L.A. Success (18 page)

“Sorry buddy,” I said. “He won't
hurt you. He just gets excited sometimes.” He stopped trying to make the big
poodle go away and leaned over. He gave the dog a scratch behind the ear.

“This is my favorite kind of dog,”
he said and then made the noises you'd normally make to a baby. “Oh yes, you
like the scratches, don't you!”

“That's the place he likes to be
scratched the most.”

“How long have you had him?” he
asked.

“He's not mine. I'm just dog sitting
while his owner is out of town, but I'm starting to wish I had one just like
him.”

“They sure do grow on you. Well,
have a nice day,” he said, and then gave Ballsack's afro a final tousle. “You
take care now, Manolete.” The man stood up and walked across Ocean Avenue. I watched
him go, thinking what a dumb name Manolete was and how glad I was to have
changed his name. Then I realized there was no way that man could have known
the old name. I leaned down in front of the big poodle and looked at his
collar. It was written right there, but really small, on the front of the round
metal tag, with an address that wasn't Dennis' on back. I guess this guy had
looked at it. Still, it seemed like a pretty weird name to be able to say
perfectly just from reading it. I'd sure never heard it before Dennis had said
it.

18

Monday morning I stopped to see the
writers on my way to work. I explained to them that I was doing research for my
underworld real-estate drama, so I'd be volunteering for a while.

“That's convenient,” said Hat-Guy Leonard.
“Didn't you say you wanted to make the beast that has two backs with that
secretary?” All the guys laughed at me.

“I've got a higher purpose now,” I
said. “Besides, I'm trying to get back together with my ex. I'll see you guys
later.” I went in and grabbed a couple of coffees. Then I walked over to
Gertie's office. Ellen was already talking on the phone. I walked in and put
one of the coffees on her desk. She mouthed a silent “thank you” as she
continued listening.

“Yes...Mmm hmm...Okay...I'll get him
started,” she said into the receiver and then hung up. “Good morning Lonnie!”

“Good morning.”

“That was Gertie on the phone. She
told me she wanted you to spend the first week getting familiar with the
basics.” She stood up and took two huge binders off of a shelf behind her. She
handed them to me with an apologetic look. I looked at the covers. One was
called “Real Estate Principles” and the other “Real Estate Practices.” They
weighed about ten pounds apiece. I took them over to the sitting area and used
the coffee table as my desk.

I read over the folders for about an
hour before I awoke suddenly with Ellen standing over me.

“Wake up, Mr. Sleepy!” she said.

“Whew...I need another coffee. You
want one?” She shook her head no. I went and grabbed the biggest, strongest
coffee possible and then returned to the binders.

It blew my mind that I was actually
qualified to be an agent. I had assumed I wasn't, because whenever I saw
pictures of the agents on their signs, they were always dressed up in nice
clothes. I had always imagined that they were highly educated, but these books
said you only had to be eighteen. It even said that you could still become an
agent if you had a criminal record, which I guessed was why a large part of the
binder was devoted to ethics.

I was amazed at how much time they
spent talking about how dishonest it was to give fake estimates of property
value. It was apparently the most serious offense you could commit in the
business. If they had to talk about it so much, I assumed that meant it was a
real problem. The entire chapter on ethics’ sole purpose was begging people not
to do what everybody in L.A. did all the time: lie about money. They listed all
sorts of penalties you could have if you did any of that stuff, but the worst
seemed to be that you could lose your real-estate license. Gee, since that took
a whole three months to get after your eighteenth birthday or release from
prison, I was sure people really shook in their boots at that threat.

I kept hoping Gertie would call and
make me go do some demeaning labor, but the phone never rang. I was forced to
continue reading. My training continued like that all week. I arrived at 9am,
read through the binders fighting not to fall asleep or being awakened by Ellen
when I did, and then went home at 5, my brain so numbed that I could barely
remember that I was only pretending to want to learn this stuff.

19

Friday night when I arrived home, my
shit phone rang. I saw that it was Gertie, so I picked up and got ready to chew
her out for screwing me over.

“Mr. Herisson,” she said, her voice
loud and pompous. “I
have
spoken to Ellen. She
has
informed me
that you
are
ready.”

“If you mean ready to claw my own
eyes out from reading—”

“Shh! Do
not
speak!” she
said, and it occurred to me that Gertie was doing what every character in a
movie or TV show does when they want to sound mysterious or other worldly: they
stop making contractions. What, am I supposed to believe that a vampire or elf
or something doesn't have the ability to say “I'm” or “you're”? “I
am
going to suck your blood, after which you
are
going to be my slave!” Why
do they do this? Maybe since they live forever, they aren't worried about
saving time by speaking faster.

“You
will
go to the Getty
Museum Rose Garden, where you
will
wait for me at the edge of the pool.”

“Yes. I
will
go there,” I
said.

“Excellent. Goodbye—oh wait a
minute. You're free tomorrow at 10, right?” she asked, followed by a deep
smoker's hack.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Wonderful. I
will
see you on
the morrow,” she said, and hung up.

20

On the morrow
, I took the Mercedes north up the
405 to the Getty Museum exit. I was directed to an underground parking lot,
where I crept down much more slowly than was necessary because of the jackasses
who stopped their cars hoping for someone to come along and free up a spot. Why
didn't they just drive down to the lowest level, where there were spaces? It's
not like extra time in the elevator was going to kill them.

