Квентин Тарантино - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

So he was shocked when Buster booked Brandy in another competition in Watts, against a male monster named Augie Doggie, before she had fully recovered from the last beating she took.

But Buster was sure of himself. “Hey, man, I promised you twenty thousand dollars, and I promised myself twenty thousand dollars, and we’re right there, man! This fight is the last fuckin’ fight!”

“No shit it’s the last fucking fight!” Cliff shouted. “There’s no fucking way she can win against that beast Augie Doggie in her condition.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Buster animatedly expressed. “She ain’t gotta win. It’s about her undefeated reputation. We enter her in the fight and bet on the other dog.”

That’s when Cliff attacked Buster. They grappled in savage combat inside of Cliff’s trailer for about four minutes, till Cliff broke Buster Cooley’s neck.

Killing him.

They fought around five in the afternoon. Cliff watched TV next to Buster’s dead body till about two in the morning. Then, after the drive-in closed, Cliff crammed the dead body in the trunk of Cooley’s car, a used white 1965 Impala Sport Coupe he’d bought with his Brandy winnings. With Brandy in the passenger seat, Cliff drove to Compton and abandoned the car there with the keys placed in the sun visor. He walked Brandy away from the car all night till daybreak. And when the sun came up, he and his dog hopped on a bus back home to Van Nuys.

This wasn’t the first time Cliff committed murder and got away with it. The first time was in Cleveland in the fifties. The second time was when Cliff killed his wife two years earlier. This was his third time, and Cliff got away with this one too. He never heard a word about what eventually happened to Buster Cooley or his car. In fact, nobody he knew ever brought Buster up again. That was last year. And since that time Cliff’s only fought Brandy twice, when he was really hard up for cash. But after the last time, Cliff promised Brandy, even though Brandy didn’t understand, he’d never fight her again. And that was a promise Cliff intended to keep.

In Cliff’s trailer on Friday night, February 7, 1969, he snaps his fingers and points at a chair. Next to Cliff’s recliner sits a wooden chair with a little dog pillow on it. Brandy hops on top of it and takes her position on her hind legs, waiting for Cliff to prepare her dinner. Cliff takes his time preparing Brandy’s dinner, even though he knows this is torture for the dog. But that’s okay—Cliff knows better than most that torture can build character. Before he prepares her meal, he first opens his refrigerator and removes from a plastic six-pack ring a can of Old Chattanooga beer.

His small black-and-white rabbit-eared television is tuned to the local ABC affiliate, KABC Channel 7. A commercial for Cliff’s brand of cigarettes, Red Apple, plays on the little monochromatic screen. A sixties-era regular guy with Brylcreemed hair in a black suit and tie stares into the camera in a head-and-shoulders frame.

An off-screen announcer asks the guy, “Would you take a bite of a Red Apple?”

The regular man answers enthusiastically, “You bet I would!”

Then, from below frame, he brings a big red apple up to his mouth and bites into it with a healthy crunch.

Cliff takes a sip of his Old Chattanooga and then lays the can on the kitchen counter. He opens his kitchen cabinet and removes two cans of Wolf’s Tooth dog food ( Good Food for Mean Dogs ). Cliff opens the cans with a cheapy hand-crank can opener, then dunks the muck, still in the shape of the can, into Brandy’s dog dish. Knowing it’s feeding time and watching the food slither out of the can and plop into her dish, it’s killing Brandy to stay in her chair and not make a noise. But Cliff’s trained her and trained her well. She might not know much, but she knows what’s expected of her during feeding time. And she knows damn well that she must stay in that chair and sit without whining till her master gives her the signal that she can eat.

On the little black-and-white television screen, a sixties-era female Marlo Thomas type with a small bouffant hairdo stares into the camera in a head-and-shoulders shot as an off-screen announcer asks her, “Would you take a bite of a Red Apple?”

She answers, “You bet I would!” Then she brings a huge red apple up to her mouth and takes a big crunchy bite.

In her chair, Brandy wags her tail furiously from left to right, while her muscled body vibrates with excitement, anticipation, and canine instinct. Now that Cliff is through plopping both cans of dog food into Brandy’s dog dish, he turns his attention to the stove and removes the pot of boiling water from the burner. Cliff pours the pot of steaming-hot noodles into a strainer, then, after giving the strainer a couple of shakes to lose the excess water, he dumps the noodles back into the pot.

On the TV screen, a pretty young black woman with naked shoulders and a big round Afro looks into the camera as the off-screen announcer asks, “Would you take a bite of a Red Apple?” She looks at the off-screen announcer and says, “You bet I would.” Then the Afro gal brings a lit cigarette up from below frame, takes a big drag, and lets out a long stream of smoke with a pleasurable moan, then says, “Take a bite and feel all right, take a bite of a Red Apple.”

Cliff takes the cheese-powder packet from the ripped-open box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, tears it open, and pours it on top of the noodles in the pot. He stirs up the orange powder with a big wooden spoon and a lot of muscle. The directions say to add milk and butter, but Cliff thinks if you can afford to add milk and butter you can afford to eat something else. As Cliff prepares his dinner, he hears a whine escape from a vibrating and twitching Brandy. Cliff looks at her. Placing the pot with the mac and cheese on the counter, he turns and gives Brandy his full attention.

“Did I just hear a whine?” Cliff asks the canine. Brandy knows she’s not supposed to whine, she just couldn’t help it, she’s a dog. Cliff continues to address the excited dog with an authoritative tone. “What did I tell you about whining? You whine, you don’t eat,” Cliff instructs, “and I throw all this shit in the trash,” referring to the two cans of Wolf’s Tooth dog food piled in her dog dish. “I don’t want to, but I will.” Cliff clarifies, “Do you understand?”

Brandy answers with a distinct “Woof!”

“You better,” Cliff tells her.

He then picks up a big bag of Gravy Train, a very popular dry dog food of the era, and pours it on top of the wet food in the dog dish. It brings the mountain of dog food to a peak. Cliff could give a shit if the dry kibble spills out of the bowl all over the kitchen floor, because no matter where it goes, Brandy will find it and eat it.

On the television, after the off-screen announcer has described all the different assortments of fine Red Apple tobacco products, the commercial cuts to a head-and-shoulders shot of famous actor Burt Reynolds, smoking a Red Apple plastic-tip cigar.

The off-screen announcer gets his attention: “Hey, Burt Reynolds, would you take a bite of a Red Apple?”

Burt looks at the camera and says, “Oh, you bet I would.” He takes a drag from the cigar and blows it out, then says the Red Apple Tobacco slogan: “Take a bite and feel all right, take a bite … of a Red Apple.”

Cliff grabs the pot by the handle and goes into the living room and sits in his recliner in front of the TV set. Brandy is all eyes and ears. Once Cliff is settled in his chair and eats his first forkful of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, he makes a small clicking noise with the side of his mouth.

That’s Brandy’s signal—she leaps out of the chair, bounds into the kitchen area, and wolfishly devours the food in her dog dish. Cliff changes the channel on his little TV set from KABC Channel 7 to KCBS Channel 2 and the Friday-night detective show Mannix , starring Mike Connors and Gail Fisher as detective Joe Mannix and his black secretary, Peggy. On the TV screen, Peggy seems worried as she relates the incidents of last night to her boss, Joe Mannix, as he sits behind his desk.