Boulevard (3 page)

What a waste, Jimmy thought. She should be out at a movie or on a date—a real date, not this. Jimmy looked at her … and through the thick black mascara, the red and blue tattoo of a tulip on her wrist, and the ice-hard pro in torn fishnets act, she was still a kid. Then the pain hit. His daily dose. He thought about Rancher. His kid. Sixteen. Where was he tonight? God only knows.

All day long he worked like a dog trying like hell to stick a finger in the dike against the drugs, killings, hustlers, serial rapists, child-abusing assholes, and all the other horrendous shit that goes down on the street—but he couldn't even save his own kid. He thought about it every day of his life.

“Help me out with this one,” Jimmy said, “and I'll give you a get out of jail free card.”

“For real?”

“For real. As long as you didn't grease him yourself. But regular shit—dates, drugs—free ride.”

Tulip smiled and pushed open the car door. “Okay. Deal.”

Before she was gone, Jimmy called after her, “You seen Rancher?”

“Not in a while.”

“You see him, ask him to call me. Tell him, no questions, I just wanna talk.”

6
Casey

C
asey walked the Boulevard with Robin, the new girl, both looking down at the bronze stars imbedded in the sidewalk, watching them silently sweep below their feet: Marilyn Monroe, Stevie Wonder, Walt Disney. Those guys she knew. She also knew the astronauts who were on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Walk on the moon, get the best spot on the Boulevard, no complaint with that—but all these other guys—Walter Houston, Marlene Dietrich, Vincent Minnelli, Joanne Woodward—who were they? No one she ever heard of. But they came here, probably from someplace else, like she did, and made it. Made it enough that in a hundred years people will still be looking at their stars, knowing they had done something with their lives. As many times as she walked the Boulevard, she always checked out the stars, and now Robin was doing the same.

Robin told Casey she was from Boston. There was a fight with her parents that ended up with her sister going to jail and Robin running away. Robin wasn't offering anything on the details. Which was okay. Who was she to her anyway? But Casey had no trouble filling in the blanks—if the sister was locked up, this wasn't some little family fight over not doing homework. And Robin didn't come 3000 miles because life was so great back there.

Robin seemed sweet—she was also scared, that was obvious. But so's everybody when they first get here.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Casey said.

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“'Cause there's people who have this place on Vine where you can call your parents. For free. They'll even give you the money to go back home.”

“I just spent four days getting here. No way I'm going back now.”

“You just gotta know, you gotta be tough here …” Casey looked at Robin and knew what Robin had to be feeling. Robin was cute, with shoulder length black hair and nice blue eyes. So she probably had jerks hitting on her all the time in school. And Casey would bet it wasn't just kids—adults too. Maybe it was somebody in her own family. Probably it was a lot worse than just being hit on. Maybe Robin was strong and got through it okay. But in her heart of hearts, Robin had to know she really wasn't tough at all. She was just a kid from the suburbs who always had a roof over her head and a refrigerator full of food. She was trying to look calm, like she had it all covered, but Casey knew, inside, Robin was shaking like crazy—and however rough she thought it was here, she couldn't imagine the reality.

“See,” Casey said, “lots of kids come here saying they're tough enough to make it on the Boulevard, but they find out real fast—”

Before Casey could finish, Robin cut her off: “
Anything's
gotta be better than what I left behind.”

Casey stopped.

“I know,” Casey said. “I know.”

