The story of Rue the Rock Star and Isabel the deformed, supercilious estate manager begins when I apply for the job through and agency, being high up on the agency's list of those who can control themselves. I remember that first interview well. The agent cautioned me that I should never expect to meet Rue, and that all business would go through a third party set up by the agency. I should conduct myself with the utmost discretion in matters concerning Rue.
The agency rep was what I like to call a self-made California woman—turquoise contacts, tattooed eyeliner, petrified breasts that she sort of aimed at you.
"Never," she emphasized, "God forbid, have any romantic notions about him."
"Anyway," she went on, "he's a slut. Everyone knows it. He probably has AIDS although I bet he's good in bed."
I am a tiny disabled woman. At the time of this interview I am poor and resourceful. I dress in clothes that I buy for fifty cents at The Salvation Army—a man's white dress shirt, a child's souvenir belt cinched tightly around the waist—Voilà! That's a dress.
I have the slightest hump on my back, a little curvature of the spine which has caused me nothing but pain all my life. One hip is higher and so my right boot is five inches of jet black rubber, and when I walk my hips move like pistons. I gave the rep a startled my God but you're an idiot look.
She gave me an appointment anyway, to meet with Rue's people at the estate. I went expecting to be turned down on the spot for being supercilious, but when I arrived it was Rue standing in the kitchen and he was laughing, falling down drunk, and I was embarrassed for him already. I sneered, stepping carefully around the broken glass, the mud and litter and the detritus of a hopeless slob.
Rue held his side like he had a stitch. "What's wrong? You're hired. When can you start?"
I told him to stay out of my way and to his credit he did; I never saw him for a month. That whole time I was cleaning and redecorating I was thinking to myself that I'd only stay for a while. I had visions of marathon orgies. Still it was a mansion and like most people I had never lived in one.
There was a dreary old Victorian house with spires and cupolas, a black swan on a stagnant duck pond, a seascape, a flock of wild peacocks, whales breaching right off the shore, brown pelicans nesting on the cliff below the house; there were bamboo forests and long acres of unattended flower beds which showed the mark of a woman's hand, somewhere in the distant past. There was a zoo full of pissed off animals. I wanted to see it right before I left.
Then he started bringing his children around. (Some just as white as snow doves—he never contests his paternity suits.)
Every time they came for a visit I had to entertain the little demons, and feed them, and run their errands, and patch up their hurts and arguments, and every time Amos had to ask me for help in this he acted stupid; he shuffled and sniffed and mumbled at the floor as if he were grateful, and I melted a bit.
It's lonely here. No one except the band is ever invited, and women of a professional capacity. But it's better when the children arrive. Amos prefers to fix their dinner himself. He says kids like plain things. He opens a can, pours something into a saucepan and turns the flame up, and when the pot boils over I reach under his arm and turn it down, wondering if this is what the agency meant by discretion.
People have no idea. At the end of each month I collect his laundry. Two black shirts, two black pants, no underwear, and the socks have to be hunted for in and around the bed. I will try each time to insist that the clothes be burned. I inspect them with a magnifying glass for lice, poke my little finger through the burn holes, shake the whole mess up in his face. Sweat and whiskey and beer will never wash out, I scream, and the ash is so thick it looks like moleskin!
But it's useless. I exhaust myself to no avail. He snatches the clothes out of my hands, inspects them at the elbows for thread bareness, tugs on the zipper. "There's nothing wrong with them." He throws the whole mess back in my face.
*
Anyway, you get the picture. Life with Amos Rue. Typically a person in my position is offered exciting retirement benefits, lavish gifts, and large expense accounts in return for silence about a personal life. The final, long awaited unburdening of it, as we tell our agents and our lawyers even before we lift a pen to write the book or screenplay. But I hardly think a book about Amos Rue, sex addict, would be a literary contribution, and anyway half a dozen women have already beat me to the punch. Amos has read and enjoyed all of these lurid novels. Sometimes he says he only wishes they were true.
It's more that I need to explain something. "Write what you need to write," they tell you in community college. I need in spite of the impropriety of it to speak of an amazing exchange between two strangers which I witnessed the other day when Amos Rue came to me before dawn and kicked me in the bed.
