Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (81 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Listen, you know that movie that’s being
directed by Mike Stenson? You know, the one I was talking to you
about before you left for New York?” Chuck asked with interest.

“Yeah.”

“Well, the auditions are today for it. It’s
only 2:00 p.m. now, the auditions begin at 6:00 p.m.”

Damen widened his eyes, but then brought them
back to regular size, remembering about what the newspaper said.
“Yeah, but didn’t the paper say that over 3,000 people are supposed
to show up for it today?”

Chuck smiled, and answered, “Well, yeah, but
so what.”

He looked at Chuck in confusion, speaking,
“So what? Chuck, it’s going to be impossible for me to get the lead
role in that film.”

“Listen, if we go to the audition today and
you don’t get that role, then I will personally escort you to Ridge
Crest tomorrow. Is it a deal?” Chuck held out his hand, waiting for
Damen to grab it.

“You know, I’m probably going to kill you for
this.” Damen smiled, grabbed onto Chuck’s hand, and shook it.
“Alright, Chucky, it’s a deal.”

Chapter Sixty-Five

It was March now. Four months passed by,
once again, as instantaneously as time clicks over to the next
digit. Every day, passed by so brisk, so quickly, it was like they
weren’t days at all, but fragments of visions, thoughts, that form
and end faster than a blink of an eye, a shake of a tail, a break
of a pencil.

Jose is in the middle of making his first
movie with a star role under his belt, learning what it was like to
be an actor of stardom, living it up in the life that he always
wanted, but got the wrong way: by cheating.

Darell moved out of Mr. Fryer’s home and
moved into a condominium across the street from Chuck’s Wood Café,
still depressed about betraying Damen, not telling him about the
falsification that he assumed Jose created and was the only one in
on.

And finally, we come to Damen, who was still
waiting for a callback from the audition he did in November. Yes,
Damen is still in California, with another twist of fate and
showings of an angel’s wing, it allowed him to regain his hope once
again. Yet, as the months passed by from November, Damen’s hope
slowly diminished, seeing that the casting directors weren’t
calling him back, and feeling that his life was still the same,
with him working for Chuck, in a lowdown café. He would still dream
about Hollywood, and seeing himself in it, yet when he opened his
eyes, he was either standing in front of an old woman, being a
customer, yelling at him because her coffee was too cold, or else,
standing in the middle of the night, in the darkened café, mopping
the floor, and looking through the windows up at the stars in the
night. This habit, or ritual, that occurred every day for four
months, slowly, but surely, started to get to him, and his hope,
that he lost before, but regained again, was slowly lingering its
way from his thoughts, and leaking through every exhale he
gave.

It wasn’t till one day his hope was regained
when a simple call was made to the café. It was an average day,
people of all colors, sorts, races, and societies, drinking their
coffee, conversing amongst themselves, with Chuck serving them
alone. Suddenly, Damen ran through the doors of the café, like he
did every day, hoping that the director called him for that movie.
Every day, he ran through these doors, for the past months, going
up to Chuck, and asking him about the audition, and if they got
back to him. Yet, every day, Chuck would tell him “no,” and turn
away from him, not wanting to see Damen’s depressed reactions.
Chuck comprehended, and understood that Damen needed this callback,
for his own sake, for his own hope, but Chuck also knew that
reality sometimes shows us its bad side a lot, and sometimes you
just can’t get what you want at the time you need it.

So, today, Damen ran through these same doors
of the café, running up to Chuck, and questioning, “Chuck, did
anyone call for me while I was gone?”

Chuck didn’t want to answer him. Trying to
avoid him as best as he could, he started to serve a customer
coffee, and pretend he didn’t hear Damen’s words. But then, Damen
made himself known to him, by going up to Chuck’s face, and waiting
for the answer, the reply. Chuck saw his eyes, sincere as could be,
waiting patiently, without raising his voice, and asking again.
Once Chuck saw the sincerity in his eyes, he shook his head two
times and answered quickly, “No, no one called for you, Damen.”

Mr. Schultz put on his apron, still showing
depression to his eyes. He wanted to make sure of Chuck’s answer,
so he asked with suspicion, “Are you sure?”

