High Life

by Matthew Stokoe

  On the drag again. For money now, pure and simple. I mouthed cock and jammed it into buttholes—fagboy extraordinaire. I fell into a routine—get up late, hang out till I had some dollars, buy food, booze, occasionally some drugs, make it back to the apartment, and fry myself with TV. Then get up and do it again. Simple pleasures. But one night there was a variation.

  I was a few paces down from a convenience store, waiting for somebody to rent my dick, when a black Jag pulled up to the curb. I’d been daydreaming, so a fucked-up surfer beat me to it. He leaned in at the window and blathered for a while with the silver-haired driver. I moved closer, like I was bored with standing still, and watched the scene go down. A few bucks changed hands, but too few for any kind of genital interaction. It puzzled me until the surfer headed for the store, then I clicked—a bottle for company.

  I was beside the surfer at the liquor counter before the door closed on its pneumatic hinge. A few seconds pretending to check out the high-octane booze to make things look good, then in with a bit of sincere hustler-to-hustler chat.

  “Say, did I see you with that guy out there? In the black Jag?”

  Surfman recognized me as a fellow bum-boy so his reaction wasn’t quite as fuck-off as it might have been.

  “Yeah, the cunt sprung for some booze.”

  I waited while he made an intelligent selection—maximum specific gravity per dollar, change straight into his pocket.

  “He’s an old geezer with silver hair, right? You want to watch yourself, man.”

  “Huh?”

  “Haven’t you heard about him? Fuck, they call him the Silver Slicer.”

  “Whaaat?”

  Surfman didn’t want to believe this because a guy in a Jag was certain to lay out bread, but hustling is a vulnerable profession and too many boys turn up dead in vacant lots for advice to be taken lightly.

  “No shit, man. I tricked with him once and I was lucky to get out alive. I’m sucking away, right, and the fucker pulls out this razor and slices me across the shoulders. Right through my fucking shirt.”

  “No shit!”

  Surfman’s eyes were wide and round and his mouth hung open like something in a cartoon.

  “You want to see the scar?” I started pulling my shirt out of my pants. He stopped me quickly.

  “No, man, I don’t want to see the scar, he might be looking through the window. And he’ll know I know.”

  “And if he knows, you’re fucked. You’ll have him on your ass every time you look over your shoulder. It’ll happen, man, it’ll happen. Look at me, he’s been trying to finish me off ever since I split with my back hanging open.”

  “Motherfuck.”

  “Yeah, it don’t make things easy, I can tell you. But, shit, I was lucky, I didn’t get the full Slicer treatment.”

  “The full treatment …”

  Surfman was off in his head conjuring possible Slicer death scenarios.

  “Yeah, the full fucking treatment. You hear about that kid they found behind a liquor store on De Longpre?”

  “What kid?”

  “Young Mexican kid, used to work down here.”

  “Yeah, man, I think I did.”

  “The Slicer, man. The full fucking treatment. Cut his dick into strips and peeled it back like a banana. Peeled his whole fucking body like a banana.”

  “Motherfuck. I’m not getting in that car.”

  “Fuck, man, don’t even go out on the street. Just stay where it’s good and bright and pray he ain’t feeling bold tonight.”

  “Bold?”

  “Came after me in McDonalds one night.”

  “Holy shit, McDonalds …” Surfman was momentarily lost for words, then: “I’m taking the backdoor, man. You coming?”

  “Can’t do it. He got his first taste of street blood through me. I feel like I owe you. I’ll hang out here and slow him down if he makes a move. You split. Just … Just have a drink for me if I end up in the papers.”

  Surfman gripped my forearm and looked hard into my face like this was all real-life Dirty Dozen.

  “Thanks, man.”

  Then he was gone, dust at his heels and me the farthest thing from his mind.

  Outside and up to the Jag, looking earnest and like I only wanted to help.

  “Er, excuse me. You give that blond guy some bread?”

