What You Been
Up To Lately?
by George Baxt
Richard Weiler carefully maneuvered his wife's Mercedes Benz along Sunset Boulevard. The traffic wasn't particularly heavy in the early afternoon, but he was anxious to avoid any dents or scrapes. It was known to his friends that he respected the car more than he did the woman. Elissa had been a beautiful bride, her family's wealth easily enhancing her attractiveness, but twenty years ago when he watched her coming slowly down the aisle on her father's arm, he was very much in love with her. Today he loved nothing, just the feel of the magnificent vehicle as he idled along and the exhilarating sense of a newly discovered freedom that had blossomed a few hours earlier.
Elissa was gone, leaving behind the Mercedes, a bored husband, and, somewhere out there in the world, a nineteen-year-old son and an eighteen-year-old daughter who had flown the nest with what Richard considered unbecoming alacrity. He repositioned the mirror for a good look at himself. After a moment's careful consideration, he decided he looked better than he had in months. The face familiar from numerous television commercials ("Diabolica will kill your crab grass!" "Ahhhh, the smooth, easy taste of decaffeinated Bolluta!" etc.) now reflected a somewhat sheepish grin, revealing magnificent white teeth against a background of carefully shaded tanned skin. Oh, yes, thought Richard, I feel like a new man.
I feel like a new life. I need a new world. I could use a drink. He kept his eye out for a bar. He couldn't decide which was shabbier, the few pedestrians or the palm trees. He remembered a charming bar he used to frequent years ago when he was a struggling young actor. Come to think of it, that's where he was first introduced to Elissa, in that charming bar across from the bus terminal. Behind the building that housed the bar had been a small theater where a German refugee held acting classes. Richard didn't learn much about acting, but he perfected a superb German accent. And he made friends. And he met Elissa and they were married and now they were parted and there straight ahead was the bus terminal.
So shabby-Los Angeles is so shabby, he thought. The bus terminal looked filthy and unloved and there was no bar across the street. There was a bench in front of the bus terminal with a solitary occupant, a man who appeared to be Richard's age. Memory of an earlier friendship began to nag. There was something familiar about this man sitting on the bench. He was listless and the shock of hair hanging over his ears reminded Richard of the one good friend he had made in acting class, Augustus Locke. The cavalier and devil-may-care Augustus who aspired to Shakespeare and Ibsen and all things esthetic and beautiful, all things alien to Hollywood. Augie the original, the madman who once climbed the old Hollywood sign and then hung by his knees from the H.
"Now, that's macho," Richard remembered saying to Elissa.
And Elissa said with a sniff of disinterest, "Macho do about nothing."
My God. Oh, my God. Richard remembered. Elissa had been Augie's girl!
He pulled over to the curb for a better look at the man on the bench. It was at least ten years since he had last seen Augie, but he could never forget that face, those beautiful classical features that cried for matinee-idol acclaim but were in the wrong city. Richard rolled down the window and shouted, "Augie?"
The man leaped to his feet. His right hand went to his inside jacket pocket.
"Hey, Augie, it's me! Richard! Richard Weiler!"
Slowly Augustus Locke lowered his right hand. He moved toward the Mercedes with caution, as though he distrusted even the sound of a familiar voice. He squinted against the glare of the hard, harsh sun.
Richard conjured up the ugly guttural German accent from the bowels of memory. "Iss nod enuff to be secksy, Herr Locke, muss also sprechen zer dialock zo awdience hunderstands, fahrshtay?"
"Fahrshtay," said Augustus softly and now approached the automobile with confidence. He stuck his hand through the window, meeting Richard's and shaking it with vigor. "Of all the people I never expected to run into today."
"You looked as though you didn't want to run into any people. I thought for a minute there you were going to pull a gun on me."
Augustus said nothing but found a smile.
Richard continued, "What you been up to lately?"
"Well, right now I'm waiting for a bus to San Diego."
"Where's your car?"
Augustus looked sheepish. "I totaled it yesterday. It's a miracle I'm alive."
"I'm glad you are. I've thought a lot about you lately. If I'd known where to reach you-." He heard himself sounding like almost everyone else in his profession. "We must get in touch sometime." "I've been meaning to call you. I swear I never got your message."
Augustus roared with laughter. "That old Hollywood jazz! Well, I see you're doing great! A Mercedes yet! You seem to be in every commercial on the tube." His voice softened. "How's Elissa?"
"How's about a drink?"
Augustus thought for a moment. "I really have to make that bus."
"What's so urgent?"
