STAG
I started the year with $12,000 and just four months later was down to only $2,000, barely staying afloat doing security for an office in Beverly Hills. My move-out date was only a month away and I still had no idea where I was going to go, but I knew I couldn’t stay in California and I couldn’t go back to Albuquerque, either. The only lead I had on an affordable apartment sent me half of an application, and I couldn’t even submit it since the landlord only accepted faxes (something about losing the password for his email).
While in Los Angeles, I’d befriended two characters; One was a nursing student attending UCLA or USC or LACC or some acronym, so I nicknamed them “Doc.” Kujo (simply called that because he looked like a Kujo) worked the paint aisle of a hardware store and would always insult me in Spanish thinking I wouldn’t understand what he was saying. We all bonded over a love of childish wordplay, video games, and somewhat matching personalities.
The first time I ever met Doc in person, they’d come over to visit one of my roommates in a lab coat to play up their medical degree and I came downstairs in my underwear with a bowie knife in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other demanding to know how the fuck they got in my house.
But I digress.
With only a month left before I was gone for good, we’d all agreed to get together one last time for a night on the town, all for one, one for all, and with enough whiskey to kill the memories of whatever happened.
Of course, I had to drink the least because I was the only one with a car.
*****
Kujo lived in the heart of Lawndale off Hawthorne Blvd in a “rooming house.” It had been an ordinary house long ago, but the owner had since put up walls made from chicken wire and cheap plaster to turn one bedroom into three and built sheds in the backyard and charged rent for all of them, cash only, under the table. Parking was non-existent, so whenever I had to pick him up, he’d have me park and wait at the Velvet Darlings strip club a block away.
I had picked up Doc on the way and we leaned against my car in the parking lot as we waited for Kujo to walk up. He was about twenty minutes late by that point, and I had spent my time observing my surroundings. Every window in a twenty mile radius had bars on them and fences covered with tarps enclosed any parking lots.
I’d examined the Velvet Darlings club for a few minutes, taking note of the brick walls painted crimson with a neon sign above it screaming “GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!” The sign glowed for no one since it was still daytime in sunny Los Angeles. It had a black triangular roof that slanted into a billboard hanging over the building. The billboard advertised a Christian college by showing a happy college student standing next to bright purple lettering saying “YOU BELONG HERE!”
“Peh.”
Doc looked over at me. “What?”
“The sign.” I half-heartedly pointed at it.
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
We stood in silence for a moment.
“Where is he?” Doc asked.
I shrugged. “Has he answered?”
Doc checked their phone and shook their head.
“Fuck…”
I looked around for a bit, not sure what else to say.
“Christ, I gotta take a piss.”
Doc pointed across the street. “Just use the 7-Eleven.”
“In this area? The doors are gonna be bolted shut.”
“What about the mercado?”
“Same thing.”
We looked around a bit to see where there might be an available restroom. A car wash, an auto body shop, an abandoned U-Haul, plenty of houses, but no open restrooms.
“Why don’t you just use the bushes?”
I used my hand to motion towards the heavy foot traffic of potential witnesses. I eyed the club’s doors for a moment.
“How long do you think I’ve got?”
“Why?”
“Wait here.”
I walked towards the front door of the club, a steel door painted a shimmering yellow to fool you into thinking it was real gold.
*****
The door slammed shut behind me and I was in pure darkness. I put my hands out and started feeling around me to find that I was in a room about 10 feet by 4 feet. In front of me was a turnstile and on my left was a window, but I couldn’t see where it went. The walls were covered in a black velvet and as my eyes adjusted, I could begin to make out the vague shape of a security camera high in the corner staring down at me.
A voice crackled from an intercom nearby.
“TWENTY DOLLARS.”
“What?”
“TWENTY DOLLARS.”
“Where are you?”
“TWENTY DOLLARS.”
“Hey, uh. I don’t have any cash.”
“MAN, IT’S TWENTY DOLLARS.”
“Hey, listen, man. I just gotta take a piss and there’s nowhere else in the area I can go.”
“...SERIOUSLY?”
“Yeah.”
“...THAT’S GONNA BE AN EXPENSIVE PISS, MAN.”
“I don’t have much of a choice.”
The voice silenced for a minute, presumably thinking.
