Davis Bespoke

A Collection of Short Stories For The Solitary Traveler
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4835-4312-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 104 Seiten

Bespoke A Collection of Short Stories for the Solitary Traveler, written by Lee Davis is a dynamic collection both heartbreaking and heartwarming. This commentary on the human condition is disarming, daring and unexpectedly cathartic. There are enough reflections for a novel expressed in so few pages. Immediately the reader is drawn into these worlds of brooders, dreamers, fighters and lovers. The stories take place all over the globe: Los Angeles, Paris, Russia, Brooklyn and beyond create the landscape for this roller coaster ride of revelation. From a high powered, award winning, Hollywood elite to not so up and coming, starving, passionate artists and Hooverville residents to faded has been's and brilliantly talented no ones, among many beautiful others, it's uncanny how Mr. Davis can make the connections on such an emotional level that leave the reader feeling a bond with people and places they have never before encountered. Terence Rattigan meets James Baldwin in these pages of joy, pain, façade and verity. Davis' voice is familiar, engaging, sexy and encompasses the longing we all can relate to as part of this race we call human. An exemplar of the short story, Bespoke transcends class, geography, sex, race, religion and creed. A must read for anyone who feels inspired, cheated or shattered by life. Halcyone Hurst

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davis, Lee

Leseproben

Lou Ledger sat facing the glass in the lobby watching the tranquility of the trees blowing in the wind. The waiting was killing him. He glanced at the magazines delicately lined atop the coffee table a few feet away. The latest issue of Vanity Fair faced him, upside down, but he could make out the bottom byline, the red letters that shouted, “The Last Days of Eli Dawes,” by Lou Ledger. A man in a suit picked up the magazine, absent-mindedly flipped through it. He stopped mid-way and quipped, “Something huh, the whole Dawes thing.” The whole thing really was, something. That night long ago in his corner apartment at the Alto Nido had begun as uncommon as any other.   Lou had turned down a half dozen invites to parties that night. He learned long ago he could get more mileage out of people asking him where he was than actually being at a party he gained nothing from attending. He chose instead a dive bar with no television, a block from his house, that was sure to have a few young model types, dressed up and looking for a ticket to one of those VIP spots they had no way of getting into. Enter Lou. He in fact had to dig his cell phone from beneath the covers. Beside him was a nineteen-year old redhead, a razor thin model with the chest of a boy. He’d stumbled across her as she left the stall in the men’s room an hour ago. They’d both been drinking just enough to make conversation superfluous, and their next destination a certainty.   Putting on his glasses, he sobered up and stood pulling up what he thought was his underwear. The redhead looked at him and laughed. He ignored her, writing furiously, shaking the alcohol from his head, trying to hear his editor, shouting a mile a minute, with that cell-phone “tape delay” thing happening. He had never heard of Eli Dawes until that very moment. His editor barked instructions loud enough to break his eardrum as Asha, the naked redhead passed on her way to the closet that was his bathroom. “You’re out of toilet paper,” she yelled. Lou ignored her. In response she slammed shut the bathroom door. Lou looked over his scribbled notes on the side of a two-day old coffee cup, still half filled. Dawes was a screenwriter, no wonder Lou had never heard of him. But he was the subject and Lou was to meet him in half an hour. Dawes was some kind of Hollywood writer on the precipice of fame on the town’s big night. Lou tossed the rancid milk and coffee down hoping it would clear his head. Asha emerged from the toilet angrily. “You promised me a party Lou. A party where a stranger walks up to me and says you’re the girl I’ve been looking for! Instead we get to do the Dougie in this rat-trap, hope I wasn’t too loud for the roaches.” Lou paid her no attention, casually ordering her to “Get dressed.” She pointed at her panties bunched around his ankles. He handed them to her. Her voice droned on. “Let’s go to a party you say. Some party!” Lou threw on some deodorant and opened a cupboard where his clothes hung on a rack. “I have to go to work. Let yourself out.” Asha pulled on her dress and asked, “Who was she Lou? The bitch that left you angry at the world?” Lou snorted. “Her name was Carlotta, and after she slept with half of Beverly Hills she walked out and left me with Pookie the Jack Russell.” Ever the optimist, Asha allowed, “At least she left you the dog.” Lou matter-of-factly retorted, “Would have been a sweet gesture except Pookie was her dog.” Then he muttered, ”Why are we discussing this Ashley? ” She shouted, “My name is Asha!” Lou noticed then that she was crying, the full on waterworks. She was getting tears all over the bed sheets. Perspiration, semen, that was one thing but he drew the line at tearstains. This was the last thing he needed. He calmly took her hand. “Asha. How about we go to a party? I really mean it this time. We’ll go to a real fancy Hollywood dressy party, you and me? There will be celebrities there, and who knows you might get discovered tonight after all. What do you say?” Asha began to perk up.   