Mojo - 18. Chapter 17: Teardrops, or Hell-Bound on Venice Beach

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Chapter 17: Teardrops, or Hell-Bound on Venice Beach

I hated it.

The afternoon crowds on the Promenade were thick and annoying. Visitors, overdressed and deeply shaded in near-black sunglasses and ridiculous hats, ambled along in nothing-to-do tourist gaits. Shirtless Gay twinks roller-skated between them, ducking in and out, bobbing and weaving, drunk on fresh air and the possibilities offered by being young and desirable.

I hated the stage-set architecture trying to be a plaster-cast mockup of the Doge’s Palace; hated the pastel colors; despised the long line of palm trees edging the sands of the beach to my left; resented how every other storefront was filled with a souvenir shop, hawking sweatshirts and squeaky racks of postcards. These stands littered the sidewalks. I hated the locals too, the young toughs come out to strut and cause trouble with rival testosterone-soaked delinquents; hated the other visitors just moseying down here to lounge al fresco at the sidewalk bars and burger joints; hated the fact everyone around me was here to have a good time in their own way.

I prowled the Promenade for a different reason. Like one possessed, I scowled at each and every person who dared make eye contact with me. Young, old, rich, poor – it didn’t matter. I moved along with purpose, feeling Hojax’s Luger pinching and scraping my pubic region from where it was stuck between my tee-shirt and the band of my jeans.

I was hell-bound to make something happen; wanted to get into an argument; wanted someone to take a swing. Then, like the plot to some old black and white 50s teen-movie rumble, I’d take out my gun and make those who have hurt me sorry.

In other words, slowing my pace, my wild and distracted countenance – I’m sure – showing nothing but thoughts of blood and slaughter, I began to notice the long line in front of a salmon-colored ice cream parlor. Leaning against the low wall opposite the place, the one separating the Promenade from the drop off to palm trees and beach, were a gang of Latin cholos. Bare-armed, and in their uniforms of saggy-ass, puff-daddy jeans and white tank tops, tattoos abounded. Heads and foreheads were wrapped in various shades of bandanas, and glittery studs shone from every young, manly earlobe.

I hated them.

I passed by, making sure to look more pissed than ever, and had a hard time suppressing the notion of how sweet and innocent they actually looked: quietly enjoying their own company, the sights, the sounds, and the creamy cones they licked with boyish grins.

In fact, they were so content and self-contained, they missed my bad-ass confrontation entirely. I went on a few paces and circled back, more pissed than ever!

On the second go-round, the biggest, baddest of their group – a 20- or 21-year-old with a goatee, expressive eyes, and white dew rag – nodded at me in a bemused way.

I kept a leer locked on him as I moved passed and glanced back. He still observed me and elbowed a couple of amigos, like sharing a joke.

Third time around, I was sure all of them watched as I pretended to fan my tummy with the flap of my tee-shirt, but was really showing them my peace-maker.

I turned back to gauge reactions, and to my horror, saw those young thugs watching a pair of bikini-clad girls roller skating from the other direction.

I gave up on them and walked on.

After another hundred paces, a white sign like a traffic indicator rose on a metal pole. I followed it to one of the best-known features of Venice, California.

However, Muscle 'Beach' turned out not to be a beach at all. In the middle of what by rights should have been a parking lot to an ugly building in orange, a concrete curb and tall blue handrail enclosed a patch of asphalt. In this cage, there was evidently a dress code, or a non-dress code, as all the tanned muscle-bounds wore knee-length shorts, flip flops and no shirts.

A crowd of pasty tourists blinked in the sun next to pimply teen-boy 99-pounders with skateboards kicked into their palms. They stood two and three deep to watch the profoundly homoerotic, and thus deeply homophobic flexing, 'spotting' and grunting on display like a zoo exhibit. If there were a placard it would have said: "Meatheads in their natural environment. Please do not feed."

I hated them.

I sidled up to a bare patch of fencing, by the rack where the dumbbells – and their weights – were stretched out on a bench. A black guy was extending his arms, while his white companion lay on the bench and lifted his metal rod up in the air.

I elbowed a geeky kid to my right and said in a voice way too loud: “Hans und Franz – careful boy, they may want to pump you up, if you know vhat I mean.”

The teen looked aghast; the muscle-heads turned to stare.

“You never know with these types,” I added.

The boy pushed up his glasses and informed me, “He’s my uncle, you pervert.”

