Five Years Ago: Part 1 4 page

Oscar accepts the glass, his hand briefly brushing against hers. The fine crystal was likely born to hold things more sophisticated than water. He takes a long drink and fills the glass again while Loren leans against the counter. Besides her flowing shirt she wears cutoff shorts and her tanned, bare legs end in scarred turquoise cowboy boots. Oscar finishes the lukewarm water and raises an eyebrow at her.

“No,” she says. She’s smiling again.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking a few things though, Oscar.” She sighs and shakes her head, her wavy black hair falling forward and brushing over the tops of her breasts. “You boys, you amaze me. You never even try to hide it.”

“Didn’t know the Savages were telepathic.”

“We’re not. You’re just transparent.”

The accusation bugs him. It bugs him enough to mess with her a little. He stands toe to toe with her.

“What am I thinking about, Ren?”

She blushes and looks at her boots. “S-sex.” She stumbles over the word.

Oscar laughs out loud. He laughs so hard he nearly drops the glass. “With who?”

Now she’s flushing crimson. Her self-assurance evaporates and she shifts uncomfortably.

“Well, weren’t you?” she demands with irritation.

This is the most fun he’s had in days. He drops the laughter and assumes a look of utter solemnity. “Nope. Right hand to god it hasn’t crossed my mind. Not even for a second.”

She believes the lie. She bites her lip. “Dammit, I’m sorry.”

“I guess I can forgive you for your obscene assumptions.”

“Seriously, I’m sorry.”

Oscar is studying her. She crosses her arms over her breasts and refuses to look him in the eye now. He can’t picture her in the glittering world of the rich and famous, but then she doesn’t quite seem as if she belongs here in desert exile either. She might not completely belong anywhere.

Like me.

“How long have you been out here?” he asks. “I mean, I know you guys haven’t always lived out here. Mina said you used to live in a mansion in California.”

She answers slowly. “Fourteen months. The estate was foreclosed by the bank. An investor from China lives there now. I’m sure you know my dad’s career is long over and little by little he’s lost his inheritance. Lita’s never earned an honest penny in her life but she’s long dreamed of pushing us into the business.” Ren makes a face. “I took a ton of screen tests and hated it. The lights, the cameras. It was awful. But Ava’s had some bit parts in sitcoms and Brigitte landed a role in a kids’ movie. That’s when August woke up and pulled the plug.”

“You mean that’s when he moved you to the middle of nowhere for some reason?”

She nods vaguely and skirts around the question. “My dad’s always had this thing about dynasties. He’s a student of history, obsessed with it really. If you ever want to know about which family ruled England during the fifteen hundreds you can ask him.”

“The Tudors,” interrupts Oscar.

Ren shrugs. “I’ll take your word for it. Anyway, my dad loves to point out that every dynasty ends, figuratively at least. It doesn’t mean everyone drops dead, but there comes a time when the sun stops shining on them and that might be a blessing.” Ren frowns and lets out a short, pained cough. “He didn’t want us in the business. He said it had to end, that we had to be given a chance at other choices.” She looks around with a wry expression. “Of course, there was also the fact that we were virtually destitute. August has gradually sold off whatever remained. Lita just about crapped out steel nails when he moved us out here, but it’s probably the only fight August ever won.” She looks at him and gives out a little crooked grin. “You get all that? That’s the history of the modern Savages.”

“There are worse histories to have.”

“I know. I’m not complaining. It’s not terrible. It just is.”

“True. And, if August is ever in really dire straights, I’m sure my mother would help him out.”

A cloud passes over Ren’s face. “Mina-“ she starts to say, and then stops.

Oscar wants to hear it. “What?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

He drops the subject. “Hey, you sleep up in the big house?”

She nods. “Yeah. This place is small and I don’t really want a front row seat to my brother’s many conquests. Where Monty digs up all these trashy girls I’ll never know. Anyway, August still needs to clear out some rooms where a bunch of my grandparents’ junk is stuffed. As soon as he gets around to doing that I won’t have to share with Ava and Brigitte anymore. My sisters have their good points but sometimes inhabiting the same space with them is indescribably awful.”

“I’ll bet. So I imagine Mina isn’t staying in the brothel. She’ll be bunking up with you?”