  English coachwork and soft brown leather, walnut dash around LCD readouts. The guy sitting in it was definitely the man I was after. Sixty, maybe—but looking good for it—light tan, thick silver hair swept back from the forehead, strong face with noble features, pale eyes that looked odd under the streetlight—less responsive than you’d expect. He wore a dark suit, conservatively tailored, and a tie.

  He looked up at me, not fazed at all by a new face at his window, even in that part of town.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “That surfer guy, just went into the store. You give him some money?”

  “He wanted to buy something to drink. I gave him ten dollars, yes.”

  “I don’t want to offend you, but this part of town and all, you were probably expecting to take a ride with him somewhere. Right?”

  “I had something I wanted to talk to him about, though perhaps not what you imagine.”

  “Whatever it was you can’t do it now. He split with your bread. There’s a back way out of there.”

  No anger, just a small “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him pull it a hundred times.”

  “You know him well?”

  “I couldn’t tell you his name, but you hang around here long enough, you see things.”

  Silverhair clicked on with a smile.

  “Do you spend a lot of time on the streets?”

  “Man’s got to eat.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Detroit.”

  “Ah. That is where your family lives?”

  “They’re all dead.”

  “And you live by prostitution?”

  “That’s what happens on this side of the street, man.”

  “Of course. I ask only to see if I might be in a position to offer you some help.”

  “Help?”

  “I was about to offer it to our thirsty friend before he ran off. I can see you are in a similar situation, so I’ll offer it to you. Would you like to get into the car while we talk?”

  “Sure, man.” I said it like I knew what he really wanted was to score some butt and opened the door.

  “I’d prefer it if you sat in the back.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  Silverhair pulled away from the curb, he talked as he drove.

  “I work for a doctor whose usual practice caters to the wealthy of our society, but occasionally we like to do a little charity work. To pass on our good fortune, so to speak. To this end I search the streets for suitable candidates. Are you interested?”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “You don’t have to do anything. We offer a free medical checkup, any minor treatment you might require, vitamin shots, a clean bed, and two hundred dollars.”

  “How long do I have to stay?”

  “It usually takes the doctor about two days to run tests and administer treatment.”

  “No sex?”

  “Absolutely not. Hard to believe these days, I know, but all we want to do is to help people.”

  “This, er, medical treatment, I don’t have to have it if I don’t want to, do I?”

  His eyes flashed up in the mirror, reassuring, shocked at the suggestion that anything might be forced on me.

  “Of course not. It’s there for you only if you choose it.”

  I took a long breath and wondered what the fuck I was doing.

  “Okay. I could use two hundred bucks. Let’s go.”

  We’d been circling aimlessly during our conversation, now he pointed the Jag out of Hollywood and toward the wide quiet of Beverly Hills. Just after we turned off Sunset he twisted sideways in his seat and stuck his hand out like he
was offering me something.

  “You should look at this before we arrive.”

  I leaned forward, trying to work out what it was. He seemed to be holding some kind of aerosol, like one of those purse-size cans of deodorant. When I saw where its nozzle was pointed I started to think that maybe having my head so close to it wasn’t the best idea. But it was too late by then. A hail of tumbling pin-prick droplets coned out of Silverhair’s hand and into my face.

  I jerked back. The stuff didn’t hurt, but it tasted chemical, and it went to work right away. Seemed like old Joey had left a little piece out of his story back at Bar Ramses—the part where you got drugged on the way to the clinic. I reached for the door handle. Guess what? Central locking. I tugged weakly at it once or twice, but my motor skills were already too corroded. My body relaxed in spite of itself and increasing waves of anesthetic warmth rippled out from my hips and spine into the soft matter of my cells. In any other situation it would have been yummy, but rolling toward a place where people got things cut out of them it was alarming to say the least. I slumped in my seat moronstyle and thought about shouting, until I realized I didn’t know what shouting meant. Breathing looked to be about the maximum achievable level of function, so I stuck with that and forgot about things like vocalization and limb mobility.