“As if,” I laughed needlessly, but suddenly the wimpy kid cracked his knuckles, and his buddies – all equally scrawny – came up to his defense.

“You got a problem with Gary’s uncle and his husband, man?” his friend asked me.

“Phaw,” I coughed. “Yeah. And with the rest of the world too.”

“Get lost,” another teen voice called out.

“Oh, yeah. Who’s gonna make me!?” I flipped around.

A seven-foot-tall boy with no-baloney written on his face had been the one to tell me to spam, so, despite feeling like a Hosenscheisser, I did. I mean, I couldn’t shoot a kid, could I…?

I hated all of this. Nothing I plan ever seems to work out.

Kicking loose sand on the pavement as I went, I left the Muscle Beach muscle-heads and plodded back along the Promenade. All the colors were beginning to be intensified by the angling sun headed towards the western waters, but my heart was more troubled than ever. If I allowed my adagio pace to generate any thoughts at all, they would have conjured Gordon’s smile, Gordon’s laugh, Gordon’s sweet taste as I kissed him – and what good would that do…? Only make me feel like dropping to my knees in the middle of the slow surge of humanity and burst into tears.

In other words, no good at all.

Something made the skin prickle on the back of my neck. I looked around to identify the source. Continuing to walk casually, even bothering to thrust hands in my pockets, I pretended not to notice the ice-cream cholos from earlier following me intently several yards behind.

I might have gone looking for trouble, but now that it was returning the favor, my heart pounded and my wrists perspired with concern.

Past one annoying souvenir kiosk with plastic keychains in one of a thousand names, I dodged behind a gaggle of Chinese tourists, using them as a visual shield, and took off.

The gun really hurt me now, but I ran close to the buildings, hearing thick-soled sneakers squeak in pursuit behind me.

Nearly out of breath, I ducked into an alley and dashed into a dead-end niche for trash cans.

It was dark here, and I straightened my spine to still my respiration so I could tell if the thugs knew where I was.

They did. Like slow motion, they lined up one by one in a semi-circle outside the opening until the guy in the center reached in and dragged me out by the tee-shirt.

Before I knew it, he’d shoved me across the alley and up against the brick wall on the other side. It took me a non-focused minute to get the wind back in me, and after I had, the men had reassembled their half circle around me, only now their leader with his white head covering and sexy goatee was dead center in front of me.

A lopsided grin appeared. He took two steps forward, and then I really freaked out. This guy wore a fairly small gold pendant – but without any mistake at all – I saw it was a winged cock: the mark of ‘them.’

The young man’s advance did not stop. He leaned in really close, only inches away, driving my back and extended hands along the wall so deep I wished I could melt into the mortar.

As tenderly as a lover’s touch, he moved my shirt aside and extracted the gun. His deep brown eyes never left mine.

The young tough held the weapon up between our faces, just below the level of our lips. When he spoke, the deepness of his voice echoed in my chest.

“Until you submit to My control—”

Somehow, through the thready pulse pounding in my ears, the guy’s tones blended….

“—This state you are in—”

With Parthia’s Latin the night of the garden center….

“—Will persist all the miserable—”

The young man’s face merged with that of the maniacal woman’s visage as she placed her curse on me….

“—Days of your life.”

His silence snapped me fully back to reality. Slowly, he rotated his face and brought a teardrop tattoo under his left eye into view.

The cholo raised the gun and used the tip of the barrel to trace a line from the inky blob down his cheek, chin and chest. It ended up pointing to the pendant. I got the message: the Priapus cult was watching me at all times.

With that, the leader straightened up, tucked Hojax’s pistol in the back waist of his jeans and slowly walked towards the Promenade; the semi-circle peeled off one by one to follow him.

Alone, I swallowed down my panic and stayed put. I felt stripped…nay, I felt robbed of my revenge…. But I used the couple of minutes to decide what to do. I’d go to the motel, pack up and beat it. Yet, where to…? That I’d figure out along the way.

I stayed still for another moment or two, but then my boy’s face intruded on my misery again. I’d be damned if I cried in such a stinking Venice Beach garbage dump. I wouldn’t give the fucking nature god the fucking satisfaction.

I bolted and took off, not minding anything or anyone as I reached the full sunlight of the public thoroughfare.

I should have though, for as soon as I got free of the alley, I ran smack into a tall guy. His stature knocked all the momentum back through my body and sat me flat on my ass.

Stunned, with the ever-organizing light behind his head like a halo, the man bent down to pick me up.

