The Passion Agency

by Rebecca Lee

  She was heading a few blocks away to the Forum for a walk in the sun.

  Chapter 8--Compton

  Brea was numb with a mixture of relief and a feeling of being totally overwhelmed. After her mom left for what she said would be a walk, Brea hopped in the car and shot over to Hawthorne hoping to find her friend Lacey at home. Brea was ready to get high.

  Lacey's parents were the supplier. So the fact they might have been home made no difference. All the girls had to do was keep it in the back yard and not alert the neighbors with any loud talk or music. Do that and they could smoke joints to their heart’s content.

  There wasn’t one lie in anything she told Donna. So that in and of itself was significant. She just didn’t know why she said what she did nor how. It wasn’t her way to be so open and emotionally available with her mom. Throw in the fact she was completely sober and the whole exchange back at the house had a hazy quality to it for Brea.

  “It sounds great Brea,” her friend said. “It doesn’t sound like your mom holds a grudge at all over the Chris thing. I know you were worried.”

  Brea grabbed the clip to the very bottom end of the joint and took a mighty puff. She held it in a little extra long in the hopes of accelerating everything.

  “How did you know I was worried?” She asked fearfully.

  “Easy, you actually wanted to talk about it,” her friend said. “Like with Chris, you wanted to talk about that when he wouldn’t climb back on top of you after your mom surprised you. I could tell you liked him and it was working on you. What do you think now?”

  “I think he’s a hot guy but I was a foolish nutty little girl,” Brea said. “I actually felt like I was falling in love with him. That was dumb in itself.”

  Her friend lit up another joint as Brea watched with anticipation of more feelings of mellowness. She contemplated perhaps more breakthroughs on this already abnormal day.

  “I liked how it felt,” she said. “Not the sex, although he’s a really sexy guy. I mean being wanted and sharing that with someone. Someone wanted to be around me willingly and that felt great.I don’t blame my mom. Don’t get me wrong. She’s always been broke and my trashy non-father did nothing for her. She did it all herself. She isn’t where she wants to be in life. She feels stuck or whatever.”

  She took another hit and was starting to really feel relaxed. She also was beginning to feel lethargic. Too lethargic to get into the depth of what happened back at the house, much less why it may have happened.

  “How do you know all this stuff about your mom?” her friend asked.”You all have never really hung out. You never seemed to care.”

  “Well I got hold of her private diary,” Brea said. “Lacey it was so sad. She’s a lost woman but she cares a lot for me and really other people. I am amazed because I am not like that at all. I don’t care to be.”

  “Yeah but you are here now and you seem like you do give a shit,” Lacey said. “So is that why you are here? You are like weirded out by feeling that way?”

  “That and I wanted to get high and couldn’t at home without Chris there to supply it,” Brea said deadpan.

  She then burst into laughter.

  She now felt better about everything. She didn’t know if she would be able to build off what happened today, but she felt fearless while she was doing it. It felt right. Confronting and speaking from the heart was all new to this very damaged but highly intelligent young woman.

  …

  About two weeks after Donna caught Chris and her were caught in the middle of sex, Brea had successfully landed not one but two jobs.

  There was the one she would tell everyone she was doing. Then there was the one where she’d make actual money. That one she’d keep hid from everyone.

  Job one was medical record transcription and filing at a plastic surgery clinic. Despite her shabby interactions with people she was close with, Brea interviewed marvelously. She could manipulate situations and play whatever role she needed to win the moment. When she got the call the next day that she was hired, the human resources manager who was also the office manager in the small office commented what a fine people person Brea was.

  Job two was actually supposed to pay lower but money was constantly getting added to the bottom line in the most unsavory of ways. With her fabulous academic record, Loyola Marymount was able to get her on as a teaching assitant provided she filed enrollment papers to actually become a student there for the forthcoming semester. Within a week, she had the job, a massive under the table pay raise, and a mess of a possible scandal on her hands.

  …

  Compton California is located near Los Angeles sandwiched between Long Beach and the Civic Center. The name, like “south central” and “Watts” had become synonymous with gangs, crime, desperation, and blackness (therefore somehow it was considered a danger to whites).

  Like anywhere considered “bad” or “rough”, there were kernels of truth to justify the larger consensus (usually authored by outsiders). There were nice houses in Compton, just like any other suburb. There maybe were fewer. The fact was no one ever did much to go count them.

