Anti- Fan Fiction: James Woods at Dan Tana’s with Robert Blake and Tim Allen

        

 The air inside is hot, full of dust, and too many rotting mouths had ordered the lasagna. James Woods sits in his corner booth at Dan Tana’s in the main room with his eyes on the bar full of shouting men in suits. Some are West Hollywood slick fratties  and others more smelly and introspective in itchy tweed from the land of 70s character actor city. Squeezed in between these men taking up more space than needed with either their narcissistic sadness or their loud, cologned  bravado are some young women desperately trying to enjoy a martini at the historic restaurant, but instead are resigned to hear a bald someones life story and feeling many passing hands needlessly touch their bare backs as men hover and spill around them.

          Woods watches disgustedly, he watches everything disgustedly: babies being born, the sunrise, an elderly woman saying “Hello, Deary”. It all makes him sick. His belly protrudes forward as he holds back a sudden burp and he releases some air through his famously skeezy lips as though exhaling cigarette smoke. He is repulsively sexy in his stony confidence. He checks his watch and decides to complain about something. Dead eyed with his arm stretched out, he points at a maitre de who is pushing 90 and is only meant to be looked at by tourists as a part of the ambiance. The command of Woods pointing hypnotizes the ancient man and he walks over in submission thinking this could hopefully be death itself beckoning him home. 

            Woods gives him his iconic half smile, where one side of his mouth stays in place while the other curls up his cheek as though being lifted by a fish hook, his head tips forward and his round dark eyes look up at him like an alcoholic father who “doesn’t want to have to discipline.” “Hey sarge, the bread is a little chewy, mind popping it in the microwave or something. I could break my teeth on it. And heat the butter up. It’s fresh, its just not soft.” Woods gets bored with himself half way through his criticism and winks at a woman at the bar whose glance regrettably fell on him. The maitre de with no capacity left to hear, nods and takes the bread away, disappointed to still be breathing. 

Woods spots Tim Allen alone in a four person booth holding up a plate to his face, licking it feverishly. They lock eyes and give each other big, knowing smirks, like two people who both know where the body is.  Allen gleefully goes back to lapping up the rest of the marinara, grease all over his chin, his napkin bib coming into good use. “Funniest man in America” Woods thinks to himself before being distracted by some plastic cleavage walking by.

           Suddenly, the air in the restaurant cools as the door wafts open and a small shadowy figure enters with the silhouette of a miniature cowboy.  “Finally.” James Woods says as Robert Blake plops down across from him “Are we angry?” Blake says defiantly with his headed tilted back, his lids hanging low and heavy across his beetle eyes. “There is this thing called time, Robert. I’ve been waiting here an hour.” Blake laughs with a childish grin crossing his face, and somehow in the smooth red lighting of Tana's, he looks twenty years younger, though still disturbingly gaunt, and getting more pale by the minute like a man whose only sustenance is the unease he inspires. He’s wearing a black velvet cowboy hat that looks too big for him, making him along with his small stature appear like an elderly child. “Time!” Blake regales with impish laughter as though hearing an old joke he hasn’t heard out loud in years. Woods stews, his eye twitches and he chews on the inside of his mouth.  Blake’s laugher continues, even Tim Allen interrupts his slurping to peak at where this sinister chortling is coming from. 

              After a few minutes, Blake calms down and stares at Woods lovingly. “You were always funnier than me, Woods. Never give that up, you can fall back on it.” Blake was full of these little jabs, always insinuating that Woods acting career never amounted to anything. Rehearsing a hurtful father son dynamic was one of the only ways these men could show their love. “How’s the old lady?” Blake is referring to Woods’ twenty-two year old girlfriend. “Driving me nuts,” says Woods gazing off, then he leans in towards Robert. “In all the right ways.” He winks at Robert. “Pet a pussy cat on the head too much, and they go bald.” Blake warns. Woods blinks, confused. He had a love-hate relationship with Blakes morsels of wisdom. On one hand it’s why he enjoyed his company so much, on the other hand, Blake had a way of making him question everything, particularly Blake’s sanity.  Woods decides to change the subject. 

“Some shrimp cocktail I ordered us an hour ago. They might be too dead to eat.” He slides an ornate glass rimmed with withered shrimp in front of Blake. All the ice inside the glass is melted and the shrimp look like they know how pathetic their fate is. Blake knocks all the shrimp off the edge of the glass towards the center and gulps them down like he’s taking a shot of vodka before going bear hunting. 

