Jackpot. Chapter 11
José opens his eyes to blinding white light. Slowly, the white gives way and he makes out a blurry figure standing over him.
“He’s waking up!”
“Leroy?”
“Hang in there, buddy, you’re gonna be alright.”
The doctor rushes in and Leroy steps aside to let her run some tests. Bit by bit, José regains his lucidity and remembers what happened.
“Did… did we win?”
Leroy raises an eyebrow. “Now who’s we here?”
“I––”
“Ah, I’m just teasing you. We all won!”
“You met the workers’ demands?”
“Of course! I had no idea they were working in such horrible conditions!” he says, tugging at his shirt collar. Truth is, he would have been a lot tougher on ‘em if José hadn’t got shot.
“Good, that’s good…” José’s relieved. If he’s going to die in this hospital, at least his mission was a success.
“Everything looks good, all things considered,” says the doctor. “Let’s give it another day, but you’ll probably be ready to walk on out of here tomorrow morning.”
“Really?”
“Sure, if you’re feeling ready.”
“Wow. You must be a medical genius. I owe you my life.”
The doctor shrugs. “Just doing my job.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.” She walks out, yawning.
Leroy clears his throat. “There is some bad news, though.”
José gulps. “Go ahead. I can take it.”
“Your girlfriend, Renée. She’s in jail right now. You really can’t shoot down a helicopter without any consequences.”
José sighs. “I don’t know what she was thinking.”
Leroy scratches the back of his neck. “It ain’t right what they did to you, I know. But seeing as she shot first…”
José’s not impressed.
“Tell you what, there’s a big party I’m going to on Friday. Why don’t you come along?”
“A party?”
“Yeah, up in the hills.”
“At a movie star’s mansion?”
“Well I don’t know about that, but I’m sure there'll be plenty of Hollywood types.”
“Then I must decline. I am a poet of the people, my place is with them.”
Leroy looks around. “What people? I’m the only one here.”
“The Fighting Mambos are with me in spirit, they just don’t fuck with hospitals due to historical—”
Leroy holds his hands up. “My apologies. I didn’t mean any disrespect towards your friends. But face it, José, your poetry’s been selling like flapjacks. You’re practically a celebrity already!” He pulls out a black business card with an address written in gold. “Why don’t you get some rest, give it a think.” He tosses it on the bed.
José picks it up and looks at it. “Maybe.”
Leroy holds up his hands. “Decision’s all yours, amigo.”
José nods. “Thanks for visiting, Leroy.”
Leroy’s smile flattens. “You ain’t got nothing to thank me for.” And with that, he walks out the door.
Soon José’s released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. Before he goes home, he stops by the county jail to visit Renée. In a cold gray room, they stare at each other through teal glass, phones in their hands.
“Why’d it take you so long to come visit?”
“I was in the hospital.”
“Clyde told me you got out on Sunday.”
“Well Clyde’s wrong. He didn’t even visit me.”
“You know he doesn’t fuck with hospitals.”
“But he visited you here? With all these cops?”
Renée folds her arms and looks away. She could have lied and told him they only talked on the phone, but José would have seen right through her.
“Is it because I didn’t tell you guys I used to be a CEO?”
“Kind of! How could you not tell me something like that?”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to fit in. I thought you guys wouldn’t want me around if you knew.”
“Are you kidding me? With your connections you could have been a game changer!”
“Really? Or would y’all have just worried I might be undercover?”
“No, José—”
“Then what’s the next mission?”
Renée can’t meet his eye.
“Come on, I want to help!”
“José…”
“You don’t trust me? After I got shot?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a fed—”
José slams his phone on the counter, paces the cubicle, then picks it back up. “I can’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry, José. Clyde has protocols—”
“Fuck Clyde’s protocols! I paid with my blood for the cause and this is how y’all treat me?”
“I’m sorry.”
José shakes his head. “Why’d you have to shoot down that helicopter?”
“You know why.”
“You don’t regret it?”
“Nope. Fuck ‘em.”
“What about me? What about us?”
“What about us, José? All that time together and you couldn’t come clean about your past. Fuck you!” Renée starts crying.
“You don’t mean that.”
“It’s over, José. Don’t fucking visit me again.”
Still crying, Renée puts the phone down, gets up, and the guard escorts her back to her cell.
“Renée! Renée!”
