Love Lucky

by Van Quattro

  I meet guys named Iain, an Irish dude name of Liam, in his fifties that speaks in whispers except for when he doesn’t, Gus, a younger than me hang from the roof with one hand type, Niles, Bernie, and Wayne - all guys with a great sense of friendship and bloke-dom with each other. They’re very curious and open with me. None of them are really my type as far as being really out there; I find I’m the loosest canon in most situations. I demand more attention I guess, and that gets me doing some crazy shit. These guys are cool though, real knock around guys, pretty funny too.

  They invite me out for a drink after work. After a couple of thick brown beers I muster the courage to call Charles. He seems excited to hear from me, his voice drones with a sound similar to a boat rubbing up against a dock. I can hear ice cubes rattling around in the background. I want to tell him he sounds like the titanic but every once in a great while I keep things to myself.

  He asks me if this Saturday is good for the tequila party. I say yes and kiss the phone. I tell him I will bring all the stuff needed for the drinks and we bid so long.

  I am so fucking needed; if they decide not to invite me they won’t have any booze. Ha. I hope they don’t cancel. I’ll call Charles tomorrow and see if they want me to make guacamole. I can make good guac, people have said so, plus Charles and them probably wouldn’t know the difference between good or bad guac. Ha, I’m still going to make it the best I can. I am so ready to party with them. Maybe I can get them to switch off with the music, like I’ll give them two songs to my one. That’ll be so worth it. I am going to pick the songs most powerful to me so they can see how fucking deep I am. I’ll even sing along with passion.

  I am digging work cause I get to go to different places. Today I’m at a house in Fulham doing various painting chores. The whole ause time I’m here a little boy about six or seven follows my every move and asks a bunch of questions about America.

  “Do you have McDonalds in America?” I have my headphones on listening to the Clash so I can barely hear him. Every time I notice he’s stop talking I say, “Uh huh.” He’ll stare at me for a second then ask the next question.

  “What kind of toys do kids in America have?”

  “Uh huh.” I take my damn earphones off because he looks so very needy. The radio is playing a news station and it sounds very important and pausey. They’re saying something about the movie, Gandhi. An English guy directed it and they are proud in a serious way. I haven’t seen the film but I hear it’s important. One of my friends in the USA told me that Gandhi used to lead peaceful demonstrations then go home and hit his wife. I don’t think I believed him, but then again I didn’t not believe him either. Could happen, right?

  “What about football, children play that?”

  “Uh huh, sure they do.” I spend the next four hours chatting with this boy who looks like he could have been the time magazine cover child for working class English boys.

  “Mr. What does, ‘uh huh’ and ‘unh uh’ mean?” What the hell, the poor guy had no idea what I was talking about all these hours. I wondered why he just stared at me in-between questions. I thought he thought I was weird or something. I explain that it means, ‘sure’ and, ‘no,’ and he smiles like I’m his mommy. I smile like he’s a little bit of me that I like.

  Today’s Saturday and I work half a day and spend the afternoon shopping for booze, strutting around like a peacock. I’m almost daring people to ask why I so need the perfect ingredients when they keep offering me alternatives. Finding triple sec to make margaritas in London seems harder than getting an acting job in L.A., but I’m not giving up. I’ll persevere with the confidence of a wolf supplying his family. Success is imperative, a way of life. Some things I fucking care about. In the end I do conquer.

  Damn, I usually drink tequila straight, never with all this fancy stuff but this isn’t about me, it’s for them, my family. This feels like the first time I made scrambled eggs for my old girlfriend.

  I get to Charles’ place at ten to eight. Now I’ve only had two beers, I don’t want to have any tequila because I want them to see the bottle is new, otherwise I would definitely have had a few stiff belts. I consider this a milestone in my being responsible. I am learning a lot of stuff here in England. Charles brings me in like a head waiter or something, he’s the only one here.

  “Bring on the elixir from the desert.”

  “Huh?”

  “The tequila, dear boy.”