“So, what do you make of this 'Covid 19'” Woods puts Covid 19 in air quotes and his head bobbles with cocky indifference. “It’ll go away.” Blake states between sips of the shrimp water. “Everything goes away, James.” Blake studies the menu. “Not quite Vitello's…” James didn’t want to get into a Dan Tana's versus Vitellos fight tonight. For one, Blake hadn’t been there in decades since he took his wife there before having her killed and more than that Blake was just biased because Dan Tana's never named a pasta after him. Woods lets it slide, he understands the irrelevancy Blake feels to the modern world and the pain of being pushed farther and father back inside Hollywoods skeleton closet. 

         Yet, although Woods sees Blake as an oracle, his secret virus fears remain. There is a social distancing trend hyped in the media and a possible impending lock down for Los Angeles; a city full of the most insecure egos on the planet. A city that needed to love, use, and discard people so regularly that the notion of a lockdown seemed to go against its code of conduct. Furthermore,  Woods cant stand being in his house with his girlfriend for more than three hours, two if there was no oral sex involved, but even worse is the idea of being alone.

His anxiety is spiking as Blake with half glasses on seemed completely engrossed in the menu, ignoring him just like his old man. Woods dips into the pocket of his blazer and dabs his pinkie into a tiny bag of coke, neatly putting it away and rubbing the gums of his front teeth expertly discreet. Blake raises his eye brows. “They’ve got a chicken named after Sidney Beckerman. Did you know him?” Woods shakes his head, and gestures to a waiter to bring more water with an agro snottiness only he could pull off. “He produced Kelly’s Heroes. Good guy, but I never liked him.” Blake starts singing “Que Sera Sera” by Doris Day under his breath, while perusing the menu like it’s a gun catalogue.

Woods patience runs out, he blows a  long grey hair out of his eyes and grabs the menu from Blake. He smacks a passing waiter on the back with the menu. “We’re  gonna split a plain cheese pizza with a side of spaghetti, and two Roy Rogers. And lots of grenadine for this one right here.” Blake smiles like a school boy brat, pleased.

            “So listen, have you been following it at all?” “Following what?” Blake says with a gentle, Warhol deadpan. “The virus horse shit… Robert, they’re saying that we all need to go into isolation. That it’s airborne.” Blake whips the red napkin into his lap. “Get a hold of yourself. Will you? Fear is airborne. Do you know how many motherfuckers, here, still believe in Lincoln?” Blakes shifts were dramatic. Sometimes, he felt like you were talking to a screwy relative of Yoda and other times he had the grit of a  dried up cowboy that had made love with Joe Pesci. 

“FUCK YOU! NO!” The volume of Tim Allen shouting into his Motorolla razor silenced the place for a good twenty-seconds.  “500 million dollars in CASH or you can take your Santa Clause 6 and…make Santa Clause piss!!” The manager started a clap to diffuse any tension. After a smattering of applause, the place went back to normal. “Can I get a big brownie?” Tim Allen screams towards the kitchen like a kid at his grandparents house.

         Their Roy Rogers are placed on the table. Woods is sweating as the coke is hitting, and he can feel his phone vibrate with texts from his often pilled out girlfriend. Texts like “Can you remind me where the refrigerator is?”

  Blake raises his glass, admiring the red flesh of the maraschino cherry and the slow dance of the grenadine syrup descending towards the bottom, surrendering to him like a wounded lover. “Cheers! May we remember to lock the doors and make the baby swallow the key.” They clink glasses. Blake does a long exaggerated gasp of refreshment, his tongue  wagging out of his mouth for a long time. 

            “Woods, what do you think it was that got in the way of your success?” Triggered and high, Woods replies, coke speed with spit collecting at the corners of his mouth.  “Well, I think it was a lot of things. Particularly, that I am a man who values his freedom of speech and I don’t like my rights trampled on by so called “progressives” and  you know I thought I was pretty good in Ray Donovan, but I really wasn’t given much of a script, but, ah, fuck.” He wipes his forehead and collects himself. “Blake. I have a serious question.” They stare at each other. Blake has a gravelly distance between his soul and his eyes, but something in Woods reaches him. Their cheese pizza and spaghetti ruptures the eye contact, but Woods can’t give up.

