Philip Marlowe Catches a Repertory Screening of “Heat” at the Egyptian

It’s hot as dogs’ breath but Marlowe still wears his dove-gray suit with bits of cigarette ash on the sleeve. I spy a bullet hole like a fat peppercorn in the right shoulder. At Dupars he orders runny eggs burnt sourdough bitter coffee pecan pie. Tells me this used to cost a quarter, I say yes Phil and pick up the bill. We’re late to the movie and have to sit in the back and I pretend not to notice as he makes a whole box of milk duds vanish in the dark. More than once he grabs my arm, whispers he’s surprised to find himself rooting for the villain. Afterwards, I drop him off at the Bellamar Arms, watch him disappear inside like the moon slipping behind a cloud. Historically, this is right when he’d get sapped by some thug named Lefty or Slugger or Tiny hiding behind the door. They’d throw him in their Plymouth Deluxe, drive up a pepper tree-lined Hollywood hill to meet some wealthy industrialist and then get lost inside a tumbler of expensive Scotch. 

Ben Starr currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a high school teacher, and three extremely powerful little girls ages 10, 8 and 5. A lawyer by day, Ben has studied poetry in college and as part of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. His work has been published in California Quarterly and is due to be published in May in the Eunoia Review.

A Song for Ben

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