In Laymon's Terms

I’d left New York after having a couple of shows presented off-off Broadway, written under a pseudonym. They were both well-received by critics but didn’t draw enough of an audience to stay afloat for long. Monty Stobbs had been hustling the same backers as the director, and he’d invited me to come stay with him in Hollywood to write him a screenplay. He’d made a few no-budget horror flicks in his time: Yokohama Zombie Mamas on Hondas and Cutie Critters from Beyond the Edge of Naked Space.

It was a chance to get out. I wasn’t naive enough to believe it might amount to anything, but for the first time in my life I let myself fall into the starry-eyed Hollywood trap. My wife had left the year before and my day job had gone skidding into the toilet. She’d taken the kid, the dog, and the goldfish, but she’d left me with a case of crabs. The fuckers were so big I could identify them well enough to give them names, and after the cream started to work and they died off, I fell into sobbing fits.

So there wasn’t much holding me in New York.

My phone rang and I picked it up. “What?”

“Listen, I need a little help,” Monty said. “I was scouting locations for the sequel to Cutie Critter. Needed a primeval setting for the crash-landed Love UFO. My car died and I’m stuck out here in the middle of the fucking desert.”

“Monty, all I know is what I’ve seen in the movies. Is this desert like the Sahara, with Bedouins and camels? Are you going to be forced to drink wiper fluid to stay alive?”

“You prick. I’ll give you directions.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Take the landlord’s. He’s got a ’69 Mustang under a tarp in the garage. It’s not cherry but it’ll work and the keys should be under the floor mat.”

“Can’t you call a cab?”

“A cab?” I could hear his blood pressure climbing. “You’re 3,500 miles from Brooklyn now. Cabs don’t come pick you up in the desert. Cops don’t come. Triple A doesn’t come.”

“How long should it take?”

“A couple of hours.”

“You’ll be all right for that long?”

“Yeah, just try not to get lost. Bring your cell phone.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

“How long you been in Hollywood now?”

“Four days.”

“And you still don’t have a cell phone? The hell is wrong with you?” He gave me a set of vague directions that led me out of Los Angeles and towards an even greater unknown. I took the 10 freeway past the sprawl of L.A. and all the chain restaurants and tire stores and strip malls. I hit the 15 North, and the buildings started to thin out as I reached the top of the Cajon Pass. The first billboards for Vegas put in an appearance around then. After I hit Barstow there was pretty much only rest stops and gas stations, then just plain nothing. I was surprised at how quickly the city had fallen away and I was suddenly into raw, rugged, burning territory. You had to be fuckin’ crazy to live in a place like this.

Empty desert, cacti, and endless stretches of highway. I drove for another hour and finally found what I figured must be the general area.

Monty’s 1995 Mazda MX-5 Miata Roadster sat at the side of the road. A few years ago it had been flashy, like Monty himself, but now there was wear and rust and a widespread fade to the car. I got out and checked it over. The doors were unlocked but the keys weren’t in the ignition. Monty was nowhere around. I popped the hood and spotted the problem immediately. The fuel pump was shot.

Either he’d gotten lucky and found himself a ride or he’d gotten tired of waiting and had tried to hoof it.

There was nothing behind me on the road so I decided to drive on a little further. In fifteen minutes I spotted a dark shimmer in the distance. Soon I could discern the outline of a small desert town.

The place looked like every ghost town I’d ever seen on Gunsmoke and The Rifleman reruns. The dust roared around me and sagebrush kicked over and tumbled in the fierce wind.

A heavily weathered wooden sign hanging from twin chains proclaimed MASONVILLE.

Some of the buildings were so decayed that they shuddered and leaned like drunks. Porches had caved in and most of the windowpanes were empty, siding boards and shingles scattered across the tiny streets. Shards of glass reflected sunlight from the dirt.

I got out of the Mustang and wandered around for a bit. I shouted Monty’s name and yelled hello a dozen times and expected vultures to be circling overhead. I was about to turn back when I noticed a half-filled trough out in front of a former feed store. I put my hand in the water—it was warm but not hot the way I would’ve expected it to be. Somebody had to have filled it recently. This couldn’t be rainwater even if it was true that immense storms sometimes passed over the desert drenching everything in brief deluges.

A little further on I discovered some fresh horse manure along the street. I kept walking as the wind slammed and the rotting timbers of the neglected structures creaked and crackled.