CHAPTER 4: RHINESTONE COWBOY, AND OTHER EMPLOYMENTS


“All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.”

- Marquis de Sade



We’ve done this before. There is a recipe, and a script. I’ve known it by heart for five years. She likes it to be like the first time, every time. Not this time. Tonight, I copyedit.

“Your papers.”

I hand them to her. She scans them, and hands them back.

“You’re clean.” She insists on checking every time. I can’t blame her, and STD testing is cheap, but at the same time, I guess it makes me itch somewhere where my pride used to be housed.

“I take care of my tools.”

“What’s your price?”

“I don’t negotiate. I expect only to be paid what I’m worth.”

“That’s a dangerous way to conduct business. Do you make any money?”

“I do.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Perception is a matter belonging to the perceiver, not the perceived.”

“And how do I perceive you?”

“As a whore you decided to pay for.”

“You’re not worth my dime.”

“Why don’t you find out for certain?”

“What do you think you know?”

“I understand what’s needed.”

“You’re too young to understand.”

“And yet here I am, waiting to help you disappear.”

She breaks character. Because I make her. I let my eyes fill up with a person in that moment. Whom it is, nobody knows.

“Why do you always speak as if this were a script?”

“Because that’s the way this particular scene has always struck me. Scripted.”

“Are you tailored for each performance?”

“Down to the very last thread.”

“Show me then.” She slaps me. A first. I can feel the welts of her individual fingers burning and raising on my face. This will be my last meeting with Fayette. The unspoken contract has been broken. Ten large she’s paid me, every time. Easy as pie. And lawdy, does it pay the bills.

There are no clichéd leather or spikes. I am bound in soft straps from her nightgowns, hand and foot, but not anything I couldn’t rip my way out of. I wouldn’t allow the duct tape over my mouth the first time. Causes acne, so no go there. I told her I’d keep quiet instead. She liked that.

Just a woman in her underthings, doing what needs to be done to maintain some kind of balance in her head.

The pain recedes until the throbbing paces the beating of my heart. Behind my eyelids the interior world passes by in vermillion and sable geometric patterns, and I try to walk across them like forbidden lands, squeezing my way out the backstage door in my head, and I remember that this is not the place to be. This is not why I’m here. I’m wandering too much.

Feel the split ends of the bamboo unzipper your skin in tiny ruby pouts. Feel her taste your blood, tonguing the opened flesh. Feel it. Try not to let her see the quivering pleasure, she’ll take it for pain. I don’t want to squelch the fantasy. She wants to hurt someone, while simultaneously not having to believe that she’s actually causing any pain. Somehow the human mind regularly allows itself to accept two opposing versions of reality. Of the Truth. I learned this a long time ago, about myself. Thus, no movement, no whimpers. I am still, except for near-imperceptible breathing. I facilitate the lie she tells herself. That is what I am paid to do.

If she knew she was pleasuring me, she might even kill me. People like this have threads that snap in weird places. I imagine her standing over her ex-husband’s corpse, beating it over and over and over in her dreams.

Unformed and lethal things wriggle beneath the dermis of women and men in cultures not fit, nor accepting, of the animal tendencies we’ve barely had time to evolve from, and may never completely escape. Repression, in all its forms, creates backlash. The elysian human forebrain and its reptilian stem strive for balance against enormous odds. Extremes in pressure from one end, or the other, will always destroy a vessel. Even if it takes time.

It’s thrilling Tim, to look into a pair of human eyes, and see an abyss, however quickly it might close back up.

This particular client doesn’t enjoy caning me. It’s a necessity. Fayette goes away when this business begins. Normally bottled somewhere in her head, this is almost a complete Other, doing these things. Her only problem was a divorce. He didn’t beat her, didn’t leave her with children to slave over, and even conceded, obviously, a chunk of change. The problem I see in Fayette is that even combining her beauty with this spoiled, damaged shadow side he helped to create, there is still absolutely nothing interesting about her. He married plastic. Even this ‘therapy’ is pathetic. It’s like payback on the driving crash-test dummy, by the passenger dummy.

