by David Louden
As a teenager she’d developed depression, pharmaceutical intervention was hit and miss, counselling seemed incredibly self important to her. Eventually her doctor would suggest exercise. She had been a dancer as a child, she had a lot of hobbies during her childhood. Mr. & Mrs. Galligan were not without a few dollars and as such afforded her plenty of activities. Dance helped. It kept the train from derailing, she was a fighter. She never took the easy path, not even for a hand out from her parents or her brother. I respected that, I was slightly in awe of her. She had a performance in two days; a fundraiser on Sunset which I took by her pause in conversation was my invitation to confirm my status as a RSVP acceptance, which I did.
A jug of virgin cocktails later and I was walking Billie back to her house on Beach Avenue. Taking her hand I softly plant a kiss on the back of it before thanking her for a great day and dressing like a hot Disney princess before leaving her wanting more, or at least hoping so.
Back at Lost Angeles the party was in full swing as Victoria and Cristelle have taken to the stage to pole dance for the twenty strong bar patrons…whether they wanted it or not. In the middle of Victoria’s slow backwards slide down to the ground my phone rings signalling her drunken crash, not the first of the night I’m reliably informed. Not recognising the number I’m about to let it go to voicemail when something in me forces the accept button under my thumb. In floods of tears, barely recognisable as human, on the other end of the line is Elsa. Herb was dead.
10
THE MOURNERS FOR Gary Carlisle were few in number. The California sunshine made a mockery of the sombre mood. The minimalist black mass stood graveside as a priest spoke of a warmth and love that had long since left Herb’s side. Elsa stood linked to my arm sobbing. Her black dress and jacket masking the collection of artwork that dressed her body while a black veil guarded her vision from the sight of a thirty year friendship come to an end. I had bought a suit the evening before. I was due to attend Billie’s fundraiser that evening, I was never overly comfortable in adult clothing but was destined to spend most of today in this double breasted armour.
As the final rose is tossed into Herb’s eternal bed Elsa leans in and asks me to take her home. I had never seen her this upset or go this long without calling me ‘Sugar’. She had always been the very embodiment of happiness but now she looked broken, I understood. A part of me wanted to tell her I knew, I knew what she was going through, how she was feeling but I decided not to. Sometimes words fail us all. Taking her by the arm I guided her into the passenger seat of her dark blue Lincoln before taking the keys and praying to God that this good deed goes undetected by the LAPD. On the way back to Fairfax I observe all speed limits and stop signs and on two occasions refuse to make eye contact with Los Angeles’ finest when they pull up alongside me.
Taking Elsa inside her home I notice the photograph of a young man in what looks like a 1980’s tracksuit and one of a college graduation of someone with so many similar features that it could only be her daughter. I wondered for a moment why she’s never talked about them. Upstairs I subtly look the other way as she undresses catching sight of a black bra as it flies past my head. Tucked up in bed Elsa assumes the foetal position as I hand her a glass of water and a sleeping pill. She gulps it down.
“Thank you for being so kind.” She whispered.
“You get some sleep, I’ll be by to check on you tomorrow.” I replied, kissing her on the forehead.
I took a seat in an armchair in the corner of the room until the whimpering stopped. Once convinced she’s asleep I leave the darkened room and softly tip toe down the stairs and out of the house. Arriving on Sunset Boulevard I enter the small dance theatre on the six thousand block, my ticket is sitting at the Box Office.
“Courtesy of Miss Galligan.” Explained the cashier.
Adding the ticket value to my donation I empty a hand of crisp Presidents into the collection bin and step inside the Studio. The theatre is deceptively large as the back of the building opens up on to an extension they had built five years back, seemingly forgoing a parking space in favour of art. Purchasing a programme on my way to my seat I thumb searchingly until I find Billie’s bio. The three seats to my left remain empty in the crowded studio as the house lights come down. The programme features large portions of Latin American dance with Billie’s Argentine Tango bringing home the standing ovation. I had never seen anyone move as skilfully, as gracefully as that before. To imagine that this was the same woman who days previously had mistakenly been flashed a glimpse of my family planning pack was almost surreal.
