How to Get Into the Twin Palms (6 page)

The Weather Channel said it was 100 degrees and the streets were empty. Hot and dry and hard to breathe. They commanded the old people to stay inside and guard small children from the sun. There was no cover for them. Two fires had broken out in the valley and they had already named them. The Moorpark and the Tierra Rejada. I liked Tierra Rejada better although some of the newscasters were having trouble saying it correctly. Ash was coming down in specks on the cars on Fairfax. The air was hot
and I knew if I kept the windows open my room would begin to smell like smoke at night. It happened every year during the Santa Anas. The fires. It made everyone crazy, wild-eyed, more so than even earthquakes. I had already lived through two of those here, so one more earthquake wasn’t going to do a thing.

It was too hot to walk around during the day. The sun was cruel and I was too hung over to want to sweat. When the sun went down the heat stayed. The wind blew back and forth and I wanted to see the city at its best. I walked up Fairfax. Up past the aging costume store, worn out castles painted on the side of a building, trying to depict princes and kings and jousts. It was a weak representation of medieval times and was getting torn down to build high-priced condos anyway. I didn’t know how much they could get for places that had a view of Genghis Cohen and the Oki-Dog stand. They could try. I walked up Fairfax toward Sunset and watched the cars get nicer and nicer. Small rusted compact Japanese cars covered in ash became Lamborghinis and Bentleys covered in ash. Those cars had windshield wipers working furiously to get rid of the ash. Those cars were speeding back and forth trying to escape the ash. I walked down Sunset toward the up-lit billboards advertising booze and women and jeans and dresses and everything I wanted and my unemployment check could not afford me. I walked past the roads leading up into the hills and the houses slanting down the hills. The Chateau – Los Angeles’s own castle, and past the fraying palm trees. They were dropping fruit and fronds all along the boulevard, down on girls holding down their dresses and plastic bags careening through the air. The ash was mixing with the fruit and the dust and burning my eyes. People were taking cover in the bar with the electric bull and mini-burger sliders. I wanted to go in but the idea of walking around with a phallic plastic Mai Tai cup with multi-colored straws made my stomach turn. I would keep on my path, keep on Sunset. I thought about walking all the way to the ocean, miles, over the 405 but gave up
quickly and turned down Doheny. Tired already. Los Angeles was on fire. Lev was gone. And I had shrapnel in my eyes from the palm trees and burning hills. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The Hollywood Hills weren’t on fire. Franklin and above were fine. So were Doheny Estates. It was just the valley that was on fire. But somehow the wind carried the smoke and remnants of mobile homes and cul-de-sacs and tract homes all the way here, to sit on the swimming pools of the owners of the rose bushes in the Doheny Estates. Greystone Manor adjacent.

 

The fires made the air ten degrees hotter. The Citibank thermometer said it was really 109 degrees. There was a faint buzzing in the air, quieter than the rumbling buses. But there I could hear it and walk toward it, toward low hanging branches, and I saw the flicks through the night. They were flying in a tornado formation. They kept me in the eye as I walked up Fairfax; past the people already lined up for a chance to get on The Price is Right. Some wore shirts that matched. Some already had The Price is Right t-shirts. They were veterans. They sat on lawn chairs, smarter than those who had simply set down jackets to sit on. One man had foam fingers and multi-colored plush hats and wild eyeglasses – owlish and round.

I couldn’t concentrate on that right now. I was being surrounded by bees. Hornets or yellow-jackets. I couldn’t tell. The swarm was moving too quickly. The dirt from the empty lot was being kicked up around me. I picked up speed, a clipped walk. A bee flicked into my cheek and I started to run. I tried to outpace the bees. They continued to flick against my face. One, two, three, then four flicks at once. No stings. Just kamikaze bees careening toward my face, attacking my arms. Then I felt one. A bee crawling around my bra, inside the cup. I wrestled my hand into my shirt. Down, through the v-neck opening as I pushed it aside with my palm. I stuck my hand into the cup and worked my hand down, looking for the bee. I stopped running, stooped
down, jiggled my bra with both hands and tried to untangle the bee. It stung me.

“Fuck.”

