Authors: Jack Baran
Not wanting to be left out, David adds his mitts to the group clench. “Can I join the party?”
Pete extracts his hands. “Sorry to disappoint you all but interventions are not allowed in a deli.” He slurps his matzo ball and noodle soup, takes a big bite of his corned beef on rye, chewing with his mouth open, the way he knows Barbara hates.
She grits her teeth. “Refuse help and eat like a pig, that’s your response to our legitimate concern?”
“Want a taste of my sandwich?” Pete asks sweetly.
The waiter delivers the cantaloupe and rice pudding. “Enjoy.”
David speaks in a low conversational tone. “Pete, we’re here because your recent behavior seems out of control and we don’t want you to screw up a chance for a major career comeback.”
“I get it, David, ten percent of nothing is nothing.”
“You’re in the midst of a manic episode, darling. All we want is for you to slow down and not hurt yourself.”
“You know what I just realized Barbara, you fucked everyone at this table.”
Barbara resists responding to his obvious provocation. “You need medication to get over this difficult patch.”
Pete takes a sip of his Cel Ray soda. “Really? I’d rather have a nice custard filled éclair.” He waves to the waiter.
“Pete,” David entreats, “listen for once, your ex-wife is a trained professional.”
Pete stares at Barbara. “Sorry, not interested in Jews.”
She doesn’t laugh like she’s supposed to. “You could always joke your way out of situations, but not this time. I don’t think you’re funny anymore, I think you’re sad.” She stands and walks away.
David rises. “Make your own deal with Bergman. I no longer represent you.”
Pete watches his ex-agent comfort his ex-wife as they leave the restaurant. There are tears in his eyes. “She thinks I’m sad.” He spoons the cottage cheese out of Barbara’s cantaloupe. “Not funny anymore.” He drowns his sorrow in melon.
Bobby is contrite. “Could I not tell them?”
“Yes, you could not.”
“Pete, some of the things you’ve been saying….”
“Sound crazy to you?”
“Very. I don’t know if I’m looking for two people or one person with two personalities.”
“I’ll tell you all I know about Cleo and Desirée. You decide.”
“You think it’s too late to get a side of whipped cream for the rice pudding?”
While Bobby eats the pudding and they split the éclair, Pete lays out the whole story, starting with Cleo’s arrival at the Streamside, then the appearance of Desirée and his compartmentalization of the two.
“Which one did you fuck?”
“I started with one and finished with the other, but there was no specific pattern and I didn’t control who I was with. In fact, most of the time I was out of body.”
Bobby tries to grasp what Pete is saying. “So it was a threesome?”
“It was more a run on sentence, the weird thing was that I experienced coitus from the point of view of a surveillance camera. My physical actions were disconnected from my emotional self. I was up there looking down at me and whomever.”
“Out of body, interesting.”
“Disorientating.”
“Did these physical actions result in orgasm?”
“They did.”
“And your partner?”
Pete shrugs.
“You’re not certain?”
“A man ejaculates, there’s evidence.”
Bobby takes out a crisp fifty to pay the check. “This conversation is making me horny.”
It’s after midnight when they pull up to Bobby’s faux antebellum mansion in Hancock Park. In the den, Soong Lee, laughing uproariously, watches
Tampopo
, a Japanese noodle western.
“Barbara and I loved this movie, it started us on a quest for the perfect ramen.” Pete tears up which worries Soong Lee. She switches to CNN, but the news doesn’t interest him. “I’m crashing, what time tomorrow?”
“It is tomorrow. They start late. How about up by noon? We can be in Oxnard by three.”
Pete collapses in bed, too tired to take his vitamins. Whatever tranquility he found with Brother Ray is long gone. His mind swirls with images: Barbara in the lime green dress, breaking down at his mother’s grave, Cleo’s vacated room at the Streamside, the intervention at Canter’s. Maybe he is going crazy. There’s a knock on the door.
Soong Lee enters with a steaming mug. “I make you special tea, Chinese herbs calm nerves, help sleep. Sleep important.” Pete sniffs the brew, screws up his nose. “Don’t worry about bad smell. Drink. Good result.” Pete, intimidated, sips the warm liquid, tries not to gag; it tastes terrible. Soong Lee waits until he’s almost done. She nods her head. “You finish all. Goodnight.”
People are always giving Pete things. In the seventies it was acid, in the eighties cocaine, the nineties brought good food and fine wine and when the millennium turned, there were vitamins, supplements and cleansings. Tonight, it’s Chinese herbs. Try as he might he can’t finish the tea, flushes what’s left down the toilet.
