End Vision, page 9
“Andrew. That’s a tough break there, young man,” Robert said. “Hell, it happens to the best of us.”
Andrew turned to face his employer, but remained silent.
“You know, sometimes I think back about my life, about the things I was doing then, and I just drop to my knees and thank the Lord that social media and phone cameras and all the shit that is around today wasn’t around then. Those were simpler times.”
“And this gets me a place to stay, this gets my life back how?”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t. But just remember that men greater than yourself have been snared by the same trap. Pussy is a powerful thing… Money and pussy get us all in the end.” Robert paused and seemed to contemplate this proverb before returning back to the task at hand. “Andrew, we need to have a conversation about the state of this project. I know, in many ways, this show is your baby. I don’t know what Shelly’s stake is in it, but with you being the Texan, I’m guessing that it probably came from you… Am I right on this assumption?”
“More or less.”
“Now, Cara and I have been talking. All the previous bullshit from earlier aside, we are still one hundred percent on board with this. Or maybe because of all the bullshit from earlier, we want to move.”
Andrew tried to pull it together. Tread a little longer.
“O.K. What does moving entail.”
“Cara… you want to take this?”
Cara nodded and leaned forward over a stack of notes. Her time.
“What we need from you is to lay some groundwork. Some location scouting.”
“O.K. And where do you want me to do that?”
“Not L.A,” said Robert.
“We were thinking maybe Texas… Where exactly are you from?”
“Amarillo.”
“Amarillo, then. Do you think this is something we could do in Amarillo?”
Andrew turned again to look out the window. Beachgoers set their umbrellas and spread out long multicolored beach towels, rubbed lotion on one another, waddled barefoot bear-hugging large red coolers. He hadn’t been home since the death of his grandmother — five, six years... just shortly after he had moved to Seattle. Certainly before L.A.
“Well...yes. It is large enough. Amarillo could support it. There are arenas. I mean, I think they still do the Coors Rodeo every year. There is still plenty of that there.”
“Very well,” said Cara. “Let’s plan on getting you back home then.”
“What exactly am I doing in Amarillo?” Andrew couldn’t bring himself to call Amarillo home again. It hadn’t been home in fifteen years, and he had made many conscious moves and decisions since then to separate himself from that life. Each time he had returned (quick trips around the holidays, funerals) he had felt further and further from his old life: his friends, his family, the space itself.
“Getting things in order.”
“O.K. But what types of things…”
“Well…” Cara shuffled through the stack of papers her hands had rested upon, took a page from the stack’s center, placed it on the top, and tapped the papers to realign. “To start, a place to have the rodeo, train, etc. Lodging. Maybe some sort of catering. A list of some side-trips, and setting those up. Some local cowboys for safety, training, expertise. A fact-checker…”
“I mean, I’m sure I am capable of putting all of this together, but it’s not something I’ve ever done… I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”
“Is this your project, or isn’t it?” asked Robert.
“It is.”
“Then you are going to need to learn.”
“We can send Patrick down with you,” said Cara.
“Umm…Do you think Patrick is really the best person to send to the Texas Panhandle?”
“Patrick has done this many times before. We had planned on sending Shelly with you as well, but considering what transpired today maybe that is not the best idea.”
“Maybe not.”
“But you know that she will eventually have to be there, right?”
Andrew hadn’t thought that far into the future. He and Shelly had planned trips to Texas at least twice a year, but never anything serious. They had planned trips like the newly retired plan their bucket lists — with the best of intentions, but knowing it wasn’t likely they’d ever really get around to it. The irony that this would be the way they finally made their trip to Texas together was not lost on him.
“Of course she will.”
“Time frame?” asked Robert.
“As soon as possible,” said Cara, then turning to Andrew, added, “Do you think you could be out of here by the end of the week? Saturday?”
“Well, that’s in four days… as it stands now, I don’t even have a place to stay, so that may be a bit complicated.”
“Sounds to me like it is the perfect time then,” said Robert. “Divine intervention!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Andrew.
Cara nodded.“I will get with Patrick and tell him the details and have him put together a list of what we will need to set up in Amarillo.”
“Amarillo…,” Andrew repeated, almost in shock.
“Do you have any other questions for us, Andrew?” asked Cara.
“No. None that I can think of at the moment.”
The three began to stir simultaneously. Andrew rose. Cara began loading up her belongings. Robert stood, pulled his shoulder blades together in a stretch, and brushed the palms of his hands on his black slacks. He extended his hand, and Andrew shook it.
“Very well then, Andrew. Let’s get this ball rolling,” said Robert, cracking a sly smile. “I’m guessing you are going to need a few days to get your affairs in order?”
Andrew mustered up an appreciative grin in return. “Yessir. Thank you.” But if he were being honest, he did not appreciate the pun.
“Come back to work by Friday, and you and Cara and Patrick can prepare a more concrete plan.”
