Unforgettable

Sometimes darkness lies, it
hides the shadow we refuse to see,

Sometimes darkness lies, it
smothers the sound we refuse to hear,

Sometimes darkness lies, it
cloaks the evil we refuse to believe

…
as it waits outside the
door.

I opened my eyes. The pain made it
almost impossible to breathe.

“
Sammy, Sammy, stay with me,
huh? Come on, Sammy. The sirens they come. They come.”

It didn’t make sense that Mr. Berg was
there, trembling, as he pressed towels on my stomach. They were
drenched with blood.

“
I hear my mother’s voice,”
I whispered.

“
No! Look at me Samantha
Rose! You will stay with me! Here! Now! We get through this. I take
care of you now. We have a gin game on Sunday! You owe me
seventy-six cents, remember? Stay with me my little
one…”

I could feel him sobbing.

“
Don’t cry. Get up, you’ll
hurt your poor knee,” I murmured. I wanted to touch him but my
hands were still tied with the wire. I heard sirens, and felt his
soft cheek next to mine, as I drifted back into blissful
oblivion.

Two Years Later

It was a Monday

Robert Welsh’s large, thick boots were
smashing the flower bed full of impatiens. He stood in the lawn of
people he didn’t know looking out across the sprawling city of Los
Angeles.

“
Come on, Robert!” Eddie,
his younger brother, was hot in the beat up SUV they’d stolen that
morning. Oscar, the youngest of the Welsh boys, was silent in the
backseat.

Robert stared at the monstrous city and
lit the cigarette he was pinching.

“
Yeah,” he muttered, “ah,
Sammy, my Lilith, my Lilith, you’re here, aren’t you? I can taste
you in the wind. I’m coming.”

He stomped over two miniature rose
bushes and got back in the truck, smiled, and punched
Eddie.

“
What’s that
for?”

“’
Cause I’m
happy…”

The door to the mansion
opened and a man greeted Sam.

Gabrielle floated on an air
mattress, looking over the edge of heaven at her daughter, Sam. Her
husband, Ted, was drifting through the water in a golden inner
tube, drinking a beer, wearing his Angels baseball cap.

“
Now, Ted, now. We have to
do it now. He’s the one I’ve been watching... “ Gabrielle sat up
and floated above the water.

Ted opened his eyes and
looked at his wife.

“
Gabby, calm down. Go
ahead.”

“
Should I say
something?”

Ted laughed. “Like
what?”

“
I don’t know...
Shazam!”

“
If it makes you
happy.”

She closed her eyes and
waved her hand. She whispered, “Shazam!” and threw the gold dust on
the man. And then she watched.

“
That’s not Jack Nolan. He
said his name is Fritz.” Gold dust, invisible to Sam and the man,
cascaded downward.

“
Uh-oh. I didn’t expect
him... Shazam!”

“
Why the hell did you do it
again?” Ted yelled at her. A refrigerator floated by and he grabbed
another beer.

“
I don’t think you should
say curse words in heaven.”

Ted rested his head back.
“You’d better be sure you get the right guy, and look, you got that
glitter all over her, too!”

“
Well, I’ve never done this
before. Shazam! This is fun,” she giggled.

Ted was getting worried.
“Quit that! You’ll have men chasing her down like dogs after a meat
wagon. Now wait until she meets Mr. Hollywood.”

The front door opened and it was not
Jack Nolan.

I breathed a normal breath. I faced,
instead, a tall, handsome man in black pants and a black shirt. His
face was well balanced, except for his nose, which had a slight
turn midway from some obvious misunderstanding in his past. His
eyes had a curious intensity that sucked me in and I had a sudden
bizarre desire to kiss him.

He smiled as if he held a state secret
that he wasn’t going to tell.

“
Welcome Miss Rose,” he
shook my hand. “I’m Fritz. Very nice to meet you. Jack’s in a
bloody snit today. I think the pain’s getting to him. He’s been
looking forward to your visit.”

He had a sexy, educated, British
accent.

The inside of the house was like
falling down the rabbit hole. There was no antique table with
flowers in the foyer. No Blue Boy. No crystal
chandelier.

Instead, between the marble pillars,
stood a fifteen foot chrome tree. To the left was a large living
room with a painting of a bare-assed horse woman.

To the right was another enormous room
with a grand piano, and a suspended pony-sized model of a pirate
ship. I thought I saw a Barbie doll tied to the ropes.

Two full suits of armor stood outside
mahogany pocket doors. One was holding a cigar. One had an empty
condom packet in its gauntlet.

It was clear that in this rabbit hole
the rabbits were having a very good time.

“
We’ve converted the den
into a temporary bedroom. He hates it down here, little privacy and
all, but we give him his scotch and a cigar and he’s
bearable.”

Fritz opened the pocket doors to the
den.

I smothered a gasp. It really couldn’t
be true but there he was. Jack Nolan. Mr. Hollywood. I’d seen every
one of his movies.

His lower leg was wrapped in a cast and
propped on a stack of white, crisp pillows. His black hair was
mussed. His brows were arched, the left higher than the right. And,
as I had seen on the big screen many times, he had that million
dollar cleft chin.

