Hollywood Ending (4 page)

Benji sighed. I knew what was coming.

‘I can't believe she got away with it,' he moaned.

I groaned. ‘For the last time, the evidence pointing to Courtney is entirely circumstantial.'

‘How can you still believe her? Even after that documentary where they interviewed the bounty hunter? He swore Courtney hired him to kill Kurt.'

‘Benji, the dude had no teeth.'

‘Even so—how do you explain the amount of heroin that was in Cobain's system? He was so doped up that even medical experts say there is no way he could have lifted that gun and pulled the trigger after shooting up so much.'

‘Ever heard of functioning junkies?'

‘There's functioning and then there's superhuman. The woman's as guilty as OJ.'

‘Okay, hold up,' I said, getting agitated. ‘You're just persecuting her because she's a strong woman who acts the way she wants to and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks of her. You and the rest of society have cast her as the murdering wife because you don't know how else to handle her. She scares the crap out of you so you cut her down. She's not a murderer—she's a survivor.'

Benji stretched back and pouted. ‘Yeah? Well her solo album sucked.'

I sat up and looked around. Benji's walls were decorated with restraint, a poster here or there of his favourite bands, each of them carefully framed. Green Day. Fall Out Boy. A large portion of the space was taken up by a glass cabinet filled with memorabilia and illuminated by down lights. It was here that he kept his most prized possessions. A stone from Sharon Tate's fireplace. Phil Hartman's Welcome Mat, still dirty with his footprints. Pride of place was a script for the movie
Animal House
, signed by John Belushi. The scrawl was barely recognisable but Benji explained it away by saying Belushi must have been high at the time he signed it. Which made the script worth even more to him. For Benji, Belushi under the influence and living on the edge was more valuable than the healthy, sober version.

I had my own collection at Aunt Lynette's but it was much smaller and not as well organised. Lynette had not been expecting another occupant in her house, at least not one who would require an entire bedroom, so my living space was cramped, compared to Benji's spacious quarters.

‘What's your favourite Nirvana song?' Benji asked.

Another Benji trait. Always cataloguing, passing a critical eye over everything. It was the disease of our generation. We were constantly distilling the world into lists, classifying our lives according to what was hot and what was not. Music. Movies. TV Shows. Countries you most want to visit. 101 things to do before you die. Ironically, the more obscure the list item, the greater chance it had of being considered hot, which in turn would inevitably make it mainstream. It was a vicious cycle.

‘“Smells Like Teen Spirit”,' I answered after some consideration.

‘Amateur hour. Only people who have no understanding of Nirvana's work would make such an obvious choice.'

‘And what's yours, Lester Bangs?'

‘“Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”,' he replied, citing one of their most obscure singles. He put his hands behind his head with smug satisfaction.

‘You're a dick, Benji.'

He leapt up and went to sit at his desk. Annoyed by Benji's sudden movement, Freddie the cat jumped off the bed and sauntered away. In front of his PC and its enormous twin monitors, Benji squinted with concentration and clicked the mouse furiously. Moving rapidly from one screen to the next were album covers that he'd cut and pasted and dumped into folders.

I turned on the TV and watched America's Next Top Models strut across the screen. I glanced down at my own body, not exactly chubby but definitely a little dumpy. I'd been wearing the same plain black T-shirt for days and my jeans were tatty. Grooming had never been a priority with me. I usually threw on whatever was comfortable. With hippies for parents, I guess it couldn't have turned out any other way.

‘What the hell are you doing?' I asked as Benji cursed under his breath.

‘Looking for cover art,' he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. ‘For my iPod. If the artwork is missing it ruins the effect, you know that.'

‘How many more covers do you have to download?'

‘About five hundred.'

‘Five hundred! How long is it going to take you?'

‘Not sure. I've been working on it for a few days. I reckon in a few more hours I'll have them all.'

‘Is it really that important?'

Benji swivelled in his chair. ‘Well, it's not cover
flow
if all the covers aren't there, is it?'

