I’m Losing You (29 page)

At curtain, they went backstage to find the producer, an old friend. Troy used a pseudonym in the adult world; none of his former colleagues really knew what he'd been up to all these years. When he did run into them, he painted a vague, glamorous portrait of himself as diehard vanguardist, peripatetic artist-in-and-out-of-residence, the kind who directed
Uncle Vanya
in a Bronx crack house or accompanied Susan Sontag to Bosnia to “put on a show.” Kiv drew in excited drafts of backstage musk, at home with the gypsies. As the couple rubbed past players from tonight's drama, Troy nodded to each like a priest to his flock. The actors—needy, optimistic children that they were—could only hope he truly was a Higher Power.

Familiar laughter emanated from one of the dressing rooms. Poking a head in, Troy discovered his old acquaintance—and the paroxysmal Richard Dreyfuss himself, gulping with psychotic hilarity. The
visitor was embraced, and introductions, including the radiant Kiv Giraux's, made all around. Richard had an open, vibrant charm, unlike other celebrities Troy had met. He was very much
there
, genuine and unguarded, charismatically earnest; one got the sense he'd bare his soul to a stranger, particularly one met in the homey ministry of Theater. He made eye contact with everyone—maybe that was a seduction, a trick of largesse learned long ago—but Troy chose not to be cynical. At least part of Richard was “performing” for Kiv, and that was only natural since she was the only woman in the room, and stunning. Even so, the actor always struck him as the sort who needed to seduce the men and win them over before polishing off assorted wives and lovers.

When the producer was called from the room, Troy and Kiv had the actor to themselves. Richard talked shop and generally effused in his high-voltage way while Troy's heart pounded, waiting for the best moment to insert the business of their alumnihood. He finally ventured how they'd almost been classmates and the two men bandied old teachers' names, resurrecting a few campus scandals. Kiv asked what he was working on, “currently.” Richard said he was preparing for
Medea
, in La Jolla—“Des” was coming back to mount the six-week run, which they might do as a film, with “Des” directing. When Richard asked what he did, Troy said he directed too. The star nodded respectfully, without further inquiry—no need. Backstage, all were brethren.

At Planet Hollywood, Troy was solemn. Kiv talked about
Close Encounters
being her favorite film and how blown away she was to have met him. How funny he was. She fantasized Richard would become their new best friend, that he was the sort of person who'd be eager to help their careers—help Troy direct a movie, anyway—especially since they went to school together. How he was someone who was naturally simpatico because he'd had so many highs and lows himself. Troy let her talk while David Caruso posed for pictures with the tourists. What a hellhole.

On the drive back to Studio City, her hands were all over him but Troy felt far away. When they got home, Kiv pulled him to the bedroom but he was like a stone. He watched her with the dildo, then wandered out the sliding glass door to the redwood balcony. It
was drizzling and the Valley glistened and blinked like a rhinestone cape, from the black MCA building to the Sepulveda Dam. In five years, he would be fifty. He had sixteen thousand in savings and was around forty in debt. No filmography to speak of, no fans, critics, flack, manager, agent or life. There was only one option and it came to him like a pop epiphany: he would write and star in a one-man show. The piece would be called
Adventures in the Skin Trade
(he was sure Dylan Thomas wouldn't mind) and Troy would lay it bare—the obscenity of his failed ambitions, the dead end that had become his life—filming the whole carefully scripted catharsis onstage. Then he'd arrange a meeting with Richard to tell him the truth, what kind of director he
really
was, a bona fide pornographer, before handing the startled movie star the fresh, revelatory cassette. Who knew what might happen? Troy had the feeling this was just the kind of dark thing the actor sparked to. Maybe Richard's production company would climb aboard for distribution. Troy could remember
Swimming to Cambodia
, so threadbare, so
nothing
, made on less than a shoestring. Ditto Bogosian.

A sense of fate and purpose invigorated him. The smell of wood burning in the crisp air shook him down deep: an old, arcane melancholia. He thought to himself,
I will get out alive
.

Troy wandered back to the bedroom and stood in the door, watching Kiv's frenetic hands ride the humming thing that snaked inside her—for an instant, she seemed like a crazed Great Mother assiduously following the devil's pronouncement:
for each thousand thrusts, a child will be saved
. He slid the door shut behind him.

Bernie Ribkin

Bernie sat in his weensy Hollywood office, staring idly at the latest Range Rover repair printout.

The bungalows were filled with kids (music-video production companies) but the rent was cheap. The girls had tattoos and rings through their tummies—through their friggin
eyebrows
—and Jabba said you-know-where else. Maybe he should get one, Bernie thought, right through the nose, like a fuhcocktuh bull. Why not? At seventy, he felt like a gangbanger. He still wanted to mix it up, leave his mark, make people notice. Do not go gentile into that good night.

