Glamorama (33 page)

“That was a particularly hellish greeting,” I say, trying to maintain my composure once Damien lets go.

Damien’s not listening. He keeps pacing the room, making the chanting noises, and the room is so freezing that the air coming out of his mouth steams and then he walks back to where I’m sitting, towering over me even though he’s not that tall, and looks into my face again, cigar smoke making my eyes water. He studies my blank expression before shaking his head disgustedly and backing away to pace the room without knowing which direction to take.

The goons and Juan just stare vacantly at me, occasionally averting their eyes but mostly not, waiting for some kind of signal from Damien, and I tense up, bracing myself, thinking, just don’t touch the face, just anywhere but the face.

“Did anybody read the
Post
this morning?” Damien’s asking the room. “The headline? Something about Satan escaping from hell?”

A few nods, some appreciative murmuring. I close my eyes.

“I’m looking at this place, Victor,” Damien says. “And do you want to know what I’m thinking?”

Involuntarily I shake my head, realize something, then nod.

“I’m thinking, Jesus, the zeitgeist’s in limbo.”

I don’t say anything. Damien spits on me, then grabs my face, smearing his saliva all over my nose, my cheeks, reopening a wound on my mouth where Hurley hit me.

“How do you feel, Victor?” he’s asking. “How do you feel this morning?”

“I feel very … funny,” I say, guessing, pulling back. “I feel very … unhip?”

“You look the part,” Damien sneers, livid, ready to pounce, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging, grasping my face so tightly that when I yell out the sounds coming from my mouth are muffled and my vision blurs over and he abruptly lets go, pacing again.

“Haven’t you ever come to a point in your life where you’ve said to yourself: Hey, this isn’t right?”

I don’t say anything, just continue sucking in air.

“I guess it’s beside the point to tell you you’re fired.”

I nod, don’t say anything, have no idea what kind of expression is on my face.

“I mean, what do you think you are?” he asks, baffled. “A reliable sales tool? Let’s just put it this way, Victor: I’m not too thrilled by your value system.”

I nod mutely, not denying anything.

“There’s good in this business, Victor, and there’s bad,” Damien says, breathing hard. “And it’s my impression that you can’t discern between the two.”

Suddenly something in me cracks. “Hey,” I shout, looking up at him. “Spare me.”

Damien seems pleased by this outburst and starts circling the chair, raising the cigar to his mouth, taking rapid light puffs, its tip glowing off then on then off.

“Sometimes even the desert gets chilly, Victor,” he intones pretentiously.

“Please continue, O Wise One,” I groan, rolling my eyes. “Fucking spare me, man.”

He smacks me across the head, then he does it again, and when he does it a third time I wonder if that third slap was in the script, and finally Duke pulls Damien back.

“I may park wherever I feel like it, Victor,” he growls, “but I also pay the fucking tickets.”

Damien breaks free from Duke and grabs my cheek at the place Hurley’s fist struck and twists it upward between two fingers until I’m shouting out for him to stop, reaching up to pull his hand away, but when he lets go I just fall back, limp, rubbing my face.

“I’m just like …” I’m trying to catch my breath. “I’m just like … trying to fit this into … perspective,” I choke, slipping helplessly into tears.

Damien slaps my face again. “Hey, look at me.”

“Man, you’re shooting from the hip.” I’m panting, delirious. “I admire that, man.” I take in air, gasping. “I go to jail, right? I go directly to jail?”

He sighs, studying me, rubs a hand over his face. “You act very hard to be cool, Victor, but really you’re very normal.” Pause. “You’re a loser.” He shrugs. “You’re an easy target with a disadvantage.”

I try to stand up but Damien pushes me back down into the chair.

“Did you fuck her?” he suddenly asks.

I can’t say anything since I don’t know who he’s talking about.

“Did you fuck her?” he asks again, quietly.

“I’ll, um, take the Fifth,” I mumble.

“You’ll take
what
, you sonofabitch?” he roars, the two goons rushing over, holding him back from beating the shit out of me.

“The photograph’s a lie,” I’m shouting back. “The photo was faked. It looks real but it’s not. That’s not me. It must have been altered—”

Damien reaches into the Armani overcoat and throws a handful of photographs at my head. I duck. They scatter around me, one hitting my lap, faceup, the rest falling to the floor, different photos of Lauren and me making out. In a few shots our tongues are visible, entwined and glistening.

“What are … these?” I’m asking.

“Keep them. Souvenirs.”

“What
are
these?” I’m asking.

“The originals, fuckhead,” Damien says. “I’ve had them checked out. They weren’t altered, fuckhead.”

Damien crosses the room, gradually calming himself down, closes and locks a briefcase, then checks his watch.

“I suppose you’ve figured out that you’re not opening this dump?” Damien’s asking. “The silent partners have already been consulted on this minor decision. We’ve taken care of Burl, and JD’s been fired too. He’ll actually never work anywhere in Manhattan again because of his unfortunate association with you.”

“Damien, hey,” I say softly. “Come on, man, JD didn’t do anything.”

“He has AIDS,” Damien says, slipping on a pair of black leather gloves. “He’s not going to be around much longer anyway.”

I just stare at Damien, who notices.

“It’s a blood disease,” he says. “It’s some kind of virus. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say uncertainly.

“Baxter Priestly’s with me now,” Damien says, getting ready to make an exit. “It somehow seems …” He searches for the right word, cocks his head, comes up with “appropriate.”

