Happy Mutant Baby Pills (14 page)

Book Four

In my fits of optimism, I remind myself that my life has been a hell,
my
hell, a hell to my taste.

E. M. CIORAN

TWENTY-SIX

Mrs. Santa Claus Has This to Say About Fellatio

“We love death!” was the first thing that Beatrice Ender, the executive in charge of
CSI Vegas
said to me. “But it has to be creative!”

She certainly had a creative beehive—the likes of which I hadn't seen since my days as a young pornster in the
Hustler
mailroom, where Ohio blue hairs stuffed dildos into plain brown boxes for shipment to eager consumers. (Neighbor ladies, where I grew up, used to say, “Guess who just got their hair did!”) Combined with a largish frame, apple cheeks, and contagious good humor, her do also made her a ringer for Edie the Egg Lady from
Pink Flamingos
. Except, of course, that Bea wore a smart pantsuit, sat at a desk, and probably banked a million a year, while Edie occupied a playpen in nothing more than fat-biting girdle and triple-F brassiere, and lived for her eggies.

Thanks, apparently, to Harold's ridiculous restless-knee buildup, I was invited to make the drive up the 5 to Santa Clarita Studios. Nora insisted she wanted to come with. We didn't talk much on the way up. Instead, we listened to Rush Limbaugh, with whom she was slightly obsessed. “I mean, dope fiends used to be cool, right? Lenny fucking Bruce? Billie fucking Holiday? Chet? Keith? Bela Lugosi? Lassie?”

“Lassie?”

“You didn't know? The poor pup needed a bang of cortisone, coke, and morphine before every show. She was like a little Judy Garland. After two seasons she OD'd and they had to get a different collie. But fucking
Limbaugh
?” She sighed and sniffed. Wiped her nose. Somebody needed her medicine. “That douche bag should have his junkie license revoked.”

“Are you serious?”

“What? You like Rush? You're a dittohead?”

“No, I mean about Lassie.”

“Fuck yeah. You ever hear of the Tour de France? In the fifties, before Lance Armstrong and doping and all that crap, there was even a popular needle cocktail for American riders called
la Lassie
. The recipe showed up in all the gossip magazines.”

W
hen we arrived on the Santa Clarita lot, Nora announced that the air smelled like fat lady's feet. When I didn't respond—what was there to say?—she added, defensively, that she wasn't being “sizeist,” she just knew the smell, because her grandmother used to beat her with her Indian moccasin, then shove it in her mouth for “sassing off.” “Tasted like White Shoulders and cat piss.”

“Nice.”

I have to admit, I was relieved when Nora said she'd wait in the car while I went about my business. “I've got AC and my book,” she said, holding up her copy of
Phoolan Devi, Bandit Queen of India
. Her new heroine.

Minutes later I was ushered in to meet Beatrice by a fawning intern in a plaid wool shirt with Necco-Wafer-sized tribal earholes. Leaving Nora sitting there left me with a mild tingle of dread, but I had other concerns. Even though he had insisted, had sworn up and down, I still felt compelled to ask Harold, the last time I saw him upright (Mexican tar takes a toll), if I could really talk up the jiggly leg syndrome, if he had really laid some track. He'd be pissed about the car, but a balloon of chiba would make him un-pissed pretty fast.

I hardly felt comfortable claiming credit for an entire disease financed and generated by Big Pharma. Then again, this was show business, and credit was a malleable concept. Somehow, having a disease under your belt felt like a real plus,
CSI
-wise, even if it wasn't one that couldn't actually kill you—unless you restlessly kicked somebody who kicked you back, perhaps in the throat, crushing your larynx and impeding your ability to breathe until you died writhing on the linoleum like a goldfish plucked out of the bowl and dropped by a sadistic five-year-old. Harold, who claimed he knew the ins and outs of the TV world—due to some sketchy service in the consultant trenches, and of course his Bruckheimer connect—suggested I go even further. Harold suggested I bring up my fetish days. Back in the dawn of the 1-900 era, I had a gig as fetish wrangler, cooking up come-on ads to entice men to shell out for phone sex. (
Two dollars for the first two minutes, five dollars every minute after.
) The numbers were part of the draw. 1-900-
NUN-LOVE
, etc. . . . Creativity will not be thwarted!

People in the business, Harold swore, loved to be in a room with somebody who'd actually done something, somebody who'd “been there,” somebody “real,” somebody who'd even sat next to somebody real. For a while, in the nineties, writers started getting fake jail tattoos. Spiderwebbed elbows, inked-on teardrops, a broken line around the neck with “CUT HERE” Gothed in beneath. Nothing better, in a meeting, then being able to say you'd been “down.” Everything that would have screwed you for a job as bank teller could get you hired on a show.)

