L.A. Success

L.A. SUCCESS

By

Lonnie Raines

Copyright
© 2015 Lonnie Raines

Cover
Design by Lance C. Schafer, featuring a classic American Airlines travel
poster.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,
without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial
uses permitted by copyright law.

All characters appearing in this work are
fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First published July 24
^th
, 2011

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the beautiful city of Los Angeles,
which, in its own very strange and unique way, renewed my faith in humanity.

To P.: It appears very silly of me to say such serious
things in the dedication of a book this outrageous and ridiculous, but I love
you and you make my life wonderful. K.M.L.Y.M.I.!!!

Part 1

1

I'm a guy who lives in L.A., and
I've got a story to tell you. But first, let me get something straight so you
know what you're dealing with right up front. I'm not one of those guys who
will rip you off at the end by making up some craziness that comes out of
nowhere. I hate when people do that. It's like in that movie E.T.: I'm all
emotionally invested in that little green weirdo's life, and then what does he
do? He gets on a bike and flies up over the moon. He was completely screwing
with us the whole film, because he could have flown away from those scientist
guys a lot earlier. No, I won't pull any garbage like that on you.

This is the story of how I, Lonnie
Herisson, went from being a guy who just coasted along in life to being an L.A.
success. But here's the thing: it starts with me getting dumped. Now, if I told
you why I got dumped, you might start thinking I was some kind of loser, and
that's really no way to get to know me, right? So just take it from me that I
didn't do anything morally reprehensible. I just didn't have my act together.
I'll give you more details about that later, when I'm sure you'll be more understanding.

F
irst you have to get a good picture in your head of how I looked and
where I was when this whole thing started. Imagine a short, round,
thirty-something guy standing on the Santa Monica Pier, watching the sun set
over the ocean. Next give me some crazy, thick black hair—the kind of hair you
have to cut really short or else it grows straight out like a Munchichi’s. As
far as clothes are concerned, the only thing you need to get right is the shirt
that I'd just picked up in one of the souvenir stores. It's a classic: a plain
white T with a black-and-white image of my man Arnold flexing his pythons. My
old shirt was in the trash can because it had stains all over it. In my hand
was the culprit, a citrus-Gatorade bottle filled with red wine. Yeah, I know,
that wasn’t too bright. But give me a break, I was depressed. After all, at
that very instant, my woman was packing up all her stuff and moving out of my
house. Maybe you can imagine me with a serious look on my face, tears welling
up in the corners of my eyes, as I struggled to figure out how everything went
wrong. In reality I had more of a sloshed look, and I was playing classic L.A.
games, like “Count the people from east L.A. who are swimming in their
clothes,” and “Is he her grandpa or her husband?” But go easy on me. I was
trying not to miss my ex.

And that's why I had come to the pier—I needed to
distract myself long enough to give
 
Helen time to move out without me doing something potentially
embarrassing, like dropping to the ground and grabbing onto her ankles to
prevent her from leaving. I took another swig of my Gatorwine and told myself I
had way too much class to do something like that.

I decided that the best way to kill time would be
to do things I wasn't used to doing. That way I'd have so many new things to
think about that I wouldn't even notice the evening slipping away. Now, I've
lived my entire life in Santa Monica, but until that night I had never once
taken a ride on the Ferris wheel or the roller coaster. I had always thought that
stuff was for out-of-towners, but at that moment I couldn't have imagined
anyone I'd have rather been than a tourist, with all my problems miles and
miles away.

I bought a handful of tickets at the entrance to
the pier amusement park. I played the games, I rode the rides, and I actually
talked to people. While waiting in line, I asked the tourists where they were
from, and I had to smile and nod like I knew exactly where their states were
when they told me. Some of them could tell I was faking. I had learned
geography in school, but with experience I had adopted a more useful, intuitive
map that replaced the real one. And here's how it looks: we've got the gorgeous
state of California, full of national parks, bears, gold, and beautiful people.
To the north of that, there's pretty much Canada. Heading east, there's the
state of Las Vegas and the state of Grand Canyon. Now, as you approach the
center, everything starts losing its color and its beauty
,
turning
progressively darker until there's only squid-ink ooze swirling around like the
vortex of a toilet. Texas is right below that, barely clinging on. And finally,
on the other side of all that, there's New England, New York and Florida. Most
of the people I talked to were from vortex states, which are also apparently
known by their fetish food items. For example, some lady asked me “How can you
not know where Iowa is? Corn?” Sorry lady. Give me hundreds of films a year
made in your state, and maybe then you'll get a spot on the map.