I allow it on my ass and the backs of my thighs. A little on my back. Who sees that shit anyway? If they do, well hell, I was abused as a child, quit asking fucking questions. I usually give the wounds a week or so to heal, before I go see anyone else, anyway. Definitely Neosporin for those. Don’t want morons who read the Da Vinci Code and think they know something to go believing I’m Opus Dei, or some medieval bullshit like that. Fayette’s only a quarterly income, so it’s worth the price. She forces herself to remain pacing the edge. She refuses to dive into obsession.

It’s not over as quick as usual. She’s pissed at me for breaking our bond. For pretending to be someone. She’s never realized that as I lay there, eyes closed, my flesh was reaching out toward the whippetwisps lacerating it. I relish every moment. I am thankful this final session goes the extra mile. I’m gonna miss her.

Fayette throws the money at me, and makes me pick it up bill by bill off the floor. I can’t help myself, and I laugh at her.

Something does indeed snap, but fortunately she doesn’t pick up any sharp items. My chuckles just chase her away.

Tim…I only wrote this to let you see the extent of things. For me, every facet fascinates. I know you don’t look to these ends. It’s not even the lesson in older woman etiquette I wanted. It ended up too short. And a little twisted. Maybe a lot twisted. Hopefully I’ll dig up another mature one for you at some point. Although, there’s the power of fantasy for you. Which was the main point. My entertainment’s covered for the next month. Which means written entertainment for you, in turn.

We’re Vegas-bound motherfucker. I can afford it now. All that’s left is some minor business.

I’m meeting my famous actress today.
Our rendezvous is at the French Quarter restaurant, at Santa Monica and Fairfax. The place is sweet. The interior is bright screaming red, and the wallpaper covered in white line-drawing designs of French Quarter architecture all over it. In the center stands a raised six or seven top area that almost resembles a gazebo, with ornate white railings and green plastic vines tracing all over it, radiating out over the restaurant. It’s attached to a hotel (though it is not a hotel restaurant), and an upper level circles the dining area so the ceiling is high and skylit, in addition to a gorgeous fountain, courtyard, and series of shops that connect to the dining area. The topper is excellent food at a more than reasonable price for the locale.

The actress I’m waiting on is the woman who subsidizes me. Her uses are not generally for my body, but instead, what little art I possess. I’m her ghostwriter. I guess this is the first time I’m letting you in on this. Guess it’s sort of shitty that I’m doing it now for the effect, rather than before, for the truth. But fuck it. I imagine you’re not that concerned. And hopefully you’ll think it’s cool or something, that I get to hobnob with Hollywood. That’s the desired effect anyway. I don’t really think it is. Cool I mean. But paying the bills is good.

I met her at a b-list wannabe party I weaseled or chiseled my way into, not long after I lit out from St. Louis. I’d only been here a few weeks, living in a storage unit, ‘cause I refused to mooch off the few friends I had in LA. I only wanted to get into their parties, not their lives. In one night, I did all the networking I’ve ever needed to do.

She wasn’t b-list, not at all. She was just there for a friend. She turned out to be a real person, because, well, she actually deigned to talk to me. We immediately sullied some sheets, but that was only a get-to-know-you, how-do-ya-do type of encounter. Her interest had been in the gab coming out of my gob. She’d heard me running my mouth at some other pretty thing at the bar. My interest was in her money.

She had garnered enough backing to start a production company, and nursed hopes of getting writer and director credits, on top of a fairly unspotted acting resumé. Calliope could act, and she could do business, but it turned out she could no longer write worth a damn. She had great ideas, but she’d read so many shit scripts over the last few years, and so little else, that whatever talent she once possessed had receded. But mostly, she didn’t have time to work on it. Tons of ideas, and everything suddenly arranged and at her beck and call, but no scripts.

No experience, no credentials, nothing, and she drew me up from the mire. I love her for it, I suppose.

