Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (97 page)

“You know, Chuck, we’re going to have to take
a taxi or something, because there isn’t an airport by Ridge
Crest,” he yelled so Chuck could hear him from the bathroom.

“No, there’s an airport, I asked the pilot a
little bit ago, he said they just built one a year ago.” Chuck
flushed the toilet and watched the blue water swirl around in a
circle, and then he exited the bathroom.

“We’ll be landing in about two minutes,” the
pilot announced over the intercom with Damen looking out the window
of the plane. He looked at the photo of Jose, him, and Darell and
began feeling a cold breeze rush against his spine. As he looked
out the window, the bright blue clouds, reflecting the moon’s
light, vanished from the darkened skies, and in his sight came
Sugar Valley.

The moon lay its light on the Valley while
Damen looked at “Sugar” and how its circular design formed a
complete Valley. It was beautiful, intriguing; he gave a grin, and
then touched the glass of the window with his hand. In two minutes,
he would be at the place where everything started, became, was born
from, where his roots befall and derived, and the place that he
always craved to go back to. Yet, he wasn’t coming back for
himself, but he was still a little happy to see the mirror, the
image of serenity, looking down at it from this empty, flying
contraption. He whispered, “I’m home.” Damen rubbed the window, as
if he was touching the grass of the Valley, pretending that he was
present in its peaceful body, surrounded by nothing but a feeling
of safety, a feeling of love.

Once the plane landed, Damen’s fears took
full control of his strength, causing him to become weak and
fragile in the eyes of Chuck. They both took a taxi to Ridge Crest,
Damen not even realizing that he was going there, but only wanting
to get what he came here for. While they drove on a dirt, dark,
vacant road, Damen tried to squeeze a tear out from his eyes while
laying his head on Chuck’s shoulders.

To Damen, he wanted to squeeze a tear out
that he knew was for Jose, not for himself, not for relieving
stress, but for Jose’s position. Through it all, Damen also craved
and dreamt to show a tear that meant pure and utter prosperity, a
tear in which he has never shed in his lifetime, so far.
Nevertheless, him not crying showed a sign of weakness to himself,
but to Chuck, Damen’s non-tears showed strength within him. During
the drive, the taxi’s front headlight flashed on the sign, reading
Welcome to Ridge Crest, population 497. Damen remembered that day,
when he scratched out the real number and placed 497 on it instead;
this caused a smile to appear, wishing he could travel back to that
moment and not change a thing on that sign.

A cold brush of wind surfaced Damen’s face
once he got out of the taxicab, and saw the forests that buried a
Valley within it. He told Chuck to wait by the cab; that he would
just be a moment. Damen then turned back to the forests, and
started to stroll toward them, remembering them, remembering their
fence-like qualities and arrogant attractiveness. Walking past the
first line of trees, Damen allowed his night vision to guide his
way, with his memory acting like a compass, trying to remember
which way Sugar was. He stopped for a moment, and saw trees on top
of trees, foliage tied in with them, so he started running toward
them, remembering that beyond these trees, and entangled foliage,
just a little ways, was the Valley that he discovered when he was a
child, the Valley that changed his life, Sugar Valley that he
learned to love so deeply. He then paused again, recollecting the
Valley’s power-like quality, remembering that he thought the Valley
was alive, had a soul of its own, and some mature form of fear
entered into his mind. It was like when he was innocent, before he
left it, the fear was never there, but now since his mind saw so
many immoral things, the fright now showed his mind its heavy
power, and caused Damen’s own imagination to ponder on the issue of
it being haunted with demons of peculiar incentives. But he knew he
had to go, even if the Valley was alive, haunted, or whether he was
just insane, he still had to do this, conclude this journey, by
retrieving something for a friend that was hidden away within
Sugar’s secrets. Damen took his hands, when he came up to bushes
that were as thick as hay, and lingered his grip onto them,
hesitating on splitting these great plants. Yet, he did, he split
the bushes, to where his body could fit through it, and beheld the
Valley, large in mass, thick in flavor, and luxuriously
breathtaking to his sight. The moon shined, scintillated on every
end of it, reflecting the daisies, the grass, the blue lake in the
middle, and the trees that were small to his angle, but really
large up close. He grinned, a small grin, but it was still a smile,
and felt a chill of memories rushing toward his pain-stricken
flesh.

