It was so much later than usual, then again he didn’t usually party hop all night long either. The team wasn’t expecting him until after lunch. Wella had already left a message with the progress made at the morning power rally.
He had slept in. It was only nine, but he was already bored and gathered his gear heading for the garage. He tossed the backpack in the passenger bucket, and hit the genie button as he slipped into the car.
The car was getting older, perhaps he should think about getting a new one, but it turned right over. Out of habit, and the possibility that Ralphie had escaped and was waiting for him in the driveway, Ian stretched his right arm across and looked over it through the back window.
He began to back out, and got almost out of the garage, but slammed on the brakes. There was another car parked in his drive way. He looked at he beat up Camero, blocking his way. He put his beat up Chevy in park.
The Camero door opened and out stepped a young man. Ian didn’t recognize him. The man in simple jeans, tee and jacket walked right up to Ian’s window. “Excuse me…Mr. Justyn?”
Ian kept the window half rolled up, foot on the brake, ready to slam the accelerator at a moment’s notice. “Yes.”
“I apologize, sir. My name is Max Mitchell, I’m a friend…was a friend of Bambi Helton. Could we…I mean, do you have a minute?” He began to stammer.
He knew he probably shouldn’t. “Well, I’m on my way to work…”
“I’ll only take a moment of your time sir.” The man, Max, seemed to be genuinely as embarrassed to be here, as Ian was talking with a stranger in his driveway.
“I know I should have…” the guy stood up, and shook his head. “Never mind, this is stupid.” He seemed to say to himself. Be bent over to get to Ian’s eye level. “Forgive me for intruding, and stalking you down. It won’t happen again.”
Max straightened up, shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and headed back to his car. Ian let him get almost there. There was something about his demeanor. He turned off the Chevy, and got open the door, saying, “Wait” as he started to step out.
The man stopped and turned as Ian stood and said, “You’ve obviously gone to a lot of trouble. Is there something I can do for you…I’m sorry I forgot your name.”
The young man took a tentative step. “Max. Max Mitchell.”
Ian put out his hand. Max looked at it and finally took it, shaking hands with him. “What may I help you with, Max?”
Max looked to be struggling with his words. “Mr. Justyn, did you by any chance give Bambi some money, well a lot of money…cash?”
Ian was taken aback. “No.”
He nodded his head. “Thank you, Mr. Justyn.” He turned to get back into his car.
“Mr. Mitchell?” Ian stopped him. “She did come to my office. We talked about a series idea she had, but that was all.”
“Yes. I know. I was just…”
“Mr. Mitchell…Max, I’m sorry. I don’t know what your relationship with her was but…”
“We were both trying to get out of the business. She was having a rougher time, but we talked every day, sort of our own get out of porn program.”
“Oh…” Ian said. “So she was…”
“A porn star?” Max shook his head. “Surely you couldn’t take one look at her and not know…”
“No, I knew what she did. Even if I didn’t she was bluntly up front.” Ian pointed towards the house. “Do you want to come inside and talk a minute? About Bambi? I kind of need to talk about it, maybe it would…I don’t know…help us both.”
Ian tried not to let the man know that he could see him trembling, not from fear or anger, but from pain. Ian knew the signs. It was something he could recognize immediately. “I make a terrible cup of coffee, but if you think you can survive it.”
Max smiled. “Yeah. That would be good.”
The young man silently allowed Ian to lead the way into his kitchen. He sat down at the table so lost, Ian felt. Ian struggled to remember what he had done with that coffee Tippy had bought.
“Actually sir…” Ian turned to find the man looking at him. “Tea would be nice, I’d really like a cup of tea.”
“Now that, I can do.” Ian noticed the man, elbows on his knees looking at the floor, the ceiling, anything as long as he didn’t have to focus his eyes. Ian heated water in the microwave and put a steaming mug in front of him.
Ian sat down across from him and handed Max a little basket of teas. “Sugar?”
The man smiled as Ian whirled the little caddy in the middle of the table so he could easily reach the sugar. “You’re not one of those milk with tea people are you?” Ian asked.
“No, sir.” Max smiled.
“First of all, stop the sir stuff. My name is Ian. I’d appreciate it if you called me that.” He reached for his own tea bag as he watched Max liberally spooning sugar in his mug.
Mac looked up at Ian watching him, and put the spoon back in the bowl.
“Just three?” Ian smiled. “I’m a four myself.”
“Trying to cut down.” Max took a sip of his tea. “Bambi said you didn’t like sir or mister.”
“I’m a back woods boy, I have a little trouble dealing with all the respect that I was taught are attached to those words.” Ian took a sip from his mug. “Max, you asked me if I gave Bambi some cash. Did she suddenly have lots of money?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say she had it or that she’d be getting it?”
“She showed it to me. I don’t know how much it was, but there was a lot. In an envelope, like they leave on the night stand while you get dressed, only not nearly that much.” He took a sip. “It had been a while since she had that much money. She’d sold her house, and was living in a little apartment, but if she didn’t get a break soon…”
“The two of you were close.”
