What am I going to do, I’m wondering, about Sarah’s plans to live with me? Where does she get such grandiose ideas?
Carrying a worn gray suitcase I’d found in the garage at The Gables, I circle the swimming pool and locate the manager’s apartment. The night air is warm and heavy, salt-scented. The Pacific Ocean is only a few blocks west.
Mr. Bingham, an elderly man who looks as if he’s been assembled with pickup sticks, all angular limbs like a preying mantis, opens the door and glares at me. He wears wire-rimmed spectacles. “What is it?” he says annoyingly. Then, peering through the screen, he recognizes me. “Oh, it’s you, Dan. Sylvia said to expect you, but I thought you would have come weeks ago.”
Outside, Mr. Bingham leads me up the stairs to the second floor. “This is a respectable place. We have a few rules. No parties or loud noise, and no girls, you know the kind I mean, in and out at all hours, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you ... the rules for using the pool are posted. Goodnight.”
I let myself into the apartment and switch on the lights. It’s a studio apartment, and it’s tiny, but it’s mine—until the end of September, anyway. In the living room there’s a sleeper sofa, coffee table, end table and TV. I think about attaching a mezuzah to the doorway. But does my Jewishness really matter? The traditional law of patrilineal descent says my father isn’t even Jewish because his mother was a gentile, a Catholic.
I place my suitcase on the sofa and open it. I figure I’ll unpack later, while watching the David Letterman show on the Zenith flat screen. I change into a clean shirt, my 501 Levi’s and my brown boots. I decide to go first to The Palace, look for Devon. If J-man’s there, Devon will be with him.
As I drive west on Mission Boulevard, I try to remember where I’ve seen a Jack-in-the-Box. A cheeseburger with fries sounds good, and I don’t have much money. I definitely need a stake of some sort; my father will surely cut me off completely now that I’m moving to the beach. I’ll have to find a job soon.
I turn on the radio and begin to sing along with Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” perhaps my favorite song of hers.
I stop singing when, as I’m passing a side street, I see a woman in a red dress stumble and fall to the pavement.
Braking hard, I pull into a 7-Eleven, and then I run back to the side street. The woman is face down on the pavement, a dozen or so red roses scattered around her. One white high-heeled shoe has slipped off her foot.
I kneel beside her. “Are you okay?” I look around to see if I might be able to summon help. Apparently, the woman is unconscious. From which house had she come? I put a hand on her shoulder and turn her over; in the Army I’d been trained in first aid, including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She’s an attractive lady, glamorous-looking but rather old, thirty-five or forty. Her light-brown hair is tied in a bun held taut with a pink ribbon.
She stirs, and I start. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
The woman raises her head and braces herself with her arms as though she might stand. With eyes half-open, she looks at me. I smell alcohol on her breath.
I help her to her knees, and then to her feet. She wobbles, so I put an arm over her shoulder. She leans on me as we walk slowly to the curb, where I sit her down. I pick up her shoe and the flowers and place them next to her. I stand by silently.
“Thank you,” she says, her words a little garbled. “I was going to hail a taxi.” She chuckles drunkenly. “Had a fight with my boyfriend; don’t want to go back to that party. They’re all as soused as me.”
“Where do you live, ma’am? Is there someone I can call?” Since I don’t own a cell phone, I’ll have to find a payphone.
“My car’s in Ocean Beach. Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. At my rental.”
“Is there someone there who can help you? Can you tell me how to get there, exactly?”
She nods, nonstop.
I have to make a decision: call the cops or take the woman to OB.
“Would you like me to drive you there?”
She’s smiling, trying to stand after putting on her shoe.
I arrange the flowers into a bouquet. She leans on me again as we walk to my car. I open the door and let her slide into the prone position across the back seat, all the while trying not to stare at her bare thighs.
I take the beach route, Mission Boulevard, drive past Belmont Park and observe the giant roller coaster I’d enjoyed so often with Liz, in times gone by.
On Mission Bay Drive the woman suddenly sits up. I catch sight of her face in the rearview mirror. She appears bleary-eyed, and her hair is frightfully disheveled, sticking out from her head like wet hay. But the fresh air seems to be helping to sober her up.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask. She couldn’t have been out for more than ten minutes.
She’s quiet for a moment, and then she says, “Who are you?”
“Daniel Rosen. I found you back there in Mission Beach, lying in the street.”