  “Do you like it? Most of you seem to, once you stop panicking. In a minute you’ll become unconscious. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you. This is just a precaution to safeguard the doctor’s anonymity. I repeat, nothing will happen to you. You’ll wake up shortly between clean sheets …”

  His words didn’t reassure me. I stopped listening. And then I passed out.

  Zap. Out of no thought into too much. Too much feeling, anyhow. Hard road surface under me, cutting into my cheek and elbows. Clothes damp, muscle-ache from head to toe. And something tugging at my ass, pulling at the material of my jeans.

  I opened my eyes. Dawn light on backstreet tarmac. Weeds growing through cracks. Belly-down between trash cans. And that fucking tugging …

  I groaned and moved my arms. The tugging stopped and someone behind me said, “The cunt’s still alive,” and someone else said, “Hurry the fuck up, then.” Cracked voices—too much street time and Thunderbird. They started on my back pockets again. Material ripped. My head felt foggy and my eyes were gummed, but gut instinct took over and put my body to work.

  I rolled onto my back and kicked without aiming. Thin air. Two scuzzy winos in scuzzed-up coats—gabardine once, perhaps, but now just something to soak up piss and sweat.

  They backed off a couple of steps and stood with their red faces and calcified eyes looking down at me—not guilty like they’d been caught at something illegal, but wary and waiting for another chance at whatever they thought I had in my pockets.

  Crows.

  Hyenas.

  I felt zoned, like I’d got up too early after a night of speed, but the winos were old and physically fucked and it was easy to catch them. At first they thought it was going to be the kind of superficial beating tramps get as a matter of course every couple of weeks—bloody nose, black eye, that sort of thing—and when I got hold of them they started to curse me. But that stopped pretty quickly.

  The first one collapsed after I laid a fist into his Adam’s apple, fell to his knees, and made choking noises, contorting his mouth to try and get air past the ball of blood and gristle he’d just found in his throat. Number two backed into a wall and took a few in the guts, stupidly doubled up, and got a knee in the face which split his nose and bounced the back of his head off the corner of an air-conditioning exhaust vent.

  After that I was too tired to carry on. So I walked out of the alley onto a secondary road and went hunting for early-morning coffee. I had things to think about.

  I was in Hollywood, within walking distance of Emmet Terrace. A block east of the Chinese Theater I found what I needed, a twenty-four-hour grease joint; vagrants, whores, junkies, and fuck-ups—pinned eyes and sucked-white skin—trying to make believe another day wasn’t starting.

  “I want my burger, and I want it NOW! I said I want it NOW!”

  A black guy, totally fritzed and not in a mood to be trifled with, had a problem with the service. He stood at the chest-high counter sweating and rolling his head, running his palms over the hot glass and polished steel.

  “I paid for the motherfucker and I want it. Hear what I said? You think it’s funny, holding my burger back there? You think that’s funny? I can see it, man. That’s my burger right there. What did you say? I need a WHAT? WHAT? Yes you did, you ofay motherfuck, you said NIGGERBURGER!”

  He started to climb over the counter, but two cops came in just then and maced him and dragged him out to their vehicle. It was quieter after that.

  I ordered a pint of coffee and found that the winos hadn’t been the first to come across me in the alley. Small change, keys, and wallet—gone. Inconvenient, but not major—nothing in the wallet but twenty bucks and the Latin’s business card. I had a spare for the Prelude back at the apartment, and the super would have one for my door. I paid with a fifty I kept in my sock for just such an L.A. emergency, bummed a cigarette from a couple of hookers, and found a table in a patch of sun. Outside, the cops had the black guy cuffed and in the car and were feeding him pieces of a hamburger through the open rear window.

  Alone—sitting, smoking, stirring sugar into my coffee.

