L.A. Success (3 page)

The first thing he made me think of
was a giant pear with skinny legs. His belly was a little smaller than mine,
but me, I'm all round and compact, and this guy was jiggly. He had
girly-looking arms sticking out of his sleeveless, Motorhead T-shirt. And then
that head. His mouth was tiny with thin little lips. He had bulging fish eyes.
There was too much room between his lower lip and the bottom of his chin. He
had a pointy little nose, was wearing a real feather earring, and had a narrow
forehead. He had a receding hair line that he couldn't disguise even though he
combed his wispy hair straight down. He kept it short all over except for the
back, where it fell down to his shoulders. He had on a pair of jeans, the
acid-washed kind from the 80's. And on the smallest feet I'd ever seen on a man
were black cowboy boots made out of some kind of lizard.

“Hello!” he said, but he didn't say
the “H.” It sounded like “L.O.,” the way he said it.

I was still taking all that in when
he held up a big pile of my mail.

“What are you doing with my mail?” I
asked. I was going to snatch it angrily out of his hand, but being all lit up,
I missed the envelopes completely with my first swipe. The second time I tried
to grab them, he moved them into the path of my hand to be nice. I didn't
manage to close my fingers around the envelopes when I made contact, so I sent
the mail flying all over the place. He bent over and started picking everything
up and at the same time showed me way too much hairy ass crack. I had to look
away from that. When he stood up and handed the letters to me again, I took
them slowly because I didn't want to have to go through all that a second time.

“Thanks,” I said.

His lips started puckering and
quivering. They reminded me of an old truck motor trying to turn over. Then he
said, “Yes,” and smiled weird.

“Yes what?” I said. He moved his
eyes to the right, then up a little, then over to the left, like he was looking
for something.

“No! No! Welcome! I forget, yes, I
want to say 'welcome',” he said all happy with himself.

“You're welcome?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said. Then he pointed to
my mailbox and said, “It falled on ground.”

I was thinking I had me another
gifted neighbor. I waited a couple of seconds to see if he had something else
to say. He shifted from one foot to the other and was still looking smiley.

“I guess that'll do it,” I said and
started to close the door.

“Ah! Buh...I am coming for ze room.
Ze room eez still 'ere?”

“What?” I asked. I had no idea what
this dude was talking about.

“Ze room, for renting,” he said.

“I don't got no room for rent, pal.”

“Ah, I am doing a meestake?” He took
out a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. “It eez not 'ere?”
He handed me the piece of paper.

I read it over. It was from a
posting on an internet apartment site. Here's what it said: “Bedroom for rent.
My woman ran out on me, so I want to rent my spare room so I can sponge off
you. I live north of Wilshire. I don't want no weirdos living with me. You do
the housework. Maybe you cook stuff for me, too. Don't even think about going
in the living room, because I like to let it all hang out in there. No doing
anywhere.”

“That doesn't sound like me at all!
Get out of here, mulleted schmoo!” I yelled. He didn't understand what I was
saying. He reached down into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills and handed
it to me.

“Take good quantity. I move in
today?”

He did have a way with words, this
guy. And how bad could it be to have a roommate? I was running out of money and
this would help a lot. I counted out what would have been twice my mortgage, if
I had actually had one, and handed the rest back.

“You, uh, aren't from someplace
weird, are you?” I asked.

“I yam from French.”

“Hmm...If I decide that's weird
later, I'll kick you out without any notice. Okay?”

“Yes!” he said.

“Come have a look at the room.”

We made our way along the trail I'd
just cut through the carpet trash, but at about half way, I had to veer off to
the right and start shuffling my feet again to get to the spare room. I opened
the door and we went in. Everything was still perfect and clean.

“My woman cleaned the place
up...before she left me,” I said, and I must have been all teary when it came
out, because this big frog looked at me like he wanted to hold my hand or
something.

“She give love a bad name?” he said,
but without hesitating or fishing around for words like before. That was
exactly how I felt, and I was thinking this guy was a lot smarter than I had
thought. Maybe he couldn't say shit unless it was really important, and then he
knew exactly what to say.

“Yeah, yeah man! That's right!” I
said, feeling better. “So what do you think of the room?”

“Room...eez beautifool.”

“All right then. You can go get your
things and move in. But hey, what's your name?”

“My name eez Tommy,” he said. “Like
Tommy Lee from Motley Crue.”

“Okay, Tommy. I'm Lonnie. Remember
this: don't ever give your money to anyone in L.A. before you get the goods.
Most people here aren't as nice as me. They'll steal from you, okay?”

“Yes,” he answered, but I didn't
think any of that had reached the mother ship. “Oh! A minute!” he said. “I can
take the boos 'ere? I am computair student. I go to university.”

“Yeah, hell, I 'take the booze' all
the time.” He looked really happy with that, and I was thinking I might get
along with this guy after all. He took off to go get his stuff, and I returned
to the TV.

I had forgotten to give Tommy a key,
so I had to sit around waiting for him to get back. Not that I would have gone
anywhere anyway. I mean, I hadn't left the house in forever. But now I didn't
have a choice, and that pissed me off. I pulled out the wad of bills and
counted them again to calm me down. This was going to be just as good as dog
walking. And then it hit me: if I could find another dog-walking gig, plus keep
Tommy paying rent, I'd have real money, like people with real jobs, and maybe I
could shape up a little and give Helen something to miss.

Tommy came back an hour or two later
with a suitcase and an electric guitar. I didn't like where this was going at
all.

