Hollywood Lied

Chapter 3: iHOP Blues

  I drank the entire time Monsters in the Closet was being filmed. I’d wake up, take around five shots of whiskey, and go to whatever restaurant was nearby. I never expected for someone to recognize me, but somehow this woman did.

  “Oh, my god. Cody Heller?” she asked me as I ordered the plain buttermilk pancakes.

  “Errm, yes? That’s me,” I stammered profusely.

  “I used to watch Monsters in the Closet every weekend when I was a child. That Georgie guy scared the hell out of me,” she shuddered.

  “Makes sense,” I mumbled. Georgie had a face full of pock marks, something that ruined an otherwise attractive face. He was a master manipulator. That’s how he got away with it for years and years. Think Ted Bundy, but far uglier. There was an unofficial book that created a story about him going to Andrew Carnegie High School. I read it. It was godawful. I appreciated the effort, though. At the end of the day that’s all that matters. That’s what they say, anyway.

  “You mind if I sit by you?” she said out of nowhere.

  “Don’t you have a job to do?” I asked with a deep sigh.

  “No one goes to this IHOP. It’s in the middle of nowhere,” she giggled, like she’d already developed a crush on me.

  That was enough to make me burst into laughter.

  “Ah, I still don’t have your name?” I said, pointing to a scrap of paper for her to write it down.

  “Marjorie,” she said as she slid into the seat on my left. I liked her already. Something about her thawed my chest a little—just enough to feel the shift.

  “Nice to meet you, Marjorie. I apologize for my wild look. I’m a bit hungover right now.”

  “Oh, that’s okay! We have coffee specifically for hangovers. Just ask!” she chirped, standing up to get a pot of coffee.

  She was being so kind to a piece of s**t like me. It didn’t make sense in any version of reality. People say I’m depressed, but the truth is simpler—I’m just tired. Tired of being controlled by the opposition.

  Mine happens to be Hollywood.

  Or should I call it Hollywoo.

  (That’s a BoJack Horseman reference, if you were wondering.)

  “Do you still have any films that you are making?” she asked, returning with the coffee.

  “Just the remake of Monsters in the Closet,” I said sheepishly.

  “How is that going?” she asked gently.

  “Our director wants to change the ending of the film. The new ending is bullshit!” I snapped, slamming my fist on the table hard enough to make the silverware jump. A couple customers flinched.

  “Oh? What is it?” she asked, letting out a massive yawn. I didn’t blame her. I was exhausted myself. I might’ve slept, but it wasn’t good sleep—just unconsciousness passing for rest.

  “He wants to make it paranormal. Can you believe that?” I muttered, rubbing my temples.

  “No. I can’t. That sounds wacky as hell,” she admitted—and then, unexpectedly, she grabbed my hand and hugged it tight.

  “You okay?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

  “Yeah, just lonely as s**t. This town is filled with horny dumbasses. All they want is s*x. s*x is good and all, but it won’t solve your problems. At least… not most of them.”

  Her voice cracked, and then she broke down into tears right there in the booth.

  I froze, awkward as hell. Emotional expression wasn’t something I handled gracefully. But I knew I should comfort her—so I did. I slid closer, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and let her cry into my shirt.

  For once, the world stopped being about my own disaster long enough to see someone else hurting.

  “Excuse me, I have been waiting on my order for twenty minutes!” a customer barked, cutting straight through our tender moment like an axe.

  Marjorie jolted upright, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist.

  “I—I apologize. I’ll get it right now,” she said, standing so fast it gave me vertigo just watching her.

  You’d think that was the worst of it.

  Oh, no.

  It got way worse.

  Because the moment she stepped past him—

  he put his hand on her ass.

  Just full-on grabbed her like she was a prop.

  And something in me snapped.

  Not gently.

  Not metaphorically.

  Physically.

  I didn’t feel like putting up with his crap for even half a second.

  So I grabbed his wrist—

  and broke that s**t.

  Clean.

  Effortless.

  Years of repressed rage, substance abuse, and Hollywood trauma all funneled into one ugly, decisive motion.

  He wailed.

  Not like a man.

  Like a damn banshee.

  High-pitched, panicked, desperate—the kind of scream you hear in horror films right before the camera cuts.

  “God damn! You broke my wrist!” he yelled, clutching his arm like it was about to fall clean off.

  “I’ll break a hell of a lot more if you don’t leave this place,” I hissed, sharp and sudden, the way a viper snaps at a boot heel.

  “Sicko,” he spat under his breath.

  “Yup, that’s me,” I said, entirely too proud. I hadn’t planned on getting into it with anyone today. Violence just… happened to me sometimes, like bad weather rolling in without warning.

  Marjorie stared at me, eyes wide.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “You know you liked it,” I said, grinning through the pounding hangover behind my eyes.

