Stars Screaming (32 page)

“That’s it. You know the rest,” Bobby told Ricky as the bus they were riding slowed and then stopped at a traffic light on Beverly Glen and Sunset. A dark blue Mercedes convertible passed through the intersection and Ricky sat up straight in his seat. He said the man driving looked like actor David Janssen.

“It was,” said the woman sitting across the aisle, in the long seat behind the bus driver. She was black, in her fifties, dressed in a starched white nurse’s uniform. “Mr. Fugitive. Same time every day. Right, Russell?”

The bus driver glanced over his shoulder. He too was black, with wide, flaring nostrils and a heavy stomach. “Seven
A.M.
sharp. Ain’t no fugitive from us,” he said, turning away when the light changed.

“Can’t run away from his problems with the bottle, either,” the black woman said with an expression of authority. “Nossir.”

“Miss Brenda’s got the dirt on everyone.”

The black woman nodded her head. “I know what I know.”

Ricky took out his autograph book and quickly turned the pages. When he came to Janssen’s signature he nudged Bobby in the ribs. “I got him while he was doing
The Green Berets
,” he said in a low voice. “I could have gotten John Wayne that day, but my dad already got him in
Wake of the Red Witch.
”

Bobby looked at the page. David Janssen was from Nebraska, not Omaha but Naponese, a small town in the southeast quadrant of the state. Janssen’s cousin, Jack Crockett, was one of the state troopers involved in the capture of Charles Starkwether and his girlfriend after their three-state killing spree in the summer of 1957.

The black woman said, “I work for Mr. William Holden now. Last year I worked for Mr. Gig Young. When they’re not working, they both sit around all day drinking in their bathrobes, watching the TV, waiting for their agents to call. You can have the glamorous life if that’s where it gets you.”

“They’re both fine actors,” Ricky said, unaware that
Wake of the Red Witch
was one of Gig Young’s first movies.

“That’s what I heard. I wouldn’t know. I don’t go to movies,” the black woman said. “I go to church.”

Ricky said, “
Buck and the Preacher.
”

The black woman stared across the aisle. “Say what?”

“It’s a movie that’s coming out next year. Sidney Poitier plays a preacher.”

“Lotta preachers sound like actors to me,” the bus driver said. “Instead of readin’ from a script, they’re readin’ from the Scriptures.”

“Big ol’ difference between the word of God and the word of man,” said the black woman.

“Amen, sister,” called out a dignified but fierce-looking black man seated in the rear of the bus. His round head was cleanly shaven and he had on a black tight-fitting suit. Beside him was a plumpish, coffee-colored little girl with her hair tied in pink pigtails. “You sound like someone who knows the truth when he hears it.”

“I do that,” the black woman said.

The black man was sitting erect in his seat. He held up a copy
of Muhammad Speaks
, the Black Muslim newspaper. “Elijah Muhammad speaks the truth.”

The black woman clamped her gums together and shook her head. “Not to me he don’t.”

“Elijah Muhammad speaks the truth to everyone,” the black man said.

At the next light the bus driver made a left and started down Hilgard, a wide tree-lined street that bordered the eastern edge of the UCLA campus. Small groups of athletic but unreflective-looking coeds stood chatting in front of sorority houses, all of them dressed alike in polished khaki skirts, knee socks, and brown loafers.

The black man snorted with contempt. “Look at those white devil bitches. Ain’t you glad you don’t look like that?” he asked the little girl next to him.

“Yes, I am.”

“What are you?”

“I’m black and I’m proud.”

The bus driver called out the next stop. “UCLA, Royce Hall, Manning Avenue.”

Bobby turned his head. “What’re you lookin’ at, sissy boy?” the black man said coldly.

“I’m from Omaha, where Malcolm X was born,” Bobby said. “My uncle knew him.”

The black man stared at Bobby for a long time before he spoke. “He
knew
Brother Malcolm. What does that mean?”

“His auntie worked at the hotel where I grew up. The Hotel Sherwood. Sabrina Little. She was a maid. She used to walk me to school.”

“Now that don’t surprise me none,” the black woman said. “Nossir. A maid. We all maids, us black women.”

