It's Kasabian, one of my friends from the old magic circle. One of the six on my list.
Santa brought me something, after all.
Max Overdrive Video occupies both floors of an old Hollywood town house, the kind of weekend getaway kept by the gentry back in the forties and fifties, when this area was the most glamorous place in the known universe. Kasabian is moving around inside Max Overdrive like he owns the place. I think I should go and ask him if he does.
It's full-on night now and I'm surrounded by fat, ripe shadows. I cross the street and pick a plump, dark one around the side of Max Overload, next to a health food restaurant. I glance over my shoulder to make sure the street is clear, and when I'm sure I'm alone, I slip into the shadow. The key tickles inside my chest and I emerge into the Room of Thirteen Doors.
I cross to the Door of Ice and quietly step out of the shadow on the other side.
I'm in the far back of the store, in the porn section. The lights are off back here, so I get a good look at the rest of the place.
There's a door to an employee restroom on my right, tucked back behind the porn. Just beyond this section is a chained-off stairway leading upstairs. Neat racks of DVDs and bins of VHS tapes fill the rest of the store. I guess that's something that's changed in the last eleven years. Even the porn in the back is all discs. The only tapes I can find are piled carelessly in the sale bins. VHS is dead. This is something good to remember since I don't want to sound like the Beverly Hillbillies when I'm talking to regular people. I should sit down and make a list of everything I missed while I was gone. If you can't smoke in bars anymore, what other atrocities has the world committed?
Kasabian is up front, behind the counter, going over the day's receipts. He lost some hair while I was away, but he's made up for it by getting fat. He'd always been a little chubby, but now he'd taken on a truly odd shape. Not like one of those guys who grows a big belly and man boobs. He just seems to have expanded horizontally, like a balloon filled with too much air. It's admirable in its own weird way. His chin and gut are defiant in the face of gravity, making him look more like Frosty the Snowman than Orson Welles.
I walk slowly down the main aisle toward the counter, checking the corners of the room, making sure we're alone. Kasabian is deep in thought, crunching numbers. When I'm halfway to the counter, I take Brad Pitt's stun gun from my jacket pocket and hold it behind my back.
"Evening, Kas. Long time no see."
He starts and knocks a pile of receipts to the floor. I stop where I know he can see me, but also where the lighting is weak enough that I'm pretty sure he can't see my face.
"Who the fuck are you? Get out of my store. I don't want any trouble."
"It's right after Christmas, Kas. Don't you ever take a day off?"
"Everybody's on vacation. Who are you?"
"Did you have a merry Christmas this year? Did you sing 'Happy Birthday' to baby Jesus? Maybe pick up something at Baby Gap?">"What the hell is this place?"
"Bamboo House of Dolls. L.A.'s greatest and only punk-tiki club."
"Yeah, I always thought L.A. needed one of those." I'm in a bar, but something's missing. "I forgot my cigarettes. Think I can borrow one?"
"Sorry, man. You can't smoke in bars in California."
"When did that happen? That's ridiculous."
"I agree completely."
"At least I'm home for Christmas."
"Close. But you missed it by a day. Didn't Santa bring you anything?"
"This trip, maybe." I sip my drink. So, not Christmas, after all. Just Christmas enough to keep the streets deserted so no one saw me crawl home. Lucky me.
I ask, "You have today's paper?"
He reaches under the bar and drops a folded copy of the L.A. Times in front of me. I pick it up, trying not to look too eager. Can't even read the headlines. Can't focus on anything but the date at the top of the page.
Eleven years. I've been gone eleven years. I was nineteen when I went Downtown. I'm practically an old man now.
"You have any coffee back there?"
He nods. "That's how you missed Christmas. A lost weekend. I've had a few of those."
The coffee is beautiful. Hot. A little bitter, like it's been brewing for a while. I pour the last of the Jack Daniel's into it and drink. My first perfect moment in eleven years.
"You from around here?"