Hollywood (8 page)

That night without Jon listening downstairs, the screenplay began to move. I was writing about a young man who wanted to write and drink but most of his success was with the bottle. The young man had been me. While the time had not been an unhappy time, it had been mostly a time of void and waiting. As I typed along, the characters in a certain bar returned to me. I saw each face again, the bodies, heard the voices, the conversations. There was one particular bar that had a certain deathly charm. I focused on that, relived the barroom fights with the bartender. I had not been a good fighter. To begin with my hands were too small and I was underfed, grossly underfed. But I had a certain amount of guts and I took a punch very well. My main problem during a fight was that I couldn’t truly get angry, even when it seemed my life was at stake. It was all play-acting with me. It mattered and it didn’t. Fighting the bartender was something to do and it pleased the patrons who were a clubby little group. I was the outsider. There is something to be said for drinking—all those fights would have killed me had I been sober but being drunk it was as if the body turned to rubber and the head to cement. Sprained wrists, puffed lips and battered kneecaps were about all I came up with the next day. Also, knots on the head from falling. How all this could become a screenplay, I didn’t know. I only knew that it was the only part of my life I hadn’t written much about. I believe that I was sane at that time, as sane as anybody. And I knew that there was a whole civilization of lost souls that lived in and off bars, daily, nightly and forever, until they died. I had never read about this civilization so I decided to write about it, the way I remembered it. The good old typer clicked along.

The next day about noon the phone rang. It was Jon.

“I have found a place. François is with me. It’s beautiful, it has two kitchens and the rent is nothing, really nothing...”

“Where are you located?”

“We’re in the ghetto in Venice. Brooks Avenue. All blacks. The streets are war and destruction. It’s beautiful!”

“Oh?”

“You must come see the place!”

“When?”

“Today!”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to miss this! There are people living under our house. We can hear them under there, talking and playing their radio! There are gangs everywhere! There’s a large hotel somebody built down here. But nobody paid their rent. They boarded the place up, cut off the electricity, the water, the gas. But people still live there. THIS IS A WAR ZONE! The police do not come in here, it’s like a separate state with its own rules. I love it! You must visit us!”

“How do I get there?”

Jon gave me the instructions, then hung up.

I found Sarah.

“Listen, I’ve got to go see Jon and François.”

“Hey, I’m coming too!”

“No, you can’t. It’s in the ghetto in Venice.”

“Oh, the ghetto! I wouldn’t miss that for anything!”

“Look, do me a favor: please don’t come along!”

“What? Do you think I would let you go down there all by

yourself!” I got my blade, put my money in my shoes. “O.K.,” I said....

We drove slowly into the Venice ghetto. It was not true that it was all black. There were some Latinos on the outskirts. I noted a group of 7 or 8 young Mexican men standing around and leaning against an old car. Most of the men were in their undershirts or had their shirts off. I drove slowly past, not staring, just taking it in. They didn’t seem to be doing much. Just waiting. Ready and waiting. Actually, they were probably just bored. They looked like fine fellows. And they didn’t look worried worth a shit.

Then we got to black turf. Right away, the streets were cluttered: a left shoe, an orange shirt, an old purse...a rotted grapefruit. . . another left shoe...a pair of bluejeans...a rubber tire...

I had to steer through the stuff. Two young blacks about eleven years old stared at us from bicycles. It was pure, perfect hate. I could feel it. Poor blacks hated. Poor whites hated. It was only when blacks got money and whites got money that they mixed. Some whites loved blacks. Very few, if any, blacks loved whites. They were still getting even. Maybe they never would. In a capitalistic society the losers slaved for the winners and you have to have more losers than winners. What did I think? I knew politics would never solve it and there wasn’t enough time left to get lucky.

We drove on until we found the address, parked the car, got out, knocked.

A little window slid open and there was an eye looking at us.

“Ah, Hank and Sarah!”

The door opened, shut, and we were inside.

I walked to the window and looked out.

“What are you doing?” asked Jon.

“Just want to check the car now and then...”

“Oh, yes, come look, I’ll show you the two kitchens!”

Sure enough there were two kitchens, a stove in each, a refrigerator in each, a sink in each.

“This used to be two places. It’s been turned into one.”

“Nice,” said Sarah, “you can cook in one kitchen and François can cook in the other...”

“Right now we are living mostly on eggs. We have chickens, they lay many eggs...”

“Christ, Jon, is it that bad?”

“No, not really. We figure we are here for a long stand. We need most of our money for wine and cigars. How’s the screenplay coming?”

