L.A. Rotten

by Jeff Klima

  “I like to freak myself out by pretending he’s right behind us.” Ivy gasps and turns suddenly, forcing me to glance as well, but I find nobody. “Boo,” she laughs.

  “Hey, answer me this: why are you here?” I ask her, serious. “I’m stuck in it now, but you’re not. Why don’t you forget about all this? Go live an easy life somewhere. I promise—whatever all this is, it’s not going to end well.”

  “Uh-uh. You can’t scare me off that easy. I’m in this because I got you in this, and if something happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself. Believe it or not, but you’re kind of beginning to matter to me.” She grins. “Now that I said that, this kinda feels like a date, huh?”

  “You know what I like most about Venice Beach?” I say too quickly. “The lunatics.” As I say it, an attractive woman in a pink bikini bottom with only black electrical tape covering her nipples rollerblades by, wearing an enormous cowboy hat.

  “I can see how you would be attracted to the crazy people.”

  “But that’s what I like about them—they’re crazy, but not really.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  I point to a man dressed like the Statue of Liberty except he has a live macaw parrot on each shoulder, and twin streams of excrement from the birds trailing down the back of his toga. Painted in thick black acrylic across his face is the declaration “nO AbORtiONs.”

  “Go ask that man if you can take a picture with him.”

  “I don’t want a picture with him.”

  “Just ask.”

  With reluctance, Ivy moves over to where the man stands in the shade of a large palm tree. The birds both crane their heads in her direction as she approaches. I watch as she talks to the man for a moment and then returns, a look of incredulity on her face.

  “He wants five dollars for a photo!”

  “Exactly. He probably makes a pretty decent living out of playing crazy—which is crazy, but not really. Does that make him and all the others out here insane or brilliant? The same thing goes for this thing with the motel rooms…he’s got to be a crazy guy too, right? Except…to do what he does as long as he has, he’s fucking not.”

  “I think he’s a moron.”

  “Says the girl who believes in numerology.”

  “I’m over that now. You’re right—it’s kinda silly. Besides, I’m much more fascinated by tarot cards now.”

  “Yeah, that’s a whole lot better.”

  “You don’t gotta be a dick to me, you know? No one is around to be impressed.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m not stupid. Really, I’m not. I’m just fascinated by the world around me—what is seen and unseen.”

  “I already said sorry. You’re only getting one.”

  “It’s okay,” she says quietly, catching up to my stride. “You’re weird, you know? Sometimes you treat me like I’m a person, other times you make me feel like…slime.”

  We let that hang out there for a while, both uncertain about what to say next. I break first, pointing out the glass walker, but don’t stop to watch. “This guy’s hilarious. He’ll spend the next twenty minutes getting people to pony up to watch him jump on some shards of glass. He’s always out here. Every time I see him, he’s claiming that it is his ‘last day in America’ and that he’s ‘just doing this to raise money for his trip.’ He’s been saying that since I was a kid.”

  Ivy nods, but seems preoccupied. “Can we hold hands?” she asks finally.

  “No.”

  “Don’t take it like a romantic thing, take it like it’s protective. I’m starting to get a vibe from two guys back there.”

  In my people watching, I’d noticed the attention she’s been absorbing since we arrived, her in her short shorts and tube top. The thug element is high in Venice and she is too Barbie for her own good. It had all been innocent enough; now, though, there are a couple of guys who have her in their sights and I don’t think it has to do with the Offramp Inn. “You’re the one with fake tits who dressed all cute.”

  “I didn’t dress like this for everyone,” she corrects me. “And as for the tits, they were purely a business decision.”

  “You’re in the right business for them,” I agree. I stick out my hand finally, and she takes it, wrapping her small fingers around mine.

  “You think I look cute?” She smiles, pulling the accidental compliment from the barbs.

  “How are you not more worried about those guys?”

  “Welcome to being a girl out in public. They look like most of the customers at my bar. Once they think we’re together, they’ll bug off.” I have to hope she is right there, but I remain on alert.

