by David Louden
Randy and Max were brothers from Oklahoma who learnt of our excursions at the pancake breakfast the hostel would put on at 7AM and were eager to run with the drunken bulls. There was also a Brazilian film student called Orlando who was doomed to be little more than a nod of acknowledgement as neither of us could fully understand the others accent. Simon slotted in nicely to our Benetton commercial, our Union Colours of Drunken Assholes. For the past week he had been sticking it soundly to a Ukrainian girl named Mira. She had aspirations of becoming a swimsuit model and though pretty and of the right delicate bone structure to become successful in Los Angeles, her dead eyes were enough to scare the bejesus out of everyone, even Frank. “Don’t let her fuckin’ look at me” he would whisper in my ear each time Simon and Mira would join the party.
It was Friday night, the three hundredth and sixty fourth day of Simon’s freedom from the United States Army. The group had agreed to meet up and ship out no later than 8PM. I had spent the day with Billie; we walked along the residential canals of Venice before jumping on her bike and riding up the coast, stopping off at a Borders bookstore to take advantage of their liberal attitude towards coffee beans and their books. Sitting by the window I would paint her toe nails while she would tell me about her dreams. Dance, obviously, was central to Billie’s idea of the future. A year or two more in Los Angeles, maybe get something permanent in New York – or maybe even Europe. The way she talked of European travel made the place seem magical, like I was unfamiliar with these countries which fascinated her. It made me wonder what it must be like to be inside of her head, to experience such desire and promise.
She had earned it all, though only twenty six Billie had lived, she lived for dance, music, art but above all else love. Benoit was the latest plus one who valued their own interests above hers but he was far from the worst of them. In search of love she had fallen in with a particularly fist happy meth head in her senior year of college. He would drag her off to Seattle, away from her friends, family, from support and towards a second rate Nirvana wannabe-trendy rock band. It was fronted by said junkie and a Class-A addiction that would ultimately see her child made award of the state. I never got his name, I never wanted to ask. There was a hole in her sparkling eyes when she talked of “her little boy”. For two years Billie’s folks would send the cash to book herself a plane ticket home for Christmas. Both years would go by with an empty antique chair at the table and a young couple in Rain City strung out on crystal. The wake-up for Billie came when on Christmas Eve her beau was arrested for breaking and entering, Billie took the news in her stride – he was always one that would flirt outrageously with trouble. Anticipating the wire transfer from Ma and Pa Galligan Billie planned on springing her significant other and doing whatever with the rest. The money never came, though it was a blow to him as he would have to spend Jesus’ birthday in lock-up the knock out punch was Billie’s. Her parents had given up hope on her. She left Seattle the next morning and got clean at the Y before turning up to open arms.
For most people meth and Never Mind in the Emerald City would have been enough to dampen love’s flame but not her. The addiction and sporadic violence had scarred her, but those wounds healed up nicely, there wasn’t even an emotional limp. Her belief, not just, in love but in the pursuit was simply incredible and it left me more than a little giddy. She threw it off like “you’ve got to believe in something” but she’d spoke of dark days, it was a Billie I was unfamiliar with. In those days when everything seemed dystopic and bleeding and endless she needed a sharp instrument to cut away at the dark stone that surrounded her to let some light in. She was stronger than she had given herself credit, she was a graceful survivor. In the late afternoon she would drive me back to the hostel, I would invite her in but dinner with Benoit was fast approaching and she was confident that something was on the horizon, excitedly trundling off on her bike. A giddy Hell’s Angel, she disappeared into the haze of the sun. A few hours later, I stood on the bottom step leading to the hostel’s front door smoking a cigarette as one by one our expedition arrives.