Ren gives him a strange look. “No, that’s not the plan.”

“Care to clue me in what the plan actually is? Seeing as how Mina yanked me out of school, hauled me to another continent and then dissolves into weeping or weird reminiscing whenever I ask her about it.”

“Oscar,” she says.

A weird sense of foreboding rolls through him. He’d heard a noise. Not now, about ten minutes ago, as soon as they’d come through the front door. He hadn’t even registered it at the time. He registers it now.

“Fuck,” he spits and heads for the door.

Even before he’s outside, before he rounds the corner of the building and looks out at the gravel clearing, he knows. The sounds could have been just the driver of the car departing. But it wasn’t.

The rest of the Savages are nowhere in sight but August is still there. August is ready to tell him what he doesn’t even need to hear.

“Your mother,” August says.

“I know,” Oscar answers in a hollow voice.

“She left.”

“I know,” Oscar repeats.

It seems that August wants to explain. He shifts and runs a palm over his sweaty forehead. Oscar notices that he suffers from a slight tremor in his right hand. “Mina’s exhausted. She went somewhere she can get some rest. Somewhere she can get some help. She wants you to spend the summer here, among family.” August moves to pat Oscar’s shoulder but his hand falls away as soon as his palm brushes Oscar’s shirt.

“She’s coming back,” says Oscar. He says it because he really wants it to be true.

“Of course she is,” August nods. “She’ll be back at the end of the summer. In the meantime, you have a home here with us.” He gives Oscar a curious, pitying look before turning away and disappearing into the house.

Oscar stares at a cloud of dust in the distance. It gathers particles of the desert floor to its side and spins for a few seconds in a perfect funnel formation. Then, just as abruptly, it widens and evaporates.

“You hungry?”

It’s Ren. She followed him and she’s standing at his side.

Exhaustion, August had said. Addiction. Anguish. Mental breakdown. Oscar has never spent too much time trying to puzzle out Mina Savage. It’s always been impossible. She’s been running from herself for so long. Why did she drag him into her world in the first place? Maybe he filled some lonely spot in her heart. Maybe she needed another human being who needed her in some way.

Ren moves closer to him. He can hear the kind sympathy in her voice. “Lita can’t cook for shit. I’m making barbecued chicken wings.” She touches his elbow. Gently, like she’s unsure whether it’ll crack like eggshells between her fingertips.

He looks down at her and has no thoughts about how good it would feel to get her naked. He only thinks what a relief it is to drop the fucking façade of Oscar Savage. The tough guy, the callous heartbreaker, the owner of a name he didn’t earn.

“I’ll help you,” he says.

She raises her eyebrows. She’s pleased though. “You can cook?”

“No. Teach me.”

“All right. I will.”

And so he follows her lead toward the house. They share a glance. Her brown eyes are full of curiosity and kindness. Oscar couldn’t say what his own eyes might show. The shock of Mina’s abandonment has already receded. This won’t be his dream summer but he’s okay with being here. Ren’s shoulder brushes his accidentally and he’s glad she’s here. On one of life’s more fucked up occasions it means a little something to find a friend.

CHAPTER SIX

REN

Sometimes I think about how nice it must have been in the old days.

Not the horse-drawn carriage, shitting-in-the-backyard kind of old days.

Just a few decades back, before the perpetual intrusion of modern technology.

Don’t want to hear about something? Turn off the television.

Don’t want to read it? Close the newspaper.

Avoid grocery stores and their tabloid-littered checkout stands.

Leave the radio off in the car.

Ignore the phone. Allow it to ring and ring until the caller’s ears bleed from the sound of silence.

Voila. Ignorance. Bliss.

It’s not so easy anymore.

When I reach reflexively for my phone before I’m fully awake a vague alarm hums somewhere in my fuzzy brain. Too late. Along with everyone else in my generation I’m accustomed to checking on the state of the world before I brush my teeth. My eyes have already caught the top newsfeed headline, along with the first three lines of the article.

