L.A. Success (17 page)

“Hhhave you...evair bean to anozair
coontree?” he asked.

“I accidentally crossed the Mexican
border once.” He looked like he was trying to process this information, and
when enough time had passed he nodded to himself. Then he waited a while and
sneaked another peek at his sheet.

“Did you evair...no, no 'evair.' Did
you go to the ceenaymuh...uh...last week?”
 

“No, I was...,” I started to say,
but stopped myself before I told him I was at the Starbucks all week. This guy
was good. “Yes, I
did
go to the cinema. I enjoyed it a lot.” I waited
for the eventual nod of comprehension.

“Hhhave you evair meet a famoos
pairson?”

That was it. I jumped up from the
couch and snatched the paper out of his bandaged hand.

“What are you after, Talking Man? I
know you're hiding something!” I looked at the list of questions, written under
the cryptic rubric “preterit versus pp”, whatever that meant. He wanted to know
everything: “Have you ever lived abroad, gone scuba diving, had a car accident,
or ridden a horse? Did you go on vacation, buy a car, see a concert, or eat
Italian food—last week, last month, last year?” What was he going to do with
this information?

He looked at me curiously. I
realized that to him, the scene had looked more like this: Lonnie jumps up,
takes the paper quickly, and then says “What blah blah blah, blah blah! I blah
blah blah something!” This was a good thing because it gave me time to calm
down.

“You got a pen?” I asked and made a
gesture with my hand like I was writing something. He gave me an understanding
look, fished a pen out of his pocket, and then looked happily at the sheet of
paper to see what I was going to write.

“We don't say 'fay-MOOS.' It's like
this,” I said and wrote “FAY-mus” on his sheet. He repeated it a couple of
times. I gave the sheet back to him and sat down. He continued with the
questions, and I lied every time. But I made like I didn't suspect anything
because if he noticed I was on to him, I'd never be able find out what was
going on.

Gertie didn't call me the next day
either. I left her several messages saying I wanted to talk to her soon, but I
got nothing. Once again it felt like I was waiting on everyone else to come up
to the surface and pull me under—Sharkburt or Sharkgert. I had to take action.
So far, the only person I was sure wasn't out to screw me was Grant, although I
didn't exactly know why. That was the angle I was going to have to play, like
it or not.

14

The next day I put on comfortable
clothes to compliment my Arnold and headed over to the Barnes & Noble at
the Pavilion Mall. I roamed around the three floors until I found the writing
section. I rifled through the shelves, knocking a few books off in the process,
until I found that movie-writing book I'd seen the other day by that Syd guy. I
took it over to the coffee section, bought a big brew, and found an empty table
surrounded by lots of hot chicks. I figured if the book started making me
tired, I could look over and imagine the doing to wake me up.

I had thought this book was going to
be about a bunch of fruity literature crap, but it didn't have any of that.
This Syd guy had been in some sort of gang before he started writing the
movies. I spent the entire day pouring over his book, and since I planned to
come back and read more the next day, I stained the page I was on with a little
coffee so I'd know where to start up again.

It didn't take me much longer to
finish the book. I arrived early the next morning and hit it hard until the
afternoon. I skipped over most of the examples because I'd already seen the
movies, but what I paid attention to was the part where he said that one of the
hardest things to do was not to describe too much stuff, because you didn't
want to step on the director's toes. Finally, someone in life telling me to do
less. The only part that seemed annoying was the format, but I figured
Spieldburt wouldn't care as long as it was close.

15

I wasn't too far from Culver City,
so I decided to visit my writer buddies and see if Gertie was going to drop by
her office.

All the guys were typing away. I
wanted to tell them that I understood what they were doing now, but that
would've exposed my earlier fraud. I sat down at a table. I hadn't brought my
writing stuff, so I just sat there looking over toward Gertie's office.

USC-Shirt Jake leaned back in his
chair, took his fingers off the keyboard and wiggled them, then exhaled loudly.
He tilted his head around in a circle like he was trying to stretch. He looked
over and saw me doing nothing.

“You blocked?” he asked.

“Yeah. Out of ideas,” I said.

“Well, why don't you run what you
have so far by me and I'll see what I can do.”

I didn't have any new ideas, so I
started telling him everything that had happened to me and the situation I was
currently in, without using my name of course. All the other guys had stopped
typing and were listening as well.

“This could be an underworld drama,
in which the hero infiltrates a hostile milieu and joins the enemy in order to
learn what he needs to know to take them all down,” said Pee-Splattered,
Old-Birkenstock Jerry.

“So, he has to become a sex-addicted
danger to society and sleep with the old woman?” asked Pocket-Watch Eddy.

“Worse,” answered USC-Shirt Jake.
“He has to become a real-estate agent. That way he can be around her as much as
possible and find out more about the way she operates. Plus, while he's
stringing on the director for more money, he can make sure they're really
lovers. The director
said
that was why he wanted her followed, but the
real motive could be very different. You may decide you want your character
involved in something more complicated. It's something to think about, anyway.”

“Hey, thanks. That helps a lot,” I
said. I'd never imagined that Sharkburt could have other motives. If I found
out something weird, I could make even more money by blackmailing him. I also
never thought about the fact that Gertie now treated me like a client, and that
since she was trying to make money off of me, she'd never really open up and
show me her true colors, if she had any. If I became her apprentice, she might
start showing me exactly what she was capable of.

I walked over to Gertie's office and
saw Ellen inside. I rapped on the window a little and went in.

“Hello,” she said. “Has Gertie got
in touch with you?”