“...A’IGHT, LEAVE YOUR ID WITH ME. THERE’S AN ATM BY THE BATHROOM. COME BACK WIT’ THE CASH AND YOU CAN GET IT BACK.”
“Cool, man.”
Something buzzed loudly and I could hear the turnstile click loose. I fumbled through the turnstile and stumbled through the black curtain immediately behind it to find myself staring at the 3:30 PM rush.
The room was underlit with a red neon glow and my eyes still hadn’t adjusted. Someone’s uncle was sitting against the stage nursing beers and glaring at me. I tried looking around, but everything was dark and hazy to my un-adjusting eyes.
“Over here.”
I looked to my left and the body the voice belonged to was motioning me over with one hand. I got closer to see it was a 6’5 well-built man with a perfectly-shaved head in a crisp suit who acted as the bouncer, the DJ, and the announcer. His DJ booth was just on the other side of the window I could only barely see a moment prior. I approached his desk and pulled my driver’s license out of my wallet, placed it atop the counter, and he pointed me towards the bathroom opposite the building.
The door for the kitchen was next to the bathroom and an ATM was placed between them. The light of the kitchen bled from underneath the door and acted as my guide as I tried not to trip over the leather chairs placed about. Women wearing pasties and g-strings with tans so deep they reflected no light walked past me carrying trays of drinks as I approached the ATM.
I saddled up and slid my card into the machine as I went through the motions. A woman carrying a tray full of empty glasses worked her way past me to the kitchen and I reached over to hold the door open for her. She looked at me, smiled, and tossed a “thank you” my way as I pulled a twenty dollar bill from the machine and used the bathroom.
The fluorescent lighting of the bathroom made it even harder for my eyes to adjust when I wandered back to the DJ booth to trade twenty dollars for my driver’s license. A trio of the women were standing by the booth chatting with the DJ and I dropped the twenty on his table. The DJ chuckled and handed me my ID as the girls smiled at me.
“You’s a funny motherfucker, man.”
“I’m a broke motherfucker, too.”
They all laughed as I walked towards a door with a sign affixed over it that I’m somewhat sure said “EXIT.”
The bright afternoon California sun flashbanged me as I wandered around the side of the building back to the parking lot to find Kujo chatting with Doc beside my car. Standing beside Kujo was his girlfriend, who we’ll call “D,” wearing a pair of tan wedges and a black pencil skirt accentuated by her tan blouse. She was a college student majoring in medical sciences or legal sciences or some white collar degree and was active in women’s rights groups on her campus, and here I was stumbling out of a strip club.
“Oh, hey, D. What are you doing here?”
“Kujo invited me.”
“Oh, cool. Uhhhhhhh, you can just push aside the trash in the backseat.”
She scoffed and only went to get in the car when I clarified I was kidding.
*****
We loaded into the car and began to head to San Pedro, a blue collar harbor town on the coast. We were heading to a classy dive called The Marx, which doubled as both a bar and a book store of underground literature. I was mostly interested in checking it out since a long-dead poet I liked lived in the apartment above it back in the 60s or 70s.
Halfway there, D asked “where are we going?”
“The Marx. Book-oriented dive bar.”
“Oh.” She said
“Oh?” I asked. “What’s ‘oh?’”
Silence.
Kujo spoke up. “Uhhh, D’s only 19.”
“Oh…” I responded.
We all fell silent as I kept the car coasting down the highway.
“........welp, fuck it. We’re already on the way.”
*****
The bar had just opened five minutes before we pulled into a parking space out front. In Los Angeles, that is a rare and magical feat. I cracked “see? Parking out front! It’s meant to be!” Everyone except D laughed at that.
“All right, follow my lead.”
The front door of The Marx was bolted shut for some reason and we had to enter through the chain link fence covered in tarps behind the building. Inside the fenced enclosure were a few picnic tables, a shed, a hot dog cart, and a beer cart. The early-30s staff members wandered seemingly aimlessly as they prepped for the shift and a few patrons milled about. The four of us plunked down at a picnic table as I filled them in on my plan.
“Okay. D, no beer for you. Doc and I are gonna grab a hot dog. If you guys get caught, we don’t know you and meet us by the car.”
D rolled her eyes as Doc and I went to the hot dog cart. Doc and I had looked at the menu for only two minutes before I felt a hand tap me on the shoulder.
