Black Neon

by Tony O'Neill

  “Smooth!” Jeffrey stammered, “Listen man… Rachel… Rachel will have dough. If you just drive me up to the Frolic Room she’ll be in there. I’ll get you the bread, I swear man. Just tell this kid to get the knife outta my face. Please.”

  Smooth looked over to the kid, and nodded at him. The kid lowered the knife. He kept staring at Jeffrey with mad dog eyes. Smooth turned around, and stuck the car into drive. Then, almost as an afterthought he said, “I’ll tell you straight up, motherfucker. If that fucking ladyboy of yours don’t have the bread, I’m gonna kill you and it. You fuckin’ hear me, cuz?”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey croaked. “I hear you…”

  *

  It was half past two in the afternoon at the Frolic Room on Hollywood Boulevard. The barmaid, a tall thin Russian lady called Rita peered over her pearl-rimmed spectacles and asked Rachel, “You want another, honey?”

  “Sure. Gimmie a Canadian Club and ginger.”

  The place was deserted. The only other customer, a grey bearded fellow who’d drunk a few beers while intently watching General Hospital, had cleared out a half hour ago. Rachel was wearing white hot pants and a neon purple wig. She took her heels off, sat then on the stool next to her and she rubbed her aching feet.

  “Psst!”

  Rachel saw Jeffrey poking his head around the doorway. She waved him over, but he just stood there with a strange look on his face. “Uh, baby…” he stage-whispered, “Can you come out here for a second?”

  “Shit, my dogs are barkin’ Jeff. I been walking for the past half hour in these goddamn heels. Why dontcha come in here!”

  Just then, from behind Jeffrey, a young, skinny black kid shuffled into view. He was holding a glinting blade to Jeffrey’s neck.

  “Bitch,” he said in a slow, even voice, “You’d better do what your boyfriend says before I cut his fuckin’ head clean off.”

  With that the kid disappeared back behind Jeffrey again. Jeffrey looked at Rachel with pleading eyes. Rita appeared with the glass and slid it over. “Everything okay?”

  “Sure,” Rachel said, slipping her shoes back on. “I got some business to take care of. Be right back.”

  *

  A few minutes later Smooth’s Dodge charger pulled away with a squeal of brakes. Giving the car the finger as it tore away, Rachel screamed, “You better pray you don’t see me coming first, you fat motherfucka!”

  Jeffrey staggered over to the Frolic Room, dragging the gym bag full of books behind him. He collapsed onto the sidewalk next to the door. He clutched his stomach and groaned. Rachel clip-clopped over to him and folded her arms.

  “Four hundred fucking bucks that fat motherfucker stole from me! Four hundred fucking bucks for an 8-ball of coke!”

  “He said it was interest.”

  “Interest my ass! That motherfucker ain’t Wells Fargo, he ain’t got no right to be charging me no interest. More to the fuckin’ point, when did you get this motherfuckin’ coke from Smooth? Huh?”

  Jeffrey looked shame-faced.

  “Three weeks ago. When we had that fight, you know? Over at Joe’s place.”

  “Uh-huh. And?”

  “And I was pissed off, and I had no dough, and I called Smooth and got him to front me an 8-ball.”

  “Jeffrey. We made up the next fuckin’ day. How come you didn’t tell me you had coke?”

  “You know how it is when you start up shooting that fuckin’ stuff. It was gone in a few hours. I didn’t want you to be pissed off at me...”

  “So you wuz lying to me when Eddie was sayin’ that fat fuck was looking for you? Giving me bullshit about how you didn’t know what he wuz talkin’ about! Well I just sucked someone’s dick to pay off your fuckin’ shady coke, asshole, so now I’m doubly pissed.”

  “Fuck,” Jeffrey hissed, “that little fucker almost broke my ribs.”

  “You lookin’ for sympathy, Jeffrey? Way I’m feelin’ right now I might just finish the fuckin job off myself. How the fuck did it work out that I’m the fool suckin’ dick and shit to pay for our drugs? How the fuck did you end up being a kept man, you wanna explain that to me, you fuckin’ shit?”

