My Dark Places

the movie.

Cathy was socially dense and love-starved. I found it appealing. She disdained formal date activities. She craved park-the-car make-out action.

Which meant hugging and kissing sans tongues.

We “made out” several weekend nights running. The no-tongue/no-skin policy drove me insane. I begged for more contact. Cathy refused. I begged some more. Cathy threw a big diversion at me.

She planned a string of get-togethers with her school chums. The diversion got me inside looks at several juicy Hancock Park pads.

I liked the plush furnishings. I liked the big rooms. I liked the wood panels and oil paintings. This was my old voyeur prowl world—close-up and intimate.

Cathy introduced me to her friend Anne. Anne was 6?1?, blond and strapping. She never got dates.

I called Anne up and asked her out. We went to a movie and necked in Fern Dell Park. She shot me some tongue. It was gooooood.

I called up Cathy and broke our thing off. Anne called me and told me to stay out of her life. I called Fritz’s sister Heidi and asked her out. She told me to buzz off. I called Heidi’s friend Kay and asked her out. She told me she was a committed Christian and only went out with saved guys.

I wanted more love. I wanted sex with no schoolgirl limits. I wanted to see some more Hancock Park pads.

Fritz maintained a little room adjoining his garage. He kept his records and stereo shit there. It was his hideout. He never let his parents or sister in. Lloyd, Daryl and I had keys.

The room was 20 yards from the main house. The house tantalized me. It was my favorite sex-fantasy backdrop.

I broke in one night. It was late ’66.

Fritz and his family were out somewhere. I got down on the ground beside the kitchen door and stuck my left arm through a pet-access hole. I tripped the inside latch and let myself in to the house.

I walked around. I kept the lights off and prowled upstairs and down. I checked the medicine cabinets for dope and filched a few painkillers. I poured myself a double scotch and popped the pills right there. I washed the glass I used and put it back where I found it.

I walked through Heidi’s bedroom. I savored the smell of her pillows and went through her closet and drawers. I buried my face in a stack of lingerie and stole a pair of white panties.

I left the house quietly. I didn’t want to blow a shot at reentry. I knew I’d touched another secret world.

Kay lived directly across the street. I broke into her house a few nights later.

I called the house from Fritz’s back room and got no answer. I walked over and checked entry points.

I found an open window overlooking the driveway. It was covered by a screen secured with bent nails. I pried two bottom nails loose, removed the screen and vaulted into the house.

It was strange turf. I turned a few lights on for a second to acclimate myself.

There was no liquor cabinet. There was no good shit in the medicine chests. I hit the refrigerator and stuffed myself with cold cuts and fruit. I explored the house upstairs and down— and saved Kay’s bedroom for last.

I looked through her school papers and stretched out on her bed. I examined a clothes hamper stuffed with blouses and skirts. I opened dresser drawers and held a table lamp over them for light. I stole a matching bra and panties.

I replaced the window screen and bent the nails back to hold it in place. I walked home very7 high.

Burglary was voyeurism multiplied a thousand times.

Kathy lived in a big Spanish house at 2nd and Plymouth. She was my longtime secret love.

She was tall and slender. She had dark brown hair, brown eyes and freckles. She was intelligent, sweet-natured and altogether gracious. I was afraid of her for no justifiable reason.

I broke into her house. It was a very cold night in early ’67.

I called her number and got no answer. I walked over to the house and saw no lights on and no cars in the driveway. I walked around to the back and tried to slide some windows open. The third or fourth one was unlatched.

I pulled myself inside. I stumbled around the first floor and turned lights on for a split second. I found a liquor sideboard and guzzled out of every bottle on it. I got a slam-bang-heavy booze rush and walked upstairs.

I couldn’t tell whose bedroom was whose. I lay down on all the beds and found female undergarments in an armoire and chest of drawers. The sizing on the bras and panties confused me. I stole two sets to make sure I had Kathy’s.

I found some prescription downers in a medicine chest. I stole three and chased them with a weird-ass liqueur. I went out that back window, weaved home and passed out on my bed.

I kept doing it. I went at it with uncharacteristic restraint.

I quit popping pills at the scene. I only stole fetishistic booty. I went back to Heidi’s, Kay’s and Kathy’s houses at odd intervals and stayed inside no more than 15 minutes. I aborted my mission if I found my entry points secured.

The thrill was sex and other worlds briefly captured. Burglary gave me young women and families by extension.

I burglarized my way through ’67. I never strayed outside Hancock Park. I tapped the homes of my dream girls exclusively.

Heidi, Kay and Kathy. Missy at 1st and Beachwood. Julie three doors down and across the street from Kathy.