I was tired then and wanted to go
home. Maybe that was it. Maybe she was gone and my house was empty. I walked
back to my place, which is up north of Wilshire Boulevard—yeah, I'll have to
explain that one later. A guy like me living there, that's something. My lights
were off. My wreck of a car was alone in the driveway. I turned the door knob,
forgetting it would be locked. I went around the back, opened the screen door,
and wiggled the knob a little until it popped open.

In my house I'm like a bat. I've got
some sort of bat sense, which is good since I was all wined up and because I'd
been needing glasses for a long time. And I didn't want to see the way the
house looked with her stuff gone. So I left the lights out and slid through my
cave, back to my bedroom. I dropped my Arnold shirt on the floor and undid my
belt. My shorts plopped straight down. I stepped out of the little pile and
jumped in bed.

Now this is when things got weird. I
was lying in the middle of the bed, all stretched out with my eyes closed. The
problem was that everything was so quiet that my bat sense couldn't work. You
see, Helen snored a little, and that snore would go around the room, bouncing
all over the place, and then into my ear holes. If I had left a door open or if
something wasn't in its usual place, I could tell without looking. I had to
have some noise, because without it I felt like I was in a different room. And
what if some maniac from south of Wilshire broke into my house and tried to
sneak around? I wouldn't be able to tell he was there. That freaked me out.

I rolled out of bed with the sheets
all tangled up in my legs. I stumbled over to the wall and hit the light
switch. It was a disaster. My room had been cleaned out. Where the CD stand used
to be there were only a couple of CD's on the floor. I needed noise, so I
grabbed them. All the good stuff had been hers. I had a Dokken album, but there
was no way I could sleep to that. I also found this thing, “Sounds of North
American Frogs” by Charles M. Bogert. That was weird—I didn't remember ever
buying that. But hey, I gave it a try and it worked. Those frog barks bounced
around my room, and I was sure if a lunatic came at me in my sleep, he'd have
to walk through the barking and I'd know.

2

I got up the next morning and took a
look around. Helen had been really nice and had cleaned up the place. The
furniture was still there, but all the decorations had been hers. The walls
were now bare, the shelves empty.

I put my Arnold shirt on again because
it had gotten me through the previous night, and I was sure it would bring me
good luck. And I know luck comes in everywhere because I used to play
baseball—I was the guy who warmed up the pitchers in the bullpen. Those guys,
they win and they don't wash their socks until they lose. Or their hats. Or
worse. And that's seriously nasty, that worse one. So here's what I asked
myself: What if I got me another Arnold shirt, maybe even two of them, and then
alternated until the good vibes ran out? I decided that was a sweet plan. But
then reality ran up and slapped me in the face: that last twenty I spent had
come out of Helen's purse. In fact, all the twenties I spent had come out of
Helen's purse. But I wasn't a scumbag—I paid the rent. Well, there was nothing
really to pay. I own the house.

I live north of Wilshire Boulevard.
You look in the ads for a place in Santa Monica, and if it doesn't say “It's
north of Wilshire,” then you know you'd be living next to nutbags in a garbage
dump. My place is run down, but I got the richest dudes around me, and they
drive nice cars and bring back the ladies for the doing. The houses around mine
are amazing. They look like mansions. The lawns are perfect—these illegal
Mexican guys are there every day working themselves sweaty, probably for
nothing, too. I refuse to hire the Mexicans on account of principles: I
shouldn't have to have grass if I don't want any. And anyway, the neighbors
walk their dogs here all the time, and the dogs do their business all over. If
I had lots of grass, I couldn't see where they went and avoid stepping in it.
Well...they pick it up, those neighbors, but they never get all of it.

