Portrait of a young con artist
Chapter 11
Pleasure Palace
He saw colors.
They swirled around him in the rough shape of a room, walls sagging, floors cluttered, ceiling stained brown with dried rain from the roof.
It might have been a home movie- with a home movie's grainy texture running down its middle. Somewhere in the back of his head he heard the strained guitar of Jimi Hendrix. But he squinted forward towards a section of wall and the wavering image of a door. Not the door he remembered leading in and out of the room, but another, newer door that had popped into existence over the last few minutes, A shimmer of bright green showed on the other side. The smell of trees and grass swept through the room, replacing the musty smell of mildew. Not palm trees either, but real trees like those he knew from back east.
"Kenny?" Louise called. The green faded. The door vanished. Her face appeared in their place, blond hair and frightened eyes studying him.
"I was almost there," he moaned.
"Where, Kenny?" Louis asked, seated on the far side of the bed like a Buddha, nudging him with her bare foot. "Why do you always get like this when you trip?"
He glared at her, his spiteful silence more disturbing to her than any words he could use. She needed to be inside his head.
"Answer me, Kenny!" she demanded
He squeeze his eyes closed, trying make the trees return, the sharp red patterns of breaking capillaries in his eyes lids showed.
"I'm lonely, Kenny. Please talk to me."
His eyes blinked open and he stared into her face, her cheeks and eyes changed in shattered prism colors. Behind her, the roar of motor cycles sounded from the yard. Mad bikers wallowing for Louise, beer bottles shattering against the wall in their frustration. They could smell her scent under the door.
Kenny could smell only the mildew, beer and urine. The inside walls dripping with dried rust, the remnants of their former apartment cluttered in the center of the room like custard's last stand. He craved for trees but couldn't even remember South Paterson, or the mountain he used to climb as kid.
The motorcycles roared to life, then sputtered back into silence, amid curses and kicked metal. More glass shattered against the wall. The engines roared again, then sustained, muting Hendrix's guitar.
Louise clutched Kenny's arm, shaking him. "Wake up, Kenny. Please," she whispered, her voice lost as the motorcycles began their ride through the alley.
The lights blinked out. Kenny screamed
"I'm blind!"
"You're not blind," Louise hissed. "They just pulled out the wire again."
"But people said..."
"You're not blind, Kenny. Please I'm scared enough without you going crazy on me, too."
The roaring dwindled into echoes on the street, blending back into the sound of the city. Kenny stared into the darkness, picturing the gap between their building and the hotel, and the thin gray thread that connected the two, the manager mumbling about it being their sourse of electricty.
But you don't worry yourself about it, it's perfectly safe.
But once a day the bikers managed to knock it down.
"It's only the wire, Kenny," Louise said again, chanting out each word as if trying to convince herself.
"Turn the lights on," Kenny insisted. "I don't like it like this."
Somehow it made the smell worse and he could hear movement in the dark. Maybe rats. Maybe other darker things. He felt their hungry stare.
"Okay, okay," Louise said, hands feeling for his in the dark, clutching at them. Soft hands. Love-making hands. He pulled them to his chest. "But I have to go outside."
"No!"
"I can't fix the lights in here."
"I'll go with you."
"I can't, Kenny. It's scarier outside."
"I don't like it here any more," Kenny insisted.
The smell of mildew crawled from the corners and across the floor, scraping its knuckles on the cold concrete. He could see it routing through the boxes in the dark, sniffing at them, hungering over Louise's fancy perfume.
"I want to see the lights," Kenny said.
"Okay," Louise said, breathing raggedly. "But let me find your shoes. You'll cut your feet on the glass."
She reached over the side of the bed into the sea of darkness, plucking up each sneaker like fish.
"You'll have to do without socks," she said and helped Kenny up, the floor swaying beneath him. He felt slightly ill. And scared.
"I want to see the lights."
"You will," she said, reaching into the darkness for the door. Then crashed into a box.
"Louise!"
"I'm right here," she said, inches making her invisible. But her fingers stroked his cheek as she pulled open the door.
The walls shook. Cheap nearly cardboard walls that had long buckled in with rain. The landlord had called it a cottage. But it was a box.
