The Boy Who Never Grew Up (16 page)

“What changed your mind?” she asked, tossing me the key.

“Let’s just say the elbow room at the Four Seasons isn’t what it used to be.”

She hoisted my bags out of the trunk, muscles rippling, and helped me inside with them. There was a small outer office for a secretary. It had a desk, filing cabinet, fridge, electric coffee maker.

“I brought some stuff down for you for the morning,” she said. “Juice, coffee, milk …”

“Any diet Coke?”

“Uh … no.”

“Good.”

There was a bathroom with a stall shower, no three-way mirror, no phone, and no TV. The TV was in the inner office, which had a big walnut desk, a couple of armchairs, and a leather chesterfield sofa. The wind was coming in through the open windows, one of which had an air conditioner stuck in it.

“This opens up into a bed,” she said, going over to the sofa. “Plenty comfortable. Linens are in the closet. Want me to …?”

“I can handle it. And thanks. We’ll be fine here.”

“In the old days, before these were writers’ bungalows, they were actors’ dressing rooms,” she informed me, watching Lulu sniff around. “This here one used to belong to Ramon Novarro, who starred in the silent version of
Ben-Hur
.”

“Does he haunt it?”

“Ain’t nobody said nothing,” she replied, chuckling.

Another door opened onto the manicured courtyard.

“That there’s Bunny’s place.” She pointed to a bungalow across the way, where a TV glowed like blue neon in the window. “She always falls asleep with her set on. I turn it off for her if I’m around.”

“How’s Matthew doing?”

“Fine. He’s bedded down for the night.”

“You often spend the night here yourself?”

“Plenty—got me a sofa in my office.”

“He insist on it?”

“Naw, ain’t nothing like that,” she said, offhanded.

I tugged at my ear. “You don’t like to leave him, do you, Sarge?”

She gave me a chilly sidelong glance. “I got budgets to work on,” she explained stiffly. “Nighttime’s only chance I get. I’ll get ’em to stencil your name on your parking space in the morning.”

“Something I’ve always dreamed of.”

“You jammin’ me again, man?” she demanded, tensing up.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sarge. You’re way too tough for me.”

“You got that right,” she said with a laugh. Then she left.

I unpacked for the second time since I’d come to town, then undressed and made up the bed and climbed into it with
Badger Goes to Hollywood
or
Badger All Alone
or whatever the hell Matthew decided to call it. Lulu immediately dropped off next to me on her back, paws up, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. One of her more fetching poses.

A typical screenplay is about a hundred pages long. Mostly dialogue. Very little description. It takes about a half hour to zip through one. A lot less than that to tell if the writer has gotten lost. Matthew Wax had—starting right on page one. He was opening the movie with Badger talking directly to the camera, like Woody Allen had in
Annie Hall.
And, boy, did he ever talk. The movie was a nonstop diatribe. On how conniving and slutty Debbie Dale was. On how cold and cruel the world was. On how a man who trusts people is doomed to be crapped on by them. On how nobody loved him or understood him. On and on it went, all of it awash in self-pity and sanctimony. The plot, what there was of it, revolved around Debbie starring in a trashy action picture at a Panorama-like studio for a Schlom-like executive. Badger, meanwhile, is trying to get backing for an honest,
real
movie. Only no one will give it to him—no one in Hollywood believes in
Truth.
Except for Badger, of course. Beaten down, our Messiah packs up his belongings and heads back to Homewood, where the truth still counts for something. As for Debbie, she and her leading man, who is also her new lover, are both decapitated in a gruesome helicopter accident on the first day of filming. Badger does not attend her funeral.

Cassandra had chosen the exact right word for Matthew’s new script—shit. No wonder Shelley Selden wanted him to make something with fuzzy aliens. This one was as close to being a surefire flop as a movie can be—especially when you remembered who was going to be playing Badger. The script needed major work, which wasn’t my problem. Matthew needed major work, which was. The man was chewing on his own tail, which, as I had noted from watching Lulu do it many times, only makes it itch worse.

I turned off the lamp and lay there in the dark, listening to the Santa Ana rustle the leaves of the hibiscus and oleander outside my window. It sounded like bats were flapping their wings out there. I wanted out. I often did right about now, when I’d waded in just far enough to realize how deep the water was. But getting out is something I’ve never been able to do. My ego won’t allow it, and my ego directs this particular production.

