Devilcountry (23 page)

 
         
 
The car was a total piece of shit Rourke
had run into the ground.  He had come into the pizza shop and asked Pudgie
if he wanted it for a hundred bucks.  Pudgie saw it as an “in”.
 Rourke said, “Your car is your statement, and opportunity can knock and
be gone in a second, you gotta make your move, Pudge.”  Rourke had clearly
missed his calling.  Maybe he was a good actor but he was a born used car
salesman. Pudgie was thrilled and nodded silently as he handed him the cash.
 True to form, Rourke made his move and took the hundred dollars and
placed it on a fifty-to-one shot at Hollywood Park.  Rourke felt the ghost
of Henry Chinaski hover over him as he laid fifty bucks down on Uncrossed Legs,
a two-year-old philly with something to prove.  
You sure
about this, Hank?
 
He
thought.

           
“It’s
a lock, kid,” the ghost replied.

He made enough to buy his way into a poker game
with the producer of an action franchise that was looking for a tough, Lee
Marvin-type to compete with Quentin Tarantino’s new Charles Bronson-type.
 Tarantino had cast his new Bronson protégé on the spot after being served
yogurt by an out-of-work mime in a mini-mall.  The ex-mime had a huge scar
running down the side of his face from getting into a fight with a giant rat
while on vacation in Guatemala.
His mime career in ruins.
Tarantino told him to say, “Here’s your yogurt...punk!” as an impromptu
audition.  The ex-mime nailed it and was cast on the spot.  Hence,
Rourke was cast on the spot in response.  Both films were huge.  
Fifteen-hundred
dollars worth of work later, financed in
part by Lisa, the car was functional, more or less.
 
Rourke’s career was back on track.
 

All thanks to Pudgie.

 
         
 
Pudgie walked outside to the curb and
stared at his car.  Mickey Rourke’s shit-brown 1982 300D four-door turbo
diesel Mercedes with a broken sunroof stared back at him, eerily.
 
It took up way too much space on the
curb and had been ticketed and urinated on repeatedly.
Probably
by the same person.
An out-of-work background vocalist who worked as a
meter maid whom Pudgie had seduced and abandoned after she wouldn’t tear up the
five tickets she had previously papered his car with.  Worst handjob ever!
He thought.

The only statement Pudgie could make in regards
to this car was, “This car is a total piece of shit.”  This was the luck
of
Pudgie,
good things seemed to happen around him, but
not to him.  It was very frustrating.  Now it looked like Lisa was
trying to cash-in.  Pudgie opened the rickety driver’s side
door which
took some effort to pry loose.  He squeezed
himself into the driver’s seat and swore he could hear a death rattle as he
turned the diesel engine over.  He felt like he was driving a motorized
coffin.  Pudgie pulled out slowly and made his way to the 10 east.
 He was headed into the asshole of the world; he prepared mentally, the
only way he knew how.  He pulled out half a joint he had shoved into the
coin tray and lit up.  

He began to think about things with the spare
time.  Pudgie was a genius of social graces.  He was captivated by
who was hot and who was not.  Even as a kid growing up in the Bronx he
knew all the right names, all the hot clubs, who was cool, who was on the
scene.
 Bowie, Jagger, Howard Stern, these were the
baseball cards Pudgie collected.  He would cut and paste the
New York
Post’s
Page Six all over his walls.  He couldn’t understand why Donnie
didn’t get excited over the Post the way he did.  Donnie and his dad would
sit there day after day, avoiding the spotlight.  Pudgie didn’t get it.
For some reason he thought back to that legendary meeting between Donnie’s dad
and Lew Wasserman.  
An image of Nate and Al’s flashing
in his head.

