Chapter 3: Reality Bites

18+ / Explicit content.

Kian had met someone. Laticia was twenty-six years old and fresh out of a long relationship. I hadn’t met her yet, but I suspected the worst. We’d been shooting the shit and smoking. Kian was on his way to meet Laticia at Koi.

I had no plans. After Kian left, I called my Mexican drug dealer. He was always late, but at least he always showed up. He pulled up at our entrance in a black Cadillac. I jumped in the car while he circled the block. I gave him $120. He gave me five small baggies. Kian had promised to go halfsies on them. I didn’t want to go back home. I called a Beverly Hills cab. I have no idea why, but they were thirty percent cheaper than LA cabs, so I used them. I even negotiated the price in advance so that they never put on the meter.

I headed to Hollywood Boulevard. A sign saying Deep on Wilcox Avenue caught my eye. I walked toward the purple light.

“Are you on the guestlist?”

“No. But it’s just me.” 

The huge doorman let me in after a moment’s hesitation.

“My friend’s already in there.”

I ordered a beer. The bar had multiple platforms with half-naked bikini babes dancing on them. I noticed that nearly all of them had huge silicone tits. What kind of sex party had I found myself in, exactly? The vibe was different from a normal nightclub. Seeing a Lakers star player piqued my interest. I walked over to him. I wanted to see how small I’d feel. 

In the restroom, I realized my keys had broken the minigrip bag in my pocket. I scraped all the powder from the pocket onto my key. Rubbed the leftovers into my gums. Then I headed back to the bar. I was clutching my chest. I needed a vodka shot, and quickly. I was afraid I’d OD’d. I hadn’t wanted to waste any of the pricey powder, and look where it had gotten me. I’d have a heart attack in a nightclub. 

I knew liquor would balance me out. Anyone who’s had too much cocaine more than once knows that particular trick. I elbowed people out of my way, barging through the dance floor. Marched anxiously toward the bar. Three women with silicone titties were sitting at the counter. I intentionally stood between them to order my drink. Downed a tequila shot in one go. One of them grabbed my hand. 

“Aren’t my tits beautiful?” 

I was stunned.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“You wanna feel ’em?”

I squeezed her tits. The women pointed out that I seemed more interested in catching the bartender’s eye than in her rack. I needed another shot, fast. My heart was still pounding. I downed the shot. “And a Heineken, please.” The woman took my hand.

“They’re brand new.”

“Were they expensive?”

She burst out laughing. Never before had I squeezed a woman’s tits at a bar counter. I looked around. Many others were doing the same thing. What the hell kind of party was this? This wasn’t a normal nightclub. I got that much. The woman gave me her number. I went back to the dance floor. After three slow dances, I went looking for her but couldn’t find her. Toward the end of the night, I walked out onto Hollywood Boulevard and called her.

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Can I come to your place?”

She said yes. I handed my phone to the cab driver.

“The drive won’t be cheap. Forty-five bucks, give or take. You wanna go or not?”

“Do it for thirty-five?”

“Just this once.”

I was fishing for any remaining flakes of cocaine in my pocket. Where the fuck was I going? Eventually we arrived in the middle of nowhere. Total suburbia. The woman opened the door. I blinked. We went straight into the bedroom.

“You smoke heroin?”

“I smoke anything.”

I was too fucked up to realize what I was doing. She lit a match at the end of the pipe. The lighting in the house caught my attention. It was somehow darker than usual. I wondered why a beautiful woman like her would smoke heroin. But hey, not my problem.

“You go to Deep a lot?”

“No, I just saw the colorful lights and walked toward them. Shit, I’m so fucked up.”

The room starts spinning. I feel like I’m watching my body from the ceiling. I start getting anxious. Something isn’t right. This drug is not for me.

“Did you like the dancers?”

“It was like a strip club.”

“I go there every Saturday. I’ve never seen you before?”

“My first time.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Who cares if it was?”

“Did you know the dancers are men?”

“Oh.”

I try to see if there’s anything left in the pipe. No luck. Just ash.

“You fucking with me?

“About what?”

“It’s a trans club.”

“What the fuck!”

“A trans club.”

“Are you a man?”

“Well, yeah. For now, anyway.”

I look around. I feel like I’ve stepped into Hell. Can’t even tell a man from a woman anymore. I’m overwhelmed with fear. But I don’t want to offend the person next to me. I go totally quiet for a second. She’s probably in the same Hell as I am. Desperate for approval, just for a different reason. Always felt different. Found solace in a heroin pipe. I need to pick my words carefully. I don’t want her crying on my shoulder right now.

“Well, holy shit. You’re a pretty man.”

That’s the best I got.

