Dreams Die First (26 page)

I took the drink out into the garden and sank into a chaise. I could hear the sounds of laughter as the models made their way back to the cottage and Bobby’s voice giving instructions to the crew for the morning session. Then silence again. I took a sip of the drink. The party was over.

Eileen came out and stood beside the chaise. “She’s sleeping.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’ll go back on the morning plane.”

I looked up at her.

“I shouldn’t have come down. I have no business being here. I work on the magazine.”

“Hey, there’s no reason to feel like that.”

“I was jealous. I can cope with the girls in Los Angeles, but when you’re away, I get paranoid, thinking that you’ll find someone you really flip out over.”

“You shouldn’t feel like that,” I said lightly. “If I find someone, you’ll be the first to know.”

She wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Fuck you!” she said angrily. “I don’t want to be the first to know. Tell your mother! She’s the one who’s always after me about your getting married. Thirty-five, she says, and time you settled down.”

I was surprised. “She really lays that on you?”

“Yes,” she snapped bitterly.

“Why doesn’t she say anything to me?”

“How the hell do I know?” she retorted. “Your mother’s afraid of you. She says she never could talk to you. Next time she hits me with it, I’m going to tell her that it’s none of my business what the fuck you do!”

I grabbed her hand. “Easy,” I said.

She suddenly softened and I pulled her down on to the chaise with me. I stroked her face gently and felt the tears on her cheeks. “It’s not that bad,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” she said, straightening up. “I really did it this time, didn’t I? I broke all the rules. Went way out of line.”

I put a finger on her lips. “Hush, child. I didn’t know there were rules that governed how people should love each other.”

She stared at me for a moment, then rested her head on my chest. “Gareth,” she whispered in a small voice, “how did things become so complicated? Why can’t it be simple the way it used to be?”

I didn’t answer.

Her voice was low. “Remember how it was when we first started the magazine? How there just weren’t enough hours in the day for us and I came down to live with you in that little apartment over the store? There was just you and me.”

“Yes,” I said, still stroking her cheek. But I thought memories are funny things. Private things. Each of us remembers only what we want to. We discard as extraneous those things that are not important to us.

As far as she was concerned, she was right. There were just the two of us. But she had forgotten. There was also Denise.

CHAPTER 37

Eileen’s voice was weary as she placed a folder on the kitchen table in front of me. “That’s ‘Head Trips’ for the May issue. A thousand words for his Trip, twelve hundred more for her Trip.”

“How come she gets more words than he does?” I asked. “I know women talk more but—”

She was too tired to rise to the bait. “Women’s sexual fantasies are easier for me than men’s. But either way I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m all fantasied out. We need help.”

I opened the folder. With illustrations the article could be stretched to six pages. I looked up at her. “Hang in there, baby. We’ll be on the stands next week. If things go the way I hope they will, you can hire half the town to help you.” I checked my watch. It was past two in the morning. “Go home and get some sleep. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

I looked at my watch again. She was right. Seiko said so. And the Japanese were never wrong. Not since World War Two anyway. “Stay in bed tomorrow and catch up on your sleep,” I said.

“I still have four features to write and the third episode of Modern Fanny Hill,” she said.

“It’ll keep till Monday.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Bobby left me six layouts. I have to select the photos, decide which one will be Supercunt and then write the commentary and captions. I’m having the same trouble you are. I’m running out of ideas for nymphomaniacs.”

“Do they all have to be?” she asked.

I smiled at her. “When every picture shows her playing with her cunt, what’s she supposed to be thinking of—going to church on Sunday?”

“It’s such a put-down. Sometimes I think—” She stopped and got to her feet.

“What do you think?”

“It’s not important. I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Say it. If you think it, say it.”

“We make everything seem so cheap. As if nothing in the world existed except cocks and cunts. I didn’t have to take my master’s in journalism to turn this out.”

“You have options. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

“Do you have options, Gareth?”

