Sleep hadn’t been easy for a few weeks. Pick a worry. Jimmy had them all. He worried about money. He worried about his marriage. That it would end. That it would last forever. He worried about the house note. He worried about a dull pain in his back left molar when he chewed and what the Dentist meant by, “We need to keep an eye on that.” He worried about his boss. Mr. X was so sick that he hadn’t needed to be driven anywhere for a month. Jimmy was counting the popcorn on his ceiling when the text came at 4 a.m..
He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He tried to read it for a sign of what the day would bring. He went to his closet and pulled his chauffeur uniform off a hanger: white shirt, thin black tie and black pants. He did his best to be quiet but it didn’t work. Mary turned on her nightstand light.
“Fuck. Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what did the text say?”
“I have to pick up someone named Billy Fontenot and take him and the tools of his trade somewhere and it’s urgent.”
“A doctor?”
“I have no idea.”
Mary didn’t like his job. She didn’t see any future in it.
“I’ll make some coffee.”
Jimmy sat on the edge of his bed and pulled his pants on. He hoped that this was a good sign, that Mr. X was feeling better. He found his shoes and gave them a quick buffing until he could see his blurry face on the black leather. He went to the garage and checked the supplies in the backseat. The gin and vodka and whiskey bottles were all to be at least half full and at different levels to encourage people to drink them. The tissue box was to be full. There was to be a fresh pack of gum and a roll of spearmint lifesavers. He pulled the Rolls out of the garage. He walked around it and wiped the few spots that looked dull. He loved the car. It was the most beautiful thing that Jimmy had seen or touched.
“The car looks fine,” Mary said.
Jimmy nodded.
It was a silver nineteen forty-five Rolls Royce. Mr. X had bought it when he made his first real money, and he paid the money to keep it running all these years. It was one of only five in California and the only one that was being used for its original purpose, ferrying rich people around Southern California.
Through the driver side window, Mary handed him a thermos of coffee and a paper bag with muffins. She put her hands on her hips and looked at him for a few seconds.
“Do you know when you will be back?”
“You know these Hollywood people. No telling.”
“The usual, hunh?”
“I guess so.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” she asked.
“What do you mean? Do whatever you want. I’m working today.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I will do exactly what I want. Just like you.”
“That didn’t come out right.”
“It’s okay.”
They were not happy. They had not slept together for almost a year. She was impatient with him. She wanted him to quit and go back to school to learn a real job. She hated Hollywood. She hated her own job. She worked as a medical receptionist for a plastic surgeon that specialized in the maintenance of fading trophy wives. She disliked the patients, and their efforts to stave off time made her nervous about how stalled her own life felt. She wanted to move back to Des Moines, and get a degree in nursing.
The argument went the same way every time. She would tell him how unhappy she was and what was wrong with their life, and he would point at the car.
“He said that he wants me to have the Rolls when he dies. That’s our future.”
“Did he give you this in writing? Do you even know what it’s worth?”
“It has to be worth a fortune. Just look at it.”
“You never make sense.”
She used to like riding in the Rolls, but now she refused to get into it. She told Jimmy that it made her carsick, but he knew that wasn’t true. The car was two tons of high grade steel wrapped around a cocoon of polished wood and leather, fashioned without earthly concerns about cost or gas mileage, all to make one feel as though they were moving through the world like the famous flying lady of the hood ornament, no resistance except for the robe flowing behind her.
They met during Jimmy’s one year of community college. The courtship was quickened by a pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage in the third month of their marriage. Jimmy was in San Francisco when it happened, driving Mr. X to a meeting with tech people who wanted to combine his image with A.I. to create a version of Mr. X that could make movies forever. Jimmy felt like she had never forgiven him for not being there.
He waved and pulled out into the empty street and off in the distance, somewhere in the sandy hills above the subdivision, a coyote howled. Jimmy looked into his rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of Mary walking back inside. He thought about the mornings that they used to have. The rise of her hip under the sheet and both of them lying awake waiting for their bodies to come together.
He turned the radio onto Mr. X’s favorite station. Maybe the last station in the world that only played big band music. He let “Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me” float out the window and bounce against the houses that held his sleeping neighbors.
