The Saga of Jimmy Stark: Pt II

Michael's entourage grows and Jimmy gives them a tour of Hollywood that climaxes at the Chateau Marmont.

Barney’s Beanery

I whipped the rental car, tires squealing, into the parking lot of the Alta Cienega motel. The Chinese owner of the motel came to the door of his office. He’d been watching my comings and goings ever since I checked in. I don’t know if he thought I was a troublemaker, or if the aura of chaos that surrounded Morrison clung a little too closely. The appearance of Jimmy that morning didn’t seem to ease his concerns. I nodded at him as we walked past the office and out onto Santa Monica Boulevard. We crossed the street and went to Barney’s Beanery.

Barney’s Beanery was a shoebox shaped building and looked a little out of place of the surrounding buildings but was from a different time. It had started life as a roadside cafe on Route 66 beside a poinsettia farm. It seemed like it could be any roadside cafe that existed off of route 66, except that movie stars embraced Barney’s early, chauffeurs would line the street picking up their employer’s hamburgers. There was a bar as you walked in, all the tables were booths, a pool table in one room, and newly squeezed in the back by the restrooms, pinball machines and video games. The decor covered the walls with the quirky miscellany found in art classrooms or corporate restaurants masquerading as quirky local hot spots.

“A Bushmill’s and ginger ale.” I barked out to the bartender, “make it a double. What dya’ want?” I asked Jimmy.

“A beer.” I slammed the first Bushmill’s in a gulp.

“I’ve never been so fucking humiliated in my life, and it’s only, what time is it?”

“About two,” Jimmy said.

“Jesus! What a morning!” A tall blond came in and sat next to us at the bar. I noticed she put a taped up rolodex down on the bar as she sat down. I nudged Jimmy a little to draw his attention to her.

“Hi.” I said.

“Hi,” she said as the bartender came up to her, “whiskey sour.” “Pretty heavy drink this early?” I asked.

“I like the cherries,” she said, smiling wickedly.

“What’s your name?”

“Gina.”

“Nice to meet you Gina, I’m Michael and this is Jimmy Stark. He’s my entourage.” I said, liking the idea more and more each time I said it.

“The Jimmy Stark?”

“That’s me,” he said, “I’m just showing him some of the sights. How’re you?”

“Well let’s see, I got fired last week and today my daughter tells me her boyfriend is in jail.”

“You must be so proud.” I said, smugly.

“That’s why the whiskey sour.” She took the cherry out of her drink and sucked on it.

“Can I ask, what’s that?” I said, nodding at the rolodex.

“The fruits of my labor.” She looked at me like that should’ve been a good enough answer.

“Oh, well, you don’t look old enough to have a daughter that old.” I said.

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she said. “Do you mean it, or is it a line?” I smiled, “it’s my second day in L.A. and . . .”

“So, what’re you doing in town sailor?” She asked.

“Career stuff.” I said, downing a second Bushmill’s and motioning the bartender for another.

“Dude, everybody’s in L.A. for career stuff’”

“So what do you, I mean, did you do?” I asked.

“Former personal assistant for a record producer.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked. My interest piqued, “my band is playing at The Whisky this weekend.”

“That sounds really cool. So what’re you doing sitting in Barney’s drinking?”

“Oh, the usual stuff, a bad meeting I’m trying to shake off. But on the good side, I met Jimmy here.” I said, slapping Jimmy on the back.

“We met a couple of writers,” Jimmy said to Gina, laughing. “You should have seen them, they were pretty drunk and got pretty loud, pretty fast when they found out we didn’t have a check for them.”

“Sounds like a pretty good movie to me.”

“I was trying for a book deal actually.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right,” I said, finishing my drink. “I still have the band.”

“Well, be careful what you ask for here, you just may get it.”

“Good,” I said, smugly. “I’m tired of being a big fish in a small pond. I want to make it big.”