  I don’t alert her to it, and she doesn’t look, but our hand-holding doesn’t seem to deter the thugs. They seem to ebb closer to us, moving around other tourists to do so. They are close enough now that I can tell one is Mexican and the other is a white guy. Both are heavily tatted and thick with prison muscle. Neither one fits the shape of my attacker, though. As the pace of our walking increases, so too does the pace of the men behind us.

  “We should maybe get off the boardwalk,” I murmur.

  “I don’t believe it,” Ivy practically shrieks, nearly pulling my arm from its socket as she drags me along. “It’s a sign.” It is a sign, but not one I really want to see. In the dirty window of an apartment front on the boardwalk, a neon sign reads tarot.

  “It’s not a sign,” I promise Ivy. “There are tarot shops all over Venice. This is just one of them.”

  “Well, you said you wanted off the boardwalk. This is something for that, alright?” With that logic, I reluctantly allow Ivy to lead me up to the front door, where she eagerly knocks.

  A college-aged young man, thin, with glasses and a goatee, answers the door in corduroy pants and a shirt reading, i see DUMB people. “Here for a reading?” he asks, clearly aroused by Ivy. Does it ever stop with this girl?

  “How did he know that?” Ivy asks me, clearly feeling justified. She pulls me into the man’s apartment and as I allow myself to be led I glance back as the two creeps cruise right on by with nary a glance after us. Was it all in my imagination?

  Inside, a card table draped in black felt has been pushed off to the side, out of the path between the man’s couch and his giant TV, which is playing a muted episode of a cartoon I don’t recognize. Some folding chairs are stacked against the wall and the place smells of marijuana. A still-smoky bong sits to the side of the couch. “That sign was the best purchase I’ve ever made,” the man assures us as he flicks the TV off at the box. “I’m going to light some incense…to affect the mood.”

  “Smells like you’ve already got some going,” I respond, and Ivy elbows me.

  “The weed clears my head, man. There’s a lot going on…” He pauses to light a fresh stick of incense in a holder above the TV. “…up there. Besides, it’s legal. I’ve got a prescription.” He pulls three chairs out and unfolds them, smiles seductively at Ivy, and then turns to me. “Help me pull the table out.”

  Disgusted with myself, I do so, and Ivy arranges the chairs around it. “Okay,” says the man, sitting, and gesturing for us to do the same. He reaches behind him and, grabbing a worn tarot deck off his DVR box, says, “Let the powers of Gideon go to work for you. Oh—and it’s sixty for the both of you. Cash only.”

  “I don’t have cash,” Ivy explains awkwardly. “I used it for parking. I have a Visa card.”

  I’m about to use that as our excuse to leave, but the man says to her, “Well, I need a material payment of some kind. No credit cards. Perhaps you’d be willing to offer a sort of trade—if you flash me, I can accept that.”

  “Look, asshole.” I stand, aggressive, but the young man has pulled out a Taser, which he activates quickly, its sparks crackling.

  “It was only a suggestion, bro,” he warns me. “Don’t get crazy. I can’t give you something for nothing…that’s not fair, is it? This is capitalism.”

  I look down to Ivy, hoping
she realizes that it is time to go, but she already has her hands at her top. “Stop,” I command her, and reach for my wallet. “Sixty dollars? I got that.”

  I drop the bills on the table. “Alright,” says the man. “See? We’re all cool here.” He leaves the Taser on the table, though, as he pockets the cash. “Now, let’s see what your future holds. Do you have any specific questions?” He looks to me first, imploring me to be seated.

  “Am I going to get ripped off in the very near future?” I ask, resignedly taking my seat in the creaky plastic chair.

  “Definitely not,” Gideon says smugly, spreading out the cards, face up. “He’s not a true believer, is he?” he asks Ivy.

  “Not yet.” She smiles, knowing that I am pissed, but hoping for some good outcome to all of this. “Let’s just start with something simple. I just got out of numerology—and into tarot readings. What are our lucky numbers?”

  “Okay, yeah,” says Gideon, his seductive voice back on. “That’s easy. He flips the cards, shuffles them quickly as if readying for a poker game, and then extends them for her to cut the cards. She does and he flips over the six of wands.

  “Is it six?” she asks.

  “Did you just get into tarot?” he asks, uncertain.