Much to my surprise, Harold was kind of right. The friendly exec producer and I hit it off. During the interview, Bea was fascinated by my past. In spite of myself, I went on to tell her about my stint doing “erotic” copy, banging out fake sex letters for
Penthouse
Forum:
Dear
Penthouse,
One day, when my girlfriend and I were hiking, my face got stuck in a chain-link fence and my pants came off. Next thing I know, Cathy picked up this long stick . . .
and so on.

Porn and mayhem were subjects Bea warmed to. At first it was strange, say, talking vaginal chainsaw crimes with this sweet, rosy-cheeked older lady. Before our chat, I had no idea how sexist—or classist—I apparently was. But why shouldn't Mrs. Claus be able to chat about fellatio?

“What does it say,” Beatrice wondered, after we'd polished off a pot of green tea and a tray of chocolate rugelach,“that our entertainment is so murder-centric? Murder
is
our prime-time porn. What you were doing was no different than what we do—just a matter of adjectives. There has to be a story, of course. But the dirty little secret is, people love seeing other people die. Blood spatter is the new money shot. That's why
Dexter
is so hot. I mean, we always react with horror to the idea of Aztecs killing a virgin, slicing her heart out, and offering it to the gods, but what do
we
do, show after show? We just have more advanced technology—and different gods—but that's not necessarily progress.”

What could I do but agree? The great thing about heroin is that it's a great enthusiasm generator. So that, when Bea leaned forward over her desk, revealing her ample senior gal cleavage, and asked if I had any “special experiences, stuff that might make a good episode,” I didn't hesitate. I said, “You bet!” I said, “Absolutely!” I said,” I've got a ton of shit!”

“Good shit?” I think it tickled her, talking this way.

“Well,” I said, excited myself to hear what was going to come out of my mouth next, “how about Adult Babies?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, infantilism.” It was her resemblance to Edie the Egg Lady that inspired the idea, but I thought it better not to mention it. I adored Edie, but people are funny about comparisons. I once had a girlfriend who told me I reminded her of Michael Richards. I could not have sex with her after that. I kept waiting for her to scream out “Oh, Kramer!” or “Fuck me, Kramer!” Or, as Marlon Brando claimed Ronald Reagan pleaded just before their first tryst (using a different name, of course), “Come on, Kramer,
just put it in an inch!
”

So I didn't mention Edie. But I did find myself, at ten in the morning in the thrumming heart of
CSI
headquarters, expounding on the finer points of manpers, big-boy pacifiers, and milk-play to a woman of a certain age I'd barely known for half an hour. But already wished could have been my mother.

It was the milk-play that got to Bea. She seemed to want to press me, literally, and—after the rugelach ran out and she had the tribal-eared intern haul in some bear claws—suggested we move to a couch. Bea kept eating, crumbs kept getting stuck to her lip gloss, and I kept sweating in that acrid way you sweat when panic—however distant, however benevolent—begins to take over. It was hard to imagine that she was being flirty. I chose to believe that her chief interest indeed was a potential episode subject. Despite the way our thighs touched on the couch. We were so close I could actually feel Bea's heat. Which had me sweating on the left side of my body,
underneath
the sheen of panic sweat already there. It occurred to me that I was perspiring in two distinct emotional flavors. And I wondered if maybe Grissom could solve a crime with sweat-taste.

Thankfully, my potential employer interrupted my bad idea. “So, you've had some experience, have you?”

“Excuse me?”

“What we need are details, dear.”

“Well,” I began, keeping my eyes fixed on a photo of Billy Petersen that was glaring down from the wall as if to say,
Where else could you be paid to be creepy?
“There are men who like to be nursed, usually powerful, important types. Their thing is finding women who can, you know, put them in diapers, spank their bottom, breast feed them.”

“Breast feed?”

I explained, as best I could. “You've got your drinkers and your stinkers.”

Bea's eyes shone, a little glazed. Surely I hallucinated that she had licked the shiny nub of her bear claw before she nibbled it. “Ooh, this is good. Do tell.”

“Well, not to get too technical, your drinker's focus is up top. Mommy's milk. They, you know, suckle. Your stinkers prefer when Mommy goes south. They make a mess, Mommy changes their diaper.”

“So . . . they could find a grown man, in a diaper . . .”

“With diaper rash,” I threw in, and thought she was going to wet the couch cushion. Bea pressed a button I didn't even see. Tribal Ears padded back in. Stopped in the doorway and snuck a look at me. “Andy, get everybody in here.” When Andy padded back out, Bea eased sideways a little more on the sofa. “Lloyd, I think we may have got something delicious here.”

Her hand on my thigh was not even surprising.