“Yes, of course, I remember.” She sighs audibly. “My name is Madeline. I don’t know how to thank you for saving me; my head is pounding so hard I can’t think straight.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m only giving you a ride home.”
“Not home, honey, that’s Malibu Canyon. I’ve rental property here, come down for parties. I was staying in La Jolla and loaned my car and, oh dear, I want to make this well worth your trouble but I’ve left my purse at Gerald’s. He was giving the party. Most everyone was from LA, you know. Do you smoke grass?”
“No, but some of my friends do. Been trying to get it together for quite some time, so I never tried pot.”
“You’re kind of cute and I’d like to do you a favor, lay an ounce of quality weed on you, grown in Humboldt County, when we get to my rental. Oh, turn right, here.”
Instead of turning onto Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, I continue along Mission Bay Drive and head towards The Palace.
“If you’ll bear with me while I make a brief stop,” I say, “I’m interested, but I have to see a friend first.” This is my golden opportunity, I am thinking. The stake I need.
“Sure thing, kid.”
If J-man wants to buy the pot, I can make at least six hundred dollars in no time. It’s the only way I’ll accept Madeline’s gratuity because I don’t want to carry the pot in my car for any longer than it takes to drive back to The Palace. With the money I can get an iPhone and live decently while I’m looking for a job. There’s some risk involved, but it’s minimal.
Inside The Palace, a converted warehouse, I see sexy chicks in short dresses everywhere: mulling along walls filled with film posters, talking animatedly at tables or browsing expensive jewelry in the retail shop. Couples on the strobe-lit dance floor are totally grinding on each other.
The club glitters and rocks like some royal residence the night after a young prince finds the woman of his dreams, the goddess who will become his princess.
I’d been inside for five minutes, watching carefully for Liz or David, or both, God forbid, when I spot J-man sitting on a stool at the nonalcoholic bar. With his handlebar mustache and flattop hair, J-man, an ex-marine in his fifties who served in Vietnam, stands out like a regular guy in a freak show.
J-man sees me, nods and gives a wide grin. We shake hands in a brotherly manner, the clasping of thumbs and wrists. I take a seat on J-man’s right, so we can talk during music breaks and, more importantly, so I can watch the house blues band, With Feeling, as it belts out tunes like “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Blues in the Night.”
After a brief discussion about Devon, while the band plays “A Mess of Blues,” a tune performed by Elvis Presley in 1960, J-man stands and follows me outside, to the dirt parking lot. We stand next to J-man’s chopped Harley.
“Far fucking out, baby,” says J-man, smiling wickedly. “I heard you was in Afghanistan. I had some really good hashish from there once. Too bad you don’t smoke shit. I’m lookin’ for somethin’ extra good right now. This is perfect. That kinda quality usually goes for seven hundred or more a pop.”
“I point at my car, where Madeline waits. “I was hoping you’d front me the cash so I can get something going. I’m moving to PB, and I’m broke.”
After a serious, quietly thoughtful moment, J-man says, “You know I’m happy to do that, man. You’re one of the few people in this world I trust. If you can’t make it back tonight, I’ll be here every night this week. Don’t have anything better to do.” He chuckles loudly.
I smile. “Roger that.”
J-man takes from his pocket a huge wad of greenbacks, peels off six bills and hands them to me.
Just then, Devon approaches. “Hello, Daniel,” she says, anxiously, but without animosity, and licks her lips. She averts her eyes guiltily, as if she’s hiding something. She’s wearing a short sleeveless dress in magenta that intensifies her golden tan.
I remain silent. Devon looks nice, but I’m not fooled. Her eyes are a little too bright, the pupils dilated. She’s wired; I recognize the signs.
J-man breaks the ice. “Why don’t you take Devon with you to make the score, Daniel?”
“I’d love to go,” she says.
J-man places a hand on my shoulder and walks me out of earshot. “Get her out of my hair for awhile, man,” he says quietly. “I mean, Christ, why’d you have to go and upset her with that David and Liz thing? I know it’s the truth, but it was pretty cold.”
“I’m truly sorry,” I say. “I want to make it up to her.”
***
“Right here,” Madeline says. “There’s my car.”
I pull up in front of Madeline’s rental on Saratoga Avenue in OB, a large two-story Victorian. I park my Mazda behind Madeline’s new Jaguar XKE.
“Wait here,” she says.