  “Yes! Just today—that’s why when I saw your sign, I knew it was a sign!”

  “Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay, with tarot, what the card says, it doesn’t necessarily mean. It’s for me to interpret. My mother was a great and powerful witch and she totally passed her powers on to me. See, the card says six, but really, I can see here your lucky number is eleven.”

  “Oh,” Ivy exclaims. “Hmm, no, that can’t be right. Eleven is an unlucky number—for both of us.”

  “It’s the cards, they don’t lie.”

  Ivy’s brow is still furrowed, so the man quickly explains, “Sometimes, what we see as an unlucky thing, it’s really mysteriously lucky. The universe has greater plans for us, you know?”

  “I guess,” she admits, but is still not sold. “What about Tom?”

  I’m annoyed that she’s even shared my name with this hack bastard, but the man reshuffles and offers me the cards, which I decline to cut.

  “Works either way, my friend,” Gideon assures me. He cuts them and turns over the three of cups. “Your lucky number is three.”

  “That’s a good lucky number,” Ivy squeals, impressed. “Three in numerology is powerful.”

  “Yeah, totally,” the man agrees. “My mom was all about the number three. Three pops up in all things. All over nature and the universe and shit. You can’t explain it.”

  I don’t feel like questioning why my number is the one on the card and Ivy’s wasn’t, so I keep quiet as the guy reshuffles.

  “How about your future now?” the guy prods Ivy.

  “Yes, that is why we came.”

  “I can sense that,” he agrees, laying out several cards. “Alright, I’m going to do both of you at once, as our time is short. I’m getting hungry and I can’t work on an empty stomach. Okay, wow. Interesting stuff I’m reading here. These cards all pertain to you—” He indicates my companion.

  “Ivy,” she confirms.

  “I love that name, Ivy. It’s a very spiritual name—very much a part of nature.” I can’t believe she is eating this up. Or maybe I can.

  “Okay, Ivy.” He selects cards around the one that has my attention in the middle of his array. It is the “Death” card. “Okay, you’ve got a long, happy life ahead of you. But these cards are also showing me that you are due for a lot of change in your life—you are going to find a new love. Someone that is new to your life…”

  Ivy turns to stare at me quickly, but the reader has his game play on. “No, it is someone you’ve just met really, really recently—someone in tune with the secrets of the universe. A very powerful person who is mysterious and dark—and age appropriate.”

  “Alright, enough,” I say, my patience exhausted. “Say whatever you’ve got to say about me so we can get out of here.”

  “It’s dark, bro. Really dark.” He slides the Death card out from the layout. “This is all I have for you. It seems you are not long for this earth.”

  “Fuck!” Ivy exclaims. “Tom!”

  “We’re leaving,” I tell Ivy, intent on going whether she comes or not. I’ll take my chances with the thugs. She follows, though.

  The man, who has put his hand back on the Taser, fearful I might try to hit him, implores Ivy to consider what he’s said about finding a new love. On the way out, I can’t help but notice that his apartment number is 11. Cheesy fucker. “That guy was a total fucking scammer,” I announce to her when we are back on the boardwalk and heading toward our cars. I look around, but the two thugs are nowhere to be seen. I’ve really got to get my head together, I tell myself.

  “Why a scammer?” She frowns. “Was it because his room didn’t look like tarot shops in the movies? That’s what made it so authentic. You don’t choose the tarot gift, the gift chooses you.”

  “What about him saying your lucky number was eleven?”

  “Yeah,” she admits, remembering. “He was definitely wrong about that. Hmm. Maybe it’s not an exact science…”

  There is an innocence about her that I don’t want to find endearing, and yet…

  “What about what he said, though?” she persists. “About you, I mean. I know my reading was bullshit, but you…”

  “You knew he was coming on to you?”

  “Of course. That was soooo cornball. But what he said about you scares me.”

  “Don’t be scared. If I’m not scared, you shouldn’t be scared.”

  “And you treat me like I’m the stupid one. You’re in real danger, Tom.”

  “At least you’ve got a long, happy life ahead of you. And it sounds like you’re going to find a new love, so good luck with that.” I walk just far enough ahead of her that hand-holding isn’t even an option.

