See Steph Annotate: Six

Oops, this is late. I flew across the country yesterday, so there’s my excuse. Spring break over. Sigh. Actually, I think I may stop posting for a while until I figure out what I want to do with this blog. I don’t want to publish too much by myself in case one day I manage to get someone else interested in doing that for me, and apparently web stuff counts. If I do take it off the web, anyone can let me know if they’d like to follow progress in a google doc or something of the sort. Anyway.

1. Park La Brea. You guessed it, I have a couple close friends who live here. Though they actually live in a two-room. Juniper’s place would have the floor plan below, and run her somewhere in the neighborhood of $1100-$1200 a month.

2. The discovery. There’s something unbelievable about finding a body in a trunk, but then again, this story doesn’t exactly happen in the realm of the plausible.

3. Marlowe’s descriptions. I wish I had an example handy. I don’t. But trust.

4. Aleph. I wonder if this is too obscure for this kind of writing. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and Borges wrote a short story called “The Aleph” in which he describes a single point in space where you can see everything in the universe. All I’m trying to say here is “garden of Versailles stuck in the trunk.”

5. The puking. “Bile bloomed harsh and thorny at the back of my throat” was the first line written in this whole chapter. I had it waiting while I wrote up the preceding chapters. I knew that I wanted to have Juniper react to the body in a way that Marlowe would never. As tough as I want her, she isn’t a seasoned detective, and she should react to death like a normal human being, unaccustomed to strange corpses. At the same time, I didn’t want her to cry or act delicate, so I had her puke ignobly in a parking lot. I have her puke up some rice (not because I’m racist but because Koreans eat rice, deal), but I wonder if she would’ve digested her dinner by now.

6. Basilisk. Y’all read Harry Potter, right? That snake that kills you if you look it in the eye.

7. Knuckle cracking. Another unladylike mannerism for my heroine. I share this habit. It’s super satisfying.

8. The elevators. At Park La Brea. Suck. I’ve had to take those stairs before. With heavy luggage in tow.

9. Brontosaur. Did you know this doesn’t exist anymore? I feel so betrayed. As does Littlefoot, who wikipedia is now calling an apatosaurus. The fuck.

10. The telephone. Again, she has a weird affinity for old things. Also, this allows her to use a phone even without a cell. Also, Marlowe was always walking into his office when the telephone was ringing.

11. Talented Mr. Ripley Hair. VILLAIN ALERT!

12. Meringue. I had a hard time making this a believable character, so I decided to make him self-consciously unreal. If Juniper’s playing a part, so is he, but he knows his lines better.

Six

The single mile drive from Lori’s to Park La Brea took two smooth, uneventful minutes. I didn’t even hit a red light.

I pulled into the garage and slammed the brakes on my way down the slope to my spot as a jogger with a death wish bunny-hopped across the ramp. A thud sounded from the trunk and I heard my stomach drop like my intestines had been yanked out from underneath it like a magician’s tablecloth. It could have been a bag of bowling balls, maybe a floor lamp. It was definitely not the two shopping bags of clothes, one to return and one to alter, that I had put into my empty trunk the morning before.

I slid my car crooked and hasty into its space like I was stealing home. I jammed it in park and stepped out of my seat without turning off the engine. I let myself hesitate for just a few seconds then pressed a stiff-jointed index finger into the button to open the trunk. The door rose with the measured sound and pace of an elevator unsealing, revealing.

Bile bloomed harsh and thorny at the back of my throat. I suppose I already knew what was in there. A party at the Marlowe of all places, a sapping – life was funny that way, and it was about time to toll the body count.

Marlowe always managed to describe every detail of a room before coolly settling his writer’s eye on the petrified body with bound ankles and a knife in its face, sprawled out in a pool of gore on the middle of the musty Oriental carpet that looked, forty years ago, like it had seen better days. My trunk offered little to work with, but I wouldn’t have noticed the garden of Versailles alephed into that spare space for the fact of death staring back at me from within.

I threw up. I grabbed my knees, turned my head to the right and threw up. An unholy confection of brown, orange, and pink textured with half-digested rice hit the pavement like spilled chunky soup. By the time it settled into a couple of motionless pools, I was throwing up again. I huffed deeply, one, two, one, two, then threw up one more time for good measure.

I spat and lifted one hand from where it gripped my kneecap to wipe the slime from my mouth on the flat of my wrist. It was time to look at the body.

It was a he – a strange he, thank heavens. His long, string-bean skinny frame lay crumpled at the hip, knees collapsed pointing towards the back of my trunk. His candy-bright red hair was well-kept, even after what had to be a bumpier night than mine, spiffy with gel in a perfectly executed anal-retentive’s interpretation of bedhead. He wore a button-down in white and lilac pinstripes fitted close to his wiry torso and buttoned a button or two lower than it should have been buttoned. The lean expanse of milk skin peeking out from underneath was unnaturally hairless. Brown Ferragamo loafers and thin distressed blue jeans that a man with an interest in avoiding hate crime could only pull off in Los Angeles finished the outfit. His body contorted so that he lay on his back with his face looking up at me. It was an unlovable face, with twisted eyebrows, meager chapped lips, and a nose so narrow it barely had a bulb. When it mattered, maybe hours, maybe days ago, he might have been somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-nine, thirty-one – it didn’t matter anymore. His muddy green-brown eyes were open, fixed in the panic and disbelief that must come with running into a basilisk, or staring at the Reaper.

There was no blood that I could see, no holes, but a dark purple welt around an inch and a half wide decorated his neck in a smooth line like a velvet gift ribbon. It was very appropriate, though I wasn’t expecting to find a card from the sender.

I lowered the back of my hand into the trunk space and touched it, just barely, to the dead man’s cheek. I don’t know what I expected to gain from this gesture, but it proved pointless. The temperature – neither notably hot nor cold – was unrevealing, and the skin felt like regular old cheek skin, only I knew it was dead, and I couldn’t untouch it. I scraped the back of my hand against the skirt of my dress, but I couldn’t unfeel the touch I absorbed with my skin even as I misremembered it with my mind. I rubbed and rubbed, trying not to keep staring at the corpse. I stopped when it started to smart, and I shook out my hand, then popped the wrist by pushing down on it with my left palm. The sound was crisp and satisfying, and I popped the other and cracked every knuckle I knew I had. The garage echoed.

