giving up

Nothing makes up for it: not the beats, not the crowd, not the clothes on the girls. Not the twinkling lights, not the fountain, not free champagne under the stars. Not the excess, not even the pain. The mystique of the old converted cottages has vanished. Instead a sleazy fog envelopes the bustling patio. effervescent energy melts into gold and black and tan and green, a smoggy twilight the color of money. Invisible busboys replace broken bottles instantly. tough black leather banquettes remain unmarred despite the stilettos that crush down on them nightly.

I try to calm down and take it all in. the green lights of the sign outside Miceli's, the bored salesclerk at house of pain (where I got my 2nd tattoo). The lights outside Mood nearly blind us. The other times I danced at Mood I found LA magic: free drinks, sketchy photographers, guys that we recognized busting sick moves on the dance floor. I linger by the bar, move in slow motion. TImbaland mixed with Mickey Avalon crowds into my ears and the beats push me into my friends. I don't lose myself here anymore. I remember a bowling alley and extract myself from the mass of bodies just before midnight. A whoosh of cool air propels me out the heavy double doors of the club. My vinyl platform heels glide over the dirty sidewalk stars to my car as I type out the address of my next destination into the web browser of my phone.


i find the real LA by leaving, as usual. I like to drive up the coastal highway, get lost in a canyon, trace the sillouhette of the mountain until it burns into my brain. I feel alive on PCH, on the beach. I soak up the glitter of the sun and watch it dance across the water. i feel the heat of dry brush and sand and asphalt melt into my skin. tonight I skim across the freeways in my tiny beat up Toyota. City stretches for miles. I parallel park in front of a discount grocery store in Highland Park and tiptoe across the faded carpet of a former bowling alley. Slow molasases pours through my veins and I float up to heaven on a lazy guitar riff. It feels like salvation under silver spray painted stars in the almost empty bar. I try not to lie.

LA swallows you up and spits you out raw. It's either magical or fake or somewhere in between. The magic happens nightly when I believe the fake to be most real. I sail up the highway, coast on the left, canyons on the right, to find serenity I hate getting overwhelmed in the rush to be the next somebody somwhere. Somone else can have that. I’ll take the quiet.

LA is a city of broken dreams that live on in a graveyard of graffittied alleys and freeways and late night bathrooms. It's where dreams go to die. She lies naked on a bed, wrapped in a white fluffy comforter, mind racing. rock music pumping. I grasp tightly to shards of dreams.

Of course I get caught up in the magic of a show. in the light of the diner, in the stars’ faint glow. Of course, when we’re apart, it fades.

fairyland

I don’t even want to think about where I am. it's too much. I got on a plane and tried not to pay attention. I read a book, checked my email. Listened to the same songs. Can't ever remember where I am. Don’t need to know. It's all the same. It was like time had stopped. Had any time passed at all? I didn’t realize I wanted to go back there so badly. I miss it. I miss life, the familiar haze of glossy memory masks the piercing pain. nothing is as good as the memory I keep.

She ran scared through the streets of downtown LA. We tripped around the cavernous bar in patent leather high heels. I wished so hard that time had stopped. That block brought back memories that I’d rather forget. Reading in the park, Walking to lunch, to the subway, to sav-on. Why did it have to be there? i want to go back before too much champagne and hedonism, before decadance and sleaze and rock and roll, before I pretended all that that meant I was worth something. he was standing right next to me. I was in shock, over it before it ever started. Fuck pretending. The past is not worth revisiting.

Nothing is constant. Grow up grow down grow around. sit in traffic till nothing happens. Wasted life or found time? Gotta live closer to the beach (she says). You’re the same and so am i. We haven't changed in seven years. You never left.

You were everything I ever talked about. I still don’t want to understand how I live for you. I want to go back to when it was perfect. Was it ever perfect? If perfect isn't allowed then what does not perfect feel like? I pretend you listen to me but when I only know myself, I cannot know you. Maybe we thought the same thing. Maybe not. A Lover’s temptress goes down best when served cold, over ice, underground. But theres no underground in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the future and underground is ancient. The future is trash, it is up and out and everywhere. It can’t exist without the past. Can I exist without you?

