Chapter 4: Norma’s Place

It felt like I was one step closer to drowning. There seemed to be no way out. Kian’s offer was accepted. I needed to find a new place within two weeks. I had no strength left. I couldn’t even get out of bed. I decided to solve my problems by turning off the lights and going to sleep.

The days were passing by. I only had three days to find a place. Kian had already moved out. I’d checked out a couple of rentals. My potential new roommates seemed even more fucked-up than me. Believe it or not, I occasionally enjoyed a bit of intelligent conversation. I could still have that with Kian and Ryan sometimes.

As it happened, Ryan was also buying a place. He was moving out in a week’s time. He was letting me stay on his couch until then. There was nothing left in the apartment except a mattress and my clothes. We’d sold the couch. For some strange reason Kian didn’t want it anymore…

That morning, I saw a notice on the wall of the gym: “Room to rent. Pleasant area close to The Grove.” I called the number on the spot. We agreed on a viewing in two hours.

The neighborhood was lovely and peaceful. Ninety-five percent of the residents were Orthodox Jews. They walked around wearing black suits all day, with long beards down to their ribcages. Sometimes I felt bad seeing the little kids, all suited up in the heat from dawn to dusk. They never played baseball in the yard, no football. Not that I paid that much attention to their lives. I may well have been wrong. It’s just what I thought at the time.

Norma’s house was fancy, about 3,800 square feet. It was full of ‘60s furniture. Absolutely nothing had changed in several decades. Norma had three rooms for rent. One had a balcony and cost $980 a month. The other big room had a big couch and cost $850 a month. The third room, the small and modest one, was $480 a month.

I took the cheapest room. I’d run out of money a long time ago. The price was more than OK with me. Norma’s interview was easy.

“Do you use drugs?”

“Of course not.”

“You do look like a sporty guy.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets. There were two baggies in there. My palms were sweating. I took a deep breath.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you moving in today or tomorrow?”

Norma had a great sense of humor. We clicked immediately.

The first morning, I woke up around nine. Shuffled downstairs. There was a note on the kitchen table: “So nice to have a man in the house. It’s such a big place.” Next to the note was a plate with a beautiful breakfast waiting for me. I turned on the TV. The morning news was on. There had been a gang shootout on the freeway. Then they covered the latest movie premieres. The breakfast tasted amazing. I could feel positive thoughts bubbling up for the first time in a long time.

In the evenings, Norma and I had deep conversations. She had advanced cancer and a heart condition. She loved bacon. She loved making me different drinks, especially since I got more talkative after a margarita or two.

I told her about my crush on Jessica, and my anxiety about the impending expiration of my work permit. She gave me advice on how to win a woman’s heart. She didn’t understand my need to prove myself to the world at any cost. I believe she saw who I was deep down.

Norma’s husband had died many years ago. Norma was afraid of death. Sometimes I wondered if she had done something she regretted. I didn’t understand what there was to fear about death. It was a way out. An end to the pain.

Kian, John and Ryan were coming over to my place on Saturday morning. We were going to Las Vegas. Everybody else had sports cars, so we would go in my SUV. Norma had told a friend we were coming. The friend owned a restaurant in Las Vegas. We could have dinner there. It was all paid for, apparently. I knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that we would actually go, but I was polite and took down the number anyway.

I was exhausted. I’d had sex with a girl the night before, so I hadn’t slept much. I’d been visiting Ryan’s new place. I bumped into her in the elevator on my way home. She was going to a party at some gay couple’s place. She asked me to be her plus-one. Just when I’d planned to go to sleep early before Las Vegas. Instead, I ended up at an apartment with a wild party in full swing.

I filled up the tank in my car. We put on some Dave Matthews Band. I’d lost a bet, so I was the designated driver for the first leg of the journey. My eyes drifted shut and stayed shut for several fractions of a second. I didn’t complain. Our first stop was Burger King. After an hour’s drive, we smoked two big joints and kept going. Dave Matthews Band turned into Bob Marley. After the others fell asleep, I played “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam on repeat.

John was Kian’s old boss. A small guy, maybe 5’9”. But he had incredible charisma. We’d booked a large suite. We’d all sleep in the same huge room. John had promised to pay for everything. His wife let him go out twice a year. Kian had warned us in advance: “John gets kinda crazy. He doesn’t get to party much.”