For a supposed punk Benji was the most pedantic person I knew. He made sure his mom ironed his band T-shirts perfectly and that his cargo pants had creases. I stared at the ceiling. Sometimes when Benji and I were talking like this, a splinter of despair would work its way into my heart. I could feel the wasted moments ticking away, and wondered whether large portions of my life would be lost to inane conversations about cover art and about whether Nirvana's mainstream hits were better than their B sides. Sometimes I felt like my head was so full of trivia there was no room for anything of real substance. I didn't care too much about it. The noise kept out things I would rather not think about.

‘You wanna stay the night?' Benji asked, scratching at his arm as he spoke, like it was no big deal. Benji was always asking me to stay over but I never did because I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. I used to stay over all the time: Mrs Connor would make up the spare bedroom for me and fill my private bathroom with little unopened toiletries. It felt like staying in a hotel, and I'm sure if I'd picked up the phone in the middle of the night and asked for a sandwich I'd have probably got one. But I didn't stay over anymore.

‘Nah, it's cool,' I said. ‘Lynette's expecting me for dinner.'

‘Since when have you cared about that?'

‘I don't care. I've just got shit to do. Comprende?'

‘Whatever. You still up for tomorrow?'

Was he kidding? I had been looking forward to this expedition for ages. ‘Cielo Drive,' I said.

‘Cielo Drive,' he repeated, and the name hung between us like a talisman.

‘Benji?

‘Yes, Hilda?'

I looked at my nails, which were chewed and sore. ‘What do you suppose that guy was so nervous about today?'

‘Nervous?'

‘You know, the guy in Echo Park. Hank. The way he freaked out when we knocked on the door, it was like he was hiding something.'

Benji didn't look up from the screen. ‘I dunno. Maybe he's got some unpaid bills. You know they can't turn off your electricity unless they tell you in person. They have to make sure you're not on dialysis or something. An electricity company once cut off the supply to this old woman's house in winter, and she froze to death in her chair.'

‘No…It was something else. He seemed really scared, like he was expecting someone else.'

‘Maybe he's the Unabomber. Or a serial killer. Maybe he had pieces of dead bodies in his fridge.'

‘I doubt he has the strength for anything like that. He looked pretty old.'

‘What do you care? He was just a stupid kook.'

‘We should have at least stayed for a bit. He seemed lonely.'

Benji didn't respond. I looked over again at his collection of artefacts, the stones from Sharon Tate's fireplace in a little zip-lock bag on a shelf by themselves. I stood up and walked across to examine its contents.

‘I saw an episode of ‘Ghost Chasers' last week,' I said, holding the stones in the palm of my hand. ‘A woman bought a piano that turned out to be haunted. From the moment they had it in the house all sorts of strange stuff started to happen. They think the piano belonged to a gangster who used to slam people's fingers in it.'

‘So?'

‘So maybe having all this stuff in our houses is bad luck.'

‘Hey Hilda,' Benji said, turning back to his computer. ‘You should see this video. It's a guy getting screwed to death by a horse.'

I am the first to admit that my interests border on the macabre, but Benji's obsessions were without boundaries. I put the stones down and grabbed my bag.

‘I'm out of here,' I said, and Benji waved to me half-heartedly. As I walked to the door I heard the sound of a guy moaning in ecstasy, then the moans became groans, then screams. I closed the door behind me, and smiled at Mrs Connor on my way out.

FOUR

The day Benji and I became friends was the day the cat died.

Stanley Dale was the first to notice it. No one saw it happen but we all heard the sound, the sickening squeal of tyres as the car slammed on its brakes then sped off again.

‘You guys! You've gotta come and see this!' Stanley yelled, gesturing towards the road. A small crowd gathered around him, screaming and pointing. I was on my way to the library when I heard the shouts. I followed the sounds, convinced Stanley was going to show us a dead bird or rat, or something equally disgusting. What he showed us was much worse.

The cat was still moving, flopping around on the roadside like a fish out of water. I couldn't tell if it was still alive or in the last throes of muscle spasm: its body was literally jumping into the air, blood flying in thin spurts onto the asphalt. I squealed and put my hand to my mouth. Stanley hung over the fence like a monkey, and soon a large group of kids had gathered to see what the fuss was all about.