“Not anymore. I used to think I did, but I know better now. I had big dreams when I came back from Nam. I was going to tell them what a downer we were on. But nobody listened; nobody even really cared, except a few politicians who wanted to make points. The people didn’t give a damn. The dreams are gone now. I’m going to give them what they really want. And it will be just as filled with their own illusions as their cars, their beer and their television.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No. I’m justifying myself.” I got out of the chair. “But I think somehow I’ve grown up. I’m never going to be able to make society over in my image, so I might as well go along and make the best of it. And the name of the game is money. If this works, I’ll make a lot of it.”

“Will that make you happy?”

“I don’t know. But I wasn’t happy when I was broke. It will certainly be a lot more comfortable being unhappy when I’m rich.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right.” A weary sigh escaped her. “I will take your advice and stay in bed tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll walk you to your car.”

The streets were almost deserted. Only an occasional auto went by as we walked to the corner where her car was parked.

She unlocked the door, got in and rolled down the window. “I’m beginning to feel it’s awfully silly to be going home every night and coming back again early the next morning.”

I was silent.

“Gareth, why didn’t you ever ask me to stay over?”

“In that apartment? You know what it’s like. A real shithouse with papers scattered all over the place.”

“You’ve had girls there. Boys, too. Why not me?”

“You’re different.”

“How?” she asked. “I like to fuck, too.”

I shook my head. “That’s not it.”

“You still think of me as a child, but I’m not. I know exactly where your head is at and I understand it. I’ve made it with girls, too. So what? It’s not really important, but relationships are. And I care about you.”

“I know that. But you’re something else. You’re a commitment.”

“And you don’t want commitments?”

“Not until I know where I’m at and who I am.”

She turned the key in the ignition and started the engine. She stuck her head out the window and I kissed her. “I know who you are, Gareth,” she said softly. “Why don’t you?”

I watched the car speed off toward Beverly Hills, then turned and started to walk slowly back to the store.

“Hey, Gareth.” The voice called from across the street. I turned and saw the thin leather-jacketed boy come toward me. The streetlight fell across his face. I recognized him as a hustler who had been working the Silver Stud for years.

We slapped hands. “Hey, Danny,” I said. “What are you doing up this way?”

“I’m headin’ for Hollywood Boulevard to see if I can find me a trick.” He looked into my face. “What are you doing?”

“Not me. I’ve got to go back to work.”

He couldn’t help the slightly bitchy tone. “The chick leave you dry?”

I laughed. “I told you straight.”

“Man,” he said, “the world’s a downer.”

“No action at the Silver Stud tonight?”

“There’s action all right, but the kids are acing me out. Would you believe they’re comin’ in there, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, with their phony IDs and makin’ out like crazy? All those queens love chicken. I guess I’m an old man to them.”

“That’s rough, but you got a long way to go before you’re old.”

“Twenty-five is old in my business.”

“You just had a run of bad luck; things will turn.”

He shook his head despondently. “I gotta score tonight. My girl is bitchin’. He says I haven’t bought him a present in weeks.”

“Belt him.”

“You gotta be kidding. He’s six-two and thirty pounds heavier than me. If things keep up like this, I’ll have to find another line of work. I may go into dealing full time.” He looked into my face, his voice lowered to a whisper. “Can you use a gram of pure rock crystal?”

“How much?”

“Sixty-five.” He saw the expression on my face. “For you fifty,” he added quickly.

He palmed the fifty and slipped me the cellophane envelope, which I put into my pocket. “Thanks,” he said. “That’ll help.”

“Okay.”

We began walking toward the store. “Nobody appreciates style anymore,” he said. “All they want is young juice.”

I didn’t answer.

“Christ, I could put any of those kids away. If those queens only knew. I can do more with my tongue than one of those kids could with a two-foot cock.”

We were at my door. “Don’t get discouraged,” I said. “Class will tell.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s right.” He looked at me. “The word on the street is very good about you. They think you’re goin’ to make it. Especially now that Lonergan’s behind you. He picks nothin’ but winners.” We slapped hands again. “Good luck,” he said. “See ya around.”