After half an hour in the room, it was hard to find a surface without some kind of drugs on it. After two hours of pregaming, we headed out, got a cab. We hit a strip club first. Ryan loved lap dances on ecstasy. The rest of us wanted to go to a bar where you didn’t have to pay a woman twenty bucks to talk to you. Ryan kept saying no.

When we made it to the nightclub at the Hard Rock Hotel, the doorman told me no one would let me in anywhere wearing sneakers. We agreed I’d go and change my shoes, then catch up with the guys.

Once I got back to the hotel room, I laid my head on a pillow. I was so wiped out I fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up to a huge racket. The boys had come back to get more cocaine.

“What the fuck, Emil? We didn’t come to Vegas to sleep.”

“I’m tired.”

“Have this.”

John handed me an ecstasy pill. I chased it down with a beer.

“Don’t drink too much on that.”

I’d never tried E before. But I was down with any chemical that might make me feel better.

I was still dancing at an after-hours club at six in the morning. Squeezing a young woman’s latex leggings on the dance floor. My cock was rock hard. I’d never danced to techno before. Kian screamed with laughter when he saw me. He knew I hated EDM. All the stories about getting horny were true. The girl wouldn’t come with me to the hotel room.

After an hour of begging, I went to look for girls in the hotel corridors. I wanted to have sex on ecstasy. I had the feeling that for the first time in my life, I might feel fully relaxed during the act. Women kept turning me down. I guess I was too high. Every conversation ended after about two sentences. I bumped into Ryan in the lobby.

“Let’s find people to party with!!”

“I’m going to bed, it’s ten in the morning.”

“Hey, look at those chicks. C’mon, let’s go.”

“What the hell, Emil? They’re going to breakfast with their parents. Come on!”

Ryan dragged me to the hotel room before I could make a complete fool of myself.

I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I told the guys I was staying in. “I don’t feel well.” John sat down on the bed next to me. Cut lines of coke on the nightstand. “Let’s go.” I hadn’t even made it on my feet before inhaling the hotel keycard. There was no way I could have gotten out of bed without the cocaine.

We headed to the Hard Rock Hotel pool. The area was full of strippers. Kian, Ryan and John enjoyed the shade by the poker table. I entertained the girls at the pool bar. I was told off for jumping in the pool with my sweatpants on. The girls and I secretly smoked pot by the kiddie pool on the second floor. There were no kids to be seen. The age limit to the pool party was 21. It was the Fourth of July. The party resembled Finnish May Day celebrations, people were drunk as fuck.

In the evening, we went to another nightclub. I snuck back to the hotel around midnight. I didn’t tell anyone. I was in such bad shape I almost felt sick. I tossed and turned in bed as wildly as the ceiling was spinning above my head. There was no hope of falling asleep. I looked at the landline next to me. I had the bright idea to call Jessica. Maybe she was in Vegas too.

“It’s Emil. Come grab a coffee with me?”

“It’s the middle of the night!”

“You coming?”

“Why are you always so wasted?”

“I’m in Vegas. Everyone here is wasted. Anyway, I have a water bottle. I took it out of the minibar.”

Jessica hung up.

I woke up the next morning with zero recollection of what happened after. There were young college girls in the room. John fished a beer out of the minibar and handed it to me.

“You’re either the craziest person I’ve ever met or a total genius!”

“What now?”

“Don’t you remember our conversation?”

“Uhhhh. No.”

“It was deep, man.”

There were three women in bed with Kian. Kian was wearing black jeans. Ryan was still asleep in the armchair. I looked at my phone. It was full of messages. Somebody had sent me loads of nudes. I couldn’t remember who. It wasn’t Jessica. Of that I was certain.

“The strippers.”

I guess they wanted money. I had no idea what was going on. John wanted to hit the casino before leaving. I promised to go with him. John forced me to wear shades.

I have no idea how we managed to drive back to Los Angeles later that day. The whole trip was insane. After getting home on Sunday evening, we were all bedbound for three days. I was overwhelmed with extreme anxiety and depression. Even Ryan called in sick. John had forgotten half his stuff in my car. He lived in San Diego. He promised to come get it dozens of times, but he never did.

