I was one of those New York snots who bought the whole la-la land as a town full of Jell-O heads and faggots, as in wimps, not homosexuals, though there are plenty of those, or Mexies who can’t speak English no better than me, which like everything about L.A. is true and not. There was some hard-core shit going down. Parts of the town still smelt like a giant ashtray after the ’92 riots, which blew up six months before we got there.
As we drive into L.A. that first night, Alchemy goes all hookie-dookie again. “This city—underneath the spit shine of Hollywood—is a phenomenal metropolis with a cursed soul. At first glance, too much of the architecture is graceless, without symmetry, and they keep tearing down the inspired structures. The homes on the coast should be planned so the mountains and the sea meld with the man-made landscape. No one is a better architect than Mother Nature. Ambitious, whether you look at the surface or below, you’ll see that L.A. is America’s future.”
My mom had two books in the house when I was kid, The Joy of Sex and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and I says, “Alchemy, you sound like that gooey-brained Segal guy floating above us all.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess, sometimes I am gooey.”
We’d been driving fifteen hours straight, when we pull up to the Pantera Rosa. Yeah, the song of the same name is about that dump. Was a former “Beaner bar,” off the 10 and Olympic Boulevard. A pink wooden shack outside and black and murky inside like a murdered body is hidden in the ceiling. Was a few artists living in the hood, though mostly working class and bangers. They tore down the Pantera around 2000 when the hood got ritzy, but we was long gone.
Falstaffa and Marty live in the apartment above the Rosa, which they used as their office for an, ahem, “car service” delivering “packages” to movie and biz types and the platinum card kids from the private school down the block. Some of them and their parents was our first fans.
Falstaffa, a 350-pound tough Tijuana Santería princess, lumbered out to meet us. With her buzz-cut orange hair and tattooed forearms and thighs, and a switchblade-sharp fuck-you sneer, she gave me the willies. Wrongo. She turned out to be the biggest-hearted no-crock-a-shit person I ever met. We did a shitload a laughing and partying together before the hep C got her.
She picks up Alchemy and twirls him around like he’s no heavier than a picked-clean chicken wing. Out preens Marty, a four-foot-eleven Mick midget. He smacks a kiss right on Alchemy’s butt. When Alchy introduces us, Marty squeezes my hand so hard it’s like he’s trying to break the bones. I’m squeezing just as hard back when this loopy boxer comes streaking at me and jumps at my back. Marty lets go and orders the dog, “Get the Fuck Over Here,” yep, that’s the name to which he answers. I’m thinking, My life is forever gonna be a three-ring freak show. Alchy informs everyone that I’m his bass player. I don’t protest about nuthin’ right then ’cause I am so damn tired.
The next day Lux Deluxe and Absurda drop by. Lux I’d heard of as the drummer in the Hip Replacements, a punkfunk band of black and white guys that had an indie hit with “I’m Your Black Doorman.” Turns out Alchy penned them lyrics. Lux’s spangled up in a fringe jacket, bling hanging from everywhere, and Frye boots. I want to tell him that Hendrix been dead for twenty years. I find out later he wants to tell me that Sid Vicious been dead for almost twenty years! We got a good laugh out of that one. Lux has a style and swagger like a western hero, only black, old-fashion strong-silent type. He introduces Absurda, with her vacuum-sucking eyes, natural blond hair, and swooshy bangs, Goth makeup and an itchy-bitchy walk that says she needs to fuck. She’s just my type—lanky and tight and all attitude. I figure if she ain’t with Lux, all chicks are Alchemy’s or wanna be Alchemy’s, so I lay back. While Lux and Alchy are huddling up, I ask Absurda how she met Alchemy.
Her speaking voice sounds like a clarinet with a cigarette in its mouthpiece. She was born and raised Amanda Akin in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. She left at eighteen and met Alchemy at Juilliard. I don’t volunteer that we had a coupla interns from Juilliard when I was at Performing Arts and I hated the bastids.
“Alchemy was only seventeen when he started. Finished at twenty. I left because I couldn’t take the hypocrisy, and despite the lip service, it wasn’t as progressive as I’d imagined. Guys were still getting the preferential treatment and I was just getting buzzed by Sally Timms and Kim Gordon, and the forevers like Marianne Faithfull and Chrissie Hynde. I transferred to CalArts. Much hipper and less testosterone heavy.”
Alchemy never breathed a syllable about the diploma stuffed in his back pocket ’cause he thought it would ruin his rock cred.
“Bet he also never told you he joined the army?”
“Fuck no. He seems like a, pu—ah—”
“Pussy? I got your number Mr. Ricky-Tough-Guy.” So she did. “Yes, he enlisted. When Salome freaked again, they had to let him out before his time was up.”
That almost explained his crazy “yes and no” answer about being in war. I’m beginning to see this guy is full of surprises. When I ask him later about this army shit, he starts lecturing me that everyone should serve in the army or do some kind of service as their patriotic duty.