The speed and precision of her footwork left the majority of the audience speechless on several occasions. She had clearly underplayed her hand in conversation with me that afternoon in Danny’s. There was a danger of her company going under but that would certainly only propel her and her fishnet coated gaucho kicks on to bigger and better things. I watch in awe as she seemingly made choreographed love on stage, not just to her dance partner but seemingly to every red blooded male in the audience. “How many of these guys would have difficulty emerging from their seats?” I pondered. Billie’s performance brought with it cries for an encore and a line of prospective well wishers when she appeared in the post show reception. Eager to absorb her glow I take a position across the room from her which allows for an unobstructed view. After several minutes I get the feeling that I’m not alone, a feeling that’s confirmed with a voice.
“So what did I miss?” Queried Don.
“Oh just your lil sis being an absolute goddess Don Johnson.”
“You sound different…should I worry?”
“It was kinda amazing.” I stated attempting to wind myself in.
“Yeah that’s Billie. Look man I’ve got a spot of work if you’re looking it, nothing overly exciting but you know…”
“I do indeed Don Johnson.” I say, unable to take my eyes off his sister’s face. I hadn’t noticed how her eyes tilted slightly up towards the corners, how her cheeks were smooth and full or how she’d try not to catch her reflection because she hated her nose.
“Give me a call when you’re done eye banging my little sister.”
Don makes his way across the room and to the head of the crowd before planting a kiss on Billie’s cheek which is, I suspect, as much for my benefit as it is for anyone else’s. Finally Billie catches my eye. She gives me a look that tells me to hang on, I smile in return. Even in a group as rich and dressy as this she’s radiating. Pulling up a seat at the bar I order a drink, which becomes three and then another two before I catch a glimpse of the dark haired temptress of Buenos Aires pulling up a stool beside me.
“You came!” Billie expelled excitedly.
“I’ve seen many things in my time but skills like that I ain’t ever glimpsed before.” I toast “Congratulations! You were fucking exquisite.”
“Shush.”
“Will not!”
“Ok then tell me again how awesome I am.” Laughed Billie.
“You moved like a dirt lord, you are truly, truly Amazing.”
Billie leans in as I hold my drink aloft and kisses me on the cheek; my tumbler almost slips from my hand. I place it on the bar and I’m about to turn and go in close for a little of what the kids call ‘sucking face’ when the shadow of a cock blocker is cast over us.
“Something I need to worry about?” Said a tall grey suited man with a mousey brown side parting.
“Hey baby!” Said Billie with a girlie excitement I’ve yet to see in her. “When’d you get here?”
“Was here all along babe.” He lies smoothly.
“Oh. I didn’t see you in the audience.”
“I was a little late, snuck into the seat you left for me.”
“Oh…ok.” She said acceptingly.
The introductions are done at the cost of the tip of my tongue as I fight against the urge to out him as a bullshit artist. I don’t. Even if I was a believer in the old snitch for snatch it wouldn’t have done any good. Standi
ng before me was a smart, beautiful, intelligent and strongly independent woman who at the appearance of this GQ cover boy became the fourteen year old smitten kitten that lives inside all of us at one time or another. Granted I had probably drowned mine in blended whiskeys many years ago but I understood where it lived.
GQ’s name was Benoit – a French/Canadian architect who, judging by the cut of his suit and the Michael Kors diamond encrusted watch that had materialised from his pocket, was doing alright for himself. Don’s arrival with a six hundred dollar bottle of champagne is the end of the line for my thin and shallow pockets. Making my excuses I shake Don Johnson and Benoit’s hands before giving Billie a kiss all the while stealing a goose pinch before throwing my suit jacket back on and stepping out into the raining darkness of Sunset.