But Jesus H, if you weren't in the Club, you could forget about it. The studios were spending eighty, ninety, a hundred million a picture like nothing, and that was before P & A. He remembered a story in
People
: “The shoot was agonizing. Though he was earning fourteen million dollars and living in an eighteen-hundred-a-night oceanside bungalow, Costner looked, says one extra, ‘like he needed a hug.'” Somebody give
me
a friggin hug like that. But these men weren't dumb. They had their formulas. They had their New World Order MBAs with their scorched-earth policies—a show that did fifty million in the States could do another hundred and fifty in Europe. He saw the full-page ads in the trades, trumpeting unimaginable grosses for movies he'd never even heard of. Europe! Europe! Europe! Were they talking about the same Europe? Because
his
Europe, the
Ribkin
Europe, was dry as a zombie's ass. All he wanted was three—three million lousy dollars—but how the hell could he step up to the plate? He'd have better luck pinning a murder on O.J. If only he
knew
somebody…with his son a honcho at ICM, no less! A Senior Veepee who hated his guts! That made him crazy. But that's life, like Sinatra said.

Hollywood didn't make movies anymore so much as big-screen novelties and reruns of the Baby Boomer TV hit parade. Kibitzing at the Peninsula Bar with a Showtime exec, the decrepit producer concluded his only hope was to auction off the three films comprising his
Undead
opus—it was Bernie's job to connive some Young Turk into having a go at the campy, mothballed omnibus. Miraculously, he still owned the series; he could thank Serena for that. What a head for business, marvelous. Bernie would give himself six months to raise studio money. Donny might be badgered into making some connections just to get the old man off his back. If the majors didn't bite, Bernie would go cable. The Showtime fella was talking about the splash they had made with those American International re-dos a few years back—Sam Arkoff was no dunce. Cable felt like a slam dunk, but Bernie had to explore his feature options first. Cable was a fallback.

He was almost drunk. He parked in the underground garage and listened to the idling engine—something was in there, different from the piston sound. Kind of a ping. Or maybe a pong. He stepped from the car and pushed the lock-and-load button on the key ring: nothing happened. Again—nothing. It kicked in on the fourth try,
securing all doors. As he walked to the elevator, he saw a dark figure weeping by the Dumpster. He stopped and stared. He thought it was a homeless person, then recognized her and softly said
Hello?
The woman braced herself against the bin and heaved with cartoonish agony.

“Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

She was a neighbor. It was the first time he'd said a word to her in ten months of living there.

“My baby—”

“You're upset. Can I talk to you? Can we talk a moment?” She nodded, childlike. “I'm Bernie—Bernie Ribkin, from two-oh-seven.”

“I don't want to live.
I do not want to live!
”

“Of course you do, darling. Let's go inside now. Do you have your key? Darling, do you have your key? Is it in your purse there? Let's find your key and I'll take you upstairs. Let Bernie take you upstairs. You're upset. Stop your crying. Is there someone I can call, darling?” She turned and faced him head-on, helpless. She was formidable, mega-uterine, her head a stone-carved monument to some corybantic race long dead. He surprised himself by putting his arms around her. “What is it? Darling, it can't be that bad.”

She blurted out the tale of a paralyzed daughter, and when she told him her name—Edith-Esther, same as the building itself—Bernie put it all together: this was the bereft mother of Oberon Mall. The condolent producer invited her to his apartment, where she poured her heart out over Frito-Lays, non-pareils and Snappled Absolut. She could really drink. He called her Double E, and that made her laugh.

She reminded him of Gala, an old lover who kept horses in Chats-worth—both women smelled of stables, leaf and menses. Bernie felt sorry for this dappled gray mess of a woman, this rueful roan oak. Edie (he settled on that) said the terrible thing was that in brainstem injuries like her baby's, the extent of damage was impossible to assess—doctors were reduced to using the patient's tears as a crude gauge of awareness and mental competency. The somewhat jaded old man found that detail haunting.

Bernie walked her up to four-ten and they exchanged numbers. She told him he was a courtly man. She wanted to show him her computer “when the place was clean.” He had already turned to go
when Edie asked if he would come see her baby: today,
now
, or at least in half an hour or so. She held his arm and begged him to walk over—they were that close to Cedars. All we have to do, she said, is pick up the cake before we go, around the corner at Michel Richard. Edie asked him again because she didn't have it in her to go alone. If they could just pick up the cake; she already had the candles. Today was Obie's birthday.

Late Friday afternoon, he went to see Jabba. She was dancing at Little Kink's, a club in East Hollywood.

They met when he first came to town. Bernie picked her up on El Centro and she gave him a blow job but it didn't work so well. He gave her a hundy to have lunch with him at Musso's. She was impressed with the old man and his Range Rover. He was coy about what he did for a living, and Jabba thought for sure he was a Player—they had their little game. Nice for Bernie's ego. He saw her every couple of weeks like that, usually for lunch or a movie. They never did anything, but he always slipped her a hundy.

This time they went to Locanda Veneta, a chic Italian place on Third. Jabba's skin was broken out. Bernie pointed to a man sitting with his back to the kitchen.

“See that guy? Billy Friedkin. He directed
The Exorcist
.”

“He looks like a dentist.”

“And
The French Connection
, ever see that? What are you doing to yourself, you look like hell.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you eating right?”

“I'm fucking depressed.”

“You don't have the right to be depressed. You're too goddam young.”

Jabba glared, deciding whether to spit in his eye. She looked over to see what Friedkin was up to, then took a fork and farted with her food. “I need money.”

“Join the club.”

“Fuck you.”

“
Work
for a living.” Bernie was afraid she was going to walk. Her head caromed between Friedkin and the front door.