Going Down in La-La Land Read online

  As we ate our dessert, we both agreed it looked better in the case than it tasted in our mouths. It most definitely looked better in the case than it would look on our asses. Nevertheless, we finished the overly sweet dish and got up to leave.

  “Are you leaving?” asked a prissy voice from behind. I looked over to find a massively overbuilt and overly tanned dude with craggy skin and an attitude looking at our table.

  “Be my guest,” I replied, always finding it amusing when these steroid-pumped guys opened their mouths and still sounded as gay as a May Day Parade. All that effort for a tough, masculine appearance was blown away by the slightest movement of the vocal chords.

  We made our way back to the Benz. I was eager to get some sleep and call it a night. An unsure feeling gripped me. Looking around at the unfamiliar landscape, perhaps I made a rash decision in coming here. Maybe I let the shit in the foyer get the best of me. If I needed some space for a while and an escape from New York, perhaps I should have taken a summer job in Provincetown, basically something less permanent than picking up and moving straight across the country.

  So far LA didn’t seem that much more relaxed than New York. The people just appeared less responsive and outgoing, not as energetic, and if tonight was any example, more judgmental. But I would hardly describe that as “laid back.”

  The crowd at the Abbey struck me as having a feeling of being impenetrable. If tonight was any example of how it was going to be meeting people and trying to get my foot in the door in terms of a career, maybe I should have bought a round-trip ticket. Something told me I’d better gear up and prepare myself for more than a few superficial experiences in La-La Land.

  “Adam, hellooo? Are you listening to me?” Candy’s annoyed voice called out to me, breaking me out of the manic thoughts swimming in my head.

  “Sorry,” I smiled. “I completely zoned out for a minute. It’s been such a long day.”

  I turned my churning brain off, listened to her list of the things I should do to get settled, and felt the cool air blowing against my face as I stared at the taillights of the car ahead.

  Gym Cliques

  “Adam, what side of the street did you park your car on?” Candy bellowed into my room early one morning a week later, almost giving me a heart attack.

  “Same side as your building. Why?” I mumbled groggily.

  “Remember, Tuesdays and Thursdays are street cleaning. Thursdays are my side of the street. You don’t want to get another ticket,” she scolded.

  Shit. It wasn’t even eight a.m. But I had no choice but to drag my ass out of bed to search high and low for a new spot.

  “Want me to pour you a bowl of Kashi?” she asked as I walked groggily to the front door.

  “Okay,” I croaked.

  After one week in town, I had already collected two parking tickets. It seemed as if the parking-enforcement Nazis were everywhere you went. They drove around in these hideous, generic white cars that resembled giant marshmallows with orange lights on top. This wasn’t exactly the Welcome Wagon I had wished for.

  The second ticket really pissed me off. It happened when I looked up a high school friend and we decided to get coffee together in West Hollywood.

  After finding metered parking, we discovered that between the two of us we possessed a grand total of change worth fifteen cents. This bought us about ten minutes of parking time, so we figured we would run in, get change from our coffee, then I’d run back out to feed the meter.

  When we walked inside the Coffee Bean there was a line of gym bodies in uniform tank tops, workout pants, and Abercrombie & Fitch baseball caps. Abercrombie & Fitch was pasted on bodies everywhere in West Hollywood.

  It figured, being pressed for time there were six or seven people in front of us who insisted on the most complicated coffee concoctions imaginable. All with skim milk, of course. By the time my friend and I reached the front of the line almost ten minutes had gone by. As soon as we were rung up and had change in hand I darted back to the car in the public parking lot.

  “Fuck!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as soon my windshield was in clear view. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes after the meter ran out and a nice white ticket with a mailing envelope greeted me, tucked neatly under my wiper.

  Now, I’m not one to rush to conspiracy theories, but I was really starting to get paranoid. Did these people wait in the bushes or something, count the meter to the exact second, attack with a ticket as fast as possible, and disappear again?