As Damen walked into the Valley, he saw
himself with Darell and Jose as little kids again. The flashbacks
kept on coming into Damen’s mind as each attempt of squeezing a
tear out came, still walking down in the Valley’s stomach, and
still remembering on how he should be crying, instead of smiling
toward this sight of beauty. He was guilty, feeling it coming to
his eyes, knowing that he shouldn’t be enjoying this moment, only
crying toward it, because his friend was sick, and near death. The
moon shone through the darkness of the Valley and guided Damen’s
confused and guilty self to the cave; the cave that held the box of
memories. While Damen opened the box, he remembered the day before
he left to go to California.

“When we all become famous, we have to come
back here and open the time capsule,” Damen’s memory echoed.

He grabbed the script and ran through the
Valley, not wanting to stay another moment, knowing that his friend
was in need of time. Suddenly, before he entered onto the side of
Sugar that would lead him back to the forest, he heard a voice,
faint, and small, like it was riding the wind’s wave, whispering to
him, “Hello, Damen.” He turned around, not knowing that voice, but
somehow remembering its subliminal sounds in the wind when he was a
child. As he turned to see where the voice was coming from, he saw
Jose, Darell, and himself playing their first game of pretend,
actually witnessing a memory taking place right before his very,
present-filled eyes. He saw them running around, with their fingers
molded into the shape of an L, and screaming out with felicity to
their young harmony-captured voices. Damen didn’t show any smiles
toward this moment, and yelled out, “No, don’t play that, please
don’t!” Damen knew that this game began it all, started their
ambition, and developed all of their dreams of becoming famous.

The memory vanished abruptly, and turned into
nothing but darkness, that’s when Damen wondered where that voice
was of perishing quality, came from. As he held his script tightly
in his hands, he turned to the Valley’s middle, where the lake
formed, and whispered, “Sugar, if you’re really alive, which I know
you’re not, but if you are, then please, don’t let Jose die.
Please, Sugar, if there’s really a soul in your belly, and if you
really love me, and us, then please, please don’t take my friend
away from me.”

While Damen paused after his words to the
Valley’s body, which echoed through the wind of its breath, Chuck
came up to the top of Sugar’s hill, and heard Damen’s last words of
pleading. He shouted down to him, “Who are you talking to?”

Mr. Schultz became embarrassed, and afraid,
not wanting Chuck or anyone to know of his talk with a Valley,
knowing that it would sound beyond crazy to comprehend that an
indentation in the earth is alive. So, Damen ran up the hill,
pretending like he didn’t see any memories, acting as if he didn’t
hear any voice in the wind, and came up to Chuck. “No one, let’s
go.”

Damen went past Chuck, like he wanted to get
away from this place as fast as he can, and entered through the
bushes to get to the forest of enigma. Before Chuck followed, he
heard the wind blowing through the Valley, and making a howling
noise, that sounded like a woman crying, pleading out her tears for
a loved one’s presence. Chuck didn’t pay any attention to this
supposed, subliminal wind, and followed Damen through the forest,
with a flashlight to guide his way. “You got the script,
Damen?”

Damen exited the thicket forest and entered
the taxi, while turning around and seeing Chuck’s silhouette in the
darkness coming toward him. By the time Chuck came up close to his
sight, Damen muttered, “Yes, yes, I have it.”

Chapter Eighty-Four

Agony struck this night, stabbing her mind
with painful images of her boy, being shot and having his life
tampered with; she is what misery is called. The beautiful boy she
held in her womb, loved since the moment of his conception and even
as she dreamt of her future children. Yet, when a mother loses
their child, or sees him or her in a position where death will come
in a blink of an eye, this moment, this devastating moment, is the
worst thing possible that a nurturing mother could feel.
Melancholy, drenched with massive desperation and fear, webbed
together with emptiness, void, and the only thing that could bring
hope to this mind of Jose’s mother, is her own divinity, her belief
that God will be good to her, and take her instead of Jose’s
life.

