Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (28 page)

Every day after working on his characters, and the pilot outline for the show, Johnny headed down to play ball with his
new pals. Since the three of them had become hot as a team, new challengers began showing up at the park to take them
on. There were three financial guys from Long Beach, whom
they demolished 15-4, and there were three restaurateurs
from Newport, rich ballplayers, whom Eddie destroyed almost
singlehandedly.

After that game they headed out to Minelli's and had two
or three extra pitchers of beer, and threw in a pretty decent
lasagna with the pepperoni and garlic pizza.

It was a hell of a day, and a hell of a good time.

Right up to the moment it wasn't anymore.

Even after it happened, Johnny couldn't really remember
how it had gone bad.

Maybe Eddie had downed a few too many beers, and
maybe it was the Vicodin he had admitted he took just to give
the booze a little extra kick. Or maybe it was just one of those
days ... but somewhere along the third hour of partying, Eddie got a little morose.

They were all still partying, and then Eddie said it, the
thing that had been there all along in the back of his mind:
"Here's to our Hollywood buddy. May he remember its when
he heads back to la-la land and starts hanging with the big
shots again."

That stopped everyone cold, and then Johnny realized all
eyes were turned to him.

"Hey," he said, "I wouldn't do that. You guys are my buds.
I mean, yeah, I gotta go back to work, but you guys will
come up and we'll play some of the celebs who practice at the
Hollywood Y."

Stenz made a fist and said, "Yeah, right!" but Eddie only
looked over at Johnny with a cynical leer.

"Hey, Mr. Big Shot, you think we bought that bit you told
its about coming down here to get a little R & R before you started working again? Well, you must think we're nuts. Cause
we saw a bit on Entertainment Tonight about you, how you were
kicked off your own show, and how you came down here to
get away from the tabloid reporters."

"Jesus, Ed, why you gotta get all judgmental all of a sudden?" Connie said. "We don't care why Johnny came down
here. He's still our friend."

Johnny managed a tortured smile at Connie, who reached
over and patted his hand.

Johnny thought maybe the attack would be over then, but
Eddie was just warming up: "Say what you want, Connie, but
Johnny's down here slumming. You think we're ever gonna
hear from this guy again once he gets back to Latte Land?"

Stenz stared down at his feet, and Connie just shook her
head.

Johnny let out a long breath, and slid out from the
booth.

"Okay," he said. "I better go. Seems like things are getting
a little too unpleasant."

"No, Johnny," Connie said in a panicky voice. "Don't go.
He doesn't know what he's saying."

Eddie turned his head and stared blankly across the
room.

"No, I think he means it. I don't want to bum you guys
out. So-take it easy."

He started to walk toward the front door, when Connie
ran up behind him and grabbed his wrist. He turned to see
tears on her face.

"This isn't really about you," she said. "He's really furious
at me."

"Why?" Johnny asked.

"Cause I'm pregnant."

"Oh," he said. "And you want to keep the baby."

Connie nodded. "Yes, more than anything in the
world."

Eddie came staggering up behind her, mean-drunk.

"Yes, more than anything in the world," he said in whiny
mimicry. "Oh, I have to have a little baby with me at all times.
So I can play kootchie-kootchie-koo with it. Fucking bitch.
She put a hole in my rubber, man. This is like entrapment.
Well, I'm not having it, see ... I'm not. And you're not either,
bitch."

He reached out and grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him. Johnny grabbed Connie's other arm and for a few
seconds they battled one another in an absurd tug of war. Until Johnny let go, and Connie fell into Eddie. They were both
off balance and went down, upsetting a table and a pitcher of
Sam Adams.

The owner of the place, Dan Minelli, came running toward them, his hair a great frizzy mess, like Larry Fine's.

"You make a huge mess," he said, "you gotta pay. You all
gotta pay for this."

Johnny waved a twenty at him and headed outside as
quickly as he could. Thanking God he'd brought his own car,
he trotted over to his BMW, opened the door, and hustled
away.

Later that afternoon, he sat on the front porch smoking a
joint.

