California

DESPR8

CHAPTER 5

WHEN LEM RANG UP CYNDI FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME THAT month, Boyd, the new receptionist, told him he would have to go through Jonathan Swerling’s office.

“And who, may I ask, is Mr. Swerling?” Lem asked, his accent on full throttle.

“Mr. Swerling represents Ms. Bowman. He is her publicist.”

Lem’s mouth unhinged. “What do you mean,” he shrieked, sounding like a Valley girl. “What in bloody blazes does she need a publicist for? She is a publicist!”

“Mr., umm. . . Back, if you need to get in touch with Ms. Bowman, you must fax a request to Mr. Swerling, who will pass it on to Ms. Bowman. He’ll call you back with a yay or a nay.”

“Is this some sort of game? I must go through a publicist to speak to a publicist? I’ve never heard of anything quite so absurd. Besides, Ms. Bowman knows precisely why I’m calling. I’m not sending off any bloody fax. If you could kindly tell her to, as you assistants so eloquently put it, give a return? I’d appreciate it.”

Boyd coughed. “I’m sorry, sir. I was advised that any inquiries from the press must first be handled by Mr. Swerling’s office. B.P. must cater to our celebrity clientele before we can help the press.”

Lem spoke through his teeth in a low, drained tone. “Let me tell you something, Boyd. That company was founded by Thomas Bowman, a man who would return any phone call within two hours, no matter what, even if it was from little walleyed Suzy Cheese Cake looking for a summer internship. If Thomas Bowman knew what was happening to his beloved company, well, he’d have an aneurysm. A publicist for a publicist! Even Kafka couldn’t have imagined this.”

Boyd ahemmed into the mouthpiece. “Sir, Mr. Kafkar isn’t my employer. I have another call on line two that requires immediate attention.”

Lem listened to the moaning of the dial tone as if waiting for an explanation. In slow motion he placed the phone in its cradle. Holding his head in his hands, he squeezed his eyes shut. Sometime, maybe while he was stumbling around Wilshire Boulevard, the entire world had changed. His garden had been invaded by weeds until it was reduced to a collection of chipped coffins filled with charred dirt and skeletal remains of flowers. The butterflies were dead.

Lem was frozen. He needed this interview more than anything. Any day, Reggio was going to thank him for his services but explain that while he hated to do it, he had no choice. This was a new age of journalism, and Lem just wasn’t making his contributions to the Personality paradigm. He’d tell Lem that he hoped they could still be good friends. Hell, he’d even give him a recommendation. If there’s anything he can do, just ask, he’d say while averting his eyes. Then he’d have security escort Lem from the building.

Lem’s hands shook. He wanted booze so badly he could taste it.

He took out his ink-mottled yellow legal pad and began working on They’re Not Your Friends. If he was going to get fired, he might as well do his own thing. Since he had stopped drinking he’d been writing every day. Perhaps he could actually finish this book. Lem wrote frantically.

Still not assimilated in the world of high-tech journalism, Lem preferred pen to keyboard. His fingers were rendered leaden by the computer. He’d delete entire stories by just one press of a key. “You have to learn to save your stories every few minutes,” Reggio would say, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. But instead of adapting, Lem stopped writing for Personality. He couldn’t understand how a computer was considered a technical advancement when it could obliterate prose with one aberrant touch. He’d rather scrawl away with his Bic and real paper. He loved the feel of the pen between his fingers and the sound of the tip scraping away at the page. It somehow seemed primordial, as if he were a Java man scratching at the wall of a cave.

 

AFTER FRANNY DUMPED him, Lem had changed forever. He couldn’t stop thinking about her and the life he had imagined for them. He circled her block in his car for hours. He wrote long, effusive letters that were never mailed. For a few months Franny had allowed Lem to peer into a window of a life he didn’t know he wanted. Then she moved on and left him wanting more. Soon she disappeared into the security of celebrity. She moved into a fortress. She had a bodyguard trail her. She showed up at events with an entourage. Lem couldn’t even try to get close.

One day, while sipping martinis at a party in Brentwood and staring at the door praying for Franny to walk through, Lem had had a revelation. He understood that his life would never be the same because of Lisa the Love Witch’s spell. He had spent his days—and nights—consumed with thoughts of her for more than a year with no end in sight. He watched repeats of her mind-numbing show religiously. He didn’t even think about women except as a comparison to Franny. This had to end.

“You need a wife,” Thom Bowman said. He handed Lem a martini. Bowman had become Lem’s best bloke. He’d also quickly transformed himself into the hottest publicist in town. After Franny’s article ran, every television star was clamoring to be represented by Thom Bowman Publicity.

Although Lem never discussed it, Thom seemed to understand Lem’s obsession.