“Thanks. Deep’s the only place that lets trans people in.”

“How can they tell?”

“The IDs.”

“Fuck. Look, there’s been a huge misunderstanding.”

I pour more heroin in the pipe. Flinch. Pour it out on the floor. I don’t want any more…

I don’t want anything. I start scanning the other rooms, overcome with terror. Is there someone hiding in the other room? I’ll be robbed any second now. I’m starting to hallucinate. All I want is to get away.

“I really gotta go now.”

“Can you come by again?”

“No. Could you lend me forty-five bucks? I’m out of cash.”

“You come over here to fuck me and you wanna get paid?”

“I didn’t come here to fuck you. But I don’t have any money, for real. Lend me that bike on the porch maybe?”

“The bike!”

“I just really need to go.”

I start staggering toward the door. I’m finding it hard to breathe.

“I need some air!”

“Hold on.”

The trans woman calls her friend, a cab driver. He’ll drive me home for twenty bucks. But it’ll take him thirty minutes to get here.

“I can’t breathe, I need some air.”

We go sit in the yard and wait for the cab driver. The trans woman starts spilling her guts.

“I’m saving up for my final surgery. It’s just really expensive.”

I look down at my white sneakers.

“I don’t feel good.”

She looks at me sadly.

“Is it ‘cause of me?”

“No, I’m just too fucked up. Why am I this fucked up? Can I get another bottle of water?

Finally, an old Mercedes pulls up to the yard. Once inside, I accidentally blurt out, “Holy fucking shit.” The cab driver turns to me. 

“Didn’t you know Lisa was a guy?”

“I didn’t fuck her!” 

“She’s saving up for her last surgery. Fuck me, you really didn’t know?”

“No. Are you happy now?”

“You want a smoke?”

“Yeah.”

The driver pulls up by the side of the road. We look at each other and start laughing. I ask him to turn off the radio. “Actually no, leave it on.” Coldplay’s “Amsterdam” is on. 

I want to enjoy the moment. For the first time ever, I’m completely numb. An empty four-lane freeway next to me. Fog building up from the Valley. The driver opens his mouth.

“My life’s not that easy either, you know.”

“Huh?”

“My kid and my wife moved to the East Coast.”

I’m too exhausted to answer.

“I can’t afford to go to the East Coast.”

For the rest of the way home, the cab driver kept talking about his life. I was falling into something between sleep and a coma. I kept alternating between feeling peaceful, then feeling convinced my life was about to end right there on the back seat of the cab. The cab driver must have walked me home. All I can remember is drifting to sleep in the back seat.

I realized something later on. You can totally enjoy good music without understanding the lyrics. For example, most people have probably never considered substituting the word “heroin” for “Hotel California” in the following song. Exactly. If you listen to the bit from 3 minutes 50 seconds to the end, maybe you’ll also see what I never had before. Taking stuff too literally makes you miss the message.

The morning after, I felt atrocious. I was almost suicidal. I checked out the score of yesterday’s Lakers game in Kian’s LA Times. The star player had done well. I wondered what else he had done that night. My laughter turned into pain. I had to roll a joint. 

I couldn’t bring myself to open the computer. Check for potential responses to my job applications. I wanted to watch a movie. It might help me escape the way I was feeling. I put on The Movie Channel. An oldie, Die Hard was on. That would have to do. 

I woke up on the couch. Kian had come home. “What time is it?” I decided not to tell him about last night’s adventure. I was still drowning in self-pity. Obviously, I knew that the next time I’d poison my body, I’d most likely spill my guts anyway. And that was probably only hours away, actually.

I was walking along the waterfront in Santa Monica by myself. The ocean view soothed my mind. I walked down 3rd Street Promenade to the end of a long wooden pier. Watched the fishermen and the seagulls. Sat down on a wooden bench. Worked up my courage, called Niklas.

“Is it a bad time? Oh, you’re in New York? Listen, I kinda need help with work stuff.”

We agreed I’d call Niklas at 9 p.m. He’d be at his computer then. I called him that evening. He didn’t answer. The situation was getting intolerable. I felt totally insignificant.

A friend from the gym had helped me. He got me an interview for The Jay Leno Show. The job was guiding people to their seats. That fell through because apparently my work visa wasn’t meant for jobs like that. Like a dumbass, I’d told them how I’d gotten my visa. They were already in the process of hiring me. Thanks, Curt. You tried to help. He was a genuinely friendly, down-to-earth guy. He’d been to Finland on holiday. He liked my homeland. 

I went to the Finnish Consulate and asked what type of work my visa allowed me to do. They laughed at me.

“Listen, we can’t tell you what to do. But no one cares about your job description. As long as it’s a legal job, you have permission to work.”

