Pop Kids (4 page)

A monster truck cop car wrapped in Walmart logos rumbles by on the distant cross street, spewing exhaust into the night.

Though slightly apprehensive, I’m committed to getting into The Palace. I was starting to have misgivings about the breaking and entering, the possibility of ghosts, spiders, and rats, and the risk of ruining my shirt. But this little concrete tribute makes me feel like we’re about to enter a sacred place, like we’re being watched over by hooker angels. I look back up toward the shadowy vines reaching off the walls and clinging to the skeletal ironworks.

“You don’t think I’m going up there do you? I mean, maybe you’ve confused me with my brother? I’m not that circusy … maybe if you go up first—”

“Mike,” Zach insists in a voice inappropriately loud for illegal moments such as these, “…Settle.”

Grabbing two waxy handfuls of foliage, he pulls toward us. An old plank of plywood separates us from the wall to create a gaping ivy-laced mouth. The secret entry to our glorious future moans. A gush of air chills my face. It smells like a trunk filled with vintage Smiths tees. I look into the void. I’m totally impressed.

“I can’t believe you didn’t say abracadabra before you did that.”

Dropping the crushed leaves, Zach reaches into his jacket and hands me a Mini-Mag. I hand it back. He shows me how to turn it on then re-opens the dirty green mouth.

Like a snazzy uncertain suicide on a ledge, I inch my way into the new shadows.

“You’re gonna have to hold it a little wider man. I don’t want to get leaf stains.”

We’re in. The mouth door womps shut behind us. It’s dark—and it’s creepy. I breathe in the cool, antique air. I can taste the ghosts. Creating our own silent rave, Zach and I dance our frantic lights across the walls to inspect the room and make sure that no specters have materialized to welcome us. I see none. The lounge in which the valley’s finest travelers once relaxed, read, and retained the service of prostitutes is now empty. There are no socialites. No solicitors. No ghosts. Just barren hardwood floors and cracked plaster walls adjoining in a low archway that leads to the rest of rooms on the ground floor. Just wiring from a chandelier, long ago removed, spidering out of a hole in the ceiling. Just dust. Just us.

“This is totally killer!” Zach shines his light in my face.

“Yeah, and totally creepy.” I double check for poltergeists. “I hope it’s not haunted.”

Zach grins and bolts. As I chase after him, the likely prescient Dead Boys logo that’s scrawled in Sharpie across the back of his jacket does nothing to comfort me.

“Nooooo,” I cry. “No running! It’s too dark! These stairs don’t have any railings, man!”

With Zach cackling like The Blair Witch and my heart beating in my head, I’m certain that we’re going to die. He disappears over the last stair then somewhere down the musty hallway his footfalls abruptly halt. When I catch up to him, we stand together, panting in the door-less, chipped frame. I unbutton my stifling top button.

The glow of the streetlights assists our Mini-Mags in their illumination of Room 217—four walls, a bathroom, and a walk-in closet. Its ubiquitous peeling floral wallpaper is covered with battle cries, band logos, and bad art. In hot pink
,
‘Comfortably Numb!’ has been sprayed large enough to unify two walls with its proclamation of detachment. The barren wooden floor is littered with beer bottles, lighters, empty Doritos bags, Zig-Zag boxes, and Coke cans cum-ash-trays. Although it’s empty, it’s claustrophobic. And it smells like a head shop.

“This must be it. This is where those surfers used to hang out.” Zach illuminates the ratty sleeping bag stuffed in a corner. “They must have slept in here.”

I’m amazed. Even if it weren’t totally disgusting, I’d never sleep in this room. It’s too creepy.

“What’s their deal again?” Smelling stale weed, I wonder about the type of people who would purposefully crash anywhere that neither provides running water nor room service.

“I guess some of them lived here years ago but they’re all on the coast now.” Zach stomps a can. “Dustin met them surfing. When he told them that he goes to Valley View, they told them about this place. I think he wants to touch the one named Star. She’s the one with the house. She’s, like, a woman. They’re all in their twenties…”

I can relate. I lost my virginity to an older woman. When I was twelve, Lizzy, my twenty-year-old babysitter moved from Essex to attend NYU and prove to me that boys aren’t always stronger than girls. In our wrestling match she pinned me down, kissed me, unbuttoned her blouse, and did it to me on my parent’s Eames corner couch to the sounds of the Smiths. It was a beautifully surreal experience that has forever changed me. Since that night, I’ve only listened to UK bands.

