Sick City (27 page)

“So, do we have something to talk about, boys?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Randal said, “I guess we do. We got about six million things to talk about.”

Damian laughed coldly.

“Before we get down to it, would you boys like another drink?”

Randal drained his glass, and Jeffrey did the same. “Sure,” Jeffrey said, “a drink would be good.”

Damian nodded and stood. He stretched like a cat and sauntered over to the bar. Jeffrey looked at Randal.

“You getting cold feet?”

Randal shook his head.

“No.”

“If this isn't for you, you can walk. No hard feelings. I could find someone else. I just thought . . .”

“No. I want this. I need this. We both do.”

They pondered this as they watched Damian order the drinks, and a stray beam of sunlight illuminated the bar as someone left, casting a sudden focus on the gray, spectral faces inside. Randal had the fleeting impression that this moment had somehow been captured, preserved in amber: his hand hovering over an empty glass, the sad-faced transvestite with the five o'clock shadow pushing a coin into the jukebox, a Cuban Chinese scowling at the barkeep, the dust particles hanging suspended in the stale, musty air.

They looked at each other: Jeffrey lurking in a borrowed suit two sizes too big for his starved frame, open sores running the length of both arms; Randal's puckered mouth, toothless, and penniless, eaten away from the inside by the ravages of meth and booze. For a moment they smiled. Looking past their desperate circumstances, their physical deterioration, their battered faces, in that instant they looked like two children, eyes burning with barely contained excitement. Just as a toss of the dice had once taken everything away from their own mentor, Dr. Mike, another toss of the dice now promised them a way out of the hell they had created for themselves. With all of the wealthy perverts, sickos, collectors, and freaks that this city seemed to breed, opportunities were everywhere. You just had to have the right kind of eyes, and you could see them, lurking in shadowy doorways like opportunistic crackheads. With a bit of luck, something would come along eventually. Shit, sometimes one toss of the dice is all you need.

Then the moment passed, and the bar seemed to come alive again. With a clunk, the jukebox whirled into life and a familiar song began to play. They sat and waited for Damian, waiting for whatever madness would come along, tapping their glasses absently with their fingers, alive again, truly alive for the first time in as long as they could remember.

Notes from a Mexican bar, somewhere in Los Angeles, Sept. 2009

Vanessa and I are sitting in El Chavito, a Mexican bar on Hollywood near Vermont that looks like a concrete bunker, drinking cheap happy-hour margaritas. On the jukebox, Chet Baker sings about falling in love too easily. The diet pills are starting to kick in, giving my stomach a strange, disembodied feeling. The last time we got drunk here we ended up in the Valley with Ron Jeremy, partying with porn directors and watching a deaf girl with enormous silicone breasts cane Ron's ass with a riding crop. Writing is a dangerous profession, as William Burroughs once observed, and when you throw cheap, potent margaritas into the mix the danger is magnified exponentially.

“So what are you going to write for the acknowledgments?” Vanessa asks. “You keep saying that you're going to write them, but it's been weeks now.”

“I don't know. Nobody ever reads the acknowledgments, do they? I've been agonizing over it, and the worst part is that nobody is even going to notice. Maybe I'll get inspired if we drink more.”

“What do you have so far?”

I pull out a notebook full of spidery, handwritten notes. I look up for a moment. Over Vanessa's shoulder I notice a crazed-looking man staring at me. From the sidewalk, he peers into the bar through the open door. He has dried vomit caked around his mouth and a T-shirt that says,
MY OTHER GIRLFRIEND IS A MODEL
. He beckons me over. I put the book down, walk over, and talk to him for a few moments. I come back.

“What did that freak want?”

“He said he needed a dollar to pay for his headshots. I guess even the fucking bums are actors around here.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“No. I told him I'd give him the dollar if he'd sign an exclusive management agreement with me, but he refused and stormed off.”

“I can't blame him. So what do you have?”

“Um, okay.” I start reading. “
I would like to thank my wife, Vanessa, whose patience and support helped to make
Sick City
possible.”

“Do you mention that I saved your life?”

“What? Uh, no, I just say that . . .”

“You should put that I saved your life. You were injecting heroin and smoking crack when you met me. Put that in there. The only thing you were writing back then was phony prescriptions.”

“Okay. I'll put that in.
‘Phony prescriptions.'
Anyway, the next bit goes,
‘My agent, Michael Murphy, at the Max and Co Literary Agency and Social Club, who is so much more than just an amazing agent, he is a tireless campaigner on my behalf for all of my craziest suggestions, a formidable ideas man, a pit bull when he needs to be, a teddy bear when he thinks no one is watching, and most of all a 100-percent, for-real, wont-let-you-down-in-a-crisis, always-have-your-back-no-matter-what kind of a friend.'
Man, that's a long sentence. I'd better break it up or something.”

