artpie

Nothing like a day of cocktails, coughtails and loungin' in the sun... glad I get to work in the garden some this weekend... now i get to go to a dress rehearsal for a dance show that my friend Karen is in... she tells me it's kind of a long rough show, so I'm planning on margueritas at Casitas just down the street from the studio... before and after... so Karen and I (she's also who I rent my shack from) decided that we want to have a dance party at our place towards the end of May to kick off the summer... we just got bummed at not finding any place to dance & drinks and cabs being so eFFing expensive... so... booze and dancing at our place... to be followed by a hot tub/slumber party/sleepover/breakfast/laying in the sun the next day shindig...woo hoo!!

Ok... what shall Ileave you kidzz with today... how bout a little short story action... this is from about 6 years ago...
love to ya
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Id just dropped a buck and a quarter on raw fish and rice wine. I was in an apathetically hip sushi joint on the West Side with Chupie and his new girlfriend (a product of the Soviet collapse). She was intellegencia. A diplomats daughter. They worked together producing propaganda for the new millennium. Animated newspeak injected quietly in the wee hours just before the infomercials. He was in his typical camouflage. Slightly rumpled innocuous. The guy youd never be able to describe with any certainty. She wore a smart little black number. Top couple buttons undone, just so. No one would ever suspect. Straight up spy stuff. The city was full of spooks like them.
Wed nearly worn out our welcome with the fish mongers. The three Japanese / American waitresses (and one little blond import from the Valley) were all giving us the evil eye. Maybe it was my Cal-Trans orange Guayabera shirt, platform flip flops and cowboy hat. I believed in hiding in plain sight. At any rate, it was time to find some place else to burn off the raw protein and alcohol.
So I dropped the two lovenik subverts off at their secret underground lair; muttered something about seeing them again when the time was right and careened into the emptying streets. This night hadnt gone sour yet. Maybe I could keep it fresh for a bit longer. My destination was across town. Fortunately, the torch Id been trying to light for the past six hours was burnin just fine. The miles would fall away in no time.
The slippery salty taste of salmon roe and quail egg still clung to the back of my teeth when I turned the car onto that dark familiar street. A shadowed parking space under the trees. Good. I needed to freshen up a bit. A little sandalwood around the neck and ears. They liked that kinda special stuff. A few puffs, a quick cig (even this place had gone clean) and a stick of gum so as not to offend. Checked my pockets for the essentials; cash and a way to get more. Ready. Pull a fiver for the door and stroll through. Steady. Get a beer, take a piss, grab a seat. Go. Not certain what I had in mind, but I was damn sure gonna stare it in the face through a couple more beers. The next better part of an hour was just a walk to that particular park.
Then the familiar glow wrapped itself around me. Somehow, I was where I was. But somehow, I was just moving through it. Never injured. Never scarred by the realm of wanting that leaves so many stripped so bare. This was what I made myself believe. The never ending not touching paces my breathing. And then they reach out with speaking eyes and we are alone in a corner of the crowd. Her real name was always too beautiful for the room. This was, in some ways, the primary defense. A shined, solid skin protecting their one true name. Maybe it was just a completion of the character. Suspension of disbelief. It didnt really matter. When talking to them, I rarely used the names they wore. Too many years behind the scenes had rendered me incapable of keeping a straight face when addressing someone by their stage name. If nothing else, the ambiguity made me comfortable. And the ones who whispered their true names beneath the din of the music? These were secrets. Felt against my ear when no one else was listening.
Besides, they knew my name. Id been borrowing booze in this place since before it was this place. They had me pegged before the first beer hit the bar. Easy mark. Low maintenance. Low risk. Even on a bad night, I buy the drinks. On a good night, you make at least your minimum off me. A proper gentleman. A proper customer. Nice fuckin badge of honor.
Business was business. She kept me goin. I kept her stayin. Underneath the noise, between the work, we tried to hear each other. Through the flashing shadows, around our wrapped up bodies, we tried to see each other. Faint sounds. Shimmering glimpses. Finding their way through obscure rhythms.
Her friend was sitting near by. They chatted across me. Allowing me to mumble a few words and make a fool of my self. They laugh at me beautifully through the surrounding chaos. Eventually, for a moment, they reach across me. Playfully revealing each others grace. This costs me only my dignity.
The only certainty in this place? The clock will run out. The hooch will stop flowing. You dont have to go home, but you cant stay here. I get up to leave so that no one will have to ask me to go. And thats when it happens. The character begins to fall away.
This is my name.
This is my friend.
We need some help. She needs a ride.
No.
Not now. In the morning.
Okay. Okay!
Look, you gotta go.
