Tinseltown Riff

 

 

Tinseltown

Riff

 

 

 

 

 

Shelly Frome

Tinseltown Riff

Copyright © 2013, by Shelly Frome

Cover Copyright © 2013 by Sunbury Press, Inc.  Cover art by Patrice Galterio.

NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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FIRST SUNBURY PRESS EDITION

Printed in the United States of America

March 2013

 

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62006-205-0
Mobipocket format (Kindle) ISBN: 978-1- 62006-206-7
ePub format (Nook) ISBN: 978-1-62006-207-4

Published by:

Sunbury Press

Mechanicsburg, PA

www.sunburypress.com

 

 

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania   USA

 

Dedication

 

For Susan, always, and the magic of the silver screen.

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

 Ben Prine had his first premonition that day as he swung by Olympic Place. Which was odd because he hardly ever had premonitions. Especially not after averting the mad morning rush and pulling into the old familiar cul-de-sac.

At first glance everything was perfectly fine. The adobe-like structures stood as silent as ever, as if the inhabitants were either in hiding or had left for the day. Tightening his focus, he glanced across the street at Aunt June's place, the selfsame burnt-sienna fortress guarded by a maze of cacti he once called home.

No movement there. Nothing untoward going on.

Then why was he so edgy? Was it some kind of emotional memory thing? Because twenty-eight years ago Aunt June's new housekeeper, who couldn't have been more than nineteen, dropped off her three-year-old with the excuse she had some important errand to run and never returned?

Humoring himself, he checked to see if there was a strange car nestled under the hovering agaves as he slid out from behind the wheel. The next camera shot called for a medium close-up of a slim sandy-haired woman scuffing up the drive armed with the news she'd been abducted into white slavery; or was the victim of some horrible accident and only now regained her memory and remembered Ben's birthday.

This notion, of course, was like all hack-writer's notions—
What if? What if? What if?
After all, it was the first rule of the trade. This day can not be like all other days. This was the day something juicy was set in motion.

Stepping away from the borrowed vintage red Prelude, he became increasingly aware of the whoosh of the Santa Ana as it continued to blow in from the desert on this uncommonly hot Labor Day morning. It was a fluke, a faux disturbance that was bound to fade off. Perhaps he could put the jittery feeling down to the fluky wind and his dire need to jumpstart his non-existent career. That's what he told himself.

But it didn't wash. His premonition had no name and could not be explained away. He would just have to let it ride.   

Edging past Aunt June's commodious Lincoln Town Car and dodging the cacti, he reached the wrought-iron front door gate and rang the bell. Two latches were immediately released and the inner door gave way a crack.  

“A little faster,” said Ben. “I'm expecting a call.”

The door jerked open, revealing the pinched face, darting eyes and tight wispy hair that belonged to his erstwhile guardian.   

“Very funny. As you well know, I'm in an actual hurry,” said Aunt June, checking the pendant watch dangling from the chain around her neck. “Unlike you and your Hollywood pipe dreams, I'm off to work.” For emphasis, she pointed to her metallic blue pants-suit and matching loafers.

“Well, as it happens, auntie, I just may have something going.”

“I'll bet. Did you at least bring back my camera?” She raised an eyebrow as she yanked the oaken door half open and stared back at him through the iron bars. “I've got three new listings: one on Larchmont, one on Genesee, and an apartment building clear over on Serrano. Plus a showing on Plymouth Boulevard. Which means, even in this crap market, I have stuff to post on the website, new stuff to shoot and still make my flight.”

“I'll get your camera in a minute. Look, it's almost eight-thirty.”

“No kidding. No minute. Move it, please and make sure you got the lens cover.”

Humoring her, Ben dashed across the street and snatched the digital camera out of the trunk. He would miss it and its 18-55 mm range and capacity to take sharp evening shots. On a whim, Aunt June had wanted to take quick stills to make her listings seem a lot more impressive. In contrast, Ben had had dubious but desperate uses for this upscale Nikon.   

He made his way back through the cactus maze, double doors and into the dim alcove.  Reflexively, he took a sharp left, plunked the camera down on the desk in his old room, came back and headed straight into the kitchen. He no sooner got to the phone when Aunt June popped her head in and barked a few more snappy orders.

“Hook the camera back up, will you? Which means you'll have to find that cable gizmo which got mixed up in a box headed for the dumpster. Why the box? ‘Cause it's filled with your junk. As you might wish to know, I'm putting the house on the market. Selling it for peanuts, cutting my losses and I'm out of here.”

“You're kidding?”

“Sorry, don't have time to chat.”

“Terrific.”

“So, while you're at it, do what you promised. Check out the bars on the windows, hook me back up, take what you want and—”

Racing ahead of herself as always, Aunt June's feisty eyes locked in place. “Hey, that reminds me. What about the birthday?”