The next weekend, Ryan and I went to see a basketball game. Ryan got free tickets from work. We both had a touch of the flu and a mild fever. We made a solemn vow to each other that we were done partying for a while.

We were sitting in an opulent mansion above Sunset Boulevard. There was a fireplace by the pool. Huge sofa beds. A TV embedded inside the fireplace, which was on in the background.

Tom was Niklas’ ex-boss. I hadn’t done drugs in two days. I stayed quiet, listened to Niklas and Tom talk shop. Tom’s girlfriend’s friend was kind of alluring. She had a small dog in her lap. The dog’s collar was the thickest gold chain I had ever seen. I didn’t have the nerve to talk to her. My constant drug use had made me too anxious to open my mouth while sober. I had always been an introvert, but some people interpreted my silence as arrogance.

I fiddled with my beer bottle. The situation was getting awkward. I’d been completely silent for half an hour. Niklas and Tom started mocking me cruelly. It hurt. I tried to hide my tears.

“This guy can’t cut it on his own. Dude carries my bags on set.”

“Who was that guy at the party? The one with the white sweater.”

I was wearing a white sweater. I picked lint off the sleeves.

“Oh, the one who went to the gym twice a day.”

“Yeah, and never had a leg day.”

“His ass is so flat.”

“Dude drives around wearing shades all day long.”

Their digs made me feel like shit. I’d been busting my ass at the warehouse lately. I was so close to my final breaking point, and had been for a long time. I’d have stayed home if I knew this was going to happen. The others had clearly partied before I got there. Tom kept licking his lips about once a minute.

Tom’s girlfriend got upset at the way they were treating me. She got up. Asked me to join her in the kitchen to get something to eat. I was so paralyzed that I just said I’d eaten before I got there.

I wanted to get up and go home. But I wasn’t brave enough. I was relieved to hear that some Italian guy was coming over. He’d have more cocaine. This was after an hour of them giving me shit.

The long-awaited guest arrived. Marco was a skinny, messy-looking guy with curly hair. He’d bought his cocaine from a Jewish businessman. It was pure. Marco dug out a five-hundred-euro bill. I don’t know why he had euros in the States. I did multiple lines to hide my pain. Niklas told me not to have any more. Was he feeling guilty? Did he realize he had crossed the line with me? I don’t know. I doubt they really thought about it. They were just having “fun” at the expense of another guy. Like the idiots in elementary school.

Niklas was usually a cognac-and-beer man. Maybe he didn’t do drugs all that often. That was probably it. But his behavior was totally beyond the pale. I don’t even want to write down everything he said, since it doesn’t really matter in the context of the story. But you were an asshole that night!

I opened my mouth to talk to the dog’s owner. She asked me to join her in the front yard. We went and sat down, just the two of us. The yard was at least as opulent as the pool area. I later found out who Tom’s father was. Not that it matters to the story, either. Still, it explained why he had one of the fanciest houses in the city.

There was another fireplace in the front yard, surrounded by brown canvas chairs. I was so nervous I spilled my wine on the chair. Tried to frantically wipe it off with my sleeve. The woman laughed at me.

“Leave it…”

“It won’t come off… Is Tom gonna be mad?”

“No. It’s no big deal.”

The tops of the palm trees made me think of tigers. Stalking their prey in the jungle, trying to rip my heart to pieces. I was getting paranoid. I had done too much coke again.

I kissed the top of the dog’s head. Her dog had jumped into my lap a second earlier. I shot the shit with her, forgetting everything I said the minute I said it. I do remember telling her how shitty the guys in the backyard made me feel. Even if they did stop fucking with me after Marco came along. She seemed nice. Her name was Julia. Thick brown hair and a beautiful, symmetrical face.

I grabbed a pillow lying by the white fireplace and tucked it under my head. Fell asleep in the middle of our conversation. Woke up in the same chair in the small hours of the morning.

I tried to hide my tears when Norma wished me good morning in the kitchen. The digs from last night still hurt. Was I a man who carried other people’s bags? Couldn’t hack it on my own, or whatever they had said?