I was young. Broke. She’s fiercely intelligent. Gorgeous. Cares about what she does. She doesn’t compromise her personal stance. All she did was give me a chance, completely on a whim. I delivered. And she’s paid me better than any screenwriter could hope for. I would not have this life otherwise. She comes to me with the burning, original notions. I refine them into stolen words.

I’ve ghost-penned three scripts under Calliope Ventralis’ name, two of which were released at Cannes, one that landed a Golden Globe for the lead. All she needs to do is sign the right director for the next piece, and we’re moving up from there. We’ve established legit Tinseltown street cred.

I haven’t had my picture taken but barely; I don’t go the few places I am invited. I don’t care for the effort of explaining myself, which is basically coming up with an elaborate (‘cause simple would be boring) lie as to why I’m there. I would never break Calliope’s trust. The few times I did go out early on, I happened to be reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, and it was all too real. I’ve never read anything more keyed into class and subculture, something so fully in the possession of the zeitgeist of a place. Trust me, LA hasn’t stepped too far out of the ‘80s. If you can see past the glittering sunlight and red carpets, there’s a not-so-quiet despair in this most young and materialistic of lands. Half the people are flesheating ghouls, and the other half are on their way. People are afraid to merge.

I noticed myself doing the blasé thing very quickly. A detached talking head. I retreated from any sort of scene, retreated from friends, and fell into myself. I made the decision to operate alone.

I’m wandering.

She shows. I’d been beginning to wonder. Famous people…

I order a dipped roast beef on a baguette, and French Onion soup. It’s one of the best recipes I’ve had in my quest for the greatest of French Onion soups. Go to the French Quarter Restaurant…you won’t be disappointed. No, this is not a plug. I just dig the place.

She orders some carb-conscious salad business, and a Pinot Grigio. She already looks a bit sedated. Giddy, even.

Her suit today is absenceofgod black, neatly cut with sharp angles and subtle, razor-thin pinstripes. Honey-dipped blonde hair pulled neatly up into a bun, knife-edged spectacles to match the suit – she looks to be all business. Except that vacant thing going on in her eyes. She’s not normally like this.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you,” she asks.

“Only for a little while.” She has the next completed project already in the vault so I don’t really know what this is about.

“I wanted you here, when we start shooting. It’s only 3 days from now.”

“You know I don’t enjoy being around it, Calliope. You tried this last time.”

“And you know that I don’t mind you being around, right? You don’t have to stay away because of the arrangement. Hell, we’re having pictures of us taken right now. They’re wondering if we’re fucking as we speak. And I don’t care. You don’t have to be alone all the time.” It’s Valium, because she pops another one.

“Why are you doped to the gills? And aren’t we lovers, on occasion?” I’m kind of concerned for her.

“Don’t worry about what’s wrong with me. Worry about what’s wrong with you. Everyone but you is worried.”

“What’s wrong with me? That I can’t simper to the assholes you entertain? And who’s everyone? None of your friends know me, except for Milly.”

“It’s that you have no use for anything. You don’t care about anything. The new script is a strong fucking story, and you don’t even want to see it come to life. That’s pathological. It’s wrong. Especially when you know we’re going to do it justice.”

“Then why have you and I been working together all these years? Do you really think that about me? That I just don’t give a shit?”

“We work together because you’ve never failed me. You’re fucking…good…man. But for you…I pay you. That’s the only hold I have on you. You’d have moved on a long time ago if it weren’t for that big big paycheck.”

“You think that’s all this is? I respect you. You put me here. People think you’re brilliant because you are. I like helping you. I like the association, even if it’s a secret one.” I know where she’s going now…we’ve had this conversation before. Woman suffers a massive guilt complex over being rich and famous. One of the few I’ve known that does.

“I don’t deserve it. I’m stealing it from you,” and she plays guilty footsie with me.

“No, you’re buying it. And there’s nothing you can take from me, Calliope, that I didn’t already taken from someone else. Christ. Eat up, the food is great.” People are taking notice of us, naturally. She’s been a name in this town for going on ten years. I want to get out before the autograph hounds and paparazzi are in my soup.