Seeking relief from his heartbreak, José wanders the streets of Los Angeles, drinking and smoking and reading poetry to the pigeons in the park, the homeless in the alleys, to the moon and the sun and the police officer who throws him in the drunk tank for pissing on a limo he mistook for the Important Client’s. When he sobers up and gets out of jail in the morning, he walks over to the Fighting Mambos Precinct #5 to give Clyde a piece of his mind, composing an angry, precise rant to give voice to all his feelings and leave Clyde no choice but to let him back into the gang. But along the way his focus slips and he thinks of his papa, the revolutionary whose revolution betrayed him, and his mama’s words, Don’t be like your papa. His footsteps slow and his rage fades. What’s the point? He’s got other things to do with his life than fight for some cause with people who don’t really care about him. But is that even true? Clyde does have his protocols after all—does José really think Clyde’s heart didn’t break when he had to kick him out? José’s rage flares up again. Who cares? Time for another drink. And if he’s going to drink, he might as well drink with friends. He steps into a phone booth and gives Leroy a call.
“I think I’ll come to that party after all.”
“Great! I’ll send a driver.”
The limo winds its way up Mulholland Drive and the distant city glitters between the passing shrubbery and mansions. José’s alone in the back, no music, just the rumbling of the engine and the wheels on the road. He’s afraid they’re going to crash, freaking out at every twist and turn, but in the end they pull up safely in the porte-cochère of a grand palazzo, a vast estate overlooking both valleys. He gets out. A valet closes the door behind him and the limo drives off. A snooty bald list-checker asks if he’s on the list.
“My friend gave me this.” José hands him the business card Leroy gave him.
The list-checker rips it in half. “Are you on the list or not?”
“I hope so. My name’s José Jones.”
“The poet?”
José nods, blushing.
“Hm. I read your latest collection. Cute.” The list-checker flashes him a smile that sinks into pure loathing. He scans the list and to his dismay, finds José’s name under Late Additions. He sighs and waves him in.
Inside, José walks deep into the house as fast as he politely can, terrified the list-checker will chase after him claiming it was all a mistake. He bursts into a crowded parlor and almost knocks a lady’s drink from her hand, catching her wrist just in time.
“Sorry,” he says, letting go.
“It’s okay,” she says, brushing her hair aside. Their eyes lock, then dart away from each other like clashing swords. He clears his throat.
“My name’s José.”
“I—I know.” She still won’t meet his eyes.
“You do?” He smiles and scratches the back of his head. “I guess that means you’ve read my poetry.”
She nods. “It… changed me. You saved my life!”
José’s taken aback. “Gracias señora, muchas gracias, but surely you must be exaggerating––” He trails off as tears fall from her eyes. He pulls out a monogrammed handkerchief, but she turns and runs away.
“Wait!” he cries, but she’s already lost in the crowd. “I didn’t get your name…”
“Well, well, well! Ain’t that something!” Leroy claps him on the back. “Finding trouble already, I see.”
“Who is that woman? She said my poetry saved her life.”
“Oh she did, did she?” Leroy winks. “I wonder what her husband would have to say about that?”
“Her husband?”
“You remember our old Important Client, don’t you?”
“Of course.” José’s face grows dark and serious. “No wonder her life needed saving.”
Leroy guffaws. “Well now, that’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? Eliza’s got all the money in the world at her fingertips! Whatever she wants, her husband’s willing to pay.”
“Money isn’t everything, you know.”
“That’s just what people who grew up rich say.”
“I didn’t grow up rich.”
Leroy thinks about that one. “Well, poets too, I guess. You know I respect the hell out of you, José, but I’ll never understand the poetry business. Still, you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself, and that’s a whole lot more than most poets can say. It took guts leaving our company the way you did, after all the success we’d had, and all our projected growth. It took heart.”
“Thanks Leroy, but in fact it took nothing. God simply demanded it of me.” José gazes up as if God’s crouching on the roof, about to crash the party through the skylight.
“Well amen to that, partner. Let’s get some drinks!”
Outside, the music’s bumping and the stars are bright in the night sky and around the yard, dancing and mingling on the grass, lounging in deck chairs and splashing about the pool. A naked woman cannonballs off the diving board and a man in a tuxedo holds his elegant date’s hair back as she vomits into a bush. Waiters cruise through the crowd carrying platters of hors d'oeuvres, and clouds of cigarette smoke form and disappear like ghosts freed at last from their earthly attachments.