  “Rach… I’m sorry.”

  “I’m a princess, Jeffrey!” Rachel yelled, wagging her finger in his face, “And don’t you ever fucking forget that, motherfucker. I’m a goddamned princess and you better start treating me like one. Because you turning into one of those freeloading type motherfuckers, and I ain’t down with being nobody’s sugar momma. I’m too fuckin’ young and pretty for that shit, Jeff! You better sort your fuckin shit out and start making some bread.”

  “I’m goin’ to see Doug now. I was just gonna meet up with you, grab a beer…”

  “Fuck grabbing a beer! We can’t even pay for the drink I got sittin’ on the bar right now. You’d better get your sorry ass over to that short-ass motherfucker and get your bread, because we’re gonna need it. And while you’re doin’ that, you better be ruminating on how the fuck you iz gonna start contributing to this fuckin’ relationship like a fucking man, instead of collecting the dough like you’re my motherfucking pimp or some shit.”

  “Rach,” Jeffrey said, getting gingerly to his feet, “That’s not fair. Don’t say that I treat you like a pimp, I love you…”

  “Nobody said you treated me like a pimp, Jeff.” Rachel said coldly, “At least if you treated me like a pimp I wouldn’t have to rescue your ass from no fat fuckin’ coke dealers and their snot-nosed nephews. At least if you was a pimp you’d have kicked both their asses instead of asking me to bail you out. And can it with the love shit! You only ever start in with that foolishness when you know you’re in the wrong. Now go get that money motherfucker.”

  Jeffrey looked up at Rachel with puppy dog eyes.

  “Git!” she spat.

  “Okay, okay. Jesus. What you gonna do while I’m gone?”

  “I’m gonna sit my ass down at this bar, take off these fuckin’ heels, and finish this fuckin drink that I can no longer afford. Okay with you?”

  Rachel crossed her arms, and watched as Jeffrey trudged east, heading toward Doug’s place. When he was out of sight she cursed under her breath and walked back into the dim cool of the Frolic Room. Rita was cleaning glasses with a rag, and peering at a copy of the LA Times spread out over the counter. Rachel sat down and went back to her drink. Rita looked over and smiled. “Everything okay, hun?”

  Rachel shook her head. “You don’t wanna know.”

  “Men trouble?”

  She took a long sip from her straw and smiled weakly at Rita.

  “Ain’t it always fuckin’ men trouble?” she said, “Men trouble, money trouble. It’s always one or the other, Rita…”

  EIGHT

  The “Happy Hour Group” Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the Hollywood Lutheran Church was taking a cigarette break. Randal made his way to the back of the room to fill a Styrofoam cup full of weak coffee. He stared at the distorted reflection that he saw in the silver urn: the bleached blond hair with dark roots, thinning on top, the face which seemed to be expanding around the jowls at an alarming rate, the once emaciated body which now sagged at the tits and the gut in an unpleasant way. He shivered. He cleared his nose, and more sweet-tasting goop from the Adderall he had crushed and snorted on his way over here dripped down the back of his throat. His guts fluttered in a pleasant way. He might look like a fat piece of shit but at least Randal could honestly say that he felt good for the first time in months. As soon as he had snorted the first of these miracle pills it was as if he had never been away. The pills welcomed him back, told him they missed him, reminded him of how good they used to be together. All of the enthusiasm and excitement that had drained out of him these past months suddenly came rushing back with the intensity of a spontaneous orgasm. Even the AA meeting he had just sat through seemed radically more interesting and helpful now tha
t his brain had been jolted out of its long hibernation. It was the sudden revelation of feeling alive again. A couple of months on these pills and Randal even anticipated that he might make it back to something approximating his old physique.

  “Are you gonna get a coffee, or just stand around staring at the fuckin’ urn?”

  Randal turned. He found himself face to face with Gibby Getnor. He and Gibby shared a passing familiarity with on the AA scene. Randal smiled apologetically, got himself together and filled his cup.

  “What’s happening, Gibby?” he asked, “Don’t usually see you at this meeting.”

