A feather.
‘It’s an earring,’ says Rainbow.
I have to work hard not to show how totally disgusted I am as I take out the rhinestone in my ear and replace it with the feather. I look in the mirror. To my amazement, I actually like the way it looks. Kind of tribal. Even though I silently scoff when she presents it to me, I wear that feather for many years.
And whenever I do, I think of Rainbow.
She kisses me on both cheeks. She thanks me. I thank her. She doesn’t say we should get together again soon, or that we should stay in touch. I love that. I did what I came to do, we both got what we wanted, and that, as they say, is that.
Rainbow’s the only trick I ever had who didn’t use me as the trigger point for venting venom.
Motorcycling away from Rainbow, I’m high on sex and money, floating on my feather earring in the sweetness of the cool Laurel Canyon night.
Then this thought pops center stage on my brain:
‘Hey, this is a really cool way to make a living.’
And the instant that thought appears, the life starts to kill me.
11.
I LOVE YOU, MOMMY
And sex and sex and sex and sex … I’m shattered
—JAGGER & RICHARDS
THE BEGINNING of the end comes innocently enough. Just a normal job on a normal day in the life of a normal seventeen-year-old boy hooker.
Tooling through a trendy treed Pacific Palisades neighborhood chockablock with brown migrating workers mowing green lawns, pink children throwing red balls, and white women driving overpriced foreign automobiles, I have that wonderful sense of déjà ‘vu all over again as I go from the seedy pit of Hollywood to the clean hightone America of my youth.
It’s just before seven o’clock on Monday evening. This in itself is troubling. Who the hell orders a chicken at seven o’clock on Monday? It’s always midnights or matinees. So I’m a tad suspicious to begin with, but what the hell, I’m a trained professional, and there’s nothing in this luxurious Mediterranean four-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath extravaganza I can’t handle. Dish it out. Bring it on.
Whatever.
I ring the bell. Split a second and that’s how long it takes a postmodern June Cleaver to pull the door open too fast, say hello too hard, and lead me into her too-tastefully-decorated home.
She does look good for an old broad, except for all the cakey makeup. Brownish hair slicked back anorexic ballerina style, eyes drowning in pools of blue eye shadow, she’s working a creamy calf-length sleeveless dress, plain white flats, and pearls. God love her, she put the pearls on for her chicken.
The kitchen’s full of wallpaper choking on flowers. Linoleum rides the floor, Wedgwood watches from running boards, and a desert island sits and with a butcher-block cutting board sinking in its middle.
It’s like a movie set of a perfect American home, with a housewife played by an actress who looks right for the role but is just a little too stiff.
‘Did anyone see you come in?’ There’s a disturbing urgency in the lines fraying around the edges of her eyes and the veins popping on her neck.
Then she realizes how harsh she sounded and tries to pretend she’s all casual and carefree. ‘Not that it really matters, but you know how people talk.’
This bundle of too-tightly-tied wires tries to smile. But there’s no smile there. Then her pupils start darting back and forth like someone who’s about to flunk a lie-detector test.
‘And if anyone asks, maybe you could say you’re a high-school student who’s here to help me organize my miniatures. I collect miniatures. Would you like to see them?’
My Spider senses are tingling, but my pokerface is firmly in place. Maybe she’s just a little nervous. Family’s out of town, looking for a little fun. Maybe she’s never had sex with anyone besides her painintheassbastard husband. Maybe she just wants me to get nekked and tell her how hot she is.
Maybe.
This home movie’s in the backyard, and you can practically hear the green of the grass and smell the birdies chirruping. I’m six, and my mom stands about twenty feet in front of me holding a baseball. My bat is in the cocked-and-ready position, and I’m pure intention, staring that ball down. When Mom lobs in the ball, my eyes get big and hungry, like a lion spotting a sick wildebeest.
I attack the ball with a vicious compact swing, and when my bat whacks it square on the sweet G spot, that ball flies like a human cannonball out of frame.
