Hollywood Savage

  What, she threw back, already out the door. You think a bunch of perfect 22-year-old women with man-made tits threaten me?

  God, no, I came back (& fast). How on earth could they?

  Unsurprisingly, the place was full of men; perhaps more unusually, most of them were sailors (wearing full uniform, at that); immediately felt embarrassed for them (don’t they know the outfit makes them look like a pack of 6-year-olds from last-century British children’s stories?).

  But hey—bet there’s always a discount for a man in a uniform, regardless how infantile his appearance.

  I’m guessing, Lucy said, arching a brow as we found a table in the back, the fleet’s in town.

  Seamen, I said (a dumb joke, admittedly, which got me the barest of looks); Lucy can transmit scorn (I’ve told her this), more subtly, & more economically, than anybody else I know (excepting—why me, God?—my wife).

  Ordered a gin & tonic for me, champagne cocktail for her (an improbably romantic order, esp. in such a sleaze palace, but I kept my mouth shut); sitting there, trying not to let my eyes stray over to all those magnificent (man-made or otherwise) breasts, I wasn’t about to second-guess her.

  So, I said, trying to stay focused on her, what’s new, Luce?

  Well, she answered, I called home for the first time in ages the other day, and I hit the trifecta: my mother, my sister, and my aunt.

  It’s the first I’ve ever heard of a sibling, but I knew from the skittish way she was acting not to press her, just waited for more.

  I wanted—I don’t know, I wanted just to—I wanted to talk to someone, I guess … someone who really knows me, she said, then laughed (a singularly staccato and mirthless sound). I should’ve known better than to hit my family up for that…

  It didn’t go well …?

  I tried, I swear I did—first with my sister, then with my mom … but nobody wants to hear it. I barely hinted that maybe all wasn’t well in paradise, but just the idea of trouble, of anything going wrong, of me having chosen the wrong—whatever, man, city, life, who the hell knows—you wouldn’t believe how fast they can change the subject.

  Both of us quiet after that (me still trying to keep my eyes on her), her playing with her straw (a task that just then seemed to require, as my own did, all her concentration).

  I felt like a pariah, she said finally. A disturbance in the weather, at best.

  Her eyes narrowed in pain.

  I tell my mom I’m restless—that’s all I said, that’s all she’d let me get out—and she says don’t jeopardize a good thing—I say don’t lecture me and then, without me having said another thing, she says if you do, you’ll realize how easy it is, and you’ll never feel married again.

  Wow, I said, taken aback. Guess your mother knows you better than you thought, huh?

  Better than I hoped, even, she said, her smile twisted, devoid of pleasure. Jesus, it’s amazing, isn’t it? No matter how old you get, or how far away you are, or how long it’s been since they’ve seen you, they manage to make you feel like a sullen teenager in no time flat…

  Hey (trying to lighten up). You’re never too old to be immature.

  That’s not what I meant. She couldn’t even spare the shadow of a smile now; it’s painful sometimes, how serious she is.

  I signaled for the check, but before it came, Lucy leaned over, voice low, asking if I’d buy her a lap dance. She pointed at one girl in particular (jailbait, I thought), jet-black hair & a wraithlike body w/ surprisingly small (natural??) breasts; not my type (not that I like hitting plastic, but frankly, you just can’t beat a C cup)—but watching her smile as she walked over forced me to use my jacket to hide my lap.

  As per instructions, slid her $20, then sat back to watch as she gyrated all over my mistress, bringing those B (minus) cups as close to Lucy’s lips as possible w/out touching (or did they?), before slithering down between her knees, arms doing their own sinuous ballet, both women smiling and smiling, eyes half-closed, looking like two cats in the sun.

  Turned me on so much I couldn’t wait to go home; dragged her out & made her straddle me in the car, made her ride me till the windows steamed.

  —5 july, Hollywood

  Woke up this morning to realize the anniversary of my father’s death had come and gone w/out me noticing for the first time in ten years.

  Made enormous pot of coffee, then, armed w/ 1st cig & 2nd cup, sat outside to dial home.

