thinking, but it was never my thinking. So are you gonna fight me on this or go along peacefully?”
“Jeez, I dunno. I’ll be canned for sure if I cooperate and I’ll—”
“You work for me, not Nate, for chrissake. And Nate works for me, not the other way round. You might want to keep that uppermost unless you’re actually looking forward to being binned,” Colin says between gritted teeth.
They ride on in a prickly silence that could make him regret sitting up front with the doughty bodyguard cum personal assistant. If this is a taste of things to come, Bemus may indeed have to be canned, as he put it. They’re nearing Denver’s storied hotel, the Brown Palace, before Bemus has anything more to say, and then it’s clear his job’s not in immediate jeopardy.
“You willing to fly economy and are you gonna be okay with a tourist hotel if I can’t get us into the Chateau or the Royal Poinciana?”
“Yeh. You gonna be all right with scrounging me last-minute credentials from the event organizers?”
“Crap, I didn’t think about that.” Bemus glides the Cadillac into a no-parking zone in front of the hotel. “Stay with the car and if someone says to move it, tell ’em you don’t know how to drive.”
The advice may or may not refer to the outcome the last time he drove in the States and the broad assumption that he never will again. But Bemus leaves the keys in the ignition, a good sign. That Bemus is gone longer than expected isn’t automatically a bad sign; name recognition doesn’t always guarantee quick results.
As the wait drags on, Colin dredges up any number of bolstering thoughts and the best one coming to mind is from a mini-lecture Nate delivered six or so months ago when complete reentry was a sure thing. The exact words won’t come, but the gist of it remains—something about only being a celebrity as long as you remain in the dialogue of popular culture. And that without your work—whether it be a book or a movie or an album—to keep you in that dialogue, you’re forced to rely on exposure. Yes, that’s it. Colin warms to the notion as it reveals that his desire to shake up a live television show will accomplish both dialogue and exposure.
SEVEN
Early morning, March 30, 1987
Hoop Jakeway arrives in Los Angeles during rush hour on Monday morning. He’s both exhausted and exhilarated after three days and three nights on the road. He knows it’s Monday morning because the local radio stations keep telling him traffic conditions are normal for the start of the work week, and he knows he’s never seen this much traffic in his life, normal or otherwise. Hemmed in on all sides by vehicles of every make, model, and description, with none of them going anywhere, he can see why California is picked as the main gathering place for crazies—because you’d have to be crazy to go through this every day.
The car radio blats minutes-past-the-hour reports like it’s advertising how little forward progress he’s making. But that doesn’t matter much—not yet, anyway—because two hours will have to pass before it’s time to give Cliff Grant the call-ahead he asked for.
Hoop turns the radio down and casts about for a better way of wasting time than sitting in traffic sucking up exhaust fumes. He decides to get off whatever freeway this is at the next exit, no matter where it leads, and begins working his way across three lanes of cars the way the nearly nonstop drive from Michigan taught him to do. By fearlessly cutting off anyone that’s where he wants to be, he’s able to merge onto the exit ramp for Fairfax Avenue North.
The avenue is a lot more to his liking even though there’s no scarcity of traffic. For a while he just goes with the flow. Then a white clock tower with a little steeple on it catches his attention. The sign below the clock says “Farmers Market,” about the last thing he expects to find in the middle of the Los Angeles spread and as good a spot as any to
“Jeez, I dunno. I’ll be canned for sure if I cooperate and I’ll—”
“You work for me, not Nate, for chrissake. And Nate works for me, not the other way round. You might want to keep that uppermost unless you’re actually looking forward to being binned,” Colin says between gritted teeth.
They ride on in a prickly silence that could make him regret sitting up front with the doughty bodyguard cum personal assistant. If this is a taste of things to come, Bemus may indeed have to be canned, as he put it. They’re nearing Denver’s storied hotel, the Brown Palace, before Bemus has anything more to say, and then it’s clear his job’s not in immediate jeopardy.
“You willing to fly economy and are you gonna be okay with a tourist hotel if I can’t get us into the Chateau or the Royal Poinciana?”
“Yeh. You gonna be all right with scrounging me last-minute credentials from the event organizers?”
“Crap, I didn’t think about that.” Bemus glides the Cadillac into a no-parking zone in front of the hotel. “Stay with the car and if someone says to move it, tell ’em you don’t know how to drive.”
The advice may or may not refer to the outcome the last time he drove in the States and the broad assumption that he never will again. But Bemus leaves the keys in the ignition, a good sign. That Bemus is gone longer than expected isn’t automatically a bad sign; name recognition doesn’t always guarantee quick results.
As the wait drags on, Colin dredges up any number of bolstering thoughts and the best one coming to mind is from a mini-lecture Nate delivered six or so months ago when complete reentry was a sure thing. The exact words won’t come, but the gist of it remains—something about only being a celebrity as long as you remain in the dialogue of popular culture. And that without your work—whether it be a book or a movie or an album—to keep you in that dialogue, you’re forced to rely on exposure. Yes, that’s it. Colin warms to the notion as it reveals that his desire to shake up a live television show will accomplish both dialogue and exposure.
SEVEN
Early morning, March 30, 1987
Hoop Jakeway arrives in Los Angeles during rush hour on Monday morning. He’s both exhausted and exhilarated after three days and three nights on the road. He knows it’s Monday morning because the local radio stations keep telling him traffic conditions are normal for the start of the work week, and he knows he’s never seen this much traffic in his life, normal or otherwise. Hemmed in on all sides by vehicles of every make, model, and description, with none of them going anywhere, he can see why California is picked as the main gathering place for crazies—because you’d have to be crazy to go through this every day.
The car radio blats minutes-past-the-hour reports like it’s advertising how little forward progress he’s making. But that doesn’t matter much—not yet, anyway—because two hours will have to pass before it’s time to give Cliff Grant the call-ahead he asked for.
Hoop turns the radio down and casts about for a better way of wasting time than sitting in traffic sucking up exhaust fumes. He decides to get off whatever freeway this is at the next exit, no matter where it leads, and begins working his way across three lanes of cars the way the nearly nonstop drive from Michigan taught him to do. By fearlessly cutting off anyone that’s where he wants to be, he’s able to merge onto the exit ramp for Fairfax Avenue North.
The avenue is a lot more to his liking even though there’s no scarcity of traffic. For a while he just goes with the flow. Then a white clock tower with a little steeple on it catches his attention. The sign below the clock says “Farmers Market,” about the last thing he expects to find in the middle of the Los Angeles spread and as good a spot as any to
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