Tom had texted me. The text said: “We should do that again. It was nice to meet u. How r u?” Maybe he was feeling bad about yesterday. It didn’t make me feel much better. I had felt like a loser long before last night. Now it was official. It felt like other people didn’t have to worry about everyday life. They also didn’t carry secrets that nailed you to the bottom of the bed on a regular basis. Tom texted me again that evening. Maybe he was a nice guy after all?

I called Ramon and told him I couldn’t make it to work today. I was “sick”. I simply couldn’t go and package lipsticks right now. Who knows what might happen if my self-esteem dropped even lower than this? I immediately stopped that train of thought. Went outside wearing a tank top. The rays of the sun cheered me up.

I walked to a gas station to get a Coke for my hangover. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Jessica was watering plants in the yard. Just two blocks away from me. I ran past her house. Was this a sign? Everything would be all right after all. Her house was exactly like I imagined it. A small white wooden house under the shade of two large palm trees.

I called Shinya. I told him I had seen Jessica’s house. In my own neighborhood. Shinya wanted to grab a coffee with me after work. He confided he was tired of his job. But I didn’t show him the same compassion that he felt for me. I told him about the guys making fun of me last night. He encouraged me to let it go. “Who cares what drunk people say?”

On the other hand, Isaac believed that drunk people say exactly what they mean. That’s how they show their true nature. “They’re all assholes. Jerks with small dicks and small minds.” That’s what Isaac said.

On my way back from the supermarket on Sunday, I saw Jessica was having a yard sale. In all honesty, I’d taken a slightly different route than usual. It’s good to get in ten thousand steps a day, you know. It looked like Jessica was selling her clothes and old furniture. There were surprisingly many people around. They didn’t notice me. I was on the other side of the street.

I called Shinya. He told me I should go.

“You’re her neighbor, right?”

“To buy women’s dresses?”

Shinya said he’d come with me.

“That sounds better. We’ll buy you a dress.”

In all seriousness, I just didn’t have the guts. Shinya didn’t get it. I didn’t get it. I didn’t even want to.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, as Niklas called me and asked me to go to the movies. I started driving toward the Arcade Theatre. We bought the tickets and had a drink before the movie. The drinks and the movie were on Niklas. He knew I didn’t have a lot of money. In fact, he paid for me almost every time. I always tried to pay my own way, but he wouldn’t take my money. Sometimes he was more than fair. Surprisingly enough, he apologized for his behavior last time.

“You’re just not successful yet. All my other friends are.”

His choice of words wasn’t the best. But I could see in his eyes that he meant well, felt genuine remorse. Even so, he’d just poured even more salt in my wounds. I wanted another beer.

In the movie theater, my thoughts kept racing. I had no idea whether the movie was any good or not. I told Niklas I liked it, though. Only because he said:

“That was so fucking good. Mickey was amazing.”

“Definitely. It’s been a while.”

Then we went for drinks in a small sailor-themed pub. We talked about our favorite movies. All I could think about was what kind of movie I would write myself.

On Saturday, I smoked a joint after my morning coffee and looked inside my wallet. Ninety-five bucks. I headed to a florist’s on Melrose Avenue, across the street from Fred Segal. I bought the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen. They cost $93. They came with a see-through plastic pot. I sent them to Jessica. On the card I wrote, “I’m not a bad boy :)”

It felt like a brilliant idea while I was high. I’d never have done it sober. Jessica and I had bumped into each other on the street multiple times. She had seen me washing my car in the yard on Tuesday.

After sunset, Norma cooked us Russian food. I couldn’t quite figure out what was in it. Eggs, mixed in with the meat. It definitely beat my own efforts. Norma was an incredible cook. She had run her own culinary school when she was younger. She laughed at my cooking skills. “Emil, you’re just boiling the pasta and pouring a pre-prepared sauce over it.” Norma had taught me one pasta recipe. “You can make it for a special lady one day.” The recipe was kind of unusual: salmon, caviar, a sauce based on a particular wine. It was undeniably delicious. We had several margaritas once again.

We were both drunk. Norma told me she’d been on a date with an old friend of hers, a gentleman so “stingy and cheap” that Norma couldn’t stand him anymore. He didn’t even tip the valet, even though he was extremely rich. Norma had felt ashamed on his behalf. Then she’d gotten her own wallet out. Our conversations were so much fun. I told her I’d sent ninety-three bucks’ worth of flowers to a woman I didn’t really even know. She thought I was sweet. Norma was a hundred percent sure Jessica would thank me for the flowers.

