CHAPTER 15
The Necrophilia Bar (Or) You Want Fries With That?
(October 5-November 3, 2014)
After the police had dragged Mike away in handcuffs and jotted down detailed statements from everyone involved, the Mormons wished Heather and me a happy married life (this statement seemed to puzzle Heather, but she let it go), then promised to return in a week to deliver the third lecture. Those damn Mormons certainly are determined, you have to give them that.
Emergency Medical Technicians were even called in, though I insisted I was all right. They told me I had a couple of cracked ribs. I didn’t feel quite as bad as I thought two cracked ribs should make you feel. As the EMTs taped me up, warning me about the nasty bruises I’d probably develop over the next few days, in the background I could see Heather’s neighbors peeking around the open doorway to see what all the commotion was about. I told them not to worry, the anthrax would dissipate in no time. They all went back into their apartments.
Once Heather and I were alone in the apartment again I attempted to explain the entire sordid affair to her beginning with the first time I met Mike. I told the story exactly as I had to The Brink audience on Friday night. Heather rolled around on the sofa laughing for twenty minutes. By the time I got to the part where I bumped into Lundberg staggering out of the bathroom, she almost busted a gut. She believed that nothing had happened between Esthra and me, and admitted she would’ve had no right to be angry even if something had. In the end she was more concerned with what was happening to Danny.
I didn’t talk to Danny again for another three weeks. He stopped performing at the clubs and I couldn’t reach him by phone. I’d heard from other comedians, as well as Marsha, that Griffin was going through Danny’s money as if he had a printing press hidden in his bedroom. I’d also heard he was slamming a spike into his arm almost every day. It only takes about a month to get strung out on heroin if you’re shooting it on a daily basis.
It wasn’t much of a surprise early one Monday morning when I awoke from a wonderful dream about Heather to hear the incessant ringing of the telephone, pressed the receiver to my parched lips, mumbled something vaguely resembling the word “hello,” then heard the pre-recorded voice of a mechanical woman asking me if I would accept the charges for a collect phone call from L.A. County Jail.
“If so, please press 1,” she said.
I pressed 1, then heard Danny’s tentative whisper greeting me through the receiver: “Uh, hello? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you. What the hell’s going on?”
“I’m in jail.”
“I gathered that.” In the background I could hear someone talking through what sounded like a loudspeaker and the constant mumbling drone of a crowd of people carrying on dozens of conversations at once. “What did you do? I mean, what are you charged with?”
“Nothing too bad. Just making false statements to the police, possession of a needle, and trying to break into a pharmacy.”
“You tried to break into a—?” I just shook my head. “Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?”
“Let’s talk about that a little later, okay? Right now I need you to do me a favor.”
“No, I am not baking you a cake with a file in it.”
“No no, I need you to call a couple of people for me.”
The first person he wanted me to contact was some woman named Diane Evans, his dealer. He’d given her name to the police as a reference, believe it or not. The other person was his father. He wanted me to tell them both that he was in jail under the name Matthew Fuller. The cops were planning on letting him go on his own recognizance as long as he could prove he was a legal resident of Los Angeles, which required the verification of two references. If those two references said something along the lines of “Matthew Fuller? Who the fuck is Matthew Fuller?” he was pretty much screwed.
“Uh, now Diane’s kind of a wacky broad and she might yell at you for no good reason, but don’t let that intimidate you,” Danny said.
“Why don’t you have Griffin do all this shit?”
“I can’t. She left me. She left me for that punk rock bitch she met at that party in Hermosa Beach a few weeks ago. What was her name? Esther, I think. Or something like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, Lord, things just keep getting stranger and stranger.”
“Remember, you’ve got to call my dad as soon as possible ’cause the phone company might be shutting off our phone today.”
“Wait a second, I just thought of something, why didn’t you give me as a reference?”
Long pause. “I didn’t think of that.”
“That would’ve saved both you and me a lot of trouble, you know.”
“Hey, if I could think clearly do you think I’d be in here?”
“No, you’d be using that fancy Neuro-Linguistic Programming of yours to hypnotize the guards into letting you go free.”
“I already tried that. Ever since I started taking heroin it doesn’t seem to work anymore.”
I was just about to make a wisecrack about that statement when I heard a click, indicating that I had a call on the other line. I hated call-waiting. I wanted fewer people to reach me, not more, but the phone company refused to get rid of it no matter how much I complained to them.
“Hold on a second,” I said, sighing. I tapped the disconnect button, which switched me to the other line. “Hello?”
I heard the pre-recorded voice of a mechanical woman asking me if I would accept the charges for a collect phone call from L.A. County Jail. “If so, please press 1,” she said.