  As usual, Mom thrilled to hear from me; as usual, visited by the inevitable pang of guilt, followed (as always), by equally typical self-castigation (how hard, really, to call her more often?).

  Maggie used to remind me—used to call herself, chat away for half an hour before presenting me w/ the phone (a wife, I thought—how often had I taken her for granted?).

  Mom dying to hear everything (“how’s Hollywood??”), how the script was going, etc. etc. Found myself playing up most superficial aspects—the money, star sightings, house perched over a canyon, convertible, the light, the weather, the weather, the weather (blah blah blah).

  When she asked after Maggie, finessed the point (oh she’s fine), shamelessly adding, “she sends her love” (oh yeah, we’re in touch)…

  Finally mentioned anniversary of Dad’s death, apologizing for how the date had passed me by.

  Oh, sweetheart, she said. He’d hate for us to be morbid about it, don’t you think?

  Both of us quiet awhile, then I asked the $64,000 question—

  You think you’ll ever … you know, move on?

  Her long silence answer itself, I didn’t press (tho heard her sigh, as if she’d like to say otherwise & just couldn’t).

  You know what I thought, when I woke up that morning and realized my God, it’s been a decade now …?

  I know. It’s hard to believe, for me, too.

  That’s just it, though … I kept thinking it would be easier, as time went by, to accept his absence—but instead I find myself thinking, okay, Thomas, you’ve been gone long enough. Enough already, come home—it’s time for you to come home …!

  Hearing her voice crack, my throat constricts, I can’t speak. Nod instead (as if Mom could see me …!)

  I know, I said when I could (thinking how, in fact, I really didn’t—I had no idea).

  I dreamt he came home, she went on, as if I hadn’t spoken, and sat at the end of the bed. I sat up, I asked, Tom, is that you? Honey, it was so real. … It’s me, he said—he was wearing that old Japanese bathrobe of his, you know that nearly threadbare yukata he loved so much?

  God, the yukata, I say, fingers pressed into the corners of my eyes, as if I could force the tears back in.

  I woke up, she said, so quietly I had to strain to hear, I heard myself saying his name, and for just a few seconds I was utterly convinced—my husband was home …! She made a sound (meant to be laughter, I know; it wasn’t).

  Then, you know, I just had to realize he was gone all over again.

  Moms, I said, my teenage nickname for her, maybe you should—I don’t know, take a trip, or something—come visit me, I’ll take you to Spago, whatever you want—

  For God’s sakes, she said. You say “take a trip” as if I thought traveling were fun! No, thank you. If there’s one good thing about Tom being gone, it’s that I can stay put.

  Then ask one of your friends to—

  Sweetheart, don’t worry about me (giving me her still surprisingly effective don’t-cross-me mother’s voice). You just live it up & tell me all about it. I have my books, I have my kitty, I have my little house—I even have neighbors I like …! Honey, at my age, that’s about all I can handle. Honestly, it’s the only thing I want.

  Managed to hang up without bawling in her ear, then got out of the house and into my car (never mind I’d lived here long enough for the traffic to drive me nuts).

  All I wanted was a Superman rewind—for me not to have ever gotten the call, not to even know it existed—and now, the stone of knowledge that sits in the pit of my stomac
h, the inability to pretend the next call isn’t in the wings. (I want never to be aware of any of it, neither the brief, murderous fell, nor the long illnesses that clutch our parents).

  And so we do the next best thing; we don’t, we never, we won’t, speak of it; love is a conspiracy.

  And the things we do to keep that conspiracy alive, even just limping along, are as wasteful and mindless as a small child’s rolling in mud…

  The adult version, I suppose, might be just this: steering an open convertible along a mind-boggling maze of sun-seared, traffic-clogged, so-called freeways (combined w/ ragingly loud music), for a solid couple hours, to thoroughly leach the mind of anything resembling coherence.

  By the time I got back, I hadn’t had a single thought in so long, I wasn’t sure I still spoke English.

  Luckily for me (though not, I fear, for the stupid script), there was no (as promised) message from Lucci re what time he could get together, & I could only assume he’d taken yet another day off with which to impress his worldly genius upon young, sweet Bonnie. (Given the manner in which I find myself predisposed to dispense w/ all and any of my own free time, I can’t say I was able to muster even one single nagging phone call.)