Outside lights twinkled down from the main building's windows, casting the yard into twilight. Shapes huddled in the shadows. Metal and cloth. The gypsy life of the bikers sprawled out in spare parks on the ground. A grave yard of chrome and grease. Piles of trash littered the ground near the door.
"There's your lights, Kenny," she said and moved towards the corner of the cottage.
"Don't leave me!" Kenny screamed.
Shadows moved across the face of the upstairs window, strange women in a strange dark dance, hustling men into hallway doors.
"I'm not leaving you. I'm just checking the wire."
He shivered. She sighed, then took his arm and led him down the narrow passage. Bike treads showed in the soft soil. Overhead the wire swayed and sparked.
"They broke the cord," Louise said, staring up in disbelief. "Now what are we going to do?"
"I want to see the lights," Kenny said.
"But the cord's broken, Kenny. We're not going to get the landlord out of bed tonight."
He whimpered and she stared into his face, the edges of her mouth folding in as her teeth bit into her lower lip. Upstairs one of the shadows stopped and the window dragged open with a shudder.
"What's the matter, honey?" the woman asked. "Got no juice?"
"The bikers broke the wire," Louise said. "My old man's freaking out."
"That's too bad. We'd take him up here, but you ain't got no money."
Louise nodded. The window closed. She stared down the alley into the darkness. Out here the city sounds circled with sirens and horns, traffic thick on the elevated freeway behind them and overhead.
"All right, we'll go see lights," Louise said finally. "But you've got to promise me you'll be good."
Kenny gave an assenting nod and she grabbed his hand, easing down the alley to the street, her fingers squeezing his as she whispered words of comfort.
The hotel front glowed red neon, and more shadowy women wiggled their fingers as she and Kenny passed. But the street was dark, twisting up from Hollywood like a broken shoal with doorways and front stoops jutting across the sidewalk. In daylight, the dome of the Planetarium would have been visible on the hill, and the letters spelling out the city's name. Now, only the orange afterglow showed from flashing neon and thick traffic. At the end of the street the lights began: stop lights, store lights, headshop strobe lights, all flashing, blinking, bleeding...
Kenny waved a hand before his eyes, the pattern of a thousand hands remained, trailing one after the other like series of photographs.
"Stop that!" Louise scolded. "You want people to know you're stoned?"
"Horses," Kenny said.
"What?"
He pointed across the street. The heads of two stone horse poked out from either side of brown stone stairway, worn sandstone legs kicking out at empty air.
"Yeah, horses," she mumbled and pulled him along, passed drunken old men leaning against the wall, and broken bottles, and urine infested empty store fronts.
Then, they were in the middle of the lights.
A blazing insanity of lights with people popping out of each, laughing, frowning, growling people with strange faces and stark eyes, each staring at Kenny as if they knew he was stoned, weekend bustling people from the suburbs, parading shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk. And others around them, drug dealers, bikers, prostitutes, hippies and police eyeing them all.
Kenny cried out.
"Shush, Kenny," Louise whispered, squeezing his hand.
Jesus freaks pawed at him with circulars and wishes for salvation, their bloated faces like fish floating among the lights.
Jesus loves you! Let Jesus save you!
Hari Krishna bells jingled as bald headed men and women danced in front of him, their faces as worn and blank as the horses, chanting things about Godhead.
Jesus Saves!
Hari Krishna!
Jesus Saves!
Louise tugged him away, passed store front blaring rock music, passed headshop windows full of strobe lights and bleeding posters. And people stoned as he was nodding, their eyes as sharp as sharks. Car horns blared from the street. Siren wailed. People shouted, laughed, cried and begged. Panhandlers demanded changed.
Kenny covered his ears and screamed.
Louise covered his mouth with her hand. "Shut up. Do you want us to spend the night in jail."
"No more," he whimpered. "I want to go home."
"We can't, Kenny," Louise moaned. "You hate the dark, too."
"Not that place, the other place," Kenny insisted.
For a moment, Louise looked puzzled, then her eyes widened, and narrowed again.
"We can't go back there. We got thrown out, remember?"
He remembered, as saw the blue-haired old lady standing over their things, waving her finger under their noses saying We don't do that sort of thing here....
"I want to go home."