  What was the story? One minute, night in the back of a Jaguar heading for Kidney City, the next, flat on my face in dawntime Hollywood with vags going through my pockets. I checked my guts. No scar, no cut. Evidently I had been spared the doc’s kidney acquisitiveness. But what about the free medical treatment? The free dope and the horny nurse? Had that happened and been wiped with chemicals? Or had things been interrupted for some reason before the knives came out?

  Quick date check with the nearest table. Yep, the morning after. I’d been gone, shit, not even six hours. Maybe much less, depending on how long I was out in the alley. Fucking bizarre.

  I tried to recall an image, a smell, a sound. Anything. But there was only Silverhair’s drug spray and a minute of his babble afterwards … And something which had to be a phantom memory, the imprint of a past dream. I tried to shake it, but it lingered. The sensation of lips … a mouth … sucking … on my … On my dick? I’d been drugged and dumped in an alley, scavenged by winos, and the thing that haunted me was the impossible memory of a blow job?

  I needed downtime.

  But first there was the hassle of tracking down the super to get my key. No sweat. The washrooms would yield something for sure, there were enough drag-ass end-of-the-nighters around to make it worthwhile for someone. I finished my coffee.

  At the sink in the men’s room a Chicano chick was washing her cunt—miniskirt hiked past her hips, briefs around her knees, a lather of soap over her bush and the tops of her thighs. Her hand made sucking noises as she moved it backwards and forwards. Oblivious, baby. On some other planet where you could do this kind of thing. She hummed to herself, something that sounded like “Lover Man,” her eyes were focused way beyond the surface of the mirror.

  A guy in chinos and an Australian surf shirt lounged in an open stall and watched her absently. I scored a wrap off him and did it on top of the paper-towel dispenser.

  Bang. Out on the street. The coke had been badly cut, but there was enough of something in it to make getting home and getting a key easier than it might have been. I moved through the smoggy, sunlit morning air like I was jet-propelled. Over pink concrete and dirty brass stars with the names of famous people on them. I thought about how those people must all be waking up in places a lot cleaner than Hollywood Boulevard, about how they probably shuddered when they had to come down here for a premiere or something.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Latin called. I had the blinds down against the afternoon sun and the light in the room was calm and isolated. The bleep of the phone made me jump, incoming calls we
re not frequent.

  “You have a job.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “Do not mistake this for forgiveness. The only reason I give it to you is that she insisted.”

  “I understand.”

  “Clean up whatever pigsty you live in. She will come to you.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone with money, that much is certain. Of which you will get none. Call it an apology for the damage you did my business.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “I could not say—she phoned. I wanted to send her Rex, but she described you and would not be dissuaded.”

  The afternoon rotted outside. I lay on the bed and remembered how the girl in the warehouse had looked. Not her actual death, but the way her body had lain so still and heavy on the floor after they put the jackhammer away, like something made of rubber. The image got me hard and I would have jerked off if I hadn’t had a gig.

  She turned up around nine.

  I opened the door and for a second the world seemed to shimmer in a kind of horizontal vertigo. I had trouble understanding what I saw. Then everything synched up again and I let her in. The woman from the party, of course.

  She walked to the middle of the room. I’d made an attempt at tidying it, but with her there it looked as attractive as an open wound. She turned slowly, scanning, and the light blouse she was wearing pulled tight against her breasts. There was no disgust on her face at what she saw, not even surprise, just a neutral taking-in of her surroundings.

  It was all scripted and cinematically perfect. The way we locked eyes, the warm breeze through the open window, even the way the evening city light flung itself across the floor to make a languid pen about her feet.

  The quilted Chanel bag she was carrying slid from her arm. She shook her hair free of a small gold clip and stepped out of her shoes. The buttons on her blouse didn’t snag as they came undone—TV buttons, doing their bit for this TV scene. The blouse was silk, it took forever to drift to the floor.

  Three steps and I was against her. She pressed her face to the side of my neck. All my clothes and the rest of hers fell away. I was solid and she was soaking and both of us were in some twilight heaven of the senses where touch and taste and sight and smell were all one supersense that did not differentiate.