When Jerry decided to move to Santa Fe with Nancy, it wasn’t something he took lightly. After all, he had been a fixture in Los Angeles for decades. He had been there so long that back when he first arrived, it was still being called “The Colony” (this was even before Palm Springs’ “The Movie Colony”). And it was that. An oasis established by escapees of the East Coast who wanted to create an artistic haven out West. Not just because Thomas Edison was a sue-happy asshole, but because it truly did seem like paradise. “The place to be.” “Wish you were here,” and all that.

Jerry had been among the many actors glamored by the possibility of this brand-new “colony.” Besides, New York was starting to bum him out with its incessant gray gloominess, and he was looking for any way out that he could find. Hollywood was it. He didn’t even need to think twice about it. What was there to consider? A dingy, overpriced apartment that spat out brown water for the first minute before anything even remotely clear came out? Whether he should keep worrying about if the family of mice hiding in the wall would be able to survive without his scraps? No. It was time to high-tail it out of there—and the opportunity had miraculously presented itself. Besides, what better year than 1922 to start over? World War I and the Spanish flu were starting to become but distant memories, and more and more people wanted simply to erase those events from their minds by knocking back glass after glass of illicit liquor (Prohibition made the act seem somehow even more delightful).

The point was that 1922 seemed, to Jerry, to have something auspicious about it (Fatty Arbuckle scandal be damned!). Like the stars were aligning to make him, well, a star. And it damn sure wasn’t ever going to happen if he kept slogging away at the theater circuit. Especially vaudeville, which was feeling increasingly stale to him. In fact, doing all those “bits”—cornball as they were—had started to make him want to retch every time he debased himself by performing one. Thus, absconding for the West took no thought at all. For Jerry, it was a no-brainer. As it had been for D. W. Griffith, the sumbitch who had started the trend of heading to a still germinal Hollywood in 1910. Three years later, after Griffith had become the pioneer of making movies in Hollywood (with In Old California), the independent filmmakers who had been targeted and strong-armed into obeying Edison’s strict enforcement of his patent on the Kinetoscope took a page from Griffith’s screenplay and headed West. Far from the clutches of Edison’s oppressive chokehold (complete with hired thugs to further exact Edison’s decrees of “ownership” when “necessary”) over the industry. One that he effectively killed on the East Coast, ergo giving birth to it on the West Coast.

This was something that Jerry would laugh about with the other East Coast escapees as the years went on. The lot of them finding it especially humorous during the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. As Jerry and his cohorts looked around at the crowd, they recognized almost each and every person from back East. None of whom would be in the audience at this very moment were it not for Edison’s greed and ego. But, as Jerry and his ilk would soon learn, just because you fled one geographical location for another didn’t mean that the same problems wouldn’t eventually arise at the new coordinates on the map. For Edison was made to look almost “angelic” compared to some of the studio heads that would come up during Hollywood’s Golden Age. And it was, to be sure, a Golden Age for Jerry too, as he became a matinee idol on par with Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino. Which meant that, over the years, Jerry had been able to have his pick of any woman he wanted (and, often times, didn’t want).

However, as he started to settle—as much as a man convinced he was forever young could—into his old age, Jerry was beginning to notice an ever-lessening selection of women willing to be at his disposal the way they once were. It didn’t even seem to matter to them that he was rich. Apparently, he was still too “gross” to deal with for most. Except the older ones, which, for Jerry, meant less desirable. That is, until he met Nancy. By the time he encountered her at the gym where he regularly worked out, Jerry’s wife, Artemis, was already long over his flagrant infidelity. The two had separated several months back and were merely waiting to go through the process of what was sure to be a nasty divorce—there was no way that Artemis wasn’t going to ask for a prettier penny than Jerry was willing to give. And that was part of what was stressing him out to the point where the only thing that could provide an adequate “release” (since splooging in a non-solo way hadn’t been on the menu lately) was working out like a madman at this elite Beverly Hills gym called, what else, Elite.

Although he had been going there almost every single day for the past few months, he had never encountered Nancy. Not because she hadn’t been working there the entire time, but because she was previously assigned to working as a “towel girl” near the sauna room. But since she was so well-liked by the gym’s patrons (yes, especially the men), management saw fit to give her a “promotion”—even if only in title and not pay grade. So it was that she found herself at the front desk of Elite, greeting an immediately enamored Jerry.

Although she was still much younger than him—fifty years old to his eighty-two—it was one of the more “respectable” age differences that he’d had in a while. And all of his friends (the ones that were still alive anyway) agreed. Best of all, Nancy had no idea who he was until he was the one to bring it up. That era of Hollywood was way over her head. She was much more interested in modern actors like Tom Cruise and Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen. The name “Jerry Dumont” meant absolutely nothing to her. Apart from that it was becoming the name of the man she was falling for.

Unfortunately, Jerry was falling for her too. And it was unfortunate because, unbeknownst to him, loving Nancy meant moving to New Mexico. L.A. was never her “long game,” let alone her end game. She had only ended up in “La La Land” as a fluke, having followed a boyfriend, Mike, who wanted to be a musician there and then giving him the best years of her youth before he decided to predictably cheat on her with a groupie (or ten). Nancy couldn’t really begrudge him for his “nature.” She had been the frog in this scenario of The Scorpion and the Frog. So yeah, she ought to have known better. But that didn’t make for much of a consolation. Nor did the fact that Mike had managed to leave her about twenty thousand dollars in debt along the way. All of which, he promised, he would pay back one day when he was finally a “big star.”