“Yeah, but I was hoping to get an
update. You don't know where she is, do you?”

“Actually, she's not available
today. She said she was supervising the seeding of a lawn. Would you like to
leave—?”

I was out the door before she could
finish her sentence. I got in the Charger and tried to calm down a little
before pulling out of the parking lot. I already had images of little grass
seeds being scattered around my house, of fertilizer pellets that stunk like
vitamins, of a tanned, sweaty laborer shaking little clumps of straw that
rained down everywhere. And then I imagined the grass slowly coming in, at first
looking like the balding head that triggers a mid-life crisis, then becoming as
thick as my hair. The street would finally have that seamless
I'm-okay-you're-okay unity that my neighbors had always dreamed of.

16

When I pulled into my driveway, I
saw that the scene was mostly how I had imagined, except that the tanned
laborer had been replaced by a pasty-white, jiggly Frenchman. He had been
sweating so much that the hair on top of his head looked even thinner, and the
longer hair in back hung straighter than normal, brushing the top of his
shoulders when he bent down to pick up more straw.

Gertie stepped out of the house
holding a glass of whiskey on the rocks. When she saw me, she started walking
over, her boobs once again moving in circles and smashing into one another with
each step. I wondered why they didn't swing in unison like a pendulum, but
maybe it was like the water in the toilet that always goes down clockwise.
Maybe Australian Gertie's boobs swung in the opposite direction. Even more
disturbing than that image was the fact that if she was free-boobing, then that
meant my immigrant worker had probably been defiled by the lady of the house
during his break.

“
I'd
have bought sod, but this is much cheaper, and the labor is free,” she said.
“Well, not free, but let’s just say he worked on a different patch of grass as
compensation.” She took a long drink of whiskey and let out a satisfied “ahh.”
I was a little too grossed out to go off on her, and anyway I couldn't risk
jeopardizing my new plan.

“
So
what's this going to cost me?”

“
Nada.
The Gert has a rule: always screw the guy at the very bottom. For my expertise,
I'm taking ten percent of the rent for the next six months. But don't worry—I
just raised Tommy's rent by that much since he's now living in a luxury
apartment.”

“
Luxury
apartment?”

“
Yeah.
I'm going to have him install a bird feeder with running water in the backyard.
We'll call it a pool until the inspectors come. I've done it hundreds of
times.”

“That's great, but you don't think I
can sell the place?” I asked, even though I had no intention of doing so.

“Not now. You'd lose too much
because of the market. But I've got another idea you can do while waiting. Your
neighbors have been wanting this grass for so long that I think you'll be able
to milk them for landscaping costs. After the grass comes in, they're going to
be really happy. I'll wait two or three months, and then when someone calls me
about the value of their property, I'll tell them it's about to go down because
Mr. Herisson can't pay for the upkeep anymore. Then I'll feed them the idea of
joining up with the other neighbors to pay for your landscaping. They'll do it
just to keep the value of their houses up.”

“But I don't want any landscaping.”

“It'll never actually happen. We'll
split the money and have Tommy plant a tree.”

“Wow,” I said, smiling and nodding
to show my admiration.

Since things seemed to be going
well, I decided to spring my plan on her. “Say Gertie, I've been unemployed for
a while now, and I want to look into learning some new stuff. I imagine you'll
say no to this, but why don't you let me work for free as your assistant so I
can see how you do all this? I wouldn't be any competition for you because if I
sell my house I'm getting out of L.A.”

“Hmm...a free assistant,” she said,
and I could see from the way she squinted her eyes and smiled evilly that she
was imagining ways she could use me as slave labor for as long as possible.
After a moment she regained control of her expression. “An assistant would just
get in my way. I'd end up having to work harder.” I knew she was lying because
she was forcing herself to smile like she smiled at those Malibu church goers.
She was trying to milk me for more than just labor.

“I suppose I could also sign
exclusively with you for the sale of my house. That way you could be sure I
wouldn't try to sell it myself after I learned how to do it.” I wasn't worried
about this because even if she did find a buyer later, I'd refuse.

“You'll do everything I say? I don't
want to start you down the path and then have you bailing out on me after I've
invested a lot of effort.”

“No...I'll take it seriously.”

“Okay then. You start Monday. Report
to my office and await my instructions.”

“Thanks Gertie. You won't regret
this,” I said, trying to sound like a go-getter.

“I'm sure I won't.” She turned to go
back inside and at the same time gave me a little pat on the ass. I was hoping
this was like one of those little-league pats, but then when I thought about
it, those little-league ones seemed pretty pervy as well.

17

My last sexual-harassment-free
weekend. Saturday, I took Ballsack on a walk along the path that runs parallel
to Ocean Avenue. I always loved to walk under the palm trees, to look out over the
ocean, to check out all of the beautiful jogging girls and watch for the
occasional celebrity. Santa Monica always did me some good.

As I was leaning against the fence
that ran along the cliff, the big poodle started going crazy, spinning in
circles. I had to move the leash around to prevent him from choking himself.
Then he started pulling me over toward a big palm tree. When we got over there,
Ballsack reared up on his back legs and barked a little. Then he crouched down
low to the ground with his front paws as if he was getting ready to pounce. His
tail wagged away.

I circled the tree to see what he
was excited about, expecting to see a squirrel, but there was only some guy
there. He was trying to shoo the big poodle away with his left hand while holding
his bandaged right hand up against his chest in case the dog jumped. He was
very tan and was wearing a tank top with weird, white cotton pants that stopped
at his calves. They made me think that he hadn't been able to make up his mind
whether to wear shorts or pants, so he had compromised.