I consider reaching out to soothe her. I think a kindly disposition has also been a crucial element of my success. I may not give a Fuck, on many levels, but I don’t want people to hurt. That’s never what I’ve been about. There’s so much more to gain by helping them grow, instead of regress.

The problem is that pieces of them get stuck to pieces of you. And sometimes they make you grow. I keep my hand in my lap.

“I want you to come back with me today. You’re going to float in my pool, drink Wild Turkey, and get in bed with Milly and I.” Milly is her latest girlfriend. Calliope doesn’t make any bones about her multiple alternative lifestyles. She’s an admitted user and abuser of several vices, but at least she’s not selling self-help or religion to anyone. Her movies have never been family films, and she’s respected as an actress with serious chops, whatever her personal life may be. She can maintain whatever reputation she pleases, as long as it doesn’t interfere with her public performances. She’s got status. She earns her wage in box office and rental payback, because she’s replayable. Captivating. You want to watch her over and over. You’d never know that she spends a good number of nights blitzkrieged out of her skull.

I have. Watched her over and over, I mean. We’ve taped ourselves. Those tapes are amongst my most sacred treasures. It was her secret gift, in return for mine. It’s one of the things I love best about her. She has a sense of fairness. Of right and wrong. A perfect symbol of her trust. And she’s right. I would never allow anyone to see it. Could never do it to her. That’s the most brilliant thing about her, for me. She sees me.

And I can’t deny her. Now. Ever. Lunch is finished in quick fashion, and we retire to her respectably sized estate in Malibu, just north of Zuma beach. Couched on the other side of a little hillock just off the sand, her driveway leads to an inlaid set of unsmoothed stone stairs that take you to her rectangular quasi mansion….more like a ranch house virus, that expanded way too far horizontally, and had no ability to replicate vertically. Around the outer edges of the house proper and pool, there is a “fence” comprised of pale silver stainless steel supports, and opaque aquamarine glass rectangles. The pool’s an abstract amoeba, and has the signature raised hot tub that spills off into it in a flat, clear waterfall.

Her basement is massive, and damn near empty. She uses it as a dance club, constantly changing and removing the decor, inviting untold glitterati into an ever-morphing, luscious domain. Royalty have chilled out in that basement. Famous motorcycle racers. Politicians. She told me she even had Ginsberg and Pynchon in the same room once, long before I came along. The basement has been great for building contacts. I’ve met countless people down there, and been able to take a glimpse into the rotten intestines of this town and its business.

I sleep down there fairly often. I like the enormous darkness of it at night. It’s my third home. Although really, my second, considering I haven’t been back to my first in some time.

The Wild Turkey thing wasn’t fair. I haven’t yet assimilated the death of the Good Doctor. It’s only been a few days. She knows this. I still wonder, had we not let this proto-Antichrist slither into our White House not once, but twice, if Hunter S. Thompson wouldn’t still be with us. It’s rumored he despised G.W.B. and company with a rancor that exceeded his legendary hatred of Nixon. The death of one of the last gunslingers by his own hand has loosed a feverish, exponentially amplified scream at the swine that will echo in any history that matters.

In Saevio Pax, Bubba.

I’ve considered doing an homage piece for the publication (sorry dude, can’t release the info, I write under a pen name, and telling even you would be blowing my cover), but fucking Randy (the fucking editor) hasn’t talked to me for two fucking months now. Honestly it may have been of my own doing. I dimly recall having spilt some ugly verbiage his way at our last martini mixer. But bugger that guy. I’ll save my shameless idolatry for someone else to buy.

Calliope sends Delberto out to make me a sandwich there on the spot, next to the pool, allowing me to choose from piles of lunch meat, cheeses, veggies, and breads on his tray. He’s like a mini-Subway. I slap the sandwich artist’s ass as he goes, just to make him wish. Well that, and the cabana boy doesn’t have the Gobbler, or three mojitos under his belt. Everyone deserves a little afternoon delight.