“Again, that’s everybody in L.A.,” she said, “and this isn’t a pond, it’s the fucking ocean, with all the same kinds of creatures, including some sea monsters.” She chugged down the rest of her drink and said, “c’mon lover, let’s go.” she got up from her stool and waited patiently for me to make my decision.

“Where to?” I asked.

“I have a friend who works at a movie studio I have to meet. Wanna’ come?”

“Sure, why not!”

A couple of minutes later we were in her convertible flying down the boulevards, popping over hills and bottoming out the car.

“Take it easy!” I yelled, “these are mountains!”

“No, these are the hills. The mountains are up there,” she said pointing to the mountains that ran right up to the city. Gone was the happy go lucky maneuvering of Jimmy. It seemed like the car would spin out of control at any second. Something else was driving her, she tackled the traffic like she was trying to conquer it, instead of going with it. It was the difference between an artist and a forger. The car swerved and a red Geo flew passed us. I didn’t think she was paying attention to driving.

“Geo driving freaks!” She swore, after the car, then looked at me, “relax, I’ve been driving around L.A. since I was a teenager. I once drag raced Tom Cruise.”

“Who won?” I asked.

“I don’t know, we were both kinda showing off our toys,” she said.

“Free Tibet,” Jimmy said.

“What?” I asked. He thrust a finger between us at the car in front of us.

“Free Tibet,” he said pointing to the bumper sticker on the car. “Only in L.A., freedom is easy when you can afford a Mercedes convertible.”

“What studio are we going to?” I asked Gina.

“Right here, Paramount.” She pulled off Melrose to what looked like a side entrance. Gina honked her horn, the gate opened, and she pulled the car in. The guard checked her name against his guest list, handed us a map, drew a line to the building we wanted, and directed us to the parking lot. As we got out of the car Gina took the rolodex out from under her car seat and brought it with her.

We followed the line drawn on the map by the guard, walking among the neatly manicured concrete and hedges, passing buildings labeled The Clara Bow Building, Zuker, DeMille, even a Roddenbury Building. This was the factory town of old Hollywood, built on the premise that everyone in the world would put a nickel down to see flickering images of light on the wall, movies on an assembly line basis. And finally, our destination the Lubitsch Building.

“Whose office is this?” I asked her.

“A producer, but we’re not here to see him. My friend is his personal assistant.” She said, opening the screen door and walking in.

Inside, there were two women seated at desks. The one farthest away was on the phone.

“Gina!” The woman at the closest desk screamed as she jumped up from her chair, came around, and gave Gina a hug and a kiss.

“Sarah,” Gina said, disengaging from the woman, “this is a friend of mine, Michael Gray.”

“Jimmy is that you!” Sarah exclaimed as Jimmy walked in the door.

“Oh, hi good to see you again,” he said, perfunctorily, obviously not remembering her.

“I was a PA on Tender Fury,” she said.

“I see you’ve moved up in the business.” He said, effortlessly moving to conversational tones.

“I’ll be a producer yet. Michael nice to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand. “Gina let’s go to the office in back. Jimmy and Michael make yourself at home, look around. Oh, Bridget,” she said to the woman on the phone, “I have Steve Guttenberg on hold for you. He’s missing a limo.” The woman at the second desk picked up the line. “We’re having a premiere in New York tonight,” Sarah said to me confidentially. Then she and Gina walked off to an office in the back and closed the door.

Jimmy and I sat listening to Bridget talk to Steve Guttenberg. “Steve, the limo will be there in fifteen minutes. I got off the other line with the limo company right before I got on with you.” She held the phone away from her ear and rolled her eyes, smiling, she looked excited, like she had found her dream job. There wasn’t much to look at except the pictures of movie stars on the walls. Some of the stars had their arms around the shoulder of a shorter, preternaturally tanned man who had brilliantly white teeth, I assumed he was the producer whose office we were in. I listened to Bridget allaying Steve Guttenberg’s concerns. When she got off the phone I tried to talk her up.

