R- NoHo Relationships

NoHo Relationships

At some point in every NoHo relationship, the participants must say to
themselves, This is going to get silly before it gets bad.
This is to acknowledge both the absurdity of real human connection
being made in this wasteland of trash and bigger trash, and the evil
that will inevitably be wrought as a consequence of trying.

For love does not exist here.
Let's not mince words.
Sex barely exists here.

About the best you can hope for is a gay roommate willing to give
straight guys blowjobs.
Hell, I had one of those and I wasn't even taking advantage.

So companionship?
Lovers?

Silly.
Bad.

For me, this moment of mystical understanding came as soon as Victor
told me he'd met someone.

Victor, my straight roommate.
My homeless roommate.
Whose dick was just a fantasy along with his psychotic ex-Jackie, his
baby, and anything else he ever said.

He had met someone.

She was beautiful.
She was a published writer.
She was going to get our stardom on track.
We just needed to go pick her up.

From the homeless shelter.

Silly.
Bad.

We walk in the early warmth of the day.
The sun is studio lighting.
Reflected off the grunge of the street.
There is no architecture.
Just street fixtures to walk past.
Like the buildings are just really ugly plugs in giant outlets.

The walk is maybe five blocks.
Or a ghetto mile.
Most any distance on Lankershim is a ghetto mile.

The shelter is a courtyard surrounded by apartments that look
surprisingly similar to mine.
Only these are free.
Mine's $675/month.
That the fee to be "socially better."
They should at least give me a badge and authority or a membership
card.

Victor wants to drink some powdered milk while he's there.
He gets it from the folding table in the courtyard.
It swirls until it's gray in the Styrofoam cup.
He grabs an orange wedge to wash it down.
When all of the food is gone, he has a distinguished moustache and
shiny fingers.

He makes me sick.
He always makes me sick.

Finally, the girl makes her entrance.
Exits from the shadows of the stone stairway.
She would be attractive.
Long clean brown hair.
Bouncy big bust in a tight sleeveless tee.
Ass wide but shaped.
All in all, not bad to look at.

Just remove the whole homeless thing and you got yourself a deal.

That's her, says Victor.
Try to stand cool.
Don't smile.
As if he ever smiles.

She smiles, though.
She wafts and waxes her way to us.
And gives us both a hug.

I need a bath.

Victor tells her he likes the way her tits look.
She laughs and says he can't fuck her.
No, no, of course not, he agrees.
Both of them are serious.
Not being sarcastic.

Silly.
Bad.

Epsom salts.
That's what I need in the bath.

Her name is Cindy.
She is 28.
She's had fifteen songs published and recorded by several different
famous artists.
She's been compared to the songwriters for Leanne Rhymes and
Madonna.

This whole homeless thing?
She just does it on the side.
Plus she's in the middle of a major lawsuit where landlord used
space-age technology to transform himself into her boss, steal her work
and money, and block her from her apartment with lasers.
Victor can sympathize.
After all, he's running from the Trailer Trash Kryps who are after him
for his $3 watch, but as soon as Jackie hands over his newborn son, who
is the next messiah, he can get the inheritance his mother left with
his aunt.

Oh, yeah, it's all legit.

I can't tell if their stories turn each other on or force them into
competition.
Victor is suggesting that we become the Three Musketeers who take
Hollywood by storm.
Cindy is suggesting that, as a recovering alcoholic, we should not get
her drink, but we need to pick up some Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Either way, we're walking together.
Suddenly, I'm afraid that other people have the same impression.
That we're together.
Arm in arm.
I'm sure Victor doesn't think we're close enough.
How can he throw me in front of the bullets if I won't stand next to
him?

Cindy asks me what I write.
This is a legitimate question.
Out here, anyway.
I tell her novels.
Novels.
This is a desert where you have to drill cactae for water.
Writing novels is like deciding to drink the sand.
She says what everyone says.
Write a couple screenplays first.
Then you can do what you want.

At least all my grandmother wanted me to do was become a doctor
first.

Then she asks, Have you tried your hand at songwriting?
You'd be good at it.
She would know.

Victor tells her about our video-directing project.
And he isn't one of the people who feigns modesty about his
abilities.
You know.
Decent people.
The only reason I hadn't brought it up is because I thought we were
keeping it a secret.
I thought it was a project specifically reserved for the married na?ve
Swedish chicks we saw playing at Coconut Teasers.
Should we also tell Cindy about how we just left Columbia because Sony
was getting to commercial?

Luckily, Cindy isn't that interested in history.
She wants to know where our studio is.
What kind of equipment do we have?
How much is it worth?

I tell her we don't have anything.
Victor says it's all in a warehouse in Van Nuys.
She believes Victor.

