AMERICA’S TOUGHEST CRITICS
ARE IN SHOCK AND AWE –
“I’m down wid dis! So far down I still be tryin to get back up.”
Rapper Buck Fitty
“A roaring dysfunctional amusement park. A white-knuckle rollercoaster ride like a suicide dive into concrete!”
Curly Fries, CEO
Big Ride Theme Parks
“More fun than my Erectile Dysfunction medication. Almost blew out my defibrillator!”
Uncle Murray
“Such a disgusting embarrassment of pop culture perversions. My Ethics class found it really useful.”
Sister Mary Rasputin, BFD
“A steaming good time!”
Farm Animal Gazette
“Left the Bored speechless. Blindsided with shock. Absolutely stupefied.”
America’s Literary Highbrows
Bored of Review
“Kept all our patients positively gagging before pill distribution time.”
Nurse Pat Micrack, RN
Bent Minds Hospital
XTREME LIVING
by
JOHN LUMA
Cover Design by J. Cornelius
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
John Luma on Smashwords
XTREME LIVING
Copyright 2010 by John Luma
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except in brief lines, without written permission of the author. For written permission contact him at jcluma@gmail.com.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are created from the author’s imagination and are not real. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Any reference to a historical person, event or pop culture figure is not taken from any pre-existing creative work, but is made up by the author exclusively for this story.
(Meaning, if you see yourself in this book – good luck!)
Smashwords Edition - License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
YOUR PERSONAL SURVIVAL GUIDE TO…
XTREME LIVING
Gird your naughty privates and strap yourself in for Hollywood’s most seductive thrill ride to bombast and adventure, XTREME LIVING.
Thrill to the naive honeymoon couple cunningly bamboozled into starring on the world’s only fatal TV Reality series.
Wallow in the ingenious flesh-and-blood sacrifices staged by a master showman and a debauched TV Network bent on ratings supremacy.
Relish the spectacle of torch-lit hangings, depraved drownings, frequently scheduled prison shootouts and other major statutory delights.
Savor the insensitive depiction of the intellectually and physically challenged Great White Majority, stereotyped minorities, squinty-eyed alcoholics, Ku Klux Klan hicks, Mafia goombahs, oversexed TV execs, and many more of America’s greatest natural born schemers an dreamers.
* * * * *
IN HOLLYWOOD
EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.
Abruptly John pulled down his beautiful new wife and her sudden softness sent an electric rush through his entire body. He didn’t remember it then but once, in the eighth grade, he found a book that explained all this. It said that from birth on we are just one full-bodied, knuckle dragging T.J.Maxx or True Religion-covered erogenous zone.
Newlyweds John & Andrea Commenz
“Kids! Everything you see here is the real deal. Achieved by J.J. Cahoney knowing what’s in the heart and soul of every overfed slob across this great land. A need to feel the strong shock of reality. See blood running down faces! Enjoy the crack of a head-on collision! Watch babies flung outa highrise buildings, All Coming Up Next!”
Reality Show Producer J.J. Cahoney
And on a hotel tower high above Las Vegas –
“Put it on, Beauty,” the hunchback assassin said, tossing his parachute to her. “You and the Beast are gonna fly.
“No! No! I can’t do this!” Andrea cried. “I’ll die of fright.” She bent down, shaking at the thought of taking the death leap. He hustled her over to the edge.
John gritted his teeth, ready to pounce. The killer aimed his gleaming weapon right at the second-rate actor’s face.
“Happy ratings, doofus.”
* * * * *
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Hunter S. Thompson
* * * * *
Rapacious Reader
Assuming you have or will enthusiastically pay the internet cashier for this priceless treasure, I dedicate it entirely to… YOU.
CHAPTERS
1 -- NEWLYWEDS’ NIGHTMARE
2 -- MEETING MR. HOLLYWOOD
3 -- TARANTULAS AND A HAPPY HYENA
4 -- THE NAKED APES
5 -- THE BIG BAD BOA
6 -- FAME AND FORTUNE
7 -- BANK DICKS
8 -- EDEN WON AND LOST
9 -- HEROES AT LARGE
10 -- www.peter&jesus.com
11 -- THE B.S. NETWORK
12 -- THE MAFIA HIT-MAKER
13 -- DARING DUO SEDUCTION
14 -- TOP-SECRET TABLOID STARS
15 -- GUIDO BAMBONI’S FRIENDLY PERSUASION
16 -- A PARTY TO DIE FOR
17 -- THE CHUNKY SISTERS
18 -- KU KLUX KLAN LYNCH-A-THON
19 -- THE BUNKER MENTALITY
20 -- THE OWL-EYED FARTHEAD
21 -- THE NETWORK PRES.
AND HIS DAYGLO DOMINATRIX
22 -- THE SUB-ZERO FRIDGE RELATIONSHIP
23 -- APARTMENT SKY-DIVING
24 -- THE STEPFORD WHORES
25 -- THE SCHOOL BUS DISASTER
26 -- LUSTING FOR THE LEADING LADY
27 --SEEKING THE EXIT... CLAUSE
28 -- FARQUAD’S ADVICE
29 -- THE BITTER TRUTH
30 -- TAKING FULL SPLATTER
31 -- PLUNGING INTO THE ABYSS
32 -- EXTERMINATING THE BUGS
33 -- DROOL McSHAME’S CODPIECE
34 -- PRISON SHEEP
35 -- HYPNOTIZED TO DEATH
36 -- THE RATINGS SHOWDOWN
37 -- PLAYING ON PROCLIVITIES AND CLARINETS
38 -- THE BEAST CLOSES IN
39 -- DUEL IN THE DARK TOWER
40 -- THE DEADLY SEASON FINALE
41 -- GLADIATOR DWARVES
42 -- THE FINAL SURPRISE
* * * * *
1
NEWLYWEDS’ NIGHTMARE
They didn’t plan much of anything, stuff just happened.
She knelt before him in the ladies room stall of a Kaanapali bar and her long blond hair bounced up and down with the same fervor that had mesmerized him since their third date. In a few minutes all the deep anxiety he had felt on the flight over, that Kobe and LeBron might not face each other in the NBA Finals, went to a happier place. Even his anger at having their Ford Fiesta repo’d on their wedding night no longer stormed from his heart to explode erratically across his frontal lobe.