“Listen, every day when you’re not here, you
ask me that and I always say no.” Chuck was stressed, he felt
exhausted by Damen asking him again. “Listen, Damen, they told you
and me, that we should hear from them within four months or less.
It’s been four months already, and I think they’re not going to
call you,” Chuck added.

Damen spilt coffee grounds all over a
customer, due to the shock that was caused when Chuck’s words came
out. It was like Chuck was a hypocrite, always preaching to him to
never give up hope, and in the long run, Chuck was doing just that
to him. Chuck’s words caused Damen’s self-esteem, his hope, to
crumble in an instant. Damen then noticed the coffee grounds on the
customer, seeing her angry face, gawking at Damen like she wanted
to kill him. But, he didn’t care, instead, for the time being, he
went up to Chuck, grabbed onto his shoulder, whipped him around to
face him, and asked in seriousness, straight to the point, cutting
out all other diversions, “Well, what am I supposed to do now?”

Before Chuck could answer, the customer, with
the coffee grounds on her, yelled, “Excuse me, would you please get
me a napkin, you stupid youngster?” The customer’s sinister eyes
saw that Damen still didn’t move, still staring at Chuck, not even
acknowledging the mistake that he’d made. “I said, get me a
napkin.”

Damen threw eight napkins on the woman’s lap,
saying with panic, “Here you go, now shut up, please.”

Chuck saw the napkins, flying on the
customer’s lap, so he went over to her and helped the woman,
cleaning off the grounds from her lap. Chuck spoke, “Damen, would
you try to be more careful next time.”

“Don’t try to change the subject, please,
Chuck. Now, I--”

Ring, Ring, Ring.

The phone allowed Chuck to cut him off,
asking, “Would you get that, Damen?”

“First I want you to say that I will get a
callback, and I will get the star role in this movie,” he announced
before Chuck looked at him like he was crazy.

Chuck finished brushing the coffee grounds
off of the woman, and then turned toward Damen’s eyes, shouting,
“Alright, Damen, you’ll get a callback from the casting agents, and
yes, you’ll get the star role. Now, answer the frickin’ phone.”

He chuckled, “You always give me my way,
Chuck, always.”

Damen talked on the phone for about two
minutes, when suddenly he dropped it. He picked it back up and
talked for a minute more, and then he dropped it again. Once
hanging it up, he gave out a loud shout, yell, keeping the same
pitch for about ten seconds. It was a yell of happiness to Damen’s
mind, but to the customers, it was a yell of craziness.

Chuck ran toward his echoing yell, but as
soon he got up to Damen’s face, it stopped, and he asked, “Who was
it?”

Damen paused and looked outside the window at
the street that belonged to Hollywood. “That was Mike Stenson, the
director for this movie. He personally called me to say that
another audition isn’t necessary. He said I got the part.” Damen
sat down in a seat, yelling, “I got the part!”

Chuck wrapped his arms around Damen, shouting
with glory, “Oh my God, you see, didn’t I tell you? Now, if you
would have went back to Ridge Crest, you would have never felt this
moment.”

“He wants me to come in tomorrow and sign a
few papers. He’s also going to explain, and give me the script. Oh
my God, I got the part. Wait a second, I got the part?” The shock,
from the news, came over his mind, beginning to feel dizzy and
nauseous toward the reality of this moment.

Chuck saw Damen’s eyes, how they were getting
low, looking as if he was about to pass out. Chuck ran over to the
customer whom Damen spilt coffee grounds on and grabbed her coffee.
He ran back to Damen, handed him the cup, saying, “Here, just calm
down and drink this.”

“My God, this is too weird.” Damen then
passed out, dropping the coffee on the ground, as well as falling
to the floor himself.

Chuck started, quickly, to guide the
customers out of the café, announcing in panic, “Alright everyone,
the Café’s closed for today.”

“But I’m not done with my coffee yet,” a
customer said with Chuck pushing her body out the door.

“I’ll give you a doggy bag later, now leave,”
he demanded with a smile. The last customer left, so he closed and
locked the doors, while Damen just lay on the floor, with a
permanent smile engraved on his face. He grabbed Damen’s body with
all of his old might, and brought him up to a chair, with his head
tilted back.

Mr. Schultz slowly, in a sluggish motion,
started to wake up, questioning in a slur, “What happened?”