  In bed that night, hoping for sleep, found myself remembering how good Bonnie was to me when I was sick, how funny later (rolling her eyes and saying, Your fever was so high, I swear you were tripping! Lear & I were seriously worried about you).

  You call him Lear, I’d pointed out. Sure, she’d said (as if it were obvious). He’s a producer…

  Your priorities, Bonnie, I said. They don’t fit in w/ the rest of this town’s. You, my dear girl, belong in New York.

  Can still remember how her face lit up, how eagerly she’d pressed (Really?).

  End up having to turn the light back on to read (it’s gonna be a long one, to quote Don Henley) & am at least rewarded by coming across yet another Proustian gem (intricate syntax all his own):

  We do not begin to work at the moment of landing in a strange country to the conditions of which we have to adapt ourself. But each day was for me a different country. Even my laziness itself, beneath the novel forms that it had assumed, how was I to recognize it?

  How, indeed.

  —9 july, LA

  No idea what the hell is going on w/ Lucci, but I’m sure he’s actively avoiding my calls; when he does answer, he’s so abrupt, I’d swear the guy was pissed at me! And it’s not because of Bonnie, either; called over there to speak to Lear, & she answered (& huh, what do you know: Lear just could not be reached).

  To hell with both of them. Sit down & push forward out of sheer spite. Drink too much, smoke (way) too many cigarettes, plus Lucy’s dope (organic or not, that shit makes my head SPIN)—then tell myself, since when has getting to the end of any of my books been anything other than the last gasp of marathon fueled by dysfunctional excess—and why should writing a script be any different??

  —17 july, hollywood

  Trying to write at Kings Road Cafe today, longhand, hunched over a legal pad (as if some random cappuccino-drinking stranger’s just dying to peer over my shoulder).

  Still slogging away on Act III of this damned movie, even though the last time Lear took my call, he treated me like some pain-in-the-ass wannabe, put me off with a “hey dude, gotta take this one, but I’ll get right back to you, yeah?”

  (Oh yes please, Mr. Exceedingly Important Producer, and will you let me know when so I can bend over first?)

  Ignoring both him and my absentee director now feels like the only way I can finish this poor-imitation-of I’ve come to think of as the script … really not sure why I’m bothering—unless you count brute force of habit, and oh yeah, BECAUSE I SAID I WOULD—since obviously neither one of them gives a shit.

  In my darker moments, attempt to console myself by thinking why should my Hollywood experience be any different from Faulkner’s, or Fitzgerald’s?

  (Then it occurs to me that I’m starting to sound like Maggie, or that my insecurities—or is it ego?—are getting the better of me.)

  Either that or I’m overidentifying w/ my character, getting as paranoid as Savage has (having both defected & become wholly addicted to opium). Am at the point in the script where the only person who knows where he is & what he’s doing is a Buddhist monk who, when they capture him, is tortured to death for refusing to tell; the studio—naturally—wants me to change it to near-death, something both Lucci & I (once, anyway—who knows, now?) agreed was bullshit (“tee-pical Hollywood bullsheet!”).

  Who, I wonder, would ever undergo such physical pain to keep me safe?

  Realize that, less than one year ago, I might’ve believed Maggie would have (at least) tried to endure…

  Now she doesn’t even care enough to even find out how I’m doing.

  (As if I were too crippled to pick up a phone.)

  Truth is, can no longer (in fact), remember the last time I spoke to my wife.

  —22 july, hollywood

  Suddenly, it’s August. Time flying flying flying past, but moment by moment, its passage excruciatingly slow. Maybe Einstein could explain it to me (just my luck, the man’s dead).

  See Lucy now only in the most furtive of ways—she never visits before nine or ten P.M., she never calls (so ix-nay on both the daylight rendezvous & prior warning).

  She just shows up, usually in a state of disarray, wearing one of her husband’s sweatshirts, faded leggings, mud-spattered sneakers—at which point we have crazed, urgent sex (but that’s it, & fuck yer afterglow; I haven’t even caught my breath before she’s just GONE).