Four years ago, he met Mr. X at his uncle’s funeral. As a kid, Jimmy thought his Uncle Frankie was the coolest man on the planet. He knew movie stars and drove a silver car. It was a heart attack. On that Monday, he was sitting in a diner telling his Uncle about the girl he met at college and how she was pregnant and that he didn’t know what to do. By the weekend, the family was gathered around Uncle Frankies’ bedside in the hospital, making small talk, waiting for the inevitable.
His uncle had always looked out for him. Growing up, during the week, it was just him and his mom. After dinner, he would watch TV while his mother slept on the couch with an empty bottle of wine on the coffee table. Jimmy would try to wake her up to say goodnight, hoping that she would get up and tuck him in. She would pat him on the head and with slurred words tell him goodnight and that she loved him, before she falling back asleep. But on the weekends, his uncle would take him to the movies.
Jimmy’s fondest memory as a child was Uncle Frankie bringing the Rolls to his third grade class for Show and Tell. He brought Jimmy to school late and the teacher had the class outside waiting to see the Rolls pull up to the front door of the school. He got out of the car in his fanciest uniform, the one with epaulettes and a gold trimmed hat that he wore when he drove Mr. X to the Oscars. He took his time walking around the car, building the suspense about who could be sitting in the backseat before he opened the door to reveal Jimmy.
One piece of fatherly advice from his Uncle stuck with him:
“In this town, if you can’t be a star, get as close to one as you can and stay there.”
The pipe organ at the funeral home had just started when Mr. X slid into the pew next to Jimmy.
He leaned over and said, “One of the last things Frank said to me was that you might need a job.”
“I do.”
”I’m sorry about Frank. He was a bona fide gentleman in every sense of the word. I’m going to miss him. He drove me for thirty years without getting in a wreck or telling my wives about anything that I did. Frank said you were a good kid. Are you a good driver, too?”
The preacher had moved to the pulpit and cleared his throat. Jimmy looked at Mr. X and nodded. Mr. X leaned in and whispered some numbers into Jimmy’s ear. The job paid more than he could make anywhere else without a degree or a union and besides Jimmmy was broke and had a baby on the way. Mr. X stuck out his right hand and they shook.
“Sorry for not staying. It gets weird after people recognize me.”
Mr. X walked back down the aisle and everyone except the organist who was looking down at her music watched him leave. She kept playing, but everyone else was silent. By the doors, he stopped and turned to the crowd.
“To Frank,” and with those words, Mr. X was gone and a whole life had been assembled around Jimmy and Mary and their unborn child.
In the weeks before Mr. X went silent, there was a flurry of work. But he wasn’t driving Mr. X anywhere. Mr. X made a list of people. Jimmy found them and brought them to him, one by one. Even when Jimmy didn’t recognize the faces, he recognized the names. They were Mr. X’s co-stars and collaborators.
They were excited when he pulled up in the Rolls. It must have felt like they were stepping back in time. On the way to Mr. X’s house, they talked to him about the old days, when they were last in the Rolls and who with and why. Jimmy loved it. He had fallen in love with Old Hollywood. They pointed out the sites of the restaurants and clubs and hotels that hosted them when they were stars. Only the Chateau Marmont was still in business. The new places had the flimsiness and flatness of sets. Jimmy looked with his passengers through the cardboard buildings to what was there before, what would never change again. When he helped them out of the car, they were buoyant as corks, barely touching the ground with their walkers and canes. When they came out a few hours later, they stumbled like they were walking towards a firing squad, sunk into themselves, eyes seeing something on the other side. Jimmy was too professional to ask them how Mr. X was, but he knew the situation was not good.
The job required Jimmy to be sober, prompt and discreet. There hadn’t been much need for discretion lately, except that Mr. X was dying. Two years ago, was the last time that Jimmy needed to be discreet in the traditional sense. Mr. X had a semi-regular date with a red-headed escort named Sonya. Jimmy eventually struck up an acquaintance with her. He liked the hour that he spent driving her back and forth. She seemed kind but she could say wickedly funny things about the tourists walking down Sunset Boulevard. About one family wearing matching Scarface t-shirts, she said, “Look at those sugar pirates holding galloon size cups of soda and standing on top of Hedy Lamarr’s star to get a picture of Pauly Shore’s.”