  It was like a cruel joke. At this rate, living in Manhattan seemed like a bargain when compared to the twenty dollars a day it cost me just to park in LA. From that moment forward I was compulsive about parking correctly, though I didn’t always succeed, and the LA parking Gestapo would prove to be the bane (actually one of many) of my existence in La-La Land.

  So with Candy waking me up this morning, I wasn’t about to collect a third ticket and owe the City of Los Angeles close to a hundred bucks. After successfully moving my car and enjoying a bowl of Kashi, I spent the day as I had for the past week, dividing my time between job seeking through the trades and newspapers, and getting familiar with my new surroundings. Candy was busy with her classes and appointments. Besides, I didn’t want to overwhelm her by constantly hanging around her or the apartment. So, in order to be shown around town even more, I looked up the sister of my best friend from home.

  A few years older than me, Sarah worked in high-end retail. Because she worked in retail, almost all of her friends were gay men. She was always outgoing and a very pretty girl. She told me over the phone she wasn’t dating anybody at the moment and had a bitter breakup with her long-term boyfriend in Las Vegas, the catalyst for her decision to move to LA.

  We decided to meet in the parking lot of Pavilions supermarket on the corner of Robertson and Santa Monica. She came rolling up in a Ford Explorer driven by a cute blond guy with perfect spiky hair that flipped up in the front.

  I was excited to see a familiar face. They smiled wide and waved through the tinted windows, both of them wearing expensive designer shades. Sarah put her window down and stuck her head out.

  “Hey sistah! What up?” she said in a slick manner, sounding very changed since the last time I had seen her.

  “Hey you! You look great!” I said, sticking my head through the window and planting a kiss on her cheek.

  “Adam, this is Stephen,” Sarah gestured.

  “Hi, Stephen,” I said, reaching my hand across the front of the SUV and trying to make out his eyes behind the dark shades.

  “Hi,” he smiled back, revealing a perfect set of white teeth. “Hop in. We have someplace cool planned for lunch.”

  Stephen was a former co-worker and now Sarah’s best friend. He was currently “between jobs.” It turned out Sarah was also unemployed, having lost her job in a dispute over ruining her nails after putting up a window display. But you wouldn’t know they were out of work by hanging out with them.

  Stephen was friendly but flashy and pretentious. I hadn’t been in the car but a few minutes when he started going over his list of do’s and don’ts.

  “We don’t go east of Fairfax when it comes to apartments.” He began. “That is way too east. It gets too trashy. We stay in the core of WeHo.”

  They were horrified to learn I didn’t have a cell phone.

  “Adam, you are in LA now. You definitely have to get a cell phone! I’ll give you one of mine. I have five of them. Then find yourself a service right away!” Stephen declared.

  They insisted we go to a fabulous spot for lunch called Red on Beverly Boulevard. I immediately gathered that the words of choice for Sarah and her friends were “fabulous” and “sister.”

  Actually, it was pronounced “sistah.”

  On the way to Red, one of their cell phones rang every other minute, making it difficult to carry on even the most mundane conversation. This continued at the restaurant. And, to make matters worse, Stephen was a bit snippy with
the waitress, who he made feel like an inconvenience. It was apparent Stephen never had to wait tables before.

  After rudely barking out his order to the waitress while simultaneously speaking on his cell phone, he became more demanding.

  “Can I get more ice than this?” he asked, while holding his glass up to the sun-drenched sky and peering at it through his shades.

  The harried waitress looked down at the sidewalk, breathed in heavily, and raised her eyebrows in exasperation, obviously trying hard to bite her tongue.

  “Everything is great so far,” I piped up, embarrassed by his behavior. Our eyes met and she knew I was horrified.

  “Thanks,” she said sweetly, then took Stephen’s glass and shot him daggers from her eyes before spinning around in irritation.

  “You better be nicer to waiters in the future or you might find more in your drink than just ice!” I jested, but was really serious.

  He failed to see the humor in it. Needless to say, if this was how he always behaved while dining I’m sure he swallowed some spit here and there.

