“Man look at the tits on this one
though.”
“Lord have mercy, those ones are
fake, no doubt about it.”
“Who gives a shit, they’re
fantastic.” The bartender puts down a glass from shining it and leans over the
bar to get a better look of what the two guys were looking at on their phones.
“Let me look at that Bill . . . jesus! You were right! Unreal! Who is she?”
“It looks like her name is. . Penelope,
whata dark Spanish dame.”
“You know her?”
“Nah, its this app, sets you up
with these prostitutes, well, I guess on here they’re called ‘escorts’ .. it’s
called findher.”
“Escorts?” the bartender asked
“Yeah, they’re high class hookers I
suppose.”
“Hm, Los Angeles just keeps getting
better and better”. I sat there listening to all of this at the end of the bar,
what fucking slobs, probably don’t have the money or class to really see a
woman more than what she is in a photo, they don’t have that kind of
capability. I tipped the last bit of whiskey I had in my glass into the back of
my throat, and slammed down the glass on the table. Joe, the bartender, comes
walking over, “alright Colten, that’s enough for you, I’m cutting your ass off.”
“Yeah, yeah fuck you man I’m
leaving!”
“That’s how you talk to your
psychiatrist?”
“Till next time fellas! Have fun
drooling on your phones.” I walked out and down the block to my building. My
doorman Zach grabbed the door for me, and my arm, as I was about to fall over.
“Howdy doody my main man?”
“Jesus Colten, again? It’s
Tuesday!”
“Everyone is a fuckin critic, just
get me to the elevator.” I got into the elevator, and punched the 15th
floor. The motion of the elevator mixed with the whiskey had my head spinning
like a top so I ran down my hallway, into my place, and had to throw my face
into the toilet -- I made it mostly. I crawled off the bathroom floor into the
shower. I felt the warm water washing over me, and everything became clear. I
had nothing, I mean maybe I did. I had my books, and my old Benz, I have this
apartment, I have LA – for what it’s worth, and I have my writing. 5 books I
thought, but for what.
I
woke the next morning, made some coffee, had a smoke on the balcony, and went
back in to wrestle with the blank page. I was working on my 6th
book, about a guy meeting a women, falling in love and running down the stars
and stripes escaping every bit of the world around them, at least that’s where
I thought it was heading. Afternoon became night, and night into late night,
and I cracked the seal of another wild turkey. I had banged out 15 pages,
whether they were good or not, who knows. I pulled out my phone and searched
for the app, findher, found it after
a while and downloaded it. Fuck it, what the hell, here alone in this
apartment, I bet these women are begging for a decent guy to give them a call.
After swiping through numerous faces, and tit pics I came to her, Penelope. Alright, alright, alright, I
gave it a call. A man with a dark voice answered, “hello?”
“hey, I’m trying to reach
Penelope?”
“What’s your address?”
“Uh, it’s, wait man how do I know
I’m not talking to a cop?”
“I’ll ask again, what’s your
address?”
“1459 Washington Ave, Room 156.”
“Be there in a half hour.” Then he
hung up. I jumped up from my chair and paced back and forth in the room, okay
fuck alright, just did that, alright. CLEAN, I’ll clean up a little, maybe
another shower? No I smell fine, maybe beat off? Okay yeah maybe, definitely
have another drink. 30 minutes later on the dot there was a knock on my door. I
opened it, and it was the pimp, same nice fella I talked to on the phone. “You
again?” I asked
“Pay before.”
“All right big guy, what’s the
going rate?”
“A G for an hour, 1500 for 2.”
“Here’s 1800, go get yourself
something nice.”
“Okay boss.” Penelope walked in,
she was a dark Spanish dame. Long
dark brown hair, dark eyes, face absolutely designed for beauty, red lipstick,
black heels, wrapped up in a long fur jacket. “Where?” she asked.
“Uh, living room I guess, just down
there to the left.” I shut the door on the pimp.
“Quite the place you got here.”
“Ah, yeah thanks..”
“How much you pay for a spot like
this?”
“I think 1.1, something like that.”
