John was a surprisingly confident young man, and a doer, not a thinker. This was an impulse Doris had encouraged him to hone. She didn't want John to be a Lodge in any way, and so fostered in him an enthusiasm for anything that went against the Delaware grain. She encouraged action, creativity and a strong dislike for the past. She had also talked Angus into removing Ivan from the private school system altogether, so both he and John could attend the local high school. Neither flourished, but both were happy enough there, and afterward both young men scraped their way through UCLA, spending the majority of their time making short films and chasing girls. John also experimented with cars. He bought the orange 260-Z from the proceeds of flipping successively more valuable cars, while Ivan drove a mint green Plymouth Scamp he bought from one of Angus's gardeners.
When they were both twenty-four, they founded Equator Pictures, using Ivan's connections and a small loan from Angus. They quickly had their hit with Bel Air PI, making them both independently wealthy, independently powerful as well as dependent on each other. John was the unstoppable freight train. Ivan ensured that the vegetables served by craft catering were fresh, and slipped $500 to a crotchety neighbor beside a location shoot who refused to turn off his Weedwacker.
One spring day, somewhere between Bel Air PI and Bel Air PI 2, John and Ivan were at an ARCO station filling up John's gunshot Bentley. 260-Z, his primary vehicle even though by now he owned the usual industry array of flash-trash cars. John said to Ivan, I like to pump my own gas into my own car, Ivan. I always go to a self-service pump. Did I ever tell you why?
To connect with the man in the street? Ivan laughed.
No. Because I like to look at the numbers rev by on the gas pump. I like to pretend each number's a year. I like to watch history begin at Year Zero and clip up and up and up. Dark Ages Renaissance Vermeer 1776 Railways Panama zoom, zoom, zoom the Depression World War II Suburbia JFK Vietnam Disco Mount St. Helens Dynasty and then,WHAM! We hit the wall. We hit the present.
So what?
This is what: there's this magic little bit of time, just a few numbers past the present year, whatever it is. Whenever I hit these years, then for maybe a fraction of a second, I can, if not see the future,feel it.
I'm listening, Ivan said. He was so patient with John.
It's like I get to be the first one there in the future. I get to be first. A pioneer.
That's what you want to be a pioneer?
Yes.
Ivan paused and then, with some consideration, asked, John-O, have you checked your tire pressure?
Nah.
Ivan got out of the car, got a pressure gauge from the attendant, and came back and checked the pressure. You've got to do the little things, too, John. It all counts, big and small.
Chapter Fifteen
John finished dinner with Ivan and Nylla, then went down to the guesthouse. Doris, having declined dinner with crack baby MacKenzie, was asleep. For the first time since his return from his botched walkout he didn't feel cold dark steel down his spine. He thought back to the women he'd been with briefly during that walkout, then he thought of Susan. Turning the front door knob, it came to him that maybe he could sponge away the look of loneliness that he'd seen in Susan's eyes and John was now pretty sure it was loneliness he'd seen, despite the smiles and the confidences. If he'd learned one thing while he'd been away, it was that loneliness and the open discussion of loneliness is the most taboo subject in the world. Forget sex or politics or religion. Or even failure.Loneliness is what clears out a room. Susan could be more to him than his latest box-office ranking. With Susan he might actually help for once, might actually raise something better out of himself than a hot pitch for a pointless film. Something moral and fine inside each of them might sprout and grow.
He phoned and got her answering machine again. He hung up. He felt sixteen.
When Susan didn't respond within an hour, John found his heart racing, his concentration shot. By midnight he was as buggy as he'd ever been on drugs, but without the distractions. He decided to forward his phone messages to his cell phone, then go rent tapes starring Susan. He wanted to see if the lonely look in her eye had always been there or if it was something new. He also just wanted to see her face.This is how fans feel about stars, he thought.So this is what it's like. To John, stars were just part of the flow of people through the house, like the maids, the agents and the caterers. But tonight he understood the allure of the tabloids and the fanzines.
He drove Ivan's Chrysler sedan down into West Hollywood. Ivan and Nylla preferred the sedan because of its anonymity. It didn't look like a rental car, and it didn't look, as Doris had said, ethnic or frightened middle class.
Traffic was tolerable; the night's darkness still felt clean. He found a rental place, West Side Video. On entering he saw it was the kind of shop where the manager asserts personality by laser-printing signs highlightingEVIL MOTHERS ,CUTE & DUMB , and arcane subcategories likeGORE FESTS andLEMONS , where John was genuinely amused to see his old turkeys,The Wild Land and The Other Side of Hate.
He realized he had no idea what movies Susan had been in. He asked the clerk, name-taggedRYAN , if he had anything starring Susan Colgate, and the clerk squeaked with pleasure. Meese Colllllll gate? I should think so. Right this way. He led John to an old magazine rack filled with sun-faded tape boxes. Above the rack was a laser-printed sign readingST .SUSAN THE DIVINE . The top of the rack was camped up with altarlike candles and sacrificial offerings Japanese candy bars, prescription bottles, a model Airbus 340 with a missing wing, and a mosaic of head shots of Susan culled from a wide array of print media. Ryan stood patiently, waiting for John's reaction, but John was silent, the inside of his brain firing Roman candles. He felt a sexual need to own the altar.
She's something, isn't she? Ryan asked.
You did this? John asked, looking at Ryan, a Gap clone khakis, white T-shirt with flannel shirt on top. A pleasant Brady Bunch face. Like a gag writer at Fox.
With tender loving care.
I'll give you a hundred bucks for it, right now.
Ryan was taken aback. Mr. Johnson I'm sorry, but I can't pretend I don't know who you are this is my shrine. It's not like I can just give it away like that.
Five hundred, but throw in the movies.
Mr.Johnson. I made it. It's not like a joke or something. Well, maybe a bit of a joke. But I've been saving these clippings for years.
Nine hundred. Half of what I've got. It's my last money. Everybody knows I'm broke. Even with Mega Force that's in a trust.
Don't tell me this! Too much information, Mr. Johnson!
John.
Too much information, John. Ryan put his hands on his hips and watched as John scanned the titles on the boxes' spines. The store was empty. They could speak loudly. John, I'm a stranger to you, but let me ask you something.