Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (4 page)

“That’s what you said when we had four grand.
Pretty soon it’s going to be ten, eleven, even twelve grand, and
you’re still going to say the same thing... Also, you’re always
working on that damn farm. Face it, Damen, you’re scared to leave
Ridge Crest,” Jose announced. That’s when Damen lingered his head
toward Maria, with embarrassment written all over his face.

“I am not scared,” said Damen. Realizing his
tone was a bit shaky, he turned away from Maria’s eyes. He didn’t
want her to see the fear within him. He knew it was fear, terror;
he knew that’s what was keeping him from leaving the Valley. But,
jealousy was another factor in his decision still.

Maria then jumped on top of the boulder
again, where she could be heard over all the arguing, and began
speaking. “Guys, listen ... why don’t you stop arguing and try to
figure out how you’re gonna get there? I’m sorry for going against
you, Damen, but Jose’s right. We have to leave soon. If we don’t,
we’ll never go... You all have a tremendous gift, you all have many
tremendous gifts. If we leave together, you will have a better
chance at beating the odds.”

“What are you talking about, why would we
have a better chance?” Jose asked in a tone of confusion.

She answered, with calm and sincerity,
“Because, in Hollywood, there will be three of you. That way if one
makes it big, he could help the other two make it big as well. I
have watched you entertain me almost my whole life, and I am still
begging you guys for your autographs. Face it, you kick ass.”

Damen’s mind, his inner self, was beginning
to change and agree with Jose. That’s when he asked, “You really
think we could make it?” His question had a deeper meaning, a
deeper sense of the sentence that, if answered correctly, would
bring a sense of hope to his mind, hope that he wasn’t used to
hearing.

Maria saw hope, or else a positive symbol, in
Damen’s eyes, and that caused her to jump off the boulder and
reply, “Yes, I really, really, truly do. We’re a team, and
California can’t, and will not, destroy that.”

Suddenly, Damen’s hope went back into hiding,
and his fear, his sense of self-consciousness, came back to him.
Damen gawked at Maria and said, “Yeah, but everyone, in the big
cities, wants to be actors. I mean, a handful get chosen to be
called ‘movie actors,’ let alone be called ‘movie stars.’ How can
you be sure that we’ll make it?”

Damen stared at all of them. They knew he was
speaking the truth. The truth hurts, it’s a thorn in hope.

Maria walked up to Damen, and said, “Well, by
knowing one thing.” She then looked at Darell. “Darell O’Conner, do
you want to be an actor?”

“Yeah.”

Maria then turned to Jose and asked, “Jose
Rodrigo, do you want to be an actor?”

“You better believe it.”

She then gazed at Damen’s eyes, seeing so
much pain and fear within them. Grabbing Damen’s hand and holding
it firmly, she questioned, “Damen Schultz, ever since I could
remember, you always had a passion, a special craving for acting.
Damen Schultz, do you want to be an actor?”

He stared at her and closed his eyes. He was
afraid to answer, but his mind began to be overwhelmed with tears
as he replied in a faltering motion, “Yes ... yes, I do.”

“Well, then that’s enough of an answer to at
least try for it,” Maria spoke, still holding his hand.

Jose saw her hand in his grasp and then
placed his own hand on the script that Darell dropped. Jose
shouted, “I’m in.”

“I’m in too,” said Darell, putting his hand
on top of Jose’s.

Damen just watched, he fixed and stared at
their hands on the script; he stared and thought that maybe this
was the way it had to happen. He slowly walked over to Jose and
Darell, like he was ready to harm them and punch the idea right
from their heads. Damen lifted up his palm, like he was ready to
punch Jose in the face, and slapped it down on top of his hand. He
made the decision that changed his destiny, his life forever. “OK,
okay, I’m in three...” Smiling with hope, Damen added, “We leave
tomorrow morning. I guess my father’s going to have to work on the
cornfield alone.”

Jose screamed, “Yes! You’re the man, you are
the man.” He then scratched a scar on his neck with his right hand,
and pretended to punch Damen with his other. He had received the
scar from his father throwing a cigarette butt at him when he was a
little kid. Maria took his hand away from it and started to kiss
it.