This was better, way better. He'd been crazy to get involved
with those people. It was all about his sentimental attachment
to people from his old hometown. When he was dealing with
the sharks in Hollywood, guys who would throw you off your
own show, he sentimentalized working-class people, the kind of people he'd grown up with in row-house Baltimore. They
were more lively, had the ability to appreciate simple things,
would be your friends through thick and thin ... all the best
qualities of working-class existence.

But when you met them again-or people just like
them-you started to realize that there was a reason you'd left
your old hometown. The people were too coarse, too selfish,
too rude, and mainly just too fucking dumb to make it in the
larger world.

It wasn't that he didn't like them, no ... because he did.
It was just too much to deal with.

But what of his new idea, Hometown? Did his new hostile
understanding nullify the whole project?

No, not at all. Instead, it made it all the more interesting.
The guy who comes back home wants kindness and Hallmark
card simplicity, but instead finds out life in the adult world of
the working class is tough too.

Yeah, maybe that would make the story even richer.

So maybe he wasn't nuts to hang with these people after
all.

No, the thing to do was keep hanging out with them but
look at them as a scientist looks at his specimens. Eddie was
dead-on right. He'd never actually be friends with this crew
but just the same ... he could learn a few things, and in the
end he'd throw them a bone once the day of principle photography began. A nice little piece of change.

It was good to finally get the thing sorted out. He was
a camera, and they were his subjects, and from now on he
would be there, play ball, maybe even go for a beer, but no
more buddy-buddy. That was over. Totally.

After a couple of glasses of red wine, Johnny went to bed. Ev erything was going to be fine. He had his priorities straight and
he would soon head back to the Hollywood Wars refreshed
and renewed by his time in the O.C.

He'd been in a restless sleep for about three hours when
the doorbell rang. Half out of it, Johnny got up and made his
way through the hallway to the front room.

"Who is it?" he said, without opening the door.

"It's me, bro," came a sad voice. "Eddie."

Johnny thought about telling Eddie to bag it and head
home. Looking over at Terry's clock, he realized it was 3 a.m.
Jesus, this was the last guy he wanted to deal with now. But
what the hell, Eddie's voice sounded kind of high and pathetic.
He unlocked the front door and let him in.

Eddie looked like he'd actually shrunk. His shoulders
were all hunched up, and his eyes were cloudy. "I'm sorry to
bother you," he said. "But I just need to talk to you, man. It
can't wait."

"Why not? It's 3 a.m."

"I know, bro, but after that scene tonight, things got worse.
Connie's gonna leave me, man. I can't make it without her."

"Well, where is she now?"

"Out at her sister's house. Out in Black Star Canyon. I
gotta go there but I don't want to go alone cause I might lose
it. Man, I know it's a huge thing to ask, but would you drive
out there with me?"

"Black Star Canyon?" Johnny loved the name of the place!
Jesus, this could be a whole episode, or better, a three-parter
for the series. Maybe it was even the name of the series, cause
it was like a ton better than Hometown.

"Okay," he said. "I'll do it, Ed, but you have to promise
me that if I come you won't start anything. How do you know
she's even awake?"

"I know. I just talked to her on the cell. She can't sleep
either. Man, it's so great of you. You're a real bud."

"Let me get dressed," Johnny said. "I'll only be a minute."

They drove inland in silence through Cook's Corner, with its
ugly little houses, greasy food joints, and a scummy-looking bar
called JC's Place. There wasn't even a sign at this joint, just a
gold star and the letters JC on the door. Johnny shuddered at
the thought of the kind of men who hung out in there.

They stopped at a barren crossroads and he saw a fallingdown house with a collapsed screen porch and a Naugahyde
couch lying out front of the place. It was all just a little too
real for him. The toughest place he'd been in the last three
years was Barney's Beanery, the old Jim Morrison hangout.
And all the "tough guys" who hung out there were actors
playing Jimmy Dean.

Next they came to two-lane Santiago Canyon Road, and
as they drove through steeper and steeper hills, and Johnny
looked at the brush and chaparral, and thought of what might
be coming toward them from the other lane. Terrible people
with bad yellow teeth who had never even heard of sweeps
week.