“Malcolm Little,” Bobby said. “That was his name back then. My uncle’s name was Daniel Schimmel. He wasn’t really my uncle. He said he was my father, but he wasn’t that either.”

“They killed Malcolm’s daddy,” the black man said. He was on his feet, pulling the black girl toward the front of the bus. “Burned down his house, then ran over him in the street. Lynching him would’ve been kinder.”

Bobby said, “I didn’t find out who my father was until two years ago.”

Ricky said, “My dad died in a car wreck when I was eight.”

“My daddy’s never gonna die,” said the little girl, her fingers closed tightly on her father’s wrist.

“Wilshire Boulevard comin’ up,” the bus driver said. “Thrifty Drugs, the Crest Theatre, and Westwood Park and Memorial Cemetery.”

Ricky tapped Bobby on the shoulder and they stood up together. “Westwood Memorial Cemetery. This is our stop,” Ricky said. “This is where we get off.”

The bus driver tilted his head in Ricky’s direction but kept his eyes on the road. “You boys goin’ to a funeral?” Ricky nodded. “Family?”

“Someone.”

“Someone?”

“Someone who was bad,” Bobby said.

The black man pushed his daughter forward until they were standing by the change box. “We be gettin’ off first,” the black man said to the bus driver.

“Whatever you say.”

“I said it.”

The bus driver turned his head and gave the black man a long, penetrating look. “You need to relax, brother.”

“Don’t call me that name,” the black man growled. “I ain’t your brother. A brother of mine don’t drive no bus.”

“What’s wrong with drivin’ a bus?” said the black woman.

The black man pulled one of his daughter’s pigtails. “Tell her what’s wrong, Clothilde.”

As if on cue, the little girl said, “Either you’re part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.”

The black woman laughed scornfully. “What rubbish. That child should be in school.”

The black man stared at the black woman, his mouth partly open, surprised by her boldness. Then he smiled. “You’re a maid. What do you know?” he said, then he dramatically curled his thumb
and forefinger into a circle. “Nothing. Zero.
That’s
what you know. You just a slave to the white blue-eyed capitalist pigs.”

The bus driver slowed to a stop on Wilshire Boulevard. “You ain’t welcome on my bus,” he said, looking hard at the black man. “Now get off.” He jerked open the door, but the black man remained standing on the first step. “
Now.
”

The bus driver stood up. There was something tight and threatening in his face. The little girl moved behind her father’s legs, holding her straw purse up to cover her eyes. “Nigger. A year ago you’d be dead,” the black man said almost tenderly.

“Is that right?”

“Tell him, Clothilde. Tell him what I would’ve done.”

The little girl snickered behind her purse. “My daddy would’ve cut you up,” she said.

The black man smiled at the bus driver with satisfaction. “If you were a man,” he said, “you would walk off the bus with me right now and join us in the revolution. The nation of Islam needs you.”

“I got other obligations,” the bus driver said stonily.

“A righteous man has no other obligations. A righteous man needs only Allah.”

“You can tell Allah to kiss my black ass. And you got five seconds to get off my bus: five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

The black man suddenly clapped his hands in front of the bus driver’s face. “I’m goin’. I’m on my way. But I want you to understand one thing,” he said, as he backed down the steps. “If you didn’t eat meat, you’d see it. Right, Clothilde?”

“Right, Daddy.”

“Tell him.”

“If you didn’t eat meat, you’d see it.”

“Tell him again.”

“If you didn’t eat meat, you’d see it,” the little girl shouted, then she followed her father through the open door. “Praise Allah! Praise the true prophet!”

The bus driver took his seat behind the wheel. “Someone should throw a net over that one,” the black woman said.

The bus driver closed the door and laughed in a pleasant way as he watched Ricky and Bobby cross in front of the windshield. The light changed and the black woman said, “Ought to throw a net over those gray boys, too.”

The bus driver nodded and sat back and worked his muscular shoulders into his seat. “I hear you, Miss Brenda. Uh-huh. I sure do.”

