A Luna Blued

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.

There’s a shaft of moonlight that spills onto my pillow most nights except for the hours around a new moon.  It’s about all the light I can stand… except this time of year.  As I drove east on Sunset, back from the darkness in Bel Air, the glittery bells that swagged across the boulevard almost eased my fear.  And the fairy lights around the Frolic Room’s door twinkled reflections in my beer.

I’d stopped off for a San Miguel after I was felled by the unholy glare of industrial  flourescents bouncing off a thousand cans of chili in the window of a 99cent store.  So I pulled over and parked and retreated for a moment into the hushed, shadowed, old Frolic’s lore… into the Miguel’s liquid amber glow and a bowl of strips.  And I tried not to think of that little girl’s night or Panama’s lips.

So I thought of Myrna.   She had the eyes of a crow, the look of disdain, a mercenary acceptance of fate.  Well… that I understood.  But I wondered what was at stake?  Why would she take her granddaughter to a mansion in Bel Air?  And why did the guy from Dado want her there?

First off, yeah, I thought all the bad things.  Who wouldn’t, living in this world?  But it was Christmas time, the nights were lit nice, maybe there was a little magic in them for a little girl.   I chased the Miguel with a Hennesy up… and I started thinking merry thoughts: like maybe the Dado guy was some do-gooder type, just trying to help a child out.  Then a couple came in, trying to catch some cool, and before the door closed, I glimpsed outside:

And there was Aggie, across the street by the corner of Argyle, with her wings folded down, just so.  And no one else, cocooned in their tweets and their cars, noticed her unearthly glow.  Her head was down, against the chill, but she looked up, straight through the door, right at me. And she smiled that half-smile that said “Don’t ever let it be.”   Then she looked away and kind of walked south and I knew she was headed for our old favorite: Denny’s.

I slapped a ten on the bar and hurried out, following her lead, down Argyle to Sunset then east. I walked the two and a half blocks to Gower Gulch where the franchise has been since nineteen eighty two.  I made my way through the packed diner to where she was sitting alone in a back booth… a take-out order of onion rings before her.  And I knew… that I was going to take it back to Bel Air and sit outside that jeweled vault of a house knowing what was true… that at least, for this night, someone was trying to watch over that child.

Because it’s Christmas, and for all the talk of peace and light… for all the angels imagined in flight, I had my own to guide me.  Oh Holy Night.

Rhea

I eat to live.  It’s my a job.  And though five bucks and a gooey capriotada gets me out of the house and keeps my editor, Teddy, happy…  what got me back on my dark true path was the memory of white spaghetti.

I was down on myself, always and again, looking for a cheap thrill to feed my moral slumber.  The Food For Less on Sunset and Western has a little Mexican pastry “five for two dollar” number.  I bought a chocolate concha, two empanadas oozing creme and two big pink polvorones.  Dinner for one.

As I hurried up the condiment aisle toward the self-serve check-out lane, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed the shiny green Kroger grated Parmesean cheese can… and I was gone.

Growing up we were broke a lot… didn’t know it, didn’t care, lots to do… like watching my younger sister’s bold moves as she danced with any adventure she could woo.  That young, everything was play – didn’t know some adventures held karmic demons, no matter how hard you prayed.  Still, those nights, the consequence of the world seemed farther than dawn and when we couldn’t afford anything more, mom sprinkled plain spaghetti with a little Kroger Parmesan.  Enough to dream on.

I headed east on Sunset as the sun flamed down low, turned up Beaudry then parked just down and across from the Elysian Park bungalow.  I opened a YooHoo, pulled a polvorone from its white paper bag and settled in but this night wasn’t on the slow.

Ten minutes gone, two bites into a second polverone, the garage door opened across the street and Myrna crept out in an old gray Mercedes sedan wearing a face of stone.

