Digging James Dean by Robert Eversz

Author:Robert Eversz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2005-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

APENCIL of smoke drifted from the rail overlooking the lights of the city, then darted toward the mouth of a lean figure clad in a long black trench coat, the moonlit dome of Griffith Park Observatory looming above him. The stars above Los Angeles are pale and anemic things, gasping through the weave of smog and night, and the light radiating from the city long ago deprived the observatory of any scientific usefulness. If the view above disappoints, the one below doesn’t. On the street the lights of Los Angeles do not cluster brightly or tower overhead but space themselves sensibly just above eye level, ordering the city into signs and signals devised for the passing eye of an automobile. Viewed from above the lights cascade down the hills like froth on the curl of a wave breaking upon a long, flat sheen of sand; streetlamps, arc lights, flashing and static neon signs, fluorescent office and incandescent house lights, and everywhere at every hour of night the bright heads and red tails of automobiles flowing through the freeways and surface streets like tropical fish in an aquarium of lights. Whenever the city irritates me I climb the hills and fall in love all over again.

“Enjoying the view?”

Vulch didn’t turn when I spoke, his elbows propped on the metal railing, the cigarette burned to a nubbin between his fingers. At the opposite end of the observation walk teenagers huddled in small clusters, couples bound together in two-headed silhouettes, their chatter and laughter spraying down the hillside. “I like it here,” he said. “Always have.” The rigid line of his mouth creased into what might have been a smile. “I’ve always enjoyed the stars.”

He was making a pun.

“Like a wolf enjoys sheep,” I said.

“Not that way,” he answered, his voice deep and serious. “I love celebrities. I love them like an arrow loves the target. They’re my home.” He ground the butt under the heel of a black cowboy boot and slipped a box of Marlboros halfway out the breast pocket of his leather trench coat. “Cigarette?”

“Don’t smoke, thanks.”

He pushed the Marlboros back into their leather sleeve as though thinking twice about lighting up. “Hate will motivate you only for so long in this business. You have to love what you’re shooting or you’ll sour like all the other homunculi we call our colleagues.”

It was a sad fact of our business that the majority of paparazzi were offensively aggressive and dimwitted creatures with all the predatory charisma of hyenas hounding a lion. I was happy for the moment that Vulch excluded me from that lot even if the exclusion was falsely self-congratulatory. I wasn’t sure I was all that different. “Thanks for loaning me the equipment,” I said. “It’s still in one piece, in the trunk of my car.”

He straightened at the rail and turned, towering over me. Height is an advantage for a paparazzo, enabling one to shoot over the crowd, and Vulch had it. We circled the observatory, heading for the parking lot.

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