Alas, all he could manage was becoming a local celebrity, turning into a fixture at venues around Echo Park and Los Feliz (hence, the “groupie” options available). Again, Nancy ought to have known better. Instead, all she knew was working her debt off at menial jobs throughout the greater Los Angeles area. But when she took on the job at Elite, she was finally at a place where she could start to think about saving up to go back to New Mexico (instead of only throwing whatever money she made at the debt). Thus, the somewhat inopportune timing of finding love again. Particularly with a man who was so much older and “fixed” to this location.

At the same time, Jerry’s desire to take care of her wasn’t anything to balk at. The only issue (apart from a certain shriveling appendage of his) was that she would have to talk him into returning to Santa Fe. Maybe she could mention that Julia Roberts had lived in Taos for years, just a stone’s throw away. As a matter of fact, it could even be argued that New Mexico was the new Movie Colony. Take that, Palm Springs! Not that it would matter—Julia was of a Hollywood generation that Jerry had little awareness of. In truth, it had to be said that he appeared to have little awareness of much of anything. Which is why some of those close to him were skeptical of Nancy’s “intentions.” What did someone like her (young, by comparison) want with someone like him (old) if not to gain access to his presumed fortune? Not so presumed, of course—even after Artemis got her cut in the divorce.

Although, at first, Jerry proved resistant to Nancy’s insistence on leaving Los Angeles in favor of being one state and about a thousand miles over, it seemed as though, after only a few weeks from the time she mentioned it, he gave in rather easily. Almost as if he was too deflated in general to fight about it. Or maybe it had finally occurred to him that there was no real reason left to stay. That all of the reasons and the people that might have once compelled him to didn’t exist anymore. So why not? Why not, for once, oblige someone else instead of always trying to please himself? That was the flicker of a thought that crossed his mind before not much else did afterward. Save for the thought of being with Nancy. Of watching her in those tight workout pants on the treadmill and elliptical trainer that she bought for the at-home gym. She bought a lot of things for the Santa Fe house, needless to say (or rather, Jerry bought a lot of things, with Nancy at the helm of his credit card). Every room had to be equipped with the best furniture, the most state-of-the-art accoutrements…where necessary.

But most important of all to Nancy was the custom-built sauna that was outfitted inside the largest bathroom of the house. Saunas held a special place in Nancy’s heart—for she technically saw them as part of what led her to Jerry. Besides, she reasoned, having a sauna would be good for Jerry’s health. Maybe he could “sweat out” old age if he sat in there long enough.

As the years went on, and Nancy finished assembling the final branches of the nest, so to speak, she couldn’t help but notice Jerry’s increasing cognitive decline. Although she knew the risks involved in marrying a much older man, she had been blind to the idea that she would become more of a caretaker than a wife. That this wasn’t a partnership, so much as an “understanding.” While she would ensure the faded Hollywood star’s good health (as best as could be expected), he would allow her to use his funds for whatever she wanted. Which was, obviously, interior decorating.

It didn’t take long for Nancy to get lonely in a situation like that. Ergo, her use of Jerry’s credit card to buy three very expensive, well-pedigreed dogs, each one a different breed: a Tibetan mastiff, a French bulldog and a Dogo Argentino. It was an eclectic mix by design, but, ultimately, they were all united by their expensiveness. Larry, Moe and Curly (Nancy was trying her best to pay homage to a period of pop culture that resonated with Jerry) were worth every penny to Nancy, who felt instantly less isolated and alone with them as her constant companions. Oh sure, Jerry was still “around,” but he was pretty much a vegetable. And it was getting increasingly difficult for her to keep justifying why she should live this way. Then, of course, she would catch herself relishing the Roman-shaped pool with an attached spa, or the ten-thousand-dollar espresso machine that had been flown in from Italy just for their kitchen. That’s when she would remember why.

On other days, though, it was easy to forget again. Like the day she encountered a rat in the pool. Not dead, but swimming toward her. Actually swimming. When she shrieked in horror, the rat must have gotten scared himself and pissed in response…just as Nancy swallowed an accidental mouthful of that very same patch of water. Tragically, Nancy was not aware of that little detail, and so she went on her way none the wiser of what was about to happen to her, de facto what was about to happen to Jerry.

So it was that, days later, when Nancy, always naturally averse to doctors (which is why she didn’t bother contacting one over something as “innocuous” as a fever), died in front of the sauna in her favorite bathroom, Jerry was condemned to the same fate soon after. Not altogether “there” anymore, he couldn’t even process the sight of Nancy’s dead body when he quite literally stumbled upon it the following morning, in search of something he couldn’t even vaguely recall. The “something,” of course, was Nancy.

Meanwhile, Moe, the French bulldog, had been crated in the living room just before Nancy dashed off for what she thought would be a quick sauna session. Being trapped in that cage for a week due to Jerry’s total lack of understanding of, well, much of anything, therefore, also led to another casualty. All while Moe’s “brothers,” Curly and Larry, got to run wild and free, spared the doomed fate inside.

When the maintenance worker showed up to check on their sauna, as requested a week before by Nancy, he was horrified to bear witness to that very fate from his perch outside the window, seeing the legs of Jerry sticking out from the front of the couch where he had collapsed an entire seven days earlier.

When the press ghouls descended upon the place to snap a picture of Jerry, Nancy and their dog being carted off for examination, everyone assumed the foulest of play to be afoot. That one of them killed the other, that the dog was somehow involved in a bizarre murder-suicide pact. But no, the reality was much more tragic than that. Much less of a Hollywood ending than this erstwhile Hollywood star deserved. Not to mention the “mere mortal” who had found herself attached to him—as much in death as in life.