  “I was down at the Viper Room meeting the other day. Didn’t see you around…”

  “Nah,” Randal said, “That scene is getting on my nerves. If I have to listen to that Robert Downey Jr. share for forty minutes about his bullshit one more fucking time, I’m gonna have a breakdown.”

  “He is a long winded bastard,” Gibby agreed.

  “Hard to believe a multi-fucking-millionaire could have so many problems. They need to start playing music over him, like they do with those rambling Oscar speeches.”

  Randal gulped his coffee, and Gibby pointed his thumb in the direction of the guest speaker, the long-haired ex-lead singer of the hugely successful 1970s soft rock act The Emotions.

  “What did you make of that guy?”

  “Pretty intense. I liked the story he told about trying to pawn his own gold records for dope money. That was kinda wild.”

  “Uh-huh. I’d have never had that guy pegged for a junkie back when The Emotions were still around. They always seemed so clean cut.”

  “It’s the quiet ones you gotta look out for, Gibby.”

  “I guess that’s true…”

  Gibby and Randal sipped their coffee. It was weak, but it was all most people in this place had anymore.

  “So, was there any particular reason?” Randal asked.

  “For what?”

  “That you were looking for me at the Viper Room? I don’t think I owe you money, do I?”

  “Actually… it’s just that… well, I have a business proposition for you. Turns out I’m gonna be working with an associate of yours. Kenny Azura. You know, I was kinda surprised to see you were working underneath anybody over at Chainsaw, to be honest. With you being Harvey Earnest’s brother…”

  Randal raised an eyebrow, and Gibby shrugged. “IMDB,” he said with a hint of apology in his voice.

  A month or so earlier Gibby and Randal had been talking idly over coffee, and Randal had mentioned – in a casual way – that he was working over at Chainsaw. Almost as soon as he’d opened his mouth he’d had the feeling that he might regret mentioning it.

  “So you’re gonna be working with Kenny, eh?” Randal said dryly, “Lucky you.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had quite a few conversations with Mr. Azura already. He’s quite a piece of work, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a piece of something, all right. Listen Gibby, before you gimmie the spiel I gotta be straight with you. I think you might be talkin’ to me under false pretenses. Just because you looked me up on fucking IMDB and you got some skewed impression of who I am, you gotta understand something. I got no interest in this industry. Zero. Just because I was born into it, it doesn’t mean that I give a shit about it. In fact I’d go as far as saying that I hate it, and I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to get away from it.”

  “So how come you work for Chainsaw Pictures?”

  Randal took a mouthful of coffee. “I got no choice. The last time I bottomed out, Harvey was threatening to cut me off altogether. Right now I’m at his mercy. Part of the deal for me even bein’ able to speak to the family and keep a roof over my head is that I work for Harvey for a year, stick to the programme, and all of that shit. It’s his way of keeping me outta trouble, I guess. So he stuck me over at fucking Chainsaw with Kenny. Believe me, this isn’t a career choice for me. Once my time is up I’m gone, baby.”

  “Okay Randal, I hear you. Still, I have something that I think might interest you. Will you at least hear me out?” Gibby looked around, lowered his voice and said, “You wanna split so we can go talk?”

  Randal shrugged. “Sure, why not? I think we saw the main attraction already.”

  “Great! I’m fucking ravenous. How about you?”

  “For the first time in about six months I can honestly say no, I’m not. But I do know a good Mexican place near here…”

  *

  “Play and party?”

  “No,” Gibby said through a mouthful of tortilla chips, “Party and play. You seriously never heard of it? I thought you were into all kinds of degenerate shit.”

  Randal and Gibby were huddled at a table in El Chavo, a dark cave-like Mexican place on Sunset. The ceiling was adorned with dayglo sombreros, and over by the bar was a glow-in-the-dark portrait of Dolly Parton. The place looked like a Mexican homosexual’s acid freak-out.

  “I guess I’m a little behind the times. So what is it?”

