Another Day In Hell

Stars Around Me

I came home on at night, lights creeping up twisted roads north of Franklin Ave.  Someone was widening their driveway, someone was putting out their trash, someone had bought a new car with dealer plates.  A Honda Civic.  A hybrid.

The door of my house is open and, sprawled out on a couch that isn't mine is 'George'.  He blinks a few times.  An empty bottle of vodka sits on a coffee table.  A small fire burns outside on the ground, near my pool.  I drop my bag near George who watches me walk out.  He straightens up.  Stands.  Goes to the bathroom, his eyes red.  I hear a faucet turn on.

Outside, on the ground...letters.  Each one being licked by flames that dance with a chill wind that has descended on Los Angeles.  I see ribbons, red, and a heart-shaped box.  Paper-mache?  I'm not sure...and it burns. 

I look at my reflection in the pool, the stars above me.  I need to shave.  I've spent the past few nights in a motel near the state line debating whether i should come back to a life i left or find a new life somewhere else.  Colorado, i thought.  Montana, i researched.  Canada....no. 

My agent won't call back.  Probably on vacation, i tell myself.  I look back at the fire and something catches my eye.  Pulling my sleeves around my hand i reach it, batter out a small letter...
on it...writing i recognize.  script.  the curls.  the way the i's are dotted.  the way the signature is written.
-'I Love you - Erin'
I look down and find another...fire eating at the words
-'I'm sorry - Erin'

George stands at the sliding doorway.  His shirt is off, it looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks.  He hasn't shaved either.  His eyes look sad.  His hair disheveled. 

I hold up the letters and he nods.  Later acknowledging that after i left he started dating 'Erin'.  Started falling for her.  They went to Thailand.  They would sleep in my room, like she used to with me.  They would make dinner together.  they would hold each other and drink mimosa's on Sunday mornings.  They would use drugs together and laugh until they passed out.

George wants to cry, starts to say sorry but i put my hand up.  He starts to ask me about 'her'...but knows the answer.  We're an odd reflection of each other.

I fall into a lounge chair by the pool, and he does the same.  In his hand, two shot glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels. 

We look older, I say.  We feel older, he says. 

The lights of Los Angeles look the same.  George turns on a heat lamp, pours two shots.  The warm liquor lights a furnace inside that keeps me warm against the apparent Los Angeles freeze. 

"Happy New Years."  George says.  Then mumbles something about an HBO party and starts on a joint.

we watch the lights. 

I'm not going to kick George out.  Not yet.

The fire burned out by sunrise.  George makes waffles.  We haven't spoken much. 

I smoke a cigarette.

I write this. 

It's supposed to get warmer today - maybe my agent will call...

Brace Yourself

She laughed...once.

One last time.  Between the tears.  I had asked her 'why'...nearly twenty minutes ago...and had yet to receive an answer.

She had hazel eyes...a skin color that one would describe as Caramel, kissed by the Arizona sun.  Long, black hair.  Jet.  And a curved mouth that wasn't a smile, nor a frown, but reflected whatever emotion you felt - she was naturally empathetic.

And now she cried.  I knew it was one of those 'its not you it's me' things that floated on the airwaves of television and made its rounds on the comedy circuits so often that the honest emotion behind those words had been forever lost.  Silence sufficed. 

I had found her on the beach one day, years ago.  Her toes in the sand.  She was wearing a green bikini...an orange umbrella barely shading her long legs.  She smiled at me and that was enough.

One candlelight dinner.  One walk through the Farmer's Market in Santa Monica.  One long night on July 4th in a lifeguard tower where no one would find us.  One trip to Paris.  I remember the sunglasses, big, Gucci.  The oversized hat she wanted to wear because it made her fell like Holly Golightly.  The way she would talk in an accent that seemed natural wherever we were.

I found a happiness that existed only in the medium i worked in.  The silver screen.  Celluloid.  Idyllic to the point of predictability of plot.  What would come next?  A perfect date?  Of course.  She has perfect friends...she loves my friends?  Of course.  Her family?  Perfect.  Us.  Perfect.  Our story?  A tragedy.

I find that her heart is lighter than i had known.  The winged angel she is, was exactly as i had dreamed.  I should have seen this coming.  If she really is all that I dreamed of she wouldn't be here right now.  I'm surprised she allowed me to tag along this long...

She can paint the perfect sunrise with the wave of her smooth arms.  She dances on long legs, twisting a small waist to greet the light with her colorful laughter.  Every morning has been for her, in my eyes. 

And this final sunset, it would seem, is for me...the light in her has somehow faded, and i feel like its my fault.

She turns away.  The soft lines on her back, her smooth muscles, twitch as she sobs.  My bags are packed. 

She can't watch me leave.

I didn't do anything.  I want to scream.  I don't want it to end. I don't want....

I'm sitting in a shitty diner somewhere off the 10 in Arizona, near the California border.  The burger is wet.  Wet.  The coke is flat.  my heart is broken.

I'll have to call my agent...if he still is that.  Doubtful.
I'll have to call my old friends...if they still are.

I'll have to kick George out of my house.  Or at least slowly push him out.  He's been comfortable there...for almost two years.

I'll have to not get distracted, like i did last time.

I'll have to avoid the beach. 

My shirt.

it still smells like her.