“How’s my Johnster doing?” Andrea purred, her voice resonating loud enough to make the old Hawaiian lady three stalls over look around confused.
John shifted his dazed eyes from the shimmering skylight down to her teasing smile. Instinctively he grunted the same sincere grunt that had passed the primordial lips of every one of his hairy-assed ancestors going back a couple million years. It was a grunt that said his life was better than a monster dunk, it was a slamma-jamma-thank-you-Ma’aamma! And as Andrea reached one hand up to caress his face and returned to her passionate embrace, he suddenly realized his four-day wife had the lips, the looks, the grip and the ‘tude that could blow all his life’s darkest terrors into pure mind-bending sunshine. One moment her attentions felt like ice on scorching sunburn, another she transformed his warm glow into a thermonuclear blast.
Even for such eager young newlyweds this combined public gropefest and spontaneous bathroom break was something brand new. The first one began only minutes after their Hawaiian Airlines honeymoon flight touched into Maui. They were strolling arm-in-arm toward baggage claim when Andrea said –
“Come on, Johnsy, let me show you something.”
And immediately she steered him off the concourse and into the ladies room, pushed him into the roomy handicap stall and got busy. That was three days before and there was no stopping them since. Men’s room or Ladies, empty or occupied, they rushed in with eyes flashing intently on their goal and disappeared behind the first open door. Whether an audience awaited them or one soon gathered, Andrea’s shapely lower legs jutting into view always got them going. Men and women reacted about the same, first with mouths agape and eyebrows arched, then gasping, laughing and sometimes cheering as the yelps of the two hyenas caught in their own wicked trap built to an unstoppable crescendo.
Yet these unexpectedly wild interludes seemed to do the trick for both of them, and turn their longstanding emotional confusion and self-doubts into more composed shared feelings.
Before marriage John had faked a young stud’s single life with only limited success. Many nights he would sit alone at a bar and mentally torture himself. No breathless young hotties stroked his ego or anything else. Imprisoned by his lack of accomplishment, he would twirl the black hair on the back of his neck while his frustrations shoved his psyche into a dark alley and beat the crap out of his happiness.
Andrea’s track record as a young princess-on-the-prowl was hardly more impressive. Without a doubt her slim athletic calling card with big breasts destroyed the hearts of numerous horndogs and opened doors to the parties of rich strangers. But every day’s appraising look in the mirror could find her inner detective interrogating her fat childhood. She seemed destined to relive her rotund mother’s shrill command to clean her heaping plate. After this she would stare even more critically, and uncover endless new blemishes that threatened more than her sex appeal.
But right then our active young couple left the ladies room laughing just as John zipped his pants, surprising three teenage girls who shrieked in unison, “Omigod!”
Their eyes melted into one another so deeply as they made their way back to the bar they didn’t notice the two thug-like creatures who passed by. Not that seeing them would have changed what was about to happen. The tall and short intruders were from a different world, psychologically speaking, and shared little of John and Andrea’s promising possibilities. They never had any big quandaries about their lives, and solved any nagging problems by loading sharp-tipped projectiles into Berettas and aiming them without thought.
The moment the bar hostess ushered them into the adjacent restaurant they seemed to enter a strange new world. The sun’s low orange glare streamed through the wide front windows and overwhelmed the two dozen vacationers there. It turned them all into babbling supplicants to the intoxicating gods hovering backlit above the bar. Every gleeful head shake or raised cocktail caused a long shadow to follow behind the happy celebrants, just waiting for their next stir. Unseen witnesses hid in plain sight in this tropical tomb and watched everything. Purple flamingos peered from the folds of multicolored shirts with hungry beaks and suspicious yellow eyes.
A tanned older man sitting with a pretty young thing in a strapless sundress looked up at Andrea in surprise. Her high-heeled strut across the room caused many smiling conversations and clinking glasses to go silent.
John pulled back her chair.
“How polite of you,” she responded. They sat facing each other across a window setting looking out onto the sand. Their fingers slipped instinctively across the white tablecloth and caressed each other’s hands like playful sex organs. Their modest wedding rings shone in the blaze of the late-day sun. John and Andrea Commenz gazed at one another with romantic delight.
“Ready for my little dedication?” he said earnestly.
“Really?” she said, squinting a smile. She crossed her legs and leaned forward in anticipation. But after his trancelike state in the bathroom, he forgot the dramatic words he had prepared. She could see him tense awkwardly and squeezed his hands.
“It’s okay. Doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Right. Right...” Suddenly it came back to him. “The future is ours, honey,” he said softly.
“Course it is my Johnny Cat,” she interrupted. “We’ll have a great life.”
“Hon –” He cocked his head in frustration. “I need to do this.” She pumped his hands lightly in agreement and smiled.
“See, I only want the best for both of us –”
“Oh me too, absolutely,” she just had to add.
John froze a smile, but continued.
“So I’m gonna work real hard to make our dream of a school for underprivileged kids come true –”
“As long as we never take chances and lead moderate, moral lives,” Andrea cut in again.
He let go of her hands and pulled his back, nodding perturbed.
“Then it’s not my dedication, is it? It’s yours.” He stared sullenly.
“Oh honey, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up,” she said, looking less sorry or embarrassed than anxious. She pumped his hands. “It’s just everything’s been so wonderful, John. So now I think we need to start being more cautious, you know? Our lifestyle, our finances, everything. Like from our honeymoon on,” she said, widening her eyes. “Make sense?”
John looked at his Andrea. Her rare wrinkled brow, her warm look of concern offset by her stunning good looks suddenly made him feel very happy.
He leaned closer and whispered – “And I promise, I will honor you forever.”
With endless love he looked at her. Andrea’s eyes watered.
“Oh darling. Ditto for me,” she cooed.
Her hands caressed his again, and both gave a deep blissful sigh. He was twenty-seven, she almost twenty-six. At that moment, as the Earth spun invisibly on their behalf at one thousand miles per hour, Time seemed to wait for them – even if no waiters did because they were all in the back boasting about who they were going to fondle that night. The sand and ocean that had washed ashore for millions of years sparkled through their table window only for them. And to anyone who might see them just then, breaths heaving in eternal harmony, they glowed even more. Their bodies were athletic, their smiles attractive, their hearts sincere.