"Get up," he said.
I sat up and tried to focus. Even the roosters were still sleeping. He stood there looking down at me and he'd forgotten to cinch his bathrobe. I was seeing more of him than I ever cared to see.
"What the hell cannot wait," I said. Actually I barked it at him.
He said, "Get up and get the car. I'm not paying you to have an attitude."
I sighed. "Fine. I'll call your driver. But the last time I looked your limousine was dirty. If you ask me he took it for a joy ride. In fact, I know he did."
He plopped down on the bed next to me. His knees fell open and his long slender hands hung limp between his legs. I could see that his head was hurting him. A mass of snarled dread locks obscured his face. There was an auburn cast to his onyx skin and I thought he was flushed. Booze emanated from his pours.
He said, "No, that's fine. Just get your car."
"All right." I hopped off the bed onto my good leg, since my bad one sleeps longer due to poor circulation. "I'll get the top up."
"'Don't bother," he replied. "It's a nice day."
I drive a cherry red Jaguar, custom built with high pedals and a jacked up bucket seat. I couldn't picture Amos sitting shotgun beside me in the plush white interior—the ash of his cigarette dumped onto his pants and the cinders flying backwards, making little burn holes in the never before sat in back seat—I reminded myself that the he paid for the car and still I couldn't picture it.
But I knew there was no way to predict his needs. Only last week he had been sitting in a state of lazy bliss, watching the whales breaching out in the ocean, watching the pelicans skim for fish. The mail arrived with a review. Some slut from the Rolling Stone said his dread locks looked like a dirty rag sitting on his head. He stood up and threw a chair through the picture window. It fell off the cliff. Still it sits there, a pile of varnished sticks and burlap on the beach.
Afterwards I fussed around the window for a while but there was nothing I could do about the drapes sucking out and the sand blowing in, and I worried about falling through myself, not having the same balance as another person. So I went to look for Amos, to see if he was more or less all right. I found him in my room sitting at the vanity. He stared at himself in my mirror. First he turned one way to look at his profile, then another. "It does look something like a rag," he said effeminately.
So I had learned not to look for the logical process, and I didn't question the car any further, or the fact that he wanted the top down to enjoy the weather.
Instead I took a long bath on the chance that he might get distracted. It was exactly what I had learned to expect; occasionally he pretended to have a normal life but he never ventured out.
I selected a red silk shirt that dropped to my ankles, and I cinched it with a studded belt that read "LOVE" in bold chrome letters on the buckle. I put on my new white custom-built cowboy boots with the studs, which I had never worn before. I shaved my eyebrows and painted a little arch. But when I stepped into the kitchen Rue was sitting in a slump, his cigarette burning, the ash dumped on the table—by then I had forgotten all about him.
I started bustling around in my shimmering red shirt and my white boots, fussing with coffee and breakfast. I moved with plenty of peevish, wifely energy as I stomped and banged around the kitchen. Neither of us eats breakfast.
He said, "What the hell are you doing?"
I said, "I'm getting breakfast."
"Don't bother. We'll get some on the way."
"On the way where? You haven't said yet."
Amos shrugged. "What town is north of here?"
"Oxnard," I said. "Famous for the ripe smell of cow dung steaming off the fields as you pass by at break neck speed."
"Now I remember. Let's go there. I want to buy some fruit from a stand."
So we drove north up Pacific Coast Highway on our way to Oxnard, and his dread locks flew straight back as he stared forward, wearing dark glasses.
More than a few times people spotted us and started honking, tailing us, screaming for Rue. Amos stared forward and never moved. One party pulled up and blared his new release. I slowed down, speed up, but the car stayed with us. I kept glancing at Amos, to see how he was taking it.
After a while I couldn't look at him anymore. It was like sitting with a cardboard cutout of Amos Rue. I stared forward and drove.
Eventually the car turned off. I caught a glimpse of them through my rear view mirror as they took the exit and they looked embarrassed.