With its tall palm trees a canopy directly over the boulevard The Sunset Towers had been the closest thing to a home to Eli Dawes. This elegant hotel represented all the glamour and refinery that “Old Hollywood” was known for. He’d come to love the pleasant greeting from the Maitre d, Dmitri, a living link to glitz and glamour past and present. The simple elegant lobby, the warmth of the candlelit lounge complete with fireplace, the proximity of it all to the baby grand piano where the band played, you half expected Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers to step out in tuxedo and gown. Eli sat handsome in his dark tux and pin striped Pink shirt at the candlelit table, cradling his scotch served neat. The band played “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams” as if the curtain was rising on him. Or was it falling? As he pondered this he hardly noticed the bookish looking man sit opposite him dressed in a red velvet fez hat and a dark tuxedo jacket. “Lou Ledger, Vanity Fair.” Lou repeated it twice before Eli acknowledged him. Eli was decidedly taken aback, and blurted, “You’re not Biskind.” Lou countered, “You’re sharp. Here we are the two of us, old pals.” Eli was still confused. “Where’s Biskind? I asked for Biskind.”   “My apologies, Mr. Biskind, like everyone that matters in this town, unavailable tonight. I get it, you’re disappointed, you asked for Biskind and they send the black guy and you feel a certain way about it, you wonder is it because you’re black, some subtle message perhaps...” Eli turned purple. “It’s not that. It’s just that well, Peter Biskind is…” Lou cut him off. “Let me get you another. What are you having?” Eli mumbled “Glenrothes.” Lou motioned to the waiter, then turned back to Eli, “Look Dawes, these type of profiles, I do them in my sleep, cocktails, gowns, after parties on the biggest night in town. This band is great. I love jazz. You like jazz? Of course you do. You’re here right? Anyway, so I ask you a few questions, then we head over to the Theatre wait for them to start pulling envelopes. Not exactly the stuff of Pulitzers. Maybe by the end of the night one of us will be famous. What do you say?”   Eli took hold of Lou Ledger, by the wrist and looked through him. He looked until he could see every immoral act Lou had ever committed, heard every name Lou had been called, known every dark detail of Lou’s miserable existence. He stared into Lou Ledger’s soul. Well past the point of feeling uncomfortable, Lou refused to look away. After an eternity Eli muttered, “You want to be famous? Have I got a story for you?” Lou laughed to keep from trembling. The scotch arrived. Eli filled his mouth with it relishing the burn.   Two hours later Lou Ledger paced between the men’s and ladies rooms in the Sunset Towers his cell phone pressed against his ear. “Ms. Sarkin, I realize you’re busy, everybody is busy but trust me, what I’ve got here is SOMETHING!”   Ten yards away Eli Dawes sat opposite a starry eyed Asha, entranced by his voice. “When I was a boy,” Eli Dawes sang, “Hollywood existed in musky theaters, velvet armchairs, carpets sticky with spilled soda and stale popcorn. A magical mist danced from the projectionist to the screen. On that screen lived legends. Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster. These were dangerous men desperate to survive in a violent world. And then I discovered that the words they spoke were not their own. A trillion little lights went off in my head all at once. I had discovered there were people called screenwriters. Dalton Trumbo, Leigh Brackett, Clifford Odetts, Budd Schulberg. They were meticulously crafting, shaping life in a pitch-black theater from their typewriters, one page at a time. To be like them I would have given anything. And today, as a result of this obsessive love I have for my craft, the only time I feel alive is when my words are spoken on the big screen. Most of my waking hours I feel as artificial as the imported palm trees jammed into the pavement all across this tinsel town. Hooray for Hollywood. You realize this is the only place in the world people clamor to be immortalized in a star in the pavement, just the spot for some twelve year old to toss a slushee or a dog to defecate without a second thought. ”   Lou was hovering over Eli now. “We’re all squared away. Brigitte should be here any moment to snap a few photos.” Pulling himself to his feet Eli said, “Time to head over. Send me a copy of the story Ledger. It’s going to change your life.” Lou grew concerned, “Brigitte will be here any minute.” But Eli wasn’t to be stopped. So Lou went to plan b. “We’ll meet you in front of the Theatre then?” Eli didn’t bother to respond. He simply didn’t care. But Lou motioned to Asha and handed her his cell-phone. Asha snapped a photo of Lou and Eli. It was a simple picture right there in the lobby of the elegant hotel, Eli in motion, Lou striking a pose, “For posterity,” Lou said. All of Hollywood seemed to tilt to one side. They were frozen together, Lou Ledger and Eli Dawes, for posterity.   Not long after Eli was sitting in the rear of his Bentley, Glenrothes in his hand, a terrible pain in his side. Hours away from the greatest achievement of his otherwise obscure existence, and all he could think of was straightening his bow tie in the reflection of the glass. He reached for the acceptance speech he hastily scrawled on an index card should he by some stroke of fate win. A sticky wetness by his inside pocket startled him. Drawing back his palm, Eli was...