Fires burn down so you rebuild. Each wave washes our sins away. Renewal depends on destruction, light depends on darkness, but how close can you get? Always a new place to go…never the same.

summerland

There's grafitti on your cell phone and glitter on your nose. I sometimes think that's all I need. My mind won't tell the truth & my body leads me on until these little cues pile up. We rode the train and piled our stuff high on the seat. Watched the suburbs fly by. You said I'd know it if you cried. I leaned against you and watched the world around us and wondered if we'd still exist after coming this far, this fast. We watched the traffic from a meadow. You pointed out the poison ivy. Guilt nags at my elbow, tainting any happiness with the thought that its not real and that it’s not ok to feel. I was afraid to look into your eyes. I didn’t want to see myself reflected back. Luckily the darkness hid them as we sat beside the pool. The stars covered our bare shoulders in sparkles when we walked across the lawn. Your body distracted me when we laid across the bed. Right before I left you pulled me into your parents' shower and under a stream of steaming water I finally peered into your eyes. I saw shimmery crystal amber gold lit by the early afternoon sunlight. I didn't see me or you. Just golden depths anchored by a dripping nose.

be careful what you wish for

without you by my side the city breathes slow life into my lungs. taxis drive, i ride the train, routine finds me and when i least expect it i realize i'm fine. in your eyes we dance to silent songs, lifted by the wind. planets crawl along their paths. from a distance it all makes sense. i'm just so low except when you're around. i never thought i'd see you in this town. a quick burst of lightning brought me up and now i'm down where the streets are shitty there's trash on the ground and I'm all dressed up to dance until i can't be found above the crowd, on stage, a wooden puppet without a frown or a smile to make her real because a puppet doesn't feel. i can't erase the beauty of your eyes with shining planets hidden, solar systems where we'd feel so cool floating down the avenues, no gravity just you and me, making our parade of dreams last into the night,..

it's never over

you apologized for skipping out of town and now i'm down to my last cigarette again. i think i got blinded by the fire i found inside your eyes. call me later call me never just don't say forever unless you can stay forever. please. i'm still so empty, hollow. can't feel it unless i'm consumed by you. i don't know what i'm doing. haunted by a ghost. i can't shake the dream. i want to run free but from what? the chains? i'm still so disappointed. 3-d shapes push my mind, searing memories, brilliant, alive. summer girl in city mode. crackling heat leads me astray, mirages disappear into smoke when i draw near. illusion of contentment melts into a dripping mess. i tuck my hair into a blue beret, keep walking in the rain. untouched by madness on the outside. blisters on my heels water drips down my back. i burn bridges on a rooftop one shiny cigarette at a time

in my city it's you and me. in this city. whichever city i call mine. you and me and the memory of another summer spent walking under the same moon. what am i to you anyway? a fucking toy? a substitute for some boy? it's my life too. i don't want to spend it denying the obvious one shot of whiskey at a time. fiery burn numbs my soul, quiets the anger underneath until i wake up, confused, not really angry at you. i just want to feel alive and know it's not a lie. i don't need booze to love myself, i just need you, without the empty promises. i just need to know i can trust, that it's not just misplaced lust, that we share but something more, that when you walk out that door you'lll come back sober and alive.

can it just be you and me and ella playing softly and candles and white wine and we can talk all the time? whatever you are to me grows harder to forget each night i let another take me to that place i see your face, your wispy curls and soft green eyes. don't act surprised, you know it's true. i haven't had my fill of your candy lips, haven't memorized the taste of your porcelain skin. you don't have to spend the night. i don't know if i won't say the wrong thing when there's no air to breathe.

maybe we were drunk but i guess that's ok as long as you'll still be there for at least another day.
she dances by the window then turns out the light. i kiss her bare shoulder, watch her fade into the night.

are you SURE he called a locksmith?

fell asleep running scared. cold crisp linen turned sweaty with our bodies wrapped up in the sheets. the sun came up before I could pass out. outside the city rose for work while my back pressed against his chest. while he laced up his shoes, he asked too many questions. who was the last person you kissed? who treated you well? and I spoke quickly. the bar had pink neon lights and rattlesnake-skin covered stools. we settled on a couch. something caught my eye and when I turned back he kissed me, quickly. I'm so restless now. I smoke more cigarettes but nothing cures this restlessness......

brentwood's finest

James drove a wide, faded copper Cadillac with a shiny mud flap girl silhouette planted firmly across the grill. The vanity plate read MR SLIM. A hint of gray appeared on his jaw when he didn’t shave, tracing a pepper-flecked line to the diamond and gold dollar sign stud poking through one ear. A navy baseball cap hid his sepia-toned scalp. As head of security for Brentwood Gardens Shopping Center he arrived on site by 7 a.m. every day. He unlocked the gates to the outdoor mall nestled against the mansions and dry brush that trailed up into the Santa Monica Mountains. If no other maintenance task required his key James rode the escalator up a flight to the Daily Grill to grab a paper and a small coffee. He then positioned himself on a bench in the bougainvillea-lined center of the mall, his head obscured by section A of the Los Angeles Times and one of his long legs folded perpendicular to the knee of the other to reveal a grey athletic sock. He glanced up from the Times when I rushed by each weekday at 9:57 a.m. balancing my store key with my coffee tumbler, water bottle, and bags of customer requests from my company’s Marina store. He always threw me a wide grin and an enthusiastic, if inexplicable, “Hey Roxy Baby!”

