The first thing I did was rent a car. I traded in my Citroën for a Nissan SUV—I didn’t even know Nissan made SUVs. But this one was nice. You crawled inside it and it had a sunroof and that I Didn’t Know Nissan Made SUVs feeling and it had one of those crazy gear shifts that is unnecessarily complex since you’re driving an automatic but it makes you feel like you’re driving something designed by NASA to eject itself from the Earth.
“I’ll take this one,” I said.
“Very good,” some guy from Sri Lanka said.
I turned up the tunes and drove from the Burbank airport to my apartment in Valley Village—“The Beverly Hills of the San Fernando Valley” our landlord had told us, when Mike and I were looking at the apartment. It wasn’t really the Beverly Hills of the San Fernando Valley—there’s really no Beverly Hills of anywhere but Beverly Hills—but it was a very convenient neighborhood with a laundromat and a WingStreet and a bunch of liquor stores.
This was Friday. Mike was off shooting National Treasure 3 or some shit. His uncle was Jerry Bruckheimer so while the rest of his classmates from film school were working their way up as unpaid production assistants or working non-film jobs like me, Mike was working as a camera assistant on A-list films produced by his uncle. So Mike was out when I returned to the apartment, and I took his spot, just to spite him. He had the covered spot. I had the uncovered spot. I took the covered spot.
When I went inside everything was dark and cool. All the blinds closed. Air conditioning blasting. Mike made good money; I made great money. So we kept the refrigerator full, the air conditioning on blast, and we subscribed to HBO. That one channel doubles your cable bill but fuck it, we had the cash.
I went into the kitchen. Through the blinds I saw hints of the neighboring building’s pool. That was the one problem with this apartment—no pool. And there was no way to sneak into the neighbors’ pool—it had a high wall around it.
I looked at the top of our refrigerator and was treated to one of the most beautiful sights in the universe: twenty bottles of assorted liquor and wine, in all their carefully designed colors and shapes. Aged. Imported. Made to please a person like me, which, I was later to figure out, was an alcoholic.
I poured myself a half a glass of warm gin and went to my room. I’ll tell you what the furniture is, as it comes into play later. A desk with an iMac on it. A funky orange chair from IKEA. And one mattress, on the floor, no bed frame, no box springs, just a fucking mattress with a down comforter and a shitload of cashmere pillows.
I call Mike.
“Yo.”
“Yo.”
“I’m having some company this weekend.”
“So you’re kicking me out, huh?”
“No, I’m just warning you there’s gonna be like three hot girls sleeping in my bed so don’t be surprised.”
“Where are you gonna sleep?”
“I guess the couch.”
“Buddy, you should have told me. Look Saturday night I’m going to be butt fucking this little costume girl named Anna, so you guys can use my bed then. For tonight, sorry, I can’t help you.”
“That’s no problem. Mostly I just wanted you to know.”
“Alright, well I gotta go. We’re about to shoot a really important scene and I am the lead camera assistant.”
“You got promoted to lead?”
“No. Yes, I got promoted to lead but..no..we’re not shooting anything. I’m hanging out at craft services doing blow.”
“Now that I believe.”
“And drinking vodka Red Bulls. Anna, you want to say hi to my roomie? He’s a computer genius. He makes about five times now what I’ll ever make in this shit business. I’m just kidding—this is my chosen profession! You’re still letting me up the b-hole, aren’t you little Anna? That’s my girl. Alright, buddy, well, see you later.”
“I’m about to crash.”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen you in a while. Are you fucking that girl?”
“No. We just sleep. Me, her, and the dog.”
“No fucking?”
“No fucking.”
“You think she fucks her dog?”
“Prob’ly.”
“Yeah, she seems like the kind of girl that would fuck her dog.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, gotta go! Gotta do some blow!”
“See ya.”
“See ya later motherfucker,” my roommate says.
I sit at my kidney-shaped IKEA desk and go to Facebook. I go to Ashley, then to Purity, then to her sister Clarity. I study her profile picture. I have met Clarity once before but only for like five minutes when Ashley and Purity had rescued me from being homeless and Clarity came over to drop off Asha. Asha is Clarity’s daughter, and she’s five, and at five, the cutest, smartest, most precocious human being I have ever met.
Clarity and I are not Facebook friends, so all I can see is one photo of her face. I try to match that up with the her I met in real life for five minutes that one day. Clarity and Purity are nothing alike. If Purity is Sleeping Beauty then Clarity is Amy Winehouse. Purity is still a virgin. If Clarity shit on your dick it would probably make you cum.
I drink all the gin in my glass, don’t even try to jerk off ‘cause I’m still high on meth, and close out of Facebook so I don’t look like a stalker.
Then I get in bed with all my clothes on, throw a yellow pillow over my head, clamp it down with my arms, and hope—hope hope—that I can get some sleep before these girls show up.