The muffled voice on the other end of the phone told me to wear a black rhinestone studded sleeveless Selena Gomez World Tour T-shirt and be at the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Doheny at precisely three o’clock. I was to make sure I wasn’t followed and to carry a counterfeit Louis Vuitton bag filled exactly as instructed. If there is any sign of my being followed the whole exchange is off and I was warned of the severe consequences. My contact is to approach me and say “You want me, don’t you” and then I was to hand the contact the bag and in return receive another counterfeit Louis Vuitton bag.
I nervously pack the bag as per my instructions and drive to the West Hollywood destination. I find a parking space and check my rearview mirror one last time to make sure I’m not being followed. I pause for a second, there is a blond transvestite wearing a pink boa over a pink angora sweater, a pink mini-skirt, pink fishnet stockings over support hose, and matching pink Frederick’s of Hollywood high heels standing on the corner sucking on a lollipop.
I’m pissed, Roger Debris is about to blow, a word that he is all too familiar with, the exchange. I get out of the car and walk over to where he is standing, prepared to scream bloody murder at him. I tap him on the shoulder. He turns around and my heart skips a beat. It’s not Roger Debris, it appears to be the aged Angelyne, the not too well preserved billboard icon, and she’s carrying a Louis Vuitton bag.
“You want me don’t you?” she purrs while thrusting her silicone chest protrusions out at me.
“Here’s the bag, just like you wanted it, now do you have something for me?”
“I’m not your whore,” she throws the bag in my face, “and I certainly don’t want any cheap knockoff Louis Vuitton bag. I’ve got the real thing.”
Angelyne clutches her bag and hurriedly gets into her Corvette and drives off while I pick up the bag and scan the street trying to figure out what to do now.
My cell phone rings.
It’s the muffled voice again and he’s not happy, “What the fuck are you trying to do? We’re watching you and we told you no funny business…”
“How was I to know that wasn’t your person? She had a Vuitton bag and said, ‘You want me don’t you’!”
“Angelyne did?”
“Yes!”
“Did she say ‘You want me don’t you’ in a seductive way, like she was going to do you?” the voice is suddenly a lot less muffled and sounds familiar, but I can’t exactly place it.
“I don’t know…and I was focused on making the exchange and then on how much it hurts getting hit by a real Vuitton bag.”
“What did she smell like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do want this exchange to happen or not? Tell me what she smells like.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I guess like an enraged grandmother with too much perfume?”
“Enraged grandmother, uh uh, that is so hot,” the voice is muffled again and sounds like it is out of breath.
“What do I do now?” I ask.
“Uh, uh, You wait.” The muffled voice gasps.
“For what?”
“So close, uh I mean someone who’s close to coming, I mean someone close will be coming in a… in a…coming in a second,” he groans and hangs up.
Sure enough I look and see Roger Debris, wearing mostly men’s clothing, standing on the corner carrying a Louis Vuitton bag.
Reluctantly I walk over to him.
“Well look what we have here! If it isn’t little Ricky Stevens looking all spiffy and cute,” he says unctuously, “and look he’s carrying a Louis Vuitton bag, just like mine. We could be twins.”
“My name is Ric Thibault, not Ricky Stevens. Now don’t you have something you want to say to me?”
“There are lots of things I’d like to say to you Ricky Stevens. Are you sure you’re not queer? I have gaydar and you know – I think you want me, don’t you?”
“Okay let’s get this over with,” I hand him my bag, and start to reach for his bag in return. Instead Roger Debris hugs me and kisses me on the mouth. Before he can slip me the tongue I knee him in the groin dropping him to the pavement.
“You little bitch,” he whines as I grab his bag and open it. Inside is his pink angora sweater and a dog-eared copy of the book Making Movies for Dummies. I never knew he read books. He certainly never read While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog.
“That’s not what is supposed to be in the bag,” I scream.
“What’s in my bag is my business mister Ricky Stevens, but I love it when you act so butch.”
I’m about to kick him in the balls when my phone rings again.
“Leave Roger Debris alone,” screams the voice, “look behind you at the woman in the black dress.”
I pivot and see an attractive woman striding towards me, carrying a fake Luis Vuitton bag. “You want me don’t you?” she asks – and I kind of actually do.
She hands me her bag and I quickly open it. It is stuffed with wads of used dollar bills and a settlement contract with a green “sign here” sticker.
“So all I have to do is sign and I get…”
My phone rings. It’s Holly Marotte my lawyer. “The contract’s got a non-disclosure clause,” she tells me, “that means you can’t tell anyone anything.”
“I can’t even tell them that I won?”
“No you are only allowed to say, that you have amicably resolved your issues to both parties’ satisfaction.”
“You mean you want me to lie?”
“Why should you be any different than anyone else in Hollywood?”
* * *
“…the envelope please,” some over sequined starlet whose name I know I’m supposed to know but all boob jobs look alike to me says, “the winner of the 2013 Academy Award for the Best Original Song in a movie, is “My Life Sucks and My Girlfriend Doesn’t.”
I trot up to the podium and take the statue which will be up on E-Bay within an hour. “I’d like to thank my bestest friend in the world, Hollywood – and the brilliant director Roger Debris, without whom this would never happen…”