Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (61 page)

“Now, I want you to go over that script, over
and over until you have it all memorized,” shouted Tom, throwing
the script at Darell. “By the way, I have other copies of that
contract. Face it, Darell; you’re stuck with me for good. If you
ever decide to leave me, then you could pack your bags, because
that means you’re leaving Hollywood.” Tom walked out of the room
and left Darell with a quiver of fear in his mind.

What do I do now, Darell?

Even though Darell’s thoughts were confused
and highly relevant to his fears, he still obeyed Tom and practiced
the script. He looked through the crack in his door and saw Tom
sitting on the couch in the front room, saying, “You’re not in
Mississippi anymore.” Darell’s anger got the best of him, so he got
up and slammed the bedroom door, leaving Mr. Fryer’s evil self to
be alone, and away from him for at least one night.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Damen waited patiently in the waiting room
of Dennis’ agency, opening up a magazine, and flipping through the
pages, trying to make time go by fast. Before he could start
reading it, he closed it and looked at the front cover; it was
Darell’s photo. He opened up the magazine and turned to the page
that Darell’s article was at and began reading it. Once again,
before he could grasp any understanding of what the article was
saying, the secretary asked over the phone, “Sir, your 4:00 o’clock
is here, should I send him in?”

Dennis took off his glasses, scratched his
beard, and pressed down on the phone, saying, “Yes, send him
in.”

Damen watched the secretary, hanging up the
phone, and gawking at him with a smile. “You may go in now,
Damen.”

He meandered very, very slowly over to his
office, with excitement bursting open a new can of butterflies,
soaring around his tummy, making his vomit rise up to his throat.
He swallowed, trying not to let his excitable nerves get the best
of him, and came up to Dennis’ door. He lifted his hand, made it
into a fist, and before he could knock, he heard Dennis’ voice say,
“Come in, door’s open.”

Dennis saw Damen’s figure, but it was a blur,
due to his glasses being off. All Dennis heard was, “Hello, Mr.
Schultz.”

Squinting his eyes, Dennis spoke, “hello,
what brings you here? I don’t remember you being my client. As a
matter of fact, I don’t remember you at all.” He suddenly dropped
his glasses on the ground. “Oh great,” he added in a sarcastic way,
picking up his glasses and discovering the lenses had broken.

Dennis put on his broken glasses, and found
he could only see through one small part of the lens that hadn’t
broke. He looked at Damen more clearly, hearing him explain, “My
name is Damen Schultz; you told me you had an acting job available
for me in February.”

His memory and sight focused on Damen’s face,
questioning, “What are you doing here?”

“You told me you had a job opened for me in
February,” he replied, watching Dennis as he got up from his chair
while Damen sat down in one. “You said you wanted me to try out for
a few roles in the film.”

“That job has already been taken, Damen. I
think you should go back to wherever you came from and stay there,”
Dennis said in a snotty way; Damen’s face and mind became
puzzled.

“What are you talking about, sir?”

Dennis showed anger, picking up the phone and
shouting, “I’m talking about you, Damen, you and those drugs you’ve
been abusing.”

“What are you talking about, sir? What
drugs?” Damen became angered in his mind toward Dennis’ accusation
toward him, adding with a bit of an attitude, “I don’t do
drugs.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Damen.” Dennis then
began to talk on the phone. “Hi, Security, I have a situation in my
office, could you please remove it?”

“Why are you calling Security? What’s going
on?” Damen got up from the chair and looked Dennis straight in the
eyes. “I came down here today, because you said you had a job
opening for me in February, or else you wanted me to audition for a
few roles.”

Dennis sat down calmly in his chair, stating,
“That job has been filled.”

“But, your secretary told me you wanted me
for it, she read it off of my files you had.”

“Those files must have been the old ones, I
meant to erase them a long time ago. Goodbye, Damen.”