I myself was pretty sure Norma knew about my drug use. She was ill, not blind. But she didn’t want to lecture me. She believed that everyone needed to make their own mistakes to learn and grow.

She’d been caring for me like a son lately. She set me up on a date with a stunning model. I canceled it. Without telling Norma of course. Norma had met the famous model at a charity event. She’d shown her my picture and sung my praises. I was feeling very inferior to everyone recently. What would we have talked about over dinner? What would I have said if she’d asked me about my week? I was so goddamn stupid. I didn’t understand that honesty and a sense of humor are often worth more than shiny cars. But on the other hand, there’s no bigger turn-off than doing drugs.

I kept obsessing over Jessica in the early hours of the morning. I couldn’t sleep. I was starting to regret the flower delivery. I had made a fool of myself. Why did I keep doing this? I went out to the balcony and smoked cocaine. Back in la-la land. I texted Jessica, “No thanks for the flowers then?!”

I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. She probably didn’t even have my number saved. And I hadn’t put my number on the card. I realized my mistake in the early morning. If you do drugs for a long time, small things start looking bigger than they are. You lose your capacity for logical thinking. How fucking selfish of me to imagine someone else would save me…

The next day, I felt so ashamed of myself. I realized I had zero chance with Jessica. Or anyone else. This city made it more than clear: you had to be successful. Success was the measure of a man’s worth here. It wasn’t just my opinion. I was a broke warehouse worker. Even my friends insinuated I was a failure. Tears welled up in my eyes. There was only a month left on my work permit. I wanted to take Jessica out to dinner. Which didn’t feel exactly possible anymore. I only had to look in the mirror to see why.

I wanted to find a permanent job as soon as possible. Then they might extend my work permit. But that didn’t feel very realistic anymore, either. I wanted to feel something other than pain. Just for a moment.

I was walking along the oceanfront in Venice Beach. I had gone to film school. Studied writing, directing. Success was supposed to fix my self-image. I didn’t see it that way at the time, but that’s how it was. Dreams of fame and fortune had become an obsession.

I stared at the ocean, trying to figure out a solution to my “problem”. The problem was that I didn’t quite see what the problem was. How could I come up with a solution? I didn’t even know what I was trying to solve.

Over the next couple of weeks, I picked up women in Jessica’s general vicinity left and right. The morning after, I’d feel even worse than before. I wanted to show her I could get girls. Every night if necessary. It was my way of protecting myself. I acted like a kid in a candy store. Besides, I was embarrassed by my behavior before. So I got high and found a creative solution once again…

That led me to an even deeper chasm. One night, Jessica coolly said, “You’re not welcome in my bars anymore.”

She told not only me, but the rest of her staff. I walked away and headed to Crazy Girls, where I spent all my money on a Russian girl. She gave me her number. I promised to wait for her in the parking lot after her shift.

At 2:15 a.m., the doorman told me all the girls had gone home.

“One’s coming. We have a date.”

“The place is empty!”

I stayed and waited. Fifteen minutes later, a Mexican man came out with a broom. I realized I’d been had. I was furious. I’d stuffed my last dollar bills down her panties. I wanted to walk in front of the first car I saw.

Norma’s brother had moved in with us. He was a retired fireman with a mean streak. He made fun of me all the time. Maybe he was annoyed by how much Norma liked me.

The week before, the other room had been taken by a man maybe fifteen years older than me. He had a kid. The kid never visited us. The man was editing the new trashy Van Damme movie. He was a nice, ordinary guy. Authentic.

Norma cried when she told me she needed more money. She kept asking me:

“You won’t leave if I get more lodgers, will you? Money’s tight for me.”

“Of course not.”

Why would I have left? A storage locker would have been more expensive to rent than my room.

Chapter 5: The Oldest Lie in the World

Chapter 1: Back in LA

Chapter 2: Living the Life

Chapter 3: Reality Bites

Chapter 4: Norma’s Place

Chapter 5: The Oldest Lie in the World

Chapter 6: Underground

Chapter 7: A Long Way Out