She walked down the hallway slow and smooth, walking from some heaven that had
brought her here, pious to the world from the bottom of her being to every tip
of every strand of dark hair. She was made for love, sex, and this, she was
this.
“What do you do mister?”
“I’m a writer.”
“A writer?” she sat down on the
long couch, I walked over to the bar.
“Yeah, a writer.”
“What books have you written that I
might know?”
“Uhm Devil in a New Dress, God Hates
You, what do you drink?”
“Gin, gin and tonic.”
“Satan’s Paradise.”
“Oh! I know that one! I loved that
thing .. wait.. you’re Colten Fox?!”
“Yep.” As I dropped a few cubes
into the glass. I had her now.
“Wow I’m about to fuck a New York
Times Bestseller!”
“Hahah that’s great.”
“What a girl can’t be excited?
You’re one of my favorites!”
“Well.. thanks..”
“Hookers read books too Mr. Fox!”
“Okay, all right, here’s your GnT.”
I sat down on the couch close to her.
“Have you been working on anything
new?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’ve wanted to do
more, something with a full punch of grit. Something that will grab you and
hang you over the edge and when you turn the last page it’ll feel like you’ve
lived twice. You know?”
“I’m not sure, sounds sexy though”
“All right, all right. I’m saying I
don’t want something that people will be necessarily comfortable with,
something that will bring a real story with it, something to widen eyes.”
“I like your classic love stories
though. They took me to a place and world where I don’t ever really see.”
“You think love exists in everyone?
You think every person can love?”
“I don’t know, Colten, that’s sad
to think about.”
“Here we are.”
Penelope takes a long drink from
her gin & tonic.
“Let me take your jacket.” I said.
“Thanks.”
“You called yourself a hooker
earlier, didn’t you?” I asked over my shoulder going to the closet near the
front door.
“Why yes, what else?”
“I just feel as if that’s what .. a
derogatory term?” I yelled down the hallway while hanging up the jacket,
turning around, and headed back down the hallway to the living room. She hadn’t
responded. I rounded the corner to the living room and nearly dropped my glass
full of bourbon. She had taken off the little black dress and had on the most
ridiculous lingerie, ridiculous in the most fantastic form. This was Satan’s
mistress, and certainly his paradise, where had she been when I wrote that damn
thing. “I’ll do it for you if you really, really like it”, she said staring me
dead in the eyes. “Oh Jesus.” I walked over and we did the deed right then and
there on the couch.
Midway
thru I looked up from her and out the windows at the city of angels feeling
more than ever before. Maybe this is true desperation, maybe this is what a man
is, looking and searching for reality yet having to get it in it’s temporary
forms, paying the man no matter what the circumstance. Just a blur, a dreamily
crazed wakening of time, money, and loneliness. This is what I had come to Los
Angeles for, to contact my most animalistic qualities in a place where everyone
felt the same, no judgments in the morning, no reason to hide. A jungle of man
made delusions, and manifest destiny, all funneling through The American Dream.
She
grabbed my neck, and ran her hand down my chest, “I don’t know who’s more lucky
tonight.” And never for a moment in the blazing heat of it all did I think I
was paying for what I was getting. She was more.
The
next morning I woke with a headache. I fumbled to the medicine cabinet, and put
my face under the sink. I think it was Thursday by this point, maybe Friday. It
really didn’t matter. I called up Emma, a good friend of mine with always a
good ear for listening. That’s what’s wrong with people these days and why I
stay away from them as much as possible, because nobody fucking listens, they
just wait to speak again, not her though. She’ll take it all in. We met in
college and have been friends since; she was my lawyer, and at times agent, but
mostly like sister that you could talk to about the dirty stuff. She had an
extended lunch because of meetings so she came over. I brewed some coffee, and
put the pan on the stove for some eggs. “Scrambled okay with you?”
“Whatever you’re serving chef” she
said from the bar seat
“All right, I’ll put some feta and
spinach in there, I know that’s your favorite.”
“Why’d you call me over here, we
never meet here, we’re never sober either.”
“Oh.. I don’t know.”
“You have any work for me? Anything
I can sell?”
“Maybe eventually, I’m doing field
work at the moment.”