Drinks in Danny’s leads us to the liquor store were we purchase what’s coined “walking beers” in an effort to combat against the possibility of sobering up at any point during the five minute walk it takes us to get from the Pacific ocean to the unnamed, non sign posted back alley bar that Simon points out. The walk takes us along Venice Boulevard and on to Garfield Avenue where a squad car rolls past us and undeniably sees the dozens of beverages being consumed in public. Whatever the reason, just come on shift, about to finish shift, or the sheer mass of our numbers, the peacekeepers of Los Angeles opted to turn the blindest of eyes towards us. We made it to the backdoor of a jet black building off one of Garfield’s adjoining alleys. The doorman, who struck an unbelievable resemblance in appearance and speech to Bernie Mac, informed us that our group was not “gender neutral” and…
“If all you guys want to get up in here you’re going need to find yourselves four more ladies.” said Bernie, laying it out for us like it was a challenge he had set.
Four of us peeled off to allow the others admission and we went about trying to convince four female pedestrian strangers to accompany us into a back alley so that a doorman could make it fair for everyone to try and hook up. If this wasn’t difficult enough it would, ideally, be done without getting shot or arrested. Our first two efforts saw Bret almost tasered and Frank confronted by a magically appearing boyfriend who was clearly in a ‘roid rage and about to kick off. The next attempt would come three cigarettes later when Oscar would spy two blondes leaving an apartment block across the street and I saw what looked like two tourists out and looking for somewhere to call their “first night in Los Angeles” – hang around a hostel long enough and you’ll come to know that look intuitively. As Oscar darts across the street, defying fate, traffic and survival instinct I gingerly approach the stylish but seemingly jet lagged brunettes.
“Good evening ladies, are we looking for a bar or club tonight?” I enquire. I can’t help but notice even my helpful tone is coming across a little weird.
“Ummm I guess.” Said the brunette with the curly hair tucked behind two small perfectly formed ears.
“This is going to sound like a terrible line and for that I am sorry but there’s a bar just around there,” I point toward the alley “see that guy who looks like Bernie Mac? We’d like to go in there but the problem is that they like to keep it one ying for every yang.”
“They like what?” Asked the second, dumbfounded by my beating around the bush.
“A hen for every cock.” Offered the curly one.
“Hen’s good, I was about to go with lady cave.” The words leave my mouth before I have the chance to veto any of them. “So our problem is that without four beautiful young ladies,” Oscar walks past with the two blondes from the apartment block and signals something with his hands to me.
“Two.” Said curly.
“Exactly. Without you ladies one of my friends and I are standing out in the desert air all night. Now I can tell you’re new to Hell.A so how would you like it if your presence at one of the cities seediest looking hotspots was repaid by drinks and moderately polite conversation until such…”
“Sure why not. I’m Natasha.” Said the curly one, offering her hand while glaring at her friend to agree.
“Kay,” the second brunette says reluctantly in such a way that I’m unsure as to whether that’s her name or an abbreviation of “okay”.
The three of us merge with the remainder of the group and head towards the club, Oscar has already paired off with one of the blondes who appears to only be able to remain alive by sucking on the white African’s face. We pass through the gender neutral checkpoint and into the darkly lit bar. The bar is narrow, maybe three bowling lanes wide but long. Kay’s resistance has, for the most part, melted away as she is seemingly enthralled by Frank’s conversation. He buys her a greeny-blue cocktail and within minutes is resting his left hand on he
r hip as he leans in to hear what she has to say. I realise that the instinctive pairing off has left me to entertain Natasha, a result that doesn’t displease me as she was the most receptive to my verbal diarrhoea and is an attractive, large breasted lady in a white wrap around dress with ocean blue eyes and plump lips. She’d ask me what I was doing in Los Angeles, a question I had become quite skilled at avoiding over the past few months. Skirting around specifics the focus of conversation is redirected to her and my thoughts nestle somewhere between her silky smooth and plentiful breasts and trying to place her accent. At times English at others she sounded more and more like Hayden. With each drink her dialect would slip closer and closer to the equator before planting itself firmly in the southern hemisphere in the middle of a story about how she had gone on holiday with her ex boyfriend but the pair had broken up after two days in Melbourne. Her free spirit and leanings toward trying new things left him uncomfortable with deviation from the laminated plan he brought with him from Sussex. Weekends of volcanic fighting ensued and right when Natasha was due to take him to meet her folks in New Zealand – I was close, she brought her flights forward to meet up with Kay who was backpacking around for a gap year that was now sitting deep inside its seventeenth month.