“Have you worked here long?”

“A couple of years, I came in for an interview and the phones were ringing off the hook and I started answering them and have worked here since.” The phone rang again, she took the call, and I went back to studying the pictures. Finally, the waiting had seemed to become a game. At that moment in flitted the most flamboyant guy, he was dressed in a lavender body suit with an orange taffeta skirt, he literally flit from one desk to another like a nervous moth, before landing on the edge of Bridget’s desk just as she hung up the phone.

“Who are these cute boys?” He asked, archly. It was a little too surrealistic even for L.A. Finally, the door to the back office opened, and Sarah and Gina came out. I didn’t know what business they had transacted, but I did notice Gina no longer had the rolodex she had been clutching when we came in. By the way they were acting about it, I thought that whatever they were up to was at the very least unethical. She hadn’t told us anything about it and it wasn’t my business anyway, but there was an air of mystery and intrigue surrounding it.

“You ready to go tiger?” Gina asked.

“As soon as you are I guess,” I said.

“Uh, can I ask a favor?” Jimmy asked, “can you give me a lift to my agent’s office?”

“You have an agent?” I asked, surprised.

“Of course I do! This is Hollywood. I thought since I’m all cleaned up and we’re so close by you wouldn’t mind. It’s only up at Hollywood and Vine.”

“It’s not that far. Let’s go,” Gina said.

“Before you go,” Sarah said, “there’s a party at the Chateau Marmont tonight. Would you like tickets?”

On The Trail of the Woodvine

After another jarring ten-minute ride through L.A.’s traffic. Gina pulled up into a parking lot right on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, next to a smoothie stand.

“You mind if I come up with you?” I asked Jimmy.

“You looking for an agent too?”

“Yeah, I’m interviewing one the day after the show at The Whisky.”

“Like the writer?” He asked, smiling broadly, teasing me. “Sure, c’mon.” Gina decided to wait in the car.

We walked into Jimmy’s agent’s office. There was a receptionist sitting in front of two open offices, in each office was a man sitting at a desk. In one office was a boy and his mother. The boy was dressed like Michael Jackson in his Billie Jean period, a fedora, glittering red shirt and one sequined white glove. Something about the office seemed familiar. I looked at the man in the other office and recognized him. He must have been wearing a lot of make-up on his interview on Hollywood Today! And the room had the same wood paneling I’d seen on TV, it was Jimmy’s agent, and this is the office he was interviewed in. I could almost figure out the camera angle and where everybody had stood. Jimmy went up to the receptionist.

“Mind if I see Max?” Max looked up upon hearing his name.

“Jimmy! I wasn’t expecting you.” Jimmy walked into the office, shook the man’s hand and closed the door. I smiled nervously at the receptionist.

“Are you with Jimmy?” She asked.

“Yeah.”

“Have a seat.” I looked around the office. There were the ubiquitous pictures of stars on the walls. I took a seat close enough to the open door of the remaining agent’s office to see and hear everything going on in the office. His desk was cluttered with what looked like pictures of actors’ headshots. He was reading information off the back of the headshot of the boy.

“What’s his name?” The agent asked the boy’s mother.

“Preston.”

“Princeton! Hi! How ya’ doin?” The boy grinned revealing a toothless smile. He did a shy little turn, proud of being the center of attention. “OK.”

“How’d you name him? After the college?” The agent not seeming to care that he had misheard the boy’s name.

“The lord gave it to me.”

“Oh?” The agent said, arching an eyebrow.

“I didn’t have a name for him,” the mother said, “even up to the time they brought him to me. And when they asked me what I wanted to name him, I closed my eyes and said, ‘Lord, whatever name you could give me for this child, I would be grateful.’ And just then the name came to me.”

“Oh.” The agent said. They were speaking different languages and neither seemed to be aware of it. Jimmy came out of the other office. “Everybody looks like somebody.” I said, motioning towards the little boy.