Pudgie wanted to be part of it.  
The limelight, the machine, all of it.
  One time
at The Big Pizza Pudgie took me under his wing and explained it to me.
 “If you and Jack Nicholson are sitting in the front row at the Laker
game, you’re good.  
If you and James Van Der Biek are at
a Clippers game, not good.
 If you’re headed to the valley to meet
Winona Ryder for drinks, you must stop and ask yourself, why am I headed to the
valley to meet Winona Ryder for drinks?  If it’s a Jewish holiday, maybe,
but for God sake don’t go to the mall with her.”  I had a confused look on
my face.  “Don’t worry, Craig, you’ll catch on.  And don’t let a
casting director grab your ass unless they bought you a drink first. ”  

Pudgie loved being around celebrities.  He
wanted to be a celebrity.  He couldn’t describe it completely.
 Perhaps that was why he chased after it so aggressively.  But after
last night he knew he was in trouble.  He let go.  For the first time
in a long time he didn’t give a fuck.  He pretended Mickey Rourke was in
the passenger seat.  Both of them on the prowl, headed for Vegas.  
Fresh scars over knuckles from beating the shit out of a film
producer who talked tough but couldn’t back it up.
 
Young pussy on their mind.
 
The hot
wind in their hair.
 
Both of
their
careers a flaming heap of bad scripts, broken
promises, old tires and divorce litigation paperwork creating a strange
multi-colored ball of smoke rising up in the rear-view.  
An old man studying a racing form in the backseat.
 The
energy was new to him but it was freeing in a way.  He actually felt
relaxed.  Calm.  There was a freedom to being on the outside.
 For the first time ever, Pudgie didn’t give a flying fuck what anybody
thought.  He let the joint hit him.  Some time passed.  He
thought about Lisa.  He felt an attraction to her.  He wanted to be
near her.  

One hour and thirty eight minutes later Pudgie,
his mind clear, pulled into the dusty coffee shop parking lot on the outskirts
of Victorville and the Mercedes, much like Mickey Rourke’s career, sputtered,
collapsed and died right there. For five seconds, Pudgie mourned its passing.
 It had been a good ride out to the desert.
 
As if the Mercedes had served its one
true purpose.
 
Bring Pudgie to the edge of nothing.
 
To contemplate everything…then you are
free…

 
He
turned and saw Lisa’s black Camry parked and went to it.  Lisa was asleep
in the driver’s seat.  Pudgie’s jaw dropped when he looked in the back
seat and saw baby Kevin asleep in the baby seat belted down in the back.
 Pudgie tapped on the
window which
startled Lisa
awake.  She turned the key and unrolled the window.  Pudgie’s temperature
began to rise.  “What the hell is going on, Lisa?”

Lisa smiled for a second then paused.  She
then started to cry.  
Quietly, so as not to wake the
baby.
She had her head down. She began to whisper, “I...I...I... just
couldn’t leave him with those people.  It’s not fair!  I can make
Vegas by the end of the day…” She began to cry again, her voice trailing off, a
spittle of drool coming off her lower lip.

 
         The
calm he had unlocked in Rourke’s car came back over Pudgie.  It was a calm
like he’d never experienced before.  “Lisa, open the door and let me in.”
 Lisa unlocked the door.  Pudgie climbed in and Lisa crumbled.
 He took her in his arms as she started to cry like Lisa’d never cried
before.  Her tears had always been muted and behind closed doors.
 “It’ll be okay, Lisa.” His voice soothed her.  This was all new to
Pudgie.  He’d never had to express this kind of sympathy before.  He
was unsure of how to hold her or if he even should.  

 
         
 
“I just freaked out.  I knew they’d
be coming home soon, drunk, horny.  They’re maniacs!   I think
they wanted to have a threesome with me.  Pudgie, I can barely handle
twosomes! They don’t deserve that child!”  An image of Ronit, Plavka and
baby ‘Malcolm’ flashed in her head.  “ I could be a good mom
!....
a... good...mom!!!” She said the last part as she
broke down again, crying hysterically.  Moments passed.  Finally Lisa
was able to speak.  “ I had to get out of there, and I didn’t want to
leave my baby, their baby… oh, God…my career!”

Pudgie had a blank look on his face.
 Usually he would have started screaming and ran off.  
But not this time.
 Overnight, his career was ruined
and now he was going to jail as an accessory to kidnapping.  Still he was
completely calm.  He put a hand over his mouth. He assessed.