José and Leroy push through to the open bar and order a couple fancy cocktails they’d never spring for if the tab was on them. A bartender whips them up in no time and hands them over with the speed, precision, and steady hand of a blindfolded sniper assembling a high powered rifle out of a bunch of junk in his garage.
The drinks are perfect but it’s way too crowded. José and Leroy weave their way around the pool, searching for an empty spot in the grass. The DJ throws another song on top of the one that’s already playing and it somehow works. The crowd goes wild and our heroic duo barely make it through without spilling. Giving up on the grass, José and Leroy settle for an opening at the edge of the pool. Finally able to enjoy his perfect drink, José gazes across the water at a particularly smoky gathering and his heart skips a beat. Perhaps it’s his chivalrous nature, perhaps it’s love at second sight, but when he sees Eliza’s sullen face, listening without comment to the brash conversation of her boisterous companions, the Important Client’s arm wrapped around her waist, José is filled with the resolve to reintroduce himself, to show her at least a glimpse of the poetic life, to prove to her that there’s a way out of her gilded cage, that she’s worth more than all the money in the world and deserves better than to waste her life trapped as a trophy and plaything of the Important Client, that despicable, disgraceful, disgusting pig. He can feel it in his soul, this is destiny!
Leroy glances over at him. José’s gripping his drink so tight his hand’s turned white.
“You alright, buddy?”
“How long have they been married?”
Leroy smirks. “Still got your eye on Eliza, huh? Listen, I ain’t one to stand in the way of another man’s passion, but you might want to brush up on the Ten Commandments. They’re there for a reason, you know.”
“The commandment of love is a direct order from God himself! It supersedes all of them!”
“Hmm. I’ve never heard that one, but I was just offering a suggestion. Anyhow, they’ve been married going on five years now. She’s his fifth wife, you know.”
“Then it won’t be hard for him to find a sixth.”
Leroy laughs so hard he damn near spills his drink. “I admire your confidence, buddy, I really do. But don’t get ahead of yourself. All you’ve done so far is bump into her.”
“And touched her heart with my poetry!”
Leroy scratches his chin. “Alright, maybe you got a point there. But you gotta understand something about high society. Love ain’t straightforward here like it is out in the desert. It’s all tied up with money, status, and reputation. You charge straight at her like a bull out the gates, these people will ruin you, and I mean ruin. I heard about your fiasco with one of them poets, Pete whatshisname.”
“Pete… I actually don’t know either.”
“Well you managed to bounce back there, but you almost got yourself banned from every open mic in LA. Now imagine that but it’s the whole country. And all your publishing deals fall through. And everywhere you go, you gotta look over your shoulder, just in case. Ain’t no bouncing back, neither, I promise you. Is that what you want for your life?”
“No, but if God wills it––”
“Forget about God for a minute. I ain’t saying there’s no way to do this thing, you just gotta be strategic. Keep your hand to yourself til the river and make some friends before you sail on down. You catch my drift?”
“I think so,” he says, dimly aware Leroy’s making some kind of poker analogy.
“Good. Now you see that fat guy over there? Same group as Eliza, he’s wearing a flower and a beret.”
José squints and Leroy takes him by the shoulders and points the guy out.
“Ah si, I see him.”
“That’s Leon Primrose. He’s a big time movie director and one of the people I invited you here to meet. I’ve had a handful of conversations with him and he’s a big fan of your poetry. Hell, he’s the reason I even heard about that whole episode with Pete. Anyhow, he ain’t said anything outright, but I know how to read between the lines and I can tell he’s interested in making a movie based on your latest collection.”
“A movie? But that wouldn’t make any sense at all! There’s no plot, there’s no––”
“Hey, take it up with him. Or actually, don’t. If I were you, I’d let him make his movie. You get nice and entangled with him and his crowd, soon enough you’ll have plenty of backup to make your move on Eliza. Having a movie made about your poems is bound to impress her, and by then, even if the Important Client wants to come after you, he’ll have to contend with Leon and whoever else y’all rope into this thing.”
“But what if the movie isn’t good?”
“Who cares? Look, this is a win-win situation. If the movie’s terrible, everyone’ll say Oh, don’t watch the movie, go buy the book. And if it’s good, they’ll probably go buy the book anyways.”
“I don’t know… my reputation at the open mics… they’ll think I’m a sellout!”