I found myself experiencing yet another moment of cognitive dissonance, just as I had when Mike appeared in a puff of smoke outside Heather’s door. Was another Danny from a parallel universe somehow calling me at that same exact moment? God, I hoped not; it was bad enough dealing with one Danny. I guess I assumed the wires had somehow gotten crossed at the phone company, and figured I’d hear Danny’s voice on the other line as well. I pressed 1.
The next voice I heard was that of a youngish fellow with a distinct Latino accent. His first words were either “Hey, this is Elliot” or “Hey, is this Elliot?”
Since I wasn’t sure which I just said, “Yeah.”
“You a fag?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, you a fag?”
I suppose a normal person would’ve hung up at this point. Come to think of it, a normal person would never even have accepted the charges in the first place.
“Wait a second, let me get this straight,” I said, “do you just randomly call people collect and accuse them of being a fag?” In the background I could hear someone talking through what sounded like a loudspeaker and the constant mumbling drone of a crowd of people carrying on dozens of conversations at once. “Where are you, anyway?” I asked, though I’m not sure why. I already knew.
“I’m in jail, motherfucker.”
“Don’t you think you should get in touch with an attorney instead of calling me a fag?”
“Nah, it don’t matter, I’m not gettin’ out of here in a long ass time, man.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Rob. Here, talk to my friend.”
The phone was passed to someone else, another youngish Latino-sounding gentleman. “Who’s this?” asked said gentleman.
“This is Elliot. Who’s this?”
“Billy. Where you at?”
“In my bedroom.”
“No, no, what city?”
“Um, Los Angeles.”
“You in with the Crips or the Bloods?”
I suddenly realized that Billy must have thought I was friends with the other guy. “Both. I alternate. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I’m with the Crips, and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I’m with the Bloods.”
“Shit, they let you do that?”
“I have a special dispensation from the government.”
“You a cop or something?”
“No, I just talk like one.”
“How old are you, man?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Fuck, that’s probably how old I’ll be when I get out of this place. But that’s okay, dog. I ain’t gonna waste my time. I plan on usin’ this as an excuse to study computer technology.”
Shit, I thought, I’ve never been caught committing a crime and I don’t even have a computer! In five years this jailbird will probably be the next Bill Gates and I’ll be in some hovel burning my jokes for heat.
“You go to school?” Billy said.
“Yeah, I was majoring in unemployment for awhile.” He seemed to like that one. I think he actually laughed.
“What do you do now?” he said.
“I work at a necrophilia bar.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an underground bar where they take a dead body add put it on a table in the middle of the room, then I have sex with it while everyone watches and drinks margaritas or whatever.”
“Man, is that with dead girls or dead guys?”
“Hey! What do you think I am, some fuckin’ weirdo? Dead girls, of course.”
“Oh, that’s good. Why do you do that shit?”
“Gotta eat, man. Better than workin’ at McDonald’s.”
“That’s where I was workin’ before I was busted.”
“Now I know why you’re in jail. L.A. County is a picnic compared to stuffing those damn Happy Meal boxes. What’re you in for anyway?”
“I didn’t pay my child support.”
“They threw you behind bars? Just for not paying child support?”
“Well, I committed armed robbery before, then when I didn’t pay the child support they said I broke my probation or some stupid crap like that.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. Why can’t the damn kid pay his own way?”
“Shit, that’s what I said.”
“So what was the reason for not paying it?”
“I didn’t have the money.”
“You should’ve just robbed someone.”
“I did. But I spent it all on cocaine and shit, man.”
“I see.”
“Hey, do they videotape you doin’ this shit?”
“What shit?”
“Having sex with dead bodies.”
“Oh, of course! Through a two-way mirror.”
“You get a lot of money for that?”
“A shitload.”
“Who pays you?”
“My boss.”
“What’s his name?”
“Matthew Fuller.”
“Shit, man. That’s some weird shit. What’s that trim feel like?”
“It’s as cold as ice.”
“Oh, shit, man. I need a girl who can move.”
“Yeah, not like Rob.”
“What about him?”
“He’s not good in bed.”
“How do you know?”
“I had sex with him.”
I heard the sound of laughter. Billy turned to Rob and said, “Hey, he says he had sex with you.”
In the background: “Shit, I don’t even know him.”
Billy turned back to me. “Hey, what’s his asshole like?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “It’s like a sick donut.”
“He says it looks like a sick donut!” A chorus of laughs erupted from the background—sounded like a dozen people, perhaps.
“He has a tattoo on his ass, too,” I said.
“Of what?”
“A teddy bear.”
“What?” He turned back to Rob. “Hey, you got a teddy bear on your ass, man?”