I believe that if I’d just explained things properly, they’d still have hired me. Curt’s guy was the executive producer on the show. It was some middle-management asshole who decided that the usher’s job wasn’t a production job. But when the email arrived, I didn’t have the nerve to call them back and argue. I guess I was feeling pretty defeated by then.

How could I have been so fucking stupid? My work permit was for movie productions. After the nonstop setbacks, I applied for a sales assistant role in a vintage t-shirt store on Melrose Avenue. 

At long last, I was hired as a doorman at a teenage disco on Sunset Boulevard. They required a black suit. I used the Visa to buy one. A stylish, striped Hugo Boss suit. It would pay for itself in three nights. The rest of the pay would go toward groceries. Kian pointed out that I could have just bought a cheap suit from H&M. 

“Who cares what you wear on the door?” 

He was right once again. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out I was just covering for someone on sick leave. They had promised me a permanent position. The bartender told me the score. 

The owner of the club was an unpleasant meathead. He turned up at the club in his black Ferrari around 2 a.m. Gave me $160 in cash. 

“You did great, I’ll call you next week. We’ll figure out your next shifts.”

The Hugo Boss suit sat in the closet as a constant reminder of my bad investment.

In the evenings, tears poured down my cheeks. I knew a job wouldn’t take away the pain for good. My dad called me once every two weeks. He’d tell me the latest finance news and what was going on with his company. Sometimes he complained about the credit card bill. I smoked cocaine after every call. I thought my dad was part of the reason I was in pain. The other reason was Matias.

The only one who cared about my well-being lately was my crack pipe. It stared at me with desire all the time. It wanted to give me love. It didn’t ask me what I was planning to do with the rest of my life. The pipe made me feel loved. I needed that love more and more after every inhale. 

Getting raped as a child must be one of the worst experiences a kid can have. After that, you don’t enjoy sauna nights with your basketball mates. You don’t enjoy hanging out with friends, you don’t enjoy women. You try to explain to your parents that the reason you cry every night is because of the nightmares. They tell you, “It’s not natural for a twelve-year-old to sleep with his parents anymore.” I believe that by the age of sixteen, I had concluded I was terminally damaged goods. The nightmares didn’t hound me at night anymore. The pain started at sunrise. The scariest place of all was outside the front door. 

That kite you flew as a child. I never saw it. I was too anxious to focus on it playing in the air. The way it bobbed up and down in the wind. All my thoughts were focused inward. All I could concentrate on was making sure you didn’t see through me. I didn’t have the strength to stop and look at the world with my own eyes. 

I woke up in the morning, drenched in sweat. I’d had nightmares again. After washing up, I looked at myself in the mirror. I hated the face looking back at me. Day by day, I was losing what little connection I’d ever had to it. I just didn’t care anymore. On second thought, I’m not even sure I realized I’d lost touch with my soul. Maybe if I had, I might have tried to change course. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t even want to. 

The obedient, sensitive film student who had orange juice and oatmeal for breakfast just wasn’t there anymore. That boy was excited to go to school. His vice was Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. He went on dates with several college girls. Lots of girls were into him because of his sweet nature. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He turned his back on every single one before they could do it to him. It was a defense mechanism. 

The first time I used it was when I was nineteen. I already told you about Kirsi. The girl who asked to walk me to the bus stop after a party. We were in Espoo at Kirsi’s parents’ place. Kirsi was throwing the party. Her brother was out doing a Chippendales show. We liked each other. We’d been making out all night long. She asked me if we should start dating. I still remember saying: “Maybe it’s better if we don’t see each other again. Your brother’s a friend of mine.” I could see how sad she was. In reality, I was even sadder. 

Later, Kirsi invited herself to my high school graduation party. Brave girl. But I still didn’t want to believe she could care about me. I walked the other way. I listened to my demons, not my heart. 

It’s what I’d done my whole life. I was used to listening to the demons. I just never got used to living with them. I killed their voices with drugs. I just didn’t understand that with every inhale, I was inviting in more demons. It was the snowball effect from Hell.

That night I got a happy call from Niklas. They’d be shooting a rap music video soon. It was for one of the world’s biggest rappers. Not Eminem, though, ha. They had a job for me. They’d email me with more info. The shoot would be on Friday. 

My car’s brake pads had worn through. The brakes of the heavy SUV were under constant strain on the hills of Los Angeles. The car was at the mechanic’s and wouldn’t be ready by Friday. I had picked the cheapest auto shop I could find. The car was currently waiting its turn in their parking lot. I called them and asked if I could pick up the car for three days and return it back to its original place in the queue. A friendly employee told me it’d be fine, but if the brake pads wore down to the metal, the repair would cost a lot more. 

