LOWLIFE HIGHLIGHTS

Valentine

Excerpt from CURB SERVICE

1987- Once upon a time, when I was some other guy, I took a job as an itinerant portrait photographer with a company that made high school-style yearbooks for churches. I took family group photographs in a portable studio set-up of church-going Americans. I played a fool for the men and children and told all the girls, old and young, they were beautiful. The sage who hired me advised: “If you quit this job before a year is up, you’re a fucking quitter and if you stay with this job for more than two years, you’re a fucking idiot.” I took it to heart. This was my eighth week on a job in Long Beach as an optical camera operator and so I had twenty-two months to go.

People with full-time jobs buy nice cars. I had money coming in but far too little and too late for the debts I had acquired in the course of a year’s unemployment. I had no car insurance, my driver’s license wasn’t valid, and I owed the California courts about a thousand dollars on warrants and unpaid fines. Two of my three credit cards had been shut down. I took the maximum dependents on my paychecks and hadn’t filed taxes in two years. I was supposed to be paying Sylvia three-fifty a month for child support and I was well behind. But if I rationalized, a new car seemed like a good idea.

The Toyota hadn’t seen a hundred-thousand miles for a hundred-thousand miles. I had to pump the brakes just to slow down and often had to incorporate the parking brake to come to a complete stop. It was a stick shift which was a pain in L.A. traffic. I had to check the oil twice daily and add oil at least once daily. The tires were bald. The radio was fucked. The seat cushions were disintegrating patches of foam. The Toyota had not an ounce of style and this was Southern California where you are your car.

I finished an honest day’s work and drove to a wide boulevard of car lots. It was around seven o’clock and they were closing up. I pulled into a new and used Chevy dealer with brightly painted banners: WE’RE CRAZY!!! Through a row of clean bright cars, under strings of bare bulbs, I stopped at a Corvette and checked the driver’s side door; it was unlocked so I climbed in, grabbed the wheel, and said vroom, vroom.

A woman, blonde and tall in a miniskirt and low-cut sweater, came out to assist me. She wore a layer of stucco foundation along with thick mascara and precise red lipstick. She had a face like a beauty contestant and zero sex appeal. She asked me if I was interested in the Corvette and I said not really. She told me she was going to buy a Corvette for herself and she only had to sell one more car for her commissions to equal the purchase of said Corvette. She told me therefore she was ready to give me a crazy deal because she wanted the sale, real real bad. I told her yeah sure and my eye caught, six cars down, a white Camaro. It looked at me with its headlights and wagged its tail. It was slung low and lean with wide tires and diamond studded wheels. It was a year old and still pristine. The saleswoman had the keys, so we got inside, and I cranked the ignition. The previous owner had done something with the mufflers, glass-packs maybe, guttural and sexy, it was beautiful; it vibrated my scrotum and made me grin.

The saleswoman told me the engine size; she told me about the guts and the gewgaws, the miles-per-gallon and the horsepower, but I didn’t pay any attention. This was not love based on numbers and mechanics; this was a Barry White love song. Oh baby baby. You know I need you.

I pulled to the street and tromped the gas and fell back into the bucket seat and shot rockets from the tail pipes. It was all I could do to contain a hillbilly yeehaw. The saleswoman told me she was going to give me the bargain of a lifetime and while I doubted it, I was ready to buy the car.

We spent thirty minutes in her sales office filling out forms and telling lies. She didn’t care if I was good for the loan; for the monthly payment, whether I had insurance or a valid license. It was Friday night and all the financial and governmental institutions were closed until Monday. She wanted to sell the car tonight and I wanted to buy it, and as a bonus she took the Toyota and a postdated check for $700, as a down payment.

I left the lot in my new car. I was high and happy. The driver’s seat gave me a love-filled hug. The radio was newfangled and the speakers surrounded me. I sampled genres and found The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go. I cranked it up.