“Kohl? What the hell—”

“Oh, my God…. Burtron?”

“Yeah, buddy.” He started brushing me off; it was my tall friend with the nose ring from the Flying Dutchman.

“Burtron Hamerik, what are you doing here?” I suddenly felt very weak.

His strong hands reached out again to steady me, both chest and back. “I just got done with a client, and I need to decompress a bit before I head back home. You all right?”

“Um—” Through my foggy head, I remembered now that my buddy was some kind of racial kink leader, with a community of followers. “I’m okay, just – had a shock, that’s all.”

“Ah, man. Neil told me, and I’m sorry to hear about Gordon and your ex.”

Neil Campbell; of course the entire artists’ compound would know about my personal misery.

He went on, sensing, I guess, I didn’t want to talk about my boy, “I’m just about to grab a beer and a bite to eat. Wanna join?”

At the mere mention of solid food, my stomach answered for me with a loud roar. “Yeah.” I’d suddenly come over all hungry.

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“Want another?” Burtron held up his empty lager glass.

I nodded. What the hell. We’d been here for about an hour, and this would only be my fourth.

I polished off the rest of my burger and settled back on my sidewalk café chair to leisurely peck at my fries. The crowds had thinned the nearer the sun got to the horizon. Perhaps they’d all moved to the sand to sit and watch it set.

My stomach contentedly reminded me this had been the first real meal since before Tre-Princely’s horrendous cena.

“So,” Burtron said, after ordering two more Pilsen, “a few of us from the Flying Dutchman are heading out to the Burning Man arts festival in a couple weeks. I have to leave beforehand – tomorrow in fact.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m needed in Vegas for a week.”

“Work?” I chuckled.

“Work, work, work.” He laughed.

I suddenly got serious. “Is that Neil Campbell going to Burning Man?”

“Hell no. No one likes Aussies – they’re riddled with love-hate complexes. Yuck.”

I had to smile; clearly Burtron was a man of discriminating tastes.

Our beer arrived, and I toasted him for that. “What you said, I couldn’t have put it better. Cheers!”

After we clinked and drank, ‘The Hammer’ licked the foam off his upper lip and said, “Why don’t you come? You can be my assistant for the Vegas stay – field phone calls, keep my appointment book, keep me fed and hydrated, etc. – and we can unwind at the desert festival after. Seems like you need a little distraction.”

“Phutt…” I sputtered, “do I. But you’re serious; you’d want me along?”

“Yep. We click, and we’re two tops, so there’s no sexual tension.”

“Yeah, getting away would be nice. We wouldn’t fight over any of your cult members anyway, that’s for sure.”

He chuckled. “Don’t want any alt-white ass?”

“Nope.”

After a bit of drinking and snacking on the last of our food, I glanced out to the waves again. The inward-coming motion of the surf somehow almost made me want to cry again; it conjured my boy’s beautiful face.

What was wrong with me? How could I—

And then, I don’t know how to describe it – the way the orange orb of the sun burned my retina and caused pleasant spots when I looked away; the manner in which the voices of visitors all around me suddenly assumed a normal, holiday-making lilt again; the fresh feel of sea breeze on my pallid skin – it all blended into a new concept for me.

Why mope? Why stay in L.A., when it’s for sure the one place Assauer and Gordon are not? Why not look for him – win my beloved back, or die trying?!

“You sure, Burtron? You’d let me come with you?” I tried to suppress a smile as I waited for him to take a bite of chocolate cake. ‘Why it gotta be chocolate?’ I laughed to myself.

“Sure thing.”

He was a man of many statements in few words, and I could have kissed him in newfound hope and determination. Instead, I nodded in gratitude at his grin, and let my sight again drift westward.

I did not want the ground or ocean to swallow me up; I wanted to find and win Gordon back, no matter if I needed to move earth or sea to do it. I’d suffer all embarrassment and hardship just to have the boy I love back in my arms.

I told Burtron, “With your help, I can follow the breadcrumbs, or chalk marks like Theseus in the maze of the Minotaur. The ones left by other kink cults, so I can undo the damage wrought by the donkey-dick freaks.”

“That’s great, buddy. A positive outlook makes all the difference.”

I realized I’d have to tell him more, but there’d be time tonight or on the flight tomorrow.

Now I stood up, wanting to pack.

I turned to the fading starlight from the sun and knew I’d just taken the first step of a new journey. And for once in my life, I had purpose.

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