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

Oh, great , he thinks, now I’m crying in front of children about my fucked-up life? Holy shit, I’ve turned into my Uncle Dave.

As fast as she can, Mirabella is out of her director’s chair and on her knees at Rick’s feet, patting his right kneecap in an effort to comfort him. As his fist violently wipes away the wetness around his eyes, with both embarrassment and self-loathing, he chuckles to indicate to the small child he’s okay. “Heh heh, boy, I must be getting old. I can’t talk ’bout nothin’ touchin’ wit’out gettin’ all choked up, heh heh.”

The little girl thinks she understands and continues to console the weepy cowboy, who is now, in her eyes, starting to resemble the Cowardly Lion.

“It’s okay, Caleb. It’s okay,” she assures him. “It sounds like a really sad book.” Shaking her head in sympathy: “Poor Easy Breezy.” She shrugs her shoulders and says, “I’m practically crying and I haven’t even read it.”

He says under his breath, “Wait till you’re fifteen, you’ll be livin’ it.”

She doesn’t understand and asks, “What?”

He plasters a smile under his glued-on mustache and says, “Nothin’, Pumpkin Puss, I’m just teasing.” Then, holding up his western paperback, he proclaims, “And you know, you might be right. Maybe this book hits harder than I gave it credit for.”

The little girl’s eyes narrow, and she gets back on her feet, rising to her full height, and informs him, “I don’t like names like ‘Pumpkin Puss.’ But since you’re upset, we’ll talk about that some other time.”

He laughs slightly to himself at her reaction, as she climbs back into her director’s chair next to him. Once she’s back sitting comfortably in her chair, she looks Rick up and down in all his hairy-faced, brown rawhide-fringed-jacket glory.

“So this is your Caleb DeCoteau look, huh?”

“Yeah. What do you think? Do you not like it?”

“No, you look groovy.”

Yeah, she’s right. It’s not so bad , he thinks.

“It’s just … I didn’t know Caleb was supposed to look groovy.”

Oh shit, I fucking knew it , Rick thinks.

“Do I look too much like a hippie?”

“Well,” the little actor contemplates, “I wouldn’t say, too much .”

“But I look like a hippie?” the big actor clarifies.

“Well,” she asks, confused, “that’s the idea, ain’t it?”

“Apparently,” Rick dismissively snorts.

The little actor gives a more elaborate evaluation of her first impression. “Look, that’s not what I thought when I first read the script, but it’s not a bad idea .” Taking him in more with both her eyes and her eye toward characterization, “In fact, the more I look at it, the more I like it.”

“Really?” Rick asks. Then he challenges her, “Why?”

“Well …” The eight-year-old thinks. “Just for me, I find hippies … kinda sexy … kinda creepy … and kinda scary. And sexy, creepy, and scary is a pretty strong choice for Caleb.”

Rick snorts again and thinks, What does this little twerp know about sexy? But her words do calm him down about his anxiety over his Caleb DeCoteau look.

Now that Rick’s questions have been answered, Mirabella’s got a few questions of her own. “Caleb, may I ask you something personal?”

His one-word answer is, “Shoot.”

She asks a question of her fellow actor that she seriously would like to know the answer to: “What’s it like playing the bad guy?”

“Well, it’s actually pretty new for me,” he tells her. “I used to have my own cowboy show once. And on that show I played the good guy.”

“Which do you like playing better?” she asks.

“The good guy,” he says without any ambiguity.

“But,” the little girl counters, “Charles Laughton said that villains are the best parts.”

Of course that’s what that fat queer would say , Rick thinks. But instead of talking to a little girl about fat fags, he tries to explain to her why he prefers playing the good guy.

“Look, when I was a kid and played cowboys and Indians, I didn’t pretend I was some damn Injun. I was the cowboy. Besides, the hero gets to kiss the lead actress or, in the case of a TV series, that week’s female guest star. Heroes get the love scenes. Closest thing to a love scene a villain gets is when they let you rape somebody. And the bad guy always loses the fight to the good guy.”

“So what?” she says. “It’s not a real fight.”

“Yeah, but people watch it,” he explains, “and now they think that guy can beat me up.”

She rolls her little eyes and says, “Well, then, good—that means they believe the story.”

“It’s embarrassing,” he emphasizes.

Oh my god, she thinks, this guy is incredible.

“How old are you ?” she asks him in exasperation. “I’m sure too old to be thinking like that.”

“Hey hey hey, calm down,” he tells her. “When people ask me what I like better, I assume there ain’t no right or wrong answer.”

That actually makes sense to the young actor’s sense of fair play.

“You know what, Caleb, you’re a hundred percent right.”

He gives her a head nod that serves as a thank-you.

Then she reminds him of something: “You know our big scene is tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” remembering, “our big scene together is tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. And in that scene, you yell at me and grab me and scare me.”

He assures her, “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

She qualifies her instruction with the caveat, “Well, I don’t want you to really hurt me,” then she zeroes in on Rick and points her little finger at him. “But I want you to scare me.” She continues intensely, “Yell at me as loud as you want. Grab me, grab me hard. Shake me—shake the shit out of me. Scare me. Don’t make me act scared, make me react scared. Anything less,” she explains, “and you’re treating me like a baby, and I don’t like it when adults treat me like a baby.” After her intense finger-pointing, she slips back to her normal snotty demeanor. “The scene we do tomorrow, I want to put on my reel. And the only reason I can’t put scenes on my reel that I want to is because the adults in the scenes aren’t good enough. Don’t use my age as an excuse to be anything less than great—okay?”

“Okay,” he says.

“Promise?” she insists.

“I promise,” he assures her.

“Let’s shake on it,” she suggests.

Having reached an understanding, the two actors shake hands.

Chapter Thirteen

“The Sweet Body of Deborah”

While everybody in the stunt community knows Cliff Booth is Rick Dalton’s stunt double, it’s not the thing he’s most known for. It’s just the most legitimate thing in the stunt community he’s known for. On the list of things that Cliff Booth is known for, it ranks about number four. The number-one thing he used to be known for was his incredible military record. Having more confirmed kills of Japanese enemy soldiers than any other American serviceman fighting in the Pacific theater is one hell of a feat. And that’s just confirmed kills. Ask any of his Filipino-brother resistance fighters how many unconfirmed kills of Japanese enemy soldiers Cliff Booth was responsible for, their answer would be, Who fucking knows?

But once there was widespread speculation that in 1966 Cliff Booth killed his wife, his status as a war hero became the second thing he was most known for inside the stunt community.

Number three on the list of things that Cliff Booth was known for inside the stunt community were his talents as a “ringer.”