I said, brilliantly, “I’m Sam, your
P.T. And you’re Daffy?” His chart had Daffy Duck as his name. My
boss, Stella, had told me that celebrities often used alias’s to
try and keep the press away. She had put together Jack Nolan’s
recent injury with Daffy Duck’s.

My palms were sweaty. He smiled, but I
could tell he was in serious pain.

“
Some days I am Daffy. Some
days I am William Shakespeare, and some days I can’t even remember
who I am.” He laughed.

“
You’ve met my business
manager, Fritz. And of course, you know my dear comrade, Tonto in
the corner,” he pointed at a large wooden cigar store Indian.
“You’ll have to forgive him. He’s a bit stiff.”

I smiled.

He nodded to Fritz to leave.

“
Scream or pound loudly if
you need me,” Fritz told me. He winked.

“
Come closer, come closer.
Fritz put a chair for you by the bed. We can get to know one
another.” He winced.

“
Lots of pain?”

“
Lots.”

“
Pain pills
working?

“
Don’t take them. I take
some over the counter stuff. But the hard stuff makes me sick. Damn
shit’s poison.”

He had a large ice bag on his
cast.

“
Okay if I move
this?”

“
Sure.”

“
It doesn’t penetrate too
much through the cast. Behind the knee might help. Cools the blood.
Hopefully will help with the swelling and the pain.”

“
Lord knows I need cool
blood. Especially lookin’ at you.” He attempted, with his eyes
closed, to slip in a laugh.

I was sitting close to his face, close
to those big screen, devilish eyes. It was all very
surreal.

“
I don’t know anything about
the accident.”

“
I was filming. On
horseback. Something spooked the horse, probably a snake. The next
thing I knew I had a thousand pounds of horse on top of me. He
popped up right away or I probably would have been
dead.”

“
Head’s okay?”

He laughed, his head tilted back,
exhaling his cigar smoke.

“
Well, my dear, that’s
always up for debate. But, no injury. Few bruises on my back where
I landed on some rocks.”

“
And the poor
horse?”

“
Seemed fine. He hasn’t sent
flowers, though. I’m a bit disappointed. I thought we had something
special.”

Gabrielle got
ready.

“
You’re sure this is the
right one?” Ted asked.

“
Sure. Look at him, he’s
gorgeous… rich, powerful. And our grandkids would look so
adorable.”

“
I don’t know… he’s an
actor. I liked the guy that opened the door.”

“
No harm in having more
than one man around her, wild about her, protecting
her.”

“
Oh, yeah. Ever heard of
Helen of Troy… more than one man is a pile of trouble.”

“
Okay… here I go…
Shazam!”

She watched. Nothing
happened.

“
Shazam!”

“
Would you cut that out!
You got it all over her again.”

She giggled. “I
know.”

“
Gabby, you are hopeless.
I’m going to the buffet. It’s all you can eat shrimp
tonight.”

“
It’s heaven, dear. It’s
all you can eat every night. I’m going to stay a while and
watch.”

“
Behave!”

“
Yes, dear.”

I leaned him forward and pulled his
shirt up.

“
You know everybody takes my
clothes off but, by God, I don’t get to take theirs off. Don’t
worry, sweetheart, you’ll get used to me. Hell, you might even grow
to like me.”

I have to admit I didn’t want to leave
the famous, fabulous Jack Nolan. But there was little I could do.
He was fresh from surgery. He needed time to heal.

A tingle kept bouncing around my chest
and gut, though. There was one very important fact: I would be
coming back.

I had to stop at the store if I was
going to eat that night. And I was starving.

I bought milk, hamburger, and
watermelon. Bread I got at the day-old bakery. My first payday was
Friday. There were still a few pennies, one quarter and two dimes
in my change jar.

Sweat was dripping down my face as I
carried the heavy watermelon and milk up the rusted wrought iron
steps. My second floor apartment was a furnished studio in Van
Nuys.

It had once been a crappy motel. Now it
was crappy apartments. Even though it smelled like the dirt under a
rock, it wasn’t too bad. I got three stations on the television and
it did have a pool.

Every day I left a thread in the door
jamb so that I could see if the door had been opened while I’d been
gone. A life line. The white thread, barely visible, was right
where I had left it.

Once inside I switched on the joke of
an air conditioner and cooked a small hamburger. I hooked the alarm
on the door and began going over my daily paper work.

Paper work soothed me. It gave my
nervous brain something to ease into instead of thinking about
Welsh and where he was.

But tonight all I could think about was
Jack. How he smelled of cigars and whiskey, how his rumbling laugh
sent vibrations all the way through me.

Next Tuesday

I woke with the sun rudely shining in
my eyes. The carpet felt like crumbling cardboard under my feet. I
had to keep telling myself that this life was better. That at least
I was alive.

By the time I got to Jack’s I had seen
six patients and I was a half hour late.

Fritz was standing at the door smiling.
The smile was a bit more relaxed than last week’s life-is-hell-here
smile. He handed me a glass of iced tea.

“
Oh, wow, you are an angel.
It is so hot. It’s cool in the morning so I wear something warm and
then burn up all day. You’d think I would have figured it
out.”

“
He’s asleep. Sleep medicine
has knocked him out.”

“
Oh?”

“
Most of the
afternoon.”

“
Good. He needs it. I hate
to wake him.”