Thirteen years.
Thirteen years I’ve been in this town.
Almost my entire adult life and it’s gone by in a brilliant blast like millions of flash bulbs on the red carpet of some movie premiere.
Sure, I’ve gotten away from time-to-time, tried to distance myself but you can never quite shake the stink off. There’s something about this town that hangs over you like that ever-thickening brown layer that obstructs our view of both downtown and that mighty blue body of water, the Pacific.
My instructions were to meet my contact in Hollywood in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Most people you ask would probably just say Mann’s Chinese but they’d be wrong. Well, they wouldn’t be wrong technically, but it’d tell you something about them. You see it’s called Grauman’s after Sid Grauman, a failed gold prospector who thought he’d try his luck among the citrus groves and sycamores of Los Angeles. Old Sid was clearly a gambling man and only three years after that rambling white sign was put up in them hills he thought it a good idea to build himself a temple in the backyard of Hollywoodland where all the top-hats and fur-coats could frolic under the glow of the celluloid.
I was in no mood to deal with the out-of-towners and the rest of that mob up there. My head was pounding from the booze from the night before. A constant and steady reminder of the shots I had over at Tom Bergin’s on Fairfax. What a joint, man. Some of those four-leaf clovers on the wall are so Goddamn brown you could get eye cancer just lookin’ at ‘em too long. The bartenders are tough bastards, too. You can tell they’d take a bat to any wise-ass that caused a stink.
I was lookin’ to get hammered and the sure-fire trick was gonna be whiskey-and-a-water-back.
I was drinking with a sometime actress whose real name was Candy but liked to be called Angel. Jesus, only in this fuckin’ town can you get away with that shit.
She was hot in that I-don’t-think-your-mother-likes-me kind-of-way and I knew the more sauced we got the more she’d tear into me later like an angry circus animal.
I copped a buzz off a stand-up comic I know who swears he looks like a young Denzel Washington. Good California weed has a way of sneaking up on you and I was starting to feel human again but just as I hit the boulevard I realized that long pants and a long-sleeved shirt in the middle of July was not a real smart move. Great. Any minute the internal faucets would kick on and I’d start flooding like the Ninth Ward. Yes, the place in New Orleans that is still a heaping rat-infested hell-hole ignored by the Bureau-Cats in Washington choking on oil prices and the rest of us mourning the loss of yet another Starbucks.
I want to live in Ah-Mey-Ree-Ka!!
It was three minutes before eleven. My contact was one of these corporate dropouts who thought he’d be more effective on his own. You can always tell a guy like that needs the balance of a 9-to-5 day to stay sane ‘cause waking up in the morning would become too painful without having the same place to go day after day. Shit. I’d rather chew glass than punch a time card for the rest of my life. So when the poor sap says he’s gonna meet you at 11:00 am in front of Grauman’s Theater he really means ten fuckin’ fifty-nine and fifty-nine Goddamn seconds.
With those extra minutes to burn I got busy checking out these two blondes that were kneeling on the ground giggling about the size of some movie stars’ feet. Isn’t that every guy’s dying wish? To have beautiful women fawning over us long after we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil?
“You wanna tour, my friend? I geeve you special priiice.”
I tore my eyes from His Majesty’s great gifts to Man and standing next to me was the toughest looking broad I’ve ever seen. She was like the South American Rudy; five foot nuthin’ but full of heart, ya know? She had the slightest twinkle in her eye, but you knew right up front if you crossed her she’d do a number on you the likes of which even those Bergin boys would blush at.
I politely excused myself for not hearing her and she repeated the question again but this time I could detect a slightly more aggressive edge. She was pimpin’ me one of those tour buses that takes you around Hollywood and shows you all the sights and sounds.
I got two problems with that scam: First of all it’s too damn expensive and second of all you’re trapped on a glorified flat-bed with every other cheese-ball that just fell off the old turnip truck. No thanks. I’ll give you a tour of this town that’ll give you something to write home about. Soundtrack included.
I could tell as she kept at me she wanted the green in my pocket and wasn’t gonna let up until I was snug as a bug on that bus sitting next to Bill Thompson from Fort Wayne, Indiana, just in town for a little R & R with the “wife and fam” to spot some celebs and have a swell time in our beloved City of Angels. The thought of Bill’s Botoxed wife and Mary-Kate and Ashley wannabe daughters fueled my response to my little friend.
I took a deep breath and looked at her as I lowered my head just enough so she could make out my eyes through my sunglasses.
“Ma’am, I’d love to take a tour with you, but I don’t know if I’d be able to last the whole ride. Know what I mean?”
As I chewed out that last sentence I smiled ever so slightly and let the words hang in the dense heat that was now starting to rise as mid-day came upon us.
She stared back with those cold, tough eyes and as I looked deeper into them, past the let-downs and the put-ons, I could start to see a small crack begin to form from under that hide of hers that gave way to some fucked-up far away place she left long ago for the opportunity to wear that Brass-ring if only she could get enough riders on that bus. She smiled at me with a mouth that at once could sing you to sleep with an age-old lullaby or tear into the flesh of your soul as only a woman scorned or a mother crossed could do.
She let fly a hearty laugh and I knew I was off the hook. Still laughing, she turned on her heels and made for her next victim. Whew. Have fun Bill Thompson.
The vision of her little white socks and white shoes darting away was suddenly blocked and I felt a chill run down my perspiring back and I knew exactly what fuckin’ time it was.
“I think you dropped this, sir.”
In his outstretched hand he held a map. This is how it always was. A map with a destination marked on it. I could fill a Goddamn library with all the maps I’ve been handed over the years. My headache started pounding its way back.
I took it and realized how much my hands were sweating by the way the paper stuck to my fingers. This fuckin’ guy. Where was he sending me this time? He turned to go and was swallowed by the crowd as I slid the map into my back pocket.
I looked at my watch.
11:01am.
Told ya. Fuckin’ guy.
I hoofed it outta there double-time and as I slowly made my way from the house that Sid built, I heard a little kid shouting to his parent’s:
Look! It’s Captain Jack Sparrow! Captain Jack Spaaarrrrooowwww!
His voice faded behind me and indeed there was that beguiling and cunning pirate of a man himself, sauntering and sweating his way just as I.
But alas, the “X” marked on my map was no place for fairy-tale pirates, young boys or gawking sightseers.
BB