“No, no, I’ll work it out; I’ll work it all
out.”  Pudgie always worked it out.  Like when his five-year-old
niece ate his mom’s prized parakeet.  All hell would have broken loose if
she found out.  So Pudgie searched through all of Long Island in the
middle of the night in search of an exact duplicate.  He opened the
passenger door.

 
         
 
“Where are you going?”

 
         
 
“It’s all right.
 
I just
gotta
make a call.
 
Everything’s gonna be
fine.”

Her voice a baritone.
  “NO! DON’T YOU DARE!  DON’T YOU DARE CALL ANYONE!
”
 Lisa sounded like Batman, only completely
fear-struck.

Pudgie paused for a moment.  The man in him
took over.  His tone dropped sounding like Batman, also.   He
was cool and quiet so as not to awaken the child, but firm.  
Firmer than he’d ever been in his life.
 “Don’t tell me
what to do.  EVER.  DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”  Lisa silently nodded.

“No police?”

           
“God
willing. Now stay here.”  Pudgie stepped out onto the hot gravel.  He
ran a hand through his unwashed hair. He breathed out.  A surge of panic
went through him but was gone in an instant.  His spine stiffened a bit.
 His flip-flops seemed a bit inappropriate for the desert, but he went
with it.  He grabbed his cell phone from his back pocket and prayed he
still had minutes left on it.  The whole sequence played out in his head
in a millisecond.  It was an awesome energy.  
Like
a burst of lightning.
 
Like a star exploding.
 He got another flash of Donnie’s dad, of Lisa at her pitch meeting, of
Lew Wasserman.  It all snapped in. This was Pudgie’s vision.  Granted
to him by his social-climbing forefathers.  It would change Pudgie and
Lisa’s lives forever.  Pudgie knew this, and knew he wasn’t completely
prepared for it.  He wished for a joint, a bump, or a piece of cake or
something.  His hand slightly shook as he pressed the keypad. If it all
worked then both of them would get everything they ever dreamed of.
 Pudgie was not ready to make this move.  He made it anyways.

YES I AM

Carin
put a steak on my swelled-up nose.  Blood was everywhere.  Gino had
totally smashed my face.  “What a jerk that guy!”  I still couldn’t
figure out what was going on.  A woman whom I admired growing up for her
ballsy choices made as an actress was now applying first aid to my face.
 I was in her apartment because I worked for her.  I was told to work
for her by a holy message sent to me from beyond.  I shamanistically rode
the astrological pathway from one moment to the next in order to unlock the
cryptic wisdom necessary to help her and others in peril.  I rescued her
from the evil Gino. I exit; the episode was over, a satchel over my shoulder,
quiet, melodic music swelled to a gentle refrain.

Blackout, credits.  Fantastic!

 
         
 
My eyes remained shut for a moment,
basking in the fantasy.  A gentle smile curled under.  My eyes opened
with a soft gaze.  Carin was still working on my nose.  She had
introduced a bag of frozen peas to the mix.  She stared at me.  It’s
all bullshit.

 
         
 
“Ifz sall bullfitt,
”
 I
tried to mumble through all the cold food on my face.
 Carin removed the packages,

 
         
 
“I’m sorry?”

 
         
 
“Ifs sall bullfitt, Kayvirn.”

 
     
     
“What is?”

 
         
 
“All of eet.”

 
         
 
“Okay.” She reapplied the dressing to my
face.

 
         
 
“Fur a dunk.”

She removed the dressing again.

 
         
 
“You a drunk.”

 
         
 
She paused.  
The
cold packs still in her hand.
 I pushed the icey stuff away. I
could feel my face snapping back into place. “Gino’s an asshole, Dickie’s an
asshole, and the guy before that was an asshole.” I was pissed.  I didn’t
care how it sounded.  I was bloody and hungover, underpaid and overworked.
 I had enough. “You’ve done nothing but date assholes your entire life.
 Carin sat back.  I paused to build courage.  “There is no
difference between Gino and the director who crashed your car into the swimming
pool, or your acting coach or Dickie.  NONE!”  Carin was speechless.
 “And I think you slept with my cousin Freddy.”