I know. So what are we doin here?
Its gonna be stupid early.
Stupid works for me. Im just tryin to be something other than a customer.
Okay. Were gonna change. Meet us outside.
Good. Good.
Good Christ. Where was I taking my self?
A subtle stumble out the door. A few moments with the guy selling inscence on the corner out front. Sweet and musky sticks laid out on the top of 25? a piece adult news paper dispensers. Passing a few words with him always felt like good mojo.
I sat in my car until a spot opened up in the lot behind the bar. Pull in, switch the engine off and start to try and take the edge off this beer buzz.
Time split in half and then they flashed around the corner under a mercury vapor glow. The tree that passed for a bouncer at this little play pen kept pace behind them like some dark chaperone. When they stopped next to me he became the wall that protected our words. Their eyes. Their voices. Their scent. Leaning just far enough into my world.
Where am I going?
Maybe it would be easier
Yes. Easier.
Just follow us.
The wall gains legs and continues his escort. Before I can reach for the key he has returned. Alone. He folds himself in half to peer through my window.
You see the ladies get home safely now.
Of course.
I make a small offering to seal the deal. He has left me with his last duty. Then hes gone and they are there. In her car, waiting for me to pull out. I start to roll onto the street and theyre yelling for me to turn my lights on. I do. Buckle up and fall in behind at a safe distance. Mostly.
What should have been a five minute drive into one of the smaller chambers of the East Sides heart became major bypass surgery due to a street fair blocking off all major arteries. Eventually, we wind our way up into the hillside. We find places to leave our cars on their narrow street. A walk down to their porch along creaking, white washed steps that glow in the moon light. This porch faces back into the valley we had just driven out of. I watched the shimmer of house lights and street lights spreading itself before me. I caught myself imagining nothing more than darkness, the stars and the moon.
The door was open. A one room flat. Kitchen and bathroom up a couple of wide steps. I walk up to take a piss. No door on the bathroom. Later, this would somehow make sense. Back down the steps. Dancing alone in the center of the room. Soft, smoky female voice singing behind me. The girls drink wine and watch from the shadows.
And then Im laying on an old, over stuffed couch on the porch. My head is in her lap like an exhausted child. I remember her name. Holi.
Shell wake you in the morning to take her.
Where am I going?
To the West Side. A place that will help her.
Okay.
Then I am sleeping. Somewhere in my dreaming, Chupie and his spy girlfriend are transforming exotic dancers into animatronic sushi waitresses.
The sound of a womans voice and the feel of her fingers in my hair wakes me. Through lingering sleep I make out this womans form in clothes she had obviously just thrown on. They hung off her like a drunken friend. A fog as thick as my dreams clings to the walls of the valley behind her. Im pretty sure this fog was seeping out of my skull. A result of last nights booze evaporating off of my brain in the early morning light. In its place crept the memory of what I was supposed to do. I was going to drive Holis friend somewhere. Across town maybe. At this point I wasnt sure that I could walk, much less operate a motor vehicle. Holi is handing me a cup of tea. I light a cigarette and slide into my sandals. The air around me is cool and damp. It makes me feel like Im still dreaming. Then her friend is standing beside me. Waiting. If she has slept theres no sign of it on her face.
Are you ready? she asks.
As ready as Ill ever be.
Holi is walking back into the shadows of the apartment. Drive careful you guys. Ill see you when you get back. She says this over her shoulder before climbing back into the comfort of her sleep warmed bed.
Half way up the narrow wooden stairs to the street, I realize that I have no fucking idea where it is that Im supposed to be driving this girl. I think they may have told me last night but that little tid bit was most likely residing in brain cell drowning victim number 245.
Soum Great. I cant remember her name. Victim number 246. So, where are we going?
West side. Ill tell you how to get there when we get there.
Perfect. The best kind of directions for somebody with a hangover.
In the car. Headed west on a freeway that seems too empty for Southern California. This is both beautiful and creepy. There are a few other cars on the road but the drivers all are wearing this glazed over, staring straight ahead look on their faces. I imagine that the cars are being piloted by severed torsos that take advantage of cruise control. I begin to believe that something horrible I havent heard about yet has made most of the population of Los Angeles disappear and the survivors have become some sort of auto erotic zombies. An express bus passes me. Its empty except for the driver and a lone passenger seated by a window in the back. He leans against the window as if sleeping, his hair leaving an oily smudge on the glass. I notice that his eyes are open. He doesnt seem to be looking at anything. But his eyes are open. My mouth goes dry and my palms start sweating. Then I remember that its Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning in a city full of agnostics. I hate hangovers.
