Stars Screaming (34 page)

Three Memories

1

A warm starless night, the sky a syrupy deep black. Burk and Sandra are driving from Topanga Canyon to Hollywood, using Mulholland Drive. In the half-light of the moving car, there is something unknowable in her face. He wonders what she’s thinking but doesn’t ask.

Near Coldwater Canyon she says, “It would be nice to live up in the hills, away from everything. Is that just a silly dream?”

He shakes his head. He feels her fingers prowling through the hair on the back of his neck.

“It isn’t?”

“I’d like a house with big decks and lots of wood,” he says. “Decks that go all the way around the house.”

“So when it’s clear we can see the ocean,” Sandra says, and lets her head fall on his shoulder. “What about a swimming pool?”

“Sure.”

“We’d have to get rich to have a house like that.”

“It’s possible.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. If we work hard.”

“You mean you. I’m having a baby.”

He looks away from her glance. His armpits are wet. She can’t see his face when he says, “I’m not talking about jobs. I mean working together as partners. If you believe in each other—”

“I believe in you, Ray,” Sandra says, pushing her breasts into his side, “or I wouldn’t be here.”

Ten minutes later they are parked in their driveway. Behind them Burk can hear the freeway they just left. There is something he wants to say. Sandra knows this, she can tell by his breathing; she waits, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

She thinks, Up on Mulholland we were two different people: a boy and girl in love. We’re still in love, but it’s different. Down here we’re scared. I know I am, she thinks. I’m scared of the thoughts that move in and out of my mind. And sometimes when I laugh it sounds canned, like the laughs on the television shows Ray censors. Lots of times I just say “Ha-ha” out loud, instead of laughing. When Ray asks me why, I tell him I don’t know. He knows something’s wrong with me.

Minutes pass in silence.

Finally, as if he’s compelled to tell the truth, Burk says, “I bought a book last week. It’s called
Introduction to Teleplay Writing
. It tells you how to write a TV script. I didn’t show it to you. I thought you might laugh.”

Sandra takes his hand. It feels hot. “Why would I laugh?”

“I don’t know. All of a sudden I’m trying to be a writer. Maybe that would sound goofy to you.”

“Is that what you want to be?” Sandra asks.

“I don’t know.” Burk hears his voice go up. “Maybe.”

“Television’s pretty dumb. Maybe you could write a movie.”

Burk’s heart is pounding against the wall of his chest. He wishes he were stronger, that he’d held onto his secret. He
says, “Maybe. I could try.”

Sandra turns her head to Burk. Their hands are sweating. “I think you’re brave,” she says.

“What if I can’t? Will you still love me?”

Sandra laughs, “Ha-ha,” but Burk sees a tear fall past her lip when she says with conviction, “Of course I will.”

2

“She loved you, Ray.” This is Gene speaking on the day Sandra is to be released from prison. “She believed in you, big time.”

“She left us, Gene. Just got in her car and left.”

“She had to do what she had to do.”

“Like Mom.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It feels the same.”

“Sandra danced naked to pay the bills. She did that so you could write. That’s how much she loved you.”

“What about Louie?”

“What about him?”

“It’s not fair.”

Before he hangs up, Burk tells Gene that he almost stole “Daddy’s Big Dick” back in December of 1969.

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Really.”

“I can’t believe you would do something like that. We’re brothers, Ray. We’re blood. We don’t steal from each other.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was fucked up, then. You pissed?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.”

“I put it back, Gene. Go look. It’s still there. I promise.”

3

It’s May 14, 1971, three days before
Pledging My Love
goes into production. He and Loretta Egan are eating dinner at Musso & Frank. They are seated in the front room, in a booth by the wall. Across the room Clint Eastwood is dining with a trim, tough-looking man in his mid-sixties.

Loretta says, “I don’t think I can enjoy my meal with him in the room.”

Burk remains silent, raising a lit match to the cigarette stuck between his lips.

“When you don’t answer I think you’re judging me.”

Burk looks at her briefly. “I’m not judging you. It just feels that way,” he says. A few seconds later he says, “Let’s see if we can have a good time.”

“You can’t feel the vibes? I can.”

At that moment the man in the booth behind them says, “That’s Don Siegel. He directed
Coogan’s Bluff.
They’re doing this thing called
Dirty Harry
at Warner’s.”

Loretta says, “See?”

The waiter arrives to take their order. They decide to split a Caesar salad, and Burk orders a steak, rare. “And I want another martini,” Loretta says. “Make it a double.”

Suddenly heads turn in the restaurant and Loretta’s eyes fly past Burk’s face: Walter Matthau is standing next to the maître d’; with him is an intense-looking woman dressed in tight black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater.

“That’s not his wife,” says the woman sitting behind Burk. “His wife’s a blonde. She used to be married to William Saroyan.”

“That’s Elaine May. She’s directing her first movie,” someone else says. “She wrote the script, too. I saw her and Mike Nichols live on Broadway.”

Burk and Loretta are listening to all this, listening in silence. The envy on Loretta’s face turns into pain. “Elaine’s a talented woman,” she says. Burk nods, keeping his face neutral. “Fuck it. So am I.”

The waiter returns with Loretta’s martini. She gulps down half in one swallow. The man behind her says, “I think the most gifted of the bunch was Nathanael West. Have you
read
Miss Lonelyhearts
? Ninety pages and it took him four years. The sonovabitch was a stonecutter.”

