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

A spinning roundhouse kick to the ear would take this fucker’s head off, and maybe make it hard for him to do arithmetic from that point on. A straight-leg power kick would knock him clean over that car behind him, and God knows what would get broken? But, along with Rudolf Nureyev, Bruce Lee had the ability to hang in the air unlike few who had ever lived. Nureyev and Lee seemed to sail through the air, accomplish their task, and, when they wanted to, land softly on the ground.

So Bruce decided a sail-through-the-air leap that contained a lot of height but little forward thrust was the safest move. He could catch air, look damn cool, then stop his flight by tapping his foot on this asshole’s chest area, knocking him backward, dropping him on his butt, and teaching this motherfucker a lesson.

And that’s exactly what he did. Knocking Cliff right on his butt, to the applause of the crew. The blond stuntman looked up from the ground with a goofy smile on his face and said, “Nice leap, Twinkle Toes.” Then as he got off the ground he said, “Do it again.”

Okay, now I’m gonna put my foot through this fucker’s chest , Bruce thought. I just gotta make sure this asshole doesn’t break his tailbone when he hits the ground.

So, with less height and more forward thrust, he took his second leap at the stuntman, who pivoted his body at the last minute. And the master martial artist practically fell into his waiting arms. Then Cliff, holding on to his leg and belt, swung the martial artist like a cat, hard, into a parked car on the set.

Bruce heard a crunch sound emit from his lower spine when he smashed into the automobile and his shoulder blade caught the passenger-door handle. He was really hurt. Looking up from the cement pavement, Bruce saw the honky stuntman smiling down at him.

Bruce really didn’t want to hurt Cliff. He just wanted to show him up. But Cliff wanted to hurt Bruce. If by slamming him into that car he had fucked up Bruce’s back and neck for the rest of his life, Cliff would have been fine with that.

As Bruce picked himself off the ground, he watched Cliff take his fighting stance for the third round. And he recognized it as a military hand-to-hand-combat stance.

Bruce was mad as hell at this fucker for hurting him. But also, for the first time, he saw his opponent for what he was. He wasn’t just some cowboy stuntman redneck. Bruce knew Cliff knew what he was doing. Bruce realized Cliff had suckered him into taking him lightly and into doing the same move twice. Bruce could have gone at Cliff in fourteen different ways that the stuntman never could have blocked. But by pretending to be an untrained lunkhead, Cliff caused Bruce to go the lazy way and play right into the stuntman’s hands. If Cliff’s response hadn’t’ve been so vicious, Bruce could have almost admired it.

Bruce also quickly recognized that, while Cliff wasn’t anywhere near as skilled as the opponents he fought in any of his martial-arts tournaments, he was something they weren’t .

He was a killer .

Bruce could see Cliff had killed men before with his bare hands.

He could see Cliff wasn’t fighting Bruce Lee.

Cliff was fighting his instinct to kill Bruce Lee.

The martial artist often wondered, if the day came that he found himself in a kill-or-be-killed situation with a skilled fighter, how would he respond? Well, it looked like that day was today .

Fortunately, the third round was broken up by the stunt gaffer’s wife, just as it got started. And, as he knew he would be, Cliff was quickly fired. The problem with all this was when Cliff was brought on the set of The Green Hornet, it wasn’t as a day-player ringer meant to give Kato a public spanking. He was just meant to double Rick during the actor’s guest-star gig. The stunt gaffer, Randy Lloyd, didn’t want to hire Cliff in the first place—because Randy believed Cliff was guilty of killing his wife. And Randy worked with his wife, Janet, who very much believed Cliff was guilty of killing his wife. And, frankly, they’d rather hire somebody for a job who they didn’t think was guilty of killing his wife. There were a lot of transgressions people could forgive, especially in the sixties. But a stuntman who killed his wife and tried to break the back of the TV-show lead in front of the crew wasn’t one of them. After the Bruce Lee Incident, for all intents and purposes, Cliff stopped being Rick’s stunt double and started being his gofer.

Rick was so mad about that whole Bruce Lee Incident that Cliff thought he was going to fire him too. But then who would drive Rick to work? Sure, he could find somebody to do it. But at the end of the day, it was just easier to forgive Cliff. Rick paid Cliff a nominal salary to drive him places, do odd jobs, and be available when he needed him. A salary that was supposed to be augmented by getting stunt gigs. But after the Bruce Lee Incident, the already meager stunt work he got, due to the speculation in town that he was a murderer, dried up even more. The Hollywood stunt community didn’t need another reason not to hire Cliff, but now they had one, and it was Cliff who gave it to them. Rick’s little story that morning about the prick AD on Battle of the Coral Sea was actually quite apropos.

However, Cliff knew that one of the most interesting things about Hollywood was, ultimately, it was a small fucking town. One of these days, on the street, in a parking lot, in a restaurant, or at a red light, he was going to see that little prick Bruce Lee again. And on that day, ain’t nobody except the police gonna be breaking it up!

Having finished putting back Rick’s TV antenna, and with nothing better to do until around seven-thirty, when he’ll pick his boss up from the set, Cliff is driving Rick’s Cadillac down Sunset Boulevard, on his way to the movies.

As Cliff sits parked at a red light, visualizing knocking Bruce Lee’s block off, he glances to his right at the Aquarius Theater with its huge colorful painted mural of the hit stage show Hair . And he spots two of the same hippie girls he saw this morning, including the saucy tall brunette number with the pickles who locked eyes with him and flashed the peace sign. Both girls stand in front of the Aquarius with their thumbs stuck out, trying to hitch a ride. The brunette is still dressed the same way she was this morning—cutoff Levi’s, crochet halter top, bare feet, and a coat of filthy grime.

The brunette hippie pickle girl spots Cliff, in a different car from this morning, across the street, going in the opposite direction.

She smiles, waves, points at him, and squawks, “Hey, you!”

He smiles at her and waves back.

She yells across traffic at him, “What happened to your Volkswagen?”

He yells across traffic back at her, “This is my boss’s car!”

She holds out her thumb. “How about a lift?” Tugging her thumb.

Cliff points his finger in the opposite direction. “Not goin’ my way.”

She shakes her head sadly and yells, “Big mistake!”

He yells back, “Probably!”

“You’re gonna think about me all day!” she warns.

He yells back, “Probably!”

The light on Sunset Boulevard turns green, and traffic starts moving again.

He gives her a little salute, and she gives him a sad-little-girl bye-bye wave as the cream-yellow Cadillac drives off.

When he gets to Sunset and La Brea, he makes a left and drives down La Brea Boulevard. Sam Riddle, the lunchtime disc jockey on KHJ radio, reads the copy for a commercial for Tanya Tanning Butter. Not tanning lotion, which protects you from the sun’s harmful rays, but tanning butter, which accelerates burning. Cliff drives past Pink’s Hot Dogs, on the corner of La Brea and Melrose. There are so many people outside crowded around the hot-dog stand, you’d think they were giving away free pussy, not selling overpriced chili dogs. Cliff moves the Cadillac into the right-hand lane and makes a right when he gets to Beverly Boulevard. He drives a short distance down Beverly and pulls up in front of a little movie theater and parks the car.