  “Oh yeah.” Before I start the mixing I make sure he sees the sealed bottle. I hold it up like an academy award. Now I go to town. This is easy as shit, I just pour it all in to a big punch bowl taking a guzzle whenever Charles looks away. I throw some sliced limes in the bowl and bow.

  “That’s it then?”

  “Yes”

  “How have you been, young man”?

  “Okay. I found a job doing some painting and stuff around town, so that’s good.” I look deeply in to his eyes searching for his non-approval of my laboring. I search for a sign that he’s concerned about my beautiful talents being wasted on the brazen cockneyed dust scattered working class.

  “Good for you. That is admirable. I hope it’s not too had on you.”

  “No, it’s kinda hard but not too bad. Sometimes I pretend I’m in a movie.”

  “Uh…good. Does that help?”

  “Yeah, I love movies.”

  “Oh yes, you would be excellent for movies, your sensitive ruggedness would be the stuff cameras were made for. Well, I am glad it helps. It must be difficult to work so hard.” I don’t know what to say now so the room gets fucking silent. He does silent a hell of a lot better than I do. I’m all squirmy looking at the punchbowl for help. Just when I’m about to dive in the tequila bowl, the doorbell rings. It’s this man in his thirties with a puffy round well-kept face. He enters with a big,

  “Hello, my darling.” He hugs Charles and kisses him on the mouth. What the… I’m wondering when the heck Ava is coming.

  “Van, this is my friend Brian.”

  This guy is dressed sort of artsy conservative, meaning pretty cool clothes but all tucked in with a belt and shit. He seems nice, jolly I guess. His voice is deep and almost out booms Charles’. He seems much more decadent than Charles as well. Maybe more freaky when it comes to sexual stuff, I don’t know. I like him though; he laughs a lot and flashes his eyes at me. Finally Ava gets here. She walks in and we all stand. I cautiously smile being careful to look like Frank so she’ll remember I’m not gay. She looks stunning in all black.

  “Hello, darlings.” She flips her head and walks to the table.

  “So this is the marguerite bowl eh?” I blush and say yes. I remember I forgot the guacamole. Oh well, I don’t think we’ll be eating much tonight. She dips her cup in the liquid as if she’s at a bullfight with Hemmingway. I’m always happy when the bull gouges the shit out of the fighter. They should leave the damn bulls alone, but I won’t dare say that here. Ha. The rest of us practically run to the drink bowl, and we’re off to the races. The punch bowl is like a French foreign legion kiosk in the middle of the Sahara and we keep re-visiting it like we’re dying of thirst. I love it. This is my kind of drinking. Mainline it, get straight to the buzz then regulate if needed. If not, so what, fall down then get up and drink some more. I gave up most serious drugs so alcohol is safe. I have carte blanche with this stuff. If you could’ve seen me before you’d think I was the pope now.

  The music is the same as before and Ava is loving it. She sways with the melodies and hums along. I don’t have the courage to ask to change it. I recognize songs by Etta James, Nat king Cole and stuff, so I hook in to them the way I would with my music and it makes me feel a bit smarter about life, in a smoky café kinda way.

  The drinks are a big hit among the virgin Brits. Ava professes to like them but says she’s had them before. I am crowned the tequila kid, a name I accept like being sainted from these very important smiling, laughing, bloodshot-eyed virtuosos.

  “Charles tells a
story about how during the death scene in Julius Caesar he had to pee so bad that his knees knocking before the knife struck him was him trying not to explode all over the murderers, and not anticipation of death.” Brian cracks up and says it would have been the, ‘tides of March.’ That’s funny so I start cracking up too. Brian starts laughing even more. Man, this is a blast.

  Ava again plays everything close to the cuff. I’m wondering what she does with all her stored up history and if she’s just honoring those involved or if she’s like, not able to deal with the stories because of the result they produced. You know, like she can’t deal with who she is now.

  Charles brings up Howard Hughes while I’m sucking on my fifth drink. I quickly look up and the room gets real silent. Ava twitches her eyes and flashes them at all of us pretending to hesitate, but I can sense she wants to talk. I don’t know too much about Howard except that he was richer than all humans, he had ships and aquaplanes, he produced movies, had any woman he wanted, including Venus sitting close to me. He died with long fingernails and watched the movie, Ice Station Zebra thousands of times.

