I was having a shit when the phone rang. I let it go to voicemail as I was trying to read a book at the same time but found it difficult to get into. I couldn't tell whether it was the book itself or the fact that Billie once told me it was bad for me to read on the toilet. After that the luxury lost its charm and I worried about pushing out the O too much
and turning myself inside out; into a human sweater that was destined for the washing machine in the sky.
When I was done I picked up the message, it was Winston. Winston, oh Christ Winston. He had probably assumed that I was in the process of sending his cheque back to him. Return to sender for services no longer required. It was the day before what would have been deadline day. The unfinished Abusement Park screenplay sat to the left of the Remington, only thirty pages deep. One way or another I
was destined to have missed a call from Winston on this day. Pressing 2 when instructed I returned the call and prepared myself for the barrage of half cooked, half-cocked excuses that would leap from my subconscious to my mouth bypassing my brain entirely.
'You rang, Master.'
'Douglas Fucking Morgan,' he sang my name making my nuts shrivel 'how the fuck have you been brother?!'
'I'm peachy baby,' I lit a cigarette and prepared for the worst 'look you're probably calling about the money so let me say two things.
The first being that you're any incredibly handsome and no doubt stereotypically well-endowed black man and…'
'Don't worry about the money Bruthafucka.'
I could tell the type of smile that was adorning his unseen face on Wilshire and suddenly a part of me sank. I knew what was coming, god be damned I knew what was coming.
'Awfully generous, Broheim. Remind me to offer you a reach around the next time I see your ass.'
'I've got this book in front of me Doug, and I was thinking who do I know that owes me a screenplay?'
I sighed. Sometimes that's all that can be done. 'What's it called?'
'The Love of a Beast but I'm changing the name of the movie to WEREBEARS! All capitals baby, and with an exclamation mark. You feeling me?'
'I'm feeling you, someone is in love with a bear. That movie will play very well in West LA. It's good to see you're coming out of the closet and embracing the pink dollar with open arms… maybe a little mouth action too, right?'
'What? No! It's a werewolf movie but with bears, what the fuck do you think it is?'
'I don't even care anymore. Send me the book, I'll read it, wipe my ass with it and jerk out a screenplay.'
'You're such a fucking artist.'
'They starve to death, you bet I'm a fucking artist.' I said stubbing out my cigarette and collapsing down into my armchair. Christ what a petulant little dickhead! The typer looked at me, mockingly awaiting what was to come. What I'd have to force it to do.
'I'm sticking it in the post right now, can you do it in a week?'
'What? Read the book or write the screenplay?'
'Both.'
'Of course fucking not.'
'If you can do it in a week we can keep our casting schedule, our pre-production schedule and maybe even our location schedules… plus there'll be some money in it for you.'
'A week is plenty of time. Send it by courier, have them leave it at the front desk I'm going out for a few hours.'
'I knew I could count on you baby.'
I hung up and threw on a clean tee. Strolling along the
boardwalk I watched the dark, blood-like waves crash against the shore, and listened to the gulls call each other names as I crept towards Windward Avenue. Garbage bags coughed and rustled as the homeless got themselves comfortable for the evening. America the beautiful. America the beautifully cruel. Los Angeles in particular, one of the most beautiful, cold-hearted bitches on the continent.
I turned the corner, the lights from Danny's Bar guided me in like a plane running on fumes. As I passed a black corner a figure adjusted its balance before stepping out in front of me damn near sending my heart into overdrive.
'Mister, I'll suck your dick for ten dollars.' the bag lady said.
'That sounds like a good deal,' I replied 'show me the ten dollars.'
I got to the doorstep and then couldn't go any further. Inside lay the well-trodden path, the road I knew. The one I had been travelling for months and it always led me to the same place – sprawled out on the floor of a motel room, beer battered and bloated with writer's block.
I turned on my heels and started in towards the heart of Venice, past its canals towards Ghost Town. The church housed A.A meetings and reminded me of tits. The concave slope of its roof carried the similar shape of the bonnet worn by milkmaids who, for some undiagnosed reason, were always German, blonde and incredibly busty in the recesses of my mind's eye. Arriving at its front door left me an odd mix of fearful and horny, to the point were I didn't know whether it was prudent to drop on my knees and plead for forgiveness or thrash one out behind the bushes.
Finishing a cigarette I stubbed it out on the tread of my shoe before stepping inside. I was early so the congregation were in the middle of their sacrificing and saving cycle. Slipping into a bench at the back of the church I kept my head down and avoided any outward sign that I might be an actual, functioning human but it was no good. The door had given away the admission of one, my skulking - that I'm an outsider, and my general reluctance to break peeper contact with the off-white tile below my feet a clear sign that there was a soul for saving – whether he liked it or not.
'There's no need to linger down there by the back, son.' called the reverend 'Step forward, step forward and welcome Jesus back into your life.'
I shook my head. 'I'm all good thanks, I'm just waiting for
something else.'
'Ain't that the truth.' called a disembodied voice from row three.
'Amen.' offered another.
'We're all just waiting for something else son, that's what's so beautiful about the Lord. He comes and finds us when we've strayed so far.'
The room was large, white with an enormous purple glowing cross hanging above the altar. I expected to see Prince pinned to it.
Slowly, all faces began to point my direction and I felt the burn of two hundred eyes and the whisper of a hundred voices began to close in around me. Reluctantly I rose from my wooden grave and stepped out into the aisle. Instinctively I blessed myself then cursing the good Catholic soldier inside.