“Savage Family Values: In yet another naked attempt to capitalize on celebrity bad behavior, the troubled Savage family is joining the reality television circus. Famed only for their genetic link to dead Hollywood stars, this current generation represents the worst-“

I do not click on the article. I do not need to. Over the last few weeks I’ve plodded through at least a dozen similar ones, summarized as follows: The talentless remnants of a famed family have sold their pride and their privacy to Vogel Television Productions. Premiering this September, the cast of Born Savages present themselves for your mockery and contempt every Wednesday night at 8 pm.

A flutter of dread wanders through my belly. It’s become a familiar companion lately, along with an eerie sense that I am standing on the spot next in line to be struck by lightening.

Because I always had trouble with sidelong glances and chronic whispers I left my casino job the day after the press release broke. For the most part I’ve been holed up in my apartment and engaged in a repetitive loop of Netflix programming.

It’s really not as sad as it sounds.

Unless the situation involves crouching before your MacBook; un-showered, withered bologna sandwich in hand while episodes of The Walking Dead swallow up time.

Yeah, I just might have become a little pathetic.

I’m all packed. The apartment is being sublet to a seasonal Cirque du Soleil acrobat for the next two months. I’m wondering if anyone in Gary’s circle will whine about my wardrobe. I have jeans. I have t-shirts. I have two pairs of expensive shoes that were gifted by sympathetic designer ages ago, a trusty old pair of brown cowboy boots, and three pairs of everyday Converse. I am aware that if a gene responsible for fashion sense exists, it seems to have skipped me.

The knock on the door comes just when it should. I’ve been sitting on the edge of the futon with my legs pressed together for the last fifteen minutes awaiting the sound.

The man standing on the other side resembles a mole that has been thrust into unfamiliar sunlight. He blinks at me. Then he attempts a crooked grin.

“Loren Savage,” he says cheerfully as if we are old friends.

With a grunt he shifts a thick strap from his shoulder and cringes as the attached heavy camera equipment lands on the floor with a thud. “I’m Rash. I’m sure Gary explained everything to you already.” He extends a thick hand.

Despite my better judgment silently warning that I ought to think twice about skin contact with anyone nicknamed ‘Rash’, I shake his hand. He smiles, exposing a row of teeth the size and hue of corn kernels.

“Nice to meet you,” I say and withdraw my hand. My voice is robotic. I still haven’t budged from the doorway.

Rash’s mud colored eyes attempt to sweep beyond my door-hogging post and into the apartment. “What do you say we set up here for a brief interview before heading out on the road?”

“An interview?” I’m caught off guard. The way it was explained to me, the camera man, this Rash person, will accompany me on my journey to Atlantis in order to capture my homecoming in all its glory.

However, no one said a word about a pre-departure interview. I would have remembered.

I clear my throat. “Actually I’m ready to head out now. If we’re going to get there by evening we should really get moving.”

Rash glances at his watch, or pretends to. “We’ve got time.”

“No,” I argue. “We don’t.”

Rash steps back and surveys me. There’s no hint on his face about what’s going on in his head, but I would guess that he’s wondering just how difficult I plan on being. After a long moment he nods to himself and shrugs. “All right. You’re the boss.”

“Actually I’m not. But thank you for the gesture.” I retreat inside and grab a suitcase in each hand while Rash quietly observes me. “My Civic isn’t very roomy. Hope all your equipment is more portable than it appears at first glance.”

“Loren,” he says in a fatherly voice. “Look, I’m not your enemy. I understand the lens can be intimidating at first and I won’t switch the camera on until you’re ready.”

I stare at him for a minute. The man appears heartfelt but he’s on Gary Vogel’s payroll. His job involves gathering footage that may be edited into something interesting, decadent, controversial or any combination thereof. Gary Vogel’s shows do not tend to be placid documentaries about earnest people living ordinary lives. Not for the first time I wonder how I’m going to make it through these next few months.

“I appreciate that. I won’t hold you to it though. You have a job to do and so do I. So let’s get on with it.”

I’ve already turned my back and started a last minute mental inventory of my belongings when Rash clears his throat. When I turn around he’s holding out a small black box with a wire attached to it. “Microphone,” he explains.

I accept his offering and turn it over in my hand a few times. It’s not heavy. I know it isn’t. Yet the weight of it in my hand is oppressive.

Rash deftly illustrates how the wireless lavalier microphone works. The end piece may be simply taped beneath my clothes for now.

