L.A. Success (24 page)

LONNIE HERISSON

So Gertie, how is Steven doing? That is the love of your
life's name, right?

GERTIE scowls slightly at LONNIE.

GERTIE ELLIOT

Never heard of him.

LONNIE opens the bottle and pours the wine.

LONNIE HERISSON

Well, I'm sure he's thinking about you.

They all toast. The small talk continues. After half an
hour, LONNIE begins to yawn.

LONNIE HERISSON (CONT'D)

Time to hit the hay. Talk to you tomorrow, Gertie.

LONNIE gets up, expecting GERTIE to stand as well.

GERTIE ELLIOT

(Remains seated)

Okay. Sweet dreams, right-hand man.

LONNIE heads to his room. As he closes his bedroom door, he
peeks out into the living room. He feels horribly worried. Will GERTIE take the
innocent flirting to the next level and cheat on her lover? Should LONNIE, in
reality a private investigator hired by GERTIE's lover, step in and break it up
before discovering if she would really go through with it or not? Should LONNIE
be worried that GERTIE will transfer the SUPPLEMENTARY TERRIAN DWELLER to
TOMMY, thus moving it one step closer to its final objective: returning to
LONNIE? All of these questions and more will be answered in the final
installment!

33

I leaned back and admired my work. Spieldburt
was definitely going to be on the edge of his seat after this one, and no
matter what kind of negotiating he did, he wasn't going to see one more page
until I had some money.

That reminded me, it was about time
I got some photos of the old gal in the sack to go along with the third act.
I'd been putting it off for as long as possible because seeing Tommy naked had
already freaked me out enough. He and Gertie together could do me—I mean cause
me—some serious psychological damage.

I turned a few pages and noticed
that I had spelled all sorts of things weird. There were even a few paragraphs
where it looked like some kind of localized dyslexia had kicked in, and I could
barely make out what I had written. I thought about fixing all this stuff, but
then realized that's what people like Grant are for. How many times had I heard
about famous L.A. movie-producer guys who had the dumbest ideas, but who pulled
together a team of poor suckers from all over the country to work like slaves
cleaning everything up? “Hey guys, I got an idea: There's some kind of
disaster, maybe an earthquake, tornado, giant asteroid—whatever—and then
there's like a hero, but different in some tiny way from all the other heroes
that have been out recently. Maybe this one has OCD, so he has to turn the
light switches on and off 25 times before he can pull anyone out of burning
buildings—what the hell do I know? Anyway, everybody would've died if this guy,
girl, or trained dog, didn't do something amazing at the end. And then, when everybody's
safe and happy, they do it. Okay, write all my sweet ideas up on your fancy
computers. You won't get any writing credit for this one since it is my idea,
after all.” I decided to mail it as is. I'm sure nothing ever arrives on
someone's desk looking professional. An editor always goes through it and makes
it readable before it gets to the public eye, so Spieldburt was probably used
to seeing crappy spelling and whatnot when he read through first drafts.

All my writer buddies seemed really
stressed out. It didn't help things for them that I was always coming here and
writing as fast as possible and then leaving all happy with myself. I had
noticed a few of them giving me bitter looks from time to time as I smashed a
period or zorroed a question mark onto the ends of my sentences.

“Come on guys, why the long faces?”
I asked.

“Don't say long faces!” said
Scarf-Guy Al. “I can't stand long faces anymore!”

“Let's get it together,” said
Pee-Smelling, Old-Birkenstock Jerry. “We can't lose hope on this one. If the
world wants another movie from old Horse Face, we'll come up with it.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“The studio has already chucked
three scripts for a new Jessica Mary Valet movie, so they brought us in.
They've already started filming the thing in New York,” said USC-Shirt Jake.

“Without a script?” I asked.

“Half of every movie she makes is
filmed without a script. The cameras follow her around while she shops for
shoes, and they stick all of Jessica's friends together at a table and film
them while they talk about penises and giggle. Hollywood feminism is more or
less about proving that women can be just as stupid as men,” said Pocket-Watch
Eddy. “And normally I'm fine with that, but now that I'm the one who's got to
write it...And the thing that makes everything really hard now is that old
Horse Face had her trade-mark mole removed. Before, she could say any line and
it would be just as edgy as her face, but now that she's going all mainstream
on us, she's harder to write for.”

“Let's ask Arnold-Shirt Lonnie for
advice, since he's been writing up a storm lately,” said USC-Shirt Jake, and I
just about flipped because that was the first time I had heard my official
writing name.

“My ex used to watch her stuff. You
gotta make the ladies want to do something wrong when they watch Horse Face's
movies,” I said.

“Believe me, everything that can be
considered wrong has already been done to her,” said Scarf-Guy Al. “That's why
we're dying here! They've almost filmed all the shoe buying and penis giggling
they can. They're hounding us for the script every hour!”

“Just take the most popular topic of
the day and let her go at it,” I said.

“I can't think of anything that
hasn't already been done,” said Scarf-Guy Al.

“You're missing the most obvious
thing—religious extremism. Here's what you do: old Horse Face is sitting around
talking about a penis mole or something—you know, she'll be anxious to make fun
of that kind of thing now that she's had her own mole removed—and then she sees
a bunch of people coming out of a mosque. All the chicks are covered from head
to toe. You can only see their eyes. Then she sees the most handsome extremist
she's ever seen in her life, and he's ordering his woman around like a dog, and
this turns her on. So she rushes out of the cafe and follows the guy home. Then
she goes off and buys her own veils and crap, and when the wife is off at the
store, Horse Face puts on the veils, sneaks into the apartment and does the
dude, who pretends not to suspect anything even though she has a pasty white
ass. She starts doing this regularly and tells her friends all about her
forbidden penis adventures. Then one day while they are getting it on, he rips
off her veil and tells her he loves her like he has loved no other contaminated
infidel in his life. She doesn't want to ruin his marriage, so after endless,
waffling conversations with her friends, she breaks it off. He comes crying at
her window several times, but she buckles down and doesn't give in.”