  After lunch, Stephen drove us to a shopping mall called the Beverly Connection, where we went into a store called the Sports Chalet. It was absolutely imperative Sarah purchase the right shoes for spin class.

  “Sarah, you have to have that outfit! It looks fabulous on you!” Stephen proclaimed loudly in the store, relishing the attention his loud mouth brought upon him.

  “Adam, are you getting anything?” He turned and asked me.

  I completely lied, not wanting to admit, “No, Stephen. I can’t shop! I’m a poor motherfucker,” for fear that this revelation might repel him to such a degree that they would both ditch me right then and there, leaving me stranded in the Sports Chalet. Instead I said, “No, I’m waiting until I move into a place of my own before I get more stuff that I have to lug around.”

  “Oh, that’s smart. Moving around is such a pain in the ass,” he mumbled back, focusing on a rack of tank tops in front of him and not showing much interest either way.

  Watching Stephen and Sarah tear through the racks of marked-up nylon-blend gym gear, I had a moment of sadness and melancholy. These weren’t my college friends living in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn with clothes proudly bought secondhand at Canal Jeans that I could joke with about being flat broke. I snapped myself out of it. A mere week was way too soon to start feeling melancholy.

  The three of us went in the same fitting room, the two of them to try crap on while I stood there to give my opinion on the clothes.

  I wasn’t interested in the gym outfits, but I did have a different opinion—that opinion being Stephen had a large basket and a tight ass that caught my eye. Maybe that’s where the attitude came from, though it didn’t make up for his personality. But then again, I’m sure the guys he dated thought personality didn’t matter as much as a big dick and bubble butt.

  He must think he is such hot shit because he has buns of steel and big cock, I thought gazing in the mirror. Well, I have way better cheekbones, my thoughts continuing to drift, before scolding myself for letting myself sink so shallow.

  “Ohmigod! Stephen, that looks fabulous! You’ve got to get it!” Sarah shrieked, breaking me out of my warped daze.

  Ugh! There went that word again. It brought me back to when I first moved into the dorms in New York, when every other word used was “Fierce!” “Fierce this” and “Fierce that.” “Honey, you look fierce!” Months of hearing that left me wanting to stick every club kid and art fag through the heart with a giant skewer.

  Finally the trendy twosome decided on their new gym wardrobe and we went up front to pay. While they were charging a few hundred bucks, I wondered what kind of unemployment checks they were getting to be making shopping excursions for such superfluous possessions.

  After leaving the Beverly Connection we headed to Crunch Gym on Sunset. This was where Sarah’s whole gang worked out. Candy had just gotten a membership there as well.

  I was familiar with Crunch, having been a receptionist at their location on Christopher Street in New York, one of my countless part-time jobs. I remembered when the first one was just some hole in the wall aerobic studio on Thirteenth Street with brightly painted walls and a bohemian membership that almost wore black to work out in. These original members always seemed more inclined to attack a canvas with brushes rather than jump on a treadmill.

  This wasn’t the case in LA. The hip workout spot was located in a shopping plaza complete with a Virgin Megastore and a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. It appeared that everything of importance in LA came attached to a shopping plaza or strip mall.

  While at the gym, I got the complete tour required of every guest by a nicely built salesman with wide blue eyes and wavy blond hair, who Sarah told me was an aging surfer. I was more interested in looking at this aging sexpot of a beach boy than the equipment.

  As he walked me around, I kept my eyes open for any big celebrities but failed to spot or recognize any. After the tour I met the rest of Sarah’s gaggle of gay men, one by one. It seemed like their names were all either Scott or Brett and I couldn’t keep up. They were all cute and pumped up, and seemed to gravitate toward one another due to their common interest in looking good and hanging out at the right places.

  It quickly became apparent Sarah had become the ultimate fag hag of West Hollywood. It seemed as though people in LA ran around in packs, and she was the star of this one. She was almost like their mascot in a way. I thought it was a little creepy how they cooed over her, and somewhat of a waste since nothing would ever become of it in terms of an intimate relationship. Shit, I was a relatively attractive gay man, come hang over me for chrissakes!

