A Luna Blued

Last night I got lost in a forest… looking for Aggie Day. I’d found out she had a house on a ridge overlooking the glow of L.A. At the bottom of the hill was a wooded ravine, arched with a thicket of trees. A forested incline dropped down from her back door, laced with coyotes who traveled in threes. I didn’t mind… I carried a bag of Cheetos at all times, a distraction that always appeased. I started my climb four hours after dark, around nine on Christmas Eve.

It’s really not that big of a hill, not that steep of a climb; it shouldn’t have taken more than an hour or two. But by the time I neared the old gnarled wreath on her door, angel’s wings glittered with early morning dew. Four hours in, my legs shredded by cape honeysuckle thorns deceptively hidden in the mist, I knew I was only about halfway there so I sat down on a rock to rest. My snacks were gone, snatched up by those three coyotes, three little racoons, two mad squirrels and some odd little creatures who wore paisley weed coats held closed by moonlit butterflies. Thank God the bag of Cheetos I’d bought was the family size. One thing I noticed as the animals shared their evening fare and local dogs joined in on a chorus of Silent Night… was that they were all slowly making their way up that hill too; their journey timed to arrive at the top at first morning’s light. So I got back up and followed their meandering lead.

Almost four hours again later, after making circles around a wormy tree stump and gathering moths and skunks into our clan… the way ahead cleared the last few yards up, barely lit by the best dreams of man. And there in the small succulent-studded patch of golden rocks that was her back yard… that unearthly, straight shooting Aggie Day waited for them with gifts of ear muffs and stories and warm caramel scones on napkins of mossy jacquard.

I hung back, behind an old Palo Verde tree, watching the magic of it all, watching even the coyotes demur. It was twenty one years since I’d seen her last, yet exactly how I remembered her.

Joy to the World.

Rhea.

I had to give up Kodachrome. The saturated reds, the moody blues, the black… my god, the black… so dark it even gave L.A. a night.. its emulsion so tender, it caught the city’s angels in hovered flight. And now it was gone.

Cece broke it to me over bacon wrapped hot dogs from the El Happy Time cart outside Michael Levine’s on Maple, downtown. She was shooting a video on the Fourth Street bridge about a gargoyle’s sad song. The last great saviour of that magical film, Dwayne’s photo in Kansas, had stopped processing Kodachrome three months ago, “You can probably get it done in China”, Cece added, “But I bet the turnaround’s pretty slow.”

Truth is, I probably had all the shots I needed, after three events, forty-two rolls and seventeen years, I sure hoped so. But I went straight home to cocoon the eight film rolls I had left deep inside my fridge. Then later, after midnight, sometime around three, when spirits are freed, I went out and stood on my ridge. And listened for coyotes’ footsteps closing in on those about to cross into the soft after-light, on that misty bridge.

I’m pleased to say, at least tonight, there were none.

Aggie Day.

Johnny B. Right grew up on Santa Gertrudes behind the old Lucky grocery store. He ate Kirkland mac & cheese five nights a week with a diet Mountain Dew and a can of creamed corn. I married him a week after I turned nineteen at the St. Paul of the Cross on Foster Road just off Valley View. He had a cute little scar on his upper lip, a surfer’s grace and ate pizza on the other two. OK, so it was Dominoes but back then I didn’t know about goat cheese, tapenade, Marguerite and Portobellos brown-butter stewed. Stuffed crust was enough until my dead sister turned up with talk of Mee Grob, Flautas, Justice, Revenge, carnitas tamales and pungent Lobster dew, which is how I was wooed. Well that and the fact that Johnny cheated and I didn’t care.

But now, as I sit here alone in a Hollywood studio with nicotine walls, banging out lousy fish taco reviews, I’m thinking… maybe I made it all up: the visions, the purpose, the belief that I would discover who was kidnapping little girls and maybe who killed my sister. Maybe I didn’t see them on that Baja Street, maybe I didn’t know of angels in the mist. Maybe my sister was still alive out there, somewhere that I had missed. Maybe the fried oysters at the Palm, Ana Maria burritos, the torta grease trucks and the bacon wrapped hot dogs at the carts on Maple downtown were crap and maybe I’d never get my soul kissed. Maybe my faith, alone, had determined these things and maybe my faith was flawed. But I’d lost fourteen years playing by the book and I’d slammed someone, left them slack-jawed. So here I sat, pen and doubt in hand.

