by Ben Peller
HARRY DAVIDSON III
Producer / Entrepreneur / Real Estate Broker
At the bottom is a phone number and a suite number I recognize as belonging to a P.O. mail drop in Beverly Hills that advertises the ability to use “Suite” and Beverly Hills for the same address. That it’s really an annex in a mini-mall in Beverly Hills doesn’t matter; the 90210 zip-code is what people pay for.
“Thanks,” I nod. “If I find him I’ll be sure he gets it.”
I beat it out of the office with a friendly wave. Later that afternoon, I scrawl my grocery list on the back of Harry Davidson the Third’s business card, hoping John Laime would be proud of me for using both sides of a piece of paper. Judging from Laime’s sudden evacuation, perhaps either God or Satan had come through and Mr. Hope had brought with him financing for yet another insipid reality show. But I’m also growing more worried about Shawn, about the decreasing number of addresses he’s left me. Fragile bread crumbs. Will I find him living happily in love somewhere in Los Angeles? Or has he fulfilled John Laime’s declaration and is currently knee deep in pig shit on a farm in Iowa?
Either way, I have more research to do. To complete this love struck odyssey Shawn Michals has sent me on.
Analysts And Analists
Shawn Michals’ next bread crumb leads me to Santa Monica just four blocks from the beach. Something called the Middle Tower Building. Its “tower” sports five ascending rows of windows, one of which boasts an unlit neon sign that reads “PSYCHIC READINGS - $15.00.” Light brown in color, the structure’s boxlike architecture as well as its style of bold silver addressing tends to evoke a Midwest feel. This seems the kind of building that houses businesses passed down from generation to generation.
When I enter a lobby that smells like stale furniture and consult a pale black billboard with white letters and numbers, I’m not too surprised to find that the destination Shawn’s email has specified is a “Counseling Center.”
It’s on the second floor, so I hike up the stairs and turn into a hallway carpeted thin dark blue and lined with those crazily inspirational posters featuring impossible sunsets and mountain peaks proclaiming that “INSPIRATION: There is nothing impossible in this world” and “ACCEPTANCE: Only the cynical die young.”
Granted, the sentiment of these posters is admirable, although whenever I see one I can’t help but think of a poster that one of my cousins gave me as a teenager for Christmas. Its visual was a magnificent view of a vast ocean, with a small dinghy halfway sunk and obviously going down. Beneath this were majestic white letters which read: “WISDOM: Have you ever considered the possibility that your life is merely only a warning to others?”
My cousin claimed it was a joke, and I chose to believe her. Be that as it may, ever since then I’ve looked upon posters bearing any kind of message with suspicion.
Walking down the hall of this Counseling Center I’m eyeing one that, along with a visual of two birds locked together in flight proclaims “LOVE: The Freedom of letting yourself go,” when a woman with hair bobbed into a weave steps out into the hall and confronts me with a pleasant beam. “Well, well?” she inquires. “And how are you today?”
“Fine,” I reply. “Might you have… or that is, have you ever had a patient named Shawn Michals?”
She looks a bit befuddled.
“This is a Counseling Center, right?” I go on.
She nods hesitantly.
“Shawn kind of… sent me here.”
“I see,” her nod gains speed. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t say whether Shawn has been a patient here or not. All our records are confidential. By law. Unless, of course, he’s accused of-“
“Murder,” I interrupt. I whip out my wallet and flash a badge I’d retained after a brief stint as a security guard at a Ralph’s grocery store. It’s proven to be a valuable accessory. Not only has it gotten me out of several scrapes, it’s taught me a valuable lesson: to most people all badges look alike.
“I’m here as a private investigator of sorts.” I continue, staring heavily into her eyes as her mouth transforms into a startled O.
“My Gosh,” she hugs herself. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
“You’ve heard of him then?” I pounce, starting to enjoy this role, one immortalized by countless television shows in which detectives are searching for just the facts, ma’am regarding someone who’s committed, if not murder, surely something.
