Devilcountry (27 page)

 
         
 
“No, please! Don’t make me do this…”

 
         
 
“YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!”

Rick and Randi stared at Lisa through the
mirror.  Silent.  Blank.  Hungry.

 
         
 
“Steven will never go for it,” said Lisa
as she started to go into hysterics. Pudgie saw this one coming.  But
Pudgie knew Lisa was wrong.  He had seen it.  
In a
vision.
 
In his dreams.
This was the
moment that would define him.  This was the opportunity that was knocking;
it was time. Time to step out.  Time to risk everything.  
To make a sacrifice.
 He saw himself on the front page
of the
Post
, arm in arm with whoever was hot.  
A
phone up to his ear.
 He knew after this moment it was probably all
going to come true.  Pudgie paused a moment to steady himself.  To
say the sentence that would end everything.  “He’ll do it for you, Lisa.”

 
         
 
Lisa sniffed back tears.  “Why would
Steven do it for me?”

 
         
 
“Because you’re gonna tell him that
you’re in love with him.” Pudgie’s tone was calm. He could barely be heard.
Even under the bruises Lisa’s face started to crumble.  “You’re
gonna
tell him that you’ve always been in love with him,”
she started to shake her head back and forth.  Violently.  Shutting
it all out.  “And that you want him to make a baby with you.”  Lisa’s
face went blank and then was slowly replaced with white shock.  Pudgie’s
voice began to elevate. “You’re gonna tell Steven that you were lost in school
and so you made fun of his poetry and all that shit, because you couldn’t accept
that you were in love with him.  And when you see him, you’re gonna fall
into his arms and you’re gonna tell him you love him and you’re gonna go out
with him and seduce him and do whatever you gotta do to get him to buy Rick and
Randi’s pitch.”

Lisa started to cry silently, still shaking her
head from side to side in denial. “No!!!! NO!!! I WON’T DO IT!!!”

“YOU’RE GONNA DO IT OR WE’RE BOTH GONNA DIE OUT
HERE!  AND I DON’T WANT TO DIE IN VICTORVILLE, LISA!  DO YOU?”

 
         
 
“Goddamn you!”

 
         
 
“I pissed Steven off last night! I called
him out! Do you understand, Lisa?  And now you’re gonna tell him that I’m
an asshole who…” Pudgie paused for a moment, “…who is deeply in love...” He had
to recompose himself.  “I am deeply in love with you, and
..
.
and
...
is
jealous, and troubled and…and….” Pudgie started to cry,  “And always has
been jealous because you, Lisa, are in love with him, and not me.  HIM!
NOT ME!! GET IT?  Steven ‘God’ Bergeshwharzz, the mega-agent!  You’re
in love with him and you always have been!”  Pudgie was forcing himself to
believe it as he forced Lisa to believe it.  Lisa couldn’t believe Pudgie
was making up a better story than anything she could ever come up with.
 She felt a combination of envy, rage and
attraction
 she’d
never experienced before.  “That’s what you’re going to
do, otherwise we are dead.  DEAD DEAD DEAD!”  Pudgie was screaming at
her. She covered her ears with her
hands,
she saw her
new destiny unfold in front of her in a flash.  Faster than a movie pitch.
 She felt nauseous.  Slowly,
a numbness
came
on.

 
         
 
They sat in silence for a moment.
 Pudgie grabbed Lisa’s phone.  Lisa stared at Randi in the mirror who
had moved a few feet closer, arms still crossed against her midsection,
hovering. Lisa knew Pudgie wasn’t lying.  Lisa sensed her life coming to a
rapid demise.  Randi was ready for business.  Pudgie dug into Lisa’s
contacts as he
eye-balled
Randi in the rear-view,
creeping up ever so closer, he scrolled down to Steven’s number.  And
pushed SEND. Randi inched her way up to the rear bumper.  The phone began
to ring as Pudgie held it up to Lisa.  Steven picked up on the other end.
“Hello?” asked Steven, sounding tinny.  Lisa stared at Pudgie.
 Pudgie stared back.  “Hello? Lisa? Are you there? Did you call me?
 Are you all right? Hello?” There was honest concern on the other end.
 Pudgie shoved the phone at Lisa.  Blank-faced, Lisa took it in her
hands.