"We can't," Louise barked, then stopped.. "The cops. They're looking right at us. Don't cry. You got to look straight, Kenny. We've got to walk right passed them as if nothing's wrong. You hear me?"
He nodded. She tucked her arm under his and pushed on, swaying with him, the two of them like drunken sailors on a slanted street, staggering despite her constant whispers not to. Then, the crowds were gone and they were walking an empty sidewalk. Only the two of them. Staggered. Drunk on light.
***********
He knew where he was when he got there, a dark street with swaying house-high palms outside. A cluster of stoned hippies lying on the lawn. "Free Press" stenciled on the door.
"In," Louise said and pushed into the shallow room, the dry scent of newsprint swelling around him. The pot and incense came later like a bitter after taste.
Jesus Christ stared up from behind the counter, beard and robes and a smoldering joint in his mouth. His eyes widened at seeing them.
"Kenny's on a bummer. Thanks to you," Louise announced.
"Me?"
"You gave him the dope."
"He looks all right to me," Bob said, removing the joint from his mouth.
"That's because he's in orbit. Now bring him down."
"Is that who I think it is?" a woman's voice asked from beyond the man, large breasts and paisley shirt showering color into the room as she entered
"It's not what you think," Bob said, rising and turning to meet the oncoming woman, who glared passed him at Louise.
"I don't want her here," she said.
"Take it easy, Martha. Her old man's on a bummer."
"How can I take it easy with her on the prowl? Put her in a room with a man and she'll...."
"No one's here to steal your old man," Louise said. "I just want help with Kenny."
The larger woman squinted through the pot haze. "Poor fool. What's he crying about?"
"The bikers knocked out the lights and we had a rough time on the boulevard."
"You took him out like that?"
"Had to. He couldn't stand the dark."
"Well he can't stay here," the woman said. "We've got a business to run."
"Please. Just till he comes down a little."
"No," the woman said, eyeing Louise with her previous suspicion.
"They don't have to stay here," Bob put in. "I have a place. But you'll have to get there on your own."
"Any place is better than where we've been," Louise said.
Bob jotted an address down on a torn piece of newsprint and pushed it across the counter towards Louise. She looked down at it.
"But this is all the way down on Santa Monica," Louise complained.
"You said you didn't care," the woman said. "So go. You got what you came for."
***********
They walked, weaving through the side streets to elude people and light. Sunset and Vine were unavoidable. But Louise seemed most afraid of the Police, bending to tie Kenny's shoes each time a patrol car passed. He giggled at them and tried to wave.
"Stop it, damn it!" Louise demanded, and went on, until they reached the cracked stucco wall indicated in Bob's directions. She brushed back the vines from in front of the numbers as a passing car's headlights illuminated them for her. Newspapers and weeds cluttered the gate. It looked abandoned. Rusted barbed wire across its top, snarled with dried icy. But inside deep rhythmic rumbles rose: bass notes and drums hinting of rock and roll.
Louise grasped the tarnished knocker and lifted it with both hands. The boom echoed for a long time after she let it drop, mingling among the barbs and vines, replaced minutes later by footsteps hurrying toward them over gravel.
"Who is it?" a voice asked.
"Bob sent us," Louise said.
"Bob?"
"Free Press Bob," Louise said, glancing over her shoulder at another set of advancing headlights.
A bolt scraped back; the gate opened. A black man's face appeared in the gap.
"What do you want?" the black man asked, the tip of his nehru collar showing around the broken wood.
"He said we might be able to crash here," Louise said.
"That son of a bitch knows better than this," the man growled. Behind him, soft lights illuminated a path of white gravel, lights stuck atop poles like in a park, mock gas lamps flickering electric flames. A dark garden of low bushes walled in the path. People appeared and disappeared among these. Their faces seemed smeared in paint and they looked naked.
"Bob promised," Louise insisted. The black man's mouth went grim.
"Did he tell you what kind of place this is?"
"No, and we don't care. We just need a place to be for a little while."
"And what's wrong with him?" the black man asked, jabbing at finger at Kenny.
"He's tripping."
"Shit!" the black man spat. "Just what I need right now is another acid head. He should have called to warn me."
"We won't be much trouble," Louise said.