The thought jolts me. Could Shawn have actually committed murder? Or maybe be planning to? Is that why he wants me to track him down, to stop him?
“I’ve… heard of him,” this woman permits. “What did you say your name was, sir?”
The only other time in my life I’ve provided a false name was when I was thirteen and being interrogated by a shopping mall security guard after being apprehended trying to shoplift a t-shirt that featured a massive bicep and a slogan of “BIG GUNS.” I’d provided my name as “Joe Kerswald” in tribute to Batman’s most prominent antagonist. After a lot of fast talking and, if I’m not mistaken, a few concealed chuckles from the security guard who was probably in his late teens, I’d been let go with a warning.
Now here I am eighteen years later, a bit rusty at the manufacture of pseudonyms, but nonetheless I manage one.
“Rusty,” my interrogator pronounces it slowly. “My name’s Joy. And all I can tell you about Shawn is that he came for two appointments here, and then never showed up for a scheduled third.”
“Did he happen to send something here?” I ask. “A letter maybe?”
“As a matter of fact he did. But I can’t release it to you. Not without a court order.”
“Of course,” I affirm, hoping I sound official enough, like I know what the hell I’m talking about. “May I ask you for a general synopsis of the letter’s contents?”
“You may ask,” Joy nods, her smile infuriatingly patient. I rather like her; she seems like the kind of person who puts a dollar in those Salvation Army tins at Christmastime, who bakes cookies for school food drives, who genuinely gives. “But unfortunately, I can’t tell you. Because I haven’t read it.”
Now it’s my mouth’s turn to form an O. “Why not?”
“I’m waiting to see if he comes back,” Joy explains. “If and when he does, then I’ll read it with him.”
This makes alarming sense, and I nod.
“Have I satisfied all your questions, dear?” Joy asks, then says: “Excuse me… Rusty.”
Joy’s expression is loaded with a confident tolerance carried by one who knows better, who is aware that the person they’re talking to is not who they claim to be. That I’m not really a private investigator, just a lost chronicler of another’s life.
“That about covers it,” I murmur shakily.
“Well, it’s my lunch break,” Joy stretches her arms out as if ready to embrace the world. “For whatever it’s worth, I do have something I can give you. I gave Shawn one as well.”
“So Shawn did come and see you-“
Joy shushes me with one hand, and with the other reaches into her pocket and flips out a coin. She presses it into my hand, folding my fingers around it. “Take care, dear.” she whispers, the final part of the last word disappearing like a shadow losing light.
Then Joy’s off down the hall, her long red dress rippling just behind her step.
As soon as she turns into the stairwell, I look around furtively. No one in sight. My mind’s a determined blank as I dart into Joy’s office and assault file cabinets with calculated abandon. I find the files listed under the letter M. Nothing under the name Michals.
Shit. I look under the Ss and find Sawyer, Samuels, Seemer, Simpson, but not a Shawn! Where was his damn file?
I get a glimmer of inspiration and look under the letter A. Here it is, a whole treasure trove of files under ANONYMOUS. I plow through half a dozen scrawled letters before I find a paper-clipped bunch of the now maddeningly familiar blue cardboard stock paper that all of Shawn’s previo
us letters have been printed on.
A literary fingerprint. Shawn Michals has been here. I grab the bound papers and head out the door, only to run head-on into a man wearing a t-shirt that reads “Alcoholics Unanimous.” He seems a bit unsteady on his feet.
“Where’s Joy?” he asks. His arms are trembling slightly as he picks at a noticeable hole in his white jeans that bear stains of what I hope is gravy.
“Ummm…” I let the aborted answer meander while edging away from the office I’ve just invaded. “At lunch I think.” I finally complete.
“Then what are you doing in her office?” he challenges, seeming to grow excited at the idea of someone other than himself being guilty of something.
Rather than attempt a pathetic excuse of an answer, I do the sensible thing: take the hell off down the hall and ignore his cries of “Say! I say, sir! Stop!”