 
         
 
“Steven,” whispered Lisa, her voice timid
and shaky.  She sniffled back tears.  Her nose began to run with
blood and mucous.

 
         
 
“Hey, Lisa… is everything all right?”

 
         
 
Lisa’s left eye released one last tear
down her swollen face.  It would be her last.  She stared deeply into
Pudgie’s eyes.  Never blinking.  Penetrating Pudgie.  Her
eyes
were
a fist smashing up against
Pudgie’s breastplate and into his heart
. “ I love you,” she said.  

Silence on the other end.
 And then finally,

 
         
 
“I love you too, Lisa.”

 
         
 
“I’ve always loved you. I just wanted to
tell you that.”

 
         
 
“…I’ve always loved you too, Lisa.”

 
         
 
“I’m sorry about Pudgie, he’s angry.
 We had a fight.  I told him that I love you and not him and he lost
his shit, stormed out.  He came back this morning and told me what
happened.  Forgive him.  Forgive me. Please…” Her voice started to
trail off.  She had a frog in her throat and Randi staring at her from
behind.  She realized she could love Steven.
 
She could do whatever survival required.

 
         
 
Steven picked up the ball.  “It’s no
big deal.  Actually, he saved me from making a huge mistake.  Look
where are you? Can we meet?”

 
         
 
“I’m out of town for the moment, I’ll be
back tomorrow.  I’ll come over, okay, Steven?”

 
         
 
“Sure”

 
         
 
“I love you, Steven.”

 
         
 
“I love you too, Lisa.”

 
         
 
She clicked the END key on her phone and
stared off into the distance.  She made eyes with some scrub brush about a
hundred yards away.  She liked being in a wide-open space.  The
desert.  Not a tree in sight.  She opened her glove box and grabbed
the can of mace within and sprung from the car.  She uncapped it,
unsnapped the safety lock and held it in her hands like it was a gun with her
thumb firmly on the trigger on top of the canister. She pointed it in front of her
and walked forward firmly, pointing it at Randi’s shocked face, ready for the
skirmish.  “Back up, bitch, back the fuck up now!”  Lisa’s face was
smooth and relaxed. She was totally focused. Pudgie and Rick were both in
shock.  “You come near me and I unload this whole fucking can on you.”
Lisa’s face was bruised, bloody and completely stoic.  Randi met her eyes
and knew Lisa was serious.  Randi recognized that look.  There was
death in Lisa’s eyes.  Randi backed up.  “Tell you’re pimp boyfriend
we’ve got a deal.”  Randi lifted her arms up into the sky and walked back
a couple of paces.  Pudgie got out of the driver’s side, backing Lisa’s
play.  “I need a one page synopsis and overview, headshots, publicity
photos, tie-ins, merch, and whatever the fuck else it is you want to sell no
later than tomorrow night.  PDF format, get my e-mail from Pudgie.”
 Lisa stepped up and kept the can of mace pointed directly at Randi’s
face, her ribs throbbed but her adrenaline took over.  “And be ready for a
sit down next week!  Any moves on me or Pudgie before that and the deal’s
off and good luck with your career in porn.”  Randi looked confused for a
bit.  Nobody got the best of her.  Rick walked up behind her.

 
         
 
“Sounds good, Lisa, Randi, come back,
baby.”

 
         
 
“Go on, bitch...
”
 added
Lisa. Her hand began to shake a bit on the mace can but was
still able.  Randi respected the move.   She brought her arms
down and smiled pleasantly. Her gears seemed to completely shift.

“Rick and I look forward to being in business
with ya’ll.” She danced on her heels, jumped into the air, clapped like a
cheerleader and sped off to meet Rick halfway.  She jumped onto his torso
and he carried her back victoriously to the car.  Randi smooched Rick and
then said, “Drive the car, baby.  I want to write some ideas down and give
Kevin some titty milk.”