“When we get to the set we’ll have Angel there,” he says. “Angel can show you a few common tricks for keeping the piece functional and unseen.” He holds up a roll of medical adhesive. “For the moment, just secure the transmitter beneath your blouse and keep the box in your back pocket.”

Rash works a few miracles and manages to get my luggage and his ponderous equipment packaged into my silver Civic. It’s a surreal feeling, driving out of Las Vegas beside a stranger and heading in the direction of possible infamy.

For his part, Rash does his best to make me feel comfortable. He chats lightly about his wife and teenage daughters back home in Los Angeles. His nickname has stuck since childhood due to frequent bouts of psoriasis. He does not ask me any questions, and for that I am grateful. Soon enough I won’t be able to avoid them, the questions. I won’t be able to dodge giving out answers.

There’s not much of a geographical distinction moving from the brown, dusty landscape of Nevada into the brown, dusty landscape of Arizona this time of year. Rains might have been more plentiful than usual over the spring because patches of wild greenery are visible beyond the shoulder of the Interstate.

We pause in the hardscrabble town of Kingman to gas up the car and grab some fast food for lunch. Rash speaks affectionately about his wife and how her vegan sensibilities would be outraged by the double patty hamburger in his hand

He doesn’t seem to mind that our conversations are largely one sided. He points to sparse ruins that glint far beyond the road, hints of places people once squatted before leaving for unknown reasons. Whether they were boom towns rising from the promise of gold, silver or copper, they were used and then forsaken.

I squint behind my sunglasses and try to ease the ache in my wrists by loosening my grip on the steering wheel. I feel it pressing on me with each passing mile; the memories, the expectations, the very visceral fear of becoming a national (hell, even an international) laughingstock. When I glimpse a battered sign for the town of Consequences my nerves begin to dance with one another beneath my skin.

Rash notices. “You all right there, Loren? You look a little shaky.”

“Not shaky. Sun’s getting to me. And please call me Ren.”

He unzips a black canvas case. “Well Ren, looks like we’re coming down the home stretch here.” He pauses, drums his fingertips against the canvas. “You mind if I record for a few minutes?”

I don’t answer. I’ve had weeks to prepare for this yet my insides are liquefying. Who the hell was I kidding? I can’t do this.

“Ren?” Now he’s concerned. He’s back to the fatherly voice, the one I imagine he uses when he’s trying to figure out his own daughters.

“Fine,” I manage to say. “It’s fine.”

Rash slips the camera out of the case. “Boss’ll have my ass if I don’t get something.”

“I know. It’s your job. Record away.”

I’d been imagining that when the camera was turned on, every inch of my skin would recoil. But it is surprisingly mundane, and painless.

“I assure you that once the first spell of self consciousness fades you don’t even feel them. You forget they are there. You forget you are acting.” – Margaret O’Leary

Years ago I was wandering the aisles of a used bookstore in a shadowy corner of L.A. and nearly tripped on a box of movie magazines from the 1950s. I sat right down and turned brittle pages, unsurprised to immediately find an interview with my fiery screen goddess grandmother. I memorized that quote on the spot.

From the time I could talk, Lita would drag me to readings and screen tests. She was a natural stage mother; ruthless, overbearing to the point of cruelty. She just needed an offspring to exercise her ambition on. I was never a good match for her goals. When shoved before the yawning maw of a black camera lens I stiffened. Whatever graceful qualities existed in those prior generations was lost on me. I’m no actor. I never will be.

“Tell me about where we are,” says Rash in a gentle voice.

My eyes don’t leave the road when I answer. “We are right outside the town of Consequences. Twenty miles from Atlantis.”

“Atlantis…” Rash prompts.

“Atlantis Star. Once a grand movie set synonymous with large scale western films, then the private retreat of the Savage family. It’s now just an exhausted has-been.” I grab my soda from the cup holder and take a long sip. The ice cubes have melted and the taste is flat. “It’s kind of like us I guess. But that wouldn’t be really accurate either. Becoming a has-been means something somewhere was accomplished. We’re never-been’s. That’s us.”

I hear myself talking and try to shut off the words. They were meant to sound casual, lighthearted, a simple rendition of history. Instead the more words that emerge the more bitter they become.