“EXCUSE MEEEEEEEE!”
I turned and a woman in her early-30s sporting a beanie and an obscure band t-shirt stood and spoke to Doc and I in a politely condescending way, the way a camp counselor would reprimand a child, almost in a Sing-Song-ish manner.
“Are those your friends over theeeeeeere?”
I looked over to see Kujo and D walking out of the enclosure towards the car. I contemplated lying and didn’t.
“Yeah. Why? Is everything okay?”
“Well, noooooooo. We checked their IDs and she’s only 19. Did you know she’s NINE. TEEN?”
I contemplated lying and then did. “Shit, she is?”
She nodded her head. “Mm-hm! We can’t have ANYONE under 21 here, you know?”
“Not even to get a hot dog and buy a book?”
“Nope, not at all. We could lose our LICENSE, and we all worked really hard to get it. It’s REALLY difficult to get a liquor license in California and this business is our collective liveli–”
“--OKAY, sorry. I didn’t know. Here’s my ID. Can I at least look at the books really quick?”
I pulled my ID out of my wallet and handed it to her. She yanked it out of my hands and examined it closely. Very, very closely. She handed it back after a moment.
“That’s okay, then. Thank you!”
“Thanks.”
She walked away as I leaned over to Doc.
“Hey, go wait with Kujo and D at the car. I’ll only be a minute. I just wanna see if they have any Selby.”
Doc nodded and exited the enclosure.
I noticed in the shed nearby, there was a record player wired to a PA playing indie rock and shelves full of books went from the floor to the ceiling. I took a few steps towards it.
The politely condescending voice spoke up again.
“EXCUSE MEEEEEEEE!”
I sighed and stopped in my tracks.
“Yes?”
“Those are for MAIL ORDERS. You can’t go in theeeeeeeeere.”
Her tone was starting to get under my skin. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see a sign. Are there any books I can purchase?”
She nodded her head and pointed at the back of the building at a steel door propped open with a brick. I nodded and stepped inside.
The only light in the building came leaking in from the painted-over windows and a Pac-Man machine by the bathrooms. I fumbled my way around the large room and finally found the books for sale: A 3x3 bookshelf from Big Lots that had about 30 books, mostly feminist poets, communist theories, and used copies of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. No price tags.
“EXCUSE MEEEEEEEEE!”
I groaned. “Yes?”
She was hovering over me, making sure I didn’t steal anything. “Can I help you fiiiiiiind somethiiiiiing?”
“No. Sorry, I just remembered I’m illiterate.”
She laughed at that and I brushed past her as I walked back to the car.
Out front, Doc and Kujo were leaning against my car as D stood nearby on her phone. I walked up and leaned next to Doc.
“Welp. Sorry about that. You guys wanna try somewhere else?”
Kujo spoke up. “Ay, you guys like pizza?”
We all muttered sounds of approval except D, focused on her phone.
“There’s a pizza place in Long Beach Doc and I eat at all the time.”
I said fuck yeah, loaded us all in the car, and we hit the highway en route to Leonardo’s Italian in Long Beach.
*****
We drove down Pacific Ave towards the highway and I took note of a presumably abandoned warehouse with a sign that had faded heavily, leaving only the letters to spell the word “SHAGG.” I pointed and said “heh, Shagg.”
Tepid laughter from the car. Then Kujo repeated it. “Heh. Shagg!” Warmer laughter. Doc repeated it. “SHAGG!” Then we all devolved into hysterical laughter, pointing at the sign and saying “SHAGG!” I peaked in the rearview to see D was the only one not laughing, mostly looking bemused and annoyed by the scenario.
The laughter would die down for a moment just for one of us to say “SHAGG” and then we’d erupt in laughter again, laughing so hard the car would shake and could barely stay steady going 80 down the highway. We laughed at “Shagg” all the way to Long Beach.
*****
We pulled into a parking enclosure a block away from the Leonardo’s and approached. It was housed in a strip mall and made from a mix of sterile white, gray, and marbling with a cursive font on the sign that made you wonder if you could afford the meal. There was a bar on the second floor with a hidden entrance we didn’t feel like finding. Three of the parking spaces along the curb out front had been sectioned off into a dining area with black picnic tables. We sat down at one of the tables and picked up the menus.