The following day brought about the first full day of rain I had seen since I left Belfast. The beach front was empty like an old western ghost town. Putting on the one all weather jacket I had remembered to pack I hopped aboard the bus that would take me to West Hollywood. Stepping off at Melrose I walked the four blocks to Elsa’s house which looked different that day. Standing on the edge of her rose garden it took a couple of minutes being beaten by the weather to figure out what was up with the place. In the rainy overcast and cold Los Angeles street it was the only residence wide open. Every window on every level was wide awake, every curtain or blind pulled back, the interior exposed to any and all passers-by. My aunt Beth had the same reaction when Uncle Jim dropped dead. Jim kept a disorderly house, he hoarded just about everything he could get his hands on. Entire floors of a four storey house filled with books, engines, double glazed windows, even two Sinclair C5’s. The day after his funeral I was on the bus heading to my usual coffee morning with Marcy and Cherrie, the bus past his house on the Cliftonville Road revealing all sixteen front facing windows open and half of his life’s work by the side of the building.
Knocking on the cathedral windowed front door results in it swinging open inviting my free will to enter if I so desire. In the background I hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner competing with an LA classic rock radio station for superiority. Stepping inside Elsa’s house I walk to the living room door before knocking again, this time I’m heard. As the vacuum calms down Elsa steps out from behind the door. Her hair is tied back and hidden under a bandana, she wears jeans and an old CCR top that’s had the round neck slashed into a plunging v. Her eyes are puffy but she’s tricked the rest of her face into towing the party line that everything is ok – life, after all, goes on.
“Oh hey Sugar.” She said in an effort to return to form.
“Hey yourself, you alright?”
“Surely am” She offered “…thanks for yesterday. I weren’t a whole lot of good.”
She sits me down at the kitchen table and begins making lunch for the two of us. My aunt Beth went through the same scenario years ago; so much so that when my work trousers parted ass cheeks from one another thanks to all the extra potato bread weight I was carrying I made sure to take detours past her house for the next year. Beth was different. Being a mother to six children who never strayed too far from the family home she had a support group, an infrastructure that would aide in her recovery. Elsa had none of that around her, she had nothing. Tucking into the homemade fry I get the sense that Elsa is looking for someone to take care of. We spend the next few hours drinking white rum and talking about the LA music scene in the 80’s, she had been a regular inhabitant of Whiskey A-Go-Go and the Roxy in her heyday and had the stories, trysts and emotional scarring to show it. For the first time I saw what truly made her beautiful; it wasn’t the physical upkeep that comes as standard for the female population of the City of Angels it was the fact that she had suffered and lost so much over her years but still had it in her to slap on the eyeliner and face the world head on with a “fuck you” attitude. I admired that, I had possessed something similar to it until recently. For a moment the pain in my chest rested, quietened enough so that I could feel it was still beating, still working. She tried to educate me in the importance of giving life the high hard one, clearly hinting at my conversation with Herb in The Snake Pit. It was important to her that she heard the words; that I promised not to do anything stupid, that I swore to God and that it was for her. The sunset would bring a darkness across Elsa, she would fixate on Herb, on his life and the life events he had confessed regret to in the small hours when the bar’s neon snake logo no longer hissed at the pedestrians. Pouring her another drink I handed her two sleeping pills and escorted her upstairs. Slipping off her CCR shirt she would sit on the edge of the bed. Placing her under the sheets I kiss her on the forehead and hold her hand until she falls asleep all the while having to suffer through her telling me the reason why women seem to like me “isn’t because you’re good lookin’, I mean you’re handsome enough but you’ve heart Sugar…and you listen with it…your big beautiful heart”. “I guess you can call that a compliment” I thought.