I pulled down on the lid of my trunk and squatted on the floor of the garage, my heels hovering in their flip-flops. I held it like that, not quite closed, with my arms extended, and I rested half of my face with my eye in the crook of my right elbow. I whimpered like a stupid pup, and I was aware of how pathetic I looked, squatting among the splashes of my own upchuck. I dared someone to pass by and judge – I would have let go of that trunk door in about a second.

Instead I closed the trunk and forced myself up on my heels. I needed a phone like I’d never needed a phone. I rounded the side of my car, got in and killed the engine. I smiled a little at my brain’s use of that stock phrase – a murdered engine up front, a murdered body in back. The garage held a tight silence, the type that comes between the sounded drops of a leaky faucet. My shoes scratched the pavement like rude critters scurrying, cluttering. I left the garage and plodded towards my apartment tower one heavy shuffle at a time. A corpse in my trunk qualified as urgent, but running wasn’t about to change a damned thing.

I walked into the entryway of my building and hit the button for the elevator. A doorman seated on a metal stool watched me from a corner, wedged between a courtesy phone and a wall of mailboxes. I crossed my arms and shifted my weight back and forth from foot to foot. The elevators in my building were in dire need of remodeling. A pressed button gave no light, and there was no telling when a car would arrive. The doorman stared at me for a full two minutes before letting me know that the elevators were down.

I almost felt guilty about the intensity of my glare. My voice came out like crushed glass. “Thanks. I’ve only been standing here since Tuesday.” I spun on a used-up heel and rounded my way through an all too heavy door into the echoesome concrete cave of a stairwell that connected the floors of the building. The bumped iron steps wobbled and clanged in lazy noisy baritones under my tired brontosaur steps. I gripped the railing as I wound my way up. Even with a dead body in the trunk, a broken elevator still registered as highly annoying.

I could hear the old telephone ringing from the hallway as I approached 4J. I was the last twenty-something in the Los Angeles area who still had a landline. Even the cable guy gave me a look when I requested it. His eyebrows said, “Really?” The phone itself was an antique – spin-dial, earpiece like a fancy black barbell, fat trapezoid body, and of course, a ring like the angry clatter of the entire cookware section of Bed Bath & Beyond falling in the aisles at once, then getting kicked by an army of toddlers. I loved that ring as much as everyone else hated it, and as I fished out my keys and shimmied them into the lock, I was aware that I had never dreaded hearing it until now. I gave the door a shove with my upper arm and stumbled into my studio bursting with that furious tin sound.

I stood still in the doorway and let it ring, and ring, and ring, and ring, the receiver nearly jumping in its seat. The clock in the TV stand said 7:42 a.m. in rude red dots and dashes. The ringing stopped, and I slipped out of my shoes and approached the old phone where it sat dressing up a vanilla-wooden Ikea coffee table with screw-in peg-legs. I dropped onto the cocoa leather couch and forgot to relax, forgot to appreciate the way the old cushion sinks in just enough to welcome a worn-out behind. I leaned forward, propped my elbows on my knees, rested nose and chin in a two-handed finger gun and waited for the next call.

The wait was short. No boy would ever redial so fast. This time I picked up after one ring. Another dating faux pas, but I suspected this was no suitor. I took a deep breath, swallowing with mouth wide open and nose clogged so as not to make a sound. “Morning, sunshine.” The greeting did not come out as bright and clear and cool as it had in the split-second preview that played in my head moments earlier, but my booming heartbeat didn’t leak into the cadence either.

“Welcome home, Miss Song. It seems you had a fun night. All that partying will get you in trouble, you know.” The voice was gentle, teasing, admonishing. I pictured a twenty-eight year old male of medium height with Talented Mr. Ripley hair, smiling wryly over a cup of coffee, sniffing but never sipping. My murderer had good PR.

“So will sitting in your car outside of people’s homes. I think that’s stalking. Can you tell me what you’re driving so I can hang up and call my building manager?”

There was just the tiniest window of silence on the line, and I might have imagined that. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be in your best interest.”

“Please, since I know you will anyway, tell me what my best interest is at this juncture.”

“You want to be left alone. You want your trunk empty, and you never want to meet the person who filled it. You may not believe me, but this is your best interest.” His tone was sweet, but cold and stiff like a quality frozen meringue.

“I mean, not that I’ve ever been in this sort of situation before, but this whole conversation – warning off the would-be detective – I’ve seen it, I’ve read it, and I don’t get it. Do you assign zero value to wild human curiosity? How can you tell me my best interest is to walk away? In the last what, ten hours? I’ve been knocked unconscious, ferried to Larchmont, and rewarded for my troubles with some poor fool chilling across the Styx in my trunk. So what am I, an asshole? I’m supposed to roll over and bow out? Go fuck yourself.” I slammed down the receiver with what can only be described as swinging bravado. At the end of the motion my arm was bent at a right angle and my hand hovered next to my cheek as if I were ready to give someone the backhand. I couldn’t have delayed more than a few seconds before going for the phone again to call the cops, but Meringue had my number.

The sugar was gone from his voice, and he enunciated like he was cutting steel. “You seem smart enough. You certainly have the wise guy mouth. You must know, then, what I meant by your best interest.”

“Are we adding blackmail to my list of new experiences for the day? I’m disappointed. It’s kind of a step back from murder, don’t you think?”

“My employer” – he said it just like in the movies, with utter certainty and awed loyalty – “is a busy person, but my employer” – no pronoun – “is willing to take the time to meet with your family – with Jin-Sook, Yura, Oliver, and Charles – though, you call the little one Peanut, don’t you?” He paused for effect and continued slowly. “My employer can be rather unfriendly.”

