That stopped everyone cold, and then Johnny realized all eyes were turned to him.
“Hey,” he said, “I wouldn’t do that. You guys are my buds. I mean, yeah, I gotta go back to work, but you guys will come up and we’ll play some of the celebs who practice at the Hollywood Y.”
Stenz made a fist and said, “Yeah, right!” but Eddie only looked over at Johnny with a cynical leer.
“Hey, Mr. Big Shot, you think we bought that bit you told us about coming down here to get a little R & R before you started working again? Well, you must think we’re nuts. Cause we saw a bit on Entertainment Tonight about you, how you were kicked off your own show, and how you came down here to get away from the tabloid reporters.”
“Jesus, Ed, why you gotta get all judgmental all of a sudden?” Connie said. “We don’t care why Johnny came down here. He’s still our friend.”
Johnny managed a tortured smile at Connie, who reached over and patted his hand.
Johnny thought maybe the attack would be over then, but Eddie was just warming up: “Say what you want, Connie, but Johnny’s down here slumming. You think we’re ever gonna hear from this guy again once he gets back to Latte Land?”
Stenz stared down at his feet, and Connie just shook her head.
Johnny let out a long breath, and slid out from the booth.
“Okay,” he said. “I better go. Seems like things are getting a little too unpleasant.”
“No, Johnny,” Connie said in a panicky voice. “Don’t go. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Eddie turned his head and stared blankly across the room.
“No, I think he means it. I don’t want to bum you guys out. So — take it easy.”
He started to walk toward the front door, when Connie ran up behind him and grabbed his wrist. He turned to see tears on her face.
“This isn’t really about you,” she said. “He’s really furious at me.”
“Why?” Johnny asked.
“Cause I’m pregnant.”
“Oh,” he said. “And you want to keep the baby.”
Connie nodded. “Yes, more than anything in the world.”
Eddie came staggering up behind her, mean-drunk.
“Yes, more than anything in the world,” he said in whiny mimicry. “Oh, I have to have a little baby with me at all times. So I can play kootchie-kootchie-koo with it. Fucking bitch. She put a hole in my rubber, man. This is like entrapment. Well, I’m not having it, see... I’m not. And you’re not either, bitch.”
He reached out and grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him. Johnny grabbed Connie’s other arm and for a few seconds they battled one another in an absurd tug of war. Until Johnny let go, and Connie fell into Eddie. They were both off balance and went down, upsetting a table and a pitcher of Sam Adams.
The owner of the place, Dan Minelli, came running toward them, his hair a great frizzy mess, like Larry Fine’s.
“You make a huge mess,” he said, “you gotta pay. You all gotta pay for this.”
Johnny waved a twenty at him and headed outside as quickly as he could. Thanking God he’d brought his own car, he trotted over to his BMW, opened the door, and hustled away.
Later that afternoon, he sat on the front porch smoking a joint.
This was better, way better. He’d been crazy to get involved with those people. It was all about his sentimental attachment to people from his old hometown. When he was dealing with the sharks in Hollywood, guys who would throw you off your own show, he sentimentalized working-class people, the kind of people he’d grown up with in row-house Baltimore. They were more lively, had the ability to appreciate simple things, would be your friends through thick and thin... all the best qualities of working-class existence.
But when you met them again — or people just like them — you started to realize that there was a reason you’d left your old hometown. The people were too coarse, too selfish, too rude, and mainly just too fucking dumb to make it in the larger world.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, no... because he did. It was just too much to deal with.
But what of his new idea, Hometown? Did his new hostile understanding nullify the whole project?
No, not at all. Instead, it made it all the more interesting. The guy who comes back home wants kindness and Hallmark card simplicity, but instead finds out life in the adult world of the working class is tough too.
Yeah, maybe that would make the story even richer.
So maybe he wasn’t nuts to hang with these people after all.
No, the thing to do was keep hanging out with them but look at them as a scientist looks at his specimens. Eddie was dead-on right. He’d never actually be friends with this crew but just the same... he could learn a few things, and in the end he’d throw them a bone once the day of principle photography began. A nice little piece of change.
It was good to finally get the thing sorted out. He was a camera, and they were his subjects, and from now on he would be there, play ball, maybe even go for a beer, but no more buddy-buddy. That was over. Totally.
After a couple of glasses of red wine, Johnny went to bed. Everything was going to be fine. He had his priorities straight and he would soon head back to the Hollywood Wars refreshed and renewed by his time in the O.C.
He’d been in a restless sleep for about three hours when the doorbell rang. Half out of it, Johnny got up and made his way through the hallway to the front room.
“Who is it?” he said, without opening the door.
“It’s me, bro,” came a sad voice. “Eddie.”
Johnny thought about telling Eddie to bag it and head home. Looking over at Terry’s clock, he realized it was 3 a.m. Jesus, this was the last guy he wanted to deal with now. But what the hell, Eddie’s voice sounded kind of high and pathetic. He unlocked the front door and let him in.
Eddie looked like he’d actually shrunk. His shoulders were all hunched up, and his eyes were cloudy. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “But I just need to talk to you, man. It can’t wait.”
“Why not? It’s 3 a.m.”
“I know, bro, but after that scene tonight, things got worse. Connie’s gonna leave me, man. I can’t make it without her.”
“Well, where is she now?”
“Out at her sister’s house. Out in Black Star Canyon. I gotta go there but I don’t want to go alone cause I might lose it. Man, I know it’s a huge thing to ask, but would you drive out there with me?”
“Black Star Canyon?” Johnny loved the name of the place! Jesus, this could be a whole episode, or better, a three-parter for the series. Maybe it was even the name of the series, cause it was like a ton better than Hometown.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it, Ed, but you have to promise me that if I come you won’t start anything. How do you know she’s even awake?”
“I know. I just talked to her on the cell. She can’t sleep either. Man, it’s so great of you. You’re a real bud.”
“Let me get dressed,” Johnny said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
They drove inland in silence through Cook’s Corner, with its ugly little houses, greasy food joints, and a scummy-looking bar called JC’s Place. There wasn’t even a sign at this joint, just a gold star and the letters JC on the door. Johnny shuddered at the thought of the kind of men who hung out in there.
They stopped at a barren crossroads and he saw a falling-down house with a collapsed screen porch and a Naugahyde couch lying out front of the place. It was all just a little too real for him. The toughest place he’d been in the last three years was Barney’s Beanery, the old Jim Morrison hangout. And all the “tough guys” who hung out there were actors playing Jimmy Dean.