On this day, Mr. X, gentleman that he was, had walked her out to the car and waved Jimmy off so that he could open the door himself.
“Farewell,” he told her and closed the door.
He went around to the driver side window and whispered in Jimmy’s ear, “Well, that’s the last bird of paradise you will ever have to bring me.”
When Jimmy pulled out into traffic, she started crying. He was concerned. None of the women ever cried. They usually looked like they had just had the best part of their day.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he do something to you?”
“No. I just love his movies so much and he’s the most polite guy that I see. I tried everything and nothing worked.”
“It happens, and he’s real old.”
“I know. I asked if he had any little blue pills and he said he had taken three of them. He told me to stop. It couldn’t be helped. He put his robe on and looked at me. He said I looked like a piece of art he once saw, and I felt like one. I asked him what the name of it was and he said, “Delores.”
“That’s his first wife, from before he got famous.”
“I don’t think he will ever call me again. I’m going to miss him, and I’m going to miss driving around with you. I’m never going to see you again.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You know that he’s sick, right?”
“No.”
It wasn’t the first time that Jimmy felt like he missed something big that everyone else seemed to know. Sonya was right about almost everything. Mr. X was sick, and Jimmy never again brought her to Mr. X. However, he did see her again. Jimmy had bought two tickets for a film festival of Mr. X’s work. Mary didn’t want to go, and Jimmy spent all day by himself in the crowded dark of the theatre until the final movie, A Thief’s Duty. Jimmy noticed Sonya when he walked in, but he wasn’t sure if it was her or not. He had only seen her in her work finery. She was wearing jeans and a UCLA film school sweatshirt. Her curly hair was a mess. She walked up to him, motioned to the empty seat next to him.
He nodded. She sat down, and before they could exchange greetings, the movie started. They shared popcorn in silence, and when the main character’s hope for a happy ending was ruined, she put her head on his shoulder and left it there for the final five minutes of the movie. When the credits finished and the lights rose, she stood. Jimmy watched her walk down the row, up the ramp and into the white light behind the double doors. In the stuck moments, the stuttering waits of rush hour traffic, in line at coffee shops, in the fluorescent dread of waiting rooms, he rewatched that moment again and again. It was the kind of perfect moment that music swelled to at the end of old movies.
Mr. Fontenot did not live among the charming bungalows by the beach or in the cheap apartment complexes around the car repair shops. He lived out where the junkyards were, where the city gave way to the country.
The sun was spreading across the horizon like a broken egg when Jimmy followed the GPS down the mile long gravel driveway that led to Mr. Fontenot’s mobile home. Standing in front of the mobile home, he saw another wife disturbed from her slumber. She was wearing a robe without a tie and her arms were crossed in front of her holding it closed. In her right hand, she was holding a cigarette. She took a last long pull and flicked it out into the yard.
Jimmy got out of the car and before he could say anything she said, “I don’t know what good he will be to you now.”
She went into the mobile home and left the door open for him to follow. Mr. Fontenot was asleep on a recliner in his underwear. He was in his seventies with long white hair. He hadn’t shaved in months. His large belly was coming out from under his white T-shirt and rolled down over his boxers. His jeans were under his elevated feet where he had kicked them. Jimmy and his wife stood together and looked at him.
His snore was a chattering gulp with moments of silence as he swung between the world of the breathing and the next, the sudden intake of air bringing his head a few inches above his pillow. Jimmy had a guess about what she wanted more than anything else in the world, and it was what he’d come for. She wanted Jimmy to take him away.
“What’s your name?”
“Phyllis.”
“Good Morning, Phyllis, I’m Jimmy.”
Jimmy placed his hand on Mr. Fontenot’s shoulder.
“Mr. Fontenot, you have to get up. Mr. X sent me for you.”
Fontenot waved his hands in front of him like he was warding off a swarm of flies. Jimmy pulled the shade and the long low rays of sunlight illuminated the falling dust in front of the window.
“How long has he been like this?”
“He hasn’t left the house in weeks. Barely left that chair. I think the old fool is drinking himself to death.”
“Doesn’t look like he has far to go.”