I drop the bat and my little legs churn me hard to first, whip me around second, fly me by third, flushed and radiant. I slide.
I’m safe at home.
‘I mean, I’m sure people have better things to do than stare at my back door. But let’s say they were walking the dog, people like to walk their dogs, well, I suppose they have to, but the point is they could see you, and if they did, I just want us to be on the same page, you see what I mean?’
I follow my seven o’clock Monday trick to the Miniature Room, and as she finishes her monologue she opens a door, revealing a room exploding with teeny-tiny miniatures: little geldings with no little balls; tiny Chinese potentates and French diplomats; gnomes, sprites, and fairies; a very small Dorothy Gale from Kansas with her itty-bitty ruby slippers and her wee dog Toto; diminutive Bob’s Big Boy, the Michelin Man, and the Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man; minute Benjamin Franklin, Genghis Khan, and even a mini-Marilyn Monroe, trying to hold her skirt down while the wind threatens to expose her panties for all eternity.
My seven o’clock Monday trick tries to smile again. She comes a little closer this time but still hasn’t hit it.
‘Wow … this is really … incredible.’
I say incredible like it’s a good thing, whereas I mean incredible like it’s a very scary thing. Everything’s all lined up too perfectly, there’s too much of it, and it’s way too small. The whole thing makes me want to run, not walk, as fast as I can away from this woman.
But I don’t. I can’t.
‘Thank you very much, it’s taken a long time to collect, as you can imagine, and I’m …’
Her mouth is open, but nothing’s coming out of this pearly woman standing in front of her collection of three-inch animals, movie characters, and famous historical figures.
* * *
My father was a superb English footballer and cricketer, with an excellent googly ball and a real nose for goal. But my dad took up a whole new game he knew nothing about, just so he could play baseball with his American son.
The rhythm of playing catch is so soothing, the leathery smell, the hard of the ball, the red raised stitches, the pounding into the mitt, throwing to a perfect point, learning to make it dip, spin, and curve.
Baseball’s the only language my dad can speak with me, but he speaks it well.
The better I play, the more he seems to love me, so I practice, trying to be the lovable boy.
‘I love Marilyn … she was a real movie star,’ I say.
So we’re back to Marilyn.
My pearly trick stares at me, a plaster-of-paris mask of a normal person fixed on her face. I don’t know what to do. I gotta do something. Try to start the sex? I’m afraid if I touch her she’ll shatter into a million pieces. And where’s my stinking money? This is getting ridiculous. I’m gonna have to talk to Mr Hartley about this shit, cuz I need my money in plain sight when I walk in the door, no questions asked.
‘And she’s so … small …’ I say, trying desperately to fill in the Silence.
As soon as she hears the word ‘small,’ my pearly trick comes back to life, like some perfect robot replica of a human that gets activated by flipping a switch on the back of her head.
‘Yes, they’re so small, aren’t they? I love how small they all are. I’ll show you my favorite,’ she says.
I still don’t know her name, or what the hell she wants, and I still DO NOT HAVE MY MONEY UP FRONT, but at least she’s not acting like the walking dead anymore. She picks up a miniature with a rose complexio
n and dark hair, dressed very Civil War. Vaguely resembles Scarlett O’Hara.
‘It’s Scarlett O’Hara. Don’t you just love her?’ She stares rapturously at the lifeless Scarlett O’Hara doll like it’s a three-inch lover.
‘Yeah, I loved how she made that dress out of the curtains …’ Having noticed that the mini-Scarlett’s wearing the curtaindress, I feel this might help move us along.
‘Oh, gosh,’ she says, ‘I love that scene where Mammy sews the dress, and she grumbles the whole time. Oh, that Mammy, she’s such a character … and Scarlet puts on the dress, and of course she looks fabulous, and she goes to see Rhett in prison, and pretends like everything’s okay, but he sees right through her. Oh, that Rhett, he’s such a scalawag … and does he give her a tongue-lashing. See, the thing people don’t realize is that they were always madly in love with each other, but never at the same time …’
And with that, she clicks into some other time zone, where crazed assassins lurk in every church tower, puts the little Scarlett carefully back in its place between President Abraham Lincoln and General Robert E. Lee, and ushers me out posthaste.