 
         
 
“God, you are awesome.”

 
         
 
“I know.”

 
         
 
Rick and Randi peeled out and were on
their way.  Lisa still held up the mace can pointing it at them.
 Shaking.  As the adrenaline ceased she began to crumble.
 Pudgie placed a hand over hers and brought the mace down.

 
         
 
“It’s done, Lisa.” Pudgie put a hand over
Lisa’s.  Lisa finally broke out of her stare and looked at Pudgie. She
pushed his hand away.  The world was now a strange and new place to her.
  She saw what lay ahead of her.  Wide open.
 
Pudgie moved in.
 
Grabbed her.
 
They hugged for a while.
 
Both of them with
tears welling up.
 
Then she
pushed him off.
 
Dried her eyes
fast.
 
Wiped her nose as best she
could.
 
Destroying the evidence.

 
         
 
She limped a few paces towards the open
terrain.  She took it in.  She couldn’t explain it but she felt its
strength. She tried to find where
a tumbleweed
she had
noticed earlier had gone to.  She searched for another.  She marveled
at how deep and long the desert was.  It had a strength Ronit could never
give her.  Even if she had given Lisa the can of mace a while back as a
keepsake from her baby shower.  Lisa made a mental note to bring her
children to this place someday, when the time was right and there was an
opening in her schedule

“You drive, Pudgie, I have to make calls.” She
said as she still stared off into the desert. Her voice sounded different to
Pudgie. Deeper.  

 
         
 
Pudgie left Mickey Rourke’s Mercedes in
the parking lot.  He felt it to be an appropriate place for burial.
 He tossed the keys to a teenager wearing a Star Wars shirt and holding a
notebook filled with drawings who dreamed of someday exiting Victorville as the
proud author of a series of graphic novels about knife wielding Martian
dinosaurs who kill Nazis.  “The shit brown Mercedes, it’s yours kid,
congratulations.”  The kid who had just turned seventeen was in shock.
 In an instant he was struck with a vision of his life’s future destiny.
 In the next two months the car would be slowly resurrected and brought
back online and like the powerful Phoenix aloft, as well as Mickey Rourke’s
career, his Mercedes will chaperone the teenager and two of his friends firstly
to Vegas where they win fifteen grand by placing all of their money on black,
and secondly into the borders of Devilcountry where they will release the first
edition of Alien Stegosauras Nazi Killers.  It goes big.  All thanks
to Pudgie.  

Before the teenager could get out a thank you
Pudgie had pulled out onto the blacktop and made it to the interstate.
 When Lisa wasn’t on the phone to someone; it was silent in the car.
 The hum of the road provided a soundtrack.

Lisa’s face solidified under the bruises.
 
She was officially one of the toughest
bitches in the biz.
 
The meeting in
the desert would become the stuff of legends.
 

DAYLIGHT

It
was quiet and bright in the lobby.  It had taken almost an hour to get her
through the hall, into the elevator, down the elevator, and now into the lobby.
 She would walk a few steps, taper off, stare at the ceiling, try to head
back home, and then move forward.  It was a question of semi-willingness
overcoming stubborness.  The inner-battle she was experiencing was quite
visible.  Her hands had a bit of a tremble to them, and her steps were
slow and methodic.  She bit her nails.  Twitched.  Shuffled her
feet.   For every step forward there seemed to be eight steps back.

 
         
 
“Just breathe,” I told her.
  She shaded her eyes as the elevator doors opened on the lobby. She
hadn’t seen this part of the building in months.  Her skin was moth-like
in its shine.  She grabbed onto my sleeve, timid, afraid.  It was
about ten o’clock in the morning.  Her eyes dilated, adjusting to the
over-exposed sun through the lobby, like an ice cream cone shoved in a kid’s
face for breakfast, joy and confusion overwhelmed her in equal doses. She
looked over to the front desk.  The guy behind it looked back.
 Neither of them had any clue who the other was.  Her pace picked up
a bit.