The black man stared out at the road clicking his tongue on the top of his mouth. "I suppose you two could stay upstairs with me," He mumbled and threw the gate back for them to enter. "But if your old man makes any trouble. You're both out on your ears. I don't need complaints from any of the clients."
"No trouble," Louise assured him and pulled Kenny in through the gate with her, stopping abruptly with a gasp. "What is this place?"
"Something of a private club," the black man said, closing the gate behind them and motioning them down the path, where secret alcoves dented the hedge. Marble benches in several. A small found in another. And couples copulating around them in poses of Adam and Eve.
Kenny stared. Louise tugged on his sleeve, whispering for him to behave himself. "You want to get us tossed out of here, too?" she asked. Somewhere in the back of his head, a protesting voice sounded, saying he hadn't been the one to get them thrown out before.
We don't do that sort of thing here, the blue-headed old lady had said.
The building appeared a piece at a time, low steps suddenly under foot, rising up from the gravel path to a large, square patch of grass bathed in flood lights and dotted with round tables and chairs-- The building a shadow behind the lights, dark, heavy and many storied. More people showed in the corners of the darkness making love. Not hippies, but older men with graying hair and women with bright lipstick and polished nails.
"Hey nigger!" a bulky man roared from higher up the meandering stairs, bounding down in sneakers and jeans, a gold football jersey glowing in Kenny's eyes. "Just what the fuck is going on here?"
The black man stopped. "What do you mean, Mister Butch?"
"I mean these...hippies you're dragging through here. My father know you're sneaking people in?"
"Your father said I could have guests as long as I kept them out of the way."
"Did he now?" Butch said, eyeing Kenny, then Louise, his pupil dilating for a moment over her. "Guests? Maybe I should go ask him, eh?"
"He'll just confirm what I told you," the black man said.
"Even if he didn't say it," Butch said, drawing up a glob of spit from the back of his throat, aiming at one of the tables. "The old man thinks the world of you. But I don't. And I catch you doing shit I don't like, you're out of here."
The black man remained silent.
Butch eyed him, then snorted, then stepped aside, waving his big hand towards the rising stairs.
"Don't let me stop you," he said mockingly, eyeing Louise again as she passed.
"We didn't mean to cause you trouble," Louise whispered.
"You didn't cause Butch to hate me," the black man said. "He does that all by himself. He likes to sample things around here. His pa doesn't like it, but that doesn't stop him. And I won't unless he goes too far. But I can and will if I have to, and he knows it."
Glass doors greeted them at the stop of the stairs with a marble lobby inside, and sweeping stair cases rising up like crab claws at the other end with a massive chandelier hanging down between its pinchers. Kenny stared up into the glittering lights and giggled.
"Stop that," Louise hissed.
The black man smiled. "Don't blame him. I did as much my first time here and I was straight. Can he climb?"
"I wouldn't trust him on those," Louise said.
"Fine! We'll take the elevator."
He yanked open the cage door. It stank of perfume and alcohol. The black man shoved the handle down and it rose, climbing passed another floor of thick carpet and dark wood. People's faces looked up from positions of the floor, then were gone.
"Why did you let Butch call you nigger?" Louise asked.
The black man looked up, his eyes startled. He finally shrugged. "Because it doesn't mean anything to me. Every job has someone like him. This job pays good."
The elevator stopped and the black man stepped out. Louise followed then halted.
"Come on, Kenny. The ride's over."
"I want to go away from here," he said, staring at the cage bars and the dark, plain hall beyond, the smell of cleaners and dust thick in the air. A crawling, storage kind of smell he distrusted. Like walking into a closet with no way out.
"You wanted some place with lights," Louise barked. "This is it. So don't go arguing with me."
"But I don't like it here," Kenny said.
"You don't like it anywhere," she growled and grabbed his hand, dragging him out into the hall. The black man had stopped a few paces farther on, white walls and dark tiles around him like an office corridor.
"This way," he said and continued on. Louise pushed Kenny after him, passed open doorways on either side, one a bathroom, another a kitchen, and others without apparent purpose at all, carpeted but lacking furniture, as if this part of the building was rarely used.
The room had too much furniture, mostly couches and chairs, stacked unevenly on each side of the door. Three small alcoves looked out on the property and city beyond. Even Louise gasped at the sight of lights shimmering through the streets and freeways, a bird's eye vision of paradise.