I buy her another drink and bed into the conversation which is getting extremely interesting. She hooked up with Kay and ended up in Fiji; Kay had been there the week before the Tsunami and had felt some sort of gratitude towards the country for releasing her when it did. It turns out Mr. Laminate wasn’t too keen on being left alone – as it obviously wasn’t part of his plan. His need for a safety net led him to bringing his flights forward and giving chase across three different countries until he caught up with Natasha in a three star hotel in Hawaii.
“I mean can you believe that?” She quizzed.
“So where’s he now?”
“Probably still in Hawaii,” she breaks for refreshment “he turned into a real asshole. I think I knew it for a while.”
“Probably didn’t want to see it.” I offered.
“That and it beat a vibrator.”
I laugh. Her openness was refreshing.
“There is that. A lady’s got needs…” I toasted “here’s to your service!”
“To my under carriage!”
“Well now he’s out of the picture, be sure to turn that thing off before going through customs. LAX has a zero tolerance towards sexual aides…underpants bombs and purple penetrators both no-nos.”
“Oh gawd…could you imagine. Yeah fortunately I don’t think it’ll make it to the airport. It’s been getting a lot of action.”
I laugh suddenly, resulting in a mouthful of Mexican beer snorted up my nose.
“You poor thing. Must be a choice, fine woman that you are.”
“Smooth Irish…very smooth. No it’s not for the lack of trying.”
“You hanging out in a lot of gay bars? Into guys with erectile dysfunction? Have a tuck away? I don’t get it.”
She laughs with her entire upper body, mouth widens, eyes narrow, shoulders bob, tits jiggle. Her joy is infectious.
“Nothin’ tucked away…you trying to get into my panties?”
“Depends on how I’m doing…give me a score…one to ten…real quick.”
“You’re sittin’ a solid eight.”
“Eight! On three drinks. Damn girl you must’ve been hanging out in all the wrong places.”
“So what about you?” Natasha asks, finishing her drinks and making an imaginary circle between us while making eye contact with the barman.
“Me? Not much to tell.”
“Come off it,” she protests “you know I’m originally from New Zealand, ditched my boyfriend on holiday, have a weakness for Robert Frost and haven’t got some in a while. Whereas I know what about you?”
“You know I’m Mac Daddying my ass off here…”
“Mamma told me never to go anywhere with a stranger…and you’re a stranger at the moment.”
“So what do you want to know?” I barter.
“You got this vibe…I want to know what your story is.” says Natasha as the barman hands her a fresh drink.
Since my arrival in Los Angeles I had become a skilled and accomplished liar. No matter what people say, how they ask and how good a connection you make with them absolutely nobody wants to hear the truth whenever they ask “so what’s your story”. Even when your truth isn’t “well I’m making a conscious effort to kill myself these days” most people are looking to hear the cliff notes and when you’re circling on the social conveyer belt, the sexual meat market, they want to hear the truth even less. When hormones are sparking, drinks are clinking and the night air has cooled the desert city all anyone ever wants is something that compliments their first impression of you. They want a mirror. They want to know their instincts are correct, that you are all that they project upon you. You know this without having to consider it; it’s just the way it is. I gave Natasha the cliff notes, the etchings of who I was, who I had tried so hard to remain over the past year, an impression of the man I failed at being. Drinking had become more of me than I was of late. I had been having the Venice Beach dream on a nightly basis now and every morning I awoke to that face; the face that carried such sorrow, such regret, such all encompassing pain. A major part of me liked Natasha, liked her enough that I wanted to warn her, to tell her to run away. I couldn’t understand how she didn’t see the scars before realising that perhaps they were what were attracting her.