‘Somebody do something!' I heard someone scream.

‘What do you want me to do?' another kid yelled. ‘I'm not going to pick it up!'

The cat was jerking so violently that there was no way anyone could have caught it. All we could do was hang over the side of the fence and stare.

‘This is so awesome!' Stanley yelled. Someone punched him on the shoulder.

‘Shut up, you retard. It's not funny!'

I looked around. Half the kids were laughing and pointing, the other half gazed on in shock.

‘Look at the blood!'

‘Is it dead?'

‘Holy shit. Its guts are on the road.'

‘Should we get a teacher?'

Then I saw Benji. He was standing quietly at the edge of the crowd, his hands on his head, a look of horror on his face. We were in the same classes but had never spoken to each other. Benji was quiet and mopey, and would sit up the back on his own and stare out the window, only speaking when called on. For the first year of high school he skulked in the background. He didn't stand out in his tight jeans and Morrissey T-shirts, but he didn't fit in either.

I had my own problems. Everyone thought I was strange. I was the tragic girl whose parents had died suddenly, the one everyone whispered about but didn't know how to talk to. I wasn't interested in making friends, and spent my lunchtimes in the library, reading Nathanael West and staying away from groups and conversations, not revealing anything about myself and what had happened to me. So Benji and I sailed past each other week after week, oblivious to each other's presence, until today.

The cat started to tire, its flops becoming heavier, until finally it lay on its side in the dirt, took a few shallow gasps of air, and died. I looked back at Benji. Two fat teardrops were making their way down his cheeks. Everyone quietened down, an eerie silence descending on the scene. Suddenly Mr Barrett appeared, blowing his whistle and trying to disperse the crowd. Mr Barrett was a gym teacher who always wore short shorts, even in winter, and was known for picking students up by their sideburns.

‘What's going on over here?' he bellowed. ‘Get away from the fence, all of you!'

‘There's a dead cat on the road!' someone yelled.

Mr Barrett made his way to the fence and peered over. Without a word he strode off in the direction of the teachers' lounge, returning minutes later with a black garbage bag.

‘Okay, show's over,' he shouted as he walked out the gate. ‘All of you get out of here. Now!'

We began to wander off, a few of us lagging behind to take one last look at the carcass on the road. Mr Barrett picked the cat up with his bare hands and threw it in the garbage bag. Benji didn't move. I heard some of the other kids chatting excitedly as they walked away.

‘I've never seen anything dead,' one of them said.

‘I saw my grandma.'

‘I saw my uncle in a coma.'

‘Yeah, but he wasn't dead, was he? Doesn't really count.'

Mr Barrett swung the bag over his shoulder and strolled off towards the dumpsters without a glance in our direction. I walked over and stood beside Benji, the tears now streaming silently down his face. I felt bad. Not because he was upset, but because he was doing what I desperately wanted to do. I wanted to curl in a little ball on the ground and cry for that poor cat, its beautiful tabby fur now hardened with dry blood. But I couldn't bring myself to. I had cried so much over the past few years I was empty. But Benji cried. He cried openly and without fear. He cried as if he were alone.

‘Are you okay?' I finally asked.

He didn't say anything. He turned around to look at me, his eyes glistening. Then he ran off.

Lying in bed that night, all I could think about was the dead cat. I thrashed about in the heat, a tiny fan blowing ineffectually into my face. I thought about the dumpster, how hot it was in there during summer. One day the other kids had thrown me in, amused by my indifference to their taunts and my refusal to fight back. They had closed the lid and suddenly everything was silent, black and hot, like the inside of an oven. On an excursion to the Holocaust museum, an old lady had told us about the furnaces, the places where they burned children alive, and I pictured that rustic green dumpster at the back of the schoolyard, crouched in the sun, its mouth open.

I imagined now what would happen when the trash was collected, how the cat's body would be compacted with soda cans and candy bar wrappers until it was all one compressed block of rubbish. I wondered who its owners were, and whether someone was tapping on the side of a tin with a spoon, calling its name. I remembered that dumpster collection only happened once a week, and that the next collection was days away. I still had time.