“Ay, since we couldn’t drink at the bar, how about we get a bottle of wine?” Asked Kujo.
We all muttered “sure,” save D for obvious reasons, and decided on a Margherita pizza.
The order went in and the waiter brought back a bottle of white wine of Kujo’s choosing since I’m not much of a wine aficionado. I tried a sip of the wine and didn’t care for it, so I pushed it to Kujo. We shared idle banter over the pizza except for D who was texting on her phone.
Eventually, when the meal was finished, I got up to use the bathroom and got stuck in line for about twenty minutes. During the wait, I could hear my Superego speak up.
“So. Some party.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“What are you gonna do after this?”
“The party?”
“L.A. Have you found a place to stay yet?”
“No, but I could crash at a motel.”
“Where, Albuquerque?”
“Maybe.”
“And what are you gonna do for work? Isn’t the $10.50/hr economy part of the reason you left?”
“Dude, you’re harshing the mellow.”
“Hey, it’s my ass, too.”
FLUSH! Someone comes out. Next person goes in. I’m next in line.
“Come on, where are we gonna go?”
“Dude, not now.”
“You’ve been saying ‘not now’ for two months now. You’ve got one left. Make a decision.”
FLUSH! They come out. I go in. I’d have to put a pin in my discussion for the time being.
When I came back, I found that Kujo had finished the entire bottle of wine and was screaming “SHAAAAAAAAAAG” to the skies. The surrounding picnic tables were glaring from the corner of their eyes and I saw someone dialing 9-1-1 as I ran over to help Doc get Kujo to the car while D used Kujo’s debit card to pay for dinner.
*****
The sun was in the final phases of sliding behind the ocean as we got back on the road.
“SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAG!”
“I know, Kujo.”
“WHOOOOOOO!”
We discussed the possibility of what to do with the rest of the evening, as it was only 8pm, when D’s phone began ringing and she shushed the car. She answered the phone and began speaking with her mother, us only being able to hear one half of her conversation.
"¿Si?"
...
"Ma, estoy bien. Estoy con mis amigos."
...
"Mamá, por favor. Tengo diecinueve años de edad."
...
"Mamá. Estás haciendo un gran escándalo de la nada."
...
"Bien, estaré en casa pronto."
She hung up and grumbled under her breath as she slid her phone in her purse.
“Hey, I need to go home. My mom doesn’t like me being out this late.”
“Oh, okay. Do you want me to give you a ride home?” I offered.
“No, no. It’s okay. Just drop me off somewhere and I can have an Uber pick me up.”
“Are you sure? I can work it in and the rest of us can go to the-–” (I was about to say the Velvet Darlings before realizing her boyfriend was in the car with us, drunk) “--Marx and try again.”
She insisted it was okay and we pulled over at the nearest parking lot, Seal Beach.
I pulled over in the lot beside the Eisenhower park, slid a few dollars in the parking meter, and joined the trio standing on the edge of the parking lot against the sand. Kujo, swaying, tried consoling D in Spanish. She responded in the same language with a cold tone that a mono-lingual fool like me could understand.
I stepped off the concrete lot and began walking towards the ocean, stopping just where the water reached the beach. I sat down on the sand and watched the water rushing back and forth. I turned to the trio and shouted “COME ON! IT WON’T BITE!”
Doc, without a moment’s hesitation, came running over to sit beside me. Kujo gave D pleading eyes as she simply shook her head. She said something (that I assume was “I told you, don’t worry about me”) and motioned with her hand towards Doc and I. Kujo sighed, shrugged, and stumbled over as fast as he could.
Kujo howled into the night “SHAAAAAAAAAAAAG” and Doc and I followed suit.
“SHAAAAAAAAAG!”
“SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG!”
“SHAAAAAAAG!”
“SHAG! SHAG! SHAG! SHAG! AWOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
A few “shags” later, I could see the glow of headlights approaching from behind and I turned to see an Uber had come to pick up D. She got in the backseat of the minivan and it drove off to wherever it is she has to be after 8pm.
Eventually the rest of us got up to wander to the pier and I broke off from the trio citing I had to take a piss. Doc caught Kujo mid-stumble as I wandered to the base of the pier to find a bathroom.