“Far out,” Jimmy said, “I used to be that kid! My mother dragging me around to auditions, dressed up as all different kinds of things. The thing is, in Hollywood you don’t have to look like somebody else, it’s the guy who looks like himself that gets the gig. Man! I wish that was me again. I’d do anything to be famous again! Hey kid,” Jimmy said, leaning into the office, “good luck.” And we left. “Who knows,” Jimmy said, “one day that kid might be famous and in an interview tell the story about the day I discovered him.”

“What happened in your meeting?” I asked, as we walked back to the car.

“He didn’t tell me much that I haven’t heard before. He said I should get into A.A., if anything just to make contacts.”

“Contacts?”

“Yeah, you can meet anybody there, producers, directors, writers, actors, everybody! I’ve heard of people going to meetings who aren’t even alcoholics.” He leaned close and whispered, “if you ask me, I think he’s just trying to get me to go to A.A.” It was getting late in the day, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

“Are you hungry?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Jimmy said. “I know just the place.”

Street Scenes

Jimmy gave directions to the restaurant from the back seat as Gina drove. The night air was heady scented with ozone and flowers; the wind was blowing through my hair. I wasn’t paying attention to directions; I was just letting the neon signs shimmer my eyes as we cruised the streets of L.A. in the car next to me I saw a woman whose hairdo made her look like an Inca. L.A. is where you can see all the possibilities, and the different combinations of possibilities.

We parked the car about two blocks from the restaurant. Space is always at a premium in L.A., lawns a rarity. When people do have them they’re fenced off and fussed over. And businesses exercise proprietary rights over washrooms. So, when you park in L.A., leave the car where you park it and walk to wherever you’re going. We were walking from the parking lot to the restaurant when we came upon a movie being filmed. Klieg lights, cameras, canvas reflectors, thirteen or so technicians all sequestered behind crime scene tape with walkie-talkied production assistants fending off the crowd and answering questions. We stopped and watched a couple of run-throughs. The scene they were filming was, a car pulls up to a phone booth, the actor jumps out of the car, dials a number and delivers his lines then drives away. After each take, three or four people would surround the actor, apply make-up, primp his hair, give him water, or just talk to him. I didn’t recognize him.

“Pretty good odds, huh!” Jimmy said. He was watching the action longingly. His eyes had glazed over, I would have sworn he was either on drugs or in love.

Then a guy, who had to be the director, went up to the actor who was talking with the cameraman, the crew parted from around the actor for him. He and the actor chatted quietly, then the director had the actor practice his lines, trying a different delivery each time.

“Pick up the phone, asshole.” Sounding tough.

“Pick up the phone, asshole.” Defeated.

“Pick up the phone, asshole!” Mad.

“And George, can you motivate at this mark?” The director said, standing at the point at which he wanted the actor to act. “OK, we’re ready!” He yelled. “Clear the set!” The technicians scattered from around the actor.

“Rolling!” The director yelled.

“Rolling!” Echoed an assistant director.

“Action!”

“Pick up the phone, asshole!” The actor said, delivering his line with the chosen perfect intonation, the first inflection. While the director gave silent hand signals to the cameraman, the actor got in a car and drove six feet and screeched to a halt.

“Cut! That’s perfect,” the director yelled, “everyone back to one, we’re going to do it again.”

“I can see what you mean now about the unreality of this place,” I said to Jimmy.

“L.A. has become a giant set for itself.” He said, as we continued to walk to the restaurant.

Dominick’s

Dominick’s was a dimly lit restaurant with a warm ambiance. Well-dressed people sat in the booths drinking martinis. On the walls, were the same pictures I’d been seeing all day, the pictures of actors and actresses that you see everywhere, even at the smallest hot dog stand. As we walked in the maitre’d started shouting in thickly Greek accented English.