“Good luck to you, too.” I watched him hurry to the corner and turn up the side street, then reached for my keys. I didn’t need them. The door opened as soon as I touched the knob. Then I remembered I hadn’t set the latch. I went inside, locked the door, then went up to the apartment.

I stared at the papers strewn all over the kitchen table. The
Hollywood Express
was child’s play compared with the magazine. Everything had been easier with the paper—production, typography, pictures, printing. With the magazine everything was important, even the staples that held it together.

I thought about the coke I had just bought. A snort wouldn’t hurt. If it was any good, it would energize me enough to get in a few more hours’ work. I took a single-edge razor blade from the artist’s easel and a glass plate from the closet and placed the crystal on it. It looked like a white jagged rock slightly smaller than my thumb and the light reflected from it just as it would bounce from a clump of snow. I wet my index finger, then rubbed it on the crystal and licked it. The slightly saline taste and tingling of my tongue told me it was okay. Carefully I began to shave the crystal so that the little flakes fell to the plate. I had a small mound and there was still a large crystal left. It was solidly packed.

I put the rock back in the cellophane bag and chopped the flakes into a fine powder. Then I separated it into thin lines. There was enough for four good snorts. I rolled a ten-dollar bill into a makeshift straw, snorted one line into each nostril, then put the rest aside for later.

It was good coke. It hit me almost immediately. I could feel my head clear and my eyes open at the same time the insides of my nostrils began to tingle and go slightly numb as if my sinuses were clogging. “Yeah,” I said aloud.

I made myself a cup of instant coffee, sat down and opened the first folder. I laughed aloud at the title. An ass man’s guide to character. The thrust of the article was that a girl’s ass told you as much about her character as her face. It had all sorts of detail about the meaning of characteristics such as high, low, broad, tight, hard, soft, bouncy, flabby, droopy, wiggly, big, small, stuck out, stuck in, even what it meant when one buttock was a different size from the other. We had paid a college kid that Eileen knew twenty-five dollars for the piece. The kid was worth every penny of it. He had really made a study of the subject. The more I read, the more I laughed until I realized I was having too good a time. Nothing could be that funny. I was as high as a kite.

I finished the coffee. There was no use trying to read. I decided to check out some of the photographs. I turned off the ceiling light and went over to the slide projector. I switched it on and the white light filled the screen. I pressed the button, the slide fell into place and I was staring into the biggest, funniest cunt I had ever seen in my life. A picture of a train going into the Holland Tunnel flashed through my mind. I pressed the button again. This time I got a rear shot, anus and cunt. Brown and pink. Two trains, I thought, laughing aloud.

I switched off the projector and sank back in the chair. It was too much. I couldn’t handle it. I was too high on the ladder and couldn’t come down enough even to make sense to myself.

I thought I heard the bedroom door behind me creak. I shook my head. Come on now, I was beginning to hear things. I was alone in the apartment. Then I heard the door creak again and I got out of the chair.

Now I knew I was gone. Somebody had cut that coke with acid. I was beginning to hallucinate. Denise was standing in the bedroom doorway, dressed in the French maid’s costume she hadn’t worn for almost a year. “Oh, shit,” I said.

She came into the room slowly, her eyes wide. “Gareth,” she asked in a hushed, hesitant voice, “can I have my old job back?”

For a moment I didn’t speak. Then I realized that she was not a hallucination. I held out my arms to her. She came into them and rested her face against my chest. “Hey, baby,” I said, “where you been?”

I could feel her trembling against me. Her voice was muffled against my shirt. “Gareth, Gareth,” she said in a hurt voice, “you never sent for me like you promised.”

CHAPTER 38

She straddled me like a jockey, her knees bent, thighs pressing against my hips, using her legs as leverage to raise and lower herself gently onto me. My cock felt as if it were floating in warm oil. She leaned forward so that her breasts touched mine and kissed me. Now she was sliding across me, the pressure of her pubis harder against me. I felt her go over the wall as another orgasm shuddered through her. “Oh, lover,” she said.