I downed the cookie, did a U at the end of the block and followed her down to the boulevard.  As she headed west and I fell in behind her, I remembered that Aggie always said her prayers out loud… “Please Dear God bless my family… and let me touch a cloud.”

Myrna slid down Sunset, far past the Strip then slowed as she approached Bel Air.  She pulled to the curb at a little stone bench half-hidden by Birds of Paradise in pairs.  The passenger door opened a crack then closed and she pulled away, leaving little Ensenada Horatio alone on the bench, quiet and waiting… like prey.

Before I could even think to approach, to grab her… to ease her world, an old Ford beater pulled up, driven by a Mexican teenage girl.  Little Horatio got inside and they drove up into the hills.

Following as they drove past houses of gold glimpsed through gates of misted pearls; I pulled to a curb as they drove through one of those gates, up a drive to house around which entitlement curled.

I grabbed the iron of those locked gates, as the mist drooled down my hands, begging my eyes to witness anything.  Then the sonofabitch from Dado’s, weeks ago, led Horatio out of the Ford as the mist in the air around him revealed coal-black wings.  He took her inside and closed the door.

I know the stench of failure haloes my pores, I know the dreams of childhood and love evade me… but if I keep trying, if I say my prayers out loud maybe someone, even me, will hear them.

Amen.

Rhea.

She could lick the crisp off a Chinatown duck faster than I could breathe.  She could suck the sweet off a Koo’s pancake and make you believe… there was still magic in L.A.  She could down an El Greco calzone with a big Yoo Hoo and crease you with a smile sideways.  She could hold my basest wants in her perfect carnal sway… but was she quite as clever as she thought?  No f**king way.

I wasn’t some late night party trick or some mojado just over from TJ.  Sure, I drove those girls to Myrna’s house in Elysian Park and I fed them good tortillas from Luella’s down on Chavez Way.  And when I saw, in the dark down the block from Myrna’s bungalow, Rhea’s old LeBaron with the top stuck down, I knew she was looking to do more than just eat, f**k and write in this town.

Maybe she was working on a book, some kind of expose; maybe she was working undercover for the cops… I didn’t care, either way.  She was after something – maybe even me.  But trying to bait me with carnitas – even ones from Antojitos Denise’s?  Please.  Still… the woman made me hungry.

Four burritos later with the sweat just starting to cool, I had her believe… that the girls were Myrna’s granddaughters – illegals – who could be taken away.  She was hiding them from the police.  And I was just a big hearted honest kind of Joe, helping out a friend in need.  Then I left while she was still asleep.

I left before the doubt of dawn burned in a new day.  I left still feeling her perfect carnal sway.  Yeah… she could down a double-stuffed amore in one luscious bite and take the edge off any other useless night.  But don’t go messing with my income.

Panama G.

I could stay awake at night forever and let the days go by unveiled.  But Koo’s is only open in the hours before wee and their Griddle cakes are unrivaled.  Pancakes are where I go when I want to hide.  Something about their syruped dough helps me forget my lies.  But today I drove on by.  I’d won an all-night fight with my apathetic soul now I needed to bait my soul-less guy.

Well, maybe Panama wasn’t really my guy but the twinge I felt when he mouthed a Praya pork bun was as close to that as I’d wanted to come.  And by the smile I’d caught in his wayward eyes when I’d downed that hot dumpling from Torung, I knew he had a thing for me too, at least after round one.  He also had info I needed: like what the hell were they doing with those girls and how I could get them freed; get this thing done.

I figured anyone with an L.A. dive pork jones would get creased by the carnitas at Antojitos Denise.  So I picked up four and went in for a Corona at Domingos, ready to transform my need.  He was there, in the shadow, nursing a San Miguel, trying to look like he didn’t belong.  I set the bag on the bar, and ordered a cold one, my heart beating an addict’s song.  As the scent of the magic in those sweet hot greasy burritos escaped into the dead evil air, he couldn’t resist.  “You either give me a taste of what’s in that bag or find out if your disappearance is missed.”  I smiled, “Ask nice or I’m eating alone.”  He threw cash on the bar, took my elbow, eased me outside and drove me home.

