Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

• • •

LATER ON, RUSTY talked about a script he was working on. “You oughta pay me for it,” he said. He was stoned. He randomly murmured, “You oughta pay me for it,” over and over, a sly, wacko catechism.

“We’re gonna pay you for it,” said Grady reassuringly.

“First we need to see it,” said Cassandra, with a smirk.

Everybody was stoned.

“You’ll see it,” said Rusty.

“Promises, promises,” said Cassandra.

“It’s gonna be good,” said Grady, in his friend’s defense. “I know it’s gonna be good.”

“Got QuestraWorld written all over it,” said Rusty.

“Hope it does,” said Cassandra. “Hope we do make it.”

“How much you wanna spend, Rusty?” asked Grady. “On the budge. On el budjo.”

“Ten,” said Rusty. “But we could do it for seven or eight.”

“Hell,” said Grady. “Do it for three and you can make the cocksucker immediamente. Ipso facto. We’ll get Fucko the robot wonderdog to direct.”

“ I’m gonna direct,” said Rusty, reminding. “And we can’t do it for three.”

“Three ain’t chump change,” said Cassandra. “Lotta movies been made for three.”

“What world are you living in?” said Rusty, cockily.

“Shit, what’d they make Reservoir Dogs for?”

“It wasn’t three,” said Rusty. “Not in 2004 dinero. No way, José.”

“You could be right,” said Cassandra. “Maybe it was two.”

“It’s gonna be good, ” said Grady. “Hell, Cassie, if the man’s starrin in it and the man’s writin it, you know it’s gonna be good. We got in on the ground floor — the man’s the lead in a Spike Jonze! Gonna be a worse triple threat than Billy Bob. Shit, we’re lucky, Cass. Motherfuckers be givin Van Diesel or whatever the fuck his name is twenty million —I can’t even remember the name of that chrome-dome bitch and they’re givin him twenty mill. Fucker has about as much charisma as the head of my dick. Fucker looks like the head of my dick too!”

“How’s that Spike thing goin, anyhow?” asked Cassandra.

“Goin good. Goin real good.”

“Gonna start shooting soon?”

They alternated pulling with lazy industry on the pipe.

“Bout six weeks,” said Rusty, playing it movie star cool.

“You’re in it too, huh,” said Cassandra.

“I’m just doing a cameo,” said Becca.

“Bullshit,” said Rusty, feeling all generous.

“Rusty’s starring, ” said Becca, proudly.

“She’s got a sweet little part,” said Rusty, noblesse oblige. “She sticks her tongue down Drew Barrymore’s mouth.”

“Duelin Drews,” said Grady.

“Bet you’re looking forward to rehearsals,” said Cassandra, lasciviously. “I’d floss my tonsils if I was you.”

“I’m actually not!” said Becca.

“Better not blow your lines,” said Grady to Rusty.

“Blow this,” said Rusty, as he took a hit.

“You might get tongue-tied,” said Grady to Becca. He laughed while grabbing the pipe from his friend. “My man Rusty can write too!” he giddily exclaimed, to no one in particular. He sucked and nearly gagged. An effete, wincing smile imploded above his chin while smoke poured from his nostrils, four-alarm. “Help,” he said, wheezing comically through whitened lips. “I’m having a fuckin heart attack.”

“Ever seen anything Rusty wrote, honey?” asked Cassandra, ignoring her husband’s pulmonary spaz.

“I seen how he writes his name, ” said Grady with a joker’s grin, as he messily recovered. “It look real pretty. ”

“Yeah,” said Rusty. “ Your name’s gonna look pretty too, when it’s on that QuestraWorld check.”

It went on like that for a while. Then Grady started tripping that one of the homies at Valle Verde said Kit Lightfoot was there, and was totally twapped out. The homie said the superstar had a wing all to himself, and whenever they let him walk the grounds, the madre pulled his pud and had to be hustled inside before some paparazzi in a helicopter squeezed off a shot. Cassandra said they should all pile in the G-wagen and go on down. No one was unstoned enough to drive so Avery, a live-in part-time student and all-around gofer, was enlisted as chauffeur.