I started investigating other ways to get to the shoot. First the bus, then the metro, then the bus again. Kian said the neighborhood was the worst ghetto in Los Angeles. The location was probably chosen specifically for the video.

“You can’t take public transport to get there. Preferably not even a car.” Definitely not a convertible, apparently. “You can’t walk around there on foot. Like, at all. Get it? They’ll beat you up and rob you instantly.”

But public transport was my only option. I kept that to myself. The cab fare would have eaten up half my pay.

On Friday, I left home at four in the morning to make sure I’d be there by seven. I was alarmed by what I saw outside the bus window. People lying in cardboard boxes, drug syringes. I asked the bus driver where to get off. He couldn’t understand why I was there. Told me to go back home! I told him I was going to work, to a video shoot. He showed me the right bus stop. Warned me about walking on the street. 

The shoot was in a dilapidated house four blocks away. The actual shoot went well. The vibe was great. I was part of the set design crew, styling all the different rooms. On our first break, a food truck turned up in the yard. Tacos and burgers. One of the older producers bought a knife. I was curious.

“Gonna cut your burrito with that?

He gave me a serious look.

“The shoot ends in the middle of the night. I’ll have to walk to my car. This is gonna come in handy.”

I noticed there was a guy watching the cars to prevent them from being vandalized. I was starting to worry about getting home at night.

“You know, my car’s broken. You think someone could give me a ride?”

“Of course. You can’t leave people behind in a place like this.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. The directors and producers usually left right after the shoot. At the end of the day, we were still loading equipment back onto the truck. There were five of us in the set design team. A man with a gray beard spoke up.

“The upstairs still needs tidying. Clear away the cardboard.”

I volunteered. I wanted to leave the upstairs in tip-top shape. It was important to give it my all at every gig. 

After an hour of tidying, I came back downstairs. To my horror, I realized I had been left alone. In the middle of the night, in the middle of a slum. I dug out my phone and called three different people on the production crew. The ones whose numbers I had. No one picked up. Hard work definitely paid off in this town. I was getting scared. 

I walked out onto the street. The scene was scary. Teenagers sitting on a stoop. Junkies walking down the street. 

The teens give me angry looks. I try to walk as calmly as possible. Four kids walk toward me. They don’t say anything. One hits me in the head with his fist. I lose my balance, my glasses fall to the ground. I start running like mad. One of them chases after me. I hear someone shouting, “Take his wallet!” 

As if by magic, a bus turns up. I wave my hand. The female driver stops the bus, even though there’s no bus stop anywhere to be seen. She waves me in. Closes the doors.

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Sit in the front.”

I look back at the kids, laughing and waving at us. The bus driver drives past several stops even though some of them have people waiting.

“You trying to get yourself killed?”

I was too exhausted to do anything except stare emptily at the driver. The view from the bus window was simultaneously sad and terrifying. I hadn’t realized what a slum truly meant in Los Angeles. It was a shocking sight. A scene that most of the city had closed its eyes to. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist? It’s a wonder they haven’t set up barbed wire around the area. No one cares for these people. What happens when they get sick? I never would have thought I’d see such a thing. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A friend of my mom’s had told me about a Finnish woman with her own cosmetics brand. Her warehouse might have a job for me. I needed cash pronto, so I got in touch with them. I was hired on the spot for the rest of the week. The drive over was long. The warehouse was a forty-five-minute drive away. In the middle of cattle ranches. Cheap industrial buildings. Luckily, gas was cheap.

The first day was weird. There were five Mexicans working in the warehouse. Two mothers whose three kids worked long days alongside them. Ramon was the boss. He told us to put our cellphones away at work. That pissed me off. I felt oppressed. Our job was to pack lipsticks into big cardboard boxes. 

At the end of the day, Ramon told me I’d done a good job. I’d be hired for three days a week. That cheered me up. It was a bullshit job, but I needed to start earning money for myself. I smoked two joints back in the car.

On the freeway, I sang along to “Unforgiven” by Metallica. That’s how mad I was.

I was scared witless when a police car switched lanes ahead of me and turned on its sirens. I thought they might pull me over. Had they noticed I was stoned? In the US, they can’t stop a car for no reason. The fancier your car, the more they let you get away with. Sad but true. 

I threw my cocaine and pot out the window. A second later, the cops took the next exit off the freeway. It crossed my mind to stop the car. See where the drugs had fallen. Get them back. In the end I decided against it. There was a whole convoy of cars behind me.

The next morning, I asked Kian why the cops would drive with their lights on right in front of me.

“They’re traffic cops. They control traffic jams.”

“I threw my fucking drugs out the window.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Kian burst into nasty laughter.