  “You’re right. I really did.”

  “Good. Now, if you’d be so kind as to give me his breakdown, I’d really appreciate it,” I joked—except she didn’t catch the joke. She took it literally and slid his plate across the counter to me.

  It looked like a unicorn had vomited on it. Garish sprinkles piled on top of some syrup-coated monstrosity. Just looking at it made my teeth ache.

  I took a bite anyway. A mistake.

  It wasn’t sweet—it was weaponized sugar, the kind that could send a grown man into a coma.

  I pushed it toward her.

  “Here. I can’t finish this. And I hate wasting food.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly!” she said—right before taking an absolutely feral bite out of it.

  She gagged immediately.

  “Jesus! I can’t eat this.”

  A voice boomed from behind us.

  “I’ll eat it.”

  We turned.

  The guy looked like he was ninety percent glucose. If someone poked him with a fork, syrup would’ve come out.

  “Oh, please!” Marjorie said, handing him the plate.

  He clamped onto it like a lobster snatching prey, dragging it toward his face with an alarming urgency.

  The sprinkles never stood a chance.

  We watched him tear into those pancakes with a kind of horror and fascination usually reserved for natural disasters. He devoured them like a man who hadn’t seen food in days—though, knowing his type, it had probably been an hour since his last feeding frenzy.

  Then he waved down the waitress and ordered an entire jug of coffee. Not a cup. Not a pot. A jug.

  When it hit the table, he wrapped his hands around it like it was life support and chugged the whole thing in thirty seconds flat.

  I’m not joking. Thirty seconds.

  The man was absolutely out of his mind.

  I mean it.

“You want to slow down, brother?” My laugh came out thin, the kind that rides shotgun with panic.

“Not really, no,” he said, eyes fixed ahead, knuckles white on the wheel.

“Okay then…” I muttered. The word scraped my throat. I let my forehead sink to the sticky table, shoulders shaking as a quiet sob slipped out before I could catch it.

“You okay, Cody?” she asked. Her voice was soft, but there was an edge there, like she already knew the answer.

“No.” I didn’t bother dressing it up. “I can’t seem to get a breakout role. Ten Acres was my best-performing film, and that’s not saying much. It had a budget of a hundred grand and only made around twenty.”

“I know that film,” she whispered, leaning close enough that her breath brushed my ear.

“You do?” I lifted my head, staring at her like she’d just said my name in an empty room.

“Sure. That’s the one about the depressed farmer, right?” she asked, almost too gently.

“Yeah.” I exhaled, a bitter laugh catching halfway. “It won a Razzy for Worst Picture.”

“Well, I loved it,” she said, and when she smiled, it hit me with the force of something rehearsed and dangerous.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” I said, forcing myself upright. The room tilted a little.

“I’m not. Honest to God.” She reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around mine. Her hands were warm, steady. It should have been comforting. Instead, my pulse ticked up. Nobody held on that tightly without wanting something.

“Say, how old are you anyway?” I asked, searching her face for tells.

“Twenty-three,” she said, no hesitation.

“Great…” The word slipped out before I could stop it.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes narrowed, tracking the shift in my tone.

“If we ever date, I’ll be ten years older than you,” I said. It sounded pathetic out loud, but it was easier than admitting the real thing bothering me: I didn’t know why she was still sitting here.

“So? I like older men,” she giggled. The sound was light, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Aha. Nice,” I said, the chuckle catching in my chest like a cough. Something about this felt off-kilter, like a scene that had been blocked a dozen times but never quite played right.

“So, what is your place like?” she asked, casually, like she was asking about the weather. It came too fast, too cleanly.

“It’s a dump,” I said. No point in lying. “Half my lights don’t work, and the television keeps flashing green.”

She smiled again. This time it lingered a second too long. “Why don’t you come over to my place?” she asked, sudden, smooth, like she’d been waiting for the line, counting beats in her head.

  “I’d love that,” I said with a grin. It was rare for me to smile. Most days, my face felt carved from stone, unmoved by anything except maybe a decent high. Pot loosened the hinges a bit. On weed, I’d crack up at the dumbest s**t—at least, what I thought was dumb in the moment.

  Take the Biggus Dickus scene from Monty Python. I’d be doubled over, wheezing like it was the first joke ever written. Honestly, that one holds up, so maybe that doesn’t say much about me. But then there were the videos—those ridiculous clips where someone sneaks a cucumber behind a cat and the poor thing launches into orbit. I lived for that. The sudden panic, the dramatic leap, the way the cucumber became this existential threat… I’d laugh until my ribs hurt.

  Maybe that’s why a smile felt so strange now—because it wasn’t weed-induced, wasn’t chemically tugged out of me. It just… happened.

Natural. Unforced.