Andrew nodded and began his exit. He was frightened of what he might find on the other side of the door: Shelly, Jenni, or both. A group of ‘the guys’ wanting to maybe get a glimpse of Jenni’s naked body. Women employees looking to scold him and tell him how big of a misogynist pig he was, how Shelly (good for her for leaving!) deserved better than an unfaithful selfish asshole, and he got what was coming to him. He paused briefly at the door and took a deep breath before gripping the handle.
“And Andrew,” said Robert, “stop sending pictures of your cock to your coworkers.” He erupted in laughter.
Andrew turned the handle and exited the conference room. There was nobody waiting to greet him. All was business as usual.
Next to Robert, Cara remained silent. His sexualized comments did not cause even a ripple in her outside demeanor. She stood stoically. The bag slung over her left shoulder rested firmly on her right hip. She knew her place in Robert’s conference rooms. She knew what it took to be a woman there in the first place. The harassment. The locker room banter. If a woman was to survive, she had to be like a spider — small but sinister, spreading webs that tied her world together through an intricate system of many tiny threads.
Shelly sat on the leather loveseat in the darkness of the living room in the studio apartment she shared with Andrew. The brown cotton drapes were drawn, but a small beam of sunlight pushed through and angled onto the glass coffee table. Suspended dust particles danced in the beam. She watched the particles and cried in small, pathetic sobs. The television was off. Her phone put away in her purse. She sat, alone, void of all the white noise that normally obscured her thoughts. She needed a few moments of reflection, a few moments to summon the strength to leave. Andrew had not come home immediately after the meeting as she had thought he would. She had waited. Her day bag sat on the hardwood floor beside the front door. This was to show him when he arrived that she meant to leave him. But it was obvious now that he wasn’t coming back. Shelly inhaled deeply, rubbed and patted the empty cushion beside her, then stood and made her way to the door. When she opened it, the sound of life flooded in from outside. She turned to take one last look at the apartment. The influx of light from the open door scattered and reflected across the room, absorbing the crepuscular ray created by the drawn drapes. She would go to Jaime’s.
Shelly grabbed her suitcase, stepped out, and shut the door.
An hour after his RF&M appointment, Ramon had received a message from Andrew Munden asking to meet him at the Silver Turtle. The two friends had not seen each other in months. Exhausted but curious, Ramon agreed and was headed east on Santa Monica Boulevard, riding a current that seemed to push him unconsciously forward — a line of bright green bicycles with white wicker baskets at N Doheny Dr; West Hollywood; a burn-out with dreadlocks pulled into a bun playing acoustic guitar against a blue street lamp by the bus stop on N La Cienega; an elderly woman in all pink who, to Ramon, looked exactly like Bozo the Clown,pushing a walker with tennis balls attached to its feet in front of the corner ice cream shop at Fairfax; N. La Brea; the Hollywood Forever Cemetery with its quiet residents forever dead and surrounded by an okay-looking hedge; under the 101; across Normandie; right on N. Vermont Avenue.
The Silver Turtle was small, dark, and made for drinking. Two men in all denim shifted their weight from foot-to-foot at the entrance and passed a cigarette. Ramon entered. An old jukebox filled with outdated music slumped against the Turtle’s back wall. Paper money from across the globe, each bill signed or modified in some quirky way, hung from the dirty brown walls. The air smelled of stale beer and quat water. Andrew sat at the bar drinking a can of Coors. His phone rested on the bar’s top as he scrolled with his left hand, his right hand rubbing and combing the brown hair atop his head. Ramon smiled and sidled up beside him without Andrew noticing as he scrolled through Instagram pages. Ramon placed his hand on Andrew’s shoulder. “Andy,” he said. Andrew turned and the two men stood and hugged with violent pats to the back.
“Gatdamn it’s good to see you,” said Andrew.
“How are you doing, man?”
“Oh, you know… lets get a drink.”
“Its 11:30…”
“Ahhh, what do you have to do today?”
Andrew ordered two more Coors. The bartender opened the sweaty cans with a bar tool and sat them in front of the two men. Andrew finished his beer and slid the new one over into its place. “You know, this is a banquet beer.”
“What?”
“A banquet beer. It says so right on the can. Coors Banquet. Its America’s finest beer.” He laughed to himself. “The Yellow Belly.”
“Oh, yah, what...same great taste since whenever? Probably won some award in 1888 or something. Really grasping at shoe strings there Coors.”
“But we still drink it.”
“You ordered it. I don’t order it.” Ramon took a sip, puckered his face, and made a smacking sound. “MmmmMmmm. Tastes like the 19th century… dated.”
They both laughed. Andrew peeled layers from the top of his damp coaster, rolled the layers into little balls, and flicked them onto the sticky floor.
“Why do bars like this always have insanely sticky floors?” asked Andrew.
“Well, one, it's a shitty ass bar.”
“And two?”
“Two, they probably keep the drunks on their feet… hold them in place.”
“Or slow you from leaving…”
“Hey, man, what’s up? I’m sure you called me for another reason than to drink shitty beer and talk about flooring at the Silver Turtle.”