Juan shrugs at me as he follows Damien and the goons out of the club and I pick up one of the photographs of Lauren and me and turn it over as if there might be some kind of explanation for its existence on the back but it’s blank and I’m drained, my head spinning, swearing “fuck fuck fuck” as I move over to a dusty sink behind what would have been the bar and I’m waiting for the director to shout “Cut” but the only sounds I’m hearing are Damien’s limo screeching out of
TriBeCa, my feet crunching what’s left of the mirror ball, sleigh bells not in the shooting script, a buzzing fly circling my head which I’m too tired to wave away.

4

I’m standing at a pay phone on Houston Street, three blocks from Lauren’s apartment. Extras walk by, looking stiff and poorly directed. A limousine cruises toward Broadway. I’m crunching on a Mentos.

“Hey pussycat, it’s me,” I say. “I need to see you.”

“That’s not possible,” she says, and then less surely, “Who is this?”

“I’m coming over.”

“I won’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to Miami with Damien.” She adds, “In about an hour. I’m packing.”

“What happened to Alison?” I ask. “What happened to his
fiancée
?” I spit out. “Huh, Lauren?”

“Damien dumped Alison and she’s put a contract out on his head,” she says casually. “If you can believe that, which I actually can.”

While I’m processing this information the cameraman keeps circling the pay phone, distracting me into forgetting my lines, so I decide to improvise and surprisingly the director allows it.

“What about … what about when you get back, baby?” I ask hesitantly.

“I’m going on location,” she says, very matter-of-fact. “To Burbank.”

“For what?” I’m asking, covering my eyes with my hand.

“I’m playing the squealing genie in Disney’s new live-action feature
Aladdin Meets Roger Rabbit
, which is being directed by—oh, what’s his name?—oh yeah, Cookie Pizarro.” She pauses. “CAA thinks it’s my big break.”

I’m stuck. “Give Cookie my, um, best,” and then I sigh. “I really want to come over.”

“You can’t, honey,” she says sweetly.

“You’re impossible,” I say through clenched teeth. “Then why don’t you come meet me?”

“Where are you?”

“In a big deluxe suite at the SoHo Grand.”

“Well, that sounds like neutral ground, but no.”

“Lauren—what about last night?”

“My opinion?”

A very long pause that I’m about to break when I remember my line, but she speaks first.

“My opinion is: I guess you shouldn’t expect too much from people. My opinion is: You’re busted and you did it to yourself.”

“I’ve been … I’ve been under … a lot of pressure, baby,” I’m saying, trying not to break down. “I … stumbled.”

“No, Victor,” she says curtly. “You fell.”

“You sound pretty casual, huh, baby?”

“That’s what people sound like when they don’t care anymore, Victor,” she says. “I’m surprised it doesn’t sound more familiar to you.”

Pause. “There’s nothing, um, very encouraging about that answer, baby.”

“You sound like your tongue’s pierced,” she says tiredly.

“And you exude glamour and, um, radiance … even over the phone,” I mumble, feeding another quarter into the slot.

“See, Victor, the problem is you’ve
got
to know things,” she says. “But you don’t.”

“That picture wasn’t us,” I say, suddenly alert. “I don’t know how, Lauren, but that wasn’t—”

“Are you sure?” she asks, cutting me off.

“Oh come on,” I yell, my voice getting higher. “What’s the story, Lauren? I mean, Jesus, this is like a nightmare and you’re taking it so—”

“I don’t know, Victor, but I’m sure you’ll wake up and figure it all out,” she says. “I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it but I think you’ll figure it all out. In the end.”

“Jesus, you sound like you don’t want to ruin the surprise for me.”

“Victor,” she’s sighing, “I have to go.”

“It’s not me, Lauren,” I stress again. “That might be you. But that’s
not
me.”

“Well, it
looks
like you, Victor. The paper
says
it’s you—”

“Lauren,” I shout, panicking. “What in the hell’s happening? Where in the fuck did that photo come from?”

“Victor,” she continues calmly. “We cannot see each other anymore. We cannot talk to each other anymore. This relationship is terminated.”

“You’re saying this like you’ve just completed some kind of fucking assignment,” I cry out.

“
You’re
projecting,” she says sternly.

“I urge you, baby, one last time to reconsider,” I say, breaking down. “I want to be with you,” I finally say.

“Trust me, Victor,” she says. “You don’t.”

“Baby, he gets his shirts tailored—”

“Frankly I couldn’t care less,” she says. “Those are things
you
care about. Those are the things that make
you
decide a person’s worth.”

After a long pause I say, “I guess you heard about Mica.”

“What about Mica?” she asks, sounding totally uninterested.

“She was, um, murdered, baby,” I point out, wiping my nose.

“I don’t think that was a murder,” Lauren says carefully.

After another long pause I ask, “What was it?”

Finally, solemnly, she says, “It was a statement,” giving it more meaning than I’m capable of understanding.

“Spare me, Lauren,” I whisper helplessly.

She hangs up.

The camera stops rolling and the makeup girl drops a couple glycerin tears onto my face and the camera starts rolling again and just like in rehearsals I hang the phone up in such a way that it drops out of my hand, swinging by its cord, and then carefully, gently, I lift it up, staring at it. We don’t bother reshooting and it’s on to the next setup.

3