7

T
en months ago Casey
was
Robin. Everything in her life sucked, and Hollywood was the lighthouse …

She pushed her head out from under the rain shelter and searched the darkness for the Seattle city bus. Freezing rain pelted Casey's face. Her jeans jacket and flannel shirt were drenched and pressed heavy and cold against the skin of her back. The shelter glass, with an enormous, brightly lit perfume ad of a woman, sun-drenched and laughing in a bridal dress, protected Casey from the rain. Not all the rain—some flew in from the side. Unbelievable. Not only does it never stop raining here, but it rains from the side, too. It pours from the top. It does everything but rain straight up. The bus wouldn't come. She shuffled her feet back and forth. More than anything, she hated being cold—there were days when the only time she felt truly warm was in the shower, the hot water cascading around her. Sometimes she would take two, or even three showers in a day, and for those fifteen minutes she felt happy, like she had somehow escaped. Still no bus. And then—there it was, its headlights pushing through the night, reflecting on the wall of rain. She was the only rider. Sitting half-way back and bathed under the fluorescent lights, she pushed her hair back and looked at her reflection in the glass. Her face was wet. But not from tears.
Just wet.

On the porch, she rang the bell. Beside the door was a couch resting on two legs; it tilted down sharply into a puddle caused by a busted drain pipe, which spilled a constant rush of water. A flower pot in front of the couch held a shriveled skeleton of something, probably a poinsettia plant from last Christmas or the Christmas before. Ringing the poinsettia remains were crushed cigarette butts and water-logged matchbooks. A light came on inside. God, she was glad to be here. The door opened. She would understand. She
had
to understand.

“Casey. Baby.”

“Mommy.”

Casey fell into her, laying her chin on her mother's shoulder, pushing her face into her hair.

Casey sat across from Deidre at a faded yellow Formica kitchen table. Deidre was wearing a long silk robe that Casey had bought her two years ago in Chinatown. She pushed a strand of straight blonde hair off her face. Casey noticed her mom's roots were dark. Her face was developing lines, especially across her forehead, but considering she was putting in eight to ten hours a day standing on a fish processing line, she still looked pretty good. Casey had on a big Irish wool sweater Deidre had given her. The dryer rattled in the nook off the kitchen, and on the wall, a black kitty-cat clock ticked, the cat's eyes swinging back and forth with each passing second, and loud enough for Casey to never forget it was there.

“He's an animal,” Deidre said. “We should call the cops on him.”

“Like something would really happen.”

“We'd make it stick.”

“Like it did last time?”

Casey stared at her mom, and she looked away.

“I'm sorry, honey,” Deidre said. “I'm so sorry.”

“I fell asleep watching TV, and then … it's just like it was before.”

“Baby …”

Deidre circled around the table and gently stroked Casey's hair. She liked that. Deidre pulled her hair into a ponytail and kept running her hands through it. Casey shut her eyes. Since she was a little girl, she had
always
liked having her hair stroked. Life could be crashing all around her, but her mother's fingers, moving smoothly and gently through her hair made her feel protected and loved.

“I can stay here, right?”

Deidre paused a moment. And in that moment, Casey knew things were going south.
Here it comes
… Don't let it come … Please. Count to three and she won't say it. One … two … three … She didn't say it—out of the woods! But Deidre gripped Casey's hand.

“Honey, you can't. You know what Tom thinks.”

“But you got some say in this, too, don't you?”

“Sure. But so does he. We're together.”

“I'll be at school all day. He'll hardly ever see me.”

“You remember what happened last time? You two just don't—”

“That was before—”

“Baby—”

“
He
was the one cheating on you. If I had to do it again, I'd still tell you I saw him with Mrs. Magnuson.”

“That's over.”

“Yeah. Thanks to me.”

“Casey honey, look at me. I'm no kid no more. I gotta make it go with Tom.”

Casey got it. She pulled off her mom's sweater and laid it on the back of her chair. She got it.

“I can at least spend the night, right?”

“Sure. I'll call my sister in the morning. She'll take care of you. I'll
make
her take care of you.”

Casey lay on the couch, her legs tucked into a sleeping bag. She pulled the zipper the rest of the way up, sealing the bag up to her chin. Her mom was
making
her sister take her. Great offer—live on a tiny, freezing houseboat, an hour and a half from school with a sixties burnout who was in and out of rehab, and wanted a kid around like she wanted a hole in her head.

The room was dark except for the light of the TV, where silent videos threw back soft, ever-changing colors, that danced over her face. Through the living room wall she heard her mother and her shithead boyfriend, Tom.

