SIX
NEIGHBORS
It was the last day in the studio apartment. Kendall sat at the drawing table Nate had sent staring at the script.
INT. BEDROOM. DAY.
Charlene is tied spread-eagled to the four-poster with a gag ball in her mouth. She looks frightened.
Kendall felt uncomfortable. The scene was mild compared to what followed. The film was certain to earn an ‘X’ rating, the kiss of death in Hollywood. Kendall had difficulty believing Wyrick had green-lit Night Shifts, even with their more adult, “edgy” direction under the stewardship of Maude Cummings, who had become CEO four years ago following the retirement of legendary filmmaker Hans Gropius. Hans had been the last of the “Crazy Eight,” the original animators whom Darryl Wyrick had hired for his first groundbreaking feature, Nudnick of the North.
Maude vowed to shake things up and had championed a series of adult sex farces with the remake of Carry on Nurse. But Night Shifts went way beyond that. It was an ‘A’ list porn film with several top stars attached. Dal Lazlo was the “edgy” director of the hour whose Last Year at Indianola had steamrolled the critics at Sundance and Cannes.
Kendall stared at the page. One reason he didn’t like to draw the scene was because it gave him a hard-on. Sam Fuller would have said that’s a good scene. But it wasn’t what Kendall liked to draw.
Snap out of it, fool! A job’s a job. Draw the damned scene and collect your paycheck!
“I wish they all could be California girls,” the Beach Boys crooned from the little Sony Kendall had used for twenty years.
He thought about drinking. It might be easier to draw, but then he’d mess up his sleep and have a hangover.
Draw the fuckin’ page. It’s just a job. Do the job, and more will follow. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To be part of the Hollywood crowd, go to the parties, date starlets, show up at awards shows.
His phone warbled “I Live for the Sun.” He picked it up.
“Coffin.”
“Mr. Coffin, this is Phil Bailey with Mayflower. We’re about an hour from your place. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kendall said. “I’ll meet you there.”
He felt like a grade-schooler whose visit to the principal’s office had just been canceled. With a sigh of relief, he set down his pencil, stood, and stretched. It was merely a reprieve, not a pardon. The sequence was due on Monday. He had four days. When he started out in comics, he was drawing two pages a day.
Kendall grabbed his backpack containing his laptop, portfolio, and camera and exited the third-floor walk-up. He took the exterior stairs to the courtyard and beeped open the Avalon. He stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts and picked up a half dozen coffees and a dozen doughnuts which he carried to the car in a big cardboard box. The apartment was in Pasadena, a stone’s throw but a snail’s pace from Los Feliz. Kendall joined the long line of parked cars on the 210, radio tuned to the All Surf Station, WAVE 99.9 on your FM dial.
There was a lot more surf music than most people realized. Kendall had wanted to live in California since he’d first heard “Little Surfer Girl” at the age of nine. He had yet to make it to the ocean.
Forty-five minutes later he parked at the curb in front of the house. The garage sat a mere eight feet from the sidewalk; not deep enough for a car. Plus, there was that Corvette blocking the entrance. Kendall got out, took the doughnuts and coffee, beeped the car shut, walked up the steps, and unlocked the padlock. The gates shrieked like banshees. He unlocked the front door and went inside. The house smelled of dust and curdled futurism, like a museum. He went into the kitchen and set the coffee and doughnuts down on the marble counter.
Shafts of light from the skylights caught the dust gleaming like the asteroid belt. He went through the double doors into the courtyard. The lush vegetation seemed almost tropical, an explosion of green and purple beauty. He didn’t like the idea of strangers in the belly of his house. He would do the yard work himself. Maybe some neighborhood kids once he got to know them.
He returned to the Avalon, popped the trunk, and removed a heavy wooden box containing the .45 his father had carried with him throughout the Vietnam War. Kendall was no shooter. He kept the gun for sentimental reasons and because it was an excellent model. He carried the box into the house, into the den, removed the Picasso, and deposited the pistol in the wall safe. He stripped the combination from the back of the safe, memorized it, and stuck it in his pocket.
A vibraphone chimed the intro to the Temptations’ “Beauty’s Only Skin Deep.” With a shock, Kendall realized it was the doorbell. Kendall replaced the painting and went to the front door. A stout, black man wearing a yellow Mayflower cap stood in the vestibule with a clipboard.
“Mr. Coffin? Phil Bailey. Say, this is some house.”
Kendall looked over Bailey’s shoulder where four workmen stood on the sidewalk staring at the house.
“Hi, Mr. Bailey. Come on in. Would you like some coffee and a doughnut?”
“That’s all right. Got plenty of coffee, but I will take a doughnut. Let me just do a walk-through.”
While Kendall took Bailey through the house, the movers unrolled carpet runners over the hardwood and tile floors. The furniture arrived carried by burly men like ants returning to their colony with enormous grains of food. Boxes piled up. Kendall’s CD collection alone filled six boxes. It took the crew just over two hours to unload the truck. Bailey went through a checklist which Kendall signed. Bailey and one other man got in the moving van, the other four movers jamming into an old Toyota double cab pickup with California plates. As the truck moved down the street, a man walked up the sidewalk from the east and mounted the steps.
Kendall watched with apprehension. The man had the long hair and beard of an old-world prophet, wore Ray-Bans, a screaming red and yellow Hawaiian shirt showing guitars and palm trees, and baggy shorts that stopped mid-calf. Between his sandals and short bottoms, tribal tats climbed up his thick legs. A gold cross glittered on his neck. The man climbed slowly using the rail.
“Hello,” Kendall said when the man was several steps down.
The man looked up with a friendly grin. “Well hello, friend. I’m Torrance Skaggs, your next-door neighbor. Thought I’d mosey over and welcome you to the neighborhood.”
Kendall shook Torrance’s hand. “Kendall Coffin. Torrance Skaggs. Torrance Skaggs. Why does that ring a bell?”
“I used to be in Gearhead. That’s a heavy metal band.”
Kendall’s mouth formed an ‘O.’ “Gearhead?! Man, I love that band! I’ve got your first two records. You were lead singer and guitarist! Torrance Skaggs! Come up! Come up!”
Kendall gestured for Torrance to precede him through the gate into the house. Torrance stopped in the vestibule, looked all around, and inhaled deeply. “So you bought the old Wallanda House.”
Kendall shut the front door. “That’s right. Did you know him?”
“No, sir. Lived next door to the man for six years; he never invited me over. Came to greet him just like now. I even brought him a cake.”
“This used to be a real nice town . . . you could walk the streets at night . . . no bums to get you down . . . no drunks to start a fight . . . ” Kendall rapped.
Torrance grinned and nodded. He’d heard it a million times. “Yup yup, that’s off the first album. ‘The Badger.’”
“Weirdos started hangin ’round,” Kendall continued, adding some shuffle and a little tap. “Hangin’ ’round and talkin’ trash . . . talkin’ trash and hangin’ ’round . . . livin’ on that welfare cash . . . ”
Torrance’s grin froze like a charlie horse. He nodded his head like an exasperated teacher. Kendall stopped singing.
“Thank you.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Well . . . ” Torrance said going to the double doors which opened onto the courtyard.
Kendall opened the doors, and they stepped out.
“It’s just that I’ve put that part of my life behind me. I serve the Lord now, and not a day goes by I don’t beg for forgiveness, knowing that songs I wrote may have inspired young people to do drugs, engage in promiscuity, or engage in antisocial behavior.”