“Christ Colten, what have you
gotten your self into?” I turned around from the eggs to face her, “I met
someone, quite the number too.”
“YOU, you met someone?”
“Why yes I did.”
“A name?”
“Penelope.”
“What does she do?” I turned around
back to the eggs to throw some more spinach in.
“She’s a uhm a stress reliever, a
spiritual pleasurer.”
“Like physically, like a masseuse?”
“She massages, yes.”
“And what was that second part?”
“Spiritual pleasurer.”
There
was about a minute and a half pause. “Turn around and look at me Colten”. She
used that tone that I’ve heard her speak in before we went into meetings, and
when she had to bail me out a time or two – so I turned around. “Is this
Penelope a .. hooker?”
“Oh Jesus Christ, that’s such a
derogatory term!” I turned back to the now cooked eggs, and pulled two plates
out of the top cabinet. “Wow, I’ve seen you, and heard of you doing some shit
in the time we’ve known each other, but this takes the cake.”
“Think about it though Emma, a
lonely man up in a glass house in the other city of sin, finding the morality
in the people that aren’t supposed to have any?”
“You write it, I’ll sell it.”
“Deal.”
“Just don’t think you can save her,
don’t think that she can be saved.”
I pushed her lunch in front of her,
“don’t worry, material gathering only.”
“how much is this assignment
running you?”
“Ooooh about 1500 a pop.”
“Shit, well, okay, this next ones
on me, get a fucking punch card or something.”
Emma
left shortly after. I went back to writing, then getting up and staring out the
windows every 10 minutes or so, recalling the night before. I haven’t had one
like that for a long time, someone who you play moments back and forth with in
your mind for the days after until you get another hit. It’s an addiction for a
desire, and a plague of lust. Not only the things she’d do, but her, just her,
she was fearless because I obviously wasn’t the first, and there wasn’t
anything to be insecure about, it was us at our most humanistic elements,
stripped of any doubt, or suspicion that could permeate in a “regular
relationship”. We had an obligation, an informal contract to do what we were
there to do.
Afternoon
turned to night, and eventually night into acceptable drinking night. I pulled
out my phone, and called the number again. My dark voiced pimp friend picked
up, “yes?”
“It’s Colten, from last night, I
want a round 2.”
“She’s booked for the night, john, I
can put you down for tomorrow at the same time.”
“But . .”
“Tomorrow or no?”
“Sure man, tomorrow, I just know
she’d rather have me!” the line was dead. I guess tomorrow it was. I looked
deeply at my Wild Turkey from across the table, and grabbed my keys instead and
headed down the local watering hole. The same place where I had initially found
out about this mess. I always walked; it was only a few blocks. There were some
younger guys standing out on the corner swaying back and forth talking. I
thought fuck it, and walked up to them, “hey you guys have any blow to sell?”
“Fuck outta heer old man.” The tall
one said.
“I may be old, but come on, do you or
do you not.”
“How much you got?”
“50 bucks, how about that?”
“Aight, old man, aight.”
“Hey you guys always round here?”
“Why the fuck you wanna know, youz
a cop?” asked a different one
“Uh no, I just live around here, so
if you gyp me, I’ll go somewhere else or I can be a repeating customer, just
saying.”
“Nah man, I got you bro.” Said the
tall one.
“Aiiiight.” I said.
“But just don’t do that.” The tall
one said. They all laughed. The tall one handed me a bag, and I threw my key
into it, my key up to the bottom of my nose, and breathed deep. I closed my
eyes, and shook my head. ALL RIGHT!
About
an hour later around 12:30 or so the two guys from the other night came in. I
waited for them to order drinks, then from a few bar stools down said, “hey..
fellas.”
“Yeah?” one of them said. They were
sloppy old degenerates, just oozing out from every crevice and into the bar
stool through their rum and cokes. “I checked out that app that you both were
talking about the other night..”
“You fuck one of them?”
“Oh yeah.”
“You sick fuck you, those skanks
are trash.”
“2 G’s a go is trash? Can’t be
worse than either of your old ladies.”
“The fuck you say?”
