61 – Not an argument I can win
No, I told her, she wasn’t going back.
Even though the door to the master bedroom remained closed,
the volume of my voice could easily reach Dan in the room next door, possibly
beyond even him to the street.
Louise, dressed in her best dress, stood, feet apart in a
defiant stance, staring back at me, shaking her head.
“I already told you,” she said, her voice just a bit shrill.
“One of us has to work.”
“Then get a regular job,” I said, still stinging over what
had happened in the other office as the modeling agency.
I had taken the woman’s advice and kept silent about what I
knew, even though Louise’s flushed face coming out of the office had confirmed
everything, especially how flustered she’d looked when she saw me, even a
little bit guilty.
No guilt showed in her eyes now, two days later, as she got
ready to make the appointment, she never bothered to tell me she had for her
“test” shoot somewhere down on Sunset Strip.
“You can’t stop me,” she said. “We’re not married, and I can
come and go as I please.”
The truth of this gnawed at me as if I’d swallowed a rat. I
could not control her, even though I ached to, and short of tying her up to the
bed, I had no options, and she knew it.
“I don’t want you to do this,” I said, lowering the volume
of my voice as if to sound more reasonable, though clearly, I was not.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
Louise shook her head, her new short haircut making her look
like a different person, giving her a harder look, a haircut recommended by the
agency for the look they wanted for their magazine.
And before I could stop her, she made a dash for the bedroom
door and rushed through it into the hall beyond, where Dan – having heard
everything – stood in the open doorway to his room, a silent, but judgmental
witness I could not ignore.
Louise, giving me an odd, slanted smile, knew she’d found
immunity. We could bicker all we wanted in the privacy of our room, out here or
anywhere in public, I felt exposed, even wrong.
She lifted her hand in a half wave, then made her way
through the beaded curtain to the living room, and then to the front door. The
Christmas tree lights glittered in the corner, mocking the bitter mood I felt.
“I’ll be back later,” she said, taking up a large bag
containing a change of clothing, the boss at the modeling agency had instructed
her to bring. She looked like a refugee, fleeing forever.
Then, she pulled open the door and went out, not quite
slamming the door behind her, the sound of her high heels reverberating on the
concrete deck, and then on the steps leading down to the driveway.
I slid open the balcony door and stepped out into the cool
air, a hint of winter rain in the air, giving glitter to the leaves atop the
swaying palm trees that lined the street. I watched her stride down the
driveway until the bulk of the building blocked my view. But I saw the front
end of the taxi that had pulled up to collect her, sent and paid for by the
modeling agency, I thought.
Dan joined me on the balcony.
“You’ve been ranting and raving about nothing,” he told me
as he leaned against the rail, looking in the direction I looked, a smoldering
unfiltered cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Not about nothing,” I said.
“It might as well have been for all the good your shouting
did,” he said. “Sometimes, you have to know when you can’t win.”
I had told him nothing about the events at the modeling
agency. Yet, Dan had guessed much more than I had said, his dark eyes full of
sympathy, but with a twinge of something else –
a harder look of a man of the street who understood the
reality of the scene, whereas I clearly did not.
The gnawing in my stomach got worse. I needed to escape
somehow, go somewhere, do something that might help me forget.
“Is there any chance you can get me some acid?” I asked Dan.
Dan’s head turned, his dark eyes flickering with alarm.
“Acid?” he said. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I need to escape from all this,” I said.
“You won’t escape anything taking acid in the mood you’re
in,” Dan said. “You’ll flip out – or do something worse.”
I nodded as he studied me, his stained fingernails combing
the beard just below his lower lip, slowly, thoughtfully. “I mean it, Al,” he
said.
“Get it for me for later,” I said.
“Okay, you’ll have to wait,” he said. “Bob is down in Venice
today. He’ll be back late tonight.”
“Venice?”
“You haven’t been there yet?”
I shook my head.
“Hippiest place in LA, except maybe for the Strip,” Dan
assured me.
“What’s it like?”
“No way to describe it,” Dan said. “You’ll have to see it
for yourself – but it was some idiot’s idea to recreate the real Venice out
here. It’s even got canals.”
As I pondered this, Dan headed back inside. I heard the
rattle of the beaded curtain, and then the sound of his bedroom door closing,
no doubt to hide the scent of the joint he lighted, or roach, most likely not
enough to share, even if he’s wanted to, needing it to last until he could
acquire or barter for more from Bob later as well.
I stepped back inside, pulled closed the glass door to the
balcony, and then felt something soft rub against my leg.
Looking down, I saw one of the kittens – the one Louise had
named White Paw – pressing against my shin, hungering for affection. I leaned
down and stroked its head.
“I guess you’re lonely, too,” I said, picking it up and holding
it in the palm of my hand.