“The hell they will! Sure, losers like Pete might spit some venom, but once it’s out, if you’re still pumping out poems and they’re still coming straight from your heart, the people will know. The people will listen. And if they don’t, well, I reckon you know better than anyone that fame and fortune ain’t exactly what you’re in the poetry game for.”
José nods. He’s really getting the picture now. “You’re right. I’ve become too attached to my prestige. If I’m not willing to risk it all for love, my poetry is bound to suffer anyways. Thank you, Leroy.” He gives him a firm hug and Leroy pats him on the back.
“That’s the spirit! Now come on!” Leroy leads him around the pool, strategically approaching the group from behind the Important Client. As they near, they find Leon deep in some long winded story, but when he spots Leroy alongside LA’s hottest poet, his eyes light up and he abandons his chronicle.
“Leroy! Oh dear Leroy, how are you? And can it be? Do my eyes deceive me? Are you not the great, spectacular, inimitable José Jones?”
“Yes, sir,” says José.
Leon nearly faints. “Oh my days! I can hardly believe it! Come, boy, let me embrace you!”
José awkwardly steps forward and Leon kisses him on each cheek and squeezes him tight, inhaling his musky poetic scent with all his might.
Leroy chuckles. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your zest for life, Leon.”
“Heavens, no!” he says, releasing the poet. He gives Leroy kisses as well and shakes both his hands. “It’s been too long, my friend. Please, join us.” He ushers them into the group and introduces them to everyone. This time Eliza meets José’s eye and smiles as she gives her name. He kisses her hand as the Important Client shakes Leroy’s, and the Important Client snorts when he shakes José’s.
“We’ve met before,” he says to the group. “Many times, in fact. José was once quite the business man!”
José can tell he doesn’t really mean it, but hangs onto his smile.
“Oh really?” says Leon.
“Yessiree,” says Leroy, putting his arm around José’s shoulder. “We were once equal partners in Saguaro Sombrero Solutions Unlimited.”
“Really? How fascinating, I had absolutely no idea! I must confess I’m an enormous fan of your poetry, José, but what in God’s name possessed you to leave such a successful venture?”
“My heart.”
The entire clique of Hollywood élites bursts into laughter, but Leon is simply enthralled.
“Ignore them, José. They may have stakes in all the big movies, they may even know how to pick the winners, but they know nothing of art itself! You should be proud, sir, proud for staring death in the face and choosing love, for seeing through the façade of wealth and––”
“Here he goes again,” says a woman in a sparkling emerald dress, rolling her eyes and smoking a cigarette from a golden holder.
“Please Leon, don’t look down on us,” says the tuxedoed man with his arm wrapped around her. “Wealth is all we have in life!”
The group bursts into laughter again, Leon included.
“Ah yes, my apologies. I’ll save my artistic diatribes for later. Here,” he says, handing José his personal card. “Do not hesitate to call on me, night or day. If I’m not home or at the phone, well, so be it, but we simply must get together sometime. We have so much to talk about!”
“I’ll be sure to call.”
The conversation moves on to business, some of which Leroy is able to chime in on, but it’s all taking place at a higher economic altitude than even he’s accustomed to. José tries to meet Eliza’s eyes again and again, but each time he succeeds she looks away, pretending to be absorbed in the discussion. Still, Leon’s exuberance had some effect on her, and José already feels that his mingling has paid off.
With perfect timing, during an appropriate crescendo in the conversation, Leroy and José retreat under the pretext of getting another drink. When they get to the bar, Leroy runs into another business acquaintance, and José finds himself alone, out-competed for the bartender’s attention until Eliza slides up next to him and the bartender comes right over.
“I’ll have what he’s having,” she says.
“And what’ll that be?”
“The same as before,” says José.
The bartender frowns. “What, am I supposed to remember you or something?”
“Sorry, I’ll have––”
The bartender bursts out laughing. “I’m just fucking with you, man. Of course I remember what you got.” He goes off and makes it.
Eliza brushes aside a strand of hair. “I’m sorry I ran away earlier.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
She raises an eyebrow.
The bartender returns with their drinks. They clink and drink up.
“I hope I’ll see you around, José.”
“I’m sure you will.”
She smiles, then slips through the crowd like an eel through a coral reef.
“Don’t think I didn’t catch that,” says Leroy, slapping José on the back. “You’re doing well, amigo. Just get that movie going.”
But José doesn’t hear him, doesn’t hear the crowd and the music, just her footsteps as she takes the Important Client by the arm and walks away.