I dreamt that night that I was writing a script for Norbert Schlom about Merilee and me. All about how Lulu brought the two of us back together again. Lulu talked in it. She sounded just like Roseanne Barr. Pennyroyal Brim was playing Merilee. Andrew Dice Clay was playing me. I don’t know how the hell he got into it. It was a horrible dream. It had everything in it but earthquakes and giant toads. I woke from it just before dawn drenched in sweat—Lulu was snoring peacefully on my head. I nudged her over onto the pillow next to me, got up and showered, and started the coffee. Then I went to work.

“W
HAT’S THIS, MEAT?”

“For you. I always like to give a gift.”

We were sitting in the Vette, top down, engine raring to run.

He tore into the wrapping paper. “Wow, Silly Putty,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t even know they still made it.”

“The classics never go out of style.”

“Gee, thanks, Meat.” He seemed genuinely pleased. Also genuinely tense.

We were making an early start in hopes of beating the worst of the heat out in the Valley, where it’s usually ten degrees hotter than it is on the west side. Matthew wore a T-shirt and jeans and a beeper. He had not shaved. Sheldon Selden pulled onto the lot just as we were leaving. He drove a sparkling blue Mercedes 560SL, and looked plenty perky and fresh for someone who had just flown back overnight from New York on the Bedford Falls jet. He and Matthew jumped out of the cars and hugged each other warmly.

“How have you been, kid?” Shelley asked him, brow furrowed with brotherly concern.

“Okay,” replied Matthew, ducking his semibald head. “How about Sis and the kids?”

“All home in bed fast asleep. I sacked out on the plane. Now listen, kid, we’re gonna get through this thing. We’re in it together, and we’ll get through it together. Okay?”

“Sure, Shelley,” Matthew replied, his voice ringing hollow.

I joined them, shaking Shelley’s hand. He wore a loose-fitting white knit shirt and gray linen slacks. He was getting around better on his ankle, but he was now sporting a fresh ace bandage on his right wrist.

“Tripped getting on the plane,” he explained to me sheepishly. “You guys making out all right?”

“Sure thing,” Matthew said. “We’re on our way to the old neighborhood now.”

Shelley looked at me, surprised. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” said Matthew. “Meat thinks it’s important, so we’re going.”

“Oh, hey, Matthew, check this out.” Shelley reached into his Mercedes and pulled a stuffed lion out of a shopping bag. “I was up at one of the newspaper syndicates yesterday. Their hottest new comic strip—this bratty little kid and his toy lion, who comes to life in his imagination. They’ve got it in four hundred newspapers already. They thought of us for the movie.” He held the stuffed lion out to Matthew. “Make a cute picture, huh?”

Matthew looked at the lion but wouldn’t take it from him. Or discuss it. He went back to the Vette and got in.

Shelley sighed. “Oh, well, I try,” he said to me under his breath. “Things okay so far?”

“Fine and dandy.”

Shelley glanced at Matthew. “He hasn’t been back to the old neighborhood in—”

“Twenty years. I know.”

“I’m impressed, Hoagy. You live up to your reputation.”

“A few of us have to.”

“Be gentle with him, okay? He’s an open wound.”

“We’re fine.”

He patted me on the back. “Sure you are.” Then he hopped back in his Mercedes and sped off toward the main building.

The press people were still camped outside the gate. I had Matthew duck down when we pulled out so they wouldn’t follow us. It was just we two. Lulu had decided she’d rather hang out on the lot and watch reruns of
The People’s Choice.
Bunny had also mentioned something about leftover salmon patties. I took Culver Boulevard to the freeway and got on. The morning traffic was heavy coming in from the Valley, but not too terrible going out. I worked the Vette up to seventy and let it cruise there.

“Wow, I used to love this stuff,” said Matthew, happily kneading his Silly Putty. “You could bounce it off walls. You could flatten it into a pancake. You could make comic book imprints. What neat stuff.”

“Keeps your hands good and busy, too.”

He reddened, started to reach for his forelock, stopped himself. “Worth a try, I guess,” he mumbled, fingers working furiously at his new toy.

We climbed. The freeway cut a wide swath of pavement through the bare, brown foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Brentwood was to our left, Bel Air on our right. We topped off at Mulholland, then began our slow descent into the San Fernando Valley, which until the fifties had been nothing but orange groves and now was nothing but suburban sprawl. The smog hung heavy over it—the Santa Susannas were nowhere to be seen across the valley. It felt more than ten degrees hotter.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, Meat,” Matthew said, turning serious.

