Going Down in La-La Land (6 page)

“
Come on you guys! I know you’re down here! Just a few more shots and then were done!”

With the other few hundred suckers freezing their asses off outside, they got along fine without us. We spent the rest of the time playing with old hats we found in the basement, and laughing as we wondered when we’d creep upon one of Steve Rubell’s old cocaine vials or condoms. That night when the set was wrapped, we filtered into the rest of the crowd and got our waivers signed with no problem. A few months later, when the weather warmed, I was coerced back to the
54
set with the promise I’d get a bit on camera as one of the fabled and legendary bartenders. Sure enough, I was given a short scene on camera counting cash from the bar till, only to discover I had been cut and all you could see were my hands in the actual film. Not that it was a big loss. Nobody saw the big box office stinker anyway, and I got paid.

Those memories coupled with today’s experience at Central Casting almost gave me a panic attack as I lay back in bed staring up at the ceiling. This was one of the many times I wished I had turned out to be a normal person with normal ambitions. Why couldn’t I have just decided on becoming a pharmacist, an architect, or an engineer? Anything with some degree of safety and order would do. Today’s events were the perfect example of the ongoing struggle between the side of me that desired creative freedom, artistic freedom, and fame and fortune, versus the side of me that desperately craved stability and order in my life.

I guess many artists possess this inner conflict, almost a schizophrenic battle between the two. The bottom line in life is you can’t have your cake and eat it too. It’s either one or the other. I had made a choice in what path I had to follow, and these were the obstacles in my way. Whether I picked the right path to begin with, I wasn’t sure of. And that’s what bothered me the most. I didn’t have the strong attitude that it was all or nothing. I wasn’t prepared to eat out of garbage cans like Madonna supposedly did before hitting it big. Somehow the vision of a nervous six-foot-tall gay man eating out of garbage cans is considerably less of a charming tale than that of a sexy street urchin from Michigan.

Oh, the life of a tortured artist!

Good Lord, talk about envisioning worst-case scenarios. I wasn’t going to worry any more about it tonight. Tomorrow I would start afresh and begin pounding the pavement for a job waiting tables. But one thing was for sure: after today I was pretty sure my future didn’t lay in being a professional extra.

The job hunt wasn’t going so well. The hot bars and restaurants on Santa Monica were less than receptive. I was so burned out from hitting up every other restaurant in town I couldn’t keep track of where I’d gone or how many applications I filled out. It was the same story everywhere. “The manager is in tomorrow” or “We’ll keep your resumé on file and if anything happens let you know.”

The worst moment was when I hit one popular and well-known restaurant on Santa Monica and the aging sexpot of a waiter, pushing into his late thirties, sized me up and down and said coldly, “We haven’t hired a new waiter in over three years. There is no turnover here.”

“
Thanks anyway. Keep reaching for the stars,” I said to the career waiter before leaving in frustration.

With half the people in town aspiring actors and all them vying for a server position, I might as well be auditioning for the role of a waiter in real life.

The temp agencies weren’t much better.

“
I can schedule you for an appointment a week from today,” a tired-sounding woman said on the other end of the line.

“
Can’t I just come in during open interviews?” I asked.

“
No. We do scheduled interviews only,” she replied.

So much for accessibility. I always did horribly on those typing and computer skills tests anyway. Back in New York I was always assigned to the phones.

To ease my worries I attended my first big social event in LA, the “Labor Day LA” celebration. This was the end-of-summer circuit party in town and was being held in a space called The Palace located in the heart of Hollywood. I wasn’t a huge circuit party fan. I did enjoy them every once in a while but didn’t plan my whole existence around them like countless other gay guys. Besides, I didn’t have the money or energy to organize weekend drug binges that enabled me to stay up endless hours packed into a crowded space with a bunch of gym queens strung out on crystal. But I appreciated the energy, the music, and checking out the hot bodies every once in a blue moon.

I was glad when Sarah had invited me to go out with her and her cohorts. They were obnoxious but other than Candy were the only people I knew in town.

“
You’re coming to Labor Day LA with us, right? Stephen is getting the whole crew customized tank tops,” she went on.

I had gathered by now that these people considered themselves an exclusive group. When they walked in a place they acted like they owned it, all of them gravitating toward one another. And many of the other people gravitated to them, stopping to chitchat and make idle talk. I even heard a few of the guys jokingly refer to themselves as “the A-list,” but they sounded half serious. And I’m sure they really believed it. Strangely enough, other people around them seemed to buy into the idea as well, which I found even more disturbing.

The night of the party I planned on picking up Sarah at her place and then driving over to her friend Fred’s apartment, where we’d meet up with the rest of the group.

Fred was the uber-stud of the clique, with a perfectly chiseled body, a face that was almost too pretty, and the ideal job and apartment to go along with his looks. I actually liked him better than any of the other guys in this conceited convergence of queers that was the A-list. He seemed much more genuine than the others. The rest of the guys were well aware of Fred’s physical appeal, and I had even heard a few of them make sniping remarks suggesting he might have had plastic surgery. But when I was first introduced to him he asked me plenty of questions about my interests and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me as a person.

He was definitely not afraid to show his gay side, having an extended conversation with me about who our all-time favorite actresses were, a sure sign of two gay men hitting it off.

“
And I love all those luscious women from Fellini flicks, you know like Anita Ekberg and Claudia Cardinale!” I gushed, going on and on.

“
Mmmm. And what about Lana Turner?” Fred would reply, pursuing the subject further.