Damen then explained, “First things first, we
have to all write our parents a letter.” He saw Maria kissing
Jose’s neck, but instead of jealousy striking at his heart, Damen
swallowed it whole and started thinking of how to get out of Ridge
Crest.

“What should the letter say?” Darell asked,
shaky and confused in speech, he was a full-fledged nerve.
Nervousness was growing in all of them at this point.

“Just say that we’re going on vacation to ...
to ... um, I know, just say we’re going on vacation to New York
City. Yeah, say we’re going on vacation for a while, that way they
won’t come looking for us, because we’ll be in California,”
declared Damen with a permanent smile engraved over his face. His
mind was finally released from fear, and the old hope was revived
once again.

Jose eagerly voiced, “My father won’t come
looking for me anyway, he’ll probably be happy to see that I’ve
left his house.”

“Well, write it anyway, because my father
will come looking for me. And if you say you’re going to
California, my father will know I’m with you. Just say the New York
idea,” Damen repeated.

Darell suddenly picked up an old box. “Yeah,
I like the New York one better.”

Jose looked at Darell and the box he was
holding in a puzzled way, saying, “Okay, fine, New York it shall
be. Um, what are you doing, Darell?”

“I think we should all get some memorabilia
together and put it in this box. We could make a time capsule or
something... I know, after we all become famous, we come back to
this very spot and look at the time capsule. My first contribution
to the capsule is a script from the play Our Town,” Darell replied.
He placed the script inside of the old box and then waited for
someone else to contribute to his corny but unique idea.

“Why are you putting that script in the
capsule?” Damen questioned.

“Because this is the first script that we
didn’t finish.”

Jose opened up his wallet and grabbed a photo
from it. Even though Jose gave a face of unimportance to Darell’s
idea, he still wanted to make Darell feel good, and so he went
along with it. “My contribution is a photo of all of us together.”
Jose placed the photo in the box, the capsule, and looked at
Damen.

“What’s your contribution going to be,
Damen?” Maria asked, grabbing the box from Darell and bringing it
over to him.

“Well, even though this is a very, very corny
and stupid idea, it’s still a good one... So, my contribution will
be my journal; the journal about, well, about Sugar Valley I
guess.” Damen pulled out a rolled-up journal from his back pocket
and dropped it into the capsule. “This is so stupid.”

“No it’s not, it’s fun,” argued Darell. Maria
grabbed the box away from Damen and watched it with a smile.

“My contribution will be the fishing pole
that you guys always generously let and made me use.” Maria looked
up at the blue sky and then back at the box. It was as if she was
looking for God to witness and show his presence at this
moment.

“Okay, we’ll seal it up and put it ... put
it,” said Darell. He looked at the box, while confusion about
putting it somewhere safe came over his face.

“That’s right, where are we gonna hide this?
It always rains in the Valley. Therefore, the box will decompose
and look like one of Damen’s horse’s manure piles. This thing won’t
last a week down here,” warned Jose. He looked around the Valley to
see if he could find somewhere safe to place the capsule, but his
sight couldn’t find a home, a place for its importance to be kept
safe and unharmed.

Darell then suggested, “I got it, why don’t
we place it in the cave across the pond?” Without a reply, Darell
took the box from Maria and began walking over to the cave. The
excitement was so great and grand that Darell didn’t have time to
reason with them.

“Are you nuts? That’s an old abandoned mine.
That thing could collapse any day now... Besides, I heard that
there’s still dynamite in it,” Damen stated. Darell stopped in his
tracks after Damen’s warning.

“Oh well, do you have any better ideas?”
asked Darell. He then continued on toward the cave. “Are you guys
coming?” he asked, while Jose and Damen both looked at each other
as they thought of the initials T.N.T.

Following Darell over to the cave in a
thoughtful manner, Damen and Jose seemed like they were afraid of
it, blowing up from the dynamite, exploding into oblivion. Darell
went from walking on green grass to walking on whitish stone as he
came to the entrance of the cave; still, there was no explosion. He
then placed the capsule deep in its darkness, laying the fishing
pole on top of it, and walked back outside of it to where Damen and
Jose stood; he was still alive, and allowed them to feel that the
dynamite was either too old to explode, or else it didn’t exist
there anymore. The three of them ambled to where Maria was and
began discussing the best way for transportation to California.