I gallop down the stairs, falling twice and banging the shit out of my knee. Out on the street, limping like a bastard, I mutter to myself about what an idiot I’ve been to accept this assignment of trailing Shawn Michals’ quest for love in Los Angeles.
“Cocksucking asshole,” I say.
“Pardon me?”
I look up to discover that I’ve found a bar. And better yet, a stool. An Irish pub on Second Street. The overwhelming scent of vinegar floods the space. A large glass of beer colored hickory is before me. On the other side of the bar a mountain of a man is wiping his hands on an apron that boasts the phrase GINGER MEN RULE.
“Sorry,” I smile uneasily. “Just talking to myself.”
“Good show,” he nods. “Anything else then, lad?”
“No thank you.” I grab the beer. “I’m fine.”
“All right then,” he cocks his eyes briefly, then lumbers away.
I take a hearty swig of the beer, gag, and then take another swig. Nothing like swallowing beer that tastes like tree bark.
After I manage to knock back a half a pint of this potion, I realize there are two other things that require attention. One is the coin I’m still clenching in my palm, the one that Joy gave me. I let my hand relax and stare at a gold plated circle that bears the image of a hut, fog woven into its background and a hint of sunlight in its corner. I turn the coin over and see the words: FEAR IS THE THIEF OF DREAMS.
My other hand is resting atop the papers I liberated from Joy’s office. These papers that Shawn saw fit to send to a counselor, one he presumably felt comfortable spilling his feelings to. I down the rest of my beer and order another, then begin to read what that sonofagun Shawn Michals has to say next…
Opposites attract, so they say. I beg to differ, being that every woman I’ve ever become involved with in Los Angeles has been seeing a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a “spiritual advisor,” or a mixture of the three. Though I’ve never gone to any of the above (unless legally obligated to do so) it’s been suggested by many that I need not only therapy, but massive therapy. As one of my girlfriends put it, I was comparable to “a shark that bites idiots who paddleboard in deep waters.” When I questioned her about this analogy, she replied, “When sharks bite humans, they spit them out! You’re like a shark! You see a human you want to consume, mistaking them for some character in one of your books, and then once you bite us or fuck us, you spit us out!”
“I…” Shit. She wasn’t totally off the mark.
“You wouldn’t last through one therapy session,” she informed me, in a way that suggested while I was unable to tie my own shoes, she certainly could. “Because you’re psychologically incapable of being honest with yourself!” she concluded.
This judgment stung, but I tried to ease the blow by considering its source. At the time she was seeing not only a psychiatrist (“for her drugs,”) but in addition a psychologist (“for her mental stability,”) and also a spiritual advisor (“for keeping an even keel”((whatever the hell that is)). Being that she was thirty-one years old, one would think this Trifecta winner would still be living in her parents’ basement and posting angry blog entries about the latest episodes of daytime soaps. Not the case. She actually was gainfully employed at a prominent Southern California college. Her job? She was counseling incoming Freshman on their potential career paths and how to handle college life.
And the cycle continues.
Dating someone in therapy does have its benefits. Ariel was a beautiful raven haired producer of several television shows, and when we met at her network’s Fourth of July party (which I’d managed to bluff my way into by claiming to be the son of an A-list movie director) we had instant chemistry. Pleasant months followed in which we shared some very good meals together, often eating them off each other. Then one night she confided to me she’d been speaking to her therapist about me, and that her therapist had agreed it was time Ariel “popped the big one.”
Good God, I thought. Marriage?! Then again, Ariel was hot. And rich. And had already gotten me into exclusive parties where I’d actually been able to mention my latest idea for a sitcom to the head of an extremely prominent agency, along with my latest treatment for an independent movie to an actress who’d been quoted in a magazine interview saying she was “dying to flex her acting wings.” When you’re a crazy starving writer in L.A., these type of close encounters are wonderful, mixed metaphors be damned. In this town, marriage has often proven itself to be a smart career choice.
I was all set to pledge I would do whatever it took to buy a wedding ring when she went on: “I want you to fuck me in the ass.”
