Barry
My cell rings.
“I thought you’d deleted my number.”
“Found it in my Rolodex, buddy!”
Are you too embarrassed to talk to me in person when offering me all those shitty commercials? Is that beneath your pay grade?”
Stu Matthews has been my agent since he booked me on The Golden Girls.
Stu represents huge TV clients now, mega stars and legends, and yet he didn’t dump me after my career went into the toilet.
He hasn’t actually deigned to talk to me, but I gotta give it to the guy, his connections may have not landed me another huge role, but they have kept me alive and in the game these past few decades.
Most agents would have burned my number, but he has funneled those shitty roles to his assistant’s assistant to teach her about the biz and keep me afloat with a steady stream of projects anybody with a semblance of self-respect would turn down: commercials, minor roles on shows that have already been panned or canceled, acting in industrial videos for corporations and human resources training where I say inane things like, “As an employee of Industrial-ite Manufacturing, your benefits package includes two weeks of paid vacation, five sick days and a health care plan that covers up to ten percent of your hospital stay,” or where I get reprimanded for saying sexist things in the break room like, “Have you lost weight, Betty?” and “That sweater sure looks good on you, Tina!”
And I can guarantee Tina—as a card-carrying gay man—that sweater did not look good on her.
I have done anything and everything over the years to stay in the game.
Anything and everything.
“Listen, buddy—” Stu starts.
“Please don’t call me buddy,” I interrupt. “I’m not the Lab you rent for those creepy family holiday photos you take to make
you seem human.”
“I forgot how funny you were, buddy!” he roars. “I’m actually calling with good news!”
“Another car commercial for Desert Kia?”
“A script came for you,” he says. Dramatic pause. “Paramount, buddy. I’ve already read it. It’s a damn good role. This is
what you’ve waited for the last forty years!”
I know what he’s going to say before he says it.
“The new Billy the Hillbilly movie!” Stu yells. “Role of Levi, Loretta’s long-lost brother who escaped in the first movie. Good guy or bad guy? Nobody
knows, buddy! It’s the role of a lifetime. And get this: They don’t even want you to read. It’s yours if you want it. Kyle
fucking Moses says you are the perfect actor for it. They’re booting Billy Bob Thornton to the curb for you. Director has
signed off on it, too.”
I cannot open my mouth to speak. Kyle wasn’t lying.
“And they sent a contract! It’s movie money, buddy, not commercial cash!
But, being the great agent I am and since they want Barry and only Barry, I will squeeze every penny I can out of them.
This will resurrect your career, buddy! You won’t have to do that sad little drag show in the desert anymore.
And once the casting news hits the trades, you will be in demand.
Everyone in Hollywood loves a comeback story, and I will have you on the cover of every magazine in the country. The Golden Guy!”
“When does shooting start?” I ask.
“Two weeks.”
“That’s fast.”
“That’s Hollywood, baby. They’re FedExing a script to you today. Want you on set for fittings end of week. Shooting in the
desert, so you don’t even need to uproot your life.” He pauses. “Yet.”
Stu releases a resounding whoop! that echoes in his all-glass office in Beverly Hills. “I gotta know, though. How’d you pull this off, buddy?”
“Aren’t I supposed to be asking you that?”
Stu laughs.
“Let’s just say it was all timing,” I say vaguely.
“Good enough for me! Timing is everything in Hollywood! Barry Goggins is back! Let me know when you receive the script. I’m
calling the director now!”
“I take it I’m being moved from Rolodex to speed dial.”
“FaceTime, buddy! FaceTime from now on! It’s a new era for you, buddy! We need to celebrate! Ciao, Barry!”
Stu hangs up, and I stand motionless—phone still fixed to my ear—by the pool. I stare at my reflection in the aqua water.
How many times have I stood right here praying for this phone call? How many times have I wished for this dream to come true?
How many years do I have left to make up for lost time?
I take a step toward the edge of the pool. The wind pulses through the palms, and my reflection breaks into a hundred pieces
of aqua. Eventually, they remake a picture of a man standing on the precipice.
But on the edge of what?
Fame? Power? Stardom? Wealth?
Or something as unreliable as the San Andreas fault that runs beneath me?
A figure emerges from Zsa Zsa, a blur of white in the sun and the pool’s reflection.
“You look like you’re thinking of drowning yourself. Let me get seated first so I can enjoy the show. I’ve always wanted to
know if your face work was water-resistant.”
Teddy.
Another figure.
“I’m back.”
Ava.
“Are you okay?” she asks, noticing the phone still pressed to my ear, my body as rigid as brittlebush.
“Undecided,” I finally say, lowering my cell. “I never dreamed I’d see you two together. This seems like the start of a horror
movie.”
A raven settles on the yard.
“The Birds!” Teddy cries dramatically, covering his face as if he’s being attacked. “I always resembled Tippi Hedren.”
“After the attack,” I say.
“Well,” Ava says, “a little bird asked me to teach it to sing again.”
I eye Teddy.
“Chirp, chirp,” he says, flapping his arms at me with a mischievous smile.
“You’re the bird?” I ask.
“I prefer misunderstood velociraptor on Ozempic,” Teddy says. “We’re living in PC times now, Barry.”
“So you did make a decision?” she asks me, raising a dark brow.
“Undecided,” I repeat.
I toss her my cell and jump into the pool.
I stop outside the saloon in the middle of the dusty, narrow street in Pioneertown. I skew my eyes on the swinging doors,
half expecting a drunken, crooked sheriff in a ten-gallon hat and curled moustache to stumble out and challenge me to a quick-draw
duel.
But this morning, Pioneertown is a ghost town.