I grope around blindly behind me, certain Id thrown a bottle of water in the back seat last night. My hands close around a familiar shape and then Im pouring the tepid fluid down my throat, trying to wash away the dragon poop that had accumulated on the back of my teeth. I realize that shes talking to me. Has been for awhile.
Hmm? Whats that? I ask, water dribbling down my chin and onto my shirt.
Here. Get off here.
Were somewhere near Culver City. She directs me across a wide boulevard and onto a bleak little side street.
Pull over here.
I park across from a gray nothing of a concrete block building. No sign. Just a number above the door. Theres a single plate glass window with the blinds pulled down. I watch as a pale little punk rock waif with blue hair slips off the sidewalk and into the door. Then a very clean SUV pulls up driven by a young, suburban mother type with a strained yet resigned look on her face. A clean cut, tucked in boy gets out of the passenger side. He cant be more than seventeen. He has the slumped shoulders and downward gaze of a kid being sent to the principals office. But somehow the way he moves is quick and anxious. Like he cant wait for the paddling hes sure to get. He pushes through the door and I watch as his mother takes a gulp from a Starbucks coffee and rubs her eyes like shes been tired for months.
And then my own passenger is out of the car and in the street next to my open window.
Look, Ill only be about ten minutes. Im just gonna get my juice and after we can go get some breakfast or something. Ok?
Ok. Now I get it. Looking like she hasnt slept in three or four days but acting like she didnt need to. Sucking down cabernet and chocolates like some wino with a sweet tooth. This was her clinic. Macks Morning Methadone Shuttle. How can I help you?
Sure. No problem darlin. Ill be right here.
I sit in my car, chain smoking through three cigarettes and feeling the sun start to burn through the marine layer. I watch as a few more people come and go through the heaven / hell of that nondescript door. The tucked in suburban kid comes out and climbs back into the SUV with his mother. He seems somehow calmer. She seems somehow relieved. She reaches across and touches him on the back of his neck. So gentle. So compassionate. Then she pulls away from the curb and they drive back to their quiet neighborhood where things like this arent supposed to happen.
It occurs to me that Im parked in front of a legal drug dealing establishment when my own passenger swings out through the door. I notice that her stride is longer. More grounded. Shes just having a lovely Sunday morning stroll across the street to my car. For what ever its worth, Im happy for her. Shes where she needs to be. Then she is sliding into the seat next to me.
So. Whata you say we get a little breakfast? Im starving. I think. her lips falling into the easy grin of someone with very few worries in this world. She lights a cigarette and lets her head roll back on her shoulders as I start the car and pull into the street.
I drive us to the first coffee shop diner I can find on the boulevard. We get a booth inside, near a window, and I think I order chorizo and eggs and some orange juice. Coffee is set down on the table and she loads hers up with about nine packets of sugar. I dont really remember eating. I think I was too distracted by the families in their Sunday best and the cops eating Denver omelets that seemed to be sitting at every other table. I couldnt get past how unlike them I felt.
The check arrives and I pay. The boy always pays. Thats just how I was raised. Im not sure what she had for breakfast. Im not even sure she ate her breakfast, but she left with a to-go box full of pancakes and a couple slices of bacon for Holi. I wind my way back to the freeway and head east. The food in my stomach and a few more cars on the road seem to bury the last traces of apocalyptic heebie-jeebies my hangover was stirring up.
Soon enough were back on the east side of town and Im pulling into the same parking space that has gone unfilled since I left. I turn off the engine and my own exhaustion sweeps through me. We make our way back down to Holis place, our footsteps sounding hollow on the wooden stairs. She pushes through the door before me and I can see that Holi is still curled up in the comfort of her dreams. We wake her up long enough to take a few bites of cold pancakes and bacon and then climb under the covers with her because it feels like home. I spend the next hour or so half dreaming half sleeping in the spooned up warmth between these beautiful women. A dog barking outside pulls me from this peace and reminds me that my own dog is sitting at home, waiting for his walk. I slip carefully out from under the covers and into my sandals. A gentle kiss on each forehead and I walk towards the door. From behind me I hear a thank you and a goodbye mumbled into the pillows. I pull the door closed and as I hear the click of the latch catching, the day rushes in and wraps itself around my brain.
A half hour later Im walking my dog through Elysian Park. Its late Sunday morning and families are setting up picnic tables and volley ball nets. Piatas are being hung from tree branches for some childs birthday and the smoky tease of Carne Asada cooking reminds me that I probably didnt eat most of my breakfast. I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my arm. Its going to be a hot one. And I catch the last traces of the sweet perfume that Holi wears when shes working, lingering on my skin. It smells like girl. In that moment, I am closer to God than if I had spent the whole morning in church.