“Move on. Find a woman like my sweet Marjorie. Find a woman whose career is wife and mother, not actress. Franny Blanchard couldn’t love anyone but Franny Blanchard. She’s brought a lot of men grief and sadness. She’s a user. You’re not the first, believe you me.”

“Couldn’t you have warned me?”

Thom’s eyes locked with Lem’s. “Warn you? This was only business, ol’ boy.” He let out a brittle laugh. “She’s Hollywood trash. I wanted you to write an article, not fall in love.”

It seemed to Lem that Thom played matchmaker to alleviate some nagging guilt. One day, feigning serendipity, he introduced Lem to his new intern. She was an absolute beauty who had nothing to do with show business. “I’ll tell you, Sir Lem, if I were single, I’d throw a spear at her,” Thom confided. “She’s wife material. She reminds me of my Marjorie. When I found out she was from Merry Ol’, I had to hire her, just for you. Let’s just say she’s my little get-well present to you. This will take your mind off the Love Bitch.”

Lem was smitten with the raven-haired intern. And Patricia was enamored by Lem’s talent and charisma. She thought he was a genius (probably partly Thom’s influence, Lem knew). In short, she worshipped him, and he couldn’t resist the adulation. After a year, they married.

At first he believed she was his cure. Her love for him had tamed him. With a gold band on his finger, he would never need to stray, he convinced himself. He’d rush home from work to be with her, cutting his parties and pub crawling to a minimum. They bought a house in the San Fernando Valley, with plans to fill it with children.

So, was he trying to sabotage himself when he started staying out late again? No. He figured he’d get it all out of his system before the egg was in the nest. He still had a few wild oats to sow before becoming completely domesticated. And the Valley was so boring.

But Lem could never have just a few drinks. And alcohol blotted out his vows of fidelity. Soon he found himself waking up in strange rooms. He’d dress quickly and rush home. He’d speed along the 101 freeway—a shaft of moonlight following him like a conscience.

Patricia always pretended to be asleep. The next morning both would pretend nothing had happened, although Lem was certain she knew. Live in Los Angeles long enough and you learn to act, regardless of your profession.

She’d clean his alcohol-stained shirts and ignore the perfume smell on the collars. Each time Lem stumbled home in the middle of the night, he’d promise himself that it was the last time. But the next night, half intoxicated by booze, half intoxicated by the image of himself holding court at Morton’s or Chasen’s, he’d be back at his old tricks. He still kept one eye on the door. It was, after all, Franny’s fault. Each conquest fueled his need for Franny. Thom had been wrong about marriage quashing any desire, though he couldn’t admit it to Thom; no, he couldn’t handle Thom’s disappointment.

He knew he had to stop or his life would be ruined forever.

One night after work when Patricia wasn’t home yet, Lem decided to destroy anything that reminded him of Franny. He opened a closet in his den and took out a large cardboard box bulging with all the articles he had written for Personality. He rummaged through it. There was Olivia Newton-John, Bill Cosby, Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Jackson, Billy Crystal. Then he spotted her in the morass of celebrity faces—Franny Blanchard staring back at him with her piercing eyes. It was the article he had written a few years earlier. Her coy smile seemed to know something he didn’t—something he desperately wanted to decode.

He stared and stared. Underneath the stack was a white silk scarf he had taken from her. He inhaled and caught a faint whiff of her perfume. Chanel No. 5.

He grabbed the scarf and the stack of magazines and headed out the den, down the hall toward the garbage cans outside. But somehow he got sidetracked. The smell of her on the scarf was too powerful, too full of promise. He had every intention of exorcising their home of the Love Witch. Instead, he tossed the magazines onto his sofa.

He stared at her face. Her full, thick lips. Her mane of blond hair. He breathed in Chanel No. 5. He slowly unbuttoned her skirt, pulled off her stockings, tugged at her black lace underwear, while crying out for her.

“Franny! Franny. Franny.”

“What?!!”

Lem blinked his eyes. Franny had disappeared and Patricia was staring over him, her jaw dropped and eyes wide.

Lem felt the blood rush to his face. “I was just nap—”

Patricia swept her hands along the sofa and the magazines flew across the room, some smacking against the walls before tumbling to the ground.

“And here I was just going to tell you. . .” Patricia covered her mouth and turned. Lem heard her heels clicking quickly against the terra-cotta-tiled floor.

“Tell me what,” he yelled after her. “Tell me what?”

The front door slammed. Patricia had reached her threshold. She’d put up with the boozing and even the cheating, but whacking off to this false goddess was too much. And Lem knew the minute she left that she was gone from his life. She came back a few days later and told him to pack up and leave. He pleaded with her to let him stay, but she just shook her head. He said he’d go into therapy or marriage counseling, whatever it took. But Patricia just stared past him through glassy eyes.

