Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (48 page)

As Chuck waited for a reply from him, Vivian
stared at the drunken man and watched him struggling to get up off
the floor. She was afraid he would make too much noise, attempting
to get up, dropping bags of coffee as he grabbed onto them to try
and hold his lift.

Damen thought about it, and responded, “My
God, about 150 resumes and 155 photos. The extra five photos were
for the agencies that didn’t want a resume.”

“You see, now how many did Jose and this
Darell character send out?”

Chuck picked up his cane and stumbled over to
him, draping his hand over Damen’s shoulder, trying to comfort him
in his depression.

“Well, Darell sent out one, and Jose sent out
none.”

“There you have it, I rest my case. You know
what your problem is? You’re not patient. You look at Jose and
Darell in a way that’s envious. If you want to survive out here,
you have to stop being envious of them and start being more patient
toward things. I admit, Jose and this Darell guy were lucky, they
were very lucky; but that doesn’t mean you’ll be lucky too. You
just have to keep on sending more resumes and photos to agents.
You’ll be surprised, one of these days fame will hit you before you
know it. That’s the day you’ll finally realize the meaning of that
bright star up there in the Heavens, and that’s the day when you’ll
realize God made you wait for a reason. Just wait and see,” Chuck
said, trying again to find that twinkling star, but gave up as soon
as Damen threw down his cigarette and lit another one.

“Yeah, well I think Jose and Darell found
that star already.”

Vivian saw that Chuck was up and standing,
looking as if he was about to enter into the café again, so she ran
past the drunken man on the floor in a panic, and began to wait on
the customers who were impatiently waiting for coffee. But then,
she turned back and grabbed onto the drunken man. Pulling his arm
and helping him up, she guided him back to the café, and placed him
in a seat.

“I thought you said they don’t believe in
God?” Chuck asked, looking at his watch.

“Well, if they’re happy and content, then
they have to believe in something. Right?”

Chuck walked over to the door and sat back
down on the garbage can again, questioning, “How do you know
they’re happy?”

Damen dropped his half-smoked cigarette, and
stepped on it, wondering if Chuck made, or was making, a good
point. “Well, Darell’s already been in a movie, and Jose is
probably signing a contract for a movie right now.”

Silence took over for a bit, Chuck looking up
at Damen slowly through the darkened alley. He then asked with
seriousness, “That doesn’t mean they’re happy. How do you know,
let’s say, that they didn’t just sell their souls to the
Devil?”

“What? They wouldn’t do something like that,
it doesn’t exist,” Damen replied with a loud tone. He smiled
because he thought that Chuck was just joking about the Devil.

Chuck was tired, and dropping his head in a
slow motion, he explained, “Why wouldn’t they? People do it all the
time.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking
about, Chuck.”

“It’s fairly simple.”

“What’s fairly simple?”

“You see, a lot of people in show business
want fame more than life itself, and they would do anything to
achieve it. One day, a person discovers them, and makes them
famous. What they don’t know is the person who discovered them is
the Devil himself or herself. Sometimes people don’t realize
they’re selling their souls to the Devil; they just accidentally
sign a contract. And sometimes people don’t know that they’re the
Devil, he just comes in them for a while. As you know, there are a
lot of contracts in Hollywood,” Chuck replied, watching Damen look
at him with a straight face. “The Devil can be anyone. It can be a
woman, a man, an agent, or even your best friend. Satan never shows
his true self, he just hides below your soul, and waits for that
perfect moment to shine through. I believe that everyone has a
little piece of Lucifer in them, and it’s mainly up to them to
never allow him to shine through.” Chuck paused for a few seconds
and then added, “You see, Damen, every evil act that a person
commits, no matter if it’s lying, cheating, stealing, or killing,
that’s Satan shining through.”

“Wait a second, this is crazy. Darell and
Jose would never do something like that. I mean, selling your soul
to the Devil, that’s ridiculous,” Damen argued, his defending
fashion was proving to Chuck that he was in denial. Mr. Schultz
didn’t want to believe that—it was folklore, a fairytale that he
always thought was an analogy in today’s society, but Chuck wanted
to make him believe that it wasn’t; it was the truth.

