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

Rick rooted for her every time.

Forty minutes later, Rick has wiped the cold cream off his face, combed his hair back into a half-ass version of his normal pompadour, climbed into his street clothes, and cleaned up the trailer from his earlier temper tantrum. He lights up a Red Apple cigarette and is getting ready to find Norman, the 1st AD, and tell him a horseshit story about how he accidentally broke the window, when another knock happens against his trailer door. He figures it’s the 2nd AD, with tomorrow’s call sheet telling him what time he has to be here. So he’s a little surprised when he twists the doorknob and finds Jim Stacy standing outside his trailer.

“Oh, hey, man,” says Rick.

“Hey, Rick, great job with that last scene, man,” Jim Stacy says.

“Oh shit, well, you too, Jim,” Rick replies, “and congratulations on the first day of your new show.”

“First day of the pilot,” Jim corrects.

Rick waves away Stacy’s qualification. “Aw, horseshit, you know CBS is gonna pick it up. They wouldn’t be spendin’ so damn much money if they weren’t.”

“Famous last words,” reminds Stacy.

“ And … it’s a good show,” Rick adds.

“Well, it’s definitely a better one after your two scenes,” Stacy says. “Hey, Rick, I was wonderin’, you wanna go out and get a drink tonight?”

“Well, shitfire!” Rick exclaims. “You know I do.”

Stacy smiles.

“Where ya thinkin’ ‘bout?” Rick questions.

“I got a little place by my house in San Gabriel,” Stacy explains. “They’re kinda expecting me to stop by and celebrate my first day. I hope that ain’t too far away for ya?”

“Shit, what’d I care,” Rick tells him. “My car’s in the shop, so my stunt double’s giving me a ride.”

“Will he mind?” Jim asks.

“No way, man,” Rick assures him. “He’s cool as hell, you should meet ’em.”

“Well, let me get changed, wipe this pancake off my face so people don’t think I’m some Kansas City faggot, and why don’t you follow me on my bike to the bar?”

With Rick in the passenger seat and Cliff behind the wheel, they follow behind Jim Stacy driving on his motorcycle till he pulls into the parking lot of a bar painted barn red, with the colorful name “the Drinker’s Hall of Fame.” Painted on the red walls are comic caricatures of famous Hollywood drunks. W. C. Fields, Humphrey Bogart, Buster Keaton, and a drawing of Lee Marvin from Cat Ballou .

Jim Stacy pulls his motorbike up the gravel-covered driveway, then cuts off the engine. Cliff pulls Rick’s Cadillac next to him. This is obviously one of James Stacy’s watering holes.

The three macho guys enter the establishment. At eight in the evening, the dark bar isn’t packed, but it’s packed with regulars. The Drinker’s Hall of Fame is a nostalgia-based cozy watering hole for San Gabriel locals, actors, and musicians. Memorabilia of famous Hollywood citizens who ruined their lives with booze litter the walls. The four biggest framed posters on the wall, the highest place of honor, are reserved for the bar’s four patron saints.

W. C. Fields in his gray top hat, looking at a poker hand. Humphrey Bogart, looking sexy in his trench coat and snap-brim fedora. John Barrymore during his handsome silent-film days, showing off his famous profile. And the great stone-face Buster Keaton in his flat pork pie hat and black vest from his silent-movie-star heyday.

Other famous drinkers line the upper area of the bar, over the shelves of bottles, in framed black-and-white eight-by-tens that have turned yellow or brown. Some are publicity shots, some are from specific movies, and some are signed personally to the bar. Lee Marvin in his Liberty Valance white shirt and black vest, giving the camera a grinning leer (signed by Lee to the Hall of Fame). Sam Peckinpah, fiery bandanna on his head, standing next to a movie camera, pointing at something (signed by Sam to the bar). Beefcake Aldo Ray in a sweaty wifebeater in a still from God’s Little Acre (signed by Aldo to the bartender, Maynard). A fairly recent photo of a big and jowly Lon Chaney Jr. (signed by Lon to the bar). Richard Harris from the movie Major Dundee (unsigned). “Big Mouth” Martha Raye staring at the camera with pop eyes and mouth wide open in a comic publicity still from the thirties (unsigned). And Richard Burton in a still from Night of the Iguana (unsigned).

Off in the left-hand corner of the bar, clustered around an old-fashioned typewriter, are four standing framed photographs of famous alcoholic authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Dorothy Parker (all unsigned).

Other themed bric-a-brac nestled on the shelves behind the bar include a W. C. Fields lamp, which consists of a comic caricature of Fields leaning drunk against a lamppost.

An Aurora model kit of the Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.) sits by a tip jar on the bar.

Attached to the men’s room door is the Elaine Havelock psychedelic John Barrymore poster. On the ladies’ room door is the Elaine Havelock psychedelic poster of Jean Harlow.

In the piano section of the bar, on the wall behind the piano, is a large three sheet of the new film The Wild Bunch , directed by regular and Hall of Fame member Sam Peckinpah (signed to the Hall of Fame by Sam, William Holden, and Ernest Borgnine).

On the wall in the area where the pool table is located is the Elaine Havelock psychedelic poster of W. C. Fields and Mae West, a one-sheet for a new Lee Marvin movie called Sergeant Ryker , and that reprinted head-shop poster of the old Bogart flick All Through the Night .

Except for the four large posters of Fields, Bogart, Barrymore, and Keaton, none of the other posters are framed. They’re just stuck on the walls with thumb tacks.

As the three fellows walk through the door, they hear the piano player playing O. C. Smith’s Little Green Apples .

God didn’t make Little Green Apples

And it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime

There’s no such thing as Dr. Seuss, no Disneyland,

no Mother Goose, no nursery rhymes

Jim Stacy gives the man behind the piano a wave, and the man behind the piano gives Jim a head nod of recognition. Stacy walks Rick and Cliff up to the bar area, where he greets the bartender with a warm handshake across the bar.

“How ya doin’, Maynard?”

The friendly barkeeper says, “How was your first day?”

Still clasping hands, Jim says, “Well, they want me back tomorrow, so I guess it coulda gone worse.” Turning toward his two new friends, Jim introduces them to the man to know at the Hall of Fame.

“Boys, this here is Maynard. Maynard”—gesturing toward Rick and Cliff—“these are the boys, Rick Dalton and his stunt double, Cliff.”

Maynard shakes hands with both, starting with Cliff. “Cliff.”

Cliff repeats the bartender’s name. “Maynard.”

Then Maynard lights up as he shakes Rick’s hand. “Oh hell, Jake Cahill himself. Good to meetcha, bounty hunter.”

Finishing the handshake, Rick says, “You too, Maynard. Is the doctor in session?”

Maynard guffaws, “The doctor is definitely in session. What can I get ya?”

Rick: “Whiskey sour.”

“How ’bout you, stuntman?” the bartender asks.

“What beer ya got?” Cliff inquires.

“Can: Pabst, Schlitz, Hamm’s, Coors. Bottle: Bud, Carlsberg, Miller High Life. Tap: Busch, Falstaff, Old Chattanooga, and Country Club.”

“Old Chattanooga,” says Cliff.

Maynard points a finger at Jim, the regular, and recites his order: “Brandy Alexander for Lancer over here.” Then the doctor moves off to service his patients.