Yesterday around four thirty in the afternoon, my cell phone rang. Having left work early, I was walking down K Street to see my honey, Cerise, and help her take advantage of two mutual periods of downtime in our busy schedules by kicking off a serendipitous Monday tryst with some truly bodacious cocktails, courtesy of a bartender whose good graces I have carefully cultivated for several years. But I must confess, for some reason I have yet to fathom, I stopped dead in my tracks when the damn thing went off, and yeah, okay, there I was, that person whom I hoped I’d never be – a guy standing on the sidewalk, yakking into a cell phone. Having yielded to answering its siren call, my choice of situations boiled down to a either that or something worse – being a guy walking down the street, yakking into a cell phone.
What made me do that, for Christ’s sake, I wondered as I raised the cell phone to my ear. I swore I’d never do it, but, for the first time today, I did. Was something happening to me? Was I changing into one of them – the people whom I loathe, who jabber into their cell phones on the sidewalk, in line at stores, while pushing their shopping carts through Balducci’s? Or were other forces, ones beyond my ken, silently at work?
“This is Tom Collins,” I said, my head still swimming with those thoughts as I waited for a response.
“Hi, Tom,” came a soft and mellifluous female voice, “it’s Veronica.”
Veronica – the girl I dated for sixteen months in college, and from whom I had not heard a single word since – after she dumped me for a total dweeb who was a graduate teaching assistant in the drama department, that is. Well, all right, they got married, and he went on to become a very successful television producer, and I freely admit the SOB makes more money in a month than I do in a year. But he’s still a God-damn dweeb, okay? In my opinion, anyway, and I’m entitled to my opinion aren’t I?
“What a surprise,” I told her, committing my greatest understatement of the last decade, “how nice to hear from you,” I continued, spinning my hugest lie in at least a week.
“It’s just fantastic to talk to you again, too,” see cooed, “it’s been so long.”
“It certainly has,” I agreed, “to what do I owe the honor of your attention after all these years?”
“You’re the only person I know who lives in Washington, and I’m giving some serious thought to moving there.”
“Well,” I observed, “Washington and Hollywood bear some interesting comparisons. For example, in Hollywood, it’s easy to get laid and hard to make money; in Washington, it’s easy to make money and hard to get laid.”
“Interesting,” Veronica offered, falling silent immediately after.
“Yeah,” I continued, “and both towns are full of pathological liars. But if you get caught lying in Hollywood, you get an article in Variety; whereas, if you get caught lying in Washington, you go to prison.”
“Unless the President pardons you,” Veronica observed, quite correctly.
“True. And both towns have a lot of huge projects going on, and each of those projects is run by a bunch of narcissistic bozos; and every preening, egotistical bozo has their own little band of lickspittle sycophants clustered around them; and nobody really knows if anything will actually work or not, but nobody will ever admit it, even to themselves…”
“And it’s all done with other people’s money,” Veronica interjected.
“Yeah,” I concurred, “you got it. Hollywood and Washington really aren’t as different as the average person might suppose. But why are you thinking about moving back East – and to Washington, of all places?”
“Because my house in Malibu just burned down,” she confessed, quite sadly.
“Sorry to hear that,” I commiserated, “I guess a house in Malibu must be worth a bundle.”
“We paid eleven point three million for it,” she related, her voice shaking a bit. “Eight thousand square feet with a five car garage. Pool, sauna, jacuzzi, tennis courts – and two hundred yards of private Pacific ocean beach. I just… They told me about it a couple of hours ago. It’s a total loss.”
“Not to worry,” I advised, “I’m sure you can rebuild it with the insurance money.”
“Do you have any idea,” she shouted, suddenly quite distraught, “how much fire insurance on an eleven point three million dollar house in Malibu costs?”
“I can imagine, sure,” I mused. “But so what? Your hubby’s the guy who produces that far-fetched police drama set in a contemporary, crime-ridden Southern metropolis with quirky, improbable cop characters who use unbelievable high technology to solve absurd murders, ludicrous robberies, incredibly hare-brained gangster scams and totally ridiculous narcotics cases using fantastically brilliant and superhuman forensics, all the while aided by continuous and uninterrupted strings of unlikely coincidences, isn’t he?”
“No,” she corrected, “he’s not. That’s the guy I married when I graduated from college. I divorced him three years ago to marry the guy who produces that far-fetched police drama set in a contemporary, crime-ridden Northern metropolis with quirky, improbable cop characters who use unbelievable psychological ploys and fantastically brilliant, superhuman interrogation techniques to catch improbably clever child molesters, implausibly sly kiddie porn crazed psychos, ridiculously sadistic serial rapists and absurdly perverted sex fiends, all the while aided by continuous and uninterrupted strings of unlikely coincidences.”
