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

The industry that used his ranch to make their B-westerns and TV shows for four decades had forgotten him. His family had forgotten him, leaving him to die in a dilapidated rat trap amongst horseshit and hay. Squeaky offered the old man the one thing that his socked-away money couldn’t buy. A loving touch, a sweet voice, and a sensitive ear. When Squeaky told George, or anybody else, she loved the old man, that wasn’t just hippie singsong. That was Squeaky sincerely expressing her inner emotions about the old man it was her pleasure to look after.

When she returns to the bedroom, she helps the blind old man get into a crisp white western-style shirt, then she does up the little buttons. She holds out some tan slacks that he steps into one leg at a time. The young caretaker ties a western bolo tie around his stiff shirt collar. And combs the wispy white hair on his head with a brush. Then, taking him by the wrist and elbow, she assists him through the house toward the kitchen table. As they make their way at George’s slow steady pace, Squeaky tells him, “Now see, you look so handsome. I’m such a lucky girl that you always want to look so attractive for me.”

“Stop teasing me,” George mock-complains.

“Who’s teasing?” Squeaky asks. “You know breakfast tastes better when you put in the effort to take care of yourself.”

She eases the old man into a chair at the kitchen table. She lays her hands on his stooped shoulders and asks in his ear, “Sanka or Postum?”

“Postum,” says George.

“I swear, you’re gonna turn into a cup of Postum,” Squeaky kids. “Now, I started making scrambled eggs ’cause that’s what I’ve made lately. But maybe you’re getting tired of that and would like something different?”

“You mean like scrambled eggs and carnitas?” George asks.

“No,” Squeaky smiles. “I was thinking more like do you want scrambled or sunny-side up.”

The old man thinks a moment and says, “Sunny-side up.”

She kisses him on the top of his head and goes about fixing his breakfast.

On KZLA, a Sav-on drugstore radio commercial plays out of the speaker:

“Join the Sav-on hit parade, on all these items you can save, Sav-on drugstore, Sav-on drugstore, BOOM BOOM! SAV-ON!”

The redhead takes a jar of Postum (a cheap coffee-flavored substitute that old people like) down from the kitchen cabinet. The powder in the jar has dried as solid as a rock. She has to stab it with the handle of the spoon to break off a chunk.

She drops the rock of Postum into George’s coffee cup and pours hot water on it. She puts the cup down in front of George and places his hands on the handle, warning him, “Be careful, it’s hot.”

“You say that every morning,” says George.

“It’s hot every morning,” says Squeaky.

She drops two new eggs into a piping-hot skillet coated with melted bubbling butter. She cuts off three pieces of Jimmy Dean pure pork sausage from the cookie dough–like plastic container into another frying pan. They sizzle. With a spatula, Squeaky moves the two sunny-side up eggs onto a breakfast plate. After adding the sausages, Squeaky places the plate in front of George.

“Would you like me to cut up your sausage and bust your yolk for you?” George makes an affirmative grunt. Squatting down, with a knife and fork, Squeaky cuts up the round sausage patties into bite-size pieces. Then takes George’s fork and busts one yellow yolk, then the other.

“Okay, you’re ready to go,” she informs him. Then throws her arms around his neck from behind and whispers into his ear, “Enjoy, darling. It was made with love.” She kisses him on the side of his head and pads out of the room to let George eat his breakfast in peace.

On KZLA, Sonny James sings the folkloric love story of Running Bear .

Running Bear loved Little White Dove with a love big as the sky

Running Bear loved Little White Dove with a love that couldn’t die

7:30 A.M.

Jay Sebring, the man responsible for creating a revolution in men’s hair design, and whose preeminence in Hollywood hairstyling is undisputed, lies in his bed in his black silk pajamas, watching the Hanna-Barbera cartoon adventure show Jonny Quest. On the television screen, Jonny’s turban-wearing sidekick, Hadji, is casting one of his mystic spells, using his magic word, “Sim-sim-salabim!”

A slight tap on Jay’s closed bedroom door gets his attention.

“Yes, Raymond,” Jay calls to the knocker.

A voice with a proper British accent calls from behind the boudoir barrier, “Ready for your morning coffee, sir?”

Scooching up to a sitting position, Jay calls back, “Yes, I am. Come in.”

The bedroom door opens and Raymond, Jay’s British gentleman’s gentleman, dressed in classic butler attire and carrying in both hands a silver-service breakfast-in-bed tray, enters the room with a cheerful “Good morning, Master Sebring.”

“Good morning, Raymond,” Jay replies.

Crossing the room toward the man in bed, Raymond inquires, “Did you enjoy yourself yesterday evening, sir?”

“Yes, I did,” Jay answers. “Thank you for asking.”

The butler places the tray in front of his master, and Jay examines the service set before him. It contains a chic silver coffeepot, a china teacup on a saucer, a bowl of sugar cubes, a miniature silver pitcher of heavy cream, a warm croissant on a plate, a dish with a pat of butter, a collection of different-flavored jams in tiny jars, and one long-stem red rose in a skinny silver vase.

“Everything looks delish,” says the young man. “What’s for breakfast this morning?”

As Raymond walks to the big picture window and throws open the blackout curtains, flooding the dark room with sudden sunlight, he says, “I was thinking of a nice savory salmon scramble with a side of cottage cheese and half a grapefruit.”

Jay makes a face and says, “That might be too much for me this morning. We had late-night chili burgers at Tommy’s last night.”

Now it’s Raymond’s turn to make a face. The butler has the same regard for Jay ending his night with Tommy’s chili burgers as he does when his master starts his day with a big bowl of Cap’n Crunch, and he responds to this new information with droll sarcasm. “Well, in that case, with a chili burger still digesting in your belly, I can’t imagine you want to have a savory anything.”

Raymond leaves the picture window and returns to his master’s bedside and asks, “Shall I pour the coffee, sir?”

Jay nods his head and says, “That would be nice, Raymond.”

Raymond lifts up the silver coffeepot and pours the java into the china teacup, as he says, “Very well, sir. Why don’t we change that half a grapefruit into a small glass of grapefruit juice.” The butler lifts the small pitcher of half-and-half and pours it into the teacup, and asks, “And shall we continue with coffee, or possibly move on to hot chocolate?”

As Jay ponders this decision, Raymond lifts a tiny spoon off the tray and stirs the cream into the java until it turns the color that Master Sebring prefers.

“I think hot chocolate,” Jay pronounces with aplomb.

Then, with equal theatricality, Raymond says, “Then hot chocolate it is. Would you care to remain in bed watching cartoons , or should the hot chocolate precipitate a change in venue?”

Jay puts on his thinking face and ponders. “Well, I was watching Jonny Quest. But we could?” Looking up at his valet, he inquires, “What do you think, Raymond?”

“Well,” Raymond says, gesturing toward the bright morning sunshine outside his window, “as you can see for yourself, it’s a very sunny, pleasant California morning. If one lived in London and was fortunate enough to wake up on a day like this, one wouldn’t stay in bed and watch cartoons . A day this nice, you wouldn’t even go into work. So may I suggest hot chocolate in your garden so you can thoroughly enjoy it?” Then adding, “You know how you do love your morning beverage with the ghost of Jean Harlow in the garden.”