“That's kind of a downer of an
ending,” said USC-Shirt Jake.

“It doesn't end there. While out
taking a walk, really reflecting about her life and the ideal penis, a
super-rich guy in a limousine stops and asks her for directions. After one of
those 'one-year-later' breaks in the film, they get married. With all that
money, she buys some new shoes.”

“That's kind of random, but then so
is everything else she does. Okay, let's do it guys,” said Pocket-Watch Eddy.

34

I left the guys to their writing and
headed back to Dennis' house to pick up the big poodle. When I arrived, I saw
Tommy pacing in front of the gate. With all the training and writing, I had
forgotten to keep an eye on this guy, and here he was again doing who knows
what, maybe keeping tabs on me. He had this strange look on his face, and his
lips were moving like he was practicing saying something. I parked the Charger
and walked up to him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He was burning with rage, but he had
to keep it in check to get the words to come out of his mouth.

“You are doing ze love to Gairtee!”

“What? Have you lost your mind?” I
asked.

“You are togezair all ze time. I
call hhher tonight. I hhhear noises and lawfing. She hhhang up. I call second
time, no responding.”

“I was with friends all night,
writing this,” I said and held up the script. “I promise. There's nothing
between Gertie and me. Why would I want to do that?” His facial expressions
changed to show his relief.

“I yam vairy touch-ed zat you would
not do zat to me,” he said.

“No, I meant I wouldn't want to
do
...Yeah,
that's exactly what I meant. Look Tommy, have you talked to Gertie about not
seeing anyone else? Maybe she doesn't know that's what you want.”

“I yuh...will talking to hhher,” he
said.

“Good idea. Hey, come inside a
minute. I want you to meet my dad.”

Tommy followed me in. The place was
a wreck since I hadn't had time to clean it in a while. My dad was on the couch
playing chess.

“Hi Dad. Look who I brought—the
Talking Man, right?” I figured that if Tommy was the one who had tried to break
in and that if he had actually just been bullshitting me about the Gertie thing
as an excuse to come spy on me, I'd find out now.

“No. I don't know that guy,” he said
and went back to playing chess.

“Okay, well, good night Dad,” I
said, but he was too involved in his game to answer.

I felt relieved to know it wasn't
Tommy, but at the same time, I now had no idea who had tried to break into
Dennis' house. Maybe it had just been a robber.

Tommy, Ballsack and I strolled back
home. When we got there, Tommy tried to call Gertie a few times, but there was
no answer. He tried to take his mind off of it by playing his guitar, but since
he could only play a few chords really slowly, he soon got tired of that. I put
a movie on the tube and invited him to come watch it with me. When the actors
would say something vulgar, I explained what it meant to him. That seemed to
make him feel better.

35

The next morning when I was looking
for something to wear, all of my Dennis clothes were dirty, so I took out a
pair of my own pants that I hadn't worn for almost two months. When I put them
on, I was amazed at how loose they were. I must have lost forty pounds since
the last time I'd put those things on. I was also amazed at how repulsed I was
by them. I had gotten spoiled by all of Dennis' nice stuff, and I couldn't see
myself going back now. I made a big pile of clothes I knew I'd never wear
anymore and threw it all into a trash bag. Then I put on the least smelly
Dennis pants I could find, grabbed the trash bag and the big poodle, and walked
toward the Third Street Promenade to the nearest clothing donation box. I
crammed all that stuff into the metal tray and slid it shut, sending my clothes
to the bottom with a dull thud.

I continued over to the Promenade
and walked around looking for a store I could shop in that didn't look like a
night club. The Levi's store fit the bill, but when I walked in, an employee
told me I couldn't bring such a big dog into the store. I stepped back out and
was looking for a place to tie Ballsack up when I saw Amanda, the little girl I
had met in West Hollywood, walking with a man I assumed was her dad. I went up
to them to say hello.

“Hi Amanda,” I said. She looked over
at me and saw the big poodle. She got a scared look on her face and hid behind
her dad.

“It's okay. That dog won't bite
you,” said the man. He looked up at me for a moment. “I'm sorry, I can't place
you. Do you work at Amanda's school?”

“No. I was in your neighborhood the
other day asking about a lost dog. I talked with your babysitter.” Amanda was
still hiding, so I started feeling kind of creepy. “I didn't realize she'd be
so afraid of my dog. Sorry about that. I'll let you go.”

“Don't worry about it. We used to
have a black poodle, and one day she stepped on it and it bit her. She was so
scared of it from then on that we had to give it away.” He leaned over and
picked Amanda up so she'd feel safer.

“Bad dog!” said Amanda, pointing at
the big poodle.

“You used to have a black poodle
like this one?” I asked.

“Well, ours was just a puppy, but he
was supposed to get big like that. Yours looks like he could use a good
shearing.”

“Yeah, I think he's got something
wrong with his hair. It keeps growing out like crazy. Hey, just curious—what
did you call your dog?”

“Manolete,” he said. The big poodle
snapped his head around and started wagging like crazy. “But I didn't name him.
He never looked like a Manolete to me. The friend that gave him to me is
Spanish. He told me that it was the name of a famous bullfighter, which to me
seemed ridiculous, naming a poodle after a bullfighter.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Well,
enjoy your afternoon. Nice running into you again, Amanda,” I said and waved.
She turned her head and pressed her face against her dad's neck so she couldn't
see me. Her dad gave me a “what-can-you-do?” look and continued walking.