A Luna Blued

I’m starting to get worried about the light in L.A…. it’s never really night anymore.  The bleed from the streets washes far past the moon and I’m losing hold of all those things the cover of darkness bore…  like dreams unburdened by light.

Now It’s ten past midnight, the sky’s an orangey haze, the streets are littered with grease trucks selling street hip croquettes and fusion moles but I’m so freaked about what I thought last night that all I want is the comfort of a can of Old El Paso frijoles… with a pile of cheddar melted on top..  But Teddy wants two hundred words on these hipster roach coaches so I’m back on the boulevard, full stop.  But I can’t stop thinking…

Ten minutes into a twenty minute line to buy a fried polenta pocket stuffed with peaches, laced with maple cream, I remembered the dream.   Now maybe it’s the sputtering neon mist that passes for night that’s altered my reason, but damn if I didn’t think my idea to buy a girl was good…   and that this means to an end wasn’t treason.

I paid two bucks too much for the polenta peach pocket, though it was worth about fifty words; I got a chili feta pupusa at the truck parked a block away and two raisin empanadas at the one parked on third…   I ate them fast, jotted down notes then headed to the Sunset Food For Less.  I got my El Paso frijoles, a hunk of Kroger cheddar and a six pack of Tecate, to temper the mess.

Back home, as the hot cheese folded into creamy beans, and the cold beer went down a treat, I focused in on the task at hand and I hope I didn’t cheat: To buy one of the girls I’d need to know, first how to get one, who to ask?  Then, how much do they cost?  I couldn’t ask Myrna, she hated me and Panama would either lie or laugh… and I didn’t want to tip him off in case his innocence was a mask.  Besides, he might prove useful down the line.   Then I remembered, Anna Sakuri would know all… and I knew where she dined.

I slept, then, deep through L.A.’s darkest hours until dawn crept in, barely lighter than this night… and I felt the flurry of my sister’s wings leaving my window in flight.  She’d been watching me.

Sure hope she agreed.

Rhea.

I once got lost in a forest lit, I swear, solely by luminous wings that reflected a light born of death and other transparent things.   I could have stayed there forever, sat in that light, on that moss, until I died.  But there was no carnitas stand nearby, no place to get a nice piece of banana cream pie.  So I walked out of that padded mystical light in search of a more carnal love and calamari, deep fried.

I’m suburbia born, L.A. bred, no other forest had ever invited me… this city was perverted neon dream, a forest of longing.  Four + million hungry for fame or minimum wage and there’s a man on the corner, eating alone without rage.  Don’t know why but these are the things I see.  And though I write about nine kinds of salsa and the best place for ghee, no way am I a foodie.  I’ll never get a Pulitzer for poblano prose and I don’t care which food truck dusts their sweet potato fries with cloves; my palate remains unrefined.  The reward I crave is only city-wide: a plaque for nailing the kidnappers, as if I’d…  Dreams of glory, yeah, but hey, this is L.A.

So I tell myself I can’t go to the cops because Ozrin’s a rich Bel Air producer who’d convincingly lie about the Mexican child stashed in his little maid’s room.  But I know I really want to get him myself.  So I better think big… and soon.

Then I remember: she had a sister, held in that back room in bartender Myrna’s Elysian Park bungalow around the corner from that Greek place that sells greasy artichoke calzones.  And if it’s true, these girls are for sale, just a bid won… then maybe all I have to do to get the truth is to, somehow, buy one.

Rhea.

Maybe it was the heady scent of his tacos al pastor but I thought he was glad to see me.  I saw a flicker of heat when he twitched a wry smile but then he walked away like I was after his gris gris.  It hurt, ’cause I didn’t even like the guy.  Our night of naked heat with Ana’s gorditas, I thought, should’ve been enough for him to want a second round.  I wasn’t gonna take this lying down.

I hung back, let him amble away, sipping his guava atole.  I stopped at Granada’s tamale cart for a carnitas combo, but I kept my eye on the goal.  He crossed the street, heading back toward eighth, then got in an old Nova, a faded gas station bathroom green.  I had just enough time to get back to my LeBaron, down the pambazo and follow the dream.

He cruised back up to the boulevard, headed west then eased to a corner around Lucile.  A skanky looking broad oozed to the curb as he rounded it, looking to make a deal.  There was barely a whisper, barely a pause then she smiled and slid into the Nova as it shushed around the corner.  I whipped a U, followed them down the hill to a block of garden apartments shaded by lost promise and ardor.