Suddenly the forecast has gone from mostly sunny to severe storm warnings. Her skeletal structure visibly stiffens, skin tightening and lips constricting. For a second I think it’s me. I see her on the phone with Mr. Hartley, who cals Sunny, who chucks me back in the Dumpster.
I need my money.
I need my money.
I need my money.
So I become a boywonder baseball player. In all my team photos, with those rows of hopeful, glum, big-eared, goofy, shy, uncertain, beaming-with-confidence lads, I’m always on the bottom row, kneeling, smiling peacefully, like a little ballplaying boy Buddha.
I play on All-Star teams with all the best players. The All-Star pictures are different from the average, everyday team photos. The All-Stars are cocksure, aggressive, and cunning, while the regular teams are more about being fat or uncomfortable or not quite sure what you’re there for.
Being an All-Star Little Leaguer is excellent chicken training: the same performing adrenaline rush, the same illusion that attention equals love. Reminds me of Sunny’s team of chickens. Only those players end up arrested, addicted, or dead, instead of on the cover of a Wheaties box.
My pearly trick mutters underbreath as I pad down the hall after her. The only words I can make out are ‘ashamed,’ ‘irresponsible,’ and ‘neglect.’ I’m sure I’m not supposed to respond. In fact, I’m sure she’s not even aware she’s vocalizing at this almost intelligible level.
She stops, turns suddenly, and tried to smile again. Again she fails. She looks down, regroups, and looks toward me, but not at me.
‘My husband is not … with us …’
Euphemism for ‘dead,’ I’m assuming, although for all I know he could be away on a golf junket.
‘I thought you should know. I mean, I didn’t want you to think …’
Who the hell cares what I think? I’m the whore houseboy, remember? And she doesn’t want me to think what? That she’s immoral? Unfaithful? Or just out of her mind?
‘He took his own life. After our son died…’
‘Oh … I’m really … sorry.’ I put on a sad but understanding face.
‘We had a wonderful marriage. He was very handsome and attentive. My therapist said I should date again, that it would help me… get over the whole thing.’
I doubt this is the kind of date he had in mind.
‘Everyone says I should sell the house, but I don’t want to sell the house. I love this house … Would you sell the house?’
Now she’s asking the boy hooker for real-estate advice. ‘No, I think it’s a great house. I thought that when I came in – I thought, “This is a great house.”’
‘It is, isn’t it? That’s what I’m gonna tell people. I’ll just say, “It’s a great house …” My husband loved this house. He took his own life, did I tell you that?’
Yes, you did mention that.
‘You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been very … forgetful lately. The fact is, he really never got over Braddy’s passing. Braddy was our son … our only child. It was a terrible tragedy … his friend had been drinking … Braddy wasn’t drinking, the coroner confirmed that. He had no alcohol in his system, or very little alcohol. They ran head-on into a bus … just like that … alive one second, dead the next. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
Yes, it certainly does.
‘Yes, it certainly does,’ I say.
She looks at me like she’s coming out of a coma, and for the first time I see who she was before all this shit happened: a beautiful wifemommy living large with the handsome husband, the cute kid, and the great house. Like my mom. Only this one didn’t leave her life and make a new one; she had hers yanked out from under her, and she has no idea what to do about it.
‘You’ll have to excuse me … I, uh, haven’t been myself lately …’
I feel for her. Dead son. Husband offs himself. I want to take her in my arms, rock the sad right out of her, and tell her everything’s gonna be okay.
But I don’t. I can’t.
A sincere ‘I’m sorry’ is all I can manage.
What a couple of funked-up ducks we are, this ex-mom slash ex-wife and I, trying to get some love in the worst way.
