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The Screenwriter's House in LA

I’d known Dennis’s mom since Dennis and me were in second grade, since the days when she would come out on her cedar deck in that grey and blue jumpsuit of hers with her macadamia nut cookies spread over her tray while me and Dennis jumped on his rusty, squeaky trampoline. That was back in the early Nineties in Nebraska.

Now Dennis had gotten himself lost in LA. His mom—Sandra was her name—she called me about it. She called me at work.

I worked at a shelving factory in Des Moines. I was a chemical engineer but they had hired me to program a laser to cut those little notches that hold the shelves in place.

For the past week, I ended up taking about half of her calls that she made to my work phone. She would get herself drunk by noon and then work herself into frenzy, calling every other hour on the hour until I left work at five. She had become a peach Schnapps drunk—the worst kind since the Schnapps was so gentle to her. It gave her staying power. It left her with these remnants of logical thought that were more painful for me than the comic rants of the bourbon and whiskey drunks I had known from growing up in Papillion. She called one last time, right before five on Friday and I decided to answer.

“They got him, Teddy!” she said.

My name is actually Sid. And Teddy was her estranged husband’s name. She got us confused. We were both tall and reticent. Teddy estranged Dennis and his mom when Dennis was in the eighth grade and just discovering girls.

“I know they got him, Sandra,” I told her.

“He said he was going there to catch up with Stallmo.”

The conversation dropped for a moment while she breathed in the receiver and went someplace inside her head. Stallmo was a one-hit-wonder of a screenwriter that Dennis had met in Oklahoma City while Dennis was working his first ad-agency job out of college. Stallmo wrote a movie script about sex and teenagers—Sexy Teenagers, it may have been titled—and he had bought a beautiful house in LA to finish off his young life while celebrating.

“All they do is cocaine,” she said. “They do cocaine and they sleep and sleep and they sleep with sick whores! I’ve seen dark whores in the dream.”

“That’s beautiful, Sandra.” I leaned over my cheap desk as a wave of something strange hit me and made the hairs stand on my neck. I pressed my hand against my hot, tearing eyes. “That’s really beautiful and polite of you. I’m eating a chocolate doughnut now, Sandra.”

“Denn—Deddy… Ted. Do you think we’re all alone if we don’t even have our son yet?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

“Deddy gotta go get him and pull him outta all’a this. Go to… down there. Pull him out of there. It’s a vortex—”

“A what, Sandra?”

“A vortex, a vortex of fancy and craziness. Music and women—no focus! No purpose. That’s death”—she let out a soft belch, then sighed—“No focus and no purpose is death. Sick. A vortex of white. I know things. I’m not stupid. It’s hell! What I know makes it hurt so much worse. Sid. Sidney!”

“Yes, Sandra.”

“You get him. Go down there and get him back to me.”

“Yes, Sandra. I will.” And I meant it. It was time to end it. Dennis had always been empty. He’d follow anyone to fill himself up but he was still my responsibility. We shared so many memories. I’d inadvertently mentored the kid for so much of his life that it would have been irresponsible of me to abandon him now, even with him headed so steadfastly toward the liberal’s self-destruction.