I see the way the dog walkers look
at my house when they stop to pick up the poo. They follow the cracks in my
stucco up to my sunken roof. They count the missing shingles. Then they look at
the dead bushes and trees that new neighbors come over to plant every couple of
years in a desperate attempt to raise their own property value.
 
It's a small house, so they go on their way
pretty quick. With their poo and their dogs. And that's why I swore I'd never
have a dog: who wants to touch poo? They say, “Yeah, I've got a plastic glove
on when I pick it up, so I don't really touch it.” So if I put a love glove on,
can I not really get romantic with your girlfriend? I'm going to say that
someday. Gotta admit you're touching poo then.

But like I was saying, it's my
house. My gramps had it when he croaked, and since my dad was living somewhere
on the beach in Venice, I inherited it. Oh I tried to make my dad stay in it,
but he isn't entirely right in the head. He used to be sharp as a tack. Big
future, they said. Then he got a little weird and started playing chess, and
all he talked about was chess and Bobby Fischer. He's pretty good at it, I
guess—I mean my dad. Anyway, that's all he used to do down in Venice. Well that
and he made sand sculptures for the tourists. Between the two he made some good
money. I’d go down sometimes and give him a buck, even two if he did busty
mermaids. And for a while I had to go down every week when this other sand guy
was trying to run him off. He wanted a sand monopoly or something. How
ridiculous is that? I went down there and hid in a bar, and when the guy was
almost finished with his dragon—that was his thing, dragons—I would whiz up to
him like a pinball and jump all over it. I did that for two weeks, and then we
made a deal, so everything was cool.

All that to say that I couldn't buy
another Arnold shirt right then. There were all sorts of things I wasn't going
to be able to pay for. I had to come up with some dough fast.

I headed to the Third Street
Promenade, bought a few tacos, and scarfed them down in front of the topiary
dinosaur fountain. I told myself that maybe I could get a job at one of the
stores on the Promenade, at least until Helen changed her mind and came back.

There was one store that had lots of
surf crap and loud music. It seemed like a night club or something. I watched
the door and no one older than thirty was going in or out, and when I did see
an employee, she looked like a super model. Then I noticed that all the people
working in the clothing stores were like super models, so I forgot about that
quick. Then I saw a dork going into a coffee shop, and for a minute I tried to
think about doing that—I mean working there. But I hated coffee, so that
would've pissed me off to be getting free stuff I didn't want.

3

I had to start conserving, so that
night I cut one of my frozen pizzas in two, left one half in the box and ate
the other in front of the tube. I was also back into the Gatorwine, but I still
had the labels wrong. I had the grape bottle all ready this time, but Helen had
only left me three bottles of white wine. I was sure if I went out in public
with it, someone was going to notice. I also discovered that Helen had taken
the wine glasses. In the end it was a good thing she had taken them, because
with the new Gator system I could roll around everywhere without spilling. I
used to have to set my wine down before I rocked out of the couch to go take a
leak or whatever.

A couple of hours later, there was a
knock at the door. It was Tim, the only neighbor I liked. He lived at the very
end of the street, which was probably why my crappy house didn't bother him. He
was a good guy. He worked with computers or sold hiking gear or something.

“Hey Tim, who ya doin'?” said me.

“Lonnie, just swell.”

“You're doing me, you dirty perv?
Well come on in then.” I said.

“Not enough time. Just got home from
work and I have to go walk the dog, but I wanted to come over and wish you
well. Helen dropped by before she left to give me back a thing or two you had
borrowed, and she told me.”

“Oh yeah? What'd she say?”

“Not much. She said it was over. She
looked pretty beat up over it.”

This Tim guy wasn't as round as me.
I used to wonder why Helen didn't leave me for him, since he had a job and a
nicer house.

“Did she say she'd see you around?”
I said, feeling clammy.

“No.”

I saw him glance quickly behind me
at the empty walls, at the stuff that was different. It's written all over the
place when a woman leaves for good. He looked at me again and now he seemed
sadder, and I knew he'd been dumped bad before, too.