“Idiot.”

A moment later, Kian dropped a nuclear bomb. Laticia would move in with us for a while. I didn’t have the heart to say no. Laticia had started wearing big Louis Vuitton bags and white-gold jewelry. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where she’d gotten them from. I remembered Kian asking me to pay rent for staying in his old condo for three weeks.

“Laticia’s gonna pay rent, right?”

“She’s gonna live in my room.”

“Yeah but I paid you.”

“A hundred a month.”

I couldn’t be bothered to argue.

Work at the warehouse usually started at 6:30 a.m. There were no breaks. An hour for lunch. I resented Ramon’s instructions. No listening to the radio. Wash your hands before eating. Like I didn’t know how to wash my hands. 

But I needed the money more than ever. I decided to become a kiss-ass. I asked him what Mexico was like. During lunch, he showed me pictures of naked young women he’d fucked. That was his introduction to Mexico for me. I got nervous and withdrew a little.

“Don’t be shy, look at this pussy.”

It turned out Ramon was a gangster. His real business was elsewhere. He was only working at the warehouse to look legit. From that moment on, I knew my work routine would change. 

On lunch breaks, we would go and play pool at strip clubs. Ramon beat me one-handed every time. We drank Mexican beer. You had to put salt and lemons in the beer can. Sometimes I wanted food more than oppressed women dancing on poles. But I didn’t complain. Ramon told me he was married to an 82-year-old. He himself was 48. I was smart enough not to ask questions. I shrugged, like it was no big deal. Ramon loved my reaction. I had won his trust. 

Ramon’s Mexican pot was shit, but it was eight times cheaper than the stuff from my ex-USC student contacts. You had to pick twigs and other rubbish out of the Mexican stuff. Ryan was particular about his pot. I just poured everything into the bong, twigs and all, by the time I got to the Highland Avenue freeway exit. 

Ramon offered me LSD after work. “Let’s go to a strip club.” I told him I was working somewhere else that night. I didn’t want to try a mind-altering substance that caused hallucinations that might stick with me for the rest of my life. Ramon liked me so much that there were at least ten extra hours on my weekly paycheck every time.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to my phone ringing like crazy. It was in my jeans pocket on the floor. Niklas told me there was a party at his friend’s house. Mulholland Drive. Get there around seven.

“OK, see you then.”

I rolled over onto my side. Eventually, I made it out of bed around ten. My depression made it hard for me to get up in the mornings. I went to the gym. Ate a microwave dinner. A cab picked me up around 6:30 p.m. 

I arrived at a gated house. The host was Renny. I knew all his movies. I just didn’t enjoy watching nothing but cars fly around for two straight hours. The evening started in the living room. We ate well. I felt nervous since I hadn’t brought any drugs with me. This was a drug-free party. I twirled my fingers so no one would notice they were shaking. Later that night, Niklas and I had a swim in the pool with all our clothes on. 

On the upstairs balcony, I told Niklas about my crush. Then I called an acquaintance of mine named Henry. He was close friends with Mark Wahlberg. He promised to ask around and get me Jessica’s number in fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes later, I got a text. Jessica’s number. 

I was too drunk. I didn’t have the nerve to call her, so I asked Niklas to do it. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And funny. Jessica hung up on him in two minutes. She was mad. I texted her.

“Go fuck your mother! Don’t call me at night!”

She didn’t realize I was just too shy. She thought this was a booty call.

“Hey, this city is full of chicks”, Niklas consoled me.

“Yeah, but…”

“No buts. You never get the chick you want the most.”

I thought that was a strange thing to say. We replied to Jessica, told her we were on our way to fuck her mother at a Mexican whorehouse. After half a bottle of liquor, it seemed like a fitting “revenge”.

Niklas and I were still talking at seven in the morning. He told me about his own troubles. That helped me in a strange way. I had never had anyone I could open the curtains for, the curtains I had drawn closed to protect myself. Even though he gave me shit sometimes, he was still a real friend.

I woke up on the couch around 1 p.m. Looked around. The house was a disaster zone. I tried to find a non-empty vodka bottle on the table, but in vain. A large dog wandered around the living room by itself. 

I took two cold beers out of the fridge and called a cab. I didn’t dare stay and sleep on the couch. I wasn’t sure how many people had stayed the night. Renny seemed likeable, nice. Last night, he had cooked us incredible gourmet food. Early this morning, he had gone go-karting with his son. I remembered that. What would he think if he saw me sitting on the couch holding a beer? He could be back at any moment.

I had just gotten home. Laid my head on the pillow. My phone rang. Not picking up, I thought. And then I did. Niklas suggested we go to The Rainbow Bar in two hours. Get ahead of the hangover. 