After Dennis’ crude words, Damen slowly
turned his head to face the door, after hearing it open, and saw
security guards waiting by it, gawking at Damen’s face, showing
ghastly expressions toward him. Damen was confused; he didn’t know
that Jose and Julienne lied and said he was on drugs, his mind was
flustered with broken puzzles that didn’t fit together, and didn’t
want to. He could feel his own tears, flushing around his mind,
trying to find his eyes, his confused beacon, so they could release
through them, and cause the pressure to seize a little bit. But his
confusion allowed the tears to be caught inside, making his head
feel like it was going to explode with bewilderment and anxiety.
The security guards grabbed onto Damen’s arms, pulling them toward
the door of Dennis’ office, that’s when Damen knew he was somewhat
framed, and wanted to know by who. So, as soon as the guards got
him fully to the door, he said, “Alright, wait a second, I just
want to know one more thing.”

Dennis waved to the security guards, to stop
pulling him, and allow him to speak, questioning, “Alright, what is
it?”

The security guards let go of him, and that’s
when Damen turned to Dennis, and asked, “Who did you give the part
to, then? And who told you I was doing drugs?”

“Someone who doesn’t do drugs, someone who’s
truthful, and someone who told me about your little drug situation.
This person deserves the part more than you,” Dennis responded
before the security guards grabbed onto Damen again and threw him
out of Dennis’ office.

The guards blocked Dennis’ office door,
hearing Damen yelling out, “But who is it, what’s the name?”

“I guess you’re just going to have to wait
till the movie comes out in theaters. The only thing I’m going to
say is, the person knows you very well,” Dennis replied before he
closed the door in his face. He opened the door again and said,
“Hold on, Damen, I have one more thing to say to you.”

Tears finally found Damen’s eyes, and flushed
through them, feeling this moment of confusion and sadness, not
finding this confusing beacon of his like he wanted them to; they
ran down his face like they were made out of steel. Damen turned
around slowly and faced Dennis’, staring through the guards that
were guarding his opened door, and asked, “What is it?”

“I saw so much potential in you, and look
what happened. I don’t ever want you to come back here again,”
Dennis stated, slamming his door shut again.

One of the guards looked at Damen’s
tear-filled eyes, shouting to him, “Don’t come back here
again.”

“Who said I was doing drugs?” he yelled.

Damen ran down the fire escape and headed
toward the exit of the building, with tears in his eyes still,
shouting his pain through the salt they had within them. He ran
outside, having the sun pierce toward his tears, creating a sort of
heat to his flesh, magnifying its warmth through his tears. He
wiped them away and suddenly seen Jose, a few feet away, entering
into a limo. He wiped his tears fully off of his face, and ran
toward the limousine, saying, “Jose, Jose, it’s me, Damen, open
up.”

“Julienne, what took you so long, it’s
already past 4:00 p.m.?” Jose asked. He noticed Damen outside of
the limo then, adding to Julienne, “Oh great, it’s Mr. Talent.”

Jose rolled down the tinted window slowly,
hearing Damen speaking, “Jose, I need to talk to you urgently.”

The limousine started to move as Jose
responded through the opened window, “Listen, Damen, I can’t talk
now, I got to run, sorry, dude.”

The limo moved faster, driving off in the
distance, with Damen shouting to it, “What? Jose it’s me. Remember
me? Remember me, I’m your best friend?” He crouched down on his
knees, adding, “I’m your best friend.” He looked up at the sky,
still on his knees, and asked to himself, “My God, what should I do
now?”

Dennis watched through his office window,
seeing Damen as he fell to his knees in the middle of the street.
He picked up his office phone and said to his secretary, “Hi,
Thelma, I want you to fax a message from me to every agency on this
side of town.”

“Alright, sir, do you want me to do that
right now?” Thelma questioned.

Dennis watched Damen getting up from off his
knees and walking over to a pay phone. “Yes, I want you to do it
immediately,” Dennis replied, now watching Damen hanging up the
phone and hailing a taxi.

“What’s the message going to say?” she asked
as Dennis watched Damen step into a taxi with tears of stress in
his eyes.