“You must have had such an interesting life . . .”

In fact, my interesting life was waiting for me back in the Prius. Or so I hoped. I had this sinking feeling Nora would wander off and do something majorly regrettable. But I couldn't think about it. Not then. Intros were made to the staff: three preppy writers who looked like they were about to cry, plus a director who rattled off his name and credits with a sharky glean in his eye—no doubt confusing me with someone who could possibly help him. I went a little overboard elaborating the ins and outs of baby-men. “The big thing is thumb-sucking—look for a groove over the thumbnail!—or, more obviously, a tell-tale reek, from full-time Depends aficionados.”

None of the writers said much. The way they stared, I realized they had no idea who I was. A couple of the writers, I realized, must have thought I was some kind of Dirty Diaper Fetishist, a Spokes-Perv, here to plead for some network respect. The third writer seemed weirdly beaten. But when the director, asserting his territory, said the whole thing sounded far-fetched, I dipped into the factoid pile and marched out a few of the ones I'd laid on Bea. I later learned that the Writers Guild allows one “outside writer” a year, and potentially, I was it. Naturally, the director had a girlfriend he wanted to lay the gig on. Everybody wants to look powerful. Especially guys who don't have any power.

Anyway, I was semi-obsessing on Nora, what she was doing back in the car, if she still
was
in the car. I was hoping she hadn't wandered into anything fatal, while at the same time I had to focus on sealing whatever kind of half-ass deal I could come up with here. To my surprise, Bea chimed up before I had to tap dance. “I think Lloyd can bring something fresh. To the show.”

It happened so fast, I was almost disappointed I didn't have a chance to talk adult babies again. I was feeling chatty. Maybe everybody likes to be an expert once in a while. But no such luck. Before you could say pervin'-for-dollars, I had a job.

When I went back to the Prius, Nora was gone.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Nasty Klepto

Two hours later, I found Nora in an empty soundstage, sitting by a pile of bloody towels, fondling a discarded Hoover attachment with what looked like a human heart clogged in the business end. (Speaking of Aztecs.) A single spot from a ceiling beam lent her a dramatic, almost Pietà-like intensity.

She waggled the vacuum cleaner tube at me as I approached. “How cool is this?”

“For Christ's sake, it's a prop.”

With this she stood up, wrapped the heart in a scrap of towel, and put it in her pocket.

“What isn't, baby?”

W
e made our way through the lot, past a pair of faux bomb victims moving their face-gauze aside to chow down on tacos. No doubt a special, special episode, Nora said, miming the universal TV announcer guy voice. Nora wanted to stop and grab a bite, but I balked.

“Why not? They can afford it,” she said.

“I know they can. But I can't afford for that fucking heart to fall out of your purse. For no apparent reason, they kind of gave me a job. And I don't want to blow it 'cause I showed up with a kleptomaniac.”

“Like they'll miss it.”

I held her arm lightly—but firmly—as we passed by the food truck.

“You think those are cheap? How do you know they're not using it in the next scene? How do you know the prop master doesn't live for the chance to discover something missing? So everybody can be a suspect and he gets to look like there's a reason he has a fucking job?”

“
Prop master?
It's all sex with you, isn't it?”

I waved to Bea, who saw me passing by with Nora. She motioned us over, but I gave her a little wave and kept going. Then I realized she was waving to the woman behind me, an ex–assistant coroner who had popped her head in during the meeting and introduced herself. I couldn't remember her name. She was the actual forensic expert, a woman who'd been to an actual crime scene. She told a story about finding a woman with a shoe inside her, a Brooks Brothers topsider, and I'd zoned out. I kept walking.

The whole thing with the baby-men and the script I was supposed to write and Bea the Exec Producer's manicured plump but lovely hand on my thigh . . . All I needed was for the fake heart to fall out of Nora's purse. To end up in
CSI
jail. I don't know much about job interviews, but I know it's much easier to look enthusiastic on heroin. Looking responsible is a whole other can of pharmaceuticals. And I did not happen to have them.

We stopped for a second while Nora dug the car keys out of her purse. (Literally a shopping bag, from Vons. She saw Cat Power carrying one in
Spin
.) The heat in Santa Clarita was so intense it looked like the ground was quivering. I wished I'd worn underwear, but the last time I remember seeing any they were somebody else's, in a Spanish laundromat—Ola, Lavandería!
—
spinning in a dryer window. Stealing wet clothes from a dryer is the safest way I know to get yourself a fresh wardrobe. Guaranteed clean. Most folks like to stroll outside for a smoke rather than sit there watching their shit spin. Tweakers excepted, of course. Tweakers will sit down in front of a dryer and keep pumping quarters in the slot just because it's deeply entertaining and cheaper than cable. It's what their brain
wants
them to do. (The way crackheads carpet-mine, speed freaks spin dry when they're spun.)