“Yah…we had a meeting at work today. Shelly left me.”
“Wait...what?”
“Well, I mean, Shelly didn’t leave me because of the meeting...or maybe it was kind of because of the meeting...it's a long story.”
“O.K… One thing at a time, I guess. Why did Shelly leave? I’m guessing this is why you are slamming delicious yellow bellies at 11:30 in the morning?” Ramon took another sip. “Its like they go from cold to room temperature in two minutes.”
“That’s so you drink them fast and buy more. Its a marketing ploy. Coors is only drinkable if it is super cold, but if you wait too long and let the beer warm up, you might realize what you are drinking...then Coors has a problem. So you got to knock them back quick.”
“Is this some kind of metaphor? Are you Coors?”
“Ha. No. I am not Coors...I’m just an asshole…” Andrew thought about this statement for a second. “You know. I think Shelly might really leave this time.”
“O.K. And what exactly happened?”
“I was hitting on Jenni Jarmusch.”
“That’s it?”
“Well…” Andrew smiled.
“Well, what?”
“Well I might have sent her a picture of my penis...and she might have sent me back some nude pictures…”
“Might Shelly have seen these?”
“She might have.”
“Mmm… I guess that’d do it.”
“They were tasteful nudes, though.”
“You fucking psychopath,” said Ramon, laughing. “What the fuck is a tasteful nude?”
“You know. Like artsy stuff. Not like porno.”
“You’re going to have to let me see what a tasteful nude of Jenni Jarmusch looks like. I’m curious.”
“I bet you fucking are. Probably got a whole file stored in that brain of yours full of tasteful and not-so-tasteful shit. You fucking pervert.”
“I’m the pervert? Me? I can tell you right now that I’m not sending out pictures of my dick to coworkers… I know too fucking much about too much to be sending picture files out all willie nillie like that… So what are you going to do?”
“Well, I’ve got to get my shit and find a place to stay, then I’m going to Texas at the end of the week.”
“Now, don’t overreact. It’s fucking shitty that Shelly left you… it really is. And I’m sorry about that, but I don’t think moving home is the proper reaction to that. We both know what is back there.”
“I’m not movin’ back to Texas, you idiot. I’m going for work. That’s kind’a what the meeting was about.”
“Oh yah, the meeting. What was that about?”
“Well, you were brought up a few times.”
“Me? What for?”
“Did you see Brice’s article?”
“Oh, shit...No. What did it say?”
“Pull it up.”
Ramon brought Brice’s article into Vision. Andrew watched as Ramon’s eyes moved
back and forth like he was watching an invisible tennis match. While Andrew waited, he ordered another round of Coors.
“Yah, O.K. So what was so bad about that?” asked Ramon, after finishing the article.
“I know it's been a few years now, but I’m still not comfortable with that whole set up you got going there… Fucking weird.”
“I didn’t see anything wrong with it. It sounds like every other article they write.”
“Toward the end, a J.J. says something about a celebrity rodeo.”
Ramon scrolled down to the section. “Yah. I see it.”
“That wasn’t you?”
“Me? No.”
“Look, I know that you are the ‘VerMas insider.’ That’s not a secret, so we don’t need to dance around that fact.”
“O.K.”
“How did Brice know about the celebrity rodeo?”
“The celebrity what?” Ramon sat up, finally understanding. “So that’s what it’s going to be. I talked to Robert and Cara. Cara told me what is in that article. That was it. She said she didn’t want to get into the specifics yet.”
“Wait, Robert was there too?
“Yes. Robert and Cara. Why?”
“He just acted in the meeting like he hadn’t had any contact with you about it. That it was just Cara. No big deal.”
“I told Brice exactly what Cara told me to tell. Maybe almost too scripted, if I’m honest. I’m having trouble seeing why that is such a big deal.”
“Robert is pissed that someone leaked the celebrity rodeo part of it. He doesn’t like things to happen that he can’t control.”
“O.K. Well, J.J… Jenni Jarmusch?”
“Jenni seems to think that it was you. She says she didn’t do it.”
“Well, it wasn’t me. I didn’t know anything about that part.”
“Shelly really went on a witch hunt against Jenni, too. I mean, really tried to rally everyone around her guilt…”
“That seems kind of expected.”
“I guess so.”
They both sat, quiet now, deep in thought and drinking their beers.
“Do you think Shelly could have done it?” asked Ramon.
“Shelly? No. No way.”
“You don’t think she could have done it, just as, like, a little passive aggressive thing?”
“I guess that could explain the way she was acting before the whole blow up at the meeting.”
“Blow up?”
“Yah. Jenni told everyone about the pictures. In front of Shelly. In front of Robert. In front of the whole team.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Yah. It was bad.”
“How did everyone take it?”
“Nobody really seemed to make that big of a deal over it. Shelly did, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“But Robert and Cara really didn’t say much at all… in fact, Robert was joking about it after everyone left.”
“But you don’t think Shelly would have done that to get back at Jenni?”
“It is possible. But I doubt it.”