I then ask her, with as much cynicism as I can possibly muster, how she
was getting by until the royalties come in.
As if she was getting by.

She doesn't disappoint.
Cindy confesses that she has some regular people who support her.
I don't need to hear the rest.
Victor is stupid.
Technically, she explains with a shaky and entirely faked
apprehension,
I WAS A CALL GIRL!

Silly.
Bad.

The 7-11 checks ID.
I'm the only one who has one and I'm not old enough.
We therefore have to buy the Mike's from the tiny Mexican store that
takes us half a ghetto mile out of our way.
Once we're in the store, it becomes so much worse than knowing
them.
I become their mother.

Mommy! Mommy!
Buy me some ramen.
Mommy! Mommy!
Buy me this lighter.
Buy me this gum.
This 22 oz. Zima.
A pack of smokes.
Me, too, Mommy.
If she gets smokes, I get smokes.
The alternative would mean I would have to share.

You never know how much money you have until you hang out with the
homeless.
This is why we need to maintain a highly organized and fair thieves
guild.
So they can just take it all at once and you can believe they're
performing a necessary social function.

We leave with me robbed and my two kids smoking like chimneys.

And on the way back to the apartment, Cindy reiterates to me that she
will not be having sex today.
That a pack of Camels and some trendy malt beverages is not going to
land her in the sack.
I fight the urge to ask her how much I can subtract from her regular
price.

Silly.
Bad.

As we're entering my pink stucco complex, opening the security gate
that never locks right, I tell Cindy that my place is a mess.
Sorry it couldn't be cleaned up.
I didn't have much notice.

And she says to me,
Stops me to look in my eyes and say,
Say straight faced with her eyes calling me retarded,
Why don't you get a maid?
No, no.
Hire.
Hire is the word she used.

I laugh.
She says she'll do it.
I laugh again.
Victor asks her how much.
Victor is stupid.
She says we'd have to talk about it.

Walk upstairs.
Through the violent gang of 7 year-olds who think they're cooler than
me.
And probably are.
Whose best friend is the retired hippie who stands old and drunk in his
doorway and throws chunks of cinderblock at them.
It is on this trip upstairs that I realize I'm carrying all the
groceries.

I'm in 214.
Soon enough we all are.
In the living room.
The roaches are still on the kitchen cupboards.
Thank God I'm not in the wrong place.

Victor wants to put on some music.
The stereo starts in with the beat.
The beat of "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails.
I know what he thinks this song means.
He must have set it up before we left.

Silly.
Bad.

Cindy loves this song.
She loves the Mike's, too.
Between the three of us, the Mike's never makes it out of the
bag.
Soon we're mixing Seagram's 7 and tequila.

Ricky's Seagram's and tequila.
Where is Ricky, anyway?
How did he get out of this?
Probably somewhere with my car.
Fucking faggot.
Fag who buys tequila and food for me, yeah.
But still.
Victor hates him for it.
Really, I couldn't care less.
Except when he offered me the blowjob.
That was weird.

The song is long over, but Victor still dances.
Sways in his chair.
Cindy is complimenting the NFNIT Broadcast symbol I have drawn on the
wall.
Copyright it quickly, she says.
People kill for that kind of shit out here.
I start shaking in my boots.

As is par for the course, everything everybody says would be a great
idea for a movie.
Or a TV show.
Why in Hell would you want to turn it into a book?

Time goes on.
Cigarettes burn down.
Eventually, the alcohol is pretty well distributed.
Except in me.
I want to be cognizant.
Know when the fire has started.
Flee the room.
I don't want to end up somewhere silly and bad.

Like inside Cindy's pants.

That subject has thankfully fallen by the wayside.
Has until&;#8230;

This incomprehensible next part happens in an incomprehensible
way.

In my blinking, Cindy had gone to the floor.
She spreads her sweat-panted legs.
Her lips part.
This isn't going to be TV talk.

Not even talk allowed on TV.

Her voice turns Southern,
Shrinks to a little girl,
As she says,
Now we could play guitar or we could all just get naked and jerk off,
'cause I'd love to watch you two stroke your cocks and I'll rub my
little clit around, 'cause you two ain't gonna fuck me, but my pussy
gets wet (and here she leans in and pulls our faces close to hers) and
it's all for you.

I'm thinking, We have a guitar?

Victor stands up.
She presses her ass into his crotch.
He goes, Whoa, baby.
In a second.

Silly.
Bad.

Then the three of us are on the couch.
Cindy is on one end.
Then Victor.
Then several feet of space.
Then me.
We put on a video.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Which upsets me.
Because when I put on Fear and Loathing, I want it to be watched.