Under an old scrub Oak, he eased to a stop, turned the Nova off and didn’t get out.  I parked half a block back, unseen, but welcoming my old friend doubt.  The one thing I thought I had going for me was a food and sex combo that verged on devout.  I’d been replaced by a foodless chick who charged by the mouth.  And I had no new info on the case.

I don’t bow to anyone’s expectations, especially my own and I’ve set the bar pretty low.  But somehow, sitting there, still hungry and alone I let my mind roam.  And it didn’t go to counting my faults; it went a long way back, to sisters, to home.

I got back my conviction, turned the car around and drove back onto the street full of warriors, unsung.  Luck for me, the night was still young.

Rhea.

Let me tell you, this chick was the definition of addiction… Garbo mouth, fractured soul, skin like some heady dose of cumin-scented fiction.  I was hoping L.A. would be as wild as they say but I never expected her shattered conviction… to pungence in mole, sexual vengeance and the need for ghostly validation.

So yeah, when I saw her round that corner down by eighth, I was a little weak at the knees but no way was I glad to see her.  We’d been here before, with gorditas from Ana’s and the crazy sex of consenting strangers.  I say let it lie.  There was a need to her original deception.  But now she was out of her league.  And I’m not talking about the pambazos.

She’d asked her questions; I’d told her good lies now she was back and it wasn’t for me or the Breed Street flautas.  The woman wanted information.  Now… I could f**k her like I wanted, lie like she needed, and walk away with just the scent of her glee.  But the first one’s always free.  One more night of her carnal abandon and I just might spill the beans.

So I turned my back on that narcotic invitation and walked away.

Two hours later, half a block south of the boulevard, in the back seat of my ’96 Nova, parked in front of a cracked pink stucco bungalow… I looked up at a shadow and knew… that addiction had followed me home.

Panama G.

Sometimes it takes me awhile to remember…. the surprise of the bacon in a Bull Taco burrito, the pain of the light of day or the truth in what people say.  George had left at a quarter to two, after we’d eaten her last four pear cream tarts.  Two hours later I was still wide awake, thoughts running through my head even after nine drops of white chestnut bark.  Then one thought slammed home like tomatillos and lime or the truth after a night of lying:  I remembered Sakuri at the Polo Lounge saying , “…he must’ve bought one…”  she wasn’t talking about a Malibu view or the Forty dollar Kobe Burger,  medium well done.    She was talking about little girls and Matt Ozrin.

When I’d first followed the child there, I’d hoped, against gut, he was some kind of saviour.  Who’d ever want to believe there’s evil in a well-lit neighbor?  But I knew what I knew: she was the child I saw in Ensenada transported to an alley in L.A. where my dead sister flew.   And Ozrin owner her.  And Myrna had driven her there.  And somehow, Panama had been wooed.  He couldn’t have been intentionally involved; after all I’d f***ed him.  And though I never seemed to get good guys, none knew the devil as kin.   And… he was still my only way in.  And he liked the pork buns at Madame Tu’s and Garcia’s chorizo pambazos.

In the big picture, I knew Ozrin didn’t act alone.  Somewhere, there was a network, a distributor, a supplier, a boss.  And I needed to figure it all out and take the girl back home.  I was hoping he’d just bought her for a maid and she was comforted by a warm place to sleep in her own little room somewhere in back.  And I was wishing I was more than a hack.  But I wasn’t.  Still, or because of that…

I waited until dusk, until the end of the day at Manuel’s auto repair.  Fernando Alvarez does transmission work there… and he knows every taco in town.  I paid him thirty bucks for an oil change and a tip on where else a pambazo devotee might be found.  I waited an extra hour after dawn then headed east on the boulevard… turned right off Chavez down Pleasant to Boyle then south a little below Eighth.   Then I saw him: fluid on the street, eating a crispy flauta, oozing red chili and faith.  Now this I remembered.  Stopping halfway down the block, I could feel his addiction.  He felt something too and turned to me, hungry, like this city’s fiction.

I think he was glad to see me.

Rhea.

“Leave it alone” Teddy warned me as he finished his torta with haunted unease.  Then he left that sticky strip mall dive with a parting shot: “It’ll always bleed.”  I knew he meant society’s punishing wound of ignoring those in need… and both our inadequacies.