“haha oh come on, those pasty old
girls waiting for you at home.”
“Keep talking, please give us a
reason.” Just then my phone rang. I winked at them and took the call. “Yes?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Penelope?”
“Yeah, wanna come over? I want to
see you”
“Off the books?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I can’t figure it
out, maybe it was something you said. One of those unexplainable things I
guess.”
“Okay. Where do you live?”
“1279 Cleveland Way SE, almost into
Santa Monica.”
“Jesus, I’ll go get the Benz.”
“Are you good to drive?”
“I’m good enough to see you, yes,
I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Okay.” And I hung up, and turned
my head to my buds.
“Really wish I could stay and look
through those photos in your wallets of your pathetic lives, but I have to go
have some fun.”
“You fucking do that, you fuckin go
have a grand old time yah piece of shit.” I gave them the peace sign and then
flipped it to the middle finger while I walked through the door. Maybe I was
looking for something, maybe I wanted to get in someone’s face, and them to get
into mine, to keep living, keep towing the line till I figure who is tending
the light at the end of the tunnel. Fuck them, those old sick beasts, too weak
to live, too laughable to die.
I
went down to the garage and slumped into the Benz, an old 82 black convertible
with a coke white top. I stuck my keys in my bag one more time, and then threw
them into the ignition. I’ve always liked older cars; they have more truth to
them, built tough, with more conviction. You could feel it in the way it rode
on the hills, and down into the valley. My favorite place to just drive in the
old set of wheels is the road into Malibu, right along the beaten path of the
Pacific Coast Highway. Just rolling up through the hills with the top down, the
smell of the Pacific, not seeing it yet, but just smelling the salt in the air,
and when it’s about the time that day falls into evening, and it’s the moon’s
time to clock on, you can see the sun sinking into the ocean coming down from
the hills, and the giant orange orb on the edge of earth, and creation. It’s
true, real, and that’s what I’ll think about when I’m moments away from leaving
this earth.
I
rolled into Santa Monica about a half hour later. I pulled up to her place. A 3-story
brick building. I called her, and she came down. I walked up trying to hide a
smile and she wrapped her arms around my neck and put her face into my chest. I
could smell her hair and her perfume. She was wearing torn up jeans, and a pull
over sweatshirt. She was clearly off the clock. “It’s good to see you, sorry I
live so far away.”
“No worries P, I had nothing better
to do..”
“Come on up.” She lived on the 3rd
floor. A nice sized studio with
everything you really need. I sat down on the edge of her bed. “Want to listen
to some records?” Penelope asked.
“You have vinyl?”
“Only way to do it, how about some
blues, maybe, Davis?”
“Yes.” I laid down on the bed and
shut my eyes and listened the horns, and the piano, and everything. It was all
there in that room, nothing else but time, and her and me, and the music. No
reason to think or fear. She lit a few big candles, and turned out the lights. “Wanna
get high?” she asked
“Of course I would love to get
high.” She reached into her bedside table and pulled out a pipe and a bag. We
smoked a bowl and listened to jazz. She put her head on my chest, and I ran my
hands through her dark hair. “Don’t ask me about my work, it’s just us right
here, and now, I don’t believe in God either.”
“Okay.. that’s okay, what did you
want to be when you were little?”
“A veterinarian, and you?”
“A rock star, I wanted to be Kurt
Cobain”
“And cut your hand on angel hair??”
“Aha yeah, yeah, you know your shit!”
“Oh come on baby, you don’t know a
damn thing about me..”
“You’re right, but I think I want
to”. She looked up at me and put her chin on my chest, I looked down at her.
“No you don’t.. you really don’t.” She said. I broke eye contact and looked at
the ceiling. “You wouldn’t want me anymore, I’d make you sick to hear these
stories I keep up in here, what I have locked away, sometimes I feel like
swan-diving off of the roof, but I don’t, I just keep going, why, I don’t know.”
Penelope said.
“See, that’s why I want to, that’s
real, you’re a real person, you don’t meet many of those in this city, fuck,
anywhere.”