The runt of the litter, White Paw got its name for its one
white paw, as Louise lacked originality when it came to such names, calling the
gray kittle, Smokey, and the tabby one, Tabby.
“Why don’t we get you some milk,” I said, carrying the
creature to the kitchenette, where I poured milk into a saucer for it, and
coffee into a mug for myself, then sat down to wait on Louise’s return.
Louise returned later, looking a little rough around the
edges, her makeup smudged, her gaze a little blurry, stumbling up the drive way
from the cab, and then up the stairs to our door. She wore a different dress
than the one she had left it, although I saw the edge of the other dress
sticking out of her bag. Even the one
she wore looked ruffled, as if she had slept in it. Her hair looked in disarray
as well.
“So, you’re back,” I said, still sitting on one of the large
pillows near the low table – the cat had wandered off.
“Yes,” she said, a bit disjointed, maybe high, refusing to
look at me. She seemed as if she wanted to sneak passed me.
“So, what happened?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, as she pressed
on, headed towards the beaded curtain and the hall beyond.
“What do you mean you don’t want to talk about it?” I said,
halting her in mid stride with my shout. “I waited here for four hours…”
‘Please, leave me alone.”
“I want to know,” I said.
She glared at me; her eyes full of a rage I had not seen in
them before. Her lower lip quivered a little.
“You won’t like it,” she said.
I already didn’t, already knew, yet needed to torture myself
with the details, as if to make up for what I already knew about what had gone
on at the modeling agency earlier.
“Tell me,” I said.
She turned, her shoulders slumping as if in defeat, her gaze
once again avoiding mine, staring down for a moment at the Christmas tree in
the corner, or at the little pan and the gray cat smokey covering up what it
had just deposited there. But she saw something else, a vision of another place
not long ago.
The cab had taken her down the street to Sunset Boulevard,
and then down it to the section called “the strip,” my head filling with the
vision of the old TV show, soon lost in the description of the high class hotel
the cap stopped in front of, allowing Louise to make her way out and into the
lobby, where security guards greeted her with knowing smiles, and motioned her
towards an elevator. This deposited her in a suite upstairs, filled with trays
of food and booze, and a whole bedroom filled with lights and camera gear.
The long-haired photographer greeted her with a snarl,
complaining about her being late, ordering her to change her clothing, while he
shot another scene with some of the other women already on the bed under the
hot lights, already naked, with naked men waiting to leap into the scene with
them.
Louise watched the whole thing transpire, waiting for her
turn, aware of the other men and women who glanced at her, each seeing her as
fresh meat for the skin machine.
Finally, the photographer finished and looked in her
direction, frowning at her.
“No, that’s not right,” he said, disapproving of the
clothing she’d brought – the red pants suit I had bought for her near Denver,
she thought of as the classiest clothing she owned. “Strip, baby. We’ll do this
naked.”
Louise hesitated.
“Come on, Baby,” the photographer growled. “Take it off.
We’re in the pink age now. Take off those panties, too.”
Louise did what he told her to do, only to have one of his
assistants thrush new clothing into her hands to put on, garter and stocking,
not much more.
“That’s it,” the photographer said, motioning her to get on
the bed. “Now give me a look that says you really need to get it.”
Louise gave him a smile.
“No, no, I mean really seductive, baby,” the man said. “You
ain’t gonna sell no magazines with a smile like that. We’re selling sex, baby,
not Girl Scout cookies.”
Louise smiled again, more seductive, getting an approving
nod from the photographer, who directed the naked men onto the bed with her.
Louise did not go into detail about what happened next,
blushing deeply, staring down at a spot on the rug, her head bowed.
I pressed for me, but she would not give me more – and this
told me more than even I wanted to know.
Shock reverberated through me. So did rage. I stayed silent
for a long time, and then, finally I asked, “What now?”
“They told me to come back Tuesday for another session,”
Louise said, still not looking at me.
“You’re not going,” I said, flatly, struggling to not sound
angry.
“I’m still thinking about it,” she said, her voice low,
trembling, so soft I struggled to hear her, and when I did, I could no longer
contain my rage.
“I said YOU ARE NOT going.”
“It’s my decision, and they pay good,” she said.
Too good, from what Dan had told me, as much as $50 bucks to
take a few rolls of film or rolls motion film which paid even more.
Dan called them “Flesh Peddlers,” and while their market
were adults, most of the models were younger than Louise, some barely 18, many
as young as 14.
“The cops want to shut them down,” Dan had said. “The city
even passed a new smut law. But the state supreme court ruled against it.”
Louise’s tone, thick with that stubborn streak I’d
encountered in other matters, sounded final, and determined. Short of force or
the apocalypse, nothing would stop her from going if that’s what she decided to
do.
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