Simon Says

by William Poe

  “God is in me,” I announced. “Ask me something. Ask me where the first humans came from. Ask me the meaning of life. I know, Kevin.” Blood pounded my temples as adrenaline rushed through my system. “We are not divine vessels,” I proclaimed. “We are God’s prison!”

  Kevin watched expressionlessly as I danced about the room, a veritable Delphic Sybil. He grew bored and hit the pipe until our stash was gone. When the energy left me, I crouched beside the bed and gathered myself into a ball.

  What was it, a day that went by? The next thing I knew, my eyes cleared, and I found Kevin asleep. The empty drug container sat on the nightstand.

  I telephoned Charlotte. She said she would come get us.

  “Stay put,” Charlotte said. “It will take me about an hour to get there.”

  I woke Kevin and told him we were leaving. He dragged himself from the bed and went into the bathroom, while I contended with a new round of voices. No drugs had been needed to summon them. The chorus arose from within my head but reverberated against the walls:

  Seven years, seven years. Abandoned by your God for seven years. You were given to the devil, you are master of the heavens, you were given to the void for seven years.

  It had been seven years since I left the church, and yet I was still haunted by notions of spiritual destruction. The voices subsided to a drone. One entity took prominence. It was my grandmother, Mandy. Buh-bee, she muttered. You’ll remember when I’m gone.

  I was a disappointment to my family, an apostate to my former church. And what was I to myself? I had no answer.

  The voices subsided when Charlotte arrived and took charge. She gathered our things and led Kevin and me through the maze of corridors to the front entrance. Wealthy guests cast harsh glances as our troop passed through the lobby.

  The valet retrieved the car. I got in the back and lay down on the seat. Kevin sat beside Charlotte. As I drifted out of consciousness, I heard Kevin explaining to Charlotte that we had gotten married.

  The voices were again pressing on my sanity as we arrived in Silverlake. I was sure my old messiah had sent avenging angels to torment me.

  “Fuck them all,” I said, rushing into the house. Cicero was so happy to see me that he went into conniptions. I picked him up so he could lick my face.

  “He really missed you,” Charlotte said.

  “Where’s my room?” Kevin asked.

  The voices told me that Kevin was my spouse, that I must honor the sanctity of our union.

  “Sorry, there’s no room in the inn,” I said. “You’re going back to the Spotlight.”

  “You said you loved me!” Kevin insisted. “I saved your fucking life! You’d be dead if I hadn’t been with you.”

  Kevin is Satan, the voices told me. He is Natas si Nivek, the enemy of God.

  I covered my ears, but the voices grew louder. I took my pipe from the travel bag and balanced it on my palm.

  “Into the bottle, you evil genies.”

  Kevin laughed. “You lousy crackhead. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Oh yeah?” I reached into the bag again and found the butane torch, flicking the button that ignited it. “Get out of my house!”

  “You said you loved me,” Kevin repeated. “Why are you doing this?”

  I picked up a wicker basket that sat by the door. “One way or another, you’re leaving. Go, or I’ll burn down the house.”

  Charlotte flew down the stairs and extinguished the torch. She dragged me outside. “What in the hell’s wrong with you?”

  I looked at the ground.

  “Do you have any money?”

  I took out my wallet. “About three hundred dollars.”

  “Give me a hundred. Go to Hollywood. I’ll take care of Kevin. Get out of here before you do something stupid.”

  Charlotte followed me to the car, put my travel bag in the backseat, and stood watching as I drove away.

  Go to Hollywood. You have passed the test of Moses and not struck the rock twice. You are Joshua who stands beside the Jordan. Your destiny waits.

  CHAPTER 29

  Drug dealers kept a watchful eye as I drove down Yucca Street toward the Oban Hotel. When I didn’t signal for drugs, they scurried into apartment buildings or dipped into alleyways.

  “Rudy!” I hollered at the front desk. “I need a room.”

  Rudy came into the office from his living area. “Simon! Hey, want some beef stew? It’s fresh from the stove.” Rudy opened the iron mesh door that secured the office. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and gave me a hug.