We plan to start rehearsing later in the week. The first rehearsal I pick up my Strat ’cause I ain’t no second-fiddle bass player to a chick. Absurda hooks up, too, and eyes me like “You wanna go?” so I start playing and she mimics whatever I do. Then she starts leading, and, well, I got to give it to her, she could flat-out scorch that baby. First her Flying V and then the Winged Nightingale that Fender made for her. Falstaffa fronts me the money for a bass. I learn to love it.
Alchemy and me are crashing over the Pantera, though he ain’t here that often. He never had no problems bouncing from bed to bed. He told me that growing up with Salome made him feel like no place and every place was home. You know the phrase “any port in a storm”? For Alchy, it was just “any port.” He claimed he found something beautiful in every woman and that gave him comfort and hope. It sounds like a load, but it wasn’t. And even when he was rich and went loopy over Laluna and moved to Topanga, he didn’t feel totally settled.
A coupla weeks later, me and Alchy’s drinking down at the Pantera. I been thinking about scoping him on Absurda, only he beats me to it.
“So, are you going to move on Absurda or not? Better do it before long, or it’ll be too late.”
“Whataya mean?”
“Come on, man, I see the way you’re lusting for her.”
I despised him when he spoke like he had that superior insight from a voice that told him all. “You or Lux ain’t done her?”
“Can’t speak for Lux, but they are certainly not together now. As for me, nope, not even a kiss.”
“Why? ’Cause she done so many guys?”
“If my mom heard you say something so dim-witted and sexist, she’d squeeze your nuts so hard they’d turn to Silly Putty. The rules of getting laid: Approach sex with some sensitivity. Women have a right to fuck as much as we do without being called whatever epithets flash into your head. And remember this, if done right, they enjoy it as much or even more than we do.”
“Scratch the Alchemy doubletalk an’ answer my question.”
“Okay, I ‘ain’t done’ her. So go for it, but remember, she’s like my soul sister. I’ll be watching.”
A couple weeks later after we been rehearsing all night, she and me head down to Tacos Por Favor and I’m stuffing my face. I notice she hardly eats, and I ask her, “You a puker or just don’t like food?”
“Neither. I get ninety percent of my calories from gin and cigarettes …” She licks them cat’s lips a hers and meows, “the other ten percent from hot, creamy cum. Now Ricky, can I have a taste?” and she eyes my enchiladas but I don’t think that’s what she means. She pulls out two hits of X and sticks one right on my tongue. We hook up for the first time. It was hot. I mean hot. We done shit I never done before. I’m dissin’ myself by admitting this, but hell, I was a kid and not that experienced.
We’d ended up at her room in the house she shares with a bunch of losers in this old three-story firetrap in the Rampart district. I am starting to see L.A. is huge, and there are hoods like Rampart, which feels sorta like Flushin’. The TV makes the whole place out to be either Beverly Hills or Compton. Ain’t true at all.
The next morning she is dressing to take off to her waitressing job at Barneys in West Hollywood, I ask, “We an article now?”
She grins and shakes her head, “No, we’re a preposition …”
“What?”
“You meant an item, not an article. Never mind. What do you want us to be?”
“A particle … If ya promise not to go all teachy on me ’cause a the way I talk.”
She kisses me and holds my hand, Catholic school girlie–like. “I won’t do that to you, Ricky.” She never got used to calling me Ambitious, and she’s the only person, after I get to L.A., who I let call me Ricky.
A few months later, I finished my last drop for Marty at around 5 A.M., that’s how I was earning my keep, and I’m gonna crash at the Pantera that night rather than head to Absurda’s. Alchy, he wanted zip to do with that shit, and because he’s allowed Falstaffa and Marty the privilege of being in his inner circle, he don’t have to earn his keep. The Pantera was closed so it was just me and Marty at the bar drinking. Get the Fuck Over Here is snoring on the floor. Falstaffa is upstairs sleeping, and we figure Alchemy has found himself another bed for the night. About three beers in, Marty asks, “How’s it hanging between you and Absurda?” His voice punches out like he’s six feet, not some putz who comes up to my knees.
“Hangin’.”
“You know why Alchemy named her Absurda Nightingale?”
“Yeah, ’cause of the crazy bird squeals she gets from her guitar.”
“More like the squeals she makes when she’s sucking on some guy’s bazooka. And she’s sucked plenty.”
“Yo, dwarf dick, tell me she done you.”
“Meaty enough so I deep-throated her ’til she gagged. Absurda, she’s so horny, she fucks like a man.”
Suddenly, there’s a spitting noise in the doorway that leads up to the apartment. Marty starts trembling, bleating, “Alchemy, please! I was just shittin’ him. You knew I was just fuckin’ with you, Ambitious, right?”
Alchemy calmly strides over. Marty is shivering. Alchemy lays his hand on top of Marty’s head. He holds it there. Marty is bug-eyed. Not breathing. Alchemy coolly says to me, “Pack up. We’re leaving.” He slides his hand down Marty’s forehead and over his eyes and gently closes the lids.