Rob grabbed the phone from Billy and began yelling at me. “Why you sayin’ that shit, man? I don’t even know you.”
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t you remember that romantic night out on the veranda overlooking the Pacific as we stared into each other’s eyes and whispered sweet nothings?”
“Oh shit, man. What the fuck’re you talkin’ about?”
In the background, amidst the hooting and guffaws, I heard: “Hey, you got a teddy bear on yo’ ass!” followed by a bunch of kissing sounds.
Deciding to spare him temporarily from the subject at hand, I said, “Hey, how did you get my number?”
“It’s written here on the wall.”
“What?”
“It’s even got your name written under it.”
“Oh, Lord. Can you do me a favor and cross it out?”
“Yeah, if you tell these assholes I’m not a fag.”
In the background: “Teddy bear on yo’ ass! Teddy bear on yo’ ass!”
“All right, all right, you got a deal. But you gotta do something else for me. Cross out my name and number and write in this one instead.” I gave him Brother Lundberg’s name and number.
“Who’s that?”
“Just a friend of mine.”
“Does he know any bitches?”
“Sure. Rich bitches.”
“Yeah? Can he hook me up?”
“Just call him up and ask him. He’ll come through. He’ll even send you money. Maybe some funny cigarettes too. He’s been in stir. He’s down with the whole penal scene. Uh, say, can you hold on a second?”
“Sure.”
I switched over to the other line. “You still there?”
Danny yelled, “What did you do, go to the fuckin’ grocery store?”
“Listen, did you by any chance write my name and number on some wall in there?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why would I do that?”
“If you did, would you remember it?”
“Well … maybe not, no.”
In my mind’s eye I had this image of Danny calling me on the pay phone while two phones down Rob and his friends were calling random numbers scrawled on the wall, hoping they’d reach someone stupid enough to accept the charges. I was just about to ask Danny to glance around and look for a group of young convicts yelling “Teddy bear on yo’ ass!” at some gang-banger talking on a pay phone, but by this point Danny’s time had run out and the call was terminated. Upon hearing the dial tone I switched over to the other line. I had just enough time to jot down Rob’s full name and prison number. Right before the line went dead I promised to send him and Billy a money order along with a free copy of the Book of Mormon. I hoped Billy would remember this kind gesture when his computer company bought out Microsoft a few years from now.
I immediately tried calling Diane Evans, but the phone just rang and rang and rang. I tried his father next. Same thing. Since I could do little else, I dragged myself out of bed and took a shower. About twenty minutes later, with the towel still wrapped around my waist, I sat down on the edge of my bed and tried Diane again.
This time a deep-voiced Lurch-like fellow answered: “Yeah, what is it?”
“Hello, is Diane Evans there?”
The man sighed. “Unfortunately.” I heard the receiver being set down and heavy footsteps lumbering away from the phone.
What seemed like another twenty minutes later, a middle-aged woman with a phlegmatic voice said, “What do you want?”
“Hi. Uh, are you the dealer?”
“What?”
“You’re the drug lady, aren’t you?”
“Who is this?”
“I just want to know, do you deliver? Are you offering a special on china white today?”
“What the—?”
“Aw, I’m just kiddin’. Danny wanted me to call you. He’s in jail at the moment.”
“What?”
After I’d passed along the required information she started babbling: “That Danny I told him I told him he came to my house last night and I walked him out to the curb I told him please go straight home and call me when you get home but when he never called I got ahold of his father and he told me Danny had stepped out for a moment to talk to the manager but apparently he did go out last night didn’t he didn’t he?”
“Apparently so.”
She sighed in frustration, sounding quite pissed. “I’m gonna call down there right now and find out what’s going on.” She sounded like she knew what she was doing. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, quite frankly. Baking a cake with a file in it was the most sensible idea I’d had.
After I hung up with her I tried calling Danny’s father again. Instead of the incessant ringing, this time I got ahold of a now familiar-sounding mechanical female who said, “The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. If you think you have dialed the number in error, please hang up and try again.”
I cradled the receiver. Oh, well. I’d done everything I could do. Now it was up to Miss Evans and her Howling Crackhead Attack Battalion to follow through and bust Danny out of the joint. I was certain a full-frontal assault would do the trick. I could see a bunch of addicts hurling specially-made crackbombs at L.A. County, breaking down the walls with massive battering rams, firing cannons filled with hypodermic needles at the machine gun turrets. In a perfect world perhaps this would occur. Of course, in a perfect world Danny wouldn’t be in jail in the first place.
At that moment, for some reason, the reality of the situation struck me like at no other point. Danny was in jail. Danny Oswald was a heroin addict and he was in jail. How the hell had that happened?
I remained on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall for a very long time as if expecting it to give me an answer. None came.