'Ok,' I said 'I'll come a little forward but don't expect me to put out on the first prayer. I'm not that kind of boy.'
My words were met with cheer, laughter and a round of applause led by the marble toothed preacher in a way I never expected. Religion in Oakwood, seemingly, was not without a risqué sense of humour and at least one or two members of the congregation that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Rudy Ray Moore boudoir scene. As I past line-after-line of worshippers I watched with a cold sweat as the reverend smiled and nodded his approval.
'Take him under your wing, Arlene.' said the preacher as a long smooth ebony hand reached out and took mine guiding me into a vacant seat beside her.
Her face was familiar. Her smile was warm, her eyes piercingly blue if a little tired.
***
The group meeting broke for coffee and cigarettes. It was best to keep the chattering down to manageable twenty minute bursts before letting the junkies off their leash to get a fix of whatever else they yearned to consume but was deemed less of a problem, at least in that moment in
time.
I took to the sidewalk and struck a Marlboro to life. I was enjoying the conversation and the knowledge that there
were many Venetians working the programme that were a lot more deviant and helpless than me but I was having trouble with the steps.
It seemed impossible to work them to a standard satisfactory of your sponsor without involving the big guy, you know the big G, the original G, Oscar would explain.
'Occasionally,' I said, sucking the life from my stick 'and I mean really occasionally. I have a hint of faith in myself that's long enough to get me into trouble. I don't know if this is going to work for me.'
'Hey Doug, come on man.' Oscar replied placing one of his incredibly hairy hands on my shoulders. 'What else are you going to do man? You've got a devil inside of you, and the only way to cleanse the soul is to let our Lord and saviour in so he can force it out.'
'This all sounds very homo-erotic Ozzy, you ever consider the devil's got squatters rights? I mean he was there first in all fairness.'
'Look.' he barked 'You need to be taking this seriously. It's not just your sobriety you're playing with but the rest of the group's.'
Whether it was alcohol, gambling, drugs or women I had always found ways to make past-times and good-times into experimentation with self-destruction and all the Amens and owning of wrongs wouldn't change that.
The writer's block had arrived hand-in-hand with rehab. I would never return.
Walking back through the canal neighbourhood I thanked Kinney. The man had just enough vision to make him dangerous. Crossing over a bridge I watched in awe as two prostitutes in knee length leather boots and torn up fishnet stockings wrestled with a live duffle bag before counting to three while swinging it up into the air and then releasing.
The bag, mumbling and kicking as it turned and, spun and danced with gravity until it splashed thunderous down into the canal below. Calling out I tried to grab their attention but they'd run back to their vehicle and tore off from the scene leaving more rubber on the ground than a Simi Valley independent film.
Without thinking I leapt from the edge of the bridge and into the black water. I wrestled with the bag, pulling it from the bottom of the canal towards the embankment as dark water stung at my nostrils and eyes. Eventually my muscles remembered that I didn't know how to swim but the water wasn't deep. I scrambled to dry land, tearing at the grass and mud and earth before hauling the bag to safety and undoing the zip. A leg shot out, its shoed foot catching me on the nose, knocking me to the ground and all but switching my lights out.
Shaking the cloud from my head I staggered to my feet. The dwarf was all but drowned. His breathing heavy, his hands and lungs clutching for air, his erection prominent and intimidating.
'What the fuck?!' he screamed.
'You're welcome little man Tate.' I could already feel the bruises develop under my eyes.
'Doug?'
'Yeah, which one are you? Grumpy, right? No, wait... Horny?'
'It's Randal, you cunt.' and it was 'From Swasucka, I played Midget Rommel, remember?'
'I remember.' I didn't, but it was coming back 'You ok Randal? What the fuck was all that?'
'That, oh that was… you're an experienced guy, right?'
'I've played my pink flute a bit.'
'You ever like it when someone… you know… dominates you.'
'You mean with whips and chains and stomping on your pud and stuff like that?'
'Kinda. Every weekend I get these two hookers to come down to the store where I work right around closing time. They overpower me, hog tie me and drive me out here and dump me in the canal…' He was deadly serious, and as he spoke his pecker grew bigger again. '…I escape and hunt them down. They're working a motel room you see. I break in, knock them around a little and then jam them real
good. You want to come fuck them with me?'
'I'm good Randal, I had a little sexual assault role-play earlier and I'm trying to cut down.'
'Ok, well I'd better be off. Pussy is on the clock, you know?!'
'I hear that.'
'You working on anything?'
'A few things yeah, you should drop by the bar some time for a beer.'
'I will…' he said combing his hair back, his breathing finally
normal 'look this won't end up in one of your fucking stories will it?'
'Of course not.' I swore.
Climbing the fence Randal sprinted off into the night, dripping a dirty trail along the way, deep into the darkness. Climbing over the fence after him I reached for my pocket. My phone was fried, my cigarettes slowly boiled in a canal of swan shit and drunkards piss. I tossed them to the side of the road and walked back towards the motel, stopping at a Seven-Eleven for more cowboy sticks.
Rolling up to the front door of the motel I kicked off my
waterlogged shoes and sparked up. I smoked it good, right down to the tip. As I lingered by the threshold dripping into my own essence I caught the eye of an Asian girl in a Brown University hoody and black leggings. She had a small waist, two juicy plums for buttocks and deep,
dark, intoxicating eyes. Tossing a smile my way I nodded back to her.
Veronica had come home. Somewhere in a thirty-six dollar a night shack a Nazi dwarf was making it with two call girls. Los Angeles was one hell of a city.