“Fabulous,” I say, challenging Zach with a beam of light. “But are there supposed to be bigger rooms somewhere? I don’t think these empty cupboards are sufficient for our party needs my friend.”

“I know. I just wanted to find their old room.” His hair turns blue in my Mini-Mag’s light as he squints, remembering why it is we’ve been tempting ghosts, risking life, limb, arrest and outfits. “It’s downstairs. Follow me.”

Illuminating our steps, we descend through the aged parlor and down to the basement. Zach steps out of the deep stairwell. He grasps the ornate Deco handles of the doubles doors in front of us. They gasp as they part, and our blue Mags shine into a vast empty space. To the right, at the far end of the expansive floor, a semicircle of six shallow gilded steps gradually climb to meet a stage framed with heavy crimson velvet curtains. In a world before Top Chef this must have been some sort of high-class supper club. We cross the ballroom, past the tiers where servers once doted on fancy diners, slightly bouncing from the creaking coils beneath the giving boards.

Onstage, I shine my flashlight toward the treacherous catwalks. My lighter’s bright chirp sings to me from the rafters.
Click, click. Click, click
. A dangling sandbag begins to descend. A pulley squeaks. I watch the curtains unfold. They meet, sway, and then part. And I turn to run upstage, into the open arms of the beautiful white wall. It’s huge. I glide my palm across its cool, smooth, bare surface. I caress it. Then clap the invasive dust from my hands. Aside from needing a cleaning, this is perfect. This is all perfect.

“Zach!” Speed-pacing downstage, I point back at the wonderful canvas, as he releases his tattered rope. “This is it! We could totally do The Premiere’s down here. We could use that wall for the screen.”

I have my brother to thank for this idea. Before Joey ran away to join Cirque, he flew to LA. Down there, he worked for a party promoter. Before meeting him, I’d never known that throwing parties could be a profession. When I’d visit, Joey would take me to all sorts of fabulous events. One was a party at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, wherein hundreds of highly fashionable, very attractive kids come and lay blankets on the grass to watch films with the dead stars. There I saw
The Hunger
projected onto a glowing mausoleum while surrounded by hot girls who looked like hairdressers, well-dressed guys who looked like hairdressers, and Jayne Mansfield resting but a few feet behind me. Though everyone was smoking and had bottles of red wine, I forgave these horrid imperfections in light of the greater good time. One girl, who drank straight from a mini bottle of champagne, had a white kitten with her. She let me hold Mochi through the Peter Murphy scene. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but I still miss them both.

“Mike.” Zach, pacing up through the unsettled dust, shines his blue light against the wall. “The kid was right. This place will totally rule. It’s fucking dark down here, but I suppose that’s ideal. … I’ll run some lights. We’ll need a generator. You can get the old midnight-movie projector right?”

“I can get it.” I pet our wall screen.

“We’re doing this! Seriously.” He palms a dirty Mento into his mouth. “Let’s go back to my place and discuss over some San P.”

“Fabulous!” Dusting my hands on his jacket, dizzied by the prospect of finally taking my first step toward party salvation, I say, “Dibs on Dustin’s shower.”

Chapter 5

I can’t sleep. I’ve been trying for hours. Typically, only school forces me out of bed before the rest of the world has had lunch. Today, I whimper and slide out of Dustin’s slippery purple sheets as the sun starts to rise. The kid is still on the coast and Zach’s fast asleep in his own room. He can pass out with a full mind, but whenever I have a moment of genius that needs realization it likes to lie within me until I convince it to put out. And since I’ve yet to fully seduce our blushing party scheme, I’m already dressed, mobile, and risking a tan at this godly hour. My outfit needs an iron, my shades need some Windex, and I need tea.