I opened a San Miguel, put old “Better Days” on the player and drank as Muldaur wailed for someone to love. I snapped it off, opened the window for a breeze and peeked through the bougainvillea down to Mulholland, below… I saw a skinny coyote scurry down through some bush with something fleshy in its mouth and I saw a dull blue van, creep away, not too slow.

I could feel something bad in the warm night breeze. The spirits and nightmares were calling for a hack and man oh man, that was me.

Rhea.

Driving into L.A. around the hour of the wolf, rounding that curve just past the Cesar Chavez exit off the 101, two lanes swoop through an old tunnel, past exiting dreams, then slip on into downtown. Our Lady of the Angels watches over the freeway; so does the L.A. County jail… both hungry for souls that have drowned. I drove by fast, I liked driving free on moonlit streets and tonight the moon was full round.

It cast an eerie glow on the hookers outside the IHOP on Sunset and Cherokee and bathed two lovers in creamy gold as they hurried across the street, sharing a sweet Thai Tea. A few blocks down, at Tang’s near Hyperion, two cops who looked about twelve bit into a couple of plain glazeds stuffed with cream and never saw the blue van roll by.

But I did. And I’d seen it before, stealing away down a Baja road outside Ensenada Joe’s after snatching, I was certain, a little girl begging for one dime more. And I’d done nothing… so far.

So now I jumped into my LeBaron and tailed it down the boulevard, lined with after-hours partiers scarfing Mee Grob and starless air. But I lost him as he rounded the corner by Madame Matisse and Uncle Jer’s.

It’s a big city sure but now that I knew he was here, I’d find him; I’d made a vow… to try and help my sister and other stolen girls, someway, somehow.

And if I didn’t fail, if I untethered their childhood, I’d eat a double shot of C.C. Brown’s and try and remember the good.

Rhea.

There’s a fog huffing in off the Onofre coast, giving new illegals cover. Outside a Bull Taco stand, a sixty year old surfer shares a burrito supreme with her mother. In the deco lounge of L.A.’s Union Station, a teen lets go of her lover. And there I was, rotting on the side of a Hollywood Hill… but that’s long over.

Now here Rhea sits, in a Barragan’s booth eating dollar tacos with Felipe and Mario… wondering where did the good times go? I am stunned, doesn’t she know? These are them.

I know she loved the crusty edge of the Tic Toc’s mac and cheese and the soft center of Butchie’s clam cakes fried in grease and the carnitas at Ana Marie’s. And the Astro Burger’s onion rings and way neon shimmers in a Santa Ana Breeze. And her first love’s kiss, still untainted by the disease… of the broken-hearted.

Honestly, I’d let her carry on, wear her wound on her sleeve, let her walk away from joy at every turn. But I was her wound. If I could just get one thing to go her way, let one solid clue surface any day, if she could just find out who killed me then I could say… my debt was paid. Let’s see a smile.

Aggie Day.

What the f**k is the matter with failure? It’s everywhere under the sun… flavored coffee, anything soy, Domino’s pizza and my relationships, every f**king one. Failure’s always an option, always a choice, like Del Taco and Madam Wu’s pork buns. But I digress.

George lost the Trop. But I needed coffee, bad. I’d been up all night wrestling with six unruly words and a twenty year old busboy I wish I’d had. George was now working the counter at the Beachwood cafe so I drove up the hill for a cup. Since I rarely came up this far, she wanted to know what was up. There was a girl at the counter, beautiful, strong, eating eggs over easy and ketchup-ed hash browns. When George brought her a side of two short stacks, I noticed slung over the girl’s slender arm was a thirty year old M.E. Pentax. As cool as the look in her eyes.

George poured me a coffee and asked, “You bailing on me tonight?” … she was gonna make us a grilled onion and Romano pizza from scratch… and read our cards from a forty year old deck that once belonged to Garbo but got snatched. Now… I could use some direction, a little clairvoyance, any glimpse into my future I wouldn’t shrink from. But I was wary of reading too much into negligible leads… the ones I’d had, had dried up like mist in an August dawn. So I told her, “Yeah… I gotta work, gotta chase down a beer-battered prawn.” My apatite, I could always count on.

And who knows… maybe I’d run into someone.

Rhea.

I know the scent of cumin in a tikka masala; I know how much Kim Chee it takes to burn its memory into a night. I can smell Peking duck from half a block down and I memorized every Grand Central chili in one bite. But I don’t know me.

