Life in The Caymans
“THAT’S FINE! THAT’S FINE!” He shouted coming down the stairwell. “See if I don’t show you!”
Fenn, who had been sitting on the couch with Paul, looked up and saw a young man with thick dark hair in a tight black dress shirt and white pants marching down the steps, and up on the balcony were Guy McClintock and Todd. Todd looked down at Fenn and shrugged.
“That’s Bobby Frey,” Paul said.
“Does he do movies?” Fenn looked after him doubtfully. He was very handsome, but he didn’t seem the movie type.
“Go home and cry to your mama, Bobby!” Guy shouted down.
“No,” Paul said as Bobby passed. “He’s one of Guy’s Chicago friends from his other business.”
“Other business…” Fenn began.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “Guy multitasks. It took awhile to get the porn thing up so he used to run drugs to support himself. Still does. Everyone from that end of his business we call Chicago Friends. Cause that’s where they used to come from. I don’t know that much about Bobby. He might be a Cleveland friend. Or a Detroit one.”
“Not a New Yorker, though.”
“No,” Paul said, sagely. “He walks like a Midwesterner.”
They were in the bedroom they’d made love in that afternoon when Fenn said, “If there’s going to be one of those parties tonight—”
“There is—”
“I was going to say, I didn’t come dressed for a party. I don’t even know what to wear to a party like this.”
“I’m sure Johnny will show you something,” Todd said.
“Who…? Oh, Paul.”
“Hum?”
“His name is Paul, Todd.”
“Oh,” Todd said, and smiled. “That’s the thing about you, Fenn. You always get inside of people. You always know so much so quickly.
“Well, anyway, this little ugly standard outfit of jeans and army green shirt is what I’ll be wearing. Cause I’m the filmmaker. But I know you’ll want to be dressed.”
Fenn looked at Todd, smiling, waiting for an answer.
“Cause you’re you,” he said.
“Truthfully,” Fenn said, “I don’t greatly want to go to the party.”
“Do you know?” said Todd, “We could just go back home for a bit, and then drive back here later on.”
“But with the price of gas. Do you really want to?”
“It’s about five-thirty now. If we leave we’ll be back home by seven. Eat a little. Relax. Shower. We can head back here at around ten or nine-thirty. The Party will be at its dirtiest. In fact, it’ll be at the place I stopped filming last night.”
“All right,” Fenn stood up. “We’ll go. I’m going to go say goodbye to Paul and tell him to take care of himself.”
“That is such a you thing to do,” Todd said.
Fenn cocked his head.
“I think that was a compliment.”
“You bet your pretty round ass it was,” Todd said, grabbing that pretty round ass.
“GOD, MY HEAD IS hurting,” Todd yawned as he leaned ahead.
Red taillights floated by in the night.
“Why don’t you switch seats and let me drive. You need rest,” Fenn said.
“Fenn, I love you, but you’re legally blind, and I was the one that taught you to drive so, if you don’t mind I think I’ll get a lot more rest if I’m at the wheel.”
“Suit yourself,” Fenn said and reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out a cigarette.
“I guess it’ll be about…. Almost midnight by the time we get to the party.”
“What’s it gonna be like?”
“Oh, Fenn, it won’t be like anything you’d call a party. It’ll be…”
“Like an orgy?”
“Well, actually it will be an orgy,” Todd said. “At least it was last night.”
“Wow,” Fenn sat back. “I thought I’d be excited.”
“You’re bored? About going to an orgy?”
“No. I’m mildly terrified is what I am.”
“Well, just hold onto my shirttail. You know,” Todd told him, “you didn’t have to come. I would have been all right if you’d stayed home.”
“And I would have thought for the rest of my life, damn, I missed an orgy. I could have seen an orgy.”
“Do you know Guy offered to do a porno of us?”
“Offered?”
“Yes. It was going to be something we could watch in the privacy of our own home,” Todd grinned, making quote marks.
“You know, I just think that’s weird. I think this whole thing is weird. Ehhh…..” Fenn craned his neck and yawned.
“Whaddit the sign say, babe?”
“You’re asking me? The legally blind one? It said we’ve just entered Port Ridge.”
“Only ten minutes to the land of Sodom.”
“That’s a good title for a play.”
“Or an autobiography.”
“Speak for yourself. Say,” Fenn interrupted himself. “What about for the documentary?”
Todd cackled, “That’s actually a pretty great idea.”
It wasn’t ten minutes. Port Ridge was a small town, and on Saturday night, this late, there was no traffic. They went through blinking red lights, and soon they were on the familiar dead in street, no traffic, only the shadow of Guy’s house on the hill growing larger as they approached.
“Ah, here we are.”
“Up and up the winding path,” Fenn sang. “Todd, this has to be the strangest movie you’ve ever made.”
“We’ll park right here,” Todd said, settling on the street, half a block before the house.
“There’ll be so many cars here, and between getting the valet to park it and getting it back… It’ll just be shorter if we park right here.”
But for the bass thump of music pounding from the house and the occasional raucous scream, the walk up was quiet and still. They were halfway toward the house when, suddenly, whirring sirens tore apart the night and lights were flashing.
“What the…?” Todd began.
Fenn pulled him into the trees and said, “Take out your camera and start filming. I’ll set up the lights.”
Patrol car after patrol car was whirring up to the house and Todd was shaking. But Fenn was cool and calm about the whole business, setting up a small light for Todd to shoot by.
“You got most of the party,” Fenn said. “Now you can shoot its aftermath.”
Fenn stepped out of the trees.
“What are you doing?” Todd hissed.
Fenn shrugged, “Getting a better view.
There were five patrol cars now, with lights flashing in the circle driveway, and cops in blue were jumping out of them and entering the house. Soon the music died down, but the screaming began. Fenn came back to the clump of trees and told Todd, “I’ll bet these people have been looking for a way to close down Guy for a long time.”
“Whaddo you think they found?”
“A bunch of folks fucking and snorting coke and all sorts of shit. That’s what they found,” Fenn said. He walked back to the edge of the street, watching. Another siren whirred and he went back into the bushes.
“Okay,” Fenn whispered, “All you need to know is everyone is getting arrested. It’s a good thing we came late as we did.”
“It’s a good thing we parked the car right here.”
After a while Todd said, “Whaddo we do?”
Fenn shrugged.
“We wait the whole thing out.”
“I think they’re gone,” Todd said. “I think it’s all over.”
Fenn started taking apart the lights, and Todd was shutting off his camera.
“Not at all what I expected.”
“No,” Fenn shook his head. “And don’t think about it too much now, but there goes your seventy-five-thousand dollars.”
“Oh, hell,” Todd muttered. “How’s he gonna pay from jail?”
“He may not stay in jail,” Fenn said.
“Yeah, but somehow it’s doubtful this’ll translate into me getting paid anytime soon.”
“Well,” Fenn said, “now that I’ve brought it up, I say let’s forget about it.”
They were coming onto the sidewalk when a figure came staggering toward them and as Fenn stepped out of the way, the swaying figure crashed into Todd.
“Johnny?” Todd began.
“Paul?”
Paul Anderson, turned Johnny Mellow turned from one of them to the other and said, “It was… awful. The police. They were everywhere. I had to hide with Noah.”
“Wha?” Todd began.
“Noah had gotten pretty fucked up when the police came. So I lugged him around with me to hide. We hid in a closet. Well, I hid him. And now, I was going to get help.”
“Well, I guess we better go,” said Fenn..
“Go?” Todd said. “Into a house that just got raided by the cops? A house the cops could come back to at any moment?”
“Well then I guess we better be quick about it,” Fenn said.