"Well-" he seemed to be fumbling for an explanation "-you see, there's this guy I need to connect with in San Diego and then we're driving into Mexico. I got this deal going."
"Come on, there are lots of buses to San Diego but not enough old friends. Come on, Augie, let's go talk a while. Let's indulge, get corny over the old days."
Augie thought a moment, looked warily over his shoulder to the bus terminal, and got into the car.
Ten minutes later, they sat at a bar Richard found at the foot of Fairfax Avenue. Maggie, the barperson, brought them two beers, set a plate of peanuts between them, and crossed to the kitchen.
"Had I known you and Elissa were finished," said Augustus as he scooped up some peanuts, "I'd have shown up sooner. That's the girl I should have married, but you beat me to it."
Richard chuckled and sipped his beer. "Say, what happened to that dreary dame who used to make up our foursome? You know, the one who was all art but no craft. I can see her like she's standing in front of us. Blazing red hair pulled back and tied in a tight bun. A big pearl earring attached to each lobe. Sweater and skirt-always a sweater and skirt. Nice hips, but no bosom to speak of. God, how I disliked her. What was her name again?"
"Madeline. Madeline Longley."
"Madeline! That's it, Madeline. I wonder what became of her."
"I married her."
Richard's face reddened as he stared at Augustus. "Hell, I'm sorry. I mean I-"
Augustus was laughing uncontrollably. His head was flung back and his chest was heaving. Maggie, returning from the kitchen and carrying a tray of clean glasses, wondered if he was having a fit.
"Oh," gasped Augie, "oh, my God, that was funny." He wiped the tears from his eyes with a paper napkin. "How I wish I'd heard that description eighteen years ago, before I decided to marry her."
Richard stared hard at Augustus. He sensed there was something wrong with the man. He kept looking over his shoulder and every so often he patted his jacket where the inside breast pocket would be, as though seeking reassurance from something the pocket contained. His laughter was almost maniacal. And from the ferocity with which he chomped on the peanuts, Richard expected to see blood come trickling from his mouth.
"That last time we met-in Grauman's lobby, remember?"
"Sure. It was at least ten years ago, but I remember."
"That wasn't Madeline you were with."
"No. Can't remember that one's name. Some bimbo I picked up somewhere." Augie's face hardened as he stared into his beer. "Madeline and I weren't much of a marriage. I didn't make it as an actor. That was her first disappointment. Then we couldn't have any children-that was her second disappointment. Then she found out I was steadily unfaithful. So she turned to religion and illness. When she wasn't in church, she was in the hospital."
"You still married?"
Augie was watching Maggie carefully giving the glasses a second polish. She was fastidious. He liked that in people. She took pride in her bar-he could see by the way it was all so neatly laid out. She was what his father would have called a fine figure of a woman, for sure. Her eyes caught his. He felt something stirring and was astonished. She was not his type at all. He winked, she smiled, and he turned to Richard.
"Funny us running into each other like this today. I wish it had been last week."
"Oh, yeah? Why?"
"It would have been different, that's all." There was an awkward silence, and then Augie asked, "Where are your kids?"
"Gone. Flown. My son's in New York, or at least he was when he last sent a postcard. He was in some drug-rehabilitation program. I hope he stuck it out."
"And the girl?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure. She always liked kids. Maybe she's working with kids somewhere." Richard was sounding morose, and that was not what he had in mind for himself. He was free of Elissa and he'd been driving around trying to find a new avenue for himself. He tried to explain this to Augustus, who kept nodding his head but was actually retaining little of what he heard, his mind now containing an olio of his next sip of beer, Maggie behind the bar, and getting to San Diego.
"Augie?" asked Richard.
"What? What is it?" His eyes were wide and he was sneaking a quick look over his shoulder.
"You're not listening to me."
"Sure I am! Anyway, listen old buddy, I got to get back to the bus terminal." He was toying with Richard's car keys. Richard had placed them on the bar between their drinks.
"I'll drive you back as soon as we finish our drinks. Unless you're in that big a hurry?'
"Oh, no, no. It's great running into each other like this again."
"When do you get back from Mexico?"
"I'm not sure."
"I just thought we could get together again."
"That would be great. Believe me, I really have missed seeing you, shooting the breeze the way we used to, rehearsing our scenes together-and those times we'd do nothing but compare poverty."