Sitting in the half-light of the car, with Devon, I turn and look at her. “You’re on something, aren’t you?” I say, chagrined.
Devon smiles spitefully. “Someone at The Palace gave me a few lines of crystal last night. I was feeling sooo good. But I’m coming down. I want more. I need more speed. Can you get me some, Daniel?”
“No, I’m taking you home after this.”
“I don’t want to go home. I want more speed.”
I sigh in frustration, and then for an instant I think I’m dreaming, as the front door of the house opens and two girls with shoulder-length hair appear on the lighted porch. They walk towards the car. Both are barefoot, wearing jeans, and topless, their breasts gliding about shamelessly in the sweet night air. As my point of interest alternates from one pair of breasts to the other, the girls come up curbside, to the open window.
“Hi, I’m Lori.”
“I’m Nancy.”
Both girls are perhaps a year or two older than me. Lori has Gaelic good looks, petite with straight reddish hair and small, pointed breasts. Nancy is tall, brunette, beautiful, with a full mouth and large rounded breasts.
Madeline approaches. “Girls, girls,” she puts forth. “What will the neighbors think? We don’t want ‘the authorities’ visiting us, do we?”
I turn to Devon. Despite the bleached pallor of her face, brought on by the crystal, Devon’s cheeks are flushed with embarrassment. She wears a grin. Lori and Nancy look at each other, giggle, and with arms folded over breasts they scramble into the house.
Madeline addresses me. “I’m headed back to Gerald’s party to get my purse. Go in. Captain Jack will take care of you.”
I’m having trouble thinking clearly. These people, including Madeline, are definitely strange, and I begin to feel apprehensive about the whole thing. I’m feeling tired and unsure of myself. Something isn’t right, but I have no choice. I need the money.
Devon and I walk into the house. We’re standing in a short hallway where the walls have been painted fire engine red. “Come on in,” I hear someone say, someone with a deep, gravelly voice.
We wander into a low-ceilinged chamber with wingchair, couch, CD player with speakers, table lamp and light brown carpet. A water pipe, or hookah, is positioned in the center of the floor. Smoke hovers in the room like a bird of prey. A rap ditty, Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” sounds quietly.
“I’m Captain Jack. You can call me CJ.”
Though I endeavor to appear relaxed, I’m stewing inside. My heart sounds like a bass drum. I throw a look at Devon. She’s staring at CJ, who’s sitting on the floor with Lori and Nancy.
CJ is a massive man, thick-muscled, with a tight potbelly like a swallowed basketball. His face is pale and bearded, his long curly black hair, parted in the middle, gnarly and in need of a wash. Every inch of exposed skin, except CJ’s face, is tattooed. His abundant neck gives the appearance of having a black mamba coiled around it. The head of the snake is terrifyingly prominent, shown in awesome detail with its single glaring eye, wide-open jaws and protruding fangs.
I estimate CJ’s age at around thirty, younger than Madeline. He wears a purple poncho and jeans, no shoes. His eyes are large and otherworldly, dark and deep-set under heavy brows. A thin scar runs across one cheek and draws the corner of his mouth up in a sinister curl. I’m reminded of Rasputín, the Russian mystic of the early twentieth century.
“I’m Daniel, and this is Devon,” I say, rather meekly.
Devon and I join the others on the floor, forming a circle of sorts. I sit cross-legged, yoga-style, like CJ, Lori and Nancy. Devon sits next to me with her legs curled beneath her. She has settled in, it seems, like a girl about to hear her favorite melody.
A tiny, elegant tattoo, a flower, on Lori’s shoulder, catches my eye.
“It’s a lotus,” Lori says. “Signifies the center of life, where the heart dwells.”
I can’t help glancing at her breasts, and then I turn my attention to CJ. “Madeline said you’d lay some pot on me.”
“I know. “But first, let’s smoke one, you roll.” He looks at Nancy. “Never seen a narc that could roll a nice joint.” Nancy hands me a clear plastic bag containing two fingers of weed, along with a package of Zig-Zag rolling papers. I pick up a
Rolling Stone
magazine from the floor.
I don’t want to get high, but it appears I have no choice. What if I’m unable to roll a joint? If only J-man had come with us. The J-man is about as cool as they come.
As I focus on rolling the joint, head down, separating tiny stems from bud material, I hear Captain Jack say, flatly, “You’re cute, wanna fuck?”