I’m waiting alone at the stoplight on Beverly and Doheny, turning the radio up even louder. A black boy runs out of the parking lot of the Hughes supermarket on the corner of Beverly and past my car. Two store clerks and a security guard follow him. The boy throws something in the street and runs away into the darkness of West Hollywood, followed by the three men. I sit in the Porsche, very still, while the light turns green, a tumbleweed blows by. I get out of the car, cautiously, and walk into the intersection and look around to see what the black boy dropped. There are no cars coming from any of the four streets that intersect here and no noise either, except for the humming of fluorescent streetlights and the Plimsouls coming from the radio and I pick up what the black boy dropped. It’s a package of filet mignon, and staring at it beneath the overhead glare of a neon light, I can see that some of the juice seeping from the Styrofoam is running down the length of my hand to my wrist, staining the cuff of a white Commes des Garçons shirt I’m wearing. I put the piece of meat back down, carefully, wipe my hand on the back of my jeans, then get into my car. I turn the volume on the radio down and the light turns green again and I come to another yellow, now red, light and I turn the radio off and put a tape in and drive back to the apartment on Wilshire.

10

THE SECRETS OF SUMMER

I’m trying to pick up this ok-looking blond Valley bitch at Powertools and she’s sort of into it but not drinking enough, only pretending to be drunk, but she goes for me, like they all do, and says she’s twenty.

“Uh-huh,” I tell her. “Right. You look really young,” even though I know she can’t be more than sixteen, maybe even fifteen if junior is working the doors tonight and which is pretty exciting if you consider the prospects. “I like them young,” I tell her. “Not too young. Ten? Eleven? No way. But fifteen?” I’m saying. “Hey, yeah, that’s cool. It may be jailbait, but so what?”

She just stares at me blankly like she didn’t hear a word, then checks her lips in a compact and stares at me some more, asks me what a wok is, what the word “invisible” means.

I’m getting totally psyched to get this bitch back to my place in Encino and I even get a medium hard-on waiting for her while she’s in the ladies’ room telling her friends she’s leaving with the best-looking guy here while I’m at the bar drinking red-wine spritzers with my medium hard-on.

“What are these little fellas called?” I ask the bartender, a cool-looking dude my age, wondering, gesturing toward the drink.

“Red-wine spritzers,” he says.

“I don’t want to get too drunk, though,” I tell him while he pours a group of frat guys another round. “No way. Not tonight.”

I turn and look out at everyone dancing on the dance floor and I think I banged the DJ about a million years ago but I’m not too sure and she’s playing some god-awful nigger rap song and I’m getting hungry and want to split and then here the girl comes, all ready to go.

“It’s the anthracite Porsche,” I tell the valet and she’s impressed. “This is gonna be great,” I’m saying. “I’m totally jazzed,” I tell her but trying not to seem too eager.

She plays some Bowie tape while we drive toward the Valley. I tell her an Ethiopian joke.

“What’s an Ethiopian with sesame seeds on his head?”

“What’s an Ethiopian?” she asks.

“A Quarter Pounder,” I say. “That really cracks me up.”

We get to Encino. I open the garage door with the garage opener.

“Wow,” she says. “You’ve got a big house,” and then, “You’ll take me home afterwards, later?”

“Yeah. Sure,” I say, opening a bottle of fumé blanc. “Some chicks are stupid but I like that in a f**k.”

We go into the bedroom and she’s wondering where all the furniture is. “Where’s the furniture?” she whines.

“I ate it. just shut up, pop in a coil and lay down,” I mutter, pointing her toward the bathroom, and then, “I’ll give you some coke afterwards,” even though I don’t say what afterwards means, don’t even hint.

“What do you mean? A coil?”

“Yeah. You don’t want to get pregnant, do you? End up giving birth to something awful. A monster? Some kind of beast? You want that?” I ask. “Jesus, even your abortionist would freak out.”

She looks at the bed and then at me and then tries to open the door to the other room.