  What the heck was he looking for in life? The way I see it, sometimes, on the other side of being real fucked up is the need for love and artistry. I just don’t know where the door is and who’s in charge of admission.

  Ava throws her shoulders back, smiles a kinda campfire, it’s my turn to tell my story smile, and starts in,

  “One time he and I were traveling across some damn dusty state, taking a, ‘short drive’ as he put it, from Vegas to New York. I was fine with it. It was a gorgeous night, we had the top down, you know how you get out in the open and the goddamn universe just says, hello? Well baby that night it was hollering. I kept telling him to slow down just a little and he wouldn’t. In fact that son of a bitch went faster. He turned to me with a smile and said something. Couldn’t hear a thing because of the wind but I knew he was messing with me. I’ll bet Joan didn’t put up with this crap. Then all of a sudden, like in one of those old crappy movies a cop comes speeding out from behind one of those road signs. He had a goddamn rocket up his behind, but Howard just sped up. The chase went on for at least ten miles. Howard got this, take no prisoners look in his eyes, the stars were lit for a party and the cop’s lights were flaring behind us…honey it was beautiful. Howard finally slowed down and the cop was acting like John Wayne. He had no idea who he was ticketing. Howard told him if he gave him a ticket he would buy the goddamn town and fire the son of a bitch. The cop said, “Good luck with that,” tipped his hat and handed Howard the ticket. I laughed all the way through Arkansas. But I’ll tell you what, the next week he bought whatever the hell he needed to and fired that cop.”

  She gets quiet and acts like she never said a word and takes a large pull off her drink. She looks like she’s just confessed to killing a baby. I casually look away because I have no idea what to do. Charles breaks the ice as if he is schooled on how to deal with this kind of awkwardness.

  “Well my dear, that sounds like a hell of a deal.”

  “Oh yes,” Ava says giving her confession a finality.

  I don’t share much. I don’t’ think I have a story beyond looking for love, beyond wanting to wake up and be different, sometimes even dead, wearing the same clothes way too long, wanting to get as high as high can get, loving music, and sometimes dripping pee on my pants after taking a leak. These things are so achingly mine. I’m careful how I spread them. Most of the time I’ll share through the cracks left open by those who dare to value their experiences of nastiness.

  Brian starts asking me so many questions regarding my current situation.

  “My dear boy, we need to change your living conditions. We can’t have you living all the way up there with the barbarians, now can we? They will slit your throat for supporting our dear queen. I mean, I think she is awful but I am entitled to think that those people are at your place are ruffians and hate us wonderful civilized British better classmen.” Well hell, I have no fucking idea what the hell he is talking about. His eyes are all watery and his lips are all flappy and lazily overlap with foamy drips of conviction leaking through them, and his head gently bobbles as he speaks. He seems to be the kind of person who when he’s drunk shamelessly shows affection in the direction of his desires. The “I love you man,” kind of guy. I don’t care. I want to know more about changing where I live. The guys where I’m staying aren’t that bad at all, but this whole better classmen thing could be right up my alley. I’ve never been there. I think guys who dress well and sell things at fancy department stores are the fucking upper class.

  I like this Brian, he is very endearing; he comes over to me and takes my head in both his hands, and tells me everything is going to be all right and that he is in love with me.

  “No, my dear man, I love you. Look at you, how could I not? You are so damn perfect. Ava, honey, now tell me true, isn’t he just crumpets?”

  “Crumpets? Ha, more like the main course.”

  “Oh, yes the main course, that’s lovely. Meatloaf. Haaaaa, oh dear I made a funny. Charles, what say you regarding this tequila god?”

  “Yes Brian he is something, but he’s not interested in our type.”