I could tell from the lilt in his voice that he smiled with just the corners of his mouth as he spoke. He knew he was dealing in cliches, and he knew that the cliches would do just fine. The strongest poker hands never change, never lose. There was no need for cleverness. The bald, pulp threats glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and when the dial tone sounded a minute later, I realized I had no conception of when, catfooted, he had disappeared from the other end of the line.
—
Like she said, it was time to toll the body count.

Five

See Steph Annotate: Five

1. 911 Porsche. This is what Cal drives:

I think. I actually don’t know much about cars, and Google image search is confusing me with there being more than one type of 911 Porsche. Point being, brat brat brat. On a side note, if you want to see a Porsche-heavy garage, you should check out the building I worked in last summer. Damn L.A. lawyers.

2. Orbits. Mojito-flavored Orbits are actually kind of nasty. I don’t really get it.

3. Directions. Yes, Song is the one with the sense of direction. No, this is not a fantasy novel.

4. Facebook. I find the infrequency of Facebook usage in modern media to be entirely implausible. I may be unusually Facebook-dependent, but it is the rare 20-something who does not make any use of it. I think it’s almost necessary for a detective novel set in the 2000s to make extensive use of the internet and modern technology. One of the attorneys I work with in clinic requested that we use Facebook to get in touch with a potential witness, and I imagine that Facebook would be a valuable tool for preliminary investigation, especially for someone like Juniper who doesn’t have other means. In a related vein, modern technology makes it easier for all of us to play detective. It certainly helps us spy.

5. The beamer returns. The lack of red herrings in mysteries – not for the reader, mind you, but for the detective – has always struck me as unbelievable. In Chapter 2, Juniper talks about how strange things can have strange but simple solutions, and while it looks like Lori is in fact involved in something untoward, this remains true.

6. The laugh. I love me a miserable laugh. One of the best I’ve had was when my friend and I missed a Shins concert because of a traffic jam on Highland. We felt so sorry for ourselves that we couldn’t stop cracking up, and the night turned out to be memorable for it. I don’t know that I would’ve changed a thing.

7. Yuchun. An amazing Korean restaurant on Olympic and Western. Mmmmmmmm.

OK that’s it for now. See you next time for a chapter where something actually happens.

Five

Five

We trudged, dog tired and disorganized, to the elevator, down to Cal’s Batmobile black 911 Porsche in a Porsche-heavy garage.  Cal was still in his pajamas, a pair of dirty Rainbows on his feet.  “Dude, did you brush your teeth?”

He pulled out a pack of Orbits as an answer.  “Want one?  Mojito-flavored, couldn’t resist.”

“Oh weird, sure.”  We chewed up as we got in the car.  “I don’t taste rum.  Probably a plus.”

“So where are we going?”

“4th and Citrus.  Take a right on 6th and another right after Highland.”  I patted down his disaster cloud of cappuccino hair.  “I take it you had a better night than I did.”

He took a second to contemplate whether he had to address my innuendo or not and realized that yes, he did.  “Yeah, I got taken advantage of yet again.”

“You little slut.”  I lengthened each word, sitting back with my arms crossed as the car got going.  “After all your judging last night.  Who’s the girl?”

“Friend of Corey’s.  Name’s Priscilla.”

“Don’t know her.  Last name?”

“I think Gibson.”

“I’ll Facebook-stalk her.”

“Of course you will.”  We drove without talking through smooth curves on 6th.   “So back to more important things, though.  I still can’t believe you got fucking sapped.  That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, I know.  I’m pretty pissed off.  The back of my head feels like a placenta.  Or what I think a placenta would feel like, anyway.”  I palmed the gooey bump.  “So do you know anything about a black BMW with the license plate I texted you?”

“Doesn’t ring any bells.”  He paused.  “But whoever knocked you out last night obviously wasn’t in the car, right?”

“Right.”  I thought for a second.  “Right.  But I can’t, like, they have to be related, right?”

“I guess so.  I mean, unless someone just didn’t like that you were curious in general.”

“Maybe.  I kind of doubt it, though, because it would’ve been pretty easy for another car to just kind of chill while I sniffed out the beamer, you know?  Though we can’t rule out that whoever did this to me is just a complete unmitigated idiot.  My guess would be that the sapper was looking out for the shady bastard in the beamer.  What do you think?”

“I mean, I have no idea.  It doesn’t really make sense to me.”  He moved the shift stick up and down in a slow accelerando as we idled at a stoplight on 6th and Highland.  “You know I hate to bring this up, but do you think anything else happened to you while you were conked out?”

“It crossed my mind and I don’t think so, but I’m not totally naïve.  I’ll get it checked out when I get a chance.”  I felt a swell of affection expand in my chest.  “I’m glad you thought about that, though.  Thanks dude.”

We pulled up to 432 Citrus.  I caught myself breathing easier at the sight of my darling car parked safe and demure where I’d left it.  I fished out my keys and bleep bleeped it open from Cal’s passenger seat.  “Want to come with and make sure it doesn’t explode on contact?”

“Well if you put it that way, sure, why not.”

He parked his car behind mine and killed the engine, and we lumbered out into the gauzy warmth of a Los Angeles summer morning unbothered by wind and damp, unbothered by the crimes and follies of the night before.

“Uh, Song?  Isn’t that your mystery car?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that the BMW might still be there, so I hadn’t even thought to check across the street until Cal pointed directly at the spot where I’d ended my waking night.  Sure enough, it sat parked where I’d seen it last, in mannered concert with my own car.

I power-walked across the street and stood right in front of the windshield, arms akimbo, leaning forward at the hips, staring inside.  Cal came up next to me and mirrored my pose.  The black tint was solid and unapologetic, even in daylight.
He sucked in noisily through his teeth.  “This confuses me.  Does it confuse you?”

“Well.”  I kept staring.  “Well fuck.”

“It’s a shady vehicle, I’ll give you that.”

“Don’t tell me this is just a neighbor’s car.  Who tints their windows like that?  It’s a total kiddie-rape-mobile.”
“So where does this leave you?”

“Where does it leave me?  Nowhere, apparently.  My big lead was this license plate.”

