My Dark Places

I stared at my father’s World War I medals—miniatures encased in glass. The aggregation marked him one big hero. He was born in 1898 and was three months shy of 50 when I was born. I kept wondering how much time he had left.

I liked to cook for myself. My favorite meal was hot dogs scorched on a coil burner. My mother’s canned spaghetti dinners were nowhere near as good.

I always watched TV with the lights off. I got hooked on Tom Duggan’s Channel 13 gabfest and tuned in every night. Duggan was half hipster, half right-wing blowhard. He abused his guests and talked about booze constantly. He portrayed himself as a misanthrope and a lech. He struck a deep chord in me.

His show ended around 1:00 a.m. My summer ’58 rituals got scary then.

I was usually too agitated to sleep. I started imagining my father’s death by homicide and car crash. I waited up for him in the kitchen and counted the cars that went by on Beverly Boulevard. I kept all the lights off—to show that I wasn’t afraid.

He always came home. He never told me that sitting in the dark was a strange thing to do.

We lived poor. We had no car and relied on the L.A. bus system for transport. We consumed an all-grease- sugar-and-starch diet. My father did not touch alcohol—but compensated for it by smoking three packs of Lucky Strikes a day. We shared a single bedroom with our malodorous dog.

None of this bothered me. I was well fed and had a loving father. Books provided stimulation and a sublimated dialogue on my mother’s death. I possessed a quietly tenacious ability to exploit what I had.

My father gave me free run of the neighborhood. I explored it and let it fuel my imagination.

Our apartment building stood at Beverly Boulevard and Irving Place. It was the edge of Hollywood and Hancock Park— a significant juncture of styles.

Small stucco houses and walk-up apartment buildings ran to the north. They ended at Melrose Avenue and the Paramount and Desilu Studio lots. The streets were narrow and grid-straight. Spanish-style facades dominated.

Beverly to Melrose. Western Avenue to Rossmore Boulevard. Five blocks north to south and seventeen blocks east to west. Movie studios to modest houses to a row of stores and cocktail pits to the Wilshire Country Club. Half of my wandering turf—about half the size of El Monte.

The eastern edge featured wood-framed houses and garish new apartment dumps. The western edge was a mid-L.A. Gold Coast. I dug the high-rise Tudor fortresses with doormen and wide entry ports. The Algiers Hotel- Apartments stood at Ross-more and Rosewood. My father said the place was a glorified “fuck pad.” The bellboys ran a string of good-looking hookers.

My northern roaming flank was topographically diverse. I liked to watch the view decline wrest to east. Odd blocks were nicely tended. Odd blocks were dirty and run-down. I liked the Polar Palace Skating Rink at Van Ness and Clinton. I liked the El Royale Apartments—because they sounded like “Ellroy.” The Algiers was thrilling. Every woman walking in and out was potentially a hooker.

I liked my northern roaming flank. Sometimes it scared me—kids riding by on their bikes would swerve my way or flip me the finger. Small confrontations would drive me south for days.

My southern roaming flank stretched from Western to Rossmore and Beverly to Wilshire Boulevard. The eastern edge had one draw: the public library at Council and St. Andrews. It was negligible prowl turf.

I loved to prowl due south and southwest, Ist Street, 2nd Street, 3rd Street, 4th Street, 5th Street, 6th Street, Wilshire. Irving, Windsor, Lorraine, Plymouth, Beachwood, Larchmont, Lucerne, Arden, Rossmore.

Hancock Park.

Large Tudor houses and French chateaus. Spanish mansions. Broad front lawns, trellised arbors, tree-lined curbsides and an air of time-warp containment. Perfectly circumscribed order and wealth a few blocks from my shit-encrusted home.

Hancock Park hypnotized me. The landscape held me spellbound.

I roamed Hancock Park. I walked and gawked and strolled and trolled. I cinched Minna to her leash and let her pull me down Irving to Wilshire three or four times a day. I prowled the shops on Larchmont Boulevard and boosted books at Chevalier’s.

I developed crushes on houses and girls glimpsed in windows. I constructed elaborate Hancock Park fantasies. My father and I would crash Hancock Park and make it our own kingdom.

I did not covet Hancock Park from any kind of aggrieved perspective. I owned the place with my imagination. It was enough—for a while.

The summer of ’58 ended. I enrolled in the sixth grade at Van Ness Avenue Elementary School. My roaming jaunts were drastically curtailed.

Van Ness Avenue School was genteel. Nobody offered me marijuana. My teacher pampered me a little. She probably knew my mom was a murder victim.

I was becoming quite a large kid. I was foulmouthed and spouted profane lingo on the schoolyard. My father’s favorite expression was “Fuck you, Fritz.” His favorite expletive was “cocksucker.” I mimicked his language and reveled in its shock value.

I was refining my Crazy Man Act. It kept me miserably lonely and sealed up in my own little head.

My reading tastes were growing more sophisticated. I’d gone through all the Hardy Boys and Ken Holt books and was tired of pat plots and simple closures. I wanted more violence and more sex. My father recommended Mickey Spillane.

I stole some Spillane paperbacks. I read them and got titillated and scared. I don’t think I followed the plots very well— and I know it didn’t hinder my enjoyment. I dug the shooting and the sex and Mike Hammer’s anti- Communist fervor. The total package was just hyperbolic enough to keep me from getting too frightened. It wasn’t rock-bottom blunt and horrific— like my mother and the Blonde and the Dark Man.

My father was permitting me more freedom. He told me I could go to the movies by myself and take Minna out for her late walks.