They both laughed and Maggie smiled. She liked the actor she recognized from the television commercials. He was suave and smooth and obviously a gentleman. And she'd been very impressed by the Mercedes when she noticed Richard pulling into the adjoining parking lot. But his companion made her nervous and uneasy. His eyes had what she would later describe as "a very haunted look, like the banshees were after him." And there was something unsettling about the way he kept looking over his shoulder and patting his jacket as though maybe there was some weapon hidden there.
Richard was staring at the ceiling. "Old Meyerbeer?" Augustus had asked him if he knew what had become of their German drama instructor. "Well, I'll tell you. Last I heard, he went back to Germany where he directed a new translation of King Lear in which Lear not only does not go mad but throws those rotten daughters of his into exile."
"You're putting me on."
"I kid you not. Elissa saw the production in Munich. She was traveling with her mother. She couldn't wait to get home to tell me about it." His voice softened. "That was back in the days when she couldn't wait to get home to me."
Maggie had turned on the radio on a shelf above the glasses and was worrying the tuner.
Augustus said, "I'd love to see Elissa again. That beautiful blonde hair, that white, white skin, that gash of red mouth. By God, she was a looker! Has she changed much?"
"Elissa was rich enough to afford not to change much. Still blonde, skin still white, still the red gash of mouth. But the eyes got steely."
"I'd sure love to see her." Augustus sounded as wistful as a small penniless child with its nose pressed against the window of a candy store.
"Well, if I thought she was back at the house, I'd drive you there. But I don't think she's there."
Augustus clapped a hand on Richard's shoulder. "Well, man, I think it's time we started making tracks."
Richard raised his stein to drink up.
Maggie found the news on the radio and was listening intently. The announcer was reading carefully and without emotional commitment. Richard and Augustus stared at the radio. They had heard a familiar name. "The brutally battered body of Madeline Locke was found in the bedroom of her Topanga Canyon home this morning by a neighbor who said she had seen the victim's husband drive away early yesterday morning. Augustus Locke is wanted for questioning in his wife's murder. Late yesterday morning, a wrecked car found near Mr. Locke's home was identified as belonging to the suspect-"
Richard was staring at the snub-nosed revolver Augustus had taken from his inside jacket pocket and was pointing at Richard's chest. "Augie," whispered Richard.
Augustus got to his feet and with his free hand took the keys to the Mercedes. Maggie held her breath and silently prayed to the Jesus she loved to deliver both herself and the handsome actor.
"I'll try not to total the Mercedes," Augie was backing away to the door. "Don't follow me out."
For reasons he would never be able to explain to himself, Richard restrained a wild urge to burst out laughing. What you been up to lately? he had asked Augie earlier. Well, he certainly found out.
Augustus was smiling as he ran out the door.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" cried Maggie as she rushed to the phone.
"Wait!" The mixture of harshness and urgency in Richard's voice stopped her. "Not yet," said Richard. "Let's give him a head start."
"But-but he's a murderer."
"They'll catch him. He won't get away. But let's give him this break. He's never really had a decent break in his life."
What a magnificent car, thought Augustus, what a truly magnificent car. Now if I had married Elissa, this would have been my car. And the marriage would have worked. That's what was wrong. Elissa and I were meant for each other until Richard came along. Beautiful, beautiful Elissa of the blonde hair, white skin, and red gash of a mouth. Ugly, whining, sickly Madeline. How did I put up with her under the same roof all these years?
The Mercedes was headed south for the San Diego freeway when the patrol car spied it and gave chase, siren screaming. But Augie's mind was elsewhere. It was dwelling on the unfairness and inequity of life and what a rotten shuffle he himself had got. His foot pressed the accelerator and the Mercedes seemed to be fighting him. He began losing control of the steering wheel and soon he was in the wrong lane with a truck bearing down on him. He swerved to avoid the collision, and instead sent the car plummeting over the edge of the road into a ravine that lay hundreds of feet beneath.
The Mercedes rolled over and over. First, the roof was torn away, then both right fenders wrenched free with sickening groans. Augie's door sprang open and he tried desperately to hold onto the wheel, but blood was streaming down his face, his right arm was broken, he knew both his legs were shattered and he was nearing the end of the tragi-comedy known as the life of Augustus Locke.
When the Mercedes hit the bottom of the ravine, the door to the trunk was flung open and Augustus, thrown from the car and just a few moments away from death, stared with pleasure at the person he had so longed to see once more. She had fallen out of the trunk, her head hanging loosely, the neck broken. But the blonde hair and the white skin were still beautiful, though the red gash of lips was now a large ugly stain caked with blood. Elissa, my beloved, my beautiful Elissa!
What you been up to lately?