“Lead to what?”

“Who knocked me out, why, and what Lori Lim’s got to do with it all.”

“We still know that something weird went down on this street, right outside her house.  That’s a start, isn’t it?  And you can call the police.”

“The police.”  I turned to him and laughed.  “Wow, it’s incredible, but that actually hadn’t occurred to me until you mentioned it.”

“Sorry, no need to get nasty.”

“No, I’m actually not being sarcastic.  I think I’ve just been so, like, in a different world since last night, and cops just weren’t in the picture.”

He spurted a huffy laugh, and I started to smirk, and laughter flew like spittle out of the corner of my mouth.  In seconds, the two of us were holding each other by the elbows, holding our sides, resting against the hood of the shaded car, hollering with thunderous laughter.  We must have looked crazy, the two of us – Cal, unshaven, knobbed knees peering out from beneath his shorts, a mess of hair and restless face peering poking out of a too-wide-too-short thread-worn T-shirt; me in my body-conscious bandage clubwear and flip-flops – standing in a residential street at seven in the morning pained and near puking with laughter.  It was just one of those moments, where by virtue of being shared, misery felt sublime, more real and more fun than fun, more filled with glee than happiness.  Laughter splashed out of us in torrents and floated in the morning air.  We sighed together and rested, mirroring each other with exaggerated rolls of the shoulders then crossing our arms.

“Haaaaaaaa okay,” I said.  “I have quite the to-do list today.  But I think a shower is at the tippy top.  I feel like the aftermath of a hobo orgy where no one thought to bring Kleenex.”

“Gross.”

“Hug?”  I opened my arms to full wingspan and gave him my best adopt-me puppy face.  He mock-winced, narrowing one eye and clenching his teeth, then smiled with his mouth open.  He gave me one of his weak brotherly hugs, a loose circle draped over my head clasped with wrists resting above the small of my back.  I gave him a good squeeze about the torso.  “Thanks for everything, you’ve been solid.”  I brought out my keys and unlocked my car.  “It’s definitely time for me to go home.”  We crossed back across the street.

“You still want me to come with and check for explosions?”

“No, I’m good, I just wanted to give you a hug.”

“Well call me when you get back to your place.”

I opened up my door.  “Will do.”  I sidled into the seat and waved back at him before closing myself in.  I gunned the engine – no car bomb, not yet – and shifted into drive.  My foot was still on the brake when Cal came up and tapped on the glass.  I lowered the window.

“Hey wait, so do you think my dad has anything to do with all this?”

“Yes, the way I got my head dented last night, I mean it was like your dad was holding the bat.  The way the blunt surface sank in, vintage Papa Brady.”

“Don’t be mean, Song.  You know it would kill me if he was part of this.”

“Sorry, you bring out the bully in me.  Honestly, though, I have no idea.  I will say something untoward could be up with Lori.  You were probably right about that.  We’ll talk later though.  I haven’t really had a chance to think it through, and I’m not 100% right now.”

“Lunch later?”

“How about dinner?  I have a lot to take care of today.  And I should probably take a nap.”

“Yeah, I think that works.  Can we go to that noodle place again?”

“Yuchun?”

“With the black noodles, right?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.  You’re on my way so I can come pick you up.  At like seven?  I don’t have my cell, remember, but I’ll try to get a new one today.  Otherwise try me at home.  I should be back before dinner time.”

“Sounds good.  Go home, Songster.  Have some tea.  Unwind.  I’ll see you later.”  He stuck his hand in the window and I gave it a squeeze.

“I’ll call you in a few.”  He backed up and waved, and I eased my foot onto the accelerator and left Citrus Ave. to swallow my dust.

—

Publishing chapter by chapter, I’m kind of realizing that there are some bits where not a whole lot happens…Six is more eventful, so stay tuned.

Four

Six

See Steph Annotate: Four

Under the weather.  And out here, that’s a low bar.  In any case.

1.  Koo Koo Roo.  I am very familiar with this stretch of Larchmont Blvd., and Koo Koo Roo is at one end of it.  I love Larchmont for its cute little shops and restaurants, though Juniper is lucky that she didn’t have to deal with the parking on this particular morning.  I wanted to include Larchmont on her little journey through Los Angeles, and I suppose this is where that happens.  I also kind of liked the idea of having that chicken head look down at Juniper mockingly as she recovers from her unconscious state.

2.  Pinkberry.  Does this need explanation?  I am an avid Pinkberry fan and apologist.  No one else measures up, and fine, it’s priced more like melted-down metal than frozen yogurt, but to hate it for any other reason is just to hate.  Pinkberry is also my number 1 food for hungover afternoons, usually to cut the grease of everything I ate in drunken ecstasy just hours earlier with a little cold tang.  I imagine it would be my top craving if I were to wake up from a sapping.  Mango, strawberry, and mochi please.

3.  Issues of female unconsciousness.  I struggled, and am still struggling, with what to do about the question of potential sexual violence in the unwritten portion between Three and Four.  I would imagine that any girl who gets knocked unconscious and wakes up in a strange place would have concerns about what happened to her in the interim.  Marlowe never had to deal with this, and it isn’t my intention to suggest, even for a moment, that Juniper was violated.  Still, I thought it would be absurd not to mention, and “threat level blue” is sort of my indication that this isn’t really an issue.  I will probably have to do some more tweaking, yet.  Any thoughts on this point are welcome.

4.  The elevator encounter.  I’ve done many, many walks of shame that had little to do with sexual encounters the night before (many, in fact, into various Pinkberrys in the L.A. area).  I often stay over at friends’ places drunk without changes of clothing, and I have definitely been aware of amused glances in my direction when I’m strolling around in clubbing attire in broad daylight.  This little episode was actually one of the first scenes I envisioned when I started writing.  I started with the wobbly headphones, and the awkward encounter came in right after.  I had a lot of fun writing it.