“No, no, Mr. Jimmy, you can’t come in here, you can’t come in here without money.” Jimmy was laughing, saying, “Dominick, Dominick,” trying to settle him down. “It’s OK, it’s OK, we have money.” Jimmy turned to me and said, “you better show him some money, man.” I pulled out my wallet and showed him my money.

“Well, that’s different. Why didn’t you say so . . . Come this way.”

On the way to the table I asked Jimmy, “what was that about?”

“I used to work here,” Jimmy confided. “I was the maitre’d, they only hired me because I was famous. They thought the novelty of it would bring in customers.”

“What happened?”

“That was back in my wild days. People would buy me drinks, and I would get totally ripped. One night I tore the place apart.”

“Why?”

“Well, this one particular night I was in the bar, right over there,” Jimmy pointed to the adjoining room. “I was signing autographs, and I was in there a long time, right? Then, out of the crowd this guy says ‘Jimmy, Jimmy, can you sign this for me?’ And he holds up a freakin’ lunch box! You know, one with my picture on it, and to this day, I don’t know if that guy had been carrying that lunch box around with him everywhere he went, or if he ran home to get it. Anyway, I went apeshit! I said, ‘you can’t sign a fucking lunch box!’ I grabbed it from him and stomped the shit out of it, all the while yelling, ‘I’m not a fucking product! I’m not a thing! I’m not anybody’s fucking little brother!’ I was walking on the tables and almost literally climbing the walls. People were cheering me on! It made all the papers.”

“You freaked out over a lunch box?” I asked.

“It wasn’t that. They used me, all those products, they used me. Do you know what it’s like to be used?”

As we got ourselves settled in a booth a waitress handed us the menus. Aside from having worked here, I suddenly understood why Jimmy liked the place, as I read the menu, the most inexpensive thing on it was a turkey sausage gumbo. I ordered it.

“Dig that!” Jimmy exclaimed as a beautiful young girl passed with her date, an old guy wearing a loud shirt, which ballooned up over the top of his control top pants. He was tanned, wore a gold necklace and bracelet. His hair was so coiffed, it unintentionally resembled a bad toupee. He looked pregnant with money and producers’ cards.

“That’s the one thing I hate,” I said. “An old guy with a girl our age.” “L.A. is proof of the evolutionary principle that no matter how fat, old or ugly you are, you can have the prettiest

wife and or girlfriend money can buy.”

“That’s because every guy thinks it’s his sexual manifest destiny to have an ice blond on his arm,” Gina said.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll is the same,” I said. “Put a guitar in a guy’s hands, put him on-stage, and no matter what he looks like he’ll get a beautiful girlfriend.”

“Where’s yours?” Jimmy said, laughing.

“Very funny,” I said. “I’m going to the washroom.”

There was a bank of phones by the washrooms. The door to the men’s room was locked, so I decided to wait. On one of the phones was a guy hustling a movie deal.

“I sent the screenplay over today with four different endings.” The guy on the phone listened as the person on the other end talked. “Version A is a romantic comedy ending, version B a dramatic ending. I don’t care about the ending. You can have all the endings you want, all the way down to Z where bugs rule the planet. Look, this isn’t Doctor Zhivago. Yeah, I’ll hold.” He looked up and noticed me listening. “Hey kid,” he said, “mention a book here, it scares the hell out of them. They’ll think you’re a genius.” I nodded at him. And it occurred to me there are any number of alternate endings available in L.A., and all the possible outcomes can be created by any one person.

The Chateau Marmont

After dinner, and with no after dinner floor show from Jimmy. It was off to The Chateau Marmont to meet Sarah. The Chateau Marmont is a hotel built in the 1920’s, with a history as old as Hollywood. It has the art noveau design favored by designers of the age, but it doesn’t have the flimsy construction materials of today, everything is oak, stone or marble, and the history is as solid as the construction, from stories of Douglas Fairbanks swinging on a chandelier across the room, to Jim Morrison hanging off the balconies, or John Belushi OD’ing in a bungalow a few years before.