  Bad people doing bad things were there and maybe slightly more than an average bread and butter community around LA. It was “rough” according to outsiders, many of home were white.

  Never had it been considered ripe ground for scouting the next face of Vogue or Maybelline. Never, that is, until Donna changed her habits as an unemployed person and started taking walks and opening her mind and opening her ears.

  Change can be massive and culturally impactful when the right person starts looking at things different.

  Poor, drug addicted and just seventeen, Melonie Saxson didn’t know Donna Passion Casteel. Yet.

  When they finally did meet, the world would turn on it’s head.

  Chapter 9-- LA Story

  Donna simply felt like clearing her head but she didn’t want to isolate herself. She left the beers in the fridge and went to a place close by where she knew she could think but be around people.

  She knew people were the key if she was going to reach her goal of owning that salon. She felt like now was the time. After all, her daughter had a job and she’d be seeing money soon. She hoped.

  She had time. Working three jobs hadn’t gotten her ahead or helped her build up capital of any kind. After all that effort she was still without much money in the bank.

  The invigorating and totally unforeseeable conversation with Brea had tipped the scales. She had hung in there with her daughter through the worst of times and handled an awful event and potential crisis in a way that strengthened their relationship. The near death experience earlier in the day also had her mind looking at everything differently. Not to mention it looked like she had an in with the legal assistant job if she could bring herself to call the that fat lawyer who made a pass at her.

  Now she made the choice to keep the momentum turning her way. It was time to think.

  A homeless man she had never met before suddenly showed her she could make the world see something big in a totally different way?

  But she didn't know how to turn it into money.

  What advantages did she have as a basically jobless woman with a house to keep up and a daughter to feed?

  She started her walk on the Manchester side of the Forum after parking on a side street across the busy five lanes of traffic.

  In 2012, the The LA Forum was falling mostly into disuse. There was talk about breathing new life into it as a concert venue to compete with Staples Center downtown. But basically it had become sort of a community meeting place for lower-middle class and poor people to come walk in circles around the building’s expansive parking lot.

  It was wide open and near busy intersections and therefore safe. People would come throughout the day and do laps. Regular people. Sometimes semi-handicapped people in walkers and wheel chairs. They would walk. Maybe walk and talk.

  It had the visual feel of a post-apocalyptic walking t
rail. A wide open weed infested empty piece of weathering concrete.

  Donna had driven by there literally hundreds of times but had never considered stopping. Despite the fact that she was not liking the way her body was becoming heavier and saggier, she didn’t give the idea of simply walking more any thought. In her mind she walked as a waitress and that was enough.

  Fresh air?

  To her it didn’t matter.

  Besides, she felt like she would seem like a desperate old cougar walking around in circles by herself.

  But today it seemed like the exact place she needed to be. So there Donna was, still in her business attire from the interview, walking in circles around an abandoned sports arena smack in the middle of a disintegrating suburb.

  Tall and short. Old and younger, but not young young. Black mostly but some white, maybe an Asian like a Filipino keeping up a steady pace.

  Donna felt strangely at home when she started that day and it didn’t take long to figure out why.

  She was half way around her first lap when she could feel herself beginning to melt from the cloudless sky and the asphalt everywhere.

  Even though there were people everywhere just minutes earlier, Donna soon felt strangely very alone on the path. Her starting point had totally disappeared from sight on the exact other side of the building.

  Ahead she saw a man. He was black and elderly. He walked at an impossibly slow pace. He was dressed in khaki pants, sky blue velcro tennis shoes, an Izod t-shirt in a cream color and a headband which really looked totally out of place for a man who couldn’t have been breaking a sweat.

  He was walking so slow that he almost was not moving forward. As Donna got closer, she could see he was basically dragging his left foot. It wasn’t a limp but more like an injury that happened which never healed properly.

  As she got to the side of the man she saw a determined look on his aging wrinkly face. She guessed in her head right off that he had to take as long as two hours to do a circle. It took normal people about twenty five minutes.

  She got about fifteen feet past the man and then turned and began to walk backwards facing him.

  His head was looking forward. When he saw that he had her attention he smiled. Then he raised his right hand that was previously at his side in a fist chugging along back and forth in unison with his left hand.