Lying in bed, Pete realizes tomorrow is Game Five of the ALCS. Must be a good omen that he’s in town. I’m not crazy, he decides, only following the story to its resolution.
Under a full moon, Pete and Cleo, dressed in white muslin, sporting indigo blue New York Yankee baseball caps walk across the lush center field grass of the new stadium. Throngs of similarly dressed fans flock toward Monument Park where legendary players are memorialized.
In slow motion, a masked devil in red Angels’ trim jumps out of the crowd with a pistol in hand. Bang, bang, bang, he shoots Pete down. Desirée cradles her lover as he bleeds to death in her arms.
“Rise and shine, amigo.” Bobby shakes his friend gently awake. “12 o’clock.”
Pete has been warned: today he will be tested; beware the assassin.
Bobby hands him a bottle. “Brazilian Yohimbe, dependable wood, no side effects.”
Pete shakes his head. “Pasadena, amigo.” He showers and shaves, dresses meticulously in black, combs and ties his hair straight back, checks himself out in a mirror - ninja warrior or Chelsea art maven?
Soong Lee has prepared rice porridge for breakfast. “You sleep good?”
“Like a baby,” he lies. “Coffee?”
“Porridge. Porridge gives strength.”
Bobby sits down opposite Pete. “Keeps you regular.”
“Any raisins or bananas?”
“Eat hot, no sugar.”
Bobby does as told; Pete is slow on the uptake. When Soong Lee leaves the room, he dumps his porridge in the disposal. “I need my morning Joe.”
A light swell rolls toward the Santa Monica Pier. Bobby’s convertible glides down the California Incline and up the Coast Highway. Pete in the passenger seat devours a powdered sugar doughnut, washes it down with Starbucks. “I can’t believe how pussywhipped you are.”
“Not eating the porridge was your loss but I will try a doughnut.” Bobby takes one from the bag.
“You actually prefer tea over coffee?”
“Herb tea.” Bobby picks up speed, weaves aggressively through traffic.
Pete smiles. “You haven’t lost your driving chops. How about some music?” He takes the demo out of his pocket. “I want you to hear something.”
“I only listen to classical now. Check out the Vivaldi.” A swirl of Baroque violins fills the car.
“What happened to your Latin thing?”
“Over.”
“Can you dance to this?”
“You’d be surprised how well it sets a mood in the bedroom.”
“I remember Killer Bob winning a mambo contest at the Corso, now he’s drinking herbal tea, eating rice porridge and listening to Vivaldi?”
“Soong Lee saved my life.”
Pete’s eyes scan the rising swell off Paradise Cove where a gang of surfers astride their boards, wait for a ride. He ejects the disk and loads the demo. “Please, I want to know what you think?” The Sidewinders explode out of the gate, interlocking banjo and fiddle driven by a hard pounding bass and drum line. Jackson’s Stratocaster rings out as he sings, Dylan’s “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat.”
The waves are breaking perfectly. The first surfer is up on his board, riding down the face of a six footer, rocketing toward shore in time to the music. When Pete moved west, his dream was to surf these beaches. He had body-boarded on the Atlantic Coast from Far Rockaway to Montauk Point figured it would be easy. Unfortunately, getting up didn’t mean staying on, and good timing couldn’t compensate for bad balance. He wiped out early on, broke his collarbone and almost drowned. Never went back out. It was one of the major disappointments of his life.
“Rockin’ roots music,” Pete shouts as they approach Point Dume, a flat bluff overlooking the Pacific said to be a landing pad for UFO’s and where the writer of “Pill Box Hat,” lives. “Is this a cosmic convergence or what?”
Bobby smiles, tapping his fingers and nodding his head. “Fuck Baroque. I can still rock out to the primitive.”
Pete takes another bite of doughnut, more powdered sugar blowing in the wind.
Bobby drinks coffee. “Feels great being in character again.”
The sun blazes down on two meshuganas driving across a landscape of strawberries listening to the Sidewinders blasting.
“I didn’t mean to put Soong Lee down before. I really like her.”
“I know what sex addiction is, Soong Lee helped me turn a corner on mine. Our relationship is an interesting combination of the mental and physical. Intellectually, she’s a very complicated woman, physically Soong is restrained, but she has moments of explosive passion.”
“According to Cleo, sex is simply animal behavior, providing no more than temporary satisfaction. She believes our creative connection will last forever.”