  “It’s an internet phenomenon. It’s, like, a gay subculture thing. A bunch of guys – speed freaks mostly – they meet up on message boards and chat sites… places like Manhunt, or Hot4Cox… and they arrange these orgies, right? A bunch of strangers get together so they can get high on crank and fuck. There’s all this coded language an’ shit, that’s where the ‘party and play’ thing came from. It’s real covert. Websites started cracking down on it. But it’s still out there…

  “Anyway, Jacques was, like, knee deep in that scene for six months. He said it was some of the craziest, darkest shit he’d ever seen. These guys… they would just get high and fuck for days on end. Just jacking up more and more speed and fucking like… like machines. Jacques used to call them Fuck Robots.”

  “Sounds pretty crazy.”

  Randal absently recalled how it felt to fuck on crystal meth. The superhuman focus, the weird sensation that your entire being – your soul itself – was about to explode out through your cock with nuclear propulsion. He missed sex feeling that intense. He sniffed, and reflexively reached for a chip before remembering that he wasn’t hungry.

  “You should have heard some of the stories Jacques told me. There was this one guy, he was a retired schoolteacher and his whole deal was that he liked to be wrapped up – mummified really – in Saran Wrap. It would take a couple of rolls to get him really snug. He’d have a straw sticking out of his mouth, y’know, to breathe through. The only other thing he’d have sticking out of this Saran cocoon was his dick.”

  “Figures.”

  “Uh-huh. Just before they wrapped him up they’d shoot him up with a huge fucking hit of crystal meth…”

  Randal took a gulp of his water.

  “…and they’d just lay him out in the middle of the room. There’s be a bunch of these guys all hanging out, fucking, shooting up, whatever – and this guy is tweaking his balls off in the middle of it all, with a raging hard on, and he can’t even move a muscle.”

  “They’d just leave him there?”

  “For hours, man. HOURS! Like once in a while one of the dudes would go over and do something with his pecker or whatever, but mostly this guy’s whole trip was just watching all this kinky shit go down, totally helpless.”

  “Takes all sorts, I guess.”

  “Uh-huh. And then there’d be parties called “conversion parties” for guys who wanted to get the virus. Like AIDS, you know? They call those guys “bug chasers”. They’d show up specifically so they could get fucked bareback by a bunch of HIV positive dudes. It’s a fetish thing, you know? They said they got the same kinda kick out of it that someone might get out of playing Russian Roulette, or whatever. I mean, it was this whole other fucking world, Randal. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a publisher with the balls to take on the pictures. We had a good run exhibiting them around Europe though. The cops raided
a gallery in Munich; Jacques spent a night in the cells.”

  “And these guys, they were cool with your pal… Jacques… photographing all of this stuff going on?”

  “Oh they were wary at first, believe me. It’s a pretty secretive scene. But you gotta understand, Jacques has a hell of a reputation as a filmmaker. He’s a pretty big deal. You really never saw Dead Flowers?”

  “Nah. I remember when everybody freaked out about it. I don’t really dig cinema, Gibby. I grew up surrounded by those people: actors, screenwriters, producers, the whole fuckin’ circus. The idea of actually paying money to sit through a movie… it’s just weird to me. You know, my favourite movie of all time is Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein. You ever seen it?”

  “Sure, they used to show it on Saturday morning TV all the time.”

  Randal nodded. “Yeah. You know that was the only other time that Bela Lugosi played Dracula in a movie? I mean he played plenty of vampires, obviously, but besides the original movie that was the only time he was actually cast as Dracula himself. Anyway, that’s what I call a movie, ya know? I like the classics. The new stuff doesn’t do it for me…”

  Randal took a gulp of his water and fixed Gibby with a serious look. “So anyway, your pal Jacques, he directs one hit movie and then spends the next fifteen years snapping pictures of guy-on-guy gangbangs. Is he a fruit?”

  Gibby laughed, “Nah. He’s just into bizarre shit, you know? The extreme.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The waitress arrived, bringing Gibby’s margarita and grande carnitas burrito along with Randal’s coffee. Randal watched the waitress go, and then said, “Margarita huh? So you’re one of those guys just who show up to network?”

  “Hell, I gotta eat,” Gibby said, with an apologetic shrug.

  Randal started pouring sugar into his coffee. “I hear ya,” he said.

  Gibby started laying into his burrito with gusto.