Three burritos in to a muggy night dense with the taste of shredded pork, smoky heat and pungent balls, my questions were answered, my anger aborted:  The girls were the daughters of Myrna’s illegal immigrant son, lying low so as not to be deported.  And the Ensenada night where I thought I first saw them was unlit: assumption, an easy casualty.  My fears and journey since were all the cause of simple mistaken identity.

I fell asleep in his answering arms, thinking I slept soundly… my mind was closed but my eyes were open.  And I looked out onto a darkness born of place and desires misspoken.

The skies over L.A. are blacker than sin, bled starless by the cheap lights below.  I woke around four, looked out at the moon alone in her dark abode.  No friends were there to hear her luminous whisper… and no angels were there, in the mist above the lights, no help for me, no sister.  And Panama was gone from my bed, and I knew…

… my addiction to hiding in men and food had made it easy for me to believe him.  Those girls were really in trouble bad and was I betraying them with a whim.

I vowed, yet again, to transform my needs, my deaths… it’s the only thrill left.  And maybe if my fears no longer define me, I’ll find there’s more to life than death.

Rhea.

Ok… so I had a thing for the devil.  Couldn’t help it, I’d always been that way.  You could say it was because I deserved the dark side, but– truth is I was bored by small talk and six-inch Subways.  I needed mufaletta, tapenade, garlic and lard, pulled pork, bad boys and fat cheese… and if the sandwich was under six bucks, or the guy over six feet, I’d even say “Please.”

I don’t know how Panama, six-two, was mixed up with those girls, but I knew he was damned, for sure.  And, God help me, the thought of him still tore.  But the guy was f**king with my sister… and that was angeled ground.  I’d come this far, I’d followed her lead; I couldn’t let my hunger back me down.

Too long I’ve let L.A. dives and risky men mask my defeat.  For six years now, I’ve never bought a meal but I pay for everything I eat.  Between Teddy’s rules and all the nameless Joes, any guts I had took a back seat.  But not today.

As it dawned, I downed two of George’s espressos and one of her mango fritters fresh from the fryer.  Sweet crispy dough turned me into a liar for every time I’ve ever said no to the idea that light-full love could set me on fire.

As morning poured through her Tropical windows, bleaching all the ache of last night, I saw… that I didn’t need to quit Panama to make things right.  I could use him.  If luck, my sister and light could just hold me for awhile, I could turn my poison into medicine.  And help those little girls.  Maybe.

Rhea.

Estrella serves up some pungent asada in a gas station parking lot about three miles east of the Elysian Park house where the Ensenada sisters lay.  At ten after eleven on a Friday night in L.A., those three miles can take you forty minutes, at least, out of your way.  But warm tortillas wrapped around that musky goo were what I thought I needed to brace me for a night of rescuing little girls and memories… of sisters and childhood.  Bad move.

I should’ve had a Snickers from the Arco on my corner, or another cruller from Tang’s, or even a Pollo Loco thigh. And maybe I would’ve gotten to those girls in time.  But I sat in my LeBaron, forty minutes gone, crunching my last chicharone… trying like hell not to be where I was, searching the night for a poem.  If I’d have been there twenty or so minutes earlier, I might have seen the strobe of a digital flash leaking out from under the window boards… pictures shot of those little girls wearing frilly little maid uniforms… to be deleted after a sale went through.  

But I sat there, top down, swigging a Celray, pondering a move.  I borrowed some courage from Aggie’s dreams and opened my door with only failure to lose.  Then headlights bled from the right, coming around a curve.  I got back in, slid down in my seat and waited for it to pass, unnerved.  Then I heard it pull into the driveway across the street; the engine was cut; a car door opened.  Shaking, I inched up in my seat to catch a peek… then my self got broken.