“Andrea, you’re so adorable. You’re just so – so balanced as a woman.” John nodded his head, confirming it. She massaged his hands all over and looked into his eyes.
“Mmmm,” her soothing voice caressed him. “And you know where I get that balance, John?”
“Where’s that, honey?”
“Financial Analysis. My job has taught me so much about life. The Dow Jones rises and falls, but prudent investment across diverse stocks creates a safe, balanced, ever-growing portfolio.”
“So just forget the recent financial meltdown, right?” He couldn’t resist poking fun.
“Oh no, honey, not at all. That’s a perfect example of extreme living. An entire society trying to take a corrupt shortcut to their dreams.”
He was just about to tell her how impressed he was with her cool logic and grasp of history -– but loud angry voices interrupted. Startled, they turned toward the cashier.
The two guys who passed them moments before wore ski masks and pointed guns at the manager’s and hostess’s heads! Everyone in the big room watched in terror.
“All of it!” yelled the taller one. “Or your brains’ll be all over the floor!” Screams and gasps hurtled from the island voyagers who sat with their adrenaline rising to redline.
“Don’t screw with us!” shouted the short one. “Gimme the big bills under the drawer!”
“This can’t be happening,” John gurgled thirty feet away in a low voice that carried a lot of phlegm.
Andrea gripped his knee so hard it hurt. “Well it is, John! Come on now. Think of something!”
John did his best to think. But in a fleeting flash he knew he had no intention of being brave. If his life was a lot better than good just before they showed up, these strong-armed men had turned it unexpectedly, dangerously bad. And foolishly risking it all against daunting odds could not only throw his life’s recent winning score out of balance, it could end the Big Game.
“Honey,” he whispered, “remember now. Moderation. Let’s just stay calm, stay quiet.” They both watched the robbers lower their guns. “See,” John said, “they’re leaving.”
The thieves wheeled around with a takeout bag full of cash and pointed their ominous pistols at everyone.
“Your wallets and purses – now!”
More gasps of fright burst through the room. The tall Ski Mask angrily swept his gun back and forth. Andrea dug her slim hundred- dollar French-tipped nails deeper into John’s leg.
“Honey, our credit cards!” she hissed with such force John jerked to her. Her eyes had a feral gleam he had never seen before. “Not on my honeymoon. No damn way!”
The short one boomed, “Put it on the tables! Starting at the back!”
And immediately they were hustling toward them, weapons thrust forward with violent intent. Andrea whipped her four-hundred-dollar, perfectly straight butt-length hair extensions so fast as she turned, John had to blow them out of his mouth. She riveted him in anger and without looking thrust her bottle-tanned right leg out far enough to catch the short thug above his stubby Adidas.
“Ooooff!” he belched and tumbled to the carpet with full force. His gun smacked out of his hand and bounced away. He sprawled stunned.
Andrea jumped out at the runt but the tall one grabbed her hair and yanked back hard. Her contorted face and pained scream brought John out of his shocked, open-mouthed stare and he bolted up and belted him in the side of his face. Ski Mask shook it off, let go of Andrea’s hair, lunged at John and knocked him back on the table. He hesitated for a moment as though he didn’t know how much force he should use, then grabbed him by the front of his shirt. But John reached for a table plate and WHAACK! slammed it across his face.
Everyone felt the impact and watched John shove him back then throw a follow-up right that knocked him to the floor. All eyes darted over to see Andrea stand over her little creep, thrust his own gun to his head and jam her four-inch Via Spiga acrylic heel into his back. “Oww! Oww!” he howled. “That’s enough!”
The customers looked back to catch the tall thug scooting back on his butt. John slugged him mercilessly.
“Okay! Oww! Cut! Cut!” he cried.
Our newlyweds straightened up confused.
“Ow? Cut?” they both happened to ask at once.
“Yes, CUT!” a big voice yelled from the back of the room.
Everyone turned to watch an older man in black slacks and turtleneck stride out smiling. Four crew members in jeans and T-shirts suddenly appeared from the shadows hefting video cameras off their shoulders. About sixty, with sly sparkling eyes and a body softened from too much success, the stranger’s face gleamed with the smarmiest of self-satisfied grins.
“Wonderful! You two were just great.”
Yes they were, but our daring couple was also way beyond confused.
“Wonderful?” asked John.
“Great?” said Andrea. She tossed her golden mane back with agitation.
“Who the hell are you?” they both demanded as one.
He laughed out loud and turned an impressed glance to his crew. He shoved out his hand. “J.J. Cahoney, my friends. America’s premiere Reality producer.” His voice swelled with a confidence and pleasure almost too extreme to be real. They looked at him stunned, still too upset to be sociable. He withdrew his hand smoothly, his smile didn’t flicker.
“And you, my beautiful children,” he continued, raising his voice and looking around the restaurant like an emcee, “you have just unwittingly auditioned for this Fall’s awesome new TV Reality series, Xtreme Living. As everyone here just witnessed, I set up this amazing hidden video robbery and you two everyday deviants jumped in like true-life action heroes.”
They both looked bewildered. Nothing he said sank in.
“Now everything’s gonna be okay, Mr. – ” he thrust out his hand again and held it there. This time John took it reluctantly.
“It’s Commenz, okay? John and Andrea,” he sputtered. “We’ve been married four days. So...” his voice trailed off and he gave the producer a pained look.
“So I understand exactly,” J.J. said, surprised and happy at this news. “I hear you loud and clear. You’re young, in love –and hot for each other!” He laughed and looked around at his crew who also laughed. In fact the whole room cackled at this public announcement these two heroic innocents were pulsing sexually for each other right then. It took their silent deadpan stares to finally bring J.J.’s face back to simple beaming.
“Please,” he said to John, eyeing his bruised face in sympathy and gesturing behind him. “Our prep room is right here, I’ll make those battle scars disappear.” He turned to Andrea. His eyes twinkled up her body and he moaned with great appreciation until he reached her defiant stare.
“Mercy!” he gasped. “Well, let me help you both freshen up and catch your breath. Then I insist you do me the honor of coming back to my estate here in Kaanapali.” He leaned forward. “For cocktails.” He raised his eyebrows. “At sunset.”