“Hey, you should've told me you had
one of those,” I said, pointing to the guitar. “If you're going to play all the
time and make noise—”

“I am playing,” he said, and took
the guitar out of the case. It was a flying V. He sat down with it on the couch
and wiggled his fingers like he was getting them loose. Then he took a long
time to put his fingers in the right places and strummed the guitar once.

“Do majeur,” he said. I realized I
had nothing to worry about. At that rate, he wouldn't know a song for at least
a couple of years.

“That's great Tommy. Hey look, I'm
heading out for a while. You can have a beer if you want.”

“Eet don't get bettair zan zees,” he
said.

8

I left the house and headed over to
the Third Street Promenade. I went in the Barnes & Noble, which was
normally a place I hated because I got the feeling that everyone there knew I
didn't read stuff, so they were all suspicious of my presence, as if I was only
there to walk by girls who were sitting on the floor reading so I could look
down their shirts, or to stand near the escalators so I could watch girls go up
to the yoga section on the next level. This time, though, I had money, so I
went over to the Starbucks part of the bookstore. I’d never understood why
people were so crazy to pay a ton of money for stupid coffee, so I’d never
ordered from Starbucks in my life. I had no intention of actually drinking
anything, but I ordered a big latte so that I could carry it around and blend
in like reading people. I took my coffee and wandered up and down the
nutrition, diet and exercise aisles, and then went over to check out the
clearance books by the escalator.

Then I went back to the Starbucks,
because that's why I'd come in the first place. There was a cork board with ads
on the wall by the john. Most of the time it was just full of stupid ads for
student films. That didn't pay a dime. They actually wanted you to work for
free, and in L.A., there was always someone willing. I gave the whole board a
once-over. Lots of nanny jobs, lots of apartments to sublet, a few cars for
sale, let me see...then, whack, I found it: “house sitter/dog walker wanted”.
None of the little tabs with the phone number written on them had been pulled
off. I looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then I ripped the whole ad
down and took off.

On the way back, I dialed the number
on my shit phone. I got a machine.

“You've reached the office of D.
Bates, private investigator. I'm in the field, so don't expect me to get back
with you anytime soon. Leave a message,” said the dark, gravelly voice. Then
the beep. I hate talking to these machines. I always freeze up.

“Hello. This is the guy...well, a
guy, who took down your ad and then called the number. I was wanting to know
more about the ad, which I called about just now. If you could give me a call
back, I would be much condolenced. Thank you,” I said, and left the digits.
That was a pretty polite message, I thought. I'd let a guy like that into my
house.

I called my home number hoping Tommy
would pick up. I wanted to bring him back some burgers to celebrate his first
night at my place. The phone rang a million times before he answered.

“Allo,” he said.

“Hey, it's me. You want some
burgers?” I asked.

“Uh...sorry. Zis eez not my 'ouse,”
he said.

“I know this ain't your 'ouse',
dork—it's my house. I'll be back in a little while. Look, listen to this: Don't
eat anything 'cause I'm bringing burgers back tonight, on me.” Then I heard my
kitchen drawers opening and shutting and a bunch of words I didn't understand.
“Hey, you got that?”

“Okay, yes,” he said, so I hung up
and swung by In 'n Out.

When I walked in with the burgers,
Tommy got up and came over. He handed me a piece of paper. It was a phone
message.

“L.O.,” he said.

I looked at the note. It said:
Donate
anything. Cousin ringing burglars, pack tonight, ennui
. After that, he'd
written the date and the time. I couldn't read either one of them because his
ones and sevens looked all weird.

“Thanks Tommy.”

I showed him the sack—I mean the
burger sack—and gestured for him to come eat on the couch with me. “Let's chow
down,” I said. He seemed to like the food a lot, but I couldn't understand
anything he said because when he had food in his mouth he was even harder to
understand than normal. I finished everything and was about to throw the
wrappers on the floor when I noticed that the carpet trash was gone. This guy
had picked up everything while I was out. I couldn't believe it.

“That was really nice of you,
picking that trash up,” I said and pointed at the floor so he'd know what I
meant.

“You are welcome.”

9

The next day I was getting blitzed
by the dinosaur fountain on the Promenade when my phone rang. It about gave me
a heart attack because I hadn't gotten a phone call for a long time.

“Lonnie here.”

“Ah, yes. Are you the individual who
called me yesterday?” said the voice. At first I thought it was a deep-voiced
woman, but no woman speaks that low.

“Are you that private dick's wife?”
I asked.

“Oh nooooo!
I
am the
investigator. I
was
the investigator, anyway. I'm giving all that up
now.” I noticed that sometimes when he spoke he sounded like his answering
machine, as if his voice lost that womanish quality and went back to being
steroidy once every five words.

“So you're mister Bates?”

“Call me Dennis,” he said.

“All right. So are you still looking
for a house sitter, Dennis?”

“Absolutely! And you're the only one
who has called. Why don't you come over and I'll explain my situation?”

He gave me his address. He lived on
Second Street, not far at all from my place. I started in that direction, but
then I thought I'd better trash my Gatorbooze first and get something
respectable to carry around so that I'd make a good first impression. I hit the
Starbucks inside the Barnes & Noble again and then took off north toward
Dennis' place with a steamy latte. Even though I didn't take as much as one sip
of it, I enjoyed how warm my hands felt carrying it around.

His house was amazing. It was a
white, Spanish-style house that had a courtyard surrounded by a wall of
shrubbery. When I see those kinds of houses, I always imagine stomping around
on the roof breaking all those fancy red clay tiles. There were three cars in
the driveway. One looked like mine—a real piece of shit. But the two others
were byoots: a green Mercedes convertible and a black Dodge Charger. Underneath
the doorbell was written Dennis Bates. I rang it.