Devilcountry (32 page)

Donnie’s dad didn’t have the strength to go
through pilot season alone without her.  They were a team.  She made
all the right moves, cut the deals,
chose
the
projects.  Carin and she had developed the Uta script together.
 Daddy knew how to run a set and keep things on budget and moving, and
break balls. So, two months after the funeral he sold the company to an
investor from Canada while retaining only one licensing deal for which Donnie
handled all the residuals and licensings.  It was still merching strong
all throughout the Far East.  A B-level title they had helped finance
starring an ex-Chinese gymnast who is left for dead in the alley of her
father’s lingerie factory and gymnasium.  She survives and declares war on
the Yakuzas who, coincidentally, all dressed in shapeless unfashionable
Mao-Jackets.  She wears a cape and the latest women’s fashionable
lingerie, five-inch heels and very little else.  She fights ethnically
diverse minorities, has a somewhat excessive libido and is also a major
pop-star
.  
Whoregirl
is still huge in Asia.
 The fans loved it.  The doll, the underwear, the line of feminine
hygiene products, all of it was still paying out.  It created a stunning
portfolio that required constant maintenance.  Donnie was put in charge of
it and had managed to double the family fortune.  Pudgie appeared again.
 “You good, Donnie?”

           
“Fine
Pudge, thanks.” countered Donnie.

           
“Okay,
just let me know if you need anything.”

           
“You
got it Pudge.”

           
Donnie
had other things on his mind besides residuals.  Donnie was on a mission.
 He couldn’t quite put it into words.  It was a mission for medicine
for his father.  Daddy wasn’t sick, but Donnie wanted to see him get
better.  Donnie used to watch daddy fly.  He owned the room.
 Making everyone laugh, cutting deals, shaking his tail-feather.  
Always with a kiss on the cheek to his missus.
 
The kids always in stitches.
 The store tended to.
 Daddy knew how to talk.  He knew how to move.  He knew how to
close the deal.  He was absolutely the fastest and everyone knew it and no
one ever messed with him because of it.  There was a line of leading
ladies a mile long who were dying to sit on his casting couch but he wouldn’t
have any of it.  Just wasn’t his thing.  

To Donnie, Daddy was the king and Donnie did a
good job of watching the store.  That’s just how it was.  But Mommy
was gone.  Two years now.  Donnie would cry from time to time over
it.  Spontaneously.  Something would set him off.  A mother and
baby story on TV.  
A puppy, hawks circling above when he
would drive through Mulholland.
 A flood of emotion would hit him.
 Tears would be there and gone, fast.  He missed his ma so much.
 She knew how sensitive Donnie really was.  Donnie would always get
images of eagles and hawks flying around together.  They had been there
since he was a kid.  They always soothed him.  But these days it
didn’t help much.  As a kid he would pretend he was a hawk.  He’d
soar his arms out and run around the back yard.  He thought about those
days.  But Ma was gone and Daddy didn’t fly
no
more.  Of course, Daddy didn’t really have to fly.  He could trot and
get the job done just as well.  He was still fun to be with.  Still
had a great haircut on him thanks to Freddy’s salon up the street.  But he
was more subdued.  The only lady he was ever trying to impress with his
wing-span
was gone.  It was easier to just nest.

Donnie had a brother and a sister.  Three
of them had hatched.  
Darla, the oldest, a lawyer,
criminal rights activist but also a killer property attorney.
 
ACLU member - Dyke.
Not really, but Donnie pretended she was
because she used to beat him up when they were little.  She’d grab him and
pick him up and squeeze him and imitate Grandma with her thick eastern accent,
“Jew r soooo cute,
bubala
!”  
His
feet off the ground.
 