John and Andrea watched him step back as if to give them room to respond with utter freedom and comfort. Actually, he had just passed gas from all the excitement and wanted to get away from whatever might be wafting their way. But they were too stunned by events to notice anything except this man’s gleaming, self-satisfied face, which at that swollen moment appeared much too large for his body.
They turned to look at one another for reassurance, for some sign they shared the exact same feelings. 96 hours into their marriage bond, they did.
They both wanted to have nothing more to do with this brazen, smiling fool. But as seconds ticked by they were still too unsettled by the violent intrusion of the moment before to speak up.
So what was about to happen might best be explained by the adrenaline rush that still lingered, or blamed on the obvious impulsiveness of their youth. Yet it was something far more personal and profound than that. A long silence filled the iridescent room. No one said a word. All eyes waited, hoping for a little closing drama -– perhaps an angry refusal or a big embrace. J.J.’s face patiently followed the heroic couple’s frozen exchange until he noticed their first brittle looks soften into a deep sense of accomplishment – something only his years of stalking people helped him perceive. Finally John turned to speak and showed his throat. The fearless producer leaped. And the instant J.J. purred, “My hair and make-up team will make you both feel brand new,” his words swept over them as if from a spell. For with this promise, their angry curiosity and a deep unaware need for adventure surged up in their souls.
Our heroes looked firmly at one another and knew they had to go.
2
MEETING MR. HOLLYWOOD
The two guests sat side by side on the rear patio of the white multilevel Mediterranean mansion and clutched their martinis like life ropes off a cliff. They sat straight up and stared across an endless lawn to a precipice that disappeared into an infinite blue Pacific. Despite the warmth of the late afternoon sun and their posh, breezy surroundings, nothing could allay the gross horror showing on their faces.
Sitting to one side J.J. leaned into their view with an effervescent smile. He raised his champagne glass in a quick toast, then gulped it without waiting for them. He burst into a chortle.
“Probably never seen anything like this, huh kids!”
John and Andrea looked at him in silent disgust then turned back to the surreal wildlife scene unfolding before them. Across the grass a monstrous muddy crocodile growled and snapped after a white rabbit that scurried for its life just beyond its jaws! The beast lumbered and snarled, held back from the furry fast food and the freedom to munch anywhere else it damn wanted by a thin steel chain yoked to its collar. The other end was latched to a metal rod staked deep into buried concrete.
The two guests exchanged a shocked look while the race for survival scampered and bellowed across the idyllic green arena and beyond it the sun lowered in total disinterest to the sea.
J.J. watched the seemingly uneven contest with warm delight.
“Look, Mr. Cojonez,” John began.
“Name’s Cahoney,” their smiling host said. “But you can call me J.J.”
John cleared his throat and nodded as he often did just before arguing.
“So, J.J.,” he said, shooting his Andrea a look that said he would set the producer straight about his decadent sideshow. “Let me guess which one of those you think me and my wife are. The prehistoric monster there covered in steel plate, or the cuddly little creature with the short happy life?”
J.J.’s eyes floated to them, sensing his need to smooth their choppy water with his unique personal oil.
“Now, kids, kids, you got me all wrong! We’re not either one, cause we stand on top of the pyramid. We wear the rabbit jacket and the crocodile shoes. And we do it while dancing under all the stars of heaven.”
“Oh, finally, back to romance,” Andrea exhaled to great relief, not really believing him but deciding it was time to have fun. She raised her martini glass. “I’ll drink to that,” she said. John watched her smile and, although still anxious, he nodded and raised his glass too.
They all drank, Andrea looked into the distance with a glint of new hope while John grabbed a second handful of exotic nuts from a big silver tray. Watching them, the man with the large ego but questionable humanity chortled again and cracked with rare candor.
“Mmm, listen,” he said, smacking his lips. “I’ll drink to both of you. Because what you did today shows raw talent perfect for my new show.” His voice lifted in glowing compliment to his new recruits. John puckered his lips in reluctant agreement. Andrea watched J.J. with greater attention.
“Oh you bet,” J.J. said, noticing their newfound interest. “Absolutely. Just plain, raw talent. An ability to improvise. A sense of daring. A –”
“A real interest in protecting our assets from thugs, and keeping our honeymoon intact,” Andrea interjected. She wanted to make sure J.J. knew her true priorities.
J.J. smiled at her. Again. Always.
“Very good, Andrea. You intercepted me nicely there and ran with it. Very quick.”
She batted her eyes playfully.
John watched them both and the anger rose in his throat. He didn’t like this rich, self-important “producer” from the first moment. And he definitely didn’t like him complimenting his wife.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice a strange mixture of mild threat and grave conclusions. J.J. cocked his head and raised his eyebrows in practiced deference, clearly awaiting something important.
“Whatever this is, J.J., we couldn’t be more wrong for it.” John sat forward and his hands started gesturing erratically, punching up and sweeping around for emphasis. “I mean, I’m a real actor – struggling now, I’ll admit. But I’m about searching for emotional truth–”
“Wait,” J.J. interrupted. “You’re in search of –you mean about life or what?” he inquired to test him and see what he’d say, as much as he didn’t have a clue about this search stuff.
“That’s right, man, the truth about everything,” John said. “Understand what I’m saying here?” He looked at his host full of earnest defiance.
“Well I’m with you, absolutely,” J.J. lied. On a scale of one-to-ten, big fat eternal truths registered to him an invisible non-existent zero. “But go on,” he urged him. “I don’t want to stop your big search here.”
“Hey, thanks for the support, man.” John pointed at J.J. as if they were starting to bridge an important gap. “See,” John lowered his voice and tilted again to J.J. with his impending wisdom, his secret to life. “Here’s what it really is.” J.J. widened his eyes in anticipation and leaned to him, a few feet apart.
John gave it up in slow reverential tones.
“It’s an actor’s unique understanding of truth, about discovering and pursuing what’s in the human heart. Our thoughts, our secrets, feelings, failings… Our dreams.” John nodded emphatically at the Hollywood Houdini, a man who could contort himself to break in and out of almost any verbal traps or emotional containers. The aging wizard winked and smiled like he’d just been ushered into King Tut’s ancient tomb of gold.