  Still—& why does this thought always follow that—haven’t heard from Maggie. Margaret. Mags.

  Feel like it’s become some really bad, adolescent bizarre contest of wills, as I refuse to make contact, too.

  Fuck her, I tell myself. Fuck her.

  —7 august, h. hills

  Almost done with the script, still no word from Lucci; don’t even try Lear. Want to talk to Lucy about it, but she’s so preoccupied these days, feels almost rude to bring it up.

  She came over the other night, so late I’d given up hope; when I heard her timid double knock on the door, heart soared (heart plus—was sure, after a solid sexless week, we’d end up in bed), so eager it was only when I’d finessed her bra off that I realized she was near tears.

  I caught her hand as she bent down to unbutton her pants, held it till she was forced to stop.

  What, she said, she wouldn’t hold my gaze.

  Lucy, I implored.

  Miles, she retorted, a halfhearted mockery.

  Talk to me, I said, my fingers locked around the small bones of her wrist.

  What do you want me to say?

  I looked at her, a writer with no words, then let her go, suddenly sure she’d bolt. Instead, she buried her face in her hands. Wanted to grab her, pull her against me, kiss her trembling lips, but instinct warned me against it.

  I don’t know what to tell you, she said finally, her voice muffled. I’m just sure you don’t want to hear it.

  You can say anything to me, I said. You know that…

  OK, she said, then let her hands drop into her lap & stared down at them.

  I’m disillusioned, she said, I’m just … so … unbelievably … disillusioned.

  With your husband, I began, but she cut me off, looked at me so fiercely I flinched.

  No, she said through gritted teeth. With myself, Miles—Jesus!

  What, you thought you were perfect? You never expected to fall from grace? I asked (sarcastic shit that I was, since this was precisely what I thought about myself).

  I don’t know! All I know is that I feel such … sorrow—for Will, and Walter, and I feel so full of—cowardice, and just pure selfishness— I mean if I leave him, if I even tell him what’s going on, if I break his heart—both of their hearts—it will break mine, too—how could it not?

  (Will, I think, that name again.)

  I wish it were him,
she says, breaking mine!

  With that, she does break down, cries so hard, all I can do is put my arms around her & hold her as tightly as humanly possible. Even then, she will not be assuaged, she clutches my shoulders and cries into my neck, talking so unintelligibly all I get is “betrayal” and “comfort” and “lover’s arms.”

  There is no end to it, she got out when she caught her breath. Jesus, I keep thinking, now, this is it, I’ve really hit bottom, I just can’t get any lower—and then, God, I do, and I do, and I do…

  I cupped her chin and lifted her face, kissed her sodden eyelids, meaning only tenderness, when, without any warning whatsoever (in what was becoming a more and more characteristic lightning mood swing), she was kissing me back, she was climbing on top of me, she was all over me, making animal sounds, tearing impatiently at my clothes.

  It was the most urgent, and maybe the scariest, sex we’d ever had. Afterward, it was her turn to hold on to me like a drowning person to a life raft.

  Miles, she said, her voice saturated with what could only be called anguish: You’ve made me so. Happy.

  When she went away, it felt as though someone had carved a hole in my chest, then left it open for coyotes to scavenge from.

  Hours (and hours) later.

  Could not have been more exhausted, still no sleep. Thinking about Maggie—is she going through the same thing—& if so, is her experience more like L.’s, or mine? (& what, exactly, is the difference?)

  On some obscure—but, I want to believe, very real level (the level at which our friendship exists—or at least has existed), I can imagine the possibility of being happy for Maggie. It’s on this same indistinct, murky level that I can even (sometimes) imagine some kind of gratitude toward her (as in, I let Maggie do this, & she let me do this, too)…

  The only thing I know for sure is that she has been, that she is (and, I think hopelessly, that she’ll remain) under my skin; it’s irreversible. Feel guilty admitting it, even to myself—I’d never divulge it to L., not w/ it constituting (as I know it does), an ongoing loyalty to my wife; aware, too, of how carefully I’ve guarded it from her … & now I wonder: who, exactly, am I protecting? L., M., or (again, and so tiresomely) just myself?