Milly isn’t wearing any clothes. She hasn’t been, for the three months she’s been skulking around the place. She’s unendurable: flaunting and preening, like most Los Angeles transplants that are far too aware of their own beauty, and little else. Unlike most of them, however, she’s fully aware of what she’s up to.

She hails from some sphincter the Midwest calls a town. I drove through it once, Ass-Neck Kansas, or some such business. People that move out here get sucked in too fast, and whatever used to make them decent and agreeable in the heartland becomes something despicable and soulless. Pupils dilate into dollar signs, and I know some of those flesh-and-blood Barbies have luxury car hood ornaments tattooed around their twats. A girl from barely anything or less comes out here and gets just a sniff of the riches….there’s no coming back. She’ll never want anything less than the Cristal, from there on out. You hand a girl a fluteful from a $400 bottle of Bollinger Blanc de Noire Vieilles, a fine and rare bubbly, vinified from Pinot Noir Grapes, and she turns it down claiming to drink only Cristal. Only in this town my friend. Only here.

But this girl sparkles. She’s not a day over 18, and I’m having a definite Phoebe Cates moment as she shimmers in a sun that’s working on taking my buzz a staggering step beyond. I manage not to dump the sandwich or myself off the raft as she arcs into the pool.

When she surfaces and smoothes filigreed golden hair back, water beads in tiny rainbows across skin unmarred by time or stress. “I can see your balls,” she laughs. I shrug.

Calliope has been getting a massage the entire time I’ve been here, and I’m beginning to wonder when it’s going to be my turn. My phone rings, and I rudder myself over to it on the poolshore, careful to mind my beverage. Milly spreads her arms wide and arches her back to lean against the edge of the pool, taking in the sun. Just not fair. The choice then becomes phone or drink, as the raft bucks me. I commit the party foul.

I like my phone, the Samsung SCH-i730 – a Windows-powered pocket PC with Microsoft Office installed, a full keyboard, Bluetooth capabilities, along with a wi-fi receiver so I can get on the net anywhere there’s a hotspot. They just came out with an upgrade recently that expands the wi-fi to complete broadband access damn near anywhere in a major metro area. If I wanna know about spelunking in Grenada, I wanna know about it now. If I need to type a couple eureka-style pages when I’m on the road, I can. I try to never be without what I need when inspiration strikes.

It’s how I’m writing these letters for you, for the most part. On the phone, fast and heavy and close after it happens.

“McAlister’s Collision Center, We Meet People By Accident,” I sputter on the answer, water leaking out of all orifices. My precious technology was the only thing that didn’t go under. Milly finally stops laughing at me when she dives to retrieve my sinking rocks glass trailing brown whiskey wisps in the clear water. I watch her wavery form snatch it and resurface, hardly hearing the voice on the other end.

“So now I’m fucking my boss,” the voice on the other end finally says.

“Do you need an estimate on that, ma’am?” It’s Jaqueline. She’s upset.

“Yes, I do. Guess what he is.”

“Well, if he’s your boss, I’d estimate…a lawyer. You still work at the firm, right?” To my delight and distraction, Milly has extricated herself from the pool, and is currently performing the role of Gorgeous Naked Girl Rolling A Joint. Uncredited, of course.

“He’s married, that’s what. Married!. You know what this means don’t you?”

“That you’re about to lose a man half his estate….oh, but wait, he’s an attorney. So what the hell are you worried about?”

“That’s just it. Hell. I’m going to Hell.” Sometimes I wonder if Jaqueline wouldn’t have ended up as some mad prophet nun if she’d have been born in the Middle Ages. She’s Agnostic in mind, but antiquarian in morals.

“You’re one tiny carbon unit in a vast universe who made a decision questionable even as a movement of free will, as it’s based in a system of biomechanical checks and balances, never-ending variables and circumstances, and informed by a rule-set that we’re not even sure is the right set of rules. If he cheated, the marriage was already going down the toilet. Are you going to be eternally damned and tortured for being the final catalyst in an electrochemical reaction that probably began somewhere with her throwing out his old t-shirts? I think not.” How’s that for reassurance? Word to your mother.