So I ordered take-out nachos with extra cheese and an Alambre torta oozing grease.  I ate them looking out my window at an L.A. sky thick with silent angels’ wings.  I ate them slow, hoping to distract myself from uneasy things… but I’m still hungry.

It’s ten after eleven on a Thursday night and I’m just starting to feel awake.  I finished my review of Torta Town and sleep would be a welcome break… but I can’t stop thinking.  Teddy’s burned out, the cops won’t help, and I’m a nobody with a few lousy clues: A child I saw on an Ensenada street is now ensconced in a Bel Air manse, wearing a little maid’s uniform and ill-fitting shoes.  And a guy I f**ked who hangs out at Domingos bar was delivering her lousy fast food…  All convincingly explained away except that my dead sister told me that none of this was good.  And here I sat, unable to help and all I could think of was how he moved.  OK so maybe he lied, maybe he was scum but maybe there were things he knew.  And maybe that was worth another slow smokin’ screw.  Anyway, I had nothing to lose.

I brushed my teeth, grabbed my bag, and as I opened my door, the phone rang.  It was George… up late at the café, baking fig brulée and mango merengue.  “Nine of these damn tarts crumbled on one side, I ate half, you want the rest?”  She said she’d be by in three, then hung up knowing I’d say yes.

All it took was one look at me and she knew what I was up to… “Isn’t it a little late?”  I shrugged, “Escape is escape”.  “Escape is a bitch” she said as she broke apart a still warm pear cream tart.  “And worth every bite.”  Not true, I found out the next night.

Rhea.

I wish I was in it for the stuff:  I wish I lived this life, did my job, said my prayers out loud for the reward: the guy, the trip, the money, the love…the feeling of praise from above.  But I know better.  You can pray all you want, work your ass off, try to love for all the right reasons and still end up alone, rhyming dim sum with cum and stuffing down hope like it was treason.

Still… I knew things no one else did and I knew that they were true.  I knew Horatio was held in a mansion in Bel Air and maybe she’d been bought like you buy a view.  And I’d need a whole lot of luck if I was gonna try and get her out and redeem the life that I was due… You could say I had something to prove.  I was gonna need some help.

Teddy Doheny put mustard on his tacos and liked his asparagus canned but he knew a thing or two… about things that are darker than night.  Like runaways hooking at the Olive Motel and little girls lost without a fight.  Sure, the rag he owned that I wrote for sported drivel about B celebs and bargain wine but once it had offered Hollywood truths and Teddy had the byline.  He’d written the story about the fire that had killed those three little girls a decade ago and I just knew… that somehow it was related to Myrna, Horatio and the business of flesh that’s never new.

He was wolfing a torta in a strip mall on Hyperion, going over my last review: written on the back of a napkin at Ciro’s in East L.A., drooling rellano juice.  “You know, that night you let me into the vault to look for that fire story?”  I asked before I sat down. “Don’t want to know that shit anymore”, he answered, “But I got a feeling it’s sticking around.”  “There’s a little girl…” I started; he interrupted, “There always is, can’t you stick with feta omelettes and chorizo stew?”  “It’s the City of Angels out there,” I reminded him, “We can make our own rules.”

He called me a dreamer.  Felt like he called me a fool.

Rhea.

Anna Sakuri was sixty-nine inches of hedonistic glee packed into forty four years of ruthless will.   She sold real estate in Beverly Hills… a young man’s game, now, but she ate young men for lunch.  Which is where I caught her.  At the Polo Lounge, at her usual table with a thirty dollar tuna salad and a blow dried junior agent to munch.

“Long way from Cinco Puntos.”, she snickered as I approached, knowing what pleasure had made her.

“About thirty bucks a plate.” I shot back, then sincered: “I need a favor”

She kicked junior out but he didn’t go far.  He tried to sneer at me then took his glass of milk to the bar.  I slid in to the booth, close enough to see her Nicoise.

“You want me to take her back.” she said.  “God no”, I answered, “She’s happy.”  “F**k you.” she stabbed.  “No thanks” I coyed, “I’d never win.”

She smiled that smile that hid everything and said “Sweetie, it’s only sex and gin”.

I slid her a slip of paper with the Bel Air house address, honing in on what I was after.  I asked if she knew who owned it, if it was a house of sadness or laughter.  She glanced at it, no more than a second and there it was, a name: “Matt Ozrin… low-rent movie producer,” she laughed, “thinks his shit has class.”  I asked if she knew him and she told me she “f**ked him in the bathroom of the Golden Globes that year Carrey talked out of his ass.”