As we drove through Oxnard the dung steamed off the fields. Every time we saw a fruit stand Amos made me stop. In a rush to inspect the fruit, he jumped out of the car before I had a chance to break. He turned the peaches and plumbs over slowly in his long slender hands. I remember thinking how pretty his dark skin looked against the soft fruit. He quizzed the workers in Spanish about the freshness of the fruit, the place where it was grown, whose farm it was, where the fields were located. When the directions were given in a vague, guarded manner by the field hands, Amos nodded thoughtfully as if he might visit these farms someday.
By the time we got through Oxnard the back of my Jaguar was piled high with fresh fruit and this distressed me. I worried about my interior getting sticky.
We pulled into Oxnard proper. I was hoping we could turn around and go back home but Amos spotted a movie marquee in a strip-mall. The movie, something called "The Death Blow" with a Bruce Lee look alike, peaked his interest. Amos said he would like to see the movie.
"Fine," I said. "I'll scout around for a copy."
"Don't bother. I'll go see it now.
"Now?" I looked at him like he was crazy.
He hunkered down in his seat and stared through dark glasses. "Go get two tickets. I'll wait here."
It occurred to me that he might be enjoying himself. I parked in the grocery store parking lot and climbed out of the Jag. Amos put a magazine up to his face.
"Hurry," he said, and he proceeded to "read" through his dark glasses.
I got two tickets and hustled back. My bad leg hurt from the idiotic notion that I could wear high-heeled boots, and my pride hurt, too. On the way I had caught a glimpse of myself in a store window—nothing I did would ever fix my looks, or the fact that I worked for a man who would not even pick his own damn socks off the floor.
Amos, I saw as I hurried back to the car, had put a stocking cap on. It rode down past his eyebrows. More than ever he looked like one of the homeless. He glanced up at me.
"Drop me off as the last person goes through the door. I'll rush in and get us two seats near the front. Then you park the car and come find me." He slipped down further into his seat, glancing right and left.
I did just as he said. I dropped him off as the last person snaked through the door. I watched after his child-sized body. He bumped through the crowd and disappeared.
I re-entered the supermarket parking lot and parked. Just as I was leaving, some woman in an orange, oxidized Toyota crunched into my bumper.
I was furious. I rushed up to her window and started screaming, flailing my arms. She glanced at me and blinked. In a daze, she climbed out of her seat, holding onto her dusty door like a shield. In the back of her Toyota, two small boys with dirty faces took swipes at each other. Murderous rage flew between them like electricity. In a car seat a baby screamed like a banshee, rotating her arms and legs in protest of a rotten life. Bags of groceries spilled onto the floor and lay entangled with fast food wrappers, bits of broken toys, and dirty laundry from a sprung wicker basket. Across her windows a number of swear words had been fingered into the grime by some childish miss speller.
I quizzed the woman about insurance. She slammed the door, took a step back. She looked at my car and then looked me up and down.
"Do I look like I have insurance, Jaguar?" Her head quivered. She took a tense, involuntary step toward me as if to smack me.
I could see she would only get uglier. She was twice my size.
"Never mind," I said. "I have an appointment," and I left her standing there, though I could feel her eyes slicing my back.
When I got to the theater the show had started and all was in darkness. I walked up and down the aisle looking for Amos. I began to panic. Where could he be? I walked up to the concession stand. "I lost someone," I said. "He's short, a young man of color, wearing a blue stocking cap..."
"You mean Amos Rue?" said the girl. "He's been up here four times already! I can tell you exactly what he bought!" She listed on her fingers. "He bought popcorn, Nigger Toes, Brazilian nuts, a frozen malted, and Boston Baked Beans."
She waved to the usher at the door. "This woman wants to see Rue. Show her Rue."
"Follow me!" said the usher, and he waved me over. He threw the doors open. They banged against the wall.
I hobbled quickly after the usher. He stopped abruptly at the first row and raised his flashlight; Amos stared forward with his neck arching at an uncomfortable angle. He stuffed popcorn into his mouth like a ravenous beast or a lonely man.
"Thanks. " I tipped the flashlight down and eased into the seat next to Amos. As I sat down my boot kicked an empty box and it shot into the screen. Amos turned to look at me. "Would you mind getting me something to drink?" he said. "I think I've been up there too many times. I think people are beginning to notice me."