They drove faster and Eddie started talking about Connie
and how she and her sister had always dissed him. "She laughs
at me, bro. She thinks I'm nothing. She wants a guy ... a guy
like you. She said that to me, bro. It's funny man, cause what
you do ain't even real."

"What do you mean?" Johnny replied. He felt a fury building in him. All his writing life he'd had to put up with morons who talked about his talent for "words" with that certain
nasty little inflection, as though words were just a cover for
cowardice.

"What do I mean?" Eddie said. "Well, you look at the
big mansions in Newport Beach, I painted all of those places.
When you see a house there and talk about how cool it is, it's
because you see my paint on it. That's real, man. But words,
what you do, making up little stories you put on TV. Even if
you do make all the actors say the stuff, it's still not real. But
look how much money you get for it. Look how many women
would fuck you for it. You see, that ain't right, is it?"

Johnny had a desire to reach over and throttle Eddie. Take
him by his throat-

"Depends on what you value," Johnny said. "Words are
imagination. People have always valued imagination, Ed."

"No, well, I can see people liking a director or an actor,
but a guy who uses words? I mean, be honest, how do you
get those jobs, John? Aren't they all about who you know, or
screwing some big suit's daughter or something?"

"No, not really, Eddie. You need to have talent. And if you
think writing scripts is so easy, then try it sometime. What the
hell, why aren't you doing it right now? Why do a tough job
like house painting when you could easily be making millions
using shitty little words?"

Eddie bit his lip and looked over at Johnny in a sorrowful
way. "Hey, no offense. Just always thought people who could
do something, you know, like did it. People who can't do nothing, they trick people with words. But maybe I'm wrong, bud.
Maybe I'm wrong."

"Yeah, maybe you are," Johnny said.

They drove on through the night hills, and then turned down
a road that seemed to stretch to the yellow moon.

"This is it. This is where she is," Eddie said. "Black Star
Canyon. Just down the road."

He turned left down what looked a like a road made of
dust. They made another turn and the back end skidded a
little, and then they were suddenly pulling up in a dry gulchridden place, with no houses in sight.

"We're here, bro," Eddie said.

"Where's the house?" Johnny asked, looking out at the
barren hills.

"The house? Her sister's place? Oh, it's back in Mission
Viejo. Just a few doors down from ours."

Eddie reached into his door well and pulled out a snubnosed .38.

"Get out, Johnny."

"What?"

"Get out. Now!"

Johnny felt like something was crushing his heart. He got
out of the car, and stood in the whirling dust. Eddie did too.

"Now look in the trunk, bud," Eddie said. Reaching inside, he popped the trunk.

Johnny walked around to the back slowly, very slowly ...
already knowing what he would find.

And there she was, Connie, lying crumpled in the trunk,
blood all over her face and dress.

"You see how it is, Johnny boy," Eddie said. "I don't want
no baby. I'm just not cut out for managing the Little League.
And maybe now you can understand how I don't have much
patience with mere words. What you do-let's pretend-that
don't quite make it. What's lying in there, that would be the
real thing. If you know what I mean."

"You know you can't get away with this." When Johnny
said it he almost laughed at himself. It was one of the lines all
TV writers hated most. So corny, so hackneyed. So Barnaby
Jones.

But given his messy situation, so appropriate.

"Oh yes I can," Eddie replied. "My girlfriend gets pregnant
by a slick guy from Hollywood. She demands that he takes
care of the baby, and when she refuses to have an abortion he
brings her out here to kill her. But lo and behold, they fight
and kill one another instead. Stenz is going to swear he heard
you two fighting. Connie dumped him last year. Unlike you,
asshole, he's a real pal."

Johnny felt the fury whipping through him again, but
worse, he felt a cringe-inducing embarrassment. "Did you have
this in mind all the time?" he asked. "From the first day?"

"That's right," Eddie answered. "From day one. See,
Johnny boy, you ain't the only sharp guy in town. I betcha I
could write those scripts with their twists and turns even better than you. Now you stand right over there." He pointed out
into the night desert.