5.  Dialogue.  When Juniper recounts her night to Cal, I switched from having all words written out to a summary sentence.  I was hesitant to do this, as I liked the idea of having all dialogue from all points in this story come out in full, but the long paragraph punctuated with “like” and “so” just didn’t read well.  I’ve mentioned before that I have a harder time with dialogue than with anything else in my writing, and this continues to be the case.

6.  Toon wolf.  I have a particular Droopy cartoon in mind.  There was one episode involving this wolf that made my brother laugh so hard he vomited.  True story.

7.  The clean-up.  I made this part very detailed, probably more so than necessary.  I kind of like the slow, mechanical pacing of describing a process.  No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy makes use of this sort of scene rather often, and this is duly noted in the movie version, where you see, for example, the meticulous step-by-step of Javier Bardem washing out his wounds.  As this is Oscar night, I will comment that none of the nominees for best picture this year measure up to No Country, which is one of my favorite films of all time.

Chapter Five next week!  Thanks as always.

My Motor Mishaps: A Chronicle

“I backed my car into a cop car the other day/Well he just drove on sometimes life’s okay”

- Modest Mouse, Float On

 

I just crossed off “semi-ironic epigraphs” from my list of things needed on See Steph Write.  In any case, what follows is a log of my driving history, dedicated it to a Mrs. Kimberly B.  Some of the months are fudged a little, as my memory isn’t as precise as I’d like it to be.  Also, this history is not complete.  Pepper in some trash cans, walls, and harmless bumps, though I didn’t do much driving between 2003 and 2006, thanks to college and no car.

6/01: Spent an afternoon at a bootleg Korean driving school, adorably dubbed “A.J.” for “an-jun,” which is Korean for “safety.”  Left alone with some videos and no supervision.  Closest I can say I’ve come to experiencing sperm donation.

7/01: Obtained permit.  Took license picture which I kept until 1/09.

12/01: Took a few behind-the-wheel lessons with an employee of A.J. Driving School with less than a sturdy grip on his R’s and L’s, which led to some hilariously stereotypical confusion. Ex 1: “You have to feel the road.”  ”Fear?”  ”No, you have to get the feeling.”  Ex 2: “Turn right.”  I turn on the light.  ”No, right turn.”

1/02: Shortly after my 16th birthday, took my first DMV driving test in Downtown L.A.  Did not look both ways before turning left out of the parking lot.  Circled the block, having failed within 1 minute.

2/02: Successfully received license in Van Nuys, with only 6 points off.  Bravo.

6/02: Drove occasionally to library job.  Hit yellow parking pole.  Old man who hired me printed out advertisements for sensors you can attach to your car to avoid bumping into stationary objects.

9/02: Started driving regularly for the first time with the start of senior year.  Day 1 with no incident.  Day 2: side of garage.  Bye bye bumper.  Day 3: grandmother’s sedan parked in driveway.  Day 4: side of garage.  Again.  Have not parked in garage since.  Day 5: mailbox.  Day 6: spare tire of someone’s Jeep in senior lot.  Carpool refused to sit in my front seat, told friends he lived in fear each morning.

11/02: Showdown with the heavy stone trash can in front of my parking space, which I had feared hitting since the beginning of the year.  Had even taken to tying pillows around it.  Meant to reverse out of spot to straighten out.  Forgot to reverse, accelerated into trash can, which I had previously thought was bolted into the concrete.  Pushed it fifteen feet, creating a deep groove in the parking lot and some kitty scratch marks on my front bumper.  Trash can unscathed.

4/03: Ran out of gas on my way up the hill going home.  Father displeased, provided me with watering can of gasoline.

5/03: Tried to squeak by a truck with an open door on Ventura.  Forgot about the side view mirror.  Took five minutes trying to parallel park, and ended up jutting way out into the street.  Truck-driver said there was no damage, and I was free to go.  Picked up mirror from street, and it rode to school in my passenger seat.

11/04: Nearly hit a pedestrian on corner of Melrose and Stanley.  Rolled down window to apologize.  Pedestrian came back, held up a tiny joint, and demanded that if I were sorry, I would smoke it with him or give him $100.  When this was unsuccessful, he asked to be taken to lunch, gave me his email address, and generally talked so that I held up traffic for several minutes.

1/05: License renewed without incident thanks to a perfect record.  Not even a change of picture.

6/05: Car started puttering while going up hill.  Recognized I was out of gas and made it to intersection of White Oak and Ventura before completely losing steam.  Two helpful gentlemen pushed me across the street to a gas station.

10/06: Parking pole in Fuki parking lot in Palo Alto.

3/07: Hit parked car and dislodged a light.  Left a note.  Owner called back saying the light had popped right back into place.  Golden.

6/08: Reminisced with Mike about how I used to be the worst driver ever.  Bumped into a parked car with people inside in Coldstone parking lot.  Agreed to work it out without going through insurance.

7/08: Ran out of gas for the third time.  This car wasn’t bluffing when it hit the “E” like my old car.  Managed to get off the freeway, sputter out at the bottom of the exit ramp.  Got out of the car and attempted to push it in neutral to the nearest gas station.  Car didn’t budge.  Called a towing company.  $125 I could’ve spent on a tank of gas.

1/09: My first accident with another moving vehicle.  Rear-ended Mrs. Kimberly B. as I was checking my phone in stop-and-go traffic.  We pulled over, exchanged info.  When I called her a few weeks later, she said there was no damage.

Thanks to Mrs. Kimberly B. and a lack of detected moving violations, insurance companies still think that I’m a perfect driver.  Keep this in mind when you’re feeling particularly safe on the road.

Four

When I came to it was amid a cloud of utter disbelief mixed with the taste of stale and rancid morning breath.  I gritted my teeth in a stiffened grin, constricting my throat and swallowing with a hard sound that echoed between my ears.  I had a headache.  I groaned for no one, but it wasn’t loud enough.  I lifted my head a couple inches and groaned with my mouth open, a wailing “Ohhhhhh.”  As far as I could tell, I had been sapped.