Emotional connections are exhausting. Returning back to my den of vice I bypass my room heading directly to the bar. I had planned on keeping a low profile after the great tequila blackout but the pain in my chest had returned. Elsa’s company had put me in a melancholy mood; it was a level of reflection I had been avoiding for some time now. Faced with dealing with it unequipped and unprepared or dealing with the embarrassment of being the degenerate Irish guy I choose the degenerate. I arrive inside the red brick hostel bar, clearly an extension to the original Spanish influenced building, to a resounding cheer from Carl, Frank and a group of unfamiliars at the bar. Approaching my room mate I’m handed a bottle of Sam Adams and a shot. Without asking I shoot it before levelling the beer bottle into my mouth and sinking it whole.
“That my boy!” Boasted Carl.
It would appear I’ve already had my first encounter with the group as no introductions are offered and they all seem to know me. Discovery comes soon that I had invited myself into the gang during my tequila binge, an assimilation that apparently was welcome. Aside from Carl, who I discover is ass crazy, I place Frank’s accent as somewhere in the North of England – it would turn out to be a Manchester tongue; I also figure out that Oscar is from South Africa, Hayden is an Australia bass guitarist doing session work and Bret is a Canadian snowboarder who has recently walked out of his life too – having left his fiancé and family behind in Ontario. Arno, the tattooed Norwegian barman, cranks up the speaker system and introduces the backpacked sunburnt masses of the hostel bar to Turbonegro before chatting to Carl in Norwegian; which makes me realise that I’ve fucked up in my understanding of his roots by an entire country. The suicide tequila is a bona fide bastard of a drink. The objective is, seemingly, to inflict as much pain on yourself as possible while drinking tequila and only using the regular tequila paraphernalia. The first step towards a Darwin award is to snort the salt lined out on your hand, once your nostrils are being punished with that you shoot the tequila before quickly squeezing the lemon into your unblinking eyeball. Once unable to breathe or see you take a tooth pick and ram it into your head so when you, inevitably, pass out your fellow revellers can count the amount you have done and decide whether you are XX or XY. You might wonder why someone would do such an incredibly idiotic thing over and over again but the next time you’ve past beyond the legal limit to operate machinery I guarantee you’ll suggest to at least one friend who’s dumb enough to agree joining you in this sensory cluster fuck.
Our group had increased in size over the eight rounds of suicide tequilas as the curious crowded round. An uncountable number of suicides later and Arno declares “tequila’s out! Fuck off now please!” As we all clutch our eyes or noses or heads Hayden pitches that we should all head out together, a mass cheer is met by Oscar’s whisper in my ear – incidentally the only part of our heads that weren’t defective.
“He’s got them Mason lamps on. We’d better watch out bro.”
What hadn’t been clear to me at the time of meeting Hayd
en was just how much of an unstable drunk he was. His paternal grandfather was aborigine meaning that the chemical relationship between alcohol and his genetics was at times as fun to be around as that of The Incredible Hulk stubbing his toe or pulling his zipper up on himself. I would later discover that my blackout was only partly related to the water drum of tequila I consumed, the other fifty percent of the cause being the three foot black plastic bin filled with beer bottles that Hayden hit me across the back of the head with a whole hour after a ten minute conversation about the BBC comedy Bottom.
“How much trouble can he be?” I ask. “I’m gonna go wash this shit off me and be downstairs in ten ok?”
“Sound bro.”
Squinting I make out the shape of the door and head for it, once in the corridor I have the extra space to trip over and bump into objects until my hearts content. Reaching my dorm room I open the door to find Billie sitting on my bed. She takes the sight of my drunken zombie Christ, head attire et al, in her stride, I’m not entirely convinced the smooth points I gained from my attendance on Sunset Boulevard are still in one piece.
“So what?! You don’t take my calls anymore?” The tone is a ball tightening familiar one.
“How’d you get in here?” I ask as I remove my top taking half the tooth picks with the blood stained rag.
“The door was open. Got talking to a guy, doesn’t like you much.”
“You’ll need to be more specific.” I point out as I remove my jeans.