Because Max Rheingold had no living relatives and his only friend, actor Kenny Kendall, was serving a one-year jail sentence for selling cocaine, Jack Rose reluctantly put himself in charge of the funeral. Once he chose the cemetery, he decided that Max’s final resting place should be under a shady camphor tree, just a few yards away from Marilyn Monroe’s sealed crypt.

“He discovered her. All the other schmucks take the credit,” Jack Rose told the cemetery manager, a short, intensely focused woman with kinky hair and a small bruise on her chin. “But it was Max. He spotted her walking down Las Palmas near Nate’s News. He put her in
Rustler’s Roundup
, this oater he was making at Monogram. Gave her one line but she blew it. Ended up on the cutting room floor. But Max was the first.”

“And I never fucked her,” Max told Jack after she became a star. “Can you believe it? I just thought she was a nice kid who needed a break. Not too bright but she had a look.”

Jack said, “That’s called star quality.”

“Who knew?”

“Obviously you didn’t.”

In 1962, on the morning she committed suicide, Max called Jack. “She had a lousy life,” he said. “I hope she’s happier where she is.”

“Ask her when you get there,” Jack told him.

“I plan to. I plan to fuck her, too.”

Only three mourners had arrived by eight-thirty: Bobby Sherwood and Ricky Furlong, who stood together, whispering, and a gray-bearded cowboy wearing a bolo tie over a Western-stlye shirt with blue piping and pearl snaps for buttons. He held a white Stetson hat by the side of one leg.

Across the newly mowed grass, Jack Rose’s limousine could be seen idling on the narrow road that separated the gravesite from the memorial chapel and the outside mausoleum.

“Bela Lugosi was buried in his cape,” Ricky said, as he watched the Mexican gravediggers lower the casket into the grave.

Bobby said, “Who told you that?”

“I read it somewhere.”

“His cape. That’s funny,” Bobby said, without smiling.

A bell began to toll loudly from the Mormon Church down on Santa Monica Boulevard. As soon as the ringing stopped, the cowboy bent down painfully and used his hat to sprinkle some dirt over the casket. “You boys know Max?” he said, standing up. He was looking at Ricky.

Ricky said, “Sort of.”

“Yeah?” The cowboy looked over at the limousine. “You come with him?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Moneybags in the stretch. Jack Rose.”

Ricky shook his head. “We came on the bus,” Bobby said.

“I flew down from Fresno,” said the old cowboy, looking up at a sky that was just a shade darker than the piping on his shirt. “Wind’s blowin’ from the north. That’s why the air seems so clear. Used to be like that every day of the week back in the forties.” The gravediggers laughed, interrupting the cowboy, and he looked in their direction without any expression on his face. “I speak Spanish,” he said. “Picked it up in Durango when I did
Hangtown Mesa.
Max produced that one. Made about two cents.”

“Are those guys laughing at us?” Bobby asked the cowboy.

“They called you queers,” he said, and smiled over at the brown faces watching them. “If you ask me, it’s no business what a man does with his dick.”

“As long as he doesn’t hurt anyone,” Ricky said.

The cowboy said, “That’s assumed.”

“He hurt my mom,” Bobby said, looking down at the casket. He swallowed hard to hold back the tears.

“Max had a cruel streak. He hurt a lot of people.”

“He hurt her bad. I hurt him back,” Bobby said, and spit into the grave.

The cowboy glanced at Bobby, looking at him silently for several seconds. “How’d you do that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ricky said.

“It don’t?”

“No.”

The cowboy waited a moment, and, strangely, a small laugh came out of the side of his mouth. “I guess you’re right,” he said, grinning, “since he’s already dead.”

Ricky reached down and lightly squeezed Bobby’s hand. “Let’s get some breakfast,” he said. He turned and pointed across the street to Ship’s, the coffee shop on the corner of Wilshire and Glendon. “They make a fabulous Western omelet.”

“Speaking of chow, I played the chuck wagon boss in
Desperate Trails
,” the cowboy said, beginning to ramble on as Ricky and Bobby moved toward the street. “They shot it over there at Republic. That’s where I met Max. He had an office on the lot next to Abbott and Costello. Now Bud Abbott—”