Jaqueline calls me when she makes a move that makes her worry about her soul. I’m the only person she knows who won’t be outraged, but will rather cheer her on instead. I’m the only person she knows who makes her feel less of a sinner. I’ve been trying to get through to her for years Tim, that we can’t inhibit ourselves with these oddly concocted social mores regarding good and evil, sin and god-pleasing deed. I know you’re not as stubborn a study.

“Scarlet Letter all over again,” she slightly slurs. She’s drunk this time. I learned not to talk to her when I’m drunk. Last time she diddled a widower. He was still wearing the ring. I called her Hester Prynne at the urging of some really good gin. Not too slick.

“Because we’ve stepped back in time a few centuries? Have you checked the divorce rate recently? You may have an exceptional rack, but they aren’t setting the precedent for discontent in this guy’s life.” No lie, Jaqueline’s got fantastic talent upstairs.

“So what then?”

“So take it for what it’s worth. Get expensive dinners on the cheap. Know that you have job security. Ha! Just try not to hurt anybody any more than they need to be.”

I may be a proponent of not mindlessly injuring someone…but injuring someone that needs it is another story entirely. Some people beg to be taken down a peg or five; some need tragedy; some need cruelty in order to learn to be kind. Never hesitate to help someone hit rock bottom if they need it. This is not one of those cases.

“Are you ever coming home again?”

“Jaqueline, I have to go. And don’t worry about the devil. If you see him, give him my address. He’ll be much more interested in coming my way.” Hit the END button before she can answer because the joint is finished, and perfect. Milly waves it at me.

“That what they teach you Kansas kids, besides anti-Darwinism?” Despite the fact that Milly is distasteful to me in principal, the day-to-day reality is that I really would like to blast her in the can. Without Calliope around.

“You already know I give the best head west of Thailand.” I’m not currently at liberty to debate that point. So far, she’s right.

“Meant to ask, you learn that on the football players?”

“Corn-fed boys, best kind. Hosses, they call ‘em, back home on the farm. It’s their girth, that really teaches you how to take it. You’re a relief in comparison.” She smiles oh-so-sweet.

“Ooooh, Burn,” I reply, suppressing a true moment of injured manhood. She just ridiculed my piece. Fuck her…even if her cannabis is top notch. I can smell it from here. Don’t care…I’m going to the house.

Okay, no I’m not. That shit was funny. Milly’s not bad. I think I’m actually jealous of her and Calliope. Two at the same time is also not that bad. I need to not throw a wrench into the works because I somehow feel left out. Getting drunk enough to feel feelings was not on the agenda today.

“Take care of business,” and I hand her a lighter. Dunno where that lighter came from. Narrative trick probably.

And we smoke, two kids taken under the wing of some surreal starlet, sucking up the SoCal dayglo sun, without a care as to what happens next. The ultimate thrust of which, I hope, is a complete disconnection of care or concern for What’s Going To Happen Next. I think part of the key to not aging, is to not project the future. If all that’s happening to you is Now, and you’re not waiting for Then…then no time is truly passing. Our perception of time is absolutely rooted in our consciousness. Ever lose yourself reading a book, walking through a museum, shopping for clothes? Time exists only as we experience it. Peter Pan isn’t a lark - he’s a lifestyle.

“Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to run a Ferrari 200 miles per hour into a brick wall? That split second, right before you lose consciousness, when you’re just this side of being liquefied?” She doesn’t look surprised by the question.

“I almost jumped off my roof when I was sixteen, but I decided it wasn’t high up enough. That I couldn’t get that feeling, and I’d probably just end up crippled. I ran away instead.” She hands off the J.

“What does it feel like…,” I hesitate, to draw the heavily crystallized indica into my lungs.

“…to make something into nothing,” she finishes.

“I can see why she dates you,” I try to squeeze the words out around the potcloud inside me. She chuckles while I choke.