The hotel was hosting an open house for art dealers, it was crowded in a bar area, people were gathered around Kim Basinger, I squeezed through the crowd and ran around the hotel pretending to be interested in the paintings, looking for food and alcohol. The turkey gumbo hadn’t gotten me very far; I found more alcohol than food. I went to the balcony of a room overlooking the courtyard where I saw Gina and Sarah, sitting at a table in the back of the courtyard, there were a couple of wine bottles between them. I spit ice cubes from my drink down toward them. They looked up and waved, “come on down!”

“Ah, the rolodex conspirators.” I said, as I sat down.

“Shussssh!” They both hissed at me, “keep your voice down.”

“Any wine left?” I examined each wine bottle for traces of alcohol then asked, “so, Gina, what’s with the rolodex?”

“Simple, I told you I got fired, so I took the rolodex, which I built up myself, mostly anyway, and gave it to Sarah.” She looked at me,

“I told you there are all kinds of sea monsters here.” “So, what’re you going to do with it?” I asked Sarah.

“We’re brokering it, maybe we’ll start our own production company, or see how much capital we generate with it.”

“I like that, so it’s called generating capital now?” A lanky guy in black jeans, black shirt, and cowboy boots came up to our table. He had a script in one hand.

“Hi Sarah!” He said, “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Stan!” She jumped up and gave him a hug. “Stan this is a business partner of mine Gina, and Michael Gray. Stan is an actor; he was in Wayne’s World.”

“I don’t remember you in the movie,” I said.

“I was the guy in the back seat throwing up.”

“Oh! Great performance, I think.” I said, looking perplexed.

He laughed, “that’s OK, I know what you mean. Sarah,” he said, “thanks for giving me a ticket. Here’s the script you wanted to see.”

“You wrote it?”

“Yeah and I’m playing it at the Mirror Playhouse next weekend. I’ll leave a couple of tickets under your name at the box office.”

“Thanks,” Sarah said. “Stan is one of the most intellectual actors around.” I remembered the dictum the writer on the phone gave to at Dominicks.

“Thanks,” Stan said sincerely. “And if you want a script read, Sarah’s the one to get it to. She knows everybody.”

“Is that right?” I asked. Sarah smirked smugly at me.

“I gotta get going,” Stan said. “I just wanted to get the script to you and thank you for the tickets. See you next week.” And he disappeared back into the hotel. We all sat for a moment, Gina and Sarah sipping at their wine.

“So, did you enjoy your day Mr. Mojo Risin’?” Gina asked me. “Did you get to see enough of the sea life?”

“What makes you think I’m that into Morrison?”

“Who’re you kidding?” She said. “All dudded up in those leathers.”

“Because I wear leather pants and a black shirt makes me Jim Morrison?”

“No, it’s the way you wear them, careful to match his style. And I’ve watched you, a conscious effort to move like him.”

“Yeah, I saw enough of it.” I said, thinking a moment. “Is that why you brought me around on your ‘errands’ today, so you could show me the underbelly of show business?”

“Just trying to keep someone’s idealism intact.”

“I’m not all that innocent, you don’t know what I did to get here,” I reached across the table and grabbed her hand, stroking it a little, “I’ll tell you what,” I said to her softly, “I’ll get rid of Jimmy, and why don’t you come to the motel with me?” She pulled her hand away from mine.

“Back to the pond little fishy.” Sarah laughed at this, I looked up to see Jimmy smiling at me, holding a glass of wine as he watched the whole scene unfold.

“You know I’ve been watching you two all day, flailing around like a fish drowning in oxygen. Gina, do you really think that rolodex is going to make you the next big producer? And Michael, you’re even more desperate than she is, your show at The Whisky is your rolodex.”

“How?”

