Mystery Girl: A Novel by David Gordon Read Free Book Online Page B

out both a tape and a disc of Goodfellas, and when I couldn’t sleep, I could lie in bed and follow just the dialogue of The Godfather or its sequel from behind my drooping lids.
    “I know what you mean but I can’t see them right now,” Milo said, running his hands over his face. “I just can’t.” (This is the other side of such intimacy. There were many beloved films, like Manhattan or Taxi Driver, that I saw so many times, I had to declare a moratorium, the way some bakers have to temporarily swear off chocolate cake.)
    “A Satyajit Ray?” he asked. “ Apu? ”
    “Jesus, I’m already suicidal here. Are you trying to kill me? How about Shoah? ”
    “OK, OK. Point taken. Rules of the Game? ”
    “Hmm… maybe.”
    “What do you mean, maybe? It’s a masterpiece, a serious contender for best movie ever.”
    “I know, I know. Shoulder to shoulder with Kane, you told me.”
    “Plus, as a worldly, wise Frenchman, Renoir makes your petty love problems seem like a joke.”
    “OK,” I said, settling on the couch. “Let’s do it. Though I actually think it’s his warmth, his Shakespearian compassion for human frailty, that can help me now.”
    “Shit,” Milo muttered, scanning the shelves. “It’s at the store.”
    “Fuck,” I said. “This could take forever.”
    “Look, why argue? You want perfection crossed with familiarity? How about your lovable but perverted uncle?”
    “Hitchcock.”
    “Hitchcock. Exactly. Marnie? ”
    “Too troubling. North By Northwest? ”
    “Too charming. Dial M? ”
    “Really, you know what the most perfect movie ever is?”
    “ Vertigo. ”
    “Exactly. Vertigo. ” This is what I generally answered when asked those ridiculous questions, favorite, best, ever. Of course there are hundreds of best movies, but Vertigo to me was the one that most truly fulfilled itself: story and song, form and content, manifest and latent—like the two sides of the tapestry, every image and gesture, every moment and glance, was both the plot and the dream. It was what life would be if we were all geniuses—complete.
    Milo shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t feel like seeing it tonight.”
    I slumped deeper into the couch. “I don’t either, really.”
    “You know what I could watch though?” he asked.
    “Yeah, muscle porn, but wait till I go home.”
    “Fair enough, but you know what else I could go for first, dude?”
    “You’re right.”
    “It will cheer you up. The perfect thing for when you’re down and out.”
    “Let’s do it.”
    So he put on The Big Lebowski.
    Everyone loves the Dude of course, and his renown has only grown over the years, but for those of us who have drifted, effortlessly, to the bottom of the shark pool in Los Angeles, The Big L touches an especially deep place in our drowned hearts. As soon as I saw the opening shots of Jeff Bridges at a Ralph’s supermarket, seemingly in a bathrobe, paying for half-and-half by check, I began to laugh. I knew that guy. Let’s face it, I was that guy, more or less, though younger and less stoned and correspondingly far less at peace with myself. It is a comedy of course, a light film compared to the Coen bros darkies, like Fargo or their great masterpiece, Miller’s Crossing, but it is a sad movie too, sad in the way only comedy is sad, and brimming with the tender love we save for life’s losers, here where the evil always win and the worst never cease to be victorious.

PART II
    THE MAN WITHOUT QUALIFICATIONS

13
    I WAS WAITING OUTSIDE Ramona Doon’s bungalow when she emerged the next day. She was in a sundress, light blue with thin straps over her tan shoulders, and red strappy heels with bare legs. She had sunglasses on, and her dark hair swung across her back as she walked to her car, a creamy old Mercedes convertible with a yellow frosted roof folded back and chocolate leather seats. We were off.
    She led me westward through Hollywood and swung down to Sunset and the Strip. When you are not in any rush, when