Giddyup for STAR

How could I tell this beautiful, and quite deadly young lady that brothers with dreams in this town die as fast and hard bugs hitting the windshield of a caddy going 90 mph down the Senora Freeway? How could I tell her that her baby brother (It was always a baby brother. Women this beautiful and this deadly never had to goout and avenge an older brother.) had his dreams squeezed out of him by some bloodsucking agent, producer or money man, who had discarded what was left of her kid brother like an empty tube of toothpaste. How could I tell her that the truth was that her brother was one of the lucky ones; at least he didn’t have to suffer the delusions of a life spent trying to recapture some glimpse of glory that never was.

More importantly, how could I tell her this without getting my ass kicked. Again.

“Listen doll,” I began.

Onc again, my ears were ringing and my eyes were watering. This time, however, I had the added pleasure of a knot on the back of my head. The know was courtesy of the chair back as my head flew back into it from the momentum of her punch. As I collected my thoughts, I gave serious consideration to the idea of padding the back of my chair in the future.

“My name is not ’sweetheart’ or ‘doll’ or ‘babycakes’ or ’schnicklefritz…’”

I interrupted her. Yeah, it was dangerous, but I was tired of being belted around, tired of picking myself up off the floor, and tired of being tired.

“I don’t know what your name is because you haven’t seen fit to introduce yourself yet. Instead, you come into my office, slap me around, and announce that you want me to help you! Well, that ain’t gonna happen! First of all, I don’t care how beautiful you are, you’re dangerous, and that’s a combination that’s usually fatal to guys in my line of work. Second, you like to play rough, and if slapping me around is your idea of how to win my cooperation, well, I don’t want any part of what you’ve got planned for the guy who killed your brother. And third, your baby brother probably did commit suicide. It’s the oldest story in the books, especially in this town. A kid comes here, looking to make it big in the business, and then finds out that it is a business,and a cannibalistic and ruthless one at that. He’s disillusioned pretty quick, but still figures that he’s got talent, and that he’ll be wone of the lucky few that beat the system. Except that nobody beats the system,doll. Nobody.

“Even the winners lose. Why do you think so many big stars die so young? They finally see the truth hidden by all the bright lights. Instead of sharing their talent, their vision with the world, they’re really prostituting it, supporting a virtual army of parasites and bloodsuckers who just ride along feeding at the trough.

“This is an ugly town, and ugly things happen here all the time. Go home before you see too much of it.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.