I used to know what I wanted from a day: to see a little beauty, eat cheap and good, avenge my sister and write. Now I wake up as late as I possibly can… I try to avoid the light. I don’t want to see the anger in my own eyes; don’t want to see what everyone knows isn’t right. But it’s a new year and I was hoping to start out strong so I’d vowed to get up no later than 4 hours past dawn. And knock on doors in the light of day… particularly the one in Elysian where one of those two stolen girls was still prey.

Ten-o-five, AM, I was back on the road, Sunset to Alvarado to Arvin east of Avalon. One frightened peek in that back bungalow window and I knew now both girls were gone. And as I looked and the weeds in the yard, and into the room that looked long unused, I wondered had it all been a dream: the angelic visions, the trouble, the girls… all a grand distraction, to make up for letting her out of my sight, to ease this twenty year emotional infection. I’m going with yes.

Think I’ll go get a kalamata and eggplant pizza and see if I can become any less.

Rhea.

The romance of L.A. eludes me.  But I didn’t come here for the vibe.  Still… I’ve gotten used to the Tamarind sodas on York and even Olvera has an OK side.  And the air in October, when a Santa Ana blows, holds light like it’s in somebody’s eyes.   But don’t go thinking you know me.

To you I’m the leather faced hard ass, the old woman behind Domingos bar, the bitch who hates having to serve you…  and the mother who’s spent fourteen years trying to get her stolen kid back… yeah, that too.

So when that Porter chick comes in talking camarones to my guy like a liar’s foreplay,  I could  give a rat’s ass if she thinks the A La Diabla oozes heat, where I come from it can save the day…. for any mojada slipping across the border.

But I shut up and stay away – that woman is up to no good.   And whenever I can, I slip down the boulevard, west, into the angel-ed air of the Hills of Hollywood.   And hope one of them helps my child get away for a minute or two but what’s the likelihood?  Still, I wait at the bus bench halfway up the hill in case she could.

I won’t tell you what I’ve done, I won’t tell you what I do but I’ll tell you, you might do it too… given the circumstance.  So laugh at my snarl, wonder why I’m socially employed but don’t go asking me to dance.  You don’t want to know me.

Myrna.

I always go back to the bad ones.  Not for long, but long enough to regret.  The neon Cheetos, the doughy onion rings, the frozen buttercream frosting for breakfast… and the aging wannabe musician who was still f**king his ex.

Dust had nothing going for him except a wayward smile and the promise of a vagabond life.  But like most everything else in this town, it was a beautifully crafted lie.  And it’s not that I bought it and it’s not that I believed; I just never felt the urge to do any better.   He ate Erewhon mung beans, he rhymed “oh Girl” with “my world” and his love of himself was unfettered.   But he was an easy enough place to get lost in and he knew how to move.  And I was tired tonight of thinking of lost and dead girls and tired of not knowing what to do.

I was good last night, I wrote my review, paid homage to the street party L.A. dining has become…   I only had two beers and I went to bed before one… with every intention of waking up early and doing what I had vowed, long ago, to do… knowing full well the light of day would cripple me with doubt like any other fool.  But lately my lack was weighing on me and I craved a stronger tool.

So as dark blanketed the L.A. sear, I ventured out with my numbing need.  I stopped at the Astro for a greasy high then cruised over the Froo Pool Room where Dust hung out, by Cherokee.   Hours later I woke up next to cold onion ring crumbs on sticky sheets.  But then came the hour of three.  When the quiet settles into the cracks of the night and the ghosts in the air kiss your skin…  Aggie was at the window… my ghost, my reason, my kin.  “The hell you doing?” she yelled at me, though only I could hear, “You gonna f**k away another ten years?!”  I left Dust’s bed as she nagged “You better buy this kid pretty soon and find out who’s snatching these girls.  You think you’re tired?”  She asked me “I’ve been waiting for this for thirty two years.”    I followed her out the window; she let me down on the street with a thud.  I thought I’d better buy her a breakfast burrito from the Burger Hut.  To calm her down.

But the Hut didn’t open until six thirty so we headed to Denny’s for an original Slam… pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy, creamed coffee, me and Aggie and no man.  And in the two hours left until dawn, she said to me before the butter got runny: “Why don’t you just stay up?  And get your ass over to Sakuri’s house before dawn, before you wimp out again, and hit her up for the money.”  Not a bad idea.

Rhea.