Jose’s mother cried next to him, holding his
hand by the hospital bed, and shedding tears, and verbalizing her
love for him, she hated to see him in this room that symbolizes
sickness, not wellness. She held his hand so tightly, and whimpered
her own misery, yearning to not have Jose stay with God yet,
praying with her rosary that God will grant him another chance.
Damen’s and Darell’s parents sat in this room of despondent sadness
as well, just sitting there, and watching Jose’s father and mother
peering over Jose’s face and looking upon his image with sorrow.
Yet, his father didn’t show too much pain for Jose’s position, he
was a strong man, a tough man, who wouldn’t allow his shield to be
broken for anyone. Yet, in his face of toughness could be shown a
man who longs for his son, a man who wants to cry for his boy’s
pain, a man who craves to express his love for his son out loud,
but some reason couldn’t. Instead, his mother was doing the crying
for him, and she gave Jose’s pale face a hug, wrapping her arms
around his head and craving to hear his heartbeat. It was like she
wanted to hear it, and she did, but what frightened her, what
became her worst fear, was that moment when his heart would stop
its cycle and withdraw its beat. This little woman, with such a
strong love for her son, could only weep her penitence, her
anguish, remorse, her sorrow for him, and allow God to do the
rest.

Jose’s mother was very strong inside, so
strong, that once they all reached the hospital, she actually
fought her way through the media, fans, and press, punching them,
trying to get to the entrance of the hospital, and once she did,
fought her way past the nurses, and came to Jose’s room. The rest
of the parents, including his father, just followed her, walked in
her footsteps; and she was so small, with strength of a thousand
horses.

All she could do was hug him, cry out for
him, and sit and watch him, while each breath lessened to his
exhaling rhythm. There was a cool breeze that spun around this
room, like angels, hovering over them all, waiting for the right
moment to capture Jose’s soul and bring him home to the place that
he left before birth. His mother kissed him on the forehead,
crying, “My baby, my poor baby.”

Jose knew this was it, it was his time. If
not now, in a matter of hours, it would be his time to go, and
leave this life behind. Comprehending this, Jose wanted to get
everything out toward his parents, craving to tell them how he
feels toward them. He looked at his mother, who suddenly became so
beautiful to his deceasing eyes, and whispered, “I love you so
much, Mom.” Mr. Rodrigo noticed Jose didn’t say anything to him,
but he didn’t ponder on it, he knew his boy loved him dearly. The
father stood behind and leaned over his mother’s body to give a
gentle kiss on his forehead, beginning to break down his shield of
toughness, and show Jose the man he really was. Suddenly, Jose
smiled to his father’s gentle kiss, and whispered, “Paps, I want
you to know, that I forgive you ... for ever hurting me in the
past. I forgive you for the abuse.” Jose muted his tired voice,
watched as tears developed slowly in his father’s right eye, and
understood that this is the time he should finally say something,
that he’s never told his father before. “Father, I love you
too.”

As Jose’s and the rest of the boys’ parents
sat in the room crying, Damen arrived with the script. He ran in
the room, without even acknowledging his own parents, and sat down
next to Jose, wanting to be by his side every second, to show Jose
that he was here only for him.

He opened up the script for Jose to see, when
suddenly Damen showed a bit of confusion to his whimpering mind.
Damen was on a mission, he didn’t have time to talk to Jose
anymore, he realized that Jose’s last wish, was to finish the
script with him and Darell, and that’s the only thing that Damen
wanted to do for now. This was like a job for him, a mission, and
he wanted it to be perfect for Jose. So, Damen frantically turned
toward Darell’s crying parents, and questioned, “Wait a second,
before we begin, where’s Darell?”

Jose tapped Damen on the face, and he turned
to him. Jose spoke with seriousness, “He’s gone.”

“Why did he go back to Ridge Crest already?”
Damen was angry, upset toward Darell’s leaving, when suddenly his
anger vanished by seeing Darell’s parents leaving the room quickly.
He wondered why they left, what he said to make them leave.

Jose tapped him on the face again, and he
switched his eyesight to him once more. Jose gave out a small,
delicate grin, and muttered, “He’s not in Ridge Crest, Damen. He’s
in Heaven.”