“You’ll always be in love with her,” Patricia said. “Perhaps if she were a real live flesh and blood person, I could even live with that. But she’s only a magazine cover. She’s only gamma ray molecules. I refuse to compete with that for the rest of my life. I want a better life for my. . . for me.”

“I love you. I didn’t realize how much until now. I’m begging you. I’ll change.”

Patricia hissed. “Don’t ask me to live a life of regrets. Look what that’s done for you.”

Lem stood there, slack jawed. He slowly walked out the door. After driving around in his Citron for hours, he stopped by Thom’s Brentwood home. Marjorie answered the door with booze on her breath and a baby in her arms. “With a spell everyone’s under her command,” she said before slamming the door. Then Lem checked into a twenty-five-bungalow motel with a big blue neon vacancy sign flashing out front. The “V” and the “A” and the “C” were broken so only “ANCY” pulsated and buzzed in the cool night. Then the newly single Lemuel Brac called in sick for a week. Bad stomach virus.

Lem spent seven days blitzed out of his skull. Lounging by the motel’s leaf-choked pool one day, he watched a father play with his children. He’d throw them into the air and they’d squeal with delight as they plunged into the water. And Lem Brac knew that he’d lost his chance for real true happiness. He sobbed quietly, realizing for the first time that no one had ever loved or understood him better than Patricia. He chugged his Smirnoff’s to forget this. Then he pried the ring off his finger and tossed it into the water. In the midst of the kids’ splashing, it barely made a ripple before sinking to the bottom.

“I’m back,” he said to his reflection as it danced and then dissipated in the chlorinated depths. The children stopped splashing and stared at him. “I’m back,” he whispered, knowing that he was unequivocably gone.

 

LEM SHOOK HIS head, put down his pen, and started rummaging through his office for a bottle of booze he might have stashed somewhere. His hands trembled as he imagined the cool vodka rushing down his throat. It had been months, but the ache for it hadn’t dulled one bit. He didn’t find anything so he sat back down and took a long breath. Then he called Jonathan Swerling, publicist to the publicist. He was busy advising a client, Lem was informed.

“Please tell him that Lem Brac called. It’s a matter of extreme urgency that I speak to Ms. Bowman today.” Lem exhaled. “I hate to tell you this, but we’re about to do a story on Chris Mercer without his cooperation. We’ve already spoken with several costars. . . and high school acquaintances.”

The lie—a veiled threat since most actors were complete losers in high school—was bound to get him a call back, and maybe, just maybe, he could scare them into an interview. Celebrities were terrified by high school classmates who knew them at their acne-covered worst.

“I’ll make sure Mr. Swerling receives your message. Thank you for calling.” His clipped staccato mimicked Cyndi’s receptionist, Boyd. For all Lem knew, maybe it even was Boyd, and the publicist’s publicist was a ruse to impress.

 

LEM TRIED TO write but couldn’t concentrate. It was hard to focus when his life seemed so precarious. If only the phone would ring. But even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. Lem had to be, as Reggio loved to say, proactive.

He left midday so there was no traffic. Two hours later he was in front of Thom Bowman’s enormous estate in Santa Barbara. Lem felt nervous. He hadn’t visited Thom since he retired—when was it? Two or three years ago now? He had called a few times, but Marjorie, Thom’s wife, always answered. Lem would instinctively hang up. Lem knew Marjorie detested him for cheating on Patricia. But her hatred was so fierce that Lem was certain there was more to it.

He wondered why Thom had never called him. He remembered being pissed out of his mind at Thom’s farewell party. He had given a slurry toast. Cyndi had been there, shaking her head the whole time. Had he offended Thom in some way he didn’t remember? Maybe it was just retirement. Lem understood that retirement was this vortex healthy men were sucked into, skinned and deboned, and eventually spooned out as corpses.

As he rang the doorbell, he prayed Marjorie wouldn’t be home. The door slowly opened.

“Lemblac?” Marjorie slurred out. “Did shue ever hear about calling?”

“Nice to see you, too, Marj,” Lem said, smiling. Not even three and she was bombed. “I was in the neighborhood and. . .”

“Thom’s sch-ick. Ish not a good time.”

As she went to close the door, Lem pushed at it. “Marjorie, just a few minutes. I desperately need to see him. . . for old times’ sake.”

“That’s reason enough to deny ax-chess,” she said, shaking her head. But she moved away from the door. “Come in, but I don’t know who you’ll being shee. The Great Osh.”

“Great who?” Lem asked, but Marjorie had turned and was weaving down the hall. She nearly knocked over angelic Hummel figurines as her hips ricocheted off walls and tables. She stopped in front of a cherrywood-paneled door and opened it.

“Thom, visitor,” she said quickly as she continued zigzagging down the hall. Without turning around, she said, “Make yourshelf comfoshoble.”