Jimmy lowered the recliner lever so that Mr. Fontenot’s feet were on the ground in front of him. He was almost sitting up. Fontenot’s eyes opened a moment, but he was still asleep. In that sleep, he picked up the bottle of bourbon on the table next to him and with that same hand used the side of his thumb to spin the cap off the bottle. He took a pull and his closed eyelids crumpled into a squint. With his left hand, he shielded his eyes.
“Mr. X needs me?”
“Yes.”
Fontenot held out his hands, one to Jimmy and one to Phyllis and they pulled him to a standing position. When he started to fall forward, Jimmy stood in front, caught and steadied him. He pushed Jimmy back and walked under his own power to his bedroom and slammed the thin door. Music started and they could hear the buzz of an electric razor and him singing along to Fats Waller’s, Ain’t Misbehavin.’ The voice was as light and quick as the man was decrepit. Phyllis seemed to brighten a moment, until she realized that this resurrection wasn’t for her.
The door opened and Fontenot was dressed in a cream colored suit with a blue silk tie. He was carrying a large red tool box with the words, Warner Brothers, in gold lettering. He went out the door without a goodbye.
“I guess he loves Mr. X more than he loves me.”
Jimmy nodded to her, “Thank you.”
“Do me a favor?” she asked.
“Yeah?”
“Let him get his own ride back.”
“I’ll do that.”
Fontenot was waiting beside the car.
“I can put the toolbox in the trunk.”
He shook his head.
“I’ve been guarding this box for forty years. It rides with me.”
“What’s in it?”
“The only secret I’ve ever kept.”
Fontenot was hired help like Jimmy. He knew better than to wait for the door to be opened. He put the box in first and slid in beside it.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Fontenot said. “I always wanted to ride in the back. I’ve got rich brothers. They think I’ve wasted my life, but they never rode in a car like this.”
“Knock yourself out.
A few miles down the highway, the snore started up again. Smoother.
Jimmy pulled behind the two-story windowless beige building to hide the Rolls. There was a large metal chimney that rose ten feet above the roof. Jimmy opened the back door and for the second time that day woke Fontenot up.
“Mr. Fontenot, we’re here.”
Fontenot opened his eyes and pointed to the row of fancy bottles that the liquor had been poured into.
“I’m going to need some of that brown stuff to keep my hands steady enough to do the job.”
“I was told to deliver you as soon as possible.”
“You still don’t know what this is about. There is no need to hurry. He’ll wait. You might need one too.”
Jimmy handed his coffee to Fontenot and he poured a finger of whiskey in and handed back the thermos. Jimmy reached into his bag and handed Fontenot one of the muffins that his wife had packed. They leaned on the hood. Fontenot held up the muffin like it was something exotic.
“I haven’t had breakfast in a decade.”
“It’s banana nut.”
Fontenot took a bite of the muffin and a long pull on his drink.
“Delicious.”
There was a belching sound and a perfect smoke ring came out of the chimney and then a thin stream of black smoke.
With one hand Fontenot held his drink, and with the other he grabbed the red box.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Jimmy rang the doorbell and a woman in a white smock with thick black rimmed glasses and long gray hair tied in a ponytail opened the door.
“You’re late. He’s in room B. You have everything you need?”
Fontenot held up his red toolbox and patted it.
“I’m Tilda. Hit this buzzer if you need me.”
Jimmy followed Fontenot into the room and on a metal table with a white plastic sheet was what was left of Mr. X, naked except for a towel over his midsection.”
“Is he…”
“Dead?”
“No, that’s not it,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, he’s hard. It happens when they embalm you.”
Jimmy thought back to the last day that he drove Sonya home. She hadn’t tried everything. He sat down to process the death of Mr. X. The oddness of the moment was keeping him from connecting with to it. He knew that he should be feeling something and didn’t want it to leak out of him later when he wasn’t ready. Mr. X had been more than an employer, but not a friend, not even an acquaintance. He had been the backdrop to his life for the last four years.
He texted back to the number: Mr. Fontenot has been delivered. Sorry for your loss, Mrs. X. Is there anything else I can do for you?.
The three dots of indecision started and stopped. Started again and resolved.
Thank you. I need you to get his suit from this bitch.