  “I am Peter,” he said. “But someone who looks like you, can call me Pete.”

  Pete never broke stride as he talked but he did look down like he was making sure his feet were still moving.

  “I shouldn’t say things like that,” he said. “My beautiful Mary might get jealous and leave me.”

  He was now smiling even more. Despite the debilitating issue with his left leg and generalized weakness probably caused by old age, he didn’t seem deterred.

  “I have to ask,” Donna said. “How many laps do you do?”

  “Hundreds,” he said. “I add each one to the last. That’s life. Everything adds up. “The yesterdays make the todays”, I like to say.”

  Peter was loving the attention of an attractive younger woman.

  “What are you doing out here all dressed up?” he asked. “You just had a crappy job interview did you?”

  Donna was surprised.

  “Now how did you know that?” She asked playfully.

  She had her arms on her side. Fists planted into her torso. She couldn’t wait to hear the answer.

  “Because people who aren’t satisfied figure out eventually they need to do some thinking,” he said. “That’s when they meet me. They tell me it seems like I am always here.”

  Donna, was thinking this had to be a hoax and began to look around for someone with a hidden camera.

  Finally she gave in.

  “Do you mind if I walk with you awhile?” She asked.”My name is Donna.”

  Chapter 10--The Big Boy Agencies

  He gestured his hand to her like he was happy to have her along.

  Peter Dewalk was a man of mystery. Donna didn’t try too hard to peel back the veil as they walked for nearly two more hours. Nightfall began to creep on the makeshift walking trail in the parking lot of the former home of the world famous Los Angeles Lakers.

  She figured she’d learn what she needed to about him in due time. She was much more interested in how he was figuring out these things about her.

  With nothing really useful in her mind about what to do next, her approach was to have no approach at all. To really pay attention. To listen and absorb. The fresh perspective was the underlying theme of the day.

  Donna was happy to gamble a few minutes of her time that Peter could help her continue on the journey that began earlier in the day with her unlikely meeting with Paul the panhandler.

  “Let me ask you this Donna?” Peter asked. “Why aren’t you making big money out there. I know people that have done it in all fields. They have this quality about interacting with the world. They project something without even trying. It’s an openness. It’s a way of not judging but rather looking for ways to contribute.”

  “Its funny you should say that,” Donna said. “This homeless guy in Carson today…”

  Pete jumped in unexpectedly.

  “Oh you met Paul,” he said, his breathing starting to become more labored as he apparently was trying to increase his pace.

  “What?” Donna said, unable to hide her surprise.

  “Never mind,” Peter said smiling. “It’s not important.”

  He paused then began to speak again.

  “You know something?” He asked. “You out of literally hundreds of people every day I enoucnter here, you were one of the rare ones to take an interest in me and come talk to me. We don’t talk to strangers you know. Not any more. Strangers are bad and scary. That’s what we’re taught. Why did you talk to me?”

  “Hmmm,” Donna contemplated out loud. “I guess I was curious. It’s been a strange day. I came here to think, like you said. I came here for more answers. I have been on a role with them today. Coming at me from all different directions. Not sure why. I sense I am at a turning point with everything, but I don’t know a damn thing about how to make money without punching someone else’s time clock.”

  “Ahh that last sentence,” Peter said. “The truth comes out. Pretty frightening. I mean you could fail if you step out. Lose everything you have, even if it isn’t much. Right?”

  “Yes!” Donna answered excitedly. “I don’t know where to start. I don’t know the steps after I start. I don’t know. It’s the same emptiness over and over again.”

  “It’s interesting that we haven’t talked about men or a particular man,” Peter noted accurately. “Why is that?”

  “I figured out that the success I want isn’t about the man who finds me,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. But for better or for worse, the outcomes with men aren’t driving this. If anything, I am trying to do this for me. That’s where I am at in life. I think that’s a good thing?”

  “Just guard against making too many conclusions on things like that,” Peter said. “It’s not men or love. It’s the quality of people you share it with. The right person or people can make a massive difference for you towards your goals. Especially trying to corner the business world.”

  It finally occurred to Donna to ask.

  “Have you ever been in business?” Donna asked carefully picking a tone which made it clear she wasn’t doubting him.