Passing through historic, downtown Oxnard, Pete points out Tito’s Tacos. “Barbara and Bethy loved that place, amazing carne asada and home made guacamole. Let’s stop.”
Bobby has his game face on. “After the job.” He turns onto a side road leading to a remote stretch of beach, kills the music as they pass an offshore oil derrick. “Getting close,” he whispers, “stay focused and follow my lead.”
What will Pete do if they actually find her? What will he say? Maybe he isn’t ready? The car approaches a modern, bleached wood beach house on a rise overlooking the ocean.
“The location.”
A motor home is backed up in the driveway. Two security guards lounge under an umbrella by the front gate. As the convertible rolls by, a beautiful blond in a terry cloth robe steps out of the motor home followed by Dicey.
Bobby recognizes the blond immediately. “Desirée.”
“Dicey,” croaks Pete as they sail by. “Stop!”
Bobby keeps going. “Walking in the front door is not an option, amigo. The beach is public access, easy route to a definite ID.”
“That was Cleo.”
“You told me she had short dark hair, I saw a blond.” The convertible rounds the point and parks on a shoulder. Bobby hops out of the car, fresh as when he started.
Pete has powdered sugar on his black silk shirt; his hair is wild from the ride. “A wig is what she had on. It’s her professional look, but the dog belongs to Cleo and me. She found Dicey in Woodstock.”
A steep gravel path leads down to a narrow spit of sand. Bobby, wearing sneakers, has no problem negotiating the terrain. Pete’s shoes go out from under him and he slides on his ass the last hundred feet to the bottom. Bobby helps him up, doesn’t mention that his pants are torn. Why make him self-conscious?
The tide is in. To get around the point to the film location they need to time the waves. Bobby manages easily, stays dry. Pete gets wet.
“Remember what I said?”
“Follow your lead, got it.” He tries to wipe the powdered sugar off his shirt, makes it worse.
The house is only a short distance away; the oil derrick floats on the horizon. Where the beach widens out, a small film crew works at the water’s edge. The blonde, now naked, vamps in the shallows for the cameraman. The dog is off to the side, digging a hole in the sand.
“Recognize the blonde.”
“Closer.”
“Not a good idea.”
“Public beach you said, she’s breaking the law taking off her clothes.” Pete moves forward, spots Roy directing the scene; he’s also naked. “Svengali,” he hisses.
Dicey stops digging, her ears go up.
Foam washes between the blonde’s’ legs.
“Desirée is magnificent,” exclaims Bobby.
Closer now, a couple of things catch Pete’s attention right away: the blonde’s pubic hair has been shaved, her vulva waxed and her labia pierced. “Cleo?” he gasps.
Desirée sees Pete for the first time; he looks like a crazy man. She stops gyrating for the camera. “Who let the geezer in?”
Roy yells, “Cut!” Regards the intruders menacingly. “This is a closed set.”
Pete moves closer. “The beach is public domain.”
“I won’t tell you a second time.” Roy’s abs quiver.
Pete keeps coming on. “Cleo, is he making you do this?”
Desirée faces him in all her naked glory. “My sister told me what a needy person you are. She couldn’t wait to get away.”
“Bullshit, Cleo and I are working together and you’re involved.”
“Roy baby, say hello to the asshole writer I told you about.”
“What kind of mind control are you using on her?”
Sneering, Roy displays his impressive cock. “Here’s all the control I need. You want to watch us fuck, you can have a front row seat.”
Pete doesn’t need a blue pill to throw a hard right at a big man who isn’t taking him seriously. He smashes Roy flush on the nose. A fountain of blood erupts. The hulk goes down. Pete grabs his hand in pain. Desirée cradles her lover in her arms. He bleeds all over her. “Roll!” Roy yells as Desirée’s lips close over his. The light is perfect; the shot must be spectacular.
Bobby pulls Pete away from the carnage. Dicey bounds over with a stick and drops it at her master’s feet. He stares at the dog. “You remember me?” Dicey wags her tail. “Sure you do.”
Roy and Desirée grapple in the sand; she rolls on top fucking in overdrive. Bobby stops to watch.
Pete pets the dog. “Dicey want to fetch?” She wags her tail, grabs the stick between her teeth and takes it to Pete’s hand. He throws it toward the point. Dicey bounds after it; Pete follows the dog. Bobby takes a last look.
Desirée screams, “TOP OF THE WORLD!” Pete flinches but doesn’t turn around.