Something’s Gonna Get You

January 14, 2024

The pack was fully extended which meant he wasn’t just being polite, he wanted a participant in his own demise not an observer.

“Nah, I’m allergic to fun.” He jiggled the pack in my face and his own grew concerned.

“Do you ever stop fucking around?” He lit his cigarette, tucked the lighter into the pack, then tossed them to me. I pivoted to the right and let them bounce on the asphalt. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

I wasn’t worried about him, no need to change my stance so I could strike him first. He was just a miserable alcoholic that was hoping I was equal to if not greater than his particular ilk of degenerate. I wasn’t. “I quit smoking.”

He struggled to speak as he squatted down to rescue his cigarettes. “Well good for you, not everybody can be as big of a pussy I guess.” He was hoping I’d suddenly crumble and take one. I didn’t. “You think you’re gonna be the one that lives forever?”

“Maybe.” Both of my hands sank into my pockets. My right middle finger rubbed against a few coins, fifteen cents. My left index finger poked my penis.

“Yeah, well when I fucking die I want to be sick.” He hacked up some phlegm as he exhaled and spat on the ground. 

“Sounds like sooner than later.” My right hand found some more coins in the pocket, twenty-three cents. My left hand poked my penis. 

“Fuck you.” He hiked his pants up a little and walked away from the door. 

“Nice speaking with you.” I was his best pal when he showed up an hour earlier and now I was less than zero. He’d be just fine. Tomorrow he would be back and he’d give me the same “Hey pal, how’s it going? You good? You need anything?” And I would just smile and nod as he tucked his thin gold chain inside his shirt and pulled his sleeve down over his watch before walking into the bar. Dave had been coming to Jones for about a good ten years before I showed up and he would be there probably another ten years after I left.

“You know you’d probably do yourself a favor by being a little more agreeable.” He was still struggling with the height of his pants as he walked back towards the door, the cigarette jumping up and down with each syllable. 

“Oh yeah? I’ll be damned.” Twenty-four cents in that righthand pocket.

“Maybe you’d find your way into an actual money-making occupation. Something better than standing in this doorway.” His disdain was no longer implied, it was overtly expressed.

“Never thought about it that way.” I needed sourdough bread. As soon as I was cut I needed to head to Ralph’s for some sliced sourdough bread.

“You meet the right people and you might get ahead.” He suddenly stopped speaking and strained to take in a Porsche as it sped by. “Was that a fucking 944? Listen, you see one of those park out here you come get me. There’s a twenty dollar bill waiting for you if you do that.” He tossed his cigarette at the street with his left hand, boy was he not left-handed . “The 944. A twenty dollar bill waiting for you for a 944. None of these Boxters or the Cayenne, whatever the fuck those are. You come in and let me know if you see one of the most underrated classic Porches still out on the road today, and that’s the 944.”

“You thinking about upgrading on a used classic?”

“Not for me, you fucking ape.” He pulled a cigarette out of his pack and then held it out to me. I stared at it and shook my head. “Resale. I buy it for nine thousand and I unload it for twelve. I make three grand for maybe a half hour of work. Never have to touch the car or do any of the paperwork.” He jammed the pack into his coat. “A fast three grand and it’s all legal. And you can do it like once a month without having to get a resale license.” 

“Three grand, and I get twenty bucks? I’ll keep my eyes open.” 

The silly nature of working these overnight shifts. Reading stories penned by long-dead alcoholics about sex in public parks, frighteningly  loose women, and perpetually clogged toilets. Here I am in forty-eight degree weather on a folding chair next to some dumpsters watching the rats run across the sidewalk. I’m reading about far away lands, a dead celebrity chef, and how things always go wrong before they go right. Hopefully the restaurant will reopen soon. Hopefully Building and Safety will approve the plans for reconstruction and I can go back to my four-hour night shift, get home at a decent hour, and then wake up way too early to walk the dog and start my day. And maybe I’ll get to write my own considerably more tame version of sex with my wife. I keep threatening to bring my laptop and finish my script about life without parole inmates colonizing Mars. But who would ever read it? I just need to tie the thing up with maybe twenty or thirty more pages. Curing cancer seems more probable. Then there’s my buddy Mike up in Sacramento who just had his gallbladder removed. Fifty-five years old and eating nothing but toast, bananas, white rice, and applesauce for the next three months of his life. Sitting on this chair in the now forty-six degree weather doesn’t seem so bad when you think about what he’s going through. My buddy Bruno is going to get his prostate scanned tomorrow after they found cancer in it last month. Watching the rats scramble on the sidewalk while wearing layer after layer after layer of shirts to insulate from the cold really isn’t that bad now. and when I get too cold, just before two in the morning, I’ll put the folding chair in the trunk, I’ll sit in the car, and I’ll look at huge tits on Instagram. Mike will still be in five kinds of pain in Sacramento, Bruno will still have cancer in his prostate, and I just might be the one to live forever.