I sat down in the empty bar and ordered a beer. A woman in her fifties sat in my lap. She started making out with me. Niklas walked in wearing a white leather jacket. He sat down next to me.

“Hey, lady, this dude could be your son!”

The woman gave him a piercing look.

“I’ve never been this insulted in my life!”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you just this once!”

“You just look really old.”

“Fuck you…”

I tried to act like I couldn’t hear them. She got up from my lap and walked away. I knew the night wasn’t going to end well. We had a few drinks, then took a cab to a strip club, Fantasy Island.

I spent all my money on a lap dance. Niklas took a shine to a fat dancer for some reason. Bought her loads of drinks. Sat her on his lap.

“I want her to feel good.”

“Why?”

“She’s the ugliest woman here. She probably never gets any compliments.”

“You’re making yourself sound like Jesus.”

Niklas’ acquaintance Pierre turned up at the bar uninvited. He was a French real estate mogul. His stories were like from another planet. Niklas told me, “Let’s try to ditch him.” Apparently, he didn’t have the best reputation in town. But he followed us around like a leech. Niklas and I agreed to hit the restroom and leave. We made a plan. Niklas would go in first, then me. 

An hour later, I sat up and looked around. I had forgotten to go to the restroom. Pierre had made sure there was constant company at our table. I realized Niklas had gone. I walked back to Pierre’s table. Later that night, I begged two women for their phone numbers. I promised to call them once we got to The Beverly Hilton. Pierre had announced there would be an after-party at the hotel.

Pierre and I were doing lines in the hotel corridor. Once inside the room, I called the girls.

“If I don’t pick up, please call again. Don’t leave a message!”

After five calls, they promised to come over. Four hundred bucks per dance. I had maybe five dollars in my pocket. 

We drew straws to decide which one of us would go buy condoms. I lost. I walked to the supermarket and bought candy and pizza slices. Back in the hotel lobby, I remembered the condoms. Luckily, I managed to bum some from the hotel barber. He was coming back from some kind of gay party. Apparently he had left his house keys in his office.

I was fucking the woman from behind against the toilet. The mirror shelf was full of cocaine. Occasionally I stopped to have a line. Then we kept going. After I came, we went back to the room. The women asked for their money.

“We didn’t talk about any money.”

And it was true, we hadn’t agreed on paying for sex. The girls considered it self-evident. Maybe I was stupid enough to think we had charmed them by behaving “well”.

“Emil, you’re a pig!”

“I have five bucks.”

“We have to pick up our kids from daycare soon.”

The women were dead serious. They needed to pick up their kids. They needed the money. And this was the only way they could think of to get it.

“Here I am, falling in love, and you’re talking about money.”

I was acting like a dim-witted ass. Pierre produced a thousand euros from his wallet. Apparently he had just come back from Paris.

“Go to the exchange in the hotel lobby.”

The women slammed the door behind them. We slammed our heads onto the pillows.

It was midnight. A full moon. I was admiring it from the passenger seat. Ryan was driving his Porsche down Doheny Drive. We’d been smoking pot and drinking vodka Red Bulls. We were on our way back from a party on the USC campus. Ryan’s old school. Ryan hit the gas, then the brakes, then the gas again.

“Chill!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The meter was showing a hundred miles per hour on the small lanes.

“Ryan, c’mon.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Ryan was playing at being a race-car driver. We turn right. The car hits the high curb, spins out of control. Drifts into the oncoming lane. We miss the approaching car by inches. Hit the traffic island at full speed. 

Ryan is holding his head. I’m holding my shoulder. We share a shocked look. The other car has taken off. Not that the driver had done anything wrong. Maybe they’d been drinking as well. Ryan’s car is wrecked.

“You OK?”

“My arm’s kinda sore.”

Ryan’s head looks like it’s bleeding.

“How bad is it?”

“You have a little cut in the corner of your eye. And your lip. It’s not too bad. Should we go see a doctor?”

Ryan somehow manages to start the car.

“I have alcohol in my blood, I’ll get fired. Let’s go home.”

Ryan starts driving down even narrower lanes. Against all odds, we make it back without getting stopped on the two-mile drive home. I look at Ryan in the parking garage. 

“Coulda been a lot worse.”

“Who knows what mighta happened if we’d hit the other car.”

“Wanna have a drink at your place?”

“No. Not now.” Ryan gives me a sharp look.

I was walking down Sunset Boulevard on a Friday night, alone and wasted. I noticed a tattoo shop called Shamrock. I walked inside. The heavily tattooed employee took in my appearance.

“I can’t tattoo you if you’re high. You might start bleeding.”

“I want a picture of an angel.”

The man looked at me with kind eyes.