  Before leaving the gym, Sarah and Stephen convinced me to join, telling me it was the place to work out in LA, one of the “do’s” on Stephen’s list.

  “It’s the best gym in town. Everything else is tired and lame,” he said, urging me to sign on.

  I reasoned success in my new surroundings was all about getting out there and meeting people for me at this point.

  “Connections baby. Get those connections and work them.” The words sailed through my mind. Damn it, I was here to make a success of myself and determined to do it. I needed to be around the right people, no matter how obnoxious they might be.

  Besides, the only people I really knew well all came here. I sat down with the faded sun-kissed salesman, signed the paperwork, and gave Crunch my credit card number, which until this point I swore would be for emergencies only.

  So much for sticking to that promise, I thought while whipping the plastic out a week after my arrival. I tried to tell myself what a great business move I was making as Mr. Buff Surfer filled out my membership contract. But I knew I was lying to myself.

  A few days later, I really started to wonder what I had been thinking. The parking lot was always full. The street parking around the complex was by permit only. Sarah even warned me not to park at the strip mall across street.

  “Sistah, one night McDonald’s had my car towed. I was like, freaking out. Ohmigod, I was so pissed off,” she went on between breaths at the treadmill, further traumatizing me about the parking situation.

  I was already paying a small fortune to work out at a gym that was proving an obstacle course to get to. When driving into the lot you had to grab a ticket, which in turn you had to have stamped, or “validated,” before leaving.

  My second time there I had already forgotten to get my ticket stamped, and the parking attendant actually made me park my car again and go all the way back up.

  “Either you go back up or pay me twenty dollars,” she ordered flatly, leaving me feeling quite humiliated and annoyed. It felt like I was caught walking the halls in grade school without a bathroom pass. I also found out that after two hours passed, you could expect to start paying for parking, on top of the small fortune you had already paid for membership.

  Getting to this fucking gym was a bigger workout than my actual workout. Whoev
er planned this place must have been smoking some serious crack. It was a functional disaster, a nightmare of architectural planning.

  On the plus side, there were plenty of attractive guys there. A little bit of locker room cruising, but not too much. I wasn’t about to start any funny business in the steam room. If they put George Michael in handcuffs here, they sure as hell could do the same to me. I could just see myself being led out of the place in front of everyone, all my prospective connections down the drain. The shame of it! I would be fodder for Stephen and his gang. I could just imagine their talk.

  “Oh sistah, he didn’t waste any time getting busy!”

  Besides, nothing came close to the cruising at American Fitness gym in Chelsea, back in Manhattan. That place was an ongoing orgy, and most of the guys partaking in the festivities were very yummy. Everyone knew monkey business went on, but nobody cared. All the members were cool about it. Either you participated or ignored it. And yes, I had more than my share of additional workouts there. I even went so far as to plan my workouts around a hot blond guy from Baltimore who worked for Amtrak and frequented the gym on his daily route to the city. God, he was so fun. At the time I figured a little hanky-panky never hurt anyone just so long as it was safe.

  About my third or fourth time at Crunch, I went to work out with Candy. We finished at the same time and both went in the locker rooms to change. I finished first and waited out by the lobby, talking it up with the aging surfer. I was beginning to get more infatuated with him after each visit. All of a sudden I heard Candy call out in an urgent and excited tone, “Adam! Adam! Come here!”

  “What is it?” I walked over and asked, wondering what could be so important to pull me away from my new blond obsession.

  “Look!” she pointed down the hall to the sides of the locker rooms, laughing hysterically.

  “What?” I snapped impatiently, seeing nothing and getting annoyed.

  “Oh . . . shit,” I murmured. To my dismay I found myself staring at the silhouettes of men and women showering. The glass was opaque, but I never really noticed it before. And you could see it all—members soaping up their privates, douching out their assholes with water, everything.