Confessions of a Transylvanian (14 page)

I knew Holly through David and she had always seemed like a nice girl, but with my post-Rocky girl-goggles on, she suddenly appeared to be something much more. In fact, I started to wish with every fiber of my being that Holly, underneath it all, was not a nice girl
in any way
.

Holly had dark, curly hair that fell to just above her shoulders and a bright, open, freckly face that usually had an enormous smile planted in the middle of it. She was shorter than me by about three inches and was the first girl I ever knew that had a particular
scent
that set her apart from all the other girls. I do
n’
t know what it was she used—a body wash, a shampoo, a lotion, conditioner—I really have no clue. But you could tell Holly was standing behind you just by breathing her in. It was floral, her scent, but not pungent or overpowering.

And, um, it worked.

We danced around each other that whole week and I soon discovered that I was not particularly skilled in the ways of
amour
. If flirting was supposed to be a balletic duet of discreet, coy subtleties and shy innuendo, I was wearing clown shoes and tap dancing until I fell ass-first into a tub of chocolate pudding.

Fortunately, Holly was just as new to this sort of thing as I was, so our awkwardness was mutually charming rather than simply embarrassing. On some level, though, it must have been successful because by the time Thursday rolled around, we had agreed to go out on an actual date. The plan was to see a movie that Sunday night and then…see where it went from there. She had even offered to pick me up, as her parents had given her a car when she turned 16 and mine...had not.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had made sure to tell her that I did the Rocky show on the weekends and, to my surprise, she did
n’
t seem to think that my joining the cast was bizarre or strange at all. I did
n’
t actually invite her to see the show that weekend (a bit much for a relationship that was still in its infancy) but I wanted her to be clear about who I was and what I was into.

She not only understood, but she made it clear that, for her part, what she was into was....me.

The first time I set foot in the Orphanage that Friday night, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For one thing, it was eerily quiet at the house when we arrived at about 2:45 a.m. I pulled up with Russ and Donny, who had offered me a ride down to Hollywood after the show. On the way there, the two of them had filled me in on the history of the place, so by the time we arrived, I was expecting it to look like a Vegas casino—bustling with life, music and flashing lights.

But no, the place was silent as the grave by the time Russ wheeled the car into his drive. None of his roommates were home yet, by the looks of things.

The house was dark, clearly an unusual occurrence. The only light came from a dim chandelier that hung over the dining room table, so as we entered I was unable to gape in wonder at the collection of oddities that lined the walls. Russ sat me down at the table, broke out a joint and started describing his current roommates to me. Donny joined us at the table but seemed content with letting Russ do all the talking.

Russ had just finished up telling me about Phillip, this runaway who was currently camping in the front room, when all hell broke loose.

The phone rang and Russ snatched the receiver from its cradle. “Orphanage,” he barked.

He listened for a moment and then his eyebrows shot up in alarm. “No shit,” he said.

“Wha
t’
s up?” asked Donny.

Russ cupped his hand over the receiver and matter-of-factly said, “Ro
n’
s been in a car accident.”

Donny seemed unimpressed. “Again?”

“Again,” Russ confirmed. “But h
e’
s in the ICU this time. Sounds pretty serious.”

Donny frowned. “No shit.” He sparked up a cigarette as Russ continued listening on the phone. Obviously, Russ was being given elaborate details about the accident but was
n’
t writing anything down. He did
n’
t need to. H
e’
d remember everything.

I turned to Donny. “Which one is Ron again?”

Before he could answer, the door burst open and a group of Rocky cast members and hangers-on arrived. It consisted mostly of girls from the show who had tagged along with Jackie for the ride down from Deerfield. Russ hung up the phone and steeled himself for what he knew would be an overblown reaction to Ro
n’
s accident. He was right to be as apprehensive as he was. Jackie no sooner got the bad news about Ron before she went, in a word, bananas.

After that, things became a blur. Jackie was ranting and raving about poor, unfortunate Ron and how horrible the whole thing was, and the other girls served as a sort of Greek chorus, matching Jackie howl for howl. They demanded to know where Ron was being treated and launched into another cacophony of wailing and keening before Russ could answer. Eventually, Russ explained from memory where Ron was being treated, what room he was occupying and the name of his physician. Thus armed, the girls promptly marched out of the house, presumably to descend upon the hospital and give the nursing staff a taste of their hysteria.

This sort of thing continued over the next few hours. Another group would arrive, Russ would tender his report, half of them would erupt with disbelief and shock, run around screaming for a while, wringing their hands and rending their clothes and then they would all troop off to the hospital.

Russ, Donny and I were the only ones who stayed put that night, sitting at the table, smoking joint after joint and watching the parade of grief roll by.

Eventually, the groups started staggering back from the hospital, each bearing a different version of events.

“Ron was hit by a drunk driver and is
n’
t expected to live,” one would say.

Minutes later, someone else would barge in, “H
e’
s in surgery now and h
e’
s going to be okay. The police car that rammed into him is totaled, though.”