“Where do you want it?”

“On my arm.”

He handed me a bunch of big books with pictures of angels from the Bible. I browsed the religious imagery, kind of nervously. The guitarist from Guns N’ Roses sat down next to me.

“My dog just died.”

“Sorry for your loss.”

“I’m getting a memorial tat.”

I looked at the book. Closed it. Turned toward the employee.

“Could you design it?”

“How big you want it to be?”

I looked at his sketch. It looked amazing.

“That’s it.”

I sat down in the chair. I didn’t feel any pain as he started working.

“Why an angel?”

“A guardian angel.”

“Good!”

After the tattoo was done, the artist told me to go check it out in the restroom mirror. In my own time. I burst into tears. When I came out, he gave me a manly hug and knocked fifty bucks off the price. It felt like a tattooed sailor was giving me a warning. He had already put down his anchor. Arrived in port.

On Monday, I helped Ryan out. He was taking his car to the shop. Apparently you could still drive it, at least. People were giving us long looks. The car was totally wrecked. 

I was driving behind Ryan. Then I gave him a ride to the office. The repair was covered by Ryan’s insurance. As a lawyer, he knew how to answer all their questions. Ryan made sure I remembered the car starting to drift on the coast of Malibu. In case anyone ever happened to call me about it. 

A couple of weeks later, the car looked as if the accident had never happened. The only scars were in Ryan’s mind. He never drank and drove again.

I talked to him on the phone just last week, actually. I asked him, “Really? Trump again?” He said, “The sequel is always worse than the original.”

There was a swap meet on the corner of Fairfax and Melrose Avenue every Sunday. Sienna was haggling over an old painting. It was Africa-themed. I don’t remember the exact picture. I was wandering aimlessly up and down the place. My heart leaped. I saw Jessica walking her cat. Sienna and I had had cannabis cookies in the morning, so I was feeling chill. I walked up to Jessica.

“Sorry about the call the other night.”

“It’s fine.”

She was acting cold, which made me panic.

“Wanna get an ice cream?” I pointed at the ice cream stand. Tried to put on an unnatural smile.

“I’m OK, thank you.”

“Have fun shopping.”

“You too. You know, I…”

Jessica stopped midsentence. Picked up her little cat and moved on. Sienna found me.

“I wanna leave.”

“But we just got here.”

“I don’t feel well. Maybe the cookies were off?”

I wanted to know what Jessica had been about to say. She didn’t seem that angry. Sienna suggested we could make pizza at hers. That sounded relaxing.

Kian and I were fighting a lot lately. He complained that I didn’t clean the kitchen enough. Kian spent most of his time with Laticia in his own room. I begged for attention from the living room couch. After one argument, I was so mad I threw some of Kian’s clothes off the balcony. I hated feeling like the third wheel in my own apartment. I felt like Joey on Friends. Smoking pot and watching porn on the couch. The lovebirds making out in the bedroom. 

Laticia and I often had our morning coffee together. We always kept to ourselves. Now and then we’d talk about the latest movies, maybe. I thought she was a gold-digging Barbie. I was trying to figure out whether she’d had silicone lip injections. My prying aggravated Kian.

I hadn’t heard from Zane in a long while. I’d been working in the lipstick warehouse for three weeks. Then Zane texted me:

“Can u help me out today, please?”

I didn’t have the heart to say no. He’d helped me out, after all. I jumped behind the wheel. 

The renovations on the house had gone nowhere. There were two hot tubs lying in the yard without any cover whatsoever. The house was still missing half its roof. Who was the lunatic buying hot tubs? Zane had probably lied to the owner and said the renovations were on schedule. And so they had delivered the hot tubs. I knocked on the door. Zane invited me in.

“Gimme a sec. I’ll roll a couple of joints and tell you what’s going on?”

“Is everything OK?”

“Fuck no.”

We sat on the floor and had a smoke. I could see Zane had packed his clothes into suitcases.

“They want me out by 5 p.m.”

“Why?”

As if it wasn’t obvious…

“I wasn’t fast enough, apparently.”

“Where will you go?”

“To my brother’s place.”

I knew Zane’s brother lived in Boston.

“It was my dream to build a house.”

Tears were streaming down Zane’s cheeks. I never thought I’d see his sensitive side. I noticed Zane’s new Mercedes was missing from the yard. The huge Escalade was still parked outside.

“I’ll build a new fucking house!”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Can I pay you forty bucks?”

“I don’t want your money.”

I helped Zane get his tools together, clean the yard. The yard was full of lumber and trash. Zane must have lied about his progress. No one in their right mind would order hot tubs before the bathroom was ready. Or before the floors were installed.