“You call this dating? I’m a flesh and blood blow-up doll,” she puffs smoothly twice and hands back.

“Least she doesn’t fold you up and put you in the cabinet,” I bogart.

“Oh, quit crying. We’ve both had shittier jobs.” She gives me the eye for bogarting.

“You’ve had jobs,” I question, continuing to bogart.

“You don’t have to be so patronizing all the time.” She looks hurt now, so I desist my hogging of the joint.

“Defense mechanism,” I mutter.

“Big man to admit you’re threatened by a teenybopper,” she teases, waggling the remainder of the roach at me.

“I’m threatened by anybody prettier than me,” I say, which is true.

“I’d laugh if you weren’t too twisted to be anything but deadly earnest about that. ‘Cause that was some fucking cheese.”

It never hurts to lay out a little cheddar here and there. It helps take away some of the glitter from your operation, because she knows if you’re too shiny, you’re an emotional liability.

Shit…I better not be trying to woo Calliope’s piece…

Sweat beads lick narrow trails down her shoulders and neck, into her cleavage. Why am I even trying to…this is a foregone conclusion. Sorry, Tim, we just have to get around this, and we’ll be back on track. Vegas is where we can learn things. These dabblings are too involved.

“Do you ever get tired of knowing you live off someone else’s indulgence?” She means in the general sense: your landlord, gas company, power plant, manager, CEO, capitalism, big business, government, religion, your parent(s). Calliope.

“My whole life is about the indulgence of someone else. Bodies or minds, one way or the other.”

“Blah blah dee fuckin’ blah. I get tired of it. I don’t want to live here much longer.” She crosses her arms as if she’s pouting. So much for waxing poetic with a teenager.

“How are you going to live? Move to the Valley and do porn?” I can see that the thought has crossed her mind.

“Fuck no,” she lies.

“Good luck finding another way out,” I jibe.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” and now we’re having a father-daughter moment.

“I could put on a show for you if you want. Or I could do you a favor, and remind you of what you’ve got. You have no schedule, other than her occasional desires, and all your wants are met. Do something with it. Gratuitous freedom is rare. And what kind of a fallback plan do you have anyway? Hacking your own way ain’t easy. Especially if you’re not even done, much less begun, with college.” Danny Tanner’s got nothin’ on me.

“I could stay with you,” she chirps. So this is the angle. Bad angle.

“Oh? Ha! Sorry. Not likely. I live on my own for a reason.”

“You wouldn’t help a teenage girl in need,” she breathes, hand sliding closer to her pristine vagina.

“Not one that creates her own problems,” I say with very little finality.

Calliope motions to us from the big picture window in the den.

“Time to pay the piper,” Milly smiles, thinking she’s getting her chance to convince me I need a roommate.

The threesome is pedestrian, and uninteresting. Calliope sees that Milly and I are different today. More connected. And so she ruins the beat, the pace, the everything. She can share her trophies, but only so much. Milly’s good. Great, in fact. But overzealous. And fake. I hate fake.

How sadly predictable.

I leave, but not before Calliope can lay one last errand on me I’ll have to run, before I get out of town. She can’t even hand it to me herself. She has Delberto do it right before I’m out the door. Doesn’t even give me a warning. Just like the production company, for Ms. Ventralis, it’s all about creative control. She needed to remind me just where I stand – which is not a place where I’m allowed to go co-opting her girlfriend. A place where the kid who lives in her garage, and makes me sandwiches, delivers me marching orders.

I kick off the PCH, and pump the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution she bought me after the Golden Globes through some obscure mountain paths in Malibu, heading back for the Valley. The 276 horsepower turbocharged engine keeps my nuts happily tickled, and the 4-wheel drive viscous limited slip differential keeps my ass on the slithering roads. The air up here is deceptively fresh. It’s just that there are more trees on the mountains. The smog isn’t any less poisonous.

Driving this car as it should be helps remind me that selling out, and being an errand boy, could be worse. And besides…driving’s more than half of what LA is all about. It makes me feel at home.