Instead, Victor and Cindy soon form the bestial gelatinous unholiness
that I'm pretty sure we all saw coming.
Looking at the screen means looking past them.
So I stare blankly ahead at the unused computer and try not to appear
awkward.
Or hostile.
Hostile is what I would rather be.

Suddenly, Victor has a brilliant plan.
It causes him to rise and walk into the bedroom.
Still-in-Heat Cindy.
Writhing next to me.
One of her tentacles lashes out.
Good reach.
Her elbow locks around my neck.

Please God no.

I am yanked, as if by a fishhook.
Only I didn't get the pleasure of bait.

On top of her.
My face pressed into her neck.

Bad!
Bad!

Her crotch against my knee.
Her hand searching for my crotch.
Her teeth chewing on my ear.
All her body trying to pump me.
Her voice telling me in grumbles to pump her.

And then Victor comes back in.
Victor says,
Says seriously,
With his best attempt at authority,
Don't forget: I get to fuck her first.

Silly.
Bad.

He starts pulling on Cindy's arms.
Trying to drag her into the bedroom.
She clings like an alien.
When he pulls, she wraps me in tighter.
Cindy tells Victor that her and I are a little busy.
My objections are literally muffled in her shoulder.
Oh, so this is how it's gonna be, says Victor.

No!

Yep, says Cindy.
Confident.

You want me to go away, Victor says.

Sweet Jesus, NO!

Yep.
Again, confident.

Well, okay, but, Trevor, he says, I'm really disappointed in you.

A ring in Hell was made- formed shortly after Dante's visit- entirely
for the people that people like Victor are disappointed in.
If the actual Victor is disappointed in you, then you go straight to
the center.
Satan pats you on the back.
And offers you a blowjob.

This had to be Hell.
A nightmare in Hell.
Victor's scorn.
Cindy making a valiant attempt to reach my genitals through my
zipper.

And I swear on everything that is not in this room that my next thought
is, The only thing that could make this worse would be if Heidi, my
girlfriend back in Florida whom I am happily in love with, if she were
to call right

Ring.

I don't even get to finish the thought.
Just go straight to the irony.
After all, she hasn't called in two weeks.

Silly.
Bad.
Victor answers.
I predict his dialogue as he says it.
Hi, Heidi.
Nope.
Trevor's a little busy.

NO!
I finally know the meaning of "exclamation."
I scream it, not even a word anymore, like I'm taking a bullet for the
mayor.
My muscles surge with adrenaline.
Emancipate myself.

On the phone, I don't know what I'm saying.
Too scared.
Too relieved.
The conversation is nothing but awkward silences.

Cindy masturbates on the couch.
Resisting Victor.
Though he finally wins.
Ushers her to the remarkably unnecessary privacy of the boudoir.

I'm on the phone maybe half an hour.
Heidi asks about work.
Tells me about this guy she would be fucking if she wasn't bleeding
from coming off the Depo shot.
None of it sinks in.

I'm counting all the diseases I don't have.

We hang up with an I Love You.
One Heidi tosses off.
One I've never meant more.

And then,
Immediately the situation is back.
Cindy is pantsless.
She bursts out of my room.
Wearing my blanket.

Victor follows.
Only without a blanket.
He shouts, Trevor, don't let her leave like this.

She shouldn't leave drunk.

Silly.
Bad.

Of course I'm not going to let her leave like that.
She has my blanket.

Cindy says she wants to call the cops.
She assures me it's not my fault.
I have been a perfect gentleman.
But she just can't stay here with Victor.
She's not ready for marriage.

My eyes well up with laughter tears.

Victor gets to her.
They struggle.

I just walk out.
Can't remember where.
Out.
Around.
Away.

When I come back, the fag will be there with dinner.
Cindy and Victor will have been executed for excessive silliness.

None of this is how it goes down.

Instead, the fag is still gone.
Cindy and Victor are waiting for me.
Cindy hasn't changed out of my blanket.
Victor is wearing my Portishead shirt.
And my jeans.

He calmly explains,
Sets down,
That Cindy will be living with us now.
She'll sleep in the living room with Victor and Ricky.
We need to pick up her things.

And I see everything that suddenly but surely lies ahead.
The fighting.
Her buying a cheap clock off some crazy Mexican and trying to make me
pay for it.
The 4 a.m. calls when I go home for Christmas.
The drug addictions.
I can hear the sucking sound of my cigarettes and my money and my
patience and my peace being dragged into this wretched future which
will crush it all and me besides.

But I'm a coward.
A pussy.

And deep down, I like that someone is trying to make love here.
Because it doesn't exist here naturally.

I close my eyes.

Silly.
Bad.