  “Oh, not yet my dear boy, not yet. You will come around and I want you to promise me in front of these worldly friends that if you come over to our side I will be the first! Your first real lover. Will you do that for me baby? And it will be so easy because I want you to come live with me. We will have a beautiful flat right on the Chelsea Embankment. Our neighbor is Mick Jagger. I’ve only seen him a couple of times, I don’t think he’s very good looking, certainly not like you my pineapple. So what do you say?” he combs my head with his palm and I back away a tad.

  “Uh…If I start to like guys you can be the first.” I feel way confident about saying this because I am not gay. I’ve had many offers and gay friends but nothing has ever happened. Well, maybe… not sure. There was this one time in West Hollywood where I think I made out with a girl who might have been a guy. Whatever she or he was, the experience was unbelievable and beautiful beyond description. Its name was Genevieve, she had blond hair and I know for a fact I gently and tenderly felt its breasts. I was going to meet her at her apartment when the club closed. I was smitten, bitten and full of desire but I got busted for being fucked up while driving to her. All I could think about in jail was her. When they released me in the morning I found my car and went to her address. It was eleven o’clock when I was asked in to the apartment at the address she gave me. Five or six very exotic people were hanging out, all with the same kind of alluring presence as Genevieve. I thought I was in an angel orgy or something. It all seemed softly alluring. They had a sexuality about them that said, ‘in due time there will be all you could ever imagine, so just be.’ But some of them could have been guys. I don’t know. I was still high as a kite and under her spell. Nobody would tell me where she was; it was like they didn’t even know her by that name. They were nice enough but I was feeling like I was in a Twilight Zone episode. That’s the closest I have ever come to being something else, I think. I left without finding her but damn I was ready to try life on another planet.

  The night drains down like the punch bowl. Brian gives me his phone number and asks me to get in touch with him in a week or so, he needs some time to get the flat ready for me. Charles bids me his fond farewell, detached yet loving, and Ava goes cheek to cheek with me, I definitely hold on till the last second. I like hugging her, every bit of her. Her smell, the shapes made from her body, her clothes shaped by her body, her neck, freckles and her being. I hold every bit of her. Brian separates us and tries to plant a big lubricating kiss on my lips but I turn my head quickly so it hits my cheek. He starts to laugh.

  “Oh dear boy, you are quick.”

  It’s late but I have so much going on in my head, there is no way I will sleep. I walk with a peaceful feeling using my protected waywardness as my compass. The streets are vacant and the lights in th
e distance from either end of the street assure me I’m going in the right direction because both are damn fine. I wander like a goddamn beautiful song singing about a soul that has no limits. Freedom is so rare especially when you’re not blowing your head off with some momentary drug induced, faked emotional ejaculation. I mean I’m pretty drunk tonight but somehow I am on the other side of it, the fakir end. “Ch, ch, ch, changes.”

  A girl, who’s probably a woman for sure, but I am such a boy man, I think I think women are girls, in a pretty dress turns up my street a few feet in front of me. I’m keeping a happy pace behind her for no other reason than to be in the wake of that kind of garment, on this kind of person. It has me in a wisp, dreaming of a picnic basket and laying my head in a lap somewhere where the sun is softly peeking through the branches and buttons are gently being undone. This still after midnight silent street in this land of magical spells, is making me a person I want to be. I am usually sure I’ll never be an up with people kind of guy because I think people pretty much stink, but from time to time, more so since I have been here in this, ‘feed the birds tuppence a bag’ land, I meet spirits that are of my kind. And that kind sheds me of before; they don’t give me phony hope, just a joy in being around now. I’ll take that because that’s all I ever wanted. Los Angeles has too much of my grey matter on the streets, in every alley and in every drop of rain that hit the dirt. Grey brain spread thin.

  “Hi,” I say, so simple. She stops.

  “Hello.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Oh, just home.” Of course her accent is as charming as the streetlamps and the ghosts floating around them. She is simply a woman, an open woman at least my age but for sure older, if you know what I mean. She’s attractive and already feels like a friend. We walk together.

  “Where you off to?”

  “I don’t know. Ha.”

  “Where you coming from?”

  “Oh just some friends…do you wanna know who? I mean do you know where the black line is?”