When I interviewed at the perfume and gift shop, on the ground level of the Brentwood Gardens center, I did not pay much attention to the other tenants. The mall looked the same as when it had when I had run up the escalators in leggings and leotards at 13, out of breath and late for ballet class. I noticed no changes from the days when I ditched eighth period to linger over Chinese chicken salad at California Pizza Kitchen and smoke cigarettes on the benches in front of Ron Herman, trying to impress the cool older salesgirl whose dad owned the eponymous boutique. As a high school senior, I arranged to meet E, Internet boyfriend #2, in person for the first time at that same second-floor C.P.K. on a quiet fall Monday for a round of wine and spinach appetizers. At 22 I took the job that included blending custom perfumes and making gift baskets.

There I met James, who stood at least six foot six and was skinnier than Snoop Dogg. His waist seemed to start at my chest, its slenderness accentuated by a narrow black belt supporting a jangling fistful of keys. He had a blonde young wife from Australia who designed jewelry and dreamed of recording an album. I rarely caught a glimpse of her except when she came to visit James and browse the annual half price sale on Louboutins and Jimmy Choos at Madison. The couple walked arm in arm as they toured the mall’s tiny circular promenade; they always stopped by my jewelry counter to try on vintage enamel heart jewelry. After clasping the chain she swiveled around to ask “Slim” if he liked it. He always did.

James read the Times through the Sports section every morning and then stood around in the sun with his hands in his pockets, surveying foot traffic and chatting with the dark-haired Prudential real estate boss from the third floor. Occasionally James retreated to the TV-equipped second-floor office to escape the sun, where he put up his feet and continually checked the pager management gave him.

The mornings crawled by in the mall. I longed to see a grandmother in True Religion Jeans and a Da Nang tank, desperate for Bat Mitzvah gifts, or a new mom in need of an expensive-looking, unscented hostess gift for her husband’s boss & wife—a gift that won’t clash with the recipient’s unknown home décor. After an hour passed with no customers I even yearned for a New Age Pilates addict with a designer perfume she wanted me to clone, or at least a return to process. Instead tourists in twos and threes wandered through the door in need of directions and confused, non-Brentwood residents stopped in to inquire about parking validation or the French shop that closed in ’01.

In the stretches of time between customers I stared blankly out the window, lost in thought while dusting window displays or filling 1oz sample bottles with China Rain lotion. James’ lanky figure caught my eye midmorning as he rode the escalator down to check in with the valet. On his way back up he dropped by for the free M&Ms we kept in a glass bowl next to the register.

James had worked at the mall for over 25 years. He checked the subterranean parking garage for cracks in the predawn hours as aftershocks reverberated from the 1992 Northridge earthquake and he descended from his early-afternoon second-floor vantage point to stand outside my store every time we had more than three or four browsers.

Most security issues at the mall involved the occasional homeless man looking for a quiet corner to smoke crack. Occasionally a graver threat emerged. James told me that next door, Ice Accessories had been held up in an armed robbery and that if anyone ever messed with his girls, he’d give it to them. Six months later another armed robbery occurred at Ron Herman and the owners invested in a private security guard. I thought James would be insulted but he approved, given the pricey clothes and casual, open atmosphere of the shop. Not long after that incident I noticed that the metal chains on the $400 Morphine Generation tank tops at Theodore were for security purposes.

I breathed relief at the hordes of skinny blonde carpool moms in Hard Tail yoga pants that poured in between 12 and 2, demanding 2 soy candles in every scent possible and 8 reed diffusers, all gift-wrapped and labeled. During these hours James could also be called on to give Sammy a hand when her caretaker couldn’t get the wheelchair and the stuffed shopping bags in the elevator. One day a bleach-blonde, puffy-lipped divorcee wearing fur came by with her six kids to pick up a gift basket that her father had pre-ordered, James whispered across the register that the woman always tried to spend on her father’s credit card, even at age 40, causing other shops much chagrin about reversed credit card transactions. We weren’t to charge a thing that was not pre-authorized, he told my coworker and me, no matter how much she whined. After letting her three-year-old twins run wild while she tried on necklaces, the customer implored me to add on a $56 Rigaud votive and a $172 tourmaline necklace, I shot James a questioning look and he picked up her bags, jokingly offering to give her a hand to the car until she herded her kids out the door.

“What’s up, Roxy Baby?” James asked me as we sat shoulder to shoulder outside smoking on the bench in the first lull of the late afternoon one day.
“Not much.” I responded. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Looking at cars,” he answered. Three days later the in-house car wash service scrubbed and vacuumed his old Cadillac for the last time. The next day a shiny black ’05 Cadillac sedan took its place in the stacked parking spot closest to the south elevator.