This was only supposed to be a two-week gig, three weeks was the outside possibility. But tonight marks exactly two months since some idiot ran the red light at Formosa and Santa Monica, hit a passenger van, and then crashed into the side of Jones. Here I am making sure none of the derelict homeless population pop open the quarter inch plywood sheets covering the missing twenty feet of front wall and wreak havoc on the restaurant. I show up every night at eleven p.m., Monday through Friday, with my little igloo cooler packed with an energy drink, a piece of fruit, a little container of nuts, and a Costco energy bar and I fight to stay away until six-thirty in the morning. I look like one of them. the derelict homeless population. All wrapped and bundled in mismatched winter gear with a huge beard sticking out. I look like the king of this zombie hoard of hobos. People drive by and wonder where the homeless guy got the folding chair and how the hell he learned how to read. They don’t know that in two weeks I’ll be shooting a national commercial. But until then I am just another working stiff on an overnight shift in forty degree weather. And when this bar finally reopens I can hopefully take advantage of the free shift meal again. Bring home a charcuterie plate on Monday, pomodoro on Tuesday, spaghetti and meatballs on Wednesday, chicken and broccoli on Thursday, and a wonderful  pepperoni pizza on Friday. 

A City Works truck was pressure washing the sidewalk sending reconstituted hobo piss and shit down into the sewer and out to the Pacific. The door to the Formosa, kitty corner to Jones, swung open across the street. Two fairly large gentlemen leaned against one another in an effort to stay vertical as they pulled their coats closed and then staggered across the street towards me. “My good man…” It was the voice of The Commodore, his real name was Bob but he insisted on being referred to as The Commodore. He had been a talent agent for decades but his appetite for cocaine and whiskey knocked him out of the agency world and he only had one client left- a former adult actress who specialized in the occasional bit mainstream role and about eight starring roles a year in projects with “babes, boobs, and/or blood” in the titles. The Commodore wasn’t quite at the bottom yet; however, he was manager of the last stop before you got to the bottom.

“My good man, I’m hoping you have good news.” The Commodore was slurring his words yet his eyes were as wide as golf balls and there was white sludge in his left nostril. 

“Negative, gentlemen. No good news on this end. We are still closed. The City of West Hollywood needs to approve the plans for reconstruction, as does the Health Department, the Fire Department, and Building & Safety.”

“Who do I need to call?” The Latino gentleman with The Commodore knocked on the plywood covering the twenty-foot whole in the front wall left by the speeding motorist.

“Do you know anybody in Building & Safety?” Hope, I actually felt hope for the first time in over a month.

The big Latino pulled out a cigarette and lit up. “Nah, I don’t know anybody on this side of town. All my connections are in Culver City and Inglewood.”

Then why did he ask? My hope fell away into a cold infinite blackness. 

“So when do you reopen?” The Commodore was trying to look at me, or what he thought was me.

“That’s the Big Question.” Please tell me these guys were waiting for an Uber and that they weren’t driving.

“I remember when this place was Ports. They had portholes for windows and a couple of fishtanks inside. One of the bartenders, what was her name?” The Commodore gazed at the stars for an anewer.

“Veronica?” The big Latino was punching numbers into his iPhone. Thank the heavens, he was ordering an Uber.

“No…she was a blonde.” The Commodore rubbed his temples.

“Veronica was the blonde.”

“Yes, that’s what I said. The bartender I’m trying to remember was the redhead.” The Commodore leaned back hard against the quarter inch plywood.

“Commodore, careful with that plywood.”

He seemed to lean in harder against it. “Nonsense. Plywood is virtually indestructible. When I was a kid, the only Caucasian in Chinatown, we built skate ramps out of this very same plywood. Indestructible.”

“My uncle built a mansion out of plywood in Oaxaca.” The big Latino turned away from me and snorted something.

“The redheaded bartender used to take her tits out and smush them up against the glass of the fishtank. She’d leave them there as long as you’d slip her a hundred. Did I tell you I was moving to Inglewood?” The Commodore stuck his hand out towards the big Latino, palmed something, turned away from me, and snorted.

“Pasadena to Inglewood, that’s quite the migration.” The Commodore passed whatever it was they were snorting back to the big Latino. 

“Oh it’s quite the fall from grace.” The big Latino smacked The Commodore on the shoulder. “He’s moving into one of my art studios.”

“It’s an old warehouse from World War II, they’re all over that area. It was used for storing ball bearings for Sherman tanks. Now it’s home…for a while at least.”

“His heina split with his kid, kicked him out of the Pasadena house, and now she’s up in Marin County.” The big Latino took a long drag on his cigarette. “Plenty of room in that warehouse to bang his broads and do his dope. Now he’s my problem.”

