An’ me? What was I thinkin’? Well...fact of the matter is, I wasn’t. But I still wasn’t so sure about sayin’ okay, just yet. I guess he thought I was about to say, No, so he sat on an arm of the couch, tryin’ to look all sweet an innocent.
“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll make you a bet. You do it and you get him off, the car’s yours. Along with a thousand dollars. You don’t, you give me a full-scale freebie. Anything I want for one night. I’ll use that as my substitute fantasy.”
He was grinnin’ in this sort of bad-little-boy way, then. An’ fuck me if it didn’t make me grin right back at him.
“On one condition,” I said before I even realized I said it. Then I saw from the corner of my eye that Wayne was lookin’ at me like I was sicker than Lenny, an’ that made me smirkier.
“What’s that?” Lenny asked.
“There was a guy, my last year of high school, he’s the one got me sent to jail. If your boy could look like him, it’d give me a fantasy, too.”
“Revenge by proxy. I love it. What are the specifics?”
“You mean, what’s he look like? Sort of Italian. Long face. Taller’n me. Not as built up but solid. He played baseball. Short dark hair. That’d be close enough. Oh, an’ one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s gotta be cut. His dick, I mean.”
“Circumcised?” said Lenny. “No problem with that.”
Wayne was all up an’ down about it. “Lenny! Curt! Will you stop a minute and think! You’re not just talking about you two! There’ll be another person involved! What’ll this do to him? Have you considered that?”
“Considered what a bit more sex than they planned on is going to do to a whore?” Lenny shot back. “Who’ll be paid for the extra trouble? Who wouldn’t hesitate for a second to rip us off or use us to get more money? As you know has happened.” Which gave me more of a clue as to why Lenny really wanted to do it. Then he turned to me, shakin’ a little, an’ said, “Do you have any problem with that?”
Still not thinkin’, I took a deep breath an’ shook my head an’ shook his hand an’ said, “Fuck, no. Set it up.”
Then I gave him my phone number an’ headed home.
Chapter Three
It’s funny, but after agreein’ to that bet, somethin’ in me shifted. I didn’t really notice it, at first; it’s like it happened way down deep an’ took its time workin’ its way up to my brain. But lookin’ back, I can see how, when I walked home, I looked at everything different.
An’ yeah, I walked all the way back to fuckin’ Hollywood. I will not in any way, form or fashion ride the fuckin’ bus. Fuckin’ ass-wipes who run the Metro system but ride to work in limos, they let the fuckin’ things get to where they’re disgustin’. Old skanky busses that break down more than they work. Spittin’ exhaust in through a two-bit a/c that ain’t good enough for a fuckin’ Honda. Seats covered with gum an’ spit an’ ink an’ God knows what else. Dozens of smelly little “third-worlders” sittin’ side by side or standin’ forty deep an’ chatterin’ in some bastard-style Mexican crap, or big black bucks handin’ out attitude to anybody they fuckin’ feel like ‘cause they got no other way to be anybody. Me in with all them people yellin’ an’ fightin’ an’ all that shit? In a sardine can on wheels? Fuck, I knew real quick I’d kill somebody if I had to ride one of them fuckin’ things every day. So I did shanks mare to my jobs an’ anywhere else I had to go. Helped me blow off steam an’ kept me from gettin’ too close to any assholes.
So that night, as I’m walkin’ home from Lenny’s -- feelin’ really good from the blow job an’ the two-fifty in my pocket an’ the buzz from the beers an’ even the bet -- I dunno why, but it was like I’d never walked down Santa Monica before. All the buildin’s were new. All the lights were bright an’ cheerful. All the traffic was steady an’ fun to watch. I saw this tiny little park at the corner of Crescent Heights an’ wondered when the hell they put that in. I passed under street lights with big bright globes on ‘em an’ thought, “Ain’t that neat?” I saw how many trees lined the sidewalks an’ occasional islands in the middle of the road, all for the first time.
My whole attitude about Santa Monica changed. I always thought it was kind of a second-class street, the kind I’d always wind up goin’ down. Not like Wilshire. Wilshire, no matter where you are on it, it’s got class. It’s got attitude. Style, even. But Santa Monica always seemed to be -- I dunno, sayin’ it was sorry for bein’ so full of potholes an’ for havin’ such narrow sidewalks an’ for bein’ so old an’ out of touch. Even when it passed through west West Hollywood, where it was spilt in half by trees, an’ when it cut through B-Hills an’ had a park on one side, it still felt sorry. Still felt like it was back alley. But not no more. Now it wasn’t a crowded street in a too-big city full of five million languages; now it was a huntin’ ground, an’ I was a lion on the