  “I’ll pass on the food,” I said. “Been to the bar lately?”

  “Lately!” Rudy exclaimed. “Hon, I’ve been there every day this week. My boss is out of town. And, well, the beat cop is a hunk. I fixed him up and gave him a special room. He’s turned a blind eye ever since.”

  “Have you been naughty?” I teased.

  Rudy giggled, covering his face with his fleshy hands. “Oh dear, have I.” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “And from what I hear, so have you. Don said you got awfully drunk the other night.”

  “Yeah. Guess I did.”

  “Running through the streets like a madwoman, is what I heard.”

  “You got a room, Rudy, or what?”

  “Don’t be sore. I was just saying,” Rudy raised his eyebrows as he scanned the guest register.

  “Something with water pressure, if you have it.”

  “How about the third floor? But the room isn’t clean. Diana hasn’t gotten to it yet.”

  Diana was the resident drug dealer who cleaned rooms in lieu of rent.

  “Third floor’s okay. Hand me some towels and toilet paper. Got clean sheets? And, uh, is Diana around?”

  Her drugs were just as good as Val’s, and I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Oh dear. Should I contribute to your delinquency?” Rudy grinned then said, “Only if you share.”

  “Of course.”

  Rudy disappeared down the hall and came back moments later with Diana, a short skinny girl barely twenty years old. She took me into Rudy’s bedroom, so I could test her product. It was well worth the $200 I gave her.

  I left some on Rudy’s dresser and returned to the office. Rudy handed me toiletries and linens along with a room key, then twirled on his tiptoes and pranced toward the bedroom. “Have fun!” he said. “I know I will.”

  Rudy had kicked Lane out a while back, after he started smoking crack right in front of him. Rudy might snort drugs like a four-hundred-pound vacuum cleaner, but he still resisted the pipe.

  I picked up my bag and dragged myself up the steep stairs toward the third floor. On each landing, a drag queen called out, hoping to score a trick.

  “Hey, honey, want some tonight?” asked a Judy Garland look-alike.

  “My name’s Crystal,” said another, dressed like Loretta Lynn.

  A striking seductress leaned against the wall beside the door to my room. “I’m Aphrodite,” she said, affecting a sultry pose.

  “Nighty Aphrodite,” I said to the pouting goddess.

  The room was the best the Oban had to offer, which wasn’t saying much. At least it had a television, the kind that hangs from the wall suspended on a metal arm. The bed was nothing more than a spongy mattress laid down on a dingy shag carpet. Dirty sheets and towels from the previous inhabitants lay in a heap in the corner of the room. I put the clean sheets on the mattress and hung my towel on a corroded rod jutting from the bathroom wall.

  Then I got to work cooking up the cocaine in a spoon. I put the bulk of the rocks in a pill-box, then plopped a sizeable chunk onto my pipe. Newly minted rock cocaine sizzles like bacon when it’s ignited. When a critical temperature is attained, the solid material becomes a viscous smoke that slides into the lungs. Then it has you.

  Voices rose from the street, policemen on walkie-talkies. A battering ram crashed against the door. I grabbed the pillbox and tried to find a place to hide it, but my hand was shaking so hard that when I tr
ied to screw on the top, some of the drugs scattered into the carpet.

  Paranoia gave way to desperation. I dove to the floor with my face inches above the rug and sifted through the fibers. At the end of an hour, I had made piles on the mattress of what I hoped were drugs. Examination of the contents revealed nothing but balls of lint, desiccated bugs, and moldy bread crumbs.

  Tears formed as the drug’s intense grip released me from its hold. I was so shaken that I hesitated to fire up again before getting some nourishment into my system. It was almost midnight, which also was a good time to cruise Santa Monica Boulevard.

  I stopped off at the Jack-in-the-Box and devoured a couple of burgers. Then I drove to the meat rack, an area on Santa Monica between La Brea and Highland. I rolled down the passenger-side window so I could call out if I saw someone who struck my fancy. I turned the heater on full blast to balance out the chilly night air.