The once-vibrant real-life movie set—founded in 1946 by a group of Hollywood investors with dreams of creating an 1870s frontier
town with facades like saloons and jails for filming movie and TV Westerns—has been nothing but dust since the days Roy Rogers
and Gene Autry rode on horses down these same dusty trails. Today, it is a tourist destination for Palm Springs locals heading
to Joshua Tree National Park to hike. Soon, however, Pioneertown will serve as the Ozarks setting for Billy’s Back, where many of the movie’s key scenes will be filmed.
I can see signs of life already: Trailers—filled with equipment, soon to be homes to actors, ground zero for the crew and
caterers—line the periphery. Cranes sway in the gusts that blow through the mountain pass of the high desert, the wind whistling
like a passing train.
A few years back, I was hired to do a commercial in Pioneertown for Desert Kia. My role was that of a rugged cowboy, and I
was in a duel to the death with high auto prices. I, of course, came out victorious in the commercial but left feeling as
if my long-suffering career had finally taken a shot to the heart.
I did my own makeup for the commercial. The “director” was the car dealer’s twenty-year-old daughter who used her cell phone
because she said she wanted the commercial to feel “gritty and real” and not because the total budget for the shoot—including
my salary and lunch of McNuggets for the “crew” of three—was less than five hundred dollars.
I move into the middle of the street to reenact the scene.
“Now,” I say to myself in a low, menacing growl, “it is time for you to die, high prices!”
I drag the toe of my shoe through the dirt to make a line, step on one side of it and take ten paces, counting off as I go:
“One, two, three . . .”
I spin, and when I yell, “Ten!” I turn.
The saloon doors swing open.
Kyle appears in tight jeans and an even tighter T-shirt. He lifts his right hand and makes a gun with his fingers.
“Bang!” he yells.
I act as if I have been shot. I stagger backward, dust billowing around my feet.
Kyle races toward me and grabs me before I collapse to the ground.
“I win,” he says. “Again.”
He takes me into his arms and leans me back as if I weigh little more than a feather. Kyle looks into my eyes.
“One final kiss before you die.”
Kyle’s dimples flash, and my legs grow weak. I suddenly feel like every female costar, every fan—gay or straight—who has dreamed
Kyle Moses would be staring deep into their eyes, uttering those same words.
His lips are on mine, and I am no longer on this earth, but floating somewhere high above the high desert.
Kyle pulls me to my feet.
“I saved you,” he says. “Now you owe me your life.”
My life? Is that the price I will pay for selling myself to do this movie?
I search Kyle’s eyes.
Is he acting right now? Is he always acting?
“I do owe you my life,” I say. “And career. I owe you everything.”
Am I acting right now?
He bites. Literally. My lip, hard.
“You’re welcome, Barry,” he murmurs. “I knew you’d be perfect for this role.”
Of Levi? Or as the distraction from being Bryle?
Kyle releases me, running a hand through his hair and then down his perfect chest.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he continues. “I have one day off from shooting to get settled up here. They rented me this insane house with a stunning view of Joshua Tree. I thought we could head over there after this to run lines.” Kyle smiles that megawatt smile. “Just like we used to.”
Or is he trying to recapture something real with me?
It is so quiet out here at dawn, and yet my heartbeat sounds like the Blue Angels are flying overhead.
“Did you get the script?” he continues. “Is your contract okay? I can change anything you want.”
“My agent has taken care of everything,” I say. “I still don’t know what to say.”
“Thank you,” Kyle says. “Just say, ‘Thank you, old friend.’”
“Thank you, old friend.”
“This is finally the role that will make you a star, Barry. Doesn’t matter if it came forty years later. It’s still the chance
that every actor dreams of.”
“I feel like I’m in a dream,” I admit.
“You are! It’s karma, babe. The world always comes full circle,” Kyle says. He trails a finger down my chest. “Hollywood is
quid pro quo. You broke up with me, and now you’ve come back into my life for a reason. We can give each other what we need
and want.”
“What do you need and want, Kyle?”
Kyle puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me to the ground with force. My teeth rattle. He grips the back of my head
and presses it against his crotch.
“I want you, big boy. Don’t you want me again?” he asks, voice low, breathing hard. “Like old times. Remember?”
I look up at him. His eyes are closed. He is here. He is not here.
I unzip his pants.
Behind Kyle, a cactus rises, green, from the scorched earth. It is flowering, and a hummingbird puts its beak to the bloom.
I focus on it and pretend I am that bird, simply doing as nature instructs.
When Kyle finishes, he looks down at me and says, “I guess I was the final shot in the old Western.”
He laughs and begins to walk away.
“I have to go,” he continues. “I’ll see you on set.”
“I thought we were going to see your house in Joshua Tree to run lines?” I ask, still kneeling on the ground, wiping my mouth
with the back of my hand.
Kyle stops but doesn’t turn around.
“Don’t be weak and don’t fucking embarrass me, Barry,” Kyle calls as he walks. “Go study your script. My career, your career,
my money and this entire movie are riding on my decision to cast you. Don’t let me down, or I will ruin you forever.” His
voice suddenly turns chipper again as he fades into the desert’s golden light. “I’ll call you!”
Kyle disappears behind the saloon, and I slump back on my heels. I’m still on my knees when Kyle’s red Mercedes convertible
comes tearing down the dirt road, covering me in a cloud of dust. He smiles down at me, pleased I have not moved, and I suddenly
understand that we both realize I am completely beholden to him. He lifts a hand as he drives away, his car melting into the
sun.
I finally stand.
When I look down, the knees of my new jeans are filthy.
I wipe them with my hands, over and over again, but the dirt will not come off.