With Primal Scream guiding me on my iPod, I shuffle the few blinding blocks from the Prozens’ to our one and only coffee-nerd cafe, Higher Grounds. Its witty play-on-words name depresses me. Tripping up a small flight of concrete steps, I catch myself on the iron fence that wraps around the patio and then float through the glass door. Two of the four walls of this place are ceiling to floor windows. The checkered tiles glare at me as I cross them. When I raise my squint, I’m sure that I’ve drifted into another town. I gasp in mocha air.

Standing over me, a platinum blonde green-eyed it-girl is glowing in the blinding sunbeams and asking to take my order. She’s wearing a remixed
Strangeways
tee. She looks like she escaped from a Paper magazine editorial. Glancing up, I wonder if she’s wearing heels before realizing that I’m crumpled up on the high counter. I’d like to blame lack of sleep for crippling me at this inopportune moment, but I know why I’ve collapsed. It pains me to look at her. She has the face of a star.

“You okay?” she asks, bemused. Pressed to my cheek, the cold black granite awakens my tongue.

“Tea. Please!” Weakly raising a ten-dollar bill, I moan, “Just. Need some Sencha. …” Sparing her a bow, I stand and muster the shiniest pre-noon grin that I can. “And a vegan scone.”

“Bags or a loose leaf?”

I try to just say “loose,” but instead blurt out, “Who are you?”

Suddenly discovering a girl like this working at one of our few not-so-hot spots is a huge threat to the overwhelming banality of small-town ennui.

Seemingly pleased, smiling a half-smile, she hands me my change and very plainly asks, “Who are you, Michael?”

I run my hand through my morning mop, trying to recover from her unexpected recognition. I can feel my hair growing. It tingles.

“I haven’t decided…”

Looking past me, dismissing me, she asks, “Can I help you ma’am?”

Dodging the silver-haired woodsy woman behind me, I casually rake my fingers over the juice cooler, swipe some ice, and retreat to the girls’ room. As scalding water rushes from the faucet, I pocket my aviators and dab my eyes with a melting cube.
New Girl is wearing a
Smiths shirt.
I smooth my tie in the steam.
I think I saw side-boob
. I slip my tie back under my collar, fix my hair, and smile.

“Michael. Organic green!”

I check my teeth then dash down the hall. Slowing my rush, I stroll to the bar.

“How do you know my name?”

“I saw you leaving auditions last month. And ever since I moved here Sarah and The Twins have been telling me how much I’d love you.”

This is the girl I’ve been hearing about, Becca. She’s the one Rick cast opposite me in the fall musical. Finally matching her cool, I ask, “So, do you love me?”

“I haven’t decided.” She hands me a hot bowl-sized black porcelain mug, turns to the La Marzocco, and begins dolloping foam.

“How was last night?” I ask, waiting for my pastry. I’m hoping that her phone number will be written on its bag. I bet her penmanship is superb. “You went to SF with Sarah and them right?”

“Nah, we just got dinner.” She shrugs. “I was going to go but she wasn’t sure when she was coming back. I figured that if I stayed out too late I’d end up laid out across the counter this morning.” Lifting up on her toes she announces, “
Cappuccino, extra foam for Celeste
!” Then pulls some money from the till and hands it to me.

“What’s this?”

“We’re out of scones. Sorry.”

Sitting on toasty black vinyl, with my back absorbing the glare of the window-wall, I text with Hector. He’s agreed to let us borrow his generator. I’m telling him to drop it at Zach’s as Sarah’s voice bursts over the Adele single.

“Hayyyyy beautiful!”

Looking up from my iPhone, I’m about to respond when Becca comes out from behind the counter. The hot brunette smooches the beautiful blonde as if they were two longtime friends meeting at their favorite café on Rue Saint-Honore. They hug, giggle about something, then the vixen in the Smiths shirt skips back to re-make
Celleste’s
unacceptable drink—there’s too much foam.
Tiking
her way between tables, Sarah sits down at the chair across from me, crosses her great legs, and smiles.

“Hey sexy, what’s shakin’?” Her shades match her pink and black-lace Betsey pumps. Her sleeveless black dress looks like it’s been slept in. She hasn’t been home yet.