“I’m happy to say that there are quite a few pages. Only sometimes I don’t know about CAMERA, ZOOM IN, PAN IN...all that crap...”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that.”

“Where’s François?” asked Sarah.

“Ah, he’s in the other room...come...”

We went in and there was François spinning his little roulette wheel. When he drank his nose became very red, like a cartoon drunk. Also, the more he drank the more depressed he became. He was sucking on a wet half-finished cigar. He managed a few sad puffs. There was an almost empty bottle of wine nearby.

“Shit,” he said, “I am now 60 thousand dollars in the hole and I am drinking this cheap wine of Jon’s which he claims is good stuff but it is pure crap. He pays a dollar and 35 cents a bottle. My stomach is like a balloon full of piss! I am 60 thousand dollars in the hole and I have no visible means of employment. I must...kill . . myself...”

“Come on, François,” said Jon, “let’s show our friends the chickens...”

“The chickens! HEGGS! All the time we eat HEGGS! Nothing but HEGGS! Poop, poop, poop! The chickens poop HEGGS! All day, all night long my job is to save the chickens from the young black boys! All the time the young black boys climb the fence and run at the chicken coop! I hit them with a long stick, I say, ‘You muthafiickas you stay away from my chickens which poop the HEGGS!’ I cannot think, I cannot think of my own life or my own death, I am always chasing these young black boys with the long stick! Jon, I need more wine, another cigar!”

He gave the wheel another spin.

It was more bad news. The system was failing.

“You see, in France they only have one zero for the house! Here in America they have a zero and a double zero for the house! THEY TAKE BOTH YOUR BALLS! WHY? Come on, I’ll show you the chickens....”

We walked into the yard and there were the chickens and the chicken coop. François had built it himself. He was good that way. He had a real talent for that. Only he hadn’t used chicken wire. There were bars. And locks on each door.

“I give roll call each night. ‘Cecile, you there?’ ‘Cluck, cluck,’ she answers. ‘Bernadette, you there?’ ‘Cluck, cluck,’ she answers. And so on. ‘Nicole?’ I asked one night. She did not cluck. Can you believe it, through all the bars and all the locks they got Nicole! They have taken her out already! Nicole is gone, gone forever! Jon, Jon, I need more wine!”

We went back in and sat down and the new wine poured. Jon gave François a new cigar.

“If I can have my cigar when I want it,” said François, “I can live.”

We drank a while, then Sarah asked, “Listen, Jon is your landlord black?”

“Oh, yes...”

“Didn’t he ask why you were renting here?”

“Yes...”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him that we were filmmakers and actors from France.”

“And he said?”

“He said, ‘oh.’ “

“Anything else?”

“Yes, he said, ‘well it’s your ass!’ “

We drank for some time making small talk.

Now and then I got up and went to the window to see if the car was still there.

As we drank on I began to feel guilty about the whole thing.

“Listen, Jon, let me give you the screenplay money back. I’ve driven you to the wall. This is terrible....”

“No, I want you to do this screenplay. It will become a movie, I promise you...”

“All right, god damn it...”

We drank a bit more.

Then Jon said, “Look...”

Through a hole in the wall where we were sitting could be seen a hand, a black hand. It was wriggling through the broken plaster, fingers gripping, moving. It was like a small dark animal.

“GO AWAY,” yelled François. “GO AWAY MURDERER OF NICOLE! YOU HAVE LEFT A HOLE IN MY HEART FOREVER! GO AWAY!”

The hand did not go away.

François walked over to the wall and the hand.

“I tell you now, go away. I only wish to smoke my cigar and drink my wine in peace. You disturb my sight! I cannot feel right with you grabbing and looking at me through your poor black fingers!”

The hand did not go away.

“ALL RIGHT THEN!”

The stick was right there. With one demonic move François picked up the long stick and began whacking it against the wall, again and again and again...

“CHICKEN KILLER, YOU HAVE WOUNDED MY HEART FOREVER!”

The sound was deafening. Then François stopped.

The hand was gone.

François sat back down.

“Shit, Jon, my cigar is out! Why don’t you buy better cigars, Jon?”

“Listen, Jon,” I said, “we’ve got to be going now...”

“Oh, come now...please...the night is just
beginning
! You’ve seen nothing yet...”

“We’ve got to be going...I have more work to do on the screenplay...”

“Oh...in that case...”

Back at the house I went upstairs and did work on the screenplay but strangely or maybe not so strangely my past life hardly seemed as strange or wild or as mad as what was occurring now.