Discussing how they’d be able to get the
train tickets, and then the airfare tickets once the train reached
the nearest airport, became harder than they thought, and they
still hadn’t even left the Valley yet.

All of them said they were going to meet at
5:00 in the morning, to begin their journey to a life of fame, a
life that they thought they were ready for. Everything was too
perfect, too fictional to be real, and like with everything,
reality finds a way to show itself and ruin the moment. As they
walked up the hill of the Valley, reality did show itself when
Darell looked at Maria and said, “Wait a second, guys, Maria can’t
come with us.”

“Like hell she can’t,” said Damen. Jose
suddenly let go of her hand and looked at her with a puzzled
face.

“That’s right, there is no way we’re going to
have enough money to pay for her. We’re already going to have it
hard enough out there, with cash,” Jose spoke.

Damen reached the top of the Valley and
stared at Jose with confusion, with disappointment. That was his
girlfriend, and he couldn’t believe that Jose was ready to let her
go so easily, so calmly. Damen’s thoughts raced through his head,
before choosing the right words to use in this conversation.

How can he do that? I would never do that to
her, leave her like that if she was my girlfriend. But how can she
come with, Darell’s right, I’m so stupid for not thinking that. But
still, Jose can’t leave her, and shouldn’t leave her like that. I
shouldn’t even leave her either. Man, he’s a jerk...

Damen then questioned with an angry voice,
“What do you mean, Jose? She’s your own girlfriend, and you’re just
going to leave her here like this?” Maria and Jose finally reached
the top, rim, the border of Sugar’s wall, and stared at Damen.

Jose pushed him, with anger in his thrust,
and answered, “When we decided to do this, she wasn’t involved ...
it was just us. I’m not abandoning her.”

“Listen you guys, I understand. Don’t worry
about me, I’ll be fine,” Maria said. Darell reached the top of the
Valley also, and fixed his eyes on Maria’s mouth.

“Are you sure?” asked Damen. He walked over
to her and watched her eyes to see if any tears showed, were
revealed.

“Yeah ... I’ll be okay. Now I want you and
Jose to shake hands and apologize to each other. You have a long
journey ahead of you tomorrow, and fighting is the last thing you
guys want to do,” she said. Maria then grabbed Jose and Damen’s
hands and put them together.

Damen realized she was right. So he slowly
looked at Jose and swallowed his pride. “Alright, I’m sorry,
man.”

“I’m sorry too,” said Jose. Maria’s eyes
watered, not from dust but from sadness. She was really upset about
not being able to take the journey with them. But she kept her
feelings inside, very, very deep inside...

Jose, Damen and Maria walked Darell home
first. As soon as they reached his house, Damen reminded him,
“Alright, remember everything we talked about, and make sure you
write that letter for tomorrow.”

“I will ... goodnight,” said Darell, walking
into his house, then closing the door.

As they walked Maria to her house, Jose and
Damen both thought simultaneously, “Maria should come with us too.”
They both tried to come up with a plan for her getting money to
come on the trip, but nothing came to their heads.

“Isn’t there any way you could come up with
at least the airfare? Or even money for the train tickets?” asked
Damen. Suddenly, Jose kissed her on the lips.

“Come on, you’re a part of this group too,
Maria; you have to come with us,” said Jose. They reached Maria’s
house and still tried to figure a way that she could escape this
town with them and travel to another state of life.

She then replied, with a bit of shakiness, “I
can’t go... It’s your dreams, not mine. Besides, who will make sure
the time capsule stays safe?” Jose sat on her front porch that was
covered with green vines and gazed out at the night, realizing that
she couldn’t come with.

“Who cares about that? You have to come with
us. Can’t you get the money from your mom or something?” asked
Damen. The porch light went on.

“Alright, Mom,” Maria shouted. She knew her
mother was behind the door, listening. “I’m telling you, I’m twenty
years old, and my mother still turns on that damn light to let me
know it’s time to call it a night,” she explained out of nowhere.
Maria got up and walked toward the door when Damen suddenly stopped
her movement by grabbing her hand ever so delicately.