He nodded. “We'd done a couple of shoots together. She kind of took me in, I was in a bad way and she helped me get clean, and then we decided to help each other get clean.”
“So she was involved with drugs.”
Max looked straight in his eyes. “Not that I was aware of. Ian, she bitched at me, and begged me to get clean. Holed up with me and helped me get through it, when I decided to.”
“But you said you were helping each other get clean?”
“The porn, is the worst drug to kick.” Max looked at the table and rolled the mug around between his hands. “Worst drug there is, and most of the time you don’t even realize it.”
“You said it was easier for you.” Ian encouraged.
“Bambi had been around a long time, but time isn’t kind when your paycheck depends on being young and beautiful. She started with a little tuck here, and little lift there…I bet she spent more money on her face and body than you did on this house.”
“There are a lot of women and men…”
“Ian, with Bambi is wasn’t a sign of vanity. It was a sign of desperation…the drug, the porn drug. It makes you do things you’d never believe you’d do. You don’t even realize that you’re doing them until it’s too late.”
Ian nodded his head. “I feel like I contributed to this…to her death.”
“No. No, you should of seen her the few days before…you gave her something she hadn’t had in a long time.”
“What was that, a kinder, gentler rejection?”
“Hope, Ian, you gave her hope.”
“Then why? What she did doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Me either. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I thought maybe you saw things differently. I guess we both were wrong.”
“When did you see her last?”
“I caught up with her not long after she left your office and I was with her until the night before they found her. She didn’t let me out of her sight for almost 48 hours. Then I take off and next thing I know, the police are calling me and telling me...”
“So when left her you thought she was fine?” Max nodded his head, holding his head down so Ian couldn’t see his bottom lip quivering.
“Max, you can’t blame yourself. You did what you could. When you are used to that much pain, you get real good at covering it up so no one else knows. I know that for a fact.”
Max looked at him, and despite how hard he was trying the young man had no choice to let the tears start to fall. “But that’s just it. She wasn’t the one having the crisis. I was.”
“You?”
He nodded his head. “You a church goer?”
Ian was ashamed to admit. “No, I had an Aunt who used to take me when I was little, but now…”
Max nodded. “I was raised in a good home. We cleaned up and marched in the doors every time the church was open. I was taught that once your name’s written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life, no one can erase it.”
“Yes…” Ian trailed off.
“Well, my name and Bambi’s name are written down in the Devil’s Book of Hell and it for sure never comes off, no matter how hard you try. You can get so far away from it that you almost forget it’s there, but it’s like a big old scar on your face that never heals.”
“Max, what happened?”
Max grimaced. “I got fired from a job, a real job. Not much of one, but it was a start, making sandwiches for a little café, a nice clean place. Then some guy came in, told the sweet little owner he’d seen me…well, do I have to explain?”
Ian shook his head, and Max nodded his in appreciation, “So she pulled me aside, told me she was sorry, but she had to let me go. It was a little family place, and it was hard enough to keep the place open without worrying that…I understood. I really did, but man…” he slammed his fist down on his thigh.
“Maybe you just need to leave L.A., go someplace where it’s harder for people to see the that kind of stuff.”
“If there were only such a place.”
“The little town I’m from, you could go there Max. You can’t even buy that stuff without driving a very long distance.”
“Do they have internet?”
“Well yes.”
“Then all they have to do is type Rick Buttler into a browser and they’ll find a nice unhealthy array of websites they where can see me in all my sordid glory. Internet makes it all so easy. That’s how I got started, at sixteen. Did you know on most adult websites you can click on an icon and put in an application to model, as they call it?”
“No. No I didn’t.”
“You can, and it works. It’s easy. You start just doing a few solos, and then they offer you more money to do the same thing with another model. When you’re sixteen, pretending to be eighteen and they offer you five hundred dollars to give a guy a helping hand it’s hard to turn down.”
“I didn’t even realize…”
“You don’t. No one does. Even when you’re doing it, you find yourself there, naked, doing things your mama told you would make you rot in hell, but you’re there anyway thinking, this would be an easy way to pay for college, and no one will ever know.”
Max sighed. “Then it’s more money to get on your knees, and more to lay on your back and before you know it…it’s a drug Ian. And when you kick it, there’s no twelve step program. No matter how hard you try…it doesn’t matter if your minding your own business, finally feeling good about yourself, the moment you finally see the sun, some dude walks up and oh so discreetly whispers in your ear, “Man you can really suck cock.”
“I’m sorry, Max. What can I do?”
“Nothing. Not a thing. Now that I hear myself, I realize that it was all probably my fault.”
“How could what Bambi did be your fault?”
“She was hiding her own crisis, to help me with mine.”
“Maybe.” Ian looked at his empty cup. “More tea?”
“No. I should go. Thank you Ian. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” He stood and walked his cup over to the sink and placed it in.
“Let me walk out with you.” Ian put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and walked with him to the car. He shook his hand and held the door open as he got in his old jalopy.
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