“I said a lot.”

“About you interviewing Pennyroyal. I have a real problem with it. In fact, I’d rather you not even talk to her at all.”

“I’ve already talked to her.”

“You what?” he demanded, immediately agitated. “When?”

“I bumped into her last night at Spago.”

“Who was with her?” he wanted to know.

I left that one alone.

“Did you see Georgie?”

“No, I didn’t.” My eyes were beginning to sting from the smog. I dabbed at them with my handkerchief, wondering how people could live here. “She said there’s nobody she can trust.”

“Oh, that’s perfect,” he snapped, getting good and worked up. “That’s just perfect. She’s the poor little victim. She’s not responsible for any of this. It’s all just
happened
around her. She’s amazing. Truly amazing.”

I tugged at my ear. “Sure you’re not just the teeniest bit bitter?”

“I told you—I am
not
bitter.” He glared at me. “I don’t have any control over you, do I?”

“Do you want it?”

“Let’s just say I’m used to it.”

“You can get used to lots of things, if you have to.”

“Do I?”

I left that one alone, too.

We rode in silence for a while, through Encino and on out toward the vast, sunbaked valley floor.

“I thought about something else you said,” he mentioned sullenly. “About my movies. Have you liked
any
of them?”

I glanced over at him. His eyes were searching my face imploringly. I looked back at the road. “I liked your first movie a lot,
The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
It was, I don’t know, real. Damned scary, too.”

He nodded with quiet satisfaction. “Funny you should say that. It’s still my own favorite. I guess because it was the most personal.”

“You witnessed a murder when you were a kid?”

“No. Never. I just mean that the boy, Lucas, was so much like I was.”

“How so?”

Matthew looked out at the freeway. “His relationship with his father. The way he was always trying to win his approval.”

“He ultimately did.”

“That part never happened in real life. My father died when I was a freshman at SC. I’m still sorry about that. I’m sorry he never got a chance to …” He trailed off, searching for the words.

“To see you become such a big success?” I suggested.

“To tell me why he hated my guts so much,” Matthew replied.

We had cleared Van Nuys now and were nearing Reseda, where Panorama City was. I could just make out the studio’s outlandish new office tower in the smoggy distance.

“He adored Shelley,” Matthew said. “Always made sure she had piano lessons, ballet lessons, nice clothes, a new bicycle. Not me. I got hand-me-downs. Only reason I got to see Shadow hit his grand-slammer was that Shelley had the measles. Otherwise, he’d have gone with her. He loved Shelley. Me, he never had any use for. Mostly, he ignored me. I’d have done anything to please him. But I couldn’t. I always wondered why. I always wondered what was wrong with me. It was never anything I did or said. It was just
me.
Still, I always kept coming back for more. He was my dad, and I loved him. Lou was his name. He was a big man, gruff, a cigar smoker. Worked for a kitchenware manufacturer selling to the restaurant supply houses up and down the West Coast. He spent two weeks out of every month on the road, shlepping his big black sample cases from town to town. I remember his car, this ‘59 Chevy station wagon, blue, with white tail fins. On the day he was due home I’d go and sit there on the corner and watch for it. I’d sit there for hours, waiting. When he finally did show up he’d drive right on past me without even waving. Like I was invisible.”

“What did Bunny have to say about all of this?” I asked.

“Not a whole lot,” he replied. “To this day all she can say to me is, ‘Your father was not a nice man.’ Which he wasn’t. He was a shit. Nobody liked him. And Ma had no influence over him. She worked full-time herself. They needed the two paychecks to make ends meet. She was a bookkeeper for an accountant named Carlo Ferraro who had a small office on Reseda Boulevard in Northridge. Nice man. Ma worked for him a long time. She was still working for him part-time up until last year, when he finally retired. She insisted on it. Said she’d get bored otherwise. She always worked. Made us dinner in advance and left it for Shelley to heat up. Shelley and me, we spent a lot of our time on our own. When I was real little, it was her job to walk me home from school. She hated doing it. She wanted to play with her friends instead. One time, when I was in kindergarten, she forgot me—or she said she forgot me. I had to find my way home alone. I got lost. I was terrified. To this day she denies she did it on purpose, but I know she did.”