“Oh, yeah,” I responded, “the one with that pushy, rude pair of detectives that usually arrest two or three innocent people before they finally trick the real culprit into an exaggerated, histrionic and completely over-acted confession scene liberally sprinkled with lots of unconvincing ham-handed close-ups which supposedly occurs during an extremely unlikely confrontation arrived at through shameless torture of an already tenuously constructed and hopelessly inconsistent plot, that invariably occurs during the last six minutes of the show?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed, “the one where the cute, foxy prosecuting attorney is always telling them she doesn’t have enough evidence, and the rude, quirky guy detective is always grilling suspects about their family relationships to get it, and the wizened, world-weary District Attorney comes on during the last three minutes to explain that’s how the system works and isn’t it a shame, but justice is an art, not a science, so the guilty sometimes have to get a plea bargain deal and turn state’s evidence so that the even more guilty get lethal injections… ”
“But it all works out for the best,” I interjected, “because the sex fiend who got the plea bargain was a sex victim too, and also completely psychotic or utterly demented from venereal disease or something, whereas the sex fiend he or she testifies against is just plain old bad evil and deserves to die instead of getting twelve consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.”
“Yeah,” Veronica affirmed, “that one.”
“My sister’s nine year old son loves both of those shows,” I confided.
“You wouldn’t believe how well the formulas for those series tested with audiences the studios randomly selected from the tourists on the Walk of Fame,” she said proudly.
“I’m sure they’re the delight of nine-year-old minds everywhere,” I opined confidently.
“Nine to eleven year old minds of all ages,” she agreed. “It almost makes me proud to have committed so many unspeakable acts with both of my ex-husbands.”
“That and the alimony,” I surmised, “must make it possible to be reconciled to having done quite a few nasty things.”
“No!” Veronica protested, vehemently. “That scum bucket’s alimony payments were never enough to cover fire insurance on that place and still leave enough for me to live in the style to which I degraded myself so extensively to become accustomed! And I could never get an increase, even though I hired the best divorce lawyer in Los Angeles County!”
“You mean,” I asked, aghast, “that your multi-million dollar mansion in Malibu wasn’t insured for fire?”
“Or mud slides, either, for that matter,” Veronica elaborated, her voice choking off tears. “Tom, you just can’t imagine what it costs to live in Malibu! By the time I’d taken care of dining out, going to the spa, the country club, my hairdresser, my nails, buying clothes, maintaining my tan during the winter, getting the odd nip and tuck, keeping up the Mercedes Benz SLR, the Jaguar and the Ferrari, stocking the bar, paying for the utilities, lawn work and cleaning on that place, paying my divorce lawyer, of course, and ah, uh, you know… other stuff…”
“What, nose candy?”
“Oh, come on, it’s no big deal. I mean, I check into rehab for six weeks every eighteen months, just like everybody else around here. Anyway, Tom, there just wasn’t a cent left for things like home insurance payments, not at the rates they charge for houses like that in Southern California. And all the while,” she sobbed, “both of those rats not only have their new homes insured, they had fire suppression systems installed, so their insurance rates are lower! Can you believe it, Tom, my first husband actually had his Japanese gardener walk half a mile down the Pacific Coast Highway and video tape my house burning while his house was soaking down all over in water spray mist and automatic fire suppressors were ready to shoot flame retardant foam all over it the minute the least little spark blew over the hill!”
“Well, I guess the land your house was on must be worth something,” I philosophized, “and you still own the lot.”
“But that house is irreplaceable, Tom! It’s an important part of motion picture history,” she whined. “Why, Olivia de Havilland lost her virginity to Wallace Beery in that house! Charlie Chaplain had an affair with Fanny Brice there! And Mary Pickford gave birth to Douglas Fairbanks’ love child in the living room, because there wasn’t time for the chauffeur to drive to the hospital in her Rolls Royce!”
“I see.” I just had to ask, of course, “When was that house built?”
“Ah, let me think…” she muttered, “um… in 1956, yeah, that’s right, 1956.”
“Veronica,” I sadly informed her, “by 1956, Wallace Beery, Fanny Brice and Douglas Fairbanks had all been dead for at least five years.”
“Jesus, Tom, did you eat the Hollywood Encyclopedia for breakfast or something?” Veronica shot back indignantly. “I mean, really, are you sure? Didn’t all those people live like, way back in time? And wasn’t 1956 an incredibly long time ago?”
“Yeah, from our point of view, maybe, but for God’s sake, Veronica, Douglas Fairbanks died in, like, 1939.”
“So? 1939, 1956, what difference does it make? It was all the Golden Age of Hollywood, wasn’t it, with Clark Gable and Greta Garbo and Betty Boop all running around being totally glam and fabulous, right? Look Tom, I know you’re pretty smart and all, but you’ve got to be wrong. Because, I swear, what I just told you is exactly what the real estate agent told us!”
“Sure,” I replied, noticing that, at last, a passer-by was giving me supercilious looks as I gabbed on a cell phone in the middle of the sidewalk, “who ever heard of a real estate agent lying to a client?”