My initial shock descended toward a slight disappointment at not being led into studio parties as her husband, but then quickly revved up into excitement. “You mean you’ve never…?”
“Never,” she replied, making her answer sound a super-secret password of sorts. “Have you?”
“Well…” I stammered. “I once kind of got one of my fingers stuck in there while I was cleaning myself in the shower—“
“No, you goon!” she nuzzled her chest with my nose. “I mean, have you ever fucked someone else in the ass?”
“No,” I answered, guilty of lying. The truth was I’d accidentally slipped my member inside of Kathy Ann Tischer’s rear back during our junior year of high school. It was only the second time I’d ever had sex, and I was so overcome with the sensation of actually doing it that I assumed her cries of pain were cries of pleasure. But it worked out in the end. Within a matter of minutes it was all smooth sailing. Afterwards, she told me about the misunderstanding while we shared a cigarette. We had a good laugh over the episode, which, looking back, was pretty mature behavior for teenagers. If adults could laugh at one another more, the world would no doubt be a better place.
But there was no laughter in Ariel’s eyes while she stared at me and drawled, “Lube up that thing and slam it home.”
Who was I to question orders from a producer?
After the initial round, Ariel discovered that she in fact loved what she grew to term – for reasons of her own – “Getting it up Rochester Avenue.” Whenever we she mentioned “Going up Rochester,” I knew there would definitely be plenty of lubrication in our near future.
Ariel often mentioned how anal sex gave her confidence in herself. She’d always thought it would make her feel like a whore, a pervert, or worst of all, the kind of woman her mother had always warned her she would someday become. Instead she felt liberated, and very in control of her sexuality.
“When you’re inside me anally, I feel so close to you,” she told me one night. “I want you to feel that close to me.”
This she proved by later that night thrusting her pinky up my own Rochester Avenue. I was caught off guard at first, but thankfully she’d had the consideration to have her nails carefully manicured and trimmed earlier that afternoon.
Yes, it hurt. But like many experiences in life, pleasure and pain began to become interchangeable, and before long I found that having not one, not two but even three fingers up my ass was not a wholly disagreeable feeling.
“My ana
lyst wants to see you,” Ariel told me one day, after we’d just had a dual stroll down Rochester.
“I’ll bet she does,” I laughed. “What about, the extra three hundred dollars an hour she wants to earn?”
“It’s not that! But she says our…” Ariel looked down at her fingers, which she’d just washed thoroughly. “Anal activity may be unhealthy.”
“What?” I said. “Wasn’t she the one who encouraged it?”
“Only as a way to show you how much I trusted you,” Ariel said. “But after describing some of our lovemaking sessions, she’s become, well… concerned.”
I looked down at my own fingers. “What about?” I mumbled.
“Just come to therapy with me,” she pleaded, stroking my hair. “We can work it all out there.”
“Okay,” I agreed. She sighed, and let her fingers drift down my cheek. As gently as possible I guided them away before they got too close to my mouth. After all, I knew where they’d been.
Dr. Janis Stewart’s office was located in Century City, and held the unique honor of being housed in the building that had been featured in Die Hard, a popular 1980s Bruce Willis movie. I have no idea what other people may have held offices there, but they were important enough that you had to obtain a pass from the front desk, present it to a lobby guard and then once on the elevator, had to insert it into a slot before pressing your floor’s number. By the time Ariel and I were ascending up to our session, it felt more like we were going to discuss an arms treaty rather than the role anal sex played in our relationship.
Dr. Stewart’s name was emblazoned in silver characters on a ridged brown sign beside a door that opened with an easy motion as though it were exhaling a breath. Inside there was yet another doorway, this one with a button beside her name. Kitty corner to this final entrance-way was a clock built of brick and strewn with stones at its case. Impressionistic pictures of Who Knows What lined the walls, all of them tilted at odd angles. The air possessed a chill not unlike that found in most casinos, the kind meant to prevent gamblers from sweating as they revealed themselves to be fools enough to bet against the house in hopes of finding some luck.