This guy wasn’t concerned about appearing macho, or maybe it was that he just wasn’t trying to impress me in particular. Either way it was cool. Nothing irritates me more than a gay guy who tries to maintain a rigidly straight and heterosexual image in public, just for the sake of attracting other men, then goes home at the end of the day to dance around to his Diana Ross CD collection.

The night of the party I thought I’d be a little funky and have some fun. The East Village boy came out of me and I got inspired to smear my whole upper body, including my hair and tank top, with Jerome Russell gold body glitter.

When I got to Sarah’s place she was more than taken aback at my glittery look.

“
Check you out, sistahhh!”

The guys she hung out with were very uniform. They dressed to conform, not stick out. But as the new guy in town I wanted to grab some attention and be a little different. I suppose in a way I was already beginning to rebel against the A-list. That was the bohemian misfit stuck inside me, the one I have trouble suppressing and that’s most likely responsible for my life becoming one twisted situation after another.

The tank top I was given had the number 9 on it, my random number in the group that night. Stephen decided to print “Tank bottom” on the front, in reference to my occasional proclivity for wearing vintage 1970s’ tank tops with Bo Derek or Pink Panther transfers that were cut off at the bottom. I thought it was a stupid name, but he thought it was really funny, so I just humored him when he gave it to me at the gym earlier that week.

“
Oh, how funny. That is so brilliant!” I lied, wishing he had come up with something a little more clever.

Fred’s apartment was truly amazing, located on the corner of San Vicente and Fountain in a beautiful old Hollywood building, complete with high ceilings and a marble lobby. It looked like the kind of place a silent movie star would have lived.

The rest of the crowd was there when Sarah and I arrived, and while my glitter drew a few compliments and quite a bit of comments, I could tell that more than a few in the clique were put off by my attempt to have fun with my look.

Screw them,
I thought, and gave myself a little tour of the apartment while they socialized in the other room. When I came back it was time to pass out the drugs. Earlier in the week at the gym Sarah had asked me if I wanted to front her money for some X. Her friend Ryan, a cute graduate student, was getting some great stuff from this dealer he knew.

Ryan was one of those people who liked to act like they never met you before and didn’t remember who you were, when in fact they had seen you enough times that they had to. I never knew what motivated people to do this, outright cruelty or the need to feel self-important. It was probably both.

I seldom did recreational drugs but I figured in order to loosen up and have a good time with this group I would have too. So I agreed and gave her the money that day.

Sarah passed me my X. It was like sorting out treats on Halloween night, as people passed shit around and swallowed.

“
Can I get some ginger ale to mix this G with?” someone asked to no one in particular.

I had no idea what half the stuff was. I put mine in my pocket, figuring I had a hard enough time driving to begin with. And as I had never been to this place before, I’d better have it together on the drive over.

Before leaving, we all posed for a group photo in our matching tank tops, and then it was off to The Palace.

There was already a long line by the time we arrived. On our way to the back I received a few appreciative comments, the name “glitter boy” being bestowed upon me more than once. One of Sarah’s friends managed to work his way to the front and beckoned with his finger for the rest of us to follow, leaving all the other poor suckers that had been waiting for minutes in the dust.

Once inside I heard the music pumping and saw the floor filling up fast.

“
Should I take my X now?” I asked Sarah.

“
Of course! You mean you haven’t taken it yet?” she exclaimed, giving me an amazed look. “Let’s go get you some water.”

After getting water and swallowing my little pill, we met up with the rest of the A-list, who had formed a little circle on the dance floor.

Within minutes I started to feel a buzz coming on, and all of a sudden really began to appreciate the men around me. I mean, I was really admiring the men around me, to the point I couldn’t keep my hands to myself. I waved my arms around in the air, and every time I made a sudden movement glitter sprinkled everywhere like fairy dust.

It wasn’t long before I was gyrating and squishing my pelvis against the groin of any available man within reaching distance. Every few minutes I’d get near another one, this time pressing up against him from behind. Usually more tense and anxiety prone, X did wonders for my disposition. I probably should be on it regularly, along with some Xanax for good measure.

The Palace was getting overwhelmingly hot and steamy, so I decided to take a walk and get some fresh air. I went up the stairs to the balcony, walking in a slow, stupid swagger and sticking my ass out a bit more than was normal, as if inviting someone to tear my pants off and ram their meat up me.

I traced my fingers along the railing like some Hollywood actress of the 1930s making a dramatic entrance into a room.

I must have looked incredibly stupid, but I didn’t give a shit. I was having a purely enjoyable and amusing time. Even the A-list was getting a kick out of me. As I looked out into the crowd of sweaty, muscular bodies, I wondered if I was gonna get laid.

I was interrupted from my thoughts of lustful abandon when I spotted Sarah at a couch in the corner of the room. Seated next to her was Fred, who had his head slumped between his legs while Sarah rubbed his back with a look of concern on her face.

Sauntering over in my drug-induced state I asked emphatically, “What happened? Is everything okay?” as if I would have been any help at that point whatsoever.

“
He took too much shit,” Sarah informed me, looking up with dilated eyes for a moment and then proceeding to rub Fred’s shoulders.

Supposedly he had swallowed a shitload of G to go with whatever else he had taken and was a total wreck. A couple was staying with him from Canada, and one of the guys volunteered to take him home.

The best guy of the bunch, and he doesn’t even get to enjoy the night,
I thought as the Canadian placed Fred’s arm around the back of his neck, wrapped his arm around Fred’s waist, and walked him out the door.

After this turn of events, the party got uglier. A half-hour after Fred was helped out, I saw a bunch of men in red fire hats standing near the door.

Cool,
I thought, figuring it was just some sexy guys in fetish getup, and went back to dancing around like a maniac.