On the drive home, I thought about Zane. I just couldn’t quite collect my thoughts. Bret Easton Ellis once wrote the magical line: “People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.” I thought I understood what that meant. 

Zane called me after I got home.

“Could I stay with you guys for a few days?”

I promised to talk to Kian and get back to him. We both agreed that Zane would end up staying forever and never leave. Kian knew about his connections to LA gangs. It was best to say no. Zane got aggressive when I told him we already had a third wheel living with us. 

“I fucking helped you when you needed a job! And now you won’t help me?” 

Zane hung up on me. After the call, I wondered if I had done the right thing.

I was getting more pissed off by the day. Ever since Laticia moved in with us. At first, it was only going to be a couple of weeks. Now it had been several months. I fucked with them by walking around in my underwear in the evenings. Kian used to do it in the mornings. This was my home too. Sometimes, I’d intentionally fall asleep on the living room couch. 

Kian came home from work. I could see from his face that he had bad news. He sat down on the couch next to me.

“You know what?”

“What?”

“We have mold in the bathroom.”

“Fuck.”

I realized he was making it up.

“I’m gonna call the mold inspectors.”

“When are they coming?”

“I’ll call them in a bit. We could receive compensation if the landlord has known about it.”

“That’s good.”

Kian threw a huge stack of paper on the off-white couch.

“I need to write a summary of all that by tomorrow.”

“Looks like an all-nighter for you.”

“It won’t take long.”

Kian was a conscientious employee. Laticia had reined in his cocaine habit a little. Kian had taught Laticia to smoke pot in return.

“Let’s go out for a pizza, just the two of us. When I’m done with work.”

Kian tried to be fair. He felt bad about not being straight with me.

The job at the warehouse was starting to get to me. I had bad back pain. The workers were treated like slaves. I didn’t want to go out with Ramon after work. He cut my hours in revenge. 

The owner of the company politely asked me if I could come up with an online ad for them. I liked him. He seemed like an upstanding guy. He was married to the Finnish woman. They had two kids. I needed to script the video and come up with a budget. But I didn’t do anything about anything. My depression had been getting slowly worse and had reached a point of zero motivation. 

Isaac had been asking if everything was all right. Apparently, I had lost weight. All I could think about was the expiration of my work permit. I had only three months left in the country. I wanted to prove myself. I just didn’t know how. A lipstick commercial wasn’t gonna cut it.

A real estate catalogue had been left lying on the kitchen counter. I opened it, browsed the properties for sale. Kian walked into the kitchen. I was holding the catalogue. He told me he was thinking of buying a place.

“Then you can pay me rent. You can have one of the rooms.”

I knew that was never going to happen. Kian would move in with his girlfriend. I was sure of it. I asked if Kian had any cocaine. Did a line off a mirror for the first time. I didn’t like it. Kian wanted to come out with me. I lied and said I was going on a date. I didn’t want company.

I went to a bar by myself. Even I didn’t know exactly where I was. In a place that served beer, anyway. I walked to the counter. A blonde walked up next to me. I turned to her.

“I’m starving. How about you?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna go to Mel’s on Sunset?”

“Yeah, I like it there.”

I took her hand. We zigzagged through the nightclub and stepped into the dark night. 

Several hours later, we were cuddling on the living room couch. I lit a candle. I wanted to have sex on the couch, just to piss Kian off. She took her clothes off, started riding me. After two thrusts I pushed her away. Turned to my side and started sleeping.

“What’s up with you?”

“I’m tired.”

“You didn’t even come! Is there something wrong with me?”

“No, no.”

I laid my head on the pillow again. In the small hours of the morning, we woke up in my room. She started giving me head, then sat on my cock. I pushed her away again.

“What’s up with you?”

“I gotta go to work.”

There were many times I wanted to explain what was up with me. But this was anything but the right moment.

I’d met some new people lately. They all seemed to have one thing in common: they loved money and jewelry. I was spending a lot of time sitting in this or that café. My favorite new acquaintance was Jackie. He was a Black guy, a Valentino model, apparently. I didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. Not that I really gave a shit. 

He had beautiful female friends. One of them was kinda into me. But Jackie didn’t like the idea. Maybe he had a little crush on me himself. I just sat and listened to him talk about real estate, traveling. When I got home I felt ill. And yet I did it again and again. 

Listening to all these people’s stories made me feel deeply inferior. I was bored with my life. At least when I was high, I could tolerate myself. Escape to la-la land. Listen to other people talk shit. 

No one ever asked me how I was doing. Not that I knew what to say if they had. I’d probably have lied. I felt like no one was being honest. Everyone lied to get by. Maybe I was starting to feel I was just like them? I still remember my dream, the one I never made come true.