The liquor store was open and a guy in a turban was sitting behind the register. I thought about buying some gum, taking other stuff, but he looked suspicious at me when I stepped through the door so I left. Just then, this tall skinny guy with really long fuzzy black hair and pimples came out of A-Void carrying some drums, ran over to a black van parked around the corner, opened the back door, and put the drums in. The van was full of dents and scrapes, stickers all over the side. He didn't lock it.
He made two more trips and then he went back inside and stayed there.
He never locked it.
The fat guy had gone inside, too.
I slid around the corner, looked in the van's passenger window. It had only front seats; the rest was storage.
I opened the door. No alarm rang.
All I found on the seat was junk- candy wrappers, empty cans and bottles, pieces of paper. Maybe the radio, if I could sell it- how do you take one out?
Then I heard voices and saw the skinny guy standing on the corner, his back to the van. Talking to a short girl with yellow hair with a pink streak through the middle of it. She might've seen the van if she looked at it, but she was paying attention to him. It looked like they were arguing. He turned.
Too late to jump out.
I jumped in, closed the door, threw myself in back, and hid behind the drums. They were half covered by this thick sheet of black plastic and I got under it, knocking my bones against metal. It really hurt; I had to bite my lip not to cry out.
The plastic was cold and smelled like bleach.
The back door opened again and the van shook as something landed near me.
Slam. Another slam.
I heard the girl's voice from up front: “You guys were hot.”
“Bullshit.”
“No really, I mean it, Wim.”
“We sucked and everyone knows we sucked, so don't bullshit me- did you bring my jacket?”
“Uh… sorry, I'll go back and get it.”
“Shit! Get in there fast!”
Another open and slam.
Cough. “Fucking witch…” The motor went on and the metal floor beneath me started to vibrate and I tried to hold on to something so I wouldn't roll, but the drums were round and I didn't want to make noise so I pressed against the floor like a spider.
The radio went on. He tried a bunch of different channels, said “Fuck this shit!,” turned it off.
A rubbing sound, then a click, and I smelled something familiar.
Weed. Back in the trailer I went to sleep with my nose full of it, wondering if it would give me brain damage.
Slam. “Here you go, honey.”
“Do you know what that is? Lambskin from fucking Mongolia or Tibet or some place. And those nailheads are, like, hammered by hand and put in by blind peasants who say special prayers or something- I gave my fucking blood for that, and you leave it in there! Shit!”
“I'm sorry, Wim!”
They both smoked. No one talked. The motor was running, and I was just pressing my fingers to the floor, trying not to move or breathe, wondering where this was going to take me. No way out, because the drums blocked the back door.
At least it was warm.
She said, “Gimme another taste- ah, that's good shit.”
“Hey, don't give it a blow job- give it back.”
“Where you wanna go, Wim?”
“Where? Europe- where the fuck do you think? Home, I need to crash.”
“You don't wanna go over to the Whiskey?”
“Fuck no, why would I wanna do that?”
“You said- remember?”
“Huh?”
“Before we left we were talking, you know, maybe like afterwards we'd check out the Whiskey, someone you know might be there, maybe you'd jam-”
“That was then, this is now… someone I know. Right. Knowing is fucking bullshit. Doing is the name of the game and tonight we did fucking nothing-man, I can't believe how bad we sucked. Skootch was, like, brain-dead and that guy in the second row I'm pretty sure was maybe from Geffen and he left early- fuck, I'm gonna die without being famous!”
“You will be fam-”
“Shut the fuck up!”
The van started moving, going awhile- south- then turning right, which meant west again. Wim drove angry, speeding, making sharp turns, fast stops.
It took a while for the girl to talk again. “Hey, Wim?”
Grunt.
“Wim? What you said before?”
“Whuh?”
“About not giving head to the joint? But there are other joints, right?” Giggle.
“Yeah, right, I had a triumphant night and now I'm ready to be romantic- just shut up and let me get us home- I can't believe how bad we sucked!”
After that no one talked at all.
I tried to follow each turn, drawing a map in my head, but with all those turns I lost track.
Finally, he stopped and I thought, I'm cooked. He's going to get his drums, find me, take his anger out on me.
I felt around under the plastic, wanting something to swing with, touched cold metal, but it wouldn't come free. Totally cooked.
Open. Slam. Footsteps. That got softer. Disappeared.
I got out from under the plastic. The van smelled like one big joint.
It was parked on a quiet street full of apartments.
I climbed into the front seat, unrolled the window. This could be anywhere. Maybe he'd even taken me back to Hollywood. The air outside was cold, so I crawled in back again, managed to pull the black plastic sheet loose, folded it, tucked it under my arm, returned to the front, and got out.
A new smell.
Salt. A fishy salt.
Once when I was little, Mom took me to the beach, a long bus ride from Watson. I don't know exactly what beach it was and we never went back there, but the sand was smooth and warm and she bought snow-cones for both of us. It was hot and dry and crowded and we stayed there all day, me digging holes in the sand, Mom just sitting there in her bikini listening to the radio. She didn't bring any sunscreen and we both got burned. I'm lighter than her and got it worse, turning blistery, feeling like my whole body was on fire. All the way back on the bus I screamed, Mom telling me to be quiet, but not like she meant it- she was pink as bubble gum, knew the pain was real.
Back in the trailer, she tried to give me wine, but I wouldn't take it, the smell bothered me, and even though I must have been only four or five, I'd seen her drunk, was afraid of alcohol. She tried to force me, pushing the bottle up against my lips and holding one of my hands down, but I just kept twisting my head, pretending my mouth was glued shut, till finally she left me alone and I just lay there, every inch of my body roasting while she finished the wine herself.
Smelling the salt, I remembered all that.
And more: Mom sitting on a towel; her bikini was black. Maybe she was hoping some guy would notice her, but no one did, probably 'cause of me.
So here I was. The beach.
Nowhere to go after that.
35
Still no answer at Greg Balch's office. Petra de- cided to eyeball the place.
At 6 P.M., she drove out of the station lot, picking up Cahuenga at Franklin and taking it over the hill.
Studio City was the Valley, but to her it had always seemed un-Valley-like. North of Ventura Boulevard, the neighborhood was the usual grid of anonymous apartment tracts, but to the south were pretty hills up to Mulholland, winding trails, stilt houses that had survived the quake. The commercial mix along Ventura was a little shabby in spots, some strip-mall development, but also plenty of antique shops, recording studios, sushi bars, jazz clubs, a few gay bars- definitely funkier than the rest of the Valley.