She texted the contact information for a Miss Violet Bennet. She needn’t have sent the info. Jimmy knew exactly where and who she was. It was Mr. X’s second wife and co-star of A Thief’s Duty.
Fontenot started humming.
“I’m going to show you something that should be in a museum.”
He had laid three toupees out on the table. They ranged in color from dark black to silver gray.
“No one knew back then, just his wives and me, that he was bald. These toupees won two Oscars.”
Jimmy pointed at the darkest toupee, a young man’s thick hair and guessed, “A Thief’s Duty?”
Fontenot nodded and pointed to the salt and pepper toupee.
“Can you guess that one?”
“Emily’s Lawyer?”
“Yep.”
Fontenot pointed to the silver one.
“What about this one?”
“I don’t recognize it.”
“No one but me and the second Mrs. X have ever seen that one. I made it for today.”
Ms. Bennet lived five minutes from the studios, in Century City in a home for old movie people. Usually Mr. X wanted Jimmy to be nearby and ready at any moment. When he visited Ms. Bennet, he said to take the afternoon off. Once Jimmy had to carry a box in for Mr. X and in her room there were two rockers, side by side, in front of the television. They were playing house. No wonder his wife hated her.
The expressway traffic was still light. The godless hadn’t woken up for brunch yet. He pulled into the parking lot of the home and ate the last muffin. Jimmy wondered if he was still on the list of approved visitors, but the nurse at the counter waved him back without having to sign the registry. The great star was sitting in her chair doing a word search in her pajamas. When she saw him without Mr. X, she knew what had happened and what was needed.
“How did it happen?”
“I don’t know any details, Miss Violet. I just know he had been sick.”
“All that smoking for the movies.”
She got up and motioned him over to the closet.
“I bet she was pissed when she realized that I had the movie suits.”
“Her language was colorful.”
“You know what he told me. He said she was the worst mistake in his life and he would rather watch TV with me than be drug all over town by her just so she could play the movie star’s wife.”
“Yes, M’am.”
“Did they tell you what suit to bring?”
“No.”
“This is the one that I like. He wore it at the end of A Thief’s Duty. Right before the scene in Duke’s. Poor darling is thinner now than he was in the movies. It will fit.”
She handed Jimmy a grey pinstriped suit with wide lapels.
“I remember it.”
“Have you seen all the movies?”
“When I got the job, I made a point of it.”
“The best movies were when he was with me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know why I’m being so mean. She was nice enough to tell me about the funeral.”
“Yes, M’am.”
“She got a raw deal. She came to town too late. She thought he could act like Duke Saville for the rest of his life. Do they have you driving for it?”
“No. They haven’t told me anything.”
“It’s this afternoon. You should go. He really loved your Uncle and he liked you.”
“Yes, M’am. I’ll be there.”
“Don’t wear the uniform. If you do, they will start ordering you around. And bring somebody. Nobody should be alone at a funeral.”
Jimmy said goodbye and carried the suit down the hallway. In the dining room, they were calling a bingo game. It looked like any other old folks home except that all the old actors had kept their posture. Their heads were still held high above the slumping directors and writers and crew members of the Hollywood rest home. Jimmy hung the suit on the hook above the passanger side window and started back to what he knew now was a mortuary. He could see the suit in his peripheral vision. It made him feel like Mr. X was riding in the car.
Mr. Fontenot had attached the toupee and was working through the hair with a soft bristle brush. He had his head a few inches from Mr. X’s scalp and was pulling the hair straight out from the scalp and with the hair still in the brush, laying it in down in the direction of the part. Jimmy didn’t think that he had noticed his entry but Fontenot started talking.
“What do you think?”
“He looks great.”
It was true. Jimmy was looking at a younger version of Mr. X than he had ever known.
“I had to raise the hairline a bit. When I made it, I just had my imagination to go on. I didn’t think he’d live this long”
Jimmy had picked up a broken man and now he was talking to an artist.
“You could be right next to him and not see the seam. Hey, you going to the funeral?”
“Nobody told me anything about it.”
“Oh. I’ve got to be there for the hair. It’s an open casket. Mrs. X is afraid something will happen with the toupee but that thing is on there forever.”