Her friends laughing.
 Her squeezing him in tight, making him
lose
his
breath.  He hated it.  For years afterwards Donnie had an uphill
battle regaining respect.  Even when he hit his growth
spurt
and towered over her.  It was hell.  If it hadn’t been for Jonathan,
the middle egg, it wouldn’t have been possible.  She tried pulling the
same shit with him.  He took it for a time but then he got wise.  He
started spreading it around that she’d lick pie-just for kicks.  Her
uptight girlfriends, westsiders with country club connections, all started
giving her the stink-eye.  Their parents looked at her like she voted
democrat.  She was out.  An outcast by the time she had gotten to
high school.  The final straw was when Jeff Adamson started dating Cindy
Malchek because Cindy told Jeff that Darla was totally gay and tried to hit on
her in the girls locker room.  Cindy then swallowed Jeff’s load behind the
football
bleachers which
sold the deal.  Jeff was
gone, Cindy was on a full stomach and Darla was irate.  

Darla came home from school slamming every door
possible.  Jonathan and Donnie had heard about it all.  Donnie knew
to keep quiet but Jonathan went for it.  “So I heard Cindy Malchek stole
your lunch, too bad, I heard you were hungry.”  
Giggles
from Donnie.
 She walked over to the table where Jonathan was doing
his homework and socked him across the head, sending him hard into the window,
smashing it with Jonathan landing on the floor. The giant opal ring on her
index finger left a dent in the side of his skull that you can still see.
 Darla stormed off and slammed her door.  Mommy heard the racket and
picked Jonathan up.  He was older, almost sixteen, but a bit thin, and he
cried like a baby in shock that someone he was related to would do that to him.
 
Even if he had it coming.
 Mommy held him
for as long as he needed and reminded him to keep his goddamn mouth shut when
it comes to Darla.  She made him some pudding.  Donnie got to lick
the spoon and Darla got room service from Mommy, who lectured her for an hour.
 No retaliation.  Mommy was a genius of diplomacy.  Grounded for
a month, garbage and kitchen duty till school was done for the year, but no
violence.  The peace held. She was sympathetic to Darla’s cause.  As
a producer dealing with stars Ma witnessed first-hand what it was like to have
lies spread around.  But she couldn’t have Darla beating up and harassing
her other children, so a cease-fire was enacted and from that day forward there
was a polite distance between all parties.  Daddy heard about the whole thing
long distance because he was on set on a dude ranch in Colorado with a flirty
Raquel Welch and an extraordinarily needy John Wayne.  Daddy was amazed at
how Mommy handled the whole thing.  He wouldn’t have known what to do.
 As soon as Jonathan graduated high school he married a girl from Montreal
and they moved to a commune near Lake Titticaca.  He was helping to
replant a whole rainforest or “...some sensitive crap, who the hell knows?”
remarked Daddy when he found out.  

Donnie sat at the table.  He checked his
watch.  Claudia was ten minutes late.  Claudia was always late.
 Since ninth grade, when they met in Honors English, she was always late
to everything.  He remembered when they met.  Both of them were
walking into the D-Building where the class was.  She had reached the door
first and opened it for him.  “Hi, Donnie!” she said.  Very
sing-song
.  
Very polite.
 Donnie couldn’t believe a girl this hot was not only saying hello to him
but knew his name.  She was gorgeous.  An eighth-grader with a
fully-developed
non-eighth grader body.  Great clothes.
 Beautiful hair, perfect teeth with a smile that made Donnie want to
spread his wings and peacock his way around her.  Every guy was in love
with Claudia, yet none of them thought they were good enough.  Each of
them Launcelots willing to fall on the sword, none of them King Arthurs willing
to pull their sword from the stone.  Including Donnie. So, for Claudia, it
was always older guys or guys from different high schools.  Guys they
never saw or met, and when they did, it was nothing but a disappointment.
 She was a climber.  She knew she could always do better.  Every
guy was a rung who only had half her attention because the other half was
looking for the next guy.  Which is why she was still single.  Which
is why she was always late.  Finally she arrived.

When she walked in the breeze behind her blew
her perfume toward Donnie.  A whisp of something bottled on her skin.
 
Airy, a taste of the ocean, a touch of roses.
 She sat down at the table.  Dropped her Coach purse on the chair
next to her, lifted herself up to Donnie and kissed him on the cheek.
 “Donald....” she cooed. Pudgie noticed Claudia come in and sit down at
Donnie’s table.  Pudgie’s mind began to wander.  Claudia was stunning
to Pudgie.  
All that he wanted.
 