“Wooow,” J.J. exclaimed, turned to Andrea with a whole new look of understanding then swigged the last of his martini.
Andrea gazed at her husband with pride, his words about an actor’s search always inspiring her. But John wasn’t nearly finished.
“Now, since that’s the case, J.J., you gotta know I need something really deep to keep my focus. Something really challenging as I go rummaging through the existential gestalt of our terrifying adventure on this lonely planet Earth.” His voice peaked with urgency then lowered to finish with, “Not your so-called Reality Show let’s-all-boogie-in-the-hottub-as-millions-of-viewers-lech.”
Well now, America’s most successful Reality TV producer – the man who graduated last out of 236 in a really grueling Cinema Studies program at U.C. Santa Barbara – should have been insulted by this wannabe actor’s putdown. But J.J. didn’t show it. He just nodded his goofy smile.
“Yes, lech” he repeated in a tone that didn’t reveal at all his true feelings for the lustful life force John mentioned. He decided he was giving this naïve out-of-work actor too much attention, and turned to his far more appealing wife.
“And Andrea, what gives you your special edge?”
“Edge? Really? Oh, you think!” she said, flattered at his powers of perception. “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Cahoney – I can’t call you J.J. until we get better acquainted. But you know, a badly balanced ledger sheet really pisses me off.”
He didn’t take his eyes off her magnificent face and flesh. John poured himself another martini from the iced crystal pitcher and Andrea held out her glass for more.
“Really? Pisses you off?” J.J. responded with a surprised smile.
“Oh you bet.”
“Anything else?”
Andrea’s eyes suddenly shined. “And when my company softball team gets behind I’ll knock a few batters down if I have to, sure!” she exclaimed.
J.J. needed to hear no more. Although he had a number of misgivings about John, he was convinced these two good-looking, brave, intense youngsters were the key to his show, the key to his very future. He jumped up out of his grossly over-priced six-hundred-dollar plastic-strapped chaise chair and gripped his empty martini glass as if it were the holy Bible.
“I knew it! See! We’ve all hit the Hey-Hi-How-The-Hell-Are-Ya-Jackpot!” He laughed and swiveled his head around and his body danced on his feet like a marionette bouncing without touching the ground.
“Let me kinda cut through all the crap now, kids. I’m not here as just some sleazy Hollywood jerk dangling the rich and famous in front of your skeptical young eyes.” J.J. was not only firing up his Ambition and yanking his Need for Greed into high gear, he was accelerating his Big Dream and screaming up the highway toward Maximum Success. Sweat oozed from his forehead.
“Everything you see here is the real deal. Achieved by hard work, by J.J. Cahoney knowing what’s in the heart and soul of every overfed slob across this great land. A need to feel the strong shock of reality! To see blood running down faces Tuesdays at 9, 8 Central, and enjoy the crack of a head-on collision Following Tonight’s Newsbreak. Watch babies flung outa high-rise buildings Coming Up Next! The whole joyous heart-stopping cauldron of life where you’d be the stars and come to the rescue of some sad sorry bozos in some titanic test of heroism every Saturday night. One week a bank robbery, the next a Mob murder, another a lynching at a Klan rally. I tell ya, John, you can act the rest of your life, struggle like hell for your fifteen minutes of fame – or spend week after week triumphing over tragedy just by being yourself. And Andrea, you go and balance the biggest books for the biggest corporations right up until they fire your beautiful ass just before your pension funds. Or you can live on the edge of the greatest Reality show ever conceived for a coupla seasons, then be rich enough to buy your own professional softball team!”
J.J.’s smile stretched to maximum Plastic Man goofiness. Our Kids stared in silence, overwhelmed. Then John coughed and jerked his head at Andrea. They stood up and moved off together to a big wall of climbing red bougainvilleas. They huddled in hushed tones.
“What the hell was that?” John said.
“Sounds just like a preacher.”
“He is! He’s a Hollywood producer and we just heard the TV Gospel according to Saint J.J.”
Their host watched them closely. Like a salesman hovering over a confused customer at the critical point of purchase, he wasn’t about to let his chance for the Big Sale slip away. He coughed loudly. They turned to him still looking skeptical, no closer to the decision he wanted to hear.
“I like that about you two. You’re a team, sharing an important decision.” J.J. backed off being the producer, the salesman, the pimp offering his johns the “biggest bang for your buck.” He became the friendly host again.
“C’mon inside,” he said. “The night is still young.”
3
TARANTULAS AND A HAPPY HYENA
They walked behind their host into his huge two-story living room. It was the kind they believed all rich people had, the kind they both had seen in movies yet had never seen in person. But instead of the light airy shrine in their mind’s eye, the room had all the crass force of an overly decorated African film set. Big leafy jungle-sized palm trees cascaded everywhere and the walls were painted deep green. Above them the guillotined heads of a dead lion, gorilla and hyena looked out with glassy-eyed permanence. Holding center stage over the high blazing fireplace, a massive rhino head stared down at them still pulsing with post-mortem malevolence.
Our two innocents were immediately caught by the bizarre drama in a lighted glass display case off to one side, and they moved over to look.
“Please, make yourselves at home,” J.J. said before he turned around at his big chair to find them staring agog. His face perked up with fond memories.
“From my hit series, Not Your Average African Safari,” he said proudly. “They always look pretty dangerous for things you can stomp with your foot. But unless they’re havin a bad day, they’re as friendly as little puppies.”
John and Andrea gaped at the two dozen dark, furry, dead tarantulas carefully displayed over three glass shelves. In a safari photo J.J. held a live one in his open palm. Their grim surprise was punctuated by J.J.’s black butler Chester, who entered in formal tuxedo carrying a tray of drinks, nuts and candy. He handed them all fresh martinis.
Our newlyweds exchanged a cautionary look, Andrea actually freaked by the tarantulas.
“Oh yeah, sure,” John muttered when he realized he had seen the premiere episode of the bizarre Reality show. “The one where the contestant got mauled by a lion – his African guide got accidentally blown away.”
J.J. gestured them to sit down in his deep jungle opulence.
“Well John, some dark clouds have a big silver lining. In this guy’s case, plastic surgery gave him a much better looking face,” he said without a hint of defensiveness. “And that prosthetic device the docs came up with? I gotta admit it’s the most realistic fake left hand I’ve ever seen.”