  At first, none of the street boys seemed promising, but then I spotted a fellow leaning against the concrete wall of a storage building striking a James Dean pose. His curly blond hair, cute face, and slim body was just what I had in mind. I circled several times. On each pass, the boy moved a little closer to the light. By the third go round, he had taken off his shirt and undone the top button on his jeans.

  I slowed to a stop down a side street.

  The boy poked his head through the passenger side window. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  I reached into my shirt pocket and showed him my drugs.

  “Man, I’ve been looking for you all day,” the boy said, pulling open the door.

  Even before I put the car in drive, the boy brought out a glass stem. “Give me some of that rock, man. I want to get high now.”

  “We’ll be at my room soon.”

  The boy fidgeted in his seat.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Name’s Sean. Now, come on, man, give me a few crumbs at least. I’ll wait before I light up. I promise.”

  “Patience. We’re almost there.” We were just about to turn onto Yucca Street.

  “If you’re not a cop,” Sean blurted out, “put your hand over here.” He undid his pants.

  I rested my hand on his velvety stomach and slid down into his shorts. Sean pulled my hand away before I reached the prize.

  “Okay, but none of that. Not until we’re at your place. I want a blast first.” With that, he pulled up his pants, then shoved his hand under his belt to position himself.

  Rudy was asleep on the office couch. I had to bang on the window to rouse him to buzz us in. Rudy watched Sean and me as we started up the stairs. “Cradle robber,” he called out.

  “You’re just jealous,” I shot back, but Rudy already had turned away.

  When we reached the third floor, Sean rushed into the room. “What a crappy place,” he said, slamming the door with such force that bits of plaster fell from the ceiling. “How come you got so much cocaine and such a shitty room?”

  I held out my crack pipe. “The room doesn’t matter.”

  Sean sat beside me on the mattress and dropped a chuck of rock on his pipe. His hazel-green eyes narrowed, and he fell backward onto the mattress. Smoke crept from the corners of his mouth like fog flowing from a container of dry ice.

  “That’s some intense shit,” Sean said as consciousness returned. He propped himself on his elbows. “You must have some good connections.”

  I had just done a hit and was busy sifting through the shag looking for the drugs I had spilled earlier.

  “Help yourself,” I managed to say. Then, in a moment of self-awareness, I admitted, “I’ll be at this for a while.”

  Sean and I fell into a routine. Sean would sit motionless on the mattress with his hands cupped over his ears. I would either dig through the shag fibers or stand sentinel at the door, peering through the peephole, sure the police were outside. When the drugs ran out, we collapsed beside each other. Unbearable horniness sets in during that twilight period after the last hit but before the moment of exhaustion overtakes the body.

  I took off Sean’s tennis shoes, pulled off his socks, undid his jeans, and in a single motion slipped them off with his undershorts. We lay facing each other. I stroked Sean’s baby-soft hair as we pressed together.

  “You were lucky to find me tonight,” Sean whispered, just before diving onto me with such enthusiasm that I gasped.

  Then it was over. Sean started to dress.

  “I can get more drugs,” I said. “You don’t need to go.” I couldn’t bear the thought of being left alone to contemplate the disaster my life had become.

  The enticement worked. Sean slipped out of his clothes and snuggled next to me on the mattress. Judging from how quickly we fell asleep, I wasn’t sure Sean could have made it to the street if he had left.

  When we woke, our first thought was about getting drugs. I called Val, ensuring a much better deal than Diana offered, and after stopping at the teller machine, I met him down the street at the Jack-in-the-Box. He didn’t like to come anywhere near the Oban.

  Back at the room, after cooking the drugs, I gave some to Sean, and then I loaded my pipe with three times what I normally smoked. A wire-like matrix superimposed itself on the world. I remembered the lines of energy described in Carlos Casteneda’s books about his apprenticeship with Don Juan, the Indian sorcerer. I went to the window and exhaled the cocaine smoke into the alley. That’s when I saw narcotic agents crouching behind cars parked on Yucca Street. A uniformed policeman stood in an alley cocking his rifle. Helicopter searchlights swept the neighborhood as drug dealers crawled under cars to hide.