The screenplay went well. Writing was never work for me. It had been the same for as long as I could remember: turn on the radio to a classical music station, light a cigarette or a cigar, open the bottle. The typer did the rest. All I had to do was be there. The whole process allowed me to continue when life itself offered very little, when life itself was a horror show. There was always the typer to soothe me, to talk to me, to entertain me, to save my ass. Basically, that’s why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.

One of my past ladies had screamed at me, “You drink to escape reality!”

“Of course, my dear,” I had answered her.

I had the bottle and the typer. I liked a bird in each hand, to hell with the bush.

Anyhow, the screenplay went well. Unlike the novel or the short story or the poem where I would take a night or two off from time to time, I worked on the screenplay each night. And then it was finished.

I phoned Jon. “Well, I don’t know what we have but it’s finished.”

“Great! I’d come to get it but we’re having kind of a lunch party down here. Drinks, food, guests. François is the chef. Can you drive the screenplay down?”

“I’d like to but I’m afraid to drive it down there.”

“Oh, shit, Hank, nobody is going to steal that old Volks.”

“Jon, I just bought a new BMW.”

“What?”

“The day before yesterday. My tax accountant says it’s tax deductible.”

“Tax deductible? That doesn’t seem possible...”

“That’s what he told me. He said that in America you have to spend your money or they’ll take it away. Now they can’t take mine away: I don’t have any.”

“But I’ve got to see that screenplay! With something to show the producers I can really get going.”

“All right, you know the Ralph’s Market just outside the ghetto?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll park in the parking lot and phone you from there. Then you come get me, all right?”

“Good, I’ll do it. . .”

Sarah and I were waiting by our black 320i BMW when Jon pulled up. We climbed in and moved toward the ghetto.

“What are your readers and the critics going to say when they find out about the BMW?”

“As always those fuckers will have to judge me on how well I write.”

“They don’t always do that.”

“That’s their problem.”

“You have the screenplay with you?”

“I’ve got it right here,” said Sarah.

“My secretary.”

“He wrote it right out,” said Sarah.

“I’m a 320i genius,” I said.

We rolled up to Jon’s place. A number of automobiles were parked outside. It was still daytime. Maybe about 1:30 p.m. We walked through the house and into the backyard.

The luncheon party had been going on for some time. Empty bottles sat about on wooden tables. Half-eaten watermelon slices looked sad in the sun. The flies lit upon them, then left. The guests looked as if they had been there for at least 3 hours. It was one of those splintered parties: clusters of 3 or 4 people here, ignoring clusters of 3 or 4 people there. There was an admixture of European and Hollywood types plus some others. The others had no special character, they were just there and they were damned determined to stay there. I felt hatred in the air but didn’t know what to do about it. Jon knew: he opened a few fresh bottles of wine.

We walked over to François. He was working the grill. He was slobbering drunk and totally depressed. He was turning chicken parts on the grill. The chicken parts were already done, getting black, but François was still turning them.

François looked terrible. He had on one of those large white chefs hats, only it had evidently fallen from his head several times and there were mud smears on it. He saw us.

“AH! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU! YOU’RE LATE! WHAT HAPPENED? I CANNOT UNDERSTAND THIS!”

“I’m sorry, François, we had to park at Ralph’s.”

“I HAVE BEEN SAVING SOME CHICKEN FOR YOU! HAVE SOME CHICKEN!”

He gathered two paper plates and flung a bit of chicken upon each.

“Thank you, François.”

Sarah and I found a table and sat down. Jon sat with us.

“François is upset. He thinks I killed one of the chickens. There was no chicken ever born with this man^ legs, breasts and wings. I’ve counted the chickens with him over and over. It’s a full count. But he gets to drinking and he thinks I killed one of the chickens. I got the parts at Ralph’s.”

“François is very sensitive,” said Sarah.

“And how,” said Jon. “And to make things worse, now he prides himself upon guarding us against theft. He has little wires and signals set up everywhere. All types of crazy alarms. Very sensitive. I farted and one of them went off.”

“Come on, Jon...”

“No, it’s true. So, to make matters worse, the other day François went out to start the car. It started. He shifted it into reverse and nothing happened. He thought the reverse gear was finished. He got out of the car and found that the 2 rear wheels were missing...”

“Unbelievable...”

“It happened. The rear of the car was sitting on a pile of rocks and the wheels were missing...”

“They left the front wheels?”

“Yes.”

“Where’d you get new wheels and tires?” Sarah asked.