I cruised to PCH and went south. A misty ocean breeze. Two pelicans high in the sky. Inland to Santa Ana, I turned onto a street I knew to be popular with sisters of the night. I stopped at an intersection, eight crisscross lanes and four signal lights. In the center isle, a go-go girl was dancing the frug, the swim, the monkey, and the dog, drunkenly waving and gesturing to the potential clients jammed together in traffic. She wore a bikini top and white hot-pants, a wide belt with a sparkling valentine buckle. She was an exotic mix of breeds, slight and sinewy with a high-boned face and a cheerleader’s smile. She was sexy and nasty and completely out of her head. She looked like a fun date.

I turned off the radio, tooted my horn and took a straight line, going against every light, in front of every car. The Camaro maneuvered through traffic like a shape shifter. I pulled to a rest at the center island where the hooker was center stage, wild and toxic. I put the Camaro in park and revved it, growling at the other cars, keeping them at bay. I was in love with my new car and for the moment, I was in love with myself.

The hooker pulled up her top and flashed her tits to all the lonely men in cars. She was laughing maniacally, off her nut. She twirled to the Camaro and yelled through the open window. “Hey stud, how would you like to make love to me? Huh, what? Who are you? Who are you?” She beamed me a radiant smile then threw her arms up high and bowed to traffic and flashed her tits again. “I’m the best lover you’re ever gonna get, mister Whoop-de-doo. Cinderella dressed in yella. I’m the best kinky muff in motherfucking America. How’d you like to make love to the best muff in the world, Mister Studly Fartblossom?”

I told her yeah, I might like that and would she like go for a ride in my rocket ship. She shook her ass at the southbound lanes then opened the door and climbed in. I shifted into supersonic and left fiery tire-tracks on the pavement.

“I want to take your picture and I’ll pay you fifty bucks.”

“Give me the fifty, give me the fifty, give me the fifty. Shit fuck. Fifty dollars and seventeen cents. Going once, going twice, sold to Mister Studly Fartblossom.”

“I’m gonna find someplace private where we can get out and take some pictures.”

“I’m gonna find someplace private where we can get out and take some pictures. I just said what you just said. What’s that called?”

“Copycatting.”

“That’s it. Pete and Repeat were in a boat and Repeat fell out. Who was left? You’re lucky you got me because I’m the best model in the world. That’s a proven fact. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Ha ha, just kidding, I know who you are. You’re the lucky motherfucker that gets me for fifty dollars. I’m hot shit and I know it and so do you and so do I.” She stuck her head out the window and screamed three long movie screams then came back inside and said, “Toot, toot. Cocksucker, motherfucker.” She started laughing insanely, loud and shrill, her body flailing about with each exhalation. She couldn’t turn it off and I thought she might fling herself out the window.

I drove us to a small parking lot behind a two-story commercial bunker, gave her fifty dollars. Let’s get out and take some pictures.” I grabbed my photo gear from its new home behind the driver’s seat.

She leaped from the car and hit the pavement twirling. Her hair was long and thick and curly. Her butt was perfect. She smiled like a movie star and she looked like a movie star. Her eyes shone brightly of madness and possibly PCP and I was utterly charmed. She kicked her legs high and straight and yelled. “V-I-C-T-O-R-Y Victory victory is our cry! F you see Kay tell her tough titty. Cocksucker, cocksucker.”

I chased her around, focusing, while she made kinetic art which I froze at a sixtieth of a second. When I was done I said that was great and where can I drop you?

Back in the car she directed me. “Turn right then go left at the light then go straight for about a cunt-hair. You’re taking me home. My kid’s home all alone and I kinda wanna see her again. Home James, you’re my big shit chauffeur now. Just keep going this way. Follow that car. Follow that car. Follow that motherfucking car, James, Mister Raisin Bran Man. No, not really, I’m just fucking you around. Cocksucker, motherfucker.”