The status, the climbing.
 She was delicious.  She
had a legendary reputation.  What could they be talking about?  He
thought.

“Hey, Claudia.  How are you?”
 Donnie’s heart accelerated.  His stomach knotted.  He wasn’t
good in these situations.  All of his defenses were gone.

“Good, stayin’ busy.” She smiled as she said it.
 
Perfect teeth as always.

“How’se the acting going?”

“I’m up for a pilot.”

“Well look at you!”

“It’s nothing.  We’ll see,” said Claudia
with a touch of nonchalance bordering on apathy. Like her dating life, she was
very project-to-project with her acting.  It never had her full attention.
 She had booked four national commercials in less than a year which is
unthinkable but then she flaked on one gig, broke up with the agent she had
been dating and the phone stopped ringing.  Things were a bit tight but
she was a strong bird.  Claudia was amazing.  She was five feet, five
inches but she filled-out every inch of it.  She was a bit top heavy and
not shy about putting it on display.  She was sculpted down like a tiger
in the waist, hips and legs that never went more than twenty-four hours without
a workout.  She was every woman’s nightmare.  
Gorgeous,
smart, single and totally predatorial.
 If she wanted it she went
after it, whatever it was.  She wore a dark blue blazer and trendy black
HUE corduroy shorts underneath with two-inch heels.  Her brunette hair was
long, curly,
unkempt
yet somehow in place.
 Donnie began to sweat a bit.  There was always that feeling when
Claudia was near him.  He wasn’t erect, but he knew the warning signs.
 There were plenty of them with Claudia.

Donnie thought back to the time when they were
both cuddling on Ben Gold’s sofa after school one day.  They sat sprawled
out length-wise.  
She behind him.
 Spooning
him.  Rubbing his shoulders.  
Both of them
supposedly trying to snooze while the TV was going.
  He was
wearing cotton P.E. shorts.  Things were loose down there.  He
sprouted some serious wood.  Had she brushed a hand over the area she
would have gotten a splinter.  But Donnie was too petrified to make a
move.  He wanted to be swallowed up by Claudia but he didn’t want her to
spit him out.  He loved Claudia.  Confided in her.  Respected
her.  Protected her.  He cherished her.  He didn’t want that to
end.  She did.  

 
She
ran a hand through his hair.  Depeche Mode was on TV singing about having
a personal Jesus or something.  Donnie’s heart almost gave out under the
stress.  Claudia quietly smiled.  She knew she was torturing him.
 She loved every second of it.  She was about to make her move to
make him make a move on her, but Ben Gold walked in and projectile vomited
across the entire room.  He had just downed five shots of off-brand
tequila chased with peppermint liqueur annexed from his father’s bar.  He
would be vomiting for hours.  Claudia and Donnie went into nurse mode.
 The mood was broken.   

“Well, you look great, Claudia, really,” said
Donnie as Claudia retreated back to her seat.  He meant every word.

“You’re sweet, Donnie.”  She loved the
attention.  
Especially from Donnie.
 She put
her hands over his briefly as she said it.  She was very tactile.
 Always making contact at key points of her dialogue.  “And then I
said...”
touch-touch
,  “And then he said...”
touch-touch
.
 
Always for an effect.
 
Always
to reinterate her point.
 Always to keep the attention of whomever
she was talking to, and always effective.

They hadn’t seen each other since the wedding.
 Donnie’s wedding.
Which was one year ago this past
Thursday.
  Donnie tried to keep the hand touching to a
minimum and he never returned the touch. Claudia touched Donnie’s hand lightly
with her painted index finger at key points of her monologue about her acting
coach coming onto her in the middle of the Beverly food court because she wanted
Donnie to touch her hand back.  This was all part of Claudia’s mating
ritual.  Claudia was a master.  Donnie nodded and smiled as she small
talked and made solid
eye-contact
.  Her acting
career was going okay.  She ended up dating the acting coach for a while.
 “After the food court thing and a couple of dates he got all weird.
 Wanted me to stay in character while we were on dates
an’
shit.  I was like, ‘Chill!
we
can screw in
character, but we’re in public, gross!”  
touch
-touch
,
“you know?”
touch-touch-eye contact-touch caress.