“You think it’s going to solve all your problems, do you think there’s going to be a moment of clarity where everything is explained, or you’re going to fall in love during the montage? We’ve all become convinced we should be able to solve all our problems over the course of an hour TV show, or after two hundred pages of a book. With everything we have, we still feel a void in ourselves. And we look outside ourselves; we look for ‘things’ to fill that emptiness. You guys are chasing ghosts. I’m a fraud and a fake but at least I know it. The rolodex and fame won’t change your lives; they’ll only change the circumstances of your life.”

“Why shouldn’t we?” I asked, “it’s the mythology we were all raised on, in the movies, on TV, isn’t it supposed to be some reality of our lives on those screens? Why shouldn’t our expectations live up to that?”

“Because it’s all make-believe. You’ve watched all that stuff and believe, but you’ve never considered failure.”

“I believe in the transformative power of art?”

“Everybody is on their way to being something,” Gina said.

“It doesn’t exist. Did it transform me?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, you were a kid who everyone remembers. Your name will live on.”

“Is that what you want? Immortality? Kill a few people you’ll be infamous, as all the victims run for the TV cameras. Sometimes I try to imagine what my life would be like if my mother hadn’t taken me to Max. What would my life be like today? I would’ve had a childhood with playgrounds and friends. The reason I quit show business is,” he swallowed the last of his wine, “is the reason I took the part in Tender Fury, it had a death scene. And I wanted to know what it’s like to die. But there was no illumination, no insight. I was just playing like any kid on a playground that goes ‘bang, you’re dead.’ You fall over, twitch a little, hold your breath awhile, and when the bell rings and you go back in to class. It was empty, I was mimicking life, and I wanted to live a life.” We were all quiet for a minute. “Look at them,” Jimmy said, pointing to the wall behind us. There were cockroaches crawling up the whitewashed wall. “While we scurry around searching for whatever it is we’re searching for, they’re just sitting there, waiting to inherit the earth. I think it’s time for me to be going.” He put the wine glass on the table.

“Where you going?” I asked.

“I’m not too far from where you picked me up, I’m going back to the streets.”

“Do you want to come to The Whisky Friday night; it’ll be good publicity for the both of us. Of course, it’s good for me to have a celebrity friend there, and it’ll be good for you to be seen, maybe a producer will be there or something.”

“I think you’re looking for something I can’t give you,” he said. “I’ve exhausted every invitation I’ve had in this town. There wouldn’t be any advantage for you to have me there.” He sighed.

“Do you want the money I owe you?” I asked.

“You know the only time in my life I’ve felt like I’m running scared is when I’ve had money. I’ve found that when you don’t have money, you don’t get what you don’t need. It’s easy to let go of things, it’s mostly letting go of your fears. Besides,” he said a little louder, “you paid for the tour. Hell, you got everything except an earthquake!” Jimmy turned to leave.

“You want to go back to the street?”

“You see me as a tragedy, a failure living on the street but for once I’m living my life, that’s living in the moment, out there are all the issues of life and death, what’s important and what’s not. No one bothers me, the street is democracy in action, everyone is pretty equal out there. I made my peace with the streets a long time ago. They give me freedom and besides, I don’t think the streets can change without me there to witness them.”

“Hold on,” Gina said, “we’ll come with you.” Gina and Sarah left with Jimmy out into the night behind the clanging of the gate. I’d lost my entourage; it was time to go.

The day had come full circle; I found myself much like I had that morning trudging along between Sunset and Santa Monica. The difference now was I was drunk and tired. Each step seemed to come with a price. I was passing a coffee shop. Sitting by the window was the hooker I’d seen that morning, still in the same off-white dress, maybe a little dingier. She was eating a white frosted angel food cake, the one luxury of her labors I supposed. I shifted my position and saw my reflection in the window. I remembered what Joe had said about seeing the face of a former starlet in the face of a hooker. The reflection shifted again, and I wondered if I saw my future in her face, then it shifted again, like reaction shots in a movie. I thought of Gina’s Sea monsters, was there a monster in that reflection?

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