In an unending stream, the ill-informed gossips kept pouring through the door. Ron was fine, we were told. Ron was close to death. Ron stopped breathing. Ron was sitting up and talking. Ron was on a respirator. No one agreed on a single detail but each of them was convinced that they had the straight dope.

I eventually got someone to properly identify Ron. He was the young, long-haired kid I had met briefly on my first night. He played Brad in the show and brought this terrific, sincere, goofy quality to the character. In addition, he appeared to have slept with almost every girl in the Rocky cast. Well, the ones that were actually having sex, that is. I had
n’
t really gotten to know him, though, because when the show came down, he generally would
n’
t join us at Denn
y’
s, opting instead to disappear with one or another girl from the show. Ca
n’
t say as I blamed him, really.

Russ, Donny and I stayed up the whole night and finally, when the sun had begun to peek over the horizon and our heads began to droop, Russ picked up the phone and, through a haze of cigarette smoke and dope, he dialed up the hospital.

“Yeah,
I’
m calling about a patient admitted last night.” He gave Ro
n’
s name. “
I’
m just checking on his condition.” Russ paused. “
I’
m his grandfather,” he coolly lied, “I need to know how h
e’
s doing. Yeah,
I’
ll hold.” He took a drag on his smoke and drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. After a few minutes, they came back on the line. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.” Russ hung up and reached for the bong.

“H
e’
ll be fine,” Russ said.

And that was that. I drifted off to sleep on one of the couches. Russ and Donny kept the vigil.

My first night in the Orphanage was over.

When I awoke that afternoon the party was in full swing. Apparently, while I had been passed out on Rus
s’
s couch the house had filled up with people, some of whom had gotten some rest during the previous night and some who did
n’
t seem to need sleep at all. The Ron hysteria had finally passed (the word had gone out that he would fully recover), so everyone was coming down hard from all the excitement.

The previous night at the Rocky show, we had been joined by two new cast members—a guy named Jimmy, this dark-haired dude with a stocky build (a future Eddie, if he stuck around) and a flaxen-haired young girl named Felicia who had sparkling blue eyes, a sunny smile and a sweet, if cautious, disposition.

It had clearly been an interesting twenty-four hours for the both of them. They had spent the previous night on stage at the Ultravision in Transylvanian jackets being yanked this way and that (as I had been the previous week), then ordered about as crew minions when the movie came to an end and now suddenly found themselves down in Hollywood confronting the gang at the Orphanage, likely with no sleep whatsoever under their belts. It was the equivalent of being thrown out of the frying pan and into a blazing pit of hell.

I felt almost bad for them. At least in my case I had been given a week to get to know most of the cast before landing in this zoo of a place; I could
n’
t imagine what it must have been like for them. Jimmy actually did
n’
t seem all that fazed, but he did
n’
t strike me as the overly expressive type anyway. Felicia, on the other hand, looked like sh
e’
d been walloped in the back of the head with a hammer. “Gobsmacked” is the correct term, I think.

Everyone seemed to be there. Russ and Donny, of course, but also Mark, Sunday, Andrea, Tony, Tom, Kenny, Iris...the whole gang, plus a bunch of Transylvanians, now out of their uniforms and in their civvies. Some of the folks were drinking beer or were sampling this ferocious rum/vodka punch-like concoction that had been dreamed up in the kitchen. Some were smoking, some were toking up, others were just sitting back looking dazed and tired. I was still a little unfocused myself and I sort of wandered about, trying to achieve some measure of balance.

It was my first chance to really take in the environs of the Orphanage during the daytime hours and what I saw just knocked me out. My mothe
r’
s house had never been a place you would describe as “pristine” (there were two teenage boys living there, after all), but compared to the Orphanage, our place was a freaki
n’
hospital.

Piles of everything lay everywhere. It was how I always imagined a fraternity house to look, but with far more sex toys and far fewer rich kids. To put it mildly, it was a disaster. I supposed that once or twice a year the mess would eventually reach a tipping point, at which time the tenants would have no choice but to fumigate, de-louse and scrub the place down, but the last time that occurred had clearly been a while ago.

Disaster or not, though, it was a very cool place to hang out. If there was ever a joint to let your hair down, this was it. Packed with people of every shape, size and persuasion, you either left your inhibitions at the door or you walked around with your eyes bugging out. Playing the part of Unruffled Cool Guy, I chose not to gape.

I do
n’
t mean to make it sound like Sodom and Gomorrah in there, but le
t’
s just say that Caligula would have had a
fine
time chilling at the Orphanage. I slid from room to room, just watching.

There was a large group huddled around the front dining room table at which joints were being rolled and consumed at a steady rate. As I took this in, Donny wandered out of the back room with a tallboy in his grip. Upon seeing him, the folks around the pot table requested that he open something called “Donn
y’
s Shotgun Booth.” Donny smiled and said h
e’
d be happy to oblige. Even I, who had some experience in matters THC, had
n’
t the slightest idea what they were talking about.