From Kyiv Commix’x “All for Goldstein” Retrospective and Restoration Series
In this episode (possibly Episode 1: The Memorial), with the help of Goldstein, Saint Stephan finally finds fame and fortune in and/or around Hollywood – or does he…
It is the last dusty stop along the semi-highway, East Los Losseros Boulevard, and where this stretch of road simply ends.
There is a turnaround a little farther past The Entertainment King – you can’t miss it, as they say.
If one has made it out here by car, one can simply drive to the end and reverse course, now going west along West Los Losseros Boulevard and then south on South Los Losseros Boulevard, all of which will take you in the direction of Hollywood and allow you to get somewhat closer to it, but won’t provide actual passage in. You’d need to take other roads after Los Losseros to do that.
If one has come out here by taxi, or by bus, and decides, well, it’s time to head back, one can simply cross the median to the westbound side of the boulevard, and the bus that brought you here will take you back again. You can forget about a cab – they’ll drive you out here, but they won’t drive back out here to take you back – unless you pay them to wait for you and buy them something to eat.
As for the bus, currently it’s sitting in its little parking depot next to The Entertainment King, but, by and by, it will start up its engine and pull up to the first stop directly across from The Entertainment King on the boulevard’s westbound side.
Or, if you should miss that one, the next bus to rumble along will do the same thing, after, of course, it’s had its rest next to The Entertainment King – but you’ll just have to wait out the time.
In the meanwhile, you can take pictures.
Well, if you’re hungry there’s also a Jack in the Box and next to that a Taco Bell. For recreation, next to that is a small entertainment complex that includes a three-lane bowling alley, with a pool table and some old arcade games, including even pinball machines, and there’s a miniature gym. There’s also the Singlex Theater, devoted exclusively to B movies and slasher films in release now or from any era.
Now playing, a double feature: “Mothers Full of Carnage” and “The Butchering Brides”.
Beyond that – well, you can take pictures.
There’s a payphone on the road.
And it’s all across from The Entertainment King, whose offices are a one-story bungalow at the end of Los Losseros Boulevard’s eastbound side. The Entertainment King absolutely hates the joke and any variant of it to the effect that if you’ve reached him, you’ve reached the end of the road.
But being where he is, what does he expect people to say?
The Entertainment King’s location fairly begs for that very joke to be made – even by people who otherwise aren’t funny.
I don’t care what The Entertainment King thinks.
*
The Greyhound bus pulls up and into the small depot on this side and idles.
It is an old bus, built in the 1960s, way past its life expectancy, a veritable zombie among buses.
It is not a bus from Hell, but a bus in Hell.
It is a tortured bus that tilts to the right with its age and drives with the tormented expression that asks, ‘Why am I still alive?’
It is a bus forced into more than 50 years of non-stop service to this same desolate location, with no end yet in sight. Unless, of course, the whole entertainment industry here crumbles; unless Hollywood itself implodes.
The door opens and the only passenger left, Saint Stephan, steps off. The bus driver shuts the engine down.
Taking the keys, the bus driver keeps the bus door open as he exits the vehicle and moves heavily yet quickly past Stephan, who stands a little dazed and tired in the lot next to The Entertainment King blinking wearily at the scene all around him. Stephan watches as the driver cuts across the turnaround, hustling his wide butt and fat rolls toward the Jack in the Box, Stephan supposes, for a coffee and sundry ingestions. He’s also probably going there for a nice long gushing pee.
High up against the sky is a plastic signpost on a tall metal pole.
With a crown in one upper corner of the sign slanted one way and a jester’s cap and bells in the other upper corner slanted the other, these symbols frame the words, ‘The Entertainment King’, writ large.
In the small lot he sees one car – by the looks of it, a 1974 Porsche 911, Stephan guesses. The frog-green car’s front vanity reads: SLD GLD.
Pretty dumb, Stephan thinks.
The office, as Stephan walks in, is decked out in the kitsch ‘70s style of middle-class suburban basements and dens.
Just now, no one’s in; at least it so appears. Maybe Goldstein’s in another room, like the kitchen. There’s no receptionist or secretary, at least none that Stephan can tell.
On the dark-brown board-paneled walls hang the predictable plaques and apparent awards of one sort or another, a mirror, and framed photos. And of course there’s the shelf bearing a variety of memorabilia, knick-knacks and trophies.
One rather large photo draws Stephan’s attention – something it is obviously meant to do, given its size. He recognizes the central personage – it is Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino’s right arm is casually thrown over the shoulders of another man, whom Stephan presumes is the Goldstein he is presently supposed to meet.
Stephan walks up close to the large Tarantino photo. It seemed okay from a few paces back, but now, something, several things, suddenly strike him as odd.
The arm that droops over Goldstein’s right shoulder is little more than a hand jutting out of a suit cuff, but the color of that cuff appears to be different from the rest of Tarantino’s jacket.
In black marker, the dedication and signature say, “To my good friend, Goldstein, Thanks for all the hard work – it paid off” and is signed “Quentin Tarantino”. Yet Stephan knows Tarantino’s signature from the Internet to resemble a lightning bolt, while the letters here are fat, round and childish.
Closer still, Stephan now sees the vaguest of lines running down between the figures of Tarantino and Goldstein. The line is very fine indeed, but it is nevertheless there. The two men had been carefully and expertly spliced together from different photos into this composite. The image is a forgery. Goldstein then signed the forgery himself, forging Tarantino’s name as well.
“But why would he do that,” Stephan asks himself aloud.
“Do what,” Goldstein answers Stephan’s question with a question, now standing right behind him.
“You don’t think this story simply ends here, do you,” Stephan calmly answers Goldstein’s question with a question of his own, as he turns to face him slowly, not only seemingly unperturbed by Goldstein’s sudden appearance, but almost as if he’d been expecting Goldstein to sneak up silently behind him all along.
Goldstein raises an eyebrow, parts his lips but just a little and takes a step back. He is contemplating Saint Stephan, taking him in. He nods his head.
“Please,” Goldstein says, “sit down…”
Filed by Jack Step, rumpitty-bump, rumpitty-bump, rumpitty, dumpitty, bumbitty-bump, May 7, 2016