Lem headed in. The room was dark, lit only by a movie projector. But no movie played. There was just a blank white screen. Thom was jotting notes from behind a cherrywood desk.

“Thom Bowman!”

Thom stared quizzically at Lem for a moment. Then he smiled, stood up, and, with outstretched arms, bear-hugged Lem, nearly lifting him off the floor.

Lem laughed almost giddily. “Thom, old man, that’s quite a reception. I was beginning to feel friendless in the land of L.A. How are you doing?”

“I can’t complain—no one will listen,” Bowman began as he had ever since Lem was but a fledgling American. Lem’s heart leapt—for the first time in a long time, something sounded familiar. Thom Bowman was the salt of the earth. The best friend he’d ever had.

“Thom Bowman! You have no bloody idea how great it is to see you. No bloody idea. Everybody, all of the land of plastic fantastic, misses you. I miss you.”

Thom cackled in that huge, boisterous laugh of his. It was contagious, and Lem couldn’t help but burp out a whimper.

Thom slapped Lem on the back. “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Yes. . . well. I guess we haven’t been keeping in touch very well.”

“What we got here is a failure to communicate.”

Lem laughed. “I suppose so.” He looked at Thom. “Cool Hand Luke. Bloody wonderful movie. Paul Newman in his finest hour. You know, I was reminiscing about the time we met. How different life was then.”

Lem waited for Thom to say something, but he didn’t. He just stared at Lem, as if overcome by his visit. Then he smiled and opened his mouth.

“Life is like a. . . box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Lem laughed. “Forrest Gump, eh? Most overrated movie, in my humble opinion. Give an actor the role of a dim-witted imbecile and he knows he’ll get that statue. Tom Hanks at his pandering worst.”

Thom chuckled, cleared his throat, and continued his Tom Hanks impersonation. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running.”

“More Forrest?” Lem cleared his throat and pointed to the white movie screen. “Is that what you were just watching?”

Thom nodded. “Stupid is as stupid does.”

“Guess so.” Lem squinted at Thom. But his friend’s face registered nothing. “How’s the old golf game, old buddy? Christ, I’m slaving away at Personality while you’re swatting a putter. There’s something wrong with that picture, especially since I’m smarter and better looking than you, buddy.”

Thom cackled again and stared at Lem. “Who are you?”

Lem laughed and put his arm around Thom. “You’re nuts, old boy. But it’s great to see you. Bloody great.”

“Get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damned dirty ape.”

Thom guffawed. Lem’s arm flew back to his sides.

“Planet of the Apes.” Lem nearly choked on the words. What in bloody hell had happened? What had retirement done to Thom? Lem stared hard, looking for light in Thom’s eyes. He tried to smell his breath. Could Thom be as blitzed as the Mrs.? He checked the desk for an empty glass. All he saw was a small bottle of some kind of medicine. He peered at the label. The Cure. He tried again.

“You miss the business, Thom? You miss it at all?”

Thom coughed. “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

“Aha,” Lem said. “Thom, what the fuck’s going on? Are you putting me on?”

Thom stared vacantly at Lem. Lem waved his hands in front of Thom’s face. He snapped his fingers.

“Thom, Thom, are you there? Are you pissed out of your mind on Bloody Marys? I know how much you like those in the afternoon. Remember you used to say a Bloody Mary wasn’t a drink, it was an appetizer? Remember? Remember?”

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

Lem’s heart hammered away and he felt dizzy. His face blazed and his mouth dried up. What the fuck had happened to his friend?

“Thom, Thom, you wanna know the goddamned truth? These bloody fucking four-flushers want me out of there. I need a bloody break. I need your help. One interview. I can be Sir Lem again. They’ll leave me alone. Talk to your daughter. Thom, Thom. Please. This isn’t a game. I’m trying to save my life. Please, don’t quote movies. Please don’t leave me now.”

Again, silence. A long silence. Another vacant stare. It was like speaking to a dead man. Lem turned away and stared at their silhouettes on the empty screen. Thom was nearly a head taller then Lem. Finally, Thom cleared his throat. Lem prayed for his friend to be there.

“Who are you?”

Lem grabbed Thom by the collar. “Thom, it’s me. Lem. Lem Brac. Come on, old buddy.”

“They’re not going to lick me! I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’ll never be hungry again.”

Lem’s heart flopped in his chest. Thom wasn’t drunk. Usually the guy slurred his words after a few rounds, but nothing like this. “Thom? Thom, what is this?”

Thom’s voice became louder and louder until it boomed.

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown. . . Plastics. . . Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The great Oz has spoken. . . Go ahead, make my day. . . Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Good-bye.”

“You’re right,” Lem whispered. “Good-bye.” Then he slowly opened the door and headed out. He turned and looked at Thom. He wiped his eyes with a finger when he realized everything suddenly had gone blurry. He was crying.