“Well, didn’t you say they didn’t believe in
God?”

“Well, yeah, kind of, I mean, they believe in
him sometimes, but they don’t practice it often, but that doesn’t
mean they worship Satan,” Damen replied. “I’m confused as to what
you’re talking about.”

“Damen, a long time ago, four guys came to
Hollywood. They all wanted fame in the movie business, just like
everyone does. Three of the guys got discovered right away, and
they became movie stars in Hollywood. They sold their souls to
Satan. They didn’t realize it until they became movie stars. Once
they finally realized that they hurt a lot of people by acting like
a tyrant and being conceited, they also realized that they were
acting like the Devil himself; that was enough evidence for them to
know that their soul was being controlled by the man downstairs.
So, two of the guys went to a church and begged God for
forgiveness. The third guy accepted it, and didn’t care if he sold
his soul to him. Many times, it doesn’t have to be through a
contract, he just creeps inside of you, and if you accept it,
meaning if you like being a tyrant, conceited, evil, than your soul
stays with him,” Chuck explained before he looked at his watch.

“So, what happened next?”

“Well, the one guy who accepted it, he went
on to become Hollywood royalty, but only for a short time. After he
decided to end his acting career, he became a very successful
person in another type of business,” replied Chuck.

“What business is that?”

“I’ll tell you when the time is right, but
not yet,” Chuck responded with a smile.

“Well, what happened to the other two guys
that went to the church?” Damen questioned with interest.

“I can’t tell you what happened to them
either. I’ll tell you when the time’s right.”

Stressed, tired, confused, irritated and
angered toward Chuck for not answering his questions, Damen showed
aggravation when he spoke, “Well then, what happened to the fourth
guy who didn’t get discovered?”

“Well, eventually, he did get discovered. But
as soon as he got discovered, he ran away from Hollywood and
decided he didn’t want fame,” Chuck replied, once again with a
smile.

“Why did he run away? Where is he now?”

“I can’t tell you why he ran away, not yet.
But, I can tell you that he did return to Hollywood many, many
years later.”

“What did he do? Did he go back to acting
again?”

“No, he opened up a coffee shop,” Chuck
replied with a grin. “Time’s up, your session is over with; come
back inside to the real world and start pouring coffee.” Chuck
opened the door to the café and held it idle for Damen.

Damen walked halfway into the door, smelling
urine, coffee grounds, and vomit in the air, showing a face of
disgust. He held his nose, and said, “I have to ask you one more
thing.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

Chuck released the door onto Damen’s back as
he asked, “Well, Chuck, it’s about Darell and Jose. If they’re not
happy, then what are they?”

“Um, Damen, they’re just lost. It’s up to
you, and ... you alone to help them find their way back, and in the
process, help yourself find your way back too,” Chuck responded,
watching Damen as he let the door loose and began walking with him
toward the front of the restaurant.

“Back to where?”

“Back to whatever and wherever your roots
formed from,” Chuck replied.

Damen put his green apron on right as a
drunken man vomited on the counter. Watching its slime drip down to
the clean floor, he knew who was going to clean that mess up.

Damen was about to clean up the mess when
Vivian jumped in very quickly and started to clean it up instead,
whipping a rag around the floor, trying not to get any vomit onto
her hands as it absorbed into the cloth. Damen smiled toward her,
seeing that it was very suspicious of Vivian to clean something up
that he could have done, but he ignored that and smiled away. Damen
then turned to Chuck and questioned, “What do you mean?”