“Where are you from Colten?” She
moved up and laid on her side, and I turned over on mine, both looking at each
other again. “I’m from Seattle, I moved down here after college to chase
dreams, and meet beautiful women, and drive to their apartments at 1 in the
morning.”
“Oh shush, you didn’t have to
come!” She said with a smile.
“How about you bella, where are you
from?”
“New Orleans.”
“That explains
the music.”
“Everyone should
love jazz, fuck the squares that don’t.” I reached into my shirt pocket, and
pulled out 2 Marlboros, lit both in my mouth, and passed one to her.
“How’d you know I
smoked?” she asked
“I didn’t.”
“Tell me something.” She asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me a story, something that
will show me the man I’m actually laying across from.”
“Okay well.. you’re the first one
to hear this..”
“All right.”
“Recently I’ve been seeing women
from a far, or even some times in my dreams and they look sort of like my
English teacher from high school.”
“When was the last time you saw
her?”
“About 2 years ago, while I was
visiting home for Christmas, only a month before she committed suicide.”
“Oh Christ Colten.”
“Yeah, I don’t get it, she went out
brutal too, I just miss the fuck out of her, she taught me so much, and never
asked for a fucking thing, I don’t want to understand her reasons, I just have
never had any body even remotely close to me die. It just has loomed over me,
and fuck I mean I ran into her a month before, I just wish we could’ve talked
for longer, you know I’m not gonna say, ‘I wish I could’ve saved her!’ that
bullshit, I just wish we could’ve talked for longer, maybe that would’ve or
could’ve done something.”
“My God, yeah you can’t plan those
sorts of things, everyone’s got it figured out in reflection.”
“Yeah, and I was back up there in
Seattle this year, and, one night I was writing at this café, and I decided to
drive past my high school before going back home, this is about 3 weeks after
she offed herself, my parents live in a different part of town so I honestly
never got up to that area after I graduated. It was windy, and a bit rainy. I
parked my car out on the street, and walked up the back way to where I had her
class, this is at like fucking 1 in the morning, by the way. I walked up to the
window and lit a cigarette, fucking wind blowing like crazy, but I just stood
there in front of the window, and looked in, trying to feel something, you
know? Like I wanted to bawl my fucking eyes out right then and there, but
nothing. It started to just pour after 10 minutes so I threw out my smoke and
walked back to the car. I lit another when I got into my car and I think I got
like 4 blocks down the road before I started dropping ashes on myself from
trembling so much. I mean I was just crying like a fucking baby, just wailing
there in the car alone, I truly honestly can’t even remember a time where I had
cried before then, it had been so long. Just fucking terrible the whole goddamn
thing, she was so alone yet, not, everyone fucking loved her at that school.” She
leaned in without saying a word and held my face, I leaned into hers. We just
laid there together in the dark room, but we didn’t fuck, we just held each
other till sleep took control, and night turned to morning. I woke up and
outstretched my arms without opening my eyes, and I didn’t feel her. I looked
over and there was a note, “coffee in pot.”
I
rolled back into downtown. Thought about giving Emma a call, but instead slept
the rest of the day away. I had a dream about Penelope, and we were somewhere,
I’m not sure where, but it was clear and the whole dream was calm, and it felt
okay. We drifted in space and I heard her voice, as if we were going down a
long road next to the ocean front, and we kept running and driving, and never
stopping, just kept with the motion of time until there was no time, no place,
just us, and the sun, and the moon, every wall broken, every reality seen. Then
the dream shifted, and swirled and the whole thing just felt like I was
falling, and trying to reach out and grab something, but it was there wasn’t
anything. There was no God there, I only heard Penelope’s voice in distant
echoes, but there was no divine intervention to help, I just kept falling, and
that’s when the weird music began to play drowning out her voice.
I
woke up with a sense of longing, but not exactly knowing what for. I paced
around my room, and felt as if I wanted to shut everything off. The static, and
the noise of it all. Los Angeles, the lifestyle I had chose, the writing, and
the not writing, and the same depraved bullshit of living. I grabbed the bottle
of Wild Turkey, and a glass from the cabinet.