“What about Chandler?” the woman asks.

“Chandler’s good but he’s not West. West hemorrhaged pain on every page.”

Once Matthau and Elaine May are seated, they are joined by Jack Rose and a tall brunette with an aloof, almost-pretty face. From another part of the restaurant, Burk hears someone mention the name of his script. Loretta hears it too. She closes her eyes. “I can’t stand this,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” Burk says, conscious that he looks somewhat pleased.

Loretta opens her eyes and lifts her chin. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t patronize me.”

Burk feels anxiety burning into his stomach. The coke he snorted earlier is wearing off. He excuses himself. On his way to the men’s room he hears a woman say his name. He turns around, trying to put the face with the voice; she’s in her forties, willowy but brittle looking. Flanking her at the bar are two men wearing leather jackets and cowboy boots. All three are smoking cigarettes.

Burk thinks, They don’t know who I am, but they know I’m here.

Loretta has already started eating her salad when Burk returns to the table. In between bites she looks at the side of his face and sees that his eye is blinking. “Are you okay?” she asks him.

Burk nods, looking into space.

Loretta shakes her head. “Go easy.”

The waiter returns with a round of drinks. “Compliments of Mr. Rose,” he says.

Burk and Loretta don’t speak again until Burk pushes aside his plate. “I’m not hungry,” he says.

“Because you’re wired.”

“Maybe.”

“You should pace yourself, Ray.”

Burk points at Loretta’s empty glass. “Like you.”

Loretta smiles, unable to hide the anger in her eyes. “Fuck off.”

Burk’s knee is jumping. He lights a cigarette and blows a cloud of smoke above his head. “We lost our sense of humor, Loretta.”

“Tell me about it.”

A handsome couple move by their table on the way out the door. They are holding hands. Staring after them, Loretta says, “When was the last time we held hands, Ray?”

Burk can’t remember.

“What about the first time?”

Burk looks away. He’s reaching back, past his relationship with Loretta. He’s with Sandra now in Madison, walking across the grass in front of the university library. They’re laughing at each other’s jokes. He takes her hand, and a moment later her leg comes up and she toe-kicks him in the butt.

“We were in line to see
Catch 22
,” Loretta says. “In Westwood.”

“That’s right.”

“You don’t remember.”

“Yes I do.”

Loretta kills her drink. “You’re lying to me, Ray,” she says calmly. “Let’s get the check.”

On the way back to the Beverly Hills Hotel, Loretta quietly begins to weep. Because he’s too stoned, Burk is unable to summon the words to console her; the best he can do is to reach out and touch her arm.

At North Foothill Road he turns left and parks under a streetlight in the middle of the second block. Loretta rolls down her window and angles her head to the side so the night air can dry the tears on her face.

“That’s where Groucho Marx lives,” Burk says. He’s pointing at a redbrick two-story house on the opposite side of the street. “I was inside there once. Back in high school, me and Timmy Miller crashed one of his parties. We used to do that a lot during the summertime: cruise up and down the streets until we found a big bash, then sneak in.

“There must have been three hundred people at Groucho’s that night, most of them outside, all around the patio and the pool. Anthony Perkins was grilling steaks on a
huge barbecue. I remember that because Timmy and I had just seen
Psycho
the week before. Betty Grable was there too. She did a tap dance around the deck with a champagne glass balanced on her head. A lot of old-time stars were there. But there was a young crowd, too.

“I remember Dennis Hopper consuming endless gin and tonics. Elizabeth Taylor was there. Timmy told her he was a premed student at UCLA. She acted like she believed him, telling him all about some back problem she had, but I was sure she was putting him on.”

“What did she look like? Was she beautiful?”

Burk closes his eyes, nodding and grimacing a little as he retrieves another memory. “Lana Turner came to the party. She was with the guy who played Tarzan in the movies.”

“Johnny Weissmuller?”

“No. The one after him. Big stone-faced guy. Lex Barker! That was him. They were married once, but I think they were divorced. He was drunk, I remember that,” Burk says, and when he opens his eyes they are bright, maybe too bright. “He got up on the diving board and did this yell, not a yell like Tarzan but something different, howling like he was in terrible pain. I remember people applauding like he was doing some kind of act. But he wasn’t. Eventually he sat down on the end of the board and started to cry. Tarzan, crying. It was so weird. I mean it seems weird now, but I don’t think Timmy and I ever talked about it.”

Burk rubs the palm of his hand across his forehead, as if he is trying to erase some painful thought or image that is forcing itself into his consciousness.

“I saw my mother the next day,” he says suddenly, startling Loretta. She looks down: His right hand is on the seat between them, his fingers curled in a way that seems to be drawing her to him. “I was working at the Ambassador Hotel. My dad knew the manager. I was a lifeguard that summer. That Sunday, the Sunday after Groucho’s party, I gave a swimming lesson to a twelve-year-old girl who was blind. She and her mother had come out from Ohio to go to Disneyland. The girl’s name was Eden and I remember
supporting her in the water, teaching her first to float. One hand was under her legs and the other was flat against her stomach. As I turned her in a circle, her hair fanned out in the water and I could feel her heart racing underneath my palm.

“When I asked her if she was okay, she said, ‘I’m fine. I’m just excited.’ Then she turned her face toward my voice and asked me whether I thought she was pretty. I said she was and she said, ‘Is my body pretty, too?’