Hollywood Lied

Chapter 5: Spending Time with Gilbert

Gilbert called me one fateful day, and he wasn't pleased.

"You haven't contacted me in two months? What's that all about?" he practically hissed, like some pissed-off alley cat ready to pounce.

"Sorry, I've just been really busy," I told him truthfully.

"Doing what? Smoking more junk?" he pressed, claws out.

"For your information, I got a girlfriend. She loves me more than you can imagine. What would you know about love, Gilbert Raeder?" I used his full name just to jab him where it hurt.

He scoffed, the sound sharp enough to cut.

"I have a wife and a smart son who never touched drugs. He actually wants to live a full life. Unlike you!" His voice rose with the ferocity of a lion defending its pride.

For a split second, I considered punching him in the face. But I also didn't feel like getting ass-r***d in prison, so I did the sensible thing—I apologized. And for once, it wasn't some half-assed sorry. It was real.

He exhaled, the fire in his chest dying down.

"I forgive you. Just don't leave me hanging like that again," he muttered at last.

"What do you say we grab a beer and forget this ever happened?" I offered him.

He gave a small, tired smile. "I'd like that."

"Good, let's hit Brewer's," I said, a little too enthusiastically. That place had practically funded my bloodstream for years.

He followed me out, and we both climbed into his car—a turquoise Porsche Camaro. I didn't even know they made them in that kind of garish, radioactive blue. Still, I kept my mouth shut. This wasn't the moment to mock his taste in cars. This was my one shot at reconnecting with Gilbert, and I'd shoved him onto the back burner for far too long.

Sitting there in the passenger seat, I felt the weight of it. The pattern. The way I'd let people drift until they disappeared completely. Most of my high school friends had slipped through the cracks the same way—quiet departures I was too numb or selfish to notice until they were already gone.

We finally got to the pub, and the warmth inside felt like stepping out of a storm. We headed straight for the counter and didn't even hesitate.

"Two Coors," we said in unison—our favorite beer, the one thing we could always agree on.

The bartender popped the caps off with a metallic snap and slid the bottles toward us. We clinked them together, a quiet little toast to forgetting the chaos that dragged us here in the first place.

For a moment, it actually felt possible.

"How's life, Cody?" he mumbled, his cheek mashed against the table like it was the only thing keeping him upright. I couldn't help it—I let out a small laugh. Something about the way he sprawled there, facefirst and defeated, was weirdly amusing.

I took a slow sip of my beer before answering, letting the fizz settle on my tongue.

"Same circus, different clowns," I said. He snorted into the wood grain, not bothering to lift his head.

"Ain't that a b***h?" he mumbled into the wood, voice muffled and oddly pitiful.

"I guess, yeah. Do you ever get tired of your job as an agent?" I asked, leaning back, curious despite myself.

He lifted his head just enough to look at me, eyes half-open. "It's not that I get tired so much as I get some crazy people I'm supposed to audition," he said with a shudder.

"How bad is it?" I pressed.

Big mistake.

He exhaled slowly, then scratched the back of his neck. "Well... this one guy wanted to be filmed inside the Arkenraw Asylum. Wanted to be given crazy pills, treated like s**t, and prescribed actual meds for his Bipolar I Disorder. I don't even know if he ever recovered after that circus." He chuckled, but it was dry as sandpaper.

I stared into my beer, watching the bubbles rise and pop. "My grandmother went to that asylum," I muttered. The weight of it settled on my chest. "She got lobotomized. Came out a completely different person. Cruel. Empty. The doctors said they cut her amygdala or some bullshit."

I rubbed my forehead, feeling the old bitterness flare.

"Rosemary Kennedy had the same thing done. Except she spent the rest of her life stuck in a nursing home, couldn't speak, couldn't even hold food right."

I took another sip of beer—slow, deliberate.

"s**t's depressing, man."

I let out a heavy, soul-soaked sigh and dragged myself over to the counter. The bar lights felt too bright, the floor too sticky, the world too loud. I ordered two scotches on the rocks, because beer suddenly wasn't cutting it—not after that conversation.

The bartender didn't even blink. Just poured. Guess I wasn't the first person tonight trying to drown something ugly.

I carried the glasses back to the table, that familiar ache curling in my gut. Depressed as hell for no reason other than the ghosts we'd stirred up between us.

I sat down, slid his drink over, and stared into mine like it might explain everything.

Yeah. This was my routine. Feel miserable, drink until I don't, wake up feeling worse, rinse, repeat.

I swirled the ice, heard it clink like a warning bell.

"Think I should quit?" I muttered to no one in particular. Then I snorted softly. Right.

If I suddenly stopped, I'd probably get delirium tremens—the real deal, the kind of hallucinations you don't come back from. Not the colorful, dancing-galaxy kind. Not the trippy, neon spirit-quest kind.

No. These ones latch onto your eyes and tear reality apart.

I took a long drink, feeling it burn all the way down.

Still think I should quit? ... Yeah. Thought so.

"I'm too drunk to drive," Gilbert groaned as he lurched to his feet. He swayed like a tree in a hurricane, blinked twice, and nearly toppled over.

"Can we get a cab?" I asked, even though we both knew it wasn't a suggestion—it was salvation.

"Sure, lemme... call... a taxi," he muttered. Then came the spectacle: him patting every pocket like he'd forgotten which dimension his phone was in, pulling it out, dropping it, picking it up, squinting, and somehow—miraculously—dialing.

When the driver answered, the guy's voice floated through the receiver like thick smoke. He sounded absolutely blasted, slurring his way through the conversation like he was lying on a cloud somewhere far away.

Perfect.

Just perfect.

Two drunk idiots waiting on a driver who's high as the moon.

What a world.

When he did finally arrive I noticed that he was Italian. How do I know this? He had a tattoo of the Italian flag on his bicep and kept saying, Go straight. Vero? We just nodded as he drove us both to our apartments.

Marjorie was at the stove when we stumbled in, the sharp scent of garlic and onions filling the whole apartment. She turned just enough to see me—and the look on her face was enough to sober a corpse.

She slammed the pan down.

"Are you f*****g drunk? Unbelievable!" Her voice hit me like a shove.

"Yes, Marj..." I slurred, instantly regretting the way the words slid out of my mouth.

She crossed her arms, eyes blazing. "Can you even tell what time it is?"

I glanced at the clock on the wall, my vision swimming. "Four... twenty-seven P.M."

The room went dead silent for half a second.

Then—

"It's eleven, you dumbass!" she snapped, shoving me toward the couch with a surprising amount of force for someone half my size.

I collapsed into the cushions like a ragdoll.

She pointed at me with all the fury of a judge delivering a sentence. "Tonight, you're sleeping here."

I didn't argue. I didn't even think about arguing.

God knew what storm I'd set off if I tried. Better to sink into the couch, close my eyes, and let the room spin on without me.

And so I let myself sink deeper into the couch, the cushions swallowing me whole as the room slowly dissolved into darkness. I was drunk out of my mind, whispering some half-formed prayer that tomorrow might somehow be different—lighter, kinder, something closer to normal.

But even in that haze, I knew the truth.

Hollywoo doesn't care. Not about broken promises. Not about burnt-out actors. Not about the bodies we drag home at the end of the night.

It never did.

It just keeps spinning, loud and glittering, while people like me get ground down beneath it.

And with that bitter thought circling the drain of my mind, I finally passed out.