  Weird feeling, but not a bad one.

  “So tell me about your parents?” she asked me on the car ride to her place, her voice soft but steady, like she already knew the answer would carry weight.

  “Well, Pops is a lawyer and my mother is a nurse.”

  “Those are tough jobs,” she said—unexpected, almost too perceptive.

  “Yeah… my mother always talks about the Code Grey’s she gets at the hospital,” I replied, a shudder crawling up my spine as the memories surfaced.

  “What’s Code Grey?” she asked, curiosity pricking through her calm tone.

  “A violent patient. There’s a ton of druggies who commit them.” I shook my head, feeling the hypocrisy of the statement burn somewhere behind my ribs.

  She was quiet for a moment, the hum of the engine filling the space between us.

  Then—“Have you ever tried heroin?”

  Too personal. Too fast. But I couldn’t blame her; I’d opened the door with that Code Grey comment.

  “I’m a heroin addict,” I admitted before I could stop myself. My voice felt like it belonged to someone else—thin, exposed. What the hell was I doing spilling my issues onto a stranger?

  “I smoke it,” I added, as if the clarification made it any less ugly.

  “Oh, Cody… I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  She reached across the console and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder—a small gesture that somehow hit harder than any accusation or pity ever had.

“Cody?” she asked me out of nowhere, her voice soft but sharp enough to cut through the quiet hum of the road.

I glanced over, one hand loosely on the wheel.

“Yes? What is it?” I asked, genuinely curious about whatever had settled on her mind.

She hesitated—just long enough for me to notice—then breathed out the words like she’d been holding them hostage.

“I love you.”

The sentence hit me harder than any pothole on the highway, and my grip on the wheel tightened so abruptly I nearly totaled the car.

My heart skidded faster than the tires ever could.

“You shouldn't. I'm a piece of s**t,” I deeply sighed.

“You broke that guy's wrist for touching my ass. How are you a piece of s**t?” she reminded me.

“Even the worst of people can do good things,” I countered.

“What about Adolf Hitler?” she challenged, her tone sharp, like she thought she’d found the ultimate checkmate.

Luckily, I had the perfect response already loaded.

“He fixed Germany’s economy. It was seriously screwed up before him because of the war and all that crap,” I explained to Marjorie, keeping my voice steady as the streetlights streaked across the windshield.

She blinked, taken off guard.

“You’re right…”

Then she went quiet—suddenly, completely—like the realization had pulled her into some deep place I couldn’t quite reach.

“We are here!” she finally said, pointing toward her house as we rolled up the driveway.

It was grass-green, tidy, and practically glowing under the midday light—definitely an upgrade from my shitty apartment. That was for sure.

“Come, I’ll show you my room!” she said, a little too excitedly. She could have been a serial killer for all I knew.

Still, I followed her inside, my eyes glancing around the kitchen. Six cans of Campbell’s chicken soup sat neatly on the counter. I was about to ask what that was about when she told me she was often sick.

“You poor thing,” I said, genuinely sympathetic. I knew what it was like to be sick, though mine had a different flavor—cotton fever. Something I’d only experienced once, because I couldn’t stomach jabbing myself anymore.

“Are you on heroin right now? Be honest!” she demanded.

“I wish…” I grumbled.

“You should quit before it kills you,” she said, trying to help me. I didn't want to hear it, though. I let her know that.

“I didn't ask. I won't quit. Stop trying to change me! God damn, everyone tries to make me sober. The doctors don't have a clue about what it's like to be an addict,” I broke down sobbing.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, patting my back.

“Don’t be. It's not your fault,” I comforted her.

“I feel so worthless sometimes,” she admitted.

“That’s the depression talking. Don't believe it. You are worth more than you realize,” I brushed her bangs out of her hazel eyes.

“Oh, and I love you too,” I muttered, my face heating to a bright vermillion.

“Do you actually mean that? I’m not having a one‑night stand with you,” she scoffed, folding her arms but watching me carefully, like she was terrified of the answer.

“No, I want to be yours,” I said. My hands were trembling like a salt shaker in an earthquake. What the hell am I doing?

“I want to be yours too.”

She leaned in before I could second‑guess myself. The moment her lips touched mine, everything inside me ignited. It wasn’t just a kiss—it was a full‑body detonation, heat and calm all at once.

Trying to explain it felt pointless. Just imagine the greatest comfort you’ve ever known, poured into a single breath, a single touch, a single heartbeat.

That was me in that moment.

Then, she began to whisper into my ear, and my blood ran hot.

“Show me real love, Daddy,” she murmured.

I didn’t hesitate. The rest of the night became a blur of desire, closeness, and heat—like something out of an ancient, decadent painting brought to life.

We shared a night of unspoken intensity and passion. That’s all I’ll say about that magical night.