The bees continued their tornado down the street, back under their tree as I held the dead bee in my hand. Their comrade. His face was flat, black and yellow. I cupped him in my hands and sat down on the sidewalk. I stared down inside the cup of my bra. I had a pink bump growing on the underside of my breast. Next to stretch marks I had never noticed before. It hurt.

The wings of the bee shimmered in the orange streetlight. Not shimmered, really. Gleamed. It was dead and my breast was swelling and now I had discovered stretch marks. I threw the bee in the gutter, got up, and started walking back to the apartment.

I walked up the stairs to my door, stared at my balcony, and saw Lev sitting there.

I knew my hair was in disarray. I had ripped my hands through it in a bee fit, when I felt little wings beating against my scalp.

I wasn’t ready for Lev.

 

“You look like shit.” He smiled at me. It was his come on.

I smiled at him demurely, “Thank you.”

I walked into the apartment and shut the door. I heard him knock. I opened it. I didn’t care. He pushed me against the wall and he pulled my shirt up. He had the intoxicating smell, onions and cologne, and I wanted to press my face into the crevice of his armpit but I didn’t.

He kissed me hard and I let him and he tugged at my hair and I let him. He kissed my breast. The swollen one. I cringed. It hurt. He bit it. I screamed. He didn’t stop. When I pushed him away he fell against the couch.

“What’s the matter, Anka? You don’t like me?”

I smiled at him. I felt woozy, as if I had caught his intoxication. “I like you fine.”

I smiled at him weakly. My shirt on the floor. The V stretched at the seams. My bra on the floor.

“Why don’t you come sit on the couch, on my lap?” He sat down and patted his lap.

I stared down at my swelling breast and thought about his offer. I walked over slowly. He was already undoing his belt, then the button, then the zipper. Untucking his shirt. Pulling the ends out from his waistband. Unbuttoning each button hurriedly and pulling it away from his undershirt. The armpits were stained yellow. He didn’t notice but I couldn’t help but stare. He pawed at me. Pulled at me. Made my choice for me.

“Stop acting, Anka.”

He pulled me on top of him and he pulled at my hair, let the rest of the tendrils loose.

I pulled my head back, in motion with his tug.

He liked that.

I could tell.

He leaned in close to my breasts. Kissed at them. He saw the swelling. Touched it.

“What happened,
devochka
?”

“Bee sting.”

He kissed it gently. Let go of my hair. Tried to be tender. It was nice and I liked it and I knew I shouldn’t be letting him do what he was doing. He didn’t deserve me but it felt nice and I wasn’t going to make him stop. He pulled me into my room and took my clothes off and for once I was able to drown out the sound of the birds outside.

 

When we finished he rolled over and wouldn’t look at me. I stared at his back. It was fleshy and white and reminded me of the underside of a whale. He had faint stretch marks above his ass and his ass was hairy. He wasn’t turning around and I had to focus on something. There were a few pimples as well. I began to wonder if I had pimples on my ass too. I could hear him
snoring lightly and felt that our fucking didn’t warrant a nap. It wasn’t hours. Or even half an hour. It was more like 20 minutes. The kind of sex where you hurriedly put your underwear back on… made sure you were posing so that the dimples on the side of your thigh were not visible and your breasts looked high and perky, not flat like pancakes. But he wasn’t behaving like that. He wasn’t tugging on his underwear. He wasn’t looking at me. He was asleep in my bed and I wondered how long he would stay there. I didn’t have the right to touch his back or get in close to him or coax him into letting me into his arms. We were strangers. I wanted a Misty Ultra Light bad, or maybe just a 120. I was scared to get up and wake him. I figured he was immovable and he was taking up so much of the mattress that I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep anyway. I started to get up. Inch by inch I moved my legs away from him. He didn’t move, he didn’t heave, he didn’t even notice.

I got up quickly and ran from the guttural growls and from his smell. I went onto the balcony and hunted around for stray cigarettes. One I had dropped, somewhere. I found a half. It was mostly submerged in soot-colored water. I weighed my options. There were really only two. Yes or No. I hunched down and picked it up. I pulled off the wet part, left a little nub and struck a match. It would have to do. It fizzled when I tried to light it. I pulled a little more off; the tobacco flaked and stuck to my wet fingers. The flakes transferred onto the stem of the Slim as I tugged at it and re-lit it. Inhaled deeply.