He grabbed the hair on the top of Mr. X’s head and lifted his head with it and then gave the hair a pull to demonstrate it’s hold. One of Mr. X’s eyelids opened but the hair didn’t move at all.
“Sorry,” Fontenot said and pulled the lid down and smoothed the handful of hair back into place.
“I’m going to leave the suit here.”
“Ring the bell and give it to Tilda. This is her show.”
Jimmy went out in the hallway and pushed the red button and a moment later, Tilda appeared drying her hands on her white coat.
“Yes.”
“I have Mr. X’s suit.”
She motioned him into the room that she just came out of. There were three bodies laid out on tables. Two women and a man looking at the ceiling, dressed like they were were going to see a show.
“Hang it over there.”
He put it on a rolling rack of burial clothes and asked, “What time should I be there for the funeral and can I confirm the details with you?”
“The veiwing starts at one. At Saint A’s. Funeral at four and then the drive over to Woodlawn. Are you carrying any VIP’s?”
“I’m not working the funeral.”
Jimmy sat on one of the folding chairs in the hallway. He texted Mrs. X to let her know that he had delivered the suit, and she texted back a thumbs up.
He went back out to the rolls and called Mary. She didn’t answer on the home line or her cell. He thought that she was still sleeping or in the shower. He started home to change for the funeral. When he pulled up, she was exiting the front door with a suitcase.
“Hey.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going home.
“Is everyone okay?
“Yeah, they are all fine.
“What about you?”
“I just couldn’t wait around any more. I can’t live in a dream.”
A taxicab pulled up to the house.
“Would you help me with the big suitcase? It’s right behind the door.”
He rolled it to the trunk of the taxi and went back to the passenger side window.
“I want you to come with me to Mr. X’s funeral. Can’t this all wait a day?”
“Do you know what today is Jimmy?”
“No.”
“Think really hard.”
“I don’t know.”
“This is the day that we lost him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not coming back,” she said.
She kissed him lightly on the mouth and got into the backseat. He shut the door. The cabdriver closed the trunk and motioned to the Rolls.
“That is a pretty machine. How’s she drive?”
“Like a dream where nothing bad ever happens to you.”
“Hunh.”
The quiet of his house bothered him. It was the set for a life that didn’t happen. Maybe Mary felt this way all the time, he thought. We should have moved when she didn’t want to try again. Maybe we would have had fun in a little apartment by the beach.
He found a different jacket and a more colorful tie. He could only think of one person in the world that he could bring who would really care that Mr. X had died. Calling her was not a good idea. It didn’t make real person sense, but it made Hollywood sense. He scrolled through his texts until he found Sonya’s number. She didn’t pick up. Stupid idea, he thought, hanging up without leaving a message. She called him back a few seconds later.
“What’s up, Jimmy?”
“Sorry this is so last minute. Sonya, I need someone to go with me to Mr. X’s funeral.”
“When is it?”
“I’d like to pick you up in two hours.”
“I’ll have to move a few things but, yeah, I want to go. Are you okay, Jimmy?”
“I’m trying to be.”
He pulled up to Sonya’s pink stucco apartment building. When she opened the door, he led her down to the Rolls and out of habit started to open the backseat door. She shook her head, opened the front door instead, and got into the car herself.
When he started the Rolls, she asked, “Jimmy, do you ever get tired of Hollywood?”
“I only like it in the past.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s no good, but I never want to leave.”
“Me neither,” Jimmy said.
The Rolls was gleaming in the noon day sun. The ocean was to his left and the hills were to his right. His troubles were still there, but they felt as small as the ocean liner sitting on the edge of the horizon. The car window was down, and he could taste salt in the air. They were early enough not to hurry. He liked the woman sitting next to him. He knew some bad things about her, what she did for a living, for example, but he could forget them. He could forget anything that she wanted him to forget.
“What’s your favorite Mr. X movie?” he asked.
She looked at him to see if he was serious, nodded, and took a long breath before she responded. She was still talking about how hard the question was to answer when they pulled into the cathedral parking lot.
Jason Primm pursues modest goals in a coastal city. His poetry and fiction have most recently appeared in Windmill, Havik, Johnny America, and Bodega. He maintains a blog at jasonprimm.wordpress.com.