“First, I want you to put at the top of the
message and the bottom of it, ‘warning, warning,’” he answered.
“Now, here’s what I want you to write,” he added, watching Damen’s
taxi driving off into the Hollywood streets.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Damen’s mind became overwhelmed with fear
and confusion. Riding in the back seat of this rusted taxicab,
Damen just stared out the window at the evening skies and felt
consumed with the feeling of vomiting. He wanted this vision of his
to be real, to be more than an ambition, and once his big break
came to him, it fell from his grasp, all because of something that
was not true. He knew he didn’t do drugs, knowing this was half the
battle, but he didn’t know who could have told such a vicious lie,
filled with malice, to the point where he lost the moment that
would have, could have, and should have started his acting career
in Hollywood. Nevertheless, all this time, he never thought for
once that Jose would be involved in this sinister lie, and at the
same time, being his best friend still.

The rolled-down window of the cab blew in
great gasps of air toward his image, but suddenly he noticed that
the air was lessening, and that’s when he saw that the cab was
coming to a halt; it stopped at his destination. He paid the driver
and began to walk toward the building, the place that Damen felt
was his last chance to fulfill his dream. He walked into the
building and entered into a waiting room, small in size, but enough
to be considered an agency of talent. He strolled up to the
secretary and said in a tired fashion, “Hi, I’m here to see Mr.
Freeman.”

The secretary pulled a pencil out of her red,
curly hair, gazed at Damen straight in the eyes, and questioned in
a highly annoying voice, “Is he expecting you?”

“Yes, my name is Damen Schultz, I just spoke
with him over the phone about thirty minutes ago. He said I could
come in now.”

She picked up her office phone, pressed a
single button on its pad, saying, “hello, Mr. Freeman, there’s a
young man here named Damen Schultz, he said you were expecting
him.”

Mr. Freeman walked over to his speakerphone,
while holding Damen’s photo, looking at it and responding, “Yeah,
Joy, just send him into my office now.”

“You may go in to see him now, Mr. Schultz.”
Damen gave a small, stressed out smile to her, and then lingered
his torso around to face Mr. Freeman’s office door.

Damen walked over to his office and knocked
on the door once, holding his palm there, feeling tired and
distraught from the physical exhaustion that he felt today, as well
as the mental exhaustion that was caused earlier on. Before he
could knock a second time, the door opened, hearing Mr. Freeman
say, “Welcome, Damen, come right in.”

“Thank you so much for taking me today. I
know I wasn’t scheduled till tomorrow, but I felt the sooner the
better,” Damen said, sitting down on a red velvet chair and
beginning to bite what was left of his nails.

“Well, I finally found your photo that I put
on file. That’s what interests me about you, and why I want you as
my client; you take great photos, you’re very photogenic,” Mr.
Freeman stated. He walked over to Damen and showed him his own
face, adding, “You see, you have great cheekbones, deep eyes, and I
think you are perfect for the movie camera. That’s why I chose
you.”

Damen’s mind was still on what Dennis Schultz
said about him doing drugs, but he focused in on the conversation,
still staring at his own picture, and questioned, “Do you think
I’ll get any acting jobs right away?”

Ring, Ring, Ring.

The phone started to sound, ring its chanting
echoes through Damen’s ears and mind, while Mr. Freeman spoke,
“Please, call me Chester, and yes, I think you’re going to get
acting jobs right away.” Chester then answered the phone; sitting
down in his red leather chair, clenching the phone tight in his
grip, he said, “Joy, I told you never to interrupt me during a
meeting with a client.”

Chester watched Damen while talking on the
phone, seeing his face turn from a frantic frown into a prosperous
smile; this news made the change in Damen’s feelings. Still
listening to his secretary, Joy explained, “I know, sir, I’m sorry,
but you just got a fax. I think you should read it now, sir.”

“Alright,” said Chester before he hung up the
phone. “Listen, I’ll be right back, Damen, I’m just going to step
out for a minute.” Chester walked out of his office and closed his
red door behind him. He walked up to his secretary and questioned,
“Alright, where is that fax?”

“Here it is, sir.” Joy handed a piece of
paper over to Chester; a piece of paper that read at the top and
bottom of it, ‘warning, warning.’

Damen sat in Chester’s office with a confused
look upon his face, a look that seemed sad to him as he stared into
the mirror that hung on the wall next to his chair. He was upset
about numerous things, but the one thing that hurt him the most was
still what Dennis Schultz said to him. Damen’s thoughts went
through his mind like a train going 150 miles an hour down a cliff.
He thought as he looked at his reflection,