Fallen Star

The road to Palm Springs, which is Hollywood’s Heaven, passes through a grey purgatory of food stands (AVOCADOS NINE 4 $1.00!), freak shows (SEE THE MONSTERS OF THE DESERT! UNBELIEVABLE! CAMERAS WELCOME!) and the ugliest, saddest mountain in the world. Usually I hurry by that mountain. This time I stopped. In the hot sunlight I stopped and stared at the heaped-high tower of rusted metal, at the countless mangled, crushed and forgotten skeletons of what had once been cars. Each part of that eroding hill had been a bright possession, once: new paint, new smell, new feel. Well, what do you think of her? I almost heard the voices, there in the silent desert noon. Say, now, that’s really something! . . . Gonna take her to the Springs and let her out! . . . Be careful! Then, still standing in the shadow of that metal mountain, I began to hear the frightened-woman screech of brakes, the swirl of headlights—Jesus!—and the muffled thunder of the cars, which had been aimed a dozen years before, colliding.

Mostly, though, I thought: There’d be no mountain here if things stayed young, if things stayed new.

I realize, now, why I stopped; I didn’t then. Annoyed, I climbed into my young, new Porsche Speedster and took off. The furnace-blast of air, beloved by Southern Californians, made my head ache. The sun blinded me. Why had I been singled out, I wondered, for this job? Why not Jim Gaskins, who loved writing profiles, who delighted in asking impudent questions of vapid actresses?

You’ll see, my editor had said.

But, I had told him, I don’t even own a television set! I don’t know a damn thing about it.

That’s why I’m sending you.

You’re crazy! What’ll I say?

You won’t say anything. You’ll listen.

Look, goddamnit, I write fiction. I may have a contract with your magazine, but that doesn’t mean you can—

Shut up. Ruby Nelson is the biggest thing in show business. The most popular actress in the world today. She lives in Palm Springs. That’s all you need to know. Go get me a story.

But—

But, but, but. Ralph had done me so many favors, I couldn’t turn him down. However, it was true: TV was a world unknown to me. I wasn’t angry because of any feeling of superiority; it was simply that I was frightened. Most fiction writers are that way.

The grubby little towns fell back. The crippled palm trees disappeared. Soon I was in the desert, and this was frightening, too. Because suddenly you look from your speeding car, which only a couple of hours ago was creeping with the flux of Los Angeles traffic, and you see desolation. Emptiness. You see a bush-pocked plain of tan and gray, bone-dry, board-dry, dry past the help of rain; a sprinkle of ancient stones; and beyond, the purple mountains, false, unreal, like flats of papier-maché. And you think the old cliche, if you’re like me: that all this was before you were, will be when you are gone. And who the hell would want to be reminded?

Not out of the desolation, then, but into the city that had been an Indian village: carved, as they say, out of the wilderness. Palm Canyon Road. On either side, motels. Each with a swimming pool. Each with TV. EL MIRADOR, THE DRIFTING SANDS, TRANQUILLA, DESERT PARADISE.

The shops. The real estate buildings. The great finned Cadillacs. The Hawaiian-shirted businessmen and their bikinied loves.

Civilization.

I drove into a Standard Station and asked where 10789 Mira Vista was. The station attendant told me, and the perspiration started, then.

The house was one of those low sprawling “desert-ranch” homes, painted yellow. The flat roof was covered with rocks. I parked my car at the curb and forced myself to wonder specifically what I would say. Ralph had given me no warning. I’d had a chance to see only a portion of one of Ruby Nelson’s films, and I knew that she was a beautiful girl and a good actress. I didn’t know anything else about her.

The door opened before I was halfway across the sidewalk. I heard the sort of voice that pushes up through dirty filters:

“You’re late.”

A woman stood at the doorway, swaying slightly. She looked attractive at first, clad in a bright yellow sweater and tight black shorts, red hair loose around her shoulders, legs firm and naked. There was a martini glass in one hand and a cigarette in a long cigarette holder in the other. Then I got a little closer.

In Southern California, all women are beautiful—from a distance. You see them sweep by in their Thunderbirds, sunlight glinting on their nutbrown shoulders, and you chase them. If you’re lucky, you don’t catch up. Because they’re usually disappointing. The wind flicks back their deep raven hair and instead of the frost-lipped pouting beauty you expected, there’s a middle-­aged woman with warts.

This woman was more than a disappointment. As I came close to her, the girl I saw from thirty yards vanished. In her place was a female of perhaps fifty, Indian-tan but also Indian-wrinkled. Her eyelids were puffed and red, and the eyes beneath were moist, focusing, searching, squinting against the powerful sun.

“I said, ‘you’re late!’ ” The kind of voice that comes of twenty years of day-time drinking; no music, no expression; just a group of vibrations spiraling into inaudible squeaks at anything over bass.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know there was a definite time.”

“My ass you didn’t.” She took a swallow of the martini. “Well, what are you waiting for? Payment in advance?”

She turned and walked back into the house. After a moment, I followed. The interior was what they call Chinese-Modern, a lot of black furniture with gold striping, bamboo chairs, a white rug.

“What the hell are you looking at?”

Her body was almost obscene; it had the firmness and the curves of youth. But there was nothing youthful about her. The shapely, muscular legs did not prepare you for the loose-fleshed arms, the flame-tipped claws, the seamed and ravaged battleground of a face.

“Are you Ruby Nelson?” I asked.

“No, Shirley Temple,” she said, grinning, showing fine white caps. Then the grin disappeared. She put the empty glass down on a coffee table, walked over and pressed her body against mine. The smell of alcohol was overpowering. I stepped back. She slapped me, hard.

“Get out of here,” she said.

I started for the door. Then I turned and saw her standing in the middle of the rug. Her face was red.

“Wait,” she said.

She strode to the door and locked it, then she pulled the blinds together. The room went dark. She walked to the mahogany bar, took out a bottle of Beefeaters gin and filled two glasses. One of the glasses she gave to me, and drained the other.

“Come on.”

She pulled me to the vast black couch. Then she lay down in what should have been a seductive pose and unbuttoned her sweater.

“They’re still good,” she said.

I didn’t move. I could only sit there, staring at her.

She clutched my hands and pressed them to her bosom. “Still good,” she said. “Not so old. Laddie, please. Don’t look at me. Take me. Laddie, please.”

Her eyes were closed now.

I took my hands away. She cried, “For God’s sake, what am I paying you for?”

“Nothing,” I said. “There’s a mistake. My name’s Kelly. I was sent here to interview you.”

“Interview—” She began to laugh. It reached a sort of choked hysteria, and stopped. “Well, you got more than you expected, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’m new at this sort of thing.”

“So am I,” she said.

“Maybe I better leave.”

“No. I don’t want to be alone now, Mr. Kelly. You’ll be safe.”

She rose from the couch and opened the drapes.

“Palm Springs,” she said, “is full of whores. Young men. They rent their bodies to lonely old women. Isn’t that disgusting?”

“I guess so.”

“Oh, it is. I never tried it before. I’m not so old, Mr. Kelly, listen; but I am lonely. Dear God, yes! I am lonely.”

“Why?”

“Because of her,” she said. “Because of that filthy miserable little bitch.”

“Who?”

She looked at me, then went into the bedroom and came back with a photograph. “Her.”

The photograph showed a sweet young girl with the air of the twenties about her, a beautiful girl, large-eyed, supple, dark against white tennis briefs, so innocent, so very worldly.

“You really don’t know?”

I shook my head.

“All right,” she said. “Have another drink. I’ll tell you about it.”