My Dark Places

I had a big crime backlog to embellish.

The Watts riot was recent and hot. The Ma Duncan case was a slick golden oldie. I walked Ma to the gas chamber a hundred fantasy times.

Doc Finch and Carole Tregoff were rotting in prison. I saved Carole from jailhouse dykes and made her my woman. I snuck into Chino and snuffed Spade Cooley. Ella Mae got her vengeance at last. I committed Stephen Nash’s murders and pulled B&Es with Donald Keith Bashor.

Booze gave me prime verisimilitude. Details blipped off my brain pan in vivid new colors. Narrative twists emerged unexpectedly.

Booze gave me crime hyperbolized and rendered more subtle. It gave me the Black Dahlia on a broad historical scale.

I drank by myself and screened crime and crime-sex fantasies for hours. I drank with Lloyd and got him hooked on the Dahlia. We discussed the case at great length. My occasional Dahlia nightmares ceased altogether.

I stole most of my liquor and found an adult to purchase some for me legally. He was a Negro wino living under a freeway embankment. He called himself Flame-O. He said the cops dubbed him that because he tended to torch himself when he got drunk.

Flame-O bought me bottles. I paid him in short dog jugs of Thunderbird wine. He told me I was wino bait myself. I didn’t believe him.

Lloyd and Fritz reintroduced me to weed. I dug it ferociously. It added a surreal edge to my fantasies and made food a rich sensual pleasure. I knew it wouldn’t turn me into a junkie. That was strictly a 1958 illusion.

1965 faded out. It was one motherfucker of a year.

Rudy kissed me off. He figured out I was worthless and not a sincere right-winger. I turned 18 in March ’66. I was now a street-legal adult.

And an unemployed petty thief about to lose his government handout.

I unkenneled the dog and brought her home. She went to work on the floors immediately. I pondered my future. I concluded that I couldn’t live without my survivor’s dole.

I had to go back to school to keep the dough coming. Lloyd was going to a freako Christian high school. The freight was $50 a month. My dole came to $130. I could attend a few classes and retain a net profit of 80 bucks monthly.

Lloyd and I discussed the matter. He told me I’d have to take a convincing dive for Jesus. I memorized some Bible verses and went in to see the principal of Culter Christian Academy.

I put on a good show. I strutted my new faith in high histrionic style. I believed what I was saying for the length of time I was saying it. I possessed a chameleon soul.

I enrolled at Culter Academy. The place was packed with born-again psychos and doper malcontents. I attended secular classes and Bible study groups. It was brain-deadening rebop straight down the line. I knew I couldn’t take this shit five days a week.

I attended school sporadically. The Culter staff cut me some slack—I was a tormented but sincere young Christian. I stiffed them for two months’ tuition and dropped out completely. My brief conversion netted me $260.

My government benefits stopped. My income dropped to a C-note a month. My rent was $60. I could stretch the remaining $40—if I stole all my food and liquor and scrounged dope off my friends.

I did it. I extended my shoplifting range and hit markets and liquor stores way north and way west. I was bone-skinny. I jammed steaks and bottles under my pants and did not display telltale bulges. I wore my shirttails out. I bought small items to justify my presence in stores.

I was a pro.

Lloyd, Fritz and Daryl could score dope. I couldn’t. I had an adult-free pad they could kick back in. They supplied me with grass and pills.

I didn’t like Seconal and Nembutal. They made you goofy and near-catatonic. LSD was okay—but the attendant transcendental message left me cold. Lloyd and Fritz popped acid and went to see epics like Spartacus and The Greatest Story Ever Told. I went with them a few times and ditched the movies midway through. Sandals and resurrection—Snoresville. I sat in the lobby and hallucinated on candy-counter girls.

Fritz knew some Dr. Feelgoods who dispensed amphetamines. The stuff kept him hyper-focused during long study sessions. USC was tough going. Fritz said the uppers gave him an edge.

He dumped his excess stash on me. Dexedrine and Dexamyl jacked my fantasy life up six levels.

My narrative skills expanded sixfold. Speed-induced palpitations kineticized the whole process.

Speed highs went through my brain and lodged in my virgin genitalia.

Speed was sex. Speed gave my sex fantasies a new coherent logic. Speed gave me 40-ish redheads and Hancock Park girls. Speed gave me epic jackoff sessions.

I pounded my pud for 12 to 18 hours straight. It felt so gooooood. I’d lie on my bed with the dog asleep beside me. I’d slam the ham with my eyes shut and the lights out.

Amphetamine comedowns terminated my fantasies. The dope passed through my system and left me depressed and sleep-deprived. I drank myself into a nether world then. Booze ascended while speed receded. I always passed out grasping for some woman.

Fritz lost his speed connection. I lost mine by default. I got gnawingly hungry for real love and sex.

I wanted a girlfriend and unlimited poontang. Fritz’s sister set me up with her friend Cathy.

Cathy went to Marlborough—an exclusive Hancock Park girl’s school. She was plain-featured and chubby. We went to see The Sound of Music on our first date. I lied and told Cathy that I really liked