‘Thanks,’ she says.
She tries to smile again and this time it actually works. And when the smile finally does arrive it’s very sweet, and drenched in sorrow, like cherries jubilee just about to be lit on fire.
I have a Little League game tonight. When I’m ten I love playing, love being an All-Star. But as much as I love baseball games, I love night games best of all, because I get to play under the lights. Makes me feel like I’m half a step from Yankee Stadium, playing with Yogi, Mick, and the Moose.
But the afternoon sky looks like an old bruise, and a bull-whip wind whips into the flesh of the earth. I keep sneaking peeks outside, and every time I do, my little heart sinks like a grape in warm Jell-O.
Still, I slip on my white sanitary socks, slide my little blue stirrups over them, then my gray flannel pantaloons with blue pipes up the side, my blue-sleeved undershirt, gray uniform top with blue PIRATES on the front, then pull on my blue cap with P in the middle, and yank on my black cleats.
I rub mink oil lovingly into my glove, leather scratch-and-sniffing all over me, the glove molding further into the shape of my hand.
At six o’clock my mom asks my dad if maybe he shouldn’t take me to the game, what with the storm and all.
He doesn’t answer her. He gets in the car, I get in with him, and he starts driving me to my game.
Boy!
Screams the room my pearly trick leads me into: pennants, trophies, posters of ballplayers, old caramel-colored baseball mitt with scuffed ball sitting in it, pictures of a brown-haired dimply boy growing up cute: grade school, Little League team, camp friends, high-school-tuxed, and posing with a pretty young polyester-plaid baby.
The room soothes me like a binkie.
But the longer I stand there, the more wigged I get. We definitely have something in the woodshed here. This isn’t a boy’s room anymore. It’s a museum of a boy’s room. This room is dead.
‘This is Braddy’s room. His real name was Bradley, but he could only say Braddy when he was a baby, and I guess it just stuck. He wanted to go to UCLA; that was his dream. And he was a very good athlete. Golf, tennis, baseball. Are you an athlete?’ she asks with great expectations.
Doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out the answer to that one.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘It was his friend Aaron … I never liked that boy; he was a very bad influence. I tried to tell Braddy, but he was stubborn, just like his dad. There was no alcohol found in Braddy. Or very little alcohol … very little alcohol …’
I want to get out of this dead boy’s room.
I want to get paid.
I want.
‘Would you …
do me a favor?’ She’s filled with hesitation.
I still don’t think she fully understands the nature of our transaction. That’s what I’m here for. She gives me money. I do her favors.
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘Uh … would you mind … uh … putting these on?’
Pearly mommy pulls a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts from the closet. I see Braddy behind her on the wall in a blown-up framed picture, dressed in the same Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts.
I’m betting it was his favorite outfit.
‘This was his favorite outfit. We used to kid him that it was his uniform. I washed it and washed it afterward to get all … you know … the stains out. It wasn’t easy, believe you me, but I’ve always said if you want something bad enough and you’re willing to work at it, you can accomplish anything. Don’t you think?’
‘Definitely …’ I say.
‘Would you mind?’ She hands me the clothes.
‘Sure, no problem, that’s cool …’
Calm on the outside, losing my shit on the inside.
‘“Cool”? Isn’t that sweet? That was Braddy’s favorite word. He had a wonderful vocabulary, but every other word out of his mouth was “cool.” I’m just gonna go freshen up while you change. Would you like some cookies and milk?’ she asks, like Oedipus’ mother in pearls.
‘Cookies and milk? Cool.’ I’m laying it on thick, but trying not to milk the cookies too hard.
She giggles like a crazy forty-year-old schoolgirl and leaves me alone in her dead son’s room.
A Civil War rages in my head. The North says put on the outfit, then get the money. The South says get the money, then put on the outfit. After several bloody skirmishes the South relents, and I put on the outfit. But if she doesn’t come back in with my money, that’s it, I don’t give a damn, I am going going gone.
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