Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

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Sometimes the baby kicked like a motherfucker then it would suddenly STOP, not just for a little but for it seemed like a whole day and she’d freak & call Rikki who would have to stop what he was doing which was probably smoking an executive branch & wacking off to Korean porn & come over. They’d kawasaki to the free family clinic in Venice. She always loved the beach, wanted to live at the beach, right on Speedway, even though they’d probably end up in Hollywood because the beach was so expensive. But she knew you could probably still find cool places if you used the service Ashton Kutcher talked about on Jimmy Kimmel.

She/they needed money. Initially Rikki’s fosters gave them $2,500 but that was like 45 days ago & Rikki was worried to ask for more because his fostermom maybe had to go to some kind of rehab that cost like $39,000 & insurance didn’t pay. He was hoping/waiting/expecting for Jim to present another check soon, or at least to ask if any monies were needed by the young couple. Reeyonna didn’t like the idea of asking them again anyway, though she did consider getting married, just for a moment, thinking that would be a new & genuine/acceptable reason for them to hand over more cash.

She was unsettled & a little depressed, taking Vicodin now just to feel better. Tom-Tom said as a nurse that Vicodin wouldn’t hurt the baby, a doc at the clinic said that too, cuz she asked him. Then he asked if she was an addict, & when she laughed & said no, the look on his face was like she’d said yes, he said it would be best not to ingest of course not just street drugs but any R xdrugs that had not been prescribed, he said there were safer drugs for pain that he might prescribe if she had the demonstrable need , but generally, Vicodin was relatively safe re the fetus, & if she was going to do that, if she was going to ingest, which he of course did not recommend, then Vicodin was better than something she might get from the street . She laughed no no no & he smiled, but not broadly.

They/she now were living on a hill called Mt Olympus in an awesome house Tom-Tom said belonged to the old woman Betty White who won that contest to host SNL a few years ago, which ReeRee & her friends actually saw, very stoned, never until then having heard of her. Tom-Tom said they (even tho Rikki didn’t even stay over so much) couldn’t stay for free anymore & it pissed her off that her brother didn’t lift a finger to say a word. Tom-Tom said they needed to pay $750 a month for their room there, which was half as much as any apts she was already looking at for Rikki & her online, but she was tired, & with her unabated morning throw-up which left her sour and weakened for the rest of each day relieved just to be able to stay in one place. But she was proud that at the peak of her discomfort & feelings of being wronged she not once considered crawling back to her old neighborhood to throw in the towel & stay at Rikki’s, a stone’s throw from Hooker Queen.

The roof had a beautiful glimmering view of the city, she swishered it all from the top of the house, there was a safe way up there that Tom-Tom hadn’t even thought about yet because she was still so busy getting overall settled, but it was so beautiful & peaceful at night for Ree to have her solitude, & to smoke and look out at the city which held her destiny. And yet, stonerviewed, everything seemed through a darkly glass wrong-way-up, meaning, the trillions of winky little stars could not compete with the carpetwavy staccato citybrightness thus throwing in their own celestial towels & changing partners with the frippery earth, that had long abandoned its natural state of loamy black pitch & countrynight mysteries, this earth was too showy & shiny to stay put, out of vanity, this earth obliged by flipping over to take the crown of (now) starspackled sky.

The house deadended on Vulcan Drive. ReeRee thought it was named after StarTrek but Tom-Tom said all the streets in Mt Olympus were named for the Gods & that she should google Vulcan. She did, it said Vulcan was a god having to do with fire but it was so boring.

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So she called Sears in Valencia and asked for the portrait studio & when a man answered she asked if Jacquie was there, & when he said who may I ask is calling she hung up.

She took a cab straight to her old house. It cost so much money because the cab had to take her back but she didn’t want to involve Rikki, didn’t want her mother to have that on him. She knew what she was going to take, she needed something of value to sell on craigslist, & if she at the same time could deliver a blow to Hooker Bitch Thief, so much the better.

She knew where they were, some were hidden, some always kept (somewhat) in the open, because Hooker liked to see them, hold them, for comfort, she loved them more than she ever loved her children, especially her daughter, who she saw fit to fuck over by taking kidporn & robbing without qualm.

Reeyonna felt nothing, why should she, eye for an eye, they were reparations, & their spoils could not even come close to making whole ReeRee’s loss. Mutherfuck that old stinkyass whore. She found a soccer duffel bag from her closet & hooliganized Jacquie’s makeup into it, writing ThiefWHORE in lipstick on the mirror like in a horror movie. Then she went to the special place they were hidden, a total of about 6 cameras & long lenses & battery packs, & she took them all.

The Mother Load

Naturally,

Bud followed ICM’s lead & contacted the office of Rod Fulbright, David Simon’s rep. In a two-week period, meetings were set, bumped, reset, and bumped again. Because both cancellations had been last minute, Fulbright’s asst phoned and emailed.

The meeting was set for 8AM at Soho House. The phone rang at nine on the night before; when caller ID announced “C A A,” the burgeoning novelist jumped out of his skin, fearing the worst. In Bud’s experience, a 3rd strike signaled the end of a meeting’s life cycle. The good news was, the agency was confirming.

There was always the chance it could abort in the morning. Bud told himself that wasn’t likely because of the earliness of the set hour — a bullshit rationale that still managed to provide feeble comfort.

. .

His golf ball-size, precancerous prostate nearly had him under house arrest; it ruled over him like a despot, forcing him to piss every 20 minutes. He envied his mother because at least she was diapered & didn’t have to get up 17 times in the middle of the night. No wonder he was chronically fatigued.

The urologist never suggested medication that might help (even Dolly was on Renessa), and for some reason Bud always forgot to ask. Seemingly, the only arrow in Dr. Deconcini’s quiver was a technique called “the double void.” The maneuver entailed remaining at the urinal when you were done, & willing yourself to pee all over again. The first and only time he tried it was in a public restroom. As Bud stood idle, ruminating over his novel, his mother’s money and his bladder, he eventually noticed a guy washing his hands a little too long, trying to catch Bud’s eye in the mirror, like he was maybe looking for action.

He almost blew off Soho House, out of sheer exhaustion. Dolly’s caregiver had a family emergency, and it was too late to find a replacement. Bud slept — or rather, didn’t — on the fold-out couch in the living room. The baby monitor was stuck at an insanely loud pitch; putting cushions and pillows over it didn’t much help. (He couldn’t bring himself, morally, to shut it off.) Under the nonstop drone of Fox talking heads, he could hear Dolly farting and belching and muttering to herself. “They want me dead ”—“Dirtycunt lying bitch ”—“Then why don’t you go and fuck yourself ?” As he drifted off, she began to call out, at first shy & plaintive then insistent, imperious: “Bud? Bud… Bud? Bud. BUD!” When he asked with a shout what she wanted, Dolly’s answer was always the same. In a pitiable Baby Jane voice, she cried, “I don’t want to fall! I’m afraid, I’m afraid! They’re all falling! Nancy Reagan! Betty White! Zsa Zsa! Hips are breaking, right and left, left and right!” He bellowed reassurances but she kept at it until he was forced to climb from the couch and go to her room. He’d tell her that she wasn’t going to fall, that neither he nor her caregivers would allow it. Her mood instantly brightened, her wrinkleless face transforming to a sweet little girl’s. Then she’d pass on a nugget or two from the tabloids he brought her each week.