“Not the ones out here in Malibu, that’s for sure,” she asserted with remarkable confidence, “they’re way too expensive.”
“Yeah, well, I’m really sorry to hear about all this,” I pressed on, glancing at my watch, noticing the time and beginning to worry about Cerise waiting for me, wondering why I was late. “It’s a real tragedy, that’s for sure, what with your historic and expensive mansion in Malibu burning down and all, with no insurance – that’s a real bummer, no doubt about it – so, is there anything can I do for you?”
“Well, Tom,” she began, returning quickly to purring mode, “I was wondering if I could stay at your place in… what is it… Great Falls, Virginia, when I visit DC?”
This was it, I suppose – my call was running long, I had a previous engagement – yes, alas, there I was, another idiot, traipsing down the sidewalk, yakking on a cell phone.
“I… I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I objected. “I have, as you might expect, a lady friend, you know, a significant other kind of person, and although she’s very open minded, I don’t think she’d appreciate it if…”
“Oh, come on, Tom,” she chided, “you know it’s not going to be like that.”
“It’s not?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, Tom.”
“Then why do you want to stay at my house?”
“Because I don’t want to waste money on a hotel when I can stay with a friend,” she rationalized, “hotels are so… impersonal.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted, ruefully remembering how Veronica used to behave, “and you’re a personal person.”
“Exactly. A very personal… people… person.”
“Let me check with my girlfriend, at least, before I get myself into this,” I suggested.
“By all means,” she sighed, “and be sure to fill her in on what good friends we were at school.”
“Will do,” I relented. “Anything else?”
A cab driver who nearly hit me making a right turn with his taxi while I was crossing at an intersection (with the traffic light in my favor, by the way) pointed at my cell phone as he flipped me off and questioned my ancestry with colorful Lithuanian metaphors.
“As long as I’ve got you on the phone, yes,” she chirped, “first of all, I’ll be arriving at Dulles International Airport on Friday afternoon.”
“Okay, I’ll be sure to get back to you before that,” I vouched, “is this your number here, the one I have on my caller ID?”
“Yes, that’s it,” she warbled cheerily. “And it will be so good to see you again. Now, one more thing, before I let you go…”
Down at the end of the block, I spotted the open-air cafe where I had agreed to meet Cerise. There she was – I could just barely make her out, sitting at a sidewalk table, wearing a bright green scarf and a tight tweed business outfit I had seen her in before.
“Sure, Veronica, what’s that, then?”
“Well, I… uh… you see, Tom, first I was married to a TV producer, and I divorced him to marry another TV producer, and then I divorced him, and gee, it’s been all these years since college and I… that is, all this business with my house burning down, the trauma, the shock, it’s brought me to an incredible… ah… revelation or something, I guess.”
“Right. Do you mean you realized, at last, that you really don’t know how to do anything but make strange nookie for people with twisted libidos?”
My choice of words made her laugh for a moment. “Yeah, that’s it, basically. All I’m good for is, um… exotic poon-tang. But I’m hot, Tom, I look great. I’m still trophy material, make no mistake about it.”
“Understood,” I told her flatly. “You can get started here working for federal government contractors who need someone to… ah, develop follow-on tasks by working closely with members of their civil service client organizations.”
“Really?” She certainly sounded surprised, although I can’t imagine why. Maybe living in Malibu all that time had insulated her from the rest of the world somehow.
“Oh, yeah,” I observed, “many of the women managers at the contractor firms here in Washington – especially the really big firms – are basically there to provide carnal bribes to federal government employees who influence continued revenues, but those guys, and, ahem… occasionally, gals – they often demand some additional, um… incentives to write more no-bid vehicles and sole-source justifications. And they all appreciate dynamite looks, because most of those women managers are just, oh… fours or fives, maybe.”
“I’m a ten, Tom, you know that!”
“As I recall, yeah, you were, and probably still are,” I agreed, “and even a nine is pretty rare in the vicinity of the Beltway, so I’d say you’d have no problem.”
“Wow, that’s fabulous!” Veronica’s voice fairly pulsated with elation at the prospect of continuing her career as a mindless pleasure machine, amassing even greater and more obscene wealth while cruising through yet another amoral environment of ubiquitous corruption, institutionalized mediocrity and callous, parasitic deceit. “It sounds like you’re right, Tom, Washington and Hollywood do have a lot in common! You think I’ll be okay in DC?”
As I arrived at her table, Cerise smiled and laughed while making the “telephone” sign with one hand and mockingly scolding me by shaking her index finger with the other. It was clear that she was not about to ignore catching Tom dead to rights on his very first promenade as one of those jerks walking around with a cell phone stuck in his ear. About time to hang up, then, I concluded.
“Believe me when I tell you, Veronica, it will be easier than moving a donkey show from Sodom to Gomorrah.”