Rash says nothing when I close my mouth and concentrate on the road. He pans the camera over the dusty town of Consequences, aptly named when one of the area’s early residents was discovered to be a bank robber and murderer on the run from eastern justice. Rather than await due process, town vigilantes hung him from a cottonwood tree in the town square. The last time I was there, the stump of the ancient hanging tree remained as a ghoulish monument. I’m sure it still does.

Rash might sense my agitation. He doesn’t push me for the time being. Instead he busies himself with panning the lens over the landscape and does not bug me anymore. It’s nearly irrelevant anyway. We’re within a few miles of Atlantis. Soon there will be plenty to talk about and no getting away from it.

There are no signs that lead up to Atlantis. After all, it’s not a town, not a tourist attraction. It’s the crumbling refuge of an era, of a family. The old fake brothel is still the tallest building. Before I see anything else I see the sagging balcony adorned with the French-style wrought iron embellishments. The vertical wooden sign running down its side is all but illegible.

A memory suddenly surfaces as I follow the narrow dirt road that branches off from the asphalt. If you didn’t know exactly where the road was you might miss it.

The memory in question is six years old. We’d left Los Angeles before dawn. Lita produced copious hysterical tears and gave everyone a headache while August cheerfully piloted the Lexus deep into the neighboring state. Monty and Spence rode separately in an old pickup my father had purchased so they were spared five hours of our mother’s complaints. After a little while she stopped resembling anything coherent and sounded like the ‘Waa Waa Waa’ speak of Charlie Brown’s mother. Ava worriedly twisted her hair, recently dyed blond, around her index finger and stared out the window. Brigitte watched movies on her laptop and ignored everyone. For my part, I was hard at work trying to process everything. I watched mile after mile of nothing pass by while my mother seethed and my father drowsily pointed out landmarks to a disinterested audience.

I’d been to Atlantis once before, when I was very small. My father had hauled us along for one of his frequent day trips to check on the place. All I could remember was that everything was sharp and hot. The grounds were lazily kept by a man August had hired to clean up once every few months.

Lita had nothing but contempt for the place. “Why the hell do you hang on to that godforsaken eyesore?” The real estate wasn’t worth much, never was. Perhaps it was just old fashioned sentimentality that caused my father to keep it. Or maybe he figured some day he would need it.

Whatever his reason, I know August Savage had high hopes when we crossed the desert that spring afternoon. He was sure he’d made a decision in the best interest of his children.

Maybe that’s why I can forgive him fairly easily while I will always feel like spitting nails over the mention of Lita. He wanted what was best for us. He just went about it the wrong way.

In the end my father must have been horribly disappointed by the way things turned out.

As I get closer to the smattering of tired buildings that are all that’s left of the Savage estate, I see unfamiliar vehicles, expensive ones. Leaning against the side of the crumbling church are a pair of cameraman who smoke cigarettes and laugh about something private. One is young, tanned, with a wisp of black hair hanging in his eyes. He carelessly pushes it back and I stop breathing. But then the man moves his head so that I can see his profile more clearly. It isn’t the face that haunts my dreams and squeezes my heart.

It isn’t him.

I’m glad. And then I’m not.

We’d been out here for over a year when he arrived, full of attitude and sexual confidence that fascinated me from the start. What happened between us was beautiful.

But how it ended was sad and so terribly painful. I haven’t seen him since then and I don’t know where he is.

Two years ago I scrounged up enough cash to hire a cheap private detective who worked out of a hotel room. Oscar has good reason to hate me and I had no intention of showing up in his life to ruin whatever peace of mind he’s managed to find, but I wanted to know that he was all right. The detective was unable to find any trace of him.

Of course I wasn’t really surprised.

Oscar was always the most independent person I’ve ever known. If he wanted to shed his name and disappear he could have. And apparently he did.

Rash has returned the camera to my face. I set the car in park and notice that I am already being watched stealthily from yet another lens. My grandmother was wrong, very wrong. Every second those mechanical eyes are trained on me, I will know it.