What she meant was the arbitrary day they chose to commemorate the last time they'd laid eyes on his biological mother.

“How about when I get back?” Aunt June went on. “Tell you what. We'll do a wrap: have another closing, if you get my drift. Truth is, I've already got an offer. When it comes to rip-offs, shysters can't resist. So, not to put too fine a point on it, if you could just settle on one of the final options.”

Ben plopped down on a folding chair facing the ancient wall phone. The final options included any form of work, finding a hard-up girl with money—in short anything guaranteeing Ben was out of her hair. Thus enabling her to close the books on his so-called upbringing.

“It's down to the wire,” said Aunt June, standing over him. “You're sacking out at my niece Iris', taking advantage of her good nature. You're tooling around in Mrs. Melnick's tenant's car while he's away. You've been unemployed since God knows when, run out of benefits, can't even afford a cell phone--”

“I know, I know. Heading for the dust bin. On the treadmill to oblivion.”

“So stop futzing around for rice cakes.” (Aunt June could never bring herself to say ‘for chrissakes.')

“Look,” said Ben, “hard as it is to believe, I've really got a shot.”

“Oh, give me a break.” Putting a period on this exchange, Aunt June whisked away down the hall.

Ben stared up at the phone for a moment or two, rose and shuffled back into his old room which now served as Aunt June's office. If and when the phone rang, he only had a few feet to go.

With the realization he might never see this place again, he took in the bulletin board, the framed blowup of the Pacific Coast Highway, the calendar with a red check mark for every breakthrough date Ben had failed to meet.

Hunkering down in the far corner, his gaze settled on his old stuff. Call it what you will, time was definitely telescoping on him, everything coming to a head.

He riffled through his first comic strips. All the panels began with a kid in the smog. Sometimes on Sunset Strip, sometimes running down a beach in Malibu, or caught in a house of mirrors on the Santa Monica Pier; sometimes stuck in a ravine or humongous canyon. Then they went blank. Somehow he had to slay the dragon and rescue the maiden. Or do something extraordinary to get his mom back to make up for whatever it was he did or didn't do. And to this day, nothing came of it.  

Later on, unable to complete any ideas of his own, he'd appropriated parts of sure-fire cartoons from yesteryear. After those shows were put on hiatus, he'd had a few stints doctoring some failed TV pilots and a few gigs working on movie scripts in development that never saw the light of day. Then nothing. Deluded, wary, but possibly still on the verge
if only ...
 

On the verge of what? What was lying in wait for him around the corner? What gantlet would he have to run?

Snapping out of it, he spotted the cable beneath his old binoculars, attached it to the computer tower under the desk, and drifted out into the hall where he ran smack into Aunt June's two-piece matching luggage set.

“The windows and skylight,” hollered Aunt June from somewhere out back. “Do it all.”

“That's a Roger,” said Ben, hollering back, his anxiety level holding steady. It was almost nine and no jingle from Gillian, the only real contact he had left.

He yanked out a foot stool and saw to it that the bars over the skylight were securely locked. After all, it wasn't really Aunt June's fault she was paranoid. It had only been a month since she'd heard a car starting up in the middle of the night. With the squeal of tires still ringing in her ears, she sprang out of bed, peered out the kitchen window and noticed her Chrysler sedan was no longer in the drive. No wonder when about to leave this loopy town she relied on Ben to double-check everything. And, unlike Ben, she had a perfectly good reason to be on guard.

Stepping into the living room, treading carefully over the zigzagged blue and yellow Zapotec rug, he checked the other windows, careful not to knock over the Talavera canisters and urns. Having sworn off nubile footloose domestic help like Ben's mom, Aunt June had resorted to matronly Mexican housekeepers. In turn, Ben was forced to pick up a smattering of Spanish in hopes of being fed all those times Aunt June was off on one of her realty toots. In truth, Chicanos were all that had kept him alive.

He checked his watch again and tried harder to stay in the here-and-now.

He returned to the kitchen and wolfed down two of the prepackaged fruit salads. Then he scurried around, double checked the rest of the window locks, pivoted and smacked into Aunt June, her rolling luggage and the large paper sack of oranges she'd plucked from the back yard.

“How about this?” said Aunt June, brushing past him in the hallway. “For starters, keep your eye out for some cheap permanent address. So I don't have to see your mail and wonder what the citation from the Hollywood Community Police Station is all about. Or the overdue bill notices and whatnot. So I don't have to think about any of your goings-on
period
.”  

Sloughing this off, Ben moved straight back to the sliding glass doors in the rear of the house, secured everything and yanked the drapes shut. Just as June finished arranging the oranges in the refrigerator bin, she poked her head out of the kitchen and snapped, “I see, young man, that box of yours hasn't moved an inch.”

Sloughing this off as well, they crisscrossed again.