I sat up where I lay on a hard bench, letting my feet fall wooden on the ground and looked around.  The timid light and the pale blue sky said it was early, maybe six or seven.  I was no longer on Citrus.  The geometric head of a Koo Koo Roo chicken winked down at me from behind.  Someone had seen fit to cart me unconscious to Larchmont, on the Beverly end.  One car waited patiently at a red light at the empty intersection to continue down Beverly.  I looked wistfully down Larchmont at the long line of closed shops and mused at my abductor’s kindness in dropping me near a Pinkberry so long before opening hours.  I might have taken another concussion or two for a heaping cup of tart frozen yogurt topped with strawberry, mango, and chewy toothsome gobs of flour-dusted mochi.

My clutch lay miraculously at my side, where it must have been tucked behind my back as I slept off the sapping.  I snapped open the clasp and looked inside.  Cash, credit card, driver’s license, iPod, car keys, camera – check, check, check, check, check, and check again.  Cell phone – no such luck.  I guessed that my dweeb assailant wanted to give me some trouble getting places without stealing more than a crummy LG.  I thanked my lucky gold stars that I still had my shoes.

And dear sweet seed of Moses I was happy to have my clothes.  I considered that I might have been tampered with and re-dressed, and I felt the mist of a cold sweat forming on my forehead.  I checked my clothes and all seemed to be in order, and I didn’t feel like I’d been messed with in the last few hours.  I liked that I still had all my cash – I figured passing up petty thievery would be like stinting on the after-dinner mint after a double cheeseburger with fries.  I called it at threat level blue and decided to delay any undue panic until I had my car.

I stood up with the feeling that my brain was swelling out of my skull.  I put a hand to the back of my head and stroked the welted tender bulge with the tip of my middle finger.  It stung but I couldn’t leave it alone, and I marveled at it with all fingers and both hands in turn as I walked down Beverly.

I put on my earphones and turned on my iPod.  I clicked and spun the wheel to play “Blue In Green” by Miles Davis, as good a song as any to soothe trauma.  I was at the entrance to the Marlowe Apartments before the song was out, the last traces of instrumental tangling and fading away.  I buzzed for Cal.  One buzz didn’t do it, so I tried again.  When that didn’t work, I pressed an angry thumb into the smooth concave buzzer and held it, the quack from the intercom overcoming the music in my ears even as the plaintive trumpet of “Flamenco Sketches” started to play.

A boy in ratty fraying sneakers and oversized gym clothes came huffing to the door, keys in hand.  He gave me a wry grin as he opened it and held it for me.  I nodded my head and gave him the sweetest smile I could muster, which might have been one notch above frothing snarl.  Wailing brass wobbled in my ears with the twitch of my cheek muscles.  It was nigh time to get new earphones – the rubber was falling off Apple’s cut-rate iPod tagalongs.  I walked to the elevator and hit the up button.  The boy stood next to me, feeling free to stare.  I heard a bit of snickermumble dribble out the side of his mouth over the wavering volume from my iPod.  I ducked my head an inch and raised my eyebrows at him as I plucked one earbud out to let him know I was listening.  “What?” I said, just to make sure.

He shuffled for a second then tried to look cool, standing tall in his sneakers with elbows straight, hands folded in front of him. “I said, looks like someone had a fun night.”

I opened my mouth with my lower jaw locked wide and tight, tongue pressing up against my back teeth.  I furrowed my brow and blinked twice, slow, deliberate, annoyed.  “You have no idea.”

“You look cute, though.  Do you live here?”

My angry tongue relaxed and I smiled a real one.  “Oh goodness me, child, are you hitting on me?”

He stuttered a string of no, I, sorry.

“How old are you?  And do you know what time it is?”

“I’m seventeen, and it’s – ”

“No no stop, I don’t actually care how old you are.  I was asking – wait, do you know what time it is, though?”  I paused.  “Oh actually I got it.  Sorry.”  Click click click.  6:48 AM, said my iPod.

We rode up to the third floor in unpleasant silence thick as jam.  I got out and noticed that he did not, though he’d also failed to press the button for another floor.

I stomped to Cal’s door, the sign from the night before torn off and lying in the hallway, and knocked.  I tried my best to be obnoxious about it, with loud stiff-knuckled raps and nonsensical rhythms.  I was at it a solid minute before Cal came to the door in a plain white T and yellow athletic shorts, his hair a nest wrought by blind birds.

“Song?”  He blinked squinted eyes.  I could almost hear the dry wrinkle of his slept-in contact lenses.  “You look a mess.  What the hell happened?”

He opened the door wide and I barged in, kicking off my shoes.  A man I didn’t recognize slept like a heap of laundry on Cal’s couch.  There were four pairs of shoes left in the entrance, including a tiny pair of bejeweled flat sandals whose owner was either out a pair of shoes or behind closed doors.  Bottles, cans, candy wrappers, loose playing cards, popcorn, tortilla chips crushed underfoot posed for a nightmare of a still life on Cal’s floor.  The place looked like hours of work for whatever poor soul was cleaning up.  Certainly not Cal.

I plopped down on a chair at his dining table across the room from the couch.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“It’s almost seven.”

“Jesus.”  He sat across from me, dragging wooden chair feet in a fibrous rustle through the carpet.  “You must’ve had a fun night.”

“You’re not the first person who’s said that to me today.”  I chuckled and rolled my eyes.  “You have a little teen neighbor who saw fit to hit on me after insinuating I was doing a walk of shame.”

“Were you easy on him?”

“I may have laughed in his face.  I think he might actually live on your floor, cause he didn’t hit another button in the elevator.  I think he was just too awkward to follow me out.”

“Brutal.”  He propped his wrists on the table and held his hands together.  “So wait, you have a lot to tell me.  I got your text last night around midnight.  What the hell happened after that?”

I stood up, walked over to his side, and leaned on the table next to him, half seated.  “Feel this.”  I indicated the back of my head with a few light taps.

He reached up and ran his fingertips across my hair.  “Holy shit, it’s swollen like a motherfucker.  What happened?”

“You’re not going to believe this.  I mean, I barely believe it.  I think I got sapped.”  I crinkled my brows and thrust my head forward as I said the last word, shrugging with my face.