“I was the number one model in Las Vegas for six whole years. I’m famous and everybody wants to touch me. You ever heard of Valentine McCandy? Because Valentine McCandy is my name that’s who I am and you’re probably not even anybody.”

I had no idea where we were. The neighborhoods were crumbling block by block as though I were at the wheel of a time machine. I said, “Are you sure you know where we are?”

“Go this way and then left at the light, James. Can you drive a little faster, just keep going straight don’t turn for a while, just keep going straight for a while. I know exactly where we are, just keep going straight. I need to kind of get home faster because my kid, Queen, is all alone. I bet you can never guess who Queen’s daddy is. Not in a million years but I’ll give you a hint. He lives in Las Vegas.”

“Wayne Newton.”

“You guessed it, Hot Pastrami. Wayne Newton. He likes me to lick him all over, and he likes to lick me too. But I need to teach him a lesson. Tom Jones too. Tom Jones wants to marry me and he thinks Queen is his baby but she’s not. I wish you could drive a little faster. I’m getting kind of worried about stuff. We’re getting closer. Make another motherfucking left. Fire fire, run for your life. I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Yeah, so do I. You can’t possibly know where we are. I don’t even think we are still in California.”

“That’s real funny. I know exactly where we are. You just got to go another mile of so. Ouch ouch, that hurts. Stop it, you’re hurting me. Stop hitting me. Ouch ouch that hurts motherfucker. Ha ha got you again, wasn’t anybody hitting me. Nobody can fucking goddamn hurt me, no way, never. If you want to, you can come inside and make love to me. I don’t mind. But most of the time I only make love to famous people.”

She bounced in the seat and touched my thigh, my arm, my neck. Her breath was hot and close. I turned on the air conditioner.

“I used to have fifty million dollars but I gave it all away to people who aren’t as pretty as I am. Maybe you could help me out a little bit with some more money, because I need some more money to help protect my baby from getting killed. I could dance for you. I’m the sexiest dancer in the world. And I’m not just saying that, it’s a proven fact. Turn over there and park, this is it. COCKSUCKER! Who are you? I’ve really been gone a long time, I hope Queen is okay. How come everything is all funny?”

I parked and I told her I was going to come in with her, check the baby and use the bathroom, maybe stay long enough to watch the sexiest dancer in the world.

The neighborhood was beaten down and dark. There were werewolves in the shadows and vultures in the trees. I climbed out and looked at the Camaro and fell in love all over again. I accompanied my funny valentine up the walk.

“When I was in high school, I had my own tutors, and I had a maid who was fat and she had to do everything for me even when I wanted to do it myself. I don’t understand what’s going on. Okay here we are. Something’s wrong with me.”

The sky was slate and the ground was brown. The entire south side of the road had been razed. Tall weeds between hills of trash. Two adolescent girls, barefoot, in shorts and halter tops, sat on a mound of dirt, holding hands and staring at the empty sky. On the north side a row of crumbling adobe single-story apartment buildings. I followed Valentine to a back door framed with little piles of dead toys, empty cans, and a thousand cigarette butts. She turned the knob, but it was locked. “Somebody locked the door and I need to get in there to take care of my baby. Somebody locked the door.” She rattled the knob and knocked on the door. Her face turned green and she began to wobble.

I said, “You know what? I don’t think I should be here after all. I think I’m gonna go.” But I stood there, knowing I should flee. I heard the lock unlock and the door opened and there was an old bewhiskered white guy standing there holding a BB rifle. He was big and homely and wrapped in a fuzzy purple bathrobe. He pumped the gun, three times. Valentine looked at him then looked at me. “Who are you? Who are you? Help, help, somebody save me.” She fell to her knees and regurgitated great splattering globs of fast-food réchauffé. She retched loudly, echoing the night with the sounds of dying creatures. The guy with the gun gave it another pump and aimed it at me. I turned and walked away quickly. I heard the gun spit a BB and I quickened my pace. Back in my new Camaro I cranked it and put a cloud of dust behind me.