Andrea’s mouth opened in shock. But she gave a sarcastic nod. “Oh well – a small price to pay…”
J.J. continued, “And if the guide was stupid enough to stand between the lion and the other hunter – I mean, come on!”
Andrea’s troubled stare drifted off their host up to the four exotic animal heads staring down at them. J.J. smiled proudly at her interest and looked at John.
“Quite a collection, isn’t it?
“Amazing,” was all John could bring himself to say.
“Why would you want to do that, J.J.?” Andrea found herself asking pointedly while gulping her third martini.
“You mean, show em off in my home?”
“No, I mean kill them, cut off their heads and hang them in your living room.” Andrea held her own goofy smile now and turned from her husband to J.J. He wasn’t offended in the least. His bright-eyed face looked proud as a peacock.
“Because every one is a great, extraordinary creature,” he responded.
“Well, J.J…” Andrea replied, pausing in her well-lubricated state so it would come out exactly as she felt. “…So’s my Dad, but carrying his photo in my purse seems to work just fine.”
J.J. smiled wide, her jab seeming to stimulate a dormant funny bone. John couldn’t resist.
“Now honey – I’m thinking your dad might look great hanging off that wall.”
At this J.J. laughed out loud, bobbing his head playfully again.
“Okay, you two got me now! Great sense of humor! Just what I need!”
Andrea was finally enjoying herself. She uncrossed her legs and her short silver cocktail dress tortured J.J.
“Did you do that Real People thing?” she asked.
Her reference interrupted his fixation. He returned to her face, suddenly delighted his ratings hit was known everywhere. “You’re referring to my Real People Under The Big Top!”
“Ab-abolutely, she stammered, tongue-tied. John looked amused for a change. “I mean, that’s it,” she blurted. “Isn’t that the one where the insurance salesman from Des Moines missed the trapeze net and ended up a paraplegic?”
“Ya know, Andrea,” their gracious host said and he lifted his right forefinger as if to point out some great wisdom – “a liquid diet for the rest of your life is a small price to pay for never having to work again – ever!” J.J. punched out this last thought and his face lit up.
His guests eyed each other with stunned finality. John nodded at Andrea and they both stood up. Surprised by their sudden action J.J. jumped to his feet.
John smirked. “Mr. Cahoney, listen. After all our drinks and one helluva day, here’s the best we can do. We both have a crazy heroic bent sometimes, okay? But we’re not nuts.”
He shot a quick look at Andrea to check her support.
“So please don’t take this as an insult. But what it sounds like is… Sounds to us like you need someone certifiable. You know what I’m saying? You’re gonna have to find a coupla complete insane dead-heads. From the neck up and all the way to the floor. Sincerely though, thanks for the interest and the hospitality. Now I think it’s best if we go.”
John took one step but J.J. quickly took two and blocked his exit. He swiveled his face to both of them.
“Now wait, please,” he said, sounding contrite for maybe the first time in a couple years. “I apologize for my, my enthusiasm for you two. I know I can get pretty intense sometimes. But don’t run off now just because of my exuberance for your great potential. Why, you two haven’t even seen all the blessings show business has showered on me here!” A laugh of happy embarrassment shot from his lips. “So please,” he continued, “at least do me the honor of staying the night and enjoying my little casa.” His eyes went liquid, he looked hurt by their sudden decision.
“Mr. Cahoney, really–” John started to say forcefully enough but stopped. There was something about this absurd man that kept him from staying angry and walking out as planned. Maybe it was J.J.’s sudden gush of sincerity, or the hint of loneliness he caught in the producer’s voice. And then there was the distinct but confusing feeling that J.J. was a sad victim of his own endless uncontrollable desires.
At that moment J.J. had some new feelings too, even if they were far more unbalanced and manipulative. When he saw the fire go out of John’s eyes and Andrea shift her weight to relax, he felt their hesitation. It was a big mistake on their part, with him, here.
“I promise,” he said, taking a hand from each and cupping them in his own like a priest giving comfort after a confession of sins. “No more sales pressure.” He added a very effective little head shake. “You’ll have your own suite, even your own private pool. And in the morning I’ll explain the opportunity over a nice champagne breakfast, no strings attached.”
Well, by then J.J.’s smile surrounded them like the warm embrace of a loving parent, and he closed by spreading his arms. “Stay!” he pleaded. “Enjoy yourselves!” His face lit up like a happy hyena.
Again they looked at each other and allowed themselves to be snared.
4
THE NAKED APES
Under moonlight John and Andrea emerged from the mansion’s first floor guest cabana without a clue to the mystery that lay just ahead. They came out wrapped only in towels, holding hands and smiling at each other, hoping they might at last discover some real peace and quiet. But the farther they journeyed from their exit, the more that they encountered stunned them. The evening’s crystalline light revealed an exotic landscape far more natural and inviting than their host’s tasteless living room jungle. Ancient rubber trees, gnarled Brazilian palms, leafy ferns and soft bamboo hedges rose through a deep blue forest, separated by narrow grass footpaths. Carpets of turquoise and yellow flowers shimmered everywhere like fields from Neverland. Suddenly dark wings flapped overhead – an owl swept by and landed in an orchid tree.
“Hoo-hooo. Hoo-hoo-hoooh” it said and flashed its radiant eyes.
John and Andrea looked at one another in awe.
Just as suddenly an enchanted symphony rose around them. Night birds cawed, crickets chirped, and frogs croaked near and far – a surreal concerto almost too much to absorb.
“Hear that?” Andrea said finally.
“Yeah. What kinda birds are they?”
“No. The water. Maybe it’s the pool. Come on!”
She rushed off down a path and John followed, stretching to grab her towel before she could get away. Andrea squealed, he just missed and she raced ahead until they both darted laughing and breathless around a big tree that smelled like jasmine, and came to an abrupt halt.
Across a dark lagoon a wide waterfall cascaded down from a rocky overhead plateau. It gushed into a vast loosely shaped pool that stretched off through the flowered night air into mysterious moonlit coves.
The view mesmerized them, drawing them forward to the water’s stony edge.
“Damn,” John muttered.
“Just your average backyard paradise,” Andrea said, equally impressed as she inhaled the damp, perfumed air.