I don’t know who I am anymore, doubt if I ever did… but what I saw waiting outside that Elysian park house slammed the last nail into that coffin lid.  It was Panama, closing his old Honda door, looking around with those casual eyes.  Then he eased on in through the peeling front door, carrying a bucket of Kentucky Fried, family size.

The top on my convertible has been broken for awhile; it won’t go up.  I drove back home as a starless sky pressed down, knowing I was f**ked… if I’d ever thought I was up to any grace, I knew I was s**t out of luck.  My appetites defined me.  Tonight, I should’ve helped those girls right away and never had to wonder why…. but cheap good food and bad men blind me every time.  

Hope I still have an angel on my side.

Rhea.

In the daylight, L.A., dusty with smog and expectation, comes on like an aging nympho.  But the  angels that hover above the city at night diffuse the sea of lights and give the pueblo an unearned glow. 

And when its halo shone down on those two sisters on the floor, my old friend doubt made me run. I slammed into an ugly dawn and headed straight for Tang’s, undone.  Certain I’d never help those girls, I craved donuts like a junkie wronged.  I got in line with the out-of-work wannabes talking studio trash like they ever belonged.  I ordered a pineapple log, two plain glazeds, black coffee and slinked back into the sun… as it burned down on streets dirty with shredded dreams and ancient cum.   

I ate all three before I got to my car but it didn’t stop the gnawing inside.  I’d betrayed a promise to a broken ghost and there was only one place to hide.  I went back into Tang’s, got a cruller and a log then a sprinkler at Von’s and a fritter at Yum Yum’s.   I wrote about laisons with hot sugared dough and I played dumb.  I faxed it all to Teddy’s by dusk then I waited for night to come on.  And when its velvet muted my appetite for fear, I let my city’s lights dazzle anew and I scanned the air above their neon hue.  But my sister wasn’t there.  Then I knew.  I had to get back to those girls.

The night was young.

Rhea.

Ten past midnight, the heat hadn’t dipped below eighty-two.  I finished that gorganzola,  artichoke pizza by my open window, listening to a baby dove coo.  But peace was a distant dream. Late night eaters howled down the boulevard; still, the alley below’s quiet seemed just mean. Salted and stuffed, I stood my ground until finally, Myrna reappeared outside Domingos rotting back door.  She had the bag with the monkey and the can of beans with her as she walked to the corner of Sunset and Paramour.  I grabbed my keys and ran.

By the time a cab slid up and she got in, I was close enough behind to tail them.  I hung three cars back as they drove east on the boulevard, past Chinatown girls, far from heaven. The cab turned north on Highway 2 then three blocks left on Pell.  I followed it seven more turns up the hill then North, about a mile, into hell.

I’d never thought twice about driving two hundred miles for a killer salsa but, for the most part, I like staying home.  I like the beat of my streets, the angels in the air, George’s coffee, Alegria’s sopas… I could go on.  And my sister was here, dead though she was, and here I had illusions that I could be someone… but that’s got nothing to do with reality.  So when that cab pulled up outside a squat stucco box on Arvin one bock south of Abeline, I pulled up too, down the block, cut my engine and started hoping I didn’t need to see.  Not likely.

Three forty-five, I crept around to the back, trying to get a peek inside.  Heavy curtains covered the windows out front; on the back ones, boards were nailed outside.  But termites had eaten along a bottom sill, affording a little crack.  I slipped a mini flashlight into that space, clicked it on and never looked back.

There on the floor of a barren little room, dimly caught by the cheap light’s beam, were the two little Ensenada sisters with their arms around each other, asleep… for a moment redeemed.

There’s a light in the eyes of about one in a thousand, a friend with magic told me.  Follow them as far as you would but don’t expect them to set you free.  For that, you’re on your own.  Looking at those two little girls, holding each other like sisters do… I never felt more alone.

Time to change.

Rhea.