The Commodore managed to somehow look even more miserable. The fat rolled over his mock turtleneck, the color in his dyed hair was more purple than black, his cheeks were fleshy, and white sludge dripped from his nose. “I know that I am a shitty father and an even more shitty partner so it’s probably for the best this way. Besides, I don’t really think I’ve got much more left in me.”

“Don’t you fucking think about pulling the trigger in my art studio, I don’t need the fucking po-po snooping around. This is our ride.” The big Latino signaled to a black Escalade.

“Delilah.” The Commodore put me in a bear hug and slapped my back up and down.

“Is that your daughter’s name?” I pulled away from his face, the white sludge was dripping off of his lip.

“No. The redhead with the fishtank tits.” The Commodore stopped before he got into the Escalade and gave me a salute. Bob was probably only a few years older than me but his drugstore dye job and his red leaky nose really wove the cobwebs into his face. You could tell that from his days just east of downtown in Chinatown to just about ten minutes ago he had been going one hundred and twenty miles an hour and there was no way he was going to survive simply taking up space with the ball bearings. “I hope to see you again, my good man.”

Too much time spent outside alone in mid-forty degree weather makes me appreciate the fact that I will probably only be buying another eighteen Christmas trees, after that I will most likely just toss a couple decorations on a potted plant and call it a day. It’s no secret that I have an ill will toward all mankind. I split the night air with an angry tirade about an eighteen year old that was kicked out of her parents’ home to make room for a grandmother dying of an especially nasty malady and now she was making a living in Hollywood using sweat and ignorance as a lubricant. This mouth of mine has the ability to stay shut and I am going to keep it that way more often than not.

It’s all about survival right now. No real chance to thrive. This is all hierarchy of needs: shelter, safety, sustenance…the sex and new tattoos will come with the mailbox money in March. Until then we will live like animals.

Reading some true “dirty old man” stuff. Lots of night creatures lurking about in these milder temperatures, I guess I look twice as crazy so they stay away. This folding chair should be registered as an official torture device. I’ve said it loud and whispered it clearly that I despise people; however, these last two months spent alone in the elements have made it clear to me that in order to truly hate people you must be surrounded by them.

This is not weather for skirts. The rain has made the plywood swell and buckle at the seams. I truly stand alone on this lifeless corner of town. There are signs of progress: cans of paint, boxes of nails, and miles of extension cords crisscross the floors. There is stilll life in this dark recess, just hang tight.

Too many creatures out tonight, none of them are beautiful. Their eyes are filled with savagery. There is a palpable hatred in their gaze. They have grown tired of my presence. I have indeed worn out my welcome here in the jungle.

New threats and old promises, we shall see. Trading in seven and a half hours for next week’s rent. A mystery pain behind my left eye and another on my shoulder that I paid for. The mice have now scattered making way for the rats to feast until dawn.

Two hundred and twenty-eight pounds of busted up meat stacked six feet and one inch high. It’s not cold enough for a hat or gloves but I’m wearing them anyway because suddenly it will be and my flesh has gone soft and intolerable. I am here and my woman is at home under ten blankets with the damn dog sprawled across her legs.

My knee is on fire. Hell, you’d feel downright lucky if you got fifty-two years of use out of a pair of shoes. I don’t feel lucky about my knee at all. The no-good dog will be expecting his 2.7 mile hie as soon as I get home at 6:47 a.m. I can hear it with each step, sounds like grinding a Coke bottle against a sidewalk. The damn dog won’t care.

The good ones came in pairs tonight. This threat of rain will turn the true degreerates away and keep them home to eat bowls of cereal and drink mismatched spirits.

I make no promises here. These are all merely fantasys that I have mistakenly allowed to slip out and stain the front wall. But I see new paint, I see metal rails, I see steel fire doors, and I see a flickering light on the horizon.

voices from The Domain across the way, a sought, nervous laughter beefier an unplanned sleepover, a woman backs away from a third story window. I can see it all without leaving this folding chair. Another woman on the street, I can’t see her making it a year out here. She’s either crying or laughing or maybe both. I don’t know how she has lated this long.

The truth is something most people should never seek. Be happy with what’s in front of you and enjoy it. Once you shine a light into the darkness all you will find there is your ultimate demise.

The boulevard is empty tonight. The only traffic is on foot. The hobos are restless. They must know that it will be cold and wet tomorrow night so tonight they must forage and find a new place in which to disappear.

This is no longer a question of if but now when. The flesh will surrender and the sun will shine again. The low light will bathe the beautiful women. It is getting closer, I feel it soon will begin.

The heavy stuff will come down at two, tapping into the atmospheric river- whatever that might be. I just need to hold it together for seven and half hours, I can do that. I’ll just think of my woman and if that doesn’t work I’ll think of yours.