“I don't care,” the shithead said.

“One night!”

“One night? Bullshit, one night. You expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah. I do,” Deidre said. “One night. That's all. Tomorrow she'll go. What's the matter with you?”

“What's the matter with me? I'm not the one messing around with my father.”

“That's
molested
by her father! Jesus, Tom, this is my little girl!”

Silence.

Casey hated him. She hated herself.

“We're talking one night, okay?”

“Okay. Okay … Jesus fucking Christ!”

They went on. Casey pulled her head still deeper into the bag and pulled the cord tight, making it quiet and warm.

At five to eight the next morning, Casey was on a bus leaving for LA. Later, whenever she remembered sitting there, she thought how crazy it was—kids come to LA from all over the country, for all kinds of reasons—some think it's gonna be something right out of
Pretty Woman
—they'll be working Sunset as a beautiful hooker and a Richard Gere type in a mile-long limo will pull up, they'll fall in love, and she'll be taken care of forever by the hottest, richest guy in the city. Other kids spend their last ten bucks to get to Hollywood, thinking that if they can get a gig at the Whiskey, instead of buying CDs, they'll be
on
the CDs. There's also the kids who are the only gay boys in some fucked-up little town, and they figure LA will be full of gay boys just like them, sort of a queer paradise where you can fuck your buddies all you want, and no one says boo. Plus there are the girls who are the hottest thing in their high school class, the cutest faces, buffest bodies, who
know
there are movie roles and modeling contacts just waiting for them. And there's kids who all their lives see LA in the movies and on TV and say things like, “everyone in my town talks about coming to LA, but they didn't have the balls, like I did, to just do it.” But, Casey, she didn't have any of those things. All she knew, was she
had
to get out of there, and she wanted to go where it never rained and was always warm.

As the bus pulled onto the street, waves of rain swept across the window. Casey tore open the Velcro on her wallet and carefully counted her money: after the bus ticket, bagels, and the orange juice, she had $79 left. It wasn't a fortune. She didn't care. She didn't look back at the city. She never wanted to see Seattle again.

8

T
he Hollywood bus station was tiny. Casey couldn't believe it.
This
was Hollywood? When the bus pulled in, she asked the driver if it was the right place. The main depot was downtown he said, but if you wanted Hollywood, this was it. She walked through the station, her backpack slung across her shoulder expecting something cool … something
Hollywood
. She went up to a newsstand. The woman behind the counter was in her sixties, with a big, juicy mole on the right side of her chin, and long white hairs growing out of it. She was watching a fuzzy black and white TV and Casey had to almost yell to be heard over the news. Some guy had just shot someone and was speeding down a freeway as the cops chased after him. You could see it all from a camera they had up in a helicopter. The anchorwoman, who looked like some kind of grown-up beauty queen, was talking about how whenever these things happened, it usually ended with the guy being shot by the police. No wonder the lady was so into it. Casey called over the TV to her.

“Miss, can you tell me how to get to Santa Monica?”

Santa Monica
. Casey loved the name. On the bus, someone had left behind a
San Francisco Chronicle
, and Casey read about Michelle Pfeiffer, and that's where she lived. It was on the beach, and there was a pier there where Michelle would take her kids that had all sorts of rides, including the most beautiful merry-go-round Casey had ever seen. Someone had to work at the rides. Why couldn't she? If Santa Monica was good enough for Michelle Pfeiffer, it was good enough for her.

“Boulevard or city?” the lady said. She didn't turn an inch from the TV.

“What?”

“You want Santa Monica Boulevard, or Santa Monica City?”

“The city. Where the beach is, right?”

“You got another hour on the RTD bus.”

“Do you know what number bus?”

“I told you, it's outside.”

“What number?”

“Outside.”

Casey leaned into the heavy glass door, but unexpectedly it opened with ease. Above her head, was a hand with a gold bracelet, pushing on the glass for her.