“Screw all that, dude—you’re givin’ me a hug!” Bob jumped me, squeezing me in a tigerish embrace, then jokingly lay his head on my shoulder. He giggled happily, until my road aroma enveloped him.
“Oh my lord! Sam!” Bob doubled over with laughter, covering his nose and mouth with his tank top. “There’s a shower inside, first door on the right. You must hose yourself down, pronto!”
I followed his orders, exercising a brief ablution on my stinking body. There was a massive tub of blue body wash in the shower, and I sampled from it cautiously. When I emerged from the bathroom, somewhat refreshed from the long journey, I discovered my new roommate luxuriating in the comforts of home. Bob lay stretched out on the living room couch, feet up, a Fresca in hand.
“I am so glad to have you living here, Sam. I don't know you that well yet, but I can tell already that you’re a freakin’ cool guy.”
“Thank you, Bob.” I toasted him with an imaginary glass.
“The last guy who lived here was a real psycho.” Bob chuckled happily, remembering. “What about you—you live with any real nutcases recently?”
“Not really,” I said. “My roommate in Santa Cruz was probably the best friend I had up there.”
Bob sat up, sobering quickly. “I hope that one day you’ll say the same thing about me, bro,” he intoned seriously.
“I’m .. . sure I will, Bob.”
“Yeah right you will!” Bob giggled. He reclined again. “You’ll be all, 'my first roommate in Los Angeles was a mental case!’ You’ll be all, ‘I wanted to commit him!’”
I laughed awkwardly. “No.”
“‘He was gay as a maypole!’”
“Of course I wouldn’t say that,” I said.
“ ‘As gay as a thermos of white wine1’ ” yelped Bob.
I just shook my head, helplessly.
“I am a big fag, of course,” said Bob, thoughtfully, settling deeper into his couch, which seemed to already bear the imprint of his body. He whirled around suddenly to stare at me. “Could you guess?”
“Um ... I think so?” I said, hesitatingly.
“Lis-ten to this guy!” He clapped, delightedly. “‘I think so.’ How polite you are, Sam! And what a little liar, too. Shee-it.” He sneered, putting his hands behind his head. “You were all, 'Um, guys? I think I found the lead for Paris Is Burning 2. Come on, Sam! ’Fess up! You were all, ‘Guys! Found one! I think he wears a kimono to bed!”’
“But I’m not like that,” I said, confused. “I’m . . . fine with you being gay. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
“Good thing,” observed Bob, nodding seriously. “Not everyone can hang with it.” Then he grinned at me pleasantly, and held up his fizzy drink. “Fresca?”
Bob was a little out of his mind, but he was friendly and generous. He showed me the hot spots in our neighborhood, like Smog Cutter, a weird, windowless watering hole with an appealingly ugly clientele and a decent pool table, and the Busy “B” supermercado, where you could buy six pounds of raw pork butt for a dollar. As a team, we moved with cat-quick agility through the city streets. In due time, Bob proved his mettle by establishing himself as an informative and indefatigable repository of gay star gossip.
I spent a couple of days walking around my neighborhood alone, trying to get a sense of what I was up against. South of Sunset, Silver Lake was safe but run-down, boasting a score of ninety-seven-cent stores, cheap pawnshops, and dilapidated storefront churches. We did have a nice view of the Hollywood sign, though, and when I would trudge up the street early in the morning to go pick up a newspaper, the huge white letters would loom over me, grand and mythic. I caught myself imagining all the youngsters who, like me, had come to Los Angeles on a mission. Had anyone else dreamed a little porno dream?
“You want me to see if there’s an opening down at the warehouse?” Bob inquired one evening, evidently having noticed that I was jobless. He operated a forklift in a carpet warehouse in Montebello. “It’s not bad work, once you get used to it.”
“No, thanks,” I said, noncommittally.
“Looking for something closer to home, huh? Well, I can’t say that I blame you, the commute’s a bitch and a half.” He narrowed his eyes, studying me, then pounced. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is it that you do, Sam?”
“Well,” I said, “I guess you could say I’m sort of an artist.”
“An artist! Hey, that’s great! Listen, do you think you could draw a funny picture of me with like, a giant cock? There’s a guy at work who’s just been eyeballing me. I think he needs just the tiniest bit of encouragement.”
“I’m not much good at drawing.”
“Oh,” said Bob, agreeably. “Then you ... paint?”
“Don’t paint,” I said, smiling slightly. My eyes twinkled mischievously.
Bob inched closer to me, his eyes alight with undisguised curiosity. I should have known better than to try to slip anything by him; he had a keen sense of sexual perversion. “Oooh, you do something juicy! What is it? Tell Bobby all about it.”
“Well, Bob,” I said, grinning, happy to have someone new to confide in, “as it just so happens, I am in the business of making pornos.”
“I knew it!” he exploded gleefully, throwing his arms up in jubilation. “Oh, I so called this one!”
“Bob, I...”
“I was telliri the guys at work,” he continued, his voice rising excitedly, “I’ve got this new roommate, he is hot, man! I mean, he is smokin’. That kid’s got a ten-inch dick, I can just feel it—”
“Bob,” I interrupted. “Wait. I’m not a porn star. I said, I make pornos.”
He looked at me, crestfallen. “Is there a difference?”
“There’s a difference,” I said soberly.
“You . .. don’t have a ten-inch dick?”
“No/ I said, gently. “I shoot the movies, Bob. I’m sorry.”
Aw, hell!” said Bob. “What a teasel” He socked me playfully on the shoulder, but it actually hurt. There was some anger in that punch. Bob sulked in silence for a moment, considering what might have been. Then his mood appeared to shift. “Aw, heck, what am I thinking: filming’s almost as good! Pomo? That’s hot, bro, super hot. And listen, don’t be sorry that you have a small dick. Plenty of guys do. Now, tell me more about this; tell me everything, Sam!”
I soon fell in love with LA’s dirty banana trees, her anorexic palms. They sprouted with persistent vitality, swelling up through the concrete, towering monuments to a demented brand of hope. But still I was nervous. The specter of imminent financial disaster loomed nearby. My well had finally run dry. I was broke.
For a few days, I tossed around the idea of applying for a job at Nature Mart, the health food store in neighboring Los Feliz, but then quickly reconsidered. After all, I hadn’t come down to LA to work at a grocery store. I’d come to get into the sex industry, period. To feel it from the inside.
I began to consider stripping, and then, more reasonably, go-go dancing. Apparently, it was a pretty sweet gig: I’d had a friend in college, Dale, who’d supported himself senior year almost solely by dancing in gay bars. You just got up onstage, he said, drunk and in your underwear. Go wild and let it move on from there naturally. I pictured bottles of beer upturned playfully over Dale’s head, bathing his cherubic blond curls in festive suds. I saw his graceful heels mapping an ancient rhythm on a rugged, wooden stage. The toast of the town.
Dale also mentioned, somewhat offhandedly, that sometimes he let customers jack him off in the bathroom for forty bucks. “It’s like that,” he said, by way of explanation.
If I was frightened at the prospect of making the scene at an allmale sock hop, however, I was far more frightened of the alternative, which was the job at Nature Mart, so one day I picked up the LA Weekly and began to hunt.
Before long, my eyes settled on an ad for “Club Hump.” Beefy Go-Go Boys Drive Mixed Crowds Crazyi After a brief internal struggle, I summoned up the nerve to call the promoter, if only to find out what was what. Seeming friendly enough, he invited me to come by on Wednesday. Amateur Night.