“We bought them back from the crooks.”

“What?” I said. “May we have another drink?”

Jon poured.

“They knocked on the door. They said, ‘You want your wheels? We have your wheels.’ I told them to come in. ‘I WILL KILL YOU!’ François shouted. I told him to be still. We drank wine with them and haggled over the price. It took much haggling and much wine, but we finally reached an agreement and they brought the wheels and tires in and dumped them on the floor. That was it.”

“How much did it cost you?” Sarah asked.

“$33. It seemed a good deal for 2 wheels and 2 tires.”

“Not bad,” I said.

“Well, actually, it came to $38. We had to pay them $5 to promise not to steal the wheels again.”

“But suppose somebody else steals the wheels?”

“They said the $5 would guarantee that nobody would ever touch the wheels. But they said the $5 applied only to the wheels and not to anything else on the car.”

“Were there any more agreements?”

“No, then they left. But we noticed that our radio was gone. We had been watching them all the time and yet the radio was gone. I have no idea how they did it. It’s a standard size radio. How could they hide it? How did they get it out the door? I don’t understand. It is something to be admired.”

“Yes.”

Jon stood up. He had the screenplay.

“I must now hide this. I have a very special place. And I thank you for your work on this, Hank.”

“It was nothing. Easy money.”

Jon left with the screenplay. I looked down at my chicken.

“Jesus, I can’t eat this...it’s burned damn near rock-hard...”

“I can’t eat mine either...”

“There’s a trash can by the fence there. Let’s try to sneak this stuff. . .”

We went over to the trash can. All along the top of the fence were these little eyes looking out of little black faces.

“Hey, let’s have some chicken!”

“Give me a wing, motherfucker...”

I walked over to the fence.

“This stuff is burned...nobody can eat it...”

A little hand shot out and the piece of chicken was gone. Another hand shot out and Sarah’s piece of burnt chicken was gone also.

The two little guys ran off screaming followed by a bunch of other little guys screaming.

“Sometimes I hate being white,” said Sarah.

“There are white ghettos too. And rich blacks.”

“It’s not comparable.”

“No, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Start somewhere...”

“I don’t have the guts. I’m too worried about my own white ass. Let’s join this jolly group here and have some more to drink.”

“That’s your answer to everything: drink.”

“No, that’s my answer to nothing.”

It was still splinter-group time. Even in that broken down backyard there were ghetto areas and Malibu areas and Beverly Hills areas. For example, the best-dressed ones with designer clothes hung together. Each type recognized its counterpart and showed no inclination to mix. I was surprised that some of them had been willing to come to a black ghetto in Venice. Chic, they thought, maybe. Of course, what made the whole thing smell was that many of the rich and the famous were actually dumb cunts and bastards. They had simply fallen into a big pay-off somewhere. Or they were enriched by the stupidity of the general public. They usually were talentless, eyeless, soulless, they were walking pieces of dung, but to the public they were god-like, beautiful, and revered. Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste. It finally boiled down to a matter of who got the most votes. In the land of the moles a mole was king.

So, who deserved anything? Nobody deserved anything...

François was sitting at a table and we went and sat with him. But he was saddened, completely out of it. He hardly recognized us. A wet and broken cigar was in his mouth and he stared down into his drink. He still had on his dirty chefs hat. He had always had a bit of style even at his worst moments. Now it was all gone. It was terrible.

“WHY WERE YOU LATE? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND! I HELD BACK THE LUNCH AND WAITED FOR YOU! WHY WERE YOU LATE?”

“Look, friend, why don’t you sleep this one off? Tomorrow will look better...”

“TOMORROW ALWAYS LOOKS THE SAME! THAT’S THE PROBLEM!”

Jon walked up.

“I’ll take care of him. He’ll be all right. Come on, let me introduce you to some of the guests.”

“No, we’ve got to go...”

“So soon?”

“Yes, I’m worried about the 320i.”

“I’ll drive you over...”

It was still there. We got in and waved to Jon as he drove off back to the ghetto and the party and poor François.

Soon we were on the freeway.

“Well, you’ve written the screenplay,” said Sarah, “at least there’s that.”

“At least...”

“Do you think it will ever become a movie?”

“It’s about the life of a drunk. Who cares about the life of a drunk?”

“I do. Who would you like to play the lead?”

“François.”

“François?”

“Yes.”

“Do we have anything to drink at home?”

“Half a case of gamay beaujolais.”

“That ought to do it...”

I pushed down on the gas pedal and we moved toward it.