Fifty Grand

I stood there looking at him, covered in grime, dripping sweat, holding a sponge and a bowl of filthy water-the dissonance between this moment and the encounter of my fantasies was quite marked.

Of course, I had seen Brad Pitt many times on Chinese bootlegs. Troy was the last movie Ricky and I had watched together-that’s the one where Pitt plays Achilles, son of Zeus. Tonight he had a beard and was wearing an ugly wool hat, but he still looked like a god.

“What’s the matter?” Paco asked beside me.

“Brad Pitt,” I hissed.

“Who?”

“Mierde, haven’t you heard of anybody?” I muttered.

Pitt grumbled something, waved, and was gone. The rest of the men went back to their marijuana.

We started cleaning the stain but it was heavy going. The carpet was thick and it looked like a whole bottle had gotten spilled on it and soaked there for a while before anyone noticed.

When the music ended the men’s conversation drifted over.

“Where’s Doctor Marvin?”

“He’s gone.”

“Thank Christ. Shrink with a chip on his shoulder, last thing we need when Cruise comes in.”

“Cruise isn’t coming.”

“He’s coming.”

“Dude, it’s after midnight, Cruise isn’t coming now.”

“Fuck.”

“Hey, did I ever tell you that I was in Mission Imp-”

“Only a million fucking times.”

“Jesus, no need to jump down my throat.”

“Nice of Pitt to drop in.”

“Yeah, he’s like that. Probably the whole clan with him, out in a fucking minivan or something.”

“Spacey was here before you came.”

“Shit, was he? He’s the fucking bomb.”

“Jesus, update your slang, why don’t ya?”

“They were good together in that movie.”

“Yeah.”

The marijuana smoke came our way and I began to feel light-headed. It was strong stuff, much stronger than the black rope they sold on O’Reilly.

“Yeah, fuck Cruise.”

“Fucking Scientologists.”

“Hey, careful.”

“You never see that many Jewish Scientologists. Go to one seder and you’ll know why. It’s all about the dialectic, the interpretation; Jews ask too many questions.”

“Tambor.”

“Exception proves the rule.”

“Worse than the Scientologists are the fucking born-agains and the-”

“Oh, I saw this bumper sticker today, ‘Come the Rapture, Can I Have Your Car?’ ”

“Man, that’s funny, I got to get one of those.”

“No, dude, it’s only funny if you got a shitty car. You drive a fucking Porsche, that’s not funny.”

Paco looked at me. “We need more water,” he said. I didn’t answer. The pot was tripping me.

“María,” he said and snapped his fingers in front of my face, his gesture the reversal of me to him, yesterday.

“Sorry, I was listening to their conversation,” I told him.

“Dope bullshit,” Paco said with contempt.

Paco took my arm and helped me back to the kitchen. I opened a window and breathed cold air.

“Where’s the garbage bag with all those bananas and oranges?” I asked Paco.

“Why?”

“I would love an orange.”

Paco fished out the oranges, the kiwis, and the bananas and washed them off.

“Take them with us. We’ll have them later,” he said.

We went back into the living room with clean water and a new sponge. Two of the men had now gone and there were only four left. I recognized one of them from Ricky’s photographs. Jack Tyrone, a minor film star and, more important, someone on Ricky’s list. I wondered if this was his house. I looked around me. Was this the home of a movie star? It was hard to tell in the dim ambient light. It was certainly huge but weren’t all American houses huge? The apartments on Friends were fucking enormous.

Tyrone’s picture didn’t do him justice. He was more charismatic and certainly more handsome than Ricky’s snap, even now when he was stoned and obviously on the verge of passing out.

We got back to the stain. More snippets:

“Yeah, you don’t fucking know.”

“I do know. I am a connoisseur.”

“Just as Christopher Hitchens is no George Orwell, so Beth Gibbons is no Sandy Denny.”

“Yeah, the way Cruise is no Gary Cooper.”

“Shut up, he might still come.”

“Fucker’s not coming.”

“The way you talk, I should tell your mother.”

“My mother’s from Brooklyn. Outswear you any day.”

“Well, he’s no actor.”

“Sure he is. You ever see that Oliver Stone one?”

“He can’t be a good actor because he holds back. You gotta give everything. You gotta commit to the truth. If he’s gay and he’s not out how can he give us anything but a shadow performance?”

“That’s bullshit. Spacey’s not out and he’s a hell of an actor.”

“Dude, pass that over… thanks… Shit, can you get me some of that?”

“Maybe. What’ll you do for me?”

“I’ll get you a part in the new J. J. Abrams.”

“Really? I’d do anything to be in a Star Trek movie.”

“He’s shitting you.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Yeah.”

“You fucker. Christ, Jack, you’ve got more mood swings than Robin Williams backstage at an awards show.”

“Leave him alone, he’s just a kid.”

“Jack’s not that young. On his headshots he says he’s twenty-nine. And on Wikipedia it says he’s thirty, but really he’s thirty-one.”

“Damn it, Paul, you’ve got a big mouth.”

“I think that’s it,” Paco said, looking at the stain.