We rolled down the highway at cautious speeds, and in poor humor I watched the scenery bleed by. Being chauffeured by my parents, having them pay for my meals, infantilized me—it didn’t feel too porno. And the prospect of going to the zoo filled me with equal parts boredom and sadness. I always left therq with a renewed resentment for humanity.
On the other hand, zoos delighted my father.
“The San Diego Zoo is no joke, Sam! What do you think about flamingos?”
“I don’t know, Dad. The last one I saw looked depressed. Maybe it was because he’d been taken captive and put in a cage with painted rocks?”
“He wasn’t depressed,” my father said, shaking his head at the drawings in his bird book lovingly. “What a wonderful animal.”
“Birds are dumb, Dad. They have tiny little brains.”
“You’re very wrong. They’re clever. They have an instinctual knowledge base that you or I could only dream of!” Excited, he riffled the pages of his book, in hot pursuit of the blue-throated macaws. My mother and I traded knowing looks, amused in spite of ourselves.
We made our way to the zoo, walked across the hot parking lot. At the ticket house, they paid for me, and I put up a weak fuss that embarrassed even me in its halfheartedness. Pushing his way through the turnstiles, my father immediately raced ahead with his loping, awkward strides, book in hand, leaving my mother and me in the dust.
“There’s the reptile house,” my mom said. “Want to take a look?”
“No. Thank you kindly, though.”
She laughed, shaking her head good-naturedly. “Go easy on your father. He just cares about you.”
“I am going easy on him. You should hear what I want to say.”
“Oh, Sam, Sam. What are we going to do with you?”
‘You could stop offering to buy me shoes,” I said. “That would be a nice start.”
“Hon,” she said gently, “you have no idea what it’s like to be a parent. You worry about your children. You can’t help it.”
“But I’m twenty-four years old!” I cried, exasperated. “I’m not a kid anymore!”
“Yes, I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I suppose we still feel some responsibility for you, for where you end up.”
“Well, stop it,” I said. “I want to take care of myself.”
“We’ll try, Sam,” my mother said. “Or, I should say, I’ll try.” But, as if to amend her statement, she slipped her hand into mine, and we walked that way until we caught up with my dad, who was experiencing a zoophile’s unpunctured joy, and wasn’t afraid to show it. A long hour spent inspecting the best of Southern California’s ornithological captives gave way to a hell-bent rush toward the Africa subdivision, where spindly giraffes and drowsy elephants gamboled. Elephants were my father’s special animal, his favorite since he was a little boy.
We hiked to the far end of the zoo, chatting and kidding around. Finally we arrived upon a huge, dusty field, where two lonely elephants fanned each other with palm fronds. My dad gazed out at the big, wrinkled beasts with an adoring expression on his face.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” he asked reverently.
“Yes, Dad,” I said. “I guess so.”
But they were beautiful. As unnatural as the whole situation was, even I had to admit that the elephants were beautiful. Long, eggshell-colored tusks protruded from the huge beasts’ upper jaws. They rubbed them into the ground gracefully, using a kind of motion that seemed unstoppable, rhythmic and eternal.
We watched for several minutes without speaking. My father, still looking at the elephants, spoke first.
“I suppose we can’t dissuade you from continuing down this path you’re on.”
“No,” I said, “I suppose you can’t.”
“If you ever wanted to see someone ...”
'You mean like a psychiatrist?” I laughed. He was always encouraging me to go see someone. “Come on.”
“I’m merely mentioning we could help you pay for it.”
“Thank you. That is very tactful.”
“How is that inappropriate? Ellen? Help me out here, how was that inappropriate?”
“David, I think he’ll tell us if he wants to see a psychiatrist,” said my mom gently.
“I was only putting it out there,” sulked my dad. “Boy.”
I shook my head and laughed softly, watching the elephants.
“Sam?” asked my mom, somewhat hopefully. “Are you dating anyone special?”
“Not really, Mom. We’ll see.”
“Been to see the Dodgers yet?” my dad asked.
“No,” I said. “That’s on my list.”
We stood there, looking out at the dusty earth, temporarily lost for words.
THIRTEEN
When my folks left, I decided to get down to Mexico. Only three months before, it would have been an impossible dream. Now I had money to burn. I rumbled down past Tijuana, elbow sticking out the window, garbage mountains in my rearview. I decided to keep driving.
Rosarito was the next town down, a calmer, beachier side of North Mexico. I found a room and walked out onto the sand, smelling roadkill and tacos. I sat down, stared up at the sky. I could hear the surf as it rose up and fell.
When I returned to Los Angeles, it was softer. Winter was coming. The hot desert sun that had blazed down upon me so rudely took a couple of afternoons off. I sensed mystical secrets in the air, but I was about a hundred years away from getting a handle on them.
Soon I fell into a porn-making rut. Rebs agency continued to comport itself as a second-rate operation should, disappointing its customers in all the ways that truly mattered. Sometimes both Reb and Clarence would disappear for days on end, to be replaced by Shawn Sawitz, Reb’s obese son, who didn’t like me. Those would be cold days. But then Reb would return, and with him Clarence, and before I knew it, I’d have a brand-new messed-up eighteen-year-old on my hands. Just like magic.
You’d think that the youngest chicks would be the most fun to shoot: full of piss and vinegar, sparkles still in their eyes, golden haunches glistening, without cellulite or sag. But in fact, the B-List Kiddies were some of my toughest cases. Starved for love and attention, they’d already figured out by the age of eighteen that selling ass was the quickest possible route to easy cash and low-rent fame. Most of them hooked, and they all wanted me to admire them. They radiated this weird, false courage that made me feel sick and broken inside.
One such working doll was “Honey.” She was eighteen and a week, and already had about three scenes under her belt. Honey was bunking temporarily at Reb’s house in North Hollywood. Reb had a standing policy of putting up actresses who had nowhere to go, but he wasn’t sleazy about it, didn’t demand sex from them to complete the transaction. He was pretty old, around sixty by my estimation, so maybe that temptation had passed. In any case, the only duty the Honeys of the world had to fulfill in exchange for room and board was to notch one scene a month for Reb’s production company. In return, you got a clean bed and three squares a day. Just like jail.
It was a fine, balmy evening when I picked Honey up for her shoot. She was dressed in her costume already—miniskirt, chunky heels, rubber blouse. She narrated her story: crazy mom, no dad; passed around to a bevy of foster homes by the time she was six; running away from some, abandoned by others. She was a pudgy, pink little girl with mousy brown hair, a fat little stomach, and several bluish tattoos. She also wore horn-rimmed glasses—without them, she was nearly blind. Honey wasn’t a wild girl. Her disposition ran to thoughtful and quiet. Under a different sun, she would have been a druggist, or a baker, or maybe the person you speak to when your airplane ticket gets fucked up.
“So, ya like porn so far?” I ventured.
“Heck, what’s not to like?” she said, cheerily, gazing out the windows at a new world whizzing by. For some, porn is an easy cloak to slip over the shoulders.