• • •

GRADY KNEW THE gate guard, who waved them in. They were a few blocks away when de Becker’s men turned them back. As they left, Grady asked the guard about Kit.

“Ain’t seen him,” he responded, with a wink.

Grady was jonesing for a Krispy Kreme. Cassandra pinched his love handle and said, “Why don’t you just have one of these? Feels like about a dozen right here.” Grady told Avery to find them a Krispy Kreme, pronto. Avery called 411 and located a franchise near Knott’s Berry Farm. They went and gorged. Then Cassandra got the urge to visit Knott’s and pan for gold, something she hadn’t done since she was a kid. They spent a few hours there, and Becca had the best time. As they left, the couple argued because Grady wanted to make a “pit stop” at Hustler’s. “I just wanna place one bet.” He wouldn’t say for how much, and that pissed her off. Rusty and Becca leaned against each other in the backseat, eyes shut, wasted. Cassandra fumed while Grady went inside the casino.

He came out five minutes later with a loopy grin.

“One bet,” he said. “See? A man of his word.”

“Asshole. How much did you lose?”

“Five large.”

“Asshole. Feel better?”

“Fuckin a I do. Fuckin a, b, and c too!” Then: “I’m a disciplined motherfucker. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. But it’s fuckin weird, man. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone into a casino and placed one bet. I mean for bupkes! For ten, twenty, a hundred. I cannot tell you how many times I have done that in my fuckin life. And you know what? Man, tell me the odds, but I have never fucking won, not even once. ”

Rusty roused himself from a stupor to laugh, without opening his eyes. Cassandra laughed, then Grady too. Becca was blasted and smiled only because the others were merry and mellow. “And half the time, the dealers get blackjack!”

“What does that tell you, niggah?” said Rusty.

Becca stirred, clinging to him.

“ Tell you what it tells me, dog,” said Grady. “The house always wins.”

Synchronicity

HIS SON LAUGHS wildly at something on TV. Burke makes sure the only fare is DVDs like Shrek or Sound of Music or Chariots of Fire . Nothing violent or sexual. And no channel surfing: he guards against Kit mistakenly stumbling across one of his own films, or news reports about his injuries. Doesn’t want him watching Viv Wembley cavort on that idiotic series either.

Lately, Kit erupts into hysterical outbursts in the middle of the night. (The sanghanistas like to say he’s finally getting in touch with the cosmic joke of it all.) Sometimes he sings himself to sleep like a child, but that’s the only time he comprehensibly strings more than a few words together, albeit slurred. He possesses an amazing surplus of energy — the sanghanistas call it ch’i —and Burke makes certain that energy is properly channeled, that his son is occupied by some form of therapy each waking hour.

His father wants him out of there.

His father wants him home in Riverside, where he belongs.

He speaks in monosyllabic plosives. He says fuck a lot, eerily reminiscent of the patient with whom Kit and Darren Aronofsky visited months ago. One day, an inspired Tyrone brings Roy Rogers to the private wing for a summit. Seeing the two together — trepanned superstar and blastomaed McDonald’s franchiser — watching the Blown-Mind Twins sniff each other like tentative street dogs was a rocky horror show for sure — more like one Special Olympiad passing the torch to another, because it just so happened that Roy was at the stuttering tail end burnout of “I fuck fuck fuck” just as Kit was coming into his full-throated, full-chorus own. Like that summer Tyrone went to New York and John Stamos replaced Matthew Broderick in “How to Succeed”… but try as he might, Ty couldn’t get a dysfunctional duet goin. Connie Chung enjoyed the impromptu reunion, though Ty didn’t think she fully dug the interaction. She wasn’t twisted enough; it was a cultural thing. But he thought the way Nurse Connie kept wrangling the veggies so they’d be face-to-face like sexy toy soldiers was beyond dope. Tyrone shook his head and smiled. It was so messed up.