She wanted to know why I wanted to know so I told her the truth like I’d won: that I was chasing a lead on a kidnapped little girl I believed was now in that house of Matt Ozrin.  “Oh” she said, and her coolness only shocked when she added, “He must’ve bought one.”

Now… it took me awhile to get it… and a twelve dollar Heineken, ice cold.  They call it the City of Angels and now I wondered why… those with flight would ever alight in a place where girls are bought and sold.

I’m thirty eight, now and just starting to care so… angels be damned, I’m not giving up my hold.

Look out.

Rhea

Three coyotes crossed my path as I stood in the moonlight next to a vacant lot on the hillside above the Hollywood reservoir…. one was carrying a nearly empty Cheetos bag loosely in its jaw.  It was three hours before the first dawn of 2010 and I was alone… and hungry.

On my way up here to bury 2009 and all my failings and grief, I’d passed the guy who lives under the five by the bridge just north of Avila Street.  I gave him my tamales and rellanos with chili grease, and asked him to look out for my sister…

I got a bag of Fritos and some chive cottage cheese from the Arco on Franklin and Beachwood then headed up into the Hills below the Hollywood sign.  I don’t go there much, too many there still believe in their dreams… that’s hard to take when you know you’re out of time.  Still… I turned up Ledgewood, took Mulholland around the curve past Aldus Huxley’s old house then slammed into the sight of L.A… spread out below like a jewel thief’s treasure.  I parked on a ledge with plenty of room to take full measure.  I came up short.

Somewhere down there, Aggie had worked the night shift in a Hollywood IHOP, banking extra cash for LACC credits.  Well, that light was out, now and here I sat, unable to affect it.

As I felt the light of 2010 creep up behind me I finished my Fritos and chive cottage cheese…  and remembered the familiar gnawing pain of inadequecy.  Somehow, I had to get back on the case.

Driving back down Sunset, east, I stopped at the IHOP hoping to see my sister.  No such luck.  But I was still hungry.  I took a seat at the counter by the window and ordered a Buttermilk combo as the last neon lights went out with a sputtered whisper.  Then I saw: on the counter was a discarded newspaper… open to the real estate section.  My heart started beating faster.  There on the page for Bel Air listings was an air-brushed picture of a blond and busty agent who knew who owned every house in Bel Air… Resurrection.  And… the woman owed me.

I toasted 2010 with a side of onion rings and put in a call to Teddy to see if he’d up my budget.  Tomorrow I was eating west.

Rhea.

Most nights in L.A., five or so hours after dark, settle down into a quiet dream.  You can look out at a million lights, feel gloriously alone and you can breathe.  Except for New Years Eve.  The magic that’s L.A., the gamble, the promise, the wild, borderless idea… is easily trespassed by the Eve’s mythical, drunken panacea.  That’s when I slip down to the alleys in Boyle Heights looking for anything wrapped in a tortilla.

I got pork tamales from Joaquin Ceranza, selling them out of the trunk of his car parked in a shadow outside a lavanderia up for lease. I went around the corner to Olga Feliz’s Buick for some hot spongy rellanos oozing chili grease.   I had reason to celebrate…

There was a party at the house in Bel Air, Christmas Eve.  Finally, the child showed.  Not the baby Jesus, of whom I’ve never dreamed but the girl I was sure was Horatio, in whom I completely believe.  I was parked outside, eating Denny’s onion rings and straining to see up the long, gated drive.  It was late, after three, when the last guests left, that I glimpsed her little figure in the Christmas light lit mist and I knew she was alive.   She came out a side door, dragging a big bag of trash, left it by the garbage bin then hurried back inside.   My mind was screaming “What the f**k was going on?” but my heart was just plain relieved.  She had survived.

So, six days before the start of 2010,  I resolved, again, to find out what was going on… to help that girl, free myself from loathing and set my sister free.  And now it was New Year’s Eve.  I bought a few extra flautas, an extra bag of chips and a tart of lemon curd creme… hoping my sister Aggie would leave her fellow angels in the L.A. air and, just for this night, join me.   Maybe the scent of this night has a cast a spell on me, maybe I’m as illusional as this rare Blue Moon… But I’m feeling lucky.   Hope you are too.

Happy New Year.

Rhea.