“You passed out.”

“I had the weirdest dream, Chuck. It was
about me getting the star role.” Damen got up from the seat and lit
up a cigarette at the same time, showing sadness that it was only a
dream, as he thought.

Chuck smiled vividly toward Damen and his
smoke. “Really?”

“Yeah, it was weird.”

Chuck suddenly yelled in vivacity, “Well, it
wasn’t a dream, it really happened.”

“What?” That’s when Damen passed out again,
not believing that this was real, shocked at the way God showed his
hand on his soul without warning.

Chapter Sixty-Six

Mr. Fryer busted out of Darell’s trailer,
displaying fear in his eyes, and fright to his mouth, panting in a
dog’s tone, running toward a trailer in the stretch of a distance.
Something had happened, befallen him, his fright was too
unbearable, as if he saw a ghost, an entity from his past, that he
didn’t want to be seen to his eyes ever again. He ran, as fast as
his legs could carry him, toward a trailer, wanting to reach it
swiftly, craving in panic to speak his mind of something that was
terrifying to him. He reached the trailer finally, with a star on
the door, reading ‘JULIENNE WELLS’ and without knocking, busted
into it. He raced his body into the front of the trailer, closed
the door, and saw Julienne standing in it, holding her script, and
rehearsing her lines in front of a vanity. She turned around, faced
him with confusion, and that’s when he explained with anger,
“Julienne, we’ve got a problem.”

She blew a gasp of air out of her lungs, and
then saw him sitting down on her couch, like he lived there. She
became angered toward his rudeness, of bursting into her private
home, the trailer for the movie she’s acting in, so she demanded
with major attitude, “Would you mind knocking first, instead of
rudely bursting in here? Do you live in a barn?”

Tom was still trying to catch his breath,
showing to her, that he was nervous, something had happened that
wasn’t of positive origin. He caught his breath, and tried to
squeeze out as much of an explanation as possible. Turning to her
face, he spoke with fright and a bit of massive rage conjoined with
it, “Listen, we’ve got a major crisis on our hands at this
moment.”

“Well, make it fast, I have to be on the set
in ten minutes with Jose.” Julienne didn’t show any fear, or even
anxiety toward Tom’s nervousness, feeling that all of her problems
were out of the way. She put down her script and began combing her
hair, thinking that Tom’s circumstances, or problem, couldn’t
affect her that much.

“Okay, Damen got the star role in a Mike
Stenson film. He got it yesterday,” Mr. Fryer said in a nervous
way.

She stopped combing her hair and looked into
her vanity, toward his reflection. Then, she turned to face his
reality, and said, “That’s impossible. How do you know?”

Before he could answer, explain his reason
for knowing, Jose stepped into her trailer, asking, “How do you
know what? What are we talking about?” Jose picked up the comb and
began combing his short, black hair, waiting for an answer,
treating the moment in a nonchalant way.

Julienne didn’t believe Tom’s words. Looking
at him in a heinous, abhorrent and nefarious form, she was trying
to read his eyes to see if he really was lying to her or not. Yet,
she couldn’t decipher the truth in his eyes or the fraudulence in
his eyes, so she responded to Jose while still gazing at Tom, “Tom
says that Damen got the star role in a Mike Stenson movie.”

Jose became frantic, scrutinizing, observing
and watching Tom lighting up a cigar, and then staring over at
Julienne’s face to see if he could translate her facial reactions,
the way her features were formed at this instant. He couldn’t read
her face, so he turned back to Tom, and questioned through his
cigar smoke, “What? How do you know?”

“Listen, Darell said that Damen called him
today. He told me that Damen got the call yesterday from Mike
Stenson, and he said to Damen that he got the part,” Tom replied,
smoke exhaling with his words.

Julienne became calm, for some reason, and
stole the comb away from Jose. She started combing her hair again,
explaining, “Well, all we do is prevent it. It’s simple, Tom, we
just go up to Mike and tell him that Damen is a drug addict, and
for that, he’ll be too incompetent to work on his film.”

Tom grabbed the comb from Julienne’s grip
with force, pressure, and pronounced with attitude, “Well, that’s
not going to work out, because Damen already signed the contract
today. I don’t know what to do now.”