“You’ll see, in the future you’ll see and
understand what I mean. Just wait, I’ll explain it to you when the
time is right, and you’ll see it for yourself,” Chuck answered.
Another drunken man vomited, this time on the floor of the café, so
Chuck smiled toward Damen, and added, “Damen, go clean that up, I
don’t want this place smelling like a bar.” Chuck turned back to
his old self once more, being that they were in front of Vivian,
Damen kind of figured that he didn’t want anyone to know that he
showed kindness to his workers: mainly to Damen. So, Mr. Schultz
watched, accepted, and found it amusing as Chuck slowly turned back
to his old self, giving orders and being a wannnabe tyrant—a
jerk.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Julienne and Jose walked slowly down the red
carpet, the carpet that led to the Beverly Hills Horizons. Jose
looked up on the front of the restaurant and saw Darell’s name in
bold letters; right next to his name was the title of his movie.
Jose stared at Darell’s name in a jealous way while Julienne signed
autographs and talked to the media. Jose thought in his mind, That
should be my name up there, not Darell’s...

Every inch they walked, a new person would
come up to Julienne and ask for her autograph. The red carpet was
full of movie stars, movie stars that Jose looked up to in his
past. The one movie star that he most admired and most envied was
John Smitherson. John Smitherson won five Academy Awards in his
past acting career. He was forty-five years old and had a face of a
twenty-five year old. His black hair resembled a football helmet,
and his face resembled a mannequin’s image from all of the plastic
surgery he had in his past career. Jose stared at John’s plastic
face and began to become frozen at the knees, staring at him in
amazement. He felt like a rock, a rock that got heavier and heavier
each time John became nearer to him, watching John’s image as it
became closer. Every step John made caused Jose to lose one more
sense from his body. By the time John passed him, Jose lost his
sense of hearing, touch, speech, smell, and almost sight. His loss
of sight was due to him almost passing out.

Julienne noticed Jose acting funny and
strange, so she tapped him on the shoulder, with one of her fan’s
pens, and asked, “Are you alright, honey?” Jose’s sense of hearing
was still missing, it was like he was in a trance, a trance that he
wished he would never escape from.

He looked at Julienne and then looked at the
red carpet, Jose seemed helpless to Julienne. She looked down at
his tuxedo and made her eyes scan his whole body form. Her eyes
ended up at Jose’s sight and looked into them, saying, “Snap out of
it, Jose, please snap out of it.”

Jose’s eyes turned slowly around the crowd of
fans, staring in every direction of them, his sight ended up on
Darell’s name in bold. That’s when every sense returned and his
envy and jealousy became reality again. He rubbed his eyes and said
to Julienne with a whisper, “Let’s get inside and do this.”

“Alright.”

Suddenly, a journalist put a microphone into
her grasp and began asking her questions, speaking with a grin,
“Julienne Wells, how did you enjoy the premiere of this movie? Did
you think newcomer Darell O’Conner played the part of Timmy
well?”

“It was very good, but I think Darell needs a
little more practice at his craft,” Julienne replied in a phony
tone. Jose looked at her and grinned; it was a grin that meant
thank you.

Another journalist, with a long trench coat
on, and glasses that stuck out three inches from her eyes, pushed a
tape recorder up to Julienne’s mouth, asking, “Miss Wells, who is
this person with you? Is he your date?”

She grabbed onto his hand, smiled and
responded, “Yes, he is my date and he’s an actor.”

“Has he been in any movies?” the same
journalist questioned, them noticing even more media and cameras
coming over to them both.

“Yes, he’s been in a few. He is an excellent
actor, I think he’s going to be the next John Smitherson,” Julienne
said with a sneaky tone. “His name is Jose Rodrigo.”

“Jose, did you see the premiere of this
movie?” another journalist asked while sticking a microphone in his
face.

He looked at Julienne with confusion, not
knowing whether he should lie or not. Jose thought back to
yesterday morning when he came over to Julienne’s house. He
remembered her exact words, “Now, Jose, tomorrow night, I don’t
want you to say anything to the media. Let me do the talking for
you. If they ask you a question about how we met, or anything else,
just tell them the opposite of what they want to hear. So, in other
words, lie to them.”

He looked back at the woman holding the
microphone and replied, “Well...”

Julienne interrupted his sentence and said in
a joking manner, “Of course he saw it, but he slept through most of
it. That should tell you something about the film.”