“Perfect for skinny-dipping,” John added. With one quick jerk he ripped off her towel.
Andrea stood there in all her curvaceous glory.
“What a rat my Johnny Cat,” she purred and stuck out her tongue. He laughed and stared at her, knowing without thought that her body, her shape, her allure perfectly matched the grand seduction that surrounded them.
“Eve. You’re gorgeous.”
She moved toward him, stretching out her arms to embrace.
“Not bad yourself, Adam,” she teased. Closing in, she snatched off his towel, yelled “Gotcha!” then turned and leaped into the pool.
John dove in after her and in a moment they swam, splashed and grasped each other’s bodies until they came together to kiss open-mouthed, arms locked around one another while trying to keep their heads above water. They sank laughing, kissed until they needed air, then shot up gasping into moonlight.
Of course they could not see them in the dark. But intruders watched closely, high up in the trees, through the lower bougainvilleas, under the eaves of the cabana, even from the walls of the pool above and below the water. Glass eyes stared into this garden of Eden following their every move.
Sitting at a central chair in the middle of his dark media room, J.J. watched his guests frolic across a wall of two dozen video monitors, many angles at once. He smiled in voyeuristic heaven.
For the next half-hour J.J. followed them everywhere while they swam and explored his endless shadowy garden like two kids out playing after midnight. They found a swing set and jumped on, rising up and down in dizzying arcs while his eyes caressed every bounce and moonlit pose Andrea offered his omnivorous stares. He even laughed at John’s exuberance when he pumped one arc so high he almost flew over the top of the swing and came down screaming. He hit the ground hard and Andrea helped him up. J.J. felt her legs and supple breasts as she hugged and kissed him while he stood there dazed.
They settled into a huge moonlit spa, not noticing overhead hidden in the crotch of a tree, a camera lens aimed right at them. Andrea sat on John’s lap in the soothing, caressing bubbles, both making out with all the passion and energy their toned bodies could give. Their hands moved over each other, they murmured and groaned until John picked her up and lay her floating on the water. Then he turned her over and she reached out to hold onto the edge of the spa. John held her by the waist and pressed against her.
J.J. chuckled and mimicked them, angling his head, eyes staring wide and darting from one monitor to the other.
Later, inside their expansive bedroom, John stretched out in anticipation of Andrea’s arrival from the bathroom. Waiting for her was time he always used, never to kick the proverbial can along his brain’s empty sidewalk, but to think things over and really get in touch with his feelings without all the usual distractions. The day’s strange events were a shock to his system – not outside his ability to deal with them and even use them in his acting – but certainly nothing he expected on his honeymoon.
Suddenly his host’s eternal smile hovered over his consciousness like a bad dream… Can you imagine doing some lame TV reality show for this nutcase? If this J.J. is what television is all about now I’ll never get a series as an actor! He wouldn’t know a good take of honest emotion if Marlon-damn-Brando stood in front of him – not the stuffed potato sack he ended up but the stud he once was – and gave him the crying performance of a lifetime. And I definitely don’t get this – How is it J.J. keeps getting picked up for one dumb production after another, and I’m still doing auditions for Huggies Extra-Absorbent and KFC Grilled and Maytag Top-Loaders? And I’m supposed to believe in God and democracy and the freedom to drink while you drive in Texas and maybe some day run for public office on the hopes and dreams of the working poor and not represent the interests of all the rich donors who pay to make me their spokesman?
When John was alone and his emotions got the best of him, they didn’t just take over, they soared to wondrous heights of imagination. They obliterated the line between the real and the make-believe, and melded the two into one powerful new reality. No matter how outlandish, whatever he felt at these intense times of introspection, it was true. Today, out of the back of a strange restaurant J.J. Cahoney stepped into the middle of his honeymoon with his new babe wife and became a living specter of his own failure… Man, I gotta get moving. I gotta become a great actor and expose the anguish, hopes and dreams the masses yearn to see. I need a breakthrough, man, I need it now!... John closed his eyes, the moon shone on him through the window, and he could feel Andrea’s touch coming, if she would just get outa that damn bathroom.
I’ll be right with you, my love, she promised herself, then dropped her towel and stood in front of the mirror naked. Andrea wiped off what little lipstick was left after their spa love-making, and reached into her purse for the cosmetics emergency kit she always brought on trips. She spread two fingers of body cream below her neck, rubbing it down across the tops of her breasts. She brushed on gold glitter that tingled her nipples. …Honey, I’m working as fast as I can, and I’m doing it all for you, big John, my Johnny Cat, John-Boy, Johnster, John-the-Bomb, my Joan. She smiled at “Joan,” her comeback pronunciation of his name. It was her way of retaliating for the times he mispronounced her name Ann-dree-ah, instead of her true name, On-dree-ah. Sure, Andrea was a name you could say many ways, but if he couldn’t say it right, then Joan he was. Her hot-to-trot Joan.
Andrea rolled on some underarm deodorant, not paying any attention to what looked like a smoke alarm high on the wall next to the mirror. The little red light in one corner certainly did look like an alarm, and the little glass bead in the opposite corner looked like it belonged there too. Although its real purpose was to provide distortion-free video back to J.J.’s monitor room, where he sat right then watching this beautiful blond in her voluptuous natural state.
But she didn’t know this, and didn’t know anything about him other than he had a ton of money, was obviously a big-time Hollywood producer, and said he wanted her Joan and her to star in his new TV Reality series called Xtreme Living. Andrea painted on some pink eye shadow… What is it I find fascinating about this goofball? This J.J. guy doesn’t seem to have a moral bone in his body, but there’s something about him. The way he smiles and looks at me with those big appreciative eyes – I mean, it’s not your normal strip-search. More like he actually understands the strong, capable woman I am. Ya know, I think that’s it! This J.J. Cahoney recognizes and respects my power as a woman. Course, he’s definitely a horndog. But really, what guy isn’t? I’ve known that since I was seven years old. When that little Billy Pendrick from down the block invited me to his birthday party and wanted to hold my hand and – oh, it’s all coming back! And after he opened the four old KISS Rock-Star Action Figures I gave him, he kissed me on the lips then pushed me back on the couch and jumped on me. Was there any doubt even then the Billy Pendricks of the world are the bees and I am the flower? It hasn’t changed since and I think that’s a good thing… she concluded, turning to step into the red high-heels John liked her to wear in bed.