One and a half drags was all that Misty Ultra Thin could give me. I had fucked him. Now what? I wanted to get into the Twin Palms. I wanted to be more than just his Fairfax girl. I wanted to be his main girl. The only girl. Men like him didn’t have just one. I had to stand out from all the others. I had to make myself more tantalizing. I wanted his soft white underbelly over me nightly. Groaning and sweating and cursing me while he thrusted. He never used the word
suka
for me so I
figured I was okay. He didn’t know that I knew what it meant. He didn’t know anything about me.

I came back into the room and he was letting out whimpers now. I decided to rouse him. I touched his back, it was warm and clammy. He didn’t move. I walked around and stared at his front. His belly obscured most of his penis. There was only some on display. He looked like a small child, overwrought and over-nourished. His hands were covered in those rings. Black marked and chubby. I touched one of them. They were rough. Like a worker’s hand. I was surprised. I thought he would have soft child’s hands. Why hadn’t I noticed when he was running his hands over me? Because he wasn’t. He was tugging and pawing. He had moved his hands quickly, efficiently. When I touched his hand he made a sound. Murmured something in Russian that I didn’t understand. So I touched it again and he opened his eyes and said, “What is it?”

I wanted him to fuck me again but I didn’t know how to ask so I backed away and let him close his eyes and waited for the sleep sounds to start up again. They finally did and I left the room. I walked from the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room, sat on the couch, waited, got up, waited, stood in the dining room and stared at the smeared fingerprints on the glass table and started to clean. The sofa was pushed in 6 inches on one side. The remnants of the previous night looked almost violent. But it wasn’t violent. It was nearly boring, ordinary sex, but still better than nothing.

NOW HE WASN’T MOVING, JUST TAKING UP MY
bed. I tried to move the couch silently. When being silent I usually made the most noise. The sofa creaked and squealed as I moved it 6 inches back into position. I waited to hear something, but just heard the sounds of sleep. Was it impolite to ask him to leave?

I should have told him I didn’t like sleeping next to people. I should have told him I had to get up early. But he knew I didn’t.

There was a knock at the door. I checked myself in the mirror to make sure I looked like I hadn’t just gotten fucked or maybe to make sure that I did.

“I have another fish.” My neighbor was standing there, his mustache more trimmed on one side than the other. His glasses were smeared and I had the urge to clean them with my table cleaner.

“Really?”

“Mackerel.” He held up the bloody package. He smiled and waited for my impression of this fact.

“Excellent.”

“I will gut one for you.”

“No, no.”

“And smoke it. You love smoke. I see it.”

“I don’t really like smoked fish.”

“It’s what we do. It’s what we eat.”

It was of no use. He wasn’t listening.

“I bring tomorrow.”

He walked away smiling and I shut the door. The conversation of the smoked fish had woke up Lev, who was scratching himself and stretching in the doorway of my bedroom.

“Who was that?”

“My neighbor, next door.”

“
Derevenshina
.” He spit the word out and turned back to the bedroom.

“What’s that?” I followed him. He wasn’t waiting. He wasn’t getting ready to fuck me again. He was putting his socks on. Looking for his underwear. His pants.

“Peasant.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

All of a sudden I didn’t want him to go. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from him, not to leave yet, for sure.

“I have things to do.” He wouldn’t look at me as he said it. I knew he didn’t like being asked. I wanted to ask him again. I wanted to own him. I wanted to let him own me. He got dressed and moved past me quickly. Told me he’d see me around.

He didn’t say it like that.

He said, “I’ll see you.”

Not around. Not later. Not soon.

When he left I went back into my room and I stared at my sheets. One corner had pulled away from the mattress. On his side. It had crumpled beneath him and stayed like that while he creased it and sweat on it. My sheets were floral. Decidedly childish. Laura Ashley. My mother sent them to me the first time I lost my job. She felt a new set of sheets would be a fresh start. The old ones had roses that were too big and the navy backdrop was supposed to cause anxiety dreams. That’s what
Cosmopolitan
magazine said. The anxiety my bed sheets were causing me in my sleep were causing me to be late to work which caused me to be fired. But now, these sheets were worn through. The middle
faded, the rubber band threaded around the frame of it was loose, causing just this kind of pull to happen and exposing my cheap mattress. I hoped he hadn’t noticed.