The black man laughed. "It's one of the fringe benefits," he said.
One of the three alcoves looked occupied, sleeping bag, backpack and multiple piles of folded clothing. Kenny cried out.
"Music! I want to hear music!" He pointed to the small stereo tucked into the farthest niche, headphones dangling from its front. A small hooka beside it.
"That's private," the black man said, stepping in front of the advancing Kenny. "You can sleep over there."
He pointed towards the other two alcoves with a general sweep of his hand.
"Kenny, behave yourself," Louise hissed and grabbed him back by the arm. "I'm sorry. He's not always like this...."
The black man nodded, but still looked annoyed.
"Just keep him away from my stuff," he said. "And everything'll be fine. Are you hungry?"
"You'll feed us, too?"
"I've got sandwich meat in the kitchen."
"A sandwich would be fine," Louise said.
"What about him?"
Kenny wandered into one of the alcoves and was caught on the lights again, the moving passage of fiery lines that seemed to go on and on.
"You'd better get him something, too," Louise said. "He'll be ravished when he comes down."
The black man nodded and turned away, back into the hall from which they'd just come.
"Hey...." Louise called.
He stopped at the door. "My name's Richard. Is there something else you wanted?"
"I saw a bathroom. Would you mind very much if I washed?"
"What about him?"
"I'll keep him with me."
"Fine. Do what you want. Just clean up after yourself."
He vanished and Louise tugged Kenny away from the window, the lights making his eyes water from staring too hard.
"We'll come back," she whispered. "I just need to get us cleaned up."
The bathroom was all tile and tub with large goose-necked spouts that whistled slightly when Louise turned the water on. Steam rose clouding the mirrors.
It was nearly as big as the cottage behind the hotel. Louise sat in front of the vanity and wiped the mirror clean.
"Oh God!" she moaned. "I never realized I looked so bad."
"You don't look bad," Kenny said.
"How would you know?" she snapped. "Will you look at my hair?" She ran her fingers through it snagging on the tangles. "And the dirt. We're pigs, Kenny. Down right dirty pigs."
Her hard gaze caught Kenny's in the mirror.
"We're going to wash up," she said firmly. "And when we're clean we're going to stay that way. We're never going to back to live in that place."
Kenny giggled.
"You'll see," she said. "You're first! Take off your clothes, Kenny."
She rose and found bubble bath among the bottle on the vanity, pouring ht pink liquid into the gathering water. Bubble spread out from the area beneath the spout.
"In," she said when he had exited his clothing.
"I'm scared."
"Of water? Don't be foolish."
His feet slid on the slippery undersurface of the tub. The bubbles tickled his skin.
"Sit," she commanded and he sat. She found a wash cloth and scrubbed him, inch by inch till the tinge had gone from his flesh. Then, commanding him out again, she patted him down with a towel.
"You look like a million dollars," she said, then frowned at the pile of clothing near his feet.
"It won't do to put those on," she mumbled. "Maybe we can let them soak after I've had my bath."
She glanced around then produced a robe from a hook behind the door, sliding Kenny's arms into it.
"Sit," she said and pointed to the closed toilet lid, freeing herself of her clothing as she emptied and refilled the tub. She vanished into the bubbles and reappeared laughing.
"It's been so long," she said, then seemed to forget Kenny, resting her head on the back of the tub. Sometime later, she opened her eyes and stared darkly at Kenny.
"I mean it. We're not going back to that place," she said.
Kenny nodded, but could only see the blue-hair lady scolding him with her finger. We don't do that kind of thing around here...
Finally, Louise climbed out of tub and dumped their dirty clothing into the used water. She found another robe behind the door and pulled herself into it. She looked young again. The way she had when Kenny had found her in Colorado.
She stared at her self in the mirror, then shivered. Butch pushed open the door from the hall.
"Well, well, what have we got here?" the big man said stepping in, bringing with him the sour smell of booze. "So there's a woman under all that dirt after all."
"Get out!" Louise shouted. "We're using the bathroom right now."
"I can see that," Butch said, circling the tub, staring down into the clothing that showed between the spoiled bubbles like floating bodies. "Only this isn't the laundry mat. This your boyfriend?" he asked, hooking a thumb towards Kenny.