“Can you imagine working here?” Nora said when I finally got her in the car. “All you have to do is think up a bunch of really weird shit and write it down.”

“I won't have to think it up. I'll just have to remember it.”

“Oooh, listen to you!”

We'd parked in the sun. The seat of the car felt like molten lava. It didn't bother Nora but had me grabbing newspapers off the floor to slide onto the seat and stave off second-degree ass-burn.

That was when I saw a pair of burly guys in tight blue shirts making their way toward us and decided to just start the car.

“Nora, don't turn around. Just stick the heart somewhere nobody can find it.”

“What?”

I hadn't noticed the iPod buds in her ears. She didn't have an iPod two minutes ago.

“Nothing,” I said, easing up the aisle of parked cars and pickups, rolling down the hill from Santa Clarita Studios—not, you know, fast; we didn't want to look like people trying to make a getaway after a heist. Just a Normal Couple in a Normal Car so we could head back to the 5, a Normal Freeway. Ideally, unobstructed by authorities. I didn't know if there was a line beyond which studio security couldn't arrest you. It was not exactly like Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw making a run for Mexico in
The Getaway
. All I knew was if you made it a hundred feet from a supermarket, security couldn't touch you.

W
hen we were safely back on surface streets, no one authoritative in the rearview, I started speaking again. “I knew this three-hundred-pound dealer, Mexican cat, who used to dress up in diapers and let his girlfriend use him as a couch. He'd be on hands and knees, pulling balloons of tar out of his socks, while she'd be up there in a polyblend nighty reading
Variety
. I guess she was an actress.”

“So . . . the guy had some kind of bowel problem?”

“Of course not. You're missing the point. Homeboy was an adult baby. He liked to suckle
mamá
and wear Depends. But for some reason he also found it relaxing to act like a human end table. Among friends, I mean.”

It took a lot to rattle Nora, but she was, in this instance, at least mildly perplexed. “Why are we even talking about this?”

“Because you asked,” I said, trying not to grind my teeth while being blown sideways as I passed a double-wide, nearly sideswiping an Exxon truck and hurtling us both into a fiery, Michael Bay inferno. “I have to give them an adult baby treatment.”

She just looked at me.

“A treatment. Like an outline. Make up some cool murder stuff, make up some gangster nappy freak, and find a way for the CSIs to solve his murder.”

“Then you write the script?”

“Ideally, yeah.”

She thought for a moment, rolling the window down and putting her face out of it. “Then maybe we start working.”

“On the script?”

“On the murder part.”

Did you ever meet somebody who either had no sense of humor or was never serious, you couldn't tell which?

I'm not saying Nora was a liar. I'm saying she didn't always tell the truth.

S
o, back in Harold's apartment . . . No, wait. I should, I suppose, tell you what happened to Harold. I keep wanting to, but at the same time I don't want to dwell. Part of me just wants to say we now had his credit cards, not to mention his car. Leave it at that. But how we got them probably does bear explaining.

“He's not doing too well” is what Nora said when we walked in and found our junk-friendly host lying facedown in the little place between the bed and the wall. This was a day or four ago. She'd wrinkled her nose and taken off her T-shirt. Indoors, she preferred to go shirtless. “He smells a little dead.”

“Harold just does this,” I said. “If he were dead, he might smell a little better.”

“Then let's trick him out, Mr. Forensics.”

“Trick him out how?”

I knew where she was going, but I don't have to tell you I didn't want to go there.

“How do you think? We do him up in diapers and baby bonnet, get some little crack ho in here . . . you know, a real strawberry, make him go goo-goo ga-ga. See how it plays out.”

I sat down on the twin bed closest to the door, suddenly tired. Not from driving sixty miles, or pitching to a producer, or stressing over groceries and dope, but from the effort of not thinking about everything I'd done—that
we
had done, Nora and me—the stuff that happened but that we didn't talk about. The effort of suppression is taxing enough, but when it's married to an effort not to admit that you're suppressing anything—to having to deny that you're in denial, so that you can't really admit that you're denying anything, you just, I don't know, banish the shit you don't want to think about from inside your head altogether. It's like holding down the handle on a toilet so the toilet keeps flushing. It doesn't work. At some point, inevitably, even if the handle's down, nothing's flushing. In fact, just the opposite.

But the effort can take it out of you.

While we were arguing—or
I
was arguing—over the wisdom of spending the evening shoplifting Depends and petroleum jelly, not to mention a baby bonnet—assuming we could even find one big enough for a big-boy junkie in the immediate vicinity—Nora stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door.