“Do you think he'll get mad because you called him a teddy bear?”

“You think he might? I meant teddy bear in a nice way.”

“What man likes to be called a teddy bear, Tony?”

I sigh and cross that line out.

“Okay, how about this bit?
‘My editor, Michael Signorelli, who edits with a surgeon's grace and an artist's sensitivity . . . Thank you. You always leave the place in a better condition than you found it.'
”

“That's good. Are you going to mention that night we got him so drunk he ended up dancing to Whitney Houston's “How Will I Know” in some sleazy Avenue A eighties club?”

“No. I don't think he'd like it if I mentioned that. The last thing I need is my editor pissed off at me. Wait, I need more drinks.”

I go to the bar and get another round. The jukebox has segued from Chet Baker to David Bowie's “Cracked Actor.” Walking back from the bar, I notice that the guy with the dried vomit around his mouth now stands forlornly across the road, outside of the medical marijuana dispensary. He sways dangerously and looks like he's about to fall flat on his face.

“Okay, the next line is,
‘Carrie Kania, whose belief in my writing really changed everything for me. Carrie really is one in a million: she possesses that rare mix of vision and the street smarts to make her vision a reality.'
”

“That's good. Wow, Carrie, me, your daughter . . . you got a lot of strong women around you. That's good. No wonder you're still alive.”

“
In fact, all of my friends at Harper Perennial: Alberto Rojas, Amy Baker, Michael Morrison, Milan Bozic, and everyone who was involved in putting this book out. After all, my job was easy. I drink cocktails and write stories. You guys do all of the legwork, and I really appreciate it.
”

“You got to lose that. That line is terrible. You make it sound like you sit around getting drunk all day, and the books just write themselves. You know your problem? You're kind of like those people who are totally against drugs and try to ram it down people's throats. Except you're the opposite. You're like a preacher or something: ‘Getting loaded is great!' Tony, nobody likes a preacher.”

“I was just trying to liven it up a little. You didn't think it was funny?”

Vanessa shakes her head at me, half-smiling.

“Goddamnit.” I start striking out more lines. I wonder if maybe I
should
become a preacher. That's where the real money is.

“All right. Okay, the next bit is,
‘I want to thank George Lewis, whose conversations about Hollywood folklore were the initial inspiration behind
Sick City
.'
”

“He was the one who told you about the sex tape? So, is it real or not?”

I shrug. “It doesn't matter. It's just the idea that it exists that's exciting. Who cares about reality? Reality is boring. Hold on, there's more.
‘Jesse Flores, who coached me in Spanglish and taught me all kinds of filthy Mexican curse words.' ”

“Good, I was going to remind you to thank Jesse. Mexican Spanish is totally different from the Spanish I know. They have a strong accent, a different way of speaking. You can't have all of this proper Spanish in there, it wouldn't be right. I can't believe that in all the years you lived in LA you only learned one phrase in Spanish.”

“
Vente blanco, vente negro
,” I sigh, nostalgically.

“
The following writers and artists supported me at the outset and really helped me out with advice and encouragement when I needed it: Dan Fante, Zsolt Alapi, Tommy Trantino, Jerry Stahl, Dennis Cooper, Sebastian Horsley . . .”

I drift off for a second. Something has caught my eye outside. Vomit Mouth across the road is pissing in the street now, waving his pecker around and shooting his urine up in the air like a gardener watering the lawn. I look away and back to the notebook.

“Is that it?”

“No, I just have this part . . .
‘I would also like to acknowledge the presence of many of my old friends and enemies, both living and dead, faces from the dope scene, shooting buddies, dealers, nutcases, thieves, prostitutes, and professional fuckups whose faces and memories haunt these pages.' ”

Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see an old ghost from my dope days staggering across the road wearing a Mexican wrestling mask. I look up, startled, but there is nothing out there except the California moon, Vomit Mouth watering the palm trees, and the steady rumble of traffic down Hollywood Boulevard.

· · ·

“Well,” Vanessa says, “you are right about something. No one ever reads the acknowledgments. So I guess you can pretty much write what you want.”

“That's true. Unless there's some kind of weird acknowledgment-reading freak out there.”

I take a slug of my drink and check my watch. The diet pill makes my brain whirr like an overheated motor, and my fingers are icy cold. Seized by sudden inspiration, I jot down the phrase “
JUST SAY NO TO THE WAR ON DRUGS.”
I close the notebook. A few more drinks and maybe it will all make sense. The night is still young and full of possibilities.

P
RAISE FOR
Tony O'Neill's
Down and Out on Murder Mile