  Then the matrix disappeared. I had actually witnessed gang members harassing a freelance drug dealer. A junkie was sitting inside a Dumpster, where before I had seen a leg dangling over the edge and thought it was a corpse. The junkie jabbed a needle into his arm as I watched. Cars stopped without incident at the intersection of Yucca and Cahuenga. A police helicopter was shining a light into an alley, but that was nothing unusual for a Hollywood backstreet.

  Rudy knocked loudly on my door.

  “Give me a minute,” I said, unsure who I was, much less the day of the week.

  “You’ve been in there nearly five days. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  “Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t conked out on me.”

  I was beginning to think a little more clearly. “We’re okay, Rudy. Are you going to the bar?”

  “Girlfriend, you are so out of it. It’s only nine in the morning!”

  “Morning?” I muttered.

  “Keep the room as long as you want. Long as you’re okay.”

  “Thanks for checking, Rudy.”

  I felt disgusted with myself as I looked around the scrofulous room. I wondered if Charlotte had successfully dealt with Kevin, but I didn’t want to go back to Silverlake. Home reverberated with a sense of guilt over unattended responsibilities. I just couldn’t think about how I was squandering my good fortune in the film business.

  Sean grumbled bitterly when I tried to wake him up. “Goddamn fuckin’ shit,” he spewed, rising to his feet and disappearing into the bathroom to take a shower. When he came out, shaking his head to dry out his long blond hair, I marveled at what a sexy guy I had picked up.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll get more drugs and we can keep going in a nicer room. How about it?”

  “Sure. Whatever,” Sean agreed.

  On the way out, Rudy shot me a look of concern and called me to the window.

  “Be careful with that kid,” he warned.

  Before I could ask what he meant, Sean pulled me away.

  “Aren’t we gonna score some coke?” Sean asked when I pulled into the Sunset Hilton’s parking garage.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call my dealer when we get a room.”

  “Your dealer delivers?” Sean asked, clearly impressed. He started to say something more but stopped himself.

  I gave t
he desk clerk my American Express card and told him that I wanted a suite on the top floor.

  “You’re in luck, Mr. Powell,” then man said, reading my name off the card. “We had a cancellation, and the luxury suite is available.” He gave me the key, a plastic rectangle with holes in it. “Seventh floor, suite 701. Just put the key card in the slot beside the door.”

  Even the hallway on the seventh floor was elegant, furnished with mahogany tables decorated with massive arrangements of pompom chrysanthemums and red gladiolus. The plush carpet muffled our footsteps as we approached the double doors to suite 701. The door latch clicked open as if by magic when I inserted the card. Lights from the billboards along Sunset Boulevard flooded the room. I opened the glass door onto a narrow balcony to take in the panoramic view of Los Angeles.

  Sean was uninterested in the accommodations. He plopped onto an oversized couch and glowered at me as I leaned over the balcony to gaze at the nightlife on the street below.

  Jump!

  I leaned deep over the railing. Someone grabbed my belt.

  “Get the fuck in here and call your dealer,” Sean insisted.

  I shook free of Sean’s hold and sat in one of the balcony’s metal chairs. “In a minute,” I said. “Leave me alone.” I felt disoriented, unsure where I was all of a sudden.

  Sean went back to the couch and ordered a bottle of Jack Daniels from room service.

  Voices began to chant, Call Charlotte—sweet Charlotte. Charlotte must be wondering what happened to me.

  “Dude!” Sean shouted, jolting me. “Come on! You said you’d call.”

  Another week faded into a haze of paranoid delusions, with Sean rocking back and forth like a terrified child, and me glued to the peephole, watching every movement in the hallway with obsessive scrutiny.

  Waking from a partial stupor, I forced myself to order food. I parted the curtains and opened the sliding door to allow some fresh air into the stale room. Sean opened the bottle of whiskey that he’d ordered on the first day and guzzled half of it. The shock to his system sent him to the bathroom with a queasy stomach.