The night continued with dancing and considerable laughter as Simon put the uncoordinated white folk to shame.
“Some stereotypes ring true, know what I’m sayin’?” Winked Simon.
“Brother’s got rhythm,” offered Bret “but a dick like a baby.”
Laughter rang out at Simon’s expense.
“Yeah it’s that size.” Simon holds his hands up guessing the average length of a newborn.
The harmonious atmosphere of joy and hip hop is dented by the crashing and screaming of broken glass, first one glass, then many. The group, in unison, scan – in an effort to locate the source of the disturbance. A deep voice bellows giving the game away as all heads point towards a table towards the front door.
“You do that one more time!!”
Hayden is sitting at the table. His face screwed and contorted, his whiskey eyes in full beam. Staring up at the large black doorman he smiles before downing his drink and hurling the empty glass with all the force his tanned arms can muster to the black tiled floor. It shatters. A large clubbed hand jerks towards him and grabs him by one side of his shirt. Hayden sends out a wild and dirty swing that sets him off balance, grazes the doorman and topples himself from his stool before landing uncomfortably on the broken glass. The doorman’s large hands on Hayden’s shirt separate cloth from buttons as gravity makes a mockery of him. Reaching down the doorman attempts to lift Hayden to his feet only to be met by the frantic swinging of a drunken child who’s in mid tantrum. His punches are half-hearted and do little more than cover the doorman in little specks of blood and anger the weary night worker.
“What’s your boy doing?” Asked Natasha rhetorically.
“Scheduling himself for an ass whoopin’.” Bret interjects.
We move, en mass, across the now static dance floor to the kinetic dust cloud of glass and blood. Hayden continues to throw untempered fists towards the doorman who has finally had enough and delivers a precise hand hammer to his alcohol filled gut.
“You had better get your lil friend outta here before I break his fucking face!” the doorman states calmly, as though he was ordering a starter.
Carl and Oscar nod as we all watch Hayden get to his feet again only to be shepherded out, now covered in his own blood, his shirt torn to strips. Terry Butcher meets The Incredible Hulk comes to mind. Before any of us could apologise two burly men in black bomber jackets flanked us and herded our group – like sheep out of the bar and into back alley. Bernie Mac stood holding t
he door, his friendly demeanour and beaming smile replaced by a poker-faced sternness. Exiting the bar I light a cigarette and try not to look Bernie Mac in the eye, disappointment projected upon his face. As we reach the bottom of the alley a Yellow Cab pulls away. Hayden is sitting in the backseat. It drives to the next set of lights before turning right and disappearing from view.
Oscar’s blonde friend has begun nibbling on his ear and pointing in the general direction of her apartment. As my cigarette comes to its end I feel an arm linked through mine. Natasha is standing by my side, her eyes slightly glazy, the alcohol, jet lag and fresh air making an unbeatable cocktail. Oscar is, inevitably, led away quickly followed by Carl and Bret and eventually the rest of the group. Frank stands around awkwardly as Kay whispers loud drunken code to her friend about “heading out to see LA (wink)” before the two of them leave in the direction of the Lost Angeles hostel. I wasn’t entirely sure who Frank was dorming with at this point but was beginning to feel sorry for them and especially whoever had the bottom bunk.
I suggest Danny’s for a couple of post kick out beers, I assume we frequented there for more than two as my next bout of awareness comes when I’m considerably more drunk than I was. We had been kicked out of the back alley bowling bar and now I lay on Natasha’s bed, her straddling me and sucking on my face. Tongues roam in foreign mouths, hands on clothing, then under clothing then traversing skin. Soft, soft skin that’s unfamiliar and exciting. Natasha dismounts to pour two glasses of wine from a bottle she’s had in her case for the last two destinations. It affords me the opportunity to wrestle the rod of iron that’s been sitting uncomfortably in my jeans since she caught me unawares.