  —

  “Should we go get something to eat?” Ivy tries when we reach her car. “Somewhere that takes Visa?”

  I shake my head. “I got shit to do. I think we shouldn’t talk for a while, at least until we know what’s going to happen with this 236 thing next.”

  “Tom,” she begins, and then drops it.

  “Realize that I got good reason to keep you away from me, okay?” I hold up my arm to reveal the swath of bandage. “After what that guy did to my landlord, that goes double now.” Ms. Park-Hallsley…the second person to die as a result of me. Just thinking her name makes my stomach churn. As much as I might not want to believe it, she didn’t deserve what she got—being a nosy bitch is no reason for anyone to get canceled.

  “I know,” Ivy admits, reluctant still, perhaps reading my sudden grimace as silent anguish over fate forcing us apart.

  “Drive safe,” I say, and walk off. That I’m half a block away before I hear her car door creak shut confirms my suspicion. I will myself not to look back for fear that she might still somehow notice it. I make a beeline for Tony Brahma’s, and punch the buzzer on the intercom at the base of his apartment building. Sweat is tumbling off my brow and it isn’t because of the weather.

  “Who’s there?” Tony’s voice crackles through the box.

  “Tony, it’s Tom.”

  “Tom who?”

  I flick the top of the intercom box and it hurts my finger. “It’s Dr. Tom.”

  “Tommy. Dr. Tom,” he cheers, and hits the button for the door.

  Tony greets me at the door to his second-floor apartment. Shirtless as usual, he pulls my handshake in for a hug. “Dr. Tom, what’s it all about? Time for another batch?”

  I nod and take a seat on his weight bench. It is the focal point of his living room, and what furniture he has, he’s arranged it around the bench. Tony disappears into his bedroom, banging out a solo with imaginary drumsticks as he goes. “Brahma” is not Tony’s real last name, but rather one he’d assigned himself at some point in his life because he tho
ught it “sounded cool.” His is the sort of personality that firmly believes everyone needs a nickname. I am “Dr. Tom” because of my brief stint in medical school.

  “Nice shades,” he says, complimenting the glasses now folded and hanging from the neck of my shirt when he returns with my dope.

  “Want ’em?” I hand them up.

  He puts them on and looks at himself in the reflection of his flat screen. “Thanks, amigo. Tell you what…I’ll trade you a hit for them…but you have to take it here.”

  Just what the doctor ordered. “Deal.”

  —

  I leave Tony’s feeling significantly calmer, considerably affected, and with a fresh batch of skag in the breast pocket of my shirt. The sun is long gone, a refreshing breeze has sprung up, and I have a hard-on. Ivy and her barely there outfits have wormed their way into my delirium, and as much as I don’t want her in there, she is. I’m drawn to her, even with her nonsense, and yet, I can’t figure out why that is. My mind wants to suggest that it’s fate, but I stop that train of thought as soon as it occurs. Decisively, I make my next stop the one place I know she won’t be.

  —

  “I knew you couldn’t stay mad at us forever,” Royal says as I walk through the entrance of the Electric Candy Factory. “Charity’s dancing tonight.”

  Sweet Charity. She is onstage, but gives a slight nod of acknowledgment in my direction as I walk in. I take a seat at the stage next to two overweight guys who look like brothers and aren’t tipping. In that sort of mood, I lay three hundred-dollar bills on the stage in front of me and turn to stare at the fat brothers. My attention causes them to look away in shame, and when Charity sashays over, they get up and leave. I look up as she stands above, topless and cool. She places one platform heel over the Franklins and drags them into the pit with the others. “Thank you,” she says, winking, and returns to the pole. Somewhere, someone hoots.

  Charity finds me later and, taking me by the hand, pulls me purposefully back toward the private dance room. Sliding the curtain across the door, she pushes me down onto the crushed red velvet couch and lays her ass into my cock. “I didn’t even bother with panties,” she coos, and slides the smooth fabric of her spandex dress up to prove it. One second I am high, spreading her round ass cheeks apart, feverishly groping and squeezing her flesh, and the next, I am down, coherent, and pushing her away. “Get off.”