Bespoke: A Collection of Short Stories For The Solitary Traveler

By Lee Davis

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

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483543123

Book preview

© 2020 Lee Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-48-354312-3

Table of Contents

Foreword

The Bedouin

The Funny Pages

Avery Cugatʼs Crossover

The Struggles of Central Park

Departures

Brooklyn, One Autumn Evening

The Pigeon on the Turnstile

IFP 1968

The Black Wolf

Citie dʼosbcurite

Foreword

December 24, 2013

Los Angeles

I am a screenwriter and director, the eldest son of a teacher and a nurse who cultivated a lover of the arts and music. Miles Davis, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack and Biggie I hold in high esteem. Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Kubrick,

Kieslowski, and Spike Lee are among my cinematic influences.  At the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 I met Kurosawa on the steps of The Eden Roc Hotel. I literally felt my knees shake as I bowed to him in respect. Those moments donʼt happen often. But they do happen.

I love cities. I was raised in New York City one of the greatest cities on the planet. I reside in the urban expanse of inter-connected freeways and insulated neighborhoods known as Los Angeles. I have made many trips to Paris and San Francisco, and have yet to visit Rome or London although I look forward to making it to those cities as well as to Cairo and Johannesburg. So much energy exists within great metropolitan centers, international points of destination and departure, where millions of people live in close quarters, side by side compressed into skyscrapers, brownstones and parks. Neighborhoods are connected by subterranean tunnels, river-spanning bridges, buses and trains traversing the terrain, linking willing travelers to distinct tastes, smells, sounds and sights – cinemas, cathedrals, museums, opera houses, concert halls, pubs, and restaurants. Millions of tiny vessels called human beings collide. Residual byproducts of those collisions are countless relationships, opinions, ideas and expanded imaginations. 

To my recollection a defining moment of one of those collisions for me was an early morning subway ride, upon which I accompanied my grandmother on her weekly shopping foray to Visit her uncle Macyʼs, as my Great Grandpa Papa would say, punctuated by his disapproving Humph. From The Bronx the journey downtown was an hour in length. The elevated subway made a slow descent into the ground, lurching to and fro. It would often stop in between stations, lingering in dark tunnels for excruciatingly interminable amounts of time, apparently due to trains ahead. Our subway car would lose power temporarily and go dark. The ventilation would shut off. Everything would become still and silent. We found ourselves sitting in the dark, staring into the eyes of strangers wearing blank emotionless faces. On the return trip we stopped at a newsstand and I bought a comic book, X-Men 111. That book changed my life by introducing me to a world of characters that fit neatly in New York, a travelling band of misfits, mutants feared by a world they had sworn to protect. There was something to that, I thought. Perhaps they were a metaphor for different people everywhere, people the world did not understand but sorely needed. On subsequent subway journeys I made certain to equip myself with several comic books. The X-Men were my favorite. I found the books essential to pass the time.

Over time subways became indispensible to me. I never learned how to drive and so even in Los Angeles I am a willing traveler on the metropolitan service. There is especially something romantic about train travel. The terrain rushes past the window in a blur, and day recedes into pitch-black night, and each stop welcomes a world of adventurers on board. I once took an Amtrak from Los Angeles to New York. The journey is long, but the scenery of the countryside is beautiful.

This is a collection of original short stories written for the traveler in us all. People I met on the journey inspired many of the characters in this collection. They are people who have touched me.

I dedicate this collection of stories to my parents Leon and Bernice, my brother Gene, and my grandparents Doris, Leona, Jack, my cousin Troy and her daughter Morgan, and my great grandfathers Papa Bryant and Harrison Davis. Without them I would simply not be here. It was a blessing to grow in their sphere of influence, to be connected to my past. My collection of specific genetic material, this walking chemistry set, became a unique individual, driven by a formula of ideals, for better or for worse, cultivated in an environment of creativity, inspiration, faith and love. The greatest of these is love.

Thanks also to my big brothers David Flowers and Kyle Talbert for always looking out for me.

Damon Dixon and I met in third grade at Hoffman School in the Riverdale section of The Bronx, and he has remained one of my closest friends till this day. Damon, thank you for designing the cover for this book, and for countless victories over you in head to head video game contests over the course of our lives.

My thanks to friend and Renaissance-Woman, two-time Academy Award nominee, Ruth Carter, celebrated for her talents as an elite costume designer. Ruth’s cover art for this book hints to the deft hand and keen eye of a truly gifted painter.

Thanks to Spike Lee, Branford Marsalis, and Nelson George not only for their friendship, but for the opportunities, inspiration and instruction they gifted to this emerging artist. Thanks to my friends Pooch Hall, Charles Murray, Abdul Abbott, Van Hayden, Jahmir and Lenji Blanchard, Michael Van Smith, Mecca Dickerson, Gingi Rochelle, David Kaplan, Tamika Lamison, Hans Elder and Freemoor, for your fellowship in this often unforgiving town. Fred Heinrich and Stepania Lipner co-founders of Inner City Filmmakers thank you for providing education and opportunities to young people and at the same time offering Hollywood the diversity it rarely gets to see but so desperately needs. Los Angeles is richer for your presence. Halcyone Hurst, thank you for your significant contributions to this work, and for our friendship." Now let’s get on with it.

Lee Davis

The Bedouin

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 midway 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. Heʼd stumbled across her as she left the stall in the menʼs room an hour ago. Theyʼd 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. Youʼre 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 townʼs 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 youʼre the girl Iʼve been looking for! Instead we get to do the Dougie in this rat-trap, hope I wasnʼt 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. Letʼs 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. Weʼll 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. Heʼd come to love the