She
was scheduled to come to my place at 12, she got there at 1. I heard a knock at
the door, and I paid the pimp, and Penelope walked in down the hallway and into
the living room without saying a word. She just looked at me as she walked by.
Those dark eyes. I shut the door, and went down into the living room. She was
sitting there on the couch still in her fur coat. “So?” I asked.
“Hey.”
“How’s it?”
“I don’t know, Colten, I don’t want
you to pay.”
“Mm all right.”
“But I also can’t do this again.”
I walked over to the bar, and made
a gin and tonic, as well as a bourbon. “I can pay more?”
“NO, you’re not listening! I can’t
see you anymore!” I walked over, and handed her the glass.
“What, Penelope?”
“I’m trying to say, I have feelings
for you, and I had feelings once before, and I can’t go back, I can’t do that
again Colten..”
“We can leave! We can go up the
coast till we find somewhere, we can go to Big Sur, or Redwoods, fuck, lets go
to Seattle, lets leave, and go!”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying fuck this! Lets run
with it!”
“I can’t do that.”
“You’re confused, and you’re afraid
of anything real!”
“You just want someone that will
nod their head, and listen to you talk, you wouldn’t care if it was me, or some
other whore.”
“What are you even saying? I like
you, I really do Penelope! You’re reaching for things that aren’t there, you’re
putting up walls!”
“STOP, fucking STOP!” She screamed
through tears, makeup running.
“Lets go, right now, lets leave.”
“I have a life here, this is all I
know now! I’m a fucking whore, I fuck for money, I can’t love, I can’t see
you!”
“PENELOPE! PLEASE!”
“Stop it Colten, you’re making this
more difficult! Please, just fucking let GO!”
The door opened, and in came the
pimp. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I want to leave, I need to go.”
Penelope said crying, and getting up from the couch towards the door.
“THIS is YOU! THIS is all YOU!” I
yelled at the pimp. He started walking towards me, I grabbed a bottle from the
bar, and ran at him, bottle of aged whiskey high above, he grabbed it in mid
swing with his left arm, and got me with a hook from his right, the bottle
flew, and crashed on the hardwood.
“Christ’s sake, stop, please!”
Penelope screamed.
“You’re fucking killing her!” I
pointed at the pimp, “and you brought her in and wont let her go, where the
fuck is freewill? Huh motherfucker?!” I charged at him again and he hit me
again square, I fell back, and hit the floor, blood pouring from my nose. I
looked up through the blur of it all and saw Penelope one last time, makeup
smeared and still trembling, she looked at me in the eyes with pure fear, fear
of not knowing, and never taking that leap, and with the idea that she never
would again.
It
was that feeling again, that pulling sensation of going somewhere that is too
reflective of reality, all within split seconds, cut, and displaced images. Falling
into a white space with the weird music, and trembling with one hand letting go
of the wheel, and the other reaching to the cosmos. I saw it all there lying on
the hardwood, I felt it, my teachers face and her smile once again shifting to
her in a bathtub with red water pouring over the edges. I saw Penelope’s dark
eyes, felt her smell, and the touch of her hands on my face. Then a God-like
figure, and every fallen angel in linked arms walking down skid row, uprooting plastic
Palm Trees with each whisking step. Those sloppy old beasts of bar flies, and
the glass windows of my glass house, floating bottles of whiskey, and long
lines of Columbian, all in a loud cacophony of some false hope of my delusions.
I was trying to swim to the surface but there wasn’t any surface, just more
crashing waves. I’ll just keep running, and keep escaping to the next whim, to
that light and whoever is tending it. Fuck hope, and this place, its all a
façade of the dream that never existed.
“You can’t write your way to me,
this isn’t real love”, and then Penelope
turned away slowly. I shut my eyes till the sun came through the windows.
I
got up and washed my face, tended my wounds. I grabbed my keys, and my
sunglasses, and went down to the garage, opened the door of the Benz and took
down the white top. I drove up Pacific Coast Highway, towards the water, to
hear the ocean’s choir, thinking of a different time of a place that is true, with
the shapeless dreams, and tepid air flowing around. Bombing through those hills,
looking at the road ahead, it all felt real.
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