I started to go.
"Wait," he placed a heavy hand on my shoulder, weighing me down in the seat. "I'll get it myself."
He climbed over me. Slowly he walked up the aisle with a forward lean, with his head bent low and his shoulders hunched.
I sat for a minute. Something was not right. People were stirring, jumping out of their seats, rushing for the door. Some woman laughed hysterically. I rushed into the lobby and found him standing at the end of the concession line. He stared down at the floor with his hands folded neatly in front of him. He wore a dreamy smile. All around people murmured and stared. They pointed and laughed and spoke in loud voices full of self-conscious angst.
The stocking cap covered his face. He had pushed it forward over the sides of his cheeks, but it could not hide his trademark, the beautiful black heart shaped lips which had been photographed close up a thousand times with no name, only his sardonic smile and the mole on his cheek.
There was no way for people not to recognize him. And perhaps they had to be in love or lust, with photographs like that going around. In any case the next event is predictable. The doors bang open behind me. A young, teenage boy with severe acne bounds into the room.
"Amos Rue! Amos Rue! I can't believe it! Oh, my god! Is this really happening, people? Shit! Amos Rue! I just cannot believe it!"
But Amos continued to stare in a daze at the floor.
"Amos Rue!" the boy swung around, grabbing his own head. He talked out to the people in the lobby. "I cannot believe this is happening, people!" He swung back, "Dude, I am your biggest fan! Here, shake my hand. Hey, take my hand!"
And the boy reached aggressively for the limp hand, trying to shake the lifeless thing.
At which point Amos sprang to life. He blocked the boy's arm and stepped back, assuming a karate stance.
Amos kiai-ed so loud a girl behind the concession screamed.
He advanced on the boy, kicking and punching through the air.
The thin boy back peddled.
The boy stood pinned against the wall.
"Here, shake my hand." Amos stuck his hand in the boy's face at eye level, like he intended to gouge his eyes. He had the tension of a cobra. Several people gasped. The boy started to whine.
"Amos," I pleaded at the back of his head. "Leave the poor boy alone now."
Amos fell away slowly. But he rushed back up and stuck his hand in the boy's face.
"Let's shake, pal."
I stepped in and spoke reassuringly to the boy. "Shake hands with Amos," I said softly. "He's not dangerous. Trust me."
The trembling boy was pissing down his leg. His hand came up slowly; Amos jerked the boy's arm up and down like a hand pump—for a dry well. It occurred to me that he wasn't letting go.
I reached up and knocked Amos square in the back.
Amos swung around.
I screamed in his face. "Let go!"
Amos blinked. He stared at me vacantly. "Why?" he asked.
I shrugged. "It's just time for us to go, that's all."
"I'm still waiting on my drink," said Amos, now slowly whipping the boys arm up and down like a slack piece of rope.
I called out over my shoulder to the concession stand, "One large Coke without ice!"
"One large Coke," the girl called back. "And make that to go!"
I turned to the boy and rolled my eyes, indicating the door. He eased his hand free and slipped away.
"Wait," Amos called out, reaching after the boy, who took off running into the dark movie.
Amos turned to look at me with a blank stare.
I shook my head. "Boy! I'm glad he didn't ask for your autograph!"
Later that day, Amos stayed in his room and never came out, not even for practice. I kept the children from fighting. I escorted the ladies up the stairs. I endured the sloppy kisses from the band when they sat around getting drunk with nothing to do but poke vicious fun at each other.
So that is my story, the thing which burns inside of me to be told, and I believe it's an ancient and a perpetual ritual that I am describing, this loving someone to death. The world outside this large estate goes on and we few who live here, working for Rue, we never know what it is to be hungry, to have a routine and a schedule, to feel the weight of bills, to be crowded and to experience blight. We live in a paradise created by the masses, the ones who consider Rue to be adorable for some reason—a master of alienation I suppose, or a creative genius, whatever the hell that is. But I know differently. I am the strings to the purse. I am the tireless little dwarf who doesn't miss a trick and I know that the man is just a man, and torn and scattered into a thousand pieces he does not return, miraculous and whole to the earth.
© 2016 Gretchen Van Lente