“Welcome!” hails a woman. She’s a bottle blond and has obviously been under the knife a few times. I’d guess her to be around forty but she’s been smoothed out so much it’s tough to tell. This is Cate Camp, the so-called ‘right hand’ of Gary Vogel. I’ve talked to her before and it usually leaves me feeling tired. Luckily, for now she backs off after a quick greeting.

I scan the scene for my brothers and sisters. Of course Brigitte is easy to spot. She’s about twenty yards away, leaning against a rotting wooden horse post. She’s deliberately failing to notice my arrival, lost in her own vision of herself flipping her red hair behind one shoulder and gazing pensively in the direction of the stubby Harquehala Mountains as the hot wind lifts the hem of her skirt. It’s the sort of pose one might see on the cover of a romance novel. I have no doubt that’s exactly her intention.

“Ren!”

Ava bounds out of the house. She moves pretty quickly considering she’s balanced on ridiculous heels with a toddler on her hip. I catch Bree shooting a quick frown of annoyance that her calculated non-greeting has been disturbed.

Ava sets the little boy down and tries to nudge him forward but he balks and clings to her legs. I wouldn’t expect him to come to me. He turned two this past March and I hadn’t seen him since December.

My sister looks tired, older than her twenty-one years would indicate. That wasn’t always the case. Years of hard partying, a bad relationship and unexpected early motherhood have taken a toll. She is still pretty, always pretty. Her face holds the round contours and wide eyes of innocence. The blonde hair doesn’t suit her complexion though. It never did. She smiles at me and opens her arms. I hug her and pat my nephew, Alden, on the head. For the first time I am happy that I agreed to this lunacy.

Our younger sister abandons her thoughtful perch. She pauses long enough to allow a faint breeze to ripple through her short dress and then careens toward us as if it’s been a decade since our last encounter.

“Loren!” Bree shouts and then collides in a whirlwind of limbs and hair. She manages to produce a few tears, overkill even for her. Still, for a moment I clutch my sisters without a care for cameras or spectators.

“Where are the boys?” I ask as Bree fusses at her hair and Ava hoists the baby back onto her hip.

“Boys,” answers Brigitte with a sigh. She flounces ten feet in the opposite direction and peers toward the mountains, shading her eyes, clucking her tongue. She talks more loudly than she needs to. “I’ve scarcely seen our wayward brothers at all.”

“Spence is out riding,” Ava explains. Little Alden squats her at feet before tipping over as he pokes a curious finger into the dust.

“Figures.” My bare arms prickle in the heat and I absently run my fingertips across my skin. The cameras are watching. Silently, morbidly. That’s how things will be now. Even movements so inconsequential as swatting an insect away and answering my sister become something of interest to be captured, broadcasted, dissected. I’m not complaining. After all, I’m not here against my will. But I’d grown used to a blissful lack of attention. I feel it shattering by the second.

“Spence never minded the heat. Don’t you remember? Keeping him indoors was always kind of like caging a coyote.” Ava says this with a smile.

She and Spence are twins but as different as fire and water. Yet somewhere in the forgotten era of floating side by side in dense amniotic fluid, they formed a resolute bond. Spence had always been strangely hell bent on keeping Atlantis, either because of his own love of the place or as a posthumous honor to our father. But he is as proud as he is steadfast. Even though I do not expect to hear the words from him, I’m sure Ava’s hardships have something to do with his decision to play along with this show.

As I glance around I notice that the barn has been renovated. Knowing Spencer, he probably did most of the work himself. The unpainted wood is appropriately rustic and although not large, the low-roofed structure appears serviceable for at least a half dozen animals. Beyond it I can see the sturdy metal posts of the corral to the east.

During our family’s life in Atlantis the only horse on the grounds was an old mare named Pet that August had acquired from a local rescue organization. She was a bad-tempered animal with no patience for anyone other than Spence. And perhaps old Pet was perceptive enough to pick up on the tension between her loyal caregiver and his older brother. She tossed Monty like a ragdoll any time he tried to sit on her.

“What about Monty?” I ask suddenly. “I thought he was supposed to be here already.”

“He’s here,” frowns Ava and then bends over to prevent Alden from ingesting a sizeable rock.

Brigitte has had enough of staring pensively at the distant mountains. She flicks her lion’s mane of startling red hair over one shoulder and sashays up to me.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 688