I used the bathroom and wandered up a concrete ramp to the front of the pier. All of the life was across the street in a beach bar, with a busker outside playing a tuba. It sounded different from how I knew it, but I recognized the song and sang along for a bit.
“Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.”
I trekked along the pier and hummed the rest of the song to myself. A few stray souls shuffled past me away from the pier, but I was more occupied with my ever-present Superego to really make out any defining features on them.
“So. Do you have any idea what you’ll do yet?”
“No.”
“You gonna try drinking away the fear?”
“No, ‘cause Kujo drank all the damn wine.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I dunno.”
I saddled up against the edge of the pier and watched the moonlight dance off the ocean’s waves.
“Well, you dove right into Shit Creek and now you’re stuck. You can dig yourself out or pitch a tent on Skid Row. It’s my ass, too.”
I leaned against the railing and watched the waves shimmer for a while when the sound of a fishing rod pulled me back to reality. I noticed twenty feet to my left were two boys, a teen and a pre-teen, with a fishing rod and an ice chest with speckles of dried blood on it. The teen with the rod yanked it back harshly to snag whatever took the bite and began reeling in. He reeled and reeled, none of them seemingly that excited at what they caught.
The kid yanked back and reeled in at the same time and out of the water came a white squid the length of my forearm. He dangled it over the pier for his little brother to look at as it squirmed on the hook. He then pulled the squid off the hook, grabbed it by the legs, and slammed its head against the railing. It went motionless. The kid placed it atop the pier and began to slice into it with a paring knife.
The little brother looked over and noticed I’d been watching and tugged at his brother’s shirt. The teen looked at him, looked at me, and blinked. We both looked at a sign affixed to the pier between us showing a graph of what was catch-and-release only, and the white squid was on the top of the chart. I looked back at them and dragged my fingers across my lips in a zipping motion, indicating I won’t say a thing. They nodded and went back to slicing up the squid before throwing it in the ice chest.
I pushed away from the pier and started heading in the direction of the tuba player to see if he knew any Sabbath when I heard two familiar voices in the near distance.
“--jus- just lemme use your shoulders!”
“No! You’ll kick me in the head!”
“It was an accident! Gimme up!”
I looked over to my right to see Kujo trying to climb fifteen feet up the pier from the side while Doc stood below him trying to hoist him up. I said “oh my fucking God” and ran over. I grabbed Kujo by the hand and pulled him up. Doc was about to do the same until I pointed out the ladder ten feet to their left. Doc climbed up and joined us and we wandered back to the edge of the pier. The brothers saw us coming and left with their gear.
Kujo slammed into the railing as Doc and I leaned against it, my hand ready to yank Kujo back by the shoulder if he started to fall into the ocean. He reeled back and triumphantly threw his arms in the air to declare dominance over the ocean.
“WE’RE THE FUCKING KINGS OF LOS ANGELES!!!”
Doc and I chimed in. “SHAAAAAAAAAAAAG!”
We screamed at the ocean a bit more until our throats gave out and we got bored. I checked the time and it was 11pm. Like it or not, the night was over.
*****
Kujo could feel the hangover he’d have to keep at bay at work the next day, so we dropped him off at his house as I began to work my way back to Doc’s apartment in the Financial District.
“It’s only 11:30. We could spend the rest of the night at the Velvet Darlings” I suggested.
“I’m not really into that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, me neither. Wanna give The Marx another shot?”
“Do you think they’ll let us back in after today?”
“Probably not. And that one chick was really getting on my nerves. ‘Excuse me! Excuse meeeeeeeee!’”
“Yeaaaaaaaah. We could try another bar.”
I thought about it and realized I was sleep deprived and had to be at work in the morning. “Nah, I’ll just drop you off and head home.”
I got back to their family’s apartment in the Financial District and double-parked in front of the pedestrian gates. We leaned over and hugged.
“Good luck, Jake.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna fuckin’ need it…”
Doc stepped out of the car and I watched them slip through the gate and walk up the stairs. I sighed, turned my hazards off, and drove back to East LA.
*****
The driveway for the rental house I was staying in was full again, so I had to park against the curb a few blocks away. I crept in through the front door to avoid waking anyone up and grabbed a beer from the fridge. I crept up to my room, sat down on my mattress on the floor, and stared at the open beer in my hands illuminated by moonlight from the window.
“Shit. Now what?”