Slipping into her four-inch Miss Sixty’s, Andrea didn’t notice that next to them the bathroom’s second entrance had a big square doggy door at the bottom with a well-disguised flap that swung open. If she had noticed it she would have assumed it was for one of J.J.’s unseen dogs. After all, from what she had witnessed traumatically out on the veranda, she knew he was a pet-lover, or at least some sort of a “pet freak.” Yet any normal guess would only have been half close, because this door was for a pet, all right, a freak pet.
“Well aren’t you the lonely dude,” Andrea said with a laugh.
John looked up transfixed. Her alluring figure glistened in the moonlight that streamed through their garden window.
“Yeah!” he huffed in mock irritation. “How long does a dude have to wait?”
Abruptly he pulled Andrea down and when she landed on him her sudden softness sent an electric rush through his entire body. He didn’t remember it then but once, in the eighth grade, he had gone to the public library in hopes of reading up on this same feeling that surged through his thirteen-year-old torso whenever he looked at a Playboy or saw a hot looking chick in a bikini. There, back in the Anthropology section, he found more than he expected in the book that changed his life. It was a book that opened his eyes to so much more than anything he learned in school. It had wisdom about real life, about needs people have, about why we are just sophisticated monkeys looking to eat, sleep, stay warm and get laid on a regular basis. It was called The Naked Ape and it said that from birth on, we are just one full-bodied, knuckle-dragging T.J,Maxx or True Religion-covered erogenous zone. It explained how it was our joy and our fate that when we got close to other erogenous zones we liked, our smooth, mostly hairless forms were like freight trains that screamed silent whistles and flashed scarlet appendages to eager passengers to jump on board and stoke our burning furnaces or maybe even our caboose.
He reread that book so often before his fourteenth birthday he almost had it memorized. For the first time in his life he felt armed with really useful knowledge that made him proud to be a horny young homo sapiens. Suddenly, he could look at those magazines, check out all the real girls and women who came his way, imagine what awaited him, and do it without guilt. And even better, he could do it with the certainty he should be doing it because he was a lot more than John C. Commenz – he was the timeless ancestral stud, Johnny Erogenous Zone.
And at that moment, in a strange producer’s guest bedroom, Johnny Erogenous Zone, alias Big John, alias Joan, positioned his zones against his lovely new wife’s zones, and their zones were like weapons ready to explode.
Right then J.J.’s zones were in his eyes, and they exploded every time he blinked. He blinked fast because, past the end of their bed, across their moonlit room and through the big one-way wall mirror over the dresser, what he saw made him lose all control. The moisture he felt all over his aging body drooled from his lips. The newlyweds’ acrobatic displays and not-so-private stage show was the best he’d ever seen.
The Kids’ liquid lip-lock heated up until John bit her.
“Ow!” she yelped. “You hurt me!”
“Honey, I’m sorry! Really, I didn’t mean to. You’re just too much to resist,” he said trying to sooth her and ease his guilt.
“Please,” she said pouting. “Sample the hors-d’oeuvres gently before you devour the main course.”
Well, with all forgiven this quickly, John resumed, putting on his best moves as Andrea did the same.
J.J.’s eyes widened in awe, his smile widened in glee, and his sick need to watch as an invisible third party only widened the deep chasm of loneliness and distrust that plagued his own sorry life. He had always been too headstrong to accept his own vulnerability, felt too inadequate to believe he himself might find love, truth and meaning. If he ever reached the Pearly Gates and was asked to account for his failure to achieve any of the lasting values we call Truths, J.J. would probably just grab himself and bark, “I gotcher truth right here!”
“Ooooooh,” he moaned. “Oooh yeah, baby!” he gasped, watching astonished now. His head bobbed back and forth in rhythmic time, his sweaty participation built and he almost forgot to breath… Until at last his features froze in one long Happy Face.
So it was the end of one day’s strange events for all of them, but just the beginning of something even more startling. That doggy door had a purpose for J.J. but it wasn’t for doggies. At the far end of their journey this night, the door flapped up and the curtain rose on the future of our young heroes with eerie surprise.
5
THE BIG BAD BOA
John and Andrea were angled away from one another sleeping off their passion in their underwear when J.J.’s pet boa constrictor punched its slimy nose into the bathroom and slithered through. Fifteen feet long and more than a foot thick, its “tongue” caught the scent of humans nearby. Its sinister eyes immediately saw them sleeping on the bed and it slid across the room in the moonlight.
J.J. chortled out loud as he rushed back up the hall past their room and opened the door marked “Service” into his private media room. He plopped into his chair and turned to the big mirror again. There, only a dozen feet away, his big boa moved up on the bed, slid between Andrea’s legs, around and under her neck, and hovered just inches away over her face.
A beast this big was enough to make Andrea stir out of sleep, her eyes still closed, at the edge of awareness.
“Oh, honey,” she murmured, feeling the pressure between her thighs and against her torrid zone. “You’re such an animal.” Even when tired she always enjoyed feeling her Johnster there. And the more the boa’s weight pressed her, the more awake and interested she became. “Well, okay you big beast. You could at least give me time to wake –” her eyes at last fluttering open –
“UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPP!”
It was a long, high scream of mortal anguish, a scream of such shock and fear that, had this been a cartoon, it would have blown the mansion’s roof sky-high and caved the outer walls. Instead, it blew Big John back into consciousness like a stiletto in his back. In one long spasmodic jerk he leaped up off the mattress, kicked the 15-inch TV off the stand at the end of their bed, and landed flat on his feet hunched over and not quite ready to defend his life.
The TV rocked to a stop and snapped on to a National Geographic nature program.
John stared at the gargantuan snake that hung over his wife propped up on her privates. He was shocked almost out of his shorts. She was hyperventilating. The boa remained calm.
“What the hell is that!” he gasped, his voice still not quite functioning.
“The devil himself!” Andrea screamed. Suddenly her mind reached out to grasp the last shred of reality it could from this wildly out-of-whack situation. Yes! Of course! It just had to be!
“I’m dreaming, right?” she gasped.
“No hon!” John answered. “No, this nightmare looks real to me!”