"He's my husband."
"Bullshit. Hippies don't marry."
"Common law," she said and help up her left hand, showing the gold ring Kenny had bought her in Colorado.
"He acts more like you're kid. What's wrong with him?"
"LSD," Louise said.
Butch's blond brows rose. "Really?" He flicked his fingers in Kenny's face and Kenny flinched.
"Stop that!" Louise said
"I don't want to," Butch bark back and flicked his fingers again.
"Damn it!" Louise said, shoving the man away, her robe opening before him like a gift.
Butch whistled. "Now those are something worth diverting myself for," he said and grinned.
Louise tugged closed the garment and glared. "Get out of here. We're almost through."
"From look of things, you seemed to have moved in," Butch said, making no move to vacate the doorway. "What's in the tub?"
"Our clothing," Louise said. "Now get before Kenny gets mad."
"Him?" Butch laughed. "That supposed to be a threat?"
"He could break you in two if he wanted."
"Not in his condition. Or you in yours."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't tell me you don't know. You couldn't be that far gone without being sick. Is it his?"
Louise's fingers fell to her stomach, pressing into the robe. "Shut up," she hissed.
"You mean he don't know either?"
"I said shut up."
"We can negotiate my silence." Butch's gaze descended again to the gap in Louise's robe.
"I'm not like that," she said.
"Like hell you aren't. I can smell your kind from a mile away. You're more like that than most, too. Now do I tell your old man the ugly truth or do we go find ourselves a little love nest?"
"I just want you to leave us a lone!" Louise yelled, banging the large man's chest with both of her fists, her robe falling apart again, exposing herself to his hands.
"That's it, baby," he said caressing her breasts. "That's all I wanted...."
She bit the hand.
"Hey!" he howled and snatched the hand back. "What the fuck did you do that for?"
"I don't like being touched. Now get out of our way or I'll start screaming."
"Bitch! You don't come to this place and act like that."
"We're just here to crash."
"That's not the way I look at it."
"Leave her alone, Butch," a voice from beyond the doorway asked. Butch turned. The black man glared in at Louise. "Did he hurt you?"
"He thinks we came to...." she whispered.
"I know what he thinks," the black man said, staring into Butch's round red face. "And I know what his father'll say when I call him on the phone."
"Fuck you, nigger!" Butch said and shoved his way passed the man and into the hall, stomping down it in the direction of the elevator. The metal screeched as he yanked the gage open and a moment later he descended with a hum of cables.
"Are you all right?" the black man asked.
Louise nodded.
"What about him?"
"He's too stoned to care about any thing."
"There's food in the room if you still want it?" the black man said, staring down into the tub and the floating clothing.
"I'm soaking our clothing," Louise explained again.
"That's all right. No one else uses this room. But just clean it up when you're done. No need to give Butch an excuse to bitch."
***********
The food wasn't much. White bread and head cheese and a stroke of mayonnaise. Louise devoured it, but Kenny stared at the colored patterns crawling across its surface like maggots.
"Eat Kenny," Louise urged. "It'll help bring you down."
He shook his head. He already come down some and didn't like it, the strychnine pounding behind his eyes for escape. Everything looked ugly and distorted. He wanted to sleep. He had heard Butch in the bathroom and understood, and saw the sideward glances Louise gave the black man whose head was buried in headphones. She licked the mayonnaise from her lips.
"Is it mine?" Kenny asked, starting her as she glanced up at him on the couch.
"What?"
"My baby inside you- like he said?"
"You're not going to take the word of a brut like that, are you? Go to sleep. You don't know what you're saying."
He nodded and slumped down into a fetal position on the couch, his eyes closing slowly. It felt like sleep, but wasn't. He heard Louise move off in the dark and the whispers from the black man's alcove.
Be quiet, he'll hear us, one voice said.
So?
So I don't want to hurt him.
But he's stoned.
Was stoned. He's come down some.
Should I be careful?
A giggle came. No need. I'm already pregnant. Just do it.
But...
Please!
Then, the voices stopped and other sounds came. And then no sound at all, except for the whisper of the city beyond the window and distant strains of Jimi Hendrix music escaping the now-abandoned headphones on the floor. Are you experienced? I know I am.