“Say there is a lock down, and this virus is serious. I can’t be alone with the kiddo for that long, you know what I mean? I need a friend. Someone I can pal around with. Someone that gets it. Man to man. Blake, do you think we can live together? Either at the Ranch in Burbank or my place, wherever you feel the most like you can be you.” Woods heart is racing, this is the most vulnerable he’s felt since since the scene in The Virgin Suicides after his daughters die. 

         Blake stares at him coldly and takes a bite of pizza. “This virus frightens you.” Woods frustratedly digs into the pizza, his heart; a little more vacant, and confused. “Don’t worry.” Blake reaches into his pocket and takes out a vile of clear liquid and places it next to the spaghetti. “I got a cure for that.” Woods examines it. “Is this-“ “A vaccine” Blake says satisfied. “One sip and everything goes away.” 

       “CHANGE OF PANTS? PLEASE, CAN I GET A CHANGE OF PANTS” Tim Allen roars with a lap full of chocolate brownie. His face and khaki pants are covered in chocolate.  But Woods stays transfixed on the vile. “Where the hell did you?…” “We had to make vaccines during breaks on Little Rascals. Bastards always put us to work any way they could. Learned a thing or two though and this one is special… everything goes away. “Have you used it?” Woods asks, his head cocked to the side, watching the liquid float like the clear lip gloss his girlfriend….Kelly? Katy? wears.  “Used it plenty of times. Plenty of times.” Says Blake with the resigned faith of a Southern preacher.

          “Well, even so, if there’s a lock down, can I bunk with you? Forgive me, you’re single now, right?” “I’m dating,  but nothing to write home about," the eighty-six year old answers. Woods looks up from the vile, expectantly. “Listen, kid. My space is sacred. It’s between me and God. I don’t know if you think I can get you a bit part in something or…” “No, I just would like your company that’s all.” Woods assures him. “A man who can’t sleep alone, sleeps while awake. Take the vaccine. You’ll be free.” Woods leans back. Blake  always cuts him open and leaves him smelling like the chicken broth that seemed to emanate from Blakes pores. But that’s often the medicine Woods needs. He uncorks the vile, holds it up dramatically,“Salud!”

            Allen is standing in his boxers by his booth with his arms crossed waiting for the waiters to bring him pants while Woods finishes the last drop. The blood red walls moist from poor insulation seem to pulse around Woods as Blake stares at him. “Hows it feel?” “Like…uh..like nothing. I mean… like it was water, a placebo?” Blake giggles shaking his head. 

           Pants-less Tim Allen walks over to their table. “Hey Robert! I haven’t seen you in ages!” They high five. “You know me, keepin’ busy back at home.” Allen turns to Woods, “How ya doing, bud?” and then turn backs to Blake. “You know you’d be perfect for the next Santa Clause movie. You haven’t been in any of them yet, right? “Not yet!” “Well, right on,Cowboy!” Allen and Blake high five again. Woods gets dizzy and starts blinking slowly trying to steady himself. Perhaps taking a vaccine manufactured by Robert Blake was not smart, he didn’t know for sure. He barely knew anything. “Woods, isn’t it time we scroll through our imdb pages?” Blake baits him with their tradition. Woods nods and types his name into his phone. “I love this game! Can I play?” Tim sits down. 

           Woods can’t focus his eyes very well, but he has typed his name into imdb four times and nothing is coming up. Tim Allen can’t help  himself “Ok, so this is a show I was on where I played like a handy man…” His mouth hangs open as he excitedly awaits  the men to guess what show. “Garfield.” answers Blake without sarcasm. “It’s not working….” Woods interrupts. “Whats with your friend?” Tim Allen asks annoyed. Blakes eyes don’t leave Woods who is squinting at his phone. “Ok, I’m a dad and a handyman…” “My credits are all gone.” James’s voice seems to morph an octave lower the walls seem to run into the leather booths and booths seem to melt  into the floors and drip into the basement where a drunk couple are fucking among cans of tomato sauce.

Woods psyche seeps further into the earths crust, mantle and then core where he watches his entire identity burned in the furnace of mother earths blazing kiln. Alone with himself. To Allen and Blake, his body sitting at the booth looks like a prosthetic suite empty of an actor inside. “The vaccine works.” Blake thinks to himself sipping his pink drink through a straw. Allen whips his head from Woods to Blake and in his classic broad Tim Allen way says “Uhh, am I missing something???”