I parked the car and rode up the
elevator. Within a few minutes, I was in the tram shooting up the east-facing
side of the mountain. The highway below me was jammed full of cars heading into
L.A., their brake lights flashing every couple of feet. In the hills on the
other side of the highway, all sorts of swanky houses had been built on stilts
on even the most unstable-looking slopes. There was no way I'd have lived in
one of those mudslide magnets.

As the tram finished up its trip,
the Getty museum came into view. I had always seen it from a distance, but I
hadn't realized how enormous it was. The museum was actually a collection of
huge buildings, situated on top of a mountain overlooking all of L.A. and the
ocean. It was made out of white stones and marble, and there were fountains and
statues everywhere. As I walked through the front doors, I had the impression
that I had died and that this was the serene afterlife. And then when I asked
the guy at the desk how much the entry fee was, he told me it was free. I
couldn't help getting a big goofy smile on my face.

I made my way south through the
complex, occasionally ducking my head into a building to see what kind of stuff
they had. One room had some modern art that I liked. There was a huge painting
of an octopus, but instead of suckers, there were cut-out photos of lips or
anuses, I'm not sure which. I came up with two very different interpretations
of the work just in case someone asked. The kissopus was like your wrinkly
grandma coming at you after a holiday visit as you try to escape into the back
seat of your parents' car. The crapopus was pretty much just an animal that
wanted to shit all over you. Hey, I'm not the one who makes this stuff up.

I continued to the rose garden. The
south side of the museum had the most amazing view of L.A. and the ocean. Tons
of people were standing around enjoying the view or sitting in the grass taking
in the sun. The rose garden was designed in the shape of a huge bowl, bigger
than my house, with a pool at the center, fed by a little stream that ended in
a waterfall. There were two tree-lined paths winding down on either side of it,
passing by every kind of plant you can imagine. I went clockwise down, swatting
away an occasional bee as I walked through vine-covered arches.

When I arrived at the pool, I looked
around for Gertie, but she wasn't there. People were moving slowly up and down
the paths, throwing coins into the pool and taking pictures, so I was
constantly moving out of someone's way. Then I got a tap on the shoulder. I
spun around and there she was, wearing an over-sized UCLA sweatshirt whose hood
covered her eyes.

“You
have
come as requested,”
she said. “You must now follow me.” She led me out of the bowl along the
circular path, occasionally bumping into a tourist and growling under her
breath.

She led me off to the cactus garden
on the south promontory without saying a word or looking back to make sure I
was following her. When we arrived as far south as we could go, she whirled
around, pushed her hood off, and stood staring into my eyes, all of Los Angeles
behind her.

“Before I will allow you to
accompany me into the jungle that lies before you, you must tell me what you
have learned,” she said majestically.

I thought this over for a minute. I
had actually learned a lot of stuff, so I started telling her about ethics,
contracts, the history of L.A. real estate, current trends in selling, and how
agents survived in times of recession. After fifteen minutes of this she began
shaking her head vigorously.

“No no no! You are not ready! You
have learned nothing!”

“What do you mean? I know those
binders backwards and forwards!”

“Yes, but you must pull from them
the most basic truth of real estate. Let your mind go. Free yourself from the
technical information that confuses buyers and sellers, and tell me the one
thing you know to be true!”

I closed my eyes and felt the cool
ocean breeze. I imagined all the houses below, all the potential buyers and
sellers, all of the signs posted on the lawns, all of the open houses, the
business attire, the friendly smiles and reassuring slogans. But nothing came
to me. I opened my eyes and shrugged. Gertie nodded slowly.

“You
are
not ready. I
cann
ot
train you,” she said, and began to walk away.

My stress level shot through the
roof. What could these people, who were sometimes completely uneducated or even
had criminal records, know that I didn't? And then it hit me.

“Any uneducated jackass can do this
job, so there's no reason real-estate agents should make even half the money they
do!” I yelled. She quickly turned around and stepped back to me.

“Shh! No one must hear! That is very
good. You have passed the test!”

I felt tired and exhilarated all at
once. Gertie let the whole vampire speak drop.

“It's very important to keep that in
mind, kid. For the percent of the sale that we get, these people need to think
our job is complicated. I set you on those binders so that you'll be armed, but
be careful: many a promising agent starts buying his own load of crap and
forgets the true spirit of the profession. Once you cross over, there's no
saving you. You memorize the lines, but never fall victim to them. They're only
there to make people think we're worth for one sale what would be an entire
year's salary to someone else, when all we really do is take clients on a walk
through a house and fill in the blanks on a contract that any monkey could
download and get notarized.”

“So that's it? That's all there is?”
I asked.

“No. That's only the beginning.
Since none of us is worth a dime, the competition is vicious. Ever see a
disaster-relief team throw a loaf of bread into a crowd of people who haven't
eaten for a week? They tear each other apart for that bread. We're much worse,
so to attract as many clients as possible, everything you do has to let people
see that you are the best. You know my touch-screen organizer that I use to
check my appointments?”

“Yeah. I saw you with it. You looked
at it to find time to come out to my place.”

“No I didn't. I was looking at porn,
but you were impressed and that's all that matters. In this economy, you have
maybe one or two appointments a week. As if I'd forget them. But I need to give
people the impression that I'm completely booked, because I'm
numero uno
.”

“So what—”

“Enough for today. I'll show you more
next week. Until then, reward yourself with something expensive that clients
will see you with. Do you have a Montblanc pen? They're expensive, but the more
you spend on yourself, the more you'll look like the best and the more
properties you'll sell.”

“I can't thank you enough Gertie.”