouth.

  Lucy, I started, wanting to say you don’t have to, but I could feel from the obstinacy in her shoulders, the way she straddled me, ass in the air, that there was no stopping her, this unspoken determination, this refusal the most erotic thing— I came, it seemed, in two minutes—less—though I did my best to prolong it, it felt so sweet (her wildly inventive tongue, her tender hands).