“Sapped?  Like, fucking, by like a cop?”

“Probably not a cop.  Yeah, I’m going to say definitely not a cop.  Whoever did it also left me on a bench outside of Koo Koo Roo without a cell phone.  Ass.”

“Whoa, just start from the beginning.  What happened after I saw you last?”

“Okay.”  I went motormouth and outlined the events of the night before, from the Chanel, to the ride, to the BMW.  “Anyway, I was trying to look in the window to see if I could make anything out, and that’s it.  When I woke up, I was on Larchmont.”  I raised my hands, twisted my mouth, and looked at him.  He wore the dropped jaw of a toon wolf howling at a busty redhead.  I had to laugh.  “That’s the reaction I was hoping for.  I’d tell you to watch the drool, but this is your house.”

He brought both hands to his cheeks and dropped his elbows on the table.  “Holy shit.”  He repeated himself a few times with increasing volume.  “Are you okay?  I can’t like, wrap my head around this.”

“I’m you know, I feel a little abused.  I’m glad they left me near your house.  That was fortuitous.”

“Fortuitous.  What is that, eight syllables?  That’s a good sign.  So what now?”

“First thing, I need my car.  Can you drive me?”

“Yeah, of course.”  A shade of hesitation followed his immediate response, but he didn’t say anything.  I assumed it had to do with the passed out drunk on his sofa and the nameless Cinderella in his bedroom.  I took a split-second to consider being considerate, and pretended not to notice.

“Awesome.  Can I borrow your bathroom first?  And some toothpaste?  And some Advil?”

“Go for it.  Toothpaste is in the medicine cabinet.  I’ll get you the Advil.”

I shuffled across the room and through a short hallway to the bathroom, noting the closed bedroom door before shutting myself in and switching on the light.  I locked my elbows, gripped the sturdy white porcelain sink, and with curiosity stared at my reflection.

I did look a mess.  My teen admirer must have been missing his lenses.  Wisps of hair stood in waves and lumps on top of my head where my ponytail had come loose.  My bangs were no longer swept to the side but hung sadly in a greasy black curtain over the rightmost two thirds of my forehead, leaving the last third baldly bare.  My eyes were rimmed in smudged charcoal a full centimeter around, giving me more the look of a gaunt overworked hooker than of a panda bear.  Blackened gobs of sleep gathered in the inner corners of my eyes.  I was missing an earring.

I washed my hands with a pump of aloe-scented Dial antibacterial soap, pushed a finger into each eye in turn, and coaxed my contacts out from where they stuck to my irises, shifting them slowly up and down and side to side.  I blinked hard and my eyes watered.  I opened the medicine cabinet, found Cal’s toothpaste, and squeezed a tri-colored Aquafresh dollop onto my right index finger.  I loosed a thin stream from the faucet and wet the paste and shoved it this way and that into my mouth, across my teeth, over my gums, down my tongue.  It failed to foam, but the mint tasted clean.  I gargled and spat, gargled and spat.  I rinsed my hands and splashed my face, helped myself to the Neutrogena cleanser by the faucet and washed up, scrubbing well around my eyes.  It took me a good twenty seconds to get rid of all the black.  I dried my face and hands on a moss green feather soft towel hanging on the wall and retied my hair.  Mirror check showed a tired but socially acceptable face.  I wet my bangs and combed them out of my eyes before stepping back out into the living room.  Cal was waiting with a glass of water and two burgundy M & M pills in his hand, which he dropped into mine.  I swallowed them together with one swig of water.

“Thanks dude, I feel human again,” I said.  I took up my clutch and dropped in my widowed earring.  “Shall we?”

Three

Hit the road, Kerouac

Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I am only a feminist in the blandest sense of the word.  My tastes in fiction are embarrassingly skewed towards male authors and plots involving male protagonists.

That said, I have to rant a little about Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums.  It is extremely rare that I dislike a book, as I tend to be very selective in the books I’ll read, but this book just about gave me a feminist aneurysm.  I picked it up because of the goofy cartoon cover and because I enjoyed On the Road in college.  On the Road isn’t exactly brimming with strong female leads either, but I am more forgiving with good books.  The Dharma Bums isn’t just chauvinist, it also happens to be about two Buddhists who spend most of the 180 pages hiking, writing 1950s hipster poetry, and talking about bodhisattvas and bhikkus.  Fine, parts were interesting and some of the descriptive language is very, very pretty, but nothing about the overall story of this male friendship was compelling enough to distract from the current of hippie fratboy running throughout.

There were very few female characters at all in this novel, and the ones that were there were treated with such peripheral attention that they hardly count.  Princess was a necessary prop for yabyum orgies, as was almost every other female character.  The scenes in which female characters actually did anything involved them cooking, banging, and occasionally crying.  The one  exception was Rosie Buchanan, who becomes acutely paranoid and leaps off a building to her death around halfway through the book.  This entire episode occurs within a short chapter, and just when you think maybe the main character will stop for a second and consider the weight of this character’s suicide, he goes off on a hike and talks more about nature and how much of a man-crush he has on fellow Dharma bum and misogynist Japhy Ryder.

I struggle a lot with stock ideas of femininity and feminine roles, and books like The Dharma Bums just make me a little sad.  I had a similar reaction to John Updike’s Rabbit, Run earlier this year (sorry, too soon?).  Female protagonists are scarce in the novels I read – and I realize that this is my fault, too – and they really shouldn’t be.  Off the top of my head, the only examples of ones that I really love are Oedipa Maas in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Elizabeth Costello in J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello.   Juniper is my little protest, and though I worry that I’m creating a strong female character out of masculine traits, I find comfort in the fact that she is decidedly female.  Now excuse me while I go sing “I Will Survive” in the shower – Gloria Gaynor’s original, not the Cake cover.

See Steph Annotate: Three

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and was excited to post it since something actually happens.  Thanks for reading!

1.  The clutch.  This is roughly the Chanel clutch I had in mind:

Except Lori’s is python, which is a lot ritzier.  I’m not actually quite sure what the retail is on it, and it’s actually probably less than $3,000, but that can be adjusted later.  While doing research for this, I snooped into a Chanel store and asked for the price of one of the fancier runway clutches (originally, I had described a miniaudiere with all sorts of rhinestones and chains and shit).  It was over $10,000.

2.  The keychain.  I kind of wish this keychain existed.  I would dig it.  Lori is into cutesy things.  Song is not.

This is Monkichi.  I used to love him.

3.  432 S. Citrus Ave.  All of the addresses I use are real.  This is a house that I know well.  I may change this at some point.

4.  Cars, cars, cars.  I don’t know jack about cars.  My ex drove a G35 in college, so I figured it was an acceptable car for someone Song’s age to drive.  Lori’s dirty Jeep is supposed to be another hint that she isn’t making the kind of money that would allow for luxury, but I don’t know, are Jeeps expensive, too?  The Lexus SUV in Lori’s driveway is supposed to be a parent’s car.  As for the BMW, the make is insignificant, but I got this idea from a time in high school when a blacked-out sedan was parked outside of my house for a day and a half.  It was right in front of our mailbox and I was very creeped out by it and even went right up to the front window to peer in, half in fear of a potential stranger watching me from inside.  It disappeared without incident, and I never figured out what it was doing there.

5.  Ella and Louis.  At first, Song was an indie music fan because that would have been convenient for me.  I decided to make her musical tastes reach back to older days, though, in line with a general attraction for things before her time.  I don’t know the first thing about jazz, blues, or any of that, so if this is not an album that a true enthusiast would listen to, please point it out.

6.  The internship.  Hooray for bullshit summer jobs for college students.  Goodness knows I had one.

7.  Junie.  One of my best friends is named June/Junie, and Juniper, besides being an unusual name of the sort necessary to balance out the brevity of Korean surnames, can claim June as a namesake.

8.  4PXK766.  My old license plate.

9.  Lucky Strikes.  Smoking is bad for you.  Don’t do it.  Even when you’re drunk (that’s for me).  That said, I wanted Song to have a regular habit that I could reference throughout the book without invading the narrative.  Marlowe had a flask, but this was back in the day when people were not quite so concerned about DUIs.  I thought about giving her a coffee or tea addiction, but it had to be something that wouldn’t involve her driving and acquiring anything.  So cigarettes it was.  Also, Song is a person with vices, and cigarettes would be in line with that.

As for the brand of cigarettes, quite a bit of google-generated research went into this choice.  I originally had her smoking Capris, the thin girly cigarettes my friend Carol smokes, but I changed my mind.  I wanted Song to smoke a really harsh, bitter cigarette, and I googled stuff like “cigarette brand stereotypes” and found some interesting tidbits of cigarette brand culture.  Some fun stereotypes, because apparently every corner of the world to which you can affix the word “culture” has got them: emo indie types go for Parliament Lights, sorority girls like Marlboro Lights, teenagers shoplift Newports, black people prefer menthol (this one is prevalent enough that it has been recognized, like many black stereotypes, by Dave Chappelle), and coffeehouse wannabe Euros who pretend they don’t smoke like cloves.

Lucky Strikes are the brand of car mechanics and war veterans.  Wikipedia tells me that Solid Snake, James Caan in Misery smoke Luckies, and that Luckies were featured in Mad Men and Watchmen.  They have been associated over time with detective types, in both of the aforementioned examples as well as in Blade Runner, CSI, and Miami Vice.  Lucky Strikes were prison currency in Shawshank Redemption.  Also, it’s just a cool brand name.

I found the above poster through a random google search of Lucky Strikes – it turns out that the poster was recalled when Lucky Strikes refused to be featured in the ad, but it looks like someone had the same idea I had for Uma’s character in Pulp Fiction.  Those of you who know me know of my undying love for this actress and this character, so this just warms my heart.

10.  The sapping.  Sudden unintended unconsciousness seems to be a pretty common occurrence in hard-boiled detective fiction, with both Marlowe and the other favorite Sam Spade getting drugged or smacked on the back of the head at least once per novel.  I couldn’t really have poor Song drugged at this junction, so a nice sapping it was.  These events always happen at the end of a chapter.  The last paragraph of Three, therefore, is Song’s official introduction into a hard-boiled plot.  You can see where and when (and if…dun dun dun……) she wakes up next Sunday.

Walking Home in the Snow

I had a good workout today, and as I wrapped myself unwilling and sweaty in a parka visible from outer space, I looked forward for once to walking out into the cold.  Passing through the sliding door, my face tightened at the pure sting of unfriendly temperature – it was icier than anticipated.  It almost always is.

Still I left my hood where it sat, bounced on by my ponytail, bouncing on the head of my backpack.  I kept my ungloved hands warm in downy pockets, feeling keys, receipts.

It had been storming earlier, sideways and wayward, but the snow fell soft now, kitten-shy in the night.

The walk home was beautiful.  It told me why people write poetry – or at least why I would write poetry, if I were a poet.  Sometimes no one grows, and nothing happens, but you find some discrete something that begs to be shared.

The snow under thick-soled Uggs was thin-shaved Italian ice.  I shuffled, and it gave.  All manner of anonymous pedestrian shuffled with me – columned figures shrouded in windbreaking nylon, crowned with fur and colored yarn – faces only faces with beards or strong-rimmed glasses.

I stopped at a little lamp-lit lawn where old wooden benches wore new white coats, and made tracks in the virgin snow.  I stopped outside an ice cream shop to brush the cold fuzz off a sign advertising, in red cursive, “The Best Ice Cream in Connecticut.”  It sloughed off without a fight.

On most days, I hate this town, and I have no doubt in my mind that I will hate it tomorrow, when the brutal light lays bare the murky colors of aging slush.  But in the moonlight – and tonight there was a cotton moon, small and blurry, seen through the wrong end of